Premarital Sex: Maybe You Shouldn’t

I got lots of comments — and more than a little hate mail — for suggesting that premarital sex might not be that bad for Christians and that maybe we should get over it.

My thoughts were primarily theoretical. Not so for Jamie Wright, the Very Worst Missionary. She’s got teenage sons, and she most definitely does not want them having sex:

I want my kids to be armed with the truth (and maybe with condoms, but mostly with the truth), and the truth is that they should wait to have sex.

There are obvious reasons why:

1. You could accidentally create another human being (like I did, oops).

2. You could cause yourself or someone else emotional harm by sharing intimate behavior in an irresponsibly casual way.

3. Most compelling, you could contract a horrible, painful, itchy, burning, smelly STD, and your penis could fall right off.

But I believe there’s another really good reason to put sex on hold. 

It’s that when you wait to have sex, you are creating an important connection between the very powerful urges to do things that feel really good and the ability to control those urges. Otherwise known as self-control. This practice of self-denial and delayed gratification makes you a healthier, more poised, and better moderated person (who definitely still has a penis, phew!). Ultimately, self- control is a character trait ~or *ahem*, fruit of the spirit, for the Christian folk~ that will help you be a better long-term partner in your ’til-death-do-we-part relationship.

Listen. I don’t want to kill anyone’s romantic ideas about marriage, I really don’t – but it’s not like you get married and then you’re unfailingly super stoked to have sex with the same person three times a week for the rest of your God given life. I mean, married sex can be amazing – the longer I’ve been married, the better it gets (19 years, Suckas!!). But it really shouldn’t shock anyone to hear that married, monogamous people still have sexual thoughts, desires, and impulses which do not include their spouses. Porn happens. Crushes happen. (Seriously, everybody has crushes. Even Christianbodies have crushes.) The problem is that, in a culture that demands instant gratification and consumes sex like a drug, a quick brush with porn or a simple crush on a coworker can quickly spiral into something devastating.

Read the rest.