bundling is not moral courtship, but...

In our Amish community when I was growing up, there prevailed a courtship practice which the evangelical-minded Amish and Mennonite churches now strongly condemn. By the way I am a 35-year old married Amish-Mennonite woman, and although we do not use electricity at home, my husband uses this computer at work for his construction contracting job. Anyway, back to the courtship practice.  It was called bundling, and you may be shocked to learn that bundling goes back hundreds of years to colonial America. My boyfriend and I (who is now my husband )where allowed, after two years of courtship, to cuddle overnight in bed together so long as we kept our clothes on. I know... I know... as a born-again Christian it is difficult for me to defend this practice. It is definitely putting temptation before a young couple. At that time however, the practice was still very common among us Amish and among the German apostolic and German Baptists. It was told to me that this type of courtship-" bei schlov", we call it in Pennsylvania Dutch (That means, "by sleep") - that it began because a male suitor might have to travel many miles to see his sweetie, and the houses were always freezing cold, and he could not return to his home in one day.    

I am not going to try to defend this practice to other bible-believing Christians, but looking back it "was" incredibly gentle, and I feel so sorry for the young people of today and the sexual pressures they face. It seems like everything today is cold, awkward expectations of sexual penetration (thus the secular argument to teach kids about condoms) and always the cultural messages to try intercourse and even Christian kids can fall into sex and pregnancy, disease, and battered emotions.    

I do not want to get too weird with this, but even though I believe bundling was inappropriate, the "petting" and masturbation that my true love and I did while bundling taught me to orgasm, and to expect "release" in our marriage from our wedding night to    this night.  Please do not think that I am advocating immoral courtship, but  I do believe that Christian girls need to be encouraged to masturbate!  Yes, I said encouraged! let me rephrase this.  It was an accident of the gentle   touching and kissing of our inappropriate courtship that I and other Amish girls learned to masturbate to orgasm. The reason for this is simple. When your cuddling and petting under the covers' and your boyfriend is gently trying to cop a feel, it just seems inevitable that the girl will grab his hand. At first it is to push his hand away, but when he gently persists...and you can see what happens next. It feels good, but when she guides his hand... it feels even better!

I say this because I have met and read about so many good Christian women who have had sexual difficulties in their marriages because they never masturbated as girls (or punished themselves if they did). some Christians may argue that a child's sexuality was designed to sleep until marriage, but this just does not happen.

If God designed the woman to only orgasm from intercourse, then why is the clitoris not well inside the vagina (with the g-spot), instead of well outside the vagina so that a girl with her cherry intact can still easily reach orgasm?   This is just my observation as a Christina woman sooo thankful for God`s gift to me of married (and single) sexuality and wonderful, wonderful orgasms.    

Comments From Readers

A reader says ... I remember hearing about "bundling" in my history class in high school.  I'm 33, almost the same age as you, and I had no idea it was still going on within 'church' circles, especially with such a 'conservative' group.  The church I attend would never allow this.  In fact, our single members generally don't date, and upon engagement, a couple, when together, are chaperoned at all times... so as to prevent something 'bad' happening I suppose.  The history teacher recounted the practice sort of like you did, talking about the 'cold' nights as part of the origination of the practice.  I had a pretty crusty history teacher, and at the time, I basically thought he was pulling our leg, and didn't believe him.

I'm not sure about your masturbation recommendation.  That only brought me grief of conscience, because it's too easy to let the mind lust.  Maybe women are somehow more able to not let their mind lust?  My wife's first orgasm was with me, her husband.  Both of us were virgins prior to marriage, but I had masturbated quite a bit prior, though there was virtually nothing since the time I made a commitment to Christ.  I guess that was my 'baggage.'  And believe me, my dear wife has absolutely no problems in the area of orgasm, despite the lack of masturbation prior to marriage.  Over the course of our marriage, she's received probably close to twice the number of orgasms that I have.

However, I can't answer the questions you have.  I've wondered about the same things.  The body, or one's sexuality, does seem to 'wake up' long before marriage.  God did seem to design the body parts to be readily accessible, shall we say.  I've always wondered if my mind just isn't twisted in thinking about it.  I suppose God also created the marijuana plant... so should our logic be that we smoke it?  I guess we'll know the answers to these questions some day.  Have to take the rest in faith.