Sex Outside Marriage – A Buddhist View

Here again, we should try to look at things calmly and clearly, and, above all, responsibly. Nowadays there is pretty frank acceptance of what has always been the case, that a lot of people in fact have sexual intercourse without going through the formality of getting married. No doubt there is more of it now than there used to be because, for one thing, contraception is a lot more efficient than formerly, and also because religious prejudices are fast breaking down. This is a simple statement of fact, not of what ought or ought not to be the case. In the case of engaged couples, it is probably by now the usual thing, and is not very heavily frowned upon by most people. But it cannot be termed exactly rare among couples who have not the slightest intention of getting engaged.


In the past, it was widely considered (and almost openly admitted) that pre-marital sex was a good thing for young men, but a bad thing for girls. Now sex-equality has caught up on this, as on so many other things. In any case, we may as well accept the fact that, whatever we may think about it, preaching by the older generation will, by and large, have precious little effect on the young. This is probably one thing most parents are worried about.


The young people of today are not, usually, notably impressed by the wisdom of their elders. They may quite often be perfectly right in this skepticism, but of course it does not follow that they themselves are really any wiser. It may be that their folly merely takes on a different form. Let us remember that basically, if Buddhism teaches us anything at all, it is that almost all human beings are pretty dim-witted, on the whole. That after all is why we are here at all. But still, if those who are parents can succeed in inculcating a sense of responsibility into their young, that in all probability is about all they can do. There are no easy answers.


Queen Victoria reigned for sixty glorious years, and even despite the pioneering efforts of her son and successor Edward VII, it still took England a further sixty years (including two major wars) to cast off the last shreds of Victorian respectability. Now at last the deed has been done, and naked young men can stand on the stage and utter naughty words without a Lord Chamberlain to say them nay. Is this progress, or was Victorian prudery preferable to modern rudery? We are back with the two extremes once again. We must seek the middle way.


Of course, if the young would only listen, there is no doubt we older ones could give them all sorts of quite genuinely good advice. And there is just one chance that they will listen: if we can somehow avoid being patronizing. But the heavy father act is now definitely out, and the establishment line cuts no ice. If we tell the youth of today they stink (even though some of them do), they will simply turn round and tell us our ideas stink.


However, if we can succeed in getting across to them at all, we may be able, humbly to suggest certain things for their consideration. Sex is something the younger generation of today are intensely aware of. In fact, they would have to be born blind and deaf not to be. It is exploited commercially today in every conceivable way. Our entire commercial civilization is founded on the principle of stimulating bigger and better desires in all of us, all the time. And at a conservative estimate, about 75% of all advertising at the present time includes an element of sexual titillation (sometimes cunningly disguised, at other times blatantly obvious). It has been found, quite clearly, that sex stimulates the sales of anything and everything from typewriters to weed-killers. That it is the mainstay of virtually every conceivable kind of “entertainment” to which we are voluntarily or involuntarily subjected, goes without saying. In other words, our desires in general, and our sexual desires in particular, are being consistently and grossly over-stimulated the whole time of set purpose, and the bland assumption is that if it all suddenly stopped, the country’s entire economy would be in ruins. (Parenthetically, it might be quite feasible to organize our economy on a different basis — but that is not our concern here.) We all, young and old, have to live with this situation and, to put it mildly, it doesn’t make self-restraint any easier. So before we start lecturing the young, we should realize this fact. In this game, the dice are loaded against us.


Still, we may manage to get through to them. After all, many young people are themselves against the establishment, and among other things they rebel against the sheer tawdriness of our lives. Their ideas may quite frequently be all wrong, and badly mixed up, but at least they sincerely yearn for something better, and in fact they are desperately even if often incoherently trying to bring about a better state of affairs. They are by no means lacking in idealism, and they have a keen eye for those who seek to exploit their idealism for dubious ends. We can latch on to them if we can only convince them that we are at least sincere.


Let us just take a cold, hard look at this question of premarital intercourse among the young. In the first place, it happens. And there are just two ways, in principle, by which it can cease to happen. Either young people can exercise self-restraint, or they can get married. A few do the former, and quite a lot do the latter. Now of course, very early marriages can turn out well. But the fact is that they quite often don’t for obvious reasons. It is therefore not an entirely self-evident fact that early marriage, as such, is preferable to a little “experimentation.”


It is, of course, very hard for parents to stand back and silently watch their own children embarking on a course which may seem to them, and indeed may actually be unwise. Some young people today are only prepared, and able, to learn by trial and error. They are unwilling to ask for advice, or even to accept it if given unasked. They should, however, be aware that there are serious dangers in experimentation, if too rashly undertaken, and the trouble is that, while parents may hold back with advice on restraint, there are others who are only too ready (out of misguided “idealism” or, frequently, because they find it highly profitable) to offer “permissive” advice without drawing attention to the risks. It is the duty of somebody, whether parents or teachers, to ensure that young people are aware of some of the less comfortable “facts of life” as well as those they want to know about. Venereal disease is rampant today, and on the increase. And it is by no means always the “minor inconvenience” it is made out to be in some quarters. It can still cause sterility, serious illness, or even death. That “the pill” is not, and is not meant to be, any protection against V.D. would seem obvious, but many girls seem unaware of this — till it is too late. Nor is “the pill” itself as harmless as all that. It can have unpleasant and sometimes quite serious side-effects, and one recent (probably conservative) estimate is that 25% of the women who use it ought not to do so, on medical grounds. Even common sense might suggest that prolonged chemical interference with hormone functioning could cause trouble. These are just some of the more obvious physical dangers. There are plenty of emotional problems and dangers, too. To take just one example: genuine misunderstandings can arise because teen-age lads want, and expect, to go “all the way” whereas often the girls only want to flirt. This situation is by no means uncommon: at best it is embarrassing, and at worst it can lead to very ugly incidents.


The way of self-restraint is not necessarily an easy one for all to follow and, under present conditions especially, it is almost more than we can reasonably expect. And it too can be undertaken for the wrong reasons, and in the wrong way. The English public school system was based on the segregation of the sexes and an ideal of sexual restraint, and to a certain extent it worked. It produced the predictable crop of homosexuals as well as quite a few inhibited young men, but it inculcated a genuine respect for women, which was not always quite as ludicrous as some would have us believe. On balance, it may have done more good than harm, from the sexual point of view, to the majority of those who were subjected to it. But it was based on an over-simplified idea. Life is more subtle than Arnold of Rugby allowed for (even if we overlook the “class” aspect of the whole thing). And yet, the best products of this system of education are in many respects admirable. They have a deep sense of self-discipline and responsibility, qualities in rather short supply today.


Of course, many of the young people of today actually have such a sense, quite strongly in some ways. They do feel responsible — they feel deeply “committed” — about apartheid or other social questions. And even the hairiest types quite often endure surprising hardships in the way of sleeping rough and the like, with a kind of self-discipline which may appear strangely ill-directed but is nevertheless there.