- I've heard people say, "Well, we only had anal sex
so I'm still a virgin."
(dramatic music)
I'm Jessica Graham and I'm a sexual
and spiritual activist, an author, a sex and intimacy guide
for couples and individuals and a meditation teacher.
- I'm Lance.
I'm a bartender by night
and I work in the entertainment industry by day.
- I'm Katy.
I worked in TV and film up until two years ago.
I've been living the mom and married life.
- I'm Grace.
I'm 25 years old and I'm a nanny in the day
and then a bartender at night.
- I'm Christina, I'm 34 and I'm an actor
and also a youth leader in ministry.
- I'm Brandon.
I am 23 years old.
I work in social media, so like in marketing.
- [Speaker] I have not had sex outside of marriage.
- That is a true statement.
- Yeah.
- And to clarify, I have not had sex in general
so I feel like that went with the prompt, cool.
Just making sure.
I grew up in the church and so I was a typical
like, not gonna have sex, not gonna do a B through Z.
I just got out of a 2 1/2 year relationship,
coming out of it, I'm so much more empathetic
to how absolutely tough that is on a day-to-day.
- Yeah, I did not have sex prior to getting married
almost three years ago.
It made me test if this wasn't a serious relationship
going somewhere, then I could just focus on my other things.
- Brandon, I'm curious of the way
in which you engaged with your sexuality
in your 2 1/2 year relationship.
Were there things that you could do?
Were there certain things you couldn't do?
And is having an orgasm
with somebody considered not being abstinent?
- First of all, to act like we didn't do anything,
I'd be lying to you and to act like I'm this purified angel.
(people laughing)
That's just like, this white sheet is just a lie
and that's just being upfront too.
So I wanna preface with that.
- And is that okay?
- I never wanna minimize sin and how I view that.
I never wanna run away from that.
Sin is a very heavy thing and unfortunately,
for a lot of things, we would be fighting.
And maybe doing physical things was easier
to either numb that or to make that fight end.
Like, "I'm so mad at you right now.
I don't wanna be mad."
Boom, something happens physically.
And then we're like, "I guess we're cool now."
And the whole orgasm sex thing,
that's a thing I still wrestle with.
I don't know.
I don't have a black and white answer for you.
I still dance in the gray area there,
but I know that in my relationship, it was used sometimes
as a beautiful thing where like it was a natural thing
of love and passion and just being attracted to each other
but then there was also times where it wasn't.
- A lot of things we can say sex is,
like I've heard people say,
"Well, we only had anal sex so I'm still a virgin."
And to me that's like, whoa.
I've had a lot of just regular intercourse
before I did that.
So, but that's me.
- Like you're more not a virgin than me.
(people laughing)
- Yes, I have had sex outside of marriage
in a committed relationship.
Did I want to wait?
Absolutely.
But love is a powerful thing
and when love comes in, it blinds a lot.
I wanted to say, "Hey, let's just take this time
and if we're gonna get married, let's just wait."
And we weren't on the same page when it came to that.
So when that relationship ended,
I made a vow to God and myself to wait.
So I do consider myself a born again virgin
and I'll enjoy sex in marriage
like 10 times more than I did outside of it.
- I've heard my whole life,
"Oh, sex before marriage is a sin."
But then, murdering someone is always a sin
but why is sex before marriage a sin,
but after marriage, it's not a sin anymore?
It's just because you have a piece of paper saying,
"Oh, we're married.
Now we can have sex."
- I kind of, I agree with you.
We make a big deal about it being between God
and that's the whole reason that you're abstaining.
So why does this people or some kind of consensus
being involved, like make it valid now?
They don't bring validity.
Like it still is between you and another person and God
- [Speaker] My first time was a positive experience.
- My first time was with my first serious girlfriend
towards the end of high school.
Disorganized and messy and silly at times
but I look back on it really fondly
and we were losing our virginities together
which I think was a really nice thing to share.
- I lost my virginity
in one of my first long-term relationships also.
We were both virgins, which is good
'cause neither of us knew what we were really doing.
So it was awkward, but it was positive.
I mean, I always went into it thinking,
"Oh, the first time I have sex it's gonna hurt.
It's gonna be so bad.
My heart's gonna feel so sad
that I'm not married and stuff."
But I felt none of that.
I was like, "This is great."
- Yeah, my first time was hilarious.
I was almost 28 years old
and I was still a virgin on our wedding night.
So the honeymoon, it got a lot better. (laughs)
- An argument used so much against abstinence
and celibacy is that, "How do you know what you're doing?
You're not gonna be trained."
I think there's a cool part of learning that process
with each other and learning that with one person.
And I think that's just something that helps you appreciate
and love that person more.
- My first time having sex was not a negative experience.
It just wasn't necessarily a positive experience.
I was 14 and I just decided I had to do it.
I had sex in the back of a hot rod car
with a guy who was I think about 18.
The way in which it was positive now
when I look back on it is that I started young
and I had a lot of colorful experiences.
Some of them positive, some of them negative.
But now, I'm able to take all of that experience
and use it to help other people.
- [Speaker] Sex can be just physical.
- Great.
- Okay.
I do think it can just be physical.
I've had sex with people that I mean, they were cool
but like I wasn't interested
in anything else other than sex.
And then that was it.
And they go on and I go on and it was fine.
- It's definitely for me personally been something
that has been just physical at times,
both in and out of committed relationships.
I think that's a really important point to make,
that that sometimes it can be used as a tool
or as just a way to blow off steam
after a hard day or something that just doesn't require
a deeper connection every time.
Reiterate, I almost always prefer it
when there is a deeper connection.
It definitely enhances the experience.
- I'll hop in.
So I think that sex can be physical
from someone's own thought process,
but I think you still do know
that there's an emotional side to it.
And so even sometimes, I just have friends
that I know have said, "Yeah, this is just sex for me too."
But that's not truly how they feel.
A lot of the time, it does mean something more
or they are hoping that it turns into something more.
- I definitely agree with that
but I would also say there's the polyamory community,
there's the swinger community, there's the kink community,
there's the just sex positive community.
There's people who go to sex parties every weekend
and just have fun with each other.
I think there are a lot of communities
that you just might not be a part of where sex just for sex
is actually a very normal accepted and positive thing.
- Then that's fine and well, but I do believe
that when two people are connected in an intimate way,
a soul tie is connected.
And when you are about to enter
into another relationship or enter into something new,
you're carrying someone else with you.
It's like a web that's being weaved into someone else.
It's an emotional attachment.
But to some people, I do think
that it can just be I guess a one and done
thank you, next whatever.
But I do believe that you're carrying a soul tie
when you're physically and sexually connected.
- [Speaker] I've been shamed for my sexual choices.
- Yeah, I've been shamed on both sides
'cause I grew up in the church too.
And when I was not having sex,
I was shamed by my friends that were
and then once I started having sex, I was shamed
by people who were in the church who weren't having sex.
Yeah, it's crazy on either side.
I think you're just gonna get shamed
depending on the kind of people and the communities
that are in your life at that point in time.
- There is that aspect
of it being shamed for not doing it.
And I work at a place where I am one
of very few believers in my company.
People being like, "You don't sleep with your girl?
Come on, bro." (laughs)
And I've had that and that feeling of like,
that pressure of like, am I supposed to be?
Would that make it easier?
Would my relationship be better?
And you start going to,
is it worth the shame from the church?
Is that worth it?
And that's a constant battle.
- I always loved sex and I had a lot of sex
when I was a teenager and I definitely had comments like,
"Oh, Jessica have sex with anyone."
And that wasn't really the case
but I definitely got comments like that
and it never really bothered me.
I was always just like, "Oh, well, screw you.
You know what?
I'm not gonna have sex with you
now that you've said that."
Now in my life, I get a lot of different attitudes
just based on the way I put myself out there.
But I do treat it as activism because I think
that by speaking out and being willing to deal
with the shame as well as all the dick pics
and propositions, I constantly get online.
- I'm so sorry.
- I mean, I think of it as part of the job
but it's really important.
And so I'm willing to have people project their own shame.
- Just real quick, I wanna say one thing I noticed
right off the bat, being the only one on the outside
is that I'm certain that it ties into my privilege.
I think in my experience
in terms of my parents and things, it's been more cautionary
and certainly from a caring, loving place
and I haven't felt any shame.
- [Speaker] Sex ed should encourage
safe sex over abstinence.
- I wanna run.
- Yeah, I'm gonna sit.
Over abstinence?
Yeah, I'm just gonna go sit down.
- Welcome.
- The reason why I chose to sit
is because although I'm pro-abstinence
and I'm (indistinct).
Education is education.
Kids are gonna make their own choices.
There's free will, they're gonna act on impulse,
they're gonna act on love.
They're gonna act on whatever's present to them.
And if you don't educate them on the safest way
to go about that, how are they gonna learn?
I don't believe it should be over abstinence
but I do agree that it's a big part of education for sure.
- Having choice, I think actually in some ways works
for the abstinence folks because it's like,
if you don't, if it's this bad thing that you shouldn't do
then of course, kids are gonna wanna do it.
And so I think by just giving all the information
and offering choices then, people can make a choice.
- Yeah, so I think you guys addressed a lot.
And I think when it comes to education,
because knowledge is power we have to teach kids why.
It is not, "Don't do this or God hates you."
It's not that.
It should be, we love God.
God sent his son who gave us the ultimate sacrifice.
And so we are sacrificing a physical thing
that we are naturally drawn to.
- I disagree because I think you're painting just one side
of something that's really important,
and it's the safety side.
But there should also be,
if you feel like it's meaningful to you,
you should definitely wait until you're excited
about doing this and here's the safe way to do it.
I still see an imbalance where now it's becoming taboo
to talk about the option of purity.
My desire is that we don't allow the next generation
to think that sex is completely meaningless
and has no emotion or feeling or reason.
- I think everyone has their own journey.
Waiting is not mine, but it's yours and that's awesome.
So yeah, just being accepting of everyone's sexuality
whether it be super high or non-existent at all,
and just being open to listening to other people's opinions.
- [Speaker] All right, that's a wrap.
- Oh my God.
- You go with me?
- I'm so glad. (indistinct)
Pursuit of everything here.
- Hey guys, this is John.
Thank you for watching this episode of "Middle Ground."
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(excited music)