no touching...unless you're taking a picture

I understand the need to control personal contact between raging teenage boys and teenage girls. I did my time as a youth pastor, and one couple trying to hang on each other during service was one couple too many. What makes me laugh, though, is the inconsistency most religious institutions have on this issue. I learned in youth group and at camp that it's good for a man not to touch a woman, which directly translated meant that if I held my girlfriend's hand, I was sinning.

I got a good talking to for holding Sarah's hand when we were dating more than one time at church. Neither my parents nor Sarah's parents cared, so we didn't really care, either. Oh, but there were people that did care. WOL camp is awesome, but they're funny about PC (as they likes to calls it), too. They were tougher than our youth leaders. If we had been caught holding hands there, we would have had to go home at our own expense. Of course, we probably would have traveled together and held hands the whole way, so it would have been a real problem.

There was an exception to the no PC rule in both locations: picture time! I took Sarah to May Banquet (our alternative to prom, because as good a good Baptist, I didn't dance, nor did I even attend the unholy event), and taking pictures with your date was always encouraged. What was the standard picture? Well, of course, we stood right next to each other, with our arms around each other, a little more precarious than holding hands, I'd say. The same thing happened at camp. You could put your arm around a girl, so long as it was for a picture. I think Sarah and I went through 3 rolls of film that week, because there are lots of pictures of us hugging and what not, but it was okay. A sin captured by a camera really isn't a sin, in case you were wondering. I wonder if this justifies everyone in the porn business. Perhaps they normally wouldn't do such things, but cameras were present, and they knew it gave them a pass. Maybe they don't think that, but you see where such a thought process could take you if you are bored and blogging about it and reminiscing about funny things from long ago.

And now I will tell on my wife with this side note: Sarah definitely could have gotten us kicked out. They did some silly date banquet at the end of the week, and you could bring your special somebody. I took Sarah. She said she wished she could give me a kiss - and who could blame her - and I said, "No, you don't. If you wanted to kiss me, you would." And she did! Right in the middle of the dining hall at No PC island, she kissed me right on the face, and since nobody was taking a picture, I'm pretty sure it was bad of her. I don't know how no one saw it. I'm sure someone did and secretly fist pumped at their table, proud of our getting away with such a thing.