POLL: Premarital Sex

Remove all ads!

@Fel:
0.3%? I thought it was 3%. That made things a bit closer. The general principle of avoiding consequences applies, however.
I though you were referring to the slippery slope fallacy, which this would have been in the 60's.
There are things worse than death, but not hell.

@Saber:
Biologically, its human from the moment of conception. I'm not sure what the current abortion laws work under.

@Deepfae:
If the relationship is so loving and lasting, why aren't you married?
And who says that God didn't just tell them to avoid those things because they were dangerous. He taught them how to rotate crops in a 3 field system and no one figured out why that works until much later.

@Fabius:
How can science debate free will? I can see instinct, and I have no problem with its existance, but how can science go any further than "there's instinct and there's people who don't follow it". I don't see free will as a scientific debater.
As for a realistic analysis of how it works, instinct is one of the many drives that affect our minds every day. Social pressures, instinct, rational extnsions of instinct (I need food for tomorow, so I need to work today), religeous pressures, but these only influence things, they don't make the decision for you. In the end, that's your choice, and that's free will. Good and bad don't come in at the instinct stage (all instincts are bad or good) but rather at the stage of the actual decision. Instincts can tell you to do bad stuff, but they don't always, it depends on the situation.

 

It entirely depends on what type of contraception you are using. If you're talking about condoms, yeah, 3% is pretty accurate. If you're talking about oral contraceptives, then 0.3% is closer to the mark.

 

I'm not really into this discussion, and I'm not a neurologist.

These scientists argue that every decision a human being makes is first and foremost made by instinct, not by rational choice. One of them - Wolfgang Prinz from Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences - said:

This means that we rationalize our decisions after we made them.

German source

 

"Freier Wille unter Neuronenfeuer"

The egoism of genes pulling our strings and all that. I am pretty convinced that is so.

 

@NOG: There are many reasons why one would be in a loving relationship. Perhaps its illegal for the participants of the relationship to be married (a.k.a a homoseual relationship or relationship where the participants are below the legal age that is required to marry). Or, more appropriate to this disscussion, perhaps the participants are in a steady, monogamous relationship that is headed towards marriage, and the participants are ready to make the commitment to share the experiance of sex with one another, but are not ready to make the commitment to share the experiance of the rest of their lives together.

 

OK, let's get really silly and "argue the logic" of having sex. Well, usually there is not just "one experiencing" sex (well, hopefully..although judging by this thread that may really be the case), but two experiencing the act. It's not very good logic to say that when someone is murdered that the moral standard is the same: one person gets a lot of pain and the end of his/her life, and I guess - according to you - the other gets a "rush," although I'm not convinced that every murderer gets a "rush" from the act of killing.

Now with sex, two people are hopefully getting the "rush" together. So thusly, it CAN be said that if both individuals get pleasure from the same act together that it is not the same moral standard as killing someone, which would be a completely selfish act. It's not likely that someone who was murdered would say: "Wow, that was great. Let's do that again!"

 

Any relationship can create a strong, long lasting bond. Does that mean one should forgo any sort of relationship but marriage, so that one never experiances the pain of the absence of someone one shares a strong bond with? Now in response to the story about your friend, Bernan, what the playa did was selfish and cruel. It is not as bad as a rapist who actually uses force to subdue his victim, but using charm to convince someone to sleep with one is little better. However, this is not a problem waiting till marriage would solve, as many people would do the same thing and then divorce if they could not woo someone outside of wedlock.

 

That's the idea, and why sex can be a good thing. Sorry, if anyone here took my stance on this issue to be all that serious, especially since I can't see, for the life of me, the sense of arguing over a topic like sex. But your point, Beren, can be said for the nature of love itself. Whenever there is a strong bond, there is always the danger in getting hurt, sometimes very seriously. But most people don't shut themselves off from life, or love, because of the fear of getting hurt.

I crafted my "real" point on this issue in my comments to Chev, since I know that he takes matters of the Spirit very seriously, and I did not want to trivialize his feelings and thoughts on this matter by injecting any off-beat type humor. But I will repeat myself here: The depth of the relationship should determine the amount of sexual intimacy. But I still don't believe that a legal document saying that two people are married, granting permission, has any real meaning in matters of real intimacy between two people who are care deeply for each other.

Think of it this way: Were not for sex, none of us would be here. Isn't that a pleasant thought? (I didn't want to get too serious here...).

 

If both parties wish to have sex with each other, if both parties are clean (no STDs), if both parties use the correct form of birth control (let's assume the male has gone to the doctor and had 'the operation') and if both parties understand the relationship situation completely... is there anything wrong with premarital sex?

I've noticed most of the arguments against premarital sex are something along the line of 'this COULD happen'. I guess we could say the same about riding a bike. If you don't take standard safety precautions you could, while riding a bike, be hit by a truck and die. Even if you DO take every possible concieveable safety precaution there is STILL a chance you will be hit by a truck. In fact the only way for there to be 0% chance you will be hit by a truck while riding a bike is to NOT RIDE A BIKE.

God gave everybody bikes. Go ride them. Just don't be stupid and ride them without a helmet (condom), in a foreign country (person you hardly know), down a highway (pick said person up from a club) and in the wrong direction to traffic (well, this could mean homosexual sex, anal sex and possibly both). Sex, like almost all enjoyable things, can be dangerous to your health if proper precautions are not taken and the activity is practiced too much.

Also, who is to say the person you marry doesn't have an STD? It is possible they do from a previous relationship. A divorce can lead to problems with a child.

If God didn't want us to have sex outside of marriage, why did he make the male sex drive so strong? Frankly, The Creator obviously didn't think about this too much.

 

Here is a reason not to have premarital sex.

Then again, maybe this is just a case for the stupid not having sex

 

I think the bike comparison is very fitting. Everything is dangerous. There's always that marginal "what if."

And I really don't see why marriage would magically eliminate the danger of getting hurt. And a pregnancy can be an unwanted one in marriage too, just as it can be very wanted outside marriage.

NOG said:

I read somewhere that quite often a fertilized egg results in a "miscarriage" of a kind, within just a few days of conception, without any outside interference. It has something to do with the egg failing to attach properly. Should we hold funerals over this?

This premarital sex business really boils down to religion. That a ritual and a name change are somehow holy. One can argue that when premarital sex results in pregnancy it's easy for the guy to just walk away. One can also argue that people walk out on their married spouses all the time.

It's not about whether you're married or not. There's no guarantee either way. If your premarital relationship goes awry and the problems can't/won't be worked out, guess what, either you're with the wrong person or you *are* the wrong person, and no ritual will change that. You can also marry the wrong person and suffer a lifetime of abuse or cheating etc. One could therefore claim you should never, ever get married - after all, something *could* go wrong.

It's the relationship itself that matters, marriage or no. If you have a good relationship, have all the sex you want with the right precautions, move in together if you want, have babies if you want. Hell, get married if you want. But I don't see it being necessary.

NOG again:

Maybe if one is not religious?

TGS:

Man, am I glad you added that.

 

No, it's a reason not to stay in a running car that is parked inside a closed garage.

 

[zynism]You could call that 'natural selection'.[/zynism]

 

@Susipaisti:
I'm not saying you should get married early so you can have sex, I'm saying you should wait to have sex until you're married. Now some people still marry the wrong people, but they were stupid. I don't mean to insult anyone here, but I know someone this applies to and he says right out, "I was stupid. I never should have married her." He then goes on to list a series of things he knowingly ignored before marriage that told him that it was stupid. There will always be stupid people. I know that.
Waiting, however, can significantly reduce the number of such relationships.

@Fabius & Dendri:
How do they explain totally non-productive events, like fasting, by instinct? Is there an instinct not to eat when you're hungry and there's plenty of food around?

 

@NOG: I've been married to the same woman for 7 years now. I still love her and we have a great marriage, but she is definitely not the woman I married and I am definitely not the man she married. This isn't a bad thing.....it's normal, since people change over time. In a marriage, your partner can easily become the wrong person. Great relationships can turn sour or one spouse could have a religious or ethical conversion that can rip a marriage apart. In situations where the changes are irreconcileable (as major changes to religion or ethos often are), sometimes divorce or separation is the only option and it isn't anyone's fault. The causes of a divorce are very complicated and have a lot less to do with the subject at hand than it appears at first blush.

Remember, the type of person that waits until marriage is also frequently the type of person that doesn't see divorce as an option under any circumstance. Naturally, such people are less likely to get a divorce down the road; even in situations where they probably should.

[ March 07, 2006, 20:19: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

I'll take Abomination's statement a step further by saying: If God didn't want us to have sex outside of marriage, why didn't he make marriage at the same time as sex?

Marriage is purely a human invention. (Then again, so is any type of sex other than doggystyle vaginal. ) This time, the question becomes: where does it stop? What does God supposedly want? Does He mind if we get...creative with the tools he gave us? Does He mind if we have sex without getting the State's approval in the form of a marriage license?

On the other hand, the feeling of love started at the same time sex did, and can even be said to have been given by God at that time (or even before, if you count the Garden of Eden, but that's getting a bit far into specific religious beliefs). As such, I believe that Love is what should determine who you have sex with and when. I would never have sex with someone I didn't love, and would only have sex with someone I did love if they said they were ready. What the State thinks of our relationship (whether we're married or not), they can stuff up their bureaucratic a$$es.

 

Yes, I gathered that. What I'm saying is, apart from some legal/financial issues, I don't see a point in getting married at all unless one is religious.

For the rest, I think Drew summed it all up quite nicely just above.

 

Other than the part about the bureaucratic rear-ends, I think I agree with Felinoid's last post on the topic.