Thanks to all who posted about sex. That conversation is still open and thriving, if you want to check on it from time to time.
Something seemed to come up a few times in the recent discussion, so I figured we could give it it's own thread. What do you think about having sex before getting married, or about the importance of saving it until marriage? I'd like to hear from the Christians in the audience in particular, but everyone and anyone is welcome to post. Talk about your feelings, thoughts, facts, experiences, guidelines...
Same rules for posting apply as before: keep it PG-13. You are more than welcome to post anonymously, but please refer to yourself with a nickname or callsign at least, so we can tell who's who.
16 comments:
Some popular ideas I've heard, just to get things started:
People used to get married at much earlier ages (14-15 yrs old) than we do in our culture now. Particularly in Biblical times when those rules were written.
Sex is like emotional duct tape: when you are sexual with someone, you stick to them emotionally. When you break up, you rip your tape off them. The more times you stick your tape to diffferent people and remove it, the less sticky it is. Eventually, sex loses its intimacy for you and becomes self-gratification alone.
Sex is a physical expression of love and intimacy, and should be shared with the one you love if you are committed to them. But you don't have to be married, just really in love.
I know you're just tossing out some discussion points, but since you're asking for a Christian point of view, I'd say being "really in love" isn't enough. That kind of love should lead to marriage. If it doesn't, maybe you're not as in love as you thought.
But that raises an interesting point. There seems to be less emphasis on the actual "getting married" part these days. More and more, couples live together without exchanging vows, but remain monogomous. Is there any reference to common law marriage in the Bible? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I think the wording here is tough. I mean, 14 year olds think they "really love each other" but they aren't anywhere near ready for marriage or even a serious relationship for a variety of reasons. I think there are different situations. For example, a couple who wants to get married but the bride's family insists it will take a year to plan the wedding. Or they can't get married until one is done with medical school. I think probably waiting is best....because it "proves" you're in the relationship for way more than that and blesses your future spouse with the knowledge that you'd wait for them. It holds you back from physicality becoming the main er, thrust of the relationship.
However, that said, I don't really see what the big deal is. There is a bigger difference in my mind, between two people involved in a one night stand and a committed couple who just isn't married yet -vs- a married couple and the committed non-married couple. But for some reason, everyone acts like a one night stand is the same thing as sleeping with your fiance. Thoughts on this?
Also, sex isn't the only part of marriage (obviously.) What other lines are crossed/not crossed in pre-marriage relationships? Money, co-habitation, revealing your past/fears/secrets, relying on someone emotionally. Should your boyfriend take you to your gynocology appointment, for example? Should you spend holidays like Christmas morning together and split family obligations? Should you freak out about staying in a hotel room on vacations?
some friends of mine in my apt building live together and are not married. i think they've been together for a couple years. rather than saying: if you're living like you're married but you're not, who cares about marriage anyway? i would ask, if you're going to live together, why wouldn't you just get married?
i've having a hard time phrasing this, i apologize for that.
i guess it would seem silly to get married later, pretty anti-climactic i guess. what's the point of a "wedding night" if you've slept together every night the previous 2 years?
Q from j-do:
"But for some reason, everyone acts like a one night stand is the same thing as sleeping with your fiance. Thoughts on this?"
i say a one night stand is detrimental and sleeping with your fiance' is detrimental. each for different reasons though...the one night stand is sort of obvious, it sets up a pattern of carelessness about sex and a selfish downward lifestyle spiral. thoughts on the fiance' issue below:
my thoughts on this refer to patrick's question about pre-marital sex in general as well...
i never had sex before i was married. in marriage, there are times, sometimes many, when i am attracted to other women and would like to have sex with them, whether i'd admit this to myself or not. if my wife and i had had sex while we were only dating or engaged and set up the pattern that sex outside of marriage was okay; that lines could be crossed when we felt it was ok, i think this loss of sacredness of marriage would have caused me to think it not as big of a deal to cheat on my wife.
i'm not saying it's like this for everyone, but for me there is something magical about that wedding day. the tux and the white dress, the church, the 200 guests, the pictures, the "first night", the honeymoon, etc etc. even if you elope, there are still things sacred about the day and night you get married. my point is, these sacred things keep me in line! i have a lot more to lose now. my abstinance in dating and engagement is much of what makes these things sacred and so special, so "once-in-a-lifetime-never-could-ever-be- duplicated." i know if i cheated on my wife i would just be peeing all over all that amazing stuff. and i think if i had had sex with her as just a girlfriend or fiance', none of that stuff would mean as much to me as it does.
i'll stop typing now, hopefully some of this makes sense
Interesting thoughts, 18th Place... and speaking as someone who could never keep my (our) hands to myself (ourselves) before marriage, and being a believer, I actually found it FRUSTRATING that there was so much tah-dah over the actual wedding day. We're still the same people before and after. We would make the same committment the day before as the day after; the wedding is just a stamp of appoval from friends and family. I'd like to think God feels the same way about our relationship before as after we "go public," but that doesn't seem to be the case. I get frustrated that, as j-do mentioned, there is often such a huge cultural gap between when a commitment is made (engagement) the wedding. This is NOT to say I believe people should be getting married the second after they get engaged... only that I'm frustrated when circumstances prevent it!
I know plenty of people who have been damaged by sex before marriage, especally those who are believers and "thought" they would be marrying the person they were having sex with. But I know just as many, if not more, unbelievers who lived together, had sex, etc., and have marriages and sex lives just as nice as any of "ours."
Speaking as someone who is now financially independant and more mature than when I was married, if I ever have to do it again I will plan for the wedding to take place before frustration and bitterness sets in and temptation takes over, even going to the courthouse if I have too! But I wouldn't council a younger couple, especially one still living on mom & dad's dime, to do the same.... so....????
A thought:
What is the purpose of sex? It increases intimacy and closeness between people and is exciting, relieving, and fun...but the main point is to make babies, right? All the toys and all the noise are there to make little people. There are delightful sides of sex too, but they are side effects, no? Sometimes I think that gets lost in our world, because we have so very many ways of eliminating the pregnancy part of sex. We can make sex more "sexy" because we have birth control, condoms, nonoxynol-9, or whatever. I'm not advocating birth control or parenting or anything else for that matter, just saying that physiologically, sex is about reproduction first, whether you believe in evolution or creation. I'm open to input on this assessment, as I have room to move on this opinion.
I really, truly, passionately believe that it is best to avoid all sexual contact until marriage. I have such a hard time explaining why, however. The words don't come out right. I have relational, developmental, emotional, and spiritual reasons (I guess in addition to the physical/social one mentioned above) for this opinion, but it's one that's really hard for me to structure in this forum.
In my mind, sex is sacred. I mean that it is one of the very few purely beautiful, spiritual, magical things that we have on earth. It is only safe inside a marriage commitment, and even then sometimes it is not safe or gets damaged. If it isn't sacred to you, then you have been lied to somehow. Return to what is pure. Far, far too much can happen when a relationship becomes sexual for us to treat it as simply an act of love or of simple pleasure. Does anyone else still believe this, or am I a twisted idealist?
I don't mean to doubt you, Rob, but I think some specific verses could be helpful in this discussion. Where exactly does the Bible explicitly prohibit sex before marriage?
Mr. Anonymous
Okay, now we have something to talk about. Those verses you referenced all speak against adultery, which is not the same thing as sex before marriage. Adultery is defined as "Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful spouse." (Dictionary.com) So, by definition, the label "adultery" does not apply to those who have yet to marry, which is the crux of this discussion. Of course, this strict definition is very linear, and one could extrapolate that you're being unfaithful to your future spouse by having sex before marriage. However, if your partner is your future spouse, I don't see how that would be considered a sin, because there is no infidelity.
So, I believe my original challenge still stands. Where exactly does the Bible explicitly prohibit sex before marriage?
Mr. Anonymous
actually, it seems to me that Mr. Anonymous is simply playing devil's advocate to stir our thoughts. nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.
as far as i'm concerned, the bible doesn't seem to explicitly list sex before marriage as sin. but as far as i'm concerned, the bible does seem to implicitly consider sex before marriage as sin.
the bible doesn't explicitly say that pushing old ladies down the stairs is wrong; but of course, we know that doesn't give us the liberty to be pushing old ladies down any stairs.
the issue that Mr. Anonymous [and this entire thread] seems to be getting at is that of wisdom and discernment: it may not be spelled out in black and white, but the preponderance of the evidence certainly seems to point in a particular direction. thinking things through and revisiting why we believe what we believe can never hurt, can it?
onward with the discussion. don't mind me.
Mr. Anonymous is right that the Bible doesn't specifically say that premarital sex is wrong. We cannot ignore this as Christians and go around preaching that it does say this. It makes us look like we're manipulating the text as well as being stupid.
Genesis 2:24 of the creation account is a great verse that gives us a picture for the beautiful design of marriage and SEX (YEAH BABY! SO THAT'S WHAT 'ONE FLESH' MEANS!!!): "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
it seems that this verse would exclude premarital sex as a part of God's plan for us.
We can't act like if someone has had premarital sex though that they are automatically going to hell. If we took all the time we spend in church judging people for their sexual sins and instead used our time to be open and honest with each other about our own struggles with lust, pornography, and sex and helped each other towards purity, we may not even be having this discussion!
We love to judge others in their sexual immorality and pretend that we have no problems in this area. that's bullcrap
Good answers, everyone. I'm not meaning necessarily to play devil's advocate...moreso I'm earnestly trying to figure out, as mdog said, why we believe what we believe. I've been a Christian most of my life and I grew up believing premarital sex was wrong because that's what my teachers and mentors said and I had no reason to doubt them. But now that I'm older and examine things more critically, I do have to wonder if this is one of those things that we've been conditioned to believe because it seems moral or is there really a scriptural base to it? To be honest, Rob, when this thread started, I was going to give the same answer you did...until I couldn't think of a single verse that specifically addressed this issue. That left me wondering where this notion that premarital sex is wrong came from to begin with.
I'm fairly convinced by your argument about the spirit of the law and what meaning of adultery is lost in translation. My only area of doubt remaining is for committed monogomous couples who fully intend to marry. If they've already made that covenant with one another in private, how is that different from making the same covenant publically in front of a minister and their friends and family? Is their commitment to one another any less if it goes unwitnessed? Who witnessed Adam and Eve's marriage? Again, I'm not trying to provoke anyone...I'm just trying to suss out some stuff.
Mr. Anonymous
Well put, Brookelyn. I think now we're just splitting hairs, but my point about Adam and Eve was, as you said, that God was their witness. God still watches over all of us and could perform the same function today. There's technically no need for the ceremony itself as long as you're married in His eyes, because that's all that really matters anyway. Or do you think God must manifest His presence like He used to for it to count?
As for thinking you've found "the one," we've all fallen into that trap. I was speaking more specifically of perhaps a couple that's been together for awhile and now they're engaged and they've even set a date. But it's like a year away. Of course, nothing in life is certain, but wouldn't you agree that's pretty much a done deal? Of course there's still the outlying possibility it wouldn't work out...but that could be said of the marriage as well. If you have sex during the engagement and then break it off, how is that any different then going through with the wedding only to get a divorce later?
I mean, I guess I see what everyone is saying and I agree for the most part. This is all just hypothetical for me anyway. I'm still a virgin, and I haven't met "the one" yet. I plan to wait at least until I'm engaged and probably until I'm married. But Patrick wanted a discussion, right? =)
Mr. Anonymous
In regards to the whole "once you've found the one" thing...on the one hand, it seems like everybody should just suck it up and keep their pants on and have a little self control. On the other hand...I think that when you're prevented from marriage by societal obligations (like finishing school, living in different cities, letting your mom plan a gigantic wedding that takes a year) that holding off form having sex works ok for some people...but for others, it creates so much temptation and therefore guilt when certain physical boundaries are crossed in mindless moments where you "can't take it anymore"...that makes both people associate guilt and frustration with their sex life. Others have commented similarly in other threads on this and I heartily agree.
"Waiting" can be a great way to honor your loved one...but when both people are constantly struggling to keep their hands off each other, in the name of not crossing that boundary, getting mad at each other, blaming, etc. Is it inappropriate to consider the whole "lesser of two evils" thing? I think I'd rather have sex before marriage with my significant other who I intended to marry than to have a fight every weekend about if I wear that skirt that shows my knee, he can't keep his paws off me or ending up taking "making out" a little too far and he gets mad at himself and I get mad and we both feel bad and we beat our brains and genitals into submission, naming all things sexual evil until such and such a date where we're gonna tie the knot and then everything is fair game when it comes to sex. I just don't think you can turn your brain on and off like that. I think you attach guilt/sin to sex in a way that may really sap your enjoyment of it...especially women.
I definitley don't have perfect answers here, or maybe any answers....but what I do know is that it's amazing that we're all talking about this.
Good, awesome stuff. Thanks to all for being brave and candid...even you anonomusses. ;) Don't you wish we talked about this stuff as part of our everyday (or every month at least) conversations? Golly, I sure do. My tone might get a little strong here, but please forgive me and don't take it personally. I mean no offense at all.
I agree with Brooke. She said everything I could have hoped to say, only better. I support and second just about everything she said, including having the personal experience of finding "the one," only to find she wasn't the one. And "the one" and I even talked about whether we should have sex before marriage because "societal obligations" were standing in our way of what we would have committed to otherwise, and we were having a hard time keeping our hands off each other. But she wasn't "the one," and I now regret some of the decisions I made. I thought I was right, and I was wrong, and there was no way I could have predicted that.
But here's the kicker: after 6 years of marriage, sometimes what makes my wife "the one" for me is just the fact that we are actually spiritually AND legally married to each other, and that there are over 150 witnesses to that act, and those witnesses have real, manifested earthly presences, even if God's presence feels up in the air. (God doesn't count because God isn't going to tell anyone down here if He catches me breaking the promise He heard me make, is He?) My mental and emotional systems sometimes look for a way to escape because of selfishness, anger, and/or pain, but my commitment refocuses and humbles me to seek amends and reconciliation with my "one." It's an emotional, spiritual, and legal commitment, and all three aspects are necessary to make a marriage commitment, not just the emotional one that engagement provides. (It does not provide a spiritual aspect because God provides that, AFTER you're married.)
Is there a difference between having engaged sex and married sex? Absolutely yes. The marriage ceremony is about witnesses to your event, not about their sharing your magic moment. They're the people that are supposed to help keep you accountable and flexible in your marriage--the folks who hopefully know you well enough to know when you're becoming calloused before it gets so bad there's no hope left. Sadly, that's not often the case in our culture because failed marriages are nearly the norm. And sometimes, there is no hope left, and sometimes, there's no one to blame.
Is there a difference between having sex while engaged then breaking up, or getting married and then divorced? Damn straight. Getting engaged is not a commitment. It feels like a commitment because it is a commitment to make a commitment, but you haven't signed the judge's little form, and you haven't pledged your life to one other person in front of friends and family. If you think you've made an equivalent commitment by getting engaged, you're emotionally fooling yourself. There's no emotional or legal strength to back you up. That's my reaction/response.
OK - so this discussion is really old and maybe no one will read my comment - but as a devoted christian who is now in grad school and has experienced a vast aray of oppinions - do you think age matters in this decision? Personally I would consider premarital sex far more detrimental for two 14 year olds than for two 28 year olds.... opinions and thoughts?
I mean I get the idea of what the bible says is for everyone- and so a sin for one would be a sin for all - but do you think that should factor into the decision? If God's law is to protect us, it certainly has different protective value for different situations....
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