We’re discussing having a sex talk with your students and what not to say. In the first post, I made a somewhat passionate plea to not over-stress the importance of virginity. Today, we’ll focus on another issue: perfect marital sex.

I was a newly wed when I was still in college, married at the ripe age of 21. My husband was even younger, 20 at that time. It put us in a somewhat special position of being the only married students in our college student ministry.

One day, they had invited a man to talk to all the students in the group about sex. It was the first time I heard someone make a certain statement in a sex talk that I’ve heard many times after that, either directly or implicitly.

If you wait with sex until marriage, the sex will be perfect.

wedding_kiss

It’s one of the arguments used in the approach to convince teens to stay pure until marriage. And I understand where it’s coming from, I do. But it’s a lie.

God has created sex for within the boundaries of marriage, that’s a fact as far as I’m concerned. And I also believe that God has created sex as something beautiful and special that should bring both partners pleasure. And yes, I also do believe that premarital sex can cause issues that will affect the marriage.

But that doesn’t mean the opposite is true. That doesn’t mean that if you don’t have premarital sex, if you do stay pure until marriage, that you will have perfect sex. You don’t know that.

First of all, first time sex is awkward, even if it is your wedding night. Maybe even more so, since the expectations are so high and you’ve waited for so long. That first time, that’s seldom perfect.

But aside from that, there are dozens of reasons why the marital sex may not be perfect. Just think of the 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys who are the victim of sexual abuse. They may technically be a virgin (if that’s even the case), but their sexual traumatic past will affect their sexual experiences in marriage.

And what about the effects of porn, Internet porn especially? Guys may not go ‘all the way’ with their girlfriend, but what will years of Internet porn do to them? Wouldn’t that possible affect their marital sex?

Then there are physical reasons why perfect marital sex is an illusion. Diseases, physical limitations, complications after pregnancies or births, you name it. And there are probably many other issues that could negatively affect sexual relationships within a marriage.

My point is this: you can’t promise perfect marital sex as a ‘reward’ for staying pure. It’s a lie and a false promise you cannot and should not make. Besides, do you really want to stress sex as the core element of a healthy marriage? Just a thought.

One more issue to go when it comes to having a sex talk with students, which we’ll tackle in the next and last post on this topic.