Extreme Virginity: From No Touching to No Sucking, and Everything In Between - Part 2
"Although everyone has their own rules, I always shake hands with men in professional settings and even if a fellow male student extends their hand, I always reciprocate," Hannah explains, "And crowded spaces aren't so much an issue, I mean the whole basis of the commandment is to avoid touch that is in 'the way of love' and these cases of incidental physical contact aren't so worrisome to me."
When it comes to hooking up, Abby, a Christian student at Baylor University, stays above the belt and out of the bedroom because she's worried about natural temptation. "No we are not making out on my bed, no my shirt is not coming off, I'm not straddling you, and you're not going to be laying on top of me or pinning me down," she says. "This may seem prude, but it's the seemingly small things like these that would personally tempt me into wanting and doing more. It's not that I wouldn't make out with a guy, but is a bed an appropriate place? No."
But what about ambiguous situations that blur the line between appropriate and sexually suggestive conduct?
Abby didn't always hold to such stringent standards of abstinence; she decided to make her virginity even more extreme after a hot hook-up with a summer fling.
"We were making out one day at his house, alone, and unfortunately it was on his bed. It was innocent at first, but then he got on top of me. His hands started to wander, and I wanted so badly to just blur the line a little and give in. But I had to shut him down and say no. I decided if I blurred the line that it would be even harder to say no to the next boundary. So we just sat there on his bed watching TV and kind of cuddling."
They broke up shortly after the incident, and now Abby makes sure that her hook-ups remain vertical.
Natalie*, one of Hannah's religious classmates at Columbia, decided to re-evaluate her decision to observe the laws of shomer negieh when she started dating her boyfriend, a Columbia law student, for the second time.
"There are so many Jewish laws that in the best of worlds I would keep, but realistically I just can't do it," Natalie says. Although she plans to remain a virgin, and is still uncomfortable with public displays of affection and physical contact with men other than her boyfriend, she explains, "I do know people who have made it until their wedding night and I really, really respect and admire them. But shomer negieh is completely against human nature and, for the moment, it's just not something I think I can keep. Plus a physical connection is so important in allowing for a strong, close relationship. "
