To be fair, it’s a pretty good indicator. A rule of thumb, if you will.
So, if it isn’t too nosy, were you both virgins? If not, how is the sex compared to what you’d had before?
If so, do you consider your sex life today, 8 years later to be good?
Well, I’ve heard it said that when sex isn’t a problem it’s only 10% of your relationship, but when it’s a problem it’s 90%.
I posed the thread out of curiosity, but my personal opinion is that it’s very important.
My response to the OP: wouldn’t. Didn’t. Still married, happily so. Lived together before marriage too.
I’ve no problem with other people wanting to wait, but they’re not people I was ever likely to wind up married to.
Did, would again.
I have had two sexual experiences outside marriage which convinced me a long term relationship with that person would be unsatisfying.
Goldilocks tried the first chair “too small.” She tried the second chair “Oh My! Too Big!” She tried the third chair “Just right.”
Oops, I guess that’s didn’t…I mean, we did. Often. Before marriage. In fact, before we started dating…that’s another story.
Wouldn’t. And since my fiancee and I are both deflowered, it’s not an issue.
I have had far too many issues with my own body and with intimacy to just hope that stuff would work out. If it didn’t I think I’d be spectacularly miserable, and that’s not something I’d want to force someone else to go through.
Happily, this should be a non-issue for a while:)
no way would I EVER be willing to marry someone willing to have sex with ME!
waitaminnit…
Waited. Mr. Lissar wasn’t a virgin but I was, and we decided we wanted all the fun of exploration and things after our wedding, and everything is fine, thank you. 
So we fall under the weird mid-category that it’s supposed to be impossible to deal with, and we’re very, very happy in every way. Are we uptight? Yes, probably- sex is holy to us, and we wanted to be joined by the church before experiencing it together. Does it bother me to be uptight? Nope.
Maybe this is the stuff of another thread, but I’ll ask here: how does sex=knowledge of sexuality compatability or, to put it better, why wouldn’t you know if you weren’t sexually compatable before having sex.
Take my SO and I (out to dinner. :rimshot: I’ll be here all week, folks!). We do everything up to the oral thing with some dry humping thrown in. I think that from that I can assume what it would be like if we actually did it. The only thing that is missing is the actual feeling of penis in vagina. Is that really that important? Sure, it will feel good, but I don’t think she’ll orgasm any differently from any other time (I may go quicker, but that’s different).
Again, maybe I’m just the naïve virgin here, but it seems like a lot of people are forgetting that this isn’t a question of picking some random stranger off the street, getting hicked, and doing it, but a question about someone you have been with for awhile. Maybe I’m just a youngin’ with newfangled ideas, but I think a great deal of newlyweds have seen/touched/swallowed a bit of their partner before walking down the aisle.
I wouldn’t marry someone without living with them, and presumably, sleeping with them first.
But then, if I dated a guy longer than a couple of months and he still wasn’t willing, I’d probably dump him, so it would never even reach anything near marriage-potential.
Not that I ever expect to be married anyway. 
In Mr. Adoptamom’s first marriage, he and his wife waited until their wedding night. He was not a virgin, she was. He relates that it took a WEEK before their marriage was consumated fully and kicks himself in the butt for not getting their marriage annulled after their disastrous wedding night because it was a precurser to the way things would be their entire marriage. He definately felt he needed a test drive for compatibility before we got married 
It’s very important to note that if he and I could rewrite our life histories, we both wish we could have been virgins for one another on our wedding night. Not an option because this was a second marriage for both of us … but something we’ve given alot of thought to in the past 17 years because we view our sexual relationship as one of the most precious gifts God has given to us and we wish we could have been one anothers firsts.
Okay, um, I hate to break it to you, but that’s SEX (at least IMHO). You are only “technically” obstaining, and only from one act within the sexual gamut.
(this smilie missing from the previous post, which wasn’t meant to be mean)
I’m afraid you are a naïve virgin.
Your assumption is flawed.
Now, my information on this comes from my legion of female friends so, YMMV.
Not all women have orgasms from penetration/penile stimulation.
How you focus on her needs and the communication between the two of you would show the sexual compatibility. Until you get up to the plate and have that level of intimacy, it is a question and not a definite.
I plan to be a virgin on my wedding day.
My current husband is my third and yes I waited until we were married before having sex with him. There wasn’t really a reason we waited we just did. My wedding night was very special and I was a VERY happy bride. I have no regrets about it, I married him for the right reasons and I was rewarded for my patience.
Could you elaborate a bit? Your age? reasons? (meant in a nice, if nosy, way :))
My timeline :
Age 14: lost virginity to Mr Goo
Age 18: started living with Mr Goo
Age 22: married Mr Goo.
So we both lost our virginity to each other, but a good 8 years before we married. As soon as we were legally adult and able, we lived together. I wanted to test-drive that puppy into the ground 
To be honest, it wasn’t the sex that was important to me before marriage. It was the living together. I could not marry someone I hadn’t lived with first. If for some reason sex was an impossibility for the first 10 years of our relationship, I would still have married him when I did, before the 10 years were up. Sexual techniques can be learned and compromises made as long as both partners are willing and are good communicators, so (apart from the frustration) I’d be happy to not have sex before marriage. I wouldn’t be happy to not live together before marriage, though. It was the living together part that really made me sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person, and gave us time to work out communication skills, etc without feeling like I was trapped (which I would’ve). I couldn’t be sure of the life-long commitment without that (though cheers to those who can be).
As always, YMMV. Isn’t it great we’re all different. Makes life more interesting to probe other’s thoughts
Sexual compatibility is a complex beast. Having a sexual relationship with somebody-- in the blush of new love-- for six months or a year or two years isn’t going to tell you everything about his or her tangled and dark (thanks Bonnie Raitt) sexual being. You don’t get into that tangled and dark part for a LONG time.
You’re going to grow and change during life. A person is not a car, with a set of standard and optional features that you choose at the time of sale, all sales final. Your sex drive fluctuates; your interests change and develop. You’re going to go through stuff that will have an effect on your sex drive. You’re going to have problems, and work through them. Your going to see movies, art, magazines, read books, meet people, that will spark your sexual curiosity, change your outlook. You’ll be exposed to controlled substances which alter your perception of reality. You’ll have issues with your parents, or siblings, or self-image, or friends. During a marriage, you go through times of doing it like bunnies and “just don’t wanna, don’t know why”.
So the statement “If I have a sexual relationship with a person for the length of a typical nuptial engagement, then I will know whether the two of us will be sexually compatible for the duration of a lifelong marriage” is not valid.
I think waiting until marriage to have sex is NOT the recipe for disaster. Many people are adept enough in sex to put on a good audition. It’s a lot harder to determine whether someone is a soul mate than to tell if he’s halfway decent in the sack.
so honestly to like answer your question, probably not. at my age, if I were widowed or something and were out looking for sex/marrriage partners, i’d probably be more intersted in the in-the-sack rather thatn the at-the-courthouse activitiits. but then i’m a slut.