Try Star Trek Online instead.
Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good
STO uis great. with Cryptic's money grabbing schemes you wont be able to afford the gas and movie ticket needed to convince a girl to sleep with you anyhow.
Abstinence works in that if people follow it they aren't going to catch an STI, but that's a big if. I've seen enough difficult getting people to keep it in their pants until the legal age of consent, trying to force abstinence on the unwilling is never going to work. And as sex is rather fun (or so I've been told) the number of people who are unwilling to wait in pretty dam long.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
More like actually, sincerely convincing someone not to is. Trying to "forbid" it is obviously Doing It Wrong.
edited 20th May '13 1:54:11 PM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
^^
I think in the context of being in a relationship it is.
If you have trouble finding a mate, then obviously not having sex is regularly on the agenda. 
It varies, it's easy for me to not have sex because I've yet to find someone who wants to have sex with me. For some of my friends however it's slightly harder, because they know they enjoy sex, know (or believe) that they can do it safely, and have easy access to people/a person to have sex with.
NOT THE BEES
No.
If you want to be abstinent for religious or cautionary reasons, do it. Should you set that boundary, any potential mate who doesn't respect it isn't worth consideration.
edited 20th May '13 3:17:46 PM by Pykrete
scratching at .8, just hopin'
@Barkey: You got broken in by an older lady too? *brofist* Thank God for women with interest in men younger than them. Such a learning experience.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Does it... work? At doing what?
Saw this on the first page and thought it was kind of odd. I mean... surely you can tell that a person respects your boundaries and wishes without having sex with them. Wouldn't that just be an extension of the person respecting your boundaries and wishes in non-sexual things? The way I'd expect all romantic partners to, and friends and family as well?
Be not afraid...
Read any Dear Prudence column these days and you'll see a latter where one partner in a relationship has a particular desire that the other partner can't or won't satisfy, or other situation where a relationship is foundering due to sexual incompatibility.
Given that a marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment (yes, I know, divorce is the normal end of a marriage these days, fuck that), I believe that it shouldn't be entered into unless you've determined that you want to live with your partner until the end of your days, and one aspect of that is that you've determined that you'll want to have sex with your partner until the end of your days. Kind of hard to do the latter without exploring your sexual tastes and your partner's.
That doesn't seem like the same issue, though. If I understand what you're saying properly, the issue you're talking about is that the two people want different things and can't give the other what they want.
The 'respect your boundaries and wishes' thing seemed more like it was suggesting that your partner might just trample over what you want in pursuit of their own wishes. Which seems like a different issue to the two of you just wanting incompatible things.
edited 20th May '13 6:09:19 PM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...
What is the question being asked in this thread? Obviously it would help prevent unwanted pregnancies or the transmission of diseases but I have a feeling the question relates to whether it's good for the couple emotionally or something to that effect. While I don't know of any specific studies I recall being told that abstinence could lead to problems later on if two people aren't sexually compatible.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
@ Loni Jay: Well, you can find out before having sex with them, yes. I said "sexual experiences" for a reason. There's a lot of activity leading up to actual genital contact, and often by then you can find some big red warning flags if there are problems.
That said, for a lifetime of intimacy? Do you want to guess based on one sexual encounter, or even less than that? Worth the risk?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
There are a number of reasons why a person might choose to be abstinent sexually until marriage.
- Not making babies outside of marriage (less of a problem than it used to be, for many reasons.) This lessens the chance of abandoned babies, inheritance-confusing "illegitimate" children, and the possibility a man will involuntarily raise a child that's not his.
- Premarital sex is against the law. (Not so much anymore either.) You might be able to skate on the charges...unless the judge doesn't like you.
- Premarital sex is against your religion. The reasons why it's against your religion don't matter as much as the prohibition itself. A surprising number of people actually care about this kind of rule, and actually do refrain.
- Fear of possible disease or heartbreak.
- You have bought into the idea that you should only have sex with the one person you have promised to stay with forever, and you haven't met them yet.
I don't think there is anything wrong with abstinence until marriage so long as the decision is mutual and sincere, not forced or made out of guilt/fear.
The fear of hellfire is just as dangerous as the guilt from social judgment on being sexually explorative as a youth. So both religion and culture can cause harm in trying to guide safe sexual practices.
Personally? I will teach my son he should be abstinent until he is out of high school for these reasons:
1) Sex is a very complicated connection that varies from individual to individual. Some can remove all emotion from it and just have fun, others can't. I would like my son to wait until adulthood just so he can have time to ponder his sexual identity and possible methods of expressing it. Basically to build a quality education.
2) Most people suck at communication in general, let alone about sexual issues. I want him to have time to properly build relationships and can confidently and clearly discuss his sexual priorities with his partner(s). I don't want someone to get hurt because he could not properly communicate his feelings on it, whatever they may be.
3) Should he get someone pregnant, (I conceived him on two forms of birth control-it happens.) He will be in a better position to properly attend to the pregnancy and support his partner both financially and in his maturity.
4) He has more important issues to work on before his high school graduation without adding a sexual relationship on top of it. What kind of education does he want? What kind of career does he desire? What kind of self exploration and discovery does he need to consider? I can only see his sexual relationship(s) being more healthy and fulfilling in just taking the time to wait until he takes care of his needs and goals first. Even in a casual sexual relationship you have another person with their priorities and their goals. Better to know what you want and start your goals so you can make better decisions on who you will involve yourself with and how you want to share yourself with them.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
No.... I'd rather make an informed decision based on my knowledge of the person and the understanding and trust built up between us over several years of a relationship? You know, like non-sexual intimacy? Knowing a person? This isn't even necessarily talking about abstinence before marriage, just any sort of sexual relationship in general.
If I have to have sex with them before I know whether they're going to respect me during sex, then why would I want to sleep with them at all? That's like saying I need to stick my hand into a pot of possibly boiling water before I know if it's safe to stick my hand in it or not.
Be not afraid...
Personally I support it and encourage such an idea,it's definitely the sanest and safest way.
However,it's an idiocy to only teach that,...now if the question was "abstinence first" vs "birth control and contraceptives because fuck even thinking about being a virgin after puberty" that'd be a different story.
But this purely for religious reasons.
edited 20th May '13 9:22:15 PM by terlwyth
I think not having abstinence until marriage actually strengthens the "sanctity of marriage", because it makes it clear that marriage is "above"/"beyond" a simple relationship including sex.note
Plus, the fact that the wedding night is too late to discover any kind of sex-related incompatibility: Why wait until you can't back off before finding out?
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Sex is too sacred as far as I'm concerned from before,...what you're arguing is that's it's just something so casual,and marriage would somehow make this thing more meaningful.
And as for incompatibility,well it's not like the Earth will stop revolving around the sun because you can't have it,despite what much of the world would have you believe.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
It can be important and still be something you do before marriage. I also note that different couples are allowed to come to different consensuses (consensi?) on how sacred sex is.
edited 20th May '13 10:39:32 PM by RadicalTaoist
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
I don't consider it sacred, though I do consider it intimate, obviously.
I don't put such a value on it that I would only ever do it with one person, though it's still important.
@Loni: I can only offer personal experience here, but I have dated a couple of guys who were great in a lot of ways, and turned into someone completely different after I slept with them. And I'm not talking "fall into bed with them on the second date" sort of sleep with them, it was "long-term committed relationship that ended because they consistently flat out refused to consider what I wanted out of the sexual encounter" sort of thing.
It might not be such a big deal if you're of the "sex only for procreation" mindset, but I personally find it really frustrating when someone leaves you hanging, and even moreso when the dude that left you hanging doesn't see anything wrong with it.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
Street Writing Man
I'd also like to add; the romance novel wouldn't exist as a genre (at least in its current form) if abstinence until marriage wasn't the standard.
Why? Because the romance novel's tropes are based entirely on what a woman isn't supposed to have or want...therefore, those things are what they both fantasize and write about. How do I think this? I think it because all the women I know who actually slept around a bit - as in, tried on different relationships for size - all ended up in marriages they actually like and are healthy for them...whereas all the women I know who picked one man ended up suffering for the choice.
That's because passion, while it feels as good as any drug, is fundamentally destructive to any real, stable relationship. We all want it...the same way most people want booze, dope, rock and roll and orgasms. But while we all know that the aforementioned are damaging to our productivity as humans, passion for another person somehow slipped underneath the radar...at least until an individual explores it and learns that lesson for themselves, of course.
But until you actually explore passion, it remains a temptation that can destroy you. This is why everyone I know who has actually had a passionate-yet-ultimately-destructive relationship does not find "bad boys/girls" appealing - because they fucking well know better. And why everyone who hasn't done that finds those two groups sexy as hell...because they don't know better, and they won't until they try.
There is big money to be made in writing fiction that makes bored housewives tingle - and making movies that do the same to bored husbands. This market exists because of abstinence until marriage.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~
If that game was a little less horrible, I'd recommend that as birth control.