Premarital sex is a serious moral issue confronting college students.
This isn't to say that sexual temptations didn't exist in high school.
But once in college, students are more cut off from familial
restrictions and parish supports. They are confronted with peer
pressure that alleges "everyone is doing it," and perhaps exposed to
the irreligious attitudes of some teachers. Let's face it, college
life neither understands nor supports the value of chastity.
Some students fall into promiscuous behavior without even, at first,
recognizing just how far they have fallen. For them sex is reduced to
an easy source of pleasure and release, totally divorced from love and
marriage. Few sincere Christians would try to justify such a surrender
to lust. We can only hope and pray that these students will soon
outgrow such adventurism, and the superficial intimacy and happiness
it offers.
Other students, however, may find someone special, perhaps the person
they plan to marry, and feel that their love legitimizes premarital
sex within a monogamous relationship. Like never before, students in
this situation may begin to question and examine the sexual values
they have been taught. What follows are some things these students
need to consider.
CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
We Christians see our sexuality as a wondrous gift from God. We are
male or female at every level of our being. Our sexuality colors who
we are, and how we think and feel and act. Sexual intimacy is sacred.
It involves a profound giving of oneself to another. It is a sharing
in God's own creativity, bringing new life into the world.
The Bible condemns not only adultery, but premarital sex, or
fornication (Mk 7:21; Eph 5:5; Heb 13:4). The wisdom of our Christian
tradition teaches us that only the complete commitment to one another
that comes with marriage is the proper setting for sexual intimacy.
Marriage is much more than just "a piece of paper." It is only in
marriage that we publicly give ourselves to each other, belong to each
other, are responsible for each other, "in good times and in bad, in
sickness and in health, all the days of our lives."
Prior to marriage the couple have not yet made a public, permanent
commitment to one another. If, for example, a boyfriend or girlfriend
should have a tragic accident and become disfigured and handicapped,
the partner might chose to spend the rest of his or her life caring
for the one injured. But there is no social obligation to do so. The
injured party is still the responsibility of his or her family. Once a
couple marries, however, they become immediate family to each other,
they become responsible for each other. Should something happen to one
of them, society would rightly expect his or her spouse to provide the
necessary care, till death do them part. It is in marriage that the
two become one--begin to truly share their lives, their hopes and
fears, their dreams and disappointments, their finances. They make a
home for themselves, and hopefully, for their children, as the fruit
of their love.
Christian marriage means much more than sex, but the delight and joy
of lovemaking is integral to marriage. The marital embrace is the
culmination of the total self-giving of husbands and wives to each
other. Those who seek to justify premarital sex find it difficult to
explain what marriage means, and what difference it means to marry.
CHRISTIAN COURTSHIP
People in love have a strong erotic attraction to each other. That's
the way God made us. Such feelings are good and natural. But these
desires are not meant to be acted upon until the couple is prepared to
assume the responsibilities of marriage.
The period before marriage, courtship, is a critically important time
for couples to dig a deep foundation of understanding and trust upon
which they can then build a solid marriage. Premature sexual intimacy
short-circuits the broadening and deepening of the couple's
relationship in other areas, and they find themselves ill prepared to
weather life's inevitable storms.
Just as self-discipline is needed for success in studies, business,
sports, etc., so too sexual self-discipline is needed for a successful
courtship, and for a successful marriage. We need not be slaves of our
passions. But sexual self-discipline needs to be learned. The time
before marriage provides the opportunity for those in love to develop
the sexual discipline they will need to remain faithful to each other
after they are married. Just because they say "I do" to each other
does not mean that they will never again be sexually attracted to
someone other than their spouse, or that attractive people will not
make sexual overtures to them. They will. Courtship is the time to
learn how one can be sexually attracted to another, and yet know how
to avoid sexual intimacy. This is the self-knowledge and discipline
that enable a couple to remain faithful to each other in marriage.
Premarital chastity is the best guarantee of marriage fidelity. If we
are to believe the statistics on the popularity of premarital sex in
this country, it should come as no surprise that half of our marriages
end in divorce. People who do not respect the sacredness of marriage
beforehand, are not likely to respect marriage afterwards. Follow the
crowd into premarital sex, and don't be surprised if one day you
follow the crowd into the divorce court.
PETTING
Those in love should certainly express their affection for each
other. But there is a big difference between being appropriately
affectionate, and sexually arousing one another. If a couple is honest
and willing, they will be able to learn how to demonstrate their
affection for each other, without crossing the line into sexual
stimulation.
Some may feel that the intense pleasure and release offered by petting
is OK, as long as it stops short of intercourse. But sexual passion is
powerful, and the more one feeds the flames of passion, the more it
demands. Those who play with fire will eventually get burned. Petting
is foreplay, designed by God to prepare the body for intercourse.
Those who tease their bodies in this way, without intending to go "all
the way," are on borrowed time. Sooner or later the deep-seated urges
of the body will win out, and afterwards one is left surprised,
confused, and feeling guilty.
Most conscientious Christians involved in a serious relationship don't
start out planning, or expecting, to engage in sexual intercourse. But
if they give themselves to passionate kissing or fondling, their
petting becomes heavier and heavier, powerful passions cloud their
reason, and they end up going all the way.
Each couple is unique and must learn what places and situations are
morally dangerous for them. If they sincerely desire to develop a
chaste, Christian relationship, they will avoid situations where they
know, from experience, they are likely to be weak. It is not enough to
put oneself into, what is for you, an "occasion of sin," and pray to
be stronger this time. It's probably too late. One must muster all
one's God-given strength to resist placing oneself into a situation
where one knows he or she is likely to fall. That is where the battle
must be fought.
THE CHALLENGE OF CHASTITY TODAY
For countless generations, right up until only about a hundred years
ago, people of what is now college age would, in all likelihood,
already be married and raising children. The "progress" of our modern
world now demands long years of education and maturation before one is
ready to marry wisely. Young people are sexually mature years before
they are prepared for the responsibilities of marriage. This
elongation of adolescence puts a tremendous strain on young people,
making chastity especially difficult.
On the other hand, nowadays marriage is sometimes put off too long.
Couples wait for everything to be "perfect" before marrying. They
sometimes unwisely expose themselves to the dangers of long
courtships, waiting, for example, to complete graduate school. When
marriage is delayed into some far off indefinite future, it can become
extremely difficult to delay sexual intimacy for the honeymoon. As St.
Paul advises: "If you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and
marry--it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor 7:9).
No one ever said chastity would be easy. But it sure beats the
heartache that comes with fornication, the spiritual death that comes
with trying to live with the Lord, and yet giving in to the desires of
the flesh.
Tragically, our society is sending young people the message that they
cannot live chastely. But we Christians have much higher esteem, and
expectations, for youth. We know that God's strength is stronger than
our human weakness.
Chastity is a gift of God's grace--the result of a prudent knowledge
of our weaknesses, vigilance to the first overtures of lust, and a
firm desire to follow the Lord's Way of happiness. To remain chaste we
must avoid those books, photos, movies, conversations and fantasies
that feed lust. We must pray that God's strength will carry us in our
weakness. Some find hard physical exercise, and sublimating sexual
energies into creative activities, helpful.
If and when we should fall, we don't panic. We continue to trust in
God's love and mercy. We refuse to get discouraged or give up. We ask
God for forgiveness, and for help in forgiving ourselves. We let go of
the past, so that God can pick us up and set us back on the right
path.
But now we are wiser about our frailties and limitations. We are more
keenly aware than ever of our complete dependence upon God. Having
come face to face with our own sinfulness, we are more sensitive and
compassionate towards the weaknesses of others. Most of all, we are
grateful for God's unconditional love, and the chance to begin anew.
--Ronald Stanley, O.P.
rstanley@rci.rutgers.edu |