Sex-marriage or not?

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:

1. Committed relationships
2. 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.