No Sex After Marriage, Either

Submitted by Daniel:

Susan and I had our first date over coffee.  Better that way, since there's less of an obligation than sitting through a whole meal, and if the chemistry isn't there early on, better to not waste anyone's time, right?

My radar was up the instant she said, "I don't believe in sex before marriage," which was the second thing she said, after, "Nice to meet you."

I explained to her that I was willing to take things as they came, even though, I have to be honest, I'm not someone who really has ever minded sex before marriage.  Maybe we'd become friends.  Who knows, right?

But then she WOULDN'T SHUT UP about it.  From the instant she sat down, she went into what sounded like a rehearsed statement all about why sex before marriage was bad for women, bad for self-esteem, bad for her body, bad for the environment, bad for America, bad for puppies... all I wanted to do was sit down over coffee with someone and get to know her.  I already said that it wasn't a problem.  If it ended up being one, then I'd be sure to let her know.  I didn't need to be soapboxed.

"Well, statistics say..." she went on and on.

Finally, I cut in, "I'm really okay with you not having sex before marriage."

She replied, "That's fine, but you need to know why I feel that way."

"No I don't!  Just telling me you're not into it is enough!  Can we talk about something else?"

"I want to talk about this.  I'm almost done."

"Fine."

She wasn't almost done.  She went on for another ten minutes, but I was finally able to pry her away from the topic.  For someone who wasn't at all into sex, that's all that she talked about for most of the "date" so far.  By the time we were finally talking about something else, I wouldn't have had sex with her even if she suddenly changed her mind.  It was that much of a turn-off.

We finally made it onto the topic of movies, sports, hobbies... and... wait... there's a trend here... we'd talk about movies and she'd say, "I like them all, except for the ones with sex.  I don't do sex."  We'd talk about sports, and she'd say, "I like all sports, but too many athletes have illicit sex," and when we talked about hobbies, she... you guessed it, talked about how none of her hobbies included anything of a sexual nature.

Let me state for the record that if you're not into sex before marriage, then that's cool.  It's your body, it's your life.  But don't try to make every situation into an opportunity to proselytize.

The kicker was at the end of our not-short-enough meeting, which I was sure to bring to a close far quicker than I had originally intended.  She asked me, "So, do you think you're going to reconsider having sex before marriage?"

I said, "With you?  Absolutely."

Yes, I'm an asshole.  Yes, it felt good to say.  No, she didn't take it badly at all.  She laughed and said, "You got that right."