Motivation for Sex

Whether the setting is a one-night stand or sex within a relationship, the pressure on young women to engage in illicit sex relations is intense. Premarital sexual involvement is perhaps most apt to occur when a couple begins dating steadily. Couples use various rationales to justify sex, such as "It's okay if you're in love," "Everybody's doing it" or "We need to sleep together before we get married so we can know if we are sexually compatible."

None of these rationalizations is realistic. It's important for young women to realize that their motives for having sex are often quite different from those of a man. Women often consider that intercourse will solidify a relationship with their partner, but to a young man it often represents something different—a coming of age or, in too many cases, simply another conquest. Males are constructed differently emotionally and psychologically and often pursue sex purely for pleasure's sake, with no thought to a relationship.

When a woman has a casual sexual relationship, later she will often regret it, especially when hopes for an enduring relationship are dashed. Her male partner may feel like a victor, but she often feels like a victim.

And indeed she is. If a girl dates someone whom she thinks is "the one," she usually does not enhance her chances of maintaining a relationship by giving in sexually.

Often, after he has had his way, he will simply discard her. Such an action demonstrates that he was not the one after all. If a man jilts a woman because she will not surrender sexually, she is not losing much. Such men are interested in using a woman's body for their own gratification rather than being interested in her as a person or pursuing a lifelong relationship.

Girls who take a stand and refuse to consent to sexual relations before marriage are wise. When they surrender their bodies in premarital sex, they lose a precious part of themselves that they can never regain.

By holding fast to her virginity, a girl will, in the long run, win the respect of many males. As a university student explained, "... In the real world, the more casual that women allow their physical relationships with men to become, the less respect they earn" (Danielle Crittenden, What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us, 2000, p. 33).

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