Tag Archives: premarital sex

Christian worldview, Sexuality

Auditioning for marriage? How many tryouts is too many for a Christian?

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A friend posted a link to My Big Virginity Mistake on Facebook to get me to respond.  For the sake of context, the friend isn’t a Christian but the author of the link claims to be one.  The final line of her article was, “I learned that sex is important enough not to wait.”  So she claims the name of Christ while explicitly opposing God’s word.

The issue isn’t whether people will always meet God’s standards.  We never have, which is why the truths of Jesus and God’s grace are such Good News!  But if we really know and love him we won’t teach the opposite of what He says.

Here’s the comment thread (Snark alert: We go back a long way and aren’t bashful with each other).

  • Me: Yeah, she definitely should have slept with hundreds of guys until she found one that was perfectly compatible with her. That never has any negative consequences. That is so much wiser than doing it God’s way and making a commitment for life. 

    I hope you are smarter with your daughters than you are on Facebook.
  • Him: i think the point of the story was that if she slept with the man she loved prior to marriage, she would not have married him. one is not 100s. and aren’t we being a wee bit hypocritical?
  • Me: If your premise was accurate, it would have been an error on my part, not hypocrisy. But let’s examine your premise more closely. You think that it would be better for the number to be more than zero. So in her case, if this person (who claims Christianity but obviously disagrees with what God clearly said) had premarital sex with the man she “loved” then she wouldn’t have married him. That’s a victory if you are right. 

    But wait, wouldn’t she have to have sex with the next guy as well before she married him? Oops, another one that isn’t perfectly compatible. So another victory for you and her! The system works. 

    On to number 3: D’oh! Still not a match. But your system is working just fine! I mean, once you, in your infinite wisdom, established that God is wrong and the number should be greater than zero, then the burden of proof is on you to establish the upper limit. In this case she would have had to have at least two out-of-wedlock encounters (assuming #2 was “the guy”). So if 2 is OK, why not 3? Or 4? or 100? 

    You haven’t completely suppressed the truth, so deep down you know something is wrong with 100. In fact, you thought it was outrageous that I brought it up. So that’s a good sign! There is hope for you. (Interestingly, the liberal Dear Abby said something similar once. While opposing God’s design for sex she was still aghast that at her current pace a reader would have 100 “lovers” by the age of 25. But she never explained the contradiction in her worldview.)

    But you and the sad author have some work to do to explain precisely what the upper limit is. And you have to explain why 5 is fine, but 6 is not. Or why 99 is fine, but 100 is not. Good luck!

    And then for extra credit you can explain why people who practice violating God’s design for sex before marriage will feel obliged to follow it afterwards. We all sin, so I’m not saying this as an expectation for perfection from anyone, but if we can’t even point to the right standards then that is a sad thing.

    You might consider if your premise is false. Perhaps sex isn’t something you audition for to see if you are compatible (If one is male and the other is female then you are compatible. Trust me.) or good enough. Perhaps it is “God’s wedding gift” so that you can enjoy it under the safest possible conditions — emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Christian worldview, Politics, Sexuality

Interesting facts on divorce rates

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Hey single people: Want to increase your chances of divorce?  Then do one or more of the following:

  1. Have premarital sex
  2. Cohabitate
  3. “Marry” someone of the same sex
  4. Don’t attend church regularly and pray together — Some surveys will say that Christians have similar divorce rates compared to the rest of the culture, but if you drill deeper you’ll find that those who are serious about their faith and not just checking the “cultural Christian” box have much lower rates.

Female unions seem to have the highest divorce rates, followed by male unions, followed by opposite sex unions.

“For Sweden, the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the risk for heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk for female partnerships is nearly double that for men.”

“For Norway, divorce risks are 77% higher in lesbian partnerships than in those of gay men.”  (The Norwegian data did not include a comparison with opposite sex couples.)

Do you know what else is bad for relationships? Premarital sex and cohabitation. And that’s not my opinion, those are the facts. (See the studies below) Either we are going to get serious about constraining our selfish behavior to protect children from instability, or worse, or children are going to suffer. When adults substitute their own selfish ideologies for God’s design for marriage, children suffer.

Sexuality

Well, duh.

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newsI have always found advice columns to be interesting.  I typically prefer Carolyn Hax to Dear “just to be on the safe side, you better get divorced” Abby.

Part of a recent letter was interesting.  The part in bold warranted the title of the post.

I’m in a relationship phase that always makes me feel nuts. It’s the space between “being together” and not. One aspect is that the fling started more on the physical end than the, “Wow, you have really good morals and we like the same Chinese restaurant” approach. The similar interests, humor and understanding our compatibility came second.

It’s been about a month and it’s understood that we’re exclusive, but I don’t know how to take those steps to feeling secure in what we have without leaving tampons and a toothbrush over there to nudge us in the direction I want to go. He’s generally not much of a question-asker about my life and history, and so our emotional intimacy is less than what I want, mostly because my last relationship ended horribly and I’m hesitant to really share myself until I know I’m in something for real.

Not to pigeonhole men, but I think, as a guy, he’s pretty content with hanging out, sleeping together, eating out, playing guitar and having fun without worrying whether I’m his “girlfriend.” Yet here I am, over-analyzing, feeling a little nuts, but not wanting to show that, lest he run for the hills. Help me out here.

So let’s see: You don’t really know the guy that well, but you are already sleeping with him and are looking for more commitment.  Let’s just say you have things completely backwards.

I wish the writer would read how women who have multiple sexual partners damage their ability to bond with a future partner due to low oxytocin levels.  I also wish they would teach this in schools as part of truly comprehensive sex education that includes the horrors of abortion, the (un)likelihood that guys will stick around after having sex with you, the fact that if you finish high school and don’t have sex outside of marriage that it is virtually impossible that you’ll be poor, etc.  (The Liberal version of “comprehensive” is basically passing out condoms with a wink-wink theme that says, “Don’t have sex until you’re ready (and you’re ready whenever you want to be ready)”.)