Please forgive the style in which I write this: I think my experience can speak for itself without too many generalities and abstractions.

TL;DR I talk about what real premarital sex is, and contrast it with what church teaches, and what I experienced growing up. One thing I hope you remember, is that in this culture, the first commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Have Premarital Sex (or feel premarital desire)". It is more immoral to have premarital sex than to murder someone. One you get shamed for, the other you get locked up for. Prison is better than being an outcast, and in our culture God can forgive you for murder. But premarital sex deserves permanent exile. It's the worst sin.

It was a small, Pennsylvania Dutch Baptist community that raised me in childhood. Two new parents who didn't know anything much about Christianity, but acted like they did and never showed an ounce of humility, were also instrumental in my understanding of sexuality.

As I grew up in church, I never saw husbands and wives fond of each other. This persists today, and I'm Catholic, so it's not just a Baptist thing. But I never saw people very fond of each other, touching, kissing, playing, teasing, etc. There was none of that. Everything was very much like in those false depictions of stern Amish ways of life. Husbands who would gladly get the doors for their wives at church or cars, who would work themselves to death, but no kissing at home, no signs of affection, and everybody was just kind of sterile it seemed and above sexual desire.

Indeed, sexual desire and to a large extent sexuality itself seemed so alien to church and family life that I thought it was some kind of evil thing to do. As I aged and urges got stronger, I just masturbated them away, trying to feel it but in secrecy. As time went on I tried all kinds of pornography, too, when I couldn't masturbate alone. The porn got worse and worse, but I never really thought about bringing my fantasies into real life. I could never show interest in another woman for fear of wrecking the universe.

One time I saw two characters kissing each other in a movie, and after watching that I made my parents kiss each other once when my father was walking out the door and saying goodbye. They looked at each other very strangely, and then at me, and then as if they were doing it just to act the right way in front of me, they kissed. It was the only time I ever saw them do that. And they had four kids.

Marriage was always something incomprehensible to me. I didn't want it, I wanted a girlfriend, I wanted sex. Not that I didn't want marriage, either, but I just didn't think about it. I knew that my parents always said premarital sex was wrong, that God would punish me for it, and it was bad. But I took that, in the culture and family I grew up with, to mean that so also was premarital sexuality and premarital desire. "All desire is lust" so I thought. I figured that the churchy way to do it was to never really be attracted to women. This I didn't think too hard about, because somewhat of its impossibility, but also because my urges were so strong that it took all my mental energy to suppress them.

So I began vacillating between choosing to be nice or act like a superaggressive prick, and that if I wanted to be Christian then somehow after I got married to flip the switch, but only when nobody was looking. I saw pastors and husbands with such ugly wives and I didn't want to be like them. I was afraid if I turned off lust then I would end up with these trolls and ogres by my side.

It didn't help that my parents didn't like the girls I dated. I picked one with massive boobs who was spunky. She turned me on, and my parents didn't like that she wasn't Christian. I broke up with her, because I wanted to appease them, and forced her to become more and more Christian. Christ didn't matter to me, I didn't know him, but I knew that unless she was inside that church then she couldn't be inside my universe.

I invited other girls to church. Some girls from the neighborhood ... it was a good way to get them to come over, because my parents wouldn't let me go out with anyone else unless adults they trusted were present. And that meant church friends. There was one girl from church I liked, but she moved away. Then we moved away. I tried a couple times to pursue girls at church, but they were all ugly and stupid. One of them manipulated me into kissing her, and I regretted that for months, but that was it. I was always uneasy about women, too, for reasons that my mother was extremely abusive in almost every way conceivable.

Eventually, I did convert to Christianity, and met the holy spirit. I didn't think it was the holy spirit at first. I couldn't believe what had happened. I was fixed of all the problems that had been destroying my mind and had killed my heart. I had a new heart. It was only when I looked up the etymology of the word 'holy' that I realized that that word wasn't his first name. It was who he was. I had been very sad up to that point, but I learned to be happy.

Unfortunately I began to masturbate with porn again on a periodic basis, and ruined a lot of the goodness and peace of mind that he'd given me. I became sad again. I dropped out of a good job offer, the best job offer I'd ever had, and began working three jobs at minimum wage for almost 90 + hours a week.

Trying to find a way out of this pain, I began dating a girl who I'd dated previously. I wanted to have sex with her again, remembering what a hot experience she had been, and was extremely aroused at ploughing her brainless like before. But something in my heart wouldn't let me, and nor would the religiousness training in my brain let me.

So I told her we couldn't. Not unless we got married. She thought I was ridiculous but respected it. We were still 'together', she had just broken up with her ex and was looking for a way out of her pain, too. A 'rebound' she later intimated to me, after we broke up.

One night I asked her what she thought about two people who weren't married on paper, but were married at heart. Would that count? She said yes, and asked if I was going to ask her. I asked her to marry me, and we had sex right afterward.

There was something deflating about the experience. I had been looking for excitement. What I got instead of that, the excitement of stealing something, was a normal feeling of having a relationship with a woman. It was the first time I ever really felt that. And it was extremely anti-climactic, probably because lust was gone and there was really no relationship underneath our mutual desire to sleep with each other.

I thought I had satisfied the legal technicality of avoiding premarital sex, so everything would be great. In fact, I was terribly mistaken. The girl became my mortal enemy and broke up with me. For years I didn't date, and wallowed in misery about it, about my pain, not understanding what had happened in childhood, and regret for having squandered so many years on empty pursuits of pleasure.

It didn't hit me until I started looking at this other girl now, and the holy spirit is talking to me ... I want to sleep with her, and the holy spirit is telling me to look at marriage not like it's a technicality, but a union. I should unify with someone worth unifying with. Is this girl just hot? Is she just playful? Or is she someone I want to spend my life with? It's not just about whether I want to stick my torpedo in her hull. It's if I have kids, would they be safe around her? Loved? Once her beauty fades, would I still want to be around her? Is she worth being close to? Is she funny? Does she make me stronger? Is she just a diva, or someone with greatness in her? Do I want to be close to her?

And I'm learning what marriage is. And the utility of avoiding 'premarital sex' as I saw it in my church, but also the utility of avoiding premarital sex as true marriage is - of the heart. Someone I wouldn't link my heart to I might not want to link my body to. It's hard, because I'm still struggling with understanding my own sexuality and desire. I'll really want to sleep with a woman. But I'm learning that unless I really know her, then it's not going to for one, turn me on as much, and two, help the rest of my life. I've been in enough sexual relationships with lousy girls to know that it's a waste of time. All the trying to pretend that I'm interested in what they're interested in, or making them happy with talking about nothing, just to have sex ...... in the long run the sex isn't worth it. The first time it is, but after it's so tiring.

So I don't know. But if I stick close to God, I don't have to know all the ins and outs and coddices and details of the doctrines, the cultural mores and what is really going on. The doctrine is inside me.

Anyway, that's my experience so far.

Edit: to complete a point