<p>Maybe it’s not about quality, so much as it actually happening. </p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go with circular reasoning so much as vicious cycle. (Well, when you’re a couple in love, it’s a good cycle.) I imagine, as well, that girls might be more likely to engage in intercourse in bad relationships… generally speaking, one hallmark of an abusive relationship is the intense passion that the man displays at the beginning. That might lead a woman to think that she is “the one,” and therefore, more likely to have sex. </p>
<p>Bring out the knitting needles!! It’s sleepover sharing time! :)</p>
<p>The OP hasn’t shown up to vouch for him/herself in a longgggg time. And people have been unkind to Driver, who appears to have been more or less correct about the possibility of the ■■■■■■■■ violation. </p>
<p>Aries, the problem with equating sex in a relationship to a sign of an abusive relationship is that couples in nonabusive, positive, loving relationships also have sex. In fact, I would think that the majority of college-age couples in serious relationships that have lasted for any significant period of time are probably having sex. Hormones being what they are, it’s pretty hard to hold off all that long. The college prof that is trying to talk girls into leaving guys isn’t seeing all the good relationships where the lovers get along well and are supportive of one another – and she committed the common fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.</p>
<p>Um… but that’s completely beside the point. </p>
<p>If the college prof is talking about getting girls to leave bad relationships, it doesn’t matter what happens in good relationships. Stick to the topic of bad relationships - and the intensity that clingy, jealous… bad… men use is very crucial to figuring out what is going on with these girls.</p>
<p>Yes, the prof was talking about watching girls in bad relationships (not necessarily physically abusive) not being “able” to break up with their boyfriends simply because the sexual aspect had made these girls feel bonded to these boyfriends. This isn’t “rocket science” – human sex was not designed to just be for procreation – it has a “unitive” value.</p>
<p>Building on that “unitive” aspect, the prof mentioned the dangers of the cycle of “bonding” with one person, breaking up, bonding with another, breaking up, etc. Each time the bond is severed, a person subconsciencely “protects” herself from experiencing that pain again, so the next bond it less tight. </p>
<p>She used the analogy of foster kids who end up having “attachment” problems because they will “bond” with one family, then that bond is severed, then a slightly lesser bond is formed with the next family, then severed, and so on, until it becomes difficult for any meaningful bonding to occur. In other words, the person is “damaged goods.”</p>
<p>Since hearing this prof speak, I have further learned from another source (can’t remember) that people are damage by the cycle of love, breakup, love, breakup, love, breakup. I guess it shouldn’t surprise us.</p>
<p>jlauer, I could not agree more with your post. </p>
<p>This is the tack I have taken when discussing sexual relationships with my kids: how many times do you think you can ‘bond & break up’ before you have permanently altered your inner joyfulness, hopefulness, ability to trust, etc? Don’t you want to bring a fully functional, whole self to your future marriage?</p>
<p>Using logic and experience, I think most people may have the ability to bond and break a few times while remaining basically intact, and I suspect that by beginning sexual relationships later in time-- with more wisdom and perspective-- this number is probably a bit higher.</p>
<p>I really wonder what this professor would say about the relative differences between men and women on this issue. Are men as vulnerable to the ‘bond/break’ damage as women are? Sometimes I wonder whether guys hide it better or whether they feel it less.</p>
<p>I scrolled back a page and caught the oxytocin comment-- may be that the hormonal connection drives the difference?</p>
<p><<<< This is the tack I have taken when discussing sexual relationships with my kids: how many times do you think you can ‘bond & break up’ before you have permanently altered your inner joyfulness, hopefulness, ability to trust, etc? Don’t you want to bring a fully functional, whole self to your future marriage?
Using logic and experience, I think most people may have the ability to bond and break a few times while remaining basically intact, and I suspect that by beginning sexual relationships later in time-- with more wisdom and perspective-- this number is probably a bit higher. >>>></p>
<p>I can really see the logic in this belief (afterall, the analogy of foster kids is real). This “fall in love/ break up” cycle is creating a bunch of people who are “damaged goods” with baggage.</p>
<p>According to Dr. Janet Smith, men are also affected by the cycle which contributes a bit to their fear of commitment and marriage – they too are damaged goods from previous relationships.</p>
<p>A friend suggested that she thinks that they cycle actually encourages divorce. It creates a “break up” mentality.</p>
<p>When you are trying to convince kids to be abstinent, or at least extremely choosy, this message works much better than demonizing sex. You can even point to your daughter’s sexually-active peers and how the ones with many serial BFs are so pummelled by the experience.</p>
<p>OTOH, I think there are some dangers to <em>not</em> being open to experiencing intimate relationships with a <em>few</em> people; I would not want her to feel locked in to that first relationship if the man was wrong for her.</p>
<p>This has evolved into quite a fascinating thread. I am a raving liberal about many things, but quite pragmatic about human nature and its self-protective ways…this is rather new food for thought…though it enriches personal observations over the years. </p>
<p>BTW: If we were all gathered together, I would have put my knitting aside several pages ago!</p>
<p>As someone who has been in a long series of bad relationships, I completely agree that there more reluctance to attach each successive time - it’s the process of becoming jaded, and it’s horrible.</p>
<p>I can only imagine how much worse it would be if sex were involved. </p>
<p>A thought for parents… instead of going into the demonizing sex/waiting until marriage/worries that your kid will marry the first person he/she sleeps with, why not approach the topic differently? Why not tell your kids that, realistically, they are not going to marry the first person they sleep with, and, even if they do, it’s most likely going to end in divorce? (60% of marriages between the ages of 20 and 25 end up in divorce; rate are higher for teenage marriages.) Ergo, before they sleep with someone, they should consider how they are going to feel when they break up with that person - or that person breaks up with them! Can they handle being dumped by the first?</p>
<p>Agree with you here…definitely. One friend of a friend, an effort to dissuade her D from premarital sex, actually showed her D rather grotesque photos of the genitalia of women afflicted with various venereal diseases. :eek:</p>
<p>However, I think that equal damage can be done when you elevate sex to the level of some holy pinnacle ONLY associated with the “perfect, one and only” love. IMHO, that gives it an import that it doesn’t and SHOULDN’T have. A mutually gratifying sexual relationship is only ONE important aspect of a mature, loving relationship between two partners. Frankly, sexual compatibility is probably not something that should be determined after the fact of marriage. There are many people out there who have various sexual hang ups or unusual preferences. I would not want a child of mine to find out about sexual incompatibility on the wedding night!</p>
<p>I believe that it IS fully possible to communicate the rather precious (and sometimes precarious) place of sex in a relationship without taking it to the illogical extreme of “it is the MOST IMPORTANT THING.”</p>
<p>On another note, about encouraging kids to participate in sex later…I absolutely agree with this, within reason. However, it seems like I’ve read where some men who stop or try to impede this impulse repeatedly over a long period time have difficulty functioning later when “all systems are go.” That would make sense to me as a simple conditioning exercise. I guess I’d rather have a normally sexually functioning kid with no “hang ups” who had sex at 19 or 20 than a child whose sexual functioning becomes impaired due to this sort of thing.</p>
<p>Aries, I’m with you on the middle ground. Pragmatically, I don’t think many women, particularly if they have professional ambitions, should be getting married before their mid-twenties at the earliest, just to preserve at least a modicum of economic and career parity in the relationship. </p>
<p>Moreover, people of both sexes tend to be much more in personal flux through their early twenties and don’t settle down into “who they are” until their mid-twenties or later, making matching much easier.</p>
<p>I think that the “sex only with <em>the</em> one” model has a number of flaws in terms of psychological pressures in dating and, if you accept a “later marriage” model, abstinence is ridiculous. [Exacerbated by the fact that the age of puberty has been dropping for at least a century.] Furthermore, sexual satisfaction for women seems to be much more partner-dependent (I’m with Woody Allen on that one) and it’s dubious, from a woman’s sexual point of view, to make a choice blind. I’m not wild about the contemporary “hooking up” mentality but what really drives me nuts is how one-sided so many of these transactions are, e.g., one-way oral sex, which teaches some <em>really</em> bad attitudes, imo.</p>
<p>Other random thoughts: the sexual revolution did everyone a big favor by crashing down the hypocritical mores and double standards of the Fifties by making having sex okay. Somehow the corrollary got lost, that to <em>not</em> have sex was also okay.</p>
<p>And I would counsel any young person to avoid some of the prevailing myths on either side and to thereby never confuse love with sex and vice versa. Anecdotally, this appears to be a bigger problem for women than men, one of the Mars/Venus things. (Mars, Venus, Aries…I’m sensing a connection here.)</p>
Whereas it is prudent to advise your kids that not EVERYONE equates love and sex, I have also advised MY kids that sexual activity is best saved for a loving relationship for many reasons, especially those around emotional trust and responsibility (for their own health and pregnancy prevention). I think making that distinction (between love and sex) is much easier for males as they tend to be more easily aroused though visual means alone, and they are well aware that they may not have actual feelings for someone who “inspires” them. Women, on the other hand, tend to be more motivated by the emotional aspects of the relationship–the respect, the kindness, the support, the validation–so it is much more common for love to go along natually with physical intimacy for them. The key for women, IMHO, is to find a rather “atypical” man who does not make this distinction, like <em>I</em> did! ;)</p>
<p><<<<< When you are trying to convince kids to be abstinent, or at least extremely choosy, this message works much better than demonizing sex. You can even point to your daughter’s sexually-active peers and how the ones with many serial BFs are so pummelled by the experience. >>>></p>
<p>Considering that most kids get married so much older these days (ages 25-30), expecting them to remain virgins is often expecting the impossible. That said, I don’t think many of us want our kids to have a ridiculous number of sex partners. Soooo, if people begin dating at 15/16, then they will be “dating” for 10-15 years before marriage, which means people could EASILY have 15+ "committed/sexual relationships - a number so high that even a much lower number is likely to result in “bonding” problems. Soooooooo, what to do???.</p>
<p>omigod!!! That is soooooo true… how many heartbroken girls have we all known (and maybe some have been ourselves) that truly thougtht that they were having sex in a mutually loving relationship only to find out a short time later that he just wanted sex and said/did the right things to make it happen.</p>
<p>I’ve often said the same. When people hit puberty at 15 and married by 17 or 18, “no sex until marriage” was reasonable. And a good idea - can you imagine having three sex partners before 18? You can tell almost anyone to keep themselves together for three years.</p>
<p>That’s now stretching to 15 or 20 years, and it’s difficult on women. As JLauer pointed out, having serial committed relationships could result in a dozen sexual partners… but waiting until marriage doesn’t work too well, either. </p>
<p>You might appreciate this. About a dozen people in my law school have gotten engaged this semester, alone. Every time I turn around, some girl has a rock. It’s a little unnerving. I was talking to one of my girlfriends, who lives in New England, for the hometown gossip. No one’s engaged. They are all moving in together with no committment in sight. “Susie and John are moving in together, but they don’t want to get married. Tom and Emily might move in together; he’s having financial problems and she just bought a house. [Emily is an accountant; Tom is marginally employed.] They’re not sure though. Oh, yeah, Sarah and Jim are moving in together, so they can take care of their kids.” </p>
<p>Makes me think of that whole buying the cow when you’re getting free milk thing. Also makes me wonder why it’s socially acceptable to not have enough self-respect to say that you deserve more than that - more than being strung along in a quasi-matrimonial situation. Where are the parents??</p>
<p>(Please note that I really have no issues whatsoever with people who live together before marriage to ensure that they can live together without throttling each other. That, however, should involve some plan for marriage. A date and a ring are good starters - you can set the date years in advance and engagements can be broken off, but there should be a plan.)</p>
<p>On the physical pleasure note… we’re not in the 19th century where the couple only holds hands before the wedding night. If you don’t like the way he kisses you or touches you, then sex probably isn’t going to be better. To use the car analogy: you can’t tell by looking at a car if you’re going to like driving it, but you don’t need to drive it in snow, hail, up mountains, and on a road trip with your friends to figure out whether or not it’s going to work for you.</p>
Actually, aries, where we live there are a good number of fundamentalist Christians who believe in just that! We just had a good family friend get married (she used to babysit for my kids when they were young), and her husband first approached her father about “courting” her and was given permission to do so before he EVER discussed dating her WITH her. They were not allowed any physical contact during the courtship. They got married a short time later–a matter of months. So, maybe we aren’t in the 19th century anymore, but some people still adhere to those practices. ~berurah</p>
<p><<, her husband first approached her father about “courting” her and was given permission to do so before he EVER discussed dating her WITH her. >>></p>
<p>Strangely enuf, a few pages ago, I half-jokingly put forth this idea to the OP. I told the OP that his situation made me think that maybe we need to revive the old custom of having a man “prove” that he is worthy to date the woman so that she doesn’t “fall in love” and give her heart to someone “unworthy and unstable”.</p>
I actually thought you were seriously advocating this…there are many people (relatively speaking) around here who subscribe to this philosophy. </p>
<p>Ironically, the couple who I mentioned above who practices this philosophy as a guarantee for a happy, committed marriage has a pretty dysfunctional marriage themselves (according to one of their older girls–the rebel-- who confides in me). The patriarchial arrangement leaves the wife feeling subservient and depressed. One day, I ran into the mom in the store, and she was wearing a skirt and looked “dressed up,” so I told her she looked nice and asked her where she was going…she replied that he husband had “requested” that she dress like this from now on so that she would look “nice” for him…<em>sigh</em></p>
<p>Anyway, this practice is still alive and well, particularly in parts of conservative Kansas…</p>