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- Don’t Change Your Name When You Get Married by Jill March 8, 2013
- Divorcing ourselves from traditional marriage by Jill February 4, 2013
- Does abstinence-only education work? by Jill February 5, 2010
- The Non-Case Against Gay Parenting by Jill June 14, 2012
- Traditional marriage is dead. Let’s celebrate. by Jill March 9, 2011
Take a bow Jill. Best take on the subject that I’ve read. Great.
Just saw the rebuttal of Jill’s article and it was pretty good. I’m not so sure that I still agree with Ms. Filipovic now :-) http://mydantessions.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-moral-case-for-sex-before-marriage.html
Sex isn’t all ponies and rainbows? So it involves at least some ponies and rainbows? I guess I must be doing it wrong, because I don’t recall any ponies ever being involved …
Seriously, though: I come from a religious background, and I still have to say this is one of the best articles I’ve read about sex and marriage. And the reminder that some of the lessons of the Bible are not “live like this” but rather “look at the messes people got into way back when — let’s read about them so we can avoid them in our day” was really important and powerful. More like this, please!
Clearly you were subjected to abstinence-only sex education. The best sex involves both ponies AND rainbows (and sometimes rainbow-colored ponies).
I never expected to see Feministe advocate for having sex with ponies!
Not with ponies. On top of ponies. Acrobatics.
Cool article. I love that you stayed away from the cheap shots like ”adult virgins are all ugly losers, hur hur” while still making your case. I do wish you would have noted that many people who wait until they’re married manage to do so only by getting married early and choosing their spouse based primarily on sexual attraction, which is not a good basis for marriage obviously, and in any case later marriages usually do better.
Great article, and I found it interesting to read the comments, where most of the British readers seemed to think that this is an issue that stopped being relevant sometime around 1964. That doesn’t really surprise me, since the mainstreaming of Christian fundamentalism does seem to be an American thing, but do readers here agree? Is this a non-issue in Europe?
Stella, I noticed that too! It was tempting to point them to this Slate piece, which details how Mississippi maintains the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country by continuing to preach abstinence. In 2012.
But yeah the obsession with NO PREMARITAL SEX!!! even though we’re all having premarital sex seems to be an American thing.
Brit here – it pretty much is a non-issue. Despite being nominally Christian, the UK is almost wholly secular. Even people who claim religious affiliation (I used to) don’t get hung up on it. I’m pretty sure more children are now born to non-married parents.
I mean, we currently have our first right-wing government since the Nineties, and they’re planning to legalise gay marriage*, despite the whining from the Church. So yeah, not much like the US.
*we currently have Civil Partnership for same-sex couples.
Similar here in NZ. Majority of children born to unwed mothers according to the stats.
This issue only ends up in the media here when one of our fundy organisations brings over a speaker, usually from the US, and issues press releases about pre-teen sex etc.
Can’t talk for “Europe” but here in Norway it’s a non-issue unless you’re from a family that belongs to some fringe religious group.
The *vast* majority of families are happy and comfortable with their young having a pre-marital sex-life, and most parents would be much more skeptical of a marriage without a test-phase (i.e. a period of months to years of cohabitation that essentially always involves sex)
Myself, for example, I was able to have my boyfriend sleep over in the weekends from age 15 (he lived 70 miles away), and once it was obvious we where having sex, my parents reaction was calm and reasonable. (“I guess it’s not really needed to make the extra bed for his visits anymore, do you want to schedule an appointment with the doc so that you can get the pill?”)
This was more than 20 years ago, I don’t think things have become any more conservative since then.
Great article, this is the kind of conversation we need to have. Especially when there are so many organizations and elected officials putting out information that’s harmful to women and girls and damaging to healthy relationships…. case in point this doozy.
THIS. IS. SO. KEY. I was raised by a mother who remained “pure” until marriage (and a father who remained silent on the topic of his ‘purity’) and one of the reasons touted was to “guard your heart”. As if that is any way to go through life and learning about relationships! As if by JUST not having sex you can guard your heart against falling for someone or wanting someone to love you back. Um, no! You can still have your heart broken. The idea that not having sex keeps you from having your heart broken suggests that the most important part of YOU is your genital area. When you are in a romantic relationship with another person you share yourself with them emotionally. You tell them things about yourself that you don’t share with just anyone and you often become very close friends and spend a lot of time together. For me, the loss or changing of a friendship was the part that hurt the most about the end of a relationship. I didn’t feel upset because I had “sullied my purity” or that another person had seen me naked. I felt upset because I was going to MISS this person! And that can happen, and is likely to happen, at the end of a romantic relationship regardless of whether it ever became sexual. And, to me, that’s an essential part of life, loss and learning what things are your “deal breakers” in a relationship.
And my mom used to always say “Why buy the car when you can drive it for free?” And I’d think (even at age 12), “Why buy the car at all if you have never driven it? What if you hate the way it drives?” Its such a stupid analogy.
Also, heartbreak is not fatal! It happens to most people! We all get over it and move on with our lives! It’s all right to have your heartbroken–it will not cause horrible emotional scars. It’s just part of life.
Yes. The breakup that hurt worst — and actually, the relationship that involved the most unhealthy lack of boundaries and codependency — in my life was the one in which there was no sex. The problems weren’t because there was no sex. But being “pure and virginal” and never going farther than kissing? Did not magically make it a good or healthy relationship.
And the relationship in which I did have sex for the first time, which was well before marriage? Was not magically bad, unhealthy, or disrespectful because it included sex (which were all things I’d been told were inherent to a sexual relationship outside marriage). In fact, sex in that relationship was a happy, loving, trusting bonding experience, despite the lack of ring or vows.
Figuring out that sex wasn’t inherently bad, hurtful, or dirty was really important for me, and has definitely helped me have better, healthier, happier relationships.
Oh, I totally agree, C. The relationships I had in college and grad school were so important because I was able to have great sex with partners that I genuinely feel were wonderful people. The relationships didn’t work out, but I really grew so much during and through those relationships. And the sex was a part of that. It was bonding and I really do think that the sexual part of a relationship can build confidence. Knowledge about what you want and don’t want in a sexual relationship is really esteem-building, IMO.
My mother advised me by the time I was about 12 to make sure to have sex before getting married. Not that it made much of a difference to the success of my marriage, because things went downhill pretty quickly in that regard after we were married, but I still thought it was excellent advice.
Beautifully written, Jill. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this to chuck at ignorant people in the future!
“But waiting until marriage often means both early marriage and conservative views on marriage and gender – and people who marry early and/or hold traditional views on marriage and gender tend to have higher divorce rates and unhappier marriages.”
This seems true in an American context, but is it really true worldwide?
I don’t know. I was talking about the American context (sorry if that wasn’t clear). I would imagine it would be nearly impossible to evaluate that worldwide.
They might have lower divorce rates in other countries with these values, but that’s probably not for a good reason. I’d rather have a high divorce rate than a high people-languishing-in-sad-marriages rate.
What do you make of the Junior Rule Sharks who claim it doesn’t count because, so to speak, they select a different entrance? For some reason, they seem to turn out the most homphobic of the bunch.
FALSE!
FALSE!
Speaking as someone married nearly 20 years, I can say I’m glad that my wife and I explored our sexuality before we were married. As young students with part time jobs, we had the opportunity to spend the day in bed and give it our undue attention.
LOL. Love this. Seems a shame to waste those years NOT having sex, doesn’t it?
[...] Comments also over at Feministe. [...]
Jill’s article is now the no 1 Most Viewed article on Comment is Free. Bragging rights!
Rational, balanced, totally common-sense advice. Mother’s literal words: “If I’d slept with your dad, I’d never have married him. Always try them out first.”
The “purity” advice is a stale leftover from a culture which ran an extensive and sadistic con job on women in order to keep inheritance lines clean and allow men self-will run riot at the expense of females.
Even so, Ancestry.com’s page on genetic screens for ancestry states that many, many people find out that their life fathers are not their genetic fathers, so up to 20% of the genealogically curious have mothers who are sexually curious.
Great article. I was also intrigued by the comments who seemed to think this was out of date (some who seemed to think that was still true even in an American context). My take was that people assume we aren’t worried about abstinence before marriage because so many people do in fact have sex before marriage and it’s fairly open (e.g., we see it in the media, many people are open about living together before marriage etc.). They forget, however, about issues Jill raises like pushing abstinence only education on youth, slut-shaming, and other ways our culture shames people for making a choice that is quite normative. I think that’s what make the piece extremely timely. Thank you, Jill.
Has this even been an issue for debate since the early 70s???
Ninety-five percent of Americans have sex before marriage today, but sex practices have varied in different times and places. In the UK hundreds of years ago, there was a short stretch of time where young people experimented with forms of sexuality, but PIV sex was less prevalent than it became later. I think that time period may have been the 1680s, but I can’t remember for sure.
In developed countries today, sex before marriage is best for most people, but before reliable birth control, certain abstinence-based messages and practices may have been good advice. The advice is very specific to a certain time and place and is not universal. In 1800s India, the average person may have been best off with an arranged marriages and no sex before that.
I really loved this article. In fact I am arguing in favor of it with some fundies right now ;-) I’m sure this is true :”people who marry early and/or hold traditional views on marriage and gender tend to have higher divorce rates and unhappier marriages.” But please share your sources. the only thing I can find online is the skewed study from BYU. Thanks in advance, and keep up the good work!
Seriously? Wah wah. The whole “sexual compatibility” is a cover argument for selfishness: “I don’t want to put in the time and communication to improve my sex life with my partner.” “Well, my dear, you didn’t get me off that time, so I guess we should just break it off.”
Pardon me, I think I just got some straw in my mouth.
Pbbthpt.
Lol. My point is that marriage/relationships aren’t just about sex. You can make a marriage work even if everyone isn’t so great a sex at first because sex is like dancing, cooking, volleyball, etc. It is something you can improve on. The argument that you have to have sex with someone before you marry them is not ironclad. If you are emotionally compatible, sexually attracted to each other, then the good sex will happen after communication, understanding, and love. Good lovers aren’t born; good lovers are made.
It’s a cheap and unsupported argument – that’s all I’m saying.
How nice that it has always worked that way for you.
Yes, that’s right, that’s how it works when you have premarital sex. You try it once, and if it isn’t great, you break up. Unmarried people never, ever try time and communication.
You do realize, right, that it’s possible to put in time and communication and for the sex still to be lousy?
Oh, fuck right off. Nobody said that.
Also, damn right sexual incompatibility is a thing. Imagine this conversation on the wedding night:
He: I’m up for anything now, baby. Really. I want to have transcenDENTAL sex with you!
She: ^__^ Cool! I’m into heavy spanking, latex and infantilisation, so if you’ll just poop into this diaper I’ve got in my bag while I put on my latex suit and fetch the paddle…bend over, dear.
He: ………I was not expecting that. I thought you meant YOU were going to take the spanking!
She: I think this isn’t going to work out.
You can talk about sex and sexual needs without having sex. I assume this would be something that they would have talked about. Probably something along the lines of: “Honey, I can’t wait to spank you and have you poop into a diaper after we get married!” Abstinence doesn’t mean not talking dirty about what you would do if you could.
Also, that is pretty fucked up. Thank god I don’t have to get off that way, but if I did, I’d be sure to let me future husband know.
Ahh, kink-unfriendliness. Somehow I expected it of you. Fuck, you’re annoyingly sanctimonious for someone who routinely engages in piratespeak.
Ok. But until you’ve had sex — and often quite a bit of sex — it’s hard to know what you like or what gets you off. What gets you off in fantasyland does not always equal what gets you off in real life. It takes some experimentation to figure that out. And yes, of course you can experiment with your husband, but pre-sex discussion between two virgins is honestly not going to be all that enlightening in terms of what you will actually want and need once you’re sexually active.
Let’s also not pretend that sexual compatibility is ONLY about effort. It’s not. I’ve dated people who had similar sexual values as me and who I was super physically attracted to and who I thought I would have awesome sex with and… we didn’t. Despite lots of effort. If I were married to one of those people I would be miserable.