Premarital sex is sexual intercourse engaged in by a person or persons who are not yet married. It is generally used in reference to young people who it is presumed can and one day will be married, but who are in engaging sexual practices prior to their being socially sanctioned within a marriage.

Different cultures have various views on the morality of sex outside of marriage. Some view marriage before sex as completely optional; others strongly disapprove of sex outside marriage.

In recent years the rightness or wrongness of premarital sex has become a politically divisive issue in the United States, since the prohibition of premarital sex is the cornerstone of abstinence-only sex education, a program advocated by President George W. Bush and many Conservative members of Congress. The policy is opposed by groups such as Planned Parenthood and many liberal and progressive members of Congress, and the debate over abstinence-only education has brought the issue of premarital sex to the forefront of the Culture Wars.

See also

• Trial marriage
• Fornication
• Illegitimacy
• Living in sin
• Free Love

External links

• Social Determinants of Attitudes Towards Women's Premarital Sexuality Among Female Turkish University Students