Non-religious Reasons For Waiting Until Marriage For Sex

[Perigrina]

Here is an excerpt of a much longer article making a case for waiting until marriage using secular arguments:

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/07/01/how-delaying-intimacy-can-benefit-your-relationship/

 

These studies are certainly not conclusive and do not decidedly settle the question of whether or not delaying intimacy is beneficial for a long-term relationship. But the results are intriguing, and as they at least point towards that idea, it’s worth exploring why this might be so.

The main point of contention in the debate over when you should get intimate in a relationship generally boils down to whether it’s better to find out if you are sexually “compatible” as early as possible, or whether holding off on sex might uniquely strengthen the relationship in such a way as to make that question a moot point. For example, while the participants in Busby’s study who waited until marriage to have sex would seemingly have taken the biggest gamble in “buying a car without ever taking it for a test drive” (to use an analogy that frequently comes up in this discussion), they still reported being more satisfied with their sex life than those who had kicked the tires right out the gate. Busby offers this explanation for such a result: “The mechanics of good sex are not particularly difficult or beyond the reach of most couples, but the emotions, the vulnerability, the meaning of sex and whether it brings couples closer together are much more complicated to figure out.”

 

There are definitely some non-Catholic assumptions in the article, but it is useful to see how to make a case for Catholic moral teaching without any appeal to religious authority.  In our culture that is an important skill to have.

 

 

 

[John Ryan]

If you can only appeal to a religious authority or a divine-command theory then I should say the case is definitely weak. I believe that the division between secular and religious is an invention of modernist discourse. The Sacred is something that pervades the world. That is, natural law is immanent essence of God within all things. There should be know conflict between religious discourse and the natural law. The case for intimacy is one that should be internal to the acts themselves, not merely brining in an external concept, such as Church Authority—even the Church has to come up with a reason for its authoritative decision. 

[Perigrina]

Yes, in theory, we can determine Natural Law through reason, without the Church authority.  In practice, reason has a lot going against it - darkened intellects and all that.  It is good to have Church authority to compensate for this.

[Credo in Deum]

Here is an excerpt of a much longer article making a case for waiting until marriage using secular arguments:

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/07/01/how-delaying-intimacy-can-benefit-your-relationship/

 

These studies are certainly not conclusive and do not decidedly settle the question of whether or not delaying intimacy is beneficial for a long-term relationship. But the results are intriguing, and as they at least point towards that idea, it’s worth exploring why this might be so.

The main point of contention in the debate over when you should get intimate in a relationship generally boils down to whether it’s better to find out if you are sexually “compatible” as early as possible, or whether holding off on sex might uniquely strengthen the relationship in such a way as to make that question a moot point. For example, while the participants in Busby’s study who waited until marriage to have sex would seemingly have taken the biggest gamble in “buying a car without ever taking it for a test drive” (to use an analogy that frequently comes up in this discussion), they still reported being more satisfied with their sex life than those who had kicked the tires right out the gate. Busby offers this explanation for such a result: “The mechanics of good sex are not particularly difficult or beyond the reach of most couples, but the emotions, the vulnerability, the meaning of sex and whether it brings couples closer together are much more complicated to figure out.”

 

There are definitely some non-Catholic assumptions in the article, but it is useful to see how to make a case for Catholic moral teaching without any appeal to religious authority.  In our culture that is an important skill to have.

 

I'm glad they're beginning to realize human beings aren't cars.

[mortify ii]

For reasons to work one must be living according to reason. Most folks nowadays don't live by reason but on feelings and emotions. Seek pleasure and avoid pain is the rule of their lives, for such how can you convince to live chaste?