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.