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Original poster

Sex before marriage

287 replies

toonosy · 13/05/2010 13:25

This is really nosy...but was wondering if anyone actually waits until they are married before having sex these days?

Me and DH waited, we were together almost 6 years before we married. Our decision was for religious reasons, however I can't bring myself to ask my RL friends their opinions on this!

Would love to hear what everyone thinks, was going to put this in Religion but thought I'd get more responses here.

OP posts:
bathbuns · 13/05/2010 14:45

I was at college with a girl and her boyfriend - both Christians. They both waited, got married at 19/20 and were divorced two years later! Clearly NOT compatible sexually at all. I have also seen someone post online about the same situation, and by the time she married the fizz that had been there had completely disappeared and she only realised that when they slept together. I can't imagine how horrible that would feel, knowing you had just got married.

I couldn't marry someone not having slept with them. I think you have to know you are compatible beforehand. And as someone said, so many people who do wait are actually having oral sex and doing other things in the meantime - so it's hardly waiting in the true sense.

twolittlemonkeys · 13/05/2010 14:47

We did, also for religious reasons. No regrets about it at all. Most of my friends from church did too, but most (if not all) of my non-religious friends (plus several Catholic friends) didn't

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 13/05/2010 14:50

We did not wait. I am RC. Can't imagine not marrying without having lived over the brush first.

purplepeony · 13/05/2010 14:53

I didn't wait as I didn't meet my DH until I was almost 27, so I wasn't obviously a virgin at that age. We got into bed on our 3rd date.

OP- I think you are right to question religion and brain washing.

What I could never understand- and I had a close friend who was of the " no sex before marriage" school of thought- was why put your body on some of kind of pedestal but not your mind.

For me, letting someone into my vagina was no more important than letting someone get into my head- so if they knew me inside out intellectually and emotionally, then why not physically?

Malificence · 13/05/2010 14:56

How many of you who waited had no sexual contact at all though before the wedding?

Even mutual masturbation is still sex , I seem to remember lots of fondling during the two weeks we waited, he was 17, I was 16, almost 17.

I don't think it's particularly healthy to deny those natural and perfectly normal urges tbh.

purplepeony · 13/05/2010 14:58

Just out of curiosity- does it actually say in the bible that sex before marriage is taboo? I have asked several people who say they are Christians but they cannot find the chapter and verse where it is explicity written.
There are other religions though, so maybe you OP are not Christian?

purplepeony · 13/05/2010 15:02

It's intersting how attitudes have changed isn't it?

I am 99.9% sure that my parents now in their 80s did not have sex BM.

To them the idea of "sexual incompatability" would have been anathema. You just got on with it, and hoped for the best. Maybe expectations were lower.

My mum often says she wishes she was a young woman now- being able to experiment with sex andnot have just 1 partner- and by implication, nothing to compare him with!

Mal- I was in a similar situation to you in that my 1st was a boyfriend I met at 16 and we waited 2 looooooong years til I hd left home amd we went to uni. Reason? My parents' attitude/pressure of no sex BM.

I just couldn't do it living under their roof and them knowing, or guessing.

bathbuns · 13/05/2010 15:03

I know my parents hadn't had sex before marriage too.
pp I can't remember the specific verse but I seem to remember the bible saying that all sex is bad, but if you must have it, then get married because that makes it marginally ok.

KRH · 13/05/2010 15:08

purplepeony - this article might just answer your question... www.gotquestions.org/sex-before-marriage.html

(apologies that it isn't a neat little link - I have no idea how to do that!)

Malificence - aside from kissing and a little over the clothes touching, (which we always regretted and confessed afterwards - no one said Christians were perfect or that it was easy!) we abstained.

KRH · 13/05/2010 15:12

I really hope that's a joke comment bathbuns! Paul certainly does not say that sex is wrong - you are taking that verse from Corinthians completely out of context! Might be an idea to read the rest of the chapter to actually see what he was meaning!

In any case, I can only assume you're joking anyway and don't actually believe that!

LaurieFecktheToriesCake · 13/05/2010 15:16

DH waited til we were engaged (I'd been married and a shagger before).

He did take forever to come the first time and it was dreadful. He stopped masturbating though and let the fanjo replace the hand and it was all fine and fantastic after a week or so.

He's the best lover I've ever had and he is utterly sexually besotted with me as he's never had anyone else.

purplepeony · 13/05/2010 15:18

This is not- being cynical- a journo testing the waters before she writes her feature is it?

LaurieFecktheToriesCake · 13/05/2010 15:18

Paul says in the bible it's better to be celibate if you can manage it but if you 'must' have sex then it's better to be joined and just have sex with one person.

Malificence · 13/05/2010 15:19

Oh God, I've just remembered the time his mum found condoms under his bed, you would have thought it was the end of the world!

Even when we got engaged his mum wouldn't accept us sleeping together, I ended up living at his when he joined the Air force, she seriously thought we wouldn't share a bed when they were away caravanning for the weekend and he was home on leave - we used to get out of bed about half an hour before they were due home.

We used to have sex in the bathroom all the time with them downstairs too.

I always swore I wouldn't be so uptight about DD, we let her boyfriend stay the night from when she was 16, much more likely to be having safe sex in bed rather than in field somewhere. We were responsible at 16 ( mostly ) , it was only fair to accept that she was capable of adult behaviour too.
If MIL had still been alive she would have been horrified !

sungirltan · 13/05/2010 15:23

i have 2 christian friends who i know for certain waited until they were married. i have another 2 friends who are waiting. i think it depends a lot on the religious community as far as i know

i didnt wait - but i am an atheist

purplepeony · 13/05/2010 15:23

You had much thicker skin than I did then Mal.

I was "banned" from my BF house as his parents thought we'd been at it in his room- we hadn't.

When we actually did, I had to tell my parents that he had visited me at uni- this was early 1970s- and their first question was "where did he stya". I had tolie.

Malificence · 13/05/2010 15:26

Let the fanjo replace the hand . Classic

Unfortunately ( sometimes) that can work against you, DH is unable to erm, "peak" shall we say, any other way than by fanjo, which made doing semen samples very challenging.

LaurieFecktheToriesCake · 13/05/2010 15:27

Why are you sampling his semen - putting it in cakes? Is it a new face cream?

beanlet · 13/05/2010 15:28

I waited, for religious reasons. It was a bad idea, and I truly wish I hadn't. We split in 2005 after 9 years (and the sex was grim throughout).

StarExpat · 13/05/2010 15:30

I have only had one partner - dh. We did have sex before we were married, but we knew we would be married and waited nearly 8 months from when we started dating and knew we would be married in a few years (well... because of circumstances it actually happened 6 years later!). I was 22 when we first had sex.

Not for religious reasons, though. I was just afraid of sex and only wanted to do it with the person I'd marry. So the person who said that people only wait for religious reasons - here - I'm that exception

But ds was not conceived until after we were married. My parents still think we first had sex on our wedding night .

LittleWhiteWolf · 13/05/2010 15:31

We didnt wait, but DH is the only person I have ever slept with. I was 23 when we got married, we met when I was 19.
Everyone I admit that to looks aghast and says "wont you worry you've missed out?" I honestly dont: I had no desire to sleep with anyone until I met DH.

Two of my work colleagues who are a few months older and a few years younger than me respectively, who I told this to agreed that they thought I'd regret not sleeping with anyone else and would feel I was missing out. I bit my tongue: both said they'd slept with 9 people, but both discounted 1 who "didnt really count" because in both cases they'd 'gotten started' but changed their minds as they started to sober up.
I really do feel I've missed out on such a wonderful experience

Malificence · 13/05/2010 15:34

It was for testing after his snip Laurie, I wouldn't mind a "personal" sample now and again but I'd have to not touch him for a month I think and I haven't got the will power .

StarExpat · 13/05/2010 15:36

LWW I completely agree with that. I get so annoyed when people tell me I've "missed out". I am positive I've missed out on nothing. Very happy not to have had multiple partners in the past.

StarExpat · 13/05/2010 15:37

However not having sex in previous relationships did make them all end quite abruptly when the bf would cheat on me and then tell me he "had to" if I wasn't going to.

LaurieFecktheToriesCake · 13/05/2010 15:37

me neither Mal

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