Sex... losing a part of yourself!?!?

While I agree how that was done is distasteful and weird as heck, the one true fact is anyone who has sex before marriage is giving part of themselves away. A part they cannot get back for their honeymoon night when they marry. Its a part you regret giving out if not married.

Torino said:

For those interested, male microchimerism in women without sons. Notice that the prevalence is highest in women who got abortions. Can you figure out why?

Male microchimerism in women without sons: quantitative assessment and correlation with pregnancy history. - PubMed - NCBI

Click to expand...

What has this got to do with the discussion you started?

Tetra said:

To answer your second paragraph, and I'd prefer not to get into too much in this thread, but Scripture can be BOTH inerrant, and have a cultural context. In your comment above, it's implies these are mutually exclusive, they are not.

Part of hermeneutics is understanding cultural context, and yes, I personally would think understanding this is necessary to understanding Scripture.

Click to expand...

Of course everything in the Bible has a cultural context, and of course understanding that is essential to understanding parts of scripture, but that's not really what I was getting at. However, if that's outside the scope of this thread I won't push for an answer.

Noscentia said:

I do think this exercise was somewhat poorly thought out. Forcing shame on people really isn't the point, you can't scare people into genuine faith, faith is a gift and with faith naturally comes shame at disobeying our creator. As a teaching exercise it is sorely lacking. In the first place, it definitely applies every bit as much to the man as it does to the woman. Adultery is adultery and fornication is fornication regardless of who's committing it and in that sense everyone loses. What it should be about is how indulging in sin gives us up more to the world and in doing so takes us further away from God. It's natural to expect we'd feel shame in doing this if we're truly repentant. I can understand, of course, why parents might feel uncomfortable having this subject taught outside the home.

Click to expand...

I honestly think people seem to feel they CAN scare people into compliance. People will claim they are called to do just that. I see that as a lack of faith personally. I don't believe they feel God can truly motivate others in life, and so they need their PUSH to get them there. I mean why else would they use shame? Jesus never did.

Repentance and Contrition is a must for individuals walk in faith, but always afterwards with a clear reminder of grace and forgiveness is needed in good measure as well. Some will indulge and come back - and should be welcome with open arms as God welcomes them. Yet, we have to remember we are dealing with humans. We are imperfect, and need to own our own sinfulness too. When we do that? We tend to be a bit less judgemental. Don't you agree? I can't say I always approach things with the grace I should. lol I'm human TOO! I doubt I will ever accomplish it, but I will try as I might to do my best!

Is that a serious question man? Lol.

I think you're looking for an echo chamber, like many here seem to be doing.

Hope you find what you're looking for.

NothingIsImpossible said:

While I agree how that was done is distasteful and weird as heck, the one true fact is anyone who has sex before marriage is giving part of themselves away. A part they cannot get back for their honeymoon night when they marry. Its a part you regret giving out if not married.

Click to expand...

Of course, the loss of virginity is a big deal. God commands his children to preserve it until marriage.
HOWEVER.

There are many who have had their virginity taken from them, as children.
And there are many who become Christians after they have already lost their virginity.
And there is also the fact that the New Testament urges widows to remarry.

Therefore, we need to not focus so much on what we may have lost, but on what God has restored.
He restores us to purity, when he forgives us!
He forgets our sin, when we ask Him to forgive us!
Can you comprehend that? I can't!

We need to focus on hungering and thirsting after God's righteousness, instead of resisting that luscious, tempting, overwhelmingly gorgeous temptation.
Just like all temptations.

Focusing on the temptation doesn't work.
Focusing on God is what matures us, and keeps us from falling.

If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we shall be filled.
And if we are hungrier for God's righteousness, than for anything else, we will have no space to be filled with sin.

We need to train our kids in loving God more than anything else.

Tetra said:

What's that "part" you lose? Where did it go? Can I eventually find it again?

Also, do you have Scripture to back your position?

Click to expand...

The parts a woman looses are her virginity, her virtue, her self respect, her pride, her reputation, her respect, and sometimes her dignity.

Women (or really what we are talking about here are girls) are much more sensitive than boys. Many times boys seldom care who or what they have sex with as long as they can get some moisture and/or some motion introduced to their private parts. They may or may not care if a girl even likes them. Some do care. I always have been very sensitive in that area. I still do not go through what a girl goes through during/after sex. A young girl is unsure of herself and gives herself to someone with the hope that he will be there for her emotionally. She literally accepts him into herself on more than one level. He is in control. He is the one who gets the pleasure (teenage boys hurt the girl more often than give her sexual pleasure) and when it's over, he has all the power to treat her well and with care or treat her like trash and she will likely feel like whichever one he chooses even if it is for a limited time. The more guys she does it with, the less she cares about how the guys feels about her, how she feels about the guys, her reputation, and her safety but deep down her spirit dies a little more as she grows colder, more cynical, more depressed and believes in true love less and less.

For some reason many boys do not have these issues with sex but some do, especially if they are having sex with older women.

bettercallpaul said:

This activity had good intention perhaps. For boys to think twice before having pre-marital sex. For boys to respect girls more. To discourage promiscuity.
But in reality, I think it may have disastrous consequences. For both girls and boys to develop a guilt/shame about sex.

Click to expand...

How about "for both girls and boys to develop a guilt/shame about premarital sex?"

Tetra,

hmm, I think I get you. Well this might be silly to say, but I've always understood the phrase "losing a part of yourself" to be a figure of speech, not that some physical substance or object is literally being taken, as per that paper.

But many of the things being referred to, such as some that rturner76 mentioned like virginity, reputation, etc., though they are abstract and not physical objects, they are still very real.

Is this what you're getting at though? That the Bible doesn't teach that a physical object or a physical substance isn't lost when a woman has casual sex?

Tetra said:

This whole idea of "losing" something is simply not true...

Click to expand...

......except the hymen?

Tetra said:

I was having a conversation with my wife about an experience she had in youth group as a young lady. This activity in youth groups was all the rage in the early 90's.

She said the youth pastor would have the girls hold a piece of paper while boys, one by one, would come up and rip a piece off (odd how the boys don't hold the paper).

The youth pastor would then claim that by having sex, girls lose a "piece of themselves". Like, how each boy owned a piece of the paper.

Okay, not only is this story so freaking disturbing and disgusting to me, if it was my daughter that this happened to in the youth group, I can't image how I'd react.

Where the heck is this in the Bible??

Click to expand...

I haven't read the other replies, but what the "youth pastor" did was a bit idiotic.
And is not supported by scripture. In sex outside of marriage both lose.
This "male dominating/conquering and woman submitting/being conquered" crap is getting a bit old.

Tetra said:

Haha, it's not an echo chamber.

Here's the thing, I believe I know the answer. Truth is, you can't "lose" a piece of yourself, that's a weird Christianese saying that's been popularized in our subculture with little to no Scriptural basis. It's silly, there is no "piece" to lose. Maybe physiologically, as a female, you lose your hymen... if it's intact, but that's about it.

If you have sex out of wedlock, part of your soul isn't missing, no piece is lost never to be found, nothing... your life isn't over, and you're a normal sinner like us all. Ask forgiveness and work on not doing it again.

This whole idea of "losing" something is simply not true...

Click to expand...

Did you have sex before marriage? If not then you won't understand what is lost. Its not a physical piece of anything that is lost (well I mean not counting the hymen of course). I mean you lose a part of yourself. Its hard to explain. When you are pregnant and you lose the baby (miscarriage) aside from losing the baby you also feel like you lose something deeper... a piece of yourself. Or when you when you become saved or leave God... you also lose something that is not physical.

Heck another example, when you fo through any number of major problems in life, such as porn addiction, it takes something away from you. Something that changes you. In porns case it takes away the reality of what sex is and should be. You have a warped view of sex. The you that existed before the addiction is not the same as the you that comes out on the other side of freeing yourself from porn.

Yet another example. A child, like my mother, who was raped, molested...etc by her father for the first 16 years of her life. She lost many things including her innocence. She lost alot of things that made her see the world different now.

So point being losing your virginity before marriage (sex that you had on purpose) makes you lose part of yourself. I had alot of sex with the girl I was first with. At the time I stopped caring about purity. It wans't a big deal to me. I didn't think I was anything, thought it was just a silly thing people said to scare you from having sex.

But after I got my life back onto track I felt part of me gone after realizing what I had done (sex before marriage). It was something I wish I could have back. That special moment in time that was meant for my spouse. Not some person I barely knew that didn't care about me. Then when I got married I felt that piece of me even stronger. Knowing my body was used before, that this wouldn't be my first time having sex with someone. That innocence in it was gone. Technically my wife had sex once with someone before she met me too so she felt that piece that was gone.

Sure our honeymoon was wonderful and God indeed made it special because we had waited until marriage. God is good like that. But sometimes you still feel that missing piece of you and regret it. Out of all the stupid mistakes I have made in my life, even some that are FAR worse probably biblically and morally, losing my virginity is still the one I'd go back and change.

Now if someone had sex before marriage and then got married and didn't see what was missing then I don't know what to say. Maybe you didn't feel guilty. Maybe didn't see it as a big deal. But it is. You giving something away that was meant to be saved for the right time with the right person to celebrate becoming one.


---edit---
And yes the bible to some degree talks about this. Its why being a virgin is important. If you want versus then look them up. I'm not here to prove anything but to share the Word and the Truth of God. If you don't understand the subject then thats between you and God to discuss when you see Him. In the meantime I will always talk to people who may make the mistake of losing their virginty because they don't realize what a mistake it is.

Tetra said:

Okay, what you're talking about here is very subjective... and dependent on the culture one resides.

There is no Biblical basis though, to support the idea if you have sex, you lose your self respect, or your pride, or insert whatever. Those are cultural norms which may or may not be relevant.

Click to expand...

......or may be relevant.