Sleeping together

Matthew Yglesias has pointed readers to Brio, a Christian teen magazine. Not theology, but things like, "Is it a sin to wear a tampon?" The advice archives are possibly the most dangerous procrastination tool I have ever encountered, in part due to the links that simply beg to be clicked: "A Crush, Hepatitis C and Wearing Tampons" or "Ouija Boards and Guys." There's a lot of advice on how to stop being gay (including the oh-so-helpful suggestion that one was probably never gay in the first place, but rather admired another girl's "feminine qualities"), but that's to be expected. The stranger problem that keeps coming up, one I never knew was a problem, is that of a boy and a girl sleeping together, as in, falling asleep fully clothed, before marriage. That's apparently not permitted. Presumably same-sex bed-sharing is also no good, but I have not yet finished these archives, nor do I intend to given that that would waste still more time, so I can't say for sure. Regardless, I wonder what Christian advice columnist Susie Shellenberger would say about my most sinful post-Stuyvesant-prom night, during which give or take six fully clothed, fully geeky students of both sexes shared one bed. Nothing "happened," for all the obvious reasons, but there was some sleeping, so perhaps some hardcore sinning was, in fact, taking place.

What strikes me as unfair about this "sin" is that some people grow up in NYC, where apartments are minute and sleepovers mean bed-sharing is a must. You can't give everyone a bed or even floor space for a sleeping bag, or provide a room for boys and a room for girls. Is the assumption just that Brio readers do not find themselves, post-prom, in classmates' West Village apartments? If so, that would probably be a fair assumption.