More summer pool-side literature...

As much as I love a good yarn, sadly part of my summer reading must always fall into the "self-improvement" category. (Which is ridiculous because everyone knows I'm already perfect.) As summer draws near its inevitable end and the stores (and parents) start hollering at us to buy school supplies, I get caught up in the pre-school fervor and start perusing out books with titles like "Fun Ways to Cook Vegan", "French for Dummies", and "Sense and Sensibility". Okay, so the last one isn't a self-help book; no need to tell me that. But I do generally attempt to read books that aren't "literary-lightweights" by the end of the summer.

This summer I chose Ivanhoe and an assortment of books on the evils of interacting with the opposite sex--namely dating. I haven't finished Ivanhoe yet, so I don't think it's fair to Sir Walter Scott to rant and rave about it until I have. So, since I haven't finished reading about the silly English and French knights bashing each other with sticks, I'm going to talk about one of the interesting books I read concerning chastity.

Saving My First Kiss: Why I'm Keeping Confetti in My Closet grabbed my attention because--like so many young woman--I have spent plenty of time dreaming about the day that Mr. Right will come into my life and sweep me off my feet. (You can insert a dewy-eyed sigh here if you like.) But, considering how I'm not even registered to joust in the lists of love, the title intrigued me to say the least.

I own a chasity braclet, I've taken the vow to save my most intimate embrace for my husband alone, and I've never been kissed. Needless to say, I instantly felt that I could connect with the author as she explained her choice. I could understand and even sympathize as she described the secret embarrassment that accompanies virgin lips.

"Sweet sixteen and never been kissed." We've all heard the saying, haven't we? What's so shameful about not having been kissed by the time you're sixteen? Well, honestly, nothing; it just means you haven't found the right guy yet. However, our culture is obsessive about dating. A kiss is considered the seal that makes it "offical". If you haven't been kissed, than that means that you haven't been in a serious relationship. And, by the standards of our culture, if you haven't had a boyfriend by the time you're sixteen, then there must be something wrong with you. Hence, the shame.

Saving My First Kiss: Why I'm Keeping Confetti in My Closet not only alleviated the secret embarrassment I had suffered in private but gave me plenty of food for thought. I loved fairy-tales as a child and in most of them there's a reoccurring theme of True Love's First Kiss.

Yeah, right, big deal, huh? Not really. Read it again.

True Love's First Kiss.

The first kiss. Not the second or third. The first one. Which means Prince Charming had better not have snogged the princess from two kingdoms over or the spell won't break.

Wow.

Needless to say, I was very impressed with the book and the case it made for keeping sexual purity not confined just to the bedroom. I thoroughly reccommend it if you are dating or you aren't but want to.