POLL: Premarital Sex

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@NOG: So, are you saying that you think a woman should be stoned to death if she is raped and doesn't cry out?

 

What if the rapist holds a blade to the woman's throat saying she'll die if she makes a sound? Is she going to scream then? If not, too bad - stoning awaits.

I think it's absolutely priceless that the reason not to have sex with your mother is that it dishonors your father.

 

deepfae: I have mixed feelings on the use of sex to strengthen a relationship. While it can be good when people are married or in an extremely close and exclusive relationship, I have heard many stories of how teenage girls have used sex as a tool so they can hold on to the boy they want. Most of these stories I've heard also involve the girl getting pregnant because of this. I'll leave it at that, as this goes in to stuff best saved for a topic on teen pregnancy.

Ilmater's Suffering: Good insight in to the subject. I may have to investigate the book you mentioned.

Aldeth the Foppish Idiot: Correct me if I am wrong chevalier, but I think one of the points chevalier is making about waiting until after marriage for sex is that if people are serious/mature enough to get married, then they are serious/mature enough not to take sex lightly. (As you said, you think sex shouldn't be taken lightly, and I agree.) Also, unless there is something really wrong in a marriage, I've never heard of married people regreting sex with their spouse. (Which touches on what Ilmater's Suffering said.)

As an aside regarding the bible, it should be noted that part of the disagreements on what the bible says is because meaning has been mangled by translation. Here is a list of how it has been mangled by translation:

• Often when something is translated from one language to another, it is translated literally, especially with the bible, because they feel that a literal translation is most accurate, or is most faithful to the original. For example, I received this shirt for Christmas. Literally translated, it says "Now accepting applications for a Japanese girlfriend." Now if you were to say this, you would get some odd looks from people. After all, why would a girl need to complete an application to become someone's girlfriend? The correct translation for it, taking in to account context, is "I'm looking for a Japanese girlfriend." Another example of why literal translations don't always work is slang words and idioms. (I'll refrain from the Japanese examples I have. Exploration of the shirts at the website I linked to for the shirt I received for Christmas will explain why. Hint: It's the one about "bad" words.)
• Another problem with the modern bible most people reference is how many times it has been translated. For example, from Aramaic, to Old Greek, to Latin, to German, to English. Just like the old game "telephone", with each translation, the message becomes more distorted.
• Also, to further complicate matters, what the bible says must be taken in the context of society at the time. The story of Soddom and Gomorrah is an often cited example.

Now I'm not a moderator (obviously), but can we PLEASE get back to the topic now?

Anyway, thought I'd leave another post to leave you all wondering where exactly I stand on this.

 

Do what you want. Just make sure you take the steps to ensure (as far as possible, at least) that the result you both/all want is the one you both/all get. Oh, and draw the line at "consenting adults" - that's really the only enforceable limit I'd impose on anyone else in this regard.

As far as I'm concerned, that covers STDs, enjoyment of the experience, contraception, abstinence, and anything else to do with sex. If you're comfortable with what you're doing and nobody's getting hurt, more power to you.

 

leading people to the path laid by Nietzsche will have made me a failure as both a Philosophy and a Political Science Major.

Objective morality doesn't exist because there is no God (God is dead if we want to use that famous quote). Hence a subjective morality is created, which is supposed to be implimented by the masters (problems arise when slave morality is adopted by the masters, like with Christian morals).

Nietzshe's Master "morality" was used as the basis for wonderful things like eugenics and the National Socialist Party

Nietzsche would claim pre-marital sex to be "moral" on the grounds there is no objective morality and to put very basically, sex feels good and sexual urges shouldn't be repressed (not to mention women, in the mind of Nietzsche, didn't exist for much for then sex, their meaning was to "compliment" men). In the simplest form, Nietzsche's thoughts on sex boil down to "I have the power to act such away and want such a thing, therefore it's moral".

 

I find it strange that people refuse to debate a biblical stance on pre-marital sex but rather seek to undermine the credibility of the Bible...

Drew: I believe the assumption made in the law you pointed out was that if the woman failed to cry out, she was presumed to consent. There were a great many things in the laws as interpreted by the scribes and pharisees that were set straight when Jesus Christ came to the Earth. If you'd like to discuss the New testaments comments on this matter, that would give you a more accurate reflection on Christian views on relations between the genders.

AFI: From the response you gave, I don't think we are debating the issue of right and wrong, but rather where the line between them is drawn. I've been taught that to truly appreciate the sacred nature of the act of sex, it should be in the confines of the covenent of marriage. By this, not only is pre-marital sex immoral, but it robs you of the full experience...

 

@Ilmater:
Yea, but Nietzshe was seriously screwed up. We're talking Rasputin skrewed up. I'm amazed his books are still in print. He did have a good logical mind, however. Why do all the bright people always go mad? Oh, yeah, "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more the knowledge, the more the grief." Ecc. 1:18. Ok, I'm screwed.
By the way, there's a new english translation of the Bible out called the NCV. All the great biblical scholars are calling it the best english translation to date, bar none, and these people know what they're talking about.

Back on topic, my biggest non-religious problem with pre-marital sex is how often it is used to string the tenuous pieces of a failing relationship together, and often not with pleasure, but with guilt. "I've had sex with him/her, so I'd better stick to it and make it work." when they never should have been together in the first place. I've seen it happen, and the end results aren't pretty, even without pregnancies and STD's. Lets face it, sex is a big thing, and an unsound or unprepared relationship can frequently fall to pieces when sex in introduced.

 

@Gnarfflinger: My original point was about early (ie pre-Christ) Jewish attitudes towards women. Namely, that women had no rights in early Judaism and marriage was, in actuality, about the exchange of property. I was argued with, and so I posted sections of Jewish Law which show blatant examples of women being treated as property and men being allowed to divorce at whim. The reason that I posted the section about rape was that I found it interesting that raping an unmarried maiden was punishable by paying her dowry and taking her as a wife. (You break it, you buy it.) It carried no further punishment. It may seem off-topic at first blush, but it is not.

The core of the "Pre-Marital sex is bad" argument stems from religious viewpoints being injected into what is now a secular world. It is argued that Marriage has always been a religious institution, and that's all well and good, but as can be seen from the passages I quoted, divorce was allowable and accepted. A man was within his rights to lose interest in his wife and divorce her in early judaism. It did not even carry a penance.....so it wasn't considered a sin, either. Marriage was very clearly a property issue if you read the old testament, and I would be happy to quote more relevant scriptures to prove that point if anyone is interested in them.

So, if marriage was originally a property issue, what does that mean? It means that any arguments about marriage always having been a religious issue (and thus the laws surrounding marriage, ranging from issues like premarital sex to divorce, should be dominated by religious precepts) doesn't really hold any water.

There is nothing wrong with religious individuals marrying within the confines of their religion and living within the confines of their own moral codes, but those moral codes should not be enforced legally. It violates the rights of everyone who does not hold to those precepts.

 

That's not true. If you wish to continue believing this lie, fine, but stop pandering it to others. If you want to debate this further, open a new thread or PM me. I won't discuss it again here.

ON TOPIC: I agree wholeheartedly with NonSequitur about pre-marital sex Thanks for stating the obvious so concisely.

 

The problem with NonSequitur's position (assuming casual sex) is that there is a significant emotional attachment to sex, and people who frequently engage in casual sex with strangers or near-strangers have been known to develop some pretty bad objectification issues with members of the oposite sex. This goes for guys and girls, by the way.

 

@Rallymama: I didn't take the scripture I posted out of context. Read it again. Especially the one form Deuteronomy.....the part about a woman who has been raped being required to marry her rapist. If a woman is betrothed, but is raped and doesn't cry out, she and her rapist were stoned. If the betrothed woman was raped somewhere where crying out wouldn't have done any good, only the rapist is punished.....but not for raping the woman. He was punished for dishonoring her husband. (A betrothed woman, at this point in history, was a woman who had married but not yet consummated the marriage.) If the woman was not betrothed, she had to marry her rapist. If you were raped, would a just law force you to marry the man who raped you? I am not making statements about what Jews believe and do now. I'm making reference to ancient Jewish law.....the practices of ancient Jews. It's documented, and so is a matter of history. There isn't really any room for debate, here.

This points to the second class status of women in early Judaism, and also serves to point out that marriage had more to do with possesion than faith. Hence, we should not use religion as our societal framework for regulating marital and pre-marital practices.

 

Ilmater's Suffering: Even though I have never been part of a debate team, I try to do what someone on one would do. That is, I try to learn both sides of an argument well enough that I can argue them equally as well, even if I don't agree with the position. It's really a shame that more people today don't do the same before making up their mind on something.

NOG: From what I've found through some quick research, NCV (New Century Version) is a good version due to how easy it is to read, and the fact that idioms have been translated in such a way as to be understood by even 8 year olds. (Example: David wasn't buried alive.) This is due to the fact that it started out originally as the International Children's Version.

Returning to the topic at hand, what NOG said about sex and guilt is partly what I was getting at with my comment to deepfae.

 

I have no problems with the notion of sex before marriage (since I don't believe in marriage anyway), but I do have a problem with casual sex. As I have already stated, sex is another dimension of love, and in my book, one cannot exist without the other.

That is, however, just my opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree.

 

Even though I automatically went to religious objections to the concept, I know people who've suffered long to such things. Like someone said earlier, I have known people who've stayed with someone who's treated them like **** because they had sex with them, and they weren't sure if they could get laid elsewhere. One of my friends went from a woman who was routinely unfaithful (the estimate of sexual partners behind his back in the 3 years they were together was around 10) to one that abused him and would not consider his wishes when she became pregnant and went ahead with an abortion.

 

Well, nowadays, it's going to be incredibly difficult to find people who are willing to wait until marriage, and when these people who are willing to wait, eventually get around to having sex, they're going curse themselves for having missed out on it for so long.

Anyway, marriage is such a dumb idea. What is the point in getting married? Like all things, you'll eventually get bored of your partner, and all the love will wane - if there was any to begin with. Why on earth would I get married? The idea makes me laugh, it seems totally ridiculous to me. I've never met one happily married guy, just guys that moan and complain about their bitching wives, because all wives bitch, all the time. What am I going to do? Get married, have kids, get a mortgage, then work for the rest of my life to pay for all of that? Supporting my wife and child? Where do I fit into all of this? Hope everyday that things don't go pear shaped , because if they do, I end up living in some scumhole apartment paying child support until I'm 50, and having nothing but regrets on my mind. That's what happens, and it isn't happening to me.

 

That was simply brilliant, Sarevok! I couldn't have said it better.

 

@Sarevok: I've heard a lot of men who are now happily married utter the exact same sentiment.

 

Yes, thinking of someone else for a change may prove difficult at first for some, but realizing that "you" are not the center of the world can add a world of difference to your life. My wife and kids are the center of the world for me and I would not have it any other way, even if it means not having to place myself first in the grand scheme of things.

 

I've heard too many testimonials from people who've been married for many years who've said the exact opposite. Sure there will be things about a spouse that will cause friction, sometimes even pissing them off, but they learn to live with it and deal with these issues. If you don't think you have the ability to do that, then that's your call, but where there really is love, and the two people strive to show and live that love, they find the way to do this.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks Chandos.