Sex Before Marriage
& Fornication

Sex Before Marriage. Every priest's and pastor's nightmare! This is where the renunciate sexual morality paradigm completely breaks down. I submit that the only way out of this mess is for Christian counsellors, pastors and priests to adopt the Jesus Ethics and apply it. 

In a nutshell, the Jesus Ethics requires from people:

• to treat and value one's neighbour as one would wish to be treated (be nice!).

• to not be exploitive, dominating, manipulative, controlling, violent, or abusive towards others (don't be an ass!).

• to, above all, leave underage people alone (don't be a paedophile!).

Priests, Pastors and Christian Counsellors would do well to use the Jesus Ethics principles when dealing with the difficult topic of sexuality.

"Sex Before Marriage" is a tough one... To better understand this very "Hot Topic", it would pay to examine how it is viewed not only by mainstream Christianity but also by other religions. This is important because in order for the Jesus Ethics to apply, the religious views of others need to be understood and respected. For example, the Jesus Ethics would require that if someone dates a conservative Catholic who wishes to abstain from sex until married, that wish should be respected. Manipulating a person into having sex against his/her religious convictions, may cause pain, confusion and guilt (it is the person that matters, not the religious views...).

See: How Sex Before Marriage is viewed by religions including Christianity

Why many Christian views on sex before marriage are wrong.

Sex before marriage is obviously a very difficult topic for Christian Churches. The Christian religion has been teaching for centuries that people should abstain from sex, unless they are married. As we can see from the above chart published by beliefnet.com, Christian Churches remain committed to this teaching. But today, this teaching has lost it's power. Once upon a time, mainstream (western) society reflected the Christian view on pre-marital sex, but not anymore. Not because society has become degenerate, as preachers would have us believe, but because society has become different. A moral view or teaching loses its power when it becomes unworkable or impractical. By continuing to teach against pre-marital sex, the Christian religion distances itself further from reality and relevance. 

James B. Nelson, professor of Christian ethics makes the point that "even on such a major issue as sexual intercourse between unmarried consenting adults, neither the Old or New Testament contains an explicit prohibition (which John Calvin discovered to his consternation). Indeed, the Song of Solomon celebrates one such relationship... We need to rethink our theology of marriage. It has been 300 years since Protestants began to understand that God’s primary purpose in creating us as sexual beings is not procreation but giving us the desire and capacity for intimacy... we have too frequently assumed that the church and its clergy have the power to "marry" couples in the wedding rite. Not so. Only a couple has the power to create a marriage through their covenanting together and with God. The wedding ceremony celebrates and supports that reality; it does not create it..." ( Needed: A Continuing Sexual Revolution )

Speaking of reality, there has been an overwhelming increase in cohabitating "unmarried" couples throughout the western world. In the U.S alone:  

Unmarried Couples in the USA Unmarried partner households: According to the 2000 Census, there are currently about 11 million people living with an unmarried partner in the U.S. The number of unmarried couples living together increased 72% between 1990 and 2000. It has increased tenfold between 1960 and 2000. Unmarried childbearing and parenting: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, America’s Families and Living Arrangements 2000, 41% of unmarried partner households have children under 18 living in them. In the National Center for Health Statistics, 1999 data proved that 33% of all births are to unmarried women.

However, unmarried couples fare no better than married couples. Separation rates are just as high for both married and unmarried "co-habiting" couples. Regarding the high divorce levels see: Marriage & Divorce As for unmarried "co-habiting couples, "the National Marriage Project of Rutgers University reports that the levels of happiness, sexual exclusivity, and sexual satisfaction of cohabitating couples has plunged. “After 5 to 7 years, 39% of all cohabiting couples have broken their relationship, 40% have married (although the marriage might not have lasted), and only 21% are still cohabiting..." 

In other words there are a lot of single adults out there... Should they all abstain from sex until they find someone to marry? That is what the Christian religion would have them do. But this clearly absurd. 

It is obvious that abstinence from sex is workable/possible only "for those who can handle it" (pun not intended!). Most people have strong sexual needs and desires. Sexual desire is like a fire that cannot be put out. Not everyone is born a eunuch, and not everyone is able to abstain from sex "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven".... Adults with no prospect of marriage in their near future inevitably "burn" with desire. Back in those days, people married very young. Today the situation is very different as most adults marry at a later age, due to the socio-economical reasons we all know. Back then, moral values were formed based on tribal needs - especially inheritance and survival. Procreation was of paramount importance as it ensured the survival of the tribe and it's status quo. This is why sexuality was interpreted/regulated in the context of procreation/inheritance while pleasure was left out. Today it is the other way around. In today's world, procreation is not a survival issue, women are no longer seen as breeding machines, people are not ready (financially, socially, emotionally, etc) for marriage until their late twenties or early thirties, and most importantly, sex is defined as a profound form of pleasure, not a duty to the tribe or society. Sex is no longer seen exclusively as an act of procreation. In today's scientific world, procreation can be achieved without sex! Thanks to sophisticated methods of birth control, sex can be enjoyed by consenting adults without any reference to procreation whatsoever. Christian leaders make the mistaken assumption that God intended sex for procreation and that it is a sin to tamper with nature as God made it. To be consistent, they would have to condemn all forms of tampering with nature, including medical treatments, technological comforts, etc. The problem with renunciate religions like Christianity is that they reject pleasure for the sake of pleasure. They feel compelled to attach some utility to pleasurable activities like sex, eating, drinking, singing, art, etc, in order to justify them. For them eating for the sake of pleasure alone is condemned as gluttony, sex for the sake of pleasure alone is condemned as lust/fornication, singing for anyone but God is condemned as profane/worldly and living for the sake of living (as opposed to serving God) is condemned as ingratitude/godlessness.

The notion that people must abstain from sex until they get married is clearly unworkable, in today's reality. The only argument religious people can come up with against sex before marriage is: "God said so". This kind of argument has lost its power. Anyone claiming today to speak on behalf of God, or to posses a transcript of God's actual words, is dismissed as delusional.

Seriously now, if God had desired to intervene and accurately transmit to mankind any set of universal rules, He would have done a much better job than what religions claim about their holy books. It is an insult to God to claim that the best He could come up with was a questionable collection of writings that were put together as the Holy Bible or the Holy Koran. 

Since there is no clear evidence that God actually said anything anytime about anything, the claim that God commands abstinence before marriage does not hold any water.

In today's world, abstinence from sex is not an option for unmarried young people. It is considered great folly to rush into marriage in order to be able to have sex. And this is exactly what many Christian groups advise people to do!

Dallard Willard says the following about prolonged abstinence from sex:  "In no domain of human life is it more true that "hope deferred makes the heart sick." (Proverbs 13:12), and it makes many minds sick as well..." (Dallas Willard, The Spirit of Disciplines, p. 172)

St. Paul, was a self confessed celibate person, and he seemed to have a problem with the whole sex/marriage thing, but realist as he was he admitted that it is "better to marry than to burn with passion." (1 Corinthians 7:9)... If he lived today, would St. Paul be realist enough to admit that it is better for adults to have sex with other single consenting adults than to "burn"? As the author of The Fundamentalist's Misuse of Sex article says: "Burning" here is something very serious and not just a trivial "inward" manner. It spills out into human life in many ways: severely affecting emotion, inability to engage in normal, healthy sexual relations, disgust and hatred and frustration for the opposite sex and even the abuse of children, sexual perversion and sex murders...."

Is Sex Before Marriage Fornication?

Again I quote from The Fundamentalist's Misuse of Sex: 

Theologians and churches, Jehovah's Witnesses and many others, define the word fornication as any type of sex outside marriage. But is that the correct meaning of the word? Is it fair to put a "black and white" meaning on this word, with a blanket condemnation on any sex outside marriage?

 Throughout the Hebrew and Greek Christian scriptures... there is one main teaching that stands out: love your fellow man as yourself, put mercy over sacrifice, put kindness, empathy and consideration of others over the obedience to laws, rules and regulations. This would include a life that does not hurt and take advantage of others. A way of living that would think of other's feelings and put agape love in the forefront.  Fornication, the same as adultery, were actions that were hurtful, harmful and abusive to others. They were actions that took advantage of others that acted selfish and callous. Vine's Expository Dictionary calls fornication, "implying excessive indulgence." Adultery consists of people who are unfaithful to their marriage spouses, hurting them. And fornication was also in the same line of unfaithful, hurtful actions. Fornication consists of hurtful actions, actions of unfaithfulness, actions that both defile one's own body of untrustworthiness, lack of loyalty and being a breaker of vows... King David broke the law and ate the show bread and it was counted as acceptable. Jesus, healed, threshed grain and did work on the Sabbath, clearly breaking the law, and it was acceptable. Why was this so? Because the circumstances neither hurt other people, took advantage of, abused or cheated others, nor did they consist of idolatry. 

The same is true of sex. When two people have sexual relations and it is a mutual agreeable thing, it does not always fall into the hurtful actions of "excessive indulgence." When married couples are both agreeable to end their relationship and one or both parties has sexual relations before a legal divorce, can it be considered adultery? If there are not hurtful actions of both parties and/or other parties involved, then the opinion here is this cannot be considered adultery. Nor can two consenting persons who have sexual relations without being married, be considered fornication, unless their is hurtful actions taken towards another. Neither of these actions fall into the definition of fornication, unlike the hard line fundamentalist thinkers, who put a "black and white" meaning on the word.... Fornication takes in all acts of prostitution.... Sex of humans is to please the other person. With each person doing what pleases the other, sex becomes a beautiful experience of the human psyche and the most intimate and bonding form of intimacy two human beings can obtain. Prostitution is completely selfish to both the buyer and the seller, neither do so for the benefit of the other but only for the self. This is the negative "lust" Apostle Peter and others speak about and falls within the term "fornication."... Jesus was condemned by the religious leaders for breaking the many laws that he did, for the Pharisees put "black and white" restrictive meanings to the many rules, laws, regulations and interpretations of words and scripture, just as many theologians and church leaders do today.... To have sexual relations of excessive indulgence, domineering, controlling, abusive and hurtful actions would fall into the definition of fornication, but can it be considered fornication when two human beings, who are not legally married, both consenting, neither taking advantage of one another, or hurt another, do what comes natural to two human beings?.. A person, who lives by the law of Christ, is one who tries his or her best to put the consideration of others ahead of their own. They fight with themselves to stop following their inherited selfish tendencies, applying mercy and kindness over the obedience to laws, rules and sacrifices and the unfair interpretive judgment of others. Their actions fall short, but are continually being adjusted and aimed at non-hurtful actions towards their fellow man. Sex is a normal human function. When this takes advantage over someone and becomes hurtful, abusive and unkind towards another person in anyway, whether it is the person partaking in sex, or a partner of this person, it is not in line with the law of the Christ. But, when sex is not domineering, nor abusive and does not hurt or show unkindness to another human it cannot be considered to fall under the term, fornication... 

 "Fornication" ( Greek word, "porneia"=prostitution) is an abusive, selfish sex that is hurtful and unloving towards others, It is sex for the self and the self only. It is sex for hire, services for pay. It is use of the body for means other than love. Real sex is for the other, a giving of love, a sharing of self, a bonding of spirit, a joining of souls. Real sex is free of charge, moving towards a special intimacy where two human beings communicate and connect in no other way that brings closeness to a higher realm. Nowhere does the Greek word, "pornos" define itself to mean government issued marriage certificates. This has been a misinterpretation from the early days of the post New Testament church, which later mutated to jail terms, torture and executions enforced by the church and government authorities. Today, while far removed from the intolerance of the religious tyranny of the past, the remnants and teachings of many doctrines, dogmas and interpretative meanings still remain....Our times contain many divorced people that may have been so hurt and devastated that they are not capable of making another lifetime commitment. Rehabilitation from the death of a spouse can take years of grieving and healing. Dependent children and financial obligations can be left that can drain a person and present extremely unreasonable conditions. Various laws, such as social security, taxes on last will and testaments, career changes and many other obligations all contribute to our changing times, all beyond the patriarchal society of the Jewish nation and subsequent early Christian hierarchical society... Yet despite this, the need for an intimate companion does not disappear. That companionship can be on many levels, working, social, friendship. Is sex to be completely ruled out because they do not fit into the churches theological interpretation of the scriptures? Yet is sex expected to be casual on every occasion? The answer to both would no by myself. The real answer depends on the varying level of circumstances on each individual case. ( The Fundamentalist's Misuse of Sex )

 Spong's Code of Sexual Ethics for Liberal Christianity

How do the Jesus Ethics apply to sex before marriage?

Retired Bishop Spong makes the point that sex has a lot to do with vulnerability. He warns that without recognising the vulnerability factor, sexual expression can be destructive.

John Spong gives five suggestions:

1. The sexual relationship between single adults must be just that-a relationship between single adults. It must not be a violation of either person's marital bond. If one's marital vow is broken by a sexual affair, that affair becomes an expression of dishonesty and will finally be destructive to both the marriage and the character of the violating person.

2. A sexual relationship between single adults must be a union of love and caring, not just a union of convenience or desire.

3. A sexual relationship does not appropriately initiate a relationship. Rather, a sexual relationship must grow out of the bond that two people build together over a period of time. Sex is not properly shared until many other things are shared, such as time, values, life stories, friendship, communication, and a sense of deep trust and responsibility. In other words, sex is not appropriate until there is a structure that will protect each person's vulnerability.

4. Intimacy is by its nature an intensely private and discreet human activity. Appropriate vulnerability requires that it must be kept that way. If both partners are not willing to protect the vulnerability of the other, the relationship becomes hurtful, hateful , and destructive. The sacred exclusive quality of these special moments cannot be compromised by gossip, by indiscretion, or even after the relationship has come to an end, by an expression of one person's anger. The unwillingness to make this commitment, or to carry through on it once made, would argue that the relationship was built on the power of ego needs and are the vulnerably of Personhood.

5. The relationship in which sex is shared by single adults needs to be exclusive. It may not turn out to be eternal, but while it is active it does need to be exclusive. Multiple sex partners at the same time is a violation of vulnerability, commitment, honesty, and the reality of caring.

 (John Spong, Living In Sin, p. 216, quoted by The Fundamentalist's Misuse of Sex)

What modern Scholars & Theologians are saying about Sex Before Marriage

 The following quotes were compiled by Gordon Gill (see: AN INSIGHT INTO THE FALLACIES OF CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM -With an Emphasis Upon Sexuality and Body Perception, Revised September 2001) :

• In his book Sex and Love in the Bible (Association Press, New York, 1959) Professor Cole states on pages 247-248 that, "Fornication means to us sex relations between unmarried persons, but its Latin root fornicare meant to patronize a brothel, or whoredom. The verb was derived from the noun fornix, meaning arch or vault, and as Roman brothels were located in underground vaults, the connection is clear."

• Nathaniel S. Lehrman (psychiatrist practicing in Great Neck, New York, and clinical instructor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine) observed in the July 1962 issue of the Journal of Religion and Health at page 368, that "The Mosaic standard of sexual morality was distinctly a double one, in which the categorical insistence upon premarital virginity and extramarital fidelity for Hebrew women was not demanded of Hebrew men...

• In Human Sexuality--edited by Edward A. Powers (United Church Press, New York and Philadelphia, 1977)--pages 35 & 36 reveal that, "Where woman does appear in the legal codes [of Israel], she has the role of a dependent and normally an inferior.... Her sexuality was the exclusive property of the male [and her infidelity] merited the death penalty.... The husband's sexual infidelity was not ranked as a crime [and divorce] was an exclusively male prerogative.". That the Biblical adultery references pertain to the violation of men's rights only, is reinforced by language in the Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21).

• Accordingly, any coveting by women of other women's husbands was not embodied therein, i.e., by its terms, the spouse-coveting sanction incorporated into the Tenth Commandment was structured so as to apply solely to men. .. Note also that the incident leading to Jesus's declining to condemn (see John 8:11) a married woman who had engaged in sex with a stranger--thus making herself a party to an adulterous act deemed injurious to her husband--arose out of an interpretation of Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22. Both passages were intended to foster the sexual exclusiveness of "another man's wife."

• Deuteronomy 22:13-17 describes a test which a man may employ to assure that a marriage partner is chaste (such determination being seen as helpful to him in establishing his paternity of any children born in the near term following wedlock). Thus, a seepage of blood from the genitals of a woman at the time of his first penetration of her would strongly indicate a state of virginity.

• Another kind of third-party sexual involvement relates to the law of levirate (Deuteronomy 25:5-6 in the O.T.; Matthew 22:24 and Luke 20:28 in the N.T.). Under its terms, the brother of a deceased husband is obligated to impregnate the widow. When Onan defied the edict by prematurely withdrawing from Tamar, he was put to death (Genesis 38:8-10).

• "prostitution."  is usually seen today as sex in exchange for money. As we shall observe, however, the Biblical connotation of the term is considerably different. That is to say, Bible annotators have shown that Paul's prostitution reference in 1 Corinthians alluded to priestesses who employed sex as a form of worship ritual in the temple of the love goddess Aphrodite... He likely saw a parallel with Numbers 25:1-3, Ezekiel 23:7, Hosea 4:10-12, Micah 1:7, etc... The above incidents should suffice to show that the portrayal of prostitution in the Bible does not conform with our contemporary use of the word.

• The term "sexual immorality" is broad enough to embrace acts seen by virtually everybody as sordid, in ancient times and/or today. Incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and coercive exploitation come to mind. Surprisingly or not, polygamy seems to have been excluded from this category in the O.T.; accordingly, the criticism of Solomon in 1 Kings 11:3-6 for his having 700 wives was directed not to their number but to their non-Israelite origins.

• The Anglican Digest for Advent 1999, the Rt. Rev. Frank K. Allan (Bishop in Atlanta) notes that "Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ... point to and witness to Jesus as the Word made flesh.... At the same time, Scripture ... was written by human beings who had their own prejudices, biases, cultural limitations, and pre-scientific world views.... No ethical person [nowadays] would countenance executing a disobedient child or stoning an adulterous wife...." 

• In ancient times, Israelite girls were expected to wed--actually, to be sold by their fathers soon after attaining puberty.

• Analyzing the motivations of male fundamentalists in their quest for wives, Dr. Roger W. Wescott (associate professor of social sciences at Michigan State University, fellow of the American Anthropological Association, and contributing scholar at the Realist Association) has noted that "the determined virgin-hunter [praises] the magical virtue of the unruptured hymen."

• Southern Baptists--often associated in the public mind with fundamentalism—spearheaded beginning in the 1990s the concept of "virginity pledges," wherein adolescents are urged to abstain from sexual intercourse as long as they remain unmarried. (Apparently, the Baptists do not acknowledge non-intercourse manifestations of sexual behavior.) Responsible people are likely pleased to learn of innovative means to dissuade our very young from activity for which they may not be emotionally or otherwise prepared. However, a study by Peter S. Bearman (Columbia University) and Hannah Brückner (Yale University) of adolescents attending 80 representative U.S. high schools--published in the January 2001 issue of American Journal of Sociology--suggests that measured against the Baptist's stated goal (i.e., no sex prior to marriage), the virginity pledge experience has largely been a failure. That is to say, adding together (1) the generally accepted age of sexual maturity of 12-14 years, and (2) the average number of years between such occurrence and marriage as disclosed by these researchers [males-12.5; females-11.8] reveals that persons of both sexes are on average marrying in their mid-20s. Based upon a finding by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that 65% of all adolescents transition from virginity to first intercourse by 12th grade, i.e., while still in their teens (see The Washington Post for July 13, 2001; page C8), the 30 to 38 extra months of virginity which the university researchers report that male and female pledgers, respectively, accrue over nonpledgers is insufficient to carry most of the former to a mid-20s wedding day. The researchers note that a substantial number of pledgers either break their pledges by relinquishing their virginity before marriage, or marry hastily--and unwisely--in an effort to keep their pledges. Neither alternative is what the Baptists had in mind. And because those breaking their pledges commonly do so on impulse, they rarely have available to them the birth control protection that nonpledgers can be expected to arrange for in advance.

• Professor L. William Countryman; Church and Divinity School of the Pacific; Berkeley, California: At one extreme, one cannot defend the promiscuous person who desires only personal gratification at whatever expense to others. At the other [extreme are] those widowed persons who wish to contract a faithful and giving relationship without benefit of legal marriage.... Between these extremes, there lies a large area of difficult individual desires. People will have to wend their way through such decisions, however, for the gift of celibacy is not given to all....

  Some non-marital liaisons may in fact prove to be preparatory to marriage in the stricter sense. Others may serve to meet legitimate needs in the absence of genuine alternatives. Still others may be abusive and exploitative. Only the last is to be condemned.

• Karen A. McClintock, United Methodist clergy member, faculty affiliation at Southern Oregon University: The goal of [our Victorian ancestors] was procreation. All other aspects of sexuality were considered sinful. The ghosts of this perspective still haunt us.

• A.E. Harvey; formerly lecturer at the University of Oxford and later Sub-Dean of Westminster: What we do not find are any specific [Biblical] laws or injunctions against casual sexual relationships.

• William Graham Cole, professor of religion, Williams College: There can be no quarrel with the secular world [with respect to the latter's acceptance of nonmarital sex]. It is right and the church has been wrong.... The method of moralism has been weighed in the balance and found wanting, partly because it moves in the wrong direction and partly because it has based its case on fear.

• Rev. William Coats; Interim Rector, Church of the Redeemer; Morristown, New Jersey: I argue that it is possible for some people to live in situations of [unwed] intimacy so long as these relationships image patterns of self-denial and mutual giving.

• Rev. Frederic C. Wood, Jr.; Episcopal Chaplain at Vassar and Goucher colleges: The church ... often promulgates attitudes which inhibit health and morality in the sexual sphere…. To make intercourse outside the covenant of marriage easier certainly does not mean to remove the moral challenge [but] might even lead to a more wholesome attitude toward sexuality itself.... And the popular belief that greater social acceptance of sex outside the covenant would lead to sexual license and to disregard of all moral considerations is not demonstrable. From counseling and listening to college students involved in premarital affairs, I see no more evidence of sexual irresponsibility and license than I do among my married peers. Indeed, if anything, I see less.

• Walter Wink, Professor of Biblical Interpretation, Auburn Theological Seminary; New York City: No sex act is "ethical" in and of itself, without reference to the rest of a person's life, the patterns of the culture, the special circumstances faced, and the will of God. What we have are simply sexual morals, which change--sometimes with startling rapidity--creating bewildering dilemmas. Just within one lifetime we have witnessed the shift from the ideal of preserving one's virginity until marriage, to couples living together for several years before getting married. The response of many Christians is merely to long for the hypocrisies of an earlier era.

• Joseph Fletcher, one-time dean of St. Paul's Cathedral (Cincinnati) and, later, professor of social ethics, Episcopal Theological School; Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Christian churches must shoulder much of the blame for the confusion, ignorance, and unhealthy guilt associations which surround sex in Western culture....

• Canon D.A. Rhymes, Southwark Cathedral (Church of England), London: Yet there is no trace of [the tainting of sex] in the attitude of Christ.... Nor does Christ ever suggest that ... marriage is the only possible occasion of any expression of physical relationship.

• Professor Richard Hettlinger, Kenyon College (Ohio); Consulting Editor, Human Sexuality: [T]hose who avoid all sexual commitments out of ... an unexamined bondage to rigid parental or religious prohibitions are likely to remain stunted in their growth as persons…. There is a danger that ... engaged couple[s who] concentrate their energies on avoiding intercourse [may] never have the opportunity to see each other as nonsexual objects. Concentration of hope and expectation on the blissful pleasure to be enjoyed in the distant future may distract their attention from more mundane factors which affect the desirability of the partner as a lifelong mate.... As a result, a couple may find themselves virtual strangers on the honeymoon.

• Dr. Robert A. Harper, president of the American Association of Marriage Counselors: As a veteran family life educator, marriage counselor, and writer and lecturer on premarital and marital topics, I should like to state flatly that the conventional moral code regarding premarital chastity does a great deal more harm than good in contemporary American society. This code not only leads some young people into firmly fixed pornographic attitudes and prudishly repressive sexual behavior (from which matrimonial ceremonies cannot free them), but it instills guilt feelings in countless other youth who proceed to violate the marital taboos.

  Fortunately, however, a growing number of young people have been able to perceive the false, superstitious basis of the outmoded sanctions against premarital coitus and are proceeding maturely, stably, wisely, and happily with wholesome and desirable premarital sexual relations which greatly aid them in their marital sexual adjustments....

• Eleanor Hamilton, psychiatrist (born and raised in Oregon; later operator of a medical practice in Sheffield, Massachusetts): Virginity is about as useful as your appendix. It used to be that a man wanted his wife to be a virgin when they married. These days, I don't know of any young man who would marry one.... Sexuality is a primary function--put it on the shelf ... and you have an 80 percent chance of dysfunction.

• Rustom and Della Roy, holders of doctorates from Pennsylvania State University and appointees to multiple committees of the National Council of Churches: Christians should immediately desist from putting so much emphasis on the occurrence or nonoccurrence of premarital coitus as such.... Rightness or wrongness has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with whether or not physical juxtaposition of sex organs has occurred.

• Professor Leo Koch, Department of Biology, University of Illinois, writing in the Daily Illini (campus newspaper): With modern contraceptives and medical advice readily available at the nearest drugstore, or at least a family physician, there is no valid reason why sexual intercourse should not be condoned among those sufficiently mature to engage in it without social consequences and without violating their own codes of morality and ethics.

• G. Rattray Taylor, author of Sex in History: [The adultery Commandment, essentially a property offense against another's mate, does not require] that a man should restrict his attentions to his wife; indeed, when a wife proved barren, she would often give one of her handmaidens to her husband that she might bear children for him. Nor was there any ban on premarital sex; it is seldom appreciated that nowhere in the Old Testament is there any prohibition of noncommercial, unpremeditated fornication--apart from rape, and subject to a father's right to claim a cash interest in a virgin. Once a girl had reached the age of 12 1/2 years, she was free to engage in sexual activity, unless her father specifically forbade it.

• A document commissioned by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (Continuing the Dialogue, published by Forward Movement, Cincinnati, 1995) stated on page 45 that the passages in this Biblical story (SONG OF SONGS )are "in praise of sexual love, celebrating youthful passion, with no reference to God or to marriage.... It affirms that sexual love is in itself good and beneficial."

• In Sexual Paradox: Creative Tensions in Our Lives and in Our Congregations (Pilgrim Press, New York, 1991), Celia Allison Hahn noted on page 192 that "The story (SONG OF SONGS ) is clearly not about marriage or procreation ... but about the delights of erotic love."

• In God and the Rhetorical Sexuality (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1978), Phyllis Trible stated on page 162 that "[T]o the issues of marriage and procreation the Song does not speak."

• In People of Passion: What the Church Teaches About Sex (Mobray Press, London, 1997), Elizabeth Stuart and Adrian Thatcher noted on page 204 that "fertility [an essential for marriage among early Jews] is not a concern of the Song; instead it revolves around desire and the quest for its fulfillment.... The Song shudders with passionate imagery, glows in the beauty of the body, and the glory is mutual."

• In New International Biblical Commentary: ... Song of Songs (Henderson Publishers; Peabody, Massachusetts; 1999), Roland E. Murphy and Elizabeth Huwiler noted on page 243 that "According to many [interpreters], the central couple is not married. This view is supported by the fact that the lovers must part in the morning.... Also, most of the couple's lovemaking apparently takes place out of doors, in the wilds, and in gardens.... [Overall, the text] does not seem to insist that the appropriate expression of sexuality is necessarily limited to marriage."

• In an article titled "The Interpretation of the Song of Songs," which appeared in the October 1937 issue of The Journal of Theological Studies, H.H. Rowley stated on page 358 that "I am not persuaded that ... the Songs had anything to do with a wedding occasion. They appear rather to be a series of poems in which a lover enshrined the love he gave and the love he received."

• Sex and the Christian Life (Seward Hiltner-Professor of Pastoral Theology of the University of Chicago's Federated Theological Faculty: "Neither the Old or the New Testament can be treated as a code book of timeless truths which can be isolated from the situations in which they were uttered.... The Bible does not present a united front with reference to sexual ethics, because it was written from and to different communities, whose circumstances and needs were far from identical. It therefore represents not one tradition but a number of traditions, whose very diversity is evidence that they were living and changing.

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Further Reading:

Premarital sex... the situation (mentalhelp.net)

• Guard against pregnancy! and disease!
• Be responsible: don't do it or use contraceptives...abortion
• Guard against date rape!

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