luvluv

I don't have much time, so no cutting and pasting. I'll respond generally to the various and sundry people I am engaged with.

Glory:

Well, I think we are just two different people in a lot of ways. If I was in love with a woman who had been there for me, supported me, cared for me, who had been with me through the good times and bad and never lost faith in me, I can't see leaving here because the sex is bad.

In my experience, good people are a lot rarer than good sex, and a person would be a fool to trade the former for the latter.

You keep saying, go out and find somebody who is smart and blows my mind sexually. Newsflash: I'm a man. It's not quite so easy for us to get a sample of what sex with a future partner might be like, particularly (and this will sound crude) with anyone we'd consider for the wife category. (Bottome line is that any women who I have an easy time bedding is going off the wife consideration list. You can get on your high horse about the demystification of the female sex drive all you want, in my experience if the girl will do it for me she'll do it for anyone else, and I'm not marrying into that. This is all hypothetical, since nowadays I wouldn't sleep with the girl anyway.)

If you've got a plan for how a person can get several intelligent, funny, honest, women into bed, then I sure wish I would have met you about 4 years ago! Seriously, most men won't know how good in bed a woman is until they are in very deep.

The bottom line, to me at least (and I'll not make this a universal, some people are just different) is that anyone who would leave someone SOLELY for sex is just shallow.

Love is about commitment, and no offense but you are making it sound like choosing between partners is like choosing between options on a car. ("Well, this one has a CD player, but this one has a CD player AND power steering. I'll go with that one!").

How would you feel if before you were married your husband told you he found someone else he loved, but was just a LITTLE prettier than you? Or he found someone else he loved, but who was just a LITTLE smarter than you? Would you say, "Hey, I can't blame you! You got a better deal!"

So why are any of those better reasons than, "Hey, I found someone a little better in bed than you?"

I think this is what dk might have meant about you trivializing the act, but I see it more as trivializing a person.

I can't just shed someone who's been there for me because she is not good in bed, or won't perform certain acts, or something like that. I'm not built like that. I've had girlfriends who have been with me through seriously down times, through deaths of loved ones, career terminations, depression, etc. I'm not dropping somebody like that over sex. No way, no how, never gonna happen. There's more to people and there's more to LIFE than that.

<Steps down off soapbox>

Further, I think you are again assuming that everyone who enters into a marriage after abstaining from pre-marital sex is a virgin. It ain't so. I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm betting a pretty small percentage of even Christian marriages actually occur between two virgins. Don't believe the hype. A lot of us have made mistakes in our lives and come to the position of abstention from experience. Most of your diatribes are against two young, horny, inexperienced, Christian, virgins. For most of us (Christians), that boat's already sailed. I'd wager that the majority of Christians come to a commitment to Christ after their first sexual experience. The percentage of Christians who actually grew up in strictly religious homes is probably much lower than you think. Almost no Christian I regularly communicate with comes from this category. I know more Christian men who came from jail than I know who came from stable households. I'm perhaps unique in this regard, but don't let the media influence you as to what the Christian demographic actually looks like.

I am not idealizing virginity, but that little spiel at the end of your post to me is an example of precisely the kind of idealism you accuse me of perpetrating. This society worships sex. I mean worship in the fullest sense of the word. Sex tells them who they are, it tells them what makes them valuable, it determines their decisions. The place that God held in medeival societies at the center of all public relations is now held by sex. This is where I would like to sign up for the world that you and brighid apparently live in. Anyone who turns on their television or their radio or just walks outside their door in any metorpolitan area in this country will promptly find themselves SURROUNDED by sex. It has been officially deified. I know there are a lot of households in which the parents indoctrinate their children religiously against sex, but this in NO WAY has more influence than the CULTURALLY INFESTED indoctrination PROMOTING SEX. The number of secular families in this country, who attend church less than 4 times a year, GREATLY outnumber the religious people, and have a FAR, FAR greater influence in the media and public discourse. Turn on your television at 4:00 and you will see a woman squealing like she is having an orgasm while she is rubbing SHAMPOO into her hair. Next time you are listening to the radio or television, take an hour and do a quick ratio of mentions to sex to mentions of God, and see who wins. In fact, I triple-dog dare you to do a ratio of mentions to sex to mentions of ANY OTHER TOPIC on God's green earth, and sex will win 9 times out of ten.

Whatever meager lingerings of the Protestant ethic that are left in the general population are OVERWHELMED by the media saturation and the omnipresence of sexuality in our marketplace.

Overall, I agree with dk.

Folks, I am not a saint or a prude or repressed or brainwashed. In fact, let me tell you, it is the absolute HEIGHT of irony that I am lecturing people on their sexual activities.

All I am and probably dk are advocating is that people take sex MORE SERIOUSLY on the one hand, because it involves two people in a very intimate act that can have eternal consequences, and LESS SERIOUSLY on the other hand, it should not determine who you will marry or whether or not you will enjoy your life (yes, I said it. I have been celibate for 2 years now and I am happier then when I was out lying and ducking people).

It is a beautiful intimate act and yes it's a lot of fun. It is not ultimate meaning or purpose.

MadMordigan

The Groucho Marx school of courtship.

I wouldn't want to marry a woman who would have me as a lover

luvluv

Pretty funny, Mad, but I'm being real.

A lot of guys have had the experience of scoring pretty quickly with a girl and thinking that they must be pretty "special", only to later find out that there are a surprising number of "special" people in their postal district.

Aethari

"A soapbox for self-righteous sex-haters"?

Um, I don't want to come across as being 'one of them', but the people speaking against premarital sex are coming off as being a lot less 'self-righteous' than those on the other side.

Pre-marital sex is a wholly personal decision: you have to weight the risks and benefits, then make the choice for yourself. There certainly isn't an objective moral code against it. Now that it is out of the way...

Give me a break. I find it amazing that as soon as someone wants to speak up against premarital sex, they have to be plastered as an irrational, idealistic "sex-hater". There are many problems with premarital sex, not the least of which is the enormous problem of incurable STDs. Whether you like it or not, STDs flourish because of premarital sex. Advocating a "sow your wild oats" lifestyle is exactly the kind of thing that gets places like Africa where it is today. Sure, have premarital sex, if you really trust the person when they tell you they aren't diseased.

Secondly, the constant "it's natural" rhetoric is becoming deafening and wholly ridiculous. It is in the nature of humans to do many 'bad' and harmful things- yet we don't. I don't see certain people standing on their own soapboxes advocating murder-on-a-whim or rape. Just because sex is 'natural' and 'a part of life' does NOT mean it is something that should be embraced whole-heartedly. In order to form society, we have to repress many of our instincts (Social Contract Theory). Why should sex not be one of them?

And finally, Glory, the assertion that all desire for power, glory, fame, and honor is a result of sexual desire is absurd. I realize you're on a roll, but at least try to keep it reasonable. You are around these forums often enough to know that unsubstantiated fluff like that is exactly the kind of thing that gets creationists laughed out of the E/C forum.

In conclusion: premarital sex is not morally wrong. However, it can pose a serious medical risk, and it also remains a point of purely emotional interest- How will I feel about sleeping with this person? etc, etc. Arguing that premarital sex is wrong on a personal level is wholly valid, and an argument against anything but extremely cautious, and limited premarital sex on a social level has a great deal of force on purely medical grounds.

~Aethari

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Aethari ]</p>

lunachick

Gee, my mum had post-marital sex with my dad, who was a handsome and popular guy. She was married and faithful to him when he gave her a dose of the clap.

Somehow, I don't think this senario is unique.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: lunachick ]</p>

Aethari

*sigh*

Yes, lunachick, I would think that is incredibly obvious. Why write something like that other that, unless you're either A) trying to come across as possessed of some witty repartee, or B) completely ignorant as to how irrelevant the comment actually is. Think about it for a second- if everyone stopped having premarital sex, STDs would die out, period. Is that unclear, or what?

~Aethari

luvluv

dangin:

Do you really believe this?

(parentheticals added)

Some pre-Christian societies had some pretty wicked prohibitions on sex outside of marriage of any kind.

Glory

Sex isn't potentially dangerous because it's performed out of wedlock. It's dangerous because alot of people are irresponsible. Personally, I didn't make a habit of jumping into bed with just anyone at any time before I was married. (or after for that matter ) I used condoms and discretion and self respect. If you want fly off on a rant about irresponsible sex, I'll be right there with you. Premarrital sex is not necessarily irresponsible sex. That is the second of my original points.

The first of my original points was that sex is a very important part of marraige and is not to be ( hows this for irony? } trivialised.

I think if you take the time to consider what I have been saying in that context you will understand my comments a little better.

I stand by my assertion that sex is the driving force behind all human endeaver. Men seek money and power so they can get laid by the most desireable women. Granted it doesn't always work but that is the motivation. We dress it up in all sorts of noble purpose like protecting the weak and making people's lives better because it makes us feel better. Ultimately, men want attention and sex from women and when men become angry and frustrated at their exploits being ignored or unappreciated by women we see hostility such as that expressed by the authors of Christianity. Those men who decided that women were evil, and untrustworthy, and unclean. Those men who sought to control women by deeming that they should cover their heads in shame and that they must not ever preach the word of God. What they really disliked was that women made them feel out of control. They hated that women had a kind of power that they didn't and they have been pushing their hostility ever since.

Someone who would sleep with a woman and then label her a slut has a big problem. Someone who assumes that any woman who engaged in sex without commitment must be a victim has an equally big problem.

Get off your high horses people. Premarrital sex is what you make it. Irresponsible and dangerous sex is another matter. If you want to know what I think about that you should ask. But, you didn't. You kept talking about sex out of wedlock. Be precise and correct in your terminology and you will get what you are looking for.

Glory

Glory

Why prohibit something that people are not doing?

Glory

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