Posted on 02/17/2007 12:15:13 PM PST by wagglebee
I've written several articles lately approving the new trends toward abstinence that have led to reductions in teen sexual activity, teen births and teen abortions. Expressing these views has brought howls of protest and filled my e-mail box to overflowing with verbal abuse from readers who hold the notion that uninhibited, promiscuous sexual activity is the key to the good life. They are happy to let me know, sometimes in the rudest possible terms, that I am unrealistic, prudish and sexually repressed.
The fact is that despite the wholesale repudiation of traditional Judeo-Christian moral values relating to sex and marriage by a large majority of the elites - as well as many of the general public - there are still some of us who think that chastity is a virtue and that virginity is one of the most priceless gifts a couple can give to each other in consummation of their nuptial vows.
The idea that valuing virginity equates to being sexually repressed is, of course, patent nonsense. One might as well try to make a logical argument that back in the 70s and 80s the avoidance of smoking meant that one was antisocial.
One recent correspondent was incensed when I reported a new study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that linked teen sex with depression. This person volunteered that he/she had been intent on getting rid of his/her virginity at the first opportunity. I wanted to ask how it was because magazines periodically run supposedly funny features recounting how various people "lost their virginity." Inevitably, such features make for sad reading; the writers recount embarrassment, frustration, awkwardness and disgust for themselves and their partner.
Logically, the benefits of going into marriage unencumbered by the emotional fallout and the health consequences that often go with sexual experimentation and promiscuity have not changed. But we know - and have known since the days of the Greek philosopher Aristotle - that persons are persuaded not just by logic (logos) but by emotions as well (pathos). Moreover, the strongest arguments come from persons with credibility and charisma (ethos) who combine the force of logical arguments with emotional appeals.
Those who defend traditional morality today, however, are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of persuading teens who are living in today's popular culture and not the logical, factually-based side of things. For teens willing to consider the evidence carefully and clearly, it is blindingly obvious that casual sexual experimentation (often fueled by drinking and drugs) is a terribly inferior proposition compared to the fantastic joys of experiencing sexual intimacy as the seal of a marriage commitment to the love of your life. However, this requires long-term thinking. It requires valuing an experience that you can only dimly imagine.
The persuasiveness of logic by itself is often insufficient in the face of the emotional counter forces with which young people have to deal. On the one hand, there is the strong temptation of the excitement associated with sexual experimentation, and on the other is the fear of group ridicule for sexual abstinence.
It would be bad enough if only peer group pressures drove teens in the wrong direction. However, far too many of today's leaders promote the idea that "sex is no big deal." These veterans of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, now aging Baby Boomers, have spent a long time telling themselves that their momentary sexual thrills were worth the bad stuff they've lived with ever since: the "complications" in their relationships with their spouses and children. The emotional wreckage littering the landscape for the last 30 to 40 years is like the elephant in the corner that everyone pretends not to see. Yet it doesn't take a psychologist to recognize that avoidance is ineffective in dealing with the relationship messes and destroyed dreams. The trends show that many teenagers are seeing that "elephant" and thus are valuing virginity.
In an earlier era, one counterbalance to the forces pushing for sexual experimentation by teens and young adults was the moral authority of traditional Judeo-Christian teaching regarding the sanctity of sexual activity and the imperative for limiting sexual intercourse to the marriage bed. Sadly, rather than face the ridicule from those in the educated elites, many religious leaders have abandoned the teachings regarding moral purity before marriage and fidelity within marriage.
We must do a better job of instilling in young people a healthy fear - born from an awe of God's Word as our human instruction book - of violating our God-given human dignity by ignoring the full realities involved in sexual intimacy, by truncating the multi-dimensional nature of sex, by robbing it of its significance and reducing it to merely a means of momentary physical pleasure rather than reserving intercourse to be the fantastic means of bonding a husband and wife into one flesh - making them both rapturous and whole - and providing a secure setting should the miracle of new life bless their union.
When we accept that human dignity is God-given, we have the logically persuasive reason to follow the moral law of the transcendent God, revealed by Him to us in Scripture, as it is the surest - and the only - safe path to happiness.
We also have the emotionally persuasive reason to be afraid of acting in violation of the boundaries laid down by the Creator of the Universe; in His universe we see the laws of cause and effect at work everywhere. Ignorance of, or indifference to, these boundaries brings consequences as surely, if not as swiftly, as jumping out the window of a 50-story building brings destruction. God's moral laws are built into our humanity and the world we live in.
Best of all, we are made in His image, and when His law is instilled within us, we have the capacity to love.
Amen.
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Thank you for the ping and may I add my AMEN to yours.
The greatest reason (other than the Commandment) to avoid sex before marriage is: once you have sex with a person outside marriage, your judgement becomes so clouded you are incapable of accurate evaluation of compatibility. It becomes far more difficult to escape the relationship, even if you know that would be better, because of the selfish reason of easy sex.
Once you give up your virginity, sexuality really gets in the way of seeing the more important factors in choosing a mate.
Not that it would matter to today's ultra-promiscous, IV drug using, nihilistic youth, but this statistic from the CDC is pretty depressing all by itself:
How common is genital herpes? Nationwide, at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and adults, have had genital HSV infection. Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, the number of Americans with genital herpes infection increased 30 percent.
On the other end of the, er, spectrum, an ex-pat Iranian coworker once told me that a female friend of his was maintaining her "virginity" for marriage by, uhm, practicing the "love that dares not speak it's name".
That absurdity left me dumbstruck.
Once the "last taboo" is broken, there's not much point to any taboo.
You can't push cooked spaghetti.
"Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ." Colossians 2:6-8
"This people honors me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless; the doctrines they teach are only human regulations." (Matt.15:8-9).
It was fairly easy for me to stay virtuous, even in the 70's. I had one of those dads that followed me on dates. There was no telling where he might pop up next, bless him. LOL I was pretty much a prude but he stayed busy with my two sisters. He was a very persistent man.
The only time I got in trouble with my Dad was when I told him I was getting a divorce. He told me I was too old to find another one and I'd better hold on the one I had. I was 25. I finally had to tell him that the reason I was getting a divorce was because I caught my husband, his favorite son-in-law, in bed with another man. I would take my chances on never finding another husband but I was NOT staying married to that pervert, period! He got over it. :-)
This is so true. I saw this first hand. People underestimate the destructive nature of illegitimate sexual relations. It can turn the most sensible person into the most irrational, illogical being. Good article.
On the positive side of this issue - people bond through sex. There is no better bond in marriage than sexual intercourse for the first time, for both husband and wife, after marriage.
My pet theory is that people get imprinted by their first sexual experiences. That is why boys molested by men turn into men who molest boys. That is also why two people still thrill each other after decades of marriage, because they learned about sex and love from each other.
The religious aspect is always neglected today because we are an anti-religious society. When God is taken out of the equation, any aperture will do. The Supreme Court has taken government out of morality, too.
Pre-marital chastity would eliminate illegitimate births and STDs from our population. Abortion would be eliminated almost completely. That would take more leadership than this country has to offer.
"Love is primarily in the will, not in the emotions or the glands. The will is like the voice; the emotions are like the echo. The pleasure associated with love, or what is today called "sex," is the frosting on the cake; its purpose is to make us love the cake, not ignore it. The greatest illusion of lovers is to believe that the intensity of their sexual attraction is the guarantee of the perpetuity of their love.
"It is because of this failure to distinguish between the glandular and spiritual--or between sex which we have in common with animals, and love which we have in common with God--that marriages are so full of deception."
You can read more of this wonderful book here online:http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/3GETMARR.TXT
Well stated.
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