What about marital sex?

There is so much written about fundamentalists and premarital sex, purity and so on. There is also much about purity within marriage in the sense of “don’t read romance novels”, “be available” and so on. And recently I started to wonder… what about actual sex in marriage? What about that??

Now, I’ll admit that I have not been married to know about sex in fundamentalist marriages first hand. I was also not sat down by my parents to have “that talk” about what’s ok in bed once you’re married. I figured I would put together a little series of posts in which I want to look at some debated things in the conservative Christian marriage beds. Not to lecture you, but to ask you to think with me about some things. I hope, if you are not shy about it, you can share some ideas/input/experiences with effects of fundamentalist teachings on married sex/whatever comes to your mind!

My first interest in this issue was raised by “Meet Mr. Smith”. This is a Ludy book that I actually bought after I moved here. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know why it stuck out to me.

Now there is this one little note that got my attention. There’s a question and answer section, and one question was whether oral sex before marriage was ok. Of course it is not, but let me quote what they say about oral sex in general:

You will not find oral sex among the beautiful expressions of physical intimacy in God’s perfect pattern, as outlined in the Song of Solomon. So if you are wondering if oral sex even after marriage is appropriate, let that be your guide! We can never improve upon the way God designed a man and woman to express their love – our own methods will only warp and degrade it. (p. 184)

What the Ludys do here is basically formulating an overly lengthy euphemism for “no”. So, let’s get past that awkward moment of pity for both of the Ludys (cough) and into some serious questioning that passage.

First off, I call wrong theology on this one. Actually, I call a lack of proper reading skills. Song of Solomon 2:3: I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. I know there are more hints in it, but I do think this very clear example settles my case. Let’s be honest here: What else could the fruit possibly be? His tongue? Maybe. But considering the overall metaphorical language of the book, I highly doubt a relatively harmless formulation would find its way in.

Now besides oral sex being mentioned in the SoS, there’s another problem: They refer to it as “our own methods” which “warp and degrade” sex. And that is exactly where my train of thoughts comes in.

I figure that kissing is beautiful and God-intended (otherwise, what’s the fuzz about that first kiss?). You kiss people you love. Have you ever had a child? If yes, have you kissed the tiny little feet? The precious little fingers? Their noses when they sleep? Yes? Do you have a wife or a husband? Have you ever kissed him or her on the forehead? On the neck? Kissed his or her fingers, or even her breasts? Yes? I suppose none of that is sinful. So… where in the bible do I find that ominous passage which areas of a loved person’s body I may kiss, and which one are off-limits? Is there such a thing as a nono-area?

You might argue that kisses from love are different from kisses which cause lust (which is essentially what oral sex does). But then would French kisses in marriage which cause lust not be sinful? Kisses on the neck as foreplay? And again, you could possibly argue that oral sex is not just “kissing” but involves more “action”, well, do French kisses still not count?

Either way, the point I’m getting at is that I have a feeling which tells me that there is an imaginary red area on our bodies, and that is our genitals. Everything within that area counts as sinful if it is kissed. And here’s where the “warped” part comes in: Are you seriously, seriously and with a straight face, going to tell me that this pattern of a “red area” is not a warped view of sexuality? Do you want to make me believe that God designed us with non-kissable areas on our bodies?

On a side note: Oral sex is probably cleaner than touching an elevator button. Especially if you just showered. So don’t even try.

Just for the giggles: When I spell checked my post, I realized I had called the book “Meet Mr Sith”. Freudian slip? Maybe. But definitely worthy of a cookie for all the Star Wars fans among you!

If you can’t be good enough, make others look bad.

D’you remember those times when you were a kid, playing with your friends and siblings, and you were really good at one thing but the other kid wasn’t, and then they did something to stop you from being so good at it? Like that one time where your sister got angry that you could ride your bike much faster, and pushed you off? Or when your sister said that the cake didn’t taste good when it was the best you ever made? Or even just when your little brother came and destroyed that lego building you made?

Well I remember those times (and the badly scraped knees!) and today, I can laugh about it. We were kids. That’s how we were. I did it too. One time, in my teens, my sister and I cooked marmalade and we put some ‘creative’ herbs into it. And it ended up tasting so good that Dad told us it was the best ever. And when my sister said that it was her idea (which it was), I jumped in and told her off for lying – it was supposedly our idea. She didn’t say a word, and I got some praise from Dad.

Yes, I lied. I made my sister’s efforts smaller than they really were in order to make myself look better.

That’s what kids do. And some adults. But when adults do it, we usually think it’s bad character.

Unless…

Well, unless they are the husbands of patriarchy. Then, of course, making others look smaller in order to appear stronger is normal behavior.

I recently posted about feminism and that it makes me an individual. Those ladies who are against feminism argue that this is exactly the point why feminism is to blame for everything that’s going wrong between men and women. Women trying to be good at something they’re not supposed to be good at.

You are not supposed to be good at anything men are supposed to do well. Because that, my friends, makes men act like silly crybabies. It makes them start lying, cheating and drinking, makes them treat you bad and leave you for that hot secretary (who, by the way, has a mischievous smile reserved just for him, Hi Debbi!).

Like Libby recently pointed out, feminism isn’t about being more powerful than men, it is, in its core, the claim that women are good at things they supposedly could naturally not be good at. It is the permission to develop the talents you have, no matter which area they’re in. It’s not about being better, it’s about being good at something, whatever it is.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, how can I consider a man a strong man when he feels threatened by the fact that I’m better at, say, fixing a car? For me, a strong man is not anymore a man who is only strong when I serve as his weak counterpart, a contrast figure, so to speak, which has no other purpose than proving that the man next to me is strong? No, I am not a contrast figure. I am not the natural anti-hero in the sense that I’m worse at everything my man wants to be good at.

Here’s the deal: I really am worse at things my boyfriend is good at. But that’s not because I act like it, that’s because it’s true. And the things he’s good at aren’t all ‘manly’ things. He has a much better sense for style and clothing. He is great at cleaning. He is better at fixing the car and he is better when it comes to socializing. I, on the other hand, am better at memorizing things. I am a better driver (he agrees with me on this one!). I am better at spending money and I am better at cooking. And I’m sure if you heard those things in a gender-neutral way, you couldn’t 100% decide who is the man.

A man isn’t a hero when I make him a hero. He doesn’t need me to glare with wet, empty-of-will eyes at him 24/7, he doesn’t need me to smile at him like a dork and praise him every time he manages to get dressed properly and completely on his own. A man is a hero because he can accept that I am one too (at least in his eyes). And he doesn’t automatically feel castrated when I’m good at things. Actually, I was recently called a heroine. For being good at something patriarchy tells me I shouldn’t be good at. A man who is a hero doesn’t hesitate to call others the same thing.

Guest-post: A man’s words on sexual attraction and failed courtship

One of my (male) readers recently left this comment on one of my posts on sexual attraction. I wrote about the fact that men are taught to fear sexual attraction – how the different notions of beauty and sexual attraction are taught in a way that causes men to flee from what is sexually attractive to them, and instead go for what (their environment tells them) is ‘beautiful’.

After asking for his permission, I wish to share this as a single post with the rest of you. I think his words are very important and very precious – they need to be heard. It is unfortunate that we have so few men among us when it’s a known fact that they suffer just as much from growing up in these destructive teachings, so I did not want to miss the chance to share that men are just as much devastated by the purity and courtship culture as women are.

“This was difficult for me to read, only because it hits me so close to home. I don’t even know where to begin. How about the “self blaming and guilt”?

But first, I appreciated reading a woman describing how we men learn to avoid attractive women like the plague… We’re taught to feel so guilty about sexual attraction that we really do avoid being around you… I was touched somehow by even reading that bit.

The Courtship movement, fundamentalism, submission to pastoral authority, allowing other people with the “right answer” tell me what God’s will is, as if they knew… well… I allowed myself to go with other people’s ideas of God’s will for my life in the choice of a wife.

Long story short, I married a woman 13 years ago to whom I’m not sexually attracted, and I’ve never lusted after.
I knew it before I married her. I knew it the day I married her. I’ve known it for 13 long years in a passionless marriage.

She’s a really nice girl, and I’m devesatingly ashamed that I’ve ruined the woman she could have turned out to be… I see her as the true victim in it all… lack of passion has done that to both of us.

Warped by church teachings, I literally convinced myself that God was going to bless me with sexual attraction for her, by being obedient to marry her… like some magic wand of his would tap me on the head and “poof” …. Happily Ever After.

And, no, I’m not gay… I can sense you all wondering.

I had cold feet right up until the wedding, but had convinced myself that it was “just lack of faith.” … so I suppressed it.

The night before the wedding, I got no sleep. I had no peace of mind. I don’t remember too much about that day…. and we left the reception early during the festivities… I was too tired to continue. But the full force of what I’d done hit me during the week… like a cold chill of death running down my spine… I was married… marriage is forever, and I’m unhappy…. forever … the exact opposite of what i’m supposed to be… I can’t get a divorce… divorced people go to hell in the express lane or the handbasket, or something. There may even be a reserved section in hell for divorced people, I thought… like maybe even a VIP entrance.

I felt so ashamed of myself. In a foreign country… surrounded by my new fundamentalist in-laws (still my neighbors today after all these years)… I vowed to just stuff it… all of it… just repress it and forget and go through the motions, and to never say a word to anyone. Too ashamed to admit what I’d done. Just put on a happy face… smile…. go to Church… and pray like hell.

Within two weeks I was being confronted by the father in law… something was wrong, since i was obviously not happy, not sleeping with his daughter…. emails were being sent back home to the pastors in the states… who also flew over eventually to meet me and my wife… I was ashamed, alone, and scared … I still believed that I needed to believe in the “right answer” … so I lied to them, and told them that my marriage was God’s will (besides, who wants to go to hell for divorce.) so I tried really hard to “do the right thing…” … and just stuff the negativity and the lack I was feeling….

My married life became one of fear, obligation and guilt.

Well, I don’t have to tell you, that women aren’t stupid. It’s been hard on both of us… and I didn’t become honest until several years and several children later.

I wish I’d never stepped foot in a Church.
I wish I’d never been so easily guided by other people. As a man, there’s nothing more debilitating than that.
I wish i’d never made my wife a victim. She doesn’t deserve this kind of a non-marriage.
I wish I’d stood up for myself, and just spoke the truth to the people pressuring me … Fear, Obligation, and guilt are no way to live.
I wish I’d known that I’m not “evil” or “damned.”
I wish I’d learned to be myself, rather than another cookie-cutter religious dude, prideful of beliefs that aren’t even my own.
I wish I’d learned to have a personal Relationship with MYSELF early in life, before it was too late… to really know myself such that other people’s opinions mattered less to me.
It wasn’t a personal Relationship with Jesus i needed. I needed to know myself… intimately.
I wish I’d learned to trust my intuition rather than to doubt it or repress it… as if it were sinful somehow.

My blood boils sometime with the desire blame others for their influence over me… but I know that I can only blame myself.
Wanting to “please God” led me to not trust my own heart… I allowed myself to believe the Bible literally when it says :”The heart is desperately wicked. Who can trust it.”…

I think that must make me the ultimate people pleaser, or passive aggressive, or something horrible like that.

So I threw my heart away a long time ago. Tragic that it should be the necessary ingredient to the rest of my life… to make me a “Real Boy.”

Your post just reinforces the feeling that everything you said with regards to sex… all these points you brought up about sexual attraction… is entirely beautiful. And entirely right.

I think deep down, I just wish that I had someone in my life that I was attracted to… someone I can’t stop thinking about, someone I would like to do things with, who I get along with, someone I can mutually fantasize with, … someone who is a safe haven for my ever-expanding imagination… not to mention sexual attraction at any age.

I only hope there’s another man actually lurking on the site who reads this, and can learn something from it for his own life.”

Emotionally abused men

I used to believe that men are generally free of any deeper emotions (apart from anger, feeling hungry and the need for sex). Men, in my mind, were almost incapable of connecting with their emotions, if they had any. No, men were rational beings, driving by the wish to win, to dominate, to be adventurous and to satisfy their sexual needs. Everything ‘emotional’ a man did, like buying his wife flowers, was behavior that he had to learn, to remember, not something he would do because he wanted to express emotions. That’s what I saw all around me. Men who just don’t have that many emotions. That’s also why women were so weak, ruled by their hearts and feelings.

As I said, for the longest time I believed that this was a natural thing. God made men this way and it wasn’t their fault. And if you weren’t this way, you were probably gay. Gay, abused and perverted. Mind you, you were gay BECAUSE you were sexually abused as a child. Because we all know that anal sex makes men feel feminine, and that these feelings of femininity are what causes men to ‘be gay’. But don’t worry, there are programs to cure your gay (or pray it away).

You see, I’m in a relationship with a man who has no issues expressing his emotions. More shocking, he HAS emotions beyond eat – sex – sleep to begin with. He can tell me when I say things that hurt his feelings. He can tell me when he doubts himself. He can tell me when he’s happy. He can tell me when I did something for him that makes him feel loved. By my fundamentalist definition, he’s not a real man. Actually, I’d worry that he’s gay (and sexually abused) right about now. But he is neither fully homosexual nor has he ever been abused. His parents didn’t even spank him apart from two occasions which he remembers, and which his parents apologized for. In fact, when I heard these two occasions, I was not surprised they lost it (not going into details but trust me, all of us would have a hard time not freaking out).

Going back to it – where do the men get the idea from that emotions and th expression thereof are off-limits?

I found a gem on No Greater Joy ministries, written by King Michael the Patriarch himself. Let me first quote the letter Michael is referring to:

She has absolutely no respect for me, is very rebellious toward me, and outwardly refuses to obey me in nearly every manner possible. She does not acknowledge that I have any authority over her. I have told her that she needs to obey me and leave it up to God to deal with me if I am wrong. I am heartbroken. I have been unable to make her happy in nearly everything for years. I feel that she needs a serious trial to bring her to her senses. I want God to do this, but… We have been married nearly 30 years. I don’t want a divorce, but I do want her to be my true Help Meet.

Now, I do not want to get into the question how spiteful this man is towards his wife by wishing trial would hit her. He is obviously torn between the idea of being a leader while at the same time genuinely wanting a happy relationship with his wife.

Here’s a part of Michael’s answer:

You sound like a 13-year-old boy, whining because his six-year-old sister won’t treat him with respect.

I bet that hit home. There’s nothing worse for a good ol’ Patriarch than being called a boy. But it gets better:

You said, “I am heartbroken.” Excuse me for not being sensitive like a psychologist, but my response to your broken heart is, “How pathetic.” Where is the man in you? As they say, “Get a life.” What woman respects or is attracted to a brokenheart? As I think about it, there are a few, but they pick up stray cats and sick dogs who don’t need them as badly as they need to be needed. They are also attracted to men who are whining losers. It gives them a sense of purpose to have the weak and broken depend upon them.

Well, I suppose I am one of these catwomen… Anyway, Michael clearly makes fun of a man who has emotions. A man who expresses emotions. He’s a pathetic wimp for being as weak as having his heart-broken by his wife. How dare he! Besides obviously aiming to put down a man who has emotions and shows them, he additionally manages to put down women who like emotional men by referring to them as catladies.

This basically sums up two ideas: If you’re an emotional man, you’re not right. And if you’re a woman who likes these men, you’re also not quite right in the head.

But what can a man do who is a pathetic, over-emotional wimp? Well, Michael has a solution – THE solution:

Become exuberant with creativity and adventure. Share the gospel with others. Minister in a rescue mission or homeless shelter. Get a speed boat or go wind surfing. Do some gardening or build a chopper (motorcycle) in your garage. Take up sky diving, or go on mission trips to the Kurds in Turkey or Iraq. Do all of it. Cram your life full of service to others and of daring adventure. In doing so, you will become attractive to everyone, including your wife.

Totally. Do something life threatening like going into a war area all by yourself. Get a speed boat without quite knowing how it works and risk getting eaten by sharks. Get one of the most dangerous vehicles known to mankind (motorcycle). Don’t be a wimp – instead, by a person who is so obviously tired of his own life that he just might risk being kidnapped by other religious fundamentalists. Because the people who actually work there as humanitary helpers, who KNOW the risks of getting kidnapped and have a training for such situations will be ecstatic to see a man messing things up because he want to be a “real man”. This post by Michael Pearl dates back to August 2007, just on a side note.

I am not surprised that men neither show their emotions nor fancy any “normal” hobbies. If this is what the elders teach men, it should not surprise anybody that fundamentalist men are raised to be utterly unable to develop a healthy psyche.

Revelations in the dark part 2: Dealing with it

In the first post I wrote about my boyfriend D admitting to me that he is bisexual. And here’s part 2: How I dealt with it, how he did, how we did.

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I don’t remember who spoke first. I just know it must have been almost 30 minutes of silence before we started talking. And I remember how I lined up some questions in my head, questions that would determine whether I could deal with it or not. There were still so many stereotypes and fears in my head. It was so hard to even find a starting point to the whole thing.

I asked him if that meant he wanted to see other people. That was simply my first impression, or at least what I’ve always been taught about gay/bi people – they sleep around a lot. D was pretty shocked when I asked him that – surprised even. Of course he didn’t want that. He never mentioned anything like that, and that was not his intention when he told me.

I’ll admit that I still had no clue how to deal with it, and if I could possibly deal with it at all. But at the same time I was happy that he told me about it.

We talked almost all night, him getting only 2 hours of sleep before work. We discussed so many things. Why he didn’t tell me before – a question I could have answered myself. How he knew, when he found out. He said he never “knew” really, he just had an interest but thought all men had that. It didn’t appear to him as something unusual. Only later in life, at the age of 19, 20, he realized that his interest in both naked women and men was not something every man felt. That’s when it dawned to him, but it wasn’t something he wanted to admit to everybody, or even to himself. Nevertheless he didn’t deny himself feeling that way. He just kept it the way it had been: A normal interest, no more no less.

Of course I asked him if and how he ever lived that interest out, and how I could be sure that he wouldn’t leave me for a man – isn’t that a strange question? I mean, he might just leave me for another woman, but that fear I do not have. Maybe it’s because I know I can’t fulfill certain areas of interest simply because I lack the physical conditions for it (you know, I don’t have a penis!). Either way, he told me had actually been in a relationship with a man for a few months. A gay man, who was seeking something serious. He expressed that he felt bad about this relationship, not because it happened but because he felt he set that man up for pain. He said he wasn’t sure if he wanted a relationship with a man in the first place, hence he should not have gotten involved with a man willing to commit emotions and work and hopes. He said he tried hard, but aside from a sexual interest, he could not deal with a man on a daily basis. He said he missed the ‘feminine’ qualities in a partner – D really likes make up and pretty clothes on a woman, and he’s a great listener to female problems a man would never have, he enjoys both girlishness and strong womanhood, female sound of laughter and ‘how women smell’ as he expressed it. Either way, he quickly found that he missed both female qualities as well as female sexuality, though he did enjoy the gay part of the relationship. A few months later, his boyfriend approached him to “take the next step”, which was when he realized that this just wasn’t for him. He realized that being bisexual was something linked strongly to sex, and little more. He also realized that, while he did have gay fantasies in previous relationships with women, the craving for living those out wasn’t very high, while he did have a great craving to have sex with women while he was with a man. A craving he said he could not live with never getting to fulfill if he stayed in a committed relationship with a man. His decision was clear: It was much easier dealing with his gay fantasies in a hetero relationship than dealing with hetero fantasies in a gay relationship. He decided to come clear about all this to his boyfriend, who, as he said, was very hurt but understood. They parted in as much friendship as can be possible when someone leaves with a broken heart.

All this pretty much answered my questions and calmed my concerns. That’s very surprising to me – I figured I would be so hurt if I found out that my boyfriend had a boyfriend in the past. But quite the opposite happened – I’m relieved to say the least. I feel safety. I know he’s been there, I know he knows what he wants. This is not something that might linger and just wait to happen, him cheating on me with a man just to see what it’s like. It’s been done and he knows that while he did enjoy it, he cannot live a life of it, he prefers being with a woman most of the time, both sexually as well as relationship wise. He said that his fantasies do exist still, and that he enjoys them, but if he is in a happy hetero relationship, it is no problem for him to put these were they belong, as fantasies, something to enjoy on occasion, and not going out to actually find fulfillment of fantasies.

I asked him that if he were to be single right now, would he do it again? He said that yes, he would not say no if he met a man who he found attractive, however he would go about it differently. He would put the cards on the table, ne open and honest about his intentions and feelings. And if the other one was ok with that, he wouldn’t mind. His experience wasn’t bad, it didn’t feel wrong to him apart from the obvious hurt he caused, so he has accepted this as a side of himself. However, he said, he much prefers a steady relationship over affairs, and he wouldn’t trade what we have gained so far.

We got to bed very late – or should I say early in the morning? I told him I needed some time to digest all of this. I slept in some the next morning but got up at 9, had my coffee and breakfast, did some googling, reading, thinking. At about 4 PM, I couldn’t take it anymore, sitting there knowing that he was probably worrying at work, tired and sad. I hadn’t been very nice. I got dressed and put on some make up and made my way over to his work place. I usually don’t go over unless I need something, but I decided this was not something I should write in a text message.

I went inside and smiled when I saw him from behind. He hadn’t seen me yet. I walked up to him, but he didn’t realize there was somebody standing next to him, he just kept working.

“Hey” I said.

I saw how he flinched from the surprise, whirled around with big eyes and looked at me somewhat surprised, and happy.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Do you need something?”

“No”, I said, “I was around, shopping, thought I’d come over” (yes you caught me, I lied!)

He smiled, but he looked so bad, so worn out and tired, I could hardly stand myself because I had been such a mean person the night before.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to make dinner, what time do you get off so I can start preparing on time?”

“Seven, I think… but… you know, if there’s not too much to do, I’ll be off at seven, I’ll text you if I’m late.”

Yep, that was the question I didn’t want to text. I felt that something like “Please come over for dinner tonight” just sounds so serious. Asking that with a smile in person is so much nicer.

He ended up being on time, we ate, talked and slept early.

And that night was a good one, because I could feel a feeling of trust I have never felt with anyone before. Because he could’ve just kept it secret, lived out his fantasies, but instead he risked me breaking up with him over this because he wanted to be honest. I think that’s a pretty good base for more.

Revelations in the dark

My lovely readership, I hope you’re having a wonderful day! After lots of though, I decided I want to let you in on something that happened in my life recently. This happened a while back and I had this post pre-written for a while and edited it a bunch. I hope I could remove all peculiarities that sometimes come with a ton of editing.

Here’s a disclaimer: If you are easily offended by topics such as sexuality in general, homosexuality, dating relationships or anything really (aka, if you are a P/QF follower), the following post might not be for you.

And another disclaimer: I’m posting this because I want to share an area of personal growth and change. Everything I write is written with permission of all people involved. As you (hopefully) know, all names used on my blog are not the people’s real names. I do this to both protect my family as well as my new friends in my new life, so they do not have to deal with any fallout. On occasion, I have been changing places as well (for example, if I write something happened at McDonald’s, it might have been really happening at Burger King – obviously this is a rather bad example as there’s McDonald’s about everywhere here, haha!). I do this in order to conceal the place I live at right now, as people with knowledge of that place might be able to figure out where I am and then who I am. I’m paranoid like that. This is not meant to insult any of my beloved readers, but to protect myself from the very few evil minds from my old life. With recent events of several blogger identities revealed, I’m being even more careful. So please understand that if I do change times, names and places, I do not change the core of what I’m writing, and I do not change things said in conversations as they cannot be traced back to me and my environment. Writing this I made sure not to mention any surroundings that could imply any identities.

Onto the post!

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“What?” was the first thing out of my mouth. My heart was beating so fast, I feared it would jump right out of my chest. I stood up and stumbled towards the door.

“No. No. I need some time to myself.” I mumbled when D grabbed my arm.

“No, please, no, no, stay, no, I’m so sorry, look, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” was all he could get out. The fear in his voice surprised me.

“Just leave me” was all I could say as I closed the door behind me. I went into the kitchen, sat down on the small table on the right side of the room, right next to the window, and stared at the wall.

So this is what actors feel like, I thought. Because this had to be a movie. This was a movie, an I was an actress. And this is what it feels like. I tried to sort my thoughts, but I realized there weren’t any left in my head. Just the pounding of my heart inside my ears, noisy like a drum, and the blood rushing through the veins.

I got up, walked in a circle twice and opened the fridge. Staring  into the fridge makes thinking easier I realized. I grabbed a green bottle from the fridge door. My roommate’s expensive white wine. She drinks a tiny glass of it once or twice a week. I started gulping half of it down, straight from the bottle. Why does she spend so much money on this? It tastes just like every other white to me. I put the bottle back, making a mental note to myself that I owe her a new one. I turn and go another circle, nibbling my lip, peeling off the chapped skin. Others bite their fingernails, I peel the skin off my lips until blood comes. I sat down again, staring at the table. A pack of cigarettes, D’s cigarettes. I take one out, exploring the unknown feeling of a cigarette between my fingers. I light it, inhale, and immediately regret it. 10 minutes and a coughing fit (and, admittedly, another big sip expensive white wine) later, I’m still sitting, nibbling.

That’s when I hear it.

Muffled sounds of crying in my room. And my heart breaks into a thousand tiny pieces. Did I really just run out on D? Did I really react this way?

You know, most of what we do, the ways we react, can’t be changed easily. If we have certain things embedded in our personalities, we act according. If you tend to laugh when you’re sad, you’ll most likely laugh when you’re sad. There are few chances, or moments, rather, where we can actively choose.

It’s like standing at a crossroads. Certainly, your decision will decide which way you’re taking, but also an emotional, a personality crossroads. You get the chance to actively decide what type of person you’re going to be. That’s how I felt.

And I decide that I didn’t want to take that old path so deeply rooted in my personality anymore. I wanted to be that other person. All I had to do was walk down the other path. And so I did – I felt like that was one of those moments where I chose that I’m a different person than I’ve been before.

Twenty minutes earlier, D had made a confession to me.

He had confessed that he is, in fact, bisexual.

I looked at the table in front of me, feeling slightly wobbly. And then shame hit me. Did I run out, drink that expensive wine and try to smoke? No wonder us fundamentalist girls are told the world isn’t for us – we don’t have the slightest clue how to deal with things.

And then came the fear that I had just ruined a wonderful relationship with an amazing person. WHAT – WAS – I – THINKING, screamed my head. I stumbled off the chair and walked to the door still closed. What should I say? It didn’t matter. I felt like every single second standing here doing nothing was wasted, was seconds lost that I would desperately need to sort this out. And so I simply went back into my bedroom. D was sitting at the edge of my bed, just staring at me. I didn’t know what to say, so instead, I just sat down next to him and grabbed his hand. And so we sat, for a pretty long time, not talking, not doing anything.

___________________________________________

I’ll admit that this hit me like nothing ever before. What did this mean for me, for him, for us? Was it my fault?

Weirdly enough, my first association was that he asked me to have an open relationship where both of us could basically sleep around. He didn’t imply this at all, but it was my first thought and it shocked me just how deep the prejudges against gay/bi people are rooted in my thinking.

So how does the story end? Well. Yes, I sort of ended with a cliffhanger, but before you fall off the edge of your seat I want to tell you: I hope you can read my smiles between the lines. That story does have a happy ending. I just figured that this would be enough for now. I want to treat this issue with respect and empathy, and I do want to get this post out. That’s why i decided to take some more time, so I can write more on it in the thoughtful manner it deserves to be written in. But yes, we found our way to deal with this, and we are very happy with it.

why would someone want to keep their courtship secret?

As I went over my blog stats, I saw this question pop up in the search engine list. I thought it was kind of self-explanatory, but obviously not everybody understands why a courtship might be kept secret (in certain groups/families).

First off, not every girl (or family) feels the need to keep a courtship a secret. As you can imagine, some girls are so happy about being courted that they just can’t keep it to themselves. Openly talking about courtship is something you’ll see in the more “liberal” groups of the P/QF movement. It’s especially important to differentiate between P and QF here – strictly patriarchical families are more likely to keep it secret than families with a strong emphasis on the QF theologies.

And yes, there are families who aren’t patriarchical but live quiverfull. Others again are full-blown patriarchical families, but don’t believe in the quiverfull theologies (aka NFP and sometimes condoms are allowed, but it’s the man who decides when the wife will get pregnant).

The thing is simply that the patriarchs feel very much like they have to use the (successful) courtships of their daughters to show off how well they filtered potential suitors before hand. A failed courtship can imply that the father did not pick well and this might reflect back and his authority and leadership skills – at least in the public eye of the movements. Of course this isn’t true for every case, but the motto is usually “better safe than sorry”.

And it’s not just the fathers. In very strict groups, a girl turns into “damaged goods” faster than you might think. Even a failed courtship might label her as damaged goods and have a negative influence on the range of future suitors. It’s all about the “value of the bride”.

Imagine you’re in a store for soft pillows. The shelves are full of soft, handmade, expensive pillows. Lots of people come in to buy pillows. Now, some pillows might have attracted more customers in the past – they look a tiny bit “touched”, there might even be a little stain. They’ve never been slept on (no pun intended), but one or the other customer already picked it up to inspect it more closely. Now, if you do want a flawless pillow, you won’t even buy the “inspected” ones – you’ll go for the ones in the back, the ones nobody ever inspected, fresh from the storage room – if possible still wrapped in plastic.

It works very much like that in strict courtship movements. If a girl has one, or, even worse, more than one, failed courtships, there’s something “wrong” about her. A girl breaking off a courtship is something rather “wild”. The idea is that the girl will certainly like the man her dad picked out because, well, her dad knows her best. If you hear of broken courtships, the general idea that comes to mind is that the guy broke it off for some reason (or the dad, which then would be kept secret again because dad doesn’t pick “the wrong guy”). The girl’s value decreased with every courtship she goes through. She’ll be labelled damaged, easy to get, high maintenance and so forth. And simply because of that, it’s so much easier to keep courtships secret until the day of engagement.

Mother-Son relationships: “You’re raising a wimp!”

There’s so much material on father-daughter relationships in the fundamentalist groups these days as well as plenty of material on the issue of “emotional incest” within the purity movements. In short, a very close father-daughter relationship is supposed to make the girls grow up to be pure princesses who will not sleep with any man, won’t end up as drunk drug addicted teen pregnant sluts and will make awesome wives, simply and only because they stayed absolutely pure.

While there is this strong emphasis on the value of a very close father-daughter relationship, there is another emphasis on mother-son relationships. These aren’t considered to be as beneficial to the developement of sons – actually, quite the opposite. A strong, involved mother will rather turn a son into a wimpy little boy who will never be able to be “manly” in any way. This attachment to their mothers will turn into something they can’t cut off. They’ll never be able to “leave their parents” because his mother will be more important than his wife. Yes, those sons will turn into men who cry because their wives call them losers. They will cry when they realize they made a terribly wrong decision. They will cry for every reason a woman is typically supposed to cry.

I remember how my parents encouraged us daughters to seek their help and support for every problem we had. The emphasis is on their. They believed a daughter needed both parents’ care to grow into a good woman. Their were both equally important. For my brothers, however, things were a little different. Asking Mom for help was discouraged – they were supposed to come to Dad with everything. A lot of times, Mom wasn’t even informed when something was wrong with the boys, she wasn’t asked for advice or anything. My Dad would just go ahead and work out the problems by himself, telling Mom only after everything had been worked out that there was a problem to begin with. It’s not uncommon at all that Mothers almost push their sons away in order to make them grow into strong, manly men. A mother can’t even do much with a son! The daughters she can involve in her daily life. They can help her clean, care for the babies, cook and do laundry. Boys can’t do that. Boys must do things boys do – play in the garden, make something, play knight and dragon. Mom doesn’t have time for it and even if she did, she would probably prefer to spend some girl time with her daughters. Too much time spent together makes boys way too attached to that first woman in their lives.

While a daughter’s heart is supposed to belong to her Dad and her Dad only (see purity balls etc), a boy’s heart is never supposed to belong to his mother only. A boy’s heart is free, it belongs to him. If his heart wasn’t free in this sense, he would have to ask his mother for her opinion and, finally, for her approval, if he had picked out a girl he wanted to court. And that is simply impossible – a woman lacks the ability to make sound, godly decision. After all, her head is her husband, not God directly. She cannot know what God wants because he can’t tell her – only her husband can. You see where this is going – a woman is simply unable to be a mother in a spiritual sense because she simply lacks the spiritual ability and permission – and if you can’t be, shouldn’t be a “spiritual mother”, you might want to be careful about all the other ways to be a mother. A woman’s advice, care and involvement can’t do any good for a boy’s developement. At the end of the day, it will be his Dad and his Dad only who makes the final call as the head of the home. A son’s mother is degraded merely to an incubator, a feeder and caretaker for the first year of life. After that, her influence can only be damaging.

Today I found this very interesting article here. And I realized that much of it is true.

You see, my boyfriend is one of those “wimpy sons”. At first it kind of scared me, almost… disgusted me. I thought he was too attached to his mother. His Mom is a lovely Lady. She is very very quiet and calm, very emotional and very introvert. All of these character qualities are true for Daniel. He is the exact copy of his mother, at least when it comes to character and personality. He was sort of her favourite child. While his siblings had a much stronger relationship with their Dad, who is the exact opposite of his wife, he was Mama’s boy. Until today they have a very very close relationship. If he has problems, questions or anything, he will ask his mother first. Once a week they meet up to spend quality time together. They usually rent a movie, or go for pizza, or simply have a cup of coffee somewhere. It’s an important thing for both of them.

I’m sure you can imagine just how confusing this was for a fundamentalist child like me. He clearly picked the wrong parent! He should be doing all of that with his Dad. Everything else makes him a wimp.

Except that it doesn’t.

He can very well make decisions without his Mom holding his hand. He is disciplined, loving and caring, a hard worker, emotionally connected, strong in relationships, honest and protective. How could it be that he displays all of those qualities when he grew up being Mommy’s boy?

Could it be that listening to a woman’s advice doesn’t make a man soft and weak? Could it be that a child might not be focused on the parent of the same gender but rather on the parent with the same personality? Could it be that an involved mother doesn’t make a man weak but strong and appreciative of female qualities, respecting a woman the same way he respects his mother – as an intelligent human being capable of making sound decisions and giving advice that you can actually listen to?

Is Sex good or bad?!

I want to talk about a major problem I’ve always had ever since my parents put strong emphasis on the purity teachings – when I was old enough to understand that I had to “protect” my purity.

All of the purity teachings have a potential to make sex look really bad. It is something that will break your entire being, body, mind and soul. If you give it away, you will lose a large portion of everything you are to a person who eventually does not value it. Sex and everything around it becomes an enemy you have to fight.

Now, of course none of the P/QF folks, neither adults nor teens, have a supernatural power that allows them to block all their sexual desires at all times unless they’re appropriate. That’s because they’re just people (Who would’ve known?). As you probably already guesses, I had those desires too!

While you mostly dream of a faceless Prince Charming, a completely asexual one, as a young girl, these images change in your teens. Just like every other teen, I dreamed of kissing my Prince Charming and holding hands and getting flowers and so on. And further in my teens, I started wondering what it would feel like to get more kissing than just a peck on the lips. And even further, I started to wonder what having sex with him would be like. For certain periods, this Prince had the face of a boy I knew, other times he just looked like how I imagined a really attractive man (tall, dark, slightly curly hair, brown eyes…. I’m a walking stereotype!).

And all of this was a sin. I was mentally cheating on my future husband. I think it’s partially to stop young girls from these dreams that makes people teach negative things about sex. How it’s disgusting, humiliating and cheap.

And then, there were these two specific teachings which I could never manage to make sense of. Each individual teaching makes sense on its own, but combined they stop making sense to make.

First off, while sex outside of marriage is dirty, cheap, humiliating and dangerous, within the boundaries of marriage it’s sacred, beautiful, holy and good. God made sex, so it’s good. It’s the most beautiful thing about marriage. So far so good.

Second, a wife must understand that her husband’s need for sex is much larger than her own. Refusing him is a sin. If a woman does not enjoy it, she must overcome that and do it anyway. She must act like it’s fun to satisfy her husband. She is supposed to say yes whenever he asks because her body belongs to him. It’s a “fact” that women don’t crave sex as much and that it’s not as enjoyable for them as it’s simply not a part of their design. Men on the other hand see sex as the most important thing in a relationship, so since he’s your head, you’re to submit to him, support him and fulfill his desires.

So wait a minute, on one hand it’s awesome in marriage, on the other hand you still have to force yourself?

I love spaghetti and, no joke, I could it eat literally every single day. Twice! I do not like pork and if someone put it in front of me, I’d have a hard time swallowing each bite.

It’s either awesome, or it’s not. It can’t be both a blessing and a burden at the same time. I fully understand that you might not want sex every single day, but there’s a fundamental difference between something that’s enjoyable and something that is done out of obligation.

Until this day I do not know how to categorize “sex”. Good or bad? Fun or burden? Enjoyable or obligation? I always felt like these teachers were only trying to force people into abstinence first by telling them how terrible sex before marriage is and how awesome it is in marriage, but once the women get married, you have to make clear to them that this might not be true for everyone, but now it’s too late and you have to do it any way. If you’ve been taught to view sex as something terrible for your entire life, chances are you won’t enjoy it that much. This image will stay in your head for the rest of your life, if you’re unlucky.

The “in marriage it’s great” blabber just doesn’t cut it! People are supposed to suppress all off their sexual desires, to feel ashamed for having them in the first place, until they say “I do”, which is exactly the moment where the girls are supposed to throw their clothes away, put a hot strip-show on and act like sex-maniacs. And men are likewise supposed to be able to perform at any time of the day. Going from beating themselves up over looking at a pretty girl’s butt to lusting after their wife as much as they please. Can you give me a sexual dysfunction?

I really wish I’ll be able to figure this one out in this life, because I certainly don’t want to end up like one of those wives who deny themselves every form of joy because that’s how they’re supposed to act.

Quiverful men and why they can’t leave

Libby Anne is starting to put the questions for her Raised Quiverful project together. And just now I realized that, though I read all blogs written by the people who participated, there’s one person whose answers I’m most curious about. And that person is Joe from Incongruous Circumspection. I don’t mean to insult the women who answered in any way, I dearly love reading their blogs as well and I’m curious about their answers too. I think I’m so curious to read Joe’s answers because he is the only man to answer.

It’s so rare to read about men who lived in the P/QF movements and left them. It seems as if they don’t exist! Now, you could certainly argue on a gender based foundation, saying that women simply feel more comfortable talking about such emotional topics, that they talk more anyway, and that it’s easier for them to word these things because they know their emotions better than men do.

I don’t think that’s the (only) reason. I’ve been thinking about it and this is what I came up with:

In the P/QF movements, men model Christ with all they do, and they’re supposed to possess qualities such as strength both physical and emotional, intelligence, discipline, leader skills, responsibility, self-sacrifice by working and providing and so on. Women on the other hand are submissive, meek and quiet, simple (-minded), following their husbands who, as I said, are like Christ to them. Men are leaders, women are followers.

When a woman breaks free of these structures, she certainly will face a lot of problems with the circles she’s leaving. She’ll be called rebellious, evil, sinful, worldly. But you can’t ignore what she’s doing at that point: From being a follower, she strives to be strong, self-governed, responsible. She tries to equalize herself with men and, ultimately, with Christ. While that’s negative within the P/QF communities, she’ll be respected in the ‘real’ world. She’ll probably experience a lot of positive feedback from the normal people she meets, who will tell her she was right and strong. A woman always breaks free of rather negative characteristics and adapts positive (manly) characteristics.

Do not forget that women are blamed for ‘feminine’ men. It’s not the men who give up their strength, it’s always women who take it away from them. The strong woman is feared in the movement. She is something you have to scream about, criticize and beat to show her her place in the world. It takes a lot of violence to make a woman submit – or at least try to do that.

Now, men are never blamed for a loss of their power. It’s always women who take it. Men are generally attributed all these positive characteristics and the second they reject any part of this system – watch out, this is where it gets interesting – they lose their Christ-likeness. They voluntary step down from their position of power to a lower position – namely that of a woman. They lessen themselves by rejecting the P/QF beliefs. They supposedly admit their weakness, their lack of responsibility and intelligence, their lack of leadership skills.

While a woman who leaves is strong (in the position that only men should have), a man is weak and scared, retreating into the passive position of a woman.

And while a woman who leaves gets all this positive affirmation from the normal world, what do men get? Even in the normal world, they might seem weak and emotionally unstable. Even for the normal world, he loses his position of a ‘man’. And that’s precisely what I think doesn’t only keep most men from talking about their experiences, it’s also what stops men from leaving those movements in the first place.

No matter how you turn it, a woman will always be in a positive, strong position, a man will always be in the weak position. I can fully understand every man who is afraid of losing his entire manliness because of this. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t leave to preserve this manliness. But I understand what makes it so much harder to show ‘rebellious’ characteristics as a man.