Lack of Sexual Abstinence Among Young Catholics

[Bluegoat]

I think there are a lot of reasons for this, but that we should probably differentiate between teenagers and older people who buy into this attitude. Teenagers may just not have the maturity to really make good decisions and understand the implications.

For older people, late marriage is one thing. Also, I have noticed that many people feel that if they are sexually active with the person they intend to marry, it is not a big deal. They might realize that it isn’t a perfect situation, but in the end they think it isn’t the worst thing they could do.

And I think an added stress is how weddings are viewed. They are a big deal, and social expectations can be high. A couple may feel committed, and want to live together, but not be able to have a wedding right away. Which sounds shallow and crazy, but I have seen it a fair bit - waiting for a time that is good for the whole family, when they can get a venue booked, when they have 20, 000 laying around. And families can put pressure on too.

I’ve also seen a lot of cases where parents and older family members tell kids to live together first, before making a big commitment.

 

[trokll]

(And by the way, I consider somebody who is a virgin, is somebody who has NEVER had any sexual contact that violates Church teaching, so if y’all tongue-kissed, went to second base, masturbated, had oral sex, anal sex etc as I found that many people who claim to be virgins do…NEWS FLASH…you are not a virgin…you are just someone that has not experienced penetration)

Vybzngh I would agree with you on the oral sex and the anal sex I do however storngly disgree abput you assertion of tougue kissing and masturbation. Yes I do know that masturbation is a greatly disordered habbit. But if what you said were true then I personally think that no one on earth would be a virgin passed there teens. I am 17 and most people my age suffer from this affliction. For instance i acutly discovered masturbation as a accident. I did not even know what to call it for like a year (note this is before I really got into my faith). I am currently trying to resist it the best i can and (with the help of god) keep it in check. I am not saying that masturbation is a good thing by any strech of the imagantion I just dont think you lose your virginity if you do it.

Also in regards to passionte kissing it by itself cannot make you lose your virginity. Kissing despite how passionte is just kisssing. Passionte kissing is not good however in that it can lead to premartial sex which is were you lose your virginity.

 

[Kit15]

I hope someone reads this and replies to me. HELP!

I am a virgin and no one around me is. I feel pressure to conform and loose it but even though the option to do so has presented itself before me on two occassions something inside me (God) has prevented it. I believe he was telling me this is not the man who will love you as much as you will love them and thereoicefore they are not worthy of this gesture. They do not deserve this special part of me, I understand this.

However I am like every normal teenager/young adult. I want to go out and be in a relationship and find love but it is so difficult as I am unable to find any support groups or people who like me want to wait for the one they love. Because of the lack of the support available i feel cut off. I am a fairly popular girl with many friends all performing the act and have never spoke out about my desire to wait. When they ask me why i didn’t have sex i answer “i wanted to but something stopped me.”

I am looking for someone out there who can understand i live in a modern and busy world and am struggle to deal with it all by myself. I am a Christian and am studing Religion however at this moment of time i feel sad when i attend church so instend find it easier to speak to God on my own. I just need someone i can talk to about this and this is my last resort. I am sorry this forum may not be for this but i need help guys.
Love, No Voice xo

I know it doesn’t seem like it…but believe it or not, not everyone is “doing it”. Trust me. I’ve come across many virgins (online…no one really talks about this sort of thing in person) that feel all alone and under pressure and wonder if there is anyone out there who appreciates the fact they’re waiting. Guys too. Guys tend to be under even MORE pressure to have sex. My husband back in his college years has had his sexuality questioned because of his virginity and refusal to look at porn. He’s not even religious and he still understands that sex is better off within a marriage.

Someone out there appreciates it. I appreciate it. Many people on this forum appreciate it.

You have nothing to be ashamed of. “God’s will” is a very simplistic view of the whole thing. The reason why it is God’s will is because He doesn’t want us to suffer through things like STDs, pregnancy out of wedlock, and if nothing else…a broken heart if you and your partner were to split. #3 is probably the most common reason among those who engage in pre-marital sex and end up regretting it. Many people, women in particular, go on to feel like they had been used.

 

[catherinette]

I was referring to countless other threads here on CAF and elsewhere where virgins are met with venom.

Additionally, I was pointing out that virgins often may get “jugmental” if they have not been shown appreciation or rewarded, which was inspired by one of flyingfish’s posts. Just like in the workforce, if you want to keep good people, you need to treat them right and reward them appropriately, otherwise you risk losing them.

You earlier referred to the Parable of the Prodigal Son; I thought the point of the father’s words to the elder brother, “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours,” was that doing the father’s will, and never having to experience the suffering and darkness the younger brother had to go through, was the elder brother’s reward. I’m not sure what other kind of reward you were referring to.

Ultimately it’s not about being judgmental about someone’s past mistakes. I had a friend who, though I never knew any of the details, had made some mistakes in his past, and yet at the time when I knew him, he had completely turned his life around and was one of the holiest and most chaste people I knew, who was more devoted to Mary than almost anyone else I’ve ever met. It’d be hard to judge someone like that; on the other hand, one of the crosses we bear in life is the temporal effects of our past sins, whatever those sins may be. One of the temporal effects of sexual sins might be the difficulty the person you fall in love with could have in accepting your past if they have waited and you haven’t. Another effect would be that those sins tend to be habitual, and make it much more difficult for a person to live chastely later on, which would be an impediment to living out whatever vocation one is ultimately called to.

To the OP, as someone who is young and single, it’s something that bothers me a lot too, but the only solution I can come up with is to pray about it, and to pray that the person I will eventually marry will have been taught good moral values, and will have had the strength and courage to stick to those values.

 

[Cat]

I posted this excellent article in another thread, but it is very pertinent to this thread:

christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/august/16.22.html

It’s an article about young marriage, published in this month’s issue of Christianity Today, an evangelical Protestant publication.

The stat is that 80% of evangelical Christians and 90% of Catholic Christians have experienced sex before marriage. So no wonder virgins feel so alone!

**The article’s premise is that rather than having sex before marriage, we should be getting married much earlier, rather than fighting against our bodies and our fertility and waiting until we have all our material ducks in a row. ** I personally think that this is one reason, a big reason, why so many people end up having sex before marriage. We simply weren’t created to wait for years and years, unless we have been called to a celibate life (priesthood, religious, or singleness, or widow/widower).

This article will create a great deal of controversy in evangelical circles, as the trend for several years has been the “courtship model” of dating, first popularized in the 1990s by a teenager named Josh Harris, who, after he was dumped by his girlfriend when they were 17 years old, wrote a book about “courtship” and unbelievably, found a publisher! (My guess is that the publisher sensed a GOLDMINE, and he/she was correct. Evangelical Christians eager to “protect” their children snapped up this book and made it a best-seller.)

Harris’ book CLAIMS to be Biblical–even a marginal scholar of the Bible can disprove it, and many good, experienced (in marriage counselling) pastors have tried to dispute Harris’s book. But unfortunately, Dr. James Dobson endorsed it and that made Josh Harris “acceptable” and “authority” in the eyes of evangelical Protestants.

(Normally, BTW, I praise Dr. Dobson to high heaven, but this one time, I believe he made a dreadful error. To endorse a book written by a hormonal 17-year old who had just been DUMPED was foolish and irresponsible of Dr. Dobson.)

Josh Harris, BTW, broke ALL his own “rules” for courtship dating when he met and married his wife. (He describes it all in his second book–I guess he thinks his readers are all stupid or something, that we won’t remember his first book).

I think this man has done immense harm by propagating a model of dating and marriage that is Biblical only in the historic sense. He has encouraged parents to forbid their children from dating until they are older (at least 25). At this age, the “children” are no longer children, and their parents have little or no influence in their lives. So the children can spend the night at their boyfriend/girlfriend’ place, spend the weekend, or just move in, and a parent can’t say boo about it. OTOH, when “children” date during their teenaged years, parents can make or break that dating relationship!

 

[catherinette]

At the Catholic high school I went to, in our religion and morality classes, we were taught that premarital sex is only wrong if we believe it is. We were taught to use safe sex when we have sex and that abortion is ok in some cases and should be left up to the individual.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if someone sued schools like that in a civil court. They advertise as being Catholic, but if you could prove in court that they are not teaching Catholic teaching, could they be found guilty of false advertisement or some such thing? If parents are spending big bucks sending their kids to a school expecting them to get a good, faithful Catholic education and they get the BS I got, certainly something should be able to be done.

Poor catechesis is obviously a huge problem, but I think an even deeper problem is that so many Catholic parents do not make their beliefs and expectations clear to their children. I was raised in a (pretty much) Catholic family, yet I don’t remember my parents ever once telling their children that premarital sex, masturbation, and pornography are wrong. Now, I am pretty sure that is my parents’ stance; although to be honest, for at least one of them, I’m actually not sure. They never said it, and maybe just expected we would learn it from our religion teachers. If I had not had very clear and consistent catechesis from other sources, I probably wouldn’t have learned those values. On the other hand, plenty of friends who were raised in similar circumstances adopted very different value systems; those who hear it in the home, from their parents, I think are much more likely to accept and understand the teachings of the Church.

 

[HolyInnocent]

Wow! I have seen just the opposite around here. My daughter is almost 18 and is a virgin as is my almost 20 year old son. In schools around here they really stress abstinence and even if you have had sex, to stop and wait. I know my daughters bf was kind of leaning toward trying to talk her into it and she backed him off pretty quick. They don’t even go on dates alone anymore, always with a group just so he isn’t tempted. I applaud the youth around here… that is definitely not what it was like when I was growing up. Everything you all are describing is how I saw things some 30 years ago, and I am so glad my kiddos are being taught differently.

 

[Jesuslives]

Well I’m 24 a male and still a virgin and I intend to keep my virginity and give it as a gift to my wife or to God when I die.

I think it has become very much accepted by the culture. Which is one reason.

We also have to be very careful that we don’t get upset with people who have fallen in sexual areas. I have spoken tom many young people who are trapped in sin, I’ve never met one single person that needs anger or people being upset with them, they need gentleness (the fruit of the Spirit, Gal 5) and love.

Deep down I suspect the reason our culture is so obessed with sex is because people are looking for love and have never had it. I see many young people who are not loved, be it their parents were always too busy working, they didn’t ahve time to read them stories at night and other similar acts of love. Many people feel they are not loved by their friends/people their age. Sadly many of them don’t feel like they are loved by God and the Church, because Christians haven’t shown them the extrodinary love of Christ.

It’s in things like, really valuing each and every person for who they are, praising them for what they are good at. Listening to them.

Someone once said to me “you accept me for who I am.” I think this person had gone through their entire life without feeling accepted by anyone. How would you feel in that situation, wouldn’t you too get desperate for love and try anything to get it?

I have to agree with you. That is a quite beautiful post you wrote. I wish I could be better at taking this attitude of understanding.

 

[leitis]

Poor catechesis is obviously a huge problem, but I think an even deeper problem is that so many Catholic parents do not make their beliefs and expectations clear to their children. I was raised in a (pretty much) Catholic family, yet I don’t remember my parents ever once telling their children that premarital sex, masturbation, and pornography are wrong. Now, I am pretty sure that is my parents’ stance; although to be honest, for at least one of them, I’m actually not sure. They never said it, and maybe just expected we would learn it from our religion teachers. If I had not had very clear and consistent catechesis from other sources, I probably wouldn’t have learned those values. On the other hand, plenty of friends who were raised in similar circumstances adopted very different value systems; those who hear it in the home, from their parents, I think are much more likely to accept and understand the teachings of the Church.

Ah! This was my thought as I was reading though this thread. You can’t just say it’s the media’s fault, and you can’t just say it’s their generation (well, my generation, since I’m 20). No one is teaching them and answering their questions in their teens.

I’m not sure about other areas, but I find that in my city there was, when I was a pre-teen and into my teens, a sharp end to catholic education of any kind after confirmattion in grade 6 in school (Catholic school). From them on, it seemed the churches and schools thought that the parents were supposed to be teaching, and the parents thought that the churches and schools were supposed to be teaching. This was especially a problem since the parents who weren’t teaching their teens could generally be divided into two groups: 1) those who were baptized as children but didn’t call themselves Catholic now, and 2) those who were pretentious, self-righteous, “that’s my pew, you can’t sit there” Catholics who only showed their teens a terrible view of Catholics.

So that when we hit 12 and 13 and started looking at larger issues in the world, there was no one to answer our questions. The secular world is shouting at us that sex is no big deal, abortion is a freedom, etc., and there was no one to argue the other side. The secular world had what looked like a nice, neat case all lined up and they were firing at us, and no one answered our questions. And we did ask. Teachers gave flimsy answers that may have worked when we were 8 or 9, and then directed us to a priest or our parents. Our priest was angry that we’d even ask (I realize that that could be just the error of one man, but to a questioning teen with poor catechesis it says “priests are crazy” and it’s a point for the other side). That leaves the parents, who either didn’t understand the teaching themselves or gave “just shut up and do it” answers.

It’s no excuse for anything, of course. But I’m just saying that in my experience it’s a major cause: priests and teachers who won’t/can’t teach, and parents who either won’t/can’t teach or just show their kids all that can go wrong in a practicing Catholic.

It’s getting better now, I hope. Our parish now has a youth group, an actual youth ministry coordinator, decent children’s liturgy, and an intelligent priest who is good at teaching and answering questions (which is especially important, since my parish is attached to a high school). So…here’s hoping. And praying.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

I’m 32, female, and have never had sexual relations with anyone. Not to say that I’m as pure as the driven snow – and I have done some dumb, sinful things by my self out of desperation – but I’m on a kind of “half-secondary virginity” (1.5 virginity?? :: Laughs:: ). But I put my sexuality (both halves of it, since my desires tend to “run both ways”) in God’s hands and He’s blessed me with peace of mind about it, ever since.

I just wish I could apply that peace of mind for the times when otherwise well-intentioned but smug married people bug me about my marital status, reproductive history or lack thereof.

 

[jwashu]

One thing no one has mentioned is the fact that people are now going into puberty much earlier than say, 100 or so years ago.

Take for instance the “Little House on the Prairie” era. Most young people went into puberty about age 14 - some a little later, some earlier and guess when they got married? around 16.

Today we have some young girls getting their first period in second grade and the average is around 10, 4 years earlier. Boys are also starting to mature earlier as well, usually around age 11. Yet now most people get married at LEAST 10 years afterward and some 20 years…

When some people say, just say no or don’t do it… well it’s not working. Evangelicals have these big commitment events where people pledge to remain virgins until they get married. A few years after they started they did some research and found out that those people who made the commitment were actually MORE likely to have had sex (not by much though).

We can judge and tell people not to but they are, most of them are and that’s just a fact. Is it just they aren’t as devout? that’s one variable but not the only one. Part of it is just genetic and that’s something we will eventually have to deal with from a Church perspective in our culture. No I’m not saying it would be “allowed” as it’s spelled out as wrong in the Bible pretty clearly (much more so than marriage to be honest). Yet if people continue to live longer and not get married until later we will have to address it for the reality it is in a non-judgmental way.

 

[survive]

One thing no one has mentioned is the fact that people are now going into puberty much earlier than say, 100 or so years ago.

Take for instance the “Little House on the Prairie” era. Most young people went into puberty about age 14 - some a little later, some earlier and guess when they got married? around 16.

Today we have some young girls getting their first period in second grade and the average is around 10, 4 years earlier. Boys are also starting to mature earlier as well, usually around age 11. Yet now most people get married at LEAST 10 years afterward and some 20 years…

When some people say, just say no or don’t do it… well it’s not working. Evangelicals have these big commitment events where people pledge to remain virgins until they get married. A few years after they started they did some research and found out that those people who made the commitment were actually MORE likely to have had sex (not by much though).

We can judge and tell people not to but they are, most of them are and that’s just a fact. Is it just they aren’t as devout? that’s one variable but not the only one. Part of it is just genetic and that’s something we will eventually have to deal with from a Church perspective in our culture. No I’m not saying it would be “allowed” as it’s spelled out as wrong in the Bible pretty clearly (much more so than marriage to be honest). Yet if people continue to live longer and not get married until later we will have to address it for the reality it is in a non-judgmental way.

I want to see your sources (sorry I don’t have mine handy but I can hunt some up later) for your historic data. The reason is that I read recently that anthropologists and doctors were saying the age of menarche had leveled off in the 1970s or thereabouts in America (as reported in some AP story), at 12.89, compared to 14.5 in 1920. It peaked in the early-to-mid 19th Century, but a hundred years ago was about 14-16, and the average American woman married at 22 (US Census). Around then, 86% of brides were virgins. To me that says virginity for ten years after menarche is reasonable, but it’s really pushing things to try for more waiting than that. Boys report sexual urges at only 14, compared to girls at 16. But men usually marry women about two years younger than they are, not two years older. That means a ten-year wait for the bride adds up to a hurdle of 14 years’ abstinence for him. At least these are figures I have picked up. Anyway, with girls menstruating at 12.89, expecting them to be married sometime between 21 and 23 to guys between 23 and 25 is early enough to make abstinence easier for them and late enough to get them through some college before they settle down.

 

[Norseman82]

One thing no one has mentioned is the fact that people are now going into puberty much earlier than say, 100 or so years ago.

Take for instance the “Little House on the Prairie” era. Most young people went into puberty about age 14 - some a little later, some earlier and guess when they got married? around 16.

Today we have some young girls getting their first period in second grade and the average is around 10, 4 years earlier. Boys are also starting to mature earlier as well, usually around age 11. Yet now most people get married at LEAST 10 years afterward and some 20 years…

When some people say, just say no or don’t do it… well it’s not working. Evangelicals have these big commitment events where people pledge to remain virgins until they get married. A few years after they started they did some research and found out that those people who made the commitment were actually MORE likely to have had sex (not by much though).

We can judge and tell people not to but they are, most of them are and that’s just a fact. Is it just they aren’t as devout? that’s one variable but not the only one. Part of it is just genetic and that’s something we will eventually have to deal with from a Church perspective in our culture. No I’m not saying it would be “allowed” as it’s spelled out as wrong in the Bible pretty clearly (much more so than marriage to be honest). Yet if people continue to live longer and not get married until later we will have to address it for the reality it is in a non-judgmental way.

And yet people who want to do things God’s way are met with “single vocation”, the potentially blasphemous “Be Satisfied” prayer, being told that they need to accept not being married before they are truly ready to be married, that they have to stop looking, that God really may not want them to be married, etc., etc.

http://wasteddomain.com/gallery/d/568-1/picard-sigh.jpg

As far as addressing this in a non-judgmental way, I fear things have gone too far and it may be too late for that. Society is in such a mess that it may take a shocking “correction” to bring it back to where it is supposed to be, and from a lot of the threads I see being started here regarding the frustrations of single life “the natives are getting restless” (so to speak).

 

[catherinette]

jwashu:

We can judge and tell people not to but they are, most of them are and that’s just a fact. Is it just they aren’t as devout? that’s one variable but not the only one. Part of it is just genetic and that’s something we will eventually have to deal with from a Church perspective in our culture. No I’m not saying it would be “allowed” as it’s spelled out as wrong in the Bible pretty clearly (much more so than marriage to be honest). Yet if people continue to live longer and not get married until later we will have to address it for the reality it is in a non-judgmental way.

There’s a huge difference between looking with compassion at a person who has made mistakes and recognizes and regrets those mistakes, and not judging someone who is acting sinfully and persisting in that sin. Let us not mince words here: sex outside of marriage is grave matter, and if the sin is committed with full knowledge and full consent of the will, it is a mortal sin; the Church has taught that, and will continue to teach it, no matter what society does in the meanwhile. Mitigating circumstances, such as a person not having a properly formed conscience, might lessen the guilt, but it does not change the objective wrong of the act.

I want to see your sources (sorry I don’t have mine handy but I can hunt some up later) for your historic data. The reason is that I read recently that anthropologists and doctors were saying the age of menarche had leveled off in the 1970s or thereabouts in America (as reported in some AP story), at 12.89, compared to 14.5 in 1920. It peaked in the early-to-mid 19th Century, but a hundred years ago was about 14-16, and the average American woman married at 22 (US Census). Around then, 86% of brides were virgins. To me that says virginity for ten years after menarche is reasonable, but it’s really pushing things to try for more waiting than that. Boys report sexual urges at only 14, compared to girls at 16. But men usually marry women about two years younger than they are, not two years older. That means a ten-year wait for the bride adds up to a hurdle of 14 years’ abstinence for him. At least these are figures I have picked up. Anyway, with girls menstruating at 12.89, expecting them to be married sometime between 21 and 23 to guys between 23 and 25 is early enough to make abstinence easier for them and late enough to get them through some college before they settle down.

Uhoh, looks like I’m past my prime then. Putting numbers on things, like a woman ought to be married at the age of 22.35 and a man at the age of the 24.56 and they should have 4.35 children and 2.72 dogs; well, that sounds like some sort of scary dystopia, and I’m sure glad it’s not the world I live in! Human relationships just don’t work on an artificial timescale; and when it comes down to it, biology and cultural norms don’t make one iota of difference. It’s one of the lies of our culture that men and women can and should be controlled by their passions, rather than having control over them. Ultimately we have an intellect and a free will as well, and if we are taught well and if we decide to act morally, than the rest just doesn’t matter.

 

[survive]

There’s a huge difference between looking with compassion at a person who has made mistakes and recognizes and regrets those mistakes, and not judging someone who is acting sinfully and persisting in that sin. Let us not mince words here: sex outside of marriage is grave matter, and if the sin is committed with full knowledge and full consent of the will, it is a mortal sin; the Church has taught that, and will continue to teach it, no matter what society does in the meanwhile. Mitigating circumstances, such as a person not having a properly formed conscience, might lessen the guilt, but it does not change the objective wrong of the act.

Uhoh, looks like I’m past my prime then. Putting numbers on things, like a woman ought to be married at the age of 22.35 and a man at the age of the 24.56 and they should have 4.35 children and 2.72 dogs; well, that sounds like some sort of scary dystopia, and I’m sure glad it’s not the world I live in! Human relationships just don’t work on an artificial timescale; and when it comes down to it, biology and cultural norms don’t make one iota of difference. It’s one of the lies of our culture that men and women can and should be controlled by their passions, rather than having control over them. Ultimately we have an intellect and a free will as well, and if we are taught well and if we decide to act morally, than the rest just doesn’t matter.

That’s not nearly enough dogs for all those kids.
No, I don’t mean people should have to be married at that age, but it could be helpful to have a sense of a middle zone so while our society swings over it on the Hammer we know where it is. No child marriage, no endless sitting alone at home waiting decades to meet someone perfect. No waiting as long as I did to figure out how to do anything useful so as to be any good to anyone.