When Is Sex Outside of Marriage OK?

Ooops, left out a couple of words... that should be: "When is Talking About Sex
Outside of Marriage OK?

Odd news for the day:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/30/jets_kill_rudolph/

I had a great rant all worked out in my head the other day while I was on the way into work, but by the time I got in I had forgotten what I was going to write about. In fact, I still don’t remember what I was going to write about. It is a shame too; it would have been earth shattering. Nobody’s life would have been the same once they read what I wrote. Oh well.

Life has been busy for the mo… oh who am I kidding? I have been bored out of my mind for the last couple of days because I have been home from work with a bad back. I am not certain how I hurt it, but bowling might have had something to do with it. I woke up Sunday and could barely move it hurt so badly. It has only been today that the pain has reached a level where I think I am actually starting to get better. When my back hurts it really messes with my concentration so anything involving deep thinking is pretty much out of the picture. That basically left me with watching TV all day, and looking up lame stuff on the internet. Now that I am feeling better I have a ton of homework to do; including a 20 page paper that I have to have done by next week.

House stuff is going well. We are still set to close on October 31st. Word to the wise: even when you are buying a new house, make sure that you bring a realtor with you to help you with contract stuff. There were a couple of things on our contract that we forgot to check on that could potentially cause us problems. There will probably be no problems, but I am annoyed that I didn’t catch them at first.

--------------------Married Person Stuff below this point (Fair Warning)---------


I have been thinking… How much does Christianity’s obsession with not talking about sex effect Christian youth and young married couples? How many of you remember being taught about sex while at church? I have memories about being taught about abstinence and purity, and saving yourself for marriage and all that, but that is all. The general feeling was that sex is wrong, and heaven forbid that you should actually talk about it. How many sermons have you heard about the importance of sex once you get to marriage? It is true that sex is taboo as far as the general church population is concerned. The majority of churches that I have seen offer some sort of marriage class that involves some sex talk, but those are usually targeted towards older couples that are having issues with their marriage, or who need to “bring the romance back”. Pre-marital counseling is always offered, and presumably you would talk about sex there, but if you have grown up in a church where sex is taboo, why would you want to talk to your pastor about it? Talk about feeling dirty. I believe that the average Christian grows up in the church being told that sex is bad, and that you have to wait till you are married before you can have sex. Then they are never exposed to anything else till it is time to get married at which point some well meaning married couple will go out and buy them the first Christian sex book that they find at the Christian book store (you wouldn’t want to get caught looking in that section for too long) and give it to the new couple. The new couple will read the book, and learn the importance “of treating your wife like a delicate flower and gently awakening her so that her petals will bloom and release her delicate aroma” (yes, I actually have read that in a sex book before). They digest this new information, get married, and go to have sex, and realize that they have absolute no idea what they are doing. The physical mechanics of sex are pretty obvious and were probably explained at some point in some sex ed class, or by your parents, but what about the roles of the husband and wife in the marriage?
How often is an appropriate amount of times to have sex in the first week of marriage, or the first month, or the first year, or the first decade? What if 5 years down the road the wife feels that all that the husband is interested in is sex, and the husband is incapable of showing interest in other aspects of the wife’s life because he is frustrated at the lack of sex? What if you have a husband who is not interested in sex more than twice a month? How do you deal with these issues? The Christian sponsored appropriate response would be to talk to some one of the same sex that you trust so that you could get advice. How is that person going to give you the correct advice though? They aren’t going to understand the other sex any better that you do. They might not be having the same problem in their life, but it is more likely due to luck than a perfect understanding. Supposedly you should talk to your pastor about stuff like this. First off, that assumes that you have a pastor that you are close enough with to trust, and secondly, it assumes that they even have any experience in the matter (how many pastors are single?). The next most likely answer is that you should talk to a Christian therapist. Again, this assumes a level of trust that most people are not comfortable with. For some people it is perfectly OK to sit down with a perfect stranger and dive into their sex life. For others that is a little over the top.
These issues would become a mute point if our culture allowed for bringing up children and young adults with a better understand of what sex inside of marriage means, and to allow them to feel comfortable with talking about it. We need to help people to see the emotional side of sex. We must remove the Christian social stigma that surrounds sex before our culture gets any worse. We need pastors who can stand up and preach on the excitement of marriage, and what it means to have that emotional bound cemented by the physical act of sex. I believe that this would also serve to help kids abstain from sex, as they would better understand that the thing that they think they (7 Ts) are doing for fun is actually emotionally scaring them and their future spouse for life.
There is a great story of how one day there was a Torrey class that was covering the Songs of Solomon. There was a huge uproar from the students because they thought that it was inappropriate to be discussing it in public. Several of the students even stormed out of the classroom in tears. How sad is it that one the most beautiful examples of what God wants sex to be would be considered unfit for the Christian classroom? People need to understand it, and to see how wonderful it is to love another person.
Going back to the topic of talking about sex with other people; it seams like the favorite thing for married people to talk about with their close friends of both sexes is sex. It is all well and good to talk about it with your spouse, but people want to be able to discuss it, learn about it, compare notes, and figure out if what they are doing is wrong or right. If their sex life is great, then they want to share and help others to have a great one too. If their sex life is bad then they want to fix it. If this is considered as taboo as Christian culture wants to dictate, then where is there left to turn to? How many of you read this and thought “it is wrong for a guy to talk to a girl that he is not married to about sex”? Now think… why did you think that? Why do you think it is wrong? Where in the Bible can you show me that it is wrong? Ok sure, it can potentially invite temptation in. Why? Because we as a culture find the very act of talking about sex to be taboo, and thus find it exciting and “dangerous”. Of course it is very easy to just be careful to not allow yourself to become interested in the other person; just like you have to be careful not to become interested in the other person based on a million other traits. I can guarantee that the very sound of a woman’s voice is just as likely to excite a guy as talking about sex is. Every person has their own foibles. “Wow, I’m having coffee in public with a person I am not married to. Sexy. Take me now!”