Bunji's rebuttal

By BUNJI BABY

01 March 2005

This article is a rebuttal of Banks.J Baby’s views on sex, and more specifically, sex before marriage. With no ready access but my own memory to recall her articles by, I have to beg her pardon if I misconstrue her ideas, but her views, I think, are that sex is a joyous, precious gift that one should give only to a life partner you are officially committed to. This baby respectfully begs to differ. Well, not that it can’t be a joyous gift etc. etc. etc. but sex isn’t merely a consummation of two people’s love together, it’s a hugely powerful force in the lives of you and I. And I see no good reason for why, in modern-day society, it should be limited to the former.

I don’t believe that sex before marriage is unreligious or unchristian. Holy scripture is something that should be constantly reinterpreted, should not be taken literally, if only because of obscurity of translation and authorship. The principles behind the practices advocated should be understood, and then applied to the modern-day society, and nowhere is this more important than in the subject of sex before marriage. In most religions, the main abiding principle is that harming other people should be avoided. What makes sex before marriage okay nowadays is, really, condoms. 150 years ago, sex before marriage was wrong. Chances were, the woman would fall pregnant, and the resulting baby would be illegitimate and have no father figure nor father to provide for it. The latter was important because women could rarely make a living for themselves. To inflict suffering on an innocent child because you wanted a shag ? that is a sin. However, now you don’t have to have children if you have sex, or pass on venereal diseases if you use a condom. Yes, contraception is not 100% effective, nor do condoms prevent contraction of all STIs. But on the whole, it’s better for us to use condoms than to abstain until marriage.

The reason for this is so: Invariably, people marry early in societies that allow only for sex after marriage. This is fine if people have stable lifestyles and expectancies, because the person you marry doesn’t change as much, so you’d know what you’re getting. But in today’s world of abrupt career changes and high class mobility, people’s character and lifestyle don’t usually settle until about the thirties. Getting married early in this society increases the likelihood of unhappiness in the marriage and divorce. Women, in particular, suffer under such old-fashioned societies, because it’s obvious when the woman has been disobeying the central precept, and it all too often gives rise to double standards. That the sexual revolution in the last century coincided with the rise of feminism is no coincidence, in my eyes. No sex before marriage also discourages people from marrying from love – I mean, if you never fall in love, does that mean that you can never have sex? In a psychologically sophisticated society such as ours, it’s just unreasonable.

To be honest, I feel it’s fairly naïve of Banks.J Baby to state that sex should derive from love. Maybe that would be its ideal state, but the fact that a large amount of people want to have sex, not necessarily love, shouldn’t be ignored, in my opinion. Sex doesn’t have to be about love. Sex can be fulfilling a need, it can be another form of intimacy between someone you are attracted to and close to, and it can also just be fun. So long as it isn’t hurting someone, all of these attitudes and more are equally valid. Whilst I believe that Banks.J Baby’s personal beliefs on the matter are perfect