Abstinence: The Advantages
Date Posted: February 27th, 2009
This is the second post in a series on abstinence. Check out the first post here: My Story.
As with many things, attitude matters a lot. If you believe that sex ought to be restricted to marriage, you’ll probably have a good experience with abstinence. If you’re abstaining out of guilt or duty or something else like that chances are you won’t feel quite so warm and fuzzy about it. I decided to abstain with the sincere believe that waiting was the right thing for me, so my experience with it has been fairly positive. Below are some of the things I found to be particularly good about abstaining.
Forced to Talk about Sex
Sex was never something I wanted to talk about at 15 or 16 (or 23). I remember getting so anxious while merely thinking about talking about it, my stomach would start hurting. I’d always imagine the talk being a combination of really awkward, really intimate with a good bit of uncomfortable thrown in for good measure. Not exactly something I was looking forward to. And yet, when you’ve decided to abstain there’s no getting around having the talk if you want to start your relationship on the right foot. You definitely want to state the non-negotiable boundaries at the start when it’s less painful for either party to walk away. You want your partner to be as free as possible to make his/her decision otherwise you’re setting your relationship up for highly probable pain and resentment later. So I ended up initiating the conversation for both of the relationships I’ve had, and, not surprisingly it turned out to be a very good thing aside from the fact that I wouldn’t have to worry about trouble later.
- Affirmation that your SO respects your beliefs: By having the talk early, you know right away that your new SO is OK with your decision to abstain. Before having the talk I always had a worry in the back of my mind that maybe he’d leave me if he knew. After the talk I knew that wasn’t the case.
- Supercharged Intimacy: Intimacy is developed by having intimate experiences, and the sex-talk is practically inherently an intimate conversation. Chances are you’ll feel a lot closer to your SO faster than you would if you put off talking about sex until later.
- Screening: Guys who are primarily interested in sex will be filtered out immediately. (I suppose beliefs on abstinence could be taken as a challenge (see Cruel Intentions), but I imagine that’d be a pretty rare occurrence.)
Find Imaginative Ways to be Affectionate
Without intercourse, you’ll need to find other ways to show that your relationship isn’t platonic. In a few months you’ll have an entire arsenal of techniques to express your affection that other couples aren’t as intrinsically motivated to develop.
Sex, Children, and Marriage Fit Neatly Together
If you believe that children ought to be created within the institution of marriage, waiting until marriage to have sex is the best way to express that since you’re giving your body an unambiguous message. Waiting says, “Children belong in marriage and therefore intercourse belongs in marriage so I’m not going to have intercourse until I’m married.” Not waiting but using contraceptives says, “I’m open to a certain amount of risk.” Not waiting and not using contraceptives says, “I’m open to having children.” No matter what form of contraception you use, there’s always some amount of risk.
The question of whether or not children should only be conceived within marriage is, of course, open to debate. Methinks children can be raised well when conceived within marriage or outside of marriage. There isn’t one true way. But if in your heart of hearts you’d like your children to be conceived in marriage, why do the procreation act outside of it? (Especially when there are so many ways to physically show affection!)
No Pregnancy and No Disease
This should be fairly obvious.
I’ll note that STIs can be transmitted through oral and anal sex, so avoiding intercourse alone won’t provide you with complete protection. Similarly there’s a slight chance of getting pregnant if you’re fooling around while the woman’s particularly fertile.
Trust
If both of you take the promise seriously, abstinence is pretty easy to maintain even if you’re both really into each other. Simply put, your respect for your partner combined with your belief that your partner wants to wait serves as strong encouragement not to test the issue even when intercourse starts to feel like a really really good idea. Over time it’s practically impossible for trust not to develop since you’re renewing your promise to each other over and over again. Trusting your partner in other areas is practically a given.
Self Discipline
If you’ve successfully been waiting to have sex you have an excellent reference point for your ability to keep promises to yourself.
People Tend to be Impressed
When I’ve told people that I was abstaining until marriage (or even until engagement), the reaction has been almost universally positive. Granted, I don’t proclaim my life choices to everyone I meet, so that may affect the reaction. But, I dunno, seeing someone consciously abstaining until marriage maybe gives people a sense of hope or something? In any case it’s a nice ego boost. 
It’s pretty easy to see why attitude matters when deciding to abstain. Several of the advantages listed here can easily be seen as disadvantages. (Having to talk to your SO about sex and having to find other ways to show your affection stand out in particular.) And if you don’t really believe that it matters whether or not your children are conceived in marriage, then that “advantage” is effectively negated. So yeah, whether or not you see all of these things as advantages is in large part a matter of attitude.
There are quite a few disadvantages, though, that are bad even for those who want to abstain. Those will be discussed in the next post.
