# How to make my heroines want to wait until marriage without alienating readers?



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

I'm writing a YA paranormal romance series that will feature 3 sisters. I need a way to make all 3 want to wait until marriage without it sounding unbelievable.

I was a devout Catholic until the age of 15 but am now an agnostic, so there is no religious reason for this.

I'm Indian. In India many people still wait until marriage and I simply do not want to show a heroine, especially a teen one, not waiting. So you could say I write with a cultural bias though I write western characters.

Is this a problem? Am I going to have to get over my cultural bias to give heroines women can identify with?

Note that I don't have a problem with writing sex scenes as long as the heroine is married to the hero. But I would not want to show teens having sex.

So far I have 2 possibilities:

1. though their mom is a white non-Christian American and in fact had the first daughter at the age of 18, outside of marriage, she later married a Christian guy who helped raise all 3 girls, his own 2 daughter and the eldest, his stepdaughter. He was a good man who they all loved and perhaps they too were raised Christian.

I do not want to depict any main characters as being Christian since these are not Christian novels and I don't want to alienate non-Christian readers. So I would have all 3 girls raised Christian, now have left the religion, but still be influenced to some extent by what they were raised to believe, ie its better to wait until marriage.

I am not at all sure this would fly, especially for THREE characters. From what I see on TV shows like Switched at Birth, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and others, even Christian teens don't always wait until marriage. If they are no longer Christian, I don't think they would.

2. second possibility: their dad was an Indian who grew up in India and though he now lives in the US, he raised them imparting his cultural beliefs to them.

I think the 2nd works better. Mainly because many readers seem to be put of by any "Christian messages" but will probably not object to ethnic or cultural biases because if they object to that, it will make them sound and feel intolerant, racist, whatever.

Thank God for political correctness [though I'm not PC myself] and multiculturalism. It's probably what will allow me to get away with what I want to do.

However the main problem with the 2nd is, will half-Indian heroines fly? The first sister is totally white. It's her 2 half sisters who would be half-Indian.

Years ago I discussed it with my romance group who said while they enjoy reading of ethnic heroines, these don't do well in romance.

Of course mine would act American in every other way. Meaning I'm not going to show them considering arranged marriages or anything like that. Plus, if the first novel featuring the white heroine is liked, it would probably be easier to intro her half-brown sisters in future novels without readers throwing away the book without giving it a chance, thinking, no I can't identify with a half ethnic heroine.

Bottomline, I want to show heroines who act American in every way except they wait until marriage. I've never lived in the west, so can you guys help me come up with the best way to depict such characters and their motivation? I welcome your thoughts on all I've discussed above. Thanks!


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Vidya said:


> I'm writing a YA paranormal romance series that will feature 3 sisters. I need a way to make all 3 want to wait until marriage without it sounding unbelievable.


Wait for what?

Ok, I'll see myself to the door...


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

FYI, I waited until I was 24. Not really by choice, I guess...

Anyhow, genuine answer, if this helps at all: my daughters, 21 and 22, are both waiting. They and a group of their friends made a vow in middle school (or maybe junior high?) and they all went out and bought purity rings. Some of their friends "fell off the wagon" and some are still holding firm. My daughters still wear their rings.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

You're doing it wrong.

If this is the norm in India, you need to write Indian characters.

As western-values-educated sisters, without a strong religious base, it's just not gonna fly that *all three* of them wait.

If you write, you need to chuck out your own values and write what would be natural for the characters instead. You want all three of them to wait? Make the family Indian.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

GearPress Steve said:


> FYI, I waited until I was 24. Not really by choice, I guess...
> 
> Anyhow, genuine answer, if this helps at all: my daughters, 21 and 22, are both waiting. They and a group of their friends made a vow in middle school (or maybe junior high?) and they all went out and bought purity rings. Some of their friends "fell off the wagon" and some are still holding firm. My daughters still wear their rings.


But it sounds like you're Christian, which my heroines aren't and which I really don't want to make them.


----------



## Jennifer Lewis (Dec 12, 2013)

I think a lot of kids plan to wait until marriage so the idea is not as outlandish as you may think. In the situation you've set up they could have the example of their mother telling them how very hard it was trying to raise the first daughter alone as an unwed teen dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, and that alone could be their reason to wait until they're in a committed relationship to have sex.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> Bottomline, I want to show heroines who act American in every way except they wait until marriage. I've never lived in the west, so can you guys help me come up with the best way to depict such characters and their motivation?


Your characters are not going to be believable. Young people in the united states live together and are not rushing into marriage for years. They definely don't wait to get married to have sex.

My doctor lives with his girlfriend and refers to her as his wife althought they are not married. He is perfectly normal in our culture.

If you stick with your thoughts, your story will not be believable to Americans.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> You're doing it wrong.
> 
> If this is the norm in India, you need to write Indian characters.
> 
> ...


An indian family won't appeal enough to the mainstream audience. However as I suggested in my initial post I could make the 2 younger sisters half indian.


----------



## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Are you planning on writing these characters through to the marriage, or just a snapshot of their lives while they are teens? I don't think it's a big deal to write teen fiction where they characters are choosing not to have sex at this point. However, it might be limiting your audience if you're planning on writing these characters through their teen years and into adulthood, and still avoiding sex. That said, if it's written well enough, and I can feel the character's motivation and feelings on it clearly, I think you could make anything work.


----------



## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

When it comes to non-White characters, I feel like minority writers have to straddle a fine line. Our books are usually geared towards an audience that doesn't look like us, perhaps doesn't speak like us, and likely doesn't know much about us. At the same time, we want to remain true to the people who are like us. 

I think you should write the story as you want the story to be written. If that means that all three girls remain virgins until marriage, ask yourself why each of them would make that choice. One sister may come to this decision differently than her other sisters. An example, maybe one was sexually assaulted at a young age and this affected her views on sex and intimacy. Maybe another sister was shy and awkward, so she never had a boyfriend until she was in her late teens.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Rinelle Grey said:


> Are you planning on writing these characters through to the marriage, or just a snapshot of their lives while they are teens? I don't think it's a big deal to write teen fiction where they characters are choosing not to have sex at this point. However, it might be limiting your audience if you're planning on writing these characters through their teen years and into adulthood, and still avoiding sex. That said, if it's written well enough, and I can feel the character's motivation and feelings on it clearly, I think you could make anything work.


No I would feature each girl as an 17 or 18 year old. At most I might feature them growing a few years older than that but they each meet the love of their lives at around 18 and marry him within a year or 2 after meeting him.

You've given me an idea. I could make them want to wait until they find someone special. Now it may be a bit of a stretch to say they found no one till 18 since teens in American schools seem to pair off from even 13 or 14, but I think it doesn't stretch credibility TOO much. It could be their mom and dad did tell them all to wait till they found someone special, not necessarily to wait till marriage.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Vidya said:


> An indian family won't appeal enough to the mainstream audience. However as I suggested in my initial post I could make the 2 younger sisters half indian.


Rubbish. Bend it like Beckham was one of the most awesome movies ever. I'd love to read about truly, non-cliche Indian characters. We all watch Bollywood around here. Indian IS mainstream.

People should get over their cultural cringe and just write it. Of course some people won't like it, but that's true for every book. Do it. It will give the story extra character that will set it apart from the others. No need to make it an "Indian-themed" story in a look-I'm-writing-a-non-white-story kind of way. Just write the story, and oh yeah, the characters happen to be Indian. Give them Indian names and people will get the gist.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Vidya said:


> But it sounds like you're Christian, which my heroines aren't and which I really don't want to make them.


I was actually Roman catholic back then. And that really didn't have anything to do with not losing my virginity until I was 24. It was because I was painfully shy around females, and the longer I remained a virgin, the worse it got. So I ended up visiting a professional just days before my 24th birthday. It was probably one of the most important decisions I'd ever made in my life, and it changed my life. Had I not "gotten over it" by visiting a pro, I'd probably still be single and a virgin and alone.


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> Rubbish. I'd love to read about truly non-cliche Indian characters. We all watch Bollywood around here. Indian IS mainstream.
> 
> Just write the story, and oh yeah, the characters happen to be Indian. Give them Indian names and people will get the gist.


This.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

Keep in mind that the culture in America is changing rapidly.  If you made the story take place back in the 1950s, it might work.  Today things are totally different.  If my wife died, I would probably just live with a woman and wouldn't marry her.  

So many people do it that it is not frowned on.  Even Christians don't wait any longer unless they are from some of the fringe groups.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

I realize from movies & TV that it looks as if ALL Americans start having sex very young and are very casual about living together and having babies without being married, but like any other life choice, there are those doing that and plenty who aren't.

There are plenty of folks hiding the fact that they are having sex (religious reasons aren't the only reasons).

There even plenty of folks who aren't having sex, but allow others to believe that they are because they don't want to be seen as prudes or uncool or whatever.

Write what YOU want.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

According to statistics:

As of a 2012 survey date, 3% of Americans who were married had waited until marriage. That's about 10,000,000 married people who waited. Among people who are considered "religious" that number goes up to nearly 20% depending on how conservative their religion is. Of those who DID wait, 60% were females, 40% were males. 

Now regarding era...

11% waited in the survey years of 1954-1963, while 3% waited in the survey years 1994-2003. So the era doesn't create as wide a gulf as one might think.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

I think it is difficult to write about another culture since it will show that you don't know what you are talking about.

A good example is 50 Shades of Gray.  The author was English and her charaters were American and the scene took place in Washington state.  I enjoyed the books but thought an American woman won't have put up with the man in the story. I also picked up on little things that didn't sound like the way it would work.


----------



## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

To be honest, unless there is some compelling (paranormal?) reason for them to wait until marriage, I don't see how this could work without shoehorning it into the plot. 3 sisters raised in the same household are still going to be individuals and I can't see them all making the same decision with the same motivations.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> Of those who DID wait, 60% were females, 40% were males.


There is a story in this mis-match of statistics. Either someone's fibbing or male-male relationships are more common amongst unmarried men


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

You do realize that except for First Nations peoples, everyone in America has ancestry someplace else, right? America is a salad bowl tossed with all the different cultures. A cosmopolitan country. New immigrants still arrive daily. New York, Los Angeles, and the rest of the big cities are like small versions of the whole world. You can hear every known language being spoken there.

My great grandparents came from Germany, Norway, England, and Ireland. It is considered cool to know our roots and the culture we come from. I substitute teach in public high schools. I see this first hand.

Your characters could have moved here when the sisters were ten, eleven, and twelve years old, for example. They would remember their Indian culture and be proud to be part of it, even if they had become American citizens. They could follow the religion and many of the customs of their homeland and still be Americans.


----------



## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

actually, i think having your characters decide to wait doesn't make them unbelievable.  as long as you show that they are tempted, but are making a conscious choice to wait.

it doesn't matter what "most people" do in real life.  people read to get away from that.  so having 3 young women (especially sisters), make the choice together and stick with will strike me as refreshing.

also, please note that money and sex are the things people lie about most, so take any survey with a grain (or whole bag) of salt.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

How about adding a background in which some other female teen in the family -- a cousin, maybe -- gets in trouble due to her sexual activity? An STI, maybe, or an unplanned pregnancy that derails her career plans. That, combined with the mother's early parenthood, might frighten the sisters into wanting to wait.

It's not optimal, though. I agree with Patty that it's going to be hard to give your characters your moral tenets without giving them your cultural background. You can come up with a different reason for them to hold those tenets -- make them committed practitioners of a  religion that advocates waiting, have them be too scared to do it -- but any of these choices will inflect everything else about them.

Hmm. Maybe with one of the sisters, you could give her a history of being sexually active and regretting it? Maybe that would increase realism.


----------



## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

Unless they're Christian, I'm not buying it. Maybe one of the sisters wanting to wait, ok. But all three without any religious reasons behind it? Not buying it. 

Also, note that if you DO make them Christian, then you're going to lose a big part of your readership. I don't read anything that mentions religion (Christian characters annoy me more than other religions, though, probably because of the way they're portrayed.) I'm sure I'm not the only one.


----------



## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

The girl's wealthy grandfather wrote into his will that each of his granddaughters would receive X million upon their marriage--but only if they went to the altar as virgins. Problem solved.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Vidya said:


> No I would feature each girl as an 17 or 18 year old. At most I might feature them growing a few years older than that but they each meet the love of their lives at around 18 and marry him within a year or 2 after meeting him.
> 
> You've given me an idea. I could make them want to wait until they find someone special. Now it may be a bit of a stretch to say they found no one till 18 since teens in American schools seem to pair off from even 13 or 14, but I think it doesn't stretch credibility TOO much. It could be their mom and dad did tell them all to wait till they found someone special, not necessarily to wait till marriage.


To me, the least realistic thing here is that they meet the love of their lives at 18 and marry him within a year or two. That really doesn't happen in the U.S., not among higher-socioeconomic-status groups (unless they're Mormon). You might check out the average age of marriage.

Maybe better off to do a "Happy for Now" sort of thing, more common in NA fiction I believe, since people know that women don't marry at 18 or 19.

Or make your sisters half-Indian or whatever, make there be a reason that they don't act the way native-born Americans would, or at least native-born Americans with native-born parents, more steeped in mainstream culture.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

telracs said:


> it doesn't matter what "most people" do in real life. people read to get away from that. so having 3 young women (especially sisters), make the choice together and stick with will strike me as refreshing.


Exactly. Books don't have to conform exactly to the statistical norm of a given society.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> The girl's wealthy grandfather wrote into his will that each of his granddaughters would receive X million upon their marriage--but only if they went to the altar as virgins. Problem solved.


How would a dead man know?


----------



## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

dotx said:


> Unless they're Christian, I'm not buying it. Maybe one of the sisters wanting to wait, ok. But all three without any religious reasons behind it? Not buying it.
> 
> Also, note that if you DO make them Christian, then you're going to lose a big part of your readership. I don't read anything that mentions religion (Christian characters annoy me more than other religions, though, probably because of the way they're portrayed.) I'm sure I'm not the only one.


Only Christians wait until marriage?

That's a a bit of a surprise to this former Orthodox Jew and most of my Jewish friends....


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

For some, the waiting isn't something that's being done deliberately or even consciously.

Example: If you're busy struggling to master something (health issues, a move, a sport, a language, an immersive hobby, school, job, etc), sex may be the last thing on your mind. Not because you don't like people or don't get aroused, but because you are so focused on mastering something that time passes and you don't even realize you haven't had sex.

Some people haven't found someone who gets them thinking sexy yet. Heck, they may even believe that they have no sex drive because up until now they haven't met anyone who stirs those feelings. Then they suddenly meet the right person and notice sexual arousal (or they might not recognize it as arousal).


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Wild Rivers said:


> How would a dead man know?


The executor would be bound by the terms of the will to have the heirs physically examined before they receive their inheritance. But we also know that isn't 100% proof, either.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

GearPress Steve said:


> The executor would be bound by the terms of the will to have the heirs physically examined before they receive their inheritance. But we also know that isn't 100% proof, either.


Huge ick and squick factor, major echoes of forced "virginity tests" of Egyptian protesters, etc. Hugely disrespectful to women.
Don't go there.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Rosalind James said:


> Huge ick and squick factor, major echoes of forced "virginity tests" of Egyptian protesters, etc. Hugely disrespectful to women.
> Don't go there.


I simply provided a practical answer to the original question. Whether that answer is acceptable or not depends on the POV. Me, I just provided the answer without any editorializing.


----------



## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Just so you can hear from the other side...   There are plenty of Americans, especially teen Americans, who aren't having sex. When I was a teenager, all my friends waited until they were married - both the girls and guys. In our circles it was totally normal. To be fair, it's sometimes a regional and/or religious thing. But it can also be academic - some parents won't allow dating until after high-school graduation. So don't believe everything you see on TV. It can depend on region of the country, school and peer influence, parental rules, scary incidents from the characters' pasts or the pasts of their parents, etc. Also, like LBrent says, some kids who let you think they're gettin' some, aren't. They just don't advertise it because they're afraid it'll brand them as weird.


----------



## Connie Chastain (Jun 25, 2011)

Here is some information from the Guttmacher Institute about teen sex in the USA. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html

61% of 18-year-olds and 71% of 19-year-olds have had sex, so that means quite a few at those ages have not. ..., the most common reason that sexually inexperienced teens gave for not having had sex was that it was "against religion or morals" (38% among females and 31% among males). The second and third most common reasons for females were "don't want to get pregnant" and "haven't found the right person yet."[4]


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

Dara England said:


> Just so you can hear from the other side...  There are plenty of Americans, especially teen Americans, who aren't having sex. When I was a teenager, all my friends waited until they were married - both the girls and guys. In our circles it was totally normal. To be fair, it's sometimes a regional and/or religious thing. But it can also be academic - some parents won't allow dating until after high-school graduation. So don't believe everything you see on TV. It can depend on region of the country, school and peer influence, parental rules, scary incidents from the characters' pasts or the pasts of their parents, etc. Also, like LBrent says, some kids who let you think they're gettin' some, aren't. They just don't advertise it because they're afraid it'll brand them as weird.





Connie Chastain said:


> Here is some information from the Guttmacher Institute about teen sex in the USA. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html
> 
> 61% of 18-year-olds and 71% of 19-year-olds have had sex, so that means quite a few at those ages have not. ..., the most common reason that sexually inexperienced teens gave for not having had sex was that it was "against religion or morals" (38% among females and 31% among males). The second and third most common reasons for females were "don't want to get pregnant" and "haven't found the right person yet."[4]


Exactly!


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Connie Chastain said:


> Here is some information from the Guttmacher Institute about teen sex in the USA. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html
> 
> 61% of 18-year-olds and 71% of 19-year-olds have had sex, so that means quite a few at those ages have not. ..., the most common reason that sexually inexperienced teens gave for not having had sex was that it was "against religion or morals" (38% among females and 31% among males). The second and third most common reasons for females were "don't want to get pregnant" and "haven't found the right person yet."[4]


Inconceivable!

Ok, did you see what I did there?

Never mind...


----------



## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

There could be all kinds of reasons. They might want to marry Indian men who would (generally) expect their wives to be virgins. They could want to stick to Indian customs in the face of overwhelming American values. They could be uncomfortable with the idea of having intimate relations with a temporary partner. The reasons don't have to have anything to do with religion.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> some parents won't allow dating until after high-school graduation.


I feel sorry for parents who think that they can effectively forbid dating at this age.

/derail


----------



## justagirl (Aug 7, 2013)

Re: the meeting your spouse at 18 and marrying a couple years later...

I came from a middle class family, and met my husband when I was 16 and we dated mostly on and the occasional off through college and married a few months after I graduated. I was just turned 22 then (I'll be 25 this year) and ours is the strongest marriage I know of, barring my grandparents. 

I've seen -a lot- of people on my Facebook feed (and yeah, some of them I'm actually friends with!) who met their spouse between 18-20 and were married within a couple years. (...some of these didn't last, or were probably because of children coming, but... I'm also not the only person I know who still has a strong relationship with the person they met in high school.) 

What I'm trying to say is that it's not all that unrealistic  If you want to keep a marriage within a couple of years of meeting, though, I might bump the age they meet to around 19 if you have your characters go to college - they can get married just after college. Or a younger meeting with a man who is going into the military and they feel pressured for time, so they go ahead and get married. 

Are you planning to show the entire stretch of the relationship from first meeting to wedding day? Or are you going to show how the relationships got started and then cut to wedding day, or begin the next sisters book with the previous sister's wedding, etc? If you're not showing an established relationship, I think it's easier to get by without any sex. You don't even have to mention a particular reason why for that - the relationship isn't solid yet, and your character isn't the type to jump into bed on a first date! Your narrative can sometimes take the pressure off of you for sex - it might come across as more realistic that the girls have sexual urges, but the narrative doesn't leave them any room to explore them and you don't have to portray sex or go into a backstory about it.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

ProserpinaPress said:


> Re: the meeting your spouse at 18 and marrying a couple years later...
> 
> I came from a middle class family, and met my husband when I was 16 and we dated mostly on and the occasional off through college and married a few months after I graduated. I was just turned 22 then (I'll be 25 this year) and ours is the strongest marriage I know of, barring my grandparents.
> 
> I've seen -a lot- of people on my Facebook feed (and yeah, some of them I'm actually friends with!) who met their spouse between 18-20 and were married within a couple years. (...some of these didn't last, or were probably because of children coming, but... I'm also not the only person I know who still has a strong relationship with the person they met in high school.)


My parents were both just out of high school when they got married. My mom was 18. Their marriage lasted until my dad died at 65. It was always a source of pride for her to say that she moved out of her parents' house and into a house with my dad right after their wedding.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I feel sorry for parents who think that they can effectively forbid dating at this age.
> 
> /derail


There are some family structures in which the parents' views and opinions are respected by the children regardless of age. Many of these families are not religious and many of the children do not feel oppressed or stifled.

Of course everyone's mileage may vary.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

ProserpinaPress said:


> Re: the meeting your spouse at 18 and marrying a couple years later...
> 
> I came from a middle class family, and met my husband when I was 16 and we dated mostly on and the occasional off through college and married a few months after I graduated. I was just turned 22 then (I'll be 25 this year) and ours is the strongest marriage I know of, barring my grandparents.
> 
> ...


I met my husband when I was 21. I've been with him almost 33 years. My best friend met her husband at 17 and married him at 19. 
But it's not common, especially among people who are 18 NOW. Married in college? No. Very rare.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

LBrent said:


> There are some family structures in which the parents' views and opinions are respected by the children regardless of age. Many of these families are not religious and many of the children do not feel oppressed or stifled.
> 
> Of course everyone's mileage may vary.


respect =/= obey

By the time kids are 17-18, to be honest you'd want them to respectfully DISobey some rules, because they're learning to be themselves. The instinct to date in that age group is very strong. If they fall in love, they WILL date, and any parent who believes their stories about "just going to a friend" is having the wool pulled over their eyes.

All this can be done very respectfully, without major upsets, and in a loving family relationship. Respect in teenage children is not about obeying.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Jennifer Lewis said:


> I think a lot of kids plan to wait until marriage so the idea is not as outlandish as you may think. In the situation you've set up they could have the example of their mother telling them how very hard it was trying to raise the first daughter alone as an unwed teen dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, and that alone could be their reason to wait until they're in a committed relationship to have sex.


This discussion has been very useful cos what I'm getting from it is a strong opposition to waiting till MARRIAGE.

However waiting for other reasons seems acceptable. You suggested:

"wait until they're in a committed relationship to have sex."

I think that would fly. I could make it as I suggested earlier that their parents raised them to WAIT UNTIL THEY WERE SURE THEY WERE IN LOVE, AND THAT THE GUY LOVED THEM BACK. OR IS THAT UNREALISTIC TOO?

Moist Tissue suggested:

"Maybe another sister was shy and awkward, so she never had a boyfriend until she was in her late teens."

Yes, actually my first heroine was considered a nerd and never had a boyfriend till she met the hero at 18.

No one so far has commented on what I suggested as a possibility: that the 2 younger sisters are half indian, and they were all raised by an Indian father as well as their American mom.

So you guys don't think that would work to explain why they wait? I have heard that Asians who grow up in the US adopt American values and mores, so perhaps it's unrealistic to say they waited cos they're half indian.

Oh I see there are now many more replies and people have been discussing making the characters indian. Will read and comment. For now, as I said, characters that are totally indian don't do as well. so many people praised my first novel, said it was so funny and charming and a great look at india&#8230;but I still sell poorly. It has by now I think 70 or 80 4 and 5 star reviews on amazon, but still&#8230;


----------



## corrieg (Dec 6, 2012)

I really want to write a post saying (as others have already): Those shows aren't real! Lots of girls wait!
Which is true, lots of girls do... But sadly your scenario would seem out of place without a religious or cultural reason for it. I happen to be one of three sisters who all waited and married in our early twenties (I was the youngest, at 20) - but we're a religious family. (Though not fringe, I don't think,at least in the south which tends to be more religious in general.)
Now I live in Los Angeles and I still know lots of girls who're waiting but it does seem to be related to conservative cultures (Armenians, Indians, etc.)
Anyway, I second the people who've encouraged you to write them as having the Indian cultural influence going on through the dad/step-dad character.

You could do the whole, "waiting for Mr. special" route, but a lot of those girls start having sex when they're "sure" or when they're engaged... Not when they're married.


----------



## Greer (Sep 24, 2011)

I wouldn't buy it. Not that three teenage sisters haven't had sex yet, but that all three of them have decided to wait until marriage. Could you not just have them not have sex without specifying that they're waiting?


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Just remember: three sisters all waiting for marriage before having sex? Unbelievable. Reanimated corpses walking the earth attacking the living and eating their brains? Believable.


----------



## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

If I remember Twilight correctly, the heroine of that paranormal romance didn't have sex until marriage.

I don't think you even need to address it, if you don't want to. Unless it's a plot point that they don't have sex. 

The girls could just not feel ready, not feel interested, not want it from whatever guy is around.

If it's irrelevant to the plot, you could just leave that out, and the reader could assume that maybe sex is happening between the scenes, if they want to imagine that.

However, if your intent is not merely entertainment, and you are hoping to influence a teen audience with a particular viewpoint, and affect their lives outside of the books... that's different.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Vidya said:


> This discussion has been very useful cos what I'm getting from it is a strong opposition to waiting till MARRIAGE.
> 
> However waiting for other reasons seems acceptable. You suggested:
> 
> ...


First and foremost: there are lots of reasons why your first novel doesn't do well. I think it would be a huge mistake to assume that it is because the characters are Indian. I really wish that people would stop assign self-blame like this, because it's BS. As Russel Blake said: most novels don't sell. End. Of. Most importantly: does it have any sequels and have you done any marketing recently?

About the sex: is the waiting an import part? A pact between the sisters could possibly work, but it will also depend on how much the sisters are tempted. They might be scared, they might be shy. They might have overbearing parents.

One sister, I could buy, but all three will need a bit of explanation and framing. Culture could do that. Religion could do that. Or something else.


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Greer said:


> I wouldn't buy it. Not that three teenage sisters haven't had sex yet, but that all three of them have decided to wait until marriage. Could you not just have them not have sex without specifying that they're waiting?


Agreeing with this.


----------



## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

telracs said:


> Only Christians wait until marriage?
> 
> That's a a bit of a surprise to this former Orthodox Jew and most of my Jewish friends....


Not only Christians, no. I mentioned Christians because the OP said he didn't want them to be Christians.


----------



## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

You could invent a species of creature that lives in their neither regions, warding off those who come near them.

e.g.:

_He pushes me up against the wall.

"No," I say. "Please, no."

He looks at me with earnest eyes. Wisps of hair fall around his face.

"You don't want this?" he says.

"Oh, I do," I reply. "God, I do."

He leans forward, kisses me passionately.

"Then what?" he says. "What is it?"

He slides down my panties and I don't stop him. I'm in the moment. I'm excited, scared.

Then he sees it.

"What the hell is that?" he says. He backs away, scared and confused.

A vine whips out at him and strikes him in the stomach. It pushes in until the skin breaks, forcing its way through with crooked thorns. He falls backwards, bleeding, and looks at me with pleading eyes.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I tried to warn you. There are vines in my bush."

He collapses._


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

I have the perfect explanation: vagina dentata!


----------



## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

S. Elliot Brandis said:


> You could invent a species of creature that lives in their neither regions, warding off those who come near them.
> 
> e.g.:
> 
> ...


This brings to mind the movie TEETH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE

This could totally solve the problem...


----------



## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

M. Prawnypants said:


> If I remember Twilight correctly, the heroine of that paranormal romance didn't have sex until marriage.
> 
> I don't think you even need to address it, if you don't want to. Unless it's a plot point that they don't have sex.


This. I honestly wouldn't sweat it. But if you feel you have to give a reason, just pick one. A sisterly pact, one of the sisters had a bad experience that affected the others... There could be many reasons. Personally, I'd like a book that embraces the culture of the author and/or MCs. The sisters being Indian would actually make a good selling point, IMO. People are intrigued by cultures different from their own.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

corriegarrett said:


> You could do the whole, "waiting for Mr. special" route, but a lot of those girls start having sex when they're "sure" or when they're engaged... Not when they're married.


YES. To get beyond when they're engaged, they have to have a reason.


----------



## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I know a few girls in their early 20s who are waiting.  They are attractive and confident and totally willing to wait for a guy who isn't a tool.  I think it can show a great deal of self-esteem to hold off until it's worth your while.

But yeah, after engagement, the reasons have to be stronger.

Also, if the girls had an older brother/male cousin etc who is a real playboy creep type and talks with a lot of disrespect about the women he's slept with, that could make them more determined not to 

I think the sisterly pact would make a great novel but I'd want it to be the focus of the novel with some really high stakes for breaking the pact.  I guess the way you write it depends on whether you want it to be about them not having sex, which might make it more of a coming of age story rather than romance or if you want it to be a romance with the sex thing in the background.


----------



## ingridash (Feb 4, 2014)

Maybe their mother had them way too young or something and they want to avoid that?



dotx said:


> Unless they're Christian, I'm not buying it. Maybe one of the sisters wanting to wait, ok. But all three without any religious reasons behind it? Not buying it.
> 
> Also, note that if you DO make them Christian, then you're going to lose a big part of your readership. I don't read anything that mentions religion (Christian characters annoy me more than other religions, though, probably because of the way they're portrayed.) I'm sure I'm not the only one.


Lol. There's always a special snowflake comment like this in the bunch 

You might lose readers by mentioning that they're Christian -- but guess what? You also GAIN readers. The vast majority of American's are Christian and Christian books are pretty popular, so I wouldn't worry too much about that hurting your sales. Religion might not have been mentioned in Twilight but it heavily influenced the text, and look how popular THAT became.


----------



## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

Davesworld's response is well thought-out and excellent. Conflict is what makes a good novel.

You may as well forget about writing a book that doesn't offend some group or another, even within your targeted genre. Ain't gonna happen.

Write the book *you* want.

Listen - you don't need sex scenes. If sex isn't part of the story, you are *not* obliged to include it. You are *only* obliged to be true to your story. To that, you *must* be true! Otherwise you *will* be exposed in your reviews!

It's perfectly acceptable to have these young people involved in romantic scenes that do not include sex, and you don't need to apologize for it. If you want, you can make vague inferences about couples that some readers will take as meaning the characters might be sexually involved, without directly addressing it. But you don't have to. Be true to your story.

Oh - and I like the idea of them being half-Indian. Seems like they will be more interesting characters.


----------



## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

They could do it just because. I went to school with a very small amount of girls like that... maybe 2 or 3, that REFUSED to have sex unless they were 3000% sure the guy was "worthy" of them. Props to them, not many girls have that type of resilience anymore. 

Sent from my SM-T210R using Tapatalk


----------



## Nebula (May 29, 2013)

Forget about being Indian or America or christian or religious or whatever, if you want them to be waiting till marriage you just need a good reason that the readers can buy.

First all three of them cannot have the same reasons, there could be a common factor like say their mother's bad choices, sex addition, sexual relationship with predatory men that turn them off love and relationship at an early age, 
or one of them has been or almost was a victim of sexual abuse, 
or one of them was planning to do it with a boyfriend who died before they could, 
or one of them is a nerdy, advanced student, genius type, who's more into her books than guys,
or one of them has been in love with this guy all her life who doesn't even notice her, and she cant imagine being with someone else,
or one of them was dumped by a guy who was supposed to love her but left her for another girl just because she wasn't ready, and now she's convinced all guys are a**holes etc.

or you could just not mention it as a 'thing' for each sister, let their not having had sex before be secondary to the unfolding love story.

PS Waiting (for marriage, love etc.) is not as rare as popular culture would have you believe, and it's not limited to religious people either. That being said, you may want to add secondary characters who are likable, nice and sexually active, so it doesn't seem like your book is saying 'nice girls don't have sex, and only sluts do'


----------



## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Why is this whole sex thing important? You can fix this by ignoring the issue entirely.

I don't mind reading about characters who choose not to have sex. in fact I don't care. With vampires and werewolves and the like, it is very possible for three sisters not to have sex.  Please don't make them not have sex because of some lame child abuse backstory. That would be insulting to virgins everywhere. 

However, I do mind if the characters go around broadcasting their virginity oaths. It's overbearing and silly.  It encourages a certain mischievous thought, "Of course you're happy to be a virgin. No one wants you." 

If you don't want them to have sex , then don't make them.  Just don't make them panting and lusting on every page, making the issue of sex foremost on the reader's minds. Make the reader focus on something else.

Look at Pride and Prejudice.  You won't meet very many readers who think a sex scene would have made the story more perfect. 

Your work can't be all things to everybody.  For those who think your girls unrealistic for waiting, there are many more who would cheer their commitment in face of a sex-obsessed culture.  Decide who you want to be, whom you want to please, and forget about everything else. Just don't go back and complain that your choices aren't making you money.


----------



## J. R. Blaisy (Feb 4, 2014)

DavesWorld said:


> IMO, a really good technique for any kind of 'problem' with a character's decisions, motivations, reasons, thinking (etc...) is for all the back and forth you're agonizing over to end up on the page. To be more clear, you're sitting here pondering your characters and your story, right? You've got things you want your characters to do, and you're trying to figure out how to shape your story so the things you want happening seem organic, natural, and proper within the story. Take all the mental gymnastics you're turning over about why it should be that way, why it shouldn't be that way, reasons for one way or another, and put all of it into the story.


Yes, you need to write _about _the 'problem', not try to get round it. Oh right, or just ignore it... but if it's a romance that might be difficult. [Edited for sarcasm - sorry.]


----------



## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

My young adult trilogy doesn't have any sex in it at all. Sure, they kiss and stuff, but there is no sex. Why? It didn't fit the characters.
Sex doesn't need to be a huge thing, when you're a teen even kissing and holding hands can be enough. Some people are just like that, they don't need a reason.

If you don't really want to address the issue, don't talk about it. Make them happy with a kiss or a hug. Not all kisses and hugs need to lead somewhere and not all the guys will try to push them into more.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I haven't finished reading all the responses, and may be all wrong, but here is what popped into my head:

Sister #1 (the white stepsister):  mother talked to her about having her at age 18, without being married, how hard it was to be alone, scared, worried, outcast from family, whatever, or a combination of reasons (people are often very layered). Sister #1 decided that it would be best to wait until she found the right guy, and made the commitment of marriage.

Sister #2:  also got the talk, and later had a friend who didn't wait, got dumped and humiliated by a boy, so she talked with Sister #1, and decided to wait. Maybe she's very "bookish", and has dreams of going to college and being a doctor, or engineer, or astronaut. 

Sister #3:  watched older sisters, whom she idolizes (especially #1), listened to mother's story, and doesn't really like boys anyway -- lots of girls aren't really interested until later, I know I wasn't.

Maybe one or both of the half-Indian girls can have issues with their mixed ethnic background, and feel that boys won't like them -- this would work if the family is in the US, and especially if they are in an area where there aren't many people from India.

You can also bring in the father's cultural upbringing, having him explain why he wants the girls to wait. There's no reason to have only one influence, or that all the girls have to have the same reasons.


----------



## J. R. Blaisy (Feb 4, 2014)

I like #66 above. Perhaps you should forget the paranormal element!


----------



## Jennifer Lewis (Dec 12, 2013)

I think having them want to wait to meet the right person is a perfectly good reason. And there's no reason to keep bringing the issue up if there are other things happening in the story. I'm sure teenagers have other stuff on their minds than sex. Right? (Mine are 12 and 15, so I hope so&#8230;.)

Also, you haven't mentioned what the paranormal element will be and that could be a factor. I wrote a book where the heroine was a psychic and had always been told she'd lose her powers once she had sex.

As you can see people have very strong feelings on this virginity issue! There are certainly plenty of people out there who really want to read about people who are committed to remaining "chaste." Check out the one star reviews of my book *The Maverick's Virgin Mistress* on Amazon! The book features a 26 year old heroine who remained a virgin due to a conservative family and an overprotective brother, and now she's ready to explore her sexuality and OMG a couple of people were very upset by that, LOL. No matter what you do you will annoy someone, so just do what works for you.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> respect =/= obey
> 
> By the time kids are 17-18, to be honest you'd want them to respectfully DISobey some rules, because they're learning to be themselves. The instinct to date in that age group is very strong. If they fall in love, they WILL date, and any parent who believes their stories about "just going to a friend" is having the wool pulled over their eyes.
> 
> All this can be done very respectfully, without major upsets, and in a loving family relationship. Respect in teenage children is not about obeying.


This may very well be true for you in your culture, religion, opinion, but please know that it is not necessarily true for others.

There are cultures, religions and opinions in which your views would be considered the odd views and their views are the norm. There are cultures, religions, etc where lying to a parent would be considered shameful not simply bypassing them to do something that isn't within the accepted behaviour of that culture.

Not every culture sees bypassing parents as cute, normal or an accepted part of maturation. Some children actually embrace the limits from parents as loving and don't look for ways to undermine them.

I think it simply depends on which cultural structure is familiar to someone for them to understand/believe that it is possible, no?


----------



## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this answer has been provided before.  Education is the answer, it's acceptable and in fact encourage in many Asian countries that a lady should complete her degree before marrying. I know some ladies that refuse to date anyone until their degree is completed. You can stretch this out by having your characters doing doctorates and the like. 

An Indian family reading that would nod in agreement. That goes for most Asian countries too.


----------



## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

Wild Rivers said:


> How would a dead man know?


A dead man wouldn't. But the executor of his will, in keeping with the will's instructions, could require medical certification. In my hypothetical situation.


----------



## MonaM (Jan 13, 2014)

M. Prawnypants said:


> If I remember Twilight correctly, the heroine of that paranormal romance didn't have sex until marriage.
> 
> I don't think you even need to address it, if you don't want to. Unless it's a plot point that they don't have sex.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I don't think anyone's necessarily going to read a book with three teen girl protagonists and have 'BUT WHY AREN'T THEY HAVING SEX YET' going through their minds unless you underline it.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

The waiting for marriage thing, outside a cultural or religious context, isn't believable. In fact, I think it's reckless and ill-advised, is inherently sexist (treating a girl's virginity as some sort of prize and virtue) and is the opposite of the advice I've given my daughter. Live with the person first, make sure you're compatible, ignore the old-fashioned mores about love and marriage, because those applied when the ultimate goal for women was marriage and housekeeping, and you were expected to just accept whatever you got, like it or not. 

Just have them waiting for something, not necessarily marriage. It's okay for someone to just not be ready for sex for whatever reason. Teenagers, especially. Just take the focus off sex as much as you can, and I'm not sure why anyone would question it.


----------



## A Tiger (Aug 29, 2013)

That's complicated. I knew once a Muslim woman, with the veil and stuff, and she had 2 daughters, and they were very beautiful, like top models. They used no veils, had no intention of following the Islamic culture, their clothes were always revealing, and they were outspoken about not waiting till marriage. I guess their peers' culture had more influence on them than their family's.
What I mean is that this will always be a subjective thing. As other people have already said, make *each* one of them have their reasons for waiting, something believable at an individual level. Just a wide cultural blanket won't do.
By the way, I don't know why an Indian story wouldn't be appealing? For me it would, as long as it felt "real" - which holds true to any story, for me.


----------



## PC Donan (Feb 15, 2014)

Easy, use the Bollywood method. I'm an American (Filipino ancestry) and I have a confession to make: I like watching Bollywood movies. If it works for the movies, it should work in your YA books. Transfer the cultural subtleties of "accidentally brushing hands" or "holding hands when no one is watching" into beautiful prose and you can create magic without sex.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

TK aka BB and Dave's World, Exactly my point. Thank you.

John Hughes' movies always showed high schoolers living very adult lives, very rarely showed parents and everyone lived in these incredible houses and drove cars regardless of their financial background. 

It was all fun and interesting, but very unrealistic.

I think movies and TV shows like that trickled to other countries and it became the expectation of what American families were like.

Heck, even we Americans began to believe it. Lol


----------



## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Plot twist.
The three men that the three sisters meet insist on waiting until marriage.

(That actually happened to me. I was too young and stupid to realise that it was a trap. I was raised strictly Catholic and although he wasn't religious at all, his idea seemed reasonable (although intensely frustrating) at the time. But I wish someone had said to me - no! Go out and live and explore and get to know yourself first.)


----------



## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

caveat - I only read the OP and not even all of it

Well, I didn't wait until we were married, but I was 18 and we were engaged (we'll be married 25 years come March). I'm pretty sure my 22 year old niece is still a virgin -- and she's pretty and smart. I do not expect sex in a YA, so I don't know why you have to give a reason for no sex unless you're trying to crusade. Or are you trying to sex up the book without having them go all the way. I wouldn't necessarily do that. Although didn't TWILIGHT have no sex until they were married?


----------



## Greer (Sep 24, 2011)

Christa Wick said:


> caveat - I only read the OP and not even all of it
> 
> Well, I didn't wait until we were married, but I was 18 and we were engaged (we'll be married 25 years come March). I'm pretty sure my 22 year old niece is still a virgin -- and she's pretty and smart. I do not expect sex in a YA, so I don't know why you have to give a reason for no sex unless you're trying to crusade. Or are you trying to sex up the book without having them go all the way. I wouldn't necessarily do that. Although didn't TWILIGHT have no sex until they were married?


Twilight had no sex until they were married because Stephenie Meyer is religious. Mormon, I think. But in the story, the deal was that Bella wanted Edward to turn her, and make love with her. But he wouldn't turn her until they were married, and he didn't want to make love with her until she was turned, because he was afraid he would kill her in the throes of his vampire lust for her blood.


----------



## Nicholas Andrews (Sep 8, 2011)

One thing you could do that came to mind is make it that the reason the sisters won't have sex until marriage is that they have a fear of it, and use "not until marriage" as an excuse to avoid it. Maybe the fear was instilled in them at a young age by a strict relative or schoolteacher, and they don't even know the real reason why they aren't throwing down like the other girls they know.

But yes, there still are a lot of young people who do abstain, for religious and non-religious reasons. Don't look at prime time TV and think that those teenagers (played by 30-year-olds) are necessarily a blanket prototype for every average teen out there. Abstinence isn't as newsworthy as teen pregnancy, and no sex isn't as dramatic as being a slut/manwhore. It is true that things have gotten more casual as far as attitudes about sex and living together in recent decades, but then again when your nation was founded by puritans it's hard for it not to.


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## Heather Hamilton-Senter (May 25, 2013)

Well, sorry, I'm a bit surprised at the number of people who think it's impossible for three sisters to abstain. I know many young people who have waited till marriage - some for religious reasons and some for not - pregnancy and disease being a big factor for some. But this is a YA novel, except for some contemporary YA, I rarely run across sex in YA. In fact, if it's YA fantasy we're talking about (but I don't think the OP was), I don't think I've ever read a book that had it (I'm sure there were some, just not any of the many I read.)

Don't make a big deal about it, make them real characters with real motivations, and it should work just fine.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Greer said:


> Twilight had no sex until they were married because Stephenie Meyer is religious. Mormon, I think. But in the story, the deal was that Bella wanted Edward to turn her, and make love with her. But he wouldn't turn her until they were married, and he didn't want to make love with her until she was turned, because he was afraid he would kill her in the throes of his vampire lust for her blood.


Ah, interesting way to handle it. Well done, SM.


----------



## Heather Hamilton-Senter (May 25, 2013)

Yes, SM is Mormon - same as me. Of interesting note, there was actually a great deal of criticism about the book in my local church community because of how badly the main character did want to have sex with Edward! Which I suppose tells you a lot about us  

But the point is that regardless of what you think of her, SM created characters with real intentions and motivations - to make a character believable doesn't mean making them generic. America is filled with diverse people and cultures, beliefs and behaviors - be true to that and readers will believe.


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Stupid question: what does prom have to do with sex? 

I never went to prom.  I'm not even sure my high school had prom.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Heather Lori Harding said:


> But the point is that regardless of what you think of her, SM created characters with real intentions and motivations - to make a character believable doesn't mean making them generic. America is filled with diverse people and cultures, beliefs and behaviors - be true to that and readers will believe.


This is an excellent point. Millions of adults in the US abstain. While it may not be the majority, the percentages have not changed that drastically since the 1950's and 1960's. However, readers WILL buy even very uncommon parts of a plot if presented in a believable way, with believable motivations.


----------



## Kay Bratt (Dec 28, 2011)

Vidya said:


> An indian family won't appeal enough to the mainstream audience.


A matter of opinion, not fact. I was told that once about my Asian-inspired fiction. Books one and two of my new series (all Chinese characters) have been in the top 50 of all of Amazon. So write the characters the way the story tells it to you, not how you think mainstream audience will prefer them.


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

TK aka BB said:


> It is a cliche that many girls lose their virginity after the prom. Everyone's dressed up. There's an expensive dinner, a limo, and dancing. It's the last fling in high school. There's often alcohol involved, even though most states (all?) set the drinking age at 21. Everyone feels very grown up.
> 
> I'll bet that a certain percentage of girls do lose it on prom night. I'll bet that the percent is smaller than would be anticipated.
> 
> TK aka BB


Thank you. Much appreciated.

For the record, I lost my virginity at 16 but not to anyone I went to school with.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Vidya,

A couple thoughts from my end and I hope they can be of some help.

First, I see that you are judging the behavior of American teens through the examples set by characters in entertainment, not by actual people.

I say this because you wrote: "From what I see on TV shows like Switched at Birth, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and others, even Christian teens don't always wait until marriage."

Please keep in mind that the behavior of characters on TV shows, in movies, and in novels, is hardly ever reflective of how most people live.

Especially with teens. Teens, both male and female, tend to talk a bigger game than they actually live out via their behavior.

There are always kids who are "active" early in life, but they tend to be the minority. And in the space of a single year of high school, a teen can go from looking down their nose at a classmate who has become sexually active, to lying about being sexually active themselves because it's become part of maintaining an image among their peers.

The numbers rise, but one must keep in mind that such things rely on teens self-reporting their own behavior, and many might be motivated to exaggerate in order to seem cool. Others might just think the whole survey is embarrassing, or a big joke, and therefore put down exaggerated claims, as well.

Am I saying all teens are secretly virgins? Not even remotely am I suggesting that. What I am saying is that you can't look at American TV shows, see that all the teens on that show are sexually active the first time they get five minutes alone with someone, and extrapolate that as "true of all American teens." You also can't assume virginity on that basis, either.

The only goal I have here is to suggest you bring some critical thinking to bear on your observations. Fictional teens and actual teens often behave very differently.

Now, from a storytelling point of view, you might feel like having three girls remain virgins wanting to "wait until marriage" to be a tad unbelievable... but here is a recent study:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html

According to this recent study (however reliable it may be), only 61 percent of 18-year-olds reported no longer being virgins by that age. And at age 15, that percentage was only 16 percent. That's the typical range of age for high-schoolers by the end of a given school year.

16 percent sexually active by age 15 means 84 percent who are not.

61 percent sexually active (a lot of them on Homecoming or Prom night) by the age of 18 still means 39 percent are still choosing to wait. That's four out of 10 who graduate high school still being virgins.

And since, statistically, guys tend to become sexually active a bit younger than girls, among females the rate of virginity at 18 could be a bit higher than 4 out of 10. Maybe as much as 5 or 6 out of 10?

And there's this, from the same report:



> Teens are waiting longer to have sex than they did in the recent past. In 2006-2008, some 11% of never-married females aged 15-19 and 14% of never-married males in that age-group had had sex before age 15, compared with 19% and 21%, respectively, in 1995.


So the rate of abstinence is a lot higher than you see on American sitcoms and dramas featuring teen characters.

If you factor out those children who count themselves as sexually active because of molestation and/or sexual abuse by adults, I'd be willing to bet the figures would be even lower.

Now, these are just statistics, which isn't interesting at all from a "telling a story" point of view.

If you want to have three female characters under the age of 18 who are "waiting for marriage," I think if they were all "waiting" for the same reasons, that'd be boring, certainly.

But to make it both believable and interesting for the readers, what could be fun is having each of the characters making the same choice for very different reasons is the best way to go.

There are all sorts of reasons a person might not want to become sexually active prior to marriage.

One path is "romantic notions of love and marriage." That they simply want their husband to be their first.

Another path, as you indicated, is the religious path. They think it's better as a moral choice.

Yet another path is intimacy avoidance/fear of betrayal. Maybe someone was abused by an adult at a young age and they simply have been turned off to sexual intimacy. While they may not be technically virgins, some victims of molestation will choose to abstain in reaction to their abuse. (The opposite effect, embracing extreme sexual freedom, is another possible response.)

Another idea is poor self-image or insecurity. It's quite common for both boys and girls at that age to see themselves as undesirable, since many kids end up comparing themselves to others they see as more desirable than they see themselves as being.

There are many other paths one could come up with, as well, but you can certainly find three different reasons to differentiate your characters, at the bare minimum.

As for the is this believable factor, the statistics say that it is.

Keep in mind, though, that even at 15, while perhaps only 16 percent of kids actually are sexually active, a much higher percentage might CLAIM to be among their peers. False claims (bragging) of sexual activity tends to be more-common at an earlier age among males than females.

You'd have to talk to some American females to find out at what age it become perceived as "cool" to be sexually active, and thus make false claims.

Boys seem to take to that no later than age 14 and these days probably even younger.

But I'm willing to bet there's still a difference between what a teen will claim to their peers, and what they've actually done.


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

When I was in high school, my best friend told everyone I had lost my virginity.  No, i hadn't.  
I did not correct her because it cut down on the guys asking me out.
I lost my virginity the next summer.
So like Craig said, you can't go by what teenagers say.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> When I was in high school, my best friend told everyone I had lost my virginity. No, i hadn't.
> I did not correct her because it cut down on the guys asking me out.
> I lost my virginity the next summer.
> So like Craig said, you can't go by what teenagers say.


This is true. When I was in high school (1976-1979) there was a bit of a movement toward being less sexually active. I had several friends who made the conscious decision not to have sex, even though they weren't virgins. I was, until I was 24 years old. I actually refused to have sex on numerous occasions, including once at age 20 being invited to a girlfriend's house while her parents were away, only to find her nude in the swimming pool and asking me in to join her. I turned around and scrammed out of there as fast as I could! Unfortunately for her, she broke up with me the next day.

Then as time went on and I remained a virgin, the more difficult relationships with women became. I basically developed a complex about it, worried that if I ever attempted sexual intimacy I'd be laughed at for being in my mid-20's and completely inexperienced. Losing my virginity to a professional was, without a doubt, the best decision I'd ever made about that part of my life. She was amazingly terrific, understanding, and a very helpful teacher. She allowed me to actually develop much more normal relationships with women.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

I just watched The Big Bang Theory on TV.

Funny show, but they are all in their mid to late 20s and most are extremely sexually inexperienced and at least one of the main characters, possibly two, are definitely virgins.

The reasoning behind that is partially because by being so intelligent and focused on academia and being socially stunted and awkward.

It made me laugh thinking about this thread while watching that show. Lol


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

LBrent said:


> It made me laugh thinking about this thread while watching that show. Lol


I've never seen the show before, but I find it ridiculously amazing that actor Jim Parsons (Sheldon) is in his 40's.


----------



## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I'm really surprised at how many people say that it's unbelievable that someone would "wait" if they didn't have a religious or cultural reason. I was just reading some studies the other day that indicated the opposite: that the more "moral" restrictions in the culture, the more young people _don't_ wait.

Of course, for many people, it's not a matter of waiting at all. Or at least, not waiting to have sex. They may well be career driven, and are waiting on everything relating to a personal life. They may not feel ready to get close yet. Or they may be perfectly willing but they haven't met someone that interests them yet. Or they met someone who insists on waiting. There are millions of reasons, and each kid will be different. And... it depends a whole lot on the pressures put on them.

Here's the question: why does this matter?

As someone way up thread said: this doesn't have to come up. If it isn't a part of your reason for writing the story, then it shouldn't come up.

If it _is_ a part of your reason for writing the story, then it has to come from you. It can't be about the "average" young woman -- that's the death of a story. It is about three specific young women, and they will respond as they would, not as 73.8 percent of teens do.

It's your story, you created the characters. You've got to go with what feels right to you. You can't let other people saying "that's not believable" stop you, because that's just a prejudice. People are not all alike. Families are not all alike. And sometimes the difference is that three sisters all respond to the idea of sex and romance the same way. (Not all sisters try to break away from each other or from their parent's values.)

But to reiterate: if your story isn't about the concept of waiting for marriage (or at least strongly served by it) then don't bring it up. Let your characters be who they are.

Camille


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

GearPress Steve said:


> I've never seen the show before, but I find it ridiculously amazing that actor Jim Parsons (Sheldon) is in his 40's.


I know, right? Love him.

The Shamy ship is my favorite!


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

LBrent said:


> I know, right? Love him.
> 
> The Shamy ship is my favorite!


Sorry, my daughters watch it so I'm sure they'd get the reference, but it went over my head.

I'm a bit behind on TV shows. I'm just now binging on _Dexter_.


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

GearPress Steve said:


> Sorry, my daughters watch it so I'm sure they'd get the reference, but it went over my head.
> 
> I'm a bit behind on TV shows. I'm just now binging on _Dexter_.


Sheldon + Amy = ShAmy.


----------



## Melisse (Jun 3, 2012)

It is easy for me to see highschool kids not having sex--especially high achieving kids with heavy class loads and lots of after school activities. Not a lot of unsupervised time down by Makeout lane.

When I was in high school every Friday night was  every teen in town cruising the 'strip', flirting in parking lots, chasing others around town. There were keggers out of town a ways, the cliffs where couple would go to make out. Know several rushed marriages due to pregnancies. "Oh, he would marry you if you got pregnant." Was a high opinion on a friend's boyfriend. If he wouldn't do the decent thing, then he was trouble.

Not like that now!

In contrast my teens and their friends never cruised on Friday night. City cops don't allow it. They went to gamer places and coffee houses. There is  a lot of teen drinking where we live, but among the crowd our kids ran with the parents weren't tolerant so there was little.

But there also have been no young marriages.  I don't really expect marriages until mid twenties at the earliest. I doubt these kids will remain virgins though college until they are 26 or 27 or older.


----------



## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

You could do like a Virgin Suicides thing. They're home schooled by a controlling and partially psychotic parent whose scared the hell out of them about their own sexuality so they all kill themselves. But then they probably won't end up getting married.


----------



## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

I don't have anything to add- but this was a great thread!!! Great responses!


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

SunshineOnMe said:


> I don't have anything to add- but this was a great thread!!! Great responses!


Almost as good as a font thread!


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> As western-values-educated sisters, without a strong religious base, it's just not gonna fly that *all three* of them wait.


I'm afraid I have to disagree politely with you, Patty. As mentioned in my post to the OP, 4 out of 10 teens report not being sexually active by the time they graduate high school, in that study I found.

Four out of 10 at least, and possibly more among females, since there was not a gender breakdown on that figure.

And religion doesn't necessarily have much to do with it.

These days, there are plenty of other reasons to wait.

For example: STDs is a huge reason; avoiding pregnancy is another, especially with shows like Teen Mom on MTV, which shows how bad a decision it can be.

Sure, it goes from 16 percent active to 61 percent active from the beginning of high school until the end of it, but that's still a lot of kids choosing not to jump-start their sex lives at that point. Certainly plenty of room in that 39 percent to account for three girls from the same family choosing to wait. In some families, the pull of family values versus peer values does win out in the end, though they may make false claims to "fit in."

So, even without a religious basis, I think a good number of kids can still make the choice to wait.

I mean, unless you somehow think that all so-called "Christian kids" are perfect little abstainers and all "non-Christian kids" are tiny little sex machines.... which I would dispute.

First of all, I knew a few "love their Bible" kids in high school and not only was one of them sexually active before graduation, when we were hanging out, outside of school, he'd tell me about his conquests and how he used his spirituality to... conquer, I guess?

Some of his claims may have been the bragging of an older kid trying to impress a younger kid... he was a couple years ahead of me in school... but it couldn't have all been bragging because his parents sent him to a Bible college and he was kicked out before finishing his freshman year... because he got the university president's daughter pregnant.

So, religion is no guarantor of chastity, and a lack of religion is by no means something that guarantees a kid is going to do the horizontal bop at the very first opportunity, either.

And I say this as someone who has a spiritual background of my own, not as some cynic who thinks all religion is hogwash.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

TK aka BB said:


> I think Raj is, too. Has he had a serious relationship with a woman? In India, premarital sexual activity is _much _lower than the US, and it's entirely conceivable that he came here a virgin ... Has he ever had a relationship on the show that might have been sexual? [/threadhijack]
> 
> TK aka BB


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

It seems like a lot of people are getting hung up on the high school thing. The question isn't high school or not having sex with all your partners. That's easy stuff. It's waiting specifically for marriage. Having someone meet Mr. or Ms. Right, be totally in love, feel like they've met the right person, and then still wait for an artificial event like marriage is what strikes me as a pretty tough sell to the mainstream.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

In terms of believable ages, BTW...

I had opportunities to make different choices, and... I was 39 (weeks away from 40) when I married my wife, and I waited. (Quite a bit longer than I expected, too... I'd have freaked as a teen and/or college student if someone had told me how long I'd be waiting...)

Yes, I found it worth the wait: My wife trusts me. 

Oh, and there was a side-benefit I never expected...

About a year into our marriage my wife and I bumped into someone I'd had a brief and mild flirtation with about 10 years prior, and the woman (also married by then) praised me to my wife as someone who'd been "respectful, and a gentlemen" as a single man.

Can't underestimate the value of a good report like that, when you're new in your marriage. And if I had been more typical of guys my age at the time I knew that other gal (when I was about 29), imagine how awkward that same meeting could have been....


----------



## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

Rosalind James said:


> To me, the least realistic thing here is that they meet the love of their lives at 18 and marry him within a year or two. That really doesn't happen in the U.S., not among higher-socioeconomic-status groups (unless they're Mormon). You might check out the average age of marriage.
> 
> Maybe better off to do a "Happy for Now" sort of thing, more common in NA fiction I believe, since people know that women don't marry at 18 or 19.


Don't they?  Met the love of my life at 19 and I had just turned 20 when we married and we are just coming up to our silver wedding anniversary this year, so it can happen


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

TK aka BB said:


> [threadhijack] And I think it's *not *2 virgins on TBBT out of the 8 cast members. I think it's *3*. Amy and Sheldon, definitely. I think Raj is, too. Has he had a serious relationship with a woman? In India, premarital sexual activity is _much _lower than the US, and it's entirely conceivable that he came here a virgin. Without TMI, my DH assures me that it's _absolutely _possible that a 22-year-old male academic high-achiever would arrive in the US for grad school as a virgin. Then Raj had the selective mutism problem, which was just resolved this season. Has he ever had a relationship on the show that might have been sexual? We know that he _didn't _complete the process with Penny. [/threadhijack]
> 
> TK aka BB


True.

And Raj clearly wants to be sexually active.

Amy was ambivalent until meeting Sheldon.

Sheldon couldn't have cared less and fought any attempts by Amy to explore even mild intimacy...until recently...when he got a clue. [eyebrow waggle]

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=0E8DdMwcZ2Y


----------



## lmckinley (Oct 3, 2012)

What is believable in your story is what you can convince the reader to believe. I am Christian and like to write Christian fiction, have written characters who choose to wait, and I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing. There's a lot of pressure, (real and perceived), so I think characters need a good reason, but the reasons can and should flow out of the character's personality. A romantic girl who believes waiting is romantic is perfectly believable, if you have consistently portrayed her that way throughout. Ditto for a bold, independent girl who hates to follow the crowd, and wants to be different, or a girl who is insecure about herself, and is just happy that someone is in love with her. There are practical external reasons too. In a long distance relationship, there wouldn't be a lot of opportunity.

I think over all beliefs about relationships go far towards determining what people do. If your characters believe in true love, believe marriage is a good thing, and if they connect with young men with strong character and shared principles, it would be believable. If they see good examples of people in their lives who are happy in marriage, that will help. And of course the opposite is true: if they see others around them choosing not to wait and regretting it (like the mother?) you can portray them thinking about this and/or discussing it with one another. Your reader might read it and think, I don't look at things that way, but if your character's decisions flow from their already established attitudes and beliefs, I think it would be convincing. particularly if their relationships are funny and interesting and good clean fun.

I would write it and then run it by some American readers, if you are concerned it might be too cliche.

As far as being married young, it was a good point someone made up thread about regional differences. I grew up in New England and now live in Texas, and I think you are more likely to meet someone here who was married young. You can find the whole range of behavior in either place, but here you would be less likely to find people shaking their heads out how young they are. 

If the characters are convinced, I think the reader can be convinced too. If they have a good laugh in amazement at finding themselves all married at eighteen, it would be entertaining and convincing. Who would have expected it? What a crazy story, someone should make it into a book

In general, I think sex in an easy default in a relationship, (sadly in real life sometimes, but also in novels.) If the other obstacles facing the heroine and hero are engaging, then you can probably skip the issue all together. I don't know if it would help sales or hurt them, but I am always happy to see stories that do not automatically portray jumping into bed together as the only possible way to build a relationship. And what is Romance, after all, but hope deferred?

I don't think there is a magic bullet to a happy marriage, but I waited until I was married, at 25, and I think it's made my marriage stronger. And I've met people who think it is romantic to wait, even if they didn't do so themselves.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

About "mainstream" readers not being interested in an Indian family:  America is a lot more multi-culturally accepting that it seems a lot of people think. 

Even in my very rural area (<---- see Southern state I'm in), we have people from several Asian countries, Hispanic/Latino families, and even -- gasp! -- people from India. And that's just the ones I know of off the top of my head.

Whatever you decide to do with your characters, make sure their actions and beliefs come from their background and personalities, make it "real", and I don't think you'll have any problems.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> About "mainstream" readers not being interested in an Indian family: America is a lot more multi-culturally accepting that it seems a lot of people think.


More accepting, but still not wildly so. I understand the OP's concern. There's a reason the bestselling books have white characters on the cover and movies whitewash most of those who aren't. It's wrong and total BS, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true. Those of us who enjoy books, films and TV shows without regard to race would read a book that interested us if the characters were all Indian. I don't think we're the majority.

How many popular YA novels, for instance, have black, Indian, Asian or otherwise non-white protagonists? Some people think Katniss Everdeen qualifies--I don't. Black hair and olive skin is too easy for white people to relate to. I know people with very dark hair and olive skin who are "white."

I'm finishing up a YA paranormal novel with a gay protagonist whose best friend is Korean, and who also counts a black boy and a lesbian among his group of closest friends. If my endgame goal was to make this mainstream popular, if that was my biggest concern that it had some shot at being the next popular thing, I'd straighten him up and make almost everybody white. Racism is an ugly truth, but there's no point in pretending it's not there.


----------



## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

If your books focus mainly on the paranormal aspects, this doesn't even need to be an issue. It doesn't sound like you're that comfortable with writing about sexuality which is totally fine. But going through complicated gymnastics to explain why all 3 sisters wait would feel like an author intrusion if I was reading your book. 

You can get opinions all day on whether it's possible/not possible for all three sisters to wait but it really doesn't matter. It only matters if the readers can buy into it. Otherwise it'll just feel like you're forcing a moral code into the story when it doesn't need to be there. There's a risk of alienating readers for no reason. Especially if you come across as slut-shaming or portraying sexuality as dirty/shameful. I would think long and hard about your target reader.  It sounds like you're trying to avoid the Christian romance market but if the theme of your book feels like a religious manifesto, mainstream readers will respond to it the same way regardless of what label you put on it. 

Sex doesn't need to be part of every story. Plenty of paranormal books focus on heroines who kick butt and fight bad guys and the romance part is a distant second. Lots of people actually prefer that so it's really all in how you market the book.


----------



## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Why does it need to come up at all?

Do you feel compelled to shout at the reader 'THEY'RE WAITING!'? Do you think the book will benefit from an almost sex scene that includes the waiting rant?

With the Descendants, I dealt with the younger half of the cast's sex lives by, ya know... not. Writing about underage sex squicks me out, so BAM! I didn't write about underaged sex. It happened in the background and was never explicitly mentioned except in a FAQ when someone asked. Never had to write it, never had to come up with reasons. I even had plenty of romantic subplots, but it was never an issue until there was 18 and I had fun alluding to all kinds of prom night antics.


----------



## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

minxmalone said:


> Sex doesn't need to be part of every story.


I agree. Don't talk about it. If you make it an issue, you have problems. I don't think there should be sex in YA books at all. You are essentially writing for kids, whether or not kids have sex. Writing sexy stories for kids is not on my priority list. There was a thread a while back about the subject of sex in YA which took on a very different tone than this thread. On that thread everyone was defending kids having sex. I would never encourage either of my kids to wait until marriage to have sex, (my son or my daughter) but that doesn't mean I think sex belongs in YA books. My fourteen year old son is reading The Game of Thrones, which are are definitely not YA books. Do I mind? Not a lot. He can watch the shows on HBO. Sex is everywhere, we are inundated by it. That doesn't mean we have to write about sex in YA. Ten year olds read that stuff. Adults read it so they don't have to read super sexy stories.

Fact: Kids have sex. 
Fact: You do not have to write about kids having sex.

Don't bring up the topic and you don't have to explain why no one is doing it.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

shelleyo1 said:


> More accepting, but still not wildly so. I understand the OP's concern. There's a reason the bestselling books have white characters on the cover and movies whitewash most of those who aren't. It's wrong and total BS, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true. Those of us who enjoy books, films and TV shows without regard to race would read a book that interested us if the characters were all Indian. I don't think we're the majority.
> 
> How many popular YA novels, for instance, have black, Indian, Asian or otherwise non-white protagonists? Some people think Katniss Everdeen qualifies--I don't. Black hair and olive skin is too easy for white people to relate to. I know people with very dark hair and olive skin who are "white."
> 
> I'm finishing up a YA paranormal novel with a gay protagonist whose best friend is Korean, and who also counts a black boy and a lesbian among his group of closest friends. If my endgame goal was to make this mainstream popular, if that was my biggest concern that it had some shot at being the next popular thing, I'd straighten him up and make almost everybody white. Racism is an ugly truth, but there's no point in pretending it's not there.


Exactly. I wouldn't even call it racism though. It just seems to me that most white poeple are more comfortable reading about protags that are white.

The opposite is true in India and I assume the rest of the non-white world. I grew up in the Middle East and now live in India. I've always found that non-whites have no trouble identifying with white characters. In fact they find them more interesting. There's the allure of the "other." Doesn't matter that the culture is totally different; in fact that is part of the appeal.

For whatever reason, the same does not hold true when it comes to whites reading of non-whites. Sure, there will always be some who are interested in the "other," but the vast majority identify best with the people theya re already amilair with. This is especially true in romance, a genre where women really want to identify with the heroine and imagine herself in her place.

I love the Big Bang Theory and I think its great that Indian characters can be protags in shows like this and Royal Pains.
But that doesn't mean they have become totally mainstream.


----------



## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

Apologies I forgot to ask if you're actually targeting YA at all or if you're actually trying for the mainstream romance market?

Because if you're writing mainstream romance (or even New Adult since your characters are in that age range) then I think examining the current market will give you some direction. NA and contemporary romance skews toward the steamy side for sure but there's always room for stories that are less explicit. 

I definitely think this doesn't have to be an issue unless you're determined to point it out.


----------



## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

...


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Vidya said:


> Exactly. I wouldn't even call it racism though. It just seems to me that most white poeple are more comfortable reading about protags that are white.
> 
> The opposite is true in India and I assume the rest of the non-white world. I grew up in the Middle East and now live in India. I've always found that non-whites have no trouble identifying with white characters. In fact they find them more interesting. There's the allure of the "other." Doesn't matter that the culture is totally different; in fact that is part of the appeal.
> 
> For whatever reason, the same does not hold true when it comes to whites reading of non-whites. Sure, there will always be some who are interested in the "other," but the vast majority identify best with the people theya re already amilair with. This is especially true in romance, a genre where women really want to identify with the heroine and imagine herself in her place.


The reason it doesn't hold true when it comes to whites reading of non-whites is that white, Western civilization revolves around white supremacy. White superiority is institutionalized, taught and reflected heavily in the culture in a way I guess Indian supremacy and superiority over whites isn't taught in India or African superiority over whites isn't part of everyday life in Nigeria.

White privilege simply _is_, and the message of superiority is often delivered so subtly these days, that many if not most white people don't even realize they benefit from it every day.

I understand people wanting to relate in some way to the protag, especially women relating to the heroine in romance novels. But if white women don't feel they can relate to or slip themselves into the character of a woman because she's a different color, that's a symptom of a much deeper problem.

The shift to more non-white protags going mainstream will probably be in YA, though, since it's the younger generations that are better poised to reject all the crap that the older folks cling to.


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

Clark S. said:


> I find it odd that so many people are firmly convinced that teens must automatically have sex, when I know for a fact that's not the case. A lot of it depends on how you're raised. There is a notion that teens in a strict, religious household are all actually sneaking around and doing it.


Both my daughters, 21 and 22, are waiting. I'm not sure that they will continue to wait for actual marriage if they think they've met "Mr. Right" or not, but they've made it this far. We're a religious household, however, they decided this on their own with a group of friends at school. They all vowed together to do this. They all went out and got purity rings as symbols of their pact. Some of their group have continued, others not.

Despite being a religious household, we as parents are not hung up on sex. We've been very open about the subject. We've talked to our daughters extensively about it, and told them it is their own decision. We simply asked that, before they became adults, they tell us if they're becoming sexually active so that we could help them take proper precautions. Now that they're adults, we as parents need not play that role.

My oldest daughter recently lost a boyfriend because of her personal decision to wait. I felt badly for her, but she told me I shouldn't. She doesn't want to be with someone who can't respect her personal decisions about her own body, she told me.


----------



## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

GearPress Steve said:


> Both my daughters, 21 and 22, are waiting. I'm not sure that they will continue to wait for actual marriage if they think they've met "Mr. Right" or not, but they've made it this far. We're a religious household, however, they decided this on their own with a group of friends at school. They all vowed together to do this. They all went out and got purity rings as symbols of their pact. Some of their group have continued, others not.
> 
> Despite being a religious household, we as parents are not hung up on sex. We've been very open about the subject. We've talked to our daughters extensively about it, and told them it is their own decision. We simply asked that, before they became adults, they tell us if they're becoming sexually active so that we could help them take proper precautions. Now that they're adults, we as parents need not play that role.
> 
> My oldest daughter recently lost a boyfriend because of her personal decision to wait. I felt badly for her, but she told me I shouldn't. She doesn't want to be with someone who can't respect her personal decisions about her own body, she told me.


Sounds like you've raised some sensible children who can think for themselves. Good job!


----------



## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

My own motivation for waiting (We weren't married, but we were definitely heading that way) was because my mother spent some time tutoring teenagers who could not go to school in England. About 50% of them were pregnant. One look at how far behind they were falling scared me off of sex for years .

I wouldn't think it to be at all unfeasible for something like that - having seen other girls get into trouble - affecting all three sisters providing there's some difference in their reactions.

You should not be afraid to write to your own values.


----------



## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Drew Gideon said:


> Home schoolers get a bad enough rap about being psychotic control freaks.


With our public school system, I think home schooling is a very viable option for kids to explore more personal freedom and to learn a wider range of subjects.

I just brought up _The Virgin Suicides_ because that movie was the first thing I thought of when I read the OP's post. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but this tread is giving me a not so good feeling.

I don't think young women need any more artificial pressure than they already get. Waiting or not waiting, what young people need is self respect. If that means following the desire to have sex or the desire to not have sex, if it's made from an empowered place that isn't caused by social pressure, shame, or stigma, that should be the choice of the young person alone.

Any book that deals with the idea of "waiting for marriage," especially if it's all three sisters, is going to have to explain how that choice is really empowering for the young women and not caused by social pressure and stigma. That is going to require a lot of explaining. I grew up in a house of five sisters in the 90s. Young women get _SO_ much slut shaming for being sexually active, it can cause a young woman to make bad choices just to avoid it. Getting married too young being one of them. My sisters and I all got married too young. Three of us got divorced. Single parenthood is not a fun thing to go through because you thought getting married was better than having sex with more than one guy.

The safest bet for a story like this is to make it a religious story targeted at religious readers. Then the reader knows they are going to be getting religious dogma and cultural pressure.

*Edit: *I wish I'd never read this thread.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> America is a lot more multi-culturally accepting that it seems a lot of people think.
> 
> Even in my very rural area (<---- see Southern state I'm in), we have people from several Asian countries, Hispanic/Latino families, and even -- gasp! -- people from India. And that's just the ones I know of off the top of my head.


To add to your point, while the American South has an historic reputation for "racism," there are currently TWO American states that have governors of an east Indian background.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley! And where are those states? Both are in "the South." Both are former "slave" states as far as pre-Civil War alignment.

Just goes to show, you can't make assumptions based on cliches.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Drew Gideon said:


> Please don't. Home schoolers get a bad enough rap about being psychotic control freaks. No need to reinforce that, especially among a younger, more impressionable audience.


Agreed. Not only that, but the idea that home-schoolers are all religiously motivated is outdated. There are people choosing home-schooling for all types of reasons, and from all types of mindsets. It's not at all just conservative Christians anymore. Very dated concept to think that's all home-schoolers are these days.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Trinity Night said:


> Any book that deals with the idea of "waiting for marriage," especially if it's all three sisters, is going to have to explain how that choice is really empowering for the young women and not caused by social pressure and stigma. That is going to require a lot of explaining. I grew up in a house of five sisters in the 90s. Young women get _SO_ much slut shaming for being sexually active, it can cause a young woman to make bad choices just to avoid it. Getting married too young being one of them. My sisters and I all got married too young. Three of us got divorced. Single parenthood is not a fun thing to go through because you thought getting married was better than having sex with more than one guy.


Agree to gently disagree here. All a novel owes a reader is an engaging tale, not a lot of self-justification for who the characters are.

And hey, some characters might come to such a choice of waiting from an "empowered" place, while others do not. Who says all characters need to be role models? They're specific characters, not examples of how to live.

Some folks make good choices for good reasons.

Some make good choices for bad reasons.

Some make bad choices for good reasons.

Some make bad choices for bad reasons.

The fun of fiction is you can explore the entire breadth of that range, in a story. BREAKING BAD's Walter White was a terrible role model; he was also a fascinating character.



Trinity Night said:


> The safest bet for a story like this is to make it a religious story targeted at religious readers. Then the reader knows they are going to be getting religious dogma and cultural pressure.


Again, agree to gently disagree here. The author specifically stated her story was not religious. And it's been well-explored by a number of posts that there are a wide variety of reasons a character might make such a choice. Exploring different reasons for making that choice could easily be the fun of the story... why try to force a religious motivation upon an author who's clearly not interested in exploring that theme?


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

GearPress Steve said:


> Both my daughters, 21 and 22, are waiting. I'm not sure that they will continue to wait for actual marriage if they think they've met "Mr. Right" or not, but they've made it this far. We're a religious household, however, they decided this on their own with a group of friends at school. They all vowed together to do this. They all went out and got purity rings as symbols of their pact. Some of their group have continued, others not.
> 
> Despite being a religious household, we as parents are not hung up on sex. We've been very open about the subject. We've talked to our daughters extensively about it, and told them it is their own decision. We simply asked that, before they became adults, they tell us if they're becoming sexually active so that we could help them take proper precautions. Now that they're adults, we as parents need not play that role.
> 
> My oldest daughter recently lost a boyfriend because of her personal decision to wait. I felt badly for her, but she told me I shouldn't. She doesn't want to be with someone who can't respect her personal decisions about her own body, she told me.


I admire your daughter. And her parents for teaching her to stick to her values.


----------



## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Agree to gently disagree here. All a novel owes a reader is an engaging tale, not a lot of self-justification for who the characters are.
> 
> And hey, some characters might come to such a choice of waiting from an "empowered" place, while others do not. Who says all characters need to be role models? They're specific characters, not examples of how to live.


I agree with this.


----------



## Jennifer R P (Oct 19, 2012)

I'm going to disagree too.

Waiting can be empowering. Waiting when the society around is as highly sexualized as ours is might even be MORE empowering. I know this is coming from somebody who waited, but...

What is empowering is making your own decision, not the one your parents make for you, not the one society pushes you towards. Young women are pushed in many directions, and I think there's a place in YA fiction for exploring those pressures in ALL directions.

And saying that it has to be religious also implies that religious girls wait and non-religious girls don't, and man does *that* over-simplify the situation. There is nothing wrong with waiting and it's safer than not waiting. At the same time, I'm not going to slut shame a girl who chooses to sleep around...although if she doesn't take precautions against pregnancy and disease, there's a problem.


----------



## Lyoung (Oct 21, 2013)

I guess I wouldn't think twice about heroines who want to wait until marriage. Having said that, I actually got quite a bit of weird slack from guys during my college years when I said I was waiting. It was really weird to be attacked for a personal choice, regardless of whether they were friends or boyfriends. I would just tell them, in very colorful language, to go eff themselves.  

I understand your concern, and while I don't think your heroines should need to justify their decision to remain virgins until marriage, a cornerstone of books are understanding the characters and their motivations.

Now, there's a difference between fleshing out the character and justifying their decisions. They shouldn't have to apologize or defend their positions. But allowing the reader to know WHY they've decided to wait would be great!

I actually knew quite a number of girls in high school and college who wanted to wait. A majority of them were religious, but there were a few who weren't. Their reasons varied: Following cultural expectations; viewing their virginity as something special and not wanting to give it away to someone who will not treasure it; following their mothers' footsteps; not wanting to get pregnant before marriage; being attacked previously and developing a very strong desire to have that freedom to choose someone special to surrender to; following in sisters' footsteps; etc.


----------



## Lyoung (Oct 21, 2013)

Jennifer R P said:


> What is empowering is making your own decision, not the one your parents make for you, not the one society pushes you towards. Young women are pushed in many directions, and I think there's a place in YA fiction for exploring those pressures in ALL directions.


And this.


----------



## Willo (May 10, 2013)

Moist_Tissue said:


> I think you should write the story as you want the story to be written. If that means that all three girls remain virgins until marriage, ask yourself why each of them would make that choice. One sister may come to this decision differently than her other sisters. An example, maybe one was sexually assaulted at a young age and this affected her views on sex and intimacy. Maybe another sister was shy and awkward, so she never had a boyfriend until she was in her late teens.





telracs said:


> actually, i think having your characters decide to wait doesn't make them unbelievable. as long as you show that they are tempted, but are making a conscious choice to wait.
> 
> it doesn't matter what "most people" do in real life. people read to get away from that. so having 3 young women (especially sisters), make the choice together and stick with will strike me as refreshing.
> 
> also, please note that money and sex are the things people lie about most, so take any survey with a grain (or whole bag) of salt.


Seconded.
Whether you go with religious/spiritual beliefs or multiculturalism, the believability will be in your delivery imo. Stay true to how you want to write the story, and you can't go wrong. I knew someone who waited until she was in her twenties. It definitely happens. And culture or religion aside, an extremely influential parent can have some sway in views on pre-marital sexuality, as well. Sister-pacts (that arise for whatever reason) are also plausible.

Good luck whichever way you go.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Jennifer R P said:


> I'm going to disagree too.
> 
> Waiting can be empowering. Waiting when the society around is as highly sexualized as ours is might even be MORE empowering. I know this is coming from somebody who waited, but...
> 
> ...


I agree with a lot of what you say, but I feel compelled to point out that referring to a young woman who has sex as "sleeping around" IS slut shaming. "Around" implies that you're indiscriminately sleeping with people left, right, and center. "Chooses to be sexually active" would be a way to say what I think you probably meant that would not be slut shaming.

A bit sensitive to this right at the moment, because I just wrote a story where it was important to me that the young woman didn't slut-shame herself for choosing to have sex with the young man, even though it didn't work out, so I was super careful about how I had her thinking about it, and talking to him about it.


----------



## minxmalone (Oct 28, 2012)

Rosalind James said:


> I agree with a lot of what you say, but I feel compelled to point out that referring to a young woman who has sex as "sleeping around" IS slut shaming. "Around" implies that you're indiscriminately sleeping with people left, right, and center. "Chooses to be sexually active" would be a way to say what I think you probably meant that would not be slut shaming.


I think you just hit on the real problem here. If this type of language/feeling pervades the book, even if you don't intend to offend readers, chances are pretty high that you will. Maybe writing about a certain topic is worth taking that chance, but it feels like stepping into a minefield.

Someone already mentioned getting a skeevy feeling just reading this thread and I have to agree. Sorry but if I got that feeling reading a book, I'd be done with that book.


----------



## Yusagi (Jan 21, 2010)

(Having read basically none of the thread beyond the first and last few posts) It will be less believable if you make a big deal out of it without some cultural basis to support it (ie: Christian or Indian or whatnot). If you want them to wait, just have them wait. Unless the plot is going to focus a lot on temptations they overcome, they can simply be uninterested in it. They could even have asexual leanings or simply have a low sex drive, so that sex isn't really a big concern for them. My brother is 24 and has no interest in sex until marriage. He doesn't think it's wrong, hasn't taken a vow, he just doesn't have any interest in it. Another friend of mine waited until he got married at about 32 to have sex.

Bottom line, if you don't want to have them having sex until marriage, they can just be incidental virgins. It's more of a pop culture thing than an actual-culture thing that makes people think '21 year old virgins are unicorns'. It would probably help a little if they were privately tutored or home schooled though, because what peer pressure does exist would be lessened on them, as well. If you go out of your way to underline it, there needs to be a purpose (they're bullied and under-confident, they're awkward and afraid of sex, they're asexual, they have ethical/moral issues about it) to have it make sense, and depending on what you choose and how much time is spent focused on it, it will feel either forced or 'the point' of the book. If it isn't the point of the book that you have three girls waiting, and instead just want three girls in a story who happen to be waiting, write it that way.

Plus, downplaying it will prevent debates like this one erupting around your book. All press may be good press, but stuff like this can just as easily tank a book--and your entire pen name--as it can give it an early boost due to controversy.

A final thought - it's _your_ book. You decide the beliefs of the characters, they can match yours, be opposite yours, or anything else. You shouldn't feel the need to justify those beliefs in your own characters. People will agree/disagree/be offended no matter what, so there's no point in it. If you hold the beliefs, then obviously they can't be 'unrealistic' or 'unbelievable' because it exists in reality. A tweaked version like what you want to use also exists, so people reading it will not feel it's unrealistic, as a rule. Whether they agree or like it or not isn't relevant, because there will always be people who do and don't no matter what you do. Whether they're sexually active or celibate monks there will be people offended or annoyed by it, and nothing you can write will avoid it.

Basically, if that's the source of your dilemma just write what you want, don't get too caught up in trying to justify it or please everyone with your writing, because that's impossible and will only drag you into the depths of madness and incomplete books.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

minxmalone said:


> I think you just hit on the real problem here. If this type of language/feeling pervades the book, even if you don't intend to offend readers, chances are pretty high that you will. Maybe writing about a certain topic is worth taking that chance, but it feels like stepping into a minefield.
> 
> Someone already mentioned getting a skeevy feeling just reading this thread and I have to agree. Sorry but if I got that feeling reading a book, I'd be done with that book.


In my fictional utopia Idylla, the teens [all 18 and above] my heroine Iona goes to college with DO have sex before marriage. Note I said it is a utopia. The characters are depicted as very loving, caring, and highly moral in that they care for their fellow man, and all are interested in helping people in third world countries.

So I show some very good people who do have sex outside marriage.

Thanks so much, everyone. Very interesting discussion about whether waiting is empowering or not.

My own view: some people are ready for sex at an earlier age than others. For girls who are not ready, being pressured by guys, by the thought everyone around them is doing it, is not empowering.

For those who ARE ready at an earlier age, being pressured NOT to do it and following those strictures because they feel shamed into them is not empowering. Those people should probably just do it rather than live in misery.

The truth is there is no place in the world whether there is no pressure to either do it or not do it. In the US generally the pressure is to do it. in india it's to wait. Both countires exert a lot of pressure, just in different ways and directions.

I don't want to generalize too much; its obvious from this thread that in the US, some felt a pressure NOT to do it and regretted succumbing to that pressure.

Craig said:

"And hey, some characters might come to such a choice of waiting from an "empowered" place, while others do not. Who says all characters need to be role models? They're specific characters, not examples of how to live.

Some folks make good choices for good reasons.

Some make good choices for bad reasons.

Some make bad choices for good reasons.

Some make bad choices for bad reasons."

***

Absolutely. Very well said. In my own life I have done all 4 of the above at various times. I am sure we all have.

In my heroine Iona's case I believe she has made good choices for good reasons. See if you agree:

Here's a passage from ch 1 of my novel where my heroine Iona briefly explains why she is waiting. Later when she meets the hero they can have this discussion in greater detail but in ch 1, I just wanted to show some of her goals and character.

Iona is wondering whether to go to the fictional utopian island of Idylla to live for a year with the father she never knew:

Would I stick out like a sore thumb in Idylla? A pointless question. I anyway didn't fit in here in L.A. I was considered a nerd, a weirdo who actually enjoyed learning. My friends were other nerds. I was lucky if I managed to get through one school day without being teased by the cool girls. If I'd been gorgeous, I might have been able to pass off my addiction to books as a cute little quirk.

Boys took no interest in me. Guys and I had different goals. I wanted a love like no other and a guy who would respect and cherish me. Guys wanted a girl whose pants it was easy to get into.

I wondered whether guys at the University of Idylla were more or less predatory than the ones in my school. Perhaps guys there expected sex on the first date instead of the third. And the girls, as in my school, were probably so desperate for male attention, they went along with whatever the guys expected. Great strike for women's lib.

Oh well, I just had to accept I would always be a misfit no matter where I went. I could be fearful and wary of life or I could seize this unexpected chance to see something of the world.

If it didn't work out, I could fly back home. Providing he didn't turn out to be Psycho Dad and hack me into little pieces first.

***

What do you think of the above passage? Does it work?

in this case, Iona feels her decision IS empowering. One of my beta readers didn't understand where I was going with my comments on "Great strike for women's lib."

Is this not clear? Do you guys understand what Iona meant?

She meant she doesn't find it liberating to give in to the pressure to have sex if she isn't ready.

Note that she is criticizing only boys in her own school, not American boys in general.

I find it's less offensive when you joke about or criticize one fictional thing rather than a country as a whole.

So, after reading the above passage and also what I clarified about how I show very sympathetic characters who are sexually active though nothing is shown on the page, do you still feel the book would give the message I am condemning those who have sex before marriage?


----------



## UnicornEmily (Jul 2, 2011)

Yusagi said:


> If you want them to wait, just have them wait.


This. I really don't see why you have to justify it. If you want them to wait, _just have them wait._


----------



## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)




----------



## K. A. Jordan (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm late to this party.

I'm throwing in my 2 cents because most of my friends kids, and grandkids are the same age as your characters.

Some have signed pledges and wear Promise Rings because they are religious, but most are girls who have good relationships with their fathers. 

Fathers, in general, prefer their daughters wait until marriage. Promise Rings aren't just for fundimentalist Christians. Most Dads around here make jokes about terriorizing the young man on the 'first date' so the young man doesn't try anything. 

IMO - if you want the girls to be believable as virgins, make their father active in their lives and very concerned with their safety. If he supports them in afterschool activities, like sports, he'll be around to fend off the boys.

He doesn't HAVE to be cleaning a shotgun when he meets the boy for the first time. But you can always have him kid his daughters about doing it. Most of 'daddy's girls' tend to marry later and date less because Dad's intimidate the boys into behaving by his very presence.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

K. A. Jordan said:


> He doesn't HAVE to be cleaning a shotgun when he meets the boy for the first time.


now that's funny. I might make some joking reference to that.


----------



## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Yay! adding my 2 cents too  
I think it's fine to make the characters wait until marriage.
Honestly as someone who reads YA, it's rarely mentioned.
I have been 5-6 books into a series, and then they mention sex, and I realized I totally forgot all about it.
All the romance in a book can lead up to something as innocent as love's first kiss


----------



## von19 (Feb 20, 2013)

I think a lot of people here are kidding themselves. 
Or innocently naive. 

Sent from my SM-T210R using Tapatalk


----------



## Claudia King (Oct 27, 2012)

I wouldn't find it weird or unrealistic at all. In fact, it would probably be an interesting little bit of characterisation for the three sisters just in and of itself.
People are different. They have different values. It's not unrealistic for characters to be in a minority (in fact, that's usually part of what makes a lot of characters interesting), especially when it's three sisters who have all presumably shared the same upbringing.

I personally wouldn't sweat it. If the book doesn't directly deal with themes of abstinence then you don't need to go into great depth with something like this. I've known plenty of girls who have wanted to wait before having sex (not necessarily till marriage, but still), and I think if readers were alienated by something like that then they'd probably be alienated by most interesting fictional characters!


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Thanks for all your input, everyone. You gave me lots of good reasons they could want to wait and I'm pasting this thread in a file so I can use various of these reasons for future books.

To those who told me not to believe everything I see on TV and cited facts and stats to show some do wait, thank you and yes, I do believe you. This makes it easier for me to draw heroines who do wait. I got the impression it made you feel bad that a foreigner saw only one side of the picture.

I think what DavesWorld said is brilliant and I think this is the way to go. Instead of trying to avoid mentioning it, I'll make that conflict between their beliefs and the surrounding culture a big issue, at least in oen or two of the books.

I also like what others suggested about not making it an issue and I think that could be the way to go for other books I write. Actually in the first book the hero isn’t the kind to pressurize her into anything, so making it not much of an issue works for book 1.

To those who suggested making them indian or half indian, I won't do that for this series because I don’t think it fits the story. But I'm encouraged to write indian heroines for future books, once I already have something of a following and readers are more willing to pick up anything I write.

For this series, I'll just make it that they have a stepfather who encourages them to wait, not because he is religious, but simply because he holds conservative values on some things. I mean conservative socially, not politically.

Thanks, everyone, for a discussion that was very useful to me.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Vidya,


I'm glad that, collectively, we were able to all help you figure it out for yourself, as a community. Seems like you took into account everything everyone said, then made your own decisions on what's right for your books.

That's the way this should work. 


Craig


----------



## LBrent (Jul 1, 2013)

TK aka BB said:


> [threadhijack!]
> 
> Sexy Shamy!
> 
> ...


Oh, my...[gulp]...Shamy 4Eva!


----------



## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Looks like you got an answer / came up with your own, so I'm glad. I did want to throw out there that I don't find it at all far-fetched for teens to want to wait. They're teens. It's not like they're 25 and waiting for marriage. I mean, issues with teen sex from a practical standpoint:

1) Where are they doing it? I get that maybe some may be doing it at home, but if their parents are involved, that could be an issue.
2) Maybe they're just not ready. It doesn't have to be religious at all, but maybe they want to wait until it's the "right" person, not necessarily marriage.
3) For YA fiction, talking about sex (let alone a sex scene!) is kind of steered away from UNLESS you're helping your reader explore the "should I or shouldn't I" angle, or date rape, etc.
4) Despite what HBO documentaries and prime-time TV says, not every teen is doing five guys at a party and not every woman is doing it Sex in the City style. Lots of people, teens and adults, are waiting, and definitely not for religious reasons. 

Just my two cents--everyone's got a different viewpoint based upon their own upbringing and experiences


----------



## Ruth Ann Nordin (Sep 24, 2010)

There's a market out there for books where the characters wait until marriage.  You'd be surprised how many emails and FB messages I get from women who like seeing the characters wait for marriage.  And this isn't just from Christians.  Yes, it is believable.  Yes, there is a market for it.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Ruth Ann Nordin said:


> There's a market out there for books where the characters wait until marriage. You'd be surprised how many emails and FB messages I get from women who like seeing the characters wait for marriage. And this isn't just from Christians. Yes, it is believable. Yes, there is a market for it.


Like I said, I'm an agnostic. No religious affiliations at all.

But if I were a parent in the west, I'd be worried about my kids feeling pressurized to try out drugs, booze, sex. I'd welcome books where characters have strong feelings against all these and just want to live lives where they focus on finding love and realizing their other ambitions, ie having strong career goals and doing well in life.


----------



## elizafaith13 (Sep 22, 2014)

Kia Zi Shiru said:


> My young adult trilogy doesn't have any sex in it at all. Sure, they kiss and stuff, but there is no sex. Why? It didn't fit the characters.
> Sex doesn't need to be a huge thing, when you're a teen even kissing and holding hands can be enough. Some people are just like that, they don't need a reason.
> 
> If you don't really want to address the issue, don't talk about it. Make them happy with a kiss or a hug. Not all kisses and hugs need to lead somewhere and not all the guys will try to push them into more.


Ditto. MY YA fantasy doesn't have sex in it. It's not integral to the story. Since this is a paranormal YA, I'd think about why sex needs to be involved at all. From what I've been reading in these posts, the novel sounds more contemporary. I read a ton of YA. Yes, a lot of sex in it, but if it's not part of the story, there's none in it.

Also, if you're going to go past 18 years you're wandering into NA territory.


----------



## RipleyKing (Mar 5, 2013)

There is nothing wrong with these fictional girls spouting their own thoughts and views. They matter, fictional or not, and their opinions should be considered. Said the man who lets his characters lead the way. Ask them what they think, and why. It would make for an interesting conversation, used in the book or not.


----------



## Guest (Oct 9, 2014)

Personally, I think women should spend less time 'waiting until marriage' and more time developing the confidence to say 'yes' on THEIR OWN TERMS. These conversations get under my skin because there is this unspoken belief that a woman who has sex outside of marriage is _damaged goods,_ and therefore 'waiting until marriage' is in fact a positive thing. Women who have sex outside of marriage are not used cars.

If characters, regardless of age, don't want to have sex, then they don't need to break the fourth wall and "justify" it to the reader. But whenever I hear about "saving myself until marriage" it makes my skin crawl. There are plenty of reasons people don't have sex other than a patriarchal control of women's bodies.

Let me see a young adult who decides not to have sex simply because SHE has other priorities in her life besides finding a husband. Maybe she is more focused no getting an education. Maybe she is driven to get a foot in the door of her dream career. Maybe she is still trying to find herself, and doesn't want the distraction of a relationship. Let her have a reason other than "I have to be a virgin for my husband or I'm a failure as a woman."


----------



## Annie (May 28, 2009)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Personally, I think women should spend less time 'waiting until marriage' and more time developing the confidence to say 'yes' on THEIR OWN TERMS. These conversations get under my skin because there is this unspoken belief that a woman who has sex outside of marriage is _damaged goods,_ and therefore 'waiting until marriage' is in fact a positive thing. Women who have sex outside of marriage are not used cars.
> 
> If characters, regardless of age, don't want to have sex, then they don't need to break the fourth wall and "justify" it to the reader. But whenever I hear about "saving myself until marriage" it makes my skin crawl. There are plenty of reasons people don't have sex other than a patriarchal control of women's bodies.
> 
> Let me see a young adult who decides not to have sex simply because SHE has other priorities in her life besides finding a husband. Maybe she is more focused no getting an education. Maybe she is driven to get a foot in the door of her dream career. Maybe she is still trying to find herself, and doesn't want the distraction of a relationship. Let her have a reason other than "I have to be a virgin for my husband or I'm a failure as a woman."


I haven't read all the posts, but I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm a young woman focused on my future, which focuses heavily on my career (currently getting my doctorate). I don't really want a relationship right now because they're time-consuming, and most of the people my age already have graduated after their Bachelor's and have jobs. I haven't even gotten started on that stage of my life. The point of this post was to just prove the above post. I don't plan on getting married anytime soon, especially since I don't have any prospects anyway.


----------



## Annie (May 28, 2009)

LBrent said:


> There are plenty of folks hiding the fact that they are having sex (religious reasons aren't the only reasons).


I completely agree with this statement. Most young women don't broadcast their sex lives. Heck, your kids could be having sex and not saying anything about it. You just assume they're still virgins. And quite frankly, I don't know why their virginity should matter as a parent, unless you're worried they will end up pregnant or with STIs. It is THEIR body, and they should do as they please with them. Yes, as a parent you want "what is best" for them, but they need to make decisions on their own - otherwise they won't become as independent. If they choose to wait, let it be their choice and not shoved down their throats by parents - whatever the reason is. I used to want to wait until marriage, but I realize that's a ridiculous notion for myself personally because I'm not getting married anytime in the next few years. I'm definitely at an age where my peers have already married or are getting married. Me? I want to get my career started after my doctorate before I jump into the marriage boat. That's going to be at least 3 years from now.


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

For what it's worth, I wish I had waited. No one around me was saying that was a good idea while I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, though. My reasons are not entirely religious, either, nor patriarchal. 

Sex is special. It would be a lot more special if my husband and I had discovered it together and I didn't have other experiences to spoil it. I do think waiting would have made our marriage stronger earlier.

My parents did tell me to wait until I finished college before I got married. I listened. I understand why they said that, but I might have children today had I gone for it at 19 when someone was eager to marry me and start a family. We could have made college work with kids. I had classmates at college who did.


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Let me see a young adult who decides not to have sex simply because SHE has other priorities in her life besides finding a husband. Maybe she is more focused no getting an education. Maybe she is driven to get a foot in the door of her dream career. Maybe she is still trying to find herself, and doesn't want the distraction of a relationship. Let her have a reason other than "I have to be a virgin for my husband or I'm a failure as a woman."


Don't forget the OP is writing a romance. I think your scenario is quite realistic, but it's not going to be a great romance. Once you're in a romance, the sex really isn't the big time consuming aspect of it.

Unless you're really lucky


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Personally, I think women should spend less time 'waiting until marriage' and more time developing the confidence to say 'yes' on THEIR OWN TERMS. These conversations get under my skin because there is this unspoken belief that a woman who has sex outside of marriage is _damaged goods,_ and therefore 'waiting until marriage' is in fact a positive thing. Women who have sex outside of marriage are not used cars.
> 
> ...But whenever I hear about "saving myself until marriage" it makes my skin crawl. There are plenty of reasons people don't have sex other than a patriarchal control of women's bodies.
> 
> Let me see a young adult who decides not to have sex simply because SHE has other priorities in her life besides finding a husband...


Umm, I get exactly what you're reacting to, Julie, but a couple notes...

1) On a personal level, I chose to go the "wait until marriage" route and I'm a guy, so I think the "this is a pressure-on-women-only" idea isn't universally true.

Part of the way my parents raised me as a boy into a young man was with the idea that I had as much responsibility to "wait" as any girl I met/liked. And in fact, as the value became my own, rather than just how I was raised, I interpreted it as being even MORE incumbent on me than the other person, because, ultimately, it takes two people to turn a "yes" into a "yes."

I made it to the age of 39 before I got married, much later in life than I was hoping it would happen, but that's another story... the point is, I made it an important personal value to ME to wait. (And it wasn't just religious motivations, which you seem to suggest are the only/primary motivator... remember, the 80s and 90s saw an explosion in STDs, so there are many good reasons for a single person to choose a less-carefree path for their own reasons, including health and safety, as I did.)

But I'll also say that I faced more than a couple opportunities to change that choice: I could have chosen to not wait. But because I'd made it *my* value and *my* choice, I resisted taking advantage of those opportunities and chose to continue waiting. In the end, I was glad I did.

2) "Waiting until marriage" makes your skin crawl? That's understandable, given the context that you view it as "patriarchal control over women's bodies" and don't see it as a value passed to both genders equally (as it was for me) or as something that, to have any value at all, must become a personal value, not just a passed-down value from parents.

But to take the spotlight off personal life experience and into storytelling, my book *Most Likely* features a female MC who struggles with the same sort of decision due to pressure to make a different choice placed on her by her boyfriend. And in that story, she makes it her own choice, her own value, and for her own reasons.

Why? Because, as a storyteller, I felt her clinging to a general value made no sense. She, as a character, had to have her own reasons to say "no" and wait, that were a stronger pull in her than the not-insignificant positives that saying "yes" might bring... at least, in the short term.

Becky's choice in Most Likely is informed by every aspect of who she was. (Read the novel to find out the details, LOL.)

So, I definitely agree that a character choice like "waiting" or "not waiting" has to be handled not just on a surface "values" level, but, as with ANY OTHER character action in a story, should be portrayed as being the result of every other force, influence, and aspect of character that motivates any character making any sort of action-choice in a story.

Motivation, properly displayed through character action, is the key to making ANY choice a character makes in a story make story-sense.  (Not just sexual choices... all choices.)


----------



## UnicornEmily (Jul 2, 2011)

I like the Indian thing.  I say do it.

But really, you could always give them something else that's backstory-ish -- like a cousin who didn't wait until marriage, had a baby out of wedlock, or her boyfriend turned abusive, or she got an STD, it ruined her life, etc. etc. etc.

Or you could just never bring it up in the course of the story, and just do kissing or whatever, and let the readers interpret as they will.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

UnicornEmily said:


> Or you could just never bring it up in the course of the story, and just do kissing or whatever, and let the readers interpret as they will.


+1

Why be all self-conscious about it? It only has to be an issue if you make it one and want it to be an issue that's dealt with. Characters make decisions based on who they are and whatever motivates them. So long as decisions flow from character, that's what matters.


----------

