[Christian Links]
Premarital Sex and Abortion
The modern young person's peer group is much more tolerant of
premarital sex. Many young people believe that what people do in
their sex life is nobody's business but their own. That's not true,
but some like to think it is. Still other factors make it harder
now for a young person to say no to premarital sex. Birth control
devices are easy to obtain, and some are highly effective. The
picture seems clear. Sex is now a mighty tough urge to resist. The
view of some young people seems to be, "Why fight it? Let's go for
it."
THE ELEVEN KNOWN FACTS
Science has established eleven facts concerning the probable effect
of premarital sex on your marriage.
FACT 1. Premarital sex tends to break up couples.
Other things being equal, couples who engage in sex are
more likely to break up before marriage than those who
do not.
FACT 2. Many men and women do not want to marry a person who has
had intercourse with someone else.
Fear of AIDS is another factor now. Also, the more
sexual experience the other person has had, the less
desirable that person is.
FACT 3. Those who have premarital sex tend to have less happy
marriages.
On the whole, your chances of being happily married are
better if you wait till you're wed to have sex. And the
more premarital sex you have, the less likely you'll be
happy in your marriage.
FACT 4. Those who have premarital sex are more likely to have
their marriage end in divorce.
This follows from Fact 3. If a couple is unhappy with
their marriage, they're more likely to get a divorce.
And again, the more premarital sex the individuals have
had, the greater the chance of divorce.
FACT 5. Persons and couples who have had premarital sex are more
likely to have extramarital affairs as well.
That is especially true of females. The Kinsey report
showed that women who had sex before marriage were more
than twice as likely to cheat on their husbands as women
who were virgins at the time of their marriage. The
same is true of men. The more premarital sex a person
has had, the more likely he or she is to commit
adultery. The reason is, once a couple have had sex
with each other, it is much, much easier to do the same
thing again, married or not. Also, indulging in
"forbidden fruit" brings special pleasure and
excitement. After marriage, sex is no longer forbidden.
Couples accustomed to the excitement of forbidden fruit
may find married sex to be a bit dull. Might this tempt
a spouse to try to find greater excitement outside the
marriage bond - which is another kind of forbidden
fruit.
FACT 6. Having premarital sex may fool you into marrying a
person who is not right for you.
Sex can blind you. You may believe you've found real
love, when in fact it is only sex that has held you
together. If you wait for sex until you're quite sure
you have a sound relationship without sex, you can avoid
this tragic error. Once your relationship is firmly
established, then your married sex life becomes a
beautiful, wondrous bonus. It will tie you together
even more completely in your marriage.
The next two facts are best taken together. The first is a short-
term plus, but the second a long-range minus.
FACT 7. Persons and couples with premarital sex experience tend
to achieve sexual satisfaction sooner after the are
married. However ...
FACT 8. They are likely to be less satisfied overall with their
sex life during marriage.
That is, they adjust to sex more quickly, but their
overall adjustment is less satisfying than it is with
couples who wait for sex until after they wed. One
reason is that their premarital sex experience can rise
to haunt them. People differ widely in their sexual
nature and skills. They tend to compare their sexual
satisfaction with previous partners if they have other
partners and they tend to get disappointed.
Married Sex Is Best
Almost any wife and husband can work out a happy sexual
adjustment if they love each other. Any loving couple's
sex life is likely to be fine. When they have a warm,
compatible relationship, they can with very few
exceptions work out a good sex life. Sex in the context
of a meaningful, lasting relationship is by far the best
sex.
Total Sex
No matter how skilled and exotic and explosive a merely
physical sexual experience may be, it cannot begin to
match total sex. Total sex involves the completion and
conjoining of total personalities. It merges the minds,
the emotions, and the social and spiritual selves of a
couple, as well as their two bodies. The two truly do
become one. They can actually be worshipping God in the
act of having sex. No sensible person should want to
settle for anything less than that kind of sex.
FACT 9. Poor premarital sexual habits can be carried over to
spoil sex in marriage.
Since premarital sex is still a social and religious no-
no, illicit sex acts usually produce some degree of
guilt, fear, and loss of self-esteem. This can apply to
both partners, but it is especially true for women.
They feel guilt, since they are doing what they feel
they should not do. They lose self-respect, since they
are not living up to their own ideals. And they are
afraid of three things: getting caught in the act of
sex, getting pregnant, and perhaps contracting a
sexually transmitted disease.
Whether you're engaged or not, each time you have
premarital sex, you will get into a pattern of feeling
guilt and fear and loss of self-respect. Over and over
again this happens. You have sex, you feel fear and
guilt and remorse. In time, all of these negative
feelings become associated with the sex act itself.
Now suppose you do get married. To the extent you
learned to associate sex with guilt and fear and shame
before the wedding, you will in some measure feel that
way afterward. Still, every time you two have sex, that
guilt and fear and shame will come back to haunt you.
It may take months or even years for you to recondition
yourselves. Only then can your sex life be full and
free.
FACT 10. Guilt may push a couple into a bad marriage.
Many persons (especially those with a deep religious
faith or background) will feel that they should have sex
only with the person they wed and no one else. So they
may feel duty-bound to marry a person they have had sex
with. As a result, this guilt and sense of obligation
may push them into a poor marriage.
FACT 11. Premarital sex robs a couple of "sexual cement."
The sex act is the most intimate of all human behaviors.
If done with love, it bonds a couple together in a
unique way. It is so wonderful that it keeps them
coming back to each other even though there may be real
problems - like money, in-laws, etc. - to be worked out
in their relationship. This bonding can be called
"sexual cement," since it is so strong that it can hold
a couple together for up to three to five years. Here's
why it is of vital importance to hold off having sex
until after you're wed so it can help you make your
marriage work out.
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF EXPRESSION OF LOVE
The many stages of sexual arousal form a spectrum ranging from one
extreme to the other (see the previous page for "The road to
arousal"). One extreme is full repression, complete denial of the
sex urge. The other extreme is going all the way to intercourse.
Starting with repression, each stage brings deeper sexual
excitement. So how far should you go down the road to arousal?
Here are five general principles which may help you decide.
PRINCIPLE 1. Avoid the two extremes.
We have seen why it is hazardous to go all the way
before marriage. The long-term risks hardly seem worth
the sensual thrills of the moment.
But it is equally dangerous to take the opposite extreme
and fully repress the sex urge. If you try to keep the
lid on it by refusing to admit it's there, you are
failing to deal with it wisely.
A repressed desire does not die. It just gets pushed
out of the conscious mind and into the subconscious,
where it smolders and festers, waiting its chance to be
expressed in some hidden form, which gets distorted and
dangerous.
In extreme cases, the sex urge may be denied
(suppressed) so fully that it is in great measure
destroyed. One law of biology: Use it or lose it.
Example: a person confined to bed for many months must
learn to walk all over again.
So it is with the sex urge. It is a fine and precious
gift when used in the right way, but a potential source
of tragedy when it is not. It would seem wise for young
people to give sex urge enough expression to keep it
warm and alive for marriage, while avoiding the dangers
of its misuse.
It is hard to say which extreme holds the harsher
hazards - total expression or total repression or
suppression of the sex urge. Both can ruin lives.
That's why Principle 1 is: Avoid both extremes.
PRINCIPLE 2. Don't light more fires than you can put out.
If your goal is avoiding the two extremes - full
repression and full expression - the trick is to give
the sex drive a healthy expression without going too
far. But how far is far enough?
The answer to that question may depend on your age and
maturity, your level of will power, your ability to keep
control of yourself, and your situation at a given time.
Can you say no to yourself and others - and mean it?
One principle would seem sound for all to follow.
Express your warm emotions enough to keep them alive and
healthy, but don't go so far that you're in even worse
emotional shape when you stop than you were before.
Don't arouse more passion than you satisfy, or you'll
end up restless and frustrated and full of gnawing
desire. If you're more disturbed and unhappy than you
were to begin with, just what have you gained? Besides,
you're probably skating on thin ice. Next time you may
not be able to stop.
PRINCIPLE 3. Avoid all chance of pregnancy.
Pregnancy can happen without penetration (sexual
intercourse). Sperm can swim around in any favorably
moist substance that's at body temperature. Estimates
of the number of live sperm in each discharge range all
the way from two million up to 500 million. If a couple
engages in heavy petting and the male ejaculates, some
of the discharge may be introduced to the moist surface
of the female genitals - the vulva - via the fingers, or
in genital-to-genital petting. The whole environment is
so moist that sperm can easily find their way right into
the egg through the opening of the vagina. In this way,
a virgin will conceive.
PRINCIPLE 4. Set your own limit - and stick to it.
Decide what your limit will be, and make sure it is a
sound and sober choice. You'll want to think it through
beforehand and not wait until you're breathing hard in
a red-hot petting session. You'll want your mind to
rule your emotions, not the other way round. Follow
your head, not your passion. It's best to stop firmly
before there's even the slightest risk that you might
"lose your head" - and with it your virtue.
The toughest test comes once you're engaged. After
you're fully committed to each other, it may be hard
indeed to keep from going all the way. Remember: one
out of three engaged couples break up without marrying.
Some males expect the female to be the one who puts the
brakes on sex. But just because you're a guy, you are
not excused from responsibility to set limits on your
own sexual behavior. You have the duty to act
responsibly just as much as the female has. If you want
the woman you marry to be a virgin, you have no right to
be other than virgin for her. You should always assume
that NO MEANS NO. Otherwise, your actions are regarded
as date-raping.
PRINCIPLE 5. Couples who care, should share.
If you and another person come to care a great deal for
each other, you should talk frankly about just how far
you will go in sharing sexual affection. If you care
enough about each other to want to go beyond casual
kissing, then you know each other well enough to be
frank about your feelings.
So before things go very far, talk it all over calmly in
a serious, honest atmosphere. Let each other know how
you feel. Decide together just where your limit is
going to be. Then both of you should take equal
responsibility to hold that line. If one of you
threatens to lose control, then the other must call a
halt.
The chart below provides a comparison of contraceptive success
during the first year of use by teens vs. women overall. If
you are an inexperienced user, treat yourself as teens.
METHOD OVERALL TEENS
Pill 94% 89%
Condom 80-86% 45-86%
Diaphragm 84% 84%
Rhythm 84% 69%
Spermicides 74% 74%
UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED
As of now, no other current methods of contraception are considered
effective enough to count on. The only sure way to avoid pregnancy
is not to have intercourse at all. Put another way, the only 100%
effective oral contraceptive is the word "NO!"
It is dumb - really dumb - to take all those chances of fouling up
your whole life for the sake of a few sexual thrills for the moment.
The evidence is clear and overriding: It is very easy to get
pregnant. One out of every three unmarried teenage girls who
becomes sexually active gets pregnant. Of these, one in five gets
pregnant the very first month she starts having sex!
SO WHAT ARE THE CHOICES?
Since going all the way to intercourse involves such serious risks,
how can one deal with all those deep sexual urges? You have a
number of options.
1. ABSTAIN. You can use will power. No one has to have sex.
Many go without having sex for years or even a
lifetime without negative results.
2. PLAN. Plan ahead and decide how far down the "road to
arousal" you think you should go. Go no farther.
Express your emotions up to that point, and then
just call a halt.
3. SUBLIMATE. You can firmly decide to engage in some other
kinds of things as a deliberate substitute for
giving in to your sex drive. It could be sports,
exercise, art, or some hobby - almost anything
that really holds your interest. This can
distract your attention away from thoughts of
sex.
4. AVOID. Avoid all the kinds of things that can tempt you.
Stay away from the "R" or "X" types of movies, or
books or magazines that are likely to arouse your
sex urges. Try not to let yourself get into
situations with your dates where having sex would
be easy.
WHAT ABOUT MASTURBATION?
There is no scientific proof that masturbation will harm a person.
However, if you worry a lot about it or feel deep guilt, it can
affect your mental health. It may even enter the gray area of
sinning if you fantasize about another person while masturbating.
BUT WHAT IF I'M NO LONGER A VIRGIN?
Many have already had, or are still having premarital sex. Can you
get back on track and erase some, perhaps most of, the damage that
may have been done? Yes, you certainly can. So don't give up.
Here is the good news. If you stop doing it, the longer you refrain
from it, the less most of these negatives will apply to you. You
cannot regain your physical virginity. But you can become a
"psychological virgin" by turning your life around and saying "NO!"
from this point on. Also, NO sin is so awful that Christ's shed
blood can't cover it. Read John 8:1-11, Romans 8:1, I John 1:9.
SCRIPTURES THAT HELP TO PUT BRAKES ON SEXUAL SIN
1. Seek Marital Satisfaction. Proverbs 5:15-19; I Corinthians
7:1-5; Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Avoid Temptations. I Corinthians 6:18; II Timothy 2:22; James
1:13-15.
3. Resist Temptations. Luke 4:1-13; I Corinthians 10:13;
Philippians 4:13; James 4:7.
4. Continue in Spiritual Development. Psalm 119:9-11; Ephesians
6:12-18; Hebrews 10:25; James 5:16; I John 1:9.
5. Obey God's Word. Romans 12:1,2; I Thessalonians 4:1-7; James
1:21-22.
6. Learn from Observation. Proverbs 7:6-23.
7. Desire Personal Fulfillment. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26; 3:9-14;
Luke 6:38; 9:24.
8. Depend upon God. Acts 1:8; Romans 8:2-4; Ephesians 6:10-11;
Psalm 50:15.
9. One Flesh. Genesis 1:27; 2:22-24.
10. One Spouse. Exodus 20:14,17; Matthew 5:28,32.
ABORTION
BEGINNING OF LIFE
God considers people who are still in their mother's wombs "fully
human." Read Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew
you, and before you were born I consecrated you." This is
conclusive evidence that human life starts inside the womb of the
mother. Therefore, abortion of any sort could be possibly regarded
as killing a human life. However, since it is impossible to prove
conclusively from the Scripture that the zygote or embryo is an
immortal soul, abortion can be viewed as a sin of reckless violence,
a possible homicide, and that abortion of a fetus is a crime, almost
certainly a homicide, deserving severe punishment, but not
necessarily deserving capital punishment.
APPLICATION
1. Right to choose - May a mother choose to kill her child if she
so wants? No, a mother has no rights to choose abortion.
2. Economic and social well-being - May a mother kill her child
for economic reasons? No, a mother has no right to abort her
baby on the bases of economic and social well-being.
3. Mental health of mother - Is the potential of psychological
damage to be compared with the certain loss of life and the
possible agony of a violent, painful, and protracted dying?
4. Life of the mother - Protestants historically justify abortion
when a continued pregnancy would put the life of the mother in
jeopardy on the basis of self-defense and on the basis of
choosing the lesser of two evils - the loss of a wife, and,
possibly, mother, being a greater loss to the family and
society. Here, the intention is to save the mother, and is
not to kill the baby. It is analogous to that a doctor may
not cut up your leg if he chooses to, but he may amputate your
leg in order to save your life.
5. Unwanted children - Why not rather face the consequences of
one's past choices and make sure that the child is wanted,
either by the natural parents or by others who stand in line
waiting the opportunity to adopt?
6. Rape, incest, and the handicapped - The mother's lack of
responsibility for the conception does not remove the child's
inalienable right to life. The unborn child is not the
attacker but is, in fact, a second victim who should not
receive capital punishment for his father's crime. A second
act of violence cannot correct the first. Also, If the
handicapped fetus is human, like the handicapped child or
adult, has the right to life.
OTHER BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES
Read Exodus 21:22-25, Psalm 139:13-16, Ephesians 1:4.
[Christian Links]