You wanna hear the most romantic relationship line in the universe?

You're gonna love this. No, no, it's not from Romeo and Juliet.

Ready for it?

Here it is:  Hey, baby, before I commit to you on the marriage level, I'm gonna need to test drive you first.

Translation: We need to have sex before marriage, because you are like a car and I wanna make sure that you are good enough between the sheets.

Seriously, Amy, no one would really say that. (initiate eye roll)

Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself. I recently was online and found some "gems" in a forum from the website called Escapist. (This forum no longer exists, so I can't link it anymore.) The prominent theme that runs throughout the comments is selfish lust.

‍"Would I do it? (Chastity) Oh no way. To use that crude analogy--I need to test drive before I commit to a man."

"What is a relationship if not a friendship with sex and intimacy? Sex is genuinely important in a relationship because humans are naturally sexual creatures, if two people aren't sexually compatible, they won't stay together.  I mean, you always test drive a car before you buy it, right?"

"Don't you drive a car before you buy it? Don't you interview someone before you hire them? You need to test people and make sure they will suit your needs."

‍I get their point: Buying a car is an important decision, so you want to be well-informed before you make that expensive commitment. You need to read reviews, test drive it, and consider if it's within your budget. But, marriage is supposed to be so much bigger. After all, many of us only own a particular car for an average of five years. Marriage should last for the rest of our lives, so shouldn't we be as informed as possible? Shouldn't we test drive our potential spouses? But, this makes the folly of suggesting that we should treat marriage like a business transaction.This thought process strips away the true dignity of a person.

It comes across like this: You are good enough for me to sleep with, but if the sex isn't up to my standards, the deal's off.

Is this how we really want to view marriage or our future spouse--like a business deal?

Again, the world has taken a beautiful, sacred act and made it nothing more than a test drive and a selfish conquest. We are told as Christians that we are prudish, old-fashioned, and out-dated because we think sex should be more than using a person for a short period of pleasure. The secular world cries out, "This is freedom! Sex before marriage is liberating and awesome!" Forgive me, but, to me, it screams of using someone, which definitely isn't liberating for either partner. One is a slave to his/her sexual impulses. The other is simply an object of sexual gratification.

And what happens when your spouse can't be sexually compatible for a time? What if because of sickness, pregnancy, or deployment, your spouse simply isn't compatible? Is that grounds for leaving? I mean, they aren't meeting your needs and wants. To add to that, there are other things in a marriage that are important, like being a parent. Why don't you "test drive" a potential spouse in the parent department first? When you boil a romantic relationship down to simply whether the sex meets your approval, you are not loving the other person. You are making your love contingent on whether their performance is acceptable and that is anything but loving.

This is supposed to be what is heralded as the healthy, meaningful, (freeing) choice.

Chastity? Just a ludicrous notion meant to trap people and take ALL the fun out of sex.

Fun is sleeping around. Fun is STDs. Fun is putting on condoms to block out the fullness of the sensation. Fun is leaving a wake of broken, used up people that wonder what they didn't do right.

Chastity? That's the stuff of your grandparents. Lame, lame, lame. Christians are a bunch of kill-joys.

Herein lies the problem: Sex is not about you. Okay, let me back up. Good sex is not about you. It's about love and what is love in marriage? Love is making sure that your spouse is taken care of first. Love is patience. Love is the willingness to seek your spouse's happiness before your own. Chastity isn't only meant for people before they get married. It is meant for the married couple, as well. But, what does that mean? It means committing to give yourself only to your spouse. The freedom that is unleashed is amazing. See, chastity, doesn't bind you up wondering if you measure up to past lovers. Chastity doesn't imprison you in a sexual bond that may not last. Chastity doesn't lock you into a body that may have an STD. Chastity gives you the freedom of mind to know that you are giving yourself to only one person, with no baggage, no outside influence. It frees you to grow and learn together. When a person chooses to wait until marriage they have shown their spouse that they possess the strength of character to keep sex only within the bounds of marriage. The spouse is free to have confidence that their lover will maintain this level of integrity throughout their marriage.

As a society, we can sit here and scoff at chastity. But, I often find that those who laugh at it and discard chastity as a stupid idea are those that don't want to be confronted with their actions. Chastity is a virtue for a reason. It requires self-sacrifice, love, patience, and discipline. These are good and noble things. Have we seriously gotten to the point where we hiss and sneer at patience, discipline, and self-sacrifice?

Another popular argument is: Well, what's right for you, isn't right for me.

If something is morally right, then it is always morally right. You wouldn't say, "Well, loving your child is right for you, but loving my children isn't right for me." That's downright mean and nobody would concede with you on this point. We also wouldn't say, "Robbing a bank may be wrong for you, but it's right for me." Again, this is a ridiculous notion. Either chastity is good and right or sleeping around is. They both can't be right. We've entered this fuzzy, hazy realm in our society where we try to blur rightness and wrongness. We say that some moral issues can be right for some people, but not others. How can this be? If something is right, then it should always be right. This is a tactic, though, used by people that don't want any constraints or guilty feelings. It's a "BACK OFF" warning used to silence critics of behavior that is questionable, unhealthy, or harmful.

I strive to seek beauty and truth, not to mention a whole lot of strength. There is beauty in a married couple living a life of complete fidelity. There is beauty in not tainting a relationship or a mind with pornography. Seeing the dignity in all humans is beautiful. Reducing people down to what they can offer you sexually is not beautiful.

The biggest thing I think about is my children when it comes to this. I pray and hope that the person they fall in love with has been chaste. I hope they don't have to work through the baggage of many partners, STDS, and wondering if they will ever measure up. I want what's beautiful for them. Is it too much to ask? Maybe. But, when we just give up and say chastity is impossible, we are lowering our expectations for ourselves and our children. Whatever bar we set, is what we will strive for. The hook-up culture is a low bar. It is the easy way. It is the selfish way; the easy way always is. Chastity demands our best and sets the bar high. This is what I want for my life and my children. I want to be better than a low bar set by a society that doesn't want to feel bad about anything. We are better than that.

“Freedom became synonymous with doing whatever you pleased, whether it was good or evil, or believing whatever you pleased whether it was true or false. The result was that freedom degenerated into a form of ‘selfishness,’ expressed itself in such slogans as ‘be yourself’ frowned upon all forms of restraint and sacrifice as contrary to the individual libido, and ended in what might be called the exaltation and glorification of the ego.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Philosophies at War)