As a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have taught about and been taught about the various doctrines and beliefs of the church more times than I could ever wish to count. As might be expected of other churches, many of these teachings involve such things as being a good person, doing good acts, and treating others right.
One of the hardest of these commandments to fully understand for me as well as other people I've talked to is known as the Law of Chastity. For those of you not familiar with this particular Law of God, it involves one of the most sacred and influential acts a human being can perform, sexual intimacy. The reason that it is one of the hardest to understand is that it is one of the few with conditions. What do I mean by conditions? It means that some of the provisions and commandments that are part of this law are only in effect during certain stages of life, and in others it doesn't affect you as much. So unlike the commandments such as, "Thou shalt not steal," which is pretty straight forward, it is hard to know exactly what is acceptable by someone striving to follow the Law of Chastity.
We as human beings are constantly looking for restrictions and limits, sometimes we are looking for them in order to push the envelope and discover new things. Other times we look for the limits in order to know where we should not go. A video released by the church in the last few years explains about this concept, with a specific focus on the law of chastity. (You can find it HERE.)
I, like many others, have struggled with finding limits of the the Law of Chastity. I haven't had any of the problems as far as the physical acts of violation go, my main problems have been within my own self, my thoughts and desires. Here's an example, I like girls, I think girls are pretty, hot, cute, beautiful, and all of those other adjectives that are used to describe their attractiveness. They are nice to look upon, they are nice to think about, they are nice to be around, they are nice to associate with, they are nice to attempt to flirt with, and they smell nice too. I am commanded to try and find one of these beautiful creatures, court her, and then marry her, so that I might receive a fullness of joy in the life to come.
Now here's the main question that I've had as far as striving to keep the Law of Chastity is concerned. As a man, who likes women, who thinks that they are pretty, who likes to "check" them out, I'll often find myself looking at one and thinking, "Wow, she's got a nice looking butt (or thighs, or calves, can you tell I'm a leg guy?)." It's at this point that the little voice inside my head that keeps me on the right path chimes in, "Hey now Brian, that's something that the natural man would say and you're not supposed to be one of those. You should be better."
The fact that girls are attractive, I have been told, is a God-given blessing. Not one person I've ever met has ever wanted to date or marry someone that they weren't in at least some way attracted to. So at what point does this God-given attraction become a problem? When does thinking, "this person I like has really pretty eyes/smile/hair/legs," turn into a violation of the Law? It says on this topic in the booklet For The Strength Of Youth:
“Before marriage, do not do anything to arouse the powerful emotions that must be expressed only in marriage. Do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not allow anyone to do that with you. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body” (For the Strength of Youth [pamphlet, 2001], 27).
This statement seems to refer mainly to the physical acts that are violations of the Law of Chastity. You could maybe interpret the last line, "Do not arouse those emotions in you own body," as a reference to thoughts, but even then there is still a physical act that most people refer to when they think of this part.
It still leaves the questions in my mind of if this attraction is truly God-given, when does it become too much?
Well, I was hoping to have come up with an answer at this point. Apparently it hasn't happened yet and now I'm drawing a blank as to where I should take this next. Looks like this is going to become a series instead of a single post. Good thing there's more sessions of conference in order for me to get this all figured out. Maybe some of you readers will have some insights as well, leave some comments and I may even quote you in the following parts of this series.
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