What do you say about ugly babies?

My church small group has been going through the Ten Commandments, based on our church’s sermon series.  This week we discussed the ninth Commandment, “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” which is most commonly translated into “don’t tell lies, you lying liar.”

This led into a quite energetic discussion about what to say when someone asks you to agree that their (ugly) baby is cute.  I was actually shocked that some people blew this off as a trivial issue, because to me this is one of those rubber meets the road things.  If you’re going to condemn white lies, then the ugly baby issue is smack dab in the middle of that.  And if you’re going to insist that whatever you speak is not only truthful but INSPIRING and KIND, then the ugly baby issue presents a serious conundrum.

Maybe this is more of an issue to someone like myself, with a strong need for ideological congruence, than for someone who is more of a feelings person.  A feelings person would probably not think it important or necessary to delineate what is and is not appropriate to say when presented with an ugly baby issue.  If the receiver of the reply is content, then all is well, no harm, no foul.  I think a feelings person would feel that the overall INTENT of the words was what was important, not the actual words.  So if a feelings person said, “Oh, she’s adorable,” then that would not be a lie because the person wasn’t intending to deceive, per se, but to speak to the subtext of the actual question, which is that the asker is seeking approval.  On the other hand, an analytical person in the same situation suddenly gets thrust into the horrible pressure cooker of trying to be truthful yet not commit the sin of saying something that will upset the other person.  The thought process goes something like:  “This baby is UGLY, it looks like a giant prune, maybe its face will sort itself out when it becomes a toddler, OH CRAP WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY?  I can’t say, ‘No, I don’t think your baby is cute,’ but I can’t say, ‘Yes, your baby is cute’ because that is a LIE and as a Christian I can’t tell LIES but what compliment can I actually give this potato-shaped poop machine without sounding like an ogre?”  Then you make a rapid judgment call, weighing possible positive outcomes versus possible negative outcomes, and you either mumble, “Yes, very,” or you try to deflect, saying, “You must be very proud,” (this was one of the proffered suggestions in small group) and hope that Mommy doesn’t dig into your subtext.  But then if you’re subtexting to a subtextual question,  aren’t you BOTH being deceptive, therefore liars, and horribly in need of forgiveness?

I have a hard time when Christians issue hard-line edicts about stuff like this, because an analytical person will feel that the edict goes right up to the most absurd scenario.  (Well, unless that person also has an extremely strong practical mind, as well.)  I mean, if you’re going to tell other Christians that anything with even a whiff of not 100% genuine, heartfelt, objective truthfulness delivered in absolute love and kindness, is SIN SIN SIN SIN SIN, then you need to be prepared for some awkward pauses and hurt feelings.  If you’re implying that people are sinning if they answer “fine” to a coworker’s perfunctory “How are you doing?” question, then people need to be prepared to hear things they don’t want to hear.  (This is why I rarely ever ask people how they are doing, and I often don’t answer the question when it is posed to me.  Most of the time, I do not genuinely care how the other person is doing, so I don’t ask.  PERSON:  “How are you doing?”  ME:  “Hello.”  Of course, a feelings person would probably consider this rude.  Actually, a NO LIE EVER person would probably also consider this rude, because it’s not treating the other person with love and kindness, and it is certainly trying to wiggle out of something.)

I think this ties in to why Christians are horrible at comedy.  A lot of comedy (and basically all great drama, for that matter) LIVES in subtext.  But when you have Christians being instructed to say ONLY EXACTLY what they mean, and only do it in the nicest of ways, then most comedy and most drama will fail.  But ironically, most Christians fall into using subtext precisely because of this enjoinder.  They KNOW they can’t say certain things, so they just find ways to talk around it, and because everyone knows that certain words and phrases and voiced thoughts are off-limits, everyone knows what everyone else means.  My devoutly Christian grandmother is an expert at this.  I remember one time when I was at breakfast with her and my mom, and my grandma wanted to trash my cousin’s wife’s outfit that she had worn to a family gathering.  My grandma, as a Christian, obviously could not say, “I thought J looked like whorish white trash.”  So instead, she asked, “What did you think of J’s outfit?”  Which, to any practiced Christian listener, meant “TRASH WHORE!”  But by bringing the subject up the way she did, she had plausible deniability of trashing, PLUS she had the added advantage of letting someone else do the trashing first.

I’m not saying that we should all go super-spergy and forgo any semblance of tact in our pursuit of truth in speech.  I think the best tactic is to try to choose our battles wisely and try to recuse ourselves from conversations where we have nothing to add.

P.S. During this same small group meeting, we got on the subject of Abraham lying to Pharoah about Sarah being his wife, not just his sister.  Group leader asked, “What did Abraham learn from this experience?”  I said, “That his wife was a liar!”  WOW, did that get a shriek of denial from some of the other women in the group.  Their reasoning was that Sarah was under Abraham’s command.  My comment was, “So are you saying that Sarah had no moral agency?  If your husband asks you to lie and you do it, are you also excused because your husband told you to?”  That line of discussion got scuppered VERY quickly.

 

Sex goggles.

I am convinced that most bad relationships do not end because of sex goggles.  They say that sex changes everything between two people, and it does…because of the sex goggles.  The Bible describes this as two people becoming one flesh, but it basically means sex goggles.

Sex goggles magically add anywhere from +1 to +5 points of attractiveness to a person, which is why two homely fat people can think each other gorgeous, and why men stay with drab, frumpy, personality-free women even though it’s obvious the men could do better.  Sex goggles boost the other person’s attractiveness to the point where it makes leaving the other person difficult due to the fear of not being able to find someone at least equally attractive.  Sex goggles are so powerful that a lot of guys will stay with a woman who doles out very little sex, just because a woman is more attractive when you know you’re assured of sex twelve times a year rather than face the unknown of possibly having sex zero times a year.  Once you put the sex goggles on, it’s hard to take them off.

I’m not saying that sex goggles are bad per se.  Sex goggles are actually a feature of sex as designed by God.  God designed sex to bind two people together, and how else to facilitate the longevity of that binding than by throwing sex goggles into the mix?  I mean, if you’re going to grow old with someone, and growing old means you’re both going to turn into droopy, wrinkled hags, then by all means, bring on the sex goggles to make me forget I’m swapping spit with an 85-year-old geezer.

The problem that people run into with the sex goggles is when they have sex outside of God’s design.  Now you too often have two people viewing each other with sex goggles who should never have been bound together.  The problem is twofold:  first, the sex goggles obscure all of the problems with the relationship upfront.  Second, the sex goggles make it very difficult to walk away into a sexless unknown.  Whenever you read stories of guys agonizing about whether or not they should commit to a woman, or girls trying to decide if Mr. Right Now can transition into being Mr. Until I Die, and there are some noticeable warning signs, you can usually determine that all the drama and dithering originates from sex goggles.  I mean, think about it.  If you removed sex from the equation, how easy would it be to walk away from someone who was making you miserable?  Who was selfish?  Who handled money poorly?  Who was abusive?  Who was not supportive?  But if you’re wearing sex goggles, suddenly it becomes this very arduous process of trying to decide if you should stay, and it’s so complicated, and you need the advice of so many people, and you find yourself rejecting good advice even though you agree they’re right.  Does this not sound like insanity?  But sex goggles make it possible.

So, respect the sex goggles.  Follow God’s plan and don’t put them on until you’ve tied the knot.

How John Eldredge would have men live.

I was emailing back and forth with a friend, and she mentioned that she finally watched Legends of the Fall for the first time.  Back in the mid-’90s, this movie helped solidify Brad Pitt’s heartthrob status, as he basically spent the movie looking like Fabio’s younger, blonder, Calvin Klein model-ier brother while alternately brooding or wooing as necessary.

However, what I did not know is that John Eldredge, in his revered Christian book Wild at Heart, used Pitt’s character Tristan to represent the “Wild at Heart” man.

SAY WHAT????

Eldredge writes,

Then there is Tristan, the middle son.  He is wild at heart.  It is Tristan who embodies the West–he catches and rides the wild stallion, fights the grizzly with a knife, and wins the beautiful woman.  I have yet to meet a man who wants to be Alfred [Aidan Quinn, the practical beta brother] or Samuel [Henry Thomas, the wussy, other beta brother].  I’ve yet to meet a woman who wants to marry one.

Did Eldridge watch a different movie than the one that was actually made?  As my friend described it (de-capped for readability),

The guy who tries to kiss his younger brother Henry Thomas’s fiancee Julia Ormond, and then scalps a bunch of Germans because they kill Henry Thomas in WWI, and then comes back and steals Julia from his other brother Aiden Quinn, and then runs away for five years bc he is too ~WRACKED WITH GUILT~ to be happy with Julia, and then comes back and messes with her head after she marries Aiden Quinn after all, and then smolders until she throws herself at him again but he says “No Go Back To Aiden,” and then kills some people because they killed his Indian wife, and then has to go live in the mountains the rest of his life.

That is apparently how John Eldredge would have men live.

It kind of reads like beta longing.  Eldredge obviously can’t be Pitt, but darn it, he really would like to be, if he could just un-imagine all of the bad stuff………

My friend, arbiter of fairness, added,

 To be fair though, Aiden is kind of whiny in it. I mean, hello, obviously she should have just married him first before Brad even came back from the war, but he kinda pulled a Bolin when she and Brad started gettin’ it on.

But when Aiden and Julia got married….they were really cute. Until she killed herself bc she couldn’t be with Brad. Yes this is real.

Don’t even get me started on the women in this movie.

I asked,

Did he see a Mormon edit of the movie or something???

My friend replied,

I DON’T KNOW

BUT IT IS THE WORST

Henry Thomas, despite being a beta virgin, comes off smelling the best of all three. Of course he dies first.

So men, be Wild At Heart.  ‘Tis better to scalp a bunch of Germans, swipe your brother’s wife and play mind games with her, inspire her suicide from your rejection, and go retire in the mountains as a murderer than to die cuckolded or a beta virgin.  First.

I mean, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.  Especially Christian ones.

 

Funny women.

[I guess this is the topic du jour?  I began this draft a few days ago….]

Recently Adam Carolla caused women (and other people) to get ruffled because he said that women aren’t funny and, even worse, pointed out that female comedy writers are especially not funny and are more or less only kept on writing staffs because of affirmative action.  Predictably, female voices were raised in chorus to cry, “BUT! BUT! ELLEN!!  And there used to be some lady named Carol Burnett!  And Lucy Ricardo!”  There was also a lot of “Adam Carolla isn’t funny so he can’t possibly be a good judge of what is funny!” , which is like saying that only directors who have made a good movie can correctly judge if a movie is good or not.

In my experience, very few women are genuinely funny.  If you’re bristling at Carolla’s ~misogynistic injustice~, ask yourself how many women you know who can:

• consistently make people, including complete strangers, laugh with their stories
• tell jokes and deliver a killer punchline
• are witty

It’s probably not more than a handful, if that.  Among beautiful women, the number starts approaching zero.  (And I mean actually beautiful, not “Kristin Wiig isn’t fat so let’s put her in the HOTTTT category!” beautiful.)

Of course, that doesn’t mean that men on the whole are funny.  Most men aren’t funny, either.  But chances are, the person in school who cracked you up all the time was a guy.  The person at work who cracks you up all the time is a guy.  In your friend circle, the person who brings the most laughs is a guy.

I think this disparity largely boils down to differences in the natures of the sexes.  Men have to impress women to keep their company, whereas women just have to have boobs.  So being funny is a boon to men, but neutral for women.  Being funny can actually be a negative for women.  If she’s funnier than most of the guys around her, they’ll laugh, but they’d rather be around a woman who laughs at their jokes, not a woman who can make them laugh.  If they can sense that the woman isn’t going to laugh too much at anything they say, they’ll move on to a woman who will.  So while being funny can make a woman popular among female peers, it can alienate her from men.  Men generally prefer women who are amusing (as in, “lololol, aren’t women just the silliest?? Their precious li’l minds aren’t concerned about anything important, the dears!  Thank goodness I’m a man and therefore brilliant!”), as opposed to women who are funny.

Also, comedy, at its roots, is uncomfortable.  It requires you to make observations about human nature that people don’t want to acknowledge under a sober light.  It can be antagonistic.  It requires a certain boldness and lack of inhibition – you have to be willing to go for the joke and see it through.  This goes against the nature of women.  Women, most of the time, would rather be a part of the pack than stand apart from it.  They would rather have the comfort of consensus than be an outlier.  Men, meanwhile, don’t have the same social strictures as women, so the social cost of being daring isn’t nearly as high.  Men don’t boot out a peer because he had a different thought or did/said something vulgar.

Comedy just works against social expectations of women and feminity.  Can anyone imagine a woman doing a Chris Rock-like stand-up?  She’d be eviscerated for her vulgarity.  All of the conservative moms and Boundless readers of the world would call for her head.  (Then the makers of Fireproof would write a new movie featuring a beautiful, lapsed Christian comedian who sometimes says “crap” but is mostly an alcoholic who has implied sex with jerks, but then meets a highly attractive, super manly, ultra intentional Christian comedian who has Scars Of The Past and was once a cop and/or a firefighter and/or a high school football coach, who, after breaking through her walls of cynicism, leads her to renounce her trashy comedy and to recommit herself to the Lord and also marry the Christian comedian in a covenant ceremony.)  Likewise, does anyone want to see a female version of Chris Farley’s “I’m Matt Foley, and I live in a VAN down by the RIVER!” bit?  Are women in drag even a fraction as funny as men in drag?  I mean, men in drag = HI-LARIOUS!, while women in drag = uh-oh, smells like lesbians.  Basically:  much of what works for men in comedy doesn’t work for women.  A woman has to be much better than just OK to pull off a lot of typical male comedy stuff.

As a result, a lot of female comedians make one of two mistakes:  either they (a) resort to unimaginative riffing on menstruation/PMS, jerks, bad sex, bad sex with jerks, their completely unrelated inability to find love, and being fat/hating skinny chicks, OR (b) they overdo it on sarcasm and/or monotone hipster irony.  It’s rare to come across a female comedian who doesn’t employ either of these strategies.  Being funny is hard, but being a funny woman is even harder because there’s just more to balance.

By the way, I wish that more comedians and people attempting to be funny in general would figure out that being funny has very little to do with being quirky, and very much to do about timing and delivery.  Some people think that being funny means acting large or having a shtick.  You know, like, “I”m wild, unpredictable party guy!” or “I’m such a spaz!  I totally made a fool of myself in front of a really hot guy!” girl or the Reliable Ironic Quip friend.  Sure, those things can get you attention and even make people laugh, but they don’t make you funny.  They’re just you playing a part.  Real comedy is really just telling people the truth in a way that makes them lower all of their defenses without even realizing it.