CHASTE GIRLS ARE EASY: Some postscripts to my paean to chastity, below.

First: When I reflected, I found that the cruel intensifying of drama I associated with sex really only took place in heterosexual couples. Gay guys seemed to do okay. You all know that I don’t recommend gay sex! But I need to be honest, and say that sex between gay guys didn’t seem to ratchet up the melodrama nearly as much as sex between girls and guys.

…I don’t, and I say this with a strong feeling of picked-last-in-volleyball, have a reading on how sex between dykes affected their worldviews.

Second: It’s easy to mock Gilbert Chesterton’s shtik about the people who say they disagree with the doctrine of the Trinity, but what they mean is that they’re sleeping with their neighbors’ wives.

But I think even people who disagree with me might be able to agree that if you’re having sex out of wedlock, there are a lot of philosophical and religious traditions which say you’re doing something wrong, and therefore you might be less open to those traditions.

Some people really love traditions that tell them, “You’re wrong!” But others find it hard to say, “You know, we really need to stop doing this–I’m not sure if it’s right, and I need to know what I’d think of [insert worldview here] if I weren’t going against it every time you and I get in bed.”

If you’re going to seriously consider sacrificial worldviews at all, it might make sense to get away from the personal situations which would make those sacrifices harder. At least for a little while. A semester is not that long, you know? Ars longa vita brevis and all that–give up a semester of sex for a lifetime of knowing you weren’t swayed away from the right philosophy by your hormones.

Third: You know, if you’re a girl and you had sex in college and it didn’t distort your experience, that’s great. If you’re all, “Hey, I had such great sex with my boyfriends, and now I’m a Sister of Life and they’re rum-running anarchists and staid fathers of three respectively,” keep in mind that all advice is based on desperately stupid generalities. The institution of the advice columnist is inherently flawed, inherently tuned toward the majority rather than toward the interesting. So if you think I’m not talking about you, maybe I’m not.

On the other hand, maybe I disagree with your self-assessment of your collegiate escapades. God knows I go back and forth about how I should talk about my own college years.

Fourth, and maybe most importantly: The Busted Halo guide is, I think, a guide to leaving college intact.

If you think maybe you need to leave college broken–like I did, although admittedly I entered it even less fruitfully broken–it won’t help you.