This is the sort of stuff that terrifies me. Wait until after you get married to have sex – an academic study and a family therapist say so!
The therapist’s logic is that as sex is one of the most common causes of rows in relationships, it’s better to delay sex until after marriage. No, I’m not following either. The study, though interesting, is from an institution run by Mormons, in the notoriously conservative state of Utah, so let’s not pretend that there might not be some small biases here.
More depressing is the experience of two Irish couples speaking about their decision to wait to have sex before they get married. It’s the idea that you have “clearer heads” if you’re not sexually active; that it’s “weak” to give into sexual feelings; that if men (only men, their responses imply) have slept with someone other than their wives they’ll be discontent, and most irritatingly, the definitive “Couples who refrain from sexual activity before marriage are just going to be happier”. Full stop.
I know, I know. This is the kind of thing that newspapers love to print so that people can get annoyed about it. It’s also the kind of thing that validates a lot of assumptions – that everyone wants to get married. That everyone will get married. That a good relationship means getting married. That despite it all, despite the crazy liberal bias out there (where? Where?) really at the end of the day everyone just wants their one true love and to be settled down with the Love Of Their Life.
I don’t believe in Loves Of Your Life. The American journalist and sex advice guru Dan Savage (‘Savage Love’) talks about how every relationship you are in will fail, until one doesn’t. Excuse me, mister. The end of a relationship is not automatically a failure. Painful, often, sure, but the point of many relationships isn’t that they last forever – it’s that they’re good while they last. In an era where people may frequently move jobs, move towns, move countries, it makes far more sense to think about relationships as something which need to be with The Love Of Today – by all means considering long-term possibilities, plans and goals where appropriate, but always ensuring that each relationship is in itself a good thing. Not something which will later be compared to a marriage, not something which prepares you for the ‘real’ love later on, not something which seems like it could ‘become’ good if you follow a rigid path, but something worthwhile in itself.
The Love Of Today might sound pretty flippant, but the benefit of it as an overarching theory is that it works for all relationships, not assuming that everything needs to lead to marriage or long-term commitment or monogamy. It reminds us that people grow and change and that the person who’s a perfect fit at fifteen might not be at twenty, or be great for us at twenty and completely wrong at forty. We don’t always want or need the kind of relationship that could last forever – and there’s a whole lot of worthwhile, valid and meaningful middle ground between the fleeting one-night stand or holiday romance and the lifetime commitment.
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Very, very well said! I always say that if I was still with the guy I was in love with at 18 I’d be bloody miserable now; but that doesn’t mean I have any regrets about that relationship. It was right for then, what I have now is right for now
I think part of it is a tendency to fit relationships that may have ended badly, or ended okay but left people hurt, into some overall scheme whereby everything is about whether someone is The One or not, not whether it might be possible to look back on an old relationship with fondness even if its end was a painful process.
I always find it revolting that sex (a hideously private venture) is made so public and municipal as a means for others to tell you how to live, what to feel, ways to behave. Didn’t the church try the same thing and fail miserably? I have no problem with the self convincing tactics of the new army of non-cherry poppers just as I’ve never had any problem with rampantly oversexed friends telling me about their incessant shagging, though neither stance ever suited me. The thoughts of marrying someone without having that close level of intimacy seems utterly barmy. It’s not a commodity to ‘keep’, it’s experiential and crucial and real. There’s an analogousness here with love too, is there not? Some like to do the serial monogamy pinball ‘partner to partner’ thing until all the crud is eliminated and they’re left with the only person who didn’t manage to bore or exhaust. Others wait endlessly for something that feels right, not realising that nothing ever does and it’s only a master marketeer who came up with the Prince Charming rubric. I’ve always found it next to impossible to meet someone and fall in love and was just as astonished that so many people found it very easy to do so…until I realised the economies of no scale that were going on. One friend was engaged to three different men inside of two years and had a real problem with me being forever single. She eventually married someone else entirely though I’m pretty sure if he snuffed it under the wheels of a lorry tomorrow she’d be shacked up with someone new by April. A lot of people just can’t bear to be alone, even for a nano-second. At the end of the day I’d prefer to live a full life totally alone (including the endless bouts of lone sex) than endure half a life in a lacklustre, listless, lukewarm relationship with all the conventional trappings.
Oooopssss, I meant to add there that after decades of cynicism and a bin-lorry of casual sex, I’ve found ‘the one’ and am puzzlingly happy.
! Hi June!
I am going to need *much* more information about your really interesting post:)
How, in your case, does/did this
>>Others wait endlessly for something that feels right, not realising that nothing ever does and it’s only a master marketeer who came up with the Prince Charming rubric.
jibe with this?
>>I meant to add there that after decades of cynicism and a bin-lorry of casual sex, I’ve found ‘the one’
Ah yes, my early morning nonsensical ramblings where I contradict myself and then go for a pint. I was being sarcastic when I said ‘the one’, but also I was also being honest in that I didn’t compromise all the way along. I couldn’t ‘give in’ to suggestions from others that I should ‘make do’ with this one or that one or as one of my adorable family members advised me to do ‘advertise for your soulmate if you have to’, I just never felt the need to get with someone for the sake of it. In my 20s, I was drenched in self pity about all this because I stupidly assumed everyone else found love very easily until I realised they were settling for…and a lot of friends were also doing the serial monogamy thing where they couldn’t be alone for a second. While I had a pile of drunken sex throughout these years and into my 30s, when I did meet the complicated and half-mad ‘one’ I was more sure than I would’ve been if I’d been hopping from A to B and K and S and beyond. I knew based on how right it felt balanced off against how wrong ‘settling for’ had been all along. I’ve too much respect for love to treat it like a commodity. As for the Hymen Army telling us to save our vaginas for marriage or ‘the one’, I think it’s crass nonsense. Sex is intimacy/emotion at its best and the thoughts of marrying someone without ‘going there’ and not knowing you feel on a depper level is nuts. Our parent’s generation did that followed quickly by nine kids or whatever and never really knew themselves or their partners. That kind of dire role-playing fucked us up for a long time.
>> I always find it revolting that sex (a hideously private venture) is made so public and municipal as a means for others to tell you how to live, what to feel, ways to behave. << Yep, absolutely. Have no problem with notion of people who genuinely think it's a good idea to wait 'til after marriage for sex, though I'd hope they're doing it for reasons that will make them rather than their church/family etc happy. But it's the 'this is the best way to go about things and the rest of ye are debauched perverts' stuff that gets me twitching.
hear, hear!
A historian’s perspective: these studies are never objective, full stop. The history of science shows us how people’s pre-existing beliefs affect interpretation of evidence, and that even scientist tend to see what they want to see int the results. This is particularly true when it comes to sex, marriage, and gender. I rant about this a lot on my blog, and use Aristotle as my scapegoat — latest here. For this reason, I’ve stopped paying attention to studies about relationships. Period!
Indeed – though I think there are things can counteract some of our existing biases. But then again, when dealing with human participants you’re still left with the fact that people will respond a certain way to studies, giving researchers what they want, or even the order of apparently neutral questions will shape how their thought processes go. I’m always sceptical about these things – just wish more people were.
super post, very well said and great points made. June Caldwell’s comment was like another article in itself, again, very well said and loved the little added piece at the end…
Thanks Aisling.
Interesting post on an article and study which has prompted a lot of debate Stateside already. The points in relation to marriage equating full and final happiness (?), are spot on and really well observed.
I take the point that the University is under the patronage of a Mormon community, but just to say I was aware of this and satisfied myself in advance (as much as is possible) with the academic independence of the authors of the study (which was peer reviewed in the Journal of Family Psychology). Of course, that’s not to say that the authors may have been influenced by the make-up of the university board – but couldn’t the same charge be levelled at every university?
Also, in relation to the point “that if men (only men, the article implies) have slept with someone other than their wives they’ll be discontent”, the article in a sense doesn’t make that point – some of those who offer their personal testimonies do. I think that’s an important distinction.
Personally, I maintained a healthy scepticism throughout and would like to think I was careful not to present the results as anywhere near definitive.
Thanks for commenting, Brian. I completely take your point about the article vs the couples’ responses, and I’ve just edited the post to reflect that. And certainly, yes, my issue is with the study rather than your presentation of it!
With regard to the university and Mormon connections – I’m not necessarily implying board influence but more so the sense that you’re dealing with an awful lot of people (both researchers and participants) likely to be going into a study with pre-conceived ideas. I think religious influence, either explicit or implicit, is more likely to be relevant on studies around sex and other social issues. But it is a bigger issue, certainly – and I’m sceptical of anything that claims something has been 100% ‘proven’ about human behaviour!
I believe each of us have our own individuality, and different scenario situations regarding our relationships. I do believe a couple stands a better chance of an lasting relationship if they build a friendship first for bonding and getting to know each other, building a foundation for trust and mutual respect for each other before getting serious. It is a lesson I have learned through the years, but it may be differently viewed by others.
I think that makes a lot of sense, Penny – and I think where some of the conflict people have over this issue (within relationships as well as amongst peers) is how much time is needed before being ‘serious’ or what counts as ‘serious’, whether it’s sex, marriage, moving in together, or some other kind of commitment. But where people know what *they* need/want as opposed to what others think they/everyone should/must, it’s a lot better for everyone concerned.