Sexual transgressions worth mentioning.

My roommate Gabe has been up to no good. Having served my mission with him I knew he was a hopeless romantic. I guessed that the ladies would like him. I never fully grasped how aggressive he was in relationships until I lived with him. I noted yesterday that Gabe did not partake of the sacrament. Late last night after watching some Adult Swim I asked Gabe how things were going with his latest squeeze.

Gabe's girls name is Taren. She's a red head and seems pretty sexually charged. Honestly, I haven't had too many conversations with her because Gabe keeps her to himself. Gabe told me, "Things have gotten a little hot and heavy lately." I said, "How hot and heavy?" Gabe smiled nervously and said, "Well, I won't be taking the sacrament for a while. Let's put it that way." I looked at him. Did he really think he could leave it there? Did he forget when we were on our mission and we had 'past transgression nights' where we would describe in great detail all the bad things we had done?

I said, "Dude, this is me you're talking to. Why don't you put it in a way that I'm going to know exactly what happened?" He looked at me sullenly and said, "It's bad." I replied, "How bad?" Gabe replied, "Like... like a ten." I almost yelled, "A ten???" He looked at the ground. I continued, "Dude, are you telling me Taren's got your V-card?" Gabe looked shocked, "No, NO! Not that bad. Geez." I laughed and said, "Isn't 10 the highest? How high up does this scale go?" Gabe said, "Um yeah I didn't know there was a real scale, but I guess if there was and what I did was a ten then it would go up to, like, 14." I laughed and said, "I'm obviously not very experienced because I thought there were only three bad things you could even do, and you're saying there are 14." Gabe and I stopped talking about a scale and he went on to tell me what actually happened between he and Taren.

From time to time, even with us Mormon bachelors there are sins committed that we generally don't talk about on the blog because we want to keep things appropriate. We don't want to write things in bad taste or that might make Heavenly Father shake his heavenly head. At the same time these are real things that happen to real people. To avoid discussing them altogether seems like we're pretending they don't happen. That doesn't help anyone, not that that is this blogs sole purpose or anything, but helping has become an "originally unintended" side effect.

Part of why I write is to shed light on the reality of being a twenty something male who also happens to be Mormon. Though Mormons are taught not to break the Law of Chastity and try their very best not to break the Law of Chastity that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does happen, and dealing with it and overcoming issues of chastity are part of the process of learning and growing.

So after relaying my talk with Gabe to Calvin, to try to keep in line with being tasteful and still being true to the truth, we have devised another scale to talk about chastity transgressions. We will use this going forward on the blog to discuss what, if any, sexual transgressions are worth mentioning.

How bad is bad? Here is what the "For The Strength Of Youth Pamphlet" says:

Before marriage, do not do anything to arouse the powerful emotions that must be expressed only in marriage. Do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not allow anyone to do that with you. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body. In cultures where dating or courting is acceptable, always treat your date with respect, never as an object to be used for your lustful desires. Stay in areas of safety where you can easily control your physical feelings. Do not participate in talk or activities that arouse sexual feelings.

It has been a couple months since I have read through this...

Originally I had planned on citing that this pamphlet was really only targeting "The Youth" which means 12-18 year olds. Surely, I thought, we 23 year old returned missionaries live by a higher law where "[lying] on top of another person" is a necessary evil required in finding a spouse. The "For The Strength of Young - Single Adults" must surely have a different set of rules. Well I think it's safe to say the above copied and pasted paragraph is pretty clear. Basically if you whisper to a member of the opposite sex too close to their ear you are crossing the line.

It's true if Gabe and Taren were following the FTSOYP guidelines they definitely wouldn't be passing along the Sacrament tray.

The sad reality is, however, that 20-somethings are constantly arousing the powerful emotions that must only be expressed in marriage. We should all strive to be more chaste.

Now that I have spent a couple of paragraphs covering what we all know we should be doing, I'm going to now talk about the scale that Calvin and I came up with to illustrate what transgressions go on among our peers, and (heaven forbid) someday Calvin (because I, of course, would never break the Law of Chastity) so that we can write about it on our blog without getting into the juicy details.

We chose, again, to do a 1-10 scale because, well, we can't always be creative. With the FTSOYP as our guide to what is "bad" we came up with the following:

We call it the N.O.T.I. scale... or the Nasty or Otherwise Transgressional Infractions (pronounced "Naughty") Example of use:

CALVIN: So... did you score?
JAKE: Yes.
CALVIN: N.O.T.I.?
JAKE: 4
CALVIN: N.O.T.I. 4 huh? That's pretty good for a 2nd date.

I am trying to be careful about the words I use so as to not offend while still illustrating what I hope this list helps me to never have to illustrate with more than one of these numbers.

1. Unpassionate kissing
2. Passionate Kissing
   
3. Vertical Make-out
   
4. Horizontal Make-out
5. Necking
6. Light Petting
7. Dry Humping
8. Heavy Petting
9. Oral Sex
10. Intercourse

If, for some reason, you're unclear as to what each of these things are, feel free to click here for a more detailed and slightly inappropriate list of definitions.

Again, I am not condoning any of these activities. In fact I would suggest that everything above a 5 needs to stop right now and probably wouldn't hurt to discuss with your bishop. I further submit that everything above a 2 leads to things beyond a 5 so be very careful and avoid them at all costs! I know I do.

Oh, and I basically wrote this whole thing up to tell you that Gabe and Taren were N.O.T.I. 8... tsk tsk. I hope the repentance process isn't too hard on them.

Jake