THE BEAUTY OF VIRGINITY 1 Chapter 1: Why They Lost Their Virginity

Males, females, teenagers and young adults who lost their virginity before the right time, had reasons for losing this precious jewel. These reasons, at those times, sounded very reasonable and tenable to them, but over time, they have come to discover that there is no reason good enough for them to let go of their virginity when the timing is not right.

Some of these reasons will be examined below. As you go through them, make up your mind that you will not fall for any of these excuses from any member of the opposite s.e.x until you are sure that the timing is right and the personality is right.

EVERYONE IS DOING IT One major reason why most young adults lose their virginity is because they believe the lie told by their wayward friends that everyone around them has lost theirs. This is a blatant lie. The reason why they say this is because they want to make you feel like a lonely person fighting a lost battle.

Do not be deceived that you are the only person who has not yet lost yours. You are not alone. You are not fighting a lost battle. You are not a one-man-army. You are not the only person around who has not been deflowered yet.

Do not let anyone convince you otherwise. Virgins, either males or females, are not an endangered species. There are numerous people around, just like you, who are still as intact as G.o.d created them. There are billions of your age mates around the world, countless millions in your country, thousands in your state, and so many hundreds in your locality who still believe in what you believe in and will wait until the right time to do what has to be done.

It is a great deception to agree with them that all young adults are doing it. Even some very popular stars do not do it. Celine Dion kept her virginity till she married at 26. Jessica Simpson also stayed a virgin until she got married. She wore a purity ring which she received from her father, and she religiously kept her promise to him. Phoebe Lisa Kudrow, though always featured as wild, also remained single till she was 32, and she gave her husband her much preserved gift of her virginity on her wedding night. Andriana Lima married as a virgin at 27, and Taylor Swift as well. Your friends who are trying to convince you that being a virgin is a lack of opportunity need to come ask this globally famous star. Do not be deceived, either by them or by the media, not everyone is doing it.

Virgins are not loners. The fact that you have not met many people of your age group who are still completely intact does not mean that everybody around is eating the forbidden fruit. They are everywhere: young boys and young ladies, in your cla.s.sroom, in your school, in your church, in your neighborhood, they are everywhere around you.

The reason why you do not know them is the same reason why they do not know you. Everyone is shy to be proud of what naturally carries pride. This is the environment in which we have found ourselves. If all the virgins around: males and females, will have a common front, those who are disvirgined will hide their heads in shame. They will be too shocked to discover that, there are many more young adults who have kept themselves chaste and pure, than there are who are sleeping around shamelessly.

Virginity is not something to be ashamed of. Let no one despise you, being a virgin does not make you an object of pity, it is a thing to be celebrated. In fact, the reverse should be the order. The one who is not a virgin should be the object of sympathy for losing so quickly what should have been kept till the wedding night.

On the other hand, they may want to make you feel bad by saying that your spouse-to-be is already enjoying himself or herself out there, while you are here holding on to your purity. Do not feel cheated because of this. The good news is, since you have chosen to live your life the moral way, there are so many members of the opposite s.e.x out there who also have made this same decision. Someday, you will find one of such who will cherish and respect you for this decision. Then, your waiting will be worth it. It will not be for nothing.

You should not encourage yourself to engage in any act that is against your personal belief simply because someone told you that everyone is doing it. How did the person know that everyone is doing it? What research did he conduct? How many questionnaires did he send out? How many respondents replied him? How did he collate the results of the hypothesis before postulating his theory?

Do not let anyone deceive you by just generalizing untrue information. Everyone is not doing it. If it really looks like everyone is doing it in your locality, you are just being myopic.

Even if it is confirmed that everyone is truly doing it in your neighbourhood, you can stand alone. Be on the side of what is right. Let those who want to do it do it and you be the odd one out. Before you know it, others around you will see you as a good example to emulate and will join you, and you may soon become a leader to spearhead a new move in your neighbourhood.

HE CLAIMS TO LOVE ME AND I LOVE HIM TOO

So many young adults who do not know what love means always claim to love each other. All they know about love in their entire lives is what they read in a romantic novel, watched in a p.o.r.nographic movie or heard from their mates, and in each of these cases, the two love birds had to sleep together because they are in love.

The fact that you are in love with a person is not a ready license to make love with the person. Falling in love does not mean you are matured enough to handle a relationship or that you are ripe enough for s.e.x. Do not be fooled by love. Do not let your heart deceive you. There is a very thin line between love and infatuation, and it takes a very mature heart to know the boundary.

Ask yourself this sincere question, what does it mean to fall in love? If you give a sincere answer from your heart to this question, you will discover that loving someone practically has nothing to do with sleeping with them. If the two mean the same thing to you, then your reasoning has probably been corrupted by the wrong information you have been feeding on, and you will need a re-orientation.

s.e.x is not a casual one-night thing; it is much more than that. It involves genuine emotional, psychological, and physical attraction whose test of love is proven and confirmed on the wedding day.

IT IS A PROOF OF LOVE

Another common reason why most young adults lose their virginity is because they feel that s.e.x is a proof of love. It is common to hear those in intimate relationships with members of the opposite s.e.x say: "if you love me, then show it". And the only way they expect you to show it is by giving up your virginity and sleeping around with them. This sounds very selfish! This statement does not always only come from the masculine to the feminine gender. The world is so bad now that even the female in the relationship, at times, place much more s.e.xual demands on the males who have vowed to remain unmoved till the right time.

s.e.x is not the proof of love. It was never the proof of love before now and will never be in the ages to come. Who says s.e.x is anyway? Only those who desire to get through your laps at all cost, and they will tell any lie, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, just to make sure you allow them.

The reality of life is that you do not love someone because of what the person does. You love someone because of who the person is, regardless of what he or she does, or does not do. Basing the proof of love on what your partner can or cannot give is unrealistic. Love is not about what you can get from the other person, but what you can give out to the person. If all you are interested in is what you can get, then it is not love.

If your are in a relationship and your partner desires that you prove the genuineness of your love, and the only way demanded is s.e.x, then what is expected is not just a proof of love, but a show of your foolishness. Know this for sure; no one has ever succeeded in tying down another person with s.e.x. You may have a hold on the person for a while because he or she has access to the most intricate part of your body, but this will not last for long. He/she will soon get a better offer from someone else whenever he/she has had enough of you. This will happen because your relationship is outside marriage.

Please release such persons and let them go. No relationship is worth keeping, if the condition for its survival is to lay hold on your golden tulip. Do not sacrifice your virginity for love, it is not always worth it; such love is always temporal and you will soon be back to square one, no matter how much you try.

Whoever tells you again that s.e.x is a proof of love, ask him to say that to a prost.i.tute. He will be laughed to scorn. A prost.i.tute sleeps with numerous men on daily basis but has no emotional attachment to any of them. She forgets about each one the moment he is done and prepares herself for the next client. Sleeping with someone you are not married to is actually not the proof of love but the absence of it.

s.e.x is not a proof of love. Patience should be a better proof of love. If you are in a relationship and actually love your partner, you will be patient until the right time. If your partner also loves you, she will also not put you under any s.e.xual pressure until the right time. You both will be patient until the right time.

Patience and time always work together to prove things right or wrong. If you really love each other, time will prove it, because you will be patient for one another till the right time. So, patience is the real proof of love.

HELPING THE NEEDY/DESPERATE

Another related lie most young people believe is the urgent need for s.e.x. Most teenagers and young adults have fallen for this accidentally. The one who is more s.e.xually active of the duo can paint the impression of a desperado, as though something evil will happen to him or her if he does not have a member of the opposite s.e.x to mess around with at that very moment.

Statements that will arouse pity from the other party may constantly be used so as to gain emotional support. Things like, "Just this once and I won't disturb you again", "It is either now or never", "Why can not you be there for me when I need you most in my life". "I do not know what can happen to me if I do not have you now."

When you begin to hear statements like this, your natural reaction will be to want to help a friend who is desperately in need, especially if you do not want to lose the relationship. However, be careful, because these statements are just the beginning of a well thought out plan whose major aim is to achieve one singular purpose in your life, which is to ensure you lose your most guided possession, your V card.

The irony of it is even the fact that you sacrificed your virginity to appease the G.o.ds of their s.e.xual urges and the fact that you yielded when in a seemingly s.e.xually demanding moment, does not mean that they will always love you. You are only needed to cool their s.e.xual temper and satisfy their sensual urge for that moment, and, once your tenure is over, you will be discarded into the archives of their lives like a useless blood soaked sanitary pad.

s.e.x may be seen as the icing on the cake in a relationship, but it is not the real cake. Relationships need much more than s.e.x to survive. If there are issues in your relationship with your closest friend, the problem is not because s.e.x is not involved and the solution will not be sleeping together.

If two of you can sit down to talk about it or seek counsel from older ethical friends, your eyes may be opened to what the real problem is. Once this is tackled, you can relate closer without seeing each other's pants. However, if you think the problem is s.e.x, and both of you open your laps to each other, the problem will still surface over time, and then the inevitable will happen; you will ultimately lose your closest friend. Then you would have lost two major things in your life, your virginity and your friend.

IT WILL HELP YOU KNOW YOURSELF

Some teenagers erroneously believe that losing their virginity at a very early age in life will help them to get in touch with themselves. They believe that it will help them to know or understand themselves well enough.

This is not true. This only helps them activate the pa.s.sive s.e.xual stimuli in them, thereby making them desire more of such romantic experiences, and the result is exposure to more s.e.xual dangers.

These s.e.xual stimuli need not get activated until they are well matured and ready for use. It is not about its availability for use, it will always be available, but it is more importantly about its readiness for use, and this readiness, by G.o.d's standard, is confirmed by one thing - marriage.

It is just like having a brand new sim card pack without a phone. A wise man waits patiently until he has a cell phone he can call his own before activating it. A foolish man looks for any available phone around, borrows it for a minute, and activates it without having a phone of his own.

Once this mistake is done, he needs to keep looking for people around whose phones he can always readily borrow for a minute so as to keep checking his text messages and keep recharging to avoid being disconnected from the network. The constant insertion and removal of the sim card wears off the microchip on the sim and it, in no time, will need a replacement. This is because it was not designed to serve multiple phones at the same time.

This is the same way s.e.x is. Once you taste the forbidden fruit, you will always be attracted to it each time an opportunity presents itself to have a taste of it again. It takes greater discipline and determination to stay without it thereafter, than is needed to stay without it if you are still untouched. This is why it is called the forbidden fruit when tasted before the right time.

Come to think of it, it is so surprising what people are willing to believe. How on earth will losing your virginity help you to know yourself? Will it help you to discover your purpose in life? Will it help you to discover your academic ability? Will it help you to discover your gifts and talents? The answers to these are obvious. Losing your virginity, be you a male or a female, has nothing to do with the discovery of yourself! The only part of you it will open your eyes to is your s.e.xuality; it will in no way help you to discover any real and reasonable thing about your life.

If you really desire to know yourself, losing your virginity is not an option. You can meet a counsellor around you who will take you through a self-discovery course, or get a copy of my book MAKE MONEY WHILE IN SCHOOL, it will help you a great deal.

IT IS OLD SCHOOL Another reason which immoral teenagers and youths give to deceive their more sane fellows into losing their virginity is that virginity is no longer fashionable. They claim it used to be fashionable in the olden days, but that now, no one gives a d.a.m.n.

This is far from the truth. Virginity is still as fashionable as it has always been. It has not and will not lose its dignity. People still gives lots of respect to young boys and girls who still protect their G.o.d-given s.e.xuality. Even those who have lost theirs still respect them a lot, although they will not admit it publicly.

See it in this light: whatever is morally right can never become unfashionable. It used to be morally right not to steal in the olden days; it is still morally right today. It used to be morally right not to tell lies in the olden days; it is still morally right today. It used to be morally right to live a chaste life in the olden days; it is still morally right today.

Do not believe the lies you hear. Protecting your virginity is not "old school". Just as bathing cannot clean the spots on a leopard's skin, so also today's modernization cannot re-label what was morally good in the yesteryears.

Male or female, virginity is still very relevant in our age and time, just as it used to be generations before. No matter how corrupt and immoral the society may grow, there will never be a time when it no longer will be fashionable.

THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT VIRGINITY

This is also another lie that is being spread by those who have lost theirs so that others who are still keeping theirs can lose it cheaply. Do not buy their lies.

Why is so much noise being made about it if there is nothing special about keeping your virginity? Have you ever given this a thought? The kind of attention it generates each time it is being discussed, the kind of contribution people make to support their claims and puncture the arguments of others, the pa.s.sion with which all concerned defend their stands and try to win other people to their side, all of these show that there is something really special about it. If there is really nothing special about it, why is everybody this concerned?

You will be surprised to discover that those who reduce its importance are those who lost theirs before time. They have become so used, overused, abused, and misused that they no longer appreciate its speciality. Those who gave theirs to the right persons at the right time will advice that you wait, not just for the right person alone, but also for the right moment.

If there is nothing special about it, then let those who are canva.s.sing that others lose theirs keep their opinion to themselves.

Below are some specialities about virginity:

1. The most s.e.xually active organs are hidden in the most private parts of the body, jealously guarded and kept by the Master designer of the body structure.

2. For the females, it also comes with a Warranty Seal. Like all brand new packages, imagine written in small invisible letters on it, "warranty void if seal is broken". This Warranty Seal is called The Hymen. No wonder, in some places, traditionally, once it is broken before the wedding night, the dowry is returned to the groom's family.

3. No one likes to eat other people's left over. No one likes to marry one who has been promiscuous. Given a choice, every sensible young lad will desire to marry a decent young lady, just like every sensible young lady will desire to marry a decent young lad.

4. Losing your virginity is a one-time experience and its best shared with one who will appreciate it for life.

5. It is the only wedding gift you can give to your spouse on your wedding night that no other can give to him/her on that special occasion.

There are so many special things about virginity that time and s.p.a.ce will not accommodate in just one book.

When next someone tells you there is nothing special about being a virgin, rather than let those words get at you and make you withdraw into your sh.e.l.l like a snail threatened by the presence of a snake, be bold enough to look at the person eyeball to eyeball and say, "please keep your opinion to yourself, I am not interested in what you think about my state."

If you can summon enough courage to say this to two or more friends who are pop nosing into your life to ensure you become like they are, they will learn to keep away from you, and this will build your confidence the more.

THE PLEASURE OF THE MOMENT

Some people lost their virginity for the pleasure of the moment. They got carried away in a moment of ecstasy and so could not control their nerves until the glory of their s.e.xuality was taken away from them. If most of these ones will, sincerely, make a genuine confession from their hearts to you, you will discover that they later regret their actions. They secretly wish it never happened because that day marked an irreversible turning point in their lives. What they thought was a momentary pleasure later became an eternal shame that cannot be wished away.

A momentary pleasure that carries with it perpetual displeasure is no pleasure at all. You must make a choice between instant pleasure that is brief and sweet, but carries with it a long-lasting torment, and a chaste life now that will be rewarded with a long-lasting life of pleasure. The choice is yours.

It is naturally human not to want to wait for the right time to enjoy the pleasures that rightly belong to us. This is because we want to feel what our mates are feeling; we want to belong; we want to be numbered among the happening guys/girls around. Man will rather enjoy today and suffer tomorrow than deprive himself of the unripe forbidden fruit today so that he can have a brighter and more colorful fruit tomorrow. The wise always wait. Only the foolish fall into such temptations!

It has been argued that of all pleasurable moments, the act of lovemaking is the peak of human excitements and climaxes his enjoyable experiences. This, however, is when done within the confinement allowed by the One whom it originated from. When done outside this confinement, it brings guilt, shame, hatred, regrets, bitterness, and self-pity.

There is nothing wrong with s.e.x. It is pleasurable. G.o.d made it to be enjoyed. However, there is everything wrong with it when it is not done at the right time. Your virginity is your most cherished possession and you sure do not want to lose it to someone who does not cherish or respect you. Learn to wait. The brief pleasure of the moment is nothing compared to the eternal enjoyment of marital bliss. Do not allow immediate gratification to hinder your future joy.

Did you ever steal meat from the pot while it was still cooking? The moment the hot piece of meat lands in your mouth, rather than enjoy every bite of it, it comes with some sharp pains, burns your tongue and gives you blisters in your mouth. It leaves you with more pain than pleasure. The stolen piece of meat has to be swallowed without being well eaten. This haste denies one the maximal pleasure one would have derived from the stolen piece of meat if it had been eaten in the presence of all, on a dining table. The experience would have surely been better if you had waited until the meat was served at the right time.

This is the reason why every young adult is encouraged to wait for the right time, and the right person to catch the right pleasure. There are other forms of pleasure you can still catch now that are not s.e.xually related, and that will not make it look as though you are missing the hot piece of meat which your mates are stealing from the cooking pot.

YOU MISS THE FUN

Another excuse is that holding on to your virginity will make you miss out on all the fun your mates are catching now. This also is not true. Catching fun is not all about having s.e.x. The synonym for s.e.x has never been and will never be fun.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

The truth is that you are not being short-changed by holding onto your virginity. Preserving your virginity does not mean you are cheating yourself out of life's greatest pleasures, but it could mean preserving yourself from one of life's greatest calamities, which is, giving your most priced possession to one who will not value it.

You can still catch the best of fun without having to undertake any s.e.xual exploration. For example, you can dress and still look trendy without looking sensual. You can have multiple friends among members of the opposite s.e.x without getting too close for comfort with any of them in particular. You can fill your time with outdoor sports, indoor games, table games, or computer games without abusing your body. You can develop a hidden talent or potential.

You miss no fun being a virgin; the opposite is a lie to deceive you. s.e.x is not all the fun there is in life. Young adults who got themselves into relationships because of the pleasures of s.e.x always find out, though too late, that the real fun in life is discovering what destiny you are designed to fulfil and doing your best to fulfil it. This is the real fun life has to offer.

For your mates who think it is all about s.e.x, you need not go out of your way to convince them otherwise. The s.e.xual fantasies will soon wane and their eyes will soon be clear. Then, it will be too late. Hoping to catch fun through s.e.x outside marriage is an unreasonable idea that generates unrealistic expectations. These always lead to high-level frustrations and unrivalled disappointments on the long run.

TO GAIN EXPERIENCE IN PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE

Another argument is experience or s.e.xual compatibility. People claim they need the experience in order to prepare them ahead for the expectations of marriage. Their defence is that people who are new at a thing are really bad at it the first time. So they need to learn how to be better at it before the wedding night so that they will not be seen as learners or first-timers on the appointed day.

This also is not true. You need no prior experience to become better with regard to this issue. G.o.d did not create human beings to window shop for s.e.xual experiences through erotic escapades. Indeed, if what you really desire is experience, maybe you should not only consider losing your virginity alone. You should go a step further and become a professional s.e.x hawker, a wh.o.r.e, a s.l.u.t, or a prost.i.tute, since that is the only way to get all of the 'needed experience.'

There are several couples who married as virgins and no one ever heard them quarrelling with one another on their wedding nights simply because they did not know what to do with themselves. Some things in life are not taught, they are learnt naturally by intuition. No one teaches a day old baby how to suck the breast, he just happens to know it by instinct. It is not meant to be taught.

So it is with s.e.x once you are married. You are a better married man/woman without the experiences that requires physical engagement with another before marriage. Trying to get these prior experiences will only make you live a very loose life, since there is no single s.e.x-lecturer who will offer to give you all you need to know about it.

If your fear is connected to having s.e.xual satisfaction in marriage, then put your mind at rest. All the experience you will ever need will come by intuition at the right time. Have you ever bothered to ask yourself who taught Adam and Eve how to go about it on their first night together, since they were the first couple on earth and had no p.o.r.nographic video to watch or bedmates to experiment with? Still, they did it right. If they did not, they would not have given birth to Cain and Abel.

Sourcing for experience will do you more harm than good. This is because man was not created to have any experience in this regard. s.e.xual experience, if finally gotten, will make you place an unrealistic demand on your spouse, who may not have had all of the s.e.xual experiences you have had. This may lead to lack of fulfilment in the s.e.xual relationship of a couple, and may become the foundation for infidelity in the marriage.

If both parties in a marriage relationship keep themselves chaste before their wedding night, the peak of their expectations will be the best that each of them has to offer, both having no prior experience to compare the other with. Each party accepts what the other has to offer as the standard of all expectations. However, if one party has had a load of experiences with a couple of persons before marriage, there already exist benchmarks of expectations, which if not met, may lead to dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction will be as a result of an unjust and biased comparison of the partner with previous s.e.x-mates. This will create an urge which may later develop into s.e.xual covetousness, and ultimately marital unfaithfulness. This is the major reason for divorce in marriages today.

Premarital s.e.x prepares no one in advance for a happy s.e.xual life in marriage. It only gives a temporary sensual pleasure that the parties may misconstrue to be real love, thereby blinding them to the real situation of the relationship. This is why people say 'love is blind, but marriage is an eye opener'.

If your headache is s.e.xual compatibility, what makes you think that if you are compatible today, you still will be compatible in five, or ten, or twenty years' to come? The foundation for s.e.xual happiness in marriage is trust, faithfulness, constant communication between the parties, contentment with what is available, and, fear of G.o.d.

FEAR OF HEALTH COMPLICATION

It is also commonly broadcasted in some quarters that when a lady does not lose her virginity or break her hymen early in life, it increases her chances of encountering some health challenges later in life. Some people say it exposes her to fibroid and some others claim that it makes child delivery difficult, while some others say it affects her cycle of menstruation and makes it a painful experience.

There is no truth in any of these. Keeping your virginity does not make you susceptible to diseases.

Fibroid has no relationship with how early or late you start s.e.xual activity. All of these are myths told by s.e.x-hungry men just to make you bow to their s.e.xual demands. In fact, the opposite is true; there are no health advantages to being s.e.xually active early in life. Early engagement in s.e.xual activity can expose you to many health problems.

All these fabrications are just fables that cannot be proven both medically and scientifically. They are lies to make some people lose their virginity. You do not experience any negative health complication as a result of the preservation of your virginity. On the other hand, it is those who lose theirs early in life that are likely to face some health complications. These health complications are discussed in a later chapter.

So, whenever someone around you mentions any of these health challenges that they acclaim either masculine or feminine virgins go through, it will just be obvious to you how ignorant such a person is.

IT IS NOT AS PAINFUL AS THEY SAY IT IS

Your devourer, the one who intends to steal your virginity, may promise you that it won't hurt you. He may claim to be so good at it that he could handle you in such a way that your first experience will be painless and enjoyable. This may be true, and it may also not be true, depending on your physiological composition. Ladies may experience some pains in their first episode while the guys may feel no physical discomfort.

However, the issue is not whether or not it hurts but whether or not it is right. This statement is meant to distract you from the main issue, which is the rightness of the action in question. The question is not about the level of pain you will feel once the action is in progress, but it is about whether you should engage in the action or not in the first place.

Most people who claim it does not hurt think of the physical pain alone. They are always quick to a.s.sume that since s.e.x is a physical action, the extent of damage can only be quantified in the physical. But s.e.x goes beyond the physical into the emotions and, somehow, affects the spiritual. The physical pain may look insignificant, but the emotional pain is much greater.

The duration of this pain is also of significant note. The physical pain is instant and heals in a few days, but the emotional pain hardly gets healed for life.

s.p.a.ce here will not be limited to mention the pains. Some of these pains are discussed extensively in the following chapter.

The truth is, for a girl/lady, the first experience is usually painful; whether you do it now or later. The best is to do it under the confinements of marriage where your partner can cherish the pain. You will even find it pleasurable to experience the pain for and with your husband. You cannot imagine how wonderful it is.

PARENTAL PRESSURE

One reason why some people get disvirgined before marriage is because of pressure from either their own family or that of the spouse in order to test their reproductive ability before the wedding day. This is done for fear that one party may not be able to reproduce or have a child after marriage.

Genuine as this excuse may sound, it is not even enough excuse to lose your virginity. If the other party is so emphatic about this, then it is obvious that what he wants is a child, not you. If there is genuine love between the two parties, child or no child, the love you both share will be untainted.

Do not allow yourself to be bought over by this excuse. There are people who were pregnant before marriage but lost it immediately after, and have not gotten another since then. There are numerous others who trusted G.o.d and kept their purity until marriage and G.o.d honoured their faith.

If you trust G.o.d, who alone can enable pregnancy and see it through to delivery time, you will do things the way He desires them to be done. If you decide to neglect G.o.d and do it your own way today in order to please some family members, remember someday, you will still need Him at the end of the journey.

PROMISE OF MARRIAGE

One other common excuse is the promise of marriage. Teenagers and youths are quick to say, "… Since we have promised to marry each other, why can not we sleep with each another". "… If you are sure you are reserving yourself for me, why can not I have you now".

This is another high level of deception. What makes you think that the other party will keep to this promise? He is human, and human beings change! There have been reports of cases of young adults who made marital promises to each other but failed to keep their words later on in life. There are even cases of those who took it a step further and covenanted with one another to marry each other in the future but still failed to keep to the covenant. So, be careful.

Promise of marriage from a friend is not enough to give your self to him/her. People change with time. Your closest friend today may not be your closest friend tomorrow, and if you let him or her have today what you cannot take back tomorrow, you will be at the losing end if the unexpected eventually happens.

Only G.o.d makes promises that do not fail. People will always fail. So, please keep your virginity. Do not allow any daughter of Belial or son of Beelzebub use sweet words to deny you what you have jealously guarded for years. Always put the statement in the right perspective. You are not reserving yourself for the boy or the girl in your life now; you are reserving yourself for the man or woman who will be lucky enough to be by your bed side on your wedding night. If he or she desires to be that lucky man or woman, (s)he will hold onto the promise and wait till the right time. If not, the right man who will wait will come at the right time.

Besides being a type of deception, it is also a show of shallow reasoning. If the other party can afford to keep to the promise, what makes you think you will want to keep to it in the nearest future? What if you meet another person who has better qualities than this present one and you become disinterested in this present offer?

You cannot begin to determine some vital things about the far future at this early stage. You do not even know all about yourself yet. You do not know if your preferences and your tastes tomorrow will be different from what they are now. Focus more on what is important in your life now. Your academics, your talents, your career, your relationship with G.o.d, and your immediate family members are issues you should devote more time to now, and not thoughts about marriage, when you still have close to a decade before you are really ready for it.

THREATS TO QUIT IF I DO NOT

It is commonplace to find one party in an intimate friendship threatening to quit the relationship simply because the other party is not cooperating to satisfy the other's l.u.s.tful desires. This should not be a problem.

The first thing to note here is that it does not make much sense to displease yourself in order to please someone who cannot displease himself to please you. If he/she is really committed to you, and is very much interested in you, he/she will stay with you, and will wait for you until you are ready for s.e.xual acts. If he/she is threatening to quit, both parties will be the better for it. Just as the popular saying, winners do not quit, it simply means he is not your winner. Good riddance to bad rubbish they say. Whoever cannot wait until you are ready for it should vanish.

If you are a female and you think obliging a male his request for s.e.x will make the relationship stronger, you will need to have a rethink. No lady has ever been able to tie a man to her ap.r.o.n with s.e.x. If, by whatever means, you erroneously thinks you have succeeded in imprisoning the man in your s.e.x cage, you will soon find out that this cage has no latch and that the man can only remain there for as long as he chooses to. At any time, he can fly out and try other cages around.

Pre-marital s.e.x is deceptive. It gets you more confused than you really are. It makes you think you are closer than you actually are, and makes you feel you love the person much more than you really do. It beclouds your sense of reasoning and makes you think that the person is the best thing that has ever happened to you. It will be too late for you when you finally discover that you have not succeeded in caging the other person but have actually caged yourself.

Whoever wants to walk out of a relationship should be allowed to, and should not be forced to stay, especially if they think that the only thing that can keep them is s.e.x. Do not feel bad that you have to lose such a person. If your friend decides to jilt you because you refuse to have s.e.x, that will be a good way to quit the relationship. It means he never really loved you in the first place. He just wanted someone to use and dump, and since you are not available to be used, you can as well be dumped in search of an easier catch.

If you are in a courtship that is intended to lead to marriage and your partner constantly troubles you, demanding for s.e.x, then you should know that that partner is a SID (s.e.xually Impatient Dog). You may see nothing wrong with this now, but wait till both of you are married and one party has to travel for a few weeks, it is then you will know that you are in the wrong hands.

IF IT IS AGAINST YOUR BELIEF, WE WILL ASK FOR FORGIVENESS OF SIN

This is another common statement from young adults who do not have the fear of G.o.d again. This is like taking G.o.d for granted. Why will you wilfully commit sin and expect G.o.d to cheerfully forgive you?

Once you identify an action as sinful, it is better not to engage in it than to console yourself with the fact that you can ask for forgiveness of sin. Intentionally deciding to sin with the confidence of asking for forgiveness after the sin is committed is not a good Christian spirit.

Anything can happen! What if you do not live long enough to ask for the forgiveness? What if you ask for forgiveness and you are denied? What if something bad happens during the action, say, you contact a s.e.xually transmitted disease? Though G.o.d may forgive your sins, but you will still have to live the rest of your life with the consequence of your actions.

Do not let anyone cause you to go beyond your boundary and step on G.o.d's toes because of the few minutes of l.u.s.tful enjoyment they desire. Hold on to your faith irrespective of what they say. It is better to be on G.o.d's side, than to be in His black book.

n.o.bODY WILL KNOW IF WE DO IT

Another way to lure you to bed is the promise of secrecy. "I will keep it secret" "I won't tell anyone about it" the other party seems to say, as though the issue is about who knows and who does not.

Things should be put in the right perspective. If the action is wrong, why do it in the first place? What you do not want people to know, you do not engage in. What you think is a secret between the two of you may become open knowledge to the whole community someday. That is, if they do not know about it that same day and simply stay silent since it is supposed to be a secret.

All ladies need to know this: the only man who should be given the singular honour to have a carnal knowledge of you in the privacy of his room is the one who will publicly put a ring on your middle finger in the presence of your parents, and he is not allowed to do the former until he has done the latter.

Do not be encouraged to do what is wrong because of the promise of secrecy. Whether it is done in the public glare or in the privacy of a friend's room, or somewhere hidden, what is wrong is wrong and should not be done at all. Even if you succeed in keeping it a secret from all men for life, there is Someone who sees all the intents of a man's heart and knows what is done in secret; He will reward you accordingly. So, be careful what you do in secret.

CONCLUSION Young adults should be made to understand that s.e.x alone does not make a relationship stronger. Let no one deceive you by advising you to take your friendship or your relationship to the next level. The next level is not the same level as the s.e.x level. Let your understanding be opened. Widen your horizon and come to terms with the truth and reality.

These are just some of the reasons some cool-headed young adults with good upbringing and moral values were given by their 'trusted intimate friends' and they bought into it, only to regret it for life. Be careful who you trust; the devil was once an angel.

You also will need to be very careful about what you believe from the opposite s.e.x.