The apostle Paul also linked fornication with “uncleanness.” The original Greek word, a·ka·thar·siʹa, covers impurity of any kind, in speech or action. Surely it would be unclean to allow one’s hands to stray under someone’s clothing, to remove someone’s clothing, or to caress another’s intimate areas, such as the breasts. Why, in the Bible the caressing of the breasts is associated with the pleasures reserved for married couples.​—Proverbs 5:18, 19; compare Hosea 2:2.

Some youths nevertheless brazenly defy these godly standards. They deliberately go too far, or they greedily seek out numerous partners with whom they can practice sexual uncleanness. They are thus guilty of what the apostle Paul called “loose conduct.”

Various authorities show that the original Greek word for “loose conduct” (a·selʹgei·a) means ‘outrageous acts, excess, insolence, unbridled lust, and outrageousness.’ Youths who practice loose conduct are like the pagans Paul referred to. Because of “the insensibility of their hearts,” those pagans came to be “past all moral sense, [giving] themselves over to loose conduct to work uncleanness of every sort with greediness.” (Ephesians 4:17-19) Surely you would want to avoid coming under such condemnation!

Realize, then, that one does not have to engage in sexual intercourse to go “too far” from Jehovah’s standpoint. If you are too young to marry, romantic touching and kissing should be off-limits. And those carrying on a courtship must take care that their displays of affection do not become unclean.

What Is “Too Far”?

Some youths believe that as long as they don’t engage in sexual intercourse, they haven’t gone too far, that what they do isn’t really wrong. The Bible shows otherwise. At Galatians 5:19-21, the apostle Paul said: “The works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct . . . those who practice such things will not inherit God’s kingdom.”