Poll: Should people wait until they're married to have sex?

[trooper6]

If they use protection, then it's no problem. But if they're trying to make babies, then they should be married imo.

Why is that?

Indeed, I'm with nimcha. My parents weren't married. At some point when I was in my early teens I they got married in Vegas (though we didn't know about it at the time) so that my sister and I would be covered under my dad's medical insurance. Otherwise, I bet they never would have gotten married.

However, they were committed to each other completely and had a wonderful relationship up to the day my mother died. I don't even imagine my dad will date again now that my mother is gone.

Some legal or religious contract doesn't make you committed or loving. Being committed and loving makes you committed and loving.

 

[nin_ninja]

No. If they want to, sure. Go ahead. I ain't telling you what to do.

I don't even believe in marriage, so obviously I ain't waiting.

 

[tobyornottoby]

Legislation, societal pressures, and familial scorn shouldn't be reasons behind it, but I do think it is a good idea.

Maybe it's because I'm not a base hedonist, but chastity does display a great deal of discipline, and is very telling about the kind of personality the person has, regardless of their religious or philosophical leanings.


EDIT:

The only point of sex is to have children

If you had any grasp of the real world, you'd know that's an outright lie. Sex is partly for the purposes of having children, but also for the purposes of pleasure/connection between two people. I could easily say some rhetoric here about how animals have sex for pleasure as well, but that's part of the reason I didn't want to get into this argument.

No, sex is for the purpose of having children, it just feels good as an evolutionary measure to ensure creatures do it. It's the same reason creatures from reptiles-up fertilize internally rather than externally.

The way sex is USED in society is not just for that one intended purpose though.
There's a difference here between 'intended purpose' and, I guess, 'applied purpose'.
Cough medicine might have one intended purpose, but that doesn't exclude it from being used for other purposes, etc.

Sex is one avenue of pleasure people have been conditioned to hold in high regard. If there wasn't such an emphasis in Western, Left-Wing culture on sex as paramount, there'd be far fewer problems related to it.

The medical analogy, while logical, is inaccurate, because the implication is that the alternative interpretation of sex is positive.

Nature has put an emphasis on sex as paramount. If anything, social conditioning tries to slow us down mostly.

It was not my intent to imply any judgement with the analogy. I don't think it automatically implies any anyway, but I always seem to have trouble with analogies =p I'm trying to show a single isolated point, not that both situations are 100% comparable, but so far I have trouble communicating this.

 

[Soods]

If they use protection, then it's no problem. But if they're trying to make babies, then they should be married imo.

Why is that?

A marriage is (atleast a little bit) binding. I'm not saying that couples will 100% surely split if they don't get married, but it's less likely when they are married. And imo there are way too many kids with 4 dads and 3 moms nowadays.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Clearly not, not everyone is waiting to or wants to get married in the first place. If getting married isn't your goal, what is the point of eternal abstinence in your relationships?

 

[Aris Khandr]

Notably that (most of the time) the female of the coupling has the deciding vote.

Both sides get the same vote. It isn't the girl's fault that the boy is always going to vote "yes", and thus feels like he doesn't really get a vote.

lets flip it on its head then, If a woman says yes, and a man says no, she can fairly easily MAKE HIM(not in a rape sense, in a seduce sense). So yeah, power one way street, point stands.

If he allows himself to be seduced, then he has said yes. That is still his decision. If he says no and sticks to it, then that's the end of it.

 

[DracoSuave]

It is way harder for a guy to get laid than a girl.

-snip-

Nice proof, but you didn't take into account gay couplings.

Number of gay couplings that can be used to compare difficulty of men getting laid to women getting laid: Zero. Plus, it's tongue in cheek.

The point here is that the idea that men have a harder time getting laid is similiar to the idea that men meaningfully have more average sexual partners than women. (Both are antithetical to each other, by the way) Men have as much sex as women. Men have as much difficulty having sex as women (which is to say, it's not actually -that- difficult.)

Individuals have difficulty. That's the real point to take out of it.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

Only strange people only want the good with the bad.

 

[Emergent System]

Self explanatory. Because of my religion, I cant have sex until Im married. It's tough to find girls who erm... feel the same way, but I have found a couple who share the sentiment, but for ethical reasons, not religious.

Sex is a big deal of many people's lives. If you wait to have sex with your presumably life-long partner and discover that you don't really like it with them... enjoy an unsatisfying marriage, affairs and/or a likely divorce. There's a direct correlation between this type of behaviour and increased divorce rates, and - amusingly - unwanted pregnancies (since when people teach abstinence first they usually don't bother to teach safe-sex); which is especially bad for these people, *and their children*, since they're usually against abortion as well.

But hey whatever floats your boat.

 

[BOOM headshot65]

having children outside of marriage can cause serious problems

That's not marriage, that's relationship. What about a single ceremonial day makes two people more responsible? If you mean they should be in a proper relationship before they have children, then that's partly correct, but that's just an ideal - I have many friends with single parents through one of them dying who have turned out just fine. Honestly, I think the correlation between failed relationships and child upbringing lies more in the fact that if someone is irresponsible enough to have an unwanted child (not to offend anyone, I am aware that a lot of the time unwanted children occur ENTIRELY by accident) then they're not responsible enough to bring one up.

It's a matter of responsibility rather than outright banning.

Where I am from, this is simply not the case. As I said, its all about location, and my location, you would be hard pressed to find somebody in their 2+ marriage and/or havent been married 20+ years. So call me old fashion. I am. And I love it that way. Me and my girlfriend BOTH think this way:

No sex before marriage. Once married, you stay married except in extreme cases. You raise your children on these same principals, just as we were.

And pretty much the only way to GUAREENTE no unwanted children is just to abstain from sex until you want them.

The only way to GUAREENTE not getting hit by a car is just to never cross the road, but crossing roads is useful. Life is full of 1% risks all the time.

Why would you "hate society has made sex outside of marriage to be a good thing"? Shouldn't everyone just be free to live the way they wanted?

I just know Im not going to change your opinion, and your not changing mine. But sometimes, I like banging my head against a wall. So let the beating commence.

"The only way to GUAREENTE not getting hit by a car is just to never cross the road, but crossing roads is useful. Life is full of 1% risks all the time."

There is a difference between nessicary risk and unnessicary risk. If you can avoid a risk you should. Sometimes, you cant avoid crossing the road and must take that risk. Thus, it is nessicary. You can easily avoid sex. If you partake in something you can easily avoid that comes with risk, that is an unnessicary risk. I will avoid risk when I can thank you very much.

"Why would you "hate society has made sex outside of marriage to be a good thing"? Shouldn't everyone just be free to live the way they wanted?"

Because, I said it before. I am VERY old fashion. I long to go back to the society before sex was the final answer for everything. When I get married to my girlfriend (yes, when, not if) and it turns out I am no good at sex, than that is a non-issue to us. We love eachother for our interest being the same, having the same values, and our personalities. I wont divorce her and she wont divorce me just because we are no good in bed. We will learn. But not before we are married. I love the '50s, and blame the '60s for societys current problems. Only 2 steps forward I have seen in society are the "end" of racism and sexism, and the rise of technology. Almost everything else are society has become is a step backward to me.

 

[erefe]

My ex didn't believe in premarital sex... (My god that was horrible)

 

[deathbyoatmeal]

i feel like sexual compatibility is important in a marriage so you should make sure you can work with the other person

 

[HerrBobo]

No.

Being a virgin:
Sex=big deal

Not being a virgin:
Sex=not a big deal

Thus, sex is only a big deal to those who have not done it.

Just do it, and then move on.

 

[Gmans uncle]

That question is stupid.
Of coarse not, Marriage is a sick ritual designed to bind women to men, the fact that that it still exists in 2011 is simply embarrassing. Sex on the other hand is either a symbol of two people's genuine affection for each other, or to satisfy primal urges we all have. Hell, being Bisexual, I cant even get married to 60% of the people I've had feelings for outside of a few select states. Am I never going to have sex with someone of the same gender because it's not "sanctified" by a god I don't even believe in? Of coarse not.
Oh yes, I AM a militant atheist, I don't Think there is no god, I Know there is no god.

1) Marriage WAS a sick ritual. Given that gay marriage is legal in plenty of countries now, you can't exactly use the sexism argument as anything but its origin.

2) I'm a strong atheist myself, but be wary of using "know" in that sense. You don't know it with 100% certainty, unless you'd make the similarly arrogant claim that you "absolutely know" that you don't live in, say, the Matrix. A scientific view would be to say that we have absolutely no reason to think that there is a god or that we live in the Matrix, that we know with 99.9999...% certainty, but never 100%. Most people don't distinguish between "absolutely know" and "know" in the sense that you used it, which (I hope) is "I know with near-complete certainty."

You're making atheists look bad. Atheism has jack-all to do with this topic in today's age.

I guess you have a good point, marriage is more or less not about religion anymore, and perhaps I was being a little rash. And I absolutely did NOT intend to make atheists like myself look bad, if that was the effect than I'm extremely sorry.

Also, I didn't mean that "KNOW" thing literally exactly, it was really just to emphisize how strongly I feel about this, but I guess not everyone got that.

Spoiler: This is what I have excepted as fact

.To me the idea that there could exist a "god" or indeed any spiritual presence sounds juvenile. Today we know, for a fact, that the universe is exponential in size, and consistently expanding, the idea of any kind of spiritual being giving 2 cents about a marble like our planet when he/she/it/whatever has an entire universe to micromanage, is just about the most short-sighted thing I've ever heard. Everything in the bible can be disproved, all of it. "God" is a short cut, an excuse for people not to think, and through history has been nothing more than a device to control people.

Do I dislike people for their beliefs? Of Coarse not. Do I want to kill people's little fantasies? No. I know that faith can give a real joy to people, I know that it gets some people the ability to get up in the morning, a reason to go on. Just because I've came to terms with the fact that in reality absolutely nothing I ever have, or indeed ever will, do will make any impact at all in anything, doesn't mean that everyone else has, I get that. But from where I sit, they live in OZ, and refused to except that there is no Wizard.

And I agree, I shouldn't have brought atheism into this at all, If you want to respond to any of what i just wrote, please send me a private message so as not to clog up this forum any further with something so off-topic.

 

[ks1234]

My ex didn't believe in premarital sex... (My god that was horrible)

One would assume that's why she's your ex, eh? lol

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

Legislation, societal pressures, and familial scorn shouldn't be reasons behind it, but I do think it is a good idea.

Maybe it's because I'm not a base hedonist, but chastity does display a great deal of discipline, and is very telling about the kind of personality the person has, regardless of their religious or philosophical leanings.


EDIT:

The only point of sex is to have children

If you had any grasp of the real world, you'd know that's an outright lie. Sex is partly for the purposes of having children, but also for the purposes of pleasure/connection between two people. I could easily say some rhetoric here about how animals have sex for pleasure as well, but that's part of the reason I didn't want to get into this argument.

No, sex is for the purpose of having children, it just feels good as an evolutionary measure to ensure creatures do it. It's the same reason creatures from reptiles-up fertilize internally rather than externally.

The way sex is USED in society is not just for that one intended purpose though.
There's a difference here between 'intended purpose' and, I guess, 'applied purpose'.
Cough medicine might have one intended purpose, but that doesn't exclude it from being used for other purposes, etc.

Sex is one avenue of pleasure people have been conditioned to hold in high regard. If there wasn't such an emphasis in Western, Left-Wing culture on sex as paramount, there'd be far fewer problems related to it.

The medical analogy, while logical, is inaccurate, because the implication is that the alternative interpretation of sex is positive.

Nature has put an emphasis on sex as paramount. If anything, social conditioning tries to slow us down mostly.

It was not my intent to imply any judgement with the analogy. I don't think it automatically implies any anyway, but I always seem to have trouble with analogies =p I'm trying to show a single isolated point, not that both situations are 100% comparable, but so far I have trouble communicating this.

Well, not really. In most creatures, and even humans as recently as the early Assyrian civilizations, there are certain times to do it, and then get on with your life. Sex is promoted as a necessity, the base of the Hierarchy of Needs is paramount.

And historically, yes, society has shied away from sex, but the mass media we have today has gone to the other extreme, and promotes it as something far greater than what it is.

 

[Sigmar ov The Hammer]

Where is the fucking "To each their own" button?

Doesn't make for good debating, haha.




OT:
I reckon as long as they've been together for a while and there's love between them, go for it.