A reader writes:
I've been reading your posts on the hookup culture with increasing dismay, and just want to chime in with my own experience. I specifically want to respond to the comment one of your other readers made: "I … don't want [my daughters] to marry as virgins and find out they're completely incompatible with their husbands."
Certainly many of your readers see this line and nod in approval. "Yes," they say to themselves, "that is a true danger." I just want to point out that that idea – being "sexually incompatible" – is a complete construct of … wait for it … the hookup culture! And, in my opinion, is a large reason marriages and relationships fall apart so often.
Full disclosure: I'm a Mormon. I was brought up in many places around in the country, including Utah, California, and Iowa. I have seen dozens of my Mormon friends marry and have (so far) extremely happy relationships. To the person, we were all virgins when we got married, including all of our spouses. And you know what? Nobody cares! I had never even heard the term "sexual compatibility" until after my marriage, and it made me laugh out loud.
Why?
Because of all the things to cause strife in a marriage, this one seems strangest of all. My wife and I have never had sex with anyone but each other. I have no idea if I would be "more" or "less compatible" with someone else; but I don't care, because sex is not the centerpiece of our relationship. Physical intimacy certainly is important – sex is a happy, beautiful, wonderful part of our marriage. But the very idea that sex should be a determining factor of our "compatibility" in marriage to me is merely evidence of the over-sexualization of our culture.
I once spoke with friends in Iowa about the fact that my wife and I never lived together (including never having sex) before our marriage. We moved in after our honeymoon. Our first sexual experiences were together, and on our honeymoon. And these friends asked, "But how can you know if you're compatible if you don't live together? What if you find out things that bother you about that person?"
My response is still this: anything you can only learn by living with (or having sex with) someone is not something that should affect the quality of your marriage. Marriage is about love, commitment, service, not about pleasing each other. My wife has some small quirks that bother me, that I didn't know about prior to my marriage. Who cares? Our sex life is wonderful, and both of us happily have nothing to compare it to. Great! If we had "shopped around" or experienced sex with many different people, it would have ruined the beauty and simplicity of what we have.
So please don't tell me it's necessary to have many sexual experiences to learn whether we are "compatible" with others. This is a creation of a sexualized society, which puts the largest weight on the lightest and least significant things.
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