The Benefits of Sex-Free Dating

On a first date, I once mistook respect for rejection.

We walked side by side but he didn’t hold my hand. We stood face to face and he didn’t kiss me.

I thought it meant it he probably didn’t like me.

Some of my past experiences had led me to believe that a guy who tries to touch me early on in our relationship is interested in me and a guy who doesn’t try to touch me early isn’t.

I was wrong.

That doesn’t mean men who quickly attempt to initiate physical intimacy outside the bounds of commitment have no interest in me. It probably means their interest isn’t in all of me. It definitely means they don’t know the depth of my dignity—or of their own.

I think that’s where lust comes from.

It‘s a misuse of sexual desire, but sexual desire is fundamentally good. It is the momentum that gets us to notice each other in a way that makes us want to know each other.

This, the sexual urge, according to author Edward Sri, is designed to orient us toward another person. It actually moves us. It aims us in a new direction: away from ourselves and toward another person. It is a force that figuratively grabs a man’s head, turns it toward a woman, and says "behold!”

That’s when we have a choice—to use desire well or to use it poorly.

It’s used lustfully, for instance, when a man, single or married, notices a particular woman, including his wife, and uses his sudden orientation toward her to gain access to her body because he wants to be gratified by it.

Her body isn’t meant to be used like that.

But it isn’t lust when a single man notices a particular woman and uses his orientation toward her to help him decide to date her exclusively.

That’s part of the urge‘s purpose.

Sexual desire is also misused when a married man notices a woman who isn’t his wife and acts on his sudden orientation toward her in any way that doesn’t align with his marriage vows—in any way that makes him more accessible to her than to his wife.

But when a husband notices his wife and uses his orientation toward her to create a pleasurable sexual relationship with her, he uses desire well. When he treats sex with her as an expression of the unity achieved by their matrimony, to renew their wedding vows, and to remind himself always to deepen his connection to her, he uses desire wisely.

And I am learning that on dates like the date that at first confused me, we start to cultivate in ourselves the capacity to use desire wisely.

We become able to use desire wisely by acknowledging that every new level of physical intimacy expresses a new level of commitment.

We get better at using desire well by treating each other as so sacred that even though you want to, you won’t engage in a level of physical intimacy before its corresponding level of commitment exists.

And I don’t feel rejected anymore on dates that are shaped by this.

I feel respected.

And sacred.

And convinced—that there isn’t a better way to date.