Why Wait for Sex?
A Look at the Lies We Face
by Alice Fryling
History teaches us that people believe what they want to hear. Lies can
sound so true when people are starving for truth. Even whole societies will feast on their promises
. The Inquisition was based on the lie that some people could force other people to change their
religious beliefs. American colonists believed the lie that people of one race had the right to
own, buy and sell people of another race. More recently, hundreds of thousands of people believed
Hitler's lie that the Jewish race should be eradicated. Most of us can hardly imagine that anyone
could have believed these lies. And yet we swallow other lies all the time.
Our society is starving for intimacy. And many of the lies we believe in our culture have to do
with our hunger for relationship. We want acceptance, loving relationships and deep intimacy, and
yet we believe the lie that sex will satisfy our hunger. It's true that we are profoundly sexual
beings, but it's time to examine some of the lies we feast on: the lie that premarital sex is one
of our unalienable rights, the lie that sexual intercourse is the route to intimacy, and the lie
that premarital abstinence is obsolete at best and repressive at worst. These are all lies.
We have bought into these lies because we are a starving people. We are people who
long to be loved, touched and understood in a world of declining family ties and epidemic dysfunction. Our
desires are certainly not new; they are as old as humanity. The difference in our world today is
that people are trying to fulfill these longings in strange ways: through machines (TV's, CD
players, and computers), through sports, material possessions, institutions and sex. Especially
through sex. "Try it just once and you'll be fulfilled." "Go for variety and you won't be bored."
"A life without sex is a life without belonging." Sexual experience has become a personal right, a
need to be met and a norm to be accepted.
The tragedy of all this is that people are dying of emotional starvation,
and they are looking for
food in the wrong places. I would like to identify seven lies that our society is making about
sex. The truth is that sex outside of marriage is not all it's cracked up to be. There is no pot
of gold at the end of that rainbow.
Lie #1: Sex creates intimacy. Genital sex is an expression of intimacy, not the means to
intimacy. True intimacy springs from verbal and emotional communion. True intimacy is built on a
commitment to honesty, love and freedom. True intimacy is not primarily a sexual encounter.
Intimacy, in fact, has almost nothing to do with our sex organs. A prostitute may expose her body,
but her relationships are hardly intimate.
Premarital sexual intercourse may actually hinder intimacy. Donald Joy writes that indulging in
sexual intercourse prematurely short-circuits the emotional bonding process. He cites one study of
100,000 women that links early sexual experience with dissatisfaction in their present marriages,
unhappiness with the level of sexual intimacy and a prevalence of low self-esteem (Christianity
Today, October 3, 1986).
Lie #2: Starting sex early in a relationship will help you get to know one another and become
better partners later. Sexual intercourse and extensive physical exploration early in a
relationship do not reflect sex at its best. Of course there is sensual pleasure for those who
engage in premarital sexual experiences, but they are missing out on the best route to marital
happiness. Sex is an art that is learned best in the safe environment of marriage. I met with
one student whose disappointment with her sexual encounters prompted her to overcome great
embarrassment and ask me point blank: "Is sex in marriage as bad as it is outside of marriage?"
She had arrived at the end of the rainbow, looking for the promised pot of gold, and she had found
only disillusionment.
When unrestrained physical intimacy dominates a relationship, other parts of that relationship
suffer. In healthy marriages, sex takes its natural place beside the intellectual, emotional and
practical aspects of life. Married couples spend less time in bed than they do in conversation, in
problem solving, and in emotional communion. The lie that premarital sex prepares you for marriage
denies the fact that sexual happiness grows only through years of intimate relationship. The height
of sexual pleasure, psychologists tell us, usually comes after ten to twenty years of marriage.
Good sex begins in the head. It depends on intimate knowledge of your partner. The Bible uses the
words "to know" to describe sexual intercourse: "Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived . . ."
(Genesis 4:1, NRSV). This choice of words elevates human sexuality from mere animal sex where
availability is the main requirement to a full, intimate expression of love and commitment.
Lie #3: Casual sex without long-term commitments is both fun and freeing. Those who settle
for short-term sexual relationships are settling for second-best sex. Journalist George Leonard
observed that "casual recreational sex is hardly a feast-not even a good hearty sandwich. It is a
diet of fast food served in plastic containers. Life's feast is available only to those who are
willing and able to engage life on a deeply personal level, giving all, holding back nothing."
(Quoted by Joyce Huggett in Dating, Sex & Friendship, InterVarsity Press, p. 82.) For
a woman, particularly, sex can reveal hidden fears and lack of trust. Good sex-which can be a
healing agent over time-requires trust, trust which grows best in the context of the life-long
commitment of marriage.
Lie #4: If you don't express your sexuality freely, you must be repressed, sick or prudish.
This can be a very intimidating lie, but the facts are that premature sex is bad for your
emotional, physical and cultural health. The February 1991 issue of the journal Pediatrics
reported that researchers at Indiana University found that sexually active teenagers are more
likely to be prone to alcohol abuse and illegal drugs, and are more likely to have trouble in
school. They reported that sexually active girls were more likely to be depressed, have low self
esteem, feel lonely or attempt suicide.
Premarital sex may be bad for the emotional health of your future marriage. It lays the groundwork
for comparisons, suspicions, and mistrust. "Am I as attractive (or as sexually stimulating) as his
last partner?" "If she didn't wait for me before we were married, why do I think she will settle
for only me now?" "If someone better comes along, will I be left in the dust?"
Premarital sex is also bad for your physical health. Sexually transmitted diseases have received
abundant attention from the press in recent years. Equal time has not been given to the opinion
held by many medical experts that extra-marital abstinence is without a doubt the best way to
avoid these diseases.
Sexual promiscuity is even bad for the health of our civilization. One study of more than eighty
societies ranging in development from ancient to primitive to more modern revealed "an unvarying
correlation between the degree of sexual restraints and the rate of social progress. Cultures that
were more sexually permissive displayed less cultural energy, creativity, intellectual development
and individualism, and a slower general cultural ascent . . ." (Reo Christenson, Christianity
Today, February 19, 1982). Why, then, do we-as individuals and as a society-trade our energy,
creativity, and intellectual development for momentary sexual pleasure? Because we have believed a
lie.
Lie #5: Sex is freedom. Premarital sex is hardly an expression of freedom. Young people who
become sexually active in response to peer pressure to be sophisticated and independent are
actually becoming victims of current public opinion. No one is really free who engages in any
activity in order to impress the majority.
Lie #6: Surely God understands that this is the twentieth century! How can what society says is
okay be wrong? Scripture is clear that sexual intercourse
outside the bonds of marriage is sin.
Even if we had no other evidence, God's word makes it clear that intercourse outside of marriage
is not only outside our best interests, but it is also wrong. In his seventh commandment to the
Israelites, God said "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14). Jesus was even more inclusive
when he described the evil within men's hearts, including "sexual immorality" (Mark 7:21). Paul
exhorted the Corinthians to "flee from sexual immorality" (see 1 Corinthians 6:18-19), and to the
Ephesians he said that there must not be among them even a "hint of sexual immorality, or any kind
of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people" (Ephesians 5:3). The
writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage
bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Hebrews 13:4).
I do not believe that God gave these rules because he is a spoil-sport. Quite the contrary.
Because God created us and because he loves us more than we can ever know, he has told us how to
have the best, most satisfying sexual experiences: in marriage. That's where sex is fun! Premarital
abstinence and marital faithfulness is not a denial of my rights or my pleasures. It is choosing
to experience sex in the healthiest, happiest context.
Lie #7: Why wait? How can you know for sure that waiting is best? Maybe sex isn't worth the wait.
Maybe it's best to take the opportunities you have now. Obedience to God's commands includes
trusting him to know what's best for us-even if we don't fully grasp his reasons. The choices we
make in our sexual behavior require faith in truths we may not understand. God required the
Israelites to obey dozens of laws, many of which were good for their health even though they didn't
know why. Look at one example in Leviticus 15:2, 9-10: "When any man has a bodily discharge, the
discharge is unclean. . . . Everything the man sits on while riding will be unclean." Thousands of
years ago, no one had heard of germs and micro-organisms that carry disease. If some young man had
complained about God's unfairness in not letting him ride the same horse as his friend who had the
discharge, could he have understood if God had explained venereal disease to him in scientific
detail? Not likely. Likewise, there are spiritual, emotional, physical and psychological reasons
why God has limited sexual intercourse to the marriage bed. Some of those reasons are beyond our
understanding. We simply must believe that God knows what is best for us.
When we live within the confines of God's limits, we live by faith in a loving God. Sexual purity
is, in the final analysis, an expression of our confidence in God's goodness, an indication of our
trust in Jesus. "You are my friends," Jesus said, "if you do what I command" (John 15:14). "Now
faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). Living
by faith means applying this definition of faith to the situation at hand. We exercise faith and
obedience, not because of what we know, but because of the person we love, Jesus himself.
The truth that sex is best within the context of marriage cannot be proven ahead of time. But we
can learn from those who have already made their choices. I asked my friend Liz, a psychotherapist,
"How often do you see clients who wish they had not explored their sexuality so much before
marriage?" "Oh, very often," she answered. Then I asked, "And how often do you have clients who
wish they had gone further in physical intimacy before marriage?" Her eyes widened, and she looked
at me with surprise as she answered emphatically, "Never!" This is one of life's great faith
issues.
If you decide to wait, it will take great courage and strength.
If you decide not to wait, you
will never know what you missed. You cannot have it both ways. No one can prove that premarital
abstinence works. I believe that medical, psychological, and sociological evidence strongly
supports the position that sex outside of marriage is not good for us. But in the final analysis,
it is an issue of faith. For Christian men and women at the end of the twentieth century, the
choices we make in our sexual behavior may be one of the main ways God calls us to believe. Do we
dare to be different? Do we dare to believe the truth of God's Word even though it contradicts
most of the lies surrounding us? I believe that God is calling us to this kind of radical faith.
Alice Fryling is a speaker and author living in Madison, Wisconsin.
Her husband, Bob, directs InterVarsity's Campus Division, and her two daughters attend college.
Alice's latest book, Reshaping a Jealous Heart: How to Turn Dissatisfaction into Contentment,
was published recently by InterVarsity Press®. This article first appeared in the Spring 1995
issue of
Student Leadership Journal.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this article provided this permission
notice, and the copyright notice below are preserved on all copies.
© 1995 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of the USA. All rights reserved.
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