…
The passion, warmth, beauty, and fire of sexual relations are like that of a burning fire in a fireplace. Once outside of their natural boundaries, both sexual relations and fire will destroy the individual, people around them, and everything you have and own. This is the devastating effect of sexual passions outside of the natural bonds of marriage…
this kind of overblown claim (my guess is that if the above were true, most people and all their things have already been “destroyed”, possibly more than once) and weak analogy is why the morality tale Reefer Madness had the opposite of its intended effect.
if you’re going to tell a teen, for example, that premarital sex is bad because he or she isn’t emotionally ready for it, there’s a risk of disease, or other realistic consequences, that’s one thing. but to claim that french kissing (see other threads, where this is apparently regarded as a sin) will result in total destruction, and when it doesn’t actually happen or happen right away, you’ve lost all credibility.
what a 40 year old would make of that claim is altogether something different, but, at minimum, it will involve chuckling.