ENGAGING CULTURE

As most of you know, aside from blogging for a living (haha), I work at UPS here in Louisville. Well I am amazed at some of the discussions that we share while out on the ramp loading planes full of packages. Some of them are just crude and not fit to publish, however others are profound and have great philosophical insight. So I’m beginning a new column called UPS Philosophy. With so many college age adults with liquid assets and little responsibilities working on little sleep, the discussions range all over the board.

Amazingly, in this day and age, I have a virgin male on my crew. And it’s not because he couldn’t get a girl. He chooses to remain pure. Which I applaud him for. This is a commitment which, as you are about to see, the vast majority of people (male and female) feel is outdated. However, since he mentioned this in passing it has not ceased to be the butt of many jokes. And recently a new guy joined our crew who is non-religious and feels that you should be free to have sex whenever. I was trying to defend my position to him when he said something to me that I got quite upset over. He said, “Would you buy a car, without first test-driving it?”

Being the father of a little girl and thinking about the myriad of boys who are going to be drooling over her, this question scares me. It makes me want to go to the gym to get in shape so I can beat off any boy that comes within arms length of her. I quickly told him, red-faced, that his view trivializes sex, is a one dimensional view of marriage, and demeans, demoralizes and dehumanizes women. But then I took a deep breath and tried to explain.

I’m sure he makes all of the girls heart’s melt at the thought of being compared to a Volvo. I can imagine him talking to a dad: “She’s pretty; no doubt about that. Mind if I take her for a spin? Can you tell me about her warranty? I mean, what if she turns out to be a lemon? What kind of mileage does she get? You don’t have one in metallic silver, do you? I know you’re asking $20K but would you take $15? What about with a trade-in?”

Despite men’s fondness for naming their vehicles, a car is a soul-less, inanimate piece of metal. The woman you marry is a human being, made in the image of God, with whom — unlike a car — you’re commanded by God to become one flesh for a lifetime.

Marriage and buying a car have little to do with each other. One is about being a consumer, the other is about being a servant. It’s apples and oranges. He is making what’s called a “straw-man” argument: presuming a premise, then knocking it down, but the premise he starts with is false, merely a “straw-man.” Car buying and spouse finding are not the same thing, despite how much guys love their cars, nor is sex anything like taking a car on a test drive — thankfully! Sex is but one part of a lifelong relationship, and trust me, a “test spin” of sex will tell you absolutely nothing — nothing — about how your sexual life with your wife will be or how your marriage will be. That’s an adolescent boy’s view of sex. Period. What exactly is he hoping to discover with the sexual “test-drive” anyway? What about a sexual encounter would disqualify someone from being his wife? A guy says something like that and actually has no idea what he means by it. Like a dog chasing a Buick. What would he do with it if he caught it?

Let’s turn the tables and see how it feels. Let’s say he finds the woman he wants to marry. She’s perfect in every way, except for one thing: she’s been “test driven” by all the guys who have the same mentality he does. She’s been treated like a commodity by guys who needed to “kick the tires” to make sure she’d do, but for one reason or another they rejected her. How does that make him feel about those guys who “test drove” his now-fiancé? When she says, “Keep in mind I’ve had to sleep with a lot of guys because, as you know, guys need a test-drive,” will he understand? Or is he expecting brand new “cars” just to keep rolling up to him for his test drives?

Or better yet, how would he feel if he were taken on a test drive? What if, after having had premarital sex with the woman he wants to marry, she said to him, “I’m sorry, everything about you is perfect, but I just can’t marry you because you were a horrible ‘test-drive,’” and then discards him into a junk-yard heap? See how hurtful that is?

I told him, you’re not buying a car; you’re searching for the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with, raise a family with, and grow old with. You’re much better off to look for connection in other areas — spiritual, personal and emotional compatibilities. The last thing you need to worry about is sexual compatibility or performance. You’ll just have to trust me (and thousands upon thousands of marrieds) on this one: sexual compatibility is something that grows, matures, enhances over time, and surely can’t be judged on a “test-drive.”