Lovemaking vs. Fornication

In an earlier entry, I posed this question:

“If you believe there is nothing wrong with sex outside of the marriage, living together, or having children out of wedlock, why should a man get married? What does he get from being married that he can’t get otherwise?”

Nobody has come forward, at least so far, to argue that cohabitation, fornication, and having children out of wedlock is okay and that a man should get married. Maybe that’s a function of my traffic. More likely, though, it is because it is very hard to argue that, under current societal conditions, a man has an advantage in getting married if it is okay for him to do all of those things without being married.

I posed the question because there are people who try to avoid admitting that those things are in any way wrong, and maintain that men should marry. But they are hard-pressed to explain why a man should marry, because if they cite the things a woman brings to the relationship, that can be countered with “Yes, but many women provide that in a relationship without being married.”

Fornication and cohabitation are detrimental to men, in my understanding, and are morally wrong. It is bad for children to be raised out of wedlock, and so it is wrong for men to put children in that situation. That’s what I believe. So I have more reason to argue that a man should marry – if he wants to have sex and be a father and live with a woman.

However, there is a dirty little secret that many men don’t want to admit, one that gives even men who do not see those things as wrong a reason to get married. (Whether it outweighs all of the reasons for them not get married is another subject.)

This dirty little secret is: Sex is Better With Someone We Love

Yes, most guys, unlike most women, can have sex without getting emotionally attached to the other person, or convincing ourselves that it means anything more than getting off. Guys tend to be visually stimulated, so if we like what we see, we get erect and can easily achieve orgasm. She doesn’t have to be our wife, she doesn’t have to be someone we love, she doesn’t even have to be real. She can be a really mean person. It doesn’t matter, as long as all we want is sexual release.

Most guys will readily admit to this from their personal feelings and their conversations with other guys. I, unfortunately, happen to know it from experience. Although I am now convinced that sex is for marriage and that sex with anyone but your spouse is a sin, I didn’t always behave that way.

Although I had what most people (including me) consider great parents, I was not raised in what I would call a Christian home. Based on what my parents did and did not teach me and societal influences, I was preoccupied with the idea that sex outside of marriage was wrong because of the possibility of spreading STDs or conceiving a child out of wedlock. It didn’t sink in to me that I belonged to God; that sex is also an emotional and spiritual act, and that fornicating would have a negative impact on me for the rest of my life, even if there were no babies made, even if there were no diseases transmitted. Bonding with the wrong women, and spending time, money, and energy foolishly were also consequences of such behavior, or the pursuit of it.

What I needed to know was that the right people would still want to be with me even if I bucked the trends and stayed chaste. What I needed to know was that being chaste would not make me less of a man, and would not be “wasting” my youth and the body God gave me. What I needed to know was that God’s rules didn’t change just because our culture made saving sex for marriage more difficult through increased stimulation, fewer impediments, and later marriages. What I needed to know was that fornicating would hinder my enjoyment of lovemaking.

As someone who has fornicated with women I loved, women I didn’t love, and then got married, I know from my own experience that sex is better with someone I love, and more so within marriage. It is better yet when I want to conceive a child than when I’m worrying that I will.

Now, this is not to say that a guy will enjoy sex more with a wife who passively and quietly remains motionless during lovemaking, who gives off signals that she’d rather be doing anything else, and who declines doing anything that might make the experience more enjoyable for either or both of them... instead of some nubile bikini model stranger who will do will do just about anything in bed without even having to be asked. If God were to say, “Okay – you’re choice: sex with a cold wife or an enthusiastic stranger – either will be okay”, most men would choose the enthusiastic stranger. But I found the very same sex acts to be more enjoyable with a woman I loved and even more so with my wife than I did with a woman I was just dating – because I was making love God’s way to my wife, not simply trying to impress someone else or get my rocks off.

I suppose that some people, especially guys, would cite guilt or some psychological hang-up to explain the difference in my experiences. But I really don’t think that made the difference. It might have been a factor, but I had pretty much dulled my conscience in this regard by the time I figured that, as long as I was going to fornicate, I wasn’t going to compound the situation by becoming attached to the wrong woman while doing it. Yes, while my morality should have driven me towards chastity, instead I became more callous and to stop letting myself get attached to a woman with whom I would not have a future (which, by the way, made those women want me all the more). I was mad at God back then. It wasn’t like I was sleeping around. It was still pretty much one woman at a time, but that was bad enough and damaging enough and doesn’t make my behavior excusable.

The guys who are players, hedonists, and the like out there may grant that it is true that sex is better within love and commitment than without, but they may still maintain that even casual sex is better than no sex, and the tradeoffs of marriage or some other sort of commitment or emotional bond are too great. I could agree...if I was an atheist or otherwise believed we were nothing more than advanced monkeys comprised of nothing but matter. But I believe we are more than just physical beings. We’re spiritual beings as well. The costs of doing things our own way instead of God’s way are too great. (And let’s never confuse doing things a feminist’s way or a woman’s way with doing things God’s way.)

Today’s Christian man should not hurry to the altar just because he has a desire for sex or for sex with a woman he loves. He should only go to the altar if he wants to be a husband, is reasonably prepared to be a husband, and has found the right woman to be his wife. While I can’t excuse either wrong, I think it is much more of a problem to marry the wrong woman or marry at all if that is not what is right for you than to fornicate. Fortunately, those aren’t the only options – as often as they are chosen. A man can marry the right woman at the right time, and a man can be a faithful follower of Christ and be unmarried.

Saying “sex is better if you’re in love” will not be enough to discourage a guy who isn’t in love to abstain from casual sex, especially when it is thrown at him. Such a guy will gladly take the casual sex until the next time he “finds love”. As men, we need to be honest with the younger males who look up to us. Yes, sex is fun, and yes, there are females who are willing to fornicate with you, but you’re better off submitting to God instead of debasing yourself, and doing so with someone else.

My advice to wives is to make your husband one of those men who can honestly say that sex is better and more frequent within marriage. Is there something you know he likes, but you aren’t really excited by it? As long as it doesn’t hurt or isn’t clearly against the Bible (such as involving another person or being publicly immodest), go ahead and do it anyway. If your husband can honestly talk of the benefits of marriage in this regard, he will be more effective in persuading younger males that saving sex for marriage is for the best. The more men who believe that, the better off women will be, too.

If you are an unmarried woman who cares about promoting marriage, especially because you desire to marry, you can also help in this regard by not fornicating.