Did anyone ever examine the relationship between the beliefs regarding sex put forth in the Bible and the historical periods they occured/were developed in?
I'm sorry I am going to offend people, but what some of you people are talking about here is just plain unnatural. First of all when these laws/beliefs were laid down, women and men were marrying at a much younger age. A woman was a "woman" at 12 and there was nothing unnatural for a woman to be married at 12 (as it is in our times). Hence by the time she'd hit what we now define as her "teenage years" she would have been married and been engaged in sexually intercourse. That would have surely eased some of that extreme sexual agitation and tension that builds up during and after the teens.
Why do I say it's unnatural? Well women are no longer marrying at 12, instead we are marry regularly in our 20s and 30s, that's an additional 10-20 years longer than what the typical biblical woman would have waited before engaged in (marital, if you wish) sexual intercourse. So why are we following these particular rules in the way we are, while ditching other on the claims that they're outmoded. For example, you're not supposed to eat pigs, it's in the bible; in fact in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, were forbidden to eat meat/flesh; you're supposed to observe the sabbath (just like the orthodox Jews do, Friday sundown through Saturday sundown), etc., etc. but how many of ya'll are doing it? Well you're sinning if you're not!
Humans are blessed with a wonderful range of sexual energy. Female are particular blessed because in addition to the vagina and the breasts, she has a clitoris that gives her the ultimate ability to enjoy sex and her sexuality to the fullest. But what do we do? We spend generations, lifetimes, telling people (women) that sex is BAD before marriage (and during, according to some major religious) and that it is OKAY to SUFFER those undescribable feelings and pains that is generated by loneliness and UNFULFILLED sexuality. God forbid a woman should never find a husband, then according to what many of you are saying here, she will have to remain sexually unfulflilled (not even being allowed to masturbate) her entire life wouldn't she! The assumption is that God will provide a husband to every women, but we all know that's not every woman will find a husband and that in our day and age many won't find a decent one before her 30s.
Some religious group says sex is only to engaged in only for procreation. Well God didn't make humans like dogs now, did he? Humans, unlike the vast majority of other creatures, are in "heat" 24/7. Whereas dogs and other creatures are in heat only when they need to procreate. So why are we going around telling people to stiffle their sexually, unnaturally, and say it's in the name of God! If you really want to follow God's wisdom, then ya'll (who are promoting this) should lobby to have marriageable age lowered to 12 (just as in biblical times). That way little girls won't be growing up into grown women who are unhappy and miserable as hell (even if they won't admit it; some don't even know the real reason why) because they are taught that it is BAD, A SIN, to allow themselves to feel the full range of their God-given, positive, emotions and desires. And even worse they won't be teaching their daughters or others girls/women that it's okay to experience that particular torture. As far as I can see, this is no different than when the slave-owners were telling black people (and made it law) that it is unnatural for them to read or learn how to read because God made (and they used the Bible to support them) white people to teach black people what they needed to know.
Institutionally-dictated celibacy is the most vicious and POWERFUL means of CONTROLing people. Do your research, the most VIOLENT cultures (including this one) are the ones that promote sexual repressions. I'm not saying people should run around and sleep with anything that moves. Far from it, but some people here are on one hand basically saying sex and sexuality are NASTY and DIGUSTING -- A SIN -- and one the other saying it will be GREAT with a husband. Well if a woman should spend the first 20-30 years or so of her life repressing her sexuality to the point where masturbation is considered disgusting by thinking and totally believing that sex or "fornication" as some defines it, is wrong, -- which is basically mental clitoridectomy -- she's ONE MESSED UP woman by the time she hits the marriage bed. A person just cannot switch the brain on and off like that. Just as she is taught and learns to think of sex (masturbation, sex outside of marriage, even oral sex or use of toys according to some -- within marriage) as sinful and disgusting by default, which is what I'm leaning here, she will have to learn how to reverse that when she gets married, who's going to teach her? I don't see any classes around teaching married Christian women how to enjoy sex after a lifetime of repression, etc. (if there are I would like to know). By that time it's too late.
I read some of these posts and I
because we have obviously learnt nothing from history. Learnt nothing from looking back and see how female sexual repression have created so much emotional instability and depression and suicides in various forms in women for most of human civilization.
I am not going run out of this thread. Nah, I'll be back checking to see what people are saying. And before any of ya'll judge me by thinking I must one loose woman, I'll have you know that in my almost 24 years I've had sex only once and my celibacy has been by choice (partly because I'm just picky and partly because I'm still unlearning what I was taught and am now learning to accept the truth that my body isn't sinful) and not because of institutional dogma. So whenever I choose to have sex or think about it, I will not have the guilt and shame and depression and burden that some of the women here are obviously experiencing. And before anyone here judge me "because I'm not a Christian" well I'll let you know I grew up, and spend most of my life, VERY Christian, probably what some of you would describe as orthodox, but learnt, and you all know this, that the Bible is open to many, unlimited, interpretations (hence the various Christian denominations) and decided that my only purpose in life is to be compassionate...
Resist the urge with God on your side and all things are possible through Christ. 
And say to yourself "Does this activity glorify God?" 
