I am THRILLED to feature a guest post by the Vintage Housewife herself.
Christine and I are basically opposites, except for that whole "saving
sex for marriage thing," but we totally respect our differences. She has
undertaken the unique project of learning what housekeeping was like in
the 1950s, straight from vintage guides themselves! You gotta respect a
woman who understands the importance of primary sources. Today she's
writing about one of the failures of purity culture--the lack of frank
discussions about sex. Just a gentle reminder to my readers that I
actively seek out guest writers with opinions different from my own. I
absolutely love what Christine has written today, and I'm honored to
feature her on my blog.
I was a virgin on my wedding night, and a pretty “virginal”
one at that. My new husband and I had
never seen each other naked or done any of the activities that would follow
that step (blow jobs, hand jobs, etc.), so most sexual activities were new to
us in this union of “Holy Matrimony.”
The main factor for us in this decision was religious reasons – we felt
that God wanted us to be as pure as possible for our wedding night.
Looking
back, this is one of the best decisions my husband and I made in our
relationship, and we both agree on that.
There would have been a lot of guilt and resentment if we would have
gone against our consciences to do something we knew was wrong. It was definitely the right decision for us,
so perhaps the “worst” part of this title is a little misleading. The reason why I put that there, however, is
because being a “hard-core virgin” on my wedding night presented some problems
for my marriage that I never anticipated.
I wish that people would warn other dating, abstinent Christians of
these things. They need some sort of
disclaimer, like, “This is what’s right, and it will be very advantageous to
your relationship, but here is what you’re going to struggle with because of
this choice.” I’ll go through the pros
and cons of our decision so you can see what we went through on the “other
side” of that magical wedding night – we are now almost four years into a
happy, fulfilling marriage, so I think I have some authority to speak on the
topic.
BEST THING EVER
(I’ll gloss over these quickly because
they’re the ones that are preached to everyone on “why to remain abstinent”).
1.
An
obvious benefit of being virgins on your wedding night is that neither of you
have been with anyone else. You don’t
have to worry about being compared and thinking, “Oh no, am I the best he ever
had? Does he regret this decision? Am I good enough?” He has nothing to compare it to, so you’re
obviously the best.
2.
Beyond the comparison issue, neither of you
bring the emotional baggage that comes with having multiple sex partners. Any exes are pretty PG, so no one has to
harbor the anger and jealousy that can come with the thought of your partner
being with someone else.
3.
STDs are clearly not going to be an issue.
4.
Saving yourself for marriage builds a lot of
self-control, and this is a quality that carries over into the marriage realm
too. I’m not worried that my husband
will cheat on me. I’m sure that this is
mostly because we’re in a good relationship, however I also know that if he
were ever tempted to stray, he has the self-control to “keep it in his pants”
and not just go with how he’s feeling in a moment. It takes strength to be passionately with
someone for years and not sleep with them just because you don’t believe it is
right. That strength we built is useful
in other areas of our marriage too.
WORST THING EVER
(I’ll go into a little more detail on
these, because I don’t feel like people talk about them enough).
1.
There is a huge mental/emotional block that
comes with suddenly becoming sexually active.
There is nothing else on earth that is completely forbidden one second,
and then with a few “I do’s,” it’s suddenly not only permissible, but essential
to the health of your relationship. That
is super strange. I was supposed to be “pure
pure pure” one night and then a veritable porn star the next. That’s impossible. I definitely struggled with this. For a long time, sex felt “dirty,” and I felt
guilty for doing it even though I knew it was okay. I really blame society for this: they’ve set
up this virgin/whore dichotomy where women can’t be righteous in God’s eyes and
still enjoy a healthy sexuality. Why is
this? The Bible is full of sensuality
(Um. Have you read Song of Solomon?), but I couldn’t seem to grasp that
concept. For the first few months of our
marriage, that made me feel like an extremely inadequate wife. My husband is great and was obviously more
than understanding (after all, guys are “supposed” to be sexual, so he didn’t
really have the same block but understood why I did), but I still felt like
such a loser for not being able to do an instantaneous mind switch on this
topic.
2.
For a while, you’ll have no idea what you’re
doing. People make jokes about “awkward
honeymoon sex,” but for real – it’s so strange.
I mean, prior to my wedding night, no one had seen me naked since I was
in diapers. Now I was supposed to
confidently stride around a honeymoon suite naked and jump my new husband every
chance I had? Weird. Also, there’s just the mechanics of sex in
general. I realize that sex itself isn’t
that difficult (after all, teenagers do it), but I would argue that good sex takes time to figure out. Especially when I’d never “explored myself”
or my husband prior to this – how were we supposed to know what felt good and
what didn’t? In short, we didn’t
know. So we just kept trying different
stuff. The awkwardness is cute on the
honeymoon, like, “Oh, look at us, so new to all this…ha ha ha!” but as the
months roll by and orgasms aren’t easy and mind-blowing, frustration sets in. It starts to cause tension – is something
wrong with me? Him? Both of us?
Do we “practice” more often or just give up for a while? And it can cause division in your
relationship. Sex was the #1 reason my
husband and I fought in our first year of marriage, which is something I never
would have expected! Fights about
sex? What? But apparently that’s one of the top two
causes of marital discord in the country (the other one is finances).
3.
The idea of “sexual compatibility” is pretty
deceiving. This one will link to
#2. People talk about making sure that
you’re “sexually compatible” with your partner prior to marrying them, and this
was something I struggled with a lot at the beginning. I felt that if two people were “sexually
compatible,” then they would quickly understand each other’s preferences and
rhythms (because theirs were the same, right?), and sex would become
mind-blowingly fantastic after a handful of tries. When sex wasn’t instantly amazing, I started
to wonder if maybe my husband and I weren’t “sexually compatible.” That was frustrating. I would never cheat on him, obviously, but I
started to wonder if maybe I had given up a chance for better sex by marrying
him. I wondered if maybe I should have
slept with more people to learn who was really best in bed. Ugh – I feel so horrible even typing those
words because they’re so ridiculous and selfish, but that’s how I felt. I’m sure other new brides have felt this way
too. Now, four years in, I can say that
our sex life has gotten consistently better from Day 1 until now, and I
anticipate it will continue to get better in the future. It’s not about finding the person who knows
all of your exact sexual preferences immediately; it’s about finding someone
who is so emotionally and mentally committed to you that they’re willing to put
in the work to learn what you like and do it for you. That’s going to produce some amazing sex.
Being virgins on our wedding night
has, overall, been a great choice for my husband and me. I just wish I would have known the struggles
that come along with that decision before I made it. It wouldn’t have changed my decision, but it
would have made me more ready for my first year of marriage, and it would
probably have saved some fights. I think
I had this subconscious notion that because I was doing things “God’s way” that
He would bless me instantly with amazing sex.
That’s not really a mature viewpoint, but it’s one that I think a lot of
romance-stricken abstinent Christian have.
“It will be different for us” or “We know each other so well…it will be
amazing.” I’m sure that’s true for some
people, and good for them. For the other
99% of us, though, I want people to know that there are struggles with getting
used to your new sex life, but that going through those experiences with your
new spouse brings you closer together and ultimately will produce a great sex
life – just maybe not on Night Three of your honeymoon.
Beau and I just finished up Night Three of our honeymoon last night! This post has obviously been scheduled in advance, and no, I am not interrupting my steady stream of sex, sleep, alcohol, books, and the beach to update my blog. So here's hoping that all our preparation got us ready for great sex! If not, Christine is right. We have the rest of our lives to communicate our desires and become closer every day.
