Since you're 12, now is a perfect time to start developing a pattern of good conversations with your mom and dad about boys. I'll bet they have some really good advice for you. I'm sure they want you to marry some special guy someday, and they want you to have good friends in your teen years--they are looking out for you! Developing a romantic relationship with someone when you're so young is only asking to get hurt. Do you expect to marry him? How long do you think it will last until you "break up"? Sure, have boys that are friends, but not boyfriends.
Just so you know, I had my first boyfriend when I was 17. It was still kind of early, but I married that same guy seven years later, and we didn't kiss until five years after we started dating--we wanted to be REALLY sure--so the only man I've ever kissed is my husband!
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Meh. Maybe it's the fact that we've heard so much from the charming Pearl's lately, but I really don't think this deserves to be rated higher than 2. Sure she's voicing some incredibly old fashioned beliefs, but they're harming nobody, and even in advicing the 12 year old she's being fairly laid back- no raving about sex being filthy, no made up STD statistics, no threats of Hell and Satan's wrath etc, etc.
Compared to other fundie experts on teenage relations she's really pretty harmless.
Hey, whatever works, I guess. But, my husband was somewhat appreciative of the fact that I knew what the hell I was doing on our wedding night.
Well, I can't really see anything wrong with telling a 12 year old she's too young to get romantically involved, but then it gets weird. Waiting 5 years until you kiss? Either your husband is gay, or you look like Bigfoot.
Breaking up is part of the real life because, in principle, dating is precisely the way to know if that person is the ONE for you. If it isn't, breaking up consists on that.
I mean, this isn't too fundy. I say they both took things really slow, and it probably would have been better had they had more experience with relationships, but that is their prerogative. Then again I haven't read anything else this person has written so I don't really know how brain dead she really could be...
Okay, 12 might be too young to have a serious boyfriend, but it's probably not too young to see a movie with a friend, or go to lunch, or go to the school dance together...you have to learn how to have fun with your friends, no matter what sex they are, and only a fundy would turn that into paranoia about whether she's going to marry the same guy she shared an ice cream sundae with when she was 12. Because I've seen the cute relationships preteens have...they mostly just hold hands and do things together. And trust me, middle school girls have a higher drama tolerance than you think they do; something that was the end of the world one week is forgotten two weeks later. She might be temporarily hurt if they break up, but it's not going to ruin her for life.
Oh no wait, I forgot, fundy, they think that if you don't marry the first person you ever even think of as cute, you're an evil whore and will burn in hell.
Don't talk of love
I am a rock
It's daft, but compared to the Pearls...
For one thing, it's not actually bad advice as such- you'd need to tone down the extremism a notch or two, but the idea of not getting too hung up on relationships at a young age is sensible. And at least they're prepared to let their daughters be friends with boys, as opposed to never being unaccompanied in the same building as one.
The last bit's far more worrying, though.
Well, we do need to take into account the fact that Anya was a man-hating Vengeance Demon for over a thousand years.
Still, I'm kind of surprised Xander didn't get kissed for five years. Maybe that one time with Faith was enough to keep him satisfied for five years? Wow, that chick must be good.
Five YEARS until you kissed?
Jesus, I wouldn't put up with that shit. A girl saving her virginity until after marriage is something I can deal with and respect, but if I'm with a girl who won't even let me MAKE OUT, she's GONE.
"Five years? That poor man. "
Nono, you don't get it. It took 5 years for him to kiss HER, there's no mention of what he did in the meantime. In all likelyhood, during those 5 years he was her boyfriend, she was his "Just-a-friend", and she's an idiot.
Although the last bit has allready been established.
I'm going to agree with Septic Sceptic here.
Sure, it's old fashioned and odd but really not all that bad.
see, it would be a lot smarter to just tell your daughters something like this:
So really, here's just some honest warnings so that you don't completely get fucked up. We all make mistakes, this is just so you can dust yourself off and try again easier when you do. If they're giving you ultimatums about going further, they don't actually give a shit about you. And bring'em over: if you're not willing to risk even a LITTLE embarassment for the guy, he's probably not worth all that much.
If we don't really like him but he's not actually a piece of shit, we'll tell you but we won't force you to break up. Sometimes love's a little blind, though so if your mother or I actually tell you you should get the hell away from him, its because there's a real sack of crap under that exterior, and if there's one thing we've gotten good at sniffing out over the years, its unmitigated slimy fucktards. We still won't force you, but I hope you'll at least take our words to heart in the matter and grab a shovel. It would be nice if you learned to dig on your own, anyways.
I didn't have my first boyfriend till I was 17, but believe me, that wasn't by choice. I'm just ugly. >:(
I'm going to run with popular opinion on this one - the kissing thing is cute in a weird, old-fashioned kind of way but its not fundie.
What the hell did you guys DO during those 5 years that made it different from a friendship? Talk romantically about how nice it will be to kiss someday?
I mean by those standards, I've been going behind my boyfriend's back and have been dating a half dozen boys on the side. Oh wait, we just hang out, watch movies, go out to eat, and play video games. Like FRIENDS. I'm in the camp that he had no idea they were dating for the first 5 years.
Then again, this couple is like an extreme version of my own relationship, being young and with the first guy I've dated. Its not like I'm his first girlfriend though.
This isn't really fundie. Very old-fashioned, and the advice she gave that girl is pretty good. So all in all ... I'd say it's sweet, very odd, and old-fashioned, but not fundie.
Developing a romantic relationship with someone when you're so young is only asking to get hurt.
Just so you know, I had my first boyfriend when I was 17. It was still kind of early, but I married that same guy seven years later, and we didn't kiss until five years after we started dating--we wanted to be REALLY sure--so the only man I've ever kissed is my husband!
I don't have a problem with the first paragraph. Call me old fashioned, but I think 12 is too young for a boyfriend. I know what my emotions were like at 12 and I wanted to marry my best friend's 15 year old brother, but it wasn't a sensible prospect because I was just a child.
OTOH, paragraph 2 is just sad. Dating for 5 years without kissing? Yeesh.
I believe, when you are young, you should never date someone you aren't prepared to kiss, and when you are older, never date someone you aren't prepared to have sex with. If you don't want to kiss/fuck someone, make it clear it isn't a date, it's just friends hanging out.
And NEVER marry someone that you haven't slept with. Would you buy a car without a test drive? Sexual compatibility is important in a marriage.
Yeah, never kiss, never have sex, never hold hands until you are married... Because God wants you to fall in love and marry in your sophmore year of high school.
No kissing in five years of dating....? Jesus and Mary, you guys like to make your lives even duller than a rock's, don't you?
I'm not even going to ask how many decades you spent together before you tried fucking. Blowjobs will probably take another ten millennia.
You married him seven years after you got together, but kissed him only five years after? That means you'd already been kissing for two years prior to marriage! You'll burn in hell for that, Anya!
EDIT: Darn, dr y beat me to the punch.
A buck says Anya has never actually had any form of diverse sexual experience, and will eventually fly apart at the seams from frustration. Same goes for her boyfriend who had to wait five years for a kiss. Failing that, two people with a severe hormonal disorder found an ideal match in one another, with only a speck of libido between. With a normal sex drive? I give it five or ten years before it flies apart in a flurry of hate.
The people that have commented on this post in a negative way are just being rude. They are entitled to their opinion, but they don't fully understand the act of WILL POWER. Any man could hold off kissing or doing anything physical with a woman if they had the will power to do so. That does not make them gay, it makes them incredibly strong & understanding.
Yes, 12 is too soon to be looking for life-long attachments. I don't think I became aware of boys until my 17th year.
I became seriously involved in The Guy when I was 18 and one month old. We married 10 years later, and we did much more than kiss during those ten years.
My husband knows that he was not the only one to rouse my tender feelings, but he DOES know that he was the first "intimate" one. And since then, there have been no-one else. I think that was somewhere during the year 1989...
And yes, I have drunk quite a bit of red, red wine by now (it's 11.05 PM over here).
Um, 12 years old is too young to actually date, so that part of the post I really don't have a problem with. Personally, I'd give it until 15-16, just to be sure someone really is ready. 12 is a good age to start talking about stuff like that with your parents, though.
17 = kind of early?? Are you fucking kidding me? Sounds about right to me! I'd hate to see your idea of "kind of late."
As for only ever kissing the person you married: I'd rate it a rare occurrence, and it only happens when you're particularly lucky enough to have found Mr/Ms. Right just that soon. Now, waiting for 5 years to kiss after you start dating...just WHAT were you two doing in the meantime, I wonder? I can't believe she actually thinks kissing sooner than that was a bad idea.
@heather3782
That same "will power" your average Catholic espouses, to hold off on a perfectly natural act, and ignore any disease preventative measures that could otherwise save millions of lives from sexually transmitted infections?
That will power, does not work. Heterosexual examples? Every single case of adultery in marriage, ever. Billions of them by now, likely, since the inception of marriage. Homosexual examples of "Failing to will away teh gay"? Hell, Christians have them. Ted Hoggard, enough said.
This is not willpower. This is out and out denial that sexual activity is a healthy, normal thing. In most cases, it leads to nothing but tears. Broken marriages, people praying instead of seeking counseling or outside assistance with an adulterous spouse, or in the case of the Catholic priest, a hundred-fold increase in child molestation incidents compared to the rest of the population.
Willpower is an absolutely bunkum reason to think that this is normal and healthy behavior.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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