Another example of how feminist sexual dogma lets women down.

I found the following on one of the message boards I like to lurk on.  The typical poster is a lower-to-middle middle-class woman in her 20s or 30s, unmarried, trying to get started in her profession, and desperately wanting love if not in a long-term relationship with a boyfriend.  She tends to be non-religious, or nominally so, and believes in the usual feminist dogma about sex and sexuality.  All of these characteristics come to the fore in this thread, which aptly chronicles how feminist ideas about sex and sexuality just end up hurting women far more than helping them.

In a post entitled “Tell me to freaking get over it. Tell me to let it go.”, OP writes that she went on four dates with an alpha she REALLY REALLY liked, had sex with him on the fourth date, and – surprise, surprise! – now he’s dropped off the face of the planet.  She says:

He hasn’t responded. I know. I KNOW. Drop it. I should get over it. I shouldn’t press for details. It’s pretty obvious that he’s not interested.

I guess I just wanted to vent. I’m cool with rejection; really, I am. I’m used to it. But I wish he would have at least told me he wasn’t interested instead of dropping off the face of the planet.

I’m sad that I rock in every other aspect of my life (well…career-wise, at least), but I can’t do the relationship thing at all. I’m just super bummed and down in the dumps about this. I feel like such a stupid freaking whore.

So she’s cool with rejection and is actually used to being rejected, but super bummed at the same time.  Poor hamster.  Women conditioned to believe in sex equality (or whatever you want to call it) constantly find themselves fighting their natures, as OP is here.

The responses read like a recitation of feminist sisterhood catechisms.

First response:

Totally been there, like 100 times. It sucks, but yeah – you’ve already given yourself the best advice you can: let it go.

“Like 100 times?”?????????

Second response:

I think its typical people sleep together on the 3 or 4 date so you’re not a whore. Don’t feel that way.

Everyone knows you need to go on three or four dates with someone to prevent accusations of whore-dom.  Two dates = WHORE.  Three dates = NOT A WHORE.  Those extra three hours you spent consuming carbs with a guy make all the difference.

Still, OP’s hamster is really torn up:

I just really want to know WHY. I want to know exactly what it is I did wrong so I won’t make the same mistake with the next guy. If there is a next guy.

Thanks to feminism and the sexual revolution, women honestly don’t know why having sex with a very attractive man they’re not married to or even “in a committed relationship with” (whatever that means) generally tends to result in the man’s vanishing.  In the olden days, mothers and grandmothers would warn their daughters about being fast.  But I guess in an age where that kind of advice is the unjust repression of the patriarchy and three dates is enough to qualify as not-a-whore, such male behavior is truly, genuinely baffling to women and is completely inexplicable based on their understanding of reality.  Which, as the regulars of this blog know, is not really reality.

In true feminist fashion, the next three responders blame the man:

You didn’t do anything wrong. You liked a guy, you slept with him. That’s normal. He’s just an ass to act this way. He’s the one that’s done something wrong. I think every girl has been there at least once so don’t be so hard on yourself.

—–

It’s nothing you did. There’s nothing wrong with you.

He’s just an asshole for not responding.

Let it go and don’t beat yourself up over it.

—–

Feel happy that you avoided being stuck with a little coward pansy of a man.

Not that what the guy in this scenario did was right, but these responses just illuminates the cognitive dissonance of feminism.  Women are strong and fierce and independent, except when those dastardly men enter the picture and destroy all that strength, fierceness, and independence.

Another responder tries the hamster:

I’m not trying to encourage or anything but is it possible he’s stuck at work? Something might have come up?

Another man-blamer:

He’s a coward at the end of the day, he should have been straight up with you. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Live and learn.

Finally, on post #17, someone states the obvious:

Guys like a challenge and I’m sure he figures if you did it that fast with him you probably have with other guys and guys are weird about that. THEY can do it but a girl is a whore if she does

I think, though, that the most significant aspect of this thread demonstrating the widespread absorption of feminist doctrine on sex and sexuality is that not a single poster advised OP not to have sex and that she could secure the highest-quality man that she could by withholding.  Instead, thanks to feminist sexuality, women are now tasked with finding a sexy man who will commit to her because she gives him sex.  I’m pretty sure success at a unicorn hunt is more likely.  So what we have on college campuses and in teachers’ lounges and in office cubicles is women who are encouraged to have sex because they want it, but who must somehow try to divine that a sexy man will give them commitment even as the women are giving him sex, and fight all her feelings that she’s being a whore.  What a recipe for happiness and contentment!

When I read stuff like this, it just reminds me that God knew what he was doing when He made rules for sex.

Sex in last place.

As far as I can tell, most Christian advice about picking a spouse puts sex, or sexual spark, or whatever you want to call it, in last place.  It may be because a lot of Christians have mediocre sex lives (just hypothesizing), or because traditionally it was more important for a woman to find a good provider than it was to find a good lover, or because Christians just assume that sexual attraction will be there in some form whenever you put a man and a woman together, but whatever the case may be, at least when I was growing up, sexual attraction was, like, the last thing to consider when checking off the list for husbandly attributes.

Things that are more important than sex:

• Loving Jesus
• Attending church regularly
• Submitting oneself to God’s will
• Reading the Bible and praying
• Having a good job and being a provider
• Not a smoker
• Not a drinker
• Not a gambler
• Not a swearer
• Not an abuser
• Not a porn-watcher
• Loves kids
• Would be a good father
• Gets along with his own family
• Gets along with your family
• Sexually pure
• Sexually faithful
• Completely loyal
• Kind
• Compassionate
• Gentle
• Responsible

(The female version just has opposite genders, and women aren’t required to be providers.)

So, once you have all of these items checked off, THEN you can consider if the other person is at least somewhat sexually attractive to you, and if the person ISN’T at least somewhat sexually attractive to you, then maybe it’s time to start praying and then God may enable you to become sexually attracted to that person.

And, in the churchly way of thinking, the reason this kind of advice works is because it’s “the world” that puts inordinate importance on sexual attraction, and Christians are not to be of “the world,” and that appeals to the whole counter-cultural instinct.  Additionally, a lot of people ruin their lives by letting their sex drives do all the thinking, so there’s a precautionary aspect as well.  Churches are in the business of fixing people, but it’s even better not to have to fix people.  Also, nobody wants to think of all of the senior citizens at church ever having randy feelings.

The other thought that I had was that a lot of single Christians are not beautiful women or top-drawer men, and if churches can get singles to get past the requirement of throbbing physical attraction, more Christians will get married.  And since marriage is good for society and the church and people, then everyone wins.

Take, for example, Candice Watters’ advice from this article from Marry Well:

If what he’s looking to hold his marriage together for “many, many, many years” is sexual attraction, he’s setting himself up for disappointment. The only way to keep the high-jinks of new love going is to keep starting over with new lovers.

But that’s the message we’re bombarded with in our culture. In Hollywood especially, the end of the emotional high signals the need to move on to a new relationship where the high-octane meter gets to start over. Sometimes that means serial dating. More often it means divorce and remarriage. Tragically one in five married couples won’t reach their 5th anniversary.

But it need not end this way. When two believers come together in marriage, they have the potential, when the giddy feelings ebb, to leave what C.S. Lewis calls the “thrill” phase of romance for the “quieter and more lasting kind of interest … and happiness that follows.” He encourages this process, noting it is “one little part of what Christ meant by saying a thing will not really live unless it first dies.”

But in order for that to happen, we need to have realistic expectations, and the awareness that those giddy feelings will ebb.

….

I suspect your friend would say his desire for a “zing-pop” connection is consistent with Song of Solomon. There certainly was chemistry between Solomon and his bride. But nowhere in Scripture is that given as a condition for a God-glorifying marriage. You can build a strong, godly, world changing marriage on many things. But you can never build that simply on looks. Good looks are a bonus.

….

I worry for men like your friend who may miss out on highly productive marriages and families that are fruitful for the kingdom, simply because the women God brings to them don’t, at first, cause a chemical reaction.

The problem with Watters’ argument is that she is jumping to the apex fallacy of sexual attraction being the sole reason to marry.  Physical attraction is important to men, but only the most foolish men marry strictly for physical attraction.  (And they really would be idiots, because everyone knows that senior citizens don’t pose for centerfolds.)  But it’s amply evident from reading manosphere blogs that sexual attraction does help to keep marriages together in times when it would be easy to give up, because sex bonds people together.  Just remove sex from a marriage and see how long it lasts with any degree of happiness on either side.

This kind of advice completely misunderstands (at best) and disregards (at worst) male sexuality and what motivates men to pursue women.  When a man is sexually attracted to his wife in a functional marriage, he will be more productive, more open to her counsel, and all-around more content and happy.  I think what Watters is really doing is projecting her desire for young women not to fall prey to alpha players (“he’s so hot that I have to be with him even though he’s a loser”) onto men and their interest in attractive women (“she’s an idiot who hates kids, is in credit card debt up to her eyeballs, and is an alcoholic, but man, I’ve gotta spend the rest of my life legally bound to those jugs!”).

Is society so broken that every piece of advice or persuasive argument must be presented using extreme examples as rationales?  Can’t there be a happy medium where sex appeal is given its due while also encouraging the value of character?  Sheesh.

If you are hot enough, he will ignore your jackhammery laughter.

Over the weekend I attended the wedding reception of a friend of mine and ended up at a table with the groom’s best friend B and B’s much younger girlfriend G.   My guess is that the age gap was somewhere around 20 or so years.  Intrigued by this real-life example of Game principles, I sat back and observed.

B was pushing 50, tall, with strawberry blond coloring and his age undeniably settling in to his face.  Fortunately for him, genetics had blessed him with a full head of (non-gray) hair.  He seemed confident and outgoing and had solid body language.

G was your typical high-maintenance SoCal Asian:  meticulously styled hair, full makeup and constant reapplication of lip gloss, high-end name brand clothing with, as she pointed out, six-inch heels.  She was objectively quite pretty.  Accordingly, her mannerisms were almost cartoonishly feminine:  continuous laughter, a constant need to touch and be close to her boyfriend, and I’m pretty sure she said zero interesting things the entire time.  I mainly remember her making remarks about makeup, her sister’s plans not to have a destination wedding, and how she gets her boyfriend up early every morning to make him go to yoga class with her.  Oh, and she has a little dog.

The longer I watched G, the more fascinated I became with the exaggerated way she pursed her pillowy lips when she talked.  The way her eyes widened and her mouth opened four inches every time she laughed and remained open.  And the way that laugh resembled a kinder, gentler version of Janice from Friends.

By this point there were about four different Haleys at war with themselves in my head.  Catty Haley was rolling her eyes and shaking her head at G.  Analytical Haley was trying to figure out what was keeping B and G together other than sex.  Cynical Haley was telling Analytical Haley, DUH, NOTHING.  Holy Haley was brusquely chastising Analytical and Cynical, reminding them that G was a perfectly decent and genuinely nice human being, as was B, and trying to imagine scenarios in which B and G had deep, meaningful conversations about the Future, the State of the World, and Interests in Common Other Than Yoga Class.  James Joyce teared up with pride.

While all of this was going on in my head, I had the horrible realization that I was a terrible loser at love compared to G, and there was no starker comparison than that between us.  I contemplated what it would take for me to turn myself into a knock-off version of her, and it gave me mental vertigo.  (I mean, I do pretty well with pervy church geezers, but I attribute my appeal to the novelty of my relative youth and the scarcity of my kind at the geezer-friendly early Sunday service.)  It was all a little bit like being strangled by a live-action version of Roissy’s blog, or discovering that you had gone to war with a spoon in your hand while the other person wielded a bayonet.  I kept asking myself, Is this what I need to be?  Is this what men want?  Because me as I am is not really tearing it up with the opposite sex, non-geezer edition.  Maybe the ratio is 1 glossy-lipped Natalie Portman-esque laugh = 200 witticisms.  Time to read less and stock up on Chanel.

Lest this seem too self-pitying, it should be noted that my friend who got married is more similar to me than to G, so I don’t think hope is dead or anything.  After all, my friend’s husband married my friend, not G (or a G clone).  And G is spending her “good years” with a man who may or may not ever marry her.  In the end it may all be a wash.  Still, I think G will be able to do well for herself (should she need to) even after hitting the wall.  There are always men eager to enjoy a personality like G’s.

So, with that in mind…

Now commencing Operation: Everything Is Funnier.

Don’t marry a pro-choice woman.

Let me preface what I’m about to say with the acknowledgment that many good women are nominally pro-choice, which is to say that their bleeding hearts won’t permit them to legally “force” any woman into a pregnancy she doesn’t want but they are in general horrified by the idea of a woman having a baby cut up and scraped out of her uterus.  Such women typically believe strongly in contraception and “responsible sex” and do not believe in abortion as back-up birth control.  These aren’t the women I’m referring to.

Rather, the type of woman I’m referring to is the type who is ideologically committed to the complete autonomy of a woman’s body to the point where an unborn baby may be considered a parasite and that even a husband has no say and deserves no say in his wife’s choice to abort their child.

I don’t think there are that many type 2 pro-choice women in the United States, but they’re certainly the most vocal when it comes to sex reproductive issues “women’s health.”  A good example of such a voice is the group of writers on Grey’s Anatomy, which on Thursday had a married female character (Cristina) abort her unborn child because being a mother would just get in the way of being a surgeon, which was her top priority, plus she had never wanted children and believed she would not love her child and would be a dreadful mother.  That in itself was bad enough, but what made it even worse was that this character’s husband (Owen) wanted her to have the baby and wanted to be a father.  Despite his wishes, Cristina was determined to abort their child and (in a bid to get viewers on her side) gave her best friend Meredith a speech about how she really wished she could want a child and how she wished her husband could be supportive of her and understand her, instead of leaving her sad and scared that she was going to have to abort alone.  Sadness and fear, obviously, mitigate all moral consequence.  As a result, Meredith went to Owen and talked about how she (Meredith) had been raised by a mother who loved surgery more than her daughter and how awful that was, and that if Cristina did the same thing, it would “kill” her.  Strangely enough, Meredith did not also add that it would have been preferable that she had never been born, or that her late mother regretted having a daughter who cared for her in her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.  Owen – an Iraq War vet, by the way – was then convinced that it was right for him to accompany his wife to the murder of their unborn child, and he dutifully burned his man card on the altar of feminism.  I guess viewers were supposed to take this as an example of true love, or at least that the woman is always right.  My opinion was that the writers had just made Cristina one of the most morally repugnant women to appear on the small screen and that if I had been in Owen’s shoes, I would have shown up at the abortionist’s with divorce papers.

It was interesting to read the opinions on Owen and Cristina’s actions because they illuminated the divisions within the pro-choice crowd.  At least in the comments at ew.com, about two thirds of the commenters thought Cristina behaved disgustingly.  Sure, the commenters supported a woman’s right to choose, but people who get abortions aren’t supposed to be financially secure, educated, intelligent, married women.  (And how can a SURGEON not know how to practice birth control, or at least get a tubal ligation?)  Furthermore, there was no indication of problems with the pregnancy.  Healthy unborn babies products of conception aren’t supposed to aborted, only the damaged ones.  The other third celebrated Cristina’s decision to exercise her full rights over her body and “remain true to herself,” because it would have been a compromise to her self-identity had she chosen to go through with the pregnancy.  If Cristina had had a baby, the parasites would have won.

Obviously, most people will never go through a real life version of this fictional drama, but the ideological stakes are real.  Among Christians I would presume that most will be pro-life, with varying stances only on issues like rape or health of the mother.  Regardless, for Christians or non-Christians, this is an issue I would definitely check out before the relationship becomes serious enough for marriage.  While you may not go through a scenario just like Cristina and Owen’s, you may face a scenario in which you conceive a child with Down’s syndrome, or a chromosomal disorder that makes it unlikely that your child will survive for very long outside the womb, or some other physical flaw.  You may face a scenario where the pregnancy may endanger the health of the mother.  Knowing what you both believe, and that you are in agreement on those beliefs, could save your marriage someday.

P.S.  Men, if you begin dating a woman who would deny any rights of your paternity to your unborn child, RUN!!!

Taking the house.

I was thinking about the thread that will never die, which made me think about the following exchange from Ocean’s Eleven.  Danny Ocean has just been released from prison, and instead of commencing a morally upright new beginning, he tracks down his old partner Rusty to help him mastermind a robbery of  three prominent Las Vegas casinos.  Rusty, however, thinks this is a huge mistake.  Danny is determined, though, and turns on his powers of persuasion.

RUSTY:  I need a reason.  And don’t say money.  Why do this?

DANNY:  Why not do it?  Because yesterday I walked out of the joint wearing my entire wardrobe and you’re colddecking Teen Beat cover boys.  Because the house always wins.  You play long enough, never changing stakes, the house takes you.  Unless, when that special hand comes around, you bet big.  And then you take the house.

It occurred to me that this is the mating strategy that Rebecca St. James followed.  As is well-known, she was very vocal about her virginity and her intention not to have sex until she was married.  She became the poster child of True Love Waits, cut a purity crusade anthem called “Wait for Me,” wrote the foreword to IKDG, and in general became an evangelical darling.  Which was great and all, but no one could have predicted that Rebecca would go on to spend something like 16 or 17 years publicly waiting.  Even among Christians, I think, there’s a point at which admiration turns to UM, WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?, especially for someone who has beauty, wealth, and access to presumably high-quality men.

But instead of cashing in her chips and getting out of the game with a respectable profit, Rebecca bet big on 7-Card Spinster and took the house.  She waited, and waited, and waited…and ended up with a Beefcake Missionary who now has the good fortune of being in a band with a mainstream hit single, and who is both good-looking and gentlemanly enough to have old college acquaintances looking him up and vouching for his gentlemanly beefcakiness.  Were there really NO other godly men Rebecca could have loved and who were willing to marry her in the last 17 years?

I expect that as a result of waiting and winning, Rebecca will continue to be a role model and inspiration to many single Christian women around the world, as she is now living proof that waiting and trusting in God brings big rewards…eventually.  My question is this, though:  is this a strategy that single Christian women at large should follow?  I ask this because I feel that it IS the strategy that single Christian women are being encouraged to follow:  don’t settle, don’t compromise, trust in God’s perfect timing, and He will answer the cries of your heart with more love than you can possibly imagine.  You are His dear, precious daughter whom He loves passionately!  Which is true, and yet…

…most churches have plenty of single women in attendance and few, if any, Jacob Finks in attendance.

So where does this leave most single church girls?  Holding all of their chips, waiting for that special hand to come around, hoping that they’ll be the one to beat the odds?  Or beating themselves up in the belief that if only they were more spiritual and “together,” God would finally send them the man of their dreams?

It’s just hard to see any other strategy catching any kind of fire, for a couple of reasons.  One, American culture is all about going for the brass ring, shooting for the moon, believing that you’re the exception that can defy the odds.  Two, this mindset colors everything we do, including dating and marriage.  Churches these days are all about God wanting The Best For Us.  God’s Best.  God’s Blessings.  Showering, Raining Down, Covering You, Wrapping You In His Arms, etc.  It’s not that most churches are preaching prosperity gospel (at least, I don’t think they are), but it’s not an uninfluential mindset.  Third, most young women are taught that they “deserve” a “great guy.”  It’s all over the place in the media.  Single female characters on TV and film who are looking for love are consistently told by friends that they “deserve” someone great (someone who’s going to be worth all of your own greatness, someone who will appreciate you just as you are, someone who won’t treat you like crap like the last jerkface you dated…).  Anyone who disagrees with this probably is a misogynist.  What young women want to hear that God’s Best for them might include a husband who’s mediocre-looking, bad at sex, and only wants to watch sports on TV?

Still, would it really be better to tell women to cash out early and forget about waiting for the special hand to bet big on?  That’s horribly unromantic.   Most women wouldn’t go for that, and most men would be offended and/or devastated if they suspected that their wives didn’t think the husbands were the best they could get but the wives just didn’t want to wait around forever.

So where does a single woman find the sweet spot between waiting for her “great guy” and settling for what’s available because the “great guy” is never going to come and find her?

DON’T TURN THE COMMENTS INTO A WOMAN-BASHING SESSION.  THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER PLACES TO DO THAT.

You are a delusional Christian if you think you can have a very long courtship and/or engagement and not have sex.

A post at Athol’s from July got me all fired up on this topic.  (So I wrote a post and then sat on it for several weeks.  ANYHOW.)  A mid-20s Christian reader wrote to Athol asking for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend of three years.  Christian Guy hasn’t had intercourse with his girlfriend yet because she wants to wait for marriage, so they’ve decided that guilt over handjobs and occasional oral sex is a more tolerable way to have a relationship.  Most recently, the girlfriend has stated that she wants to cut off ALL sexual contact so she can be sure that CG truly loves her.

Athol’s advice to CG was that he should just go ahead and bang his girlfriend because cutting off sexual contact was her sexual rejection of CG and that a future marriage would not suffer from premarital sex due to their being each other’s first sexual partners.  Additionally, girlfriend’s rejection is a shit test because she wants CG to alpha up and just go for it.

Obviously, as a Christian, I disagree with this advice even though I can understand the reasoning behind it.  (And I do agree that the girlfriend’s rejection is a shit test.)  But that doesn’t really address the underlying issue here, which is why are CG and his girlfriend waiting so long to get married in the first place?  They’re both in their mid-20s, have been together for three years already, and are succumbing to sexual sin in what sounds like an unhappy cycle of hopelessness.  Athol’s blog article doesn’t mention any extenuating circumstances such as abject poverty, or someone is waiting to get out of prison, or someone’s gender reassignment surgery is not yet complete.  And yet CG and his girlfriend are not on schedule to get married for another TWO YEARS.

Does ANYONE in their right mind think that this is a plan for success?!?

The thing about sex is that it only goes in one direction, and it is only designed to have one ending point.  In other words, once you start going down the physical road with someone, it becomes nearly impossible to back up to an earlier point; the only solution is to stop associating with that person completely (i.e., a breakup).  And the ending point of sex is intercourse.  A prolonged stay in Hand Job City or endlessly cruising down Blow Me Bypass is sexually dysfunctional for a healthy couple.  It’s like an Olympic diver climbing to the top of the high dive, bouncing up and down on the springboard, and then…not diving into the water.  Repeatedly.  And convincing yourself that this is a cool way to get close to the water without getting wet.  At some point you’ll either fall in in a way you never intended to, or you’ll psych yourself out when it’s finally time to dive (after two years of training yourself to stop at the end of the board).

I think the church has done a real disservice to its young men and women by going along with the cultural flow of delayed marriage rather than promoting young marriage.  Expecting the vast majority of young Christians to keep their clothes on and hands off for 15-20 years after hitting puberty is ridiculous.  By age 25-ish, a lot of young people are just going to give up on waiting if they don’t see imminent light at the end of the tunnel.  They’ve already waited a decade or more, and the prospect of waiting another decade has the pallor of death.  Besides, all of their friends are doing it and lightning hasn’t struck them yet, plus the church has abortion and homosexuality to worry about.  As long as there are genuine feelings of love and no one gets pregnant and no one gets a disease, is it really that big of a deal? (whispers Satan’s Hamster.)

That said, I think a bigger problem is long courtships and engagements.  When two people are sexually attracted to each other but committed to not having sex until marriage, a four-year courtship followed by a one-year engagement sounds like insanity to me.  Once you’ve gotten the big issues out of the way, like faith, money, character, and goals, and you know that you enjoy each other’s company and are attracted to each other, and others whose opinions you value approve of the match, how much longer do you really need to decide someone is “the one”?  What more could the other person possibly do to prove to you that you should spend the rest of your lives together?  For people who are beyond college-age, I think it’s entirely possible to go from meeting to married within a year to 18 months.  Extending the timeframe longer than that is just setting yourself up for failure, not to mention a lot of gnashing of teeth (as it were) due to having to repress a great deal of your physical desire for each other.

By the way, shorter courtships mean more intentional dating.  You can enjoy the company of a whole lot more people than those who are serious marriage material.  Limit your dating pool to marriageable prospects, and you will give yourself a leg up in the decision-making process.  (Plus, you will help yourself avoid the temptation to get physical with someone you have no intention of marrying.)

Mrs. Lorelai?

Those who have read this blog for a while (or have read most or all of the posts) probably know that I was a fan of Gilmore Girls when it was on TV.  What’s weird about my enjoyment of the show is that I thought the two titular leads were pretty insufferable.  Single mom Lorelai and her daughter Rory were presented as a courageous, witty, attractive mother-daughter duo whom we were supposed to love and root for, but the more I watched, the more I thought, “Holy MOLY does Lorelai ever think the world revolves around herself.  And does she ever SHUT UP?!”  Yet I generally thought the storytelling on the show was good.  Go figure.

Recently the show popped into my head again, and I got to thinking – would any man in the real world consider Lorelai marriage material?  During the seven years that the show aired, she had sex with five different men, yet I think very few fans of the show would consider her promiscuous.  Let’s break it down:

Max – Rory’s teacher at a prestigious prep school.  Seemingly brought together by animal magnetism, Lorelai and Max were on and off until Max, in a fit of frustration, proposed marriage as a way to remain together.  This prompted Lorelai to give a speech about how proposals should be Events.

LORELAI: No, it has to be planned. It should be magical. There should be music playing and romantic lighting and a subtle buildup to the popping of the big question. There should be a thousand yellow daisies and candles and a horse and I don’t know what the horse is doing there unless you’re riding it, which seems a little over the top, but it should be more than this.

Of course, Max did just what Lorelai demanded suggested, and she accepted…

…only to cancel the engagement after calling Rory’s dad (with whom she had already had an impromptu one night stand with on the balcony of her parents’ house during one of her breakups with Max) during her bachelorette party and realizing that she didn’t really want to be married to Max.

Christopher – Lorelai’s high school boyfriend and Rory’s estranged dad who starts the series as an irresponsible screw-up and ends the series as a wealthy man (gotta love inheritances).  In addition to having sex with Christopher during a breakup with Max, Lorelai also had sex with him again on the eve of her best friend’s wedding, after finding out that Christopher and his live-in girlfriend were on the outs.  The only problem was that the next day, Christopher found out that his girlfriend was pregnant, and he decided to go back to her so he could be there for the child.  (But wait, there’s more…)

Alex – A hunky, personality-free guy Lorelai dated briefly.

Jason – A guy Lorelai knew (and used to make fun of) from childhood who went into business with her father.  Quirky and persistent, he finally got Lorelai to go out with him – although she insisted that their relationship remain secret.  Lorelai finally broke it off with Jason after she found out that he was suing her father for screwing him over in business.

Luke – The gruff diner owner with the good heart who pined for Lorelai for a decade (even while briefly married to another woman after a drunken whim on a cruise ship – !!!) before he finally listened to some self-help tapes and realized that Lorelai was the one for him.  After dating for several months (minus a month-long breakup), Lorelai spontaneously proposed to Luke (in order to “feel better” after Rory was arrested for grand theft of a yacht).  Luke accepted, but Lorelai put a halt to their wedding plans, stating that she couldn’t get married without Rory being a part of it (the two became estranged after Rory’s arrest and subsequent dropping out of Yale).  When Rory and Lorelai reconciled, Lorelai went ahead with planning the wedding, but then it was Luke’s turn to postpone, due to discovering he had a pre-teen daughter by an old girlfriend, and wanting to establish his place in his daughter’s life – without Lorelai’s involvement – before getting married.  After months of feeling marginalized and unloved, Lorelai finally gave Luke a tearful ultimatum to elope.  He refused, and Lorelai ran off, right back into the arms of…

Christopher (again).  Christopher had become a single dad after his wife had left him for a prestigious job opportunity in Paris.   He had also become very wealthy due to an inheritance from a deceased relative, and began paying for Rory’s schooling, which brought him back into Lorelai’s life.  After Luke rejected Lorelai’s ultimatum, Lorelai went to Christoper for comfort and ended up having sex with him.  Then the new writers for the show took over and made Lorelai and Christopher begin dating again and seem like a functional couple until they eloped in Paris, after which Lorelai started exhibiting buyer’s remorse but being completely surprised that her husband would notice and feel hurt about it.  After Lorelai wrote a character reference letter for Luke’s custody battle for his daughter, Christopher found it and interpreted it as his wife still having feelings for her ex-fiance.  Christoper confronted Lorelai about the letter and stormed off, refusing to answer any of her phone calls for 24 hours.  Unfortunately for Christopher, Lorelai’s father had a heart attack during this time, and when Lorelai couldn’t reach Christopher, she decided once and for all that he could never be depended on and that they had made a mistake in getting married.  After they separated (with Christopher apologizing to Lorelai for “pressuring” her into marrying him), Lorelai began incorporating Luke into her life again, and realized that he really was the one after she found out that he worked all night to give Rory a going-away party (in the series finale, she leaves to work on the Obama campaign).  Of course, Luke was ready to take Lorelai back with open arms, stating that he was willing to give her “all the time she needs.”

My feeling after Lorelai had sex with Christopher after giving Luke the ultimatum was that Luke would have to be CRAZY to take Lorelai back, especially after how things ended between them.  How could any man with even a smidgen of self-respect take back a woman who ended their relationship with a crazed, overemotional ultimatum and having sex with her ex who happened to be the father of her child and with whom she had had a number of one-offs?   And then – the storytelling debacle of the final season – turn around and date and marry the ex, then split after a couple of months because, oops, she wasn’t thinking straight and she really still did have feelings for her ex-fiance?  At the time, before I had even heard of Game, I thought the reasoning behind this plotline was completely bogus if Luke and Lorelai were truly supposed to be together at the show’s conclusion.  I remember reading articles where the showrunner said that Lorelai needed to explore what might have been with Christopher and realize that hopes/wishes were not the same as actually making a life with someone.  Okay, fine – but did she really need to marry and divorce him over the span of a few months to figure this out?  According to the show, the characters had known each other for over 30 years!  Moreover, if Lorelai still had this burning need to figure out if she and Christopher could make a life together, then what was she doing ever getting engaged to and planning to marry Luke?!?!  It just made Luke look like a placeholder and an enormous CHUMP for taking her back at the end, acting as though Lorelai’s actions were just a tiny misunderstanding to be waved away now that time had healed all wounds.

Truthfully, the show was in a pickle after the ultimatum/sex.  The original showrunner and primary writer left the show after that, leaving a new crew of writers to resolve the storyline in what turned out to be the final season.  The show’s fans had oneitis for Luke and Lorelai as a couple, so the show had to end with the two together, yet the original showrunner had, in my opinion, rendered that logistically impossible.  So, while the writers didn’t exactly make lemonade out of the lemons they were left, they did make…something.

Anyhow, I’ve gone completely off track with my original point, which was whether any men in real life would consider Lorelai wife material.  Clearly I’m overinvested if I’m still having fits over the storyline even though the show has been out of production for several years, but the show’s transgressions were so egregious that they will forever remain irreconcilable.  I can suspend disbelief for quite a bit of things in a fictional story, but defying basic human nature isn’t one of those things.

 

~Realistic expectations~ part 2.

~Realistic expectations~

(Unbunch your britches, people.  I’m doing a female one, too.)

World magazine: “Christian Boy Meets Christian Girl.”

Back in June, World magazine (a biweekly politically conservative evangelical newsmagazine) did a cover story on the problems Christian singles are having finding someone to marry.  The viewpoints espoused by the interviewees sound nearly verbatim to opinions I’ve encountered (both online and in real life).  Among them:

• Guys don’t know how to pursue in a manly or godly way
• Too many rejections
• Fear of divorce
• Dating scene crippled by IKDG – pressure not to date unless reasonably certain the other person is “the one” or at least realistically could be
• Too much focus on group activities
• Women don’t want to ask men out
• Women feel men are content with apathy towards dating and women
• Men feel women are too picky and only want to be asked out by certain men
• Men are overwhelmed by choice and keep holding out for someone better-looking, more spiritual, more intelligent, etc.
• Churches don’t do anything to help singles

Did the article miss anything?  (Well, other than pointing out that everyone in America is just too darn fat and dresses like a slob.)

There’s also a sidebar one-page article called “A Man’s World,” in which (once again) the sexual economics of college campuses are discussed and (once again) the conclusion is reached that women are the losers and men are the winners.  Of course, without discussing the alpha/beta distinction among men, this isn’t exactly an accurate depiction of the reality of the SMP of the college and singles scenes.