Yeah. I guess I could do clip art more often, huh? (LOL) This is not really for “visual art purposes” so much as it’s something I am apart of, starting today. I received some info about there being an international online campaign entitled, “No Wedding No Womb”. It’s addressing the epidemic of fatherlessness, in all, but especially the black community. I just love the concept. NO WEDDING. NO WOMB. Hmph. Sure beats “No Glove. No Love.” Who wants to be *shielded* from love?!? The foolishness of the world tickles me sometimes. 😉 Anyway, if you want more info on the online “unified blogging event” that will take place on Wednesday, September 22, feel free to visit:

www.noweddingnowomb.com/

As it relates to an excerpt from “Pure Heart”, we’re on Chapter 3, “Sexual Additives, Part One: Closet Activities“, right? Hmph. Let’s see. What should we dig into this week?

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I remember when I first asked my mother about oral sex. I was in high school, and unlike a lot of “church moms,” she gave a really healthy response: “That is a very intimate act and it should be reserved for a very intimate relationship.” That is all I remember her saying on the issue, but you can believe that with all of the books and videos on waiting until marriage she had me read when I was growing up, she fully believed that “intimate” was synonymous with marriage, and I wish I had taken heed to her wisdom.

When God created us, when he encouraged us not to cast our pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6), he had a reason for saying it. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but there is more to “swine” than pigs. Swine can be defined as a coarse, gross, or brutishly sensual person.

As if that were not revelatory enough, let me say that “pearl” is not some random metaphor either. It does not represent just one body part. Our entire body should be reverenced as a jewel, a gem, the ultimate gift from God to our spouse, the kind of thing a man should spend all that he has, including his single life, to get. (If you’ve never read the parable of the pearl, you can check it out in Matthew 13:45–46.)

When I started on this abstinence journey—rather reluctantly, I might add—I’m going to be honest with you: my

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plan was to go without penetration for as long as I could. I had been into “additives” for so long that I initially told myself there was no way I could go without masturbation on a regular basis (two to three times per week to replace the sex that I was used to having at least once a week), and to get even more real, oral sex was going to have to come around, shoot, at least for the holiday season (and that included all of the ones that my government-working and Jewish friends observed!). God was just going to have to understand that, while I would “lay off” sexual intercourse from my life (temporarily), I had no intention of giving up my “side gigs.”

You know what? I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me, but since making the pledge on January 9, 2007, to really take this “without sex thing” seriously—meaning, since I really made a personal commitment to not engage in sex, of any form, again until marriage—not so much as a kiss has been added to
my sexual performance résumé. Again, that wasn’t the plan, but the more I started understanding and valuing the purpose of sex and the purpose of me (chapter 8), the more I didn’t think a man had the right to any of my temple.
When God created me and saw that I was good, that meant all of me: head to toe, mouth and midsection, on the giving and receiving end of physical intimacy and affection. And when God created the purpose for sex, he wanted me to respect it. Oral sex is sex and if you’re going to have it (there’s no Scripture that says you can’t; that’s solely up to you and your husband), you need to have it with your spouse as one-half of a married couple. Masturbation? You don’t need to be having that at all, but I will get to this in a moment.

In this case, “in a moment” means after you buy the book. *wink*

NO WEDDING. NO WOMB. INDEED.

SRW