When couples in Christian culture get engaged they are encouraged to keep their engagement short. The engagement period is considered a ticking time bomb because of the difficulty of “staying pure.”

If they’re not already covertly Doing It, some couples try to deal with the purity situation by not kissing until the altar. Others, after spending time in prayer about it, will allow themselves some passionate hand-holding. Others may decide (prayerfully) that they will kiss “but that’s it,” and the rest furtively dry hump their engagement away.

In any event, limping to the finish with the last dregs of virginity intact is considered by Christian culture to be a technical success, but any missteps up to that point can be a source of shame the couple may cling to for years. Some couples tell their woeful tale to their church’s singles or youth ministries as a sort of community service so that the young upstarts won’t make their same mistakes. The singles and youth eventually become nauseatingly familiar with the details of the regrettable gaffe(s) and while the couple is careful never to present these stories in an appealing light, they manage to be strangely compelling anyway.