When you're trying to talk about Christian sex ethics...

Don’t be this guy:

Let me preface this column by saying this: my wife (I have to get used to saying that) and I not only waited sexually in every way (no, we didn’t pull the Bill Clinton and technically avoid “sex” sex,) but we didn’t shack up as live-ins and most importantly, we courted each other in a way that was consistent with our publicly professed values.

We did it right.

Feeling judged? I couldn’t care less. You know why? Because my wife and I were judged all throughout our relationship. People laughed, scoffed and poked fun at the young, celibate, naive Christian couple.

But if you already read that guy’s screed, go ahead and reward yourself by reading Calah Alexander’s fantastic response:

Today, I’m going to tell you why this article makes me want to stab someone with a rusty spork.

I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s been floating around facebook and HotAir linked to it and everyone and their mothers are cheering for the giant asshat who wrote it. I, on the other hand, studiously ignored the link (because I was afraid it would say exactly what it does) until my homegirl Kassie threatened to rip her hair out over it on facebook. Then my curiosity was piqued, so I read it. Here’s an excerpt:

Let me preface this column by saying this: my wife (I have to get used to saying that) and I not only waited sexually in every way (no, we didn’t pull the Bill Clinton and technically avoid “sex” sex,) but we didn’t shack up as live-ins and most importantly, we courted each other in a way that was consistent with our publicly professed values.

We did it right.

Feeling judged? I couldn’t care less. You know why? Because my wife and I were judged all throughout our relationship. People laughed, scoffed and poked fun at the young, celibate, naive Christian couple
(Read more here)

I hope you can now understand why “asshat” is less an insult and more a clinically detached observation. This is the very beginning of the article, and as I read it I found myself ready to simultaneously scream, cry, throw something, hit someone, and go do penance for this guy’s soul. It took me about four tries to make myself go back and read the rest of what he had to say, so livid was I over the cocky self-righteousness on display in his opening paragraphs (and really all the way through the piece.)

Guess what, dude? Other people laughing at you and judging you doesn’t give you the freedom to do the same. If you’ve forgotten that whole “turn the other cheek” thing, how about trying to remember “if I have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal?” This article is so utterly devoid of love, from beginning to end, that if I weren’t a Christian it would serve as Exhibit A for why I don’t want to be one. As it is, it’s currently serving as Exhibit A for why my fellow-Christians make me want to vomit.

Most of you know a bit about my history. Drug addiction, unwed pregnancy,conversion. If EWTN made soap operas, mine would be the story to tell. But it wasn’t a soap opera. It was my life. It is my life. It is my past, who I was, what led me to who I am. It is the shifting, sandy ground that the Ogre and I built our future on. Over time we managed to shore it up and make it a solid foundation for our family, but that process was long and painful.

And you know what else? It was embarrassing. Humiliating, even. The author of this article has no idea what it’s like to be judged. Sure, he had people make fun of him for not having sex. That’s not being judged. That’s other people being stupid. I had people make legitimate judgments about the kind of person I was, judgments I had to swallow, because they were true. I had people make fun of me for being a pregnant, unwed drug addict. I had people refuse to baptize our daughter and try and keep the Ogre and I from getting married in the Church. I had people make fun of me for wanting to have a wedding when my daughter was a year and a half old, because “what’s the point?” I had members of my own family tell me they were embarrassed that I would wear a wedding dress when I didn’t deserve to wear one. Because I had already screwed up. Not, mind you, by having sex…but by having a child.

More:

But that isn’t even the major issue I have with the article. The major issue I have with it is that it manages, in spite of the author’s insistence that he “did things right,” to still completely miss the point of what a marriage is because the author is entirely focused on sex.

Then I realized something. Our wedding was truly a once in a lifetime event. It was a God’s-honest celebration of two completely separate lives now becoming one. Physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually, everything that made us who we were individually was becoming what bonded us together. Our family traveled from far and wide to celebrate the decision of two young people to truly commit themselves to each other, and selflessly give themselves to one another in a way that they never had before that very night.

The people next to us that morning? Well, theirs was just one big party.  And the morning after? Just another hangover.

Our “weddings” were the same event in name only. They know it, and we know it.

Do yours the right way.  If you’re young and wondering whether you should wait, whether you should just give in, become a live-in harlot/mimbo and do it the world’s way.  If you’re wondering whether all of the mocking, the ridicule, the incredible difficulty of saving yourself for your spouse is worth it, let me tell you without a doubt that it is. Your wedding can be the most memorable day and night of your life… or just another party.

I’m sure the author would insist that our wedding was just “one big party” because we had already had sex, because we had a child together, because we lived together.

It wasn’t. Our wedding was a sacrament. It was the moment when the Ogre and I stood before God and man and swore to give our lives to one another, until death, come what may. It was the moment when God joined our eternal souls, when we became one instead of two, when all the grace of the sacrament of marriage was poured out upon us. It was the moment that truly began our lives together, the moment that we had worked toward, the moment that gave us a foundation for all the difficult years to come. Our wedding, the actual sacrament, is the most beautiful, most cherished memory of my life. The reception, on the other hand, was horrible. It was a mess, a blur, it was disorganized, people were fighting, people drank too much, the cake got cut at the wrong time, the music was awful, and I couldn’t wait for it to end. I can look back now and laugh about that, because the party wasn’t the point. The point was the sacrament, the union of our souls.

Guess what also wasn’t the point? The sex afterward. Sure, we went to a nice hotel afterward and had sex and it was great. It was also sad, becuase I knew that it wasn’t what it could have been if we had done things right. I’m not saying sex isn’t important. It is. But you don’t build your life together on sex. If you do, you’re in trouble. You build it on those vows you said, on the moment when you looked into your spouse’s eyes and swore to join your life to theirs. You build it on the moment when your life stopped revolving around “you” and started revolving around “us”. That’s what marriage is about. That’s what gets you through the tough times, when sex isn’t enough, or when sex isn’t even in the picture.

The saddest part about this article is that what he’s getting at needs to be said. I have first-hand knowledge of the damage having pre-marital sex does to a marriage. It can destroy a marriage. It can destroy a family. At the very least, it will make learning to love your spouse correctly immeasurably harder. But the way he’s saying it is so terribly wrong that it obscures the message. It’s no good claiming you’re speaking the truth when the truth gets hidden behind your own arrogance and pride. No one can see it then. All they see is you.

That woman sitting next to the author of the article on the morning after his perfect wedding wasn’t any less married than his wife. She and her husband didn’t do things right, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean their marriage isn’t valid, that it doesn’t matter, that they didn’t mean the vows they spoke. It does mean that their marriage will be twice as hard as they try and figure out how to love each other selflessly instead of using each other as a vehicle for pleasure. It does mean that their marriage will be an uphill battle, that they will fight demons that they might not even be aware of, that they might never even recognize, demons that they invited into their relationship when they chose a selfish, baser form of love before their marriage than they should have. And for that struggle that they face, they deserve compassion, pity, and gentle understanding. They don’t deserve to be a punchline in someone else’s blissful story of how he did everything right.

Because even if you do things “right”, you can still do them entirely wrong.