Don't Date Naked (Paperback)

Chapter One

They are the hottest forms of "reality TV "out there-the dating shows like Blind Date, ElimiDATE, Change of Heart, Taildaters, The 5th Wheel, Shipmates, and Dismissed. When you stop and think about it, what can be more real than watching the sparks fly between a virile pair sexually attracted to each other?

These are not your parents' dating shows, however, like the relatively tame The Dating Game, a ripe-for-parody effort that looked as if it was filmed on a cheesy set designed by a hippie coming down off a bad psychedelic trip. No, this rash of new half-hour shows is a whole new genre, filled with dirty talk and lots of sex.

I've checked out most of them, but when you've seen one, you've seen them all. The premise usually goes like this: a buff guy, confident and sure of himself to the point of arrogance, is on the hunt. He will be introduced to a motley and well-built foursome of vixens dripping with attitude, and he must choose one to make the Perfect Match. At least, that's what the producers would have us believe happens in this make-believe world where dudes can have anything they want.

Everyone has roles to play. Guys are playboys, and girls are playthings. And they usually end up in a Jacuzzi, where tops and bottoms are flung off, and the sudsy talk revolves around sex. Trashy challenges are given: once on ElimiDATE, the guy made the gals kiss each other if they wanted to reach the next level, but most of the time, the guy chooses the girl who lifts her shirt or performs a suggestive lap dance. These new dating shows are all about voyeurism and spying on the antics of sex-soaked guys and girls searching for love and acceptance in all the wrong places.

Some role models. Unfortunately, too many young people are influenced by this "reality," convinced that these episodes reflect what dating is all about. That's a shame because these "reality dating "programs give a very unreal and unhealthy picture of dating.

Amy and I believe that dating can be clean, wholesome fun, especially when it's done with an attitude of honor. Dating teaches valuable lessons as well: social skills such as manners, the art of conversation, and respect for self-imposed and mutually agreed-on limits for physical expression. And finally, dating almost certainly allows the opportunity for you to get to know the person who could potentially become your husband or wife.

Not everyone agrees with us, however. In recent years there has been a move to embrace a philosophy of "no dating"] -at least until you are spiritually mature and financially able to get married. These dating models, known in Christian circles as betrothal and courtship, have become more mainstream in the last decade. Amy will give us a closer look at what they are all about.

I have to admit that I hadn't heard of the word betrothal until just a few years ago, but what it means is that a couple must wait for God to impress on the guy's heart that a certain young woman-let's call her Missy-is the person he ought to marry. Once God makes that impression on the guy's heart, he is to pray about it. Once he feels that the impression has been confirmed by God, he then approaches the young woman and tells her that God impressed on his heart that they should marry.

Notice that I used a form of the word impressed four times in the previous paragraph, but those who buy into betrothal say that word a lot. Michael and I think the concept is flawed, and it's not because we don't think God can speak directly to people today. One of the problems is that betrothal is ripe for abuse. What is a young woman supposed to make of a young suitor who drops into her life and informs her that God told him that they should marry? Sometimes this happens even though the two people have never gone out on an official date. It seems to us that this is taking advantage of her emotions and vulnerability regarding the biggest decision she will ever make: Whom should I marry?

I've always wondered how I would have felt if some guy had knocked on my door and said that God told him we should get married. Michael and I don't see betrothal or arranged marriages working in our Western culture because individual freedom and choice are two of the bedrock values of our society. Betrothal and arranged marriages just don't work here, just as our dating practices wouldn't work in many other countries. When I was a student at Wheaton College Graduate School, I once had a class with a young man from India. He told me that his parents had arranged his marriage and that he and his wife were introduced to each other a month before they were married. When I expressed my surprise, he replied that he and his wife were raised in India's caste system, and that is how his culture did things.

"How long have you been married?" I asked.

"About ten years," replied my friend. "And we are happy."

I believed him, but I can hardly imagine my parents "arranging "my marriage, although there was a family joke growing up that I would marry Shannon Dobyns. (Don't laugh. Shannon is a boy's name.)The Dobyns family and our family were very tight, and they had a daughter named Samantha, who became my very best friend.

In high school, Samantha and I went out on double dates together. Whenever I dropped by the Dobyns's home to go out on Saturday night, Shannon, who was a few years older, would tease me by saying, "Aren't you going to wait for me?"

"Yeah, and then we could be sisters!" Samantha would exclaim.

No offense to Shannon since he's a cool guy, but I'm sure glad that no parental matchmaking ever happened or that Shannon did not feel "impressed "by God that we should get hitched.

No, I was raised by normal parents who allowed me to double-date as a freshman and "car date "a year later. Back then, betrothal was not on the radar screen for Christian families, and neither was the concept of courtship.

What is meant by courtship? In one of the popular models of courtship, a guy and a girl don't date until they are spiritually and financially ready to get married-and when they do date, it's under heavy parental authority. For younger people, this, in effect, means no dating in high school and the first few years of college-and possibly not until you're established in some sort of a career track.

Here's how courtship works in this model: If you're a guy and you've had your eye on Missy for quite some time-and are spiritually and financially prepared to marry if you fall in love with her-then you approach her father (or her mother if the father is out of the picture)and announce your intentions. Both men pray about it, and if the father agrees that you are spiritually and financially ready for marriage, you are allowed to date the young woman. Usually the dating is done in the context of family activities, like going to church or joining the family on a picnic at the lake, something like that. As for casual one-on-one dates with a movie followed by a Starbucks latté, forget about it.

This courtship model was the centerpiece of Joshua Harris's successful book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, an autobiographical account that urged young people to forego the dating scene entirely, just as he did. Published in the mid-1990s, I Kissed Dating Goodbye's influence has penetrated the Christian culture. We're constantly running into young people who say they've read it-or that their parents are insisting that they adhere to their wishes by following the courtship model.

We believe that courtship and betrothal are often based on parental fear. The No Dating sign gets hung across the front door because the parents fear that their child will meet the wrong person, suffer emotional trauma when the relationship ends, or become sexually involved. We don't deny that those are valid concerns for parents, especially for young teens starting to navigate the high school years. But once you get into college and your early twenties, you need to learn to make your own decisions.

Sure, some of those decisions will result in mistakes and regret, possibly even some lifelong pain. But our hope is that since you're reading this book, you're willing to listen to our advice so that when it comes time to make choices, you will make decisions that honor God, your dating partner, and yourself.

I remember the first time I picked up a copy of Josh's book, eager to find out if he really meant that we should kiss dating goodbye. Yes, he meant it. Josh wrote that it didn't make sense training for a long-term relationship-marriage-with a series of short-term dating relationships. He said it would be like practicing how to break up and that each time you experienced an agonizing breakup, you lost a part of your heart that could never be reclaimed.

That's a good speech, but Amy and I have a different perspective. Dating, like nearly everything else in life, has the capacity for good and evil. We, along with millions of others, have had extremely positive experiences in our dating relationships. We also checked into Heartbreak Hotel a few times. Does that mean that dating was bad? No.

Having said that, we agree with Joshua Harris about dating in more ways than you would think, but Amy and I think that it's okay to date some and go on group dates in your young adult years. The difference is that we think you should wait to date seriously until you are at an age at which you could marry.

The reason that dating is not all cut-and-dried is because dating is a fairly recent social phenomenon. Before the early part of the twentieth century, guys and girls didn't always date-it wasn't allowed by shotgun-toting fathers who put the fear of God into men wishing to "court" their daughters.

We are exaggerating, of course, but try to imagine what rural and city life were like in America before the rise of the Industrial Age. In a more rural America, education usually ended by the time a young man or woman reached the age of fourteen. If you were a guy, it was off to the fields, where hard labor awaited you.

From sunup to sundown, you stared at the south end of a horse traveling north, and then you shared a bed with a pair of unbathed younger brothers. If you were a young woman, you milled flour and cooked and cleaned, and cared for the younger siblings. Who could blame someone for having the itch to get married and get out of the house?

Those who struck out on their own before marrying were ostracized. The word bachelor was pejorative in those days; to be single while of "marrying age "was a sign of laziness-you either couldn't attract someone to marry or you lacked the ability to support a wife and family. Authorities harassed bachelors by running them out of town on a rail.

The courting scene began changing in a hurry during the 1920s-the Roaring Twenties. As families moved to the cities and something called "suburbs "popped up like marigolds following a spring shower, young people were expected to finish high school. Many more young people moved on to college. The ties to home and hearth were loosened, and the rise of cheap transportation (the Model T Ford)and cheap entertainment (the movies)gave young people the mobility and the opportunity to participate in informal, unchaperoned male-female activities without any sort of commitment.

For the first time in the history of mankind, the concept of modern dating emerged. So you see, dating is a fairly recent development-and it didn't take long for a new set of rituals to develop. Young men could seek whoever made their hearts quicken without nosy parents trying to "arrange "a match. Young women held the balance of power, however: they could pick and choose the person they wanted to date, although they no longer had a doting father screening out the bad apples. Without parental supervision, guys became more adept at pushing the physical boundaries, and couples experienced premarital sex in unprecedented numbers. As the number of out-of-wedlock pregnancies climbed, the phrase "shotgun marriage" became part of the lexicon.

Dating continued to evolve over the next fifty years, and when your parents came of age in the rock'n' roll sixties and disco seventies, the doors were blown off. This became known as the era of "free love. "With fewer social constraints holding young couples back, it was common for a guy to meet a girl at a Vietnam peace demonstration, head back to her apartment, roll around in the sack, and then ask, "What did you say your name was?"

How ironic when she answered, "Chastity."

"Free love "eventually gave way to the phenomenon of living together, which is where we are today. Between 1960 and 1997, the number of cohabiting couples went from fewer than 500,000 to 4 million-an eye-popping 800 percent increase, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These days, more than 50 percent of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation, according to University of Wisconsin researchers Larry Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu.

Michael and I work with young people at our church and speak to thousands of young people all over the country. It's our goal to reverse the trend of living together and to instill godly ideals about what dating relationships should look like. When done right, dating can play a significant role in who you become and whom you eventually marry, which is why we feel so passionate about the issue.

Dating is fun, and during your late teens and into your twenties, it should be fun. I remember the time when I arrived on the campus of Baylor University as a freshman, ready to make friends and experience the college scene after attending a small K-12 Christian school in Phoenix. I wasn't looking to sow any wild oats, but I was ready for something different.

During the fall quarter, the school held a "Howdy Dance"-a mixer where the girls ask the boys out. When a popular girl asked me to be her date, I thought, Wow, that's pretty cool. I knew we wouldn't be marrying; we were just going out to have some fun. She and I agreed to go with a group to the Elite Café, the most popular eating establishment at Baylor, before the big dance. The Elite Café was one of those diner-type restaurants that serves comfort foods like meatloaf, baby-back ribs, country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and soft dinner rolls by the basketful.

As raucous college kids often do, we guys decided to play a little game. We played Rock, Scissors, Paper to see who would be the first victim. Whoever lost had to stuff an entire basket of dinner rolls in his mouth. Each basket contained four or five rolls, each the size of a baseball.

Unfortunately I lost, so I began stuffing the rolls into my mouth, just like Paul Newman eating hard-boiled eggs in Cool Hand Luke.

Continues...