Sex before Marriage believers?

[Julian_Bashir]

Like I said before I admire anyone who waits until marriage to have sex.

It’s not common though, people get married later in life and with all of life’s challenges, education costs, a 50% divorce rate, the skyrocketing unemployment rate of recent college graduates, etc. makes it difficult to be a 100% perfect Christian.

Imagine living in Spain and Greece with 50% unemployment rate, educated kids cannot find jobs and having to leave their families or imagine living in Alaska or Northern Canada with 6 months of darkness and cold.

The Lord doesn’t pay these people’s bills and if sex is a way to give people some happiness and fullfill some fantasies, I am not condemning them.

Better to have sex with someone you love than to be depressed, lonely, and bored.

Pre-marital sex is just as common in Catholic high schools as it is in Public schools so let’s look at that statistic as well!

11 out of 12 Apostles turned on or abandoned Christ at his Crucifixion. Statistics don;t really something is right. Why not take drugs to alleviate your sadness and depression, while you’re at it? You’re saying what could potentially amount to mortal sin is better than being sad? No, hell is not worse than a sad earthly life.

None of that is what the Church calls us to. I am not perfect, nor is anyone on this board, but I am man enough not to defend my mistakes in life. Every mistake I made was my fault for not living like Christ in that moment. I can point to situations that made it difficult, or circumstances that made it tough, but in each case, I was wrong, and there is no excuse if I want to spend eternity with God in Heaven. Rather than attempt to justify it, why not admit our fault and attempt to do better going forward?

 

[Miss_Felicity]

They would certainly not be practicing the humility and forgiveness that the church urges us so strongly to exercise.

Strongly Agreed

Were your statement clearly pertinent to the facts we know, I might agree with you. However,…

At the time of the events the poster references, she may have been known to the “good men” largely by her actions & reputation (as sleeping around) - they can’t be blamed for being stand-offish in light of the poster’s demonstrated behaviour. It may also be that in the relevant time period, the poster had not yet acknowledged her actions were “mistakes”.

There is no basis in the information available on which to pass judgement on the “good men” to which the poster refers.

Okay, but she said thats how she spent her 20’s even if she lived an unchaste life until she was 29, she is now 42 so in 13 years she hasn’t encountered any “good” men who didn’t know her during her “wilder” days? Even if she lives in the same place she grew up in or spent her 20’s in work, travel, volunteering, Mass, everyday living no good men have been exposed to her in 13 years?? I find that hard to believe. I’m not saying that TC’s point isn’t a sobering one, or that there is no truth in it. I’m saying good people with pasts who have repented and created a better life for themselves find companionship and marry all the time.

 

[TeachCatechism]

Strongly Agreed

Okay, but she said thats how she spent her 20’s even if she lived an unchaste life until she was 29, she is now 42 so in 13 years she hasn’t encountered any “good” men who didn’t know her during her “wilder” days? Even if she lives in the same place she grew up in or spent her 20’s in work, travel, volunteering, Mass, everyday living no good men have been exposed to her in 13 years?? I find that hard to believe. I’m not saying that TC’s point isn’t a sobering one, or that there is no truth in it. I’m saying good people with pasts who have repented and created a better life for themselves find companionship and marry all the time.

What I mean isn’t that men today are judging me but rather that I spent my time dating or sleeping with men who didn’t think of me as anything but a sex object. Now, because I am older I find it hard to find decent men because most are taken. I spent my 20’s building my career as well and in my chaste 30’s concentrated on graduate school from 31-33 and my career.

 

[Miss_Felicity]

What I mean isn’t that men today are judging me but rather that I spent my time dating or sleeping with men who didn’t think of me as anything but a sex object. Now, because I am older I find it hard to find decent men because most are taken. I spent my 20’s building my career as well and in my chaste 30’s concentrated on graduate school from 31-33 and my career.

Thanks for clarifying. I’ve spent my twenties focused on education and career. I’ll be 28 in a few months but me and my intended don’t have money to get married (which is a long, involved and painful story) so were looking at another 2 years or so. I do worry sometimes that I’m on a “race against the clock” since I will probably be 30 before I’m married and he would like to get settled into married life before we start having children. It is so easy to get wrapped up in my own issues, and problems and to hear other people’s stories puts things in perspective. Best of luck to you Teach Catechism .

 

[Rau]

Thanks for clarifying. I’ve spent my twenties focused on education and career. I’ll be 28 in a few months but me and my intended don’t have money to get married (which is a long, involved and painful story) so were looking at another 2 years or so. I do worry sometimes that I’m on a “race against the clock” since I will probably be 30 before I’m married and he would like to get settled into married life before we start having children. It is so easy to get wrapped up in my own issues, and problems and to hear other people’s stories puts things in perspective. Best of luck to you Teach Catechism .

Is money an impediment - a single household is cheaper than two? Unless you both live at home I suppose!

 

[BJHunnicut]

Why does everyone here assume that men “try women out” sexually in cases of premarital sex?
This propagates the dangerous idea that sex is something men take and women must closely guard. Then we wonder why “men are studs and women are sluts”. Women enjoy and go after casual sex too. Why are women not “trying men out”? Why must premarital sex be a moral degradation the onus of which is on women? THAT’S rape culture.
Sex is an important part of a relationship as the poster says. I don’t understand the condemnation.

 

[fdeunha]

I guess we’re not really “free to choose” as Catholics then huh? I didn’t realize how much must be given up.

Thanks for the reply

In fact, you are “free to choose”. You can choose to follow Jesus in the Catholic Church, or you can choose aything else, that is, choose not to follow Him.

We, as Catholics, must follow the teachings of the Church, who is Mother and Teacher. It’s OK if you don’t understand something, but you must accept it and try to understand it, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and through the study of the ecclesial docs upon it.

You asked about sex before marriage. Now try to think on your future husband. Imagine him having sex with other girls, do you like it? Maybe in a few years, when having sex with him, he will be thinking on another girls, do you want this?

 

[Emese]

I think waiting can work both ways. You either get lucky or not. Unfortunately a lot of good or even religious people still enter into a loveless relationship not finding out about each other’s “bedroom secrets”. People do get married to homosexuals, asexuals or just to partners with a totally different temperament for example. How do you find out if you don’t even experience the physical essence of your being? if you don’t even really know yourself? I do believe sex is more than pleasure, more than creating children, and more than just bonding or uniting 2 people together…it is also about learning what love really is, and experiencing all aspects of humanity. I see more marriages fail amongst those who wait unfortunately. I know too many of these, not ending in divorce but ending in lifelong sorrow. And contrary to poppular belief you don’t compare the partners, just like you don’t compare your children either. But it does help you see more clearly who is the right one for you and helps you to love him when you do find him even more…

 

[joshvanrad]

I think waiting can work both ways. You either get lucky or not. Unfortunately a lot of good or even religious people still enter into a loveless relationship not finding out about each other’s “bedroom secrets”. People do get married to homosexuals, asexuals or just to partners with a totally different temperament for example. How do you find out if you don’t even experience the physical essence of your being? if you don’t even really know yourself? I do believe sex is more than pleasure, more than creating children, and more than just bonding or uniting 2 people together…it is also about learning what love really is, and experiencing all aspects of humanity. I see more marriages fail amongst those who wait unfortunately. I know too many of these, not ending in divorce but ending in lifelong sorrow. And contrary to poppular belief you don’t compare the partners, just like you don’t compare your children either. But it does help you see more clearly who is the right one for you and helps you to love him when you do find him even more…

Meh.

 

[white_sheep]

To really be a sex before marriage believer you have to think that there is a greater chance you will have a happy and productive life if you have sex before marriage than if you don’t. The chances are much better that your life will be better if you wait until marriage. That’s the funny thing about all of these “oppressive rules”, if you follow them, you are the winner, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now as well.

Also, people tend to have an inflated opinion about sex, and in this case the quality thereof. If you are a virgin when you get married, you will be plenty happy with sex most of the time, having nothing to compare it to. However, you will probably end up married to someone who isn’t as good in the sack as someone you’ve slept with before. There’s a learning curve with everything in marriage, and there is no reason why a married couple can’t work on this as well.

We waited, and I feel sorry for people who didn’t.

 

[JimG]

I had a friend who got pregnant the first time she had sex with her boyfriend. She got an abortion. They stayed together awhile, but didn’t marry.

If you’re not married, you’re not ready to be a parent. If you’re not ready to be parents together, you’re not prepared to have sex together. Ergo, if you’re not married, you’re not ready for sex.

The OP asked “what happens if you don’t know what it’s like sexually with someone and get married and you don’t enjoy it with them”? The chances are, dear one, if someone makes your heart beat faster and you make his heart beat faster and you both commit give to each other selflessly, you’re going to work out a good sex life with each other.

Besides, if you use the “test drive” method, what if you enjoy him the first time, but not a month later? What if you like it six months later, but not a year later? What if you enjoy it a year later, but by the time seven years go by, you don’t “enjoy” him much any more? What if he doesn’t “enjoy” you much any more? Does he get to divorce you when he tires of you? When you get stretched out or gain weight after childbirth? When he gains weight because he’s working two jobs to make ends meet and doesn’t get to the gym like he used to? And what if, dear friend, the man who was your “perfect lover” before marriage decides not to marry you? What, pray tell, are you going to do with that?

When sex is a mutual gift that reflects and consummates a total gift that makes a single life instead of two people looking for someone to help them satisfy themselves, that is a recipe for a life of “compatibility”. Yes, I’m suggesting that you find someone to share your whole life with, and decide that you’re going to do the giving necessary to have a good sex life, from Day One to Year Fifty, for as long as you’re married. This method is the moral law because it is the least likely to crush someone’s soul with grief and regret, less likely to crush yours, less likely to crush his, and less likely to crush your child’s. Think about that.

If you’re not married, you’re not ready for sex. That pretty much sums it up.

In order to ‘believe in’ sex before marriage, one also has to discard 2,000 years of Christian teaching beginning with Christ and the apostles, and several thousand years of Judaic teaching before that, on the grounds that perhaps one just knows better than all of the moral teachings that came before. The odds are not good.