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No Sex Before Marriage? He Made Her Wait
To honor her husband-to-be; one woman stays chaste before her wedding.
by Kristine Kern
Your husband was a virgin when you married. What was the story there?
Griff and I had very different backgrounds. He was always committed to not having sex before he married. He grew up in a Christian home in a small town in the South. It was never a question for him. And certainly if you’re committed to not having sex, it’s easier to do that with someone who is also committed to it. You just don’t have to argue with them. If, in the heat of the moment, one of you wavers, there’s another person there to pick up the slack. On a level beyond the pragmatic, even though I had recommitted my life to chastity several years before, I don’t know that I had ever dated anyone who was as articulate about why he was committed to chastity. We were able to have very helpful conversations about sexuality. When we got engaged, and had conversations about what it would be like to have sex—
Wait a minute, you had conversations about what it would be like to have sex?
Yeah. Would we actually have sex on our wedding night? Would we do the deed? And what were our expectations? Some of Griff’s friends would say to him, “Well, you know, Lauren’s had sex with other people. Aren’t you worried that she’ll be comparing you to these other people?” And he wasn’t worried about that at all. I found that I was actually more worried, because he had never really seen a real woman’s body, with cellulite. He had only seen, like, movie stars and the cover of Cosmo. And you know, I have love handles. I don’t look like Julia Roberts.
I was also worried that Griff would have a lot of hang-ups. I mean, here he’d steeled himself against sexual desire for 15 years. And there’s a story I tell in the book of a friend who had been chaste for her whole life, and she just had a really hard time flipping the switch once she was married. In fact, Griff’s been raring to go. Having had this premarital sexual history, though, I had really trained myself to think that what is exciting and erotic about sex is the newness and instability. And married sex, while great and erotic and exciting, is not exciting because it’s unstable. It’s exciting and good precisely because it’s stable and even routine and habitual.
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1 nadine // Apr 13, 2008 at 5:38 pm
hi this discussion has really touched me , i feel deeply sad when i think of my x fiance he forced me not physically but emotionally to have sex with him and he promissed not to leave me after,i live in a conservative community no sex before mariage its a taboo and now i feel so sorry and angry becaue he done this and i agreed and i cant imagine how my life is ,i guess i need a psychologue to help out and forget this taboo behind
2 Spiritual Sex: 10 Erotic Commandments // Feb 26, 2008 at 2:07 pm
[…] No Sex Before Marriage? He Made Her Wait […]
3 Savattra // Mar 5, 2007 at 1:26 am
I agree that chastity is a great thing but also realize that most people do not get married these days until much older. Back in the 40’s and 50’s it was very common to marry at 20 so the expectation of no sex before marriage was not so unusual. Life is about getting into balance not extremes of sexual addiction versus sexual anorexia. Chastity and celibacy have their place but we are born sexual beings, otherwise we would have been able to reproduce asexually. The challenge here is intimacy and the ability to integrate a healthy sexuality into our personalities.
To the woman in Chicago who had it drilled into her … please don’t feel bad … there are much more in the same position as you. If you can, look for a tantra yoga class to help you get in touch with what was unaturally suppressed. Sexuality and spirituality are two sides of the same coin.
4 Mortified to Admit This // Mar 4, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I had the “chastity til married” message drilled into my head all my life. Problem is, I never got married. Not on purpose - I always figured I would marry, but I just never met anyone who loved me, and who I loved, enough to marry. As I got older, it got harder & harder to even find someone to date. When I reached my mid-40s, it suddenly dawned on me - it was like being hit with a 2×4 - that if I’d never married by now, the odds were that I never would. So here I am. 50 years old and never been intimate with a guy. I feel like the biggest freak who ever walked. I’ve totally quit dating because even if I met someone, I’d be too mortified to tell him I had zero experience. Looking back on things, I wish I’d slept with some of the nice guys I dated. Even though it wouldn’t have changed the outcome as far as marrying them, at least I wouldn’t go to my grave feeling like the world’s biggest loser. I’ve never done something that everyone in the ENTIRE WORLD has done. Talk about feeling embarrassed, isolated, and like some kind of mutant! If I had to do it over, I would NEVER EVER wait for marriage. But it’s too late now. This probably sounds like a lot of self-pity, but there’s NO WAY anyone can understand how I feel. Thank goodness I have the ability to put on a happy face & pretend I’m fine. Nobody, absolutely nobody, knows this about me. When my friends talk about their experiences with ex-boyfriends/husbands/etc, I just coyly smile & don’t say anything. It’s a humiliating secret of mine. The amount of RAGE and HATE that I have for all the religious know-it-alls who drummed this “no premarital sex” into my head as a kid, is beyond description. I wish I would have ignored them & gone with my feelings. At least I’d have memories instead of humiliation.
5 Sam // Jan 21, 2007 at 1:24 am
(Please publish me anonymously, using my name only for verification. Use of my name would be very embarrassing to my ex.)
As devout Mormons, my ex wife and I were both virgins on our wedding night. Like the couple in the interview, we discussed sex very openly before we married. But had we actually had sex, I believe we never would have married. Our relationship would have died of natural causes in a matter of weeks. Instead, we loyaly nursed this marriage along for sixteen years. There were many good and positive things about our union, but we never had a normal sex life. Vaginal sex made her itch, and she wouldn’t discuss it in therapy or consider alternatives. For the last ten years or so, she told me to “just take care of it [my]self.” Other aspects of the marriage deteriated too, but the deepest scars I feel are from the years of delcining the advances of other women, only to come home to a wife who loved the television more. Now that I am dating again, I have a real fear about how to select my next mate. I’m still devoted to my religion, and determined to keep this commandment
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