Is promoting virginity harmful to young girls/women?

[Michael]

There is also an intimacy of sex that is inevitably devalued by having multiple partners; as someone said earlier it simply becomes 'sport'.

Intimacy comes from emotional attachment. Sex is entertainment. Conflating sex and intimacy is just the church's teachings coming out. The most intimate moments I've ever shared have not been sexual. The best, most mind blowingly, holy crap I never knew anything could be that awesome sex I've ever had was with people I had no emotional bond with.

Keep putting sex on some kind of pedestal. You'll likely wind up disappointed.

And please don't mis-quote me. I didn't say it "simply becomes sport," I said it should be "considered a sport."

Sorry for saying that you said that sex "simply becomes sport" rather than it should be "considered a sport".

You say then that "Sex is entertainment" and sex should be "considered a sport".

And, yes, I can see a large part of our culture will adopt that very view.

I think that's sad, because it devalues something very precious. And so people will then enter marriage with that devalued view of sex, no longer seeing sex as intimate or the preserve of a special intimate relationship. I would question whether such a downgrading of sex, from intimacy to 'entertainment' and 'sport' would actually do much more damage to the hope of a life-time of marriage than restraining from sex before that marriage. I wonder also whether it is more men than women who see sex as 'entertainment' and 'sport', and perhaps more a view of those outside of faithful and stable relationships. I wonder if more women would see sex as part of an emotional, intimate, stable and faithful relationship, rather than as 'entertainment' and 'sport'?. If I get the time I'll have a look at the research literature on that one.

Anyway, that's just another view of things, from another culture.