No Sex in the City: One Virgin's Confessions of Love, Lust, Dating, and Waiting

By Lindsey N. Isham

Many books about sexual purity speak to men, but few-if any-speak to young women. Lindsey Nicole Isham boldly fills that gap with No Sex in the City, the brutally honest and often hilarious story of Lindsey's quest for sexual purity in the face of an impure culture, baffled peers, and sexual desire. Speaking from her own experience and from years as an abstinence advocate, Lindsey treats young women like the sexual beings they are, exploring their desires and curiosities about sex while relating candid experiences and truths about sexual purity. A great tool for Bible studies, youth groups, and abstinence organizations, No Sex in the City will help young, single, Christian women discuss their thoughts and keep their purity commitments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kregel Publications
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9780825496974

Lindsey N. Isham

Lindsey Isham has been working with singles for over thirteen years and has traveled nationwide, speaking to audiences ranging from junior high girls to collegiate women about relationships and sexual purity.

Book preview

Kregel.

CHAPTER 1

You’re a What?

I AM A THIRTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN on purpose, not by accident, and I am so horny. Yes, that’s right, I want sex! In fact, I am sure that I need it. Am I allowed to say that? Am I wrong for thinking that? For some reason I love talking about sex (or should I say the lack thereof?). I heard rumors that the average American woman marries by age twenty-four, but when I researched it further, I found out that statistic was true in the 1970s.¹ Today the average age is about twenty-six.² How the heck did I get to be thirty and still unmarried? It sounds surreal when I actually say it out loud: I am a thirty-year-old virgin. I don’t think I’m old, but for some reason I thought I would have had sex by now.

I was twenty, a sophomore in college, when I first heard a man teach a biblical view of sex. The Bible talks about sex? I had no idea. So, for the past ten years, I’ve been excited about sex. I’ll open books and turn straight to what I call the good chapters. Why not skim those chapters first? If you are anything like me, you probably looked at the table of contents in this book and skipped straight to chapter 10—the sex chapter. If you did, welcome back to the beginning. The way I see it, it never hurts to reread the sex chapter, right?

I don’t consider myself a violent individual, but sometimes I feel like shooting the person who said that women don’t reach their sexual peak until age thirty-five. Here’s the thing: If I am not in my sexual peak right now, then what the heck is happening to me? Some people have said, It’s just stress. Others have said, It’s just because you are a virgin. Hmm. Recently I confessed to my mentor, Judith, that I am constantly thinking about sex. She just smiled and said this was normal. Normal! I rarely hear other single, Christian women talking about how horny they are. Only guys are supposed to have this problem, right? If I have six more years of singleness with the constant onslaught of sexual thoughts and desires, I just might go postal.

I guess I am in what you could call a pre-postal stage in my life. I have been in this stage for at least eight years, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it. Because I have been deprived of sex for far too long, I sometimes feel that at any minute I could be the front-page story that reads, Virgin Girl Goes Postal. I suppose I could move to the mountains and live like a Lumber Jill—alone, with a dog, and far away from gorgeous men, sexualized media, and everything else that makes me think about sex. Maybe then my sexual desires would ease up a bit. In the meantime, I live in a city, have a regular job, and am trying to stop the progression of my pre-postal condition. So far I have seen very little progress.

I am surrounded by awkward men who think that virgins are fictional characters in Greek myths. This must explain why they are so shocked when they find out that I am still a virgin. If only I could come up with a way to give guys advanced notice about my virginity. You see, I figure that if men are forewarned, we can spend the majority of the conversation centered on something other than my sexual choices. Not that my sexual choices aren’t important, valuable, or interesting, because they are. It is just really difficult to get to know a guy when he is stuttering, So you speak about abstinence for a living? You actually believe that people can get married without ever having sex? Oh, you are proof that it’s possible to be abstinent. So, uh . . . um, you’re a—so you have never, uh . . . How do I say this?

I reply with a smile and say, It’s okay. You can say it. Yes, I am a virgin.

You’re a what?

When a guy finds out that I am a virgin, in between stumbling over his words, he looks at me as if I were an alien. You know the look: blank stare, jaw wide open, crinkled forehead. It’s as if I have a third eye or eight arms. Then, once he processes the whole virgin thing, he hesitates because he is looking for a politically correct way to identify me. For some reason, the term virgin is not politically correct anymore. In fact, in a recent survey, 26 percent of teens said, It’s embarrassing to admit being a virgin.³ Maybe I should call myself a more socially acceptable term, something other than virgin. I just looked up virgin in the dictionary. How about unadulterated or immaculate?

You’re Going to Get Laid

I am not an alien, I am a virgin! Some people think they are one and the same, which was why I was the girl that the boys made the bets about. I will never forget the day in high school when this scrawny, arrogant, and quite stupid freshman boy approached me in the lunch room. He informed me that I was the center of a bet and he was the lucky guy who would win. Before I had a chance to tell him that I wasn’t interested in whatever he was about to say, he smiled and said, We made a bet to see who would be the first guy to get you laid. What an idiot. Why do guys make these bets? Do they think that it makes them more manly?

After he said this I leaned forward and put my hand on his shoulder. I moved in close to whisper something in his ear. After all, his buddies were watching from across the cafeteria and I had to make it juicy. I took him by surprise with one swift knee to his groin. Yes! She shoots, she scores! That’s what you get, you jerk! I took pleasure in watching him crouch to the ground, face scrunched, hands trying to ease the pain. After checking to make sure I didn’t break a nail or something awful like that, I towered over him and said, "You are talking to the wrong girl because that will never happen. Find a new goal in life." Then I strutted away. I think I taught that guy a lesson.

Okay, okay, so I have a vivid imagination. That is not what really happened, but let’s just say that was what I wanted to do. I didn’t hurt his package, but everything else happened just like I described. I never did find out what happened with the bet. Who got the money? Did someone bet that I would not have sex? If so, maybe I should thank him.

Although this wasn’t the first time a boy had tried to get me to compromise my morals, this was the first time one had been so overt about his dirty little scheme. The teasing and bets quickly escalated. Daily I was singled out and ridiculed by guys who thought my standards were stupid. Sometimes I cried in the bathroom at school when no one was near and I often went home sad. I prayed fervently for the day to come when I wouldn’t be made fun of for my standards. Little did they know that their constant teasing and the nights I spent crying over the continuous badgering made me more confident in my decision and secure in my stance.

High School Boys

Like every girl in junior high, I went through a shy stage. Mine just happened to last through high school. In high school, I was convinced that guys were only joking when they asked me out. Poor guys, I must have hurt their feelings. I said No, thank you, when they asked me on a date, the whole time thinking that they were just asking me out to get a good laugh. Even after guys wrote in my yearbook, I really like you and I think we should go out sometime, I still wasn’t convinced that they were serious.

In high school I went on a couple of dates and to school dances. I wanted a boyfriend, I just didn’t think I had time for one. I had dreams of playing college golf and becoming a professional athlete and I didn’t want any distractions. My high school was only a few blocks away from the University of Colorado and I quickly fell in love with the gorgeous campus, awesome football team, and fun environment—I couldn’t wait to become a Buffalo. I had scholarship offers at other universities, but I turned them down. I worked my butt off for the opportunity to play golf at the University of Colorado, a Division I NCAA college, and it finally happened.

College Guys

I started college a few years after the University of Colorado’s football team won the national championship. So my freshman year, the football team was still coming off the high of winning the title, and preseason polls ranked the University of Colorado fourth in the nation. This was a huge deal. The entire state shut down on game day, tuned to ESPN, hung their football flags, watched both pre-and postgame shows, and hung on every word uttered by both the coach and quarterback.

I remember my first introduction to college life . . . ahh, being single never felt so good. It was as if my mom had visited the frat houses and the sports teams a week before school started and paid guys to ask me out. I never felt more desirable. The first week of school, the athletic department hosted a mandatory barbecue for the athletes as a way for us to get to know each other. I thought the athletic director deserved a raise for that idea. By the looks of the men walking into the party, I must have been blushing before I even got out of the car. Being a little awestruck, I did the first thing I always do at a party—smile, nod hello to a few people, and head straight for the food. I was so nervous. It was a little hard to breathe too. There were so many good-looking men at this event! (Praise God for barbeque and handsome men!) My high school had a handful of guys that I thought were attractive. This was a completely different scene.

At the party, athletic, good-looking men invaded the place like ants on picnic leftovers; they were everywhere. That’s when I first noticed the quarterback, Jeremy. Jeremy was a six foot two, 210-pound cowboy from Texas with a muscular build and tight jeans. He rocked those jeans, if you know what I mean. At the time I didn’t know who he was, I just thought he was cute. I looked down to pick out my second piece of chocolate cake, and when I looked back up, he was staring in my direction. Like any normal girl who had a handsome jock looking at her, I turned around to see who he was looking at. Don’t get me wrong, I thought I was cute, but not that cute, so why was he staring at me? My past experiences with guys definitely didn’t prepare me for this, so I assumed that he must be looking at one of the volleyball players standing behind me. Later I found out that he just thought I was cute.

The athletic department mandated a ten-hour minimum of study hall each week for freshmen athletes. So, when I wasn’t on the golf course, working out, in class, or sleeping, my free time was spent in study hall. Luckily, study hall was located in the same building as the football offices. Life was rough . . . I had to study every night with gorgeous men all around me. One night while studying, Jeremy walked into study hall looking for a friend, but once he saw me he headed my way. (I knew all of my studying would pay off one day!) As soon as he started talking to me I forgot 99 percent of the material I spent the last hour memorizing. Ideally, I was supposed to clock in two more hours of studying for that night, but I had to eat sometime, right? How many times in a girl’s life does she get asked out by the college quarterback? For now, homework could wait—I was asked out for sushi.

Shortly after that night, Jeremy and I went on several dates. If in high school you would have told me that my freshman year in college I would be dating the college quarterback, I would have laughed at you. You don’t go from being a little, pony-tailed girl who plays golf and spends all her free time studying to dating the quarterback at a nationally ranked university. This wasn’t a small community college—this was the big leagues. It was as if I were a modern-day Cinderella and Jeremy my handsome prince. He had a nationally recognized name, he was on major television networks during football season, he had his choice of more than fourteen thousand women on campus, and he was interested in me.

I always introduce my guy friends and potential boyfriends to my family, so, one night Jeremy came to my parents’ house for dinner. Even after going on several fun dates with him, Jeremy still made me nervous. I wanted to impress him with my cooking skills, so I prepared shish kabobs, rice, salad, and a dessert. Normally, this meal is easy to cook, but that night, I burned the first batch of rice and the second batch was mushy. By then everyone was so hungry they wouldn’t let me try a third time. Jeremy tried encouraging me by saying, It’s not that bad, but just as the soggy rice filled his mouth like a bag of warm marshmallows, he muffled, Mmm, I lub mushy lice. My family lost it and we all started laughing. So much for trying to win his heart with my culinary skills.

Later that night Jeremy and I went to see The Horse Whisperer. At one point during the movie, as the camera zoomed in on the Montana landscape of horses, fields, and ranches, Jeremy leaned over and whispered, Do you think you could ever settle down in a place like that? Settle down? Is he thinking about us being together in the future, about us getting married? Shoot, I might live anywhere with you, cowboy. I tried to respond in a way that hid my excitement and nervousness and said, Only if there is a golf course nearby. He smiled and we continued watching the movie. Throughout the movie he made similar comments, and near the end I was more convinced than ever that Jeremy was a charmer. You know the kind, the more they talk the more you want to cuddle up with them. I wanted to reach over and plant one on him. That night I noticed Jeremy making conscious efforts to open up and let me get to know him better. It was wonderful and sweet.

Although Jeremy and I had talked about God before, on the ride home I felt God prompting me to talk more with Jeremy about what it really means to put your faith in God. I tried negotiating with God, because though I was normally bold about sharing my faith, this time I had a weird feeling that if I shared my faith with this cowboy quarterback, he would never call me again. It was as if God was asking me to trust Him with my dating life, to trust Him to provide for my romantic needs even if Jeremy wasn’t the one for me. So I mustered my courage, shared my faith, and spoke the truth about God.

As I began speaking, I knew I was saying goodbye to my

Reviews for No Sex in the City

[auranefertari · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A compelling, insightful, and highly personal call to stay true to God. Isham's words to be deeply touching and inspiring, and her honesty and heartfelt recognition of the issues that so many Christian women face are hopeful and beautiful.