Help me with this discussion on virginity

[purplepeony]

Okay- bit tongue in cheek, but after seeing Widdy on Strictly my BF and I were talking about virgins, as Widdy is famously one at 63.

I find it impossible to believe that anyone nowadays chooses to stay a virgin until their wedding night - or chooses to be one at all.

Does anyone know a virgin who is holding off until she has tied the knot?

No, not dim, it's a fair reading of the actual word used in the original Hebrew and ancient Greek translation. But in the context of the rest of the bible's teaching on sex, it isn't just once one party is married, it's also pre marriage or potential marriage.

Basically, the Bible's view of sex is much more reverent than the one our culture now generally adopts. The key word is covenant - marriage is a covenant taken very seriously and reflective of the covenants God makes with his people and sex is designed to be uniquely present within this covenant relationship.

Sexual intimacy has a profound effect on the nature of a relationship and should be shared only within marriage (eg 1 Corinthians 6) - and Grace's point re marriage is fair, but it is the way that our society has agreed to witness and support public declarations of lifelong commitment which are not trivial to dissolve. Worth noting as well that adultery was the grounds on which divorce was conceded to be permissible in the old testament because it is such a fundamental betrayal of the covenant.

So on your question about what is permissible, the real issue is that it isn't so much 'what can I get away with, without God having an issue' and more 'wow, what an amazing intimacy to share, it's so special and profound it is to be shared and protected in a permanent covenant relationship'. As I know from personal experience, teenage hormones entry onwards make this really tough, which is why it's so important that sexual failure is also forgivable, but purity before marriage would still be the ideal.

Sorry, this is turning into an essay...!

That's all very well tale and thanks for the explantion- but it doesn't really address what you and others get up to when the teenage hormones kick in! You seem to be contradicting yourself by saying there is this ideal of abstaintance but if you fail at that well, hey, that's teenage hormones for you!

It's all very well quoting the bible, but what about what's actually going on between you ( and others ) who have a strong faith?

Do you feel very frustrated and is there aline which you or anyone with faith never crosses?

Most Christians I know just make sure that they don't spend time alone together at home as it's just too tempting.

My two brothers and my sister waited until their wedding nights.

My MIL is convinced Widdy had an affair a few years back, which is why she had a sudden change of image, died her hair blonde and started wearing makeup. Didn't she also write a trashy novel? Not sure if there was any bonking in it.

As for Christianity, I think some Christians don't take too much notice of the Old Testament, and just go with the New Testament, and Jesus did not actually make many references at all to sexual behaviour.

Wow! Are you serious? make sure they don't spend too much time alone at home? But what do they do?
None of you Christians seem willing to say what you get up to!

PP, you asked "Does sexual incompatibility exist?"

Not long ago, there was a thread here in which the OP - who'd been married for 25 years, I think - asked whether her marital sex was 'normal' as she found it degrading & unpleasurable. It wasn't what most would consider normal but, as she had no other experience, she didn't know it.

It's possible that, with more experimentation, her H could have found the elusive partner who enjoys the same as him in bed. And she would have discovered her own sexuality, choosing a partner who fitted her needs.

I picked that example because it's recent and fairly extreme. Most folks, however, recognise that sexuality varies by individual - and, if you're going to make a commitment to have sex with the one person for life, it's better to know you please one another.

Widdy couldn't have an "affair" as she wasn't married in the first palce! Boyfriend maybe...! But I did hear her say she would rather read a book and have a nice bath than have sex- but how would she know?

PP I don't know as I didn't follow that line!

But I know Christians who would hang out with friends, go to the cinema etc. Then get married.

Ok, by affair I mean an amorous relationship. I don't think affair means you're married, it means a love affair. but whatever.

If you really want details, there are 3 specific instances before marriage for which I felt guilt and needed to seek forgiveness from Jesus. Once at 14 and twice with my then fiance, now DH. But that's the amazing thing about Christianity, it isn't about rules and once they're broken you have to scrabble to find ways to make it up to God, it's a relationship with the perfect God, made possible because he has already made it right with him by Jesus taking all the punishment on the cross. All I had to do was ask Jesus' forgiveness and I can be confident there is no condemnation and so no guilt(eg Romans 8). And Rom 6 deals with why this leads me to want to be more holy as God wants rather than take advantage of his amazing grace.

I have an aunt who is religious, in her forties, never married and a virgin. I always tell her that god will send her straight to hell when he finds out that after putting her on this earth for all these years, she never ended up having sex.

She is not convinced.

A friend at the convent school I attended was told by her mother to preserve her virginity by only having anal sex until marriage. I'm not sure if that's common among Catholics or if she just had an odd mother.

I have a friend who was waiting, not necessarily for marriage, but for a relationship to have sex. (Her parents would have disowned her/forced her to marry if she had ever got pg, so I can see why)She made it to 26 then got fed up of waiting and shagged some random guy.

DP has a friend aged 32 who he is sure is still a virgin. He's shy and has never had a girlfriend. It's a shame. He is a really nice guy (not religious at all).

nurseblade

I wonder if that's behind a certain Brazilian obsession? Msybe that's why the Pope said they can use condoms in Brazil??

Soothe my boggling mind.

This horrible attitude towards sex is one of many reasons to hate and despise all the superstitions and work to undermine them.
Sex is fun, and while it's fine to wait to start doing it until you find someone you want to do it with, who also wants to do it with you, there's no reason to wait if you don't want to.
It's actually very sad that some teenagers feel they have to apologise to some imaginary being for having enjoyed some mutual pleasure with another person.

Quite agree with SGB, the fetishisation of virginity (mostly for girls, not boys) has been so oppressive throughout history.

As for the Old Testament treating sex as a covenant - not when it comes to sex with slave-girls and concubines it doesn't.

Wow SGB that's vehement.

You're right in part, sex can be awesome fun, but its potency means it can also cause enormous pain, heartache and damage when misused and abused. Literature will tell you that, let alone real life.

Mutual 'want to' isn't a particularly great yardstick when our feelings can be so changeable. And there's a reason for the age of consent given that we think young teenagers aren't necessarily in a position to make that decision for their own permanent good. It's pretty arbitrary and not necessarily representative of individuals' real readiness to decide for themselves but it's recognition that waiting / not waiting is often being decided by young people with physical & hormonal development far beyond their emotional maturity.

I happen to be convinced that God has our own best interests at heart, as ever, in setting out his blueprint for the context of sex. And as to imaginary, well I'm sure it won't convince you otherwise, but I can't come up with a satisfactory explanation of Jesus any other way. The alternatives strike me as slightly desperate.

Sorry x post HB.

Yes, history has emphasised girls far more, but all the teaching and studies I've ever heard or been part of has been at least as much at boys as girls. Often more so in terms of not abusing emotional intimacy which girls are more likely to invest in with a boyfriend than the other way around. Can't fix history but the biblical application isn't inherently misogynistic.

And it's marriage that's the covenant, not sex per se. The OT is a mix of different types of writing and distinction needs to be made between normative and descriptive texts. It's pretty standard textual practice, so in the same way that Catullus' poetry is read as poetry with some info of social and cultural context possible to infer, but much Pliny is read as a more historical narrative, taking into account his personal perspective as far as we're able.

The Pentateuch gives a strong normative line, with clear instruction to God's people as to how they were supposed to live, mixed with narrative of how he communicated with them, Kings and Chronicles are that - the recorded history of a given period of time in particular kingdoms, with a particular focus on their obedience (or largely lack of) to God's instructed way of his people living. It's descriptive, and often brutal in assessment of their shortcomings, not meant to provide a model society to follow blindly.

I didn't really see this developing into a lecture on hermeneutics, but it's hard not to want to point out that Christians aren't automatically stupid. Sorry.

Anyone who believes in any kind of god is by definition a bit less bright than an equally-educated person who knows what nonsense the whole business is.

As to causing pain and heartache, interacting with other people in any way has the potential to do this. People can be horribly hurt by those they have put their trust in, with sex forming no part of the deal eg the friend of the family who offers to invest your life savings and fucks off with the money, the cousin or sibling who bullies and belittles you all your life.

SGB your first sentence may be the only thing you have ever said on MN that I disagree with

:) I think we'll leave your first statement just there. Not sure I can engage further really. Happy Christmas!