This has probably been covered already (tl:dr) but what about the letter he printed recently about the woman who married a man, waited to "consummate" and learned on her wedding night that her life partner was not a natural born man and didn't have a working penis? That seems like a pretty big hurdle to me. Not insurmountable, but PRETTY BIG.

Of course you have to post it under a pseudonym NALT because aside from being a condescending asshole you're apparently also a coward. Good job.

I don't identify myself by cultivating my kinks, they are an integral part of me and have been since before I knew what kinks were. I chose them about as much as Dan chose to be gay. Why would anyone choose to have pain inflicted on them during sex? For 95% of people it just fucking hurts it doesn't get them wet or get their dick hard, my sexual response is just wired differently.

Pfft. It's easy for two virgins to be all over each other for a couple years. Everything is novelty!

Let them wait the 6-7years it takes to settle into a sexual rhythm, and let's see how compatible they really are.

All this woman had to do was watch the Sex and The City arc concerning Charlotte and Trey, and she'd have her question answered.

Haven't read the comments so forgive me if someone else said this first, but your sexual standards (and therefore your sexual compatibility) are created through your sexual experiences. People aren't 100% blank slates when they're virgins, but they're pretty close. The idea that a virgin guy could only climax if his wife shit on his chest is beyond ridiculous.

The likelihood of two virgins finding they're compatible is pretty high, considering the fact that they help create each other's standard for compatibility.

The prickly defensiveness of Dan's response shows he knows how disingenuous it is. He should've just admitted that virgin until married is a perfectly valid option that does have its benefits, while noting that it's not for everyone (not everyone has the ability to limit themselves) and that anyone concluding that it is therefore better are also wrong.

I'm not convinced this isn't fake. But assuming it's not, there could well come a time when one of them meets somebody that, well, turns them on. Suppose for a moment hubby decides he'd like a simple blow job. Wife refuses to put that thing in her mouth. Husband starts obsessing over the fact he married somebody who won't blow him. You're in trouble because sexual satisfaction is a part of marriage, his marriage. And he's met a woman that will give oral. This might not happen to you but I have read enough letters to Dan to know it happens a lot. And by the way, you are a smug bitch and they are the last to know hubby's dicking the maid.

Why is it so hard to accept that the laws of randomness may have blessed you? My parents married, with my mother having no real knowledge of sex. She spent 25 years frustrated beyond belief, and I bore the brunt of her dissatisfaction and unhappiness. My father was perfectly fine because he was getting exactly what he wanted.
Oh, and it might help that you're a physician and have a working knowledge of how the human body works. You can't be unaware about how clueless most people are about even their own bodies.
Actually, the disingenuousness of your letter is pretty shameful. You know the answer to these questions.

That lady has atheist friends in the same manner that I, as a white man, have black friends--that is, not at all. Of course I don't really have any friends.

Actually, that's not really true. I do seem to make decent conversation with some of them that run the liquor store. I sure do seem to be down there a lot.

@64, MacCrocodile--any reason why you need to use hateful and misogynist language?

She very well may be having great sex. I don't know and have nothing invested in her sex life.

But marrying without knowing if you are compatible before hand is like playing the lottery.

I can either plan for my retirement by working hard, saving money, learning about investing, and making sure I have the money set aside starting now.

Or I can play the lottery.

Some people win the lottery. But if you are basing your retirement plans on winning the lottery you are a fool.

This woman very well may have won the marital sex lottery. She lucked into a situation where she is happy. But to rely on that approach, even though it happens to work out for a few, is foolish.

As for the idea that all her atheist friends all wish they had what she has, that may also be true, but it has nothing to do with religion or how she got what she got. Again, if I knew someone who won the lottery and is rich it may make me want to be rich too, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to expect to get rich the same way playing the lottery.

And some people just are straight laced vanilla. Great for them. But for anyone who isn't adhering to evangelical Christian sexual mores is not going to result in a satisfying sex life no matter how many or few people they had sex with before settling down with someone.

I'm happy for the LR and her husband.

But as a physician--that I presume took a science class or two--surely she knows that one anecdote does not a data set make.

Woooooo!!!

Man that woke me up better than my coffee, thanks!

This lady sounds like my sister-in-law: - before the divorce.

@84, thanks fnarf. now I know what I'm eating this weekend.

5 to 1 says she gives bad head.

@109: Not true that "your sexual standards (and therefore your sexual compatibility) are created through your sexual experiences." I have been fantasizing about and masturbating to the same kink since I was seven years old. The first person I even told about it was my husband several years into our relationship. Some of that stuff seems to be hardwired in there, or at least developed in childhood.

@109: Hmm, for most people. masturbation/fantasy give people one hell of a lot of preference-forming/exploring sexual experience by the time they marry, even if they've never had partnered sex before. Also, it's not only (or even mostly) specifically sexual experiences that shape our sexualities. Staying a "virgin" (however one defines that - it really isn't clear at all) "until" (assuming marriage as an end-goal for everyone is pretty asinine) marriage is a perfectly valid choice, in the same way the buying a Powerball ticket is a perfectly valid choice (did Dan suggest it wasn't?). You're free to do it, but your odds of winning aren't as high as, say, knowing the winning numbers before buying the ticket (forgive me for torturing that metaphor).

People are questioning the letter not because it isn't perfectly possible that two people that never kissed before their wedding can have a satisfying sex life, they're questioning the letter because the feigned ignorance means it's at the very least disingenuous and at most completely fake. They're not doubting the author's assertion that she's having great sex, but pointing out that since she has no basis for comparison, that assertion has to be taken with a grain of salt.

@17- Sounds like they just interviewed Wiccans. They have the best rituals.

OMG, @79, you know my ex-husband!

Ok, first off I am Christian (wait! Don't throw stones!) and I'm gay (wait! Don't throw bibles!) and I'm a divorced gay Christian from Canada (wait! Don't um..y'know..).

I married my wife after living together for 3 years...and we did have sex before marriage...good, loving, pleasurable sex.

Unfortunately I discovered that despite being compatible in so many ways, sexually speaking she wasn't really attracted to me...or women in general actually. We had loving sex that got better over the years...because we were both loving, giving people. But we didn't live in mutual enjoyment (casual, everyday physical affection, appreciation) of each other outside of sex, which did become less and less frequent as time went on. And ultimately there were other non-physical desires that weren't being satisfied either (sex is only one part of a physical, emotional, mental relationship)

It wasn't what I wanted but I loved her and the best thing I could do for her (and me), that could fulfill the vows I made, was to let her go And it was God who helped us through that.

The problem (or one of them at least) with "Christianity" in the world today, is the expectation that ONLY good things will happen as long as you believe this or that. Do this or do that.
Things happen, lives are complicated. But it is so damaging to other people, who might be Christian or not..or whatever...who live with loss and pain and hurt and violence and struggle to go around holding up any IDEAL as the best or even better way to be...even if you're only hinting at that claim.

But that's just my gay, christian, divorced, Canadian experience of things...

"We get along so well that even a couple of my atheist friends have admitted they want what we have."

I call bullshit on this for several reasons.

1) They may very well want what they PERCEIVE that the LW has. What they show in public. But really we all know that no one knows what it is like to be in another couple's relationship. Even one's closest friends NEVER REALLY KNOW. It is impossible.

She actually makes this point for me in the next sentence.
"What most of them don't know is that not only did we wait until after the wedding to have sex, we had our first kiss at the end of the ceremony."

2) No way in hell would an atheist want a dead zombie Jew or imaginary sky friend/father as the center of their marriage. Not in a million years.

3) Like many other commenters have mentioned, I highly doubt that this woman really has any atheist friends.

#114 - did he use a bad word??? Merciful heavens! Grow up, cunt.

@114, why are you attacking me? I'm asking for a minimum level of civil discourse. What's with the name-calling?

"I'm an evangelical Christian in a country where that is not a political statement..."

Ummmmm, no. It's already at this point that the loud buzzer should go off, a trap door opens, and the Letter Writer is dropped down a chute like Veruca Salt in the original Willy Wonka.

@128: Your ex and my ex-bf probably had the same sex ed teacher :)

Apropos of nothing at all, I think you fine folks would probably enjoy this....http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pR8qZJBosYs/TrLlbDAZInI/AAAAAAAAF2w/d6RqWUmrHic/s1600/ReligionPenisSM.jpg

Damn! it didn't come up as a hyperlink. Oh well, copy and paste.

This letter is so obviously a fake from one of Dan's haters.

And the same sort of anecdotal research states that her sex would be EVEN BETTER if she converted to Islam, the only true religion.

I wonder what she'll think of her "AMAZING" sex life when she's divorced and eventually has some more perspective on life and her husband's abilities.

@107: "I'm happy with the table and chairs I've had since grad school."

Being content with resigning yourself to a limited expectation for pleasure, forever is not the same thing as being happy. It's finding good in a bad situation.

What is with all the ageism?

If sex is good at 25, why would it be worse at 35? Do dance partners get worse together with practice? A few wrinkles and some extra padding have nothing to do with quality of sex, but practice does.

I think it is important to remember everyone is different, in a plethora of ways. Some of us really aren't ready for successful relationships until our mid 20s, or even later.

Peace.

If this is real I'll punch a nugget on my own chest.

@109 That's simply not true. People are not blank slates unless they are completely dumb and totally unaware of their bodies. If it was true, everyone's first experience would be mind-blowing whereas in reality it is frequently disappointing. And please, do you seriously think that people's kinks are "created through your sexual experiences"? Do you think that people into scat (to use Dan's example) were all vanilla until someone took a dump on their chest? And then they were like, "wow, what was that, I really enjoy that."

I have to disagree with a lot of the above commentary. This woman obviously can figure out what sexual incompatibility is, but that was not her question. She wanted to know why she needed to go for a test ride first, and I don't think Dan's answer is even vaguely illuminating. Suppose you're a virgin, and somehow you've figured out that poop will be needed to achieve a climax (how you figured that out, who can say, but let's just assume it's possible). Is there something stopping you from telling your partner about this prior to actually doing the deed, after you're wed?

But what if some incompatibility comes out LATER, many of you are asking? Well, that's the LW's entire point: how long does she have to wait? How many test drives does one need, before deciding on lifelong commitment? What if her husband decides he wants always poop henceforth, on their 17th encounter? Sixteen prior deeds will then not have been sufficient to avoid sexual incompability, it turns out.

The same problem applies to the arguments about comparison. You like Cheddar, but maybe you'd like a nice Gouda better. How do you know, though, if all you get before marriage is Cheddar, Feta, and Brie? How many cheeses does it take to avoid the sexual incompability disaster? I suspect the answer is something along the lines of: you need to learn about yourself, your likes and dislikes, and about other people. But you can do this just like the LW, while remaining a virgin before marriage.

So the argument that one is doing oneself and one's partner a disservice by not having sex before making the long term commitment is flawed. How much "test ride" sex, and what kind of sex, is necessary before you get to say you've done all you reasonably should have to avoid disaster? I think the LW is smarter about this than Dan realized.

@146 seeing as the most common sexual incompatibility is difference in libidos, maybe at least have enough "test ride" sex to know that you and your partner are evenly matched in terms of desired frequency etc. Really hard to figure that one out by just talking.

To Catballou, out of idle curiosity, if you had the opportunity to do some comparison shopping, so to speak, would you take it? (no response wanted/needed)

In a sense ignorance really is bliss as effect of the knowledge and process, at this point in your life, of attaining it can not be determined in advance. All that can said is that nothing would be the same (possibly for the better, but more likely not) A major problem is what do you with the knowledge once you have it. Will you be happier, more or less satisfied?

"Recently been made aware" hahaha! Let's see; she can pay attention well enough to make it through the decade of harrowing training required to become a physician (involving intimate encounters with hundreds-thousands of patients), yet she has just noticed that there exists an opinion that sex before marriage is a viable option. Did they never mention this issue in church?

The number of mistruths in this letter range from 1-all.

Addendum: From a theist (in the sense that I have this innate sense (God knows why) of existence of something more (I don't know what and it isn't fear of death because I have no problem with my own mortality)

Well, whatever the letter writer is, I AM an OB/GYN, and sexual counselling is a huge part of my daily practice.....AND I cannot tell you how many we-saved-it-until-marriage Xtian couples I have coming in to see me who have miserable sexual relationships. And, seriously, they are VERY hard to help.

No, 153, it's hard because:

1) there is often a huge mismatch in libido

2) often one or both has really swallowed the idea that sex is dirty, and can't seem to get beyond it (or to glory in the dirtiness)

3) they may have been sent to me by their ministers but they come to me hoping there's some medical problem I can fix with a pill or a cream, and they're not prepared to hear relationship advice from a godless divorced middle-aged feminist

4) sometimes the woman (often, in fact) has so seriously tamped down her sexuality that she can't find it again, and the uncomfortable first experience she has with her husband completely turns her off on even trying

5) often one is gay

If waiting until marriage is so great, why are there all these books and websites (that I regularly send my patients to) ministering to couples in their shoes?

attitude devant, my curiosity is piqued. What are some of the websites you mention?

Umm, mismatched sex drives, parts that physically don't fit, a necessary fetish for one that's a total dealbreaker for the other...

Seriously, is it THAT hard to comprehend sexual incompatibility?

I feel like abstinence-until-marriage follows the same principle as marrying young. Yeah, you have the occasional case where it works out - where the person who is perfect for you in your early '20s is the same one who is perfect for you in your '40s or '60s. But you can never tell, and so it's really a crapshoot. Sometimes people who don't have sex before marriage will be "lucky" enough that their random cocktails of sexual turn-ons and -offs that they haven't explored at all will align right, or if not, they won't ever figure out what they're missing and be satisfied with what they have. But again, how would you know before jumping into it? Again, crapshoot.

And just like in real gambling, some people get lucky. For every five young couples we know who fell apart, there's always one case where they got lucky - people who married in their late teens/early '20s who are still in love 20, 30, 50 years later. But with both cases, sometimes it's almost worse if you actually succeed. Most (not all) of the people I know who married young and are still happy with each other decades later are because they haven't changed much in the ensuing decades. They settled down right away and are still in the same place, physically and mentally, 20 years and 2.5 kids later. I'm 21 and I know I want to be a different person at 31, 51 and 71 than I am now.

And it's the same with abstinence. As I said above, isn't it sad that they actually hope they never find out what it means to be in touch with your particular set of sexual needs and know whether or not your partner is satisfying them? That they actually are banking on "ignorance is bliss" and that they never know what they're missing?

I'm curious how the LW feels about arranged marriages.

A few years ago one of my coworkers went home to India and came back with a wife. Not only did they not have pre-marital sex, they hadn't even met one another. I don't know about their sex life, but several years later they seem head-over-heels in love. They're physically affectionate, they laugh together, and he lights up whenever he talks about her.

So LW - what do you think? Should that work for everyone or did they just get really lucky?

The most extreme evangelical I've met in some time believes that any consumption of alcohol-at any time, under any circumstance and in any amount-will lead one straight to hell without passing go.

Talking to this woman it occurred to me that she is in a mental prison, consumed with fears about things that those she condemns are free of. More simply put, she cannot consider (because her indoctrination forbids critical thinking) that the vast majority of humans who consume alcohol do so for harmless reasons and to harmless ends and that, as a result of those collective drinking experiences, those folks do not spend much time obsessing over others' drinking habits, even those that may truly be harmful.

My reaction to the LW is similar. She's so hellbent, ha ha, on "proving" her sexual righteousness and satisfaction because the poor thing doesn't consider the likelihood that most atheists, whether her good friends or perfect strangers, don't give a rat's ass what kind of sex she or anyone else is having.

This is one of my fundamental problems with conservative thinking, especially around sex. People who are this consumed by fear of their sky bully and who need to prove the damnation of those not so consumed cannot consider, even for a second, that the damned among them are actually FREE. Whether a liberal, a religious moderate or an atheist, most non-zealots don't spend their days in fixated fury over the imagined sins others may or may not be committing.

So to me it's irrelvant whether or not the LW truly is sexually fulfilled or lacks the experience to know better. It's her fixating on proving her righteousness against imagined heathens that makes her smug and, to my mind, pathetic.

@160 I'm not sure that you can tell, at 21, how much change has happened over the course of a forty year marriage. There is a lot your elders probably aren't telling you. For me, I know that one important part of marriage is striving to change in compatible ways, so each person continues to grow and develop, but without driving the other person away. How could one have children without faith that one would always want to be part of that child's life, in one way or another? Similarly, I would find it hard to get married unless I believed I would always want to be in my spouse's life (though the specifics might change).

Dan, however, argues for seeing marriages as productive partnerships if they achieved that for some time, however long they ended up lasting. I do think that's sensible...

@152- You have a sense of something more, but no idea why you have that sense. I can give you plenty of simple exercises to demonstrate how your basic perceptions are lies. Humans are hardwired to have a sense of something greater. Evolutionarily it gives us an advantage; something for our complicated individuals to arrange communities around.

There's no reason to believe in a deity just because you want there to be a deity.

"They settled down right away and are still in the same place, physically and mentally, 20 years and 2.5 kids later. I'm 21 and I know I want to be a different person at 31, 51 and 71 than I am now."

Yeah, sure, kid. At 21, you understand these people better than they do themselves -- enough to decide that what's working for them isn't really working for them. Your attitude sounds just about right for your age. That, at very least, you can hope to grow out of.

@152: "Addendum: From a theist (in the sense that I have this innate sense (God knows why) of existence of something more (I don't know what and it isn't fear of death because I have no problem with my own mortality)"

And as an atheist, I set my expectations properly and feel amazing to be a part of nature every day.

What's your point?

HMW - what you don't know (yet) is that your hubby is slightly repulsed by the smell of your vajayjay ... He isn't really aware of this yet either. The whole sex thing is still kind of new to you both, and the excitement of that newness is covering up lots of future issues.

I don't know how or when it will happen, but eventually your hubby will get a whiff of someone he has really intense chemistry with, and at that point your little honeymoon will be over.

Until then, do what we all do ... ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN.

@168: With the LW's smug tone, I'd assume as good amount of her letter is as fictional as any "self-made" conservative's origin story.

I wouldn't, however, read in your exact story. It's a little odd, to be honest.

@EricaP: Yeah, you're probably right to at least some degree. Most adults I know have grown and changed in some way, but most of them were educated, had a few different jobs and/or have moved around at least a little bit. I'm just thinking of a few people I know where from when I've talked to them and what I've heard from other people who've known them for a while, it seems like they've just stayed in the same place ever since the "settled down." You can't deny there are some people like that.

Also, thanks for responding to me respectfully, unlike some other people who are confused about what words like "kid" mean.

@ 165 More a sense of connection, but not sure with what (all living things, some higher/lower power) I can no more explain it than I can explain knowledge of other things/perceptions/talents that have no rationale/scientific explanation. None the less they do exist and demonstrably so. Although I have no conscious control over them.

@167 Just a case of truth in advertising. It was an after thought and I suppose agnostic pagan is a better description.

162 says, "It's her fixating on proving her righteousness against imagined heathens that makes her smug and, to my mind, pathetic."

Your reading comprehension on this one was only slightly worse than Dan's, if at all. She is responding to what other people are telling HER, that it isn't okay to jump into marriage without going for a sexual test drive. THAT is the smug position which assumes it knows what is best for other people: namely, that you're dumb not to have sex before marriage, and good luck with that because if it works out, it's only due to luck.

147, 158: This woman does not need information about sexual incompatibility. Rather, her question is why she needs a sex test drive BEFORE marriage in order to figure that stuff out. Much sexual incompatibility of precisely the sorts you describe does not appear right away. She could have had a year's worth of sex with boyfriend and still found out, after marriage, that they weren't or were no longer sexually compatible. Her question is why willingness to take a chance on this is "reckless". And I share her curiosity: why, indeed?

On the one hand, a person can choose to have premarital sex with X number of people, potentially contract STDs or an unwanted pregnancy with someone who will not be a spouse, and deal with X-1 number of breakups with a sexual partner. Or on the other hand, a person can know another person well enough to want to pledge a lifetime commitment, while taking some degree of gamble on sex. But we ALL take that gamble, so they're merely taking a potentially greater one, that's all. Who's to say that one approach is reckless and the other is wise? I'm not criticizing any other approach, btw, because I didn't take her approach myself, but I get it. I don't think the criticism of her is at all appropriate, nor is it even getting her point!

@172: "Your reading comprehension on this one was only slightly worse than Dan's, if at all. She is responding to what other people are telling HER, that it isn't okay to jump into marriage without going for a sexual test drive. THAT is the smug position which assumes it knows what is best for other people: namely, that you're dumb not to have sex before marriage, and good luck with that because if it works out, it's only due to luck."

I don't really care what reality-deniers and abstinence-only forces think. The divorce rate shows that loving Jesus isn't enough for a healthy sexual relationship in all cases.

" Who's to say that one approach is reckless and the other is wise?"

Because the risk of permanent STIs when using proper protection is still comparatively low when compared to the success rate of wait-until-marriage relationships.

Fuck, people raised in the abstinence-only principle have MUCH HIGHER rates of STIs and teenage pregnancy.

" Who's to say that one approach is reckless and the other is wise?"

I am, because of those reasons.

My husband was a one-night-stand. The sex was amazing, but it was the chemistry that developed when we started to know each other that caused us to fall in love. We have been together for 17 years, married for 15. We have a happy family. We might not have a romantic story to tell the grandkids, but isn't finding a person you connect with beautiful enough?

@172 We don't have any data to go on about the people in her life who may or may not be openly judging her about her sex life.

But her need to prove herself is quite incriminating. After all, if someone assumes something of you that you know isn't true, there's no reason to get so up in arms about it that you need to prove to the world that the person is wrong. If someone's assumption gets under your skin to such a degree that you end up exaggerating a point of disagreement to something like "atheists tell me I cannot be happy sexually" (just atheists? all atheists? do you really think they care THAT much about your sex life?), it seems to me some self-reflection is in order.

@175: "My husband was a one-night-stand."

And you both were virgins beforehand, as this lady is stating that everyone should be, right?

Because otherwise your anecdote is irrelevant to the topic.

My mom turned into a super-fundie Christian during my 'tween years, met a man through church, dated him for a couple of years, then married him, all without ever getting past second base. They separated just over a year after the wedding because their sex life was so horrible - he blamed her for his erectile dysfunction, and the ensuing strife caused the rest of the relationship to fall apart. They were divorced within a few months. My (much) older sisters told my mom repeatedly that this is the exact reason you never buy before you try, even if you're a super-fundie Christian.

On a happier note, about eight years after the divorce, Mom and Stepdad started hanging out again, discovered that with the help of medication they could get past the ED problem, and remarried a few years ago. I suppose with a lot of in-depth conversations about their sexuality, the whole divorce-and-eventually-remarry melodrama could have been avoided... and I'm sure younger men have fewer problems with ED than men in their late 40s... So, maybe LW and her spouse dated for a very long time before they married, maybe they were each other's best friend in the whole wide world and there is absolutely nothing they can't admit to each other and work out together.

But it has been my experience that one never really knows someone until you live with them for a while, and that sometimes the sparks between two people outside the bedroom do not carry over to a conflagration between the sheets. I'm personally really, really glad my husband and I took the opportunity to explore our respective sexualities with other people before we met, and that we lived together and slept together for a few years to test our compatibility on every possible level before we decided to marry and reproduce. Maybe it's because my parents divorced when I was five, and my mom remarried and divorced three times before I was eighteen, but I can't imagine pledging my lifetime commitment to someone I didn't know extremely well on every level and with whom I didn't feel deeply compatible every level. How much is a promise really worth, when you make that pledge in a state of ignorance?

I have to admit, like some of the previous commenters, I'm highly skeptical that anyone with two children under the age of three is having sex twice a week, especially when one of the parents is a physician.... Perhaps LW has the lightest workload of any doctor ever, the best-behaved and least-needy children in the world, a full-time housekeeper, and amazing physical stamina. If LW has all of that AND managed to marry her best friend and the man of her dreams, I am sincerely happy for her and hope that she has the sense to express her gratitude for her good fortune every single day.

@179 "How much is a promise really worth, when you make that pledge in a state of ignorance? "

I like that. Beautifully put.