just minishorts.

Now both Eric and I come from pretty Charismatic backgrounds - so both our families (or my dad's side of the family and his family) do require that we do a proper process of going down the right path to the wedding altar. And because we want to have one of those classic, old fashioned kind of marriages where the pastor will bless the bride and the groom, and we can be together before God and profess to love each other till death us do part, the marriage counselling - is part of the rites of passage that Eric and I have both commited to complete.

Actually, Eric's family's a little bit 'deeper' than my 'messy-confused' lot - he's Pentecostal. In rather crude terms, the pentecostal Christians can be more fundamental than the most fundamental of fundamentalists. They usually take the bible very, very literally, down to the skirt lengths and candlewick heights in Deuteronomy, and they talk about building the perfect church perfect for heaven a lot. The charismatic / pentecostal cultures also talks a lot about sin and measures it on a moral compass - sin of course includes the unspeakable sex before marriage thing (and all that part about gays cannot go to heaven). So if you call yourself very fundamental usually it means that good Christians should believe in the bible totally and very very literally. You cannot ask strange questions, like, 'is it true that Jonah was swallowed up by a whale and SURVIVED?'

So if you are fundamentalist, and you lay with a woman when she is unmarried, than she is an adulteress and you'd have to cast her out of your life. Because God frowns upon it. According to fundamentalists, they say that God don't like it if we like or try sex before we get married. They say that God says if you are a not married go and sleep with a guy, or if you so much as let a guy see your hairy pot-pot before you married, you will go to hell.

Actually its not only the Christian fundamentalists who are like that. My mother who is very old fashioned and clings on tightly to her faith in the Goddess of Mercy, also says that good girls cannot have sex before they get married. And I know a lot of Muslims also think that way - but for some reason, some Muslims who don't really know people out of their circle of Muslim friends have very strange ideas about people who are not Muslims. I remembered meeting this Muslim lady at a function once who came up to me and asked me, 'I always wanted to ask you a question about people like you.'

'People like me?'

'Yah, you are the first I know who is Chinese, Christian and already has a boyfriend.'

'Okay…'

'Is it true that you guys don't have to get married but can stay together already?'

Unfortunately, Malaysia is full of fundamentalists whatever the religion and we are stuck in this country. So, as they all say, when in Malaysia, do as the Malaysians do. And good Christians in this country go for marriage counselling. Good marriage counselling courses, should have a section where they address the topic of 'whether you have had sex before you get married, and if you have not, how far have you gone in the petting zone'…

This is where I find that whole issue of evaluating the 'biblical quality' of a marriage preparation course rather odd. The bible doesn't really tell us what kind of kissing is permissible. It seems to tell us that lusting after a woman's breasts is normal and human, and that when two people fall in love, lust is natural and sex should follow (Songs of Songs lah which other book am I talking about?). The Malaysian resident Muslim activist blogger M.E.N.J. is insistent that good religions won't talk about sex at all and because the bible has a Mills & Boons chapter in it, it is therefore a bad religion. So you see, fundamentalists want to even measure God's goodness by making sure that everything he does will land in a humanly acceptable moral compass. And so, even a church-conducted marriage counselling session should have the necessary part where the couple is questioned on the issue of whether they have done it… and whether they have gone too far.

So before this, I was curious about what people talk about at marriage counselling sessions, prior to taking the course. And I did ask several more experienced people who've gone through the rigour. 'Do they ask intrusive questions ah?'

'Not necessarily. Sometimes the pastor does. Some pastors don't. Aiyah depend one lah.'

ANd my questions got down to the point of 'do they ask you if you hold hands, hug or kiss ah?'

One of my friends got a pastor who told them that couples are not supposed to have hard kisses. 'Soft kisses are fine.'

BUT WTF IS A HARD KISS ANYWAY?

You know what I think, this religious fundamentalist-led obsession with good sex and bad sex are totally sinful. The existence of unnecessary moral compasses are totally off the point. I thought marriage counselling was about affirming a couple's decision to get together, and if its about having God as centre of the relationship (which Eric and I do want very much), marriage counselling is about taking up lessons in communication, how to have better us time, what's the topics that might cause friction, how to resolve conflict, stuff like that. I mean what's the point of digging out stuff like, 'so when you hold hands you can hold until before the shoulder blade only, you cannot touch the girl below her neckline, you can peck on her lip but you cannot let the guy kiss your neck…'

If people really want to have sex before they get married, you think going in and telling them that they will go to hell if they have sex before marriage will stop them meh? Come on lah.

I will be very honest here. Because I am supposed to be a proper Malaysian Christian (and I want to look like that kind of good girl before the eyes of 80% of Malaysian Christians) I try not to think about God too much when Eric and I play tongue wrestling. And my pastor reads this blog, so I will tell him this here, yah Eric and I kiss. Sometimes ada tongue. Sometimes we hug. So far so good. If we fight we don't touch each other at all. So angry no feeling already, what for hug? I read somewhere that good couples will hug even if they are angry at each other. For me, no lor - if Eric pisses me off he can go and fly kite. When he says sorry then maybe lah, I let him kiss my forehead again.

And I personally also think people should not have sex before they get married, that is, if they wanna have the wedding in a church lah. Its not so good, I think. If you believe in a God that says you cannot have sex before you get married, and you want to have the wedding in a religious service that upholds that God, then it is only natural and normal that you… don't have sex before you get married mah. Or else what for get married before that God?

And THANK GOD, my marriage preparation course is very 'classy', just right for the likes of atas people like Eric and I. Plus, everyone who's met us know just what a good boy Eric is, and what a good girl I am. So really, this whole marriage preparation thing is really a fun together-thing that we've added on to our weekly calendar. And I am wearing a conservative white gown, with the veil covering my face when I walk down the aisle. 3+ months to go!

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