"In my opinion, our obsessive focus on virginity and sexual purity doesn’t serve anyone. Losing one’s virginity is not an event; it’s a process. Similarly, weddings are events, and signing your marriage license is an event, but marriages are not events. They are processes."
To my mind, the only key factor in "sex" prior to "marriage" (subject to definition of both terms) is the willingness to address responsibly and maturely any potential offspring of same. I.e., to my rather old-fashioned mind, once kids are involved, that becomes your number one commitment, other plans and expectations notwithstanding.
Outside of that, it's subject to the same social rules and constructs that address any human relationship. Some of the consequences may be more intense, profound, even life-threatening than some other human relationship issues, but those are more difference sin degree, not in kind.
(Note: None of the above applies to my daughter, who I expect will remain virginal and chaste until she is 30.)
(Further Note: No, of course I don't. It's up to her. No matter what I say or do or preach.) #ddtb
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do you believe in saving sex for marriage? – John Green's tumblr
Anonymous asked: do you believe in saving sex for marriage? Answer: I can’t answer that question unless I answer the question of what constitutes marriage. And none of the definitions I have for…
I am likewise old-fashioned where a child is concerned. I actually know a lesbian couple, now longer paired, but still friends, who produced a child using the turkey baster routine. The sperm donor remains in her life, though is not known to the daughter as such, and continues to voluntarily contribute funds for her needs, including college tuition. The wielder of the turkey baster is also still active in her daughter’s life as well, and the young woman is just fine with who she is. Them, I honor.
Who I don’t honor are mostly celebrity couples who produce children outside of marriage, and a few years later, apparently any firm committment to the needs of the child(ren) involved, where there are not extenuating circumstances.
Over several years, we answered Arthur’s questions about sex, marriage, and family, without making a fuss of it, or initiating the conversation ourselves, for the most part. At one point, when he was 10 or so, I sat down with him to talk about engaging in sex for the first time. I said I preferred that there be strong affection for the other person, whether or not marriage was a likelihood, going towards it slowly, using condoms to prevent unintended consequences, and that sort of thing.
A couple of years later, I realized I hadn’t had “the AIDS talk”. As I thought, he didn’t know what it was, beyond a disease. I told him about the disease, its history, people I’ve known who had it, and what to do to prevent it, as in “use the condom all the time”. My first lover didn’t use it properly at all…
The only negative outcome is his refusal to take the Sex Ed classes, because he thought we’d told him everything he needed to know. My response was, we might have missed something. Please take it the next time it’s offered.