104: Should I Do It?

 Growing Sexually Mature - 4

 

Divided we fall.  In our last discussion, Growing Sexually Mature – part 3, this point was made:  For boys, the drive for sex is very strong.  For girls, the drive to be loved is very strong. 

This question was asked: Who is the driver to steer them in the direction toward healthy living?

 

Growing sexually mature requires a period of adjustment for the early adolescent: time to learn how to live with the physical changes of the body, time to reflect on how these changes make you feel, and a time to know who to reach out and talk to in order to cope within your particular society and its rules.  The maturity the early adolescent needs in order to make wise and healthy decisions regarding what to do with their sexuality is found in the presence of the sexually mature person or people in their lives. 

 

Oil Painting by 16 year-old Dimiitri Milan

Rosalyn is a quiet girl, but keenly intelligent.  She is at the top of her class and a high academic achiever.  She started her menstruation cycle at age 10, and, after reading everything about menarche and menses, and even menopause (out of curiosity to know what she should expect later), she feels she doesn’t have to talk to anyone about it.  After all, her books and internet research gave her enough to cope with in her mind.  Her mother and aunty are aware she has started her menses and are helpful in providing pads for her each month.

 

Acrylic Painting by Anna Rose Bain; Being Sixteen

Richard is an athlete who also loves playing electrical guitar in the school band.  He’s very active in student activities, including playing for the school choir. He also plays acoustic guitar for his church choir.  Once puberty kicked in, he began feeling “funny” about girls.  Before puberty, he could sit in class and joke with his female classmates without thinking about anything.  But lately, he sees ‘himself’ differently, too.  When he cracks jokes now, is it to get a laugh as usual, or is it to get attention from the cute girls?  He questions why his feelings about girls are changing, and why he feels a strong emotion for Rosalyn.  But he’s shrug it off, and goes out to play football with the guys.

Over time, Richard drew closer to Rosalyn, and their friendship grew: Their trust in each other to share secrets and to solve challenging personal problems also increased.  They felt that they didn’t need advice from any parent or older sexually mature person because they were “grown enough” to figure it out all by themselves.  As adolescents often do, they sneak around finding moments to be “intimate”—a little kiss here, a touch or a squeeze there.  Later on, Richard’s drive to have sex, and Rosalyn’s expectation to be loved met face-to-face. 

“I love you, Rosalyn.”  She looked in his eyes with her heart pumping its beats, yes!, yes!, yes!  “I love you, too, Richard.”  The embrace lasted for a long time, then Richard experienced an erection, as usual when he was around Rosalyn.  But this time, he found himself wanting to act on it.  Rosalyn felt his erection and became worried that Richard wanted to have sex with her, but she didn’t know how she felt about “doing it”.

“Doing it” is how the act of having sex is described.  Of course, there are other terms which vividly characterize the action of the penis inside the vagina until ejaculation climaxes the event.

We pause here to listen to the voice inside the head of Rosalyn: “Should I do it?”  Reproductive health involves the hormone of estrogen in girls to help our bodies prepare to produce the ovum (egg) needed to create a child and to carry that baby in the womb for about a nine-month gestational period.  Each month (approximately every 28 days), an egg is released from my ovaries and enters the Fallopian tube where it waits for one spermatozoa to fertilize it.  When no sperm is present, it flushes out of my body with the lining of the uterus (womb) for about a period of 4 to 5 days as menstruation.

“Is that all?” she asks her friend.  Later, she secretly convinces herself, “If I keep track of my 28-day cycle and know when this and that and the other will occur, I can have sex at this time without getting pregnant.  Then he will love me forever.”

We pause here to get inside the head of Richard: “Should I do it?”  Reproductive health involves the hormone of testosterone in boys to help us produce millions of sperm each day in my testicles.  The vas deferens and the prostate help in healthy erectile function and ejaculation.  Once acted upon, sex is easy, and I’m told by other guys that it feels really good.  I won’t get her pregnant because I will use a condom, then I will pull out of her before I ejaculate into the condom. He secretly convinces himself, “I will be a real man, and the guys will stop teasing me about being a virgin.”

Adolescents have the ability to reason and can identify the cause and effect of real life situations.  “Before I do this, what can happen?” is easy to answer in theory.  What is missing from their reasoning process is experience.  Growing sexually mature requires making right choices and handling the consequences (the effect) of every decision you make with what you do with your body sexually.

 

Breaking your virginity is a very serious matter.  Even if you live in a “pop” culture where a boy brags about how many “chicks” he has laid, or where a girl uses her sexuality to get boys into her bed, it still remains a matter of life to handle your virginity with utmost care.

Having sex is more than a physical activity.  For girls, sex creates a very emotional connection to the one entering your body.  You may hear or say, “I love you”, yet, at this stage of life (as a teenager), what do these words mean? The feelings you have are normal because your body is preparing you to have sex in order to reproduce (copulate).  Hence the word PREPARE.  It is not at this time for your body to PRODUCE a new life.  That new life is to be produced in the context of marriage. 

 

Do not live on the lie that it’s o.k. to have sex without being married.  Pre-marital sex creates a spiritual marriage that can last for a lifetime, even if later on you marry another person.  The one who breaks your virginity is attached to you spiritually even if he or she is no longer in your life.  That is why the Bible tells us that:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).  One flesh means the two bodies are united sexually as one unit now given permission to produce a new human being.  A human connection is not physical only.  We are body and soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23).  When one body sexually connects with another body, they share their soul (emotional) parts and their spiritual (godly or ungodly) parts (1 Corinthians 6:16).  Even when they separate, the one person still carries whatever soulful and spiritual “energy” that was transmitted by the sex partner.

When is it right to “do it”?  When a male becomes a man, he is able to leave his father and mother.  This means that he can manage his own life as a responsible adult which includes providing and maintaining a nurturing and comfortable home, a sufficient income, and the ability to love himself and his wife and children.  The female is to be joined to this able and responsible man as a wife.  Therefore, in the meantime, she must take time to develop her character in order to meet the challenges of living with this man in matrimony.  She must have the stamina to go through good times and tough times without breaking the relationship. So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate (Matthew 19:6).

 

Is it that God put Richard and Rosalyn together in a pre-marital relationship involving sexual activity?  Or is it the will of Richard and Rosalyn to join themselves together to satisfy emotional and sexual lust?  There are three kinds of “drivers” that can steer your life. The first is the ungodly will (or negative, unhealthy, evil influence) working inside the human heart which debases sex to mere physical pleasure to be enjoyed anywhere and in any ‘manner’ without thinking of its consequences (effects).  The second is the human will: This is the influence which speaks, “I” will do this because it brings “me” pleasure, it makes “me” feel good.  Human will is selfish and does not think about how our actions can hurt our own lives and the lives of others. The third is God’s will, or godly will, which wants only the highest and best outcome for your life. 

 

Do not blame God when you allow the first two drivers to steer your life and things go off course (wrong). We grieve our Creator when we make choices that do not involve seeking His will first.  We were made by Him, therefore, our bodies belong to Him. Do not believe the lie that your body belongs to you, so you can do whatever you want with it (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Richard is experiencing what is normal to all males who have reached puberty and so is Rosalyn.  However, this does not mean he must act upon these new urges or sensations rolling round inside the body. His maturity will be found when he is able to show his love to Rosalyn by declaring, “No.  Our virginity is very precious.  If we truly love each other, let us wait.”

 

© 2021 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved.  Published by The Light In Me Enterprise.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

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