Lauren Winner started writing this book before she was engaged but by the time she finished it, she was married. She also confesses that she did have premarital sex with several boyfriends. Her background (and an adult conversion to Christianity from Judaism) lends itself tremendously to keeping this book from being just another preachy text on sex aimed at single people. I particularly enjoyed the author's treatment of the subject: she doesn't take the hard core black & white, right & wrong stance that I've heard from so many churches and other Christians. Rather, she approaches an understanding of sex and chastity and what is ok or not from the standpoint of, "does this experience teach me something true or false about God." I particularly appreciated her thoughts on what married people and single people have to teach the church, and also what she had to say about the falsehoods that pornography and masturbation teach - yet at the same time she gave me the impression that we were in a dialogue and travelling a similar journey; I left this book feeling thoughful and hopeful and not condemned.