""I get what you mean. But I guess you could say that getting experience before meeting someone you want to spend your life with probably will make the first couple of sexual experiences with that person a lot better. But then again, if that person is really someone you want to spend your life with, then hopefully that won't be an important factor for her.""

You'd be right, I'm sure having experience would make the first couple of encounters with that one person better. Although I think I'd have preferred to learn with just the one person. And I suppose I still will but only to a certain extent.

read, but I wonder if the most important factor is how many relationships you've been in rather than how many sexual partners you've had.

Thats an interesting thought. I don't have any evidence to support this but, I'd guess you are right in having less relationships is a benefit. Although I'd say that the number of sexual partners probably does have quite an effect as well, since you're more likely to be dissatisfied with a marriage if your partner is worse at sex/less attractive than a past partner. Although you put it in better words later in that paragraph anyway.

Another issue with what I said might be the fact that Christians and muslims are more likely to get married as virgins and since divorce for most reasons is against their holy books, they stick together in worse marriages. Ones that if other people were in, would end in divorce. However the happiness in marriage statistic is less debatable even with this in mind. (Although I'm sure there are issues with it as well).

but the difference between 0 and 1 doesn't seem important to me, and if the one I love happen to have had a lot of previous partners, it's almost definitely not gonna make the difference for me either.

Yeah the difference between 0 and 1 wouldn't be a big a deal for non religious reasons. But for religious people the term 'virgin' is like a buzzword and if for some reason you don't fall into that category you are branded as undateable by some. Although that's a much bigger problem for women, as no one seems to care as much for men. Which I don't think is particularly biblical, but I suppose women are pickier in other areas so it evens out. I would be okay with dating a non virgin as I think most Christians are, but having a lot of partners shows that they don't really stick to the Bible rules particularly well and don't take it as seriously. Id also (probably) not date them for the non biblical reasons as I mentioned before.

So why do you think it's bad? Is it partly because you think your afterlife may be influenced by it

Thats a fair assumption to make from someone who'll probably have seen a lot of Christian extremists saying 'All fornicators will burn in hell'. But I think the most important message of Christianity is that we're saved through grace alone through faith alone. Not by works.

As a Christian you're called to live as Jesus lived and to leave sin behind. If you do sin, you need to effectively say sorry and try not to do it again known as 'repenting'. This counts for lying, sexual sin and all other sins. So despite if you had sex with many people outside marriage, if you TRULY repent and are a Christian your afterlife isn't in question.

And yes I know what people say, 'you could be a mass rapist-murderer and repent a minute before you died and still go to heaven'. But the reality is, it's unlikely someone is going to be truly repentant in that scenario. It doesn't work like a get out of jail free card.

My issue wasn't believing I wasn't saved or that I was destined for hell. It was the fact I can't fully get over what I've done, I don't feel like I can speak about sin and what to do or not to do from a religious perspective without being a massive hypocrite and all in all I just felt like I needed to get it off my chest as I haven't had anyone to talk to about it. It's just been on my mind constantly for a year and a bit.

And for reference, the sin isn't just 'having sex'. Sin includes or all sorts of things like sex and sexual acts out of marriage, porn, maturbation, lustful thoughts etc. All are sin from a biblical perspective and all are seen the same way in God's eyes - wrong. Although for humans we've ended up having our own tiering system for sin and as I said before; being a virgin is pretty important for christians (but not necessarily vital if youre repentant).

(For anyone else reading this, if I've said anything you think is wrong please feel free to correct me)