Why the church encourages young women to be plain.

As someone who grew up steeped in evangelical church culture, I will attest that I never once received specific church guidance on how to make myself look physically beautiful (or at least better than my reflection in the morning).  Virginity pledges, sex-is-beautiful-because-God-created-it-and-God-doesn’t-create-junk talks, See You at the Pole, myths of evolution, evils of rock music, sanctity-of-life instruction – yes.  How to make the most of the body and face God gave me – no.  Apparently, physical appearance is just something that girls are expected either to know innately or to absorb through the constant bombardment of The Media (which, as we all know, belongs to The World, out of which nothing good can come and which sends the wrong message to impressionable minds not sufficiently girded with the Sword of the Spirit, et al).

It seems to me that the modern evangelical church lives in fear of the male sex drive* and does nearly everything in its power to deny its motivations.  When I was in high school, youth group sex talks usually stressed the importance of “modesty.”  It was important to dress modestly because if you didn’t, disgusting sex-crazed boys would think about you with lust, which was gross and wrong.  (That’s enough to scare conscientious young girls into covering up.  At that age, there’s no need to remind them of pervy old men, either.)  The greatest sartorial enemies of modesty were low-cut tops and mini-skirts — ergo, any girl caught wearing such an item of clothing was immediately branded, if not outright, then definitely through knowing glances and innuendo, one of those girls.  Wearing a short skirt was practically one step away from asking to be raped.  Don’t tempt the brothers!  Just being female is enough temptation!

In addition, evangelical girls are taught, almost as a catechism, that true beauty comes from Christian spirit and from nowhere else, on the basis of the following verses:

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. -Proverbs 31:30

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.  Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. -1 Peter 3:3-4

Never mind the fact that the Bible is brimming with beautiful women and that in some cases, it was the woman’s looks that made the difference between good and bad outcomes, and that an entire book of the Bible is devoted to the pleasures of sex and pleasing physical traits of the woman – isn’t it HOBBBVIOUS from these verses that looks don’t and shouldn’t matter?  Other corollaries naturally follow, such as:

Physical appearance isn’t worth my time because I should spend all my time focusing on the Lord.  Oppressed Chinese people need Bibles more than I need Mary Kay!

My looks will wither anyway, so why try to attract someone on the basis of something that won’t last?

If I spend any time trying to look really, really good, I will be considered shallow and not focusing on the things above.

And, possibly the most deadly:

My personality and character are where true beauty comes from, so anyone who evaluates me on the basis of my looks doesn’t appreciate true beauty or have his spiritual priorities straight.  Therefore, I am free to condemn his rejection of me as sinful and hate prettier girls who get all of the male attention, because if they were real Christians, they’d be working on their personalities instead.

So, when you consider the sex fears that the church instills in young women, along with the imperative to downplay looks (I remember reading that classic tome I Kissed Dating Good-bye and being surprised that author Joshua Harris actually boasts at one point that his attractive female friends don’t dress to stun), and you end up with women who dress plainly, partly out of conviction and partly out of fear of being socially ostracized, and who do it as a badge of honor and courage.

*I am not not acknowledging the destructive power that a sex drive uncontrolled can wield.  Certainly caution is prudent, given the number of men throughout history who have destroyed their lives and the lives of their loved ones on account of lust.  However, I continually get the impression that many in the church would love nothing more than to completely snuff out male sexual impulse, along with all the good it can do when properly directed.  Sex drive is like fire:  incredibly productive when harnessed, devastating when not.

The importance of having chemistry.

I was reading an article at (where else?) Boundless the other day where a reader wrote in with a question about the importance of chemistry.  Three years ago, the reader, a college student, had a passionate – and apparently chaste – relationship with a young man who excited her emotionally.  (Unsurprisingly, he played in a band and did spontaneous things for her.)  According to the reader, they had an incredible connection with each other.  Alas, the young man dumped her, and eventually she started dating another young man who was his exact opposite:  predictable, responsible, faithful, and intentional.  They have been together for two years, and although they are not (yet?) engaged, he has indicated to her and her parents that he would like to “love and cherish only [her].”  The reader claims that she loves this young man (who is a pre-med student) but feels no chemistry with him, especially not in comparison to the band guy, and even goes so far as to say that if she and Pre-Med broke up, she could go on without him with no problem.  Recently, she met up again with Band Guy, and all of the chemistry they shared came rushing back, reminding her of how powerful a connection between two people can be.  Now she is conflicted – does she hold out for chemistry with a spouse, or should she proceed with Pre-Med?

Candice Watters wrote what I felt was an overly judgmental and completely missing-the-mark response.  First, she chastised the reader for “acting married” with Band Guy and then stated that if the reader hadn’t had a prior relationship with Band Guy, she and Pre-Med would already be married.  Because, apparently, if Reader hadn’t had that Band Guy relationship to compare Pre-Med to, she’d have been ga-ga over Pre-Med.  Or something.

But Candice didn’t stop there.  She then stated that chemistry is just a “polite way” of saying sexual attraction, and went on to relate two other readers’ stories where the young women didn’t think there was any chemistry initially but changed their minds after several dates and are oh-so-grateful that they did.  Candice also advised Reader not to marry someone she didn’t want to marry, but not to NOT marry someone just because he doesn’t measure up to Band Guy.  She then more or less urged Reader to proceed with Pre-Med, saying:

It sounds like you have a great man in your life. Are you friends? That is foundational. Are you both committed to living for Christ? That is essential. Do you spur one-another on in your faith and service to God? Are you together looking toward a God-honoring, fruitful marriage? These are the first questions to answer. From there, you can let love grow. And as I’ve seen in the stories of others, chemistry may rightly follow.

Needless to say, I think Candice was so far off the mark she might as well have set a course for China.  First of all, Reader has been dating Pre-Med for TWO YEARS.  How the heck much longer is she supposed to wait to, by Candice’s definition, become sexually attracted to this man?  Also, what kind of man stays with a woman who, after two years together, says that they could split up and she’d be fine?!  Any Roissy readers (or readers of any other Game blog) could easily diagnose what’s going on here in a jif, and it is not that Reader played marriage with irresponsible Band Guy and thus ruined herself for a quality Christian provider like Pre-Med.  The real problem is that Pre-Med is a classic, boring Beta who knows zip about female attraction psychology, has DLVed himself to a level of almost zero by virtue of his publicly broadcasted Oneitis and pedestalization, and, I’d wager a guess, not only has no clue about what’s going on in Reader’s head, but probably hasn’t made any meaningful sexual moves on Reader, either, out of “respect.”  A toothless baby sounds more dangerous than Pre-Med.  If anyone truly cared about Pre-Med’s precarious relationship health, he would send Pre-Med to Roissy and force him to educate himself before he lost Reader for good.

My other bone of contention with this response is with Candice’s definition of chemistry.  Between a man and a woman, yes, there is usually a component of sexual attraction in chemistry, but it is not the whole of chemistry.  And it’s not just men and women who have chemistry between them.  Two men can have chemistry, as can two women, though not sexual (well, unless they’re gay).  A better definition of chemistry is simply the intellectual and emotional “clicking” of two people.  Chemistry happens when two people’s energies feed into each other and produce a harmony of existence.  When two people have chemistry, conversation flows with ease.  Jokes don’t have to be explained, nor do they sail over the other person’s head.  Silences are not awkward.  Quite often, two people with the right chemistry can go for years without seeing each other or speaking to one another, yet can pick up right where they left off whenever they do see each other again.  Similarly, two people with the right chemistry can meet and be chatting with each other like old friends almost instantaneously.

This is the chemistry that I think Reader was referring to in her letter, both what she had with Band Guy, and what she is lacking with Pre-Med.  A woman longs to be known by the men she loves.  She wants to feel that he understands what is going on inside of her and that he has special insight into her mind that no other man has.  Women want love in general, but they also want a specialized love from their man.  This specialized love is what Pre-Med is sorely lacking in.  Women do not suffer feeling generic.  Ten bucks says that if Reader and Pre-Med break up, Pre-Med will treat his next girlfriend exactly as he’s treated Reader.  The success of that relationship will hinge on whether or not Pre-Med and New Girl have any natural chemistry between them.

As for the sexual component of chemistry, it’s a must for any marriage.  Few things make a woman recoil in fear and disgust more than the prospect of having to have sex with a man to whom she is not sexually attracted.  For most women, sexual attraction grows as their general attraction to a man grows; it’s not uncommon for a woman to see or meet a man and not feel anything for him until she gets to know him.  But I also think that sexual chemistry is actually chemical.  The point of sexual reproduction is genetic diversity, which strengthens the species, so we will therefore seek out matches that will result in that diversity.  How else to explain someone who is great on paper, and you may even get along well, but there is inexplicably just zero sexual attraction?  Yet sometimes you meet someone, and even though the person may not be your “type,” there is just that immediate pull towards the person, like you physically have to be in that person’s space?

Generally speaking, women, upon meeting a man, will place him in one of three categories:  (1) Yes, Please, (2) Wait and See, and (3) NEVER IN  A MILLION YEARS.  I think that subconsciously, this is heavily chemically chemistry-based, especially for categories (2) and (3).  Sometimes a Yes, Please doesn’t pan out; he’s not the guy you hoped he would be, or, equally as likely, his looks worked for you, but his body chemistry just didn’t mesh with yours.  But a Wait and See often means that his body chemistry doesn’t turn you off and you just have to wait and see if there’s more from the intellectual and emotional end that works for you.  (And vice versa for Never in a Million Years.)

It’s the Wait and Sees that I think women should be more open to.  But I resent the evangelical push to make women feel guilty about rejecting a solid Christian provider man when he is clearly a NIAMY (AND a boring beta to boot).

Blaming current ideals of beauty.

One thing that has started to drive me crazy is (Christian) women’s constant blaming of not having a boyfriend or husband on impossible “current ideals of beauty.”  Whenever a woman goes through a dry spell and is verging on bitterness, nine times out of ten she’ll say, “Well, I just don’t measure up to all those models/actresses in the magazines, and that’s what men want.”  (I just realized that I’ve actually sort of discussed this issue before on the blog, but it’s an issue that keeps rearing its only-beautiful-by-the-world’s-standards head, so why not write about it again?)

This is a cheap excuse because it oversimplifies the issue.  Men are biologically programmed to desire beautiful women, and Hollywood actresses are selected for their beauty.  Of course men “want” the beautiful women in movies and TV shows and Victoria’s Secret catalogs.  But men also understand that (a) there are very few women, if any, they know in real life who are that beautiful and, possibly more importantly, (b) they don’t have what it takes to snag a woman who is that beautiful and keep her for themselves.  Not to mention, most men aren’t going to move to Hollywood just to try to get one of those women for themselves, especially not when they’ll be battling multi-millionaires and powerful Hollywood execs and men who are ten times as good-looking for those women.  So men settle.  Mate selection is a pragmatic undertaking when it comes right down to it.

So if men are willing to settle, but they’re not settling for you, why is that?  It could be any one or more of several possibilities:

• Your physical appearance needs help. The average man doesn’t require that you be a size 2, but you should look like you are at a healthy weight for your body type and care about your appearance.
• Your personality needs help. Smiling more and complaining less are good ways to start.  Also, if the only thing that interests you is what’s in Us Weekly, it won’t hurt expand your intellectual horizons.  (Unless you’re a 10.  Then you will probably be forgiven for being shallow.  But if you’re a 10, you probably don’t have trouble attracting attention in the first place, so….)  This goes along with…
• You need better social skills. Don’t expect other people to entertain you or keep the conversation going.  People get resentful when others expect them to do all the heavy lifting in a conversation.  Learn how to listen and how to ask questions that keep conversations afloat.  Also, make eye contact and learn how to give a good handshake.  Have a shortlist of conversation starters mentally on hand if you struggle with coming up with ideas.
• You don’t go anywhere where you can actually meet single members of the opposite sex who are realistic marriage prospects. This ties into…
• You want someone of a caliber you can’t realistically hope to attract. Age, wealth, looks, talents, intelligence, etc. are goods you bring to the mating table.  Don’t overestimate the value of yours.  If you’ve got a 5 face and a 20-lbs. overweight body, the charismatic, single, multi-talented church worship leader isn’t going to go for you, no matter how amazing a man of God he is or how good of friends you think you are…or how much your female friends encourage you to keep your hopes up because you are an amazing person.
• You honestly haven’t met anyone who sparks with you even though you take care of yourself and have a good personality. This one is perhaps the toughest to deal with and has no easy solution.

Just remember – is everyone you know who is married drop-dead gorgeous and the Most Amazing Person Ever?  No?  Then there’s always hope for you.

Also, about Hollywood beauty and the images you see in film and on TV and in magazines:

It is true that Hollywood, the primary American cultural arbiter of beauty, has rather narrow standards.  It is rare to find a principal actress in a movie or television show who exceeds a size 6, tops (the exception being actresses who play “types” or are there mainly for body image affirmative action – but even these women, for the most part, aren’t bigger than the average American woman, who is a size 12 or 14, depending on which poll you use).  But Hollywood is a manufactured fantasy world, with its inhabitants carefully selected to fit within certain parameters, at least on the screen.  This extends right on down to the extras; it is rare for even the background actors in a typical production to be obese or objectively unattractive, on the whole.  In the real world, you will not find a general population ever to be as good-looking as the people of a Hollywood production.  So with that in mind, it’s really pointless to compare yourself to the people in a movie or TV show.  Those few people were selected out of hundreds or even thousands to fit specific needs demanded by the script, director, and/or producers.  Real life isn’t like that.

The thing is, men know this.  They have eyeballs and can tell that the women that surround them in everyday life are not Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, or any of the little pretties on CW shows.  Yet somehow these men manage to date and get married to regular women, so they can’t be that picky about looks.  If every man held out for a 10, hardly anyone would be married.

The fine art of settling.

There’s a lot of talk these days in both the Christian community and mainstream society about settling.  The story usually goes something like this:

Before the sexual revolution, you could only get a 6 if you were a 6, a 3 if you were a 3, etc.

Nowadays, 1s through 10s are going for the 10s, leaving everybody else out in the cold until they are forced by necessity to settle, resulting in aged, dessicated husks of formerly semi-attractive women going for the nerdy beta providers they couldn’t stand in high school; or, if the 10 is a man, he has his entire lifetime to keep playing the field.

The solution?  Sound the drumbeat of settling!

This isn’t necessarily bad advice, especially when you consider that the dating/mating market ultimately bows to pragmatism.  For example, if you’re holding out for a physical 10 who matches your laundry list of must-have character traits, and you live a town populated by beer-drinking pizza-eaters whose idea of fine fashion is Kmart, you will either have to lower your standards or move somewhere else…or pray that God not only bring Prince Charming to Buckville but also have him fall in love with you.  Similarly, the market adjusts to what is actually available.  I’ve seen plenty of men online gripe that they go to a highly ranked college and all the women there are trolls who act like they’re 10s and can get away with it simply because there is no one else sluttier better-looking available.

The real strength of settling, or settling wisely, is that it most enables you to find a mate who will both make you happy and whom you can make happy with the least amount of stress.  Everyone brings a different set of goods to the mating table.  Common sense dictates that those with equivalent (and complementary) amounts of goods are likely to mesh the best.  If Person A is very attractive, very smart, very athletic, and very creative, she could make Person B, who is of average looks, intelligence, athleticism, and creativity quite happy with no trouble at all.  But how could Person B, who is inferior to Person A in all of those attributes, reciprocate?  Person B would be killing himself to keep Person A’s attraction centered on himself.  And what happens to Person A/Person B’s relationship when Person C, who is very handsome, athletic, smart, and creative enters Person A’s sphere at work?  How much easier is it going to be for Person A to find points of commonality with Person C than with Person B?  Mismatches of goods result in inherent instability within a relationship because one person will always be playing catch-up.

This dynamic is why I find some adherents of Game to be somewhat delusional, at least if they are interested in an long-term relationship, especially one leading to marriage.  Here you have all these grown men howling about how a female 6 (not a bad-looking person, objectively) is practically an insult to them – but I highly doubt that internet enclaves of Game devotees are all 8s or above.  Men, if you are a 6 who somehow Gamed yourself into scoring a 9, how long could you keep her without losing your wits?  How difficult would it be to fend off the competition?  Could you ever relax in the presence of your 9 without fearing that you’d revealed your inner beta and destroyed the house of cards you’d built?  Ultimately no one can hide from the truth-extracting powers of time and familiarity.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the notion of settling that seems to be pushed in the Christian community, which is to find someone who is “godly and available” and have that pretty much be the end of your criteria.  The idea of having sex with the other person is about as appealing as having your tooth drilled?  Please.  How is that at all important when the other person is stable, debt-free, and loves Jesus?  Give yourself a decade and let the chemistry develop…eventually.  By the way, marriage is for life and you only get one shot at it!

I think the best thing to do is take a look around you and see the type of person who is in your milieu.  This is the type of person that you’re naturally the most comfortable with — you wouldn’t be friends with people it was hard to be friends with, right?  So it makes sense that in marriage, a lifetime friendship (with benefits!), you would want to be with the type of person you were most comfortable with.  If the people around you are a cut below the type of person you’re always trying to date, it might be time to reassess how good are the goods you’re bringing to the mating table, and to reconsider whether you’re pursuing someone who is realistically attainable.  Likewise, if you find yourself constantly disappointed with your friends, it might be time for a friend upgrade…or a workout regimen.

Settling isn’t about feeling like a loser because you couldn’t snag an Adonis or Aphrodite.  It’s about being smart about your future and making the choices that are going to result in the most harmonious match possible.  But it also involves being realistic about yourself, which is probably the hardest thing.

Too complicated to have any generalizations apply to you.

What is with this current attitude that someone or something is “too complicated” to have any generalizations or rules apply to them?  I see it all the time in discussion forums about personal relationships.  Do we live in a world where everyone is such a special snowflake that everyone falls outside the norm?

For example, divorce.  If someone on a discussion forum announces they’re getting divorced or thinking about it, and you chime in and say, “It’s better to stay together for the kids,” I guarantee you someone will jump down your throat insisting that it’s not your life, you don’t know all the details, and that relationships are “complicated” and therefore conventional wisdom does not apply.

Or how about obesity, particularly if you’re addressing evangelical women.  No one flies off the handle more than evangelical women if a man states that women are more attractive when they are thin.  A hullabaloo over this issue just went down at Boundless recently when one of their bloggers, Ted Slater, wrote a post and used the words “bouncing beach ball.”  His post was apparently so incendiary that it was deleted and replaced with a more “conciliatory” post by Candice Watters, who used the word “precious” every five seconds to remind fat girls that they deserve love, too, while insinuating that with enough prayer, a fat girl can find a man who will love her without demanding that she lose any weight.  To top it off, Ted then posted a new post apologizing for his cruel, thoughtless words.  And to think evangelical women complain that men don’t assume enough “leadership” these days.

Anyhow, in the comments of Candice’s new post, a few men piped up to agree with Ted’s original sentiments.  Naturally, these men got flayed alive by your typical assortment of Christian lashings, such as accusations of being unattractive, having a bad personality and/or mean spirit, and not speaking in love.  Several women insisted that obesity is not a personal failing and that you can never assume that someone loves cake more than a hot body just by looking at them.  The person could have complicated medical issues!*  Plus, well, it’s hard to be thin!  And chubby girls already feel a lot of despair about not having a boyfriend!  Good Christians pretend that other people are not fat, I guess.  Let’s keep fighting abortion instead!

Is this trend the result of the self-esteem culture and its resultant narcissism?  I think it might be.  But then, as the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)

*I am definitely aware that sometimes a person is obese due to chemical or hormonal imbalances in the body, especially something like a thyroid problem.  But it is ludicrous to believe that the majority of the American public has a thyroid problem that’s causing the love handles, love saddlebags, or whatever you want to call them.

Learn from Adam.

Men’s Game blogs often advocate that a man not do what his wife tells him to do for fear of compromising his masculine authority and becoming less attractive to her as a result.

What most people don’t realize is that the Bible teaches the same lesson:  Eve tells Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and like a good beta husband, he does.  Voila!  Sin!  Seriously, three chapters into Genesis, and we’ve already got Adam doing Eve’s bidding.  The results of such betatude?  Well, in addition to the aforementioned sin and therefore death (no more Tree of Life!), not to mention expulsion from Eden:

• Women experience pain in childbirth — this is an exclusively human trait; no other animals experience pain in giving birth
• Women are put under the authority of their husbands
• Men must toil to ensure they can eat
• Sinful nature is passed on through men

Lesson?  Don’t do what your wife tells you to do, or suffer the consequences.

(Probably the second-best “Don’t listen to your wife” Bible story?  When Sarah told Abraham to take her servant Hagar as a concubine.  The result of that union was Ishmael.  The Middle East thanks you, Abraham!)

Love vs. In Love

Readers, please weigh in.  I’ve heard more than one man pooh-pooh the idea of differentiating between loving someone and being “in love” with that person.  (Apparently, the idea of being “in love” with someone is a female thing, ergo entirely nebulous and more or less imaginary, whereas a man just simply loves.)

For my part, I’m not sure which side I come down on in this argument.  “In love” often seems synonymous with infatuation.  “Real” love, the kind of ongoing, day-to-day love that keeps a relationship alive for a lifetime, has little to do with the waves of emotional rollercoastering of infatuation.  Then again, we’ve all seen elderly couples who still look at each other with a touch of infatuation, so….?  Complicating the matter is the breadth of meanings of love in the English language.  (“I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack….”)

What say you?  Is there a difference between loving and being “in love”?  Can a person really be “in love”?