About Nude Not Naked

Argh! Pre-Marital Sex!
As I sat in the living room writing I Guess I Could yesterday, I reflected on many different times spent with my boyfriends. Some were so long ago, like with HighSchoolSweetheart and some are nearer and dearer, like Swedish Love.

If you notice, I could not write much about how life could have been for me and HighSchoolSweetheart. This was partly due to the fact that I did not stay long enough with him. Staying here means living together, on a day-to-day basis. While I am still in contact with him and we continually debate about religion and logic, I do not know how it would be living with HighSchoolSweetheart.

In retrospect, I guess I did not understand myself 5 years ago as much as I do today. Perhaps understanding myself made it possible for me to actually love another person and maintain a healthy relationship with him. I find myself remembering more things about Swedish Love than I do of Alan and more of Alan than of HighSchoolSweetheart.

When I was with HighSchoolSweetheart, we were both church going. I was a little more innocent and perhaps even a tad prudish. Since breaking up with him and being with Alan, I have changed and began to understand myself a whole lot better. I was active in charity work since Alan was the president of the Rotaract Club around our area.

See the three pom poms sitting in the vase?
That's how tall the pom pom in my garden is.

I began to socialise more. I moved out of the church circle and began spending time with Alan’s friends. The bunch of us consisting of approximately 14 single boys and girls were busy having a jolly good time, organizing dinner parties and naughty sauna sessions, where the boys illegally snuck into the female sauna and cramped into the tiny 3 meter by 2 meter room.

Eventually when I did break up with Alan, I found myself in a unique position, where Swedish Love was with me for half of the year. We spent the other 6 months apart, him in Stockholm and I in KL. Compounded by the fact that I was supposed to migrate to Sweden, E and I were basically drinking and dancing every Friday and Saturday. Sometimes it extended to Tuesdays and Wednesdays for me, because I kept AB company.

We met tonnes of boys, from local boys to travellers to expatriates to the bum outs. Days were exciting and nights were thrilling. E and I travelled a lot during that time too, mostly on our own, for weekend holidays. It was fantastic and I absolutely recommend that every girl do that. It changed my perception of life and perhaps even influenced me to be the person that I am today.

When I eventually moved to Stockholm and stayed with Swedish Love, it was also the first time when I really took a break from the church and from family life. I cut my apron strings and led my own life. It took me some years to eventually “grow up” mainly because my parents are highly protective of me (they are teachers!) and I felt intensely dependent on them (despite me hating the dependency).

Bees, busy little yellow bees on my pom pom!

I think I had my first REAL ADULT relationship with Swedish Love. Not just a boyfriend who visits me for weekends or dinners on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays where his family and my family were involved, but a relationship that was built solid on just Swedish Love and I. Thinking back, I think I learnt a lot from him. He took me everywhere and we were together often. Swedish womenfolk were very independent and that drove me to be highly independent too.

I guess what I want to say is, you don’t really know how your love life is going to turn out or how your relationship will be until you live with the person for quite some time. I did that with Swedish Love for a period of 2 years and since then, I have been with Alex for 4 years.

I remember a lot about these two men and I know them in and out. I can’t say the same for Alan, even though I ate at his place on alternate evenings. I most certainly cannot describe how life could have been with HighSchoolSweetheart because I did not live with him. Swedish Love and Alex brought a new dimension to my personality and I am greatly in debt to the two men. Most importantly they taught me how to love and how it is like to be in a healthy and normal relationship.

The church has a very strong stand against pre-marital sex. Being a Sunday School teacher for more than 3 years, I find it difficult now to reconcile the differences in the church doctrine and my personal stance in this area. In my honest opinion, a couple must live a life together before being married and the experience teaches the couple how it would be like once they sign the dotted line. It is far more practical this way and would spare young people from unrealistic expectations of living together.

Of course for my not so Christ-like beliefs, I cannot teach in the Sunday School now – which is why I quit more than 6 years ago. If I had my way, I would preach co-habiting as a subject to young children in Sunday School. Couple that with proper sex education and the responsibility that comes with a regular sex life.

I had rows after rows with my father because he was a church elder and he found it difficult to explain to the church members why his daughter is co-habiting with hairy white men (two white men to be precise, ie Swedish Love and Alex). It must have been very difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that I had to do things my way.

• Not his best friend’s daughter’s way (who by the way, is a very close girlfriend of mine, recently gave birth to her 2nd child).


• Not my brothers’ ways. They are both single at the moment, a very good catch but alas, not willing to bring their girlfriends for a short weekend holiday.


• Not Elder John’s way because I am not Elder John. What worked in the 70s not necessarily works in this day and age. Have you read The Hustler’s Diaries lately? The world is filled with stories that will make 80s wild child Madonna blush!

Just my way. The way that I am comfortable with. The way that I learnt to grow, mature and love. Perhaps not the best of ways as my parents still wish that I was a virgin. But my way, in a way that allows my heart to feel safe and comfortable.

But how can it be so? Didn’t our grandmother teach us that sex before marriage and the idea of co-habiting is detrimental to the womenfolk? I guess there is no clear answer here. It depends on your family culture and values. I did not agree with my family culture, so I have spawned mine. In a heated debate, my father asked me if I would tell my daughter to do the same when she is a grown woman.

“Would you allow your daughter to co-habit with another man?” he asked.

I think my answer shocked my father into his seat. I said yes. I do not share same perceptions of sex and childhood upbringing ideas as my parents. I can still recall how my father slid back into his chair when I said that I would teach my daughter about sex from young and teach her to how value and cherish herself.

I do not believe in getting married and discovering about sex with your life partner. I think it causes more harm than good as the wondering mind will be at work at the seventh year itch. I think it is important to have a few lovers and at least one permanent partner before running down the aisle. This applies for both genders.

To me, there is no such thing as “girls will lose out in this co-habiting game”. There is no lost unless you have degraded yourself or sold yourself cheaply. It is no one’s business if you maintained a relationship with a respectable man, who loves you and treats you well. It helps if the man is successful, good looking or intelligent. Naturally the best option is all of the above characteristics.

I never felt that I had to answer to my church members or to my neighbours. Not even to my father. This might come as a shocker to many but I honestly believe that a woman’s sexual encounters are private and no one has the right to tell her what to do. It is her body and she has the right to protect and nurture it. So no father talks, no mother talks, no church elders talks. Everyone else can bugger off just as long as I know that I am taking care of my body, I am with a very good man and I am responsible for my actions.




What A Difference A Year Make
It is June 2006 and last year around this time, Alex and I were away for a flower show in NEC. Both of us helped his parents who owned a nursery somewhere in the south of Scotland. We bought a bulb from a Belgian man, for a gigantic flower I named the “pom pom”.

Look what is that in my hand?!
A bulb, hiding secrets from the earth.

Just take a look at what a difference a year makes. That is the bulb in my hand last year before we planted it into the earth. I did not see it until this year last week, when the bulb bloomed into a meter tall plant with a purple pom pom the size of a Big Mac.

What have you done in the pass year? Did you grow? Did you learn new things? Are you proud of yourself? Where are you heading? What are your hopes for the next year? Are you truly happy? Are you at your greatest potential?




The Best Decision
I am excited as Alex and I marched into our 4th year together. This sparks the longest ever relationship I ever had, one that I am most happy to experience. I often stare into empty space, nodding my head after a few seconds and saying, “Yeah, Alex is the best decision I have ever made in my life.”





Tags pre-marital sex cohabit love relationship charity+work Rotaract church sauna travellers local expatriate Stockholm Sweden best+friend daughter father parent Madonna