Abstinence is a crock

[Dr_LHA 3]

I don't think that one has anything to do with the other. Pre-marital sex occurs in places other than those decadent western societies. It's just not so much out in the open. But it happens all the same. Also, many of those long lasting marriages outside the western world look successful on the surface only...

Exactly. I know plenty of people with strong religious convictions who are stuck in bad marriages with domineering husbands. They got married early, I suspect because their hormones couldn't wait for marriage any longer, and now they're unhappy but the marriage isn''t going to end any time soon.

Personally I believe that marriages fail because people go into them unprepared. You can't be prepared unless you've played the field a bit before hand IMHO. I personally lived "in sin" with my wife for a few years before we got married. When we got married it was because we knew we worked as a couple and neither of us had any interest in looking else were, as well as of course, being still madly in love after 3 years of knowing each other.

I've got to that age where I have friends who have been divorced, almost all of them simply got married too early.

[Cécy 44]

as my mother used to say "yes by all means, have sex before marriage. Otherwise, how else will you *know*?"

Smart lady is my Mum

As I always say: Try before you buy.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I completely disagree.

And why is it that mainly in western cultures this is the mentality, where divorce is at the highest rates? This idea of trying before buying doesn't seem to help couples stay together. Probably because there is much more to marriage than that(which I know you know) and couples since the beginning of time have waited til marriage for whatever reasons and have had long successful marriages. So I still stand behind waiting, and that you don't have to test drive because when you love someone, you love them, and can marry them without test driving.

Well I'm going to be picky but the argument that it's been like that since the beginning of time doesn't work for me.

First of all if you go far back and all the way up to know there are plenty of cultures for which being married to have sex is not a requirement. I think that at the time the value of not having sex before marriage was started by some cultures, it had a good base because there were none of the ways available nowadays to protect yourself from unwanted pregnancies and STDs. It was intelligent at the time to just put a taboo on sex before marriage so you would avoid teenage mothers that were abandoned by their families, young people carrying STDs around, etc.

Also we have to think that being really allowed to divorce is a fairly new thing. We can't compare the divorce rate that we have now with what was before because it simply wasn't socially acceptable to divorce and there were plenty of couple who couldn't stand each other but had to stay together because they had no choice.

As you said, we all know that a relationship is not all about sex. But let's be honest if you don't have a fulfilling physical relationship it can easily break a lot of other things. Men and women have needs. They might be very animal for some, but they can't always be ignored.

It's my opinion but I think that if you are not compatible sexually speaking you take the risk of having one of the partners looking somewhere else to be satisfied. Yes sex can be learned and you can definitely improve things because it's not a given talent, but still a minimum of compatibility has to be there.

Then there is the rest: the communication and everything else, and nowadays a lot of people take the easy way out instead of talking things through and working on solving problems.

Back to subject: if we go back to the article, what it states is that teaching abstinence on its own is not the solution, and from all the discussion we had I think we all agree that the best way to deal with unprotected sex and its consequences are to communicate about all the options available, and for teenagers to have various sources and people they can discuss things with.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

different folks, different strokes. so to speak.

quit yer belly aching folks. abstinence works for some, not for others. wild monkey sex works for some, not for others.

pick a line and stick with it.

Daniel

:energetic:

It didn't work in Africa - where abstinence progammes have done nothing to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and has had unintended consequences.

[Caladan 19]

I don't think that one has anything to do with the other. Pre-marital sex occurs in places other than those decadent western societies. It's just not so much out in the open. But it happens all the same. Also, many of those long lasting marriages outside the western world look successful on the surface only...

Exactly. I know plenty of people with strong religious convictions who are stuck in bad marriages with domineering husbands. They got married early, I suspect because their hormones couldn't wait for marriage any longer, and now they're unhappy but the marriage isn''t going to end any time soon.

Personally I believe that marriages fail because people go into them unprepared. You can't be prepared unless you've played the field a bit before hand IMHO. I personally lived "in sin" with my wife for a few years before we got married. When we got married it was because we knew we worked as a couple and neither of us had any interest in looking else were, as well as of course, being still madly in love after 3 years of knowing each other.

I've got to that age where I have friends who have been divorced, almost all of them simply got married too early.

It's practically a trend among my fundamentalist and evangelical friends: stay pure and single until age 20, when you marry the first boy or girl that you want to have sex with, and divorce by 25 or 26. One has to wonder if they might have been better off getting laid and breaking up.

One thing that's been bugging me, though not so much through this thread, is the assumption that if you had sex before marriage, you first off had numerous one-night stands and are therefore a disease-ridden ####### or at a much higher risk of being a disease-ridden #######. Plenty of people who have had sex before marriage aren't poinking anything that moves. Plenty of people did so in the context of long-term, committed relationships. Plenty of people might have done so before converting. Plenty of people have sex with the person they eventually marry! It's no more true that everyone who has sex before marriage is irresponsible than it is true that anyone who waits is uptight and a prude.

It wouldn't bother me about the misconceptions except that I think it's affecting people's beliefs about sex education. There's a middle ground between going white to your wedding night and screwing half the town. And while this discussion has been very good, I think generally half the reason people oppose sex ed is that they think if teenagers aren't scared to death of pregnancy, and are taught about condoms, they'll immediately have multiple partners.

[Caladan 19]

Plus, I think rising divorce rates have more to do with it being less of a taboo and women having the ability to support themselves rather than sex outside of marriage which is pretty much a constant throughout history. It's not like extramarital sex was invented in the 60s.

[chri'stina 190]

as my mother used to say "yes by all means, have sex before marriage. Otherwise, how else will you *know*?"

Smart lady is my Mum

As I always say: Try before you buy.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I completely disagree.

And why is it that mainly in western cultures this is the mentality, where divorce is at the highest rates? This idea of trying before buying doesn't seem to help couples stay together. Probably because there is much more to marriage than that(which I know you know) and couples since the beginning of time have waited til marriage for whatever reasons and have had long successful marriages. So I still stand behind waiting, and that you don't have to test drive because when you love someone, you love them, and can marry them without test driving.

Well I'm going to be picky but the argument that it's been like that since the beginning of time doesn't work for me.

First of all if you go far back and all the way up to know there are plenty of cultures for which being married to have sex is not a requirement. I think that at the time the value of not having sex before marriage was started by some cultures, it had a good base because there were none of the ways available nowadays to protect yourself from unwanted pregnancies and STDs. It was intelligent at the time to just put a taboo on sex before marriage so you would avoid teenage mothers that were abandoned by their families, young people carrying STDs around, etc.

Also we have to think that being really allowed to divorce is a fairly new thing. We can't compare the divorce rate that we have now with what was before because it simply wasn't socially acceptable to divorce and there were plenty of couple who couldn't stand each other but had to stay together because they had no choice.

As you said, we all know that a relationship is not all about sex. But let's be honest if you don't have a fulfilling physical relationship it can easily break a lot of other things. Men and women have needs. They might be very animal for some, but they can't always be ignored.

It's my opinion but I think that if you are not compatible sexually speaking you take the risk of having one of the partners looking somewhere else to be satisfied. Yes sex can be learned and you can definitely improve things because it's not a given talent, but still a minimum of compatibility has to be there.

Then there is the rest: the communication and everything else, and nowadays a lot of people take the easy way out instead of talking things through and working on solving problems.

Back to subject: if we go back to the article, what it states is that teaching abstinence on its own is not the solution, and from all the discussion we had I think we all agree that the best way to deal with unprotected sex and its consequences are to communicate about all the options available, and for teenagers to have various sources and people they can discuss things with.

This is all I'll say about all this for now because I know this debate will go around in circles.

Regardless of what cultures had whatever ideas about sex and marriage(or whatever ceremony they used to be bound together) doesn't change the fact that there have been couples who did not have sex until marriage and I know many couples like that who have been happily married for 35+ years.

If you never had experience before marriage, you don't have anything to compare it to and therefore whatever happens happens and you are happy with it. And trying out someone before marriage does not seem to have any impact on whether people actually stay married. So if I waited or not, the divorce rate is still high in this country either way. So if I think it's good to wait, and someone else thinks it's not, well we have our own experiences I know, and for me it's been a good one to wait. I know others don't think waiting is a good idea, but if it worked good for me then it could work well for others and it can't be completely dismissed as a good option. I hope to follow in the footsteps of happily married couples who waited, and have shown how good the waiting can be, not how bad the waiting can be.

[Caladan 19]

The inverse applies, too (as stina is well aware, I presume.) Plenty of couples who have had long, successful marriages weren't each other's first.

[dalegg 143]

19 Days so far for me - only 9 more to go! Hate this.

[Fandango 1,439]

If you never had experience before marriage, you don't have anything to compare it to and therefore whatever happens happens and you are happy with it.

Not necessarily Sometimes it makes people think 'maybe my drive isn't really high' Then, when the starving woman who's been eating stale saltines finally eats a nice fresh Ritz, she's all 'WHAT HAVE I BEEN MISSING!?!?!?!?' :lol:

Although, Stina...I highly respect your position, and I'm nowhere telling you that you're 'wrong'....just offering another perspective just on this aspect.

Edited August 4, 2007 by LisaD

[one...two...tree 2,762]

as my mother used to say "yes by all means, have sex before marriage. Otherwise, how else will you *know*?"

Smart lady is my Mum

As I always say: Try before you buy.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I completely disagree.

And why is it that mainly in western cultures this is the mentality, where divorce is at the highest rates? This idea of trying before buying doesn't seem to help couples stay together. Probably because there is much more to marriage than that(which I know you know) and couples since the beginning of time have waited til marriage for whatever reasons and have had long successful marriages. So I still stand behind waiting, and that you don't have to test drive because when you love someone, you love them, and can marry them without test driving.

Valid points there, Stina, although I have mixed feelings about celibacy before marriage. I think it's a great ideal, but many people can't or don't live up to that ideal, even in countries where pre-marital sex is a big taboo.

Knowledge is power - it's best for teenagers to be informed about sex as they approach adulthood where they are increasingly making decisions by themselves, for themselves. Let them learn as much as they can about it and then accept that ultimately it comes down to personal choices.

[Charuhans 0]

This gadget should put a rest to this discussion. Has been time tested and found very effective .....

Oh! and one also for the boys ....

Edited August 4, 2007 by Charuhans

[one...two...tree 2,762]

This gadget should put a rest to this discussion. Has been time tested and found very effective .....

Oh! and one also for the boys ....

LOL ...I've heard that salt peter (sp) is also effective in killing the drive out of a man.

[AnaAndDaniel 0]

different folks, different strokes. so to speak.

quit yer belly aching folks. abstinence works for some, not for others. wild monkey sex works for some, not for others.

pick a line and stick with it.

Daniel

:energetic:

It didn't work in Africa - where abstinence progammes have done nothing to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and has had unintended consequences.

ummm abstinence did not cause the spread. that was the wild sex side(not working bit).

Daniel

:energetic:

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

different folks, different strokes. so to speak.

quit yer belly aching folks. abstinence works for some, not for others. wild monkey sex works for some, not for others.

pick a line and stick with it.

Daniel

:energetic:

It didn't work in Africa - where abstinence progammes have done nothing to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and has had unintended consequences.

ummm abstinence did not cause the spread. that was the wild sex side(not working bit).

Daniel

:energetic:

One of the side-effects of the promotion of abstinence only programmes in some African countries is that it has created (in some cases deliberately) mis-information about safe-sex options (specifically condom use). The World Health Organisation has criticised the Catholic Church in recent years about its stance on precisely that issue.

So no - abstinence-only programmes did not 'literally' cause the spread - but I don't think there's really any doubt these days that it has facilitated it, especially where abstinence has been promoted in such as way as to villify safe-sex practices.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

different folks, different strokes. so to speak.

quit yer belly aching folks. abstinence works for some, not for others. wild monkey sex works for some, not for others.

pick a line and stick with it.

Daniel

:energetic:

It didn't work in Africa - where abstinence progammes have done nothing to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and has had unintended consequences.

ummm abstinence did not cause the spread. that was the wild sex side(not working bit).

Daniel

:energetic:

One of the side-effects of the promotion of abstinence only programmes in some African countries is that it has created (in some cases deliberately) mis-information about safe-sex options (specifically condom use). The World Health Organisation has criticised the Catholic Church in recent years about its stance on precisely that issue.

So no - abstinence-only programmes did not 'literally' cause the spread - but I don't think there's really any doubt these days that it has facilitated it, especially where abstinence has been promoted in such as way as to villify safe-sex practices.

Exactly. The abstinence only approach specifically excludes both education about and promotion of safe sex practices which, in turn, has fostered and continues to foster the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa.