So I’m talking to a couple of teen girls and they are appalled that I would suggest that there is no need to date before you are of an age and mindset to marry.

They want to go out with boys. They are thinking about their first kiss. They can’t wait until they are they are allowed to date. They aren’t going to have sex, but boy oh boy, they can hardly wait to kiss and be kissed.

When I asked them what a kiss was, if not sex, they looked at me like I should go back to the monastery I crawled out of.

I’m not saying a kiss is sex. I’m not saying they sin if they kiss boys. I’m just wondering why any of us should exchange bodily fluids with men (or boys) we aren’t married to. Because these girls aren’t talking about kissing the guys on the cheeks. They’re talking about kissing deeply the way the people on TV kiss. They’re dreaming about the kiss Mia Thermopolis was dreaming about in The Princess Diaries.

I’m pretty sure.

They don’t want a peck on the cheek. They want to be moved. They want to be loved. They want to feel something.

I wonder if we’ve been guilty of putting too much emphasis on sex and if we’ve not addressed the heart issues enough. Why should a girl enter relationship after relationship, giving her heart to guy after guy and trying to hold the guys’ hearts captive? It’s not sex that girls want. So we tell them not to have sex and they think, “No problem. I don’t want to have sex, anyway.”

What is it that girls do want from dating relationships, then? That’s what I think we should be asking ourselves and our daughters.

More on this in the future. Much, much more.