For some, love and sex cannot exist without the other in a relationship. However, it is becoming more common for men and women to skip the love and fall right into a sexual relationship.
Some students said that society influences the shifting view of sexual relationships and encourages the misuse of love.
“I believe that times are changing and a lot of people have been influenced to believe that sex isn’t sacred anymore and that it’s OK to have sex outside of marriage,” said Orie Lovett, a junior business management student from Atlanta.
Harold Ford, interim director of The Center For Human Development, said some men claim they’re in love as a way to make women feel more comfortable with going against societal norms and expectations.
However, Lovett, 21, said some women have abandoned the notion that a woman must be in love with her partner before she becomes intimate.
“Sex is something some women do when they want to, to whom they want to, just because they feel like it,” she said.
Stanley Walker, 23, a Columbia, S.C. native said that there are two different types of sex.
“The first one is making love. A woman makes love with a guy she has emotions for. Then you have just sex, just a one-night stand,” the criminal justice student explained.
Walker said men and women view sex differently, which causes conflict in most relationships.
“A woman makes love when she wants to share her spirit with that guy. Most guys just want a release or an outlet. When those two get together, it doesn’t work,” he said.
Ford agreed that men and women are not always in agreement when it comes to the taking their relationship to a physical level.
“Some women are more attached to the emotional aspect of sex and some men use it as more of a badge of honor to brag to the fellas,” Ford said.
Ford said the absence of a true emotional bond, or the illusion of one, before the beginning of a sexual relationship is the source of hurt feelings for some couples.
“Young ladies feel that ‘if he tells me that he loves me then it’s OK to have sex.’ Young men sometimes say they love them just to have sex,” Ford said.
According to Ford, young people are practicing sex outside of what it is meant for.
“From day one, from the time that we are born, we are told that marriage, love and sex go together,” he said.
“Some people have sex just for the thrill, for their own self-gratification, for material gain, or use it to hurt someone else without caring about the other person.”
Walker agreed that people are distorting the true reason for sex.
“Your relationship will never work out if you involve sex in it without being married. Sex is sacred to God and He created it for a husband and wife. A lot of us take sex out of the context of marriage and practice it as an activity for pleasure.”
Lovett said people can avoid the the confusion of sex with love by doing some introspecting and sticking with their personal beliefs.
“If women know themselves and are Christians actually practicing what they believe, they would uphold their morals and don’t fall to the flesh or lust because everyone else is doing it,” she said.
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