When I ask where your belief that sex outside a relationship is problematic came from, I’m curious about the part before the answer became automatic. Was it something someone told you outright, or something you absorbed so gradually that you can’t remember learning it?
Maybe commitment and sex were always presented together in your family. Maybe religion gave you a clear boundary. Or perhaps nobody said much directly, but the way people talked about other adults made the expectations obvious. There are plenty of ways to learn a rule without ever hearing it stated.
I also wonder what you mean by problematic. Do you believe it’s morally wrong, or do you know that it tends to leave you feeling unhappy? Wanting a relationship before sex can be a personal preference, an emotional need, a conviction, or some combination. I wouldn’t assume the same history sits behind every answer.
And perhaps your belief came from experience. You might once have felt differently. You might have discovered that something you were comfortable with in principle didn’t feel right for you in practice. Or your views may have moved in the other direction.
I’m not asking you to defend a boundary or abandon it. I’m interested in whether you recognize your own voice in it now. If you trace the belief back to its beginning, whose words do you hear—and would you use those same words today?
