Religious people: Did you feel any guilt when you lost your virginity?

[Larry Mondello]

There's my original post in full. If it is not the atheistic and neo-pagan views of the so called "left", then who is it that is promoting pre-marital sex? It certainly is not coming from the Bible.

I did not blame every one of my woes on this. I simply resented, and still resent, the sort of blind, full charge ahead blitzkrieg of certain elements in society that support loose sexual expectations.

Agree sexual promiscuity isn't anything good and shouldn't be encouraged.

Far from being off topic, it is a direct response to the OP. To paraphrase, "No I did not feel guilt. I felt betrayed by people who told me it was something I really ought to go ahead and do." I then defined which people.

Shane,
Your views are fine here.
Thanks for contributing.

You're like many, me included, who got sexually involved but shouldn't have.

Lemmee ask you this, Shane:
were you a Christian at the time?
...or, was this before you became a Christian, as in my case (in HS)?

 

[Shane Roach]

The "forward thinking" portion of my sentence was meant to imply that God might have concerns about irresponsible sexual behavior in the context of other things - the entire welfare of society, impact on child rearing and bearing, ideas of shared responsibilities and an eye towards perhaps shared expectations.

You know, one of those long, involved discussions that you have already had a thousand times and already know everything about.

I've tried repeatedly to get into such discussions here. What happens is that someone comes along and takes each and every sentence out of context, makes a thousand straw men, mows them all down without an ounce or shred of thought or insight, and then claims unilateral victory for the superiority of Atheism over religion.

I'm all done even pretending to have any respect for that, or for the people who see it and even participate in it regularly who then act ever so shocked when people express their exasperation over it.

Do "Christians" do that too? Of course they do. Does it make it right? No. No it does not.

The preponderance of atheists, neo pagans, and other anti-Christians that fill the open boards here, however, prevents me from noticing usually when a Christian does it. It always just strikes me as someone trying to exercise their right to self defense. Theoretically, this is meant to be a site for Christians to gather, support one another, and give whatever advice, assistance, or insight is possible to people who are curious about Christianity. I could probably break out my notes and tell you almost to the date when the policy came about changing sharing insights with non believers to subjecting one's self to unending abuse from non believers. I used to have some extremely good, if sometimes tense, discussions with a group of atheists and agnostic types that came here I want to say well over 8 years ago now, but at a certain point the rules got to the point where people could no longer find their comfort zones, and the whole situation got carried behind closed doors where people basically began to be culled from the site whenever they crossed what left leaning admins believed was proper behavior. I had it presented to me on many occasions that this was "because Christians should know better."

You are free to not believe me, of course. It's not going to change what I have experienced and what I know from hovering around here for a long, LONG time.

No, I don't. But all these threads are repeats. Nothing new under the sun. Most of my posts are short, because I have already discussed most of these talking points ad nauseum. I don't have to have an entire entrée's worth of word salad to make a point. Besides, I normally post here out of sheer boredom when things are excrutiatingly slow at work.

In your own defense, you did not say that pre-marital sex automatically, unequivocally buys one a one-way ticket to hell. BUT, you did say that a forward thinking god might, and that it would be justified. There's little difference, in my own mind, between the justifications of sending someone to hell for pre-marital sex without exception and maybe sending someone to hell for pre-marital sex. Either way, the possibility is on the table, and either way it's justifiable (according to you), and either way it's despicable if you ask me.

 

[Shane Roach]

Agree sexual promiscuity isn't anything good and shouldn't be encouraged.


Shane,
Your views are fine here.
Thanks for contributing.

You're like many, me included, who got sexually involved but shouldn't have.

Lemmee ask you this, Shane:
were you a Christian at the time?
...or, was this before you became a Christian, as in my case (in HS)?

I was a Christian not yet well versed in the Bible. I had a lot of confidence in it, but it was fairly blind and ignorant confidence at the time. Plus I had what seems, in retrospect, to be a legitimate feeling that just HAVING sex without yet being married is not a huge big deal as long as other things are taken care of. So like... in the Old Testament where you find that a young man and young lady have sex before they are married, long as they marry everything is fine. There is also an allowance for the girl's father to nix the marriage and take a monetary penalty from the young man (or old man, I guess... it does not specify. I just tend to think of it in terms of the young and impetuous.)

Bottom line, there is no death penalty for pre-marital or extra marital sex in the Old Testament. In fact, barring the involvement of a virgin, there is no penalty for sex outside of marriage AT ALL, which to me says a lot about how important marriage was at the time that you go from a sort of legal no man's land to the death penalty.

You will search the scripture in vain for a legal penalty for prostitution as well. And yet there is nary a positive word to be found about prostitution.

Subtle, huh? It's almost as if people in ancient times weren't abject morons, and had some sense of things being bad, but that over reacting to them might be worse.........

Anyhow, I read the Bible through some.... I think two to three years afterwards, and that's when it struck me that I had really sacrificed some real blessings, even put God himself in a rather humiliating position in the process (one of my experiences was with a prostitute). Once I got through my self doubt over that, I began to take much more seriously the Biblical warnings about the nature of the un-Godly. It flat out tells you, "Oh yeah, they will not only do immoral things, but they will promote it and congratulate others who also do them."

And indeed they do....

And all of these values have a basis in objective reality if you examine your own experiences, history, and the law. So it's not SPECIFICALLY a Christian thing. It's just amazing how the preponderance of non Christians leap fairly quickly to the conclusion that anything in the Bible is suspect, even the seemingly most obvious, like maybe the activity most closely associated with strong, passionate feelings of love and attachment should not be made casual and tawdry, and that the behavior responsible for the multiplication of human life might be treated with more dignity, respect, and soberness than say a game of football.

It's the fact that irreligious people spend so much effort trying to poo poo things that are just obviously good that adds to my faith as I get older. There is no rational reason for dozens of people to flock to a Christian site to mock people who talk about the importance of being responsible sexually, and insult the Biblical teachings on the matter as just hopelessly stupid and, in some of their cases, accusing the Biblical teachings of being abjectly evil.

More than you asked for... But that's sort of the outline of how I came to where I am today on the topic.

 

[jminnesota]

i think its safe to say that if you have sex before your married its not a bad thing. but god would want or hope you wait but if you cant then at least sleep with someone you are deep in love with.

 

[Gadarene]

There's my original post in full. If it is not the atheistic and neo-pagan views of the so called "left", then who is it that is promoting pre-marital sex? It certainly is not coming from the Bible.

I did not blame every one of my woes on this. I simply resented, and still resent, the sort of blind, full charge ahead blitzkrieg of certain elements in society that support loose sexual expectations.

Far from being off topic, it is a direct response to the OP. To paraphrase, "No I did not feel guilt. I felt betrayed by people who told me it was something I really ought to go ahead and do." I then defined which people.

*shrug* Fair enough. I shan't dispute the point further, the issue for me was about relevance over content. I'm not personally bothered who posts about what where, for the most part.

The problem here is that what certain people consider off-topic and what they don't is somewhat arbitrary, and biased in favour of Christian posters.

 

[Adam1983]

Religious people:
Did you feel any guilt when you lost your virginity if you lost it outside of engagement/ marriage?

If so, how did you deal with the guilt?

Understand it's a touchy subject, but am curious how you may have dealt with the guilt and loss of innocence.....

I was 26 and I met a girl on MySpace. She seemed cool and I liked her, so we flirted and one night after work she told me to come over to her place...and you know what happened next. Since then I have been with 12 other women.

I did not feel guilty and I have been a Christian my entire life. When I mean entire, I mean from infancy on.

But honestly, I know God doesn't love me any less because of my indiscretions. I have self-esteem issues as well as low self-confidence, so I guess I always slept around because it was a reassurance to me that I was desirable to women.

 

[Shane Roach]

*shrug* Fair enough. I shan't dispute the point further, the issue for me was about relevance over content. I'm not personally bothered who posts about what where, for the most part.

The problem here is that what certain people consider off-topic and what they don't is somewhat arbitrary, and biased in favour of Christian posters.

Well, sure. It is, after all, "Christian Forums", not "Huffington Post".

I rather like the Huffington Post if I am looking for information about economics, but I don't go there for the opinions of Bible believing Christians.

I honest to God do not mean that as a dig against you. I think it would be nice, as a Christian, to have someplace to go where I could discuss things with non Christians and yet be safe from the heavy anti-Christian bias pertaining to specific issues. Disagree? Sure. But on a Christian website, I would hope people would be sensitive to the sensibilities of the people for whom the site was ostensibly designed.

I've tried to get this point across for years now. I am absolutely against just shutting the site off against anyone who holds specific anti-Christian views, but for people who are deeply anti-Christian in their thinking to the point where even thinking about how Christians believe makes them viscerally angry, I would hope that they would perhaps take a break from visiting a specifically Christian site so that I, in my turn, could STOP taking long breaks from the ostensibly Christian site.

I need my brothers and sisters in Christ. Most of you who come here to berate us, don't. There's a balance that needs to be attained, and in this specific site I would hope someone at some time would cede that as a Christian site that balance needs to err, from time to time, in favor of those who have faith in Christ. I mean, Christians largely purport to believe they have a specific relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, and that faith in God is automatically, to an extent, enmity with the rest of the world, so....

There's lots of things to consider, and perhaps even dislike or fear about Christianity. I just believe that a Christian site is not the appropriate place to expect completely equal treatment when discussing those issues. I don't see a problem with a moderate level of favoritism towards them.

Do you seriously object to a site where Christian views are favored by the moderation staff?

 

[Shane Roach]

This is an interesting read about the same issues I am whining about from a slightly more left leaning viewpoint, albeit still a decidedly Christ-sympathetic one.

Sarah Ruden, a joyful iconoclast - Rod Dreher


I am only now finding out how much I like this Sarah Ruden person. Here's another insightful article in which she makes observation of the same issue.

In the highly respected 1994 University of Chicago study “Sex in America,” faithful married partners — solid majorities of both men and women — reported the most and the best sex. And if two prolonged wars and economic hard times have made those throngs of the satisfied less satisfied, Camille Paglia wouldn’t know about it. She cannot bear to look at any evidence of sex quietly integrated into life, as in marriage. Sex, she has long argued, properly strives to be itself (whatever that might be), free from social and even biological tyranny. (“For a fetus is a benign tumor, a vampire who steals in order to live.&#8221

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249539/prisoner-sex-sarah-ruden
http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/02/the-iconoclastic-sarah-ruden.html

 

[Gadarene]

Well, sure. It is, after all, "Christian Forums", not "Huffington Post".

I rather like the Huffington Post if I am looking for information about economics, but I don't go there for the opinions of Bible believing Christians.

I honest to God do not mean that as a dig against you.

Genuine thanks for the consideration, but I did not see it as such. I do however see it as an inadequate response to my point.

Just because this forum is "your turf", so to speak - that's not an excuse for inconsistency in argument and in how you treat one group compared to another. I do pick up Christians for it here - I try and pick people in general up on it wherever possible. I do it to atheists on other boards that are predominantly atheist. It's something I try to be consistent on, and it's frustrating when people can't be bothered to do the same. Yes, it happens in a place full of like-minded people. That's still not an excuse to let it continue.

I know I wouldn't find similar opinion here - but I'm not looking for agreement. What I'm looking for at the minimum is consistency.

I think it would be nice, as a Christian, to have someplace to go where I could discuss things with non Christians and yet be safe from the heavy anti-Christian bias pertaining to specific issues. Disagree? Sure. But on a Christian website, I would hope people would be sensitive to the sensibilities of the people for whom the site was ostensibly designed.

I've tried to get this point across for years now. I am absolutely against just shutting the site off against anyone who holds specific anti-Christian views, but for people who are deeply anti-Christian in their thinking to the point where even thinking about how Christians believe makes them viscerally angry, I would hope that they would perhaps take a break from visiting a specifically Christian site so that I, in my turn, could STOP taking long breaks from the ostensibly Christian site.

I need my brothers and sisters in Christ. Most of you who come here to berate us, don't. There's a balance that needs to be attained, and in this specific site I would hope someone at some time would cede that as a Christian site that balance needs to err, from time to time, in favor of those who have faith in Christ. I mean, Christians largely purport to believe they have a specific relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, and that faith in God is automatically, to an extent, enmity with the rest of the world, so....

I don't really know what to say to this. I'm somewhat sympathetic, and yet I'm not. There are I don't know how many boards here, most of which are off-limits to us. And from what I've seen, we stick to those boundaries. Even on boards with a mixed regular population, if the Christians want to have a "holy huddle" and swap favourite songs etc, I've rarely seen a non-Christian go in there to stir things up.

But if someone's on an open board like this one, making claims, then those claims are fair game. If you open a board up to us, I'm not about to hold back just because the venue isn't "my turf". (And frankly, I much prefer this board than whichever one it is where the nonChristian:Christian ratio in every topic is fixed at 1:bloodyloads). If you want atheists to participate, and where they're are at is a particular level of iconoclasm, then to some degree that's going to show up in the discussion. If that becomes too much - I don't think you're short of safe spaces on this forum, frankly. What fellowship is to be found in a board discussing ethics and morality? Or why can a dilemma not be brought to the fellowship boards?

There's lots of things to consider, and perhaps even dislike or fear about Christianity. I just believe that a Christian site is not the appropriate place to expect completely equal treatment when discussing those issues. I don't see a problem with a moderate level of favoritism towards them.

Do you seriously object to a site where Christian views are favored by the moderation staff?

I see that it's going to happen, but I don't necessarily think it means outright bias. It may simply be a consequence of the board's population dynamics and the fact that atheists are significantly outnumbered by Christians, so the minority's posts may end up reported more than the other as there are more people on the other side liable to get rubbed the wrong way and report. If the mods are only able to effectively respond to the posts that get reported - quite likely on a large board - then they are probably going to be coming down more on posts by the minority opposition.

I've seen this happen before on boards with predominantly atheist/left posters and a minority of religious/right posters - and predominantly atheist/left mods. There is a bit of bias in the moderating, but it's not intentional or malicious.

I expect some bias in how specific rules are formulated, e.g. some boards are totally out of bounds for non-Christians, blasphemy is against the rules (although I happen to think blasphemy is rather too slippery a term in general, but anyway) - but when a non-Christian does the same thing in discussion as a Christian and the non-Christian gets slammed by someone for it, I get annoyed.

This is all rather tangential, as it happens - the issue I have is not with the mods, who I've no complaints about and have had very little contact with during my albeit brief spell here. The issue I have is about personal consistency on the part of some posters. Inconsistency is a great weakness, as far as I'm concerned - I do try my utmost to root out my own, and I do wish some others would at least make a similar effort.

 

[jminnesota]

well you put and bunch of christians in a room and they will all have different views on different topics. bottom line as long as you love god and talk to god and have a personal relationship with god he knows you as a person and knows if what your doing is right or wrong. christians should not force there views on others. if some feel sex before married is wrong then keep it to themselfs. let god judge not you.

 

[Anna Scott]

That's what my mom always taught us. Instead of absolute abstinence, she taught us responsible sexuality. Not a one of us had a kid a before age 20, and I think it is because she was open, honest, and, instead of ignoring reality, taught us to do everything responsibly.

Episcoboi,

Actually, I did the same with my son. I talked to him about the ideal, which is to wait until marriage; but ideal isn't always the case.

It certainly wasn't the case for me. I actually married partially out of guilt over sex, and "guilt" isn't exactly the right reason to marry.

I think one of the reasons premarital sex is so common among young people is because our social evolution is out of sync with the onset of puberty. For much of human history, a young woman was married as soon as she was able to have children.

Today, we encourage our children to wait, until after college to get married. So you have about 15 years between puberty and marriage. That's an uphill battle that pits hormones against abstinence.

Abstinence until marriage is the ideal. I'm not promoting premarital sex; but I think respect, responsibility, and protection should all be part of the discussion.

 

[JCFantasy23]

I was 26 and I met a girl on MySpace. She seemed cool and I liked her, so we flirted and one night after work she told me to come over to her place...and you know what happened next. Since then I have been with 12 other women.

I did not feel guilty and I have been a Christian my entire life. When I mean entire, I mean from infancy on.

But honestly, I know God doesn't love me any less because of my indiscretions. I have self-esteem issues as well as low self-confidence, so I guess I always slept around because it was a reassurance to me that I was desirable to women.

Self-esteem issues can be harsh dealing with. Hope that's gotten better for you.

 

[jminnesota]

yea i would teach kids to hopefully wait til they are married but if they cant wait at least wait til they are old enough and they found someone they love. to me teenagers dont understand what sex is yet they think its cool cause there friends do it they dont really know what it is and dont understand. but at same time if my someday teen came up to me and said they had sex with someone i would not be mad but i would suport them and give them advice and hopefully they wait before doing it again.

 

[Larry Mondello]

I was 26 and I met a girl on MySpace. She seemed cool and I liked her, so we flirted and one night after work she told me to come over to her place...and you know what happened next. Since then I have been with 12 other women.

I did not feel guilty and I have been a Christian my entire life. When I mean entire, I mean from infancy on.

But honestly, I know God doesn't love me any less because of my indiscretions. I have self-esteem issues as well as low self-confidence, so I guess I always slept around because it was a reassurance to me that I was desirable to women .

Have heard of insecure women doing that, but never men.
Guess it happens to men too, and women aren't really different from men in that way, needing approval and acceptance from others.

 

[fuji]

I just noticed that sex stuff comes up a lot here.

I mean I am apart of other forums and if someone wrote a title like that there, it would be pure chaos!

I dont know how to feel about it, but I do kind of like how open we all are.

Also I love you guys

 

[If Not For Grace]

You didn't feel like you had done something that can't be reversed and a desperation to change it as well as feeling like you have let down yourself, everybody else and God? If not, consider yourself lucky.

Not in the least; more like a so that's what all the fuss is about.

Me Too Daisy-When I read the 1st statement I was like " Do What?"

I wonder if the same would be said about Gossip, Eating Catfish, Telling a Lie, using profanity or someone who took a drink BF legal age?

Suppose your husband or wife is a widower and you are the second spouse..Have you lost anything in the relationship b/c your spouse was not a virgin? If anything look at the positive-you gain a partner with experience.
I don't even buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first & I got a lot less investment in shoes than I do a partner.

 

[If Not For Grace]

Larry:

Have heard of insecure women doing that, but never men.

What kind of men did you suppose were sleeping with all those insecure women?

 

[Larry Mondello]

I just noticed that sex stuff comes up a lot here.

I mean I am apart of other forums and if someone wrote a title like that there, it would be pure chaos!

I dont know how to feel about it, but I do kind of like how open we all are.

Also I love you guys

Have been long involved at LoveShack.org, a secular relationship board which has Christian participants.

Surprisingly, didn't see a lot of chaos with a similar thread I started there.
Religious people: Did you feel any guilt when you lost your virginity? - LoveShack.org Community Forums

There is one provacateur there who acts like he's The Accuser and Satan, always pointing fingers at Christians for "fornicating," so proud HE didn't "fornicate" before marriage....
LoveShack.org Community Forums

Originally Posted by 123321
I was married when I "lost" my virginity and I didn't feel a shred of guilt about it.



Originally Posted by FredRutherford
Yes, you've already posted that.
Made a big deal about it, then went after those Christians who didn't wait and called them "fornicators."



Originally Posted by 123321
Well, a spade a spade and all that. Look up fornicator and then tell me I used the word incorrectly.
I don't care what people do, but if they say something shouldn't be done and then do it, they are pretty lame, and if they then seek to justify their case as OK, they are the lowest of the low.
Period.
If you can't live up to being a Christian or whatever, don't pretend, be honest about it. God hates a liar, I'm told.


Originally Posted by FredRutherford
True, but you're not Satan, the Adversary nor Accuser.
'tisn't your job to accuse people of sins.

Is good you waited and didn't have sex outside of marriage. I genuinely think that's a good thing.
However, not every one does and those that do wouldn't claim to be "sinless." They have other shortcomings.

So your fault-finding here not necessary.

But no worry.
I'm there to take him to the woodshed.

 

[Larry Mondello]

Suppose your husband or wife is a widower and you are the second spouse..Have you lost anything in the relationship b/c your spouse was not a virgin? If anything look at the positive-you gain a partner with experience.
I don't even buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first & I got a lot less investment in shoes than I do a partner.

I never bought the "must drive the car first" argument on dating and sex.

A woman I dated in my mid-20s, a non-virgin but limited experience Pentecostalist, once asked me if I was "one of those guys who wants a test drive."

Nope, told her.
We remained platonic those 3-4 mos. we dated.
Sounded like other guys, "Christian" men, pressured her.

Never gained romantic feelings for her and couldn't see it going anywhere.
When I broke it off, one of the rare times I ever broke a relationship up (usually, "Christian" women were the ones that broke my heart:o), she "offered" herself to me if I'd stay....
Said thanks and appreciate the tempting offer, but....
Though she was an attractive blonde most guys would've been happy with, couldn't see having sex with someone I didn't have feelings for.

Sure, I could've made love with her, but though she'd had some sex with another guy, didn't want to harm her Christian morality.
Wasn't such a "strong" Christian then as I had been in college, but still.... I knew that wouldn't be good and after 2 casuals I'd had the year before her.... didn't want that regret.

Turned-down an offer from another non-virgin never-married Christian woman a year later that I dated for 1.5 yrs.

Though she was in her mid-30s (I was 27), she was conflicted about it so didn't wanna go all the way, which I understood.
And I didn't press her, though I wanted her.
However, didn't mean we didn't do "other things" short of intercourse

, which I now regret.

One night, she told me she wanted me.

But like a fool, and knowing her stance and afraid of what she'd think of me ("some 'Christian' you are... look what you did" -- honestly, I saw us getting married) and afraid she'd had too much wine... I questioned her.
See what a great "gentleman" I was?
Even when "invited", I wouldn't accept.

I hope those women appreciate how I treated them... and hope God saw my actions... and caution about sinning...
Really... I did feel a lot of guilt... but still wanted a woman's sexual love.....

Here I was... a "dating loser" for most my 20s.... and women OFFERED themselves to me...
Am sure many guys wouldn't have hesitated...

 

[Larry Mondello]

I don't even buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first & I got a lot less investment in shoes than I do a partner.

Maybe it's just me, but "newness" or "innocence" is sometimes a good thing and something many prefer, men and women. Am talking about singles in their early-mid-20s.

Even some agnostic virgin women I dated in my late 20s felt that way.

This isn't to say I think those that engage in sex outside of marriage are "evil" and "going to hell," as I myself did a little of that in my mid-20s...
Felt I "deserved" some things in life and took matters in my own hands, outside of God's will.

A couple of years later, when met future wife in my early 30s, had "loosened-up" some and she and I had a lot of sex (on weekends) in our LDR.
However, this was in a monogomous relationship...
And yes, as nominal Christians (then), she and I did feel some guilt.
That came out during engagement in talks with the lay couple at her Catholic church..