Welcome, dear reader, to The Female Enigma Serial, Part III! Now that I’ve laid the groundwork for this serial with the prologue, gone over the reasons I write this blog, and picked apart the controversial subject of my shallowness toward women in the first two parts, we have at long last reached the precipice of understanding why I have chosen to wait until I’m married to have sex.

 

It’s a bold stance to have in a day and age where raw-dogging any randoms that tickle your pickle in tawdry one-night stands is the norm, and conventional dating means ravaging your partner every chance you get like wiener dogs in heat—even if I’ve never had the opportunity to prove my conviction in it by denying a pursuer indulgence in my vestal virgin loins.

 

It’s been a ruinous decision that has come to define this companionless life of longing I have led for 35 strenuous years, and one that has all but ensured that even if I could find a girl who might fancy me, she would still reject me outright after I tell her I don’t put out.

 

 

I should warn you, some of the sections ahead get a bit more crass than you’re used to seeing from me, but I suppose that comes with the territory. Honestly, I did struggle with deciding if I should include a lot of this stuff. A lot of raunch almost ended up on the cutting room floor, but after reminding myself repeatedly throughout the months I spent writing this that it’s all anonymous, and pretty much everyone actually engages in all this sex guff themselves, in the end I opted to include almost everything. We haven’t come this far, and I didn’t make this blog or write all these posts just to walk around on eggshells and tell half-truths now. As they say in the Assassin’s Creed, everything is permitted.

 

 

Let’s Get Physical

I want to wait until I’m married before I have sexual intercourse of any kind. The biggest problem with this is that on an ever-so-slightly baser level, the only thing I truly want to do in life is rip my clothes off and penetrate any woman who will have me like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. Sex with the right person is the closest thing you can get to heaven on this planet, and I’d be lying if I said there aren’t moments when I feel like I’m going to explode from the inside out and the world is going to end if I don’t get my wick wet in the next five minutes.

 

It’s an all-consuming, debilitating kind of deep-rooted lust that awakens the nethermost of my animalistic cravings, and because I’ve never offered it an ounce of respite through physical stimulation of any sort at any point in my life, its hold on me gets tighter each time it comes back around, and at times it can be unbearable. After decades of desertion, these carnal cravings of mine are just as prevalent a part of me as my recurring desire for water whenever I get thirsty. They’re cocked, locked, loaded, and ready to unleash their sensuous enticement upon me at any given moment, and there’s no telling what will provoke them.

 

A fleeting glimpse of a woman’s thigh. A sneaky little belly button peek from below a shirt. An especially scrumptious curve to a neck. The shamelessly exposed body of an OF floozie from one of the gooner accounts I follow—I can be aimlessly doomscrolling through Instagram and happen upon a reel featuring a few square inches of a woman’s exposed flesh from any part of her body, and suddenly it’s as if my pants have been engulfed in captivating flames of craving and fervor. The flames rage on and only grow more alluring with every minute that passes, and it feels like the only way they can be subdued is if I bump uglies with someone, anyone, as soon as I possibly can before they swallow me up whole and I die from third-degree lack of poontang.

 

 

Forever Feelin’ Frisky

Nearly half of my life has gone by, but without ever having had the opportunity to experiment with the opposite sex in the slightest, let alone kiss or cuddle even once, my seething appetite for sex has been left wanting for decades. I get the occasional nocturnal emission, but those are few and months between, gross, and something I almost never remember. It feels like my horny, curious, and hormonal years never ended, and my mind and body have been stuck in a perpetual state of feverish horndogging ever since my dingleberries dropped.

 

This, combined with the wildly absurd, yet completely true, fact that I don’t even make love to myself, means I’m left defenseless to the furious throes of my raging libido every single time these appetites appear. Because I don’t have a girl to do fully-clothed, PG-13-level things with and can’t even touch myself, I have no other option when I’m consumed by these fierce, almost daily bouts of arousal but to sit there and let my unanswered stimulation run its agonizing course in what is surely the world’s most severe case of blue balls.

 

Heck, my balls are so bloody blue I’m one bad case of pneumonia away from shaving my head, walking around naked as a jaybird, and calling myself Dr. Manhattan. Combating my rampaging sinful desires with no real means of release can be daunting enough when they pop up unexpectedly while I’m surfing social media alone, but when they take hold of me in real life, it can feel altogether futile.

 

 

As someone with extremely high-functioning autism and a complete and total lack of confidence, interacting with beautiful girls in person has always been hard to navigate (except at work), but suppressing my innate sexual urges for so many years has made my sensitivity to titillation go through the roof, and it can make getting through these interactions all the more challenging. At times my threshold for arousal can be so low that even a flirtatious grin and instant of eye contact from the right woman is enough to wet my whistle and get me hot, bothered, and nearing half-mast at the most inopportune moments.

 

I think some people assume devout celibacy means I am somehow magically devoid of the desire to have sex, but in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, my insatiable, unrelenting, and terrible compulsion to make whoopee is kind of the whole point.

 

 

Special

I’ve always planned on saving myself for marriage for different reasons at different points in my life, and growing up, I always thought that made me special in girls’ eyes. I thought that knowing I didn’t want to get into their pants would make them feel differently about me compared to the other guys who wanted to devour them, and it would give them a unique, safe, and unthreatening sort of security. I imagined every girl for miles around wanting a piece of the virtuous virgin boy after hearing about my plan to save myself and then wanting to become my friend or more because of it.

 

It was a painfully innocent fantasy, but then I got to high school, where I learned that girls like having sex as much as guys do, and my celibacy was actually a bad thing in their eyes because it meant I could never get them off or let them catch some strange off of me.

 

 

Please Like Me!

As someone with an incessant need to be liked by everyone, I have always cared much too much about what others think of me. I’ve always admired the type of people who can live their lives without a care in the world about how they’re perceived by others, but that’s a luxury I tell myself I can’t afford, because you can never know for sure who those onlookers casting judgment may be. One of them might just be a future friend or girlfriend. I tell myself I need to put a great deal of stock into these strangers’ opinions of me to ensure I don’t inadvertently turn someone away who could have otherwise ended up being a big part of my life.

 

The problem with having this “Anyone could be the one” philosophy and putting all that stock into what strangers think of me is that I’m also mildly autistic, I lack the basic social instincts pretty much everyone else is readily equipped with, and the truth is that I have no bloody idea what any of them actually think of me.

 

Every shift in the angle of their eyebrows when they talk to me or see me, the tone of their voice, their rate of speech, their eye movement—I observe everyone I interact with very carefully, and in that moment of each interaction, I tell myself I have a decent idea of what they’re thinking of me, but everything is vague, nothing is definite, and the truth is I don’t have the slightest clue. Going through life, simultaneously trying to act in a way that will prevent anyone from thinking negative thoughts about me, while also trying to gauge their every expression and word to determine if they are already thinking negative thoughts about me, is a truly miserable, exhausting way to be.

 

 

After most days I spend at work or out in public, I come home and collapse like I just ran a marathon because the people-reading sucks so much out of me. Reading people is hard enough as an Aspie, but when you pile on the fact that I tell myself by default that all pretty girls hate me, as discussed at length in the “Confidence is Key!” section of The Female Enigma, Part II: Shallow Me & Confident Girl Fallacies, it becomes an enigmatic feat so foreign to me that I might as well be trying to lecture a group of kindergarteners on the ins and outs of the hybrid civil law framework of the Japanese legal system.

 

Every single woman I run into could either despise me or be interested in getting to know me better, and the fact that I’ll likely never know who feels which way absolutely kills me. It’s something that I think about regularly. After a while, the not knowing gets downright soul-crushing, and is what makes the idea of being kissed, cuddled, wanted, or chosen by a woman carry so much more weight for me than mere physical pleasure.

 

 

All The Small Things

Just like cuddling and kissing, if I ever have sex, I think I will get so much more out of it than physical pleasure alone. Sure, the obvious joys of sex are going to blow my mind and get me speaking in tongues, but as someone who tends to notice the smaller things in life, I don’t think the less gushed-over, more understated human parts of the experience will be lost on me either.

 

The soft, warm, rejuvenating weight of my wife’s body lying on top of, and against, mine, and the thumping of her beating heart as it presses against my own—a transcendent feeling unlike any other in the world that tells me I have her and tells her she has me and we always will. The sweet little puffs of her breath against my neck and face as we maneuver our bodies around each other, partnered with the magnificent swell and drop of her chest and belly as she inhales and exhales perfectly in tandem with me—constant reminders that this is a woman with a heart, a mind, and a will of her own, and out of everyone in the world, she has chosen me to be her happily ever after.

 

The enchanting way she tenderly runs her hands over every square inch of my obese, hairy, stretch-mark-laden body as we make love before ravaging it without the slightest hesitation or hint of disgust—irrefutable, foolproof evidence that she doesn’t love me in spite of my imperfect body, but because of my body that is perfect to her. The way she treats the most unglamorous parts of my body is a steadfast testament to her angelic nature and the bottomless depth of the love she has for me.

 

The delicate aroma of her hair, her skin, her perfume, her shampoo—her smells. The palpably joyous, bliss-inducing signature scent that is distinctly, unmistakably, unequivocally hers. The smell I have come to know her by, love her by, and have become utterly infatuated with. The unwavering, unfaltering contact of my eyes looking directly into hers before, during, and after—once the scariest thing I could imagine, now my sanctuary, my refuge, my safe place. Looking directly into her eyes would give me life, and remind me exactly who I am and what I have in her.

 

 

The little smiles she gives and giggles she lets out with every clumsy shift of our bodies, every awkward maneuver of our limbs, and every moment that doesn’t go exactly as planned—the perfect imperfections of being with a woman who gives herself to me wholly. The goofy little moments of our intimacy that aren’t goofy at all but are rather extraordinary, lighthearted delights that we cherish as much as the deed itself.

 

The intoxicating grip of her fingers against the small of my back that tells me, without question, I am wanted, I am loved, and I am appreciated. That all-consuming, genuinely terrifying, yet remarkably empowering feeling of being trusted by another human absolutely and unconditionally. The serene aftermath of our lovemaking as we lie there next to each other, staring at the ceiling, wondering how we got so lucky.

 

While these “small” things may go overlooked or unrecognized in some relationships, there is nothing small about them. They are the delightful little cherry on top of the staggeringly glorious sundae with all the fixings that is two lovers’ special union. For me, if I ever get married, these things will be as essential and electric to me as the penetration  itself, and they will be the very cornerstones of every time my wife and I make love.

 

 

Much More Than a Kiss, Much More Than a Cuddle

If I ever become romantically involved with a girl, we all know what I consider to be off the table. But let’s talk a bit about things that are still on the table and what getting to do them with someone special would mean to me. While even hand-holding and hugging can be magical, I’ll be focusing on the proverbial kissing and cuddling. These acts are my crème de la crème for as long as I lack a precious ring on my right ring finger.

 

And although the heavenly treasures they contain have eluded me for so long that at this point they feel like something from a far-fetched fairy tale, I have never completely lost hope that I might one day get the opportunity to revel in their unrivaled splendor. And if that day ever does come, it will have a far deeper meaning to me than just the gratification of a simple canoodling.

 

It’s true, I want to feel the sloppy wet union between my lips and another’s as we kiss like there’s no tomorrow; I want to satisfy my innermost carnal desires by having a woman explore the inside of my mouth with her tongue; I want the all-consuming rapture of having someone squeeze the living daylights out of me; and I want to feel the life-affirming, sensual heat of a woman’s body pressed against mine. God, sometimes I just lie in bed and think about what it might be like, and the logistics of two people sucking face and rolling their tongues around in each other’s mouths with their bodies pressed together… It’s as fascinating as it is alien and mind-blowing.

 

Just as I simulated in The Power of Proof section of The Female Enigma Serial – Prologue: Piper Parable, Part IV, if I actually do get to participate in one of these divine acts of fabled foreplay, there is no doubt in my mind that the physical aspect of it will hands-down be the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. But while the face-sucking and body-on-body physicality of my first kiss and cuddle will be tops, even that biblical degree of arousal will soon be dwarfed into obscurity by a feeling even more radical and infinitely more affecting: acceptance and belonging.

 

As discussed in the earlier section, “Please Like Me!”, I live life in a social limbo, endlessly plagued by an uneasy uncertainty over how everyone feels about me. Never knowing who hates me, who wants to be my friend, or who might want to get to know me better out of the countless people I see on a weekly basis is a special kind of hell, but there is one surefire way of dispelling this sort of disheartening ambiguity.

 

If a woman kissed or cuddled me, there would be no more room for me to doubt her feelings, my apprehension would evaporate, and it would serve as absolute, unequivocal proof that she likes me, and she likes being with me. My every fear will melt away, leaving me in a transformative state of felicity I have never before known… Or at least that’s how I picture it will be.

 

 

It’s hard to doubt someone’s feelings toward you when they’re shoving their tongue down your throat, and I think if I ever get to kiss or cuddle with someone, it’s going to be the single most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced, because, for once in my life, I will feel accepted and like I’ve finally found someone with whom I belong.

 

For me, at this stage of my life, trying to conceive how momentous and transformative this feeling will be is like trying to wrap your head around how everyone you know in heaven is going to be nude. It’s like, yeah, clothes are strictly a worldly thing, so they won’t be up there… but isn’t that going to be weird, sitting around just letting it all hang out with Uncle Ricky, Meemaw, and little Timmy from Bible study, who are all just as butt-arse naked as you are? It’s something you simply can’t even begin to fathom, so you shouldn’t even try.

 

 

Adequate Appreciation

Looking at the world from the viewpoint of a lonely guy, something I absolutely hate to see is other guys who take their amazing wives or girlfriends and the things they give them for granted. It could be something as simple as a coworker not appreciating a lovingly packed lunch from their girlfriend and immediately tossing out the little love note she wrote and packed with it, or as devastating as a workaholic husband going decades in a marriage without showing gratitude for, or even recognizing, the profound sacrifice and unwavering devotion his wife has shown by raising their kids practically on her own.

 

Some guys don’t even show their significant others the slightest bit of respect. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been watching the reality show My Lottery Dream Home (2015- ), or any other house hunting show in HGTV’s lineup with my mom, where couples visit multiple houses looking for their dream home, and the man just completely disregards every one of the features his wife says is an absolute must.

 

She wants a house that’s within walking distance of downtown? He’ll champion one in the sticks that’s a half-hour drive away from any sign of civilization. She prefers owning an older, more traditional brick-and-mortar home? He’ll insist on a minimalist modern condominium. Decisions like that can only be made mutually, by a unified team, and it blows my mind to see how many men on these shows don’t understand that.

 

 

I can promise you this: that will never be me. I may have other problems, insecurities, or faults when it comes to doing my part in a relationship, but at the very least, I can tell you with absolute certainty that that will never be me. Every hug, every kiss, every conversation, every smile, every giggle, every compliment, every aimless drive I take with her feet up on my dash, every minute of every movie or show we watch together, every silly emoji sent over every couple-word text, every bloody second she chooses to be in my presence will be recognized, appreciated, and shown gratitude for, and I will do everything in my power to repay the favor tenfold. Every comment she makes and every opinion she has about anything will be heard, respected, valued, and considered with the utmost seriousness whenever we have to make a decision as a couple.

 

The only type of life I know is this cold, desolate, and companionless one, and if someone ever comes along and changes that for me, I will never, ever, ever forget that for an instant or take her, or what she did for me, for granted. I have been patiently sitting, waiting, and taking notes for decades, learning from countless other men’s mistakes, both real and fictional, and if I ever treat my woman the way I’ve seen some of these other women be treated or make my boo ever feel ignored or undervalued, may God strike me down dead where I stand.

 

 

Copulation Contamination Speculation

It’s occurred to me that although I’m quick to say I don’t want to have sex until I’m married, and there is no doubt I will want to if or when that day comes, I’ve never actually stopped to think about whether I actually could have sex, period. It seems like such a glaringly obvious thing to consider, given all of my OCD-induced aversions to things like germs and the human body, but it’s not really something I ever took into account before writing this post.

 

Now that I have, however, it’s become one of my most worrying aspects of getting married, and something I simply can’t leave unexplored. So, let’s take a deep dive into the boundless world of sexual intimacy that I will be given full and unlimited access to on my wedding night, and take a look at how much of it I could actually partake in.

 

Because I mention my struggles with OCD frequently but have yet to dig very deeply into what the disorder actually is, I will start with a general explanation for those unfamiliar with it. After that I will go on to offer a concise breakdown of the most prominent subtype of OCD I have ever struggled with to establish a baseline for the sections that follow. From there, I will hypothesize how my future sex life might be affected by this form of OCD before doing the same with every other specific subtype I’ve experienced. It also turns out that October just happens to be OCD awareness month, so I’d be thrilled if anything I say here could help educate some people on this crippling disease.

 

And because the things a husband and wife can do in a bed together go far beyond just normal sexual intercourse, I will be taking as many extracurricular forms of sex into consideration as I can in an effort to leave no stone unturned in this thesis exploring how my OCD might affect my future as a lovemaker, if I have such a thing.

 

 

OCD At a Glance

At its most basic, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a neurobiological disorder that causes unwanted thoughts, fears, or obsessions in those who have it. Because these obsessions can be distressing and at times debilitating, people with OCD feel compelled to perform repetitive behaviors or rituals known as “compulsions” in order to relieve the anxiety those obsessions create. This relief is never anything but temporary, however, because OCD is a disorder that thrives on repetition. No matter how much relief a compulsion brings, it is always just a matter of time before the obsession comes creeping back into your consciousness and you have to start the whole process over again.

 

I was diagnosed with OCD when I was 12, and at one point it was so bad I almost had to be taken out of school to be treated at an inpatient facility.

 

 

 

My Contamination OCD

By far the most prominent obsession I have ever had, and still have, is the fear of getting my hands contaminated by germs and the subsequent compulsion to wash my hands frequently and vigorously. This is called “Contamination OCD,” and although this is one of the most common forms of OCD, it is just one of many subtypes of OCD that I have experienced.

 

Generally speaking, at any given moment, if my hands are clean, I am at ease, rational, and level-headed. If they are contaminated, I am constantly on edge, agitated, and emotional, and the whole world around me fades into the background. If anyone is talking to me, their words are drowned out, it feels like the sky is falling, and I can’t focus on or think about anything but the contaminated state of my hands until I can get to a sink, do my handwashing ritual, and decontaminate them.

 

My hands get contaminated whenever they come into contact with any item, surface, texture, animal, or person that I consider to be contaminated. Things I deem contaminated can be obvious, like cat buttholes, dog turds, urine, loogies, money, door handles, cat and dog eye goopies, toilets, blood, bathroom sink handles, sandals, biohazardous waste, used underwear or socks, soap pumps, drawing charcoal, chewed gum, or anything sticky or smelly.

 

They can also be less obvious, like library books, school computers, shared pens, the metal bar that clamps down on you in roller coasters, other people’s video game controllers, copper notebook bindings, the crank on a paper towel dispenser, and the rock-shaped handles on climbing walls. Really, because my mind doesn’t always necessarily follow any sort of logic, almost anything can be considered contaminated if my brain decides it is.

 

Some things I generally consider explicitly safe to touch include the keyboard and mouse on my iMac, door handles in my apartment, my iPhone (most of the time), my video game controllers, my television remotes, my fridge handles, my books, and almost everything else I own that I’ve gotten brand new or decontaminated myself. And although my dogs and cats are obviously not clean per se, I do not feel like my hands get contaminated when I touch them. Having these almost permanently safe constants at my apartment, the place I spend the most of my time, allows me to exist there in a state of sort of carefree serenity that I don’t have anywhere else in the world.

 

Everything in the world existing as either clean or contaminated may seem cut-and-dry and simple enough on its own, but when you factor in cross-contamination, keeping track of what’s what becomes substantially more complex. Cross-contamination happens when something that was otherwise clean comes into contact with something that is contaminated and, in turn, becomes contaminated as well.

 

Certain things I consider contaminated already factor in cross-contamination, like door handles, school computers, other people’s video game controllers, soap pumps, and anything else that is not inherently contaminated but I consider to be contaminated because it is touched by so many people who most certainly haven’t all washed their hands after they’ve used the bathroom.

Things like these that are touched constantly are easy enough to avoid, but the terrifying truth is that anything I consider clean can become contaminated at any time through cross-contamination. Whenever I touch something I think is clean, I have to consider the history of everything it has ever touched and whether it may be sitting at the end of some invisible chain reaction that rendered it contaminated by contact.

 

If I fail to assess the state of something I touch correctly, my hands will unknowingly become contaminated, and I may go on to touch many other clean things without realizing it. Whenever I discover my folly, I then consider everything I’ve touched since touching that contaminated item contaminated as well, and the only way to fix it is by methodically decontaminating each thing I touched by drenching it in my special brand of sanitizer and wiping it clean.

 

My actual handwashing routine is an exhaustive three-step process involving three different types of cleaning solutions and the repetition of certain parts a specific number of times, although I think I’m going to keep that under wraps until the big, standalone OCD post I plan on doing at some point still under The Malarkey banner, but separate from The Female Enigma Serial.

 

Now that we’ve established the basics of my most prominent OCD aversions and eccentricities involving contamination, let’s take a look at how my future sex life could be affected by those things, assuming I’ll even have one.

 

 

Sex Contamination?

A major part of my Contamination OCD that I didn’t mention in the section above is my aversion to my own body. Hands (when washed), forearms, shins, neck, and sometimes face and hair are the only parts of my body I feel are safe to touch, and anywhere else is a first-class ticket to contamination city.

 

This means my back, chest, stomach, belly button, feet, thighs, biceps, buns, taint, beans, and peepee are all off-limits so long as I can help it. Obviously, there are times in my life when I can’t avoid touching some of these parts, like when I go to the bathroom or take a shower. Thankfully, these occurrences are few and far between and are always immediately followed by a thorough handwashing.

 

I actually keep a bottle of Gold Dial in my shower so I can wash my hands after washing my bad parts before I touch something else that is safe and contaminate it as well, like my face, the bottles of my shampoo and body soap, the shower curtain, and the knobs of the shower.

 

Right now, all of these severe aversions I have to my own body are debilitating to say the least, but they only raise the categorically imperative question of whether or not I will feel the same about my wife’s body and just how severely they will hinder my ability to perform in the bedroom. From the foreplay beforehand to missionary itself and beyond, let’s break it down step-by-step.

 

 

Foreplay

If Hollywood has taught me anything across the countless films and television shows I’ve watched over the years with couples and their shared sexual relations, it’s been what the intimate song and dance of foreplay looks like before building up to the actual act of sexual intercourse. It’s basically everything I hope to get out of kissing and cuddling, amplified tenfold by even more teasing, touching, squeezing, rubbing, groping, sucking, and, of course, the introduction of the sacred art of nudity.

 

Although the cuddling, kissing, and feeling of acceptance are what I live for, and I would avidly participate in them and anything else they naturally progressed into if I ever got the opportunity, I think there’s a good chance it would all come to a screeching halt the moment she took her clothes off.

 

 

Unlike my own body, there is no doubt in my mind that I will be able to touch my wife’s back, legs, thighs, biceps, and stomach, but it’s her buns, breasts, and bits that I worry about getting hung up on. There’s no way to know for sure without actually having sex, but I think I would still consider those parts contaminated and would at the very least be hesitant to touch them. Thankfully I don’t feel the same profound disgust for women’s feet that I do for my own and other guys’, although I still don’t honestly know if I’d be able to touch them either.

 

The truth is, this post has made me realize that I’ll be getting a lot more than I bargained for when I nonchalantly say I will want to have sex with my wife.

 

 

Glimmer of Hope

Something peculiar I’ve uncovered while doing the soul-searching necessary to identify my boundaries for a post like this is that while I’m not certain I could touch these parts with my hands, I have toyed with the idea of touching them with my mouth (that’s something normal that normal couples do, right?), and I have found I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of trying it—with anything but her feet or butt.

 

I know it might not make much sense that I’d be comfortable putting my mouth on a contaminated breast or a nip, for example, and not touching the same area with my hands, but I find there is not always rhyme or reason to the things I find digging around in the deepest corners of my id. If anything, though, I think this leaves a decent amount of wiggle room to come back to later in hopes that I might one day be able to blow the door wide open and use my hands on any part I so please.

 

 

Missionary

Let’s say I somehow make it through the foreplay gauntlet, and I find myself lying in bed with a woman, and both of us are naked. For the longest time, I thought that if the woman was lying on her side, the guy just had to lie down face-to-face with her, press his body against hers, and then wham-o, Bob’s your uncle, it would slide right in with ease.

 

 

However, at some point I started watching films with slightly more in-depth sex scenes, where I found that it’s not quite that simple, easy, or hands-free. I learned that either the guy or the girl actually has to grab the dingus and physically guide it into the vagine before sticking it in the rest of the way. If that is indeed the case, I just don’t know if I could let her do that, let alone do it myself.

 

Because every square millimeter of my wiener is maxed out on the contamination scale, I obviously don’t want to touch it and then not be able to enjoy myself the rest of sex due to contaminated hands. And because I also don’t want my wife to get contaminated hands that will slowly cross-contaminate my face, my hands, and everything else either, this puts me into a bit of a pickle with no easy way out.

 

By the time I’m in, we’ll be conjoined like a Chinese finger trap, and it’s not like either of us could easily get to a sink and wash our hands while connected like that. Unless by some act of divinity something changes in me by the time I get married, there is only one obvious answer: gloves.

 

 

Despite my severe aversions to germs and my mortal fear of contamination, I still consider myself a reasonable fellow underneath it all, and even I can recognize that when you get to the point where you’re asking your spouse to wear gloves when she has sex with you, a line needs to be drawn. And that’s the point at which this hypothetical exercise becomes stagnant, entering an endless Mexican standoff: I can’t have sex without gloves, and I can’t have sex with gloves. There are no easy answers here, and I really don’t know what will happen if it ever gets to this point. I guess my only real option is to find a way to cure myself of my OCD before I get married, which may be easier said than done.

 

Although I realize my or my wife’s hands touching private parts is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that come into contact with each other during sex, it’s the only thing I’m really worried about having a problem with. This is because when my hands get contaminated, they cross-contaminate everything else they come into contact with, which is literally everything I touch, but because I don’t really touch anything else with my stomach, chest, arms, or legs, I don’t have to worry about them cross-contaminating anything.

 

So, fortunately, when our bodies are colliding and sliding all over each other, and all sorts of parts are rubbing all over all sorts of other parts, I won’t have a care in the world as long as my hands don’t get contaminated and no other body parts come into contact with anything like my phone, video game controllers, or keyboard.

 

 

The One-Pump Chump?

Yet another obvious factor in this colossal cat I’ve let out of the bag by writing this post, and yet another one I’ve never given much thought to, is whether or not I’ll have problems arriving early with my wife. When you think about how, if I ever get married and have sex one day, it will be the first time I’ll have been touched in the nether regions by anyone in my life, including myself, and how every intimate act I’ll do with my wife will be such uncharted territory that I might as well be setting foot on Mars for the first time, I think premature secretion seems like a very real concern.

 

I think my only hope is that my wife will work with me, starting slow with kissing and cuddling in order to build a tolerance for titillation and help me gain the ability to hold it in. From there, maybe we could methodically work our way up to intercourse in hopes that by the time we finally reach it, I’ll be able to last more than five seconds. Actually, the reason I’ve never thought about this particular subject is because it makes me sick to my stomach. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never even explicitly seen any of that white stuff that’s supposed to come out of my body, and I would die a happy man if I never had to.

 

I’d like to think this would be the type of problem that gradually worked itself out with time, patience, and repetition. But of course, none of this would even be the most mortifying part of arriving early; the real horror would be the thought of disappointing my wife five seconds into the sacred act I spent my entire life waiting for.

 

 

Dirty Sheets

At this point I think there is just one glaring omission I have yet to consider in my coverage of good, old-fashioned sex and the contamination concerns it will raise: the sheets, blankets, pillows, and bed the sex will be taking place on top of and within. Will I pull a Dexter and tell my wife I will only mount her if it’s on top of medical-grade, sterile rubber sheets and cellophane?

 

Nah, honestly, I’m not terribly worried about it. After my wife and I do the deed, the sheets and comforter will have come into contact with all the most contaminated parts of our bodies and will undoubtedly be covered in sweat, saliva, bodily fluids, and just the general stank of sex in all its repulsive glory. But I would like to think that in the passionate throes of our rigorous intimacy I will be able to keep my mind off of such unsavory things.

 

 

The second we’re done slapping cheeks, however, there is nothing in this world that could convince me to go back into those blighted sheets or sleep in that tainted bed until everything has been hosed down, decontaminated, and thoroughly washed with the strongest, freshest-smelling laundry detergent they make. Maybe a fresh linen scent or lavender.

 

 

Beyond Missionary

Up until this point, every contamination concern we’ve discussed has been in relation to old-fashioned coitus, but there’s still a whole other world out there of more creative sexual activities that I have yet to take into consideration. Mouth stuff, finger stuff, butt stuff, shower stuff, different positions, kink, roleplay, lube, and sex toys: are these more unorthodox types of perversions even regularly practiced by the average couple, or are they the types of depraved acts reserved more for Hollywood films and the sexually liberated?

 

Either way, they will all at the very least be on the table as an option for my wife and I, and so they must be considered in this obsessive-compulsive hypothetical as well, if only for a quick, hot minute. So, let’s break down the unique onslaught of contamination concerns, moral uneasiness, and psychosexual horrors each form of lovemaking presents, beginning with oral.

 

After giving it a great deal of thought while writing this post, I have arrived at a similar conclusion to the one I reached with the other lovely lady parts I mentioned earlier: I think I might be open to going to the south of France with my wife at least once. I can’t put my finger on why, exactly, but lady bits somehow seem more elegant and less filthy than man parts, sort of beautiful in a confusing, mysterious kind of way, and altogether less aggressive. Because of this, I think it’s a border I can see myself crossing one day. This is, of course, just speculation, but I don’t think I’d feel as if it contaminated my mouth.

 

One thing I know as sure as you sit there, reading this, however, is that I will never, ever let her repay the favor in kind. Really, I don’t want anyone’s mouth anywhere near my hog for as long as I live, unless I’m at the tailor. If my wife gave me blowies, the only thing it would accomplish is making her lips contaminated to the max and utterly unkissable. I don’t think her lips could ever be redeemed after doing something so despicable, and honestly, I’m so disgusted by the whole idea of it I don’t think I could even get it up for her to do it in the first place.

 

Although the hallowed grounds of the va-jay-jay may appear to be fair game for my mouth to partake in the fruits of, I’m afraid the same cannot be said for my fingers. Much like the conundrum I faced in trying to imagine either me or my wife guiding my Willy inside her with one of our hands, I just cannot jibe with the idea of touching a part so private with my hand or digits. Unless she’d be okay with pausing the sex after I did it to go wash my hands before we moved on to something else, I just can’t see it happening.

 

When kids at school first started joking around with the phrase of putting “two in the pink and one in the stink” and I learned what it actually meant, I was mortified to my core and assured myself they were just making a sick, perverted, terrible joke and that no one ever actually did such a ghastly thing. I couldn’t imagine putting two in the pink, let alone one in the stink, and just the thought of it made me queasy. That sort of anecdote starts to approach the subjects of my stunted sexual education and my gradual loss of innocence across my youth, but I’m afraid those are things I won’t be able to cover extensively until a latter post in The Female Enigma Serial. It’ll be in the same one where I discuss how I learned girls don’t have wieners.

 

 

Any butt stuff at all is a big, fat, bold, all-caps, underlined NO!, never in a million billion trillion years. No matter how alluring Kevin Smith may try to make it seem, that’s just… that’s a hole nothing was ever meant to go into. Now, shower stuff, on the other hand, is something I think I could come around to. Golly, the shower might even make sex far easier for me by giving me the opportunity to wash and decontaminate my hands whenever I so please. This wouldn’t just give me peace of mind, it could open up my world to the possibility of doing and touching things I normally wouldn’t have the luxury to outside the shower.

 

“Cowgirl.” “Doggy.” “Face.” “Sixty-nine.” “Scissors.” “The Crab.” These are all names I’ve heard for different sex positions, and in doing research for this post, I looked up what each of these actually entails, as well as many more I didn’t name. All I can say I’ve gotten out of this extensive studying is that I don’t think any of them really interest me much. For me, sex is first and foremost about bonding with my one and only, and for that purpose, you simply can’t beat missionary.

 

It’s simply the bee’s knees, because you both get to look straight into each other’s souls, you can hug each other at the same time, you feel the full warmth of your betrothed’s bare body against yours, and you don’t have to worry about either of you having to bend in ways you don’t normally or preform some crazy gymnastics routine to do it. I imagine it giving you the same magical life-affirming warmth of cuddling or hugging, but to the trillionth degree. And if I ever do get to feel that feeling with someone, I think I’d prefer to be on the bottom. For obvious reasons.

 

I don’t think roleplay or kink would interest me much. Basically, I will be my wife’s husband, lover, companion, BFF, and confidant, and that’s the best possible role I could ever play out of all the roles that exist or have ever existed in the history of the universe. So why in the world would I want to pretend I’m in a different role? That’s just beyond absurd to me. And I think kink would just make me feel like a dirty little boy and, again, would keep my focus on the wrong aspect of sex.

 

Lube? I don’t think so, unless for some reason it’s required for a safe and painless sexual experience. I really don’t know if lube is used more for practical things like that or if it’s just something sex fiends use to intensify the red-hot physicality of the sex. Sex toys? No… Heck no, even. The love my wife and I share will be the greatest force on earth, and we will not need lowly hunks of plastic and silicone or other accessories to experience our love for one another.

 

Aaand that concludes the rundown of malarkey concerning my Contamination OCD and how it might affect every aspect of sex I could come up with. Although, obviously, these are all just my views concerning these things, and are really only half of the equation when it comes to the final say of what I will or will not do. I’ll never truly know my boundaries until I’ve found my dearly beloved, united with her through holy matrimony, and gotten her input.

 

 

Miscellaneous OCD Concerns

While the contamination subtype of OCD is by far the most dominant form I deal with and will undoubtedly be the biggest obstacle my sex life will face, I do have an extensive list of additional OCD subtypes that I encounter as well, which will also undoubtedly rear their ugly heads if I ever become sexually active.

 

 

Throughout my life dozens of various miscellaneous obsessions and compulsions have come and gone from my OCD repertoire, stemming from the following subtypes I’ve arranged in descending order, from those that I have the most experience with after Contamination OCD to the ones I have the least: Pure O/Sexual Intrusive Thoughts, Just Right/Perfectionism, Checking, Harm, and Somatic. And although, as a lone wolf my whole life, I’ve never had to deal with Relationship OCD, that is another subtype I could very much see haunting me if I ever did get into a relationship.

 

Unfortunately, I can’t do a deep dive into the minutiae of my experiences with each and every one of these subtypes in this post, but I will do my best to briefly explain what each type generally entails and then describe what form I think it could take for me if I ever get married and start having sex. If you want even more comprehensive OCD content from me, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until I do my big standalone OCD post, but rest assured, that post will come.

 

Again, there is no telling how my brain will react when or if sex becomes a part of my life, and the OCD manifestations I come up with are just educated guesses based on obsessions I have had within those same subtypes and the compulsions my mind has come up with to cope with them.

 

If this OCD stuff somehow sounds painfully familiar to you and you are desperate for answers, know that you are not alone. I encourage you to reach out to someone who is knowledgeable on the subject. Preferably a professional, though you can reach out to someone who has lived with it too, even myself, if you think I can help. I have stared this beast down time and time again; I know its tricks; I fight it every waking hour of my life; at one point it almost took everything from me; and if I can answer your questions, I will.

 

 

Pure O OCD/ Sexual Intrusive Thoughts OCD

Pure O OCD, or ‘Purely Obsessional’ OCD, is a subtype that creates uncontrollable, distressing, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts without causing obvious external compulsions like checking or washing. I am grouping Pure O with Sexual Intrusive Thoughts OCD because their obsessions and compulsions show up in the same way, behave in the same way, and are both equally horrendous and uncontrollable; the latter just happens to revolve around sex.

 

I don’t honestly know exactly how these intrusive, unwanted thoughts present themselves in other people that have them, but for me it feels like I’ve got a wee little devil sitting on either of my shoulders. They are there almost always, at least when I’m around other people, and they are constantly taking turns whispering nasty little thoughts into my head. These thoughts are often morbid or disturbing, or they shine an unfavorable light on something I’ve done or said, or are otherwise at my expense in some way. They are said to me in first person so that it feels like they are my own genuine thoughts, sometimes indistinguishable from any of my normal non-intrusive thoughts.

 

These two are real doozies, ones I have a tragically great deal of experience with, and the ones I think will be the hardest for those without OCD to understand or accept, without question. I say this because the intrusive, unwanted thoughts can make you do or think things that sound truly insane and incomprehensible to someone who has never had them. Thinking things, for example, like “Can you imagine what it’d be like to have sex with her? Oh, man, I bet she’s got big ol’ flapjack nips!” or “Don’t say the n-word, don’t say the n-word, don’t say the n-word.”

 

These thoughts are not desires, plans, or secret wishes; they are horrifying mental misfires that feel so disturbing precisely because they go against everything you actually want or believe. Pure O and Sexual Intrusive Thoughts OCD often go unnoticed in those who have them, even by those who know them best, because they are so utterly ashamed or scared to admit that they are thinking these things. Instead of causing physical compulsions, these thoughts cause internal, mental ones, like having to repeat phrases over and over to find some respite.

 

 

If or when I have sex, I could see several ways Pure O and Sexual Intrusive Thoughts OCD might sneak their way into my psyche and bombard my thoughts in the middle of it. I could easily see either of them causing the most horrendous, despicable thoughts, like, “What if she’s feigning her love for me? What if she doesn’t really have feelings for me, and I’m technically raping her right now?” or “Think about all the other guys she’s had sex with before she met me. I bet they were way bigger, and I bet they all fucked her way better than I do. I’ve probably never even given her a real orgasm!” or “She shaved down there; now I’m basically having sex with a little girl like the perverted pedo piece of shit I am!” to pop into my stream of consciousness during what is supposed to be the best, most sacred, and most beautiful thing I can do with my wife.

 

Then, I can imagine any number of compulsions these horrible, intrusive, unwanted thoughts might elicit, like feeling as if I need to close my eyes, hold my breath, and think about something safe like my cats for five seconds, or finding that the only way I can preserve my sanity from these thoughts is by humming the seven-note “Shave and a haircut, half-pence” tune over and over again in my head until they go away.

 

Listen to me when I tell you this: OCD is not cute. OCD is not a buzzword. OCD is hell.

 

 

Just Right/Perfectionism OCD

With the Just Right OCD subtype, often tied to perfectionism, the sufferer’s obsessions typically revolve around symmetry, exactness, organization, and the need to make things “just right.” Rather than driven by anxiety and uncertainty like most other subtypes, however, these obsessions are driven by the immense need to neutralize things that feel incomplete or incorrect. The resulting compulsions can involve moving parts of their body a certain way, breathing in a certain pattern, arranging items in a distinctive order, walking evenly, straightening things until they’re symmetrical, having words or sentences sound a certain way, or repeating something a certain amount of times until it feels right. This subtype is a daily struggle for me, and I can imagine a couple of ways it might show up if I ever become sexually active.

 

If I kiss her left nipple, will I lose my mind if I don’t go and kiss her right one immediately after to make it even? If I come out and go back in, will I have to do that two more times so that I will have done it three times, my favorite number? If my knee suddenly cracks as we maneuver around each other, will I have to then crack four other parts of my body to get to five cracks, another one of my favorite numbers? If she’s on top of me, will I be bothered if one of her legs is touching the bed beside me on one side, but the other one isn’t on the other side, making it uneven? Will I count how long I’m inside her and feel like I can only be there for amounts of seconds that are multiples of five? Will I convince myself I can only exhale when she inhales and only inhale when she exhales?

 

I’m not nearly as worried about this one haunting me in the bedroom as I am about Pure O, but it’s still something I’ll have to anticipate.

 

 

Checking OCD

Checking is one of the most common subtypes of OCD. It creates extreme doubt in those that have it about things like whether they left the stove on, forgot to lock the door, left a window open, placed something somewhere unsafe, or sent a text or email with a terrible mistake in it. This doubt can quickly spiral into the all-consuming, intrusive fear of all the catastrophic possibilities these things might lead to, like the house exploding, someone breaking in, the cats getting loose, something getting damaged, or the person reading your message thinking less of them. With the fears of these possibilities eating away at their mind, it makes compulsions feel necessary, like going back and checking, sometimes over and over and over again, until their brain finally lets them move on.

 

Although my struggles with this subtype are not nearly as debilitating as those I face with others like Pure O, I still definitely have my fair share of stereotypical checking obsessions, like worrying I forgot to lock my apartment door or car door and feeling the need to go back and check and recheck to make sure I did. If and when I have sex, I could see this type of OCD weaseling its way into my brain during, and introducing the sudden doubt that the condom we’re using has broken, followed by the fear that I might soon unexpectedly become a father, which I am nowhere near financially or emotionally ready for. I could see this fear leading to panic and causing me to keep checking, double-checking, and triple-checking that the condom is still fully intact.

 

 

Harm OCD

Harm OCD causes people to fear that they might hurt themselves or others. Like Pure O, it provokes intrusive, unwanted thoughts, except these thoughts center around doing harm. It can also produce horrifying mental images, like what it would look like if they actually followed through with that harm. Also like Pure O, these thoughts are not desires, plans, or secret wishes; they are horrifying mental misfires that feel so disturbing precisely because they go against everything they actually want or believe. Having these disturbing, taboo thoughts injected into their mind will often drive them to stop at nothing to rid themselves of them.

 

The most common targets of these thoughts of harm are the OCD sufferer’s significant other or child. Sometimes the fear is not that they will deliberately cause harm, but that they might do something that accidentally results in harm being done. It can also cause the fear that deep down, they are a bad person who is capable of, or even likely to, carry out this type of harm.

 

 

Although this is one of the subtypes I have the least amount of experience with, it does pop up every now and again. It mostly shows up as lingering thoughts that I might actually be a bad person underneath it all and entirely capable of all sorts of dreadful things I shudder at the thought of, although I do also experience the occasional invasive thought of harm.

 

While making love to my wife, I could see this subtype suddenly appearing in the form of pesky, intrusive, unwanted thoughts, like, “This woman loves me, but she’s got me all wrong. I’ve tricked her into thinking I’m a good guy, but deep down I’m actually an evil, sadistic killer. I don’t deserve her; I’m such a piece of shit, I could see myself killing her right now.” or “I’m so fat; what if I just lay on top of her and smother her until she stops breathing?” before having shockingly vivid, disturbingly graphic depictions of these things appear in my mind’s eye and ruining the entire night.

 

 

Somatic OCD

Somatic OCD happens when the sufferer becomes hyper-aware of their automatic bodily functions like breathing, blinking, swallowing, or the beating of their heart. They may develop a fear that they will be trapped in permanent awareness of these sensations or that they will forget how to perform them normally. To get past these fears, they might try and distract themselves, only to become even more distressed. The resulting compulsions often involve constantly checking the sensation, trying to manually control the bodily process, ruminating on it, or seeking medical reassurance.

 

 

I only experience this subtype once in a blue moon, but I wanted to hypothesize how it might show up in the bedroom all the same. There are a lot of sensations and bodily functions that take place during sex, and although it’s not likely, I could potentially see myself hyper-fixating on any one of them. The texture of her skin as it rubs against mine, the way it feels in my nether regions to be inside of her, my production of saliva as we make out, the way my eyelids move every time I open or close my eyes, and the pattern of breathing as we exert ourselves around each other—this is just a small list of countless sensations going on during sex that will be ripe for the picking for my brain to latch onto, become hyper-aware of, and begin overanalyzing.

 

 

Relationship OCD

People with Relationship OCD, or rOCD, experience fears, anxiety, and doubts about some aspect of the relationship they have with their significant other. These fears and doubts are typically intimate or romantic in nature and can be centered on their partner or the relationship itself. Most commonly, they involve questions like whether their partner is right for them, whether they are attracted to their partner, whether their partner is attracted to them, and whether they need to end their relationship. These questions can then introduce or magnify problems in the relationship, like a lack of trust in their partner or themselves, distorted perceptions, retroactive jealousy, and the constant need for certainty.

 

Obviously, as someone who has never been in a romantic relationship, this is a subtype I have no experience with. But I’m including it because, given the fact my brain has cherry-picked obsessions and compulsions to inflict on me from almost every other subtype there is, it seems like a realistic concern that I might have to deal with it someday if I ever do get a girlfriend or wife.

 

To me, there is nothing in this life, on this planet, or in this dimension better than being in a romantic relationship with someone. And just trying to taint the vision of that nirvana in my mind with the appalling notion of these nasty little OCD thoughts getting in the way… As someone who knows all too well how OCD can work its way into good parts of life and slowly dismantle them one intrusive thought at a time… imagining it doing that to something so sacred and beautiful is as hard to do as it is disheartening. I guess I’ll just have to hope and pray that God will show me mercy and not curse me with this subtype.

 

 

For the Sake of Thoroughness

There are a few other OCD subtypes I know inside and out, like Scrupulosity, Magical Thinking, Health Concern, False Memory, and Existential, but I don’t think any of them will interfere much with my sex life, if I ever have one. So, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until my big standalone OCD post to hear about how I’m affected by those. There are also a few other forms of OCD that I have no experience with whatsoever, like Sexual Orientation, Emetophobia, Postpartum, and Emotional Contamination, but I thought I’d mention them here anyway, just to make sure I cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s.

 

 

The Impossible Cure

I mentioned curing myself of my OCD as being the only real answer earlier, and while that may have sounded like I just chose to end the section with a throwaway, impossible suggestion, there is actually something that exists that is widely regarded as the most effective treatment or potential cure for anyone struggling with OCD: Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP, Therapy. As I understand it, this gold standard for treating OCD can be either inpatient, intensive outpatient, or residential. Residential involves having you live in a mental health facility for a few months, where the doctors will make you touch toilet seats, refrain from washing your hands after using the restroom, have the TV volume at something other than a multiple of 5, and do all kinds of other sick and twisted stuff like that over and over again without letting you perform any compulsions until it doesn’t bother you anymore.

 

 

That’s an extremely simplified explanation of it, but if I ever did it, it would, hands-down, be the single hardest, most grueling, most horrifying, and most emotionally torturous thing I’ve ever done in my life. But, while drugs are known to treat or lessen the effects of OCD, ERP therapy has been known to either dramatically reduce symptoms or all but cure it with an incredibly high success rate—at least that was the sales pitch they gave me when they tried to transfer me to a nearby residential ERP facility during my inpatient stay at 18, after I tried to kill myself.

 

It would be literal hell. I would never be the same person after doing it, and honestly, it’s probably the last thing in the world I would want to go through. But, because there is nothing on this earth that I would not do for my significant other, if I ever got into a serious relationship and she thought it was a good idea, I would do it for her without question. The thought of that woman one day existing is the single reason I have never said never to the possibility of doing ERP. We’ll talk more about this in my big standalone OCD post.

 

 

In Favor of Fornication

Curious to see what other reasons people might have for having sex before marriage aside from just “It feel good,” I asked Google what those were. Expecting a bipartisan list of pros and cons from a neutral perspective, I was surprised when I was almost immediately met instead with a response from Google AI that flat-out told me no one should wait until marriage to have sex, before giving me a myriad of reasons why.

 

 

Because it’s never a good idea to present only one side of an argument without taking any counterarguments into consideration, I’d like to briefly take a look at the reasons that Google AI so boldly gave for not saving yourself before finishing this marathon post by finally divulging my own reasons in favor of it.

 

 

Checking Compatibility

The first reason they gave was because it helps you check your compatibility with someone before you get married, with the first bullet adding that it allows you to discover physical alignment early. I think if you’re basing who you are with romantically largely on how your bodies physically align with each other, I’m afraid you probably have bigger problems to worry about than whether or not you should have sex before you get married.

 

The next reason they provided was because it helps you avoid mismatched sex drives. Even if you are having sex before marriage, I would hope you at least still know the person extremely well and have deep feelings for them. And, if that’s the case, I think how often you have sex is something that can only be determined by taking both of your feelings into consideration. A relationship is not a democracy, and the decision of whether or not you have sex is not something that can be determined by a debate or how skillfully one of you can persuade the other into agreeing with you.

 

It’s a decision that can only be determined by a mutual agreement you’ve arrived at as a team. Sure, I could see myself wanting to have sex at a time when my wife doesn’t, but there is no winning or losing in whether we have sex or not, because that’s just not something that can be decided by only half a couple. A healthy sex life depends on communication, love, mutual desire, and teamwork—not a pre-marriage test drive.

 

The last two reasons they gave under this bullet were because it prevents post-wedding surprises and because it’s a way to test long-term relationship flow. If you’ve married your soulmate, there should be no such thing as a post-wedding surprise capable of dismantling your entire marriage no matter what kind of equipment either of you is working with.

 

You both would have fallen madly in love with each other ages before you said “I do,” and with that love comes a presumption that you’re both okay with whatever physical quirks, insecurities, or limitations each of you might be hiding, because your love for each other is not defined or determined by anything physical. Finally, I think a long-term relational flow is determined by about a million other things before it’s determined by sex. Sex is just an extension of everything else you feel for each other.

 

 

Developing Communication

The second reason they gave for why you should have sex before marriage is because it helps develop communication and allows you to practice open sexual dialogue, reduce performance anxiety, and build trust in intimate settings. First of all, to say you can’t learn your partner’s preferences or practice open sexual dialogue until you take your clothes off and hump is insultingly ridiculous.

 

Good, old-fashioned, basic verbal communication can do that just as well, and you don’t have to give up a piece of yourself to engage in it. Also, I if you’re marrying someone you truly love and who truly loves you, I don’t think the need to reduce performance anxiety or build trust in intimate settings will even come into play. By the time you marry someone, you should already have absolute, unwavering, and unconditional trust in the other person by default. But even if those are things you need to work on with your partner, I know I’d dang sure rather work on them with my wife than I would with my girlfriend, who doesn’t even technically have a permanent role in my life.

 

 

 

Avoiding Permanent Traps

The supporting arguments they gave for their final main point were because marriage is hard to end legally and it reduces the risk of resentment later. Let me re-emphasize that: Google AI thinks you should have sex before marriage because it reduces the risk you’ll resent each other later and because marriage is hard to end legally. My jaw just about hit the floor with these two. My mind can’t even begin to wrap around how gobsmackingly nonsensical this way of thinking is. Don’t worry about AI taking over the world, because it clearly still has a long ways to go.

 

First of all, marriage is a life-altering, sacred commitment, not a free trial with a cancellation button. If you get married and you’re already worried about how hard it might be to legally undo, maybe you shouldn’t get married in the first place. Having sex with someone before marriage does not magically give you the clairvoyant ability to determine how compatible you are with that person. Actually getting to know that person and really talking to them about your desires and boundaries, on the other hand, can do just that. Treating premarital sex as some sort of divorce insurance is more stupid than my doctor’s advice to not use Q-tips in my ears.

 

Secondly, I think resentment in relationships is typically created by a lack of communication or the introduction of narcissism, lying, or feeling unheard—not because you never took each other for a test drive in the sack or got the chance to explore each other’s bodies before you said your vows. Once again, good, old-fashioned, painfully honest communication can do a heck of a better job of preventing that than sex. If a lover would resent you because you did not sexually prove yourself before marriage, again, I think you have bigger problems to worry about than premarital sex. Having sex before marriage also does not somehow make you immune to resentment and could likely lead to it anyway through pressure, regret, feeling used, or realizing it happened too soon.

 

This whole list is altogether absurd, and saying “preventing lifelong sexual frustration” and “verifying all compatibility areas first” can only be achieved through premarital sex is just as silly and misguided as the rest of them.

 

 

Let’s Not Get TOO Physical

As you may have already surmised, my vehement condemnation of premarital sex is rooted in the teachings of the church that were indoctrinated in me as a child. I do not, however, attribute these teachings with playing a crucial role in my reason for continuing to uphold this belief so passionately all these long and lonely years later. I grew up wanting to wait until I was married because that’s what God and my parents wanted me to do, but sometime in my late teens I actually started to think deeply on the subject and came to a much simpler conclusion. I found that the decision to save oneself for marriage was something that could be definitively validated by mere common sense and simple logic, so much so that there was no need to even bring deities or religion into the equation.

 

 

Waiting to have sex just because God said so was fine and all, but to me, it felt a little like saying, “I don’t want to play a game of P-I-G in the driveway because I’m afraid a scout will spot me and draft me into the NBA on the spot, condemning me to a life of hotel rooms and Gatorade commercials.” Sure, that would technically prevent me from being thrust into the chaotic life of an NBA superstar, but there are about a million bigger, more obvious reasons for that than my refusal to shoot hoops in the driveway.

 

In fact, I thought my reasoning behind saving myself was such a blatantly, profoundly obvious choice that I almost found it hard to believe that more people didn’t subscribe to that way of thinking. But then again, I also knew what a cruel mistress lust can be, and had been enchanted by the siren song of temptation enough times to know it wasn’t so simple.

 

 

My Reason

The thought that eventually led me to the conclusion that saving myself was the only route I wanted to take was that of the woman who would one day be my wife. Sometime in my early teens, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what she might be like. I asked myself things like, “Is she older, younger, or the same age as me?” “What is the color of her skin?” “What color hair does she have?” “What does she do for a living?” “How does she take her coffee?” I asked myself questions like these until the cows came home, but I couldn’t answer any of them… except one. There was one question I could answer about my future wife without the slightest hesitation: “What kind of person is she going to be?”

 

 

The answer to this query was as breezily effortless as it was unambiguously certain: She is going to be the best person I’ve ever met in my life. She is going to be my favorite person in the world. I’m going to love her more than I love my mother and every pet I’ve ever had combined. My love for her will be so sincere and far-reaching that I will feel it like nothing else I’ve ever felt before. I’m going to love her so much it hurts.

 

If anything is certain, it’s that she will mean the world to me. So I thought about how much this woman is going to mean to me—what she will have done for me by being the woman I marry—and I started to feel inadequate. I started to feel like I do when someone does me a huge favor without asking for anything in return, but magnified by a number I can’t even perceive. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of the love of a woman who didn’t even exist yet, and I started to think about how I could possibly thank her properly for playing such an enormous role in my life.

 

I knew that I’d want to give her the moon and stars, because that’s what she deserves… but I was going to have to settle for the very best of the best that I’m capable of giving. As gift-giving has always been my love language, this led me to another question: “What could I possibly give a woman like this that would be even remotely worthy?”

 

It needed to be something truly special, something so one-in-a-trillion, so exquisite and so beyond what a normal present could ever be that it would show her what she meant to me and serve as the most accurate symbol of how much I loved her. It needed to be something she could look back on receiving thirty years from now when we’re old and gray, and still make her heart flutter just as much as the day I gave it to her. So what is this gift so profound, so meaningful? Was it getting a second job so I can get her some dainty little Rolex to put on a shelf and treasure the rest of her life? Was it selling a kidney to get her a Lamborghini in her favorite color for all our neighbors to covet? A yacht to spend our weekends on? A crazy, pimped-out mansion to live the rest of our lives in?

 

No. None of these things came close to conveying what she will mean to me or how much I will love her. Those things all felt like giving a thumbs up to the firefighter that just saved your three dogs and two cats from the charred rubble that was once your house. They were paltry, they were tawdry, and they were hollow. Going a bit deeper down this rabbit hole led me to a conclusion that there was just one thing I was capable of giving my wife that might suffice as a token to sum up how I feel about her, and it was so special and so meaningful that it dwarfed all that Richie Rich stuff into nothing: myself. My virginity. But what makes this gift so profound, so special? What is the meaning behind it?

 

 

The Meaning

I may not be worth a lick to the average gal, and I may not even be worth a lick in my own eyes, but if my wife loves me enough to marry me, then the gift of saving myself for her will mean more than I can even comprehend and be something that brings her the purest sense of elation until the day she dies. Every gift she’s ever gotten before, and every gift she will ever receive after, will be dust in the wind by comparison—unless, of course, we get the gift of a child.

 

 

Myself: It’s so simple, so obvious, so perfect. Myself. Myself. Not only is it one-of-a-kind and something all the money in the world can’t buy, but it’s something that has been cobbled together stitch-by-stitch, sacrifice-by-sacrifice, from every time in my life I’ve consciously chosen not to have sex when I could have, and every time I denied myself the release I wanted by touching myself.

 

Okay, let’s get real here: Nobody has ever wanted to have sex with me, and I don’t touch myself because of my OCD. If either one of those things were different, I could be sitting here telling you a completely different story. In other words, I ain’t done much sacrificing over the years or faced much temptation the way most people who choose to wait until they’re married to have sex have.

 

I’m no hero. I have never stared into the abyss, about to give it all away, been given the chance to prove my fealty to a cause I so casually call my own, and actively chosen to do the hardest thing in the world by abstaining from that which I want to do more than anything. This is a true conundrum if I’ve ever seen one, but I’m going to continue to write the rest of this section about the meaning behind me giving my wife my virginity as if I have come face-to-face with the option to do so on many, many occasions like most people have, if only to allow my points to stick with maximum stickiness.

 

 

Sacrifice