Well, I wouldn't put my moral convictions aside and I don't suggest anyone else do that either. [the SAA board is full of people who put aside their moral convictions - our prisons are full of them too ]

Romantic love would not last if there was not a committment, so if I am going to invest SF in a partner, I want a signed agreement. A sexual investment is a HUGE emotional investment for most women so I want to protect my investment. My goal would be to have sex within the confines of a committed relationship, which is marriage.

It can be devastating to women to have that level of investment in a man only to have the relationship crumble. So, if she wants to protect her investment, the best way to do that is to wait to get married. And if he doesn't want to get married, then she knows it is not a good investment.

Dr. Harley also clearly says that sexual compatibility can be overcome 9 times out of 10 by fixing the relationship, and he says what to do the rest of the time. You are pushing your own personal opinion that sexual incompatibility be tested before marriage, and it sounds in contradiction to Marriage Builders advice if you ask me. Are you willing to email Dr. Harley and ask him to address this on his radio show so we can find out what the official Marriage Builders principles on this are?

Yes, it is. We're wired for it. So elope!


I have heard Dr. Harley on more than one occasion tell people (especially women, strangely enough) that adding sex to a relationship complicates it, in the way you are describing, and clouds their thinking.

Well, I happen to like that one, because Prisca and I met there!

One problem today is that there are too many guys who want to "hang out." I suggest putting some wording in your profile that says you are interested in DATING. Tell them you want to date LOTS of people and make it clear you are looking for someone to start dating.

Post on the message board a lot, as well.

If you find anyone on that site who wants to do anything sexual, I suggest you expose them. Contact the administrator. He is a really nice guy (if it's the same guy who founded the site). And I'd post about them on the message board, too!

KL,
Thanks for emailing Dr. H (I was thinking of doing it due to this debate) and so I have it to watch out for it.

Very good answer. Thank you!

KL, I'm going to make a comparison and launch out into the realm of speculation and personal opinion. ML's given me some thoughts with her posts.

One interesting question that comes up frequently is the subject of mutually agreeing to something like pornography. In most marriages, POJA eliminates porn, because the wife is typically not enthusiastic about it. "But what if she is?" goes the question. Dr. Harley's spoken on some broadcasts about it still being damaging to the marriage due to the contrast effect, but he's also observed that typically what he finds is not that the wife was really enthusiastic about porn, but that she reluctantly agreed. And I can think of examples on this board of women I've seen who when they arrived said they had no problem with their husband's porn use, but after awhile they realized that they did in fact have a problem with it.

Now I'm going to speculate: for a lot of women, premarital sex is the same way. A very common thing I have seen is women who do not want to engage in premarital sex who feel that they have no options in dating, because there is so much pressure and it is so accepted. ergo, there are surely a lot of women whose ideal would be no premarital sex but who engage in it anyway because they feel they have no choice if they want to date / find a husband. A reluctant agreement. (I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons for women to engage in premarital sex, but I'm equally sure that there are some number of women for whom this is true.)

MelodyLane's posts make a very convincing case as to why, for many women, sex outside of the security of the Buyer's Agreement of marriage (not just feeling committed, but actually making a formal commitment) is not in their best interest. That's a good explanation as to why there are a lot of women who, at least ideally, would like to avoid premarital sex.

One thing I've heard Dr. Harley talk about is cognitive dissonance. I've heard this term before I heard of Dr. H, but the way he puts it is that essentially our beliefs change to line up with our actions. And I've got to say that I personally have known a lot of women who seem to have strong religious convictions about something and if I learn enough about them it really seems that the religious convictions happen to line up with their own personal preference. For example, I've seen women with strong religious convictions about independence in marriage. The truth is, they really just wanted to be independent from their husbands (as opposed to the interdependence that Marriage Builders would recommend for marital happiness), and the further truth is that the reason they feel that way is because of their husband's neglect and/or abuse. Their husband's behavior causes their feelings, and their religious beliefs conveniently line up and they believe they can prove from the Bible (or whatever moral authority, this works equally well in other religions) that men and women just aren't designed to make each other happy and the best they can hope for is a peaceful independent coexistence, or whatever.

Interesting, huh? I'm not attempting to explain away religious conviction, but it's very interesting that people who have studied this say that our beliefs change to fit our actions.

So, in the realm of speculation, I'm guessing there are probably some women with strong religious convictions against premarital sex, and those strong religious convictions are actually protecting them from something that would not emotionally be in their best interest (the huge investment of sexual intimacy without the security of a Buyer's Agreement). Not a reason to discount the religious beliefs, but I think it might be a reason to help seriously point to why premarital sex might not be in the best interest of most women.

Perhaps it's really just not that good for women to be engaging in sexual intimacy without commitment-level security. (Not willingness to make a commitment, an actual formal commitment, i.e., marriage.)

I don't want to derail the original thread, so lamby please tell us if you want us to start a separate thread on this...

The beauty of Harley's principles is precisely that they are not morality or faith based, but are rooted in practicality - what practical steps create the feelings of love. That is very different from the Disney and Hollywood message of "I saw his face and fell in love and I will love him forever", or many religious teachings of how a man and a woman must interact... It's all about practical steps with Harley concepts.

So you don't hear Harley say that you should or should not do something because the Bible or the Koran tell you to... The whole premise of MB basic concepts is that you should do whatever it takes to make your spouse happy (meet their needs) as long as you are enthusiastic about that, and avoid doing things that make them unhappy (lovebusting).

I don't see any problem applying the same concepts to dating. If the dating couple is radically honest with each other, uses POJA, and is in a monogamous relationship, the concepts apply just like they do in a marriage. If they are both honest with each other and are enthusiastic about A, B, or C, then there is no reason for them to not do A, B, or C.. The morality police need not be involved in this.

I think a lot of the disagreement here comes from the morality side of things; but Harley does not judge emotional needs based on someone else's morality (you will never hear him say "your husband is a pervert for wanting to make love with the lights on, you should tell him to go fly a kite"), and neither should we.

AGG

Markos, I am speed reading and will read more thoroughly later, but this is the essence of my point. Dating is a renters agreement and I am not willing to invest myself sexually in a renters agreement. Sex is a HUGE emotional investment to me and I don't think it is a good idea to make such an investment in a rental car. To me, that is like investing $5000 in a rental car. How smart is that?

It would be much wiser to make such an investment within the confines of a buyers agreement. For example, I will invest $5000 in a car I OWN, rather than a car I don't OWN and may NEVER OWN. I may lose my investment. And sure, contracts are broken all the time, but we don't avoid signing contracts just because some are broken.

Now, given that background, if a man told me he wouldn't commit to me unless I put out for free, he would not be suitable because I need a committment FIRST.

more later...

I will add that I see the "moral" aspect of the decision making process being dismissed and that is a mistake. That is a huge mistake to ever take the morality of decision making.

When you find yourself trying to take the "morality" out of your decision making, it is a good sign you are making a wrong decision. Morality is the basis for sound decision making. Just ask our prison population, who is notorious for taking the morality out of their decision making!

But leaving the lights on is not a moral issue so I don't get your analogy. What Dr Harley DOES SAY is that his program was inspired by the BIBLE and can be backed up by scripture. It is written for the general population but it is BASED ON moral principles.

Moral principles should never be left out of decision making!

Here's the TL;DR summary for you, Mel:

I'll bet there are a lot of women who are wired that way but settle for less. And possibly that is one reason why religious prohibitions exist against premarital sex: to protect women.

Markos: I definitely agree with your point about women preferring to save sex for marriage. It's not that they don't want to have sex until they are married - far from it. It's that they have higher priorities in regards to the development of a relationship. In my experience, women are actually relieved to hear that a man they are going out with doesn't expect sex until marriage, even if the woman isn't religious or traditional.

This is a very interesting discussion, and I too, like AGG, want to make sure Lamby is ok with the direction this thread is taking. Unless we hear otherwise, I'll assume she's ok with it.

Markos, what you write about reluctant agreement for women and premarital sex is interesting. It seems to line up with other things I've read and heard about how women view sex. What's interesting is it doesn't line up with my own personal experience. I've had 4 sexual relationships in my life, so not exactly a large sample size, but in every one of them, the woman wanted to have sex before I did. *I* was the one in reluctant agreement, thinking that because I'm a male, I'm supposed to want to have sex; I was the one who felt pressured to have sex. It's not that I felt strongly about waiting until marriage to have sex, it's just that I wanted to explore the relationship a little more before getting physical.

Although what you write about women may be true in general, my limited experience tells me that women DO want to have sex before marriage. Or maybe it was general societal pressure that led women to assume that since I was a male, I therefore wanted to have sex with them, and so they in turn wanted to have sex with me. You might question my choices of women, and that would be fair, but I think the women I've been with are normal-typical women; they're not the type that frequent pick-up bars or places like that. (Well, maybe one was, but that was definitely my mistake.)

When I asked Melody the question about having sex before marriage in a loving relationship where both partners wanted to, she gave a good answer for herself. But I can imagine other women in such a situation who would be willing to invest themselves in a sexual relationship without the commitment of marriage. I think if two people are in agreement about what they want, and it includes sex before marriage, I don't see anything wrong with that. Yes, it's true, one or both of them could be very hurt if the relationship doesn't work out. If that's a risk they're willing to take, why try to convince them otherwise?

If having premarital sex could be shown in general to have a negative effect on the relationship or on the potential future marriage, then I would agree with trying to convince a couple not to. That's essentially what I asked Dr. Harley in an email earlier today: If a couple jointly chooses to engage in premarital sex, are they setting themselves up for failure in a future marriage?

I'm sure the following will sound like it came from a greeting card or something but I feel compelled to say it anyway: anyone who does not understand your decision to not engage in pre-marital sex and is unwilling to continue dating you because of it is not the right person for you. That's all their is to it. There are guys out there that believe the same and will honor you for it.

I doubt the gates of hell have prevailed against the church, so I imagine that there are still some people out there of both genders who intend to do what God says.

Remember Elijah?

http://bible.cc/romans/11-4.htm
http://bible.cc/1_kings/19-18.htm

Go date the seven thousand, and leave the other losers.

By the way, looking at your signature, I saw three (five) great reasons to stick to your principles:


They will learn a lot more from what you do than what you say.

I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AGREE WITH THIS! Women are raised in a culture that cheapens sex to nothing more valuable than 2 pigs getting it on in the barnyard. Most believe - and its often true - that men won't consider them for a wife unless they put out. Sadly, that is true in most cases.

I used to believe this myself and also felt like I SHOULD view sex as fun and easy as men. Savvy, cool women enjoyed sex whenever and whereever. For much of my life I believed I must be "frigid" because I couldn't overcome my "frigid" feelings about having extramarital sex with men. I actually thought I must HATE SEX and it wasn't until I was older that I realized that I didn't hate sex at all inside the confines of marriage. I just hated the idea of having extramarital sex. I look back on the times I did it with deep regret. I feel like I demeaned myself then and I still feel that way looking back.

So yes, I think there are alot of women who settle for less and are pressured by a promiscuous culture to put out for free. Sex is cheap in our culture.

Well said!

AGREE!!!!!

Right, but whose morality, ML??? No one here has suggested that one should go against their own morals, no matter how often you keep saying that something is against your morals and I keep saying that it may not be against others' morals. I don't think this is a hard concept - don't go against your own morality, but don't impose your morality on others.

Morality is in the eyes of the beholder - you may think that sex before marriage is immoral, so you should not do it. But other cultures may consider just holding hands by the unmarried couple immoral; others do not want the bride and groom to see each other until the time of the wedding; others will chop your head off if you are seen in public with a member of opposite sex who you are not married to.

I would definitely recommend not dating in those societies the way we might here; yet I would also not be telling others to date according to those rules, if they don't live in those societies or subscribe to that morality.

No one is talking about leaving out their morality out of their decision making process, they are talking about leaving out others' morality, which is a good move.

AGG