In the words of Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral." What does a verse like this mean by the sexual immorality that the latter people are engaging in? Since adultery is described alongside general sexual immorality, this verse affirms that there are other sexual deeds which are evil, but it does not clarify what they are. Assuming that a given act or thought is sexually immoral, a legalist might read the text already believing that by "the sexually immoral" it means people who practice whatever things they sexually dislike. If conservative enough, they might assume that this refers to things that are not even sexual, like a woman wearing a bikini, because they erroneously think they are sexual and that sexual expression itself is evil outside of marriage. Almost inevitably, they will think this at a minimum condemns sex prior to or outside of legal marriage.
Bestiality (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23, 20:15-16), rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), prostitution (Leviticus 19:29, 21:7, 9, Deuteronomy 23:17-18), adultery (Exodus 20:14, Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22), sex with a separately engaged person (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), homosexual intercourse (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13), incest (Leviticus 18:6, 20:17, and so on), and casual sex (Exodus 22:16-17) are Biblically condemned. So are miscellaneous things like a man or woman marrying two living siblings at once and sexually interacting with them (Leviticus 18:18, 20:21) or sex during a woman's menstruation (Leviticus 18:19, 20:18), though this is about the timing and not about the act itself otherwise being immoral [1], as well as nonconsensual tactile contact with someone's genitalia (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)--the example given of the latter is not strictly sexual in the intention of the assault, but if the deed is sinful even without this component, it would have to be if it was specifically a sexual assault.
Nothing else could be meant by sexual immoral actions since adding to divine commands is evil (Deuteronomy 4:2)! On the true Christian worldview, there is nothing God has not condemned to some extent in the Torah by explicit mention or by logical equivalence/extension that is actually sinful in any way. Having sex with an unmarried, unengaged person if one is not married is not automatically sinful; it is having casual sex with no intention of commitment during or afterwards that is condemned (see Exodus 22:16-17 again). Sex before legal marriage, legal marriage being a social construct that does not ground the human behaviors that can precede it or the divine moral nature that transcends it, is not adultery. As the Torah does not condemn premarital sex itself despite being very thorough with many other sexual acts and declaring anything not directly or indirectly condemned as permissible, Hebrews 13:4 cannot be opposing all premarital sex by its unspecified reference to broad sexual immorality.
Many other acts are relevant to this as well. A woman or man, married or not, who regularly masturbates to physical/digital imagery, mental visualizations, or live people of the opposite gender is not sexually immoral unless they are looking to sinful acts like adultery or incest for stimulation. An engaged male-female couple that has sex before their legal marriage is not sexually immoral for doing so. Someone who marries multiple people of the opposite gender at once is not sexually immoral; this is even specifically touched upon as permissible (such as in Exodus 21:9-11)! These people are neither adulterous nor sexually immoral in some other way. Whether it is in Hebrews 13:4 or other verses scattered about the New Testament, sexually immoral or sexual immorality absolutely does not mean that whatever someone's cultural norms or personal comfort/preferences would regard as immoral really is, and vice versa.
Hebrews 13:4's exaltation of marriage and reverence for "the marriage bed" is not the same as affirming that all sexual expression outside of legal marriage is vile. On the contrary, a great many things for the unmarried and married are permissible that many people would be utterly shocked the Bible is ultimately favorable towards or accepting of. Adultery betrays marriage. Polyamorous marriage, which is obviously allowed by the Torah and is itself a form of heterosexual marriage, is not condemned in Hebrews 13:4, and neither is mere sex outside of legal marriage. Even without the Torah's lack of condemnation and its addressing of the matter in Exodus 22:16-27 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29, Genesis makes it clear that God did not create human governments. The very nature of God being the metaphysical grounding of morality also means that government approval is irrelevant to whether something is morally valid or not. Looking to Hebrews 13:4 or other uses of phrases like "the sexually immoral" in isolation is always incomplete because it is the Old Testament which the New is founded on that defines what this would mean.
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