You are wrong about my cousin. Good thing you didn't put money on that bet. The question wasn't asked "rudely" as you put it, because it was in response to extremely disapaging comments he made about his ex. So you got a two for one being wrong on this one.

I never said you weren't entitled to your opinion, I commented about belittling or dismissing someone else's opinion because you don't agree with them. You can disagree without being disagreeable.

I know lots of folks who had sex before they were married and are happily married, too, but that's not my point.

I also know quite a few people who put more of a premium on getting some sex than they did on getting to know the person they had sex with. All these people have been in a string of bad relationships, divorced a few times, or are still in marriages with people they hate and regularly cheat on. The preoccupation with sex got them into the messes they are in because pursuing sex was their focus, not knowing the person before they had sex with them. So, no, sex before marriage isn't necessarily the problem, but sex before getting to know who you're getting into a relationship with or marrying really is. THIS is my point.

One of the reasons some people prefer to wait until marriage to have sex is to be able to focus on bonding with another person and getting to know them without the distraction of sex. For some, engaging in the act of sexual intercourse is the ultimate experience in knowing someone on the highest or deepest level, not the introduction or part of the getting-to-know-you process. And for others, separating sex from affection and love is difficult. So they prefer to wait for sex until it is with the person they are married, or at least monogamously committed, to and prefer to date people who feel the same way. Yes, some do prize and pursue virginity/abstinence for silly and immature reasons, but for some people, the reasons are personal, spiritual, and important. (Trying to bring it somewhat back to the thread's topic, here.)

Sometimes people who believe this way may not be able to express this, and if they do, sometimes they do it with condescention. That's not nice, either. I hope I didn't. But it doesn't change the fact that for some, pursuing great sex over a great person does cause realtionship problems, including marrying someone you really don't know and eventually divorcing that person because you had no idea what you were getting. It may seem like a remote possiblity and "anectodal" to you, but I see it too often for me to believe it doesn't happen more frequently than people like to admit.

I try to stay away from using quantifiers beyond "some" or "many" (and I try to stay away from that one) when I discuss issues, because I know I don't know the "most" about or of anything I haven't actually lived myself.