Being a Catholic, I've been taught that having any form of copulation before marriage is a sin, and a grave one at that. Is having sexual experience essential or not before marriage? Suppose if I date a woman, and have sex with her a few times, and it doesn't work out, what should I do? Should I feel guilty that we had mutual feelings for each other, and it led to something that now could tarnish our reputations? Now that my views on religion and God have changed a lot since I graduated from college, I feel very conflicted. I used to be more religious as a youngster, but I view God differently now. If I ever do the deed with a woman I have feelings for and she has feelings for me, I will feel as though I have betrayed my family. I think this is the root cause of why I didn't start learning about women when I was in college. Not that I was desperate to have sex or anything back then, but it's the feelings around women that I had that made me feel guilty about making a move on them.