'Bachelorette' Contestant Defends Abstinence Views: 'You Have to Honor Her'

(YouTube/ Bachelor Nation)

In the world of reality television, sexual promiscuity is not only prevalent but more often than not promoted.

Such is not the case for Bachelorette contestant Mike Planeta, who said in a recent podcast interview that his virginity is of the highest value and importance. He believes that God placed a hedge of protection around him in this area so as to keep him out of trouble.

"If you truly are convicted in something like this—and for me, I'm convicted, ... [but] I believe wholeheartedly God grabs the most rotten ones the earliest," said the 31-year-old. "I was one of the most rotten ones when I was born. [God] was like, 'You do not get to experience a lot of these things because you're going to get in trouble.'"

"Knowing that about myself, it was almost like a layer of protection, where it was like, 'No, you don't get to do this.'"

Planeta realized God called him to honor his future wife in this way. "You have to show her that there's so much more that you see in her, right?" he said. "And there's so much more that you want for her. You want to elevate her."

He sees his biblical views of sex as a way for him to encourage other men to view relationships as both God-honoring and women-honoring.

"What's a way to do that?" Planeta asked. "For me ... one of the biggest desires in my heart is obviously to have sex, you know, with my wife. It's like, 'OK, well, then you need to put in work before you're granted that gift.' Right? So that's how I view it," he said. "If you're a man and that's something that you're struggling with, or you're feeling insecure about owning it but you're doing it for a reason, you're convicted ... for a reason. So find out what that reason is, understand it, and then ... verbalize it to your future spouse or your girlfriend."

Planeta said there's nothing "more secure" than "looking a woman in the eyes and saying, 'I want nobody else for the rest of my life. You are all I want.'"

The former baseball player was honest about his virginity during the season premiere, drawing some criticism from other contestants, but was overall received well by Bachelorette Katie Thurston, who said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the announcement, according to multiple news outlets.

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