Is promoting virginity harmful to young girls/women?

[StealthySkeptic]

Teaching that sex or sexuality is in any way wrong is one of the worst things religion does. "Be fruitful and multiply." How the fuck are we supposed to do that if we wind up stuck with someone we're not sexually compatible with?!?

Society will have taken a huge leap forward when sex is finally recognized as the biological function it is instead of treating it as some taboo that must be hidden away.

Instead of putting it on a pedestal, fucking should be considered a sport.

I remember a movie that was a series of skits back in the 70s (no I'm not that old, I just remember watching it on TV) that had one skit where sex actually was a sport with commentators and just laughing my ass off.

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But anyway, in all seriousness, seeing women as some sort of precious flower not to be plucked until marriage is really harmful to both women AND men in my opinion. For some men, being seen as sexual animals that women must guard themselves against means that for them, masculinity is defined as gathering as many conquests as possible so as to make that external image fit in with their self-image.

For me, however, as for so many others, Christianity led me into a life of fear and discomfort about talking about sexuality at all, and has led to a lack of communication between myself and my girlfriend who holds the paternalistic and wholly antiquated idea of virginity in her head, as I don't want to be seen as going too far or being pushy if I ask for something that is a little bit more intense than what we have done so far, and she seems to have insecurity about her looks.