Keep Yourself

In today’s society, physical love happens so quickly. It’s weird not to have sex (or something along the lines of it) almost right away when two people meet and are attracted to the other. There’s no denying that sex is incredibly pleasurable, but associating that pleasure with love is where things go wrong.

Sex has become so normalized that people have lost the ability to know what it feels like to love let alone be in love.

I have very high standards (some would say too high) but I have had the privilege to know what it feels like to be valued for who I am as a person over being sexually valued. Knowing that feeling has helped keep my standards intact.

This is a very hard society to keep standards and push to find someone who values you. Even with knowing what it feels like to be valued and loved, I still have temptations to forget it all. I have had a lot of guys in my time message me only wanting explicit photos and sex. They would make small talk but shortly after focus on my body.

Even with someone who was a decent friend of mine, eventually started asking for pictures and sharing with me explicit scenarios he had imagined involving me. I tend to ignore things that are said in hopes that a guy stops. So, because of that, I do believe that these words did last longer than they should have. These conversations went on and off for about a year and then a couple of days ago he officially deleted me off of the app that he would send me these conversations on. It took a lot of me saying no and explaining myself to why I was saying no (which I hate that I have to do that because I should be able to say no once and a guy understand that but that’s a whole different issue). I had to say the word no multiple times after he kept asking. He said he cared about me and valued me and all of those nice things but I knew better and in the end, he proved me right.

I learned while talking with him that he only did physical things with people he loved. I knew there was no way that he was IN LOVE with me, so it showed me what level of love there needed to be for him to have or want to have sex.

That made me think. Is that the level of love a lot of people think is enough to determine when it’s time to have sex (excluding the sex without any love attached to it). I don’t know about you but I love a lot of people and if I based off wanting to have sex with someone because I loved them then I’d be having sex with a lot of people.

I do believe in waiting to have sex until marriage. I also know how easy it can be to have thoughts about wanting to have sex with someone you love before marriage. Which in my opinion, I believe is normal and even okay (on a level).

It’s valuing sex and more importantly valuing yourself when it comes to other’s intentions with you, romantically. I get a lot of superficial attention from men. I have come to accept that. Then, with that, it comes with a lot of sex-oriented words aimed towards me, some from men I don’t even know.

I know how I respond to sex and physical touch is affected by my faith and relationship with God. I also know whether or not you believe in God, you need to have standards, which in today’s society they have been lost, especially when it comes to physical touch and ultimately sex.

A lot of people use sex as a way of getting someone to love you, or to keep someone’s attention. At least that’s what society tells you. That’s, also, why when you say no, a lot of people will eventually lose interest because they aren’t getting what they want.

I encourage you to leave sex or anything related to it out of the equation until you have a solid relationship (hence why waiting for sex until marriage is really a good idea because if someone is willing to marry and love you without that physical pleasure then there’s a good chance they value you and want the best for you).

If you and your significant person are willing to control yourselves from having sex, or anything along those lines, that means you both value the other more than that immediate pleasure.

I believe a lot of people would save themselves from a lot of pain if they pushed off having sex. I know I’ve gone through a lot of pain with relationships that didn’t involve sex, that I couldn’t imagine the pain I would have felt if I had also given them that intimate part of me.

Not giving parts to myself to guys that have said nice things, have saved me time and energy. Hold out, and you’ll start to see the real intentions someone has involving you.

And honestly, being single in today’s society and trying to uphold those standards sucks because it isn’t easy finding someone willing to wait.

BUT…

Keeping yourself is SO IMPORTANT because you need yourself to love God and to love others.