COITUS IN A RELATIONSHIP ~ Precious Victor Akah

I recently heard this heart-rending, true life story of a young beautiful lady who got infected with HIV on her first sexual encounter with her boyfriend as a teenager. Her experience was harrowing, and hearing it, I know I needed to dispense this knowledge right here, because we may think everyone knows and understand the dangers of pre-marital sex, but not so, judging by the number of young people who are still getting involved in the act.

This is her story: Valentine's day was approaching and all her female friends in school had a lover to spend the day with. Her friends had experienced sex and she hadn't. And so she was constantly jeered by her friends for still being a virgin at her age. This constant jeering made her decide to experience sex on Valentine's day.

Prior to that day, she decided to agree to date a guy who had been pestering her for a long while, and so he became her date. She slept with the guy on Valentine's day and hated sex from that moment because she didn't love the experience she had, so she broke up with the guy.

Few weeks later, she began to fall sick every now and then. And when a test was conducted, they discovered that she was HIV positive. She went to confront the guy, but was met with the news of his death (the guy had HIV when he slept with her and he knew he was HIV positive). This is one of the dangers of giving in to negative peer pressure. This young girl is the one today battling with HIV, where are her friends that pushed her to the act? They've all moved on with their lives. Learn a lesson from this, as Valentine's day is approaching. Stand your ground on sexual purity.

Today, I want to remind us of the impact and effects of having pre-marital sex and the possible consequences in marriage. I don't want to assume that everyone knows the dangers of pre-marital sex, especially teenagers, so I want to expose you to this knowledge early enough, so that if you should decide to have pre-marital sex against God's beautiful plan for your life, you know what you're getting into and are ready to bear the brunt. I had shared this with the brethren in our ministry during our Annual Global Retreat last year, and I strongly believe it's a knowledge more people should have.

It's a known fact that most pre-marital relationships where coitus (sex) is introduced usually don't end well. A lot of unmarried persons know they should not introduce coitus into a pre-marital relationship, yet they keep doing so. Why? Some don't really know the dangers involved, while some know, but do not understand these dangers. Knowing something and understanding something is quite different. That's why we ask God for knowledge and understanding when we pray. Knowing something is primary, understanding it is secondary, and applying it correctly (wisdom) is principal. 

"The RISK of pre-marital sex surpasses the REWARD; the PAIN surpasses the GAIN; and the PRICE surpasses the PLEASURE." 

Let's see these dangers... But, why is there dangers in pre-marital sex you may ask? The book of Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." This means there is the RIGHT TIME to do anything on earth, including sexual intercourse. The One (God) who made sex has said it is to be practiced only in marriage with one's legally married spouse. Therefore, if you decide not to wait to have sex at this established right time, you'll be having it at the wrong time, and it's expected to come with unpleasant results. This is why we have dangers in pre-marital sex.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COITUS (SEX) IS INTRODUCED IN A PRE-MARITAL RELATIONSHIP

At least 19 things happen... 19? Yes, 19.

Let's have a look.

1. Loss of self-esteem and self-worth. The more you practice sexual immorality with someone, the more your self-esteem and self-worth dwindles, especially if you're jilted by the person after several intercourse with him or her. 

If you keep having pre-marital sex, something in your life is being reduced, destroyed, and emptied, resulting in loss of self-esteem and self-worth.

2. To ladies, the man you give your body to might end up not marrying you, and you'll have to deal with a major heart break and find it very difficult moving on. But if you don't give your body, moving on after a heart break is a lot more easier. 

3. Ladies, you may experience prolonged delay in being taken to the altar. The desire to have sex with you is a push that drives men to want to marry as quickly as possible. You kill that push when you give in or allow intercourse, and so the man delays getting married to you, because you're already meeting his sexual NEED. SEX is a NEED for men, not a want, so if you KEEP sex, they'll hurry to do the NEEDFUL to have their NEED for sex MET.

4. You lose respect from a man or woman you're sleeping with. Why? He or she knows that there are sexually disciplined individuals out there who refuse to have sex before marriage, so when your partner compares you with them, he thinks you're cheap, and that brings disrespect. Disrespect also comes because your partner thinks he has seen and enjoyed all of you and there's nothing more you have to offer.

5. When sex is introduced, it makes it extremely difficult for you to leave a man or woman even when you know he or she is not the right person for you (judging by their unpleasant character or God Himself has told you they're not the one), simply because you feel you have invested a lot to back out, or you're enjoying sex with them.

6. It blinds you from seeing your partner's true color or who they really are, and if they actually love you as they claim. This is why some ladies end up in abusive marriages because the guy had those traits in him but sex blinded them from seeing it. And why some men end up in a "peaceless" marriage because the lady was quarrelsome and contentious, but sex blinded their eyes or made it seem trivial. Sex is that powerful; don't toy with it.

7. It clouds your sense of judgment and good reasoning, and makes you trivialize issues capable of dissolving a marriage in future. 

8. Loss of virginity as a man and a woman. It is not just women that lose their virginity when pre-marital sex happens, men also lose their virginity. And once your virginity is gone, it can't be gotten back. So be cautious of your actions. Virginity is still one of the precious gifts God expects you to give your spouse on your wedding night.

9. Relationship orchestrated by God may end suddenly, and even if it makes it to marriage and the parties involved did not repent from their sexual immoral acts before getting married, the marriage may end unexpectedly or suffer serious problems.

10. Loss of TRUST FOR EACH OTHER. You begin to suspect the other person. Because your mind will tell you that if this person can cheat on God with you, they can also cheat on you with another person. If they can sleep with you before marriage, they can also sleep with another person behind your back, since they lack the fear of God and sexual discipline.

11. Broken fellowship with God. You lose boldness to pray and talk to God because you're ashamed and feel God is angry and ashamed of you. This is how some Christians backslide. What can possibly be better than having unbroken fellowship with God? Is pre-marital sex worth it? Let me remind you that you need God more than any man or woman. Man can forsake you, but God cannot forsake you. Man is replaceable but God is irreplaceable. If you're jilted, God can give you someone better, but if you lose God, there is nothing or no one to replace Him with. God is the ultimate Person you need in life. You shouldn't joke with your fellowship with Him.

12. Loss of peace, joy and rest because of the presence of sin, guilt and shame. 

Proverbs 20:17 (AMP) says, "Food gained by deceit is sweet to a man, But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel [just as sin may be sweet at first, but later its consequences bring despair]. Pre-marital sex gratifies you temporarily but crushes you for a long long while.

13. Doubts of the other person's spirituality and connection to God. You begin to doubt the salvation of the other person and if they are truly in Christ and value holy living. You start questioning their Christianity and love for God in your heart.

14. Loss of affection for the other person. This happens most times to men. They meet a lady and think she is the perfect one for them. But the moment they sleep with her, they immediately hate her for no reason, because they were actually in lust and not in love. The story of Tamar and Amnon in the Bible illustrates this.

2 Samuel 13:14-15 says, "But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her. Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. “Get out of here!” he snarled at her."

15. Even though you repent and receive forgiveness from God for the sin of fornication, your memory is already affected - the images of that immoral act stays in your head and flashes before you once in a while. You'll need to keep washing your mind with the Blood of Jesus and God's Word for a while, to be completely whole.

16. Temporary loss of boldness and confidence to speak against sexual immorality or to preach and encourage sexual purity. You can't rebuke someone who is sexually immoral without feeling guilty. You also temporarily lose the boldness to preach the gospel to people.

You recover this boldness and confidence by total repentance and embrace of sexual purity.

17. Pregnancy may occur and you drop out of school or abandon your dreams to raise a child and be responsible for their upkeep. STDs may be contracted as you may not be the only one your partner is sleeping with. Thousands of women have lost their lives through abortion, so never see it as an escape from the responsibility of raising a child. And many men have died due to incurable STDs.

18. You may hurriedly enter into a wrong marriage you never planned for because pregnancy came unexpectedly. You know you don't love him or her enough to make them your spouse, but because of pregnancy, you decide to marry them. Such marriages do not last and the ones surviving are not blissful. Moreover, becoming a father or a mother when you're not prepared is not an easy journey.

19. Someone said, you may prevent STDs using condom, but you cannot prevent STDs (sexually transmitted demons) using condom. Many have been initiated into demonic cults through sex. Some have been used for ritual purpose through sex. Some men are impotent and sterile today because they slept with a witch or a demon who took their sperm for demonic rituals. Some ladies too cannot conceive and bear children because their womb was tampered with when they slept with a demon in a human body.

Now that you have known and I believe understood these things, you'll be wise to avoid pre-marital sex and keep sex till after marriage.

In closing, one of two things usually would happen to you if you have pre-marital sex. You may either love sex after experiencing it the first time (if you do, you can become very sexually immoral or a sex addict - this will then make it difficult for the people you marry to whet your sexual appetite because of your numerous sexual encounters with different people) or you may hate sex after your first experience of it like the lady in the story we shared at the beginning of this post (when this happens, it can pose a big problem for you and who you marry in marriage).

Next week, we'll look at the possible consequences of pre-marital sex in marriage. That is, how having sex before marriage as a single person can affect your love relationship with your spouse when you're finally married.

Shalom.

Check out our previous popular post: LETTER TO EVERY WOMAN