The modern age of heterosexual marriage isn't natural!

In her book The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, brothels and the business of AIDS (Granta Books, 2008) Elisabeth Pisani notes the gender disjuncture between expectations of virginity until marriage - especially for girls and women - and the new realities of later marriages. On the other hand, there is an almost "sanctimonious" element on ATS that defines the procreative possibilities of heterosexual sex as the only "natural" expression of sexuality.
The supporters of this view should then be highly concerned that the most productive years of procreation are pushed further and further backwards, until natural conception may require all kinds of "unnatural" interventions.

Pisani argues that males always had sexual outlets with prostitutes and other disempowered women. The scandal was the girl falling pregnant before wedlock. However, times have changed:

Now contraception is eroding that risk. More importantly, girls have now got better things to do than get married at fifteen. All over the world, more and more girls are staying in school, going to university, getting jobs. Their social horizons are changing, their hormones are not.(p.190)

Yet, in America, around a fifth of girls signed virginity pledges (or more bizarrely, had them signed by their fathers) during glitzy "silver ring thing" religious ceremonies. Nevertheless, "a study of over 11,000 US adolescents over several years found that 72 per cent of pledgers had sex before marriage" (p.190). These encounters were then less likely to include safe-sex.The Bush lobby furthermore attempted to spread failed abstinence policies to other areas of the globe.

Nevertheless, the average current age of marriage is in the mid-twenties (I've heard of localities where it is closer to 30 and above). Pisani points out:

As the age of marriage rises, the likelihood of virginity on the wedding night drops. I wonder how many American kids pledging virginity until marriage do the maths. To keep the pledge, the average American guy would have to go through all his hormone-charged teens and four-fifths of his twenties without ever having sex. Girls could be a little less patient, but they'd still have to forgo sex until twenty-five. Frankly, that's not what most people dream of while they are young, energetic and as sexy as they will ever be. (p.193)

So it appears the best and healthiest procreative years are used for other things, or children are born outside of wedlock. Our great grand-parents might have found this heterosexuality highly "unnatural".
Or is any old heterosexuality "natural" simply because it isn't homosexuality?

reply to post by halfoldman


Well, I have to say -

There are a lot of people here, including me, who think homosexuality is OK.

reply to post by catwhoknows

Thanks for that!
I'm very concerned about heterosexuality however.
It seems to be whatever people make it out to be.
Some say it's vaginal sex (and they only recognize homosexuality as anal sex - so sexual orientation for them is one sex act for each side of the coin, so to speak).
Some say even heterosexuality is a sin, if it isn't within marriage. But most heterosexuality nowadays is not within marriage. And then what of re-marriage?
"Bastards" are Biblically excluded from the congregation (Deuteronomy 23:2-3) - so is procreation always good and natural?
Just wondering.
And if the average age of marriage is 25, how can one make kids sign these pledges?

reply to post by halfoldman


Hetero is whatever.

And you can't make your kids sign anything.

The only thing to do with kids is reason.

It is tough, but no-one ever said it would be easy.

My only son is estranged from me because he says he is angry with me - I have tried to reason, it hasn't worked, so I will be putting my valuable time into people who need and want it.



+

reply to post by catwhoknows

They certainly do make girls sign these pledges, although there seems to be less press interest since President Bush was replaced.
Pisani is not the first to note some symbolically unsound elements between fathers and daughters at such events:

Around a fifth of young Americans tell researchers that they have been through a ritual 'Virginity Pledge', signing a contract that declares they will not have sex until they are married. They do it at huge religious ceremonies, they do it at high school ceremonies, they do it at huge religious rallies and concerts, they do it at glitzy balls in spa hotels. The wierdest virginity pledges are signed not by the kids but their fathers, at those glitzy balls, where girls in floaty white dresses with see-through skirts slow-dance with Daddy. Before the assembled crowd, Daddy pledges 'I ...'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.' (Pisani p. 190)

I guess we shouldn't hold our breath for father, or even mother and son pledges.
How about a father and gay son pledge - since gays are expected to give so much normality while receiving none?
In any case also see the "I am worth the wait" websites.
I suppose it merely inscribes patriarchal power.

reply to post by halfoldman


OK,

No-one should force anyone to sign this.

And, may I ask, what is the big deal about virginity? How stupid.

Girls should not be under the rule of their fathers or the church - don't even start me about the church...

reply to post by catwhoknows


I can't speak for males, only what I have heard, which may or may not be a stereotype.

For females losing your virginity IS a big deal. It is wrapped up in emotions and that first experience especially if negative stays with you the rest of your life. Women release bonding hormones during sex, and it has been said that a larger quantity is released during your first time. Many women will attest to the fact that they have stronger emotional feelings for their fist lover than subsequent lovers even 20 or more years later.

This kind of thinking is all the rage today. It's a pity it's so one sided.

We in the last 20-30 years have displaced all of our old ways. Replaced them with new ideas and concepts, which isn't bad in itself. However, issues like an "average family" evolved in a certain way, because that's what worked, over the time of several generations.

We're still the first, maybe second generation of this social movement, and looking around i don't see much good happening. It's not even free love, it's self debasement based on fraudulant "studies", like the kinsey report.

This current generation i'm seeing is rudderless, morally, ethically, intellectually bankrupt. I personally believe the high divorce rates over the last few decades is number 1 reason for this. Unless you have a strong family unit, the children will be weak, and susceptable to "peer pressure" and such.

We have a generation of people who cannot relate to what we once called normal, the problem is this total abandonment of "traditional" values, with a complete absence of a replacement system.

Mis-read the post!

Originally posted by calstorm
reply to post by catwhoknows

 

For females losing your virginity IS a big deal. It is wrapped up in emotions and that first experience especially if negative stays with you the rest of your life. Women release bonding hormones during sex, and it has been said that a lager quantity is released during your first time. Many women will attest to the fact that they have stronger emotional feelings for their fist lover than subsequent lovers even 20 or more years later.

And this finding makes perfect sense with the realization over the past 30 years that their first lover is their
FATHER!
That description of those ceremonies actually made my skin crawl....can anyone say "MK-Ultra/Tinkerbell"??

Other than that I feel girls as well as boys all have a huge range of emotional attachment regarding sex, from none to fanatical, all dependent on a wide assortment of current conditions....

Ooops....double post!

reply to post by harryhaller

Knowing three unmarried heterosexual couples (all of them white, one a relative) I cannot say they are really rudderless.
Notwithstanding occassional dramas, they have lived like married people for a decade each.
Two of them are getting married this year still, one in October and one in November.
Both plan to have children after the marriage.

All the partners are older than 30.
But so what? Perhaps better to have planned security?

reply to post by halfoldman


I see your point.

The problem is this: when you have sex with someone else, there's a risk that babies will happen. planning has got nothing to do with it. It sounds like your friends are heading in the right direction, nothing wrong with it, late marriages that is.

But what we're seeing is it's ok to screw anyone, as long as you're pretending to be "in love". One over move on. But if you have a kid .... it just always ends badly.

But most of my objections about sex and marriage relate very much towards the offspring of these unions.

My 13yo daughter was asked at school if she's a virgin ... in PRIMARY school for crying out loud, by a guy. That's where this "liberal" view on sex has got us. I'm a bit unhappy about that, she told me yesterday. She has permission to break the next boy who asks nose. But this is what you get when sexuality is allowed free reign in society.

Originally posted by SmokeyDawn

Originally posted by calstorm
reply to post by catwhoknows

 

For females losing your virginity IS a big deal. It is wrapped up in emotions and that first experience especially if negative stays with you the rest of your life. Women release bonding hormones during sex, and it has been said that a lager quantity is released during your first time. Many women will attest to the fact that they have stronger emotional feelings for their fist lover than subsequent lovers even 20 or more years later.

And this finding makes perfect sense with the realization over the past 30 years that their first lover is their
FATHER!
That description of those ceremonies actually made my skin crawl....can anyone say "MK-Ultra/Tinkerbell"??

Other than that I feel girls as well as boys all have a huge range of emotional attachment regarding sex, from none to fanatical, all dependent on a wide assortment of current conditions....

Where in the article did it say they had intercourse with their father? Are you saying all womens first experiance is with their father? Please clarify.

I'd propose a new law.
Hetetosexuals may not have sex until 16, but after that it should be compulsory, and they should be encouraged to marry.
I'd put a tax break on straight couples between the ages of 18-35 who marry.
I'd lift all taxes for any couple that has two childen in that period.

But on what condition, could we force them to stay married?

reply to post by halfoldman


Women have empowered themselves and are no longer under pressure to do what society expects of them.

In my Grans day, women had to stay at home, get married early in life and have kids, whilst the husband went to work and provided money to support the family. Men were in charge of the household decisions, whilst women ran the home.
What did that create? An unequal partnership where women were forced into a lifestyle by pressure, not only from society but family and friends. Society shunned "bastard" children and their Mothers, so most were goven up for adoption due to the stigma.

Women today in modern societies have the same freedom men enjoy.

The concept of marraige to me seems unatural, regardless of the sexuality of the couple.

Making a vow to stay together for life is going against nature in my opionion. Why, because we all grow, develop and change through the experiences we have in life.

I'm very different to that 16 or 21 year old kid that I was. My partner of 15 year is the same. Luckily we still are heading in the right direction together.

Many couples I have known that have split up have done so because they have grown apart and is insane to force unhappiness on either individual to try to stick to that vow. Therefore that vow shouldn't be made.

Sure, when children are involved, both parents need to take up their own responsibility and provide stability and, guidance and love to that child.

I just read a recent study that the American youth is very unexperienced when it comes to sex, compared to the rest of the world.

Seems to me that the youth is kept back by the media and other forces, 20+ year olds acting like kids when it comes to sex.

Maybe it's just an another way to control people.

Originally posted by harryhaller
reply to post by halfoldman

 

I see your point.

The problem is this: when you have sex with someone else, there's a risk that babies will happen. planning has got nothing to do with it. It sounds like your friends are heading in the right direction, nothing wrong with it, late marriages that is.

But what we're seeing is it's ok to screw anyone, as long as you're pretending to be "in love". One over move on. But if you have a kid .... it just always ends badly.

But most of my objections about sex and marriage relate very much towards the offspring of these unions.

My 13yo daughter was asked at school if she's a virgin ... in PRIMARY school for crying out loud, by a guy. That's where this "liberal" view on sex has got us. I'm a bit unhappy about that, she told me yesterday. She has permission to break the next boy who asks nose. But this is what you get when sexuality is allowed free reign in society.

That's where sex education comes in and is so important. Only vaginal sex can produce a baby and we have contraception, ok not 100% reliable but it still reduces the risk.

I'm sure someone may mention, well we need to stop that risk and insist on sex after marraige only. It didn't work in the past, people still had sex outside of marraige, especially whilst they were young and going through adolesence.
And what of the risk in making someone marry at such a young age? Being made to make a vow of life commitment? What damage can that cause someone making the wrong decision at such a young age?
Then being pressured into staying in that marraige.
As or pretending to be in love, how can anyone really know or judge whether two people are in love?