Module 4

What happens if you don't keep sexual intimacy for marriage?

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Version: 1.0.5 | Updated: 23/09/2021

Video:

Preparing for marriage

Video duration: 2:14

Transcript for reference:

Adam: "My name is Adam and this is my fiancée Lukie - Lucinda. And we're getting married on Saturday - that's in three days' time."

Lucinda: "Woooo!"

Adam: "Quite excited to be honest!"

TITLE: Why did you decide to get married?

Adam: "We've been friends like seven years, and started going out about five years ago. We share a lot of fun jokes. We've always got each other's back. Like, if one of us makes a mistake or makes a fool out of ourselves - then the other one is there to make it right. But it also means that we get to do everything together."

Lucinda: "I like it because I can be myself in front of Adam. And it takes a real best friend to be like that."

TITLE: Does it seem scary to spend the rest of your life with one person?

Adam: "Marriage is about a commitment thing. And I think, in the world, people are afraid of commitment and commitment isn't really pushed at you through the media and through society. It's all 'you can get this quickly and if you don't like it you can throw it away again'. Whereas I want to show you, and I want to show all our friends that I just want to be with you - that I just want to be commited to you."

Lucinda: "When I think of the rest of my life and all the big things that you do in it (or even the small things)... there isn't anyone else (I don't want to sound too cheesy), there isn't anyone else that I'd want to do them with. And even now when I do little things, or think little things, you're the first person that I want to share them with."

TITLE: Why have you kept sex for marriage?

Adam: "The whole sex before marriage thing - I wanted... In a way, in a sense I'm a wedding gift to you. I'm my wedding gift to you (I'll get you something else as well!). But your main present is me, and I want that to be really good. I don't want it to be some other person's secondhand something. And I don't want it to have any terrible faults in it - that's why I work out!"

Lucinda: (laughs)

In the video, why did Adam think it would be good to keep sex for marriage?

What is the purpose of sex?

A loving bond for marriage

To have a child

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

Many married couples are looking forward to having a family

But how would pregnancy at the wrong time affect your life?

Girls

Difficult to continue education
Hard to maintain friendships
Harder to have a relationship
Have less money for yourself

SLIDE: Girls

Difficult to continue education
If you become pregnant while you are still in education, you may have to change school and take longer to finish your education
Hard to maintain friendships
Looking after a child takes time and effort. This means that you may find it more difficult to join in with all the social things that your friends are doing.
Harder to have a relationship in future
Once a single girl has had a baby she is less likely to get married. You may want to ask the class why this is so. Below are some reasons:
- she finds it less easy to get out to meet a suitable husband
- a potential husband may be put off by the knowledge that she has been involved in a previous sexual relationship
- a potential husband may be put off by the prospect of parenting a child who is not his own
Have less money for yourself
Looking after a child is expensive. It will leave you with little money to spend on things for yourself.

Harder to have a relationship in future
Less involved in your child's life
Pay child support

Boys

SLIDE: Boys

Harder to have a relationship in future
If the child is involved in your life, a potential girlfriend may be put off by the prospect of parenting a child who is not her own. If you are not involved in the child’s life, a potential girlfriend may be put off by your lack of commitment to the child you fathered.
Less involved in your child’s life
Sadly many fathers miss the joy and responsibility of experiencing their child growing up and of having a close relationship with them.
Pay child support
It would be helpful to mention that the biological father has a duty by law to provide financially for the child until the child is eighteen years of age.

Abortion

In 2018, in England and Wales, over 200,000 unborn babies were aborted.

SLIDE: In 2018, in England and Wales, over 200,000 unborn babies were aborted

In the year 2018, 205,295 unborn babies had their lives terminated in England and Wales in this way.

The slide shows a picture of an unborn baby at 9 weeks of development (11 weeks after the last menstrual period). The little baby is about 4-5cm long and you can see the eyes, nose, hands, fingers, knees and at this stage all the internal organs are formed and the heart is beating.

Image used under license: Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK. Notes: Using minimally invasive endoscopes, CBR’s embryo and foetus pictures are derived from many smaller images 'stitched' together in much the same manner NASA uses to combine satellite photo 'tiles' to form a large, high resolution 'mosaic'.

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

An infection caught from intimate physical contact

An ulcer on the tongue

Bacterial

Chlamydia
Gonorrhoea
Syphilis

Viral

Herpes
HIV (AIDS)
HPV (Genital Warts)

Most STIs are easy to catch
Girls are more at risk than boys
Teenage girls are most at risk

Facts

SLIDE: Facts

Here are some important facts about STIs.

Most STIs are easy to catch
For example, it has been estimated that there is a 50% possibility of catching gonorrhoea through a single sexual act with an infected partner.
Girls are more at risk than boys
Probably because of the greater surface area of their genital tract and because male secretions remain within them after intercourse, girls are more at risk than boys of catching STIs.
Teenage girls are most at risk
Probably due to the immaturity of the lining of their genital tract teenage girls are the group most at risk of catching STIs.

Myths

The Pill gives you protection against STIs
Condoms always protect you from STIs
All STIs are curable
You always know that you have an STI

SLIDE: Myths

The statements on the slide are NOT true.

The Pill gives you protection against STIs
The Pill is a contraceptive that, if taken correctly, will prevent conception (pregnancy). It does not provide a mechanical barrier and its hormones do not stop a woman catching an STI.
Condoms always protect you from STIs
Condoms reduce the likelihood of catching an STI but they do not protect 100% against all STIs. We shall discuss this further in slide 26.
All STIs are curable
We have already explained that not all STIs can be cured. Those caused by viruses may be controlled and sometimes resolve naturally but cannot be cured by medicine.
You always know that you have an STI
As we shall discuss later, you do not always know if you have an STI.

Chlamydia

Very easy to catch
Can give an unpleasant discharge
‘Silent’ in 70% of women and 50% of men
The first thing you may know is that you cannot have children

SLIDE: Chlamydia

We do not have time to talk about all the different STIs but we are going to take an example and talk about Chlamydia – which is one of the most common STIs caused by bacteria.

Very easy to catch
Chlamydia can be caught very easily.
Can give an unpleasant discharge
Chlamydia infection can cause a whitish/yellow liquid from the genitals called a discharge. (Not all discharges are due to Chlamydia.)
‘Silent’ in 70% of women and 50% of men
The problem with Chlamydia is that it does not always cause a discharge or make you feel ill. It is possible to have the infection without knowing that you have it. This happens in about 70% of women who have chlamydia and 50% of men. If this happens, the Chlamydia organisms may cause damage inside your body without you knowing about it.
The first thing you may know is that you cannot have children
If a girl has the infection for some months or years, it may damage the tubes connecting her womb to her ovaries (the fallopian tubes). Later in life when she wants to have children, this damage may make it difficult or impossible for her to conceive. This is because the sperm are prevented from reaching her egg because the fallopian tubes are blocked. Untreated Chlamydia infection may also reduce male fertility.
It is because of the possibility of infection without symptoms that people may be given testing kits to check whether they have Chlamydia.

Causes over 90% of cervical cancer
Spread by sexual transmission, including oral sex
Cervical cancer can be reduced by vaccination

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

(Causes genital warts)

Fact:

Never before have there been more condoms available and more teaching about sexual health

Why are levels of sexually transmitted infections so high?

SLIDE: FACT: Never before have there been more condoms available and more teaching about sexual health.

It is strange that when young people learn so much about staying sexually healthy that the number of people getting STIs is still so high.

SLIDE: Why are levels of sexually transmitted infections so high?

A click reveals the above question. Ask the class why they think this is the situation. Possible answers may include:

many people are having sex outside faithful marriage and with more partners
condoms do not give 100% protection against STIs. Though condoms, correctly used, can be effective at protecting against some STIs, condoms do not protect well against STIs such as herpes, genital warts and syphilis that can be spread by skin to skin contact.
people think that having an STI is not a big issue because it can be cured
not all STIs can be cured
sometimes people do not tell the truth about whether they have symptoms or have been tested and treated
sometimes people do not realise they have an STI and so do not think they need to use a condom

Rates of new sexually transmitted infection diagnoses among people attending sexual health services by age-group and gender, 2016, England

STIs spread when people have multiple sexual partners

Do not give 100% protection
May be forgotten in the heat of the moment
Do not always work properly

Condoms

SLIDE: Condoms

Do not give 100% protection.
Pupils may be surprised to learn that condoms do not protect 100% against all sexually transmitted infections.^[1,2]
May be forgotten in the heat of the moment.
Many young people do not anticipate having sex when they do – sometimes because they are being pressurised or are under the influence of alcohol. Under these circumstances, the condom is rarely used.
Do not always work properly.
Studies have shown a failure rate of approximately 2% when a condom is used perfectly. With typical use the failure rate can be considerably higher.^[3]

See, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ‘Condom Fact Sheet’ on http://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/brief.html. Studies show condom protection rates for some of the commonest STIs such as genital warts and herpes are very poor. Some STIs can be caught from outside the area covered by the condom, e.g. from the genital area (warts), from oral sex (herpes), or from a discharge (chlamydia and gonorrhoea).
Condoms offer good protection (up to 95%) against HIV. See, for example, ‘Condom effectiveness: where are we now?’ Crosby RA and Bounse S, Sexual Health, 2012, 9,10-17
Contraceptive failure in the United States, 2013.

There is no such thing as completely safe sex except in faithful marriage

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

Video:

Pressure to have sex

This video is also used in the Girls' version of Module 6: Relationships: getting it right.

Video duration: 2:14

Transcript for reference:

"I was fourteen when I started going out with my first serious boyfriend. He was older than me and he went to a different school. And just seemed more mature. He was quite charming - he was nice to me.

After two weeks of going out with him it became obvious that he wanted us to start having sex, and although there was just something that told me that I didn't want to do it - but I didn't have any kind of opinion really clearly formed. My parents hadn't really told me anything about sex - or when to have it or why to have it. I wasn't a Christian at the time, so I didn't have any kind of faith that helped me make those kinds of decisions.

And so, although I didn't really want to do it, I allowed myself to do it. Just because he obviously wanted to, and I thought that would secure our relationship - that that would make him happy, so I did.

I don't think that having sex with him did make him love me more at all. Our relationship lasted two months and it just fizzled out in the end really. So, there wasn't any kind of commitment or love behind that physical relationship at all really.

I think the pain of us breaking up was worse because we had that physical relationship - and had had sex. I think if you imagine two bits of paper that are glued together and then try to tear them apart, that's not a smooth tear; bits of paper stick to either side. And so, it's hard to explain but I think with that physical relationship breaking it does hurt inside more deeply."

Sex is designed to strengthen the relationship of two people who are married

The sexual bond is not designed to be broken - when it is, we hurt ourselves and others

SLIDE: The sexual bond is not designed to be broken - when it is, we hurt ourselves and others

Because sexual intimacy was actually designed to strengthen the relationship of marriage, if you have been sexually intimate with a boyfriend or girlfriend and your relationship breaks up, it is particularly painful.

Sex makes you very vulnerable to another person who experiences a oneness with you. This may feel exciting at the time. However, if that person is not interested in a long term loving relationship, this may leave you feeling hurt and used.

You may want to use this illustration to demonstrate the pain of a sexual relationship breaking up (the illustration is continued on slide 34: 'It becomes harder to make a strong bond in the future’).

Apply a strip of strong tape to your arm and then try to pull it off. Tearing a bond like this is painful. This pain represents the trauma of breaking up after sex. It was not intended that we should be sexually intimate and then walk away. In so doing we would be breaking apart a God-given bond that is intended to help keep a couple together for life.

Sex is unforgettable
& permanent

It becomes harder to make a strong bond in the future

SLIDE: It becomes harder to make a strong bond in the future.

After having sex with several different partners, breaking up may be less painful but it may also become harder to make a lasting relationship.

You may want to use the illustration below to show how it becomes harder to make a lasting bond. (Illustration continued from the slide 32: 'The sexual bond is not designed to be broken - when it is, we hurt ourselves and others’.)

Now try to stick the tape back on your arm. The tape is less adhesive, and every time you do this, the tape becomes less and less so. This illustrates how it may become harder to make a strong and life-long emotional bond following sexual relationships with a series of different partners.

If you have made mistakes, don't despair

If you are truly sorry, you can ask God to forgive you and help you make different choices in the future

Video:

Module 4

What happens if you don't keep sexual intimacy for marriage?

Preparing for marriage

A loving bond for marriage

To have a child

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

Many married couples are looking forward to having a family

Girls

Boys

Abortion

Abortion

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

An infection caught from intimate physical contact

An ulcer on the tongue

Bacterial

Viral

Facts

Myths

Chlamydia

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

Fact:

Never before have there been more condoms available and more teaching about sexual health

STIs spread when people have multiple sexual partners

Condoms

There is no such thing as completely safe sex except in faithful marriage

3 Things that might happen if you don't keep sex for marriage

1. Pregnancy at the wrong time

2. Getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI)

3. Emotional pain

Pressure to have sex

Sex is designed to strengthen the relationship of two people who are married

The sexual bond is not designed to be broken - when it is, we hurt ourselves and others

Sex is unforgettable & permanent

It becomes harder to make a strong bond in the future

If you have made mistakes, don't despair

If you are truly sorry, you can ask God to forgive you and help you make different choices in the future

Starting again

Module 4

What happens if you don't keep sexual intimacy for marriage?

Other modules:

Sex is unforgettable
& permanent