I very occasionally participate in the online community at Dooce.com. I enjoy Heather Armstrong’s rants and some of the discussions over there are quite interesting. Today someone posted a question asking if anyone waited for sex until marriage. The typical response was along the lines of “no way”, “would you buy a car without test-driving it” and “that’s a crazy/stupid idea.” I posted this response:
“My husband and I were both virgins and waited, even to kiss, until our wedding.
I find the idea that you would actually have sex with someone you were not married to absurd. I simply don’t understand how anyone can live that way. I also think that it would be incredibly difficult to deal with having had multiple sexual relationships.
I also think that the “test drive” concept is a ridiculous, reductive analogy.”
The original poster replied with a semi-serious, semi-sarcastic, request for some explanation in which she emphasized the following risks of not taking your future spouse for a “test drive”: not knowing if your husband might be a bad kisser and/or bad at sex, and not knowing about orgasms. The original poster also pre-apologized for her sarcasm. My extended answer was as follows:
“I’m nearly un-offendable so so don’t worry
I find sex to be an incredibly intimate, vulnerable act. My understanding is that this is the general consensus of history also, although not the consensus of our culture. I can’t imagine engaging in it with someone with whom I had not made vows of fidelity. Not only is it intimate and vulnerable for the immediate participants, sex also makes children: new human lives. That is huge. Amazing. Earth-shattering. And not something to be done lightly or by strangers.
I believe that having sex permanently alters your relationship with someone: makes you connected to them forever in a really transformative way. Once again, this is something that our culture doesn’t really believe but I think that it is true nonetheless and that we can see the effects, acknowledged or not. Therefore having that relationship with more than one living person would be highly problematic. That many people do live with this difficulty, and incorporate it into their lives doesn’t make it a good thing.
I think the car thing is ridiculous and reductive because another human being is an incredibly rich and awe-inspiring complex of emotions, needs, abilities, and potentialities. Engaging in an intimate relationship with them is even more rich and fraught. The idea that sex is a static experience that can, should, and will stay the same is a shallow and impossible view. The sex a couple has on their wedding night, is not the same as the sex a couple has on their tenth anniversary, is not the same sex a couple has after the birth of their first child, is not the same as they have on their 30th anniversary. Not only that, but the sex eventually stops; sometimes when a couple is in their 50s, sometimes when they are in their 80s, sometimes much earlier due to accidents or medical issues. But it is finite, and while important, not everything.
Virgins don’t always know what they can should get out of sex, but that knowledge shouldn’t have to come from multiple partners. You’ve known virgins that didn’t learn about orgasms until years after getting married and I’ve known virgins that enjoyed them on their wedding night. Better communication between parents and children and between husbands and wives can help immensely. I learned a lot about sex from medical books, my mother, and my older sister. I learn more about it from my relationship with my husband all the time.
I too wanted to know that the sex would be great. I also wanted to know that I would always be happy, or that we would always have enough money. It turns out that sometimes the sex is great, sometimes it’s just ok, and that it is always a little mysterious and wonderful. I’m mostly happy and so far we’ve always had enough (at least just enough) money. There are no guarantees in life for any of these things and having sex before you get married in no way guarantees (or even improves your chances of) having a satisfying sex life.”
The original poster thanked me for my response.
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