How important is virginity to people in a new relationship?

[josie_L]

Or simply preference for someone who is experienced in the whole sexual-pleasure thing. Yes, both men and women can be that crass.

Or maybe, given that most men now seem to do the oat-sowing thing in young adulthood, the perception is that someone who has retained his “virginity” is ABNORMAL in some way.

ICXC NIKA

The thing is it used to be the NORM not so long ago to save yourself for marriage.

 

[GEddie]

The thing is it used to be the NORM not so long ago to save yourself for marriage.

For some values of “long.”

In the Atlantic nations, however, that would now represent the GREAT-grandparents of the current young generation. Sadly.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

As others said, it depends on the person as to how important that attribute is. Practically speaking, there is physical virginity versus spiritual virginity. In a real sense, a person who has completed the sacrament of penance for any sexual sin has been restored to original purity. I have church references for this in a blog post not long ago called On Reconciliation: Can virginity be restored? While a historical event cannot be “undone,” the spiritual damage can be fully healed.

That being said - someone with a sketchy past who has since repented and is ordered toward holiness should be far more attractive than someone who is not a virgin (outside of marriage) and still justifies such behavior.

Virginity cannot be restored through the sacrament of penance and reconciliation and nothing quoted in that article suggests otherwise.

To be raped does not remove virginity because rape isn’t voluntary. There is no spiritual damage received by losing virginity even if lost by fornication, the fornication is what causes the stain upon the soul not the “losing” virginity.

 

[enterthenewage]

I am a 24 year old man, and in my past life, there are two women with whom I have had sexual relations. I have not been sexually active with anyone for almost two years and do plan to until and unless I marry. I am concerned that a lot of Catholic women would avoid a relationship with me because of this, and this is particularly concerning to me now that I find myself attracted to a good Catholic woman in my young adult group at Church. I don’t know if she’s interested or not. She may be. Obviously each individual would feel differently about these circumstances. I just want to get a feel for what people generally think…

I’m a guy and I’m slightly younger than you are, but I’ll throw in my opinion for whatever it’s worth. I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with me and some will feel tempted to start a long discussion about it, but I’m not even gonna go there. Nobody will change my views and I probably won’t change your views. This thread is about your question, so lets keep it at that. If there’s anyone who absolutely can’t resist the itch to say something about my view, then send me a pm and I will respond to whatever question/statement you have.

I am a virgin and it would be a deal-breaker for me if a girl I was dating turned out to be a non-virgin. As others have pointed out, some people don’t care about virginity, but there are people like me who do care. Given the culture we live in nowadays, holding out is not a small feat. People who actually want to wait until marriage to have sex are ridiculed, treated like outcasts, and made to feel like their place in the world disappeared centuries ago. Waiting until marriage is just one of many things that I was told was the right thing to do, along with trying hard in school, going to college, not using illegal drugs, not trying to run away from home, and not harming other people. I don’t even bother with girls that aren’t virgins because I know it’s not something I could tolerate, regardless if they repented or not. Those girls may have changed spiritually, but a person who had sex with 5 people is still a person who had sex with 5 people, no getting around that. It would make me feel extremely depressed, like I was stupid for listening to even 50% of what my parents told me, and nobody would understand how I felt. The reason I listened to my parents and went to college is that I thought it would lead to a better job (with the economy the way it is, I’m questioning why I even bothered). The reason I listened to my parents and didn’t do drugs is that I wanted to stay healthy and actually have a future (this I will say is true for the most part). The reason I have not lost my virginity yet is that I want a better quality spouse and not someone who has a sexual history with other people. Likewise, a decent number of virgins will feel majorly disappointed if they put all that effort into not giving in and in the end they are still stuck with a person who isn’t a virgin. I don’t mean this analogy to objectify people, but if a virgin and non-virgin get married, it’s like the virgin is paying full price for a used car and the non-virgin is paying full price for a new car (irrelevant of which gender is the virgin). I have already seen a couple of threads on here over the months when two people were married and one partner was a virgin who had a hard time accepting the other’s sexual history. This proves that “virginity consciousness” does not always go away like some people will try to make it sounds. These are my views. Although I’m not a female and I do not claim to represent anyone but myself. But hopefully you have some insight into the mindset that some virgins have about the topic. I wish you the best.

 

[Lynn28]

Robnv: Catholic woman here, a couple of years older than you, saving myself for marriage… and currently in a relationship with someone who didn’t save himself and would never ever have considered it before he met me.

And it’s not like dating me magically changed his mindset in an instant, either. He was never committed to chastity, and still isn’t - but he’s committed to me. And even if maybe he hasn’t really understood the point of it yet, he 's always respected me and the chastity in our relationship. And this is enough for me. Whether, when and how this experience with me will also “open his eyes”… that’s up to God.

Of course it’s not easy to know that he has had that level of intimacy with some other girl, and I guess that it will feel even worse once we get married and become intimate, too.
But it would be pointless to judge him for his past - what really matters to me is living chastity with him now that we are together.

You may have made some poor decisions in the past, but don’t let them define you! Remember that even our worst sin does not have the last word on us. Nothing is lost. You’ve grown past those mistakes and now you’re committed to living a better life and a better love - this is what matters, and this is great.

If you ever start dating this girl and tell her you’re not a virgin, remember to also tell her clearly how you want to live this relationship. Of course she may need some time to accept it. But if she really cares about you, what she will see is not “a man who slept with 2 other girls”. What she will see is a man who knows how important the gift of chastity is and wants the best for his relationship with her.

If a girl looks at you and all she sees is a “non-virgin”… she’s totally missing the point.
It’s as if God looked at us, thought “Sinners” and just shrugged.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I’m a guy and I’m slightly younger than you are, but I’ll throw in my opinion for whatever it’s worth. I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with me and some will feel tempted to start a long discussion about it, but I’m not even gonna go there. Nobody will change my views and I probably won’t change your views. This thread is about your question, so lets keep it at that. If there’s anyone who absolutely can’t resist the itch to say something about my view, then send me a pm and I will respond to whatever question/statement you have.

I am a virgin and it would be a deal-breaker for me if a girl I was dating turned out to be a non-virgin. As others have pointed out, some people don’t care about virginity, but there are people like me who do care. Given the culture we live in nowadays, holding out is not a small feat. People who actually want to wait until marriage to have sex are ridiculed, treated like outcasts, and made to feel like their place in the world disappeared centuries ago. Waiting until marriage is just one of many things that I was told was the right thing to do, along with trying hard in school, going to college, not using illegal drugs, not trying to run away from home, and not harming other people. I don’t even bother with girls that aren’t virgins because I know it’s not something I could tolerate, regardless if they repented or not. Those girls may have changed spiritually, but a person who had sex with 5 people is still a person who had sex with 5 people, no getting around that. It would make me feel extremely depressed, like I was stupid for listening to even 50% of what my parents told me, and nobody would understand how I felt. The reason I listened to my parents and went to college is that I thought it would lead to a better job (with the economy the way it is, I’m questioning why I even bothered). The reason I listened to my parents and didn’t do drugs is that I wanted to stay healthy and actually have a future (this I will say is true for the most part). The reason I have not lost my virginity yet is that I want a better quality spouse and not someone who has a sexual history with other people. Likewise, a decent number of virgins will feel majorly disappointed if they put all that effort into not giving in and in the end they are still stuck with a person who isn’t a virgin. I don’t mean this analogy to objectify people, but if a virgin and non-virgin get married, it’s like the virgin is paying full price for a used car and the non-virgin is paying full price for a new car (irrelevant of which gender is the virgin). I have already seen a couple of threads on here over the months when two people were married and one partner was a virgin who had a hard time accepting the other’s sexual history. This proves that “virginity consciousness” does not always go away like some people will try to make it sounds. These are my views. Although I’m not a female and I do not claim to represent anyone but myself. But hopefully you have some insight into the mindset that some virgins have about the topic. I wish you the best.

1. That car analogy is terrible, a nonvirgin isn’t equivalent to a used car
2. lots of people who engage in sex before marriage compare it to “try before you buy” (test driving a car).
3. losing your virginity doesn’t make you a bad person
4. most girls who lose their virginity in their teens were pressured into it.
5. there are still plenty of terrible people who are virgins.
6. Women virgins don’t actually tend to be terribly disappointed if the guy they’re dating turns out to be a nonvirgin, mostly because we view men as human beings and not genitalia
7. Celibacy>marriage

 

[enterthenewage]

1. That car analogy is terrible, a nonvirgin isn’t equivalent to a used car
2. lots of people who engage in sex before marriage compare it to “try before you buy” (test driving a car).
3. losing your virginity doesn’t make you a bad person
4. most girls who lose their virginity in their teens were pressured into it.
5. there are still plenty of terrible people who are virgins.
6. Women virgins don’t actually tend to be terribly disappointed if the guy they’re dating turns out to be a nonvirgin, mostly because we view men as human beings and not genitalia
7. Celibacy>marriage

1. The car analogy fits very well, not because people are objects, but because it highlights a person’s depreciated value. We are a hierarchical species. Different humans have different ranks in our human hierarchy. The people who went to college and are working middle class jobs are much more valuable (from the hierarchy standpoint, not a religious standpoint) than people who developed serious drug addictions and have multiple arrests on their record. If a person loses their virginity before marriage, they are just like everyone else in that regard. They can’t tell their future spouse “I waited just for you”. Instead the person (man or woman) has to fluff up the story and tell their virgin fiance that it will be like the first time all over again, when in reality it’s just garbage they are spewing so the deal (marriage) goes through.
2. I agree with this statement. But you have to remember that any car dealer will tell you that if a car sits on the lot past its production year, the value goes down. All those people test driving it, putting miles on it, and not buying it are gonna make the next person less likely to take the deal.
3. And your point is? You can commit any sin on the books and be a good person afterwards if you sincerely repent from it. But that doesn’t mean those sins don’t make a person a lower quality human being (hierarchy standpoint).
4. Most girls were not raped. They lost their virginity voluntarily. Enough said.
5. Agreed, I have gone out with some girls in the past who were so ugly that I did not for a minute question whether or not they were telling the truth when they said they were virgins.
6. I don’t view non-virgin women as objects. I just see them as lower quality people who are a far cry from the elite circle of girls who are serious followers and actually keep their virginity. Same way employers view job applicants from a prestigious university vs applicants from state U.
7. ???

Like I said before, nobody will change my views, so I’m not sure what you are hoping to accomplish. Virginity is a very touchy issue that everyone will view differently. If a person feels strongly about the issue, it is better to let them be than try to change them. Nothing I said is meant to be an insult, instead it’s there to give the OP a snapshot of some of the things he may come across if he starts dating within a much more conservative pool.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

I’m a guy and I’m slightly younger than you are, but I’ll throw in my opinion for whatever it’s worth. I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with me and some will feel tempted to start a long discussion about it, but I’m not even gonna go there. Nobody will change my views and I probably won’t change your views.

Obviously everyone has their deal-breakers; you have yours, I have mine, and everyone else has theirs. Furthermore, people are not obligated to marry another at all; that is between the couple involved, and the Church if they are Catholic.

For me, virginity is a non-issue, simply because in and of itself it doesn’t mean anything. What does matter is the moral underpinning of the person. I learned that the hard way. My first wife was a virgin, yet she ended up cheating me and ultimately divorcing me. The reason? Our moral sets were entirely incompatible on religion (she was not Catholic), sexual relations, abortion, refused to have children, etc.

I do believe that people that wait AND have a moral mindset are truly special people. But I personally won’t eliminate 99% of otherwise compatible people solely on the basis they made sexual mistakes. Morality first; everything else follows.

They can’t tell their future spouse “I waited just for you”. Instead the person (man or woman) has to fluff up the story and tell their virgin fiance that it will be like the first time all over again, when in reality it’s just garbage they are spewing so the deal (marriage) goes through.

This is an example of what I just stated. Anyone that lies to their potential spouse should be dumped by said potential spouse. How about just stating the truth? Potential spouses, IMHO, should just lay out their past in front of each other (at the appropriate time in their relationship, of course), and let the chips fall where they may. Personally, if I made a sexual mistake as a teenager and a decade later a potential spouse couldn’t forgive that mistake, I wouldn’t marry them under any circumstances.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I am a 24 year old man, and in my past life, there are two women with whom I have had sexual relations. I have not been sexually active with anyone for almost two years and do not plan to until and unless I marry. I am concerned that a lot of Catholic women would avoid a relationship with me because of this, and this is particularly concerning to me now that I find myself attracted to a good Catholic woman in my young adult group at Church. I don’t know if she’s interested or not. She may be. Obviously each individual would feel differently about these circumstances. I just want to get a feel for what people generally think…

I am a Catholic woman, and I would not avoid a relationship with a good man because of his past. What matters to me is his current actions, and his current attitude toward chastity. If he has repented of his past sins with women, is committed to living chastely, and has done so for a while, then his sexual past would definitely not be a dealbreaker for me.

That is my 2 cents.

 

[Eruvande]

I didn’t become a Christian of any flavour until I was well past the stage of understanding and keeping my virginity. My husband has been a Christian his whole life and saved himself for marriage. I agonized over my past, though long repented of, but, by the grace of God, it has never been an issue for my husband, who has always treated me like a princess who was designed and made just for him. I am forever grateful he didn’t see me as used goods.

 

[kozlosap]

I am a Catholic woman, and I would not avoid a relationship with a good man because of his past. What matters to me is his current actions, and his current attitude toward chastity. If he has repented of his past sins with women, is committed to living chastely, and has done so for a while, then his sexual past would definitely not be a dealbreaker for me.

That is my 2 cents.

Excellent response! I would rate being a virgin about 1999 on my list of deal breakers for choosing a spouse. Of course, I’m sixty years old and looking backwards to my twenties. I’ve heard young women talk about the fact that they would never marry someone that they hadn’t slept with because he could be a “freak” of some kind. I was much more concerned with what kind of father they would be. Of course, I picked the drunken warty frog…

 

[Lynn28]

1. The car analogy fits very well, not because people are objects, but because it highlights a person’s depreciated value. We are a hierarchical species. Different humans have different ranks in our human hierarchy. The people who went to college and are working middle class jobs are much more valuable (from the hierarchy standpoint, not a religious standpoint) than people who developed serious drug addictions and have multiple arrests on their record. If a person loses their virginity before marriage, they are just like everyone else in that regard. They can’t tell their future spouse “I waited just for you”. Instead the person (man or woman) has to fluff up the story and tell their virgin fiance that it will be like the first time all over again, when in reality it’s just garbage they are spewing so the deal (marriage) goes through.

Of course pre-marital virginity is something special and good for the spouses and for their marriage. Or God wouldn’t be calling us to it.

But still, saying that anyone is worth less because of their sins is not what Catholicism teaches. Think about the Pharisee and the Publican.
God does not love us less because we sin. He waits with open arms for us to go back to Him and start over. And if we do want to start over, there’s no way our past sins can limit us or take something away from the holiness we can reach.

Take Saint Augustine. He went from “ultimate womanizer” to “Church Father”.

EDIT: Have you ever watched the videos by Jason and Crystalina Evert?

 

[Lorelei12]

1. The car analogy fits very well, not because people are objects, but because it highlights a person’s depreciated value. We are a hierarchical species. Different humans have different ranks in our human hierarchy. The people who went to college and are working middle class jobs are much more valuable (from the hierarchy standpoint, not a religious standpoint) than people who developed serious drug addictions and have multiple arrests on their record. If a person loses their virginity before marriage, they are just like everyone else in that regard. They can’t tell their future spouse “I waited just for you”. Instead the person (man or woman) has to fluff up the story and tell their virgin fiance that it will be like the first time all over again, when in reality it’s just garbage they are spewing so the deal (marriage) goes through.

This post is actually rather offensive. And, well…wrong. People do not “depreciate” in value, regardless of what they have done.

My husband was not a virgin when we married. I was. He certainly did not have to “fluff up his story” for me, did not “spew garbage” at me, and our marriage is not some kind of “deal” he had to coerce me into. Our intimate life is special because we are married, not because of what either one of us did in the past. I always used to think I would marry a virgin, but when my husband came along, I didn’t care anymore. There is nothing wrong with it being a deal-breaker for you, but your comments are rude and degrading to non-virgins and those who waited for marriage alike. I also want to point out that virginity before marriage is good, but it is also important to consider whether a person was actually tempted (some people tend toward asexuality) or perhaps whether the person never even had an opportunity that he or she turned down. And if a person is impure in other ways, their virginity doesn’t really matter as much.

To the OP- there may be some Catholic women who avoid a relationship with you because of your past. And that’s okay- we’re all allowed our own criteria. But I am willing to bet there are just as many, if not more, who will not. When you’re the right guy for someone, you’re the right guy. The right woman for you might be disappointed, but will be able to overcome that rather easily if she wants to marry you. She also will not see you as having a “depreciated” value, or any other such ridiculous thing.

 

[Gwendolen]

I was dumped by a boyfriend b/c I wouldn’t sleep with him. When I met my husband the following year, I was so relieved that I wasn’t expected to compromise my values to have a relationship, the fact that he was not a virgin was not a huge deal.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

1. The car analogy fits very well, not because people are objects, but because it highlights a person’s depreciated value. We are a hierarchical species. Different humans have different ranks in our human hierarchy. The people who went to college and are working middle class jobs are much more valuable (from the hierarchy standpoint, not a religious standpoint) than people who developed serious drug addictions and have multiple arrests on their record. If a person loses their virginity before marriage, they are just like everyone else in that regard. They can’t tell their future spouse “I waited just for you”. Instead the person (man or woman) has to fluff up the story and tell their virgin fiance that it will be like the first time all over again, when in reality it’s just garbage they are spewing so the deal (marriage) goes through.

Even virgins didn’t wait “just for you”.

Why should they claim “it will be like the first time all over again”? Sex for women is often painful the first time.

1. I agree with this statement. But you have to remember that any car dealer will tell you that if a car sits on the lot past its production year, the value goes down. All those people test driving it, putting miles on it, and not buying it are gonna make the next person less likely to take the deal.

That car will depreciate even if no one test drives it.

1. And your point is? You can commit any sin on the books and be a good person afterwards if you sincerely repent from it. But that doesn’t mean those sins don’t make a person a lower quality human being (hierarchy standpoint).

You’re doing that in a very illogical way.

1. Most girls were not raped. They lost their virginity voluntarily. Enough said.

I didn’t say most girls were raped, I said pressured.

1. Agreed, I have gone out with some girls in the past who were so ugly that I did not for a minute question whether or not they were telling the truth when they said they were virgins.

Ouch

1. I don’t view non-virgin women as objects. I just see them as lower quality people who are a far cry from the elite circle of girls who are serious followers and actually keep their virginity. Same way employers view job applicants from a prestigious university vs applicants from state U.

It’s not that hard to keep your virginity, even if loads of people hit on you as long as you aren’t in a serious relationship and get emotionally blackmailed (some teenage boys will do that for sex). It’s why I have eschewed those kinds of relationships, indeed I plan to eschew them forever as in Catholicism celibacy (including lay celibacy) is greater than marriage.

1. ???

Celibacy is better than marriage, to claim marriage is better is heresy.

Like I said before, nobody will change my views, so I’m not sure what you are hoping to accomplish. Virginity is a very touchy issue that everyone will view differently. If a person feels strongly about the issue, it is better to let them be than try to change them. Nothing I said is meant to be an insult, instead it’s there to give the OP a snapshot of some of the things he may come across if he starts dating within a much more conservative pool.

I’m simply trying to figure out why you believe such things; I personally have every intention to die a virgin.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Virginity cannot be restored through the sacrament of penance and reconciliation and nothing quoted in that article suggests otherwise.

To be raped does not remove virginity because rape isn’t voluntary. There is no spiritual damage received by losing virginity even if lost by fornication, the fornication is what causes the stain upon the soul not the “losing” virginity.

Im not following you here. Are you saying the sacrament of confession cannot heal the sin of fornication??

 

[Anglewannabe]

Back to the OP.

I am a woman and this is my opinion. When you do have a girlfriend, unless she asks you point blank ‘Are you a virgin’, I would NOT tell her about your past. It is NOT lying, it is hiding the truth. In a court of law, hiding the truth is wrong. However, a lot of men feel they owe it to their girlfriend to be upfront. I disagree. I am 44 and I know my chances of meeting a virgin are slim. That is why I would NEVER ask a man. If he is a good man and leads a good life from the time I have met him, I don’t care about his past. However, if he was NOT a virgin, I don’t think I could handle it. That is why I would never ask and hope he never volunteers. If you meet a woman who feels it is important for her to know, she will ask. And if she wants to know yet is too shy to ask, it means she has poor communication skills.

Angie

 

[enterthenewage]

Obviously everyone has their deal-breakers; you have yours, I have mine, and everyone else has theirs. Furthermore, people are not obligated to marry another at all; that is between the couple involved, and the Church if they are Catholic.

For me, virginity is a non-issue, simply because in and of itself it doesn’t mean anything. What does matter is the moral underpinning of the person. I learned that the hard way. My first wife was a virgin, yet she ended up cheating me and ultimately divorcing me. The reason? Our moral sets were entirely incompatible on religion (she was not Catholic), sexual relations, abortion, refused to have children, etc.

I do believe that people that wait AND have a moral mindset are truly special people. But I personally won’t eliminate 99% of otherwise compatible people solely on the basis they made sexual mistakes. Morality first; everything else follows.

This is an example of what I just stated. Anyone that lies to their potential spouse should be dumped by said potential spouse. How about just stating the truth? Potential spouses, IMHO, should just lay out their past in front of each other (at the appropriate time in their relationship, of course), and let the chips fall where they may. Personally, if I made a sexual mistake as a teenager and a decade later a potential spouse couldn’t forgive that mistake, I wouldn’t marry them under any circumstances.

I agree with most of what you wrote, minus waiting until the relationship has progressed before talking about sexual history. OP, I always ask girls what their turnoffs/dealbreakers are early on. When they tell me their list, I tell them mine, which includes past sexual history. Doing this has helped me avoid wasting money on dead-end dates. Lol granted, it has resulted in some conversations about me and my desire for a virgin, but nothing I couldn’t handle. You can even find out what demands the girl has, irrespective of virginity, since females are usually the pickier of the sexes when it comes to picking a partner. This way, if a girl will reject you for your lack of virginity, you don’t waste time and money on her.

Of course pre-marital virginity is something special and good for the spouses and for their marriage. Or God wouldn’t be calling us to it.

But still, saying that anyone is worth less because of their sins is not what Catholicism teaches. Think about the Pharisee and the Publican.
God does not love us less because we sin. He waits with open arms for us to go back to Him and start over. And if we do want to start over, there’s no way our past sins can limit us or take something away from the holiness we can reach.

Take Saint Augustine. He went from “ultimate womanizer” to “Church Father”.

EDIT: Have you ever watched the videos by Jason and Crystalina Evert?

I agree with what you said about God’s grace and love, but that’s why I said that human value stems from a hierarchy standpoint, not a religious one (in other words what kind of value a person is given by the population in general, a more secular viewpoint). I refuse to believe that a catholic school would hire a sex offender to work there, even if he/she repented. Take any sin/undesirable act and I guarantee you that the population in general will place a lower value on a person who say…steals, throws garbage in their yard, doesn’t shower often enough, sleeps around with a lot of people, steals other peoples’ mail, etc. Even after reconciliation through christ, the general population will still be very suspicious of a person who committed more serious transgressions and will think less of the person. And yes, I have seen a few of their videos.

This post is actually rather offensive. And, well…wrong. People do not “depreciate” in value, regardless of what they have done.

My husband was not a virgin when we married. I was. He certainly did not have to “fluff up his story” for me, did not “spew garbage” at me, and our marriage is not some kind of “deal” he had to coerce me into. Our intimate life is special because we are married, not because of what either one of us did in the past. I always used to think I would marry a virgin, but when my husband came along, I didn’t care anymore. There is nothing wrong with it being a deal-breaker for you, but your comments are rude and degrading to non-virgins and those who waited for marriage alike. I also want to point out that virginity before marriage is good, but it is also important to consider whether a person was actually tempted (some people tend toward asexuality) or perhaps whether the person never even had an opportunity that he or she turned down. And if a person is impure in other ways, their virginity doesn’t really matter as much.

My answer to the previous quote applies to your post as well.

Even virgins didn’t wait “just for you”.
Why should they claim “it will be like the first time all over again”? Sex for women is often painful the first time.
That car will depreciate even if no one test drives it.
You’re doing that in a very illogical way.
I didn’t say most girls were raped, I said pressured.
Ouch
It’s not that hard to keep your virginity, even if loads of people hit on you as long as you aren’t in a serious relationship and get emotionally blackmailed (some teenage boys will do that for sex). It’s why I have eschewed those kinds of relationships, indeed I plan to eschew them forever as in Catholicism celibacy (including lay celibacy) is greater than marriage.
Celibacy is better than marriage, to claim marriage is better is heresy.
I’m simply trying to figure out why you believe such things; I personally have every intention to die a virgin.

I don’t want to derail someone else’s thread with a discussion about myself. If you want to know more, pm me.

 

[GEddie]

Im not following you here. Are you saying the sacrament of confession cannot heal the sin of fornication??

Of course it can. But it doesn’t restore virginity, which is physical, nor innocence, which resides in the mind; just as penance does not reverse the bodily results of drug sins, or fade the memory of sinning.

ICXC NIKA

 

[MarcoPolo]

Of course it can. But it doesn’t restore virginity, which is physical, nor innocence, which resides in the mind; just as penance does not reverse the bodily results of drug sins, or fade the memory of sinning.

ICXC NIKA

I think we’re talking about two different things. A historical event is what it is. The loss of virginity as spiritual damage can be healed and the spiritual state if the person can be what it was as if the sin never occurred.