Dating (where socially acceptable) when you are not ready for marriage, certain types of dancing, parties with no chaste direction and where couples can pair off, all work up the “sexual appetite.” So avoid them and “deaden, therefore, your body members . . . as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite.”​—Col. 3:5.

16. What precautions should a Christian couple take while dating and preparing for marriage?

¹⁶ Especially when a couple is dating and preparing for marriage do they need to watch their circumstances. Being alone in an automobile, apartment (a person perhaps living away from home by himself), or in a secluded spot outdoors may induce couples to become overly intimate. One 17-year-old said frankly: “Anyone can say, ‘we know when to stop.’ True, a person may know when, but how many can do it? It is better to avoid the situation. Have others there.” Yes, a chaperone can give you the extra strength to dominate completely over the sexual desires in your bodies when you are together. Also, “set limits” as to how far your expressions of endearment will go. Stick to these.

19. (a) Who ‘led the body as a slave’​—the couple described in the Song of Solomon, or Amnon? (b) What were the results?

¹⁹ By controlling your body, dominating it, you will be able to look back with no regrets. Think of the joy of the young Shulammite girl and her shepherd lover when they eventually were united in wedlock. With the help of others, and by their own efforts, they conquered their bodily desire and remained chaste. Although they had spoken words of endearment, they had not been immoral before entering wedlock, thereby diminishing the pleasure they would enjoy after adjusting to each other in marriage. How different from passionate Amnon who could not wait and whose ‘body led him as a slave’ into immorality!​—Song of Sol. 2:16; 4:16; 5:1; 2 Sam. 13:1, 2, 10-16.