Men Who Make Virginity Pledges Struggle with Sex Once Married
http://www.livescience.com/47431-virginity-pledging-men-sexually-confused.html
?1408449233
SAN FRANCISCO — Men who make virginity pledges get strong social support to abstain from sex before the wedding night, but that backing disappears soon after they tie the knot, new research suggests.
These men are also taught to think of sex outside of marriage as animalistic and foul, but sacred within a marriage, according to a new study presented Aug. 17, here at the 109th American Sociological Association meeting.
As a result, male virginity pledgers can be somewhat confused and lost when it comes to sex after marriage, said study researcher Sarah Diefendorf, a sociology doctoral candidate at the University of Washington in Seattle. [The 10 Most Surprising Sex Statistics]
"They spend the first 20-something years of their lives being told that sex is wrong," Diefendorf told Live Science. "They're expected to make this transition from the beastly to the sacred, but they don't really have the tools to be able to do that effectively."
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of the screwed-up thinking underlying this mindset. 
They seem happy from the outside looking in. 
And good morning!
you made my day, thanks
Go have a good one, friend!
...potential that presents itself in the last sentence of the OP - "...but they don't really have the tools."
My mother was unusually forward thinking for her/our time when it came to discussing sex. She told us everything about the physical "mechanics" of it (sometimes more than I wanted to know), and some about the emotions involved. She was also quite honest that it was not just for reproduction, and I remember her saying that newlyweds "...might decide 10 times a day - 'Let's go to bed.' ".
She felt it was definitely a girl's responsibility to keep things from going too far, as boys just could just not help themselves once aroused, and it was cruel to cause arousal and not follow through, if you will. Sex was also only right within marriage. I remember asking her once how you were supposed to make the transition from "No, don't, don't, don't!!!" to "Go for it!" I do not remember there being a good answer for that.
She also once said that she supposed there might come a time, if a woman remained unmarked long enough, that sex outside marriage might be understandable. I wanted to ask her how old I would have to be for that to be Ok for me, but I didn't, because I knew the answer would be about 104 - 
Mom is 92 now, and her lookout has softened somewhat. Our 24 yr old son and his serious girlfriend recently spent about a week with her at a small cottage our family is fortunate enough to own in the Finger Lakes in NY. Prior to their arrival, she asked me to please tell them they we're welcome to use the master bedroom while they were there!
as a youth or parent. I tend to think it's the extremists that lay on guilt guilt about sex, saying it's the dirtiest thing in the world and you'll go to Hell for it, but you should save it for the sanctity of marriage and the one you love.
Many (though of course not all) Christians find value in abstaining (or trying to) until marriage, but most Christians don't take virginity pledges. That's a trait characteristic of a subset of Christianity, not the whole. I don't see the justification for treating a study about that practice as indicting Christianity or even the decision to wait.
rules, of the books and priests of the patriarchal sky gods are not part of "humanity"?
Many of us who believe we are human, who are not controlled by the books and rules of the priests of the sky gods, are quite sure that the rules of the sky god priests concerning sex are wrong for us. Up until 500 yrs ago, the majority of people on 5 continents were unaware of the rules of the priests and books of the patriarchal sky gods.
As a matter of fact, at this very moment, many of those who claim to worship the sky gods are the ones fighting desperately to prevent some of us from getting married, and apparently believe that not letting us marry is the number one rule of their sky god.
Oh, yeah...climate-change denialists! 
A fair while back there was the usual calm, reasoned debate 
here about the validity of evolutionary psychology, which at this stage is merely an interesting theory being bounced around by a few academics. I suggested that the question be given over to investigation by reputable academics using the scientific method, with their results then being subject to peer review - let the chips fall where they may. I was repeatedly told that 1) the scientific method is suspect and sometimes untrustworthy (oh really?); and 2) there are certain questions that one is never allowed to ask, period, shut up, end of discussion, except to say you are a pig for proposing such a thing even be studied seriously.
I realized how sad it all was after I stopped laughing. That attitude was the main thing that led to my taking an extended break from DU.
I am acquainted with a 40-year-old guy who was raised as a fundamentalist and married a woman whose dad was a minister. They were married a couple of years and then divorced. He said that she had vaginismus and they only actually had sex once in those two years.
Everyone has to learn sometime, but some things I don't have the patience to teach.
Teaching my kids how to tie their shoes was hard enough.
Well done! 
not interested.
with the authority of Sky Daddy behind it has long term negative effects? Who could have imagined that happening?
A mercantilist view of sex. 
In the 'good old days' 
people married young, frequently in their teens and died somewhere in their forties, or earlier. The age of first marriage keeps going up, especially with an uncertain economy.
By the way, I can relate to the OP. My grandmother tried to raise me in a fundamentalist, pentecostal church. Sadly, I took all this hell-fire-and-brimstone stuff seriously. Fortunately, I escaped in my teens (Long story!) Sadly again, much of the damage had been done.
Yeah I can see why that would cause confusion 
I did not go to a fundamentalist church. I went to a liberal Protestant church, where you did not talk about religion outside of church. There were no sex ed classes at church.
We watched a movie in public high school with Ann Landers flapping her gums, about how "boys only want one thing" and "once they get that thing, they'll discard you like a kleenex" and valuing the girl's virginity over her personhood. Girls were not supposed to want sex or be horny. That was bad and meant you were a slut. Her advice for what to do on dates was "anything but making out." She was extremely uptight & that movie was quite harmful, but it's the standard societal bullshit we were fed at that time.
My mother ranted about how "bad things" happened to girls that were "boy crazy" without saying anything specific. I think I finally got sick of her ranting and said, "Oh, so you want me to look at girls?? Is that it??" ...crickets....
I thought, "Oh well, I'm going to hell anyway so I might as well enjoy myself." Basically, I was telling myself that those were unrealistic standards. Expecting virginity until you get a State-Approved Screwing License (A marriage certificate, not just a license) was completely unrealistic. All the old people saying that acted like they had never had a sex drive when they were young, or they had forgotten what it was like to be young and wanting sex all the time. You were supposed to wait till marriage, and then do it with one person for the rest of your life, and if you were a rich housewife like Ann Landers, you could feel smug and superior.
The whole society was into making a fetish out of virginity for the girl. If you did it before you were married, that was BAD with a capital B. There was a conspiracy of silence about sex. Nobody would tell me the facts of life. I had no idea what the boy had to do to the girl to get her pregnant. In fourth grade, we saw the movie about menstruation, but it told us nothing about men or what part they play in making a baby. They said "you're a woman now and you can have babies" with NO further explanation.
They only told us enough information to use pads so we would not leave bloody trails in the halls. We didn't have sticky back pads. We had to use those horrible elastic belts to hold the pads, and they'd bunch up. It was horrible. All that and garter belts and hose and panties (we didn't have pantyhose yet) could get complicated.
The sex ed we got in high school was misleading and non-factual. We saw a movie that implied that two virgins could get VD (now called Sexually Transmitted Disease), feel horribly guilty for 'doing it', and they implied that if you had VD, you could sneeze on somebody and they could get it, which is completely wrong. This was in 11th or 12th grade. I still don't know if the kids now in that school district get comprehensive and factual sex ed. Probably not.
There were no books that were factual sex education books that I could find in either the high school library or the public library.
The first book I read that was factual was "Everything you wanted to know about sex". It was by a psychiatrist and it was not completely factual, but it was at least some factual information. I was in the 12th grade then. I got it from my big sister's husband.
If you touched yourself, oh Lord, that was bad and you were going to hell. Sex just was not talked about. My older sister was born in '48 and she didn't know the mechanics of it until she was in high school, is what she told me.
When I was little I asked my mother why some chicken eggs turn into chickens and some don't, since we eat the ones that are not chickens. She said "I don't know." At some level I knew she was lying, that something had to happen to those chicken eggs, and I never asked her anything about sex again, because she was lying and my parents absolutely would not tell me anything and I didn't ask them.
They also lost their shit over bad words like "shit" and "fuck". You didn't DARE use those words or they would freak out.
My mom would act like a prude, like sex was dirty, and then brag about how many guys she dated in college. I suspect she was a total hypocrite about sex.
I'd say that idea that sex is dirty, and then once you get married, you're supposed to do it and enjoy it, just doesn't work. A fetishized piece of paper, that they seem to think has magic powers, is not going to change who you are on the inside.
I couldn't see why we should believe anything our parents told us because they lied about sex and lied about drugs. My parents said nothing. I'm talking about society as a whole at that time.
