"MY VIRGINITY MISTAKE"

A friend sent me a link to “My Virginity Mistake,” written by Jessica Ciencin Henriquez who explains her belief that making a purity pledge and remaining a virgin until she got married led to the ultimate demise of her marriage. The article evoked a whole range of emotions in me – sadness, pain, empathy, but also frustration, rage and indignation. It wasn’t that I was surprised by her revelations or perspective; it was that I have heard her story so many times before within the privacy of my coaching sessions. 

A large number of my clients are church leaders who were given the purity talks as teenagers and skidded into marriage having pushed the line as far as they could go while still remaining “technical virgins” (no penis-in-vagina action, but various levels of everything else). Keep in mind, they are in the minority – 88% of people who take purity pledges end up having intercourse before marriage. 

These people are therefore part of the dwindling 12% who “made it” to marriage, but instead of the bliss that they were promised, they battle with disappointment, resentment and drudgery in their sex lives. However, unlike Henriquez, they are committed to their marriages and desperately seeking places of refuge and help.

To me, this article was just another reminder that in the Church we have dropped the ball on how we handle sexuality. We screw it up from the cradle to the grave. We have covered genitals with special names because we cannot bear the medically correct terms. We have disciplined our toddlers when their hands stray into their pants and linger there too long. We have implicitly at best (explicitly at worst) told our teenagers they are trash if they get hot and heavy before they get married. We have dodged anything beyond the bare-bones basics of sexuality in our pre-marital courses. We don’t provide a safe place for newlyweds to even admit they are facing problems with intimacy, causing them to suffer through confusion, loneliness and isolation. We have acquiesced to the ethos of silent tolerance of women who are disinterested in sex and men who turn to porn for the thrill their marriage does not provide. We have actively participated in a culture that shuts down, shames and eviscerates people who fall sexually and need our help. We have turned a blind eye to the hurting in our churches, choosing instead to focus on programs that are less controversial and easier to justify to the board of elders. Instead admitting our own imperfections and inviting others into the safety of that communion, we have presented a portrait of a God who freely forgives (or at least overlooks) the sins we are comfortable with, but harshly judges the sins we find personally disturbing. 

In doing so we have lost sight of what we are called to do. We have stopped being the salt of the earth and started rubbing it in people’s wounds. This is our sin. 

And yet, this is also our opportunity. People desperately want health and wholeness. Parents want to have guidance on how to talk to their kids about masturbation, oral sex, condoms, porn and STIs. Young people need to know that if they stumble and fall before marriage, they are still valued in the eyes of God…that the blood of Jesus is more than a cheap laundry detergent that gets out the smell but not the stain of our sin. Newlyweds need to have a place to acknowledge that they couldn’t even have sex on their honeymoon because it just didn’t work. They must be provided with the freedom to talk to people who will not flinch at words like clitoris, penis, orgasm and semen. Couples deserve marriages where sex is more than just a duty – it is pleasurable, frequent and sought after. They need to have the freedom to struggle with something in their marriage – smack dab in the middle of imperfection – while still working toward the goal of holiness and restoration. 

This is why I love the Church. The Church is uniquely positioned (and called) to be what these people so desperately need. We have the community buildings. We have the small groups. We have the mentorship programs. We have the childcare. We have the pastors who are on call night and day for people who need them. We have volunteers who can facilitate teaching sessions. We have the very words of Jesus. And we have the God who actually came up with this whole idea of sex, put the proper plumbing in place and hard-wired it into our DNA. 

But do we have the courage? 

Will we step up to the plate; take a long, hard look at our faux-sacred status quo; and be willing to admit (and change) what honestly is not working? Can we repent of our institutionalized sin and break free of our bondage to it? Can we lay aside our ignorance, our shame and our fear when people like Henriquez need us? 

The Church must come to the table as a faith community, regardless of our specific denominational segregations, to share best practices – ideas that actually work and have higher success rates than 12%. And I believe we can do it. 

But we have to remember that while Jesus loves us, He came to seek and save that which was lost. He didn’t come to “put a ring on it.” 

ERYN-FAYE FRANS, Canada's Passion Coach ®
ErynFaye.Com

I WILL CALL HER BLESSING

Wednesdays are busy for me. Pre-school for my 4 year old, early release for my 8 year old, dinner, bible study and AWANA…throw in an errand and we are packed for the day.

Normally, on a day where we are so crunched for time, I would say no to my children begging me to take them to the store because they have money burning a hole in their pocket. Today, for some reason, I said yes.

It was sunny but crisp outside as we turned out of our neighborhood onto the main road, I happened to see a woman on the side of the road, off a ways, near the briar bushes sitting on a duffle bag with her elbow on her knee and her head on her fist. She was in her late 20’s to mid 30’s and had BEAUTIFUL dark skin, a handkerchief covering her hair, a flowing calf length denim skirt, a flannel long sleeved shirt with a warmer coat on top, and one inch platform flip flops. I had seen this before…but not in my community. 

We kept driving and spent a good 45 minutes spending our money. I treated myself to a five bucks (that’s Starbucks to you) which is something I hadn’t done in a long time. With a new pair of jeans and a warm coffee in my hands we set off to drive home.

There she was, still sitting there with her hand on her fist and her elbow on her knee. Something in my heart said STOP. 

I looked at my rear view mirror and hanging there, was the reason why the image of that woman was so familiar to me. She reminded me of South Africa, where it is not uncommon to see someone sitting on the side of the road with a bushel of something to sell, or someone just resting for a minute. It, in fact, is normal there. In South Africa there are so many people on the side of the road…but not here. Again my heart said STOP.

I tried to dismiss it as I pulled into our neighborhood. Rationalizing it by telling myself that I don’t have time, my kids are in the car, I need to make dinner before our evening activities…Louder: TURN AROUND and just ASK her if she needs help.

I looked at that Starbucks cup and was immediately embarrassed for buying it. It was such a luxury. In fact, the last time I got back from South Africa, I didn’t buy a coffee for an entire year to make a statement about the frivolous lifestyle I wanted to leave behind. 

I could not, go and ask to help this girl, with a Starbucks cup in my car. Again: TURN AROUND and ask her if she needs help. 

What if my kids freak out because they want to go home and play with this new trinket they just spent their money on? What if we are late? What if I can’t get dinner done? TURN AROUND!

We pulled into our cul-de-sac and I pulled over before we got to the house. My 8 year old, Ty, asked me what we were doing. This is how the conversation went:

Me: “Ty, did you see that lady over by Laura’s house sitting by the side of the road?”

Ty: “Yes”

Me: “Do you think we should go ask her if she needs help?”

Ty: “Yes, mamma”

I turned the car around and headed back to where the lady was sitting. FEAR came over me and I broke into a sweat. The decision had been made, we were going back! I repeated over and over “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” 

I drove my car to my friends house, who was half a block away from where the woman was sitting, left my kids there and started walking. As I rounded the corner and had her in my sights she was just getting up and grabbing her bag. 

“Excuse me, I saw you sitting here, and I was wondering if you need any help?”

She hadn’t seen me coming, so a little startled she said: “I was walking, and I got tired, so I stopped here to pray, I’ve been here praying about a lot of things, and one thing was for someone to help me.”

Sticking my hand out toward her I said “Well, My name is Adrian and God placed you on my heart to help. What is it that you need help with?”

Assessing the situation, I could tell she was running from something and she had just left. She was clean, I could smell her soap. Her clothes were clean, her bag was clean…She was not strung out on drugs and she looked me in the eye when she talked. I HAD TO KNOW this girls story. 

She was looking for a ride to Tacoma, and after talking to my friend who I left my kids with we decided that giving her some bus money and driving her up to the park and ride would be the best idea.

I cleaned out the front seat of my car and was embarrassed again. I saw that target bag with the jeans in it, a GPS, an ipod dock, and a smart phone…along with that dang Starbucks cup…I looked at her and realized all she had, was all she had with her and there she was…praying on the side of the road in her flip flops on a crisp fall day.

As we drove, I tried to pry and ask questions, she didn’t budge too much. What I did find out was she has family here in Puyallup that “she just needs to get away from.” And she’s looking to get to a truck stop in Tacoma where she will try to make her way to <something tells me not to put the city name in this blog> because the one time she visited there…it was nice. She was hoping to start a new life there. 

I pulled into the mall parking lot near the bus station and asked if I could pray for her before she left the car. She agreed. Then she reached across the car, hugged me, and called me blessing as if it were my name. She got out of the car and I watched her walk away.

By this time, I had 2 text messages from my husband telling me that my friend had called him and told him I was doing something crazy. The other one was telling me to turn the GPS on my phone on. TOO LATE!

I don’t know what she was running from.

I don’t know what she has ahead of her, although I cringe at the thought of her making it to a truck stop.

What I do know is that the Holy Spirit moved me. He asked me to step up and be a part of the plan. I am humbled that I was asked, but ashamed of the process it took for me to say yes. When it comes down to it, I’m a chicken! I obey out of fear not out of excitement. My thought process is this: Would I rather have a little discomfort now or untold pain later?” There will be punishment for disobedience either while we are here on this earth or when we meet Him face to face. 

I have to trust that He has this young lady’s life in His hands and that she will have a great story to tell someday. 

Thank you God for bringing this woman into my life for the hour that you did. She put a mirror in front of me, and I see that there are some things that need to change. I will call her blessing.

Adrian Kashporenko

SHAME, SHAMING, and BEING SHAMED

Ordinarily, I bounce along in life, having a series of wild and wacky and usually embarrassing things that happen to me that I can pass onto you in the context of developing a deeper and richer sex life.
But lately life has been teaching me about something more serious.  Something that causes one to stop, to ponder, to contemplate. Something that is extraordinarily uncomfortable to acknowledge. And yet something that, I believe, is at the heart of why so many people have such pain when talking about their sex lives.

My personal journey started when I was doing that aforementioned bouncing along and I ran smack-dab into a situation wherein I had caused pain to another. To be sure, this was not intentional on my part in any way, but intent did not mitigate the fact that I hurt someone.  I did.  And I felt awful for having caused them pain.

But their reaction to me – whether or not they intended it to be – was devastating.  I was shaken to my very core.  Suddenly my emotions were all over the map.

I cried. I raged. I had dialogues in my head wherein I called upon all my debate skills from law school and trounced them in public. But when all of this subsided, I wondered, “why is this affecting me so personally?” To be completely blunt, I had apologized to them for causing pain, so I could not figure out why I was still in emotional turmoil over this situation!

So, as is my habit when I find myself in unknown waters, I researched.  And to my surprise, my research led me to the concept of shame.

Dr. Brune Brown (a self-described researcher/story-teller), who has spent a decade researching “connection”, says that shame is the fear of disconnection. It is the silent, inner question that we all ask, “Is there something about me that if people see, I won’t be worthy of connection?” And in her brilliant book, The Artist Way, Julia Cameron defines the act of shaming as “the attempt to prevent a person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us.”

We all have things within us that we are deeply afraid to reveal to others. Dr. Brown asserts that all humans capable of empathy have shame and the less we talk about it, the more we have it. We all wear masks that hide the parts of us that we don’t want others to see.

It is my profession to poke behind the masks that people wear and peek into their innermost fears and doubts. I cannot count the number of couples I have met who appeared to all those around them to “have it together” and yet they were secretly meeting with me to discuss their sexless marriage, or the incompatibility of their sexual proclivities or the fact that they loved each other, but were no longer “in love”.

I have also met countless young couples, boasting that they would do just fine in their sex lives because they had done all the research on the quantitative and qualitative elements necessary to sustain a healthy relationship. Later, they creep back to me because, in their youthful zeal, they had failed to see that there are things that you very simply cannot anticipate through theory…only experience can truly test whether you can thrive. Relationships, simply put, are not academic.

But what happens when we say something or do something (intentionally or inadvertently) that rips the mask off of someone and exposes their shame?

Most people resort to blame. (Dr. Brown says the clinical definition of blame is “a way to discharge pain and discomfort.”) For if they can turn the argument around and make you look and feel bad – if they can shame you – then they will feel safe and secure once again with their mask firmly back in place. It turns the spotlight from shining on their insecurities to redirects the light onto you.  For, as we all know, the spotlight can be extremely uncomfortable.

Here is an example from my coaching practice. I met with a woman who had been married for decades and had decided that the sex life she had lived with was not what she wanted for the rest of her relationship. She had come to the place of needing a substantial change if she was going to stick around. After a series of conversations, her husband threw up his hands in disgust and said, “What is wrong with you? Sex has always been good for me!”

This woman, after years of silence, had expressed a desire to change their sex life, and his response was to cover his own shame of being unable to satisfy his wife by telling her that she was the problem. She had embarrassed him, and he responded by shaming her.

So how do you confront shame and blame in the bedroom?

It starts with you. Shift your focus from the other person and onto you. What did they say that made you feel vulnerable, exposed or insecure? Is there any truth to what they said? If so, what changes can you make in your behavior, your choices and your attitudes towards yourself and others? Once you have that figured out, get to work.

Do not deny the pain. Cameron has a profound way of addressing shame and blame. Instead of saying, “It doesn’t matter”, she instead says, “I will heal.” In this way, she encourages us not to deny the feelings that resulted from the blame, but rather to allow ourselves to move past them.

Be patient with others. Sometimes just understanding that we are all covering our own shame gives us patience and grace for others. Furthermore, when we refuse to accept the shame and refuse to strike back in blame, we disrupt the pattern and thereby grow in personal strength.

Be kind to yourself. Because she is a teacher of the creative, Cameron suggests that the very best way to move past shame is to be creative once again. Perhaps you do not consider yourself a creative person, so you think this is not a solution for you. The point, however, stands. Do something that reminds you of who you really are: have lunch with a friend who can kindly speak truth to you, read old letters from people who love and encourage you, or write in your journal about the things you believe to be true.
Move to a place of forgiveness. Eventually, when you are ready (do not rush this process just because it is the right thing to do!), begin the process of forgiveness. If you need pointers, read my article Freedom of Forgiveness.

Of course, putting several bullet points on paper makes the process seem simple. Let me to assure you that it is not. But it is a starting place. If you want to research a bit more, take 20 minutes and watch Dr. Brown’s presentation at TED here.

So what do you think?  Have you ever been shamed…have you ever reacted to someone by shaming them?  Your thought are always welcome!

ERYN-FAYE FRANS

CANADA'S PASSION COACH®

ERYNFAYE.COM