I’m thinking about hooking up with a guy for the sake of it. I’m just a spontaneous person. Is that bad?
If I could make an educated guess, I’d say that you’re looking for intimacy, not sex. There’s a huge difference, but women often realize that the hard way.
One gynecologist remarked:
“I’ve asked hundreds of teenage girls whether or not they liked having sex, and I can count on one hand those who said they did. Once they confront their smashed expectations, many teenagers feel that something is wrong–not with sex itself, but with themselves. So, they try harder to make sex ‘work,’ to make sex provide those things they think it should: intimacy, love, trust, acceptance, appreciation of their masculinity or femininity, relief from their loneliness. When it doesn’t work, millions of teenagers assume something is wrong with them, and turn their anger and hurt inward, resulting in depression. . . . We repeatedly return to certain behaviors such as sex, drugs, or drinking to get something that continually eludes us. When we feel empty, we return to a place in which we hope to find some relief or satisfaction of our desires or needs. Even when our behavior fails to satisfy those needs, we return again and again, trying harder to find what doesn’t exist.”[1]
You mentioned spontaneity, and I agree that it is fun to have that in a relationship. The problem is that most people think that they are being spontaneous by giving in to their hormones and emotional urges at the drop of a hat. This is often either lust or dependency, under the disguise of romance. But hooking up is very different than pure spontaneity.
Chastity doesn’t ruin the spontaneity of love. Rather, it purifies it from selfishness so that you can be free to love and be loved. It doesn’t eliminate your attractions, but orders them. Christopher West noted: “Authentic sexual attraction is always an attraction to the beauty of the other as a person, not merely as an object of selfish consumption. This is the enormous value of the virtue of chastity.”[i]
I think that the romantic spontaneity you have in mind is not what a hook up buddy is capable of giving you. Hooking up may feel romantic and exciting, but it comes at a price, which is the regret that emerges when you realize you settled for a counterfeit. You deserve better, and so do the men in your life. So keep your spontaneity—that’s a fun quality to have. But don’t compromise your purity.
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[1]. Meg Meeker, M.D., Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids (Washington, D.C.: Lifeline Press, 2002), 78.
[2]. Christopher West, Song of Heaven (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press), 47.
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