HelenM

That's an interesting point. However, I think you would have a closer analogy if you said "One problem with being rich is people will marry someone because they are rich and then - not, they stop being rich, but rather - being rich ceases to have the appeal it once had and/or being rich turns out not to be sufficient for a happy marriage."

I'm sure it's often true that reasons which cause people to get married might turn out not to be such great ones in the long run. And I would agree that getting married just so one could have sex, would probably fall into that category.

Helen

seebs

Well, you might as well say "isn't an allergy a problem with the individual, not the food?"

There appear to be people in whom casual or premarital sex produces harmful side-effects. The non-universality of the risk doesn't mean it isn't a risk, and I'm not sure we have any way to identify people who are at risk in advance.

fatherphil

what happens too often is the coulpe divorce and the momma and daddy are "happy" leaving the kids to be miserable. i suggest staying together and working things out in a positive manner till the youngest hits 18. usually if a couple can hang through the tough times, they will be happier 5 years down the road.

sci girl, seebs pretty much explained what i meant. my experience is that once the sex starts we begin overlooking issues in the other person that become huge in the long run after the "thrill" is gone. think of it this way. you are with your mate 10,080 minutes in a week. how many of those minutes do you suppose will be spent having sex? place the level of importance of sex within the context of the time you'll actually have to spend with this person.

beth

You and your g/f are very young. I married at seventeen to a man who was in his twenties. He still was barely mature enough for such a serious commitment. Please wait and grow up before you make a decision to wed. Marriage is very hard at times, but it is also very wonderful at other times. I do wish that I had waited and we both got our acts together before we played grown-ups.

I understand this thought, Matt. It is wonderful to have sex within the confines of marriage. But I know of two men who remained virgins until their twenties because of religious reasons and married the first girls they could find when they got desperate enough. Waiting till marriage, in no way shape or form, guarantees a successful marriage. Both of these guys divorced and remarried...

If people do remain virgins till marriage, they should buy books in sexual instruction and so on so that they actually know what they are doing. Stale sex can lead to adultery and a lack of satifaction, these things often lead to divorce. Really good sex can often hold a marriage together and lead to a better relationship. Although it is something that doesn't take up the majority of married life together, I hold it up as being as important as communication and non-sexual intimacy.

cheetah

Perhaps so, but, having had sex with this same partner before I was sure it would last a lifetime AND after, I'm not sure there is a difference. So, again, it goes back to the question of how much a piece of paper can influence your sex life, and if so, how can that be measured?

seebs

I don't think the piece of paper is what does it. Now, different people may get different results from the commitment... One thing that is often cited as possibly-true, but which I believe to be totally impossible to measure or verify, is that people who waited experience sex as more "special".

JamesKrieger

But how is that a problem with being rich? Isn't that really a problem with what a person values in a relationship?

Yes, one shouldn't marry just to have sex. But wouldn't a premarital ban on sex actually encourage some horny people to marry so that they can have sex guilt-free?

JamesKrieger

Actually, an allergy IS a problem with the individual...it is a problem with the individual's immune system overreacting to a harmless substance. That is why you give an antihistamine to an individual, not to the food.



Then it's a problem with the individual and not premarital sex. Either the individual adjusts to how they cope with premarital sex (like taking an antihistamine for an allergy), or the individual avoids premarital sex (like a person avoiding an allergen). You don't tell everyone to stop eating a certain food because a small percentage of people have allergies to it. Just as such, you don't tell everyone to stop having premarital sex just because some people don't know how to handle it.

JamesKrieger

Actually, a better way to look at is is this. What if there was no such thing as sexual intercourse at all? Would heterosexual and homosexual couples exist? Probably not, or there would be very few. Sexual attraction thus plays a HUGE role in relationships, and thus is very important, despite the fact that the time spent in intercourse is not a large percentage of time spent together. Also, hormones released during intercourse can affect feelings of closeness to one's partner.

seebs

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JamesKrieger
Actually, an allergy IS a problem with the individual...it is a problem with the individual's immune system overreacting to a harmless substance. That is why you give an antihistamine to an individual, not to the food.


And yet, we put warnings on food. We don't have people walking around with signs on them saying "may be allergic to peanuts". We have foods sitting on shelves with labels on them saying "may contain peanuts".

Where do we draw the line? Is my oxygen dependancy a problem with me, or is it a problem with airless environments?

I think it is often an error to try to assign "blame" like this.

There are people to whom a thing may be harmful, and it is useful to warn people that this thing is, empirically, harmful to some people.

The insulting implication here is that if these people were *good*, they way you are, they wouldn't have this "problem".

How is this any less assinine than the fundy ranting about hellbound sinners?

The potential for sexual activity to create psychological stress is sufficiently widespread that it is reasonable to warn people that there is a risk that, should they play with that particular fire, they will get burned.

This may or may not have anything to do with "knowing how to handle it", any more than depressed people are depressed because they "don't know how to handle life".

It seems to me that there are two separate problems here.

One is people trying to define what other people may or may not do.

Another is people trying to define what other people may or may not do.

I don't see any moral high ground in saying "this is just hang-ups, people should be comfortable with premarital sex". It's just as much an attempt to impose your will on others, trying to force them to accept your own standards of behavior.

Many people, for many reasons, are uncomfortable with premarital sex. Many people, for different reasons, are not bothered by it.

It seems to me that there's a great deal of hypocrisy in how people approach this. If, indeed, it is a personal decision, and everyone's needs are different, then it's *still* a personal decision when someone says "I'd rather not", and the mockery and abuse directed at these people for being "prudish" is every bit as offensive and judgemental as the fundy nonsense.

I don't personally care whether people have premarital sex. I believe that, for many people, doing so constitutes a risk of harmful effects which they might rather avoid, and that it is not necessarily possible to predict in advance whether or not a given person will face these problems; given that, I think it is obligatory to warn people that, sometimes, sex screws up peoples' emotional lives or mental health.

Having done so, I think we should leave it to them to decide. Many people will make poor decisions, in either direction, but there's not much we can do about it.

However, the mere fact that some people either are not harmed, or do not perceive the harm, does not mean that the warning is false or invalid. People are emotionally affected by sex, and probably always will be. Hand-waving this as "just a hang-up" is a fairly callous way to deal with some of the most intense human emotions out there.