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What should I do if my boyfriend/girlfriend is pressuring me to have sex and I don't want to?
One of the biggest tips we give to students is to set boundaries at the beginning of their dating relationships so that they can try to avoid this situation in the first place. But, if someone does find themselves in this situation, the first thing they need to do is clearly state their boundaries (ex. "I do not want to engage in any sexual activity, which includes touching the private parts of your body as well as intercourse"), and tell them why you want to remain chaste. Even if you and your boyfriend/ girlfriend have already crossed some of your boundaries, you can always choose to stop doing so from this point forward.
To help clarify the situation, ask them why they want to have sex with you. Often, people say because they want to "make love to you" or "express their love for you through sex." Here's the deal... sex does NOT equal love. We will love many people in our lives, many people we will NOT have sex with. Also, true love asks what can I GIVE to this person. True love asks, how can I get this person to heaven. True love would never put the person they love at risk for emotional heartache, guilt, depression, unplanned pregnancy, or STD's, nor would they put the soul of someone they care about in a state of mortal sin.
To be bluntly honest, there is no good reason to have sex before marriage. There are tons of reasons not to though. Once you can come to that conclusion together, boundaries need to be respected. But, if you cannot reach a mutual agreement and the other person cannot or will not respect your decision to remain chaste and your boundaries, then you need to get out of the relationship. We meet many awesome teens and young adults every day who are committed to chastity. Don't sell out for anything less than awesome.
Always remember, you are worth waiting for, and you don't want to lose your virginity in the back seat of a car, or at a crummy hotel party, or sneaking into your boyfriend's or girlfriend's house when their parents are out of town. No! You want to give away your virginity as a priceless gift to the person who has made vows to you, with the person who has proved that he or she loves you, till death do you part. That's what you deserve!
Everybody is not "doing it" and you are not the only virgin out there! According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2002, 47% of female teens had had sex, and 46% of male teens. That means that 53% of American teen girls are holding onto their virginity, as well as 54% of teen guys—that's the majority! Unfortunately, it is a small majority, and we know that of those who are having sex, almost half (47%) have Human Papilomavirus (a viral STD) and many more are struggling with other consequences as well. However, if you are choosing to stand strong for your life, your future, and your relationships, please know that you are not the only one. The media sells a lot of lies—that everyone is doing it and that teens can't control themselves, but the statistics tell a different story—don't buy into the lies!
True love wants what's best for the other person and would never put the beloved at risk. Within the boundary of marriage that God has given for sex, it does wonderful things—it unites a husband and wife physically and emotionally and spiritually within that sacramental bond, and it brings new life into the world. But, taken out of the boundary of marriage, the power of sex becomes very destructive, whether those consequences come in the form of an STD or unplanned pregnancy, or whether they come in the form of emotional heartache, loss of self-respect, distance from God, broken relationships or disappointment.
In I Corinthians 13, St. Paul says that love "always protects"- we protect valuable things. Your life, your purity, and your relationships are more valuable than diamonds, so protect them. If you and your date truly love each other, you will respect one another enough to wait for marriage.
A condom is a piece of latex that covers the male genitals during sexual intercourse and is designed to reduce the risk of pregnancy and the transmission of STDs. Condoms never provide complete protection from these consequences however. As the Medical Institute for Sexual Health points out, "In scientific writing 'protect' can mean anything from 'somewhat better than nothing' to 'complete safety from a risk factor.'" So a condom manufacturer can say that his condoms "protect" someone from pregnancy and STDs even though that protection may be very minimal. Below is a breakdown of which STDs condoms offer protection against and how good that protection is. (Statistics from the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, MISH.)
Consistent Condom use (100%) suring vaginal sex reduces your risk for:
Effectiveness against contraction of STDs through oral or anal sex is unknown. For the approximately 20 other STDs, not enough data exists to say whether or not condoms offer any risk reduction.
You notice also that these statistics assume 100% consistent condom use. However, 100% use of condoms for many years is so uncommon that it is almost a "purely theoretical concept," except for a few very meticulous individuals. Even among adults who knew that their partner had HIV, only 56% used condoms every time (Medical Institute for Sexual Health, MISH).
Additionally, an individual who is thinking about whether condom use is better than nothing needs to know that "the less experience they have with condom use the greater the chance of condom failure" BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, "the more acts of sex, the more chance of experience[ing] condom slippage and breakage, and therefore of exposure to STDs" (Medical Institute for Sexual Health, MISH).
5. How effective are condoms against pregnancy?
With perfect use (used exactly as directed every time without fail), condoms have about a 3% failure rate. With typical usage, condoms have about a 14% failure rate for each year of use. The condom failure rate for teenagers is 22.5%.
Probabilities in Perspective: Example using a method with a 15% annual failure rate
If you're thinking that condoms do not seem to do a very good job at protecting our bodies, then consider this—condoms provide NO protection for someone's future marriage, their reputation, their dating relationships, their trust with their parents, their self-esteem, or their relationship with God. We know that human beings are much more than just bodies, and sex is much more than just a recreational physical act. God's plan is what is truly liberating, not only because it frees us from all the consequences of sex outside of marriage, but also because it upholds the true beauty and dignity of the human person.
Scientists aren't sure about how most STDs got started. They believe AIDs was initially contracted through contaminated meat, after which it became primarily sexually transmitted. As far as the other STDs, most of them have been around for a long time and are spread through engaging in sexual activity with someone who is already infected. Therefore, these diseases do not pop up in someone's body out of nowhere—they are behavioral diseases, which means that if we don't engage in the behavior that puts us at risk for these diseases (sex outside of marriage), we don't have to worry about getting them.
If two people practice chastity before marriage by abstaining from sexual activity, and then practice chastity within their marriage by remaining faithful to each other, there is no way that they and their spouse can "make" a new STD by having sex with each other. Unless someone engages in sexual activity with someone who is already infected (who got infected from someone else who was already infected etc.), they are very unlikely to contract and will certainly not create an STD.
Yes, but it is rare for a person these days in the United States to be born with a bacterial STD due to extensive testing that expecting mothers receive during their prenatal care. According to the Center for Disease Control, "chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomonas, and bacterial vaginosis (BV) can be treated and cured with antibiotics during pregnancy. There is no cure for viral STDs, such as genital herpes and HIV, but antiviral medication for herpes and HIV may reduce symptoms in the pregnant woman. For women who have active genital herpes lesions at the time of delivery, a cesarean delivery (C-section) may be performed to protect the newborn against infection. C-section is also an option for some HIV-infected women. Women who test negative for hepatitis B, may receive the hepatitis B vaccine during pregnancy," (STD Facts & Pregnancy, 2002). If an expecting mother is infected with HIV/AIDS, she can receive medication that will reduce the risk of the disease transmitting to the child.
Many students wonder if they could have been born with an STD and have it today and not know about it. If a person is born with an STD though, the symptoms are usually very obvious and serious, and medical action would have needed to be taken at the time of birth. So a student need not worry that they were born with an STD that they do not know about because the chances are very very unlikely. See www.cdc.gov/std/STDFact-STDs&Pregnancy.htm#treat.
Abortion is the intentional killing of a unique human being. Human beings have fundamental worth and value because we are made in the image of God and have the ability to know and serve God. We have this fundamental worth and value from the very first moment of our existence when our father’s sperm and mother’s egg join in the act of conception. That is when our life begins and we start to develop—we continue to develop throughout our lifetime. Intentionally ending someone’s life at any stage of development is murder, and nobody ever has the right to murder someone. Even though abortion is legal in our society, that does not mean it is right.
Many women who have abortions do so because they are scared or overwhelmed at the prospect of an unplanned pregnancy and are not educated about the value of life. It is important to treat someone who has had an abortion with compassion, but it is also important to stand up in defense of life and help educate others about how precious all human beings are.
According to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, 84% of women who have abortions are unmarried. Chastity is a great way to stand up for life because it prevents unplanned pregnancy and enables us to welcome children into the world in a secure family environment. Part of respecting life is respecting how life comes into the world!
A couple facing an unplanned pregnancy has three options—one or both partners can choose to parent the child, they can place their child in an adoptive home, or they can choose abortion. The first two options are life-giving, while the third option takes the life of a child (because of this it also has harmful emotional consequences for both parents as well as harmful physical consequences for the mother). Since its legalization, over 47,000,000 Americans have been killed through abortion.
So, parents choose adoption for their child out of love - they love their child enough to give them the gift of life. Often, these parents would rather raise their child themselves but realize that they are not able to provide the financial or familial support that child will need. By choosing adoption, the birth parents are unselfishly placing the needs of their child above their own desires. There are three main types of adoption.
There are millions of couples on waiting lists every year who do not get to adopt a child, so parents who choose adoption for their child are not only giving that child the gift of life, but also giving another couple the gift of a family.
Secondary virginity is a commitment that a person makes to him or herself and to God to remain chaste from that point forward, regardless of the mistakes they have made in the past. As far as third and fourth virginity goes, here's the deal... physically, someone cannot get their "virginity" back. But chastity is about TODAY forward. We cannot change our past, but we can always make different choices for our future. A person who is committed to secondary virginity will still have to deal with the consequences of their sexual decisions of the past. But they are repenting of that behavior and respecting God's plan for sex from this point in time forward.
Part of this process is that a person repents of, or turns their back on, the past and receives forgiveness from their sins (Catholics should go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession). After that, they exercise self-control and abstain from sexual activity and intercourse until marriage, or for a lifetime if they are then called to the celibate life of a religious vocation (priest, nun, monk, friar, etc...). It is a mature act of humility for a person to recognize they made a mistake in the past and to say "I was wrong, but now I will follow God's plan for the benefit of my future relationship with God, marriage, dreams and goals, everything."
Lastly, if someone is in the midst of changing from a lifestyle of sexual sin to sexual freedom through chastity, it is not uncommon for there to be a struggle. But through God's grace and support from positive peers, anyone can change.
First, it is important to define sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse occurs when a child is mistreated sexually by an abuser to satisfy the abuser's desires. It may take many forms: exposure of the private parts of the body, obscene phone calls, inappropriate sexual talk, use of pornography or any touching of the private parts of the body. Rape occurs when someone has been forced into sexual intercourse by an abuser.
Please be aware that virginity and purity is lost only when it's given away FREELY, and in sexual abuse or rape, it was not given away freely. Physically, a person who has been sexually abused may not be a virgin anymore, but our purity is not a gift that can be taken away from us by someone else. It is so vital to know that a person who has been sexually abused CAN practice chastity in their relationships and make awesome choices for themselves. Their lives should not be ruined because of the bad choice of an abuser.
However, many confusing feelings accompany sexual abuse. Many times people who have been abused are confused, they think they are bad or that they did something wrong or "asked for it" by the way they dressed or acted, but that is not the case. The only person to blame is the one who did the abusing. It is so important for someone who has been abused or thinks they may have been to get help! Talk to a trusted adult, teacher, guidance counselor, parent, us at the Pregnancy Center, or call 221-HELP.
Many people are not educated about all the consequences of sex before marriage, or else they do not think deeply about them or do not think they will happen to them. Many people are also influenced by the ways that media presents sex, by the false messages society tries to sell us, and by their peers who might have bought into these messages.
A lot of shows on TV, popular music and movies present sex as mere recreation—a purely physical act that doesn't mean very much and doesn't have any real consequences. Unfortunately, there are always consequences when someone takes sex outside of the boundary of marriage, whether it is physical like an unplanned pregnancy or STD, or emotional like feeling used or disappointed, or spiritual as we put distance between ourselves and God when we sin. The truth is, sex is a big deal—it is a special act that is designed to be part of the sacramental bond of marriage. God designed it to unite a married couple physically and emotionally, and even spiritually as it puts the seal on the marriage bond, which represents Christ's love for His church. He also designed it to bring new life into the world-a new life that will need the support of both a mother and a father.
Ultimately, there may be lots of reasons why people choose not to practice chastity, but there aren't any GOOD reasons!
Go to the Pure Love Club for an excellent answer to this question and to many others from Jason Evert.
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