Date Night Advice (DNA) Series: TOP10 Benefits of Saving Sex for Marriage
Part 1
Waiting is no fun. Waiting is negative. Waiting is what you must do when outside forces stand in the way of your desired goal. And nowhere does the word “waiting” seem more cruel than when you hear that you should wait until marriage to have sex.
Especially when your hormones are burning in overdrive and you seem no closer to walking down the aisle than you do walking on the moon. Actually, the moon might seem closer.
That’s why, at Future Marriage University (FMU)…
Instead of admonishing you to wait until marriage to have sex, we want to encourage you to save sex for marriage.
Now saving is positive. It requires the same delayed gratification of waiting, but saving isn’t about outside forces. It’s about internal motivation. It’s about making a personal choice; the choice to forego what you could have now in anticipation of enjoying something far greater in the future.
Most people don’t say they’re waiting to buy a car or a home. They say they’re saving for those purchases; or at least saving for the down payment. They still have to wait, but they choose to focus not on what they can’t do right now, but on what they can do right now, so that they can do what they want in the future.
Not sure sex is worth saving for marriage? Then you probably aren’t familiar with the TOP10 benefits of doing so. We share all ten in a LoveEd video series on our YouTube channel, but for a quick rundown, here we go.
#10: Less risk
The obvious risks are the ones most bantered about: sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy. However, the greater risks are largely overlooked, because the largest sex organ in your entire body (male or female, by the way) is your brain, and that organ cannot be protected from the dangers of sex; it can only be deadened to them. Which, then allows even more damage to be done, without you feeling it. At the time.
#9: You don’t have to wonder whether they want you or just the sex.
This might come as a shock to you, but there are actually folks out there who will pay people to have sex.
Yes. Romantic. True love.
Having broken that news, you might have already guessed that these people don’t have to love the person they’re paying for sex. They don’t even have to know them. They just love the sex.
The same thing is true of you in a dating relationship, if you’re giving sexual favors to your dating partner you don’t really know if they love you or the sex. Who knows, they might even love the sex enough to pay you for it, but if someone truly loves you they won’t give you money for sex. They’ll give themselves in a marriage covenant.
#8: You keep sex from clouding your judgment.
Not only does giving someone your body keep you from knowing if they truly love you, if you’re enjoying the sex as well you don’t actually know if you love them.
The mind-bending work sex effects on the brain (remember that largest of sex organs) can bond you with someone you don’t know; sometimes even someone you do know and don’t like.
#7: The fewer sexual experiences you’ve had, the higher your chances of sexual satisfaction in marriage.
Comparison is the enemy of contentment and variety invites comparison. So when it comes to opportunities to compare sexual performance, more is less. That is to say, that the more sexual partners and sexual experiences you have to compare to your spouse the less likely you’ll be content with the monogamy of marriage.
And this goes for all you “virgins” out there exposing yourself (literally) to pornography. The greater your porn exposure the higher your expectations for “real life sex,” expectations that simply could never be met in reality land where real people have real sex with real bodies.
#6: Keeping Sex Positive
Because the church promotes abstaining from sex outside of marriage, many people, even believers, blame the church for putting a negative spin on sex. (If you’re asking someone to avoid something, it must be bad. Right?)
However, whether or not you hold to the ideal of life-long monogamy, here’s the truth: there is nothing even remotely negative about honoring sex as a precious gift reserved only for the private pleasure of two people committed to each other for life. Too the contrary, there is no other picture of sex more divine, and that is the marvelous teaching of scripture.
Jesus believed so much in the holiness of the marriage bed, He made the audacious claim that even looking at someone in lust is a violation of it’s sacredness.
So if the Bible (and Jesus) are true, then any celebration of sex outside those bounds is intrinsically perverted. And that is where the negative perception of sex begins: not with the teaching of scripture, but with our own arrogant, self-indulgent desires and our hyper-sexualized culture that endeavor to divorce sex from the covenant relationship from which it which it derives its glory.
What’s #5? Click here for the continuation of our TOP5.
Or, check them all out in the LoveEd video series, TOP10 Benefits of Saving Sex for Marriage on our FMU YouTube channel.
Speaking of benefits, have you benefited from what you’ve learned here? Consider a tax-deductible donation to Future Marriage University!
DNA: It’s What’s For Dating
Dug this weekend’s DNA? Be a good friend and share with your friends on the social media platform of choice: Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter.
The LoveEd discipleship series, Beyond Sex & Salvation, will empower you to prepare for relational success when it counts: BEFORE you fall in love!
It’s NOT for couples, but for any wise individual who thinks they might want to get married sometime before they die. And would like to learn how to better build healthy relationships in the meantime.
Check out all three study guides in our store. You can walk through them on your own, but it’s more fun with friends (that and it kinda makes sense to grow in relational success in actual relationships with others), so consider putting together an FMU LoveEd small group study.
Even better? And ask a rock star married couple you respect to lead it!
