JamesKrieger

How does the memory of something special prevent divorce? That's like saying the memory of the great sex my girlfriend and I had on one of our vacations will help prevent us from breaking up, or the memory of a great kiss we had on an elevator will help prevent us from breaking up.

So what do you suggest we do now in America? As I said, people are waiting until their late 20's or early 30's to get married? Based on your reasoning, should people hold out this long, just because sex between two virgins can be fun?

So what you're saying is this:

The best sex you'll ever have is on your wedding night, and it's all down hill from there.

Based on your reasoning, sex can never get better after the honeymoon. How disappointing.

scigirl

luvluv,

In those books you read, did they address percentages of people who never get married (and also never have kids)?

I read somewhere that it might be as high as 10%.

Should those people remain virgins their whole lives?

scigirl

Loren Pechtel

And the rooster makes the sun come up!

The problem with these statistics is that you are looking at the relationship as a causitive one. However, there's a big underlying factor--those two virgins who marry are almost certainly strongly opposed to divorce. If the relationship fails they are far more likely to stay together anyway.

To truly study it would be basically impossible as it's going to be too tied up in the underlying attitudes. You can't control for the attitude without getting horribly distorted samples which won't tell you anything anyway.

scigirl

Ok fair enough seebs. But while we are on the topic of addressing potential harms...

According to my recent JAMA, (it's at home and I'm not so I can't quote the statistics at this time), people undergoing a divorce are more likely to be severely depressed than people who aren't. Since the only people who undergo a divorce are those who choose to marry, shouldn't we also be advising people of the emotional and biological complications of the altar?

Furthermore, your entire line of reasoning seems to imply that marriage is inevitable when statistics clearly show that this is NOT the case for every American. Since not every person gets married, to discourage them from having sex is, in a sense, bigotry. Why should they be denied a basic human action simply because they have not been lucky enough to find that soulmate?

luvluv, all those (alleged) statistics, to me, are completely meaningless, unless you show detailed information on why the marriages broke up.

As a side note, luvluv, do you think that any action that reduces the divorce rate is a moral action? If so, than encourage people to become atheists, cuz we have a lower divorce rate than christians:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

I'll be interested how you do some gymnastics to avoid supporting more atheism, yet condemning premarital sex, based on what influences divorce rates.

Anyway, back to my point:

If the divorce rate is higher than it used to be, this could mean one of several possibilities:

1) People are lazy and they don't work on fixing their marriage like they used to (cuz of all that kinky sex they had in college maybe). If this is indeed proven, then perhaps you might have a point. However, would we want as a society to keep marriages together even though they started on weak premises, or would we want to prevent marriages like that from occuring?

2) People are divorcing for things now like abuse, or sheer incompatibility on important issues. If this is the case, than rather than worry about the divorce rate, let's lower the marriage rate, right? One way to do that would be to make sure you are marrying the right person. Premarital sex may just be a part of that, in addition to talking about whether you both want kids, have the same goals, make sure the other person isn't a psycho, etc.

3) Marriage as an institution is not seen as important as it used to be. If this is the case, you can't necessarily conclude that it is good or bad. On the one hand, it takes the pressure off those people who never do marry. Used to be that a 28-year-old woman such as myself was a failure for being single at this age! Talk about a self-esteem downer! Nowadays it's not such a big deal.

In addition, an important part of our population - gays and lesbians - are still not allowed to partake of this institution. Not too long ago, interracial couples weren't either. Yet - gay, lesbian, and interracial couples managed to stay together and in some cases even produce children! Perhaps this bigotry, perpetuated by churches in many cases (for both the interacial ban AND the current homsexual ban) is responsible for devaluing marriage. Did you ever think of that, luvluv?

On the other hand, I do think, espeically when children are involved, that marriage should be taken seriously. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people who DO get married and have kids, should have just stayed with the premarital protected sex. Funny you guys keep talking about all those poor damaged kids who have divorced parents (I'm in that category). How about all those poor damaged kids who are currently in a bad living situation, because this society damn near expects everyone to get married and pop out babies as their god-given (and religion encouraged) right?? I'm sorry, but I will never believe that me fooling around in college is anywhere as morally offensive as that.

:banghead:

scigirl

P.S. your dichotomy that people have to choose between sex happiness, or non-sex happiness, is both laughable and sad. I hope someday you will find out how wrong you are. Sex between people is highly influenced by their emotional state. A large portion of impotence is non-biological in origin. Think about that fact for a while, because I might return to that topic in the future. I'll give you a hint - sex is intertwined with all the other facets of a relationship.

JamesKrieger

This isn't true, according to a recent study published in the May 2003 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. According to this study, premarital sex and cohabitation, if limited to the future husband, do not increase the risk of divorce.

luvluv

How exactly do you limit cohabitation to the future husband? Kind of takes two to tango, does it not?

luvluv

I don't know why I bother to post on sex on these boards, because these discussions have a tendency to reduce even the most intelligent posters to... sigh.... stay positive... stay positive...

sci-girl:

How should I know? What are you asking me for? What does that have to do with anything I've said?

I didn't get into what people should or shouldn't do, I was just giving some very predictable results of what will follow from what they choose to do. If enough people in a society choose to pursue their sexual lives outside of the boundaries of marriage, some very predictable pathologies will result. Those same pathologies, generally speaking, will not result in a society in which most people pursue their sexual lives within the boundaries of marriage. That's a serious no-brainer. All I said in my previous post was that the sexual revolution has had an impact on family life. Really, you'd have to be engaging in some serious cognitive dissonance to think otherwise.

No. Killing your spouse, as opposed to divorcing them, would significantly lower the divorce rate. Similarly, starting a global thermonuclear war would also reduce the divorce rate. Not surprisingly, I do not therefore support those things.

I wasn't condeming pre-marital sex. You were all pursuing sexual ethics as if they were simply a matter of maximizing individual happiness. I was simply suggesting that this has probably never been the goal of sexual regulations. They've generally speaking been geared towards social stability, not individual happiness. That's all I was saying.

And really, where do you get off asking about what gymnastics I will do to get out of a conclusion? I barely ever converse with you, and nothing I've ever said to you merits such knee jerk bad faith in my character. If that's all you think of me, you shouldn't be talking to me at all.

What on earth are you talking about?! How did we get here?

For the record, since you didn't ask, I FULLY SUPPORT gay and lesbian civil marriages, and I always have said so on this board.

I said in the post I was over simplifying the issue to make a point. There are trade-offs and sacrifices to be made in every relationship. By the luck of the draw, the sacrifice a lot of people will have to make will be in the sex department. (For others it will be the financial department, the looks department, communication, whatever). My only point was that no one will find a perfect mate, and if you are lucky enough to find a person who is absolutely perfect EXCEPT in the bedroom, and you divorce such a person for that reason ALONE, you are being a little unrealistic.

If what I say makes so little sense to you, then just don't respond to it. That will be fine with me. But if you're going to talk to me, talk to ME. If you want to argue against a fundamentalist, FIND ONE, and proceed.

luvluv

Loren Petchel:

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT.

Isn't this ENTIRE THREAD premised on the notion that virginity is the causal factor for sexual and marital problems? Isn't this thread littered with arguments that virginity CAUSES marital instablity?

So now when we have evidence that virginity ENHANCES marital stablity, all of a sudden no causal link can be established. So it's fully legitimate to state that virginity can harm marriages, even with no statistical or empirical support, yet it is out of bounds to say that virginity can strengthen marriage, regardless of the statistical or emprical support?

You guys are operating with a double standard.

If we can't say that virginity helps marriages, then we can't say it hurts them either. In that case, what are we talking about?

luvluv

James Krieger:

I'm doing this from memory, but it was a Maryland University Study which tracked all married couples (using the census, I believe) from the 60's on.

There was another study done for people marrying in the early 80's.

In both cases, the couples who had been sexually active had a divorce rate TWO THIRDS higher than the couples who had not been.

I believe I saw the study cited in at least two books: One was The Great Disruption by Francis Fukiyama (a book I reference on this forum far too much) and The Abolition of Marriage was the other I think (but don't quote me).

If you google U of M and virginity and marriage I'm sure you'll run across it.

One argument I've heard, which makes sense to me, is that sexually active couples who have had multiple partners were not just practicing sex they were also practicing divorce. Every one of their break-ups was a dress rehersal for the big show.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by luvluv
Loren Petchel:

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT.

Isn't this ENTIRE THREAD premised on the notion that virginity is the causal factor for sexual and marital problems? Isn't this thread littered with arguments that virginity CAUSES marital instablity?

Nobody has said it *CAUSES* problems. What it can do is hide a problem until there is a big emotional involvement.

So now when we have evidence that virginity ENHANCES marital stablity, all of a sudden no causal link can be established. So it's fully legitimate to state that virginity can harm marriages, even with no statistical or empirical support, yet it is out of bounds to say that virginity can strengthen marriage, regardless of the statistical or emprical support?

You guys are operating with a double standard.

If we can't say that virginity helps marriages, then we can't say it hurts them either. In that case, what are we talking about?

What I am saying is that statistics aren't of any real value in answering this, as they are so tied up with one's attitudes towards divorce.