If I put my fingers in her private area, is that fornication?

Answer:

In many places, the government's laws on rape include references to sexual penetration. The laws specifically state that it doesn't have to be just the penis that penetrates, but anything used to enter the vagina is then counted as one criterion for rape. The reason I mention this is so you realize that even nonbelievers see intercourse broader than you are wanting to make it.

The number of times you do something wrong doesn't make it better or worse. It doesn't change the nature of sin.

Like a number of other people, you are focused on avoiding one sin, but ignoring the many other sins that lead up to it. You know you shouldn't commit fornication so you are trying to avoid intercourse, and you've placed limits but the limits are in the wrong place to avoid sin. Paul said to "Abstain from every form of evil" (I Thessalonians 5:22), not just some of the ones you consider to be worse.

Sexual touching is also forbidden to unmarried couples. "Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman" (I Corinthians 7:1). Let's put it bluntly: if things progress further to intercourse, you would not be able to claim it was unintentional. It is like walking along the very edge of a cliff and claiming you have no intentions of falling off. "Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent" (Proverbs 6:27-29).

Solomon points out the problem when he asked, "Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?" (Proverbs 6:27). You can show a hot coal all the affection you want. You can cuddle it and dote on it and it will still burn you. Your kindness to it doesn't change its nature. How often do you hear someone say, "But I love her!" Solomon's point is that your feelings toward your girlfriend won't change the fact that both of you have built-in desires and capabilities for sex. Trigger them and they follow the instincts built into you.

Solomon also asked, "Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared?" (Proverbs 6:28). Using the same example of hot coal, if you walk on it, it will burn you. You can apologize and say you didn't mean to step on it, but you'll still be hurt because your intentions don't change what it is. Thus, the excuse, "But I didn't mean for it to go this far!" becomes an empty one because your intentions don't change your body's drive. This is the type of excuse you have been telling yourself.

That is why Solomon concludes, "So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent" (Proverbs 6:29). Though he is talking directly about adultery, the same point is true about fornication. When you start intentionally stirring up sexual feelings, you are never innocent when things go further than you wanted.

That is why we are told not to make room for lust and lewdness. "Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (Romans 13:13-14). Lust is those thoughts and desires you keep battling about taking things even further than just taking off your blouse. Lewdness is engaging in sexual foreplay that gets the body ready for intercourse. The Christian must recognize the danger and not start a sequence of events that can't be legitimately completed.

Two unmarried people have no business exposing themselves to each other. The sole purpose of this is to inflame lust in each other. This is why God condemned the Israelites: "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!" (Habakkuk 2:15). It shows a lack of respect for the other person because nakedness in front of someone you are not married to is supposed to be embarrassing. Being naked is called shameful by God. "Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame" (Revelation 16:15). In the Old Testament God said He would expose Babylon's sins to their shame and He draws the same parallel. "Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame will be seen" (Isaiah 47:3). It was such an embarrassment that God used it to illustrate the exposure of sin in a person's life.

The problem started long before you put your hands where they did not belong. It's been going on for a while in your mental acceptance that it is all right for a couple to engage in lewd behavior if they "love" each other. "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man" (Mark 7:21-23).