Let's go right back to the beginning of our awakening of our own sexuality.  It starts pretty young, scandalously young in our day and age.  But let's imagine a village where chastity is the norm.  Let's imagine the Catholic village at its finest...the village that we would choose to raise our own children in...it is our home, that is the foundation of the villages that we must create.

A young couple becomes attracted to one another...they bat eyelashes, make small talk, get to know one another.  Hearts flutter.  Even the sound of his voice makes her blush.  Even thinking about her hair makes him weak in the knees.  Something that may become love is starting.

The stirrings of a physical relationship begin here.  The stirrings of a physical relationship need to be harnessed, here, not way down the road somewhere.  Here while it is still just a flutter.  In its early stages, the individual must make decisions about where their thoughts will wander.  For where their thoughts wander, eventually will their desire, and their actions.

This is where the beloved, the desired, the one whose heart is to be won...must also become the one to be protected.  We protect the dignity of the beloved by thinking on them only in ways we would want others to think on them.  Veiled, chaste, lovely.  Pure.

Worth waiting for.

How then, does the young couple broach the topic of desire?  They are talking of marriage, maybe, a future together.  They desire each other.  And that, perhaps is where they need to start.  Being honest about the human-ness of the desire that they feel, and raising up the goal of chastity.  

They need the language that adequately and accurately defines their concerns and their goals.

The language needs to be pure.  It must have dignity and decorum.  It must not paint crass visual pictures of a physical relationship.  Words, too, must raise up the sacredness of conjugal love.

Modesty starts with words, not necklines.  Our young people need to know how to express truth about sexuality with appropriate language.  If we want them to engage the culture, respect and understand themselves, and safeguard their own purity in the context of courtship...they need words.