alek0

True, but if you use a back up contraceptive method it is highly unlikely that both will fail. Also, choosing a partner who doesn't engage in risky behavior, getting tested before having sex and still using barrier method after that will minimize the chance of disease.

I would also like to point out that marriage is no guarantee that one wouldn't get an STD. Unexpectedly large percentage of new HIV cases here are married women.

JamesKrieger

Of course contraceptives aren't 100% effective. But they don't become any more effective after marriage, either. There are a lot of married couples who want to engage in sex but don't want children. So, again, I still don't see why guarding against pregnancy is a solid reason to abstain until marriage, because, by that same reasoning, married couples who don't want children also should abstain from sex.

HelenM

Bible-believing Christians don't teach that abstaining from pre-marital sex will get a person to heaven. They also don't teach that someone who would otherwise have been going to heaven, damns themselves by engaging in it. They do teach that it's a sin.

You can say it as many times as you like but it doesn't make it true that only people who have sex with multiple sex partners and before marriage 'know what sex is really like'.

Helen

seebs

I am somewhat sympathetic to this, but I don't see much point in the "sleep with several people to be sure" thing. I see no possible win condition here. It seems to me that the only way the extra information can change anything is if your spouse isn't that good a lover - in which case, having had better sex elsewhere is NOT going to make you happy.

Oh, certainly agreed. However, that's not the *point* of marriage, and reducing marriage to questions of sexual "compatibility" rather misses the point entirely.

Not really. Maybe a couple of posters here are, but if so, I haven't spotted them. I've only known one person I would describe as actually "obsessed" with sex.

Only some churches are anywhere near that extreme... but yeah, I agree that a lot of attitudes towards sex in religious organizations are stupid or counterproductive.

However, this doesn't mean that swinging the pendulum the other way as hard as we can helps anything.

seebs

Wow, that's simultaneously insulting and stupid!

I am not at all convinced that, apart from "attracted to that set of plumbing"-level stuff, sexual compatibility is innate. It seems rather to me that it's a question of willingness to learn and adapt.

And some of us, on further reflection, KNOW that we knew this before we fucked.

An interesting question, but, once again, we come back to "how fucking shallow shall we be"?

So, should I say something about "people who actually HAVE worked on a relationship", or would that be pointless?

"Trying all sorts of nifty new things" is utterly and totally missing the point.

Who gets to be reshaped? Both of you. If you aren't both planning to actively and consistently change yourself to meet your spouse's needs, DON'T GET MARRIED!!

seebs

Very important, and catches something that a lot of people seem to be missing:

Much of sexual experience is subjective, and is rooted in your experiences and expectations.

This means, among other things, that you CHANGE what sex is like for you when you change your sexual habits or expectations, and your experiences can permanently change this.

What sex is "really" like for me may be very different from what sex is "really" like for someone else. For me, sex is almost always a logical extension of cuddling. It's not some desperate physical urge. I know people for whom this is entirely not true.

This isn't because I'm ignorant of what sex is "really" like, or because they are; it's because sex is *different* for us.

Now, and here's the cool part: You can change what sex "really" is for you. You get a fair amount of control over what it is. You have a conscious mind, and you are allowed to use it, unpopular though the idea may be in this day and age.

Daggah

They don't fail anywhere near as often as the Religious Right's propaganda would have people believe, and most of the time, when they do, it's from improper use. The strange thing is, it's the Religious Right who want to make sure that no one knows how to properly use them.

Statistics on STDs and teen pregnancies in Europe are telling. Did you know the gonorrhea rate in France is 70 times LOWER than it is in America? I'll give you three guesses as to why...

Daggah

By the way, I personally have my own little kinks and fetishes that I consider vital to sexual contentment. In fact, they're so vital that my interest in actual sexual intercourse is pretty low (I only fantasize about women I already have feelings for.) If I was a fundamentalist Christian, not only would I feel extremely guilty about my fetishes/sexual interests, but I would not be inclined to experiment before-hand, and chances are pretty high that I'd end up in a committed marital relationship with someone who would be completely unwilling to explore my interests with me.

Yeah, that sounds like a good, happy marriage to me.

seebs

Er.

So, you're saying you think you would form a life-long committment to someone, fully aware it would be your only source for sex, but you would never have TALKED about it?

Sheesh!

It is possible to find out whether or not you're willing to explore something without actually DOING it, you know.

Bree

I don't see it this way at all. Helen, forgive me for putting words in your mouth, but it seems that you think people who only care about the sexual aspect of a relationship don't have the same level of commitment as those who care about more than just the sex. I don't know if this is what you were going for, but it's how I read it.