Well I have never heard of people who for non-religious reasons decided not to have sex until they were married and is there anyone here who did it or knows anyone that did wait? And what were the reasons and things like this?
Religion is not the only reason to practice abstinence. FOr one thing, it must be possible to feel it immoral without a religious reason. Morality does not stem only from religion.
More importantly, there are practical reasons why you might not wish to have a baby – both before and after marriage of course, and birth control is not 100%.
Yes I know two such people.
Years ago I knew such a couple. My then-boyfriend was best man at their wedding. They had been co-workers for some time (less than a year, I think) when they went out for drinks, a strictly-buds affair that turned into making out. In about a month they were engaged. Somewhere along the line they realized that they hadn’t Done The Deed, and the guy said, “Eh, let’s just wait.” No idea what motivated it. AFAIK both had pretty average sex drives and definitely prior experience. (He had been married before.) Some of their friends found the whole thing incredibly romantic.
Lasted about a year. I only heard his side filtered through my BF, but he said she turned out to be crazy. Incidentally, while we were in town for the wedding, we all went out to dinner with my sister and her husband. Sis later told be she was appalled by how little they knew about each other.
As the old song says, take time to know her - or him.
I’ve met a woman who after having a life filled with sex with many guys and ultimately found it unsatisfying as she wanted a life partner and did not find one. She decided one day to close up the VJ shop till marriage. It was part of trying to find someone who would love her for herself/regardless of sex. Years later she still haven’t had any luck in achieving her goal and knowing her I suspect it had nothing to do with her shop being opened or closed.
Yes, I know a couple who are claiming abstinence until marriage. They don’t agree with birth control and don’t want babies out of wedlock. I don’t know if those decisions ultimately stem from religion but they both profess to be atheist.
I know two couples (was half of one of them) who waited as a commitment thing.
It was kind of a fun challenge, like waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning. Neither of us feel like it would’ve changed our relationship if we’d Done The Deed… though we might’ve gotten to do more sightseeing on our honeymoon…
It depends on what the definition of is is.
Some people’s version of abstinence may be different than others. Some forms of what I would consider sex are 100% effective in preventing pregnancy. Others will quibble that sex is only P in V. Personally I find that to be silly but whatever floats your boat.
As for the OP it’s possible I knew people like that but none that ever said it.
My mother was engaged to my father a month after they met, and and married 3 months later. I was the first child and I wasn’t born until 18 months after they were married. They were both a little on the old side for a first marriage in 1955 (they were 29) but they claim it really was love at first sight. They met on a double date and they weren’t with each other but they really hit it off.
They stayed happily married. My dad died 15 years ago and mom never remarried.
My parents had their first date on New Year’s Eve and were married in August, at ages 20 and 21. They are still married now, 56 years later. They met because Dad was dating Mom’s roommate - she had to find a new place to live. 
If a woman wants to be married, she should wait until marriage to have sex. Why should a man marry her when hes getting everything he wants, especially if they live together? Women give away their power too quickly nowadays. Of course, men will say, well, I want to see if we’re compatible. Would you go to a car dealership and say I want to test drive this car for a couple years, if I don’t like it, I’ll bring it back and not pay you anything.
me, I’ve been “religious” for 40 years, and every time I had sex outside of marriage, I didn’t enjoy it. I was married, and did enjoy sex with him.
I was stupid enough to have sex with me ex(we’ve been apart for a year) and my tests kept coming back slightly irregular at my gyno’s. I went in October and all was good. I told the nurse, See what happens when you don’t have sex! She laughed.
What if the woman wants to have sex?
Whatever works for you, but I’m pretty sure many people have enjoyed sex outside of marriage.
In a healthy, loving relationship, nobody needs to withhold sex out of some cynical need for power. You sound like a very sad person.
I probably don’t really qualify since I’m not opposed to having sex before marriage, but I’d like to still offer my 2 cents if that’s okay:
Honestly, I have been abstinent because I struggle a lot with self-confidence, and also because I’m absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. Yes, I’m aware bc is a thing, but very, very few options cover you 100%, and abstinence is one of them.
I *was *raised in a religious family, so when I was young I did plan to wait. That isn’t the plan now, and I’d be open to have sex before marriage (I see it as less risky than waiting and finding out you’re not compatible, even though my best friend waited and is perfectly happy. It can absolutely work for some people - I just see it as a risk). But now it’s the whole ‘feeling like the least-sexy thing ever / stress / terrified of having to carry a pregnancy I don’t want’ deal.
Kind of a side thing too, but I’m also on a medication right now that has the potential to cause **major **birth defects if I were to get pregnant while on it.
My mother, who was raised culturally Jewish by atheist parents and wasn’t particularly religious, gave me that advice, and may well have taken it herself, though I don’t know for sure.
My mother was born in 1914. The culture was massively different at that time.
My reaction when she told me that, though I kept my mouth shut and didn’t argue with her about it, was ‘if the only reason somebody wants to marry me is in order to get sex, then I don’‘t want to marry him.’
And I know plenty of people who got married despite the fact that they’d started having sex, and often had been living together, well before the marriage.
That feels a lot like misandry. Are you saying that all men want from a woman is sex?
And what’s wrong with comparability? That goes both ways. Sexual compatibility is very important and can lead to a miserable life. I’m not talking about sex swings and rubber sheep. Just simple sex drive issues. If the woman wants sex once a day and the man is happy with once a month that is a big problem and may be something you want to know ahead of time.
TIL:
a) A woman’s power is in her vagina
b) Keep your test drives short, then move on to a different dealership/car
c) Women view marriage as standard form of payment for having sex
d) Don’t have extramarital sex if you don’t enjoy it
e) Never assume people are laughing WITH you
That idea is so incredibly toxic. How come men are only allowed to seek out casual sex, but when I woman wants it she’s “giving it away too easily”? Bullshit.
Nothing wrong if a woman or man wants to wait - my parents did and they’ve been happily married about 35 years. But believe it or not, women have sex drives just like men do, and want sex before marriage just like men do.
Interesting how you think having sex before marriage is the woman’s fault, even though the guy is presumably doing it too. Maybe double-down on men not having so much sex if you don’t want to sound like a complete and utter hypocrite.
Also, not everyone’s goal is to even get married… God forbid someone (especially a woman) just want to date and have casual relationships.
What an insulting comment. You think men would never get married if they had sex with their girlfriends? Not true for me or either of my sons-in-law. And I’ve been married for 41 years so it seems I’m better at it than you are.
BTW my older daughter was the one who delayed getting married to her boyfriend she was living with until they had their lives stabilized - he in law school, she in grad school.
None of our marriages were religious.
We told our girls that they’d be crazy to get married before having sex. My mother felt the same way.
She and my father got married secretly in the late '30s for sex, I suppose. They were both too poor to get a place on their own, and their parents were too poor to have an extra room for them. They were married for a year before they announced it. If my mother did this for moral reasons, she grew out of them.
She’s the one who told me that living with someone was good because “you could have your cook and eat her too.”
I would have liked your mom, I think!
My parents did something similar - they married secretly because they wanted to have sex, but in the 1950s that’s not something nice girls did before marriage. (My dad wasn’t a virgin, but my mother was.)
Luckily, they were quite compatible. My mother overshared a fair bit - I know things about my parents sex life that I really wish I didn’t - and confided in me once that “Your dad and I really were very different people, it was the good sex that kept us together.”
I think the virginity thing on my mother’s part was more cultural than religious. She discarded the notion that virginity mattered later in life, and never lectured me on staying a virgin. My father, on the other hand, was horrified at that thought of his little girl being sexually active before marriage.