Pre-marital sex

== INTRODUCTION == Pre-marital sex can mean a person engages in sex with people they do not eventually marry, or people they plan to marry. Please keep this in mind. It is our culture's ideal situation but hardly practical. I will address my opponent's reasons for opposing pre-marital sex before presenting my own separate arguments. == RESPONSES == First, my opponent's reasons for believing abstinence until marriage is a good idea. 1. It will help your marriage because you won't be in the habit of having sex with multiple partners. Response: A married couple may choose to have an open relationship with other sexual partners (which does happen). A person may have pre-marital sex with the person they choose to be married to, voiding this argument entirely. I see no basis for the claim that there is anything habit forming about having sex with someone different from your current partner, and reject this claim until reasoning or better yet evidence is provided. 2. Pregnancy can occur outside of marriage even with protection. Response: Pregnancy can occur within marriage even with protection, marriage does not protect against pregnancy. The only advantage of marriage in regards to pregnancy is if it happens by accident, the couple has already agreed to stay together. However, if pregnancy occurs outside of marriage even with safe sex, abortion is a guaranteed option. 3. Disease can occur with pre-marital sex. Response: Disease can occur within marriage if one or more of the partners cheat or if it is an open marriage. There is nothing preventing responsible unmarried couples from getting testing prior to sex, similarly, if you have a couple made of two virgins considering pre-marital sex, disease is also not an issue. There is nothing inherently disease-free about marriage, only about unsafe sex and multiple partners. While not directly stated as points, I feel the need to address these statements: 4. "If your REALLY IN LOVE then both of you will be able to wait, because if you really love them you wouldn't want to mess up either of your lives with having sex... and receving the consequences (children) without being ready to get married muchless handle kids when you are one." Response: I assert that if a couple really loves each other the stamp of marriage is unnecessary for sex. If they trust each other and are really ready for the risks of sex and the commitment, marriage is simply a formality and they will be fine without it. If they are afraid of the other partner running off because of a pregnancy or giving them a disease, that is a relationship problem that marriage will not fix. 5. "Why put your self through all the heart break and emotional stress of having had sex with the wrong one." Response: 'Wrong one' presupposes that one, people only marry the 'right one' and that mistakes don't happen. Two, it assumes that love only happens once a lifetime. There is no reason to believe this is the case. Indeed, pressuring oneself to believe that this or that potential sexual partner is 'the right one' is common and I believe that this leads to heartbreak on it's own. A more realistic approach to sexuality allows for trusting, affectionate and even loving sexual relationships without having to deem any partners "the one". Furthermore, heartbreak and emotional stress can and probably will be the result of a relationship locked into place between two people who have never had sex with each other...and turn out to be completely incompatible in bed. A couple's sex life is very much a part of how healthy their relationship is, and the real gamble is to bet a marriage on an unlikely thing. == MY CASE == 1. Regular sex is a health benefit. It relieves stress, boosts the immune system, reduces heart disease, burns calories, reduces depression, as well as confers other minor benefits, all of which are denied to anyone practicing abstinence. [1] [2] I quote: "Those who had intercourse had better responses to stress than those who engaged in other sexual behaviors or abstained." A good response to stress is necessary for a long-lasting relationship, as stress can easily kill one. The longer a couple waits to have sex the more they risk letting stress create fights and thus long-lasting emotional wounds. "Having sex once or twice a week has been linked with higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A or IgA, which can protect you from getting colds and other infections." Obviously a benefit to the individual, a benefit which is lost if one abstains from sex. "The researchers also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month." Can you imagine when it's compared to sex zero times a month? 2. Couples having regular sex are better off in the long run. They will already know they are sexually compatible, have built up trust by remaining together without needing a marriage contract, and will not have to adjust to the nuances of sex at the same time as other stressful things. "Having sex and orgasms increases levels of the hormone oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, which helps us bond and build trust." [1] The wedding ritual produces no such hormones. Even without such a hormone produced, sex requires incredible intimacy and trust, which a couple needs if they are going to survive in the long run. And as mentioned above, waiting until marriage to have sex runs a high risk of sealing a commitment with a person who may be completely incompatible with you in bed, causing more heart-break than "doing it with the wrong one". 3. Pre-marital sex prevents sexual exploration. This means a person is less likely to discover what they actually enjoy and more likely to base their sexuality and sexual knowledge off of what they think is the norm--which they are going to get from media, pornography and literature. Not only is this bad for the person who may not be able to experience what they really want out of their sex life, but it can result in them being unaware of how other human beings are. They may think, for example, that unsightly hair and wrinkles and shapes are not normal, that orgasms happen at the same time and without effort, etc. This harms their partner and destroys intimacy. Indeed, the more prior sexual exploration, the more each partner will be able to please "the one". If it's love, this should matter a great deal. Lack of variety does no good. 4. Focusing on abstinence can lead to being clueless in bed, which is more risky. For example, those who have had abstinence-only education have been found to engage in more sex earlier and without knowing how to be safe. [3] Safe sex is still an issue within marriage if pregnancy is to be prevented and if divorce or extramarital sex occurs. Individuals who abstain from sex and only engage in sex with other abstainers will also be less able to teach their kids about safe sex. 5. If abstinence until marriage is a cultural value for each person in the couple, you run the risk of marriage simply happening in order to have guilt-free sex (forgive the anecdote, but I actually know a couple who admits to doing this, both being young socially conservative Christians). It makes far more sense to avoid any ulterior motives for marriage so that a commitment is more pure and honest. Indeed it is perfectly easy for one's virginity to be lied about to appeal to someone who views abstinence as a moral good. == CONCLUSION == My opponent's three arguments in favor of abstinence until marriage have little to do with pre-marital sex itself and instead rest on an unfounded claim and situational problems which can occur regardless of pre-marital sex. Sex is a natural biological need. It is enjoyable, it promotes good health and intimacy, as well as trust and affection. Practiced safely, any situational risks are low and are vastly outweighed by