Just to be on the other side, I will say that both my wife (of 43 years) and I were virgins when we got married. That was not that uncommon in 1964 (although probably not common). When we decided to push up our wedding date by 3 months, people totally misunderstood the reason and were a bit surprised when there was no little surprise 7 months later.
Do I regret it? Yes, I do because I missed ten years (probably the best ten years) of pure pleasure. On the other hand, had we waited till the original wedding date, we wouldn’t have seen a perfect game. Really.
I have never married, so all my sex has been, by definition, premarital. I’m a Neo-Pagan; I do not believe that sex is in and of itself wrong or shameful. I do not regret it. I only wish there had been more.
I agree with what many of the other said; if such an intimate part of the relationship were to be incompatible, it’s far better to find out before you tie the knot. Of course, that also applies to any other number of things as well, from body odour to food preferences to tone of intellectual discourse to religion to snoring.
This brought to mind a story I read. Can’t remember the title or author, but I suspect it was by a SF author. It was about a world like ours, but where sexuality in teenage and other relationships was extremely casual. Its importance had been swapped with deep intellectual and philosophical discussion; that was supposed to be reserved for marriage or (maybe, I forget) deeply committed adult couples. After all, sex was considered just physical reactions while deep discussion was getting to know someone far more intimately and in more important ways. I think the story ended with the main character, a teenage guy, making out heavily with his girlfriend but with his mind racing, longing to ask her questions about what she felt about issues.
Sing it, brother! My first wife and I waited until married. In fact we ended up waiting about a month after we were married (not through lack of trying on my part). I dawned on me quickly that I had married someone who was so uptight about sex and her body that my life was going to be a living hell of begging for sexual affection. It eventually led to extramarital affairs. So yeah, I regret the hell out of it.
Second wife: wild monkey sex for a year before we tied the knot. Don’t regret a second of it.
Y’know, I think respondents regretting the very fact of premarital sex itself, as opposed to possibly regretting specific circumstances, will be a minority. Because in the end, the reason you regret having had it or not had it is either because you later wonder if a different decision would have made things come out better, or because the decision you did make ended up badly. But you still can conceive of how it could have been done “right” in the wisdom of hindsight.
Besides, there’s regret and there’s “oh, it could have been better, but what the hey, water under the bridge…”. I suspect the latter is a not uncommon situation.
Virginity may be a rational, desirable commodity for a girl that is 14 or 15 years old that is entering into an arranged marriage. To expect the same from an accomplished, educated woman who is in her 20’s and is trying to establsh a career and a life before procreating is just stupid and will only create neurosis that are destructive in the long term.
I’m Catholic, or was, and don’t feel an ounce of guilt about having premarital sex. Never did. My Catholic high school was a hotbed of hot, hot teenager action.
I really, honestly don’t understand the appeal to NOT having premarital sex. Well, no, that isn’t true. I do understand it in the sense that I know where it comes from, historically speaking, but I see zero value in it. Sex is a basic part of being an adult human being. Not knowing how to screw someone’s brains out is, to my mind, about as noble a brand of ignorance as not knowing how to cook, or drive a car, or manage your money.
Deliberately avoiding sex robs you of a critical part of your emotional development, makes you a worse lover for your future spouse, and incidentally means you’ll miss out on a lot of fun.
The only specific regrets I have are incidents where I missed a chance for nookie.
Considering that, during the first five years of the time I was having sex, I couldn’t get married, no, no, I can’t say i regret having pre-marital sex.
If you aren’t particularly religious (where I stand religiously is somewhat complicated but it should suffice to say that I have no god to answer to), there isn’t any real reason to feel guilty about pre-marital sex.
Therefore no, I don’t regret any premarital sex I have had.
This is exactly how I feel except I just turned 27. I fell like I’ve crossed the threshold into pathetic loser. When I think about all that horny teenage sex I never had…
This bit here reminds me of my own current relationship. We’d been together 2 years, but long-distance, and we’d just met in person for the first time. It was silly, but I was scared to have sex with him because it’d been 2 years of nothing. There didn’t seem any way to just ease into the situation at that point, and it’d been built up in our minds so much, what would we do if it was bad?
Anyhow, I’m 22 and I’ve only had sex with 3 men. I regret specific bits of my sex life, but I don’t regret having a sex life. When I was younger I’d had big plans of Saving Myself, but halfway through my teen years I started thinking about why I’d had those plans to begin with. I couldn’t think of even a halfway decent reason, so I decided to go with what made more sense to me.
Tomorrows always a new day my friend. It is my goal to work on this over the next 6 months. I need help with women. I know if I work at it I’ll figure it out. Part of my problem was I get really worked up over rejection and I didn’t want anything distracting me from my studys in school. Now I have more time and am more mature. I think I could handle it better.
I can’t understand the notion of waiting until you’re married. I just can’t. If that’s what someone wants to do, so be it. But I think people need to know ahead of time whether they are sexually compatible, just as much as any other type of compatibility.
I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my days with someone with a diametrically opposed sexuality. I knew The Bog well before we got married.
