Kuus, If artbyallie won't answer your question I will (although I can't speak for her hymen)

InksWell · March 2011

H and I lived together and still "waited".

After undergrad, we couldn't afford to really live apart, so we shared a house; at first with 2 other grad students, and then when they got married we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. We had separate rooms. We still waited because that was a faith based moral decision for us. It didn't matter what the pearl clutchers thought, it was between us and God whether we did the deed or not. We also didn't sleep in each other's beds. I think that was just for boundaries, but it seems silly now. (although when H doesn't clip his toenails I miss my own bed).

I don't think anyone else is going to hell or making Jesus cry by moving in or not waiting, that's just our personal decision.

Also, I may not have taken the car for a test drive, but I got a REAL good look under the hood. At least twice a week. I would not recommend marrying someone you have never seen naked.

and there you are, flame away.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I am satisfied with this.

baconsmom · March 2011

Seeing someone naked is not the same thing as determining sexual compatibility. I'm glad it's worked out for you, but I would never advise my daughter to wait.

To each their own - I'm not judging or pearl-clutching, I'm just honestly baffled by the desire to wait, because it's soooooo not my thinking on the subject.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I'm sure they weren't just looking, Baconsmom.

MrsMyrtle · March 2011

She watched him flex his Pepsi-fueled rage muscles.

MinM · March 2011

Foreplay/oral ain't the same thing as insertion. I wouldn't make assumptions about one based on the other.

However, whatever other people want to do is their business. I was getting it in well before I even met my husband. I'm in BMom's corner on this one.

InksWell · March 2011

You don't have to have sex to know there is chemistry. (and no, we weren't just looking).

for BMom
For the record, I think the morality of waiting is a moot point in our culture. It's not like the Gay Marriage debate, where if you take an Invisible God's opinion out of the picture, opposition is totally worthless. But it is an everyone or no-one issue. If you think of an imaginary society (even if religion were not a factor) where the only woman a man ever saw naked was his wife, we might have a totally different, more healthy gender balance. Less body issues for women, more respect and equality. Not to mention the neurobiology involved in bonding with multiple partners. I think that's what the Big Guy had in mind when he suggested purity. But we waved bye bye to that imaginary culture eons ago, and saving ourselves for marriage isn't going to stop internet porn, or even basic cable, from doing that damage. So If my daughter wants to move in or sleep with her boyfriend I'm not going to freak out and try to stop her. Her "waiting" isn't saving her from the consequences of sexualized culture (like weight discrimination). I would have jumped H years ago if he weren't a little more fundie than me.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

You know, I like your train of thought. I don't think it has to be that the ONLY people you see naked is each other, because that would lead to the unintended consequence of feeling sullied and unworthy if you love someone fully and then it doesn't work out, but I do agree that the multitudes of naked bodies we see and are supposed to touch devalues what's supposed to be intimate about the whole thing.

baconsmom · March 2011

Interesting.

FTR, I think that bonding thing is a myth. At least, it's not applicable to all people across the board. I slutted up my 20s, and I had a ball, and didn't regret a minute of it. I never got attached where I didn't want to be - and some of my most painful attachments were to men who never touched me.

I've also had tons of chemistry with guys who turned out to be lousy lays. I suppose I could have taught them if I'd stuck around, but I'm not into teaching.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I don't know if it's that you bond with multiple partners. From what I've seen it's more that sex no longer has the ability to help you bond with anyone at all.

baconsmom · March 2011

Well, I didn't find that to be true, either. I mean, obviously, everybody's mileage varies. I'm mostly objecting to the stereotype that I see repeated again and again that having sex with anyone but a spouse somehow limits your ability to - I don't even know. Bond with your eventual partner, like you said? Respect yourself, as I've seen it said?

Obviously, if you're doing things you don't want to do, you'll damage yourself. But having sex is not, in and of itself, the damaging act. Being denied agency, knuckling under to pressure from whatever side - those are problems.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I don't think it's the act of having sex that does that. I think it's more that the cultural influences that make casual sex the norm are also impacting people's ability to invest much intimacy in sex.

InksWell · March 2011

Actually, I was talking about oxytocin (a nerotransmitter pirmarily associated with women during pregancy, birth and breastfeeding but also plays a role in bonding with sexual partners during a woman's reproductive years). It's a chemical bonding, not some vague "bonding" that could potentially describe the musical bro montages of Judd Apatow movies.

baconsmom · March 2011

I know about oxytocin, and I think it's overrated.

But I also don't believe in that instant baby bonding it's supposedly responsible for, either.

Kuus, that's a fair point. I guess I'm coming from a point-of-view that my telling secrets, or deep dark thoughts, or admitting to being as absolutely crazy as I really am, is far more intimate than just having sex. But I'm cagey and aloof, when not anonymous on the internet, and it was worse when I was younger. I don't think I ever really connected sex to intimacy, and I don't think even now they're inextricably linked.

TL; DR: Knowledge is intimacy. I'm not close with H because I sleep with him. I'm close with him because we know each other's ickiness.

Does that make sense?

InksWell · March 2011

but, you are right, everyone has different mileage, is affected differently, etc.

I think for me, it's the idea of being sexually fragmented. I personally wasn't even a virgin when I met H, I'd had a few partners, he had saved himself. The line for me was (please do not make a big deal out of this, it was a long time ago and I've dealt with it like millions of other women) being assaulted at a party. I thought "I can't do this casual thing anymore, I have too many associations, good or bad, and I'm not hopping into bed without 100% trust between me and whoever that is."

What I wasn't thinking about were the consequnces of my philandering on H. It's tough for him sometimes, and by effect, me too.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I honestly think that there's something a little off when baring your body to someone, letting them in your personal space, and trusting them with your health and any possible pregnancy is less intimate than telling secrets. Ideally, I think they should be about the same level of intimacy.

I am hooting at the term "philandering", a bit, and also wondering why if this were going to be rough for him, he didn't simply pick a woman who was also a virgin. I'm not flaming him for having trouble with your being his one and only and him not being yours, but as someone who was once a virgin by choice, I can't even fathom not realizing that this is going to bother you until after the fact.

baconsmom · March 2011

Can I ask why it's tough for him?

Personally, that would be a dealbreaker for me. If my H had a problem with my past lovers, I just couldn't be with him. Though I haven't met a man who waited and had a problem with a partner's past - just hypocrites and sexists who thought it was fine and dandy for them to have a past, but not for their (hypothetical) wives to have the same.

I mean, you're with him now, and you don't plan on going anywhere, so...I don't really get why the past is an issue.

baconsmom · March 2011

Kuus, I never said I was an awesome person with no problems.

Maybe it should be the same. Maybe if I had to date now, they'd be closer together. I lived solely in my mind for most of my life - my body was, for so many reasons, only an enemy in which I was trapped. So if I could get it to give me a little pleasure, I wasn't going to pass that up - and I wasn't going to feel like it was something sacred, because to me, it wasn't.

And my mind was/is kind of a scary place, frankly. Prosaically scary, true - I'm not planning sniping trips or bombs or anything - but it's not all kittens and unicorns up in here. (Not that it is for anybody, I get that - I'm not a special snowflake - but when you're young, you assume you're a freak, and it's not generally a good idea to bust out with your flag, either.)

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

It wasn't a criticism, Baconsmom. I don't think your experience of what feels intimate and what doesn't is uncommon. I'm more speaking on how the inimacy has been leached out of sex as a whole. And I think this happens even to people who wait for marriage and expect to invest a lot of intimacy in it. It's like we as a society have forgotten how.

MinM · March 2011

This... and some of my most painful attachments were to men who never touched me.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

Hmm. Spinoff to be taken to another thread.

InksWell · March 2011

H doesn't have a problem with the past in and of itself. It's more about the levels of experience, Sometimes he gets to thinking he doesn't measure up. But at the same time, I can feel like I don't measure up to that end-all-be-all that he was waiting for, so it goes both ways. And little reminders crop up. But we deal with it. Every couple has their baggage, and they make it. It's not like every time we jump in the sack it's a problem, or either of us is dwelling on it every time.

He didn't just pick another virgin because he didn't fall in love with another virgin. He actually knew about my past before he asked me out, I had been speaking at an event about this sort of topic. He heard it alllll. And then we went and got smoothies and talked about hockey and the rest is too sickeningly awesome for describing, lest you all be jealous.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

Yeah, yeah, but why did he ask you out in the first place if he knew about your past, and knew he was likely to be bothered by being with a more experienced woman?

baconsmom · March 2011

I can see that.

And HEE at your last line.

InksWell · March 2011

Oh, and, it wasn't something that just cropped up AFTER the wedding. It was all well communicated before. It wasn't a suprise. And since we were non-insertion "intimate" it was part of our lives pre-sex and pre-wedding.

Did that just about cover those bases, Bmom and Kuus?

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

Not really. I guess as someone who was at one point saving myself for Mr. Right, knowing it'd bother me if he hadn't as well, I just gave the hell no to guys who were more experienced, and just didn't invest in the first place. I've noticed that other people don't do the same, and I don't get why.

baconsmom · March 2011

I dunno, he probably didn't think it would be a huge issue - and it doesn't sound like it is.

Like I said, I've only known hypocrites, so it's edifying to get another perspective.

My H had fewer partners than I did, and he had a couple moments of "I won't know enough for her", but it was moot in the end. Every marriage has its quirks - H and I can't be in the car together, or we fight, and I'm sure people would be all, "So why do you go places in the same car?!" Because it's not every time, and it's just something to work around, and not an invalidation of the rest of it.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

I tried to weed out even minor issues before accepting a first date. But I was probably crazily picky.

InksWell · March 2011

I don't think he realized that he would be bothered. I didn't think that I would be bothered to be honest. We just realized it did bother us at some point down the road, and talked about it.

Even though he knew I had a past, and he was saving himself, "no past" wasn't on his checklist, and "experience" wasn't on mine.

ReturnOfKuus · March 2011

Huh. Maybe I was the only person who was saving myself, and all the while seething with rage and muttering "if I don't get any fun, then he'd damn well not get any either".

artbyallie · March 2011

Whoa, what did I miss?

Kuus, If artbyallie won't answer your question I will (although I can't speak for her hymen)

Re: Kuus, If artbyallie won't answer your question I will (although I can't speak for her hymen)

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