Promiscuous society

[redblue22]

I'll go with the non-fornication way, thank you.

My own experience is that women want sex much more than a marriage. They seem sex crazed.

As for young people not caring about sex, I don't see lack of desire. It is much the opposite. But maybe some Christian groups don't want sex. Then again, I've not seen any lack of sexuality and desire in my own experience of Christians. I'm more inclined to think that the few who are against sex are putting on a show.

 

[mnphysicist]

While electronic comms does affect relationships, I saw churches promoting dysfunctional sexual ethics rolling all the way back to the 80's, albeit it was pretty limited in scope. Sadly, such accelerated a great deal after the Josh Harris book and the purity culture movement became more mainstream in the late 90s. Purity on its own is not a bad thing, but turning it into a idol most certainly crosses the line.

For sure, no one wants teenagers mating like rabbits, and at the same time, setting up young couples for dysfunctional at best or even failed marriages isn't good either. This is not to say that marriage without sex is guaranteed to fail, but that the path unless both partners are on the exact same path is going to be filled with heartache. The scriptures are pretty hard core on its importance too (within the confines of marriage), but it would likely be jumping the shark to use such as a sermon material.

My fear is that a lot of these girls do want to get married but will never develop the desire for physical intimacy. They have developed a permanent repulsion for it. It is usually a trait of younger people, not something that is developed over time when your hormone levels begin to drop. I am not really in fear of a lack of babies...(our hospital usually has all 50 beds in postpartum close to full on a daily basis) but rather a lack of quality marriages.

This was my exact fear when I first came across the idolatry of purity garbage... its like egads, do you know what you are setting these young folks up for? And in a sea of secular promiscuity, not many folks did... but the number of young couples in trouble sure went through the ceiling. And unwinding this sort of thing is very difficult, if its even possible within a given marriage context. Personally, I'd never marry a young couple wrapped up in it... its just too dangerous.

 

[Servant68]

I'll go with the non-fornication way, thank you.

My own experience is that women want sex much more than a marriage. They seem sex crazed.

As for young people not caring about sex, I don't see lack of desire. It is much the opposite. But maybe some Christian groups don't want sex. Then again, I've not seen any lack of sexuality and desire in my own experience of Christians. I'm more inclined to think that the few who are against sex are putting on a show.

This has been exactly my experience. Not sure if I'm allowed to talk about it, though...

Of the few "Christian" women I've either dated or gotten to know well enough to make observations of, they seem to fall into two distinct groups. Mind you this is the age group of 35 to 50 year olds...

The first group call themselves Christian, may even go to church on a semi regular basis, seem sweet and attractive, but as soon as you get involved with them romantically, they behave like sex starved college girls gone wild.

It's like they are so empty inside, that they are using intimacy and physical relations as a replacement for the Holy Spirit. They tend to hold very mature job roles and are successful professionally, but emotionally and morally are a train wreck.

The second group I've noticed are the ones that have been so emotionally burned by past relationships that they withdraw from social interaction beyond church and Bible study. They turn so completely to God and spiritual dedication that they won't entertain the thought of a romantic relationship. They concentrate on their kids, or their career, or service to the church and shun any attempts at relationships.

I visited a friend's church last week and there was a beautiful 40's-something woman on the worship team. She seemed so peaceful and full of the Spirit.

After the service, I talked with my friend and remarked how great their worship team was. He asked if I noticed the one woman and I said yes. He then said she is single, super sweet, a great person, but does not date and is concentrating only on her degree, her son, and her church. Apparently my friend's wife is good friends with her.

Now, I think that is extremely admirable and completely sound from a Biblical perspective. Women like that have my utmost respect and I think find favor in the eyes of God.

At first my reaction was to accept the challenge and try to woo her (can we say "woo" here??). What a shame that she is missing out on the wonderful experience of dating me. Yes. That was sarcasm.

But is she really missing anything? Are other women who choose to remain single and eschew male/female romantic relationships in favor of deeper walks with God really missing out?

I think Paul nailed(are we allowed to say "nailed"??) it when he advised it was better to remain single, but if you cannot resist the temptation of passion, then you should marry.

I cannot resist the temptation of passion; the hard part is finding a woman with a heart for God and for passion within the proper Biblical construct of a relationship.

 

[dayhiker]

Servant ... I love how honest you are about what you see and where you are. Also I see you are worried about crossing a line here on CF. I have tended to back on being honest here on mature about my life and what is working for me because of going afoul of the rules. We had a time in here 3-4 yrs ago when we had some very honest conversations about our lives, they felt so loving and helpful to me. Then a tough situation happened and things happened that resulted in hurt emotions because of the rules and some even left.
To me your well within acceptable posts. But I seem to be quite gun shy right now.

 

[Lybrah]

To be single and devoted to your faith and hence virgin far into your twenties absurdly makes one LESS attractive in that eyes of most girls and I'm sure by most men the other way around.

Really? Not this girl.

 

[blackribbon]

To be single and devoted to your faith and hence virgin far into your twenties absurdly makes one LESS attractive in that eyes of most girls and I'm sure by most men the other way around.

Why? Do you really believe that women want men who potentially carry STDs or will compare them to other women? women want men who can't control themselves?

Maybe they are more attractive to women who don't value purity so are "experienced" themselves.

 

[dayhiker]

It might be me as a man, but it never mattered to me if I found a virgin or not even when I was young. Of course now that I'm old, I'd be shocked if I ran into a woman who was dating who was a virgin. From my study of the Bible it seems to me purity was more about not worshiping idols than not being sexual. Now idol worship I would be concern about. I guess control is how one define it. I've meet a few people that I thought were out of control, but most people seemed to me to be in control to me.

STIs never seemed like a bit deal either to me. Protection seems to do a pretty good job. So far in my lifetime they can be dealt with STIs effectively enough for me. Tho it does look like we might be close to the end of antibiotics unless we get some serious research going again along this line. If that happens, then it wouldn't be just STIs that are the problem. But this stuff changes ever few years with new medicines and new strains of viruses.