Sex Without Marriage Is Exploitive

Sexual intercourse outside of marriage is nearly always exploitative, though, undoubtedly, there are couples who demonstrate mutual fidelity without legal sanction.  Our society provides for common-law marriage; we recognize that a couple can make a genuine commitment without benefit of the usual legal arrangement.  There will always be exceptional instances where two people achieve union first and then seek public or official acknowledgement of their oneness.  But having said this, we must go on to say that most premarital intercourse does not result in marriage.  In the vast majority of cases, when it is not previously undergirded with the commitment of marriage, sexual intercourse simply means that one person is taking from another.  Usually premarital intimacy is giving of one’s body without giving of one’s self.  Whenever two persons make use of each other’s bodies, while they remain unwilling or unable to surrender their selves at the same level, it is exploitation.  Often, when two people allow themselves to be swept into an illicit liaison, it is not because they love each other too much, but because they respect each other too little.

Genuine love demands that a couple preserve the final line of intimacy until the final commitment of marriage….

William S. Banowsky, It’s A Playboy World, p.84-85