The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On

by Dawn Eden

Thomas Nelson, Inc. (2006)

Buy The Thrill on Amazon

The opponents of abstinence education seem dead set on the belief that abstinence is terribly wicked because, after all, we’re all just a bunch of animals (not to say untameable sex monkeys). Now this is understandable if you believe that humans are made up of primal urges that will almost inevitably conquer our rational faculties; if we seek to conquer our urges they will, of course, drive us mad, and our sexual frustration will make pretty much everybody else miserable too. I happen to be of the opinion that mankind stands above the rest of the animal kingdom, something that I think most people find to be self-evident (and yes, I have seen orangutans poke about in anthills with sticks—it’s not exactly the Stone Age, much less the Industrial Revolution)

However I am also of the opinion that abstinence is only the first step. If it is the end goal, then we might as well concede to our opponents that it is a matter of nigh irrepressible biological urges. Abstinence from pre and extra-marital sexual activity is certainly better than promiscuity, but it’s not, in and of itself, the end goal. Abstinence must be coupled with a shift in our understanding of human interaction and self-understanding which we can find in the virtue of chastity. This is where Eden’s book is so necessary. She writes,

Although I firmly believe that young people should be taught to reserve sex for marriage, there is one area where I’m in agreement with the opponents of abstinence education: abstinence means nothing unless one understands exactly what it is. To that point, I would add that to understand what abstinence is, one must also understand what both sex and marriage really are—what they mean, and what they’re for.

This is a point that, sadly, both opponents and supporters of abstinence education fail to grasp. Opponents decry abstinence education because they believe it simply breeds ignorance in the youth, leading them into danger. Unfortunately, these claims have not always been unfounded, and some ill-conceived abstinence programs in the past have seemed to push a Victorian prudery resulting in, we can imagine, blushing couples studying manuals and anatomy text books on their wedding nights. However, these types of mistakes in education have always been the extreme minority. True abstinence education instills in its recipients an understanding of healthy sexuality; this intellectual knowledge ought to feed directly into an open embrace of chastity, which bounds from statistics on STDs and divorce rates to an honest love for the dignity of individual persons deserving respect. In Eden’s words, “…while abstaining from sex may be part of chastity, the chastity concept goes far beyond keeping one’s thighs closed. It’s a discipline that engages mind, body, and spirit.”

If nothing else (and I do not claim that it is nothing else), The Thrill of the Chaste is a thoroughly convincing response to those who would claim that the non-promiscuous among us would sooner be sexless than have sex. Wonderfully hopeful, it is an adventure into the human heart, exploring what it is to love and be loved. If Eden, when she came to accept chastity, also accepted that supposed idea of the “dirtiness” of sex, then her own sordid past would have led her to throw herself from a bridge long ago. No one horrified of sex could have written a memoir like this one. Indeed, this is one aspect of the book that sets it apart. In a recent interview Eden complained of the sorts of books she found while becoming chaste: “There were these very flowery books clearly written by virgins-until-marriage for virgins-until-marriage.” Eden saw a need, and applied herself to it. How do unchaste women become chaste? However they do (which is up to the book to explain, not this review), it’s a difficult journey. Looking back to her first endeavor in chastity, Eden writes, “I can remember only two stages:

1. the “I’m fine, really; I’ve got so much going on in my life, and God is good—He’s taken away from my longing, which is something I couldn’t do for myself” stage
2. the “climbing the walls” stage.”

And frankly, if one’s understanding of abstinence does not exceed the suppression of the sexual appetite, this is exactly what to expect. Eden goes to great lengths to explain that it is not simply the cessation of one behavior, but a radical worldview shift that makes one truly chaste. What if, for instance, one commits to quit their sexual escapades yet makes no effort to stop fantasizing? That is not abstinence (which is much more holistic), and it is certainly not chastity. The roots of chastity lie in a purification of one’s thoughts and one’s basic understanding of healthy human sexuality; further, it is an appreciation for the respect owed to each person. Eden only discovers that after her first attempts at simply not doing something leading her to, understandably, climb the proverbial walls.

The Thrill is driven largely by Eden’s faith in the Christian God. Indeed, without her faith we would be without this book; she acknowledges that her search and desire for chastity began when she became—as Evangelicals call it—a born-again Christian. The Thrill, however, does not take a singularly annoying “because God said so” attitude toward chastity. I do not object to that approach as one interested in theology, but rather as one interested in communicating effectively. In other words, “because God said so” might work quite well with a well-grounded, disciplined Christian; results may be bleaker with an audience infected by a baseless 21st century skepticism and radical (dare I say disordered?) desire for independence. No, Eden’s book is not a heavy-handed Gospel tract. This, she says, is the way things are. And this is what you use to make sense of it all. The Christian understanding of God and of human sexuality, the book asserts, is the answer to that oh-so-common question, “why?” “Why does casual sex leave me empty?” “Why, after doing everything ‘right’ (in a world according to Cosmo), am I still so lonely and unfulfilled?”

Sex is a terribly and forcefully serious matter—in spiritual terms, it is sacred. It is small wonder, then, that its flippant use hurts so many so often.

“When you put on chastity, you’ll discover a life more hope-filled, more vibrant, more real than anything you might have experienced when having sex outside of marriage. That is the thrill of the chaste.”

The Thrill of the Chaste

The Dawn Patrol (Eden’s Blog)