Why is premartial sex NOT truly loving?

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As a faithful Catholic, the one sticking point I see when discussing Catholic sexual morality with non-Catholics is the issue of premarital sex. They often counter by arguing that premarital sex can be loving if the couple truly love each other. The logic behind this argument is faulty, but I don’t have a good response.

How would you respond? Why is premarital sex never loving, other than arguments re: mortal sin? I’m trying to look at it from both a Catholic and secular perspective.
 
My answer is that it’s not truly loving because if the couple engaging in the act TRULY loved each other, they’d want to be married and then wait until marriage to perform the act which belongs only in marriage to begin with.

In short: if they truly loved each other, they’d desire marriage first.
 
Well the act isn’t loving, that doesn’t necissarily mean that the couple doesn’t love each other. Perhaps they can’t get married for some legitamate reason, or they don’t view marriage as really meaning anything.

The act though is like lighting a house on fire to enjoy it’s light and warmth instead of lighting a fire safely in a fireplace…There have been studies that show that the more sex someone has before marriage, the more likely they are to divorce their spouse (when they are married.)
 
The best Catholic defense of anything involving sexuality that I have found is JPII’s Theology of the Body. There are courses, videos, CDs, and of course the actual text written by Blessed John Paul II. My girlfriend and I did a course once per week during a semester in school and it was well worth it.
 
It is not truly, FULLY loving, because it is not supported by the commitment of an ‘unitl death do we part’ relationship in the sacrament of marriage, as a public proclamation of their love.

Premarital is not a fully loving act; there is always an emotional element (committment) that is held back.

It may be wild, and wonderful and lead to a beautiful post-coital nap, but it is NOT truly loving, because the couple has not fully, entirely, totally committed
Ref. Theology of the Body.
 
For starters, ask them for the wedding date. This should elicit blank stares. Traditionally,. ‘premarital’ meant ‘before the wedding,’ that is, sex between two people who had already agreed to marry. Now it means two people who aren’t married but it carries NO connotation that THEY will marry, period, much less each other. The proper word here is ‘fornication.’
 
Its pretty simple. If your not having sex with your wife/husband, then your having sex with someone else’s wife/husband or someone else’s future wife or husband. If your not married yet, then you don’t know the person your having sex with is your wife or husband.

Sex is ordered towards creating babies and bonding. This is what sex does. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that sex is bonding so that when sex is procreative, the people that created the baby are bonded together to raise the child they created. Considering that 50% of abortions occur for people who were using a form of contraceptive no one can ever say that they are 100% sure they won’t get pregnant. Its a crime against the potential child that may result from the act, if two people who are not married have sex. Every child by design deserves to be born into family as nature intended and as God intended since he created our nature in his image and likeness.
 
Well, having done both, I can assure you they are not the same. Pre-marital sex is simply believing you are in love. Being married is when you are in love.

The complete giving of oneself to another person, the combining of souls, with the real possibility of new life being created, is simply something that doesn’t exist outside of marriage. Really, it’s a magnificent experience, and I feel sorry for those that don’t experience it.
 
In having pre-marital sex, they are making a promise with their body that their mind and will is unwilling to keep. If their mind and will had been willing to keep that promise, they would have made that commitment publically to each other and God and the community, and then ratified the promise with their bodies. Then it would be marital sex, not pre-marital sex.

But they’re not sure they really mean it, so they just let their bodies promise something that their mind is unwilling to give.
 
It’s because people have an incorrect/insufficient understanding of what (WHO) love is. God is love, and His love is** free, total, and life-giving**. Human love expressed sexually is supposed to be a microcosm of God’s love for us. If any sexual union does not encompass all three of these aspects, it is a perversion of real, authentic love.

Premarital sex (or, more appropriately, fornication) may be freely given to each other, but most often it is not total (because there is a lack of permanent commitment to one another; total means complete, without reservation), and is also most often not life-giving (as the couple usually uses some form of contraception). Ergo, it is a perversion of authentic love. That is the Catholic position.

The secular argument against fornication is actually the platform by which the Catholic position springboards from. It really is this simple: the sexual act exists (evolved) for a reproductive purpose. That it is pleasurable is merely a fortunate by-product for us, in the same way that foods taste good (we need food, but it doesn’t have to taste good).

In short, sex is not about love, it’s about making babies(although, of course, sex can be an expression of love, but sex is not love). Babies need a lot of time, care, resources, love, and responsibility, and parenting is not supposed to be a one person job. Children also need a present, involved mother and father for their psychological well-being. Only in the bonds of committed matrimony will this scenario be satisfied for a child.

Therefore, since 1) sex is for making babies; 2) no contraceptive method is 100% effective (except abstinence, which isn’t really a contraceptive method); 3) children are a major responsibility; and 4) fornicating couples neither currently desire nor are prepared to assume the long-term financial, moral, and social responsibility involved in having a child, then THEY SHOULDN’T BE HAVING SEX!!!
 
Such people don’t even know what love really is! Love isn’t that intense, gooey feeling you get when you are around her. It isn’t merely a feeling at all! Love is more than that. Love is a self sacrificial committment to the other person that places her needs higher than one’s own preferences and desires.

Placing her in a position with a rather higher than zero chance of becoming pregnant out of wedlock is NOT a loving action, by definition. It just isn’t. And the potential pregnancy isn’t the entire problem, it is the physical manifestation of a MUCH deeper spiritual problem. God is good to us like this. He frequently makes deep spiritual things manifested in physical ways. If we understand ourselves properly and see things this way, we damaging our souls. When we pretend that the physical manifestations of the spiritual in our lives are nothing MORE than physical, we disrepect the gift God gave us and only hurt ourselves in the process.
 
markeverett49 said:
For starters, ask them for the wedding date. This should elicit blank stares. Traditionally,. ‘premarital’ meant ‘before the wedding,’ that is, sex between two people who had already agreed to marry. Now it means two people who aren’t married but it carries NO connotation that THEY will marry, period, much less each other. The proper word here is 'fornication.’
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Thank you for stating this, I was in a “pre-marital sex” thread a while ago and brought this point up. Here is what I would like to state, there are two vocations in this world… Holy Matrimony and Virginity for the sake of the Kingdom. Fornication goes against both. There is no reason to add complications to your life which is why one should abstain from sex/fornication (there is a vast slew of complications one could expound on).

But to answer the OP’s question, first I must ask what they mean when they say, “if the couple truly love each other.” Here is the root of the problem, what IS Love? How can you/they define it?

Love is not some warm fuzzy feeling, some emotional contrivance which is expanded upon though fornication.
 
It may very well be 'truly loving" but it is not truly loving in the context that God demands.
 
You can bet your bottom dollar that regardless of semantics, ie. fornication vs. pre-martial sex, contraception is likely involved.

Truly loving would include the complete openeness of the persons involved, freely giving everything that person is. That includes their fertility.

And when things go wrong, ie. unplanned pregnancy, STD, that’s when you see their real committement to each other. Abortions, break ups, blame, so much for “love”.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Sums up the whole thing kinda nicely, there’s no “love” in pre-martial sex, or fornication, just lust and some messed up confused notion of what they think is “love”.

But how much can we expect from people doing these things? The majority probably being non-Catholic, [even Catholics are guilty of these things]. Teh world around them is telling them that it is “love”, that its okay to “go for it” if they have “feelings” for that person. If society tells them its okay, they’ll go for it, and oftentimes end up falling head first right into the mess that fornication/pre-martial sex causes.

Pray for these people.
 
Premarital sex is not pursuing someone’s greatest good. You also are not giving yourself totally to the other, the way Jesus showed us to and told us to.
 
I would say it’s not truly loving because the couple did not love each other enough to wait until their marriage. They’re only having sex, and not making love to the person they’re in love and married to.
 
LotusCarsLtd said:
As a faithful Catholic, the one sticking point I see when discussing Catholic sexual morality with non-Catholics is the issue of premarital sex. They often counter by arguing that premarital sex can be loving if the couple truly love each other. The logic behind this argument is faulty, but I don’t have a good response.

How would you respond? Why is premarital sex never loving, other than arguments re: mortal sin? I’m trying to look at it from both a Catholic and secular perspective.
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The issue is that when Christians talk about “love” it is not “love” in the modern sense, i.e., passion, sentimen, affection, etc. The corruption of our understanding of “love” is one of the greatest triumphs of modernity becuase it has made the Christian religion almost entirely unintelligible.

The love of which we speak, the love which we are called to, the love we mean when we say “God is love” and “For God so loved the world” is not affective. You can have all the positive sentiment in the world contained within your heart and still go to Hell. Conversely, you can have a heart utterly dead to sentiment and still be saved. Emotion has absolutely no bearing on Christian soteriology, because the “love” of which it speaks is volitional. It is the love which Christ spoke of when He said “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” It is the act of willing what is best for another, simply for that other’s sake.

What is best for another is God, and avoidance of sin, which is spiritual suicide. So “loving fornication” is in this sense a total non sequitur – an ontological impossibility. You cannot will what is best for someone even as you induce them to sin to satisfy your own perverse lusts. You may like them, may feel some droopy sentiment or positive emotions toward them, but you are not loving them.
 
What a load of rubbish!
The sex I had with my abusive husband was definitely NOT loving, I can tell you! Whereas with my new love it is beautiful, and everything God has ever wanted for me.
Marriage is just a form of ownership, and one of many things designed to control women.
 
stiffkittenbabe said:
What a load of rubbish!
The sex I had with my abusive husband was definitely NOT loving, I can tell you! Whereas with my new love it is beautiful, and everything God has ever wanted for me.
Marriage is just a form of ownership, and one of many things designed to control women.
Click to expand...
Hmm so who owns who in the Trinity? Does God own Jesus and the Holy Spirit or is Jesus the big boss? Marriage is a reflection of the Trinity i.e God. We are created in the image and likeness of God. You cannot have true love unless that love is faithful. I’m sorry to hear about your abusive husband who obviously didn’t understand any of this, and I’m happy you got away from him. His actions are not a reflection of marriage though. Marriage is like any other good thing. It can be used to do great evil. All of the greatest things in life are also the most at risk to be used for great evil. Nuclear power for instance has awesome potential for changing the lives of people around the world. At the same time it also has the potential to be used for great destruction. This is how marriage is. When marriage is approached as it should be, it can be a thing of utmost beauty. When approached the wrong way and when used by evil men or women it becomes devastatingly destructive. All great things require putting yourself at risk.
 
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