Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health Is sex outside of marriage acceptable?
Randomawkwardness Yoda
For you personally, do you think it's okay?
Select gender and age to cast your vote:
Updates:
+1 y
I realize my poll is screwed up, I was really tired and had just woken up when I made this so I'm sorry for any confusion.
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What Girls & Guys Said
30 91Your poll is backwards but. Sex is acceptable outside of marriage.
You test drive a car before buying, right?
I didn't even notice that for some reason lol I wish I could edit
I wouldn´t want to marry anyone I hadn´t had sex with. Not that I would want to marry anyway lol.
D
I want sex but I won't marry
Absolutely it's okay. I don't agree with waiting until marriage at all.
Virginity is meaningless to me. I much prefer to know my partner intimately before we make a life long commitment. It's important to explore your interests together, and see how compatible you are sexually. Anyone who jumps into a marriage, having no clue how the sparks will fly is nuts in my opinion.
Very true
I agree
I don't believe in waiting until marriage but I wouldn't have sex with someone I wasn't in a relationship with. With that said I couldn't care less if anyone else sleeps around, waits until marriage, or only has sex within relationships because it doesn't affect me
Most outdated "value" ever.
No you shouldn't wait. Sex is just as important as anything else in your relationship. If it turns out you don't have sexual compatibility then your marriage falls apart.
Either sex is important and you should be having sex to figure out if you match.
Or sex isn't important at all and you can fuck other people.
Sex between adults is acceptable as long as everyone is fully informed and consents freely.
I don't believe in religion. I really don't think that waiting until your wedding night is something I'd be interested in. Some people are just not sexually compatible. I sure would hate to find that out right after I signed marriage license.
i don't like to see pious people having sex outside of marriage and i see it ALL of the time!
Depends on your values and principals the environment you were raised in... etc, i was raised in a quite conservative/religious family and community were sex before marriage is a big sin, so yes for me it's really important to wait until marriage, but aside from my upbringing and religion I'm convinced with concept of waiting since it helps you distinguish by the way the men that want a serious relationship or just to get in your pants, it will protect you from getting stds, unwanted pregnancies and i value myself too much to let any men touch me.
Absolutely
Judeo-Christian Bible prohibits it, calling it "fornication". Otherwise, lacking an accepted moral framework, no.
I lost my virginity when I was 13, don't regret it. I dont plan on getting married but when I settle down with someone I'll have experience and our sex life won't have the awkward trying to figure everything out phase.
I can only speak for me. It's about what YOU want to do
To my mind, you marry because you are committing to keeping what you already have for a long time.
As a Christian, there are debates on this matter rooted in the argument that the Bible never actually explicitly mention, "sex before marriage", at all, or call it sin. But there are heavy implications, and as such I do not take any chances and will wait for marriage.
What are those "heavy implications" you speak of? Is it fear of damnation? I mean, it sounds like you're making a choice not to have sex before marriage because someone told you its bad and you followed their advice uncritically.
@Investigator You read that wrong. He is one of the most thoughtful men on this site. You can bet that he weighed the evidence and wrestles with his conscience in a way that few do. Indeed, look at his answer. Does that sound to you like he just accepted his views uncritically from someone else? He starts out by recognizing that there are other interpretations. That does not sound like a man who just simply accepted what someone told him. He clearly read and thought - and knowing a little bit about him prayed - about it. Nope, @AlexanderBrunnrgaard is not mere robot parroting the party line. He is a thoughtful intelligent man. You, on the other hand, sound like someone who let his biases get the better of his analysis. As Locke said, "Men know little, presume a great deal, and so jump to conclusions." In this case a conclusion that could not really be drawn on the basis of the evidence before us.
@nightdrot "He starts out by recognizing that there are other interpretations. That does not sound like a man who just simply accepted what someone told him." His statement is "there are debates on this matter rooted in the argument that the Bible never actually explicitly mention". Yes, these debates are interpretations, but my question is "what premise are all of these arguments based on? Do they use the Bible to make critiques of the Bible or do they use scientific research to test the implications of sex before marriage that just so happen to confirm what the Bible preaches." If I read that wrong as you claim, then his statement must be that, independent of the views of the Bible or his own faith, there is demonstrable evidence that sex outside of marriage is objectively detrimental to the people engaging in it. Now, I have not looked into the literature to see whether or not that claim holds water, but that sounds like a more neutral and fair representation of what he claims.
"You, on the other hand, sound like someone who let his biases get the better of his analysis. As Locke said, "Men know little, presume a great deal, and so jump to conclusions." In this case a conclusion that could not really be drawn on the basis of the evidence before us." Fair point. As it would dishonest of me to hide my intentions in the pursuit of some kind of political or ideological agenda and in the manner of full disclosure, yes, I am biased against the Catholic faith and the concept of religion in general. Not without reason of course, but it cannot be denied that it is an admittedly-ongoing struggle; my desire to be as objective and unbiased as possible is consistently at-odds with my internal thinking that the religious viewpoint is one of complete irrationality and deficiency of logical reasoning--a position which shouldn't make sense if I really think about it; I have friends who are religious and smarter than I am, yet it is their faith alone, the belief in things neither seen nor proven, that convinces me that they know not what they say. Anyway, thank you for the reality check. I will use this opportunity to improve my reasoning and expand my horizons.
@Investigator Well, I hope it helps. I would just add that you need to make sure that you antipathy to the Catholic Church and religion in general does not simply become a chip on your shoulder. On an unrelated point, you write, "Now, I have not looked into the literature to see whether or not that claim holds water, but that sounds like a more neutral and fair representation of what he claims." So I would ask how much you have read about the Catholic Church and other such religions. Have you read Augustine? Aquinas? Chesterton? Are you aware of the tenets of what they teach? It is easy to disagree with the stereotype - much harder to deal with the nuances. Not saying that you will even agree with them, but to take exception to something whose precepts you are only dimly aware of is to skate on very thin intellectual ice. Oh, and speaking in terms of sex out of marriage. As the father of three with my girlfriend - we don't want to be married - I hardly object. However, just for the record - and I work in politics and my girlfriend works in family law and policy - the data are VERY clear. Sex outside of marriage on the mass scale we have seen has all sorts of wildly bad effects, including child abandonment, abortion, family poverty, children who do poorly academically and have limited life chances. For my part, I don't object to sex outside of marriage, but that is with the presumption that the individuals are prepared to live with and handle the consequences. You might wish to look into that issue. Just to add, whether @AlexanderBrunnrgaard was responding on the basis of Biblical injunction or research data does not matter so much. After all, the Bible was not written by fools but by individuals with experience of their world. Not to mention that it is the basis for much of Western civilization. No small matter. Anyhow, hope it helps and enjoyed exchanging ideas with you. Suffice to
Sorry for the type-o at the end there. Meant to delete that.
@nightdrot "Sex outside of marriage on the mass scale we have seen has all sorts of wildly bad effects, including child abandonment, abortion, family poverty, children who do poorly academically and have limited life chances." Well, "the data are VERY clear" regarding that particular lifestyle, to which I posit thus: do the available data points observe these trends BECAUSE of marriage or in SPITE of it? In other words, when talking about couples in co-parenting or cohabiting situations, is cohabitation accounted for the same way or presumed to be faulty because we assume marriage is just better? If it's the former, then that explains why people still engage in the practice. If it is the latter, though, then it is time for policy to change accordingly. After all, marriage is becoming an increasingly-antiquated idea, as it really is nothing more than a contract between the individual and the state, and people are increasingly sick and tired of government overreach telling them what to do or how to live their lives. Government is supposed to protect the freedoms of people, not to institute policy dictating who they should date or how many kids they have (if they should choose to have any, at all). Additionally, tradition for the sake of tradition, i. e. "that's the way we do it, because that's the way it's always been done" is a tacit failure to adjust to modern ways of thinking, in favor regressive paradigms because "back in my day, things were better..." Note that I say regressive; if something is still done because it is logically sound or because there are no better alternatives, then it is not inherently regressive or archaic. Now, since you have stated for the record that you work in politics and have a partner who engages in family law, you--more than most other people--are presumably well-qualified to address these grievances I have raised and correct my possibly-flawed responses.
@Investigator You have a lot there and are bayoneting more than a few straw men. Rather than take it all point by point, I would point out that the law has tended to follow the culture and not the other way around.
The decline in marriage began in the late 1960s and was given a significant boost with the advent of no-fault divorce. Prior to that time, divorce had been a legally binding contract in which a marriage could only be dissolved with cause and to which penalties would apply to the offending party.
For a combination of factors - the bias toward men, indeed at one point only men could seek a divorce, and changing cultural mores - attitudes to divorce lessened. Such now that marriage is the only contract in law - it never lost its legal status which is why you get a marriage license - that government will not enforce.
We shape the law and then the law shapes us. Suffice to say that cohabiting couples now basically have - with some exceptions - the same legal rights as married couples. Thus reinforcing the decline in the value of marriage. That running in tandem with a decline in religious observance and other factors that have made marriage less a cultural and moral - and thus legal - imperative than it once was.
Hope that answers your grievances - at least in brief. I would offer more but space limitations do not permit and, in any case, you did not really write in paragraphs and standard English, which made it a wee bit hard to read.
Also, I offer my reply under my Nightdrot nom de guerre here - Why are youth in the west not as likely to want to get married as their forebears? ↗
CONT.
Just a quick follow-up. Marriage was not something that developed for no reason. It was a sociological and anthropological response to human evolutionary behavior. In terms of our prehistoric ancestors, the human male, by instinct, seeks out as many females to impregnate as possible.. The human female is looking for the alpha male to sire healthy offspring, find food for mom and baby and ward off rival males and predators. Suffice to say, that led to problems as civilization evolved. Marriage became a mechanism to regulate human conduct and over time, culture habituated human conduct. Not perfectly or completely, but generally. As moral standards have changed and the culture has given greater emphasis to freedom and "authenticity" marriage has lost its force. Not surprisingly, the problem with unregulated instinct in a a civilized context are recurring. There is more here - after all, we are now literally in a discussion that goes back to Plato and Aristotle. However, that, in brief, is why the decline of marriage has tended to coincide with - and reinforce - certain social and cultural pathologies.
Yes its absolutely fine in my book
Thanks for sharing :)
Your very welcome 🙂
Absolutely
mark my words — if this continues on, one day people will ONLY get married for sexual gratification and marital rape would become a common occurrence.
Marriage is not acceptable. Never was.