On [Pre-marital] Sex.

In the present society where traditional values and morals are rudimentarily shaken, should issues and discussions on sex remain an indefatigable taboo?

“Why do individuals engage in pre-marital sex? And why don’t they?”

In one of my classes, those questions were raised but were answered unconvincingly. The answers broached were delimited to the reasons that pre-marital sex occurs because of the vulnerable upbringing of the individuals involved, the weak value system they have, and the loose ties of their respective families.

I raised a different point, such that “some individuals involved themselves into pre-marital sex because it is an inherent or innate human nature to get physical or to express intimacy…” And I went blank.

La profesora interrupted and seemed to imply that inherent was so strong a term that it is not enough basis to assume why individuals engage in pre-marital sex, neither intimacy plays a definite role in it. And la profesora including some of my blockmate expressed anxious disapproval.

Problem is I wasn’t able to explain my point with clarity and lucidity. My answer should have gone this way:

The engagement to pre-marital sex stems from two reasons, one biological and the other psychological. Biologically, the libidinal tendency or urge of any human being is inherent or innate. It is something endogenous to the physical construction of man, or of any animal for that matter, and the outlet towards its fulfillment is exogenous, meaning a partner is needed to mate with or, in the absence of one, alone by itself with playful visual imagination. Further, the emission of some hormones triggers the brain with signals or impulses that causes the libido to go high. And it usually during adolescence, where most of the physical and hormonal changes take place, that the urge manifests itself vividly that some individuals tend to consciously surrender. So, it is inherently human nature.

But it does not stop there, whether or not to give in with the urge is entrusted to the psychological conditioning and rational capaicty of the individual. By psychological, it refers to the use of mental ability in coming up with a decision backed up, perhaps, by the mores and standards that the individual adheres to. The psychological aspect then decides whether or not to give in to such repercussion of the biological aspect.

Understandably, individuals engage themselves into pre-marital sex because one, the urge is there powerfully thriving within their body systems, and two, their psychological or rational aspect failed to encumber the thriving of that urge. Sex as a human desire is therefore inevitable but to give up to such human a desire is very optional.

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It is interesting to note how the society have come to view sex and sexuality. The strict social norms and ethical standards impregnated to the individual lead him to quell down many of his animalistic tendencies, most of his innate nature. There is nothing wrong with that since it is directed towards a noble end of attaining order and organization in the society.

But, to what extent must these norms and standards limit the individual? To how much extent do these have control over the individual? Don’t such restrictions limit the individual’s utilization of his rational capacity and free will? If submission to human desires is irrational, is controlling the capacity of individual to decide upon himself not irrational? And say for instance that those restrictions are rationally constructed to curb man’s irrational tendencies, to how much rational are those inhibiting forces made?

This is not to suggest that pre-marital sex is right. Neither it is wrong. But the society views the latter. The latter, stringently holding on conventional grounds, imply however that the society posed upon itself strict compliance to norms, morals and standards that have the tendency to become non-human and machinistic. It thereby causes the individual to develop inhibitions and guilty feelings, non-conducive for his free learning and liberal development.

It seems that the society must have reduced itself into a helpless pretentious sham.