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See above. I'm not asserting that celibacy is a superior state to marriage. Sex is pleasurable and there's nothing wrong with pleasurable experiences. I'm asserting that sexual self-control is both possible and necessary.
(I do think there are other conditions that apply to sexual morality - I'm pretty negative on casual sex, for instance - but you can just take as read that I have a Christian sexual morality. That's not necessary for my general point. Even if you have a much more robustly progressive sexual ethic, I think self-control remains a necessary virtue not only in one's sexual life but in all of life. If your ethics have any concept of illicit or inappropriate sex at all, you'll need some kind of guardrail or discipline between you and doing it.)
Sexual mores are byproducts of evolutionary kinship knowledge creation and gene propagation. Without being hijacked by culture or religion you should be negative on casual sex for your mate and positive for yourself. You have been deeply hijacked if I recall correctly.
Well, I'm a Christian, which I was quite open about. But I'd rather this discussion not be some kind of referendum on the existence of God. My point is just that - regardless of where you are on the God question - sexual behaviour can and should be limited in certain circumstances, and the idea of going without sex, whether temporarily or over the long term, is not so ridiculous as to be dismissed out of hand.
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