THE STEPS TO PHYSICAL INTIMACY:

1.   Eye to Body
2.   Eye to Eye
3.   Voice to Voice
4.   Hand to Hand
5.   Hand to Shoulder
6.   Hand to Waist
7.   Face to Face (goodnight kiss)
8.   Hand to Face
9.   French Kiss
10. Necking (making out) (male genital feeling aroused)
11. Hand to Body
12. Petting (touching above waist) (female genital feeling aroused)
13. Heavy Petting (touching below waist)
14. Mouth to Breast
15. Fellatio (oral sex on a man)
16. Cunnilingus (oral sex on a woman)
17. Vaginal Intercourse

These steps were defined by International Sexologists and elaborated on by WAIT Training (www.waittraining.com).

It is important to realize that this is the normal progression for physical intimacy.  For most people, it is extremely hard to stop the progression once you go past step # 9.  For other people the limit may need to be set at a lower number in order to keep themselves from having sex (sexual activity is defined as any genital contact). 

Think about the steps of physical intimacy and how far you have gone… Where do you need to set a boundary so that you can now save all sexual activity for marriage?

An interesting, but sad note on the progression of these steps:

Some researchers have noticed that the culture of “hooking up” (casual sex) on college campuses is leading to a trend of #17 taking place before # 4.  Students are willing to sleep with each other behind closed doors, but are not willing to be seen holding hands together!