Hey Bible Bangers: Sex is Natural-NO Marriage Required

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Pic from deusexmalcontent.com.

The Bible Bangers love to hate sex, at least sex before marriage and even certain kinds of sex after marriage.  Same sex sex of course is absolutely taboo, and those who engage are guaranteed a one-way straight to the fiery pit.  Their big deal is abstaining from sex, which is akin to saying don’t breathe, because sex and breathing are both natural, necessary and healthy.

When one is deprived of natural urges the result can be most distressing, witness the plague of pedophilia within the ranks of the celibate catholic priests.  The fact is we are still living in the Middle Ages when it comes to sexuality, at least in some quarters.  So, imagine my delight when I came across this gem from The Guardian:

Americans love to tout the value of waiting until marriage to have sex. We teach abstinence-only education in schools across the country, and even comprehensive sex-ed programs often point out that “abstinence is best.” Pop stars from Britney Spears to Jessica Simpson, to the Jonas Brothers, to Miley Cyrus, to Justin Bieber routinely assert that they’re waiting ’til marriage – putting them into the Good Role Model category (at least, until someone leaks a sex tape). There’s a booming “purity industry”, complete with jewelry, elaborate events, books, t-shirts and DVDs.

Our state and federal tax dollars have long been spent promoting “chastity”. While conservative commentators are happy to assert that waiting until marriage is the best choice for everyone and people who don’t wait aren’t doing marriage “the right way”, sex-positive liberals hesitate to say that having sex before marriage is an equally valid – if not better – choice for nearly everyone.

So here it goes: having sex before marriage is the best choice for nearly everyone.

How do I know? Well, first of all, nearly everyone has sex before marriage – 95% of Americans don’t wait until their wedding night. And that’s a longstanding American value. Even among folks in my grandparents’ generation, nine out of ten of them had sex before they wed.

Of course, just because lots of people do a thing doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. But sex is. In terms of happiness, sex is better than money, and having sex once a week instead of once a month is the “happiness equivalent” of an extra $50,000 a year. People with active sex lives live longer. Sex releases stress, boosts immunities, helps you sleep and is heart-healthy.

Sex is good whether you’re married or not, and certainly folks who wait until marriage can have a lot of sex once they tie the knot. 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. We know that, on the other hand, there are lots of benefits to marrying later and to gender-egalitarian marriages. Couples who both work outside the home and also share housework duties have more sex. Financially independent, college-educated women who marry later in life have extremely low divorce rates.

Most adult human beings naturally desire sex. And despite the right wing emphasis on concepts like “purity”, having sex does not actually make you a dirty or “impure” person. On the contrary, sex is like most other pleasurable things in life – you can have sex in ways that are fulfilling, fun, good and generous, or you can have sex in ways that are harmful, bad and dangerous. Marriage is not, and has never been, a way to protect against the harmful, bad and dangerous potential of sex (just read the Bible if you want a few examples). Instead of fooling ourselves into thinking that waiting until marriage makes sex “good”, we should focus on how ethical, responsible sexual practices – taking precautions to protect the physical and mental health of yourself and your partner; having sex that is fully consensual and focused on mutual pleasure – are part of being an ethical, responsible human being.

We’re obsessed with sex on television, in music and in advertisements, but we somehow lack the ability to talk about sex as a positive, moral, pleasure-affirming choice that, like any other adult decision, comes with a set of responsibilities. And when government money is going toward telling people to just wait until marriage, we are literally funding an idea that has never worked in all of human history, instead of supporting tried-and-true policies that could mitigate the harm of a sex-obsessed, but pleasure-starved, culture.

If waiting until marriage were simply an individual choice with no political consequences or backdrop – if it were as arbitrary a marker as waiting until the third date, waiting until you knew your partner’s middle name or waiting until she wore really awesome high heels – it wouldn’t be a problem. And personally, I don’t really care when you, as an individual, choose to have sex. As long as you feel ready and it’s consensual, I say you do you. But “waiting until marriage” as a cultural phenomenon – albeit one that isn’t actually happening for nearly everyone in the western world – has some nasty views about women and sex lurking behind it. Using “purity” as shorthand for “doesn’t have sex” by definition means that people, and mostly women, who have sex before marriage are impure, dirty or tainted. As Jessica Valenti says in her book The Purity Myth:

“While boys are taught that the things that make them men – good men – are universally accepted ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs.”

It’s all the more troubling when those beliefs are federally funded.

From a more practical standpoint, not everyone is going to get married, or even legally can get married. The instruction to wait forever to experience a fundamental human pleasure is pointless and cruel. And while the old adage tells women that men won’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free, if I’m buying a cow, you can bet I’m going to make sure the milk is to my liking. But our cultural view of premarital sex as morally tainted makes it harder for couples to engage in real talks about their sexual needs and desires before marrying, the same way they would talk about their religious values, how many kids they want or whether the wedding cake will be chocolate or vanilla.

Sexually frustrated marriages are both miserable and common – the inboxes of advice columnists from Dan Savage to Dear Prudie are filled with letters from couples with mismatched sex drives and bad sex lives. We’d be a lot better-off if we recognized that sex is incredibly important to a lot of people, and, for most couples, sexual compatibility is necessary for a great marriage. You really can’t tell if you’re sexually compatible unless you have sex. The insistence that premarital sex is dirty or perverse makes it a whole lot harder to have necessary conversations. And a worldview that positions sex as shameful and bad also isn’t going to evaporate on your wedding night.

Purity peddlers construct a false universe where there are pure virgins who wait until marriage, and then there are slutty whores who are going home with different men every night of the week. The truth is that most adults will have a great many important relationships in their lives – some of those relationships will be romantic, and some of those will be sexual. That’s a good thing: our relationships with other people, sexual or not, are how we grow, evolve and learn about ourselves. They’re how we figure out what love is, what we like physically and emotionally, and how to negotiate our own needs with someone else’s. Despite the claims of the wait-till-marriage camp, waiting to have sex won’t protect you from heartache, frustration or love lost. But a variety of fulfilling relationships, sexual and not, will make you a more well-rounded, compassionate and self-assured person.

My point isn’t that everyone should have sex before marriage – people should determine for themselves when they are ready to have sex. For the vast majority of people, that’s going to be before they’re married. Making that choice isn’t a moral failing. On the contrary, it’s often a great, healthy, overwhelmingly positive choice. Whenever you choose to have sex, the cultural message that waiting until marriage is the best choice is simply wrong. And it’s wrong for almost everyone.

What do you think?  Should the Jesus Jumpers be allowed to dictate morality to the rest of us?

Many thanks to our friends at The Guardian UK for their story contributions.

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About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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Bill Formby
11 years ago

Sex is the greatest thing invented, still (says the old man). For a more intellectual response it is one of the primal instincts of all animals including humans. It is as important food and social bonding.

Jess
Reply to  Bill Formby
11 years ago

My husband’s *mumble mumble* something yr old grammy would agree with you Bill, that sex is the greatest thing ever. I know before pops, his grandpa died, dude was still picking up scrips for Viagra, so they were knocking boots at their advanced age.

Jess
11 years ago

Sex is natural sex is fun.yay George Micheal for that lyric. Now for those of you that have delicate sensibilities avert your eyes, you’ve been warned. The rest of you, ‘specially the menz yer welcome. Oh and I don’t want to hear you are bad or whatever from tamborine bangers. I know this, so you won’t be telling me anything new, but it is Mrs Bad person or whatever please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldh7oQD-a4&feature=related

This bears repeating, freak flags should fly and these people would be way less repressed. Abstinence programs do not work and will never work. It’s too late to stop them though, because they get funded yr after yr by people like Yertle the turtle the senior senator from KY. You know how that goes, it’s hard to get rid of a program once the little piggies have fed at the trough.

Dale Fisk
11 years ago

Allow me this intellectual response:

Fantastic picture Mike!!

Oh..and I agree with your position on the sex thing.

AnonymousNot
11 years ago

E.A. writes:

“Maybe the Muslim rage is not so much motivated by hatred than by frustration and jealousy that they are not allowed to criticize or lampoon their own religion, culture and leaders.”

Never once in all of my mental meanderings have I considered this possibility. Most excellent point indeed, and one I shall now ponder. Regardless, this possibility does not excuse the religious right from trying to exact their peculiar and unhealthy brand of morality on the rest of us. Thanks.

E.A. Blair
11 years ago

It’s a matter of jurisdiction. It’s one thing for the pope to tell Catholics they can’t use contraception or (for the laity at least) have sex without marriage (but it’s apparently okay for priests), and quite another if they expect non-Catholics to follow those ideas as well. The same goes for other denominations and religions.

Unfortunately, there are adherents of those denominations and religions who occupy positions of political power and use that power to impress their version of morality on other to whom it does not apply.

I used to think it was political posturing when the Shrub and his neocon toadies used to tell us that Muslim extremists “hated us for our freedoms”, but since then (thanks to the 2005 Jyllands-Posten flap and the recent dustup over the YouTube trailer) I have begun to seriously wonder if there might not be an element of truth to that assertion. Maybe the Muslim rage is not so much motivated by hatred than by frustration and jealousy that they are not allowed to criticize or lampoon their own religion, culture and leaders.

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