Posted on 06/15/2003 10:39:14 AM PDT by Mister Magoo
He's celibate until marriage, and dates won't tolerate it
June 15, 2003
BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Ten years ago, Darren Washington, 33, made a dramatic lifestyle change. He decided to abstain from sex until he got married. It is a choice that makes sense in a world where sex can literally kill you. But the fear of sexually transmitted diseases was not the only thing that motivated Washington to try celibacy. Given the pain sexual relationships can cause, he wanted to be part of the solution--not part of the problem.
On Saturday, June 21, he will be one of the panelists for "What Men Don't Like To Talk About" at Being Single Magazine's 5th Annual Bachelor Breakfast.
Washington, director of external affairs for SBC Indiana, says his celibacy has frustrated some women.
"A lot of women wanted to be sexually active," he said. "And you have so many people fronting. What I found out is that women wanted a man who was going to be faithful to her because a lot of men are juggling different women, having sex with different women, and so women thought it would be OK if I was only having sex with them."
Some women backed away after realizing Washington took abstinence seriously.
"I told one woman I just wanted to be friends and she said she already had enough friends," he said.
Then, there's the hurry-up-and-get-on-with-it sister.
"I dated a very intelligent woman, an attorney, who was OK with celibacy," Washington said. "But after six months, she wanted me to make a commitment. She felt if she knew we were going to marry then she could abstain. I couldn't make that promise."
Washington, a state-certified HIV/AIDS counselor, regularly speaks out about abstinence. He says he does so because it is the best alternative, particularly for African-American couples.
"I think a lot of people--men and women--don't understand the emotional and psychological effects that premarital sex cause besides teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
"When you give your body, you open an area to them that is really sacred. You exchange spirits with that person and that is how you end up with heartaches, pain and jealousy. There are women out here who are cheating just like men. You can't blame one [gender] more than the other. If men stood up and took the initiative and treated women with more respect and respected their bodies, women would want their bodies respected."
Sex shouldn't be part of a dating relationship, Washington said.
"You really truly have to be patient and wait for the right man to come into your life," he said. "There are a lot of men out here who have their pick of the litter. They date a lot of women and they know they are a good catch. They are financially together and a lot of these men are having sex with a lot of different women."
In the abstinence world, a date is a date.
"There are certain things that are off limits if you are not willing to be married," he said. "I can go out with different people to have fun, but I don't expect sex and I don't expect them to take their clothes off."
But for a lot of men, sex is seen as their reward for showing his date a good time.
""I don't expect a woman to have sex with me because I took her out to dinner and spent $100," Washington counters. "That should be normal if I am trying to win her hand and to prove to her I'm the man of her dreams.
On the other side, women who do not have romantic feelings for a man may get involved with him sexually because he is financially solid and drives a nice car, Washington pointed out.
"We have to stop using each other," he said. "One way to do that is to abstain."
Of course, the real question is whether Washington is really one of those brothers on the down-low. He chuckled when I asked, but admitted it wasn't the first time he's been asked about his sexuality.
"People live an alternative lifestyle for sexual liberation, not sexual resignation," he said. "Right now, a lot of people are looking for a cure to AIDS. My issue is, yes, we need drugs that will stop the spread of AIDS, but what about the people who don't have it. They need to abstain. If you can't put a ring on a woman's finger or you don't want to marry the brother, you shouldn't be out there."
As noted in a recent Sun-Times special report on marriage, African Americans marry at a significantly lower rate than other racial groups in the United States. By age 30, 81 percent of white women and 77 percent of Asians and Hispanics will marry, but only 52 percent of black women will do so, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After talking to Washington, I recalled something my father used to say when his daughters started dating: "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" Of course, we didn't listen. As things have turned out, fathers knew best after all.
For additional information about next Saturday's panel discussion, please call (312) 567-9900.
Hey there!
The wedding is at City Hall in Los Angeles. They've been engaged for 2 years, known each other (as friends) for 4 years. Since they moved out here from Connecticut, they've been hit financially hard, so when he got hit with the mother of all state tax bills they decided to forgo the big wedding in Hawaii and just make it legal. I told them they can renew their vows, or have the marriage blessed later on. We're driving out first thing tomorrow to pick up the grandbaby and her mother tomorrow. Baby is doing great :)
All the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the subject seems to indicate that some feel that way. For myself, fidelity wouldn't even rank in the top five requirements in my marriage.
No it isn't. At what point do we stop medicalizing every personal decision or personality trait that not everyone agrees with? Don't like noisy crowds? Well you have a social personality disorder! Decide to go for quality rather than quantity in sex? Well you're a freak and have issues!
Well actually I really don't want to lay out just how bad things can get. My ex isn't Catholic, but I was married in Church. I had a mature attitude to the point of stupidity. My mother had an extremely rigid point of view, and valued spiritual sacrifice. My father was looking up divorce attorneys. At least your uncle spends his time pounding the brewskis in his own house. I hope he isn't abusive towards your Aunt and the kids.
It's a silly progression. Everyone has bad dating experiences and as bad dating experience go this is pretty mild.
There is nothing wrong with her saying "you're a nice guy but this doesn't seem to be going anywhere so I'm going to start shopping for someone else." It shouldn't be a big deal.
My biggest problem was that I listed to too much bad advice. Through my late teens and early twenties, I was deeply committed to a Christian life and involved in evangelical and pentecostal churches. While they would never admit it, those churches advocate a passive approach to relationships. In part, those churches are trying to cool young people's hormones so that they don't have sex before marriage. Given what the Bible clearly says about premarital sex, I don't blame them for this desire even though I disagree with the teaching that it produced. In part, those churches advocate a passive approach to relationships as part of advocating an active spiritual relationship with God. While I'm no longer pursuing that kind of relationship in the way that they taught, I don't blame them for the desire to advocate a relationship with God. Unfortunately for me, the "God will provide" strategy was never going to work in a million years and certainly didn't in 33 years. If anything was "wrong with me," it was that I tried to live the teaching more literally than many others.
Another factor is that I'm just not a good salesman, and dating is at least in part a case of salesmanship. Personally, I think our society has gone entirely too far towards what is "marketable" and away from what is true. I once knew a preacher whose church was too small to pay him and who supported himself as a salesman. He said my problem is the mindset of an engineer versus that of a salesman. If a salesman is rejected ten times, the salesman will go into the eleventh meeting believing that he'll make the sale. He'll say to himself, "I've got a great product. If the past ten calls have failed to produce a sale, the next one is bound to buy." An engineer takes the opposite view. An engineer looks at ten rejections and says, "I've run this experiment ten times. I've produced repeatable, statistically significant results. I know what the answer is. Why am I even here?" Unfortunately, I am an engineer with a strong engineering mindset.
A third factor is that for those of us who don't care for the bar scene, it's hard to meet people. I'm certainly no social butterfly, but I'm not a hermit either. However, I can't remember the last time my normal life brought me in contact with someone who would even be worth dating. Once one leaves college, the opportunities to meet people just aren't there. I met some women in church, but my perspective was always just a little too off-kilter to attract them. Most would say that my ideas were reasonable and thoughtful, but they'd rather date guys who just blindly parroted the "party line."
WFTR
Bill
In a relationship where 2 people are intimate, there should be fidelity. I'm a one guy gal. If I found out my bf was cheating, there wouldn't be a whole lot of drama, just a quiet goodbye.
I'm not saying fidelity is neither important nor desirable. Only that if I were to rank the most important requirements of a relationsip, it wouldn't crack my top five.
I usually advise my friend to date for a year before getting engaged.
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