Regarding the LDS view of premarital sex...

[Paperback Writer]

I mean the church already encourages young couples who conceive out of wedlock to seriously consider getting married, even when common sense might dictate otherwise.

It is my understanding that the LDS church has taken a different stance on this in cases of teenage pregnancy. My understanding is that the "young couple" should not get married and should seriously consider LDS services for adoption placement depending on the support structure of the teenage mother.

I don't think the LDS church will ever OK pre-martial sex. I wish the LDS church would downplay "flying solo" to something akin to swearing or some such. In other words, it's something that one should try to avoid becasue it can become a habit and potentially get-out-of-hand (pun not intendend) but also something that every kid does. I've seen kids feel so guilty about "flying solo" that they begin to think they are a habitual sinner and this begins to affect their self-esteem and lead to far more destructive behavior.

[creekster]

I often wonder what God's expectations really are. You know, if I were to sit down with him and have a man to man talk about premarital sex and sexual sin, what would he say? The reason I wonder about this is because I see people all the time, particularly intelligent people, set a specific bar to get a specific result and the result is often less than the bar. I believe people do this because you are more likely to get your goal if you shoot a bit beyond it. This makes me believe there is a likelihood that God sets a standard regarding premarital sex knowing that his children won't be able to get it done. He also knows that by setting the high standard, they will get done what he is really aiming at which could be a healthy respect for procreative powers or a generaly reticence to lose virginity too young or something like that. If God is really smart like we all think he is, it would be silly to assume he isn't getting what he wants/needs from his people.

Then you are saying he made us so as to be unable to meet the goal? God both created the conditions that ensured and the defintiion of this sin?

[clackamascoug]

Then you are saying he made us so as to be unable to meet the goal? God both created the conditions that ensured and the defintiion of this sin?

... and provided a Savior to mitigate the difference. All Good.

[creekster]

... and provided a Savior to mitigate the difference. All Good.

Well if he created the conditions that ensured many would not be exalted, why the play here on earth?

[RobinFinderson]

I think that it is interesting that a bit of the discussion has focused on the sexual proclivities of young men and women, basically kids. Whether or not guilt is an effective deterrent on teenage sexuality is interesting, but we are all only teenagers for a relatively brief period of time. The church members who have to live with the unhealthy 'God expects complete abstinence' policy are the long-term singles. I'm not sure if singles wards are full of misfits because misfits are unlikely to get married, or rather that the church's expectations for single adults are so unrealistic that they turn otherwise normal people into social misfits. Maybe it is a bit of both.

That said, obviously not ALL Mormon singles are misfits, and that especially holds true for any that post on CUF.

[wuapinmon]

Well if he created the conditions that ensured many would not be exalted, why the play here on earth?

Exactly! This smacks of Calvinist infralapsarianism, or worse, Molinism.

[pellegrino]

I wish I could figure out how to have my wife understand this idea without her thinking that I'm saying premarital sex is fine.

I have yet to breach the subject with my wife. I've hinted at it, but I'm trying to find a better way to articulate it to make it sound less threatening. I thank God that I have girls, because their hormones aren't usually raging like teenage boys are, or at least to the same extent. If I can give them a healthy attitude about sex, and help them see it as something wonderful that is best shared in a monogamous, adult relationship while showing them that boys are basically walking hormones and they want to do it and don't generally care who it's with, then I think I have a chance at being successful, but then again, I'm not sure what success is in this arena.

[SoCalCoug]

I sort of had this discussion the other day with my wife. I told her I'd much rather risk my son touching a girl's boobs than be so repressed about girl-boy relationships that he doesn't know how to act around young women even when he gets back from a mission and goes to BYU, and ends up marrying a psycho who he divorces 8 years later, because he was so naive about intersexual relationships that he yielded to all the pressure to get married and didn't see the warning signs that the "sweet young woman" he was about to marry was crazy.

Not that I have any experience with that situation.