Ep. 91 - Singleness, Sex, and Dating - with Kat Harris
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Who is Kat Harris?
Kat Harris is a Brooklyn based online educator, digital content creator, writer, speaker, and female empowerment advocate. Kat shares her perspective on singleness, sex, and dating in a way that is God honoring and based on scripture.
Kat is originally from Texas and went to University of North Texas to play Division 1 Tennis. After an injury, she transferred to a small Christian college to major in Bible. With that transfer, Kat felt as if she had it all figured out. She was going to get married by 21 and start having babies - that did not happen.
After graduating college she moved to California to start working for a media based nonprofit and began traveling all over the USA doing advocacy work. Eventually got into photography and started working for one of the top wedding photographers in the nation. 4 years later, she started her own photography business and moved to New York to shoot runway, editorial, and more.
She eventually started an online blog called “The Refined Woman”. It has been 8 years since that blog was started to empower women. This blog has grown into a blog, podcast, and soon to be book called “Sexless in the City” (coming April 2021), that is aimed at reaching women of singleness in the Christian community.
What would you say to encourage single women?
I see you - I understand. I know the heartache and pain of longing for a partner. Of putting your heart out there and being rejected. I know the experience of doing online dating until I am blue in the face. I know feeling as if my life is on pause until the day that I get married. But I want you to know that your life and your calling are not on hold. You have a calling and purpose in your life today. Your worth does not hinge upon your relationship status.
“Your life has so much going on right now. Live it to the fullest.”
“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. ... My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start." - Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines)
I want to challenge the way that we honor and celebrate people in our culture. So often, the way that we celebrate people hinges on the nuclear family (engagement parties, bachelorette parties, weddings, baby showers, first birthday parties). But how can we celebrate the life lived of people regardless of your relationship status? Celebrate your friends promotion, or getting your first house, celebrate your life accomplishments no matter what they are.
So often in the Christian culture, we think we need to get married by 21-22, be married for a year, and start having babies. Looking back on my life, I am so glad I did not get what I wanted, when I wanted it, in my 20s. I am so grateful that God said no to me so many times. Many times a guy would reject me and only in hindsight would I look back and say “God, thank you so much for having that person to say no to me” because I would not have been able to walk away.
I have had so many opportunities out of my singleness that I would not have had if I had gotten married young. I would not have gotten to travel, or had the jobs I had. I would not be here today with “The Refined Women” or a book coming out about singleness and sexuality. God is allowing me to be the voice that I didn't have when I was younger.
“God’s plans for our lives are so much more creative and imaginative than we could ever imagine (Ephesians 3:23)”.
Why does everyone else get it the way that I want but I don’t get it that way?
Everyone else is not getting what they want. Only when we bring our darkness to light can we see that so many other people are feeling the way that we are feeling. When it comes into the light, it loses its power over us.
Sometimes we get caught in a victim mentality, that we are not getting what we want. It's not working, it's not going well, poor me, poor me, poor me. But when we are a victim, we are not taking responsibility. How can I take my mindset captive and take responsibility for the situation?
And part of that is recognizing that the common denominator in every situation is myself. If I am always in the “friend zone” then perhaps there are ways that I am showing up and doing that are putting myself in the “friend zone”.
Also, if I think that I am a friend and not a lover. Then everything that happens is going to be read into that narrative. In social situations, I think that I am the friend, so I show up as the friend. No one told you you were a friend, except yourself. You have created a narrative in your head and don't ever give yourself a chance. You can't change other people, but you can change how you are showing up.
“If you are going to think about the worst case scenario, you also need to think about the best case. While it's true that you COULD fail, it's also true that you COULD succeed. Do you want to self preserve and focus on the worst case scenario?
Faith is choosing to lean into the un-seen. That is what is so powerful about faith. It is seeing your circumstances and believing that they could change. It is mental toughness that distinguishes one person from another.”
Dating is a Curb not a Cliff
I remember telling my mom in college after a break up, “I don't want to date another person unless he's my husband”. I felt as though that was the culture in Christian dating. You need to know your intentions and he needs to state on the first date where this is going. So the stakes felt super high. Like if I don't want to marry this person, I don't want to go on a date with them.
We put crippling pressure on ourselves and on men to know right away, on the first date, if this is going to end in marriage or not.
We as women are so connected to our longing for relationships that we think being married or in a relationship will solve all our problems. We think it is the antidote to our life's problems. Which if anything, it is just going to exacerbate those issues. So basically you are looking for this person to be your savior to save you from your problems.
When you are dating, you are not jumping off a cliff into the abyss. You are just hanging out with another human being that God created and God loves. You aren't jumping off a cliff, doing something crazy. You are just stepping off a curb from the sidewalk.
It takes time to figure out if someone is good for you.
We treat dating like a job interview and we’re in the judgement seat rather than really getting to know a human for who they are.
It would serve all of us really well to remove the pressure from dating. You can remove the pressure and still be intentional about dating.
And really I don't think the first date is really a date. “The first date is just an introductory service”. Am I interested enough to get to know you? If there are no major red flags on the first date, then go on a couple of dates and get to know him.
How should we look at premarital sex and singleness and purity?
If you are choosing to abstain from sex before marriage, will that make your dating pool smaller? - Yes, but it will also make things more clear.
“I don't really like the word pure. I think the underlying message is what makes me pure is what I choose to do or not do sexually. And I don't think that is true, I think the only thing that makes us pure is God.”
What has become really important for me is owning the decisions I have made about what I am and am not doing physically in a relationship.
I decided to abstain from sex before marriage when I first became a Christian at 16 because I thought thats what I had to do to be a good Christian. It was not until I moved to New York City and started dating a lot more that I realized that I had not internal motivation to abstain. It was just the expectation that the Christian community had for me.
So I went on this journey of figuring out what I believed about what I had been taught, about what the Bible says about sex.
I had to get to a point where I could own my decision.
In our culture, Christians have been given a set of rules, a list of do’s and dont’s about sex as opposed to a Biblical vision. And that vision is in there.
Follow Kat Harris:
Instagram: @therefinedwoman and @therefinedcollective
