Two Day Magazine

While growing up in the church, I was taught to wait until marriage to have sex. I was told it was the “right the thing to do because God intended it to be that way.”

No other options were given such as, “if you decide to have sex, here are protective measures you can take to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STIs.”

My informal education about sex led me to believe sex was wrong in any other context besides marriage and that I better tighten my chastity belt to ensure I did not slip.

Abstaining didn’t last very long for me, though. At 16, I became sexually active, often feeling a lot of shame and guilt because of the beliefs instilled in me about sex at an early age. Luckily, it didn’t take me long to realize that there were forms of birth control like The Pill and ways to protect to myself from STIs (condoms) that would at least provide a safety guard to help me not get pregnant or an infection, while realizing no condom or form of birth control is 100% effective.  

Once I became sexually active, I realized just how fun sex is and can be. I thought to myself, “How could anyone wait until they’re married to have sex?”

Many of us were taught either by religion or by our parents that we should wait as long as possible to have sex. Preferably waiting till marriage. For the majority of us, though, waiting just doesn’t happen. Federally funded abstinence-only programs were discontinued because studies found they didn’t work after finally coming to grips with the fact that 15-24 year-olds represent nearly half of the 18.9 million new cases of STIs each year.

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in any developed country. Oh, and what about abortions? Over a million abortions were performed last year in America. Over 65 percent of women receiving abortions identified themselves as Protestant or Catholic.

While this may not shock many, it certainly shocked me.  Churches--yes, I’m talking to all the churches that I went to growing up--remind their young pupils the benefits of waiting. My favorite reason given? The romantic notion that I will be my husband’s first, and I will be his first, and therefore, because we were each other’s first, we somehow will have a blissful marriage because we won’t have that extra baggage to carry into our relationship. 

Statistics reveal that people aren’t waiting, though. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that 88 percent of young adults (ages 18-29) are having sex. Of those who defined themselves as “evangelical”, 80 percent say they have had sex.

I read these statistics in Relevant, a progressive Christian magazine. The author, Tyler Charles, explores why so many Christians are doing it. Charles, who is a minister, argues that more Christians are having sex because they don’t understand the real value of marriage. He acknowledges the average age of people getting married has increased: the average age for women is 26.1 and for men 28.1, which makes it harder for people to continue abstaining from sex.

But, he believes “The Church needs to encourage and prepare people for marriage. I don’t think the reason to get married earlier is to avoid temptation for sex or to avoid abortions, but simply because it’s a good thing. If we valued marriage higher, I think we would have more people getting married earlier.”

Great. Just we need, people just graduated from college, figuring out their lives, many not sure who they are or what they want to do, tying the knot with somebody. Charles argues that getting married earlier should not be used as a way to stave of temptation, but in essence, that’s what would be happening.

I can speak from a place of personal experience that the church as a whole is out of touch with the reality. No matter when people get married, chances are they will have sex before sliding a ring on their finger.

Four out five Americans have sex by the age of 20. Let’s not forget that we live in a hyper-sexualized culture where sex is thrown in our face on a daily basis. The church cannot outnumber the times children hear or see sex in the media everyday. I do believe the church as a whole has good intentions to help protect most teens from making decisions that they aren’t ready to make concerning sex.

However, if the church really wanted to help ensure that they are doing everything in their means to help teens, then they need to accept facts that teens are having sex. Perhaps taking the steps to stop shaming teens from having sex and providing information on birth control or counseling services to help teens struggling with the decision of whether or not they are ready to have sex would serve their communities better. The church should be a safe place for teens to go to; not a place where teens will feel judged for choices made concerning sex.

One message the church does seem to have a better grasp on is that sex is not just about two people’s bodies connecting. Sex is a bonding experience, whether it’s a one-night stand or in a relationship.

The hormone oxytocin, (also known as the love hormone)  is released every time a person is having sex. This chemical helps create a strong bond between two people having intercourse. We do live in a culture where having connections with other people is extremely important and sex is one of the quickest and easiest ways to feel connected to someone, even if you just met in a bar that night.

Many of those connections come with regrets, however. Those regrets don’t necessarily mean that person will become emotionally damaged.  But, research has shown that the more physical relationships people have outside of monogamous relationships, the more difficult it becomes for that person to form a long-term commitment because that person keeps training their brain for the short-term.

The church has the right to be concerned for human’s sexuality. Showing concern does not mean the church has to abandon its core beliefs about abstaining till marriage. The church should acknowledge that abstinence, in most cases, will not take place and needs to have the resources to help teens or adults if they make the decision not to wait.
    
There rests the unwavering truth that sometimes our hormones, no matter how good our intentions, will overpower our desire to abstain. The church could play an instrumental role in helping the decline of unwanted pregnancies and STIs if they started taking an active role outside of the abstinence message.

Had my church been a place that I could have gone to seek guidance outside of the advice of abstaining, perhaps I could have learned to make better decisions concerning sex not based on fear that I would go to hell.  

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