seebs

Hmm. Mostly agreed, but there are couples out there who are happy, but don't have sex. I think there would be some couples in the absence of sex, but that depends on some very fuzzy theoretical questions about the nature of romance and love.

cheetah

Yes, but I feel that waiting until you feel confident you are prepared or till you feel the relationship is worthy of it is different than waiting for an arbitrary time like the day you get a marriage certificate. You are talking about "waiting" in general, but in practice, aren't you actually speaking about waiting till marriage?

seebs

Yes, no, and maybe. I think that marriage is the commitment, not the ceremony.

The point here is that treating a public ceremony as a clear, bright, line, distinguishing between two cases, ends up missing the point in any sense but the legal one.

However, waiting until you're sure that you're willing to commit to your partner for life, come what may, before having sex is not nearly as silly; it is a way of more closely associating sex specifically with pair-bonding.

The important part here is that every time you change from "commitment" to "piece of paper", you misstate my position substantially, and do so using very biased terms. "Piece of paper" is a term specifically chosen to reflect the *gap* between commmitment (which I was talking about) and civil marriage (which I wasn't).

scigirl

In which post? Seebs posted a lot of things!

Maybe some couples do that. Certainly not all. Isn't this true of a marriage as well? Sex can lose its meaning after a while - and the importance sex in a relationship changes over time. So what? That's life. What does this have to do with whether premarital sex is immoral, whereas marital sex is not?

Well when I had one, no I was not.

Sorry you don't get that information!

Anyway, again, what does this have to do with whether premarital sex is immoral, whereas marital sex is not?

Ok so a couple who chooses to engage in sex has to deal with how much sex they should have. This is true for any relationship. You still did not at all address my question as to what is special about marriage, and why it should be required in order to have sex.

Furthermore, if you decide to have casusal one-time sex with someone, NONE of your concerns listed above are relevant.

scigirl

cheetah

OK, but we still have a quibble over waiting till "pair bonding." I don't want to argue with people that do, but I don't see that as necessary either.I don't see why sex should be associated with pair-bonding unless you want to do that for yourself. But, as a general rule, I see no reason for it and certainly, human/hominid/hominoid history does not show this to be a natural phenomena

seebs

Well, it seems to have been independantly invented a number of times in humans.

You are, of course, right that it is not obviously necessary, and different rules may be used in differnt cultures.

However, for people who do, for whatever reason, like the idea of monogamous pair-bonding, the rule that sex occurs only within pair-bonds may be a helpful one.

cheetah

Agreed! Basically, people should examine their own feelings about what they expect from sex and from their partner and see if they are consistent prior to sex.

fatherphil

this one sci girl.

and i know better than to argue morality on a forum where there is really no moral foundation. i would only argue the practicality of an issue like this.

Opera Nut

Uh oh Fatherphil just threw a bomb!

He thinks there is no "moral foundation" on a board full of atheists! He's askin for it.

[[[operanut steps aside to get out of flak range]]]]

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Speaking of the effect on kids, my daughter said she was glad she was only 3 when we separated, because she was too young to blame herself for the divorce, as kids often do. She grew up in two households and she is a happy, independent girl of 17 now.

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In my case it was literally either divorce or die. When I filed for divorce I had been working for two weeks with bronchitis and felt like hell. Then that holiday weekend I went to see my parents and my mom put a thermometer on me and the OUTSIDE of my cheek registered 102 degrees.

They put me in the hospital with pneumonia up there. They gave me antibiotic IVs for 5 days and let me out, I was still sick. I was gravely ill for FIVE YEARS from this SOB nagging me.
I was in and out of the ER and the hospital constantly with sinus infections, bronchitis, and bacterial pneumonia, because he had nagged me so much that my immune system had broken down.

The only reason I lived was that four times in that five years, my doctor rinsed my lungs out. I was drowning in my own pus-filled lungs and my mucosa was bright red. Sorry to be so graphic, but that's how sick I was. I would have died had he not been able to wash my lungs out. My parents and I were not sure I was going to live, several times, and once my mom took me to the ER because I was vomiting violently from a sinus infection, and she said I turned purple. I was 33 years old when all this started.

My parents took me to the ER many times to because I was vomiting violently from a sinus infection drainage.

My parents lived with me for two years taking care of me and taking care of my sister, who was sick at the same time with a fatal brain cancer.

For two years my parents and I coughed at night, because we all were sick, they got the bugs from me. Mom said "We sounded like a goddam TB ward". One of us would wake up and cough, the other one would wake up and cough later in the night, and we could hear each other in different parts of the house.

I have never smoked and I do not drink alcohol. My parents did not smoke or drink either. The respiratory therapists could not believe that I did not smoke, because i was sick. I told them "No, I'm not stupid enough to smoke."
I even lost my formerly-healthy sex drive for several years! Which was fine in my condition.

And thru all this, my ex thought I made up the pneumonia just to go to the hospital and get attention, and he also thought that I bribed the doctor to put me in the hospital because he was a quack that would do that. My ex thought that I faked it all just to run up his insurance bills.

My doctor is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease.

Now I don't think anybody with any sense can deal with a man who makes up his own bullshit, and believed it all!!

scigirl

You know what I think? I think you realize that your religious beliefs, such as the one about premarital sex, have no basis in reality. So that's your cop-out answer.

Tell me something, fatherphil. If morality dictated from God through the Bible really is the best way to live, shouldn't it be obvious, defendable, and applicable to everyday life? If not, than what good is it? If the only reason to do something is "because the bible says so," than it can't really be that good of a reason.

scigirl