September 7, 2011 • By Crystal Pemberton

There's a warrant out for the arrest of a very dangerous criminal. He goes by the name of Your Cell Phone After 11 p.m. Together with his accomplices, Fatigue, Increased Hormones, and Irrational Thought, he has been known to coerce his victims into engaging in inappropriate sexual discourse, eventually leading them to commit scandalous sexual crimes. Well, maybe that isn't quite true. But the fact remains that when people are tired, they tend to say some really stupid things. I can't count the number of times that I have been on the phone late at night and said something that had nothing to do with the conversation and made absolutely no sense.

When you are fully awake, your brain is more capable of filtering your speech for rude, inappropriate, or nonsensical material. However, late at night, when you are fatigued, the barrier that normally blocks your mouth from speaking certain things is compromised. As a result, you tend to monitor what you say less carefully. Late-night fatigue can cause what I like to call 'Looseness of the Tongue.' This occurs when people allow themselves to say things that under normal circumstances they simply wouldn't say. For example, in normal, everyday phone conversations, you wouldn't (I hope!) ask someone if he or she sleeps in the nude. Yet for some reason, late at night, questions like these become conversation fodder.

Why do you think most sex hotline commercials come on late at night? I'd like to think it's because many channels are hoping that under-age kids will be asleep. But I'm pretty sure it is also because advertisers understand that during those hours we are most vulnerable to our sexual desires. As a result, we are less likely to be vigilant about what we do and say. This is why it is often in our best interest to avoid late-night phone conversations with the opposite sex altogether. We can end up saving ourselves a lot of trouble.

Now, here's a word to the men: When it comes to words, be aware that women respond differently than you do. Studies have shown that, while men are aroused by what they see, women are stimulated by appeals to their emotions. These appeals can be made through gift-giving, other thoughtful and considerate acts, and, most important, through words.

A friend of mine calls it 'wordplay' - the ability some men have to successfully get a woman to fall for them simply with their words. While some guys can say all the right things to say to gain a woman's interest, many of them have no real intention of pursuing anything more than a physical relationship. This can end up causing the woman unnecessary heartache and may make her distrustful of men in the future. This is why, guys, you must be extremely careful about how you speak to female friends. While you may think that you're just joking around, she might be getting the wrong idea about your intentions.

In his book Hedges, author Jerry B. Jenkins gives a concrete example: "When you are complimenting a woman with whom you are not involved in a committed relationship, it is important to make the compliment specific to the item she is wearing and not about her."


In other words, if a woman walks in wearing a pretty dress, do not say to her, 'You look nice in that dress.' Rather, say, 'That's a really nice dress.' The reason for this is that women tend to over-analyze things that are said to them. When we receive a thought, we mull it over. Then we take a shower, and we mull it over some more. Afterward, we go to our friends' place and mull it over together. Soon, they have helped us connect it to another thought, which then connects to another thought, and eventually the original thought has become a long, spaghetti-like mess.


In short, we women can take a simple molehill of a comment and make it into a huge, drama-filled mountain. This is why, men, you have to be careful about how you compliment a woman. If you tell a woman she looks nice in a dress, she may leave and think further about your compliment. As she does, her thought may become less about how you thought she looked nice in the dress and more about how you thought she looked nice. However, if you are careful to compliment a woman's dress and only her dress, then when the woman thinks over what you have said, as she will inevitably do, all she can likely consider was how you liked the dress itself.

Now I understand that such precautions may seem over-the-top, but whenever there is the potential for misunderstanding, it is better to err on the side of caution.

A very important truth that we as believers often forget is that the power of life and death is in our tongues. When we join in and condone conversations that include sexual content, we give those situations the potential to become real and manifest themselves in our lives. We must be careful to avoid making ourselves vulnerable to the sexual temptations that we face.


-- excerpt from Confessions of a Born-again Virgin (taken from Chapter 2)

Crystal Pemberton is a sassy writer on a mission to make ho-hum, boring spiritual truths ever so practical for the everyday young adult. She is a graduate of Yale University and the author of Confessions of a Born-again Virgin.She currently lives in the Bronx, New York, where she is a writer, inspirational speaker and active worship leader at Love and Grace Christian Center.

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