Heavy Petting

When I was in high school our bishop came into our sunday-school class and had a chat with us to explain a few things about being chaste. Towards the end of his lesson He gave a list of things that we should not be doing. As he went through the list I recognized most of the things that came up. But he got to a point that completely baffled me. He said that there should be no "petting" or "heavy petting." For the life of me I could not figure out what the heck that could mean. I wanted to ask what that was but I felt dumb because everyone else seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. 

A few questions came into my mind as I pictured myself running my hand from the top of a girls head down the back of her head and on to her upper back, just as if i was petting a dog. Why would anyone want to pet or be petted like a dog? Why in the world would that be something sinful or wrong? Is scratching behind the ears off limits too? It just did not add up. I figured it could not mean what I thought it was but still avoided petting girls like they were dogs more out of fear that they would just get really annoyed at me than out of fear of Hell-fire and Damnation. 

Later when I was about 19 someone finally explained it to me and I was enlightened just as if someone had finally placed the last puzzle piece into the puzzle to reveal all I needed to know about being chaste. Next time I think I will just ask at first so that my mind does not have to deal with these kinds of awesome mind puzzles and I can be free to ponder more important things like why fingers prune in the hot tub.