Is It Important to Wait for Marriage Before You Have Sex?

How many young Christians have gotten married just so they could fuck and ended up hating one another for the next forty or fifty years?

The correct answer of course is no way, no how.  Sex is an important part of a healthy relationship, so how anyone thinks it makes sense to avoid it altogether until you’ve supposedly committed to the relationship forever completely blows my mind.

Waiting until marriage to have sex is like buying a car sight unseen before you even get your license.  It’s completely illogical.

I grew up under the “sex before marriage is the WORST THING YOU CAN EVER DO besides, like, murder” school of thought, and it messed me up so badly that I was too scared to even consider it AFTER marriage.

I was told by my mother several times throughout my life that if I was “living in sin” as an adult she would show up at my sinful cohabitation house and drag me back to hers. (She said this both when I was a minor and when I was in college.) Yes, she threatened to kidnap an adult over religious ideology. And she wonders why I don’t like telling her where I am or what I am doing.

Apparently when I was born, one of the first things my paternal grandfather told my mother was to be prepared to throw me out on the street if I got Teen Pregnant. I know he loved me and was proud of my academic accomplishments, but it intensely bothers me that *from the moment I drew breath* he was planning how to punish me if I didn’t live up to his religious ideology.

I bet their first wedding night lasted a wholesome 30 seconds (and i’m being generous there), trully an unforgettable experience :p

I was particularly struck by what the one woman said about how they teach that if you do everything right, you won’t get your heart broken. Of course that’s false, and sets people up to feel that everything bad that happens to them in the sex/relationships department is their fault. If only they hadn’t kissed that high school boyfriend, or had invited Jesus into their marriage more, or whatever. It discourages people from looking at what really makes people unhappy in relationships, thus adding more misery to the world.

While I agree with your sentiment, that it is important, and knowing your compatibility ahead of time is good; I would disagree partly with what you say (the car part) for the following reason.

The SOLE purpose of having a car is to drive it. If you can’t drive it, there is no reason to have it. The SOLE purpose of marrying is not just a sex partner. To equate the two is to fall into the same trap that the religious do and perceive marriage as “the time you have sex” as opposed to sex being one component of a relationship and bond between the participants.

“The SOLE purpose of having a car is to drive it” I guess you have never been to a collector car auction? Most of those cars are never driven.

My mom got pregnant out of wedlock and out of panic claimed it was rape… so I never got to meet my father.  I wasn’t even told of him until after he had passed away. But it kept her from getting kicked out of the house. If that doesn’t screw a kid up, the other aspects of Mormonism will… ;P

Yes!  It’s awkweird!

Good grief! Cars are manufactured to be driven. Sitting in a museum  is a subsequent use, not the primary purpose for being made (unless it’s a Hollywood film prop car like in James Bond flms). Your point is almost completely irrelevant to the discussion.

(If your point was sarcasm, then I apologize and withdraw above comment!)

“I grew up under the “sex before marriage is the WORST THING YOU CAN EVER DO besides, like, murder” school of thought, and it messed me up so badly that I was too scared to even consider it AFTER marriage

That’s my story too! Never had sex before until my 1st night of marriage . Actually, it was the 2nd night, because on the first night we could figure out the mechanics (I know, it sounds completely stupid) until we went to a local secular bookshop and bought a book about sex. (My mother bought a “christian” sex book – I think by Tim LaHaye – but it never got specific about how to have sex, just kind of beat around the bush – pun not intended). Our sex life has been screwed up ever since, and after 38 years of marriage, she hasn’t wanted sex for the last 4 years. DAMN YOU EVANGELICALS!!!!

…prepared to throw me out on the street if I got Teen Pregnant. I know he loved me…

I fail to see that how that is love.

 Technically, if after 38 years of marriage, no sex was wanted for just the last 4, you’ve done pretty well for yourselves.

Having a sexual relationship isn’t the SOLE purpose to getting married, but it is the only part of marriage that you can not do with someone outside the marriage without it being considered “cheating”.  You can have pretty much all other aspects of marriage with friends, but sex is the line in the sand that makes it cheating (obviously in non-open marriages).  Therefore, while it isn’t the SOLE purpose to getting married, it is one of the most important aspects of it and it would be stupid to agree to sexual exclusivity when you haven’t had sex with each other and have no idea what you even want.  It’s a complete roll of the dice. 

 In his mind, shunning people who break God’s law even if you love them was The Moral Thing To Do.

Several months before he died of a heart attack, I was talking to him on the phone about a guy I knew at school who unexpectedly left a suicide note (he was found okay and got help). My grandfather’s voice got really funny and he said “well, uh, you know, ah…” (I had never heard him sound so hesitant) “… sometimes boys in college start to worry that they’re… gay… and it can really upset them… so maybe that’s what happened.”

I was so glad he couldn’t see my face. He was a very aloof man, never talked about his past, I didn’t know anything about his side of the family or who his friends were or anything. Right there, in that one sentence, spoken hesitantly, I think I got a tragic insight into what happened.

He was always so unhappy. He held his marriage together and had two kids, but I always could tell that he had wanted something very different from life and just pretended to be content.

(And it may also have something to do with her having a little “fling” with the pastor of our last church before we both de-converted – which was nothing to do with that incident, BTW.)

Both times I got married it was because I had such intense guilt about having sex with my partners. Both marriages ended in divorce.

I am now in a furiously happy relationship with no guilt about having sex, and no intentions to ever marry. He and I may stay together for the rest of our lives, but there will be no religious  nor government involvement. And did I mention FURIOUSLY HAPPY.

Christianity fucked me up in the head about sex for years. I am so very grateful to have escaped it.

This is precisely what started my rift with the church. I’d had this boyfriend who thought I was The One and had convinced me we were Right. Anyway we ended up breaking the fornication rule and later he was in a huge car accident and got addicted to his pain medication. He quickly became someone I didn’t know and we broke up. I was already well aware of my differences with the values of my church but I thought it was just normal variation until some of my close friends started doing purity pledges and vowing to not even kiss someone before they got married. I can’t even wrap my head around that one.

Tl;dr: that feeling of making such a HUGE mistake is horrible at such a young age.

 For a lot of couples, they can have a great relationship without sex. Let’s remember the asexuals in the world or perhaps those who cannot have sex due to a disability.

 That reminds me of a study I came across which said religious young adults are more likely to NOT use contraception. I figure these young people think, “If I buy condoms or get on the pill, it means I’m PLANNING to have sex” and when the time comes, they don’t have protection but just go for it anyway. =/

I find it bad form to put down a lifestyle choice (waiting for marriage for sex or kissing) because of its association with religion. Yes, it is terrible that anyone would be forced into that lifestyle through social pressure or outright lies, but there are people who chose it and are perfectly happy with their choice. For some people (of any belief system) it is important to have a long-term committed partner before having sex, and we shouldn’t talk about it like something awful.

Thank you.

The awful thing is how coercing people into such “choices” screws them up. And how it prevents them from heaving a healthy sex life once they find a partner. That’s what people are complaining about.

 Is it really a choice if you sincerely believe that making a different choice is immoral or even evil? 

But you have informed reasons for remaining celibate, it’s not because someone is trying to tell you that you will be tortured forever if you decide to get your jollies off. The church also teaches that masturbation is bad.

This line of thinking also screws up the kids who don’t quite make it to the altar–especially the girls (of course).  I went to a Lutheran-affiliated college.  While the school itself was actually mostly secular, lots of the students had grown up in Missouri Synod churches (for those not familiar, Missouri Synod is about as conservative as Lutherans get before they start cutting themselves off from society, ala the Wisconsin Synod types).

More than once, I encountered women who, having had sex once, decided they no longer ‘deserved’ to think of their sexual consent as something to be valued.  This, of course, is a remarkable way to end up abused and feeling even guiltier.

I’ve always said that if I have a girl, especially, I’m gonna tell her that her criteria for the fiftieth time she has sex should be the same as for the first–affection, respect and trust, going both ways.

Shit, I don’t think you should even wait until the movie is over during the date to have sex, let lone wait until marriage….

Extremely interesting comments on here about people who claim that they are “messed up” because religious stances on sex before marriage. I can’t help but think that those who have mentioned this have other issues taking place as well. 

I waited until marriage before having sex. I didn’t even have my first kiss until after I was engaged. I figured it out pretty quick though. No extra coaching needed 🙂

 I think some in the church take a good thing (sex only after marriage) and try to apply scare tactics so that people do not engage in it. I guess I’m lucky on this topic as I’ve never had anyone try to “scare” me into not having sex. It was always taught that sex is a special gift and should be reserved for your spouse. If you give that gift to everyone on the block, then you cheapen that gift. So, because I wanted to give my future spouse a special gift I waited. Showing that I care and respect the covenant of marriage  and do not take it lightly by reserving myself for one person has been wonderful. I have been married for almost 7 years and we are expecting our first child soon. 

     I can imagine what life would be like if either me or my spouse had been with other people. a) I would have felt like I wasn’t as special as I feel now b) Even if I wasn’t being compared, I might think or fear that I would be compared to a previous partner c) What if a previous partner had an STD? 

     None of these things are things that I have to worry about. That and my spouse and I feel even more loved because we waited 20+ years to give ourselves to each other. No other person can claim that they know me in such an intimate way as my spouse does. This is how it is meant to be.

Thanks for providing a good example of a screwed up view on sex and marriage, although wholly unintentional on your part I figure.

I waited to have sex untill I got married, and let’s just say that my sex life sucks. I’ve been married for almost nine years. I grew up in a strict religious home. No sex before marriage. On my wedding night it was bad, painfully so. And the whole honeymoon thing, well let’s just say it was a disaster. I thought waiting to have sex would cause me to have a good sex life, that doing everything right things would fall in to place. Now almost nine Years later the only person that’s getting theirs is my husband. Don’t get me wrong my husband is a good guys and I do it for him. I guess nothing is ever promised,not even a good sex life