Blogpost #7: Sexual Intimacy

          As time went by, people had changed. One of these changes is their disposition in life. With the advent of new technology, which has drastically made living so easy and convenient, more and more people especially the young have become so inclined with leisure and pleasure. To many, sex has become just another day's activity, an activity which has become a normal part of boyfriend and girlfriend's daily routine. Pre-marital sex that is. Pre-marital sex has become so rampant in relationships of all ages. People has gotten so used to it they have forgotten or worse, they don't know that it is wrong and that it is a mortal sin in the eyes of God. People have become so accustomed with the physical enjoyment and the emotional joy they feel from having sex that they tend to have ignored or forgotten the wrongness and the adverse effects of engaging in sex before marriage.

          In the bible, 1 Corinthians 7:2, “But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.” Therefore, sex before and out of marriage is considered immoral. Sex before marriage is a mortal sin to God. We should only have sex with our spouses after we get married. It is also said that the only cure to sexual immorality between couples is marriage, which will make them fulfill their passions and sexual desires in a moral way. Therefore, when God told Noah (in Genesis 9:1) “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”; which is also one of the infamous verses always recited during weddings, God meant to do it in a moral way.

          Sex by itself should not be misconstrued as bad. After all, it is what guarantees the continued existence of our specie. It is the timing and the intent in which it is done that makes sex bad. Sex should be done with assumed responsibility and the best way to assume that responsibility is marriage. Like I earlier mentioned, sex has become seemingly a normal part of many pre-marital relationships. Men most especially don't care about the effects of pre-marital sex because despite the fact that technically, they also lose their virginity, socially, they don't lose anything. No man, especially in our culture had ever cried because he's no longer a virgin. The adverse effect of pre-marital sex is on women. When a woman loses her virginity, that's it, she had lost it forever. She will never be the same. In the eyes of the society, she's no longer a virgin. For a woman, losing her virginity is a con, as against a pro for a man.

          To many people, especially men, sex is just a hobby. Some men are actually in the habit of having sex with virgin, inexperienced women. To them, there is some kind of fulfillment when they're the first to break a woman's brand new seal. To them, they earn the bragging rights to themselves and to others when they had sex with a virgin. Worse is, some men become very vocal about their “accomplishment” at the expense of the girl. This now becomes a compounding factor to a girl's problem. Not only did she lose her virginity, the whole world gets to know about it. Thanks to the immature bigot she gave herself to. This is the hard lesson that many trusting women learned.

          Despite the disadvantages of pre-marital sex, of losing one's virginity before marriage, there are still women who seem to favor it even in a conservative society like we have in the Philippines. According to the article entitled “8 Reasons to Have Sex Before You Get Married: Premarital Sex Isn’t aBad Thing”, writen by D.S. Ploshay in Yahoo Voices, the 2 main reasons why it is fine to have sex before marriage are because “Everyone's doing it” and “Test drive”.

        I can't give an insight on that because I'm a virgin and I don't have an experience. Nevertheless, I can give my honest opinion on why some women still prefer to do it. I think, a huge factor is influence. When someone is raised in an environment where people especially parents have no hang-ups on sex, children will follow suit. Liberated is the word. In liberal societies like they have in the western hemisphere, parents don't care about their children's sexual exploits especially after they turn 18. In fact, they educate them on how to have safe sex. Another huge part of this trend is media. Pornography is all over us these days – TV, Internet, movies; people of all ages have access to it like never before. Children as young as eight (depending on how their parents guide and protect them) may now be able to view pornography. It is sad but true.

          After all that's been said and done, it's easy to say that there are now more and younger people engaging in pre-marital sex. But at the end of the day, it's still an individual choice. For me, I want to keep my virginity for as long as I'm single, not only because that's what my mom told me but because it is what I believe is the right thing to do. As the saying goes, “Virginity is the best gift you can give to your husband”. I want to save my virginity for my future husband. I want my husband to be the happiest man on earth on our wedding night. I want him to be proud of me and to tell our kids that I was not “easy to get”. Most of all, I don't want to commit a mortal sin against God.