A stack of save-the-dates and wedding invitations covers a corner of my desk at home. By March 2015, five more of my friends and their significant others will have wed, while I — now nearly 29 — will have not. That I might witness all their vows without a date doesn’t bother me at all as I write […]
The other day on Facebook, a reader learned that for my forthcoming book, called Chastity is for Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, the target audience is adults, and primarily young ones.* She suggested that in the future, I target teens instead. Another reader, who had asked if the book is fit for teens, suggested […]
Have you ever been on an “I’m not sure if this is a” date? We probably all are more sure than we say we are, but deny that we’re sure so if we discover that one of us isn’t getting what we want, it doesn’t hurt. It’s one of life’s little dramas. This is how […]
In a column on Salon.com, Jessica Ciencin Henriquez – a fabulous writer, as far as I can tell – called her virginity at marriage a mistake. Wedding night sex was not what the church (nor the purity ring she wore) promised it would be. Neither was her marriage. Six months into it, Jessica wrote, “the […]
I crack me up as I car-shop. I crack me up because I like the coupe but I think the sedan is smarter. This is because my current car has been my car for 10 years, which implies my next car could be my car for 10 years, too. If it is, I imagine (hope, […]
On August 31 in 2009, I – then a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times – followed a Capuchin friar from the chapel at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Tampa to his desk in his office next door. Fr. John Aurilia, then Most Holy Redeemer’s pastor, agreed to let me interview him for the paper. I […]
I sat in my seat in a circle of students in my counseling theories class. Pen in hand and a self-inventory worksheet on top of a book on my lap, I thought about the question at the top of the paper: What did you learn about love from how your parents treated you? This is […]
I have suspected for a while now that there is little clarity in our culture regarding the goal of chastity. This is probably in part because there is little clarity regarding the difference between abstinence (which ends at marriage) and chastity (which never ends). But it is also probably in part because chastity contradicts the […]
