Recently I was
speaking to one of the teenagers about sex and its context within
marriage or not. I communicated that I didn’t necessarily think
sex was only for marriage. However I do think that marriage provides
much of the context that should be considered when deciding whether
to engage in sexual activity.
What I mean is that
I believe that sex should be reserved for BOTH of the following:
- Committed relationships
- Times in life that you are prepared (mentally, socially, financially, etc…) to deal with the consequences that come along with pregnancy.
Committed
relationships are important because sexual relationships (like it or
not) mean a lot. They are chemically bonding between 2 people. And
if you are not in a committed relationship with the person there’s
probably a reason. Either the person isn’t someone you want to be
with long term or you aren’t psychologically ready for a
commitment. In either case, creating a chemical bond with someone in
those cases is a bad idea.
Then the other side
of things is the readiness to deal with pregnancy. I made the
analogy about driving above the speed limit. If you are going to
take that risk, you should be ready to accept that if things don’t
go your way that you will have to pay a speeding ticket and higher
insurance premiums.
If things don’t
go your way with sex (meaning you have a pregnancy before you are
prepared for one) then you have to know you are going to need to deal
with that.
So in reality,
marriage often does fit the criteria for sexual preparedness. But
deconstructing it even further, I think that you must make sure that
you have thought it through all the way.
