Setting (And Keeping!) Your Standards (Part II)
Dating Series, Part 6

Introduction

(For overhead outline of this lesson, click HERE.)

Review: Last week we began talking about setting and keeping standards, in a world that's pressuring you into sex. We explored three principles to help us keep out of sexual trouble.

• Remember the Consequences (Ask them, "What consequences?" - Potential pregnancy, STD's, ruined relationships, etc.)
• Remember, You're Not Alone (Ask, "What did we mean by this?) If the people you hang around all brag about sexual exploits, don't get the feeling you're weird for saying "no" to sex. Nationwide, 16 year old girls [for example] who are having sex are very much in the minority.)
• Face the Motives (Especially girls, beware of guys who speak of love and push for sex. More likely, his motives have nothing to do with love. Remember the survey?)

These three insights help provide motivation to say "No!" to premarital sex. But sometimes we need more than motivation.

Some of you know the temptation. You've been there. You've already gone too far. Now you desperately want to know how to keep from falling again.

Others of you are still virgins, but have gotten proud and think you're too smart to fall for it. Listen, if you were put in the same situations as some of your friends have faced, you could have fallen just as easily. No matter who you are, if you fail to take some wise precautions and set some objective standards, you could be living with a serious STD or be pregnant within the next year.

Sometimes we need more than motivation. We need practical how to's. This week, the how to's.

I. Set Your Standard

How far physically are you willing to go? Many of you have probably never set a specific standard short of going all the way. As we talk of setting standards, your temptation will be to set your standard as low as you can get away with. But here are some good reasons to set your standards high:

• If you set standards too low, you can light a fuse that's hard to put out. Don't arouse a passion that you can't satisfy without lowering your standard. While holding a hand or a respectful kiss could be justified as a way to express love and affection, heavy petting (such as touching breasts) move past expressing love and appreciation. Nor does heavy petting satisfy. Rather, it seems more designed to move you, sometimes almost uncontrollably, toward sexual intercourse. Heavy petting doesn't satisfy our passions as much as leave us longing for the next step.
  
• Concentration on the physical can blur your real feelings for a person.

Illustration: Jim, a high school student, was dating a girl who'd left town for a few days. "Wow, do I miss her," he constantly thought. But then he reflected more deeply. "What do I miss about her?" It wasn't sharing a good conversation or sharing their hearts. It was sharing their lips! Jim realized that their focus on the physical had blurred his ability to see her as a person, and to discern whether or not he truly loved her. He didn't miss her so much as he missed her lips. And if you haven't noticed, lots of girls have lips!

Ultimately, you have to choose your own standard of how far you're willing to go. 

Here are some examples of standards others have set:

• "Don't unzip. Don't unbutton. Don't pull up. Don't pull down. Keep your hands to yourself. Keep your tongue in your own mouth!"
• "We will not kiss until we are engaged."
• "I'll kiss, but only a kiss of respect (quick, short, and meaningful) rather than a kiss of passion."
• "I'll give a kiss of respect on a first date and longer kisses if we continue dating. I won't go any further than that till I'm married."

Ideas for setting your own standards:

• Treat every person the way you would want someone else to be treating your future mate.
• To keep you from the temptation to set your standards as low as you think you can get away with, imagine this. You have a 15 year old sister who has come to you for advice as to how far she should be willing to go with her boyfriend. What would you tell her? Why should your standard be any lower than the one you advise for her?
• Consider your spiritual convictions. What would your pastor, priest or religious tradition advise? 
• Get input from your parents.

The Challenge: I challenge you to mentally set a standard right now. I'm not setting if for you. It's your decision, your standard. Forget how far you've been in the past. With what you know now, where will you draw the line from now on? 

II. Take Some Wise Advice. 

Brainstorm! Divide into groups of five and ask each group to appoint a secretary to record their ideas. 

Imagine that you have a 14-year-old brother who has come to you with a problem. He has fallen into sex more than once and is getting a little scared. He knows that at this rate he'll end up getting someone pregnant or getting an STD.  He wants to stop, but keeps blowing it. How would you advise him to keep from falling into sex? (When the discussions die down, ask the secretaries to report their ideas to the class. Write them on the board.)

If you have a hard time resisting sexual temptation, you're not alone. For thousands of years, we know that even many of the strongest-willed, successful people of all time have struggled with sexual temptation. Let's get some input from others who can teach us from their successes and failures. How can we resist sexual temptation?

A. Set Your Standards Before You're Swept Away in the Emotion of the Moment. 

Lying on a couch with your girlfriend, alone in your home, is no time to set your standards. I challenge you to go home tonight and in the privacy of your bedroom, think rethink the standard you set today. 

B. Beware of "The Law of Diminishing Returns." 

Popular speaker/author Josh McDowell well stresses that once you reach a new level of intimacy, the old level may bring very little fulfillment. Think about it. The first time a guy hold hands with or puts his arm around a girl, he acts super cool on the outside, but inside his heart is racing and he is shouting "YEEEEE HAAAAA." 

Idea: Sit in a chair with an empty chair beside you. You are on your first date ever at a movie theater.  You want to put your arm around your date inconspicuously, so you act like you are yawning. Once your arm is there, you don't dare move it, even though your arm is in deep pain due to the awkward position. Simply touching her arm sends a sensation through your body that you never thought possible. 

You give her a light, respectful kiss at the end of the date. That too sends a wave of emotional shockwaves through your body. What a thrill! 

Next Friday, both of you go for a walk together in a park. You enjoy chatting about school, music, the past, the future - it's such a thrill to just talk and get to know each other! As you're walking, you "accidentally" bump hands and hold on for the rest of the walk. The warmth and the sensation is unequalled. 

Over the following weeks, you proceed into heavy kissing. It's greated with a now-familiar rush of hormones and goose bumps. But unnoticed to many couples, with the physical progression, something else important is often lost - the thrill of the "little things."  Holding hands no longer satisfies. Time together is spent smooching rather than communication. "The Law of Diminishing Returns" has set in.  And some never recover.

My point? Keep the innocent expressions of love, such as hand-holding and a kiss of respect, from losing their preciousness by keeping yourselves from going too far, too soon. Once you step to the next level, it's often difficult to back up and get  charge out of the simple things again. 

C. If You're Dating, Plan Your Dates. 

Girls, if a guy asks you out, ask him what he wants to do, where he wants to go. Don't just hang out together and see what happens. As in other areas of life, those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

D. Don't Date a Person With a Bad Reputation. 

A warning to guys...

Most guys look solely for a girl who is physically attractive, regardless of her character. Just remember, one of the most important decisions you ever make will be who you marry. If you know you'd not be willing to marry a certain girl, why date her? You just might fall in love with her and end up making the worst decision of your life.  

A warning to girls...

Illustration: In a study of 5,000 women college students, over one in four had been raped or sexually attacked since the age of 14. That's scary. But the really sobering part is this. In a Kent State study, over half (57%) of the women who had been raped had been raped by their dates. (McDowell, 22,23)

Don't just go out with anyone who asks you out. Better: get to know people in groups, where it's safe. Notice the kinds of friends people have. Do they have standards about issues like drinking and drugs? Are they headed the same direction as you with their style of life and spiritually? 

E. Do Whatever It Takes To Keep Your Standards. 

Is single dating too tempting? Then double date. Is double dating too tough? Take a bus! Remember what we said in session 1 about the benefits of getting to know people in groups. Single dating is not the only way.

Have you begun to go too far with your girlfriend or boyfriend and can't get it under control? Break up.

F. Decide What Places You Will Not Go. 

It just makes good sense. If you're serious about dieting, don't hang out at the sweet shop. If you're an alcoholic, don't hang out in bars. The point? If you have any hormones at all, don't date at an empty house or park in secluded places. The number one place teens fall into sex? At one of their homes between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Suggested Standards: Don't lie down together on a couch or bed. Don't go to a place where you have no fear of interruption.

G. Girls Especially, Watch How You Dress. 

Most girls don't seem to understand how guys think. Guys are easily turned on in a moment by merely seeing a sensuously dressed girl. That's why almost all pornography targets guys. Guys are turned on by sight.

Activity: "So," a girl might ask, "how do I know what is sensual dress to a guy?" Legitimate question. Let's take an anonymous survey of our guys and see what they say. (If you only have a few guys, you may want to bypass this, since everyone would know who said what.) 

Give each guy a blank sheet of paper. Now, hold up some pictures advertising current girl's fashions. (Hold up some very conservative as well as other. No lingerie please!) Ask the guys two T/F questions for each picture. #1 If an attractive classmate wore this, would you probably start thinking about sex? #2 If you saw a classmate dressed like this, would you think she was sexually available, loose, or a tease?" 

If the group of guys is rather large, divide into small groups and let someone in each group tally the results. Then, present the results to the group, holding up the picture of each. Hopefully, this will demonstrate that some clothes they they thought were merely a nice fashion are actually communicating to guys that they are sexually available. 

The point? Girls need to be aware what they are communicating to guys when you dress certain ways. Don't say "I'm available" with your clothes and expect guys to understand when you object that you've got standards. 

H. Hand Around People Who Share Your Standards. 

If your friends continually brag about their sexual exploits and pressure you to conform, you've got the wrong friends. No wonder you think "everyone's doing it!" If you want to keep your standards, you might need to find some new friends. 

I. Guard Your Mind. 

Don't whine about sex being such a temptation if you're filling your mind with garbage. Remember, you're mind's like a computer -  put garbage in and you get garbage out. 

I won't go into all the problems caused by porno at this point, but suffice it to say that your most important sex organ isn't what you first think. It's your mind. It's possible to program your mind to be turned on to the wrong things by filling it with pornography. Once you're mind has been programmed by pornography, your mind can cause problems in your love life.  

Do you look at magazines in private you'd never bring to the kitchen table with your family? Would you be embarrassed if you're girlfriend or boyfriend discovered what you've been looking at on the Internet? If you want a great love life, give up the pornography. 

J. Get a Life!

In a way, this lesson seems so negative - like how to keep from failing. But to put it in a positive sense, if you pursue something great in life, you're less likely to fall for lesser things. Life is kind of like a bicycle, easier to balance when your moving than standing still.  

Those most susceptible to premarital sex are those with poor self esteem. Get a life outside of dating and you will be better prepared for the challenges of dating when they come.

The number of songs with lyrics like "I can't go on another day without you" show that a large number of people need to get a life. Life's so much more than just dating. Grab hold of some dreams that are beyond yourself. Try to right some wrongs. Change the world. Go after that vocation that today looks like a distant dream. People are drawn toward people of purpose, people who are going somewhere in life.  Find a passion in life and perhaps one day you'll notice beside you another person headed passionately the same direction. That's the way many find their soul mate! 

Conclusion

We've covered a lot of ground today. To keep you from ending this lesson in a fog of information overload, look back over this list and star a few items that you would like to incorporate into your own life.