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I remember scooting closer when I asked him.
"What crossed your mind the first time you saw me?"
He looked into my eyes and smiled. "I want a piece of her."
Charming.
I broke up with him shortly after. But he is not alone. Many young adults I've encountered live as if dating and having sex are synonymous. I am not one of them.
I've never had sex, and I won't until I'm married. And I'm not alone either. Chastity is about sifting the selfishness out of us. Demanding respect. Saving sex for marriage. In the words of writer Dawn Eden, author of a book called Thrill of the Chaste, we are rebels. In dating, many of the people we meet move on when they find out about our lifestyle. Others ask how we could possibly stick to it.
"People say, 'It just happened,' " said 24-year-old Nicki Carter, of Spring Hill, who didn't have sex until marriage. But "sex is a very progressive kind of act."
So how don't we do it? We find out where somebody stands before we date them. We let them know what we will and will not do. We say no to wandering hands. We avoid dark, horizontal situations. For some of us, it's "nothing below the neck."
Few of us claim this is easy because, really, we don't fit in. Still, as I get older — I'm 23 — the wait seems more and more worth it. But the less I meet people who are like me.
For some, marriage isn't a prerequisite for sex, but commitment is. For others, marriage isn't legal.
"I'm a gay person who takes marriage very seriously," said Alex Huie, 23, of Tampa. But saving sex for marriage "is confusing to me because as a gay person who can't get married, what do you do?"
For others, the quest isn't for love, but for sexual satisfaction. On a recent blind date, a friend of mine met a guy who told her he needs sex to express affection. And then there's that ex-boyfriend who just wanted "a piece."
When that's how it is, you can count me out.
Others aren't just looking for sexual satisfaction, but say satisfaction is a big part of the search.
"You need to know whether you're sexually compatible with the person you love," a friend told me recently. "Sex isn't a mathematical code that's answered when two people connect. Some people you work well with, and some you don't."
So when many people I meet learn how I live that part of my life, they're curious. They want to know why.
In an old wallet in a drawer I rarely open, I keep a business card-sized purity pledge I signed in high school.
"Believing that my sexuality is a gift from God, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family and friends to use the gift of my body and sexuality to bring honor, respect and dignity to both God and myself," it says. "I choose to live a chaste life both now and in the future vocation to which God calls me."
I don't remember where I signed it. But when I did — on July 1, 2002 — I became one of countless American teenagers who has promised in pen to save sex as something to experience solely with my future spouse.
Back then, sex wasn't part of my world. But in college, my world got bigger. Classmates boasted about sexual exploits, guys pursued me and I started dating. For the first time, I had the chance to choose to forsake the pledge or uphold it. But for most pledge signers, that opportunity comes a lot earlier.
Advocates For Youth, an organization designed to help adolescents make decisions about their reproductive and sexual health, reported that by the time American teens turn 20, 75 percent of them have had sex. The organization also says that 11 states evaluated the impacts of their abstinence-until-marriage programs and so far, the programs aren't stopping teens from going for it.
At least, teens who make pledges like the one I did put off sex for a while. There are few of us who grow up and actually keep the pledge. But there are reasons why the few of us do.
Lots of us are followers of Jesus Christ, the ultimate unconditional lover. Since I want to love like that, I won't make a guy prove he can satisfy me sexually before I agree to marry him.
To most of us, marriage is huge. We revere it. A wedding isn't a race to exchange vows and take photos so we can hurry up and start the party. It is a sacred ceremony for a permanent merger with the one you love, a pledge of solidarity you make while fully aware that you face sacrifices you can't predict.
I also don't want the option for memories of sex with other men to pop up when I am with the man I marry. I don't want to give all of me to somebody else before I meet my husband. I don't want a man to share that part of his life with me until I have vowed to spend the rest of my life sharing everything.
But many-a-guy I meet says it isn't possible.
"Until marriage?" one said. "No guy will wait that long."
Well I know a few who beg to differ.
"In the culture, the perception is that no one practices chastity," said Christopher Josten, a 30-year-old structural engineer who lives in south Tampa. But in his early 20s, Josten — who hadn't had sex — signed a purity pledge, promising to save sex for marriage. Not married yet, he has kept his promise.
Eric Hoegstrom, 31, lives in Dunedin and is working toward his doctorate in biomedical engineering at USF. He got married in May, a few years after deciding at 29 to save sex from then on for marriage. Sex outside of marriage was fine, he said, at first. But it left him feeling used.
"There is no difference between people who have sex, and people who are married, other than the responsibility of the words 'I do,' " he said.
Chastity gives you the chance to "learn who somebody is, and find every which way under the sun to appreciate that person," he said. "When you do that, (sex is) just a bonus at the end of your single life."
And the wait, said Jason and Nicki Carter, is worth it.
Jason is a youth minister at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Spring Hill. He and his wife, Nicki, were friends for three years before dating. They dated for a year before a year-long engagement, and both were virgins when they married in March 2006.
"We were very conscious (before we got married) not to put ourselves in positions that would lead up to (sex)," said Nicki. "It's not like we didn't want to have sex with each other. We were excited to have sex with each other, but it just wasn't time."
Nicki and Jason, 26, have a 2-year-old daughter, a 1-year-old son and baby due in October. Neither Nicki nor Jason worried before marriage about sexual compatibility.
"Sex isn't about what you get out of it," Jason said. "It's really about the gift of self to another person. It's more about the gift of self and less about satisfying your urges."
Nicki added, "It isn't about give and take. It's about give and give."
Not about getting a piece. And when that's how it is, you can count me in.
Arleen Spenceley can be reached at (813) 909-4617 or aspenceley@sptimes.com. Times researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this essay.
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