It is possibly not the sort of confession you might expect to hear from a newly married, young, A list couple. But, in an interview with Vogue, pop singer Justin and model Hailey Bieber (nee Baldwin) have explained that he – and by that logic they – had been celibate for a year before tying the knot late last year.
Yes, the same Justin Bieber who was reportedly caught sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel in 2013.
Reasonably, you might be thinking “fair enough, he’s changed his life, good on him” at this point. But does becoming a “better” person really have to mean embracing celibacy before marriage – and is that really the message the singer, who has a reported $190m fortune, should be sending his young fans (he has 104m Instagram followers)?
Perhaps it works if you’re both virgins going up the aisle. If you’ve never had sex with anyone, then you don’t know what good sex feels like compared to bad sex, and the newness of it will probably carry you through the exploratory period.
But for someone who has had plenty of sex – and in the Vogue interview Bieber said he’d previously had ” a legitimate problem with sex” – to decide on celibacy? I honestly cannot think of anything worse.
As far as I’m concerned, before you marry someone, you need to do four things. Go on holiday for at least a week, see each other through an illness (bonus points if its food poisoning), build something flat pack and have sex.
Sex is a vital part of a marriage. And the only way to know if you’re going to have good sex is by trying it out.
Hailey Baldwin And Justin Bieber shortly after their engagement in 2018 CREDIT: Gotham /GC Images
Some people are not compatible in bed. I’ve had sex with people who I found very attractive, who knew in theory how to be good at it, and it still didn’t work. Because sex isn’t just about knowing what goes where and when, it’s chemistry. Biology. Pure, raw, animal attraction. Good sex happens when your bodies fit well together and your hormones are right. There is no way to know whether or not that’s going to happen without trying it.
There is little research into whether people who have sex before marriage are more or less likely to divorce. However, 28 per cent of married American Catholics (one of the denominations which places the greatest importance on celibacy before marriage), get divorced.
Admittedly, that’s lower than the national average, but given that divorce is one of the biggest no-nos in the church, the fact that over one in four marriages end that way should probably tell you something.
Historically, one of the major reasons that people have abstained from sex (though let’s not fall for the revisionist view that sex was invented in the 1960’s and before then it only ever happened in wedlock) was that it could lead to babies. In 2019, with contraception readily available in the western world, there is no reason to fear sex or stay away from it.
Explaining his new found belief in celibacy, Bieber said: “God doesn’t ask us not to have sex for him because he wants rules and stuff. He’s like, I’m trying to protect you from hurt and pain. I think sex can cause a lot of pain. Sometimes people have sex because they don’t feel good enough. Because they lack self-worth. Women do that, and guys do that.”
Whether or not to abstain from premarital sex is between you and whatever deity you worship, but the idea that sex is what causes pain is irritatingly short sighted.
Sex does not hurt people. Actions surrounding sex hurt people. Violating consent. Lying about fidelity. Being dishonest about what you’re willing to offer long term. Those things cause pain. Sex itself does not have an inherent moral value. How you handle it does.
If Bieber had said “I realised that I am not personally mature or responsible enough to have sex, because I experienced a consequence-free adolescence as a result of my millions of dollars” I’d have said OK. Fair dos. But instead, the message he is sending out is “I made sexual mistakes, so I think the best way to live your life is by having no sex at all until marriage.”
News flash: you can still hurt someone through sex when you’re married to them. And then the stakes are even higher, because you’ve committed to a life together.
The most frustrating thing about Beiber’s attitude to celibacy is summed up when he says: “I wanted to rededicate myself to God in that way because I really felt it was better for the condition of my soul. And I believe that God blessed me with Hailey as a result. There are perks. You get rewarded for good behaviour.”
There is a worrying undertone in this commentary, which suggests a classic Madonna/Whore complex. Gone are the bad girls of his past, with whom he freely had sex. Instead, as a reward for staying away from vaginas for a year, he has been granted a supermodel wife – who he has called an “angel”. And of course he didn’t want to do anything as dirty as having sex with a woman he was going to marry.
It’s a pervasive tendency. I’ve met men who don’t want oral sex from women who they’re planning on having long term relationships with, because it’s “demeaning”. Men who have struggled to get it up to have sex with their wife after having children because now they’re “a Mother”.
If Justin Bieber has found a better life by following the teachings of Christianity then good for him. Considering that he once abandoned his pet monkey to a zoo in Germany after issues with immigration, it was probably a much-needed step.
But to preach pre-marital celibacy as a magic trick to appease God and be granted a soul mate? I don’t think that’s doing himself, his wife or his fans any favours.
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