posted
I just finished reading the latest review column and I guess I just don't get it. Particularly this claim:
"I wish Lee Nichols would do the anthropological research to find out how most Americans live and toss us an occasional novel set in our world, where people wait for marriage and don't find it acceptable when other people move in with each other without benefit of wedlock -- not because we're religious fanatics but because we know that this is what civilization in general and our children in particular require of us. "
I think among a large segment of the society adults living together before marriage is accepted. It might not be the choice of everyone but I am not sure I know very many people who would say anything about someone else's choice to live together. Further, I don't think the majority of people wait until marriage to have sex. It certainly is not the case amongst my circle of friends who are far from a wild and crazy group. I did a quick google search and found this statistic:
"In his book Solving America's Sexual Crises, Ira Reiss says the vast majority of the young will discard abstinence. Reiss, a sociologist who has studied American sexual behavior for over 40 years, relates that many 10-year-olds support the idea of abstinence before marriage.
But Reiss also reports that before they are out of their teens, approximately 80% of young people have had sex and a significant percentage have had four or more partners. And a study by Northern Kentucky University showed that of those college undergraduates who claimed to have kept their virginity pledges, 55% admitted to having engaged in oral sex."
If 80% are having sex before 20, and the average ago of marriage is around 25, I would think the number that wait until marriage is probably even less than 20 percent. So I guess, my point is that among the population of the book, 20 somethings in an urban setting, the majority of them probably do engage in premarital sex. None of this is to say that I think premarital sex is a good idea or there aren't people who don't wait to marriage but that the picture of 20 somethings cohabitating or having sex before marriage is fairly accurate.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I think among a large segment of the society adults living together before marriage is accepted.
Yep. It's getting pretty close to the norm.
But keep in mind that when OSC says things like "us" or "we" or "our," he's really talking about life on Bizarro World, where up is down and black is white and mice eat cats and he is one of the bravest members of a mostly silent majority of people possessed of his particular form of moral rectitude.
"His world" is not our world. His articles make a lot more sense when you remember that he writes speculative fiction and alternate histories.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I also happen to disagree with OSC on his numbers in this Review-- not his opinion, mind you, which I think is spot on-- but I feel like most of the unmarried adults I know are sexually active. Of course, all the unmaried adults I know are fairly irresponsible people, too. . . premarital sex and social irresponsibility go hand in hand, in my opinion.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I'm still serious about the question, though. Do you consider not being married to be socially irresponsible?
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posted
I know lots of unmarried, socially responsible people. Some of whom have sex and some of whom don't. I may not agree with their choice to have sex, but that's not my choice, is it? It's their life. And they are otherwise very socially responsible.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
It seems to me that while virgins-before-marriage exist, they ain't common. Even among groups that believe premarital sex is wrong--it seems to happen quite a bit, especially when two people in that group are very in love and hoping to get married.
Dude, we all have sex drives (well, most of us do) and not having sex with the one person you are deeply in love with is *hard*.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I'm glad my parents lived and slept (I assume) together before they married for two years. I feel that in many ways it is a more socially responsible thing to do. Most of my friends (aged around 19) plan to live with their a partner before they marry, even if they don't 'plan' to actually have sex with them, simply because they want to know their partner really well before they make the final leap.
I'm not surprised most ten year olds say that they won't have sex before marriage. In fact, I'm surprised 10 year olds are considered old enough to make such a judgement. If you had asked me aged ten (and I wasn't ignorant. I'd had the usual talking to about "when a man and a woman are in love...") I would have probably skipped the question! I certainly wasn't thinking about sex in any sort of serious way aged ten years old!
These ten year olds are not pure innocents who are unmarred by the evils of modern society, they are young children who are not and should not be thinking about sex and marriage and therefore will of course assume that in the misty distant future when they marry they will be like a fairy tale character with a fairy tale prince or princess. Certainly Cinderella didn't have sex before marriage.
A thirteen or fourteen year old might give a more viable answer.
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quote:Of course, all the unmaried adults I know are fairly irresponsible people, too. . . premarital sex and social irresponsibility go hand in hand, in my opinion.
I think that you must be working with a skewed sample.
quote:It seems to me that while virgins-before-marriage exist, they ain't common.
I'm distrustful of virgins my age. I know that there reasons bound in faith, which I understand and respect, but for everyone else, I think that there is something self-abusive and unhealthy about it, and to tell the truth, I think that there is something very healthy about occasional sex. I don't want to use the word "casual," but I'm a believer that timely sex is healthy-- and should be encouraged-- not to mention, I think that there is something terribly unbecoming about sloppy marriages and half-wanted kids.
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posted
I consider myself pretty socially responsible. I engage in pre-marital sex. In fact, until gay-marriage is legalized in the US, all the sex I engage in will be pre-marital. I don't think one thing necessarily has any bearing on the other unless you define "social responsibility" as "pre-maritally abstinent" in which case discussion is moot.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:anthropological research to find out how most Americans live and toss us an occasional novel set in our world
I think he may be wrong on what he thinks "most" Americans do with regards to sexual relationships and marriage/co-habitation.
As for "socially responsible" I don't know how you judge that unless you are saying "they're playing with a fire whose effects when they get burned, burn society too" which is true but also can be applied to Motorcyclists who don't wear helmets and uninsured drivers who cause accidents.
Having sex is risky. I don't think anyone's doubting that. But how risky and therefore burdensome on society can be hotly debated.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Of course ten year olds won't have sex before marriage! Their health teacher told them what that sex thing people keep talking about on TV was just last week, and they were a little grossed out. In fact, it you ask the, if they want to have in their entire lives, they'll probably say no too.
They haven't got their hormones yet. Silly children.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Not answering for Scott, but I'll agree that extramarital sex and social irresponsibility do go together. Essentially, reducing sex to something casually undertaken with various acquaintances greatly diminishes the perceived importance of marriage. This in turn creates far more broken homes and fatherless households, damaging children and setting up an even worse scenario for subsequent generations.
An unfortunate manifestation of this is seen in modern African-American culture. Out-of-wedlock birth rates have expanded by an absurd amount (25% to ~70% since 1965). And half of these single-mother households are in poverty, compared to only 10% of married black families. The men fathering these illegitimate children are socially irresponsible because they don't stick around to actually BE fathers. And the women are also to blame for not demanding better of their men.
Other demographics are not that bad yet, but will catch up.
Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
>>I'm still serious about the question, though. Do you consider not being married to be socially irresponsible?
:shrug:
It depends on the individual I'm judging.
I don't know you; I'm not judging you.
I know that there are socially irresponsible married couples; my personal experience is that there are many more socially irresponsible unmarried people. At least in my circle of friends.
Xav-- I don't know that I can define 'socially irresponsible' for you in so many words; I know it when I see it. Premarital sex is socially irresponsible; so is greed; so is materialism; so is unwillingness to assist the poor regardless of their circumstances. Living outside of your means is socially irresponsible; so is an unwillingness to pay taxes, or cheating on them. I realize that this may not be the answer you're looking for, and it's by no means a complete answer.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Essentially, reducing sex to something casually undertaken with various acquaintances greatly diminishes the perceived importance of marriage.
That's not the same as living with someone you love before marriage (or deciding never to get married, but just to live with them) and having sex.
quote:I know that there are socially irresponsible married couples; my personal experience is that there are many more socially irresponsible unmarried people. At least in my circle of friends.
Sounds like you may need a new circle of friends. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Look... OSC may not be accurately depicting American society "as it is", but I think he's doing a good job of describing it "as it should be".
Art reflects society, but it also influences society. By making premarital sex such a normal state of affairs (pardon the pun) in movies, the message is clear: there's nothing to be concerned about.
quote:Originally posted by beverly: Dude, we all have sex drives (well, most of us do) and not having sex with the one person you are deeply in love with is *hard*.
That's true, of course. But if you're that deeply in love, why aren't you married?
I think that someone who really thinks that premarital sex is a problem has a responsibility to treat it as such in their writing, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. And that, I think, is what OSC did. He wrote:
quote:I wish Lee Nichols would do the anthropological research to find out how most Americans live and toss us an occasional novel set in our world, where people wait for marriage and don't find it acceptable when other people move in with each other without benefit of wedlock -- not because we're religious fanatics but because we know that this is what civilization in general and our children in particular require of us.
My only objection here is "most Americans". I don't know that it's the case, and I suspect it isn't. But I could be wrong. It certainly isn't the case among most inhabitants of big cities. But then, most inhabitants of big cities voted blue in 2004. And red won. So maybe he's right.
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quote: Essentially, reducing sex to something casually undertaken with various acquaintances greatly diminishes the perceived importance of marriage. This in turn creates far more broken homes and fatherless households, damaging children and setting up an even worse scenario for subsequent generations.
Both of these sentences are given as statements of fact. Can you provide proof of either claim?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:But if you're that deeply in love, why aren't you married?
Um, I'm assuming these two hypothetical people have every intention of getting married. Do you think they need to get married *right now*? Being engaged and not having sex is hard. I've done it. You have to be pretty highly motivated in order to overcome your natural desires in that way.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: Xav-- I don't know that I can define 'socially irresponsible' for you in so many words; I know it when I see it. Premarital sex is socially irresponsible; so is greed; so is materialism; so is unwillingness to assist the poor regardless of their circumstances. Living outside of your means is socially irresponsible; so is an unwillingness to pay taxes, or cheating on them. I realize that this may not be the answer you're looking for, and it's by no means a complete answer.
Thank you, Scott.
So now we are brought to KarlEd's point:
quote:I don't think one thing necessarily has any bearing on the other unless you define "social responsibility" as "pre-maritally abstinent" in which case discussion is moot.
Which by your own definition, appears to be at least partially true.
Would you say someone is socially irresponsible if the only trait on your list they exhibit is that they engage in premarital sex (which is the only thing on the list which anyone could accuse me of)?
Irregardless:
quote:Essentially, reducing sex to something casually undertaken with various acquaintances greatly diminishes the perceived importance of marriage.
Yikes!
You are lumping all of premarital sex together and describing it as "something casually undertaken with various acquaintances".
That type of attitude is not shared by everyone who has sex outside of wedlock. I myself have only had sex with one person in the last three or four years.
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posted
>>I think that you must be working with a skewed sample.
Almost definitely. My unmarried friends are mostly white or Asian, in their 20s, have pretty good paying jobs, no college degree, and are extremely intelligent. But I never said I was working out a scientific survey, Irami. I noted, in fact, that my evidence is anectdotal.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:That's not the same as living with someone you love before marriage (or deciding never to get married, but just to live with them) and having sex.
OK, but it's my impression that OSC's article was talking particularly about promiscuity more than monogamous relationships that merely lack a marriage license. But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
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posted
Scott, I'm not worried about what you think of me. I've long been used to the pressure to get married, and to people assuming that since I'm not, I must be any one of a variety of unsavory things.
I don't believe that caving into pressure and doing something that you know is a bad idea for you personally is responsible. But people do it all the time.
But I can see how you would think that doing otherwise is socially irresponsible. Not because being unmarried is bad in itself, but it does imply a certain amount of disregard for public opinion. Social responsibility is all about doing what will make your neighbors happy.
In my experience, especially in the church, everyone has a story. Every girl I know who is LDS, over 25, and not married has an "I almost got married" story somewhere. Either it was the wrong guy, or he broke her heart, or it didn't feel right, or they did get married and it turned out to be a disaster so they are not now, but everyone of them has a reason. Same for most of the guys, the exceptions being the socially inept ones who don't date because they haven't figured out how yet.
Even in your circle of friends, I suspect you are dealing with an appalling lack of imagination when you assign them motives. You ought to ask sometime - you might get to hear their stories.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
I find this really insulting. I have two sisters whom I love dearly, both of whom live with a boyfriend. One has been with the same man for almost ten years, and dated him for three before moving in together. Neither of them EVER want to get married because my mother went through two messy, messy divorces. (Neither of them ever want kids for much the same reason.) I reacted differently-- I got married in the Temple, a comittment I would have a very, very, VERY hard time breaking. But I don't judge or blame them for not getting married, for reacting the way they did. Again, I think you're assigning people motives without ever asking them.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
>>Would you say someone is socially irresponsible if the only trait on your list they exhibit is that they engage in premarital sex?
Yes. I would NOT say that behavior is going to devour their lives or characters and make them terrible, awful, evil people, or that the destruction of society is imminent because Joe slept with Jenny. These are my FRIENDS I'm talking about here. I don't hang with evil folk.
That's why I'm not a Republican. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Both of these sentences are given as statements of fact. Can you provide proof of either claim?
The correlation of societal trends is good enough evidence for me. If you have an alternate explanation for the simultaneous change in sexual morals, drop in the marriage rate and increase in single-mother households over the past 40 years, I'm listening.
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posted
No wonder everyone you know who has premarital sex is socially irresponsible. The key element for you of social irresponsibility is having premarital sex.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I've only ever had sex with my wife. I'm not a supporter of strict abstinence.
I've had premarital sex. And lived with my wife, before she was wife.
I don't think I particularly harmed civilization in anyway (nor would I say everyone can and ought to do as I did, these matters are intrinsically subjective, IMO), so I'm left to conclude that OSC's basis is a specific social fanaticism (since I understand that people across religions/denominations feel similarly), even if he doesn't think so.
Of course, it's really just my word versus his, as neither of us bother to privide any sort of proof of the harm (or non-harm) to civilization of these sorts of actions.
posted
Doesn't saying that casual sex diminishes respect for marriage imply that you believe marriage is all about the sex? I believe that marriage is much, much, more than that.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote: OK, but it's my impression that OSC's article was talking particularly about promiscuity more than monogamous relationships that merely lack a marriage license. But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
Or it says, "I'm secure enough in our relationship to not need a piece of paper to validate it."
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:I find this really insulting. I have two sisters whom I love dearly, both of whom live with a boyfriend. One has been with the same man for almost ten years, and dated him for three before moving in together. Neither of them EVER want to get married because my mother went through two messy, messy divorces. (Neither of them ever want kids for much the same reason.)
Exactly the point. They go INTO the relationship already calculating the costs/benefits of getting OUT of them. I.e., neither participant has any particular committment to stay long term, though they will if they continue to like it. I will give them credit, though, for not wanting to bring children into such a situation.
quote:I reacted differently-- I got married in the Temple, a comittment I would have a very, very, VERY hard time breaking. But I don't judge or blame them for not getting married, for reacting the way they did. Again, I think you're assigning people motives without ever asking them.
What motive did I assign, other than wanting the perceived benefits of a marriage-type relationship without the risks & potential sacrifice? Isn't that exactly what you just described?
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posted
>>Even in your circle of friends, I suspect you are dealing with an appalling lack of imagination when you assign them motives. You ought to ask sometime - you might get to hear their stories.
You're a peach. Never change.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
I completely disagree. I absolutely intend to marry the person I am with now. However, because of the need to finish schools in different states, we have decided to wait until next May when I finish graduate school and can move out to Maryland. It has nothing to do with wanting to be able to walk away at any time but wanting to be able to live in the same state when we get married. This is a very common situation in my social circle. I have lots of friends who are dating someone they plan to marry but because of school and financial situations have choosen to wait.
I also think that there is a distinction between "casual sex" and premarital sex. All casual sex is premarital sex but not all premarital sex is casual sex.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, found that people who had premarital sex only with their future spouse experienced no higher rates of divorce/marital strife then those who waited to get married. I'll look to see if I can find the study again if anyone is interested.
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quote:I know that there reasons bound in faith, which I understand and respect, but for everyone else, I think that there is something self-abusive and unhealthy about it, and to tell the truth, I think that there is something very healthy about occasional sex. I don't want to use the word "casual," but I'm a believer that timely sex is healthy-- and should be encouraged-- not to mention, I think that there is something terribly unbecoming about sloppy marriages and half-wanted kids.
I disagree.... While marriage and sex within marriage is healthy, sex without marriage is somewhat dangerous. Bad things do not always result, but they happen too often and are often too severe to justify calling premarital sex healthy. This can range from abotion, undesired pregnancy, broken families, and STDs on the extreme end, to relationship difficulty, skewed value systems, and more general problems on the more subtle end of the spectrum. I've observed many go through these sorts of problems, with little to show in return other than a temporary satisfaction of desires and some sort of vague sense of having fulfilled a social expectation.
OSC is wrong - in real American society you are expected to have sex before marriage. It is a misguided expectation, like the expectation that you binge drink in college, but it exists nonetheless. I think it causes many Americans to overestimate the important of sex, as if it determines the worth of your relationships or as if you cannot be happy without it. That's perhaps one of the greatest dangers of them all when it comes to accepting premarital sex - that collectively the choice to accept that course of behavior creates a society in which our children think it's not only healthy, but neccessary. It's easy to justify any behavior when "everybody's doing it."
I don't, however, think that trying to pretend like abstinence is the norm solves that problem though. OSC goes wrong there.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Or it says, "I'm secure enough in our relationship to not need a piece of paper to validate it."
Probably an empty cliche' that guys use to convince women that this arrangement is somehow sophisticated or perhaps even more "secure" than marriage.
Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Probably an empty cliche' that guys use to convince women that this arrangement is somehow sophisticated or perhaps even more "secure" than marriage.
Probably a response used by insecure women who need a legal contract to make them feel safe in a relationship....
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote: Probably an empty cliche' that guys use to convince women that this arrangement is somehow sophisticated or perhaps even more "secure" than marriage.
I know just as many girls that hold this view as guys. Marriage is all about commitment. This commitment can be made without going to a church and the government. In fact, the only real reason I see for a non-religious person like myself to get married is to be more socially acceptable. A ceremony and certificate has no impact on the level of commitment between two people.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:They go INTO the relationship already calculating the costs/benefits of getting OUT of them. I.e., neither participant has any particular committment to stay long term, though they will if they continue to like it.
No. They are very committed to their relationships. They're just afraid because they've seen marriages go wrong. I think, in their mind, it's just that when you get married, you change. I'm not saying they're right, just that they're afraid, not irresponsible.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
I completely disagree. I absolutely intend to marry the person I am with now. However, because of the need to finish schools in different states, we have decided to wait until next May when I finish graduate school and can move out to Maryland. It has nothing to do with wanting to be able to walk away at any time but wanting to be able to live in the same state when we get married.
What you describe isn't really 'unwillingness' but merely postponement due to logistical reasons; that wasn't really the situation I was talking about.
Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Or it says, "I'm secure enough in our relationship to not need a piece of paper to validate it."
Probably an empty cliche' that guys use to convince women that this arrangement is somehow sophisticated or perhaps even more "secure" than marriage.
Whoa! That is so sexist I can't even blink. So I'll just comment on the topic at hand before my eyes dry out.
I'm with Ketchup and Bok and Theresa. I think there is a difference between pre-marital sex and 'casual' sex.
Plus, don't Mormons differentiate between legal marriage and Temple marriage? I mean, depending on the authority that binds people together?
If the government ceases to exist, does that invalidate marriages codified under that authority?
It's not a stupid piece of paper that keeps me married to my beloved, it's the fact that nothing in my life is more sacred to me than the bond we share. The piece of paper is hardly an impediment to our marriage dissolving, legally anyway.
It does make things like survivorship and so forth much easier, but it doesn't mean that much to me.
This is coming from a lifelong monogamist, and a person who took some serious precautions to save herself for marriage. I find it highly insulting to say that a peice of paper is the most important thing about my marriage and my decisions.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Whoa. I was expecting someone to comment on this before now:
quote:I'm distrustful of virgins my age. I know that there reasons bound in faith, which I understand and respect, but for everyone else, I think that there is something self-abusive and unhealthy about it
I'm curious (and rather ignorant I suppose)...what other reasons have you seen besides faith for people to be virgins at your age (whatever age that may be)? I suppose there is complete ineptitude which was showcased so tastefully in "The 40-year old Virgin," but in that case, why would you be untrusting? Not every older single virgin (without religious reasons for being a virgin) is so because of some need to punish or 'abuse' themselves. I think some people just wait a little longer to be 'in love' or to find the right person because even though they may not have religious reasons to abstain from sex before marriage, it's still an important decision for them. (<---It's these kind of people whom I would categorize as 'socially responsible.') Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:But if you're that deeply in love, why aren't you married?
Um, I'm assuming these two hypothetical people have every intention of getting married. Do you think they need to get married *right now*? Being engaged and not having sex is hard. I've done it. You have to be pretty highly motivated in order to overcome your natural desires in that way.
If they need to have sex right now, why not get married right now? See, this is the whole devaluation of marriage thing.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:If they need to have sex right now, why not get married right now? See, this is the whole devaluation of marriage thing.
But not everyone shares your moral beliefs. Is it fair to judge them by them? And not everyone thinks marriage is about sex.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:But even then, the unwillingness to codify the relationship on paper (especially with the easy availability of divorce these days) says 'I want to be able to walk away any time I like' or perhaps 'why buy the cow when I'm getting the milk for free?'
I completely disagree. I absolutely intend to marry the person I am with now. However, because of the need to finish schools in different states, we have decided to wait until next May when I finish graduate school and can move out to Maryland. It has nothing to do with wanting to be able to walk away at any time but wanting to be able to live in the same state when we get married. This is a very common situation in my social circle. I have lots of friends who are dating someone they plan to marry but because of school and financial situations have choosen to wait.
So have you chosen to abstain from sex as well? I mean, if you can have sex while living in different states, I don't get why you can't be married in different states. I'm not judging you, honestly. I'm just not understanding the explanation.
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posted
There are plenty of reasons to not get married *right now*. Those who are willing to restrain themselves will. Those not willing won't.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I also think OSC has a skewed sample of "everyone". I'm still relatively young, and I hang out with people from 20-30 years old. They all have similar upbringings and outlooks on pretty much everything. They are almost all products of strong, religious, two-parent households. And every one of them has had premarital sex. The majority of them with their girl/boyfriends, but some (mainly the younger ones), will sleep with anything that walks.
I think that is socially irresponsible behavior.
On the other hand, I have 4 close friends who knocked up their girlfriends, either in college or in the year since. They are all still with the girlfriends, and they're raising the children. 2 are now married, one is engaged, one is on the rocks.
The behavior pattern doesn't always correlate to anything. The exact same people with the exact same values can make totally contrary decisions without compromising who they are.
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