Premarital Sex

Generation Z isn’t convinced monogamy is the best relationship structure, and more than half of them are considering relationship styles long considered taboo in American culture.

New data from Ashley Madison, the dating website built for affairs, found Gen Z was over represented among new signups to the site, regardless of if they were married or not. In 2022 alone more than 1.8 million Gen Z joined (of which more than one million were from the U.S.) representing 40% of all signups.

More and more Gen Zers, like reddit user r/Marmatus, are sharing their experience of having non-monogamous relationships. Marmatus wrote:

It’s nice having the freedom to explore your sexuality safely and ethically with other people. The thought of going an entire lifetime only ever having one sexual partner is not something I’d choose for myself. There are only so many experiences that one person can give you.

Ashley Madison’s Chief Strategy Officer Paul Keable said he thinks what makes Gen Z different when it comes to non-monogamy is the way this generation understands shame. He mentioned the prevalence of premarital sex–something that’s most Americans feel is no longer morally wrong. Studies have found that premarital sex is practically universal in America with 95% of survey respondents saying they had sex before they were married.

Leanne Yau, a relationship expert said,

What is it about exclusivity that is so precious to society, particularly given that infidelity is extremely common in monogamous relationships? I think the normalization of queer rights and kink becoming more mainstream and people exploring their desires has opened people to the transformative power of exploring your sexuality.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sin has consequences, as God’s Word so clearly says. Any generation who thinks that it can live in defiance of God’s standards is headed for destruction. Both Sodom and the world of Noah’s day learned this difficult lesson by way of God’s judgment.

Nearly 70% of couples are living together before marriage. Fifty to Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that living together before marriage will improve their odds of relationship success. Younger Americans are especially likely to believe in the beneficial effects of cohabitation.

But new research joins a large pool of previous research to conclude that living together before marriage is associated with a higher risk for divorce.

The link between premarital cohabitation and divorce is often called the “cohabitation effect.” A new study uses a national sample of Americans who married for the first time in the years 2010 to 2019. The study concluded: “Consistent with prior research, couples who cohabited before marriage were more likely to see their marriages end than those who did not cohabit before marriage.”

Thrity-four percent of marriages ended among those who cohabited before being engaged, compared to 23% of marriages for those who lived together only after being either married or engaged to be married. In relative terms, the marriages of those who moved in together before being engaged were 48% more likely to end than the marriages of those who only cohabited after being engaged or already married.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Of course, as Christians living under the authority of God’s Word, marriage matters far more than just being engaged.

Are there wedding bells in your future? If you’re young and in love, the answer is—probably not! A new survey finds that two in five young adults think marriage is an outdated tradition.

The survey comes as a recent Pew Research study finds that one in four 40-year-olds in the United States have never walked down the aisle. The U.S. Census Bureau adds that 34% of people 15 years and older have never been married as of 2022. In 1950, that number was only 23%. So, what’s up? Why aren’t young people putting a ring on their serious relationships anymore? The following are the top four reasons:

Unnecessary: A staggering 85% don’t think you need to get married to have a fulfilling and committed relationship.

The Cost: The survey finds that one of the biggest reasons is still the sheer cost of getting married. Nearly 75% of Millennials and Gen Zers say it’s just too expensive to tie the knot in today’s economy.

No Interest: 72% say they just “aren’t interested” in marriage at this time. However, 83% hope they will eventually marry someone “someday.”

Divorce: Perhaps one of the biggest reasons young adults are skipping out on ring shopping is the fear that the marriage won’t last. Almost half of respondents are afraid of getting a divorce.

Nearly two in five young adults (38%) say they feel judged for not being married, with a whopping 69% of women saying their mother judges them the most for staying unmarried. Only 27% of young men say their mom judges them for staying single or not marrying their sweetheart.

Research professor Scott Stanley at the University of Denver writes:

A substantial number of practicing Christians believe that living together before marriage is a good idea—at least 41%, by one estimate. Although far more nonreligious people believe the same thing (88%), 41% is not a small group, and it’s likely growing over time.

A recent report from the Institute for Family Studies surveyed people who married for the first time in the years 2010 to 2019. We found conclusions similar to those of past studies: Patterns of cohabitation before marriage remain associated with higher odds of divorce.

What people often miss is the inertia that comes with moving in together. In essence, cohabiting couples are making it harder to break up before nailing down their commitments. Many of them get stuck in a relationship they might otherwise have moved on from.

Consistent with our theory of inertia, we find that couples who moved in together before engagement were 48% more likely to end their marriages than those who cohabited only after getting wed or at least engaged. We also show that moving in together for “relationship testing” or financial convenience is associated with higher risks for divorce.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In light of this research, Christians contemplating marriage may wonder what they can do to improve their odds of staying married. Scott Stanley suggests four principles: 1. Don’t believe the hype that living together is good for your relationship. 2. Slow down. Two people need time to learn more about each other 3. Don’t move in together to test the relationship. 4. Participate in premarital training or counseling.

Twent-eight-year-old Abby has been on dating apps for eight years, bouncing between OkCupid, Bumble, Tinder, eHarmony, Match, WooPlus, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Hinge. A committed user, she can easily spend two or more hours a day piling up matches, messaging back and forth, and planning dates with men who seem promising.

But really, she is just over it all: The swiping, the monotonous getting-to-know-you conversations, and the self-doubt that creeps in when one of her matches fizzles. Not a single long-term relationship has blossomed from her efforts.

Other aspects of the experience weigh on her as well. Abby said she has regularly felt pressured to have sex with others. She is not alone: A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that 37 percent of online daters said someone continued to contact them after they said they weren’t interested, and 35 percent had received unwanted sexually explicit texts or images.

Yet despite all of it — the time, the tedium, and the safety concerns — Abby feels compelled to keep scrolling, driven by a mix of optimism and the fear that if she logs off, she’ll miss her shot at meeting someone amazing.

“I just feel burned out,” said Abby. “It really is almost like this part-time job.”

Modern society has made sex easy and emptied it of its God given meaning. Sex has been redefined as a self-determined commodity that results in frustration and despair.

Author Jonathan Grant argues that this has occurred in five phases:

1. The separation of sex from procreation (through contraception)

2. Then the separation of sex from marriage (with the rise of cohabitation)

3. Then the separation of sex from partnership (as sex becomes temporary and recreational)

4. Next the separation of sex from another person (through the explosion of online pornography)

5. Finally, the separation of sex from our own bodies (through questioning the very categories of “male” and “female.”)

In making sex so easy and individualistic, we have cheapened it and thereby emptied it of its power. We tried to make it simpler, and we ended up making it smaller.

The Atlantic observed, “The United States is in the middle of a ‘sex recession.’ Nowhere has this sex recession proved more consequential than among young adults, especially young men.”

In 2018, the number of American adults who said they hadn’t had sex in the past year rose to an all-time high of 23 percent. The demographic having the least sex is, predictably, those older than 60. But those having the second-least amount of sex are 18 to 29. Today’s young people are having significantly less sex than their parents are.

Of the 20,000 college students surveyed by the Online College Social Life Survey from 2005 to 2011, the median number of hookups over four years was only five—and a majority of students said they wished they had more chances to get into a long-term relationship.

Americans talk a lot about sex. Anyone would think they’re having a lot of it. The behaviors now espoused—free sex, with anyone, at any time (as long as there’s consent)—seem like they’d lead to nonstop, uninhibited hookups. Instead, the opposite has happened. Young people are having less sex—and are less happy—than the married, churchgoing generation before them.

According to an American Family Survey, the percentage of parents who say they have spoken with their children about each topic:

Sex (birds and bees): White Evangelical Parents 66%, All Other Parents 49%

Contraception: White Evangelical Parents 56%, All Other Parents 46%

Consent: White Evangelical Parents 56%, All Other Parents 49%

Sexual Identity: White Evangelical Parents 38%, All Other Parents 42%

Marriage rates are at a record low in the United States, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2021, only 50% of American adults live with a spouse, down from 70% in 1970.

People who don’t get married cite finances as the number one reason:

• Only 25% of Americans making less than $25,000 per year are married.
• 60% of individuals earning more than $125,000 are married.

Americans talk a lot about sex. Anyone would think they’re having a lot of it. Instead, the opposite has happened. Young people are having less sex—and are less happy—than the married, churchgoing generation before them.

The Atlantic observed, “The United States is in the middle of a ‘sex recession.’ Nowhere has this sex recession proved more consequential than among young adults, especially young men.”

In 2018, the number of American adults who said they hadn’t had sex in the past year rose to an all-time high of 23 percent. (Imagine what that number looked like in 2021). Predictably, the demographic having the least sex is those older than 60. But those having the second-least amount of sex are 18 to 29. Today’s young people are having significantly less sex than their parents are.

Of the 20,000 college students surveyed by the Online College Social Life Survey from 2005 to 2011, the median number of hookups over four years was only five—and a majority of students said they wished they had more chances to get into a long-term relationship.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Secular, unchurched people are longing for what the Bible offers—a rich, satisfying approach to sex rooted in the union of lifelong marriage.

A national survey in 2014 for the Austin Institute showed that:

56% of evangelicals between ages 20 and 39 were currently married. Only 42% of the rest of the same-age population were married.

A repeated survey in 2018 showed a decline for both:

51% of evangelicals 20 to 39 were married 40% of the same age in the general population were married.

From 2014 to 2018:

The number of evangelicals cohabiting rose from 3.9% to 6.7% In the general popular support for cohabitation went from 16% to 27%

Very few of the surveyed evangelicals believe that marriage is “outdated,” but a growing minority of them now perceive an alternative pathway to get there.

In a blog post, author Jonathan Van Maren writes:

It wasn’t until I was doing the research for my book The Culture War that I began to come across analyses highlighting a darker aspect of the TV show Friends legacy that I’d never considered. Ashley McGuire of the Institute for Family Studies wrote, “In reality, Friends was a decade-long Hollywood experiment in testing the moral limits of Americans and desensitizing viewers to harmful sexual behavior … the show made a punch line out of casual sex and hookups and portrayed them as consequence-free. No STDS, no trips to the abortion clinic, no staring at their phones waiting for the one-night stand to call. Just a good laugh over the last condom in the apartment and a porn marathon.”

TV sitcoms tell stories; stories have storytellers. The cast and crew of Friends wanted to push the envelope, knowing that TV is a frequently a feedback loop that not only reflects culture but also drives, shapes, and informs it. Friends was the second show on TV to depict a same-sex wedding, decades before the landmark Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges and a year before Ellen DeGeneres famously came out. Ross Geller’s wife leaves him for a woman and marries her—he walks her down the aisle after her bigoted and homophobic father declines to do so. NBC was braced for a backlash when the episode aired, expecting thousands of angry phone calls. They got only two.

In early 2019, the internet was aglow with news about Chris Pratt and his fiancée, Katherine Schwarzenegger, moving in together. Media outlets cited the couple’s evangelical Christian faith as the reason they did not cohabit until they were engaged. Few suggested there was any contradiction between Pratt’s cohabitation and his status as a “devout Christian,” a “folksy, popular evangelical” who urged “living boldly in faith.”

This may seem odd to those who recognize that Scripture forbids all sexual activity outside marriage. But the choice that Pratt and Schwarzenegger made isn’t contained to Hollywood—it’s the new norm among young, professing evangelicals across America.

Evangelicals are much less likely than Americans overall to approve of cohabitation. Still, a Pew Research survey in 2019 found that 58 percent of white evangelicals and 70 percent of black Protestants believe cohabiting is acceptable if a couple plans to marry. The youngest Americans are far more liberal on cohabitation, with less than 10 percent finding it morally problematic.

This age difference is clear among evangelicals as well. In 2012, only four in ten evangelicals ages 18 to 29 told the General Social Survey they disagreed with the statement: “It is alright for a couple to live together without intending to get married.”

The idea of waiting until marriage comes across as even more antiquated in other studies. The most recent 2019 National Survey of Family Growth, done by the CDC, has found that 43 percent of evangelical Protestants ages 15 to 22 said they definitely or probably would cohabit in the future. Only 24 percent said they definitely would not. Over two-thirds of those ages 29 to 49 had cohabited at least once. And 53 percent of evangelical Protestants currently in their first marriage cohabited with each other prior to being legally wed.

A study utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sought to examine the brain functioning of cohabitating and married women when facing stress. Researchers administered to both sets of women a mild electronic shock on the ankle. For support, the women had three choices: hold the hand of their partners, hold the hand of a stranger, or face the shock alone. When a married woman held the hand of her spouse, she registered a deep sense of calm in the hypothalamus region of her brain as she prepared for the shock. Conversely, cohabitating women holding the hand of the live-in partner registered little to no calm.

What surprised researchers is that while both sets of women stated that they felt commitment from the partners, the cohabitating women recorded the same level of calm as those holding the hand of a stranger. Researchers speculate that while cohabitating women say they feel commitment from the partner, doubt resides in the deepest part of their brains.

Kevin, a 24-year-old college graduate from Denver, wants to get married someday and is "almost 100% positive" that he will. But not soon, he says, "because I am not done being stupid yet. I still want to go out and have sex with a million girls." He believes that he's figured out how to do that:

Girls are easier to mislead than guys just by lying or just not really caring. If you know what girls want, then you know you should not give that to them until the proper time. If you do that strategically, then you can really have anything you want … whether it's a relationship, sex, or whatever. You have the control.

Kevin was one of 100 men and women, from a cross-section of American communities that researchers interviewed as they sought to understand how adults in their 20s and early 30s think about their relationships. He sounds like a jerk. But it's hard to convince him that his strategy won't work—because it has, for him and countless other men.

People like Kevin expect to make the transition from this selfish outlook to a committed relationship, but it isn't that easy. Psychologist Scott Stanley of the University of Denver sees visible daily sacrifices, such as accepting inconveniences in order to see a woman, as the way that men typically show their developing commitment. It signals the expectation of a future together. Such small instances of self-sacrificing love may sound simple, but they are less likely to develop when past and present relationships are founded on the expectation of cheap sex

The New York Times' "Modern Love College Essay Contest" featured a "finalist" article by college senior Lauren Petersen. Ms. Peterson met Michael on a dating app where women make the first move. She wasn't looking for a relationship, let alone love. "Everything about us was temporary," she wrote. "We would talk a little, watch a little and then go to bed. In the morning, I would zip up my coat while he asked, 'Heading out?' I would nod and say, 'Thanks for the toast.' There was a rhythm to it. Monday night, pack my bag. Tuesday morning, walk home."

But then she broke the rules: she started to want more out of the relationship:

I started daydreaming about how the moonlight trickled in while he played me his jazz records, how he chuckled and buried his face in his hands after I explained my odd internships, and how he held up a picture of his family and described each of his brothers.

For a second, my future brimmed with Michael: his records, his quiet demeanor but abrasive sense of humor, his shamelessness in recounting the time he was struck with food poisoning at a hostel in San Francisco. Then another text appeared: "It's just that I'm apprehensive about the commitment." When I clarified that I didn't expect a long-term commitment, with our coming graduation, he expressed his real concern: "Monogamy." I wanted to leave the game behind and develop something special, if only for a short time. Yet Michael hesitated. It struck me that the "fling" was dead.

Petersen concludes on a sad note, longing for something more—true love:

A mere six weeks after our first date, we were over. I'd broken the rules; my glimmer of expressed affection had led to a fatal imbalance in the game. Feeling a little dispensable, I opened Bumble to pause my account. … A notification flashed, indicating that I had been right-swiped by a few people: 1,946 people. As the saying goes, there are plenty of fish in the sea, and it turned out my sea held 1,946 of them. The "play again?" button glowed brighter than ever. And yet, almost comically, I wanted to date only one particular person.

After separating from her second husband, the actress Scarlet Johansson expressed her doubts about marriage. "I think the idea is romantic; it's a beautiful idea," she said, "[but] I don't think it's natural to be a monogamous person. It's a lot of work."

Although Johansson also stated that living together is a far cry from being married. "Anybody who tells you that it's the same is lying," she said. "It changes things. I have friends who were together for ten years and then decided to get married, and I'll ask them on their wedding day if it's different, and it always is. [Marriage is] a beautiful responsibility, but it's a responsibility."

Christopher Yuan, a transformed believer whose past includes gay prostitution, says that celibacy is a choice, but singleness is each person's origin and destiny. "[Some] people are called to celibacy but everyone was single (at birth), is single (through their childhood and young adult years), and in the end will be single (in heaven) … . Celibacy is a commitment; singleness is a state of being." Some Christ-followers are called to celibacy as a vocation, but all single believers are called to chastity.

This vision for sexuality applies to every person, desire, and category. Gay, bisexual, straight, married, single, or other—everyone bears the same burden. For some, this may seem a heavier weight to carry, but, nonetheless, God's design for sexuality applies equally to each person.

In his book, A Fellowship of Differents, Dr. Scot McKnight describes an eye-opening walk he once took down the Roman roads of ancient Pompeii. The volcano that erupted there in 79 A.D. preserved a vivid snapshot of Roman culture in the century when the church was born. "It is not an exaggeration to say the city was swamped with erotic images," writes McKnight. Explicit pornography was everywhere. "The sexual reality across the Empire, of which Pompeii was a typical example, was a total lack of sexual inhibition."

The normal order of things in the first century was for most men (and some women) to have procreational sex with their spouses and recreational sex with others. Those others often included young boys and slave girls. Pederasty (or the practice of sex with children) was widespread and accepted. Lesbianism was well known, but nowhere near as common as recreational same-sex liaisons between men, many of whom were still married to women. And relations with paid sex-workers formed such a major and enduring industry that Rome's most famous orator, Cicero, asked: "When was such a thing not done?"

Las Vegas or Bangkok has nothing on first century Roman society. This was the world in which the church was born and into which it introduced a more constrained sexual ethic.

Possible Preaching Angles: Dan Meyer adds, "Whatever your personal sexual ethics are or your view of the issues of our times, it's helpful to be reminded of the belief-system out of which people like the Apostle Paul were functioning. It may also help to explain why it might be unfair to criticize anyone who raises questions about sexual mores today. Things didn't end well for Rome and there are legitimate questions about whether we in America maybe be heading for a similar fate too."