![3 Things To Consider Before Sleeping With Your Boyfriend [EXPERT]](http://images.tangomag.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-full/image_blog/kissing_4.jpg "3 Things To Consider Before Sleeping With Your Boyfriend [EXPERT]")
Yes, it's normal to have sex before marriage, meaning that almost everyone does it. After all, there are few things more tempting than the urge to make love with the new guy you're falling madly in love with. But is it healthy?
Oct. 17 is National Edge Day, an under-the-radar holiday founded by those who refer to themselves as "straight edge." In honor of this day—and because my boyfriend is straight edge, while I love myself a good bottle of wine (yes, bottle!)—I thought it was important to share just how easy it really is, as one who drinks, to date and fall in love with a non-drinker.
Rather than honestly talking to me about sex when I was younger, my mother just told me, "If you ever have sex before you're married, I'm going to send you to a convent." She would never tell me why, and always got mad when I asked her, "If premarital sex is so bad, why was I born five months after your wedding?" Whoops. Yeah, I was a brat.
In recognition of his pledge of virginity until marriage, New York's Museum of Sex has offered famous fundamentalist football player Tim Tebow a chance to take a closer look at what sex is all about. Beyond making Jesus cry, I mean.
Now that Joanna Coles has taken over at "Cosmopolitan" magazine, there's something I'd like her to know. Joanna, your magazine is polluting the minds of women everywhere.
![Married? 4 Steps That Will Save Your Sex Life [EXPERT]](http://images.tangomag.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-full/image_blog/ytmarriagesex.jpg "Married? 4 Steps That Will Save Your Sex Life [EXPERT]")
It is true that every couple's sex life goes through stages and that the "new couple sex" stage will end. Your sex life will change, mature, get better and have downtimes over the lifetime of your marriage. But it is also true that you can have a strong sexual, sensual and erotic relationship that is vital, exciting and fulfilling.
![Top 5 Reasons To Try Premarital Counseling [EXPERT]](http://images.tangomag.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-full/image_blog/bride_shoulder.jpg "Top 5 Reasons To Try Premarital Counseling [EXPERT]")
Premarital Counseling gets a bad rap. The popular belief that there is something wrong with your relationship if you need counseling just isn't true. Most premarital clients are very happy and not having doubts about their wedding. They simply seek skills to prepare for predictable challenges of marriage. Yes, marriage is challenging, but most of the challenges are easy to overcome.
In the middle of this heated debate over birth control and religion, it's easy to get the impression that Christians are anti-birth control, and so is God for that matter. Yet, as a mom, a person of faith, a married lady and a birth control lover, I don't see it as so simple.
Jennifer Wright Knust, Baptist pastor and professor of Religion at Boston University, makes a number of shocking and unorthodox claims in her new book. She writes: “Looking to the Bible for straightforward answers about anything, including sex, can only be a disappointment. When read as a whole, the Bible provides neither clear nor consistent advice about sex . . . If one biblical writer condemns those who engage in sex before marriage, others present premarital sex as central to God’s plan. Just about every biblical commandment is broken, and not only by biblical villains . . . It is therefore a mistake to pretend that the Bible can define our ethics for us in any kind of straightforward way.” Ouch. As someone who strongly believes that the Bible is God’s word to his people, Knust’s assertions really stung.
To pray together, or not to pray together: that is the question. For married couples of faith, the decision is a bit more obvious. They have clever adages in support of the idea, such as “The couple that prays together stays together,” as well as a whole host of surveys, books, and websites singing the praises of how prayer can strengthen a relationship. It’s enough to even make an Atheist consider it. But what about couples who aren’t married, yet are in serious dating relationships? Should they pray with their significant others, or is couple’s prayer an intimate activity that is better suited for marriage?
As a teenager, I had secretly assumed that many of these restrictions were out-dated and unnecessary, thus I decided to try and intellectually prove that premarital sex fit into that category. Over a period of months, whenever I had free time I would dive into the index of my Bible and search for all the verses that said anything at all about sex. I read over them carefully, searching for a loophole—some fact, some story, some statement that I could pluck up and use as my justification.
