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!!!

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.

 

Why sending dirty messages is a bad idea (NSFW).

Because if they’re leaked, something like this could happen to you (extremely NSFW):

(For those not watching, it’s Bill Maher and Jane Lynch giving a verbatim “dramatic reading” of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Facebook messages with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer named Lisa.)

Maybe it wouldn’t happen to you on this scale, but stuff like this doesn’t go quietly into the night.  I don’t trust cell phones, Twitter, or Facebook.

(HT: THR)

Every beta will recognize himself in “Superstud.”

I recently read Paul Feig’s memoir Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin.  (For those who don’t recognize the name, Feig directed Bridesmaids and created the cult classic show Freaks and Geeks.)  The book begins with his discovery of “the rope feeling” at age 7 and ends with the end of his virginity at age 24.  In between, Feig’s journey to non-virginity reads like a compendium of mortifying beta male experiences, except funny, because Feig is a deft, honest writer and the young Paul Feig of the book is so earnest and so sweetly naive that you can’t help but find him lovable even as you’re groaning at all of his colossal beta mistakes.**  Additionally, Feig was raised as a Christian Scientist, which meant that his hormones were always at odds with God, and a lot of the humor from the book comes from Feig’s ongoing inner dialogue with God as he tries to bargain with God and rationalize away his desires.  I imagine that every guy raised in a Christian home can relate wholeheartedly.

If you liked Freaks and Geeks, you’re almost guaranteed to like this book.  The young Paul Feig is clearly the inspiration for the geeks on that show.  But even if you’ve never been exposed to any of Paul Feig’s work, Superstud is still worth reading because it’s so honest, funny, and sensitive about growing up in contemporary American society as an awkward beta male with romantic dreams in his head.  It’s also a nice antidote to the Roissyness that’s out there that’s all about cold calculation and shielding yourself from feelings while you spit out glossy negs, crusade against feminism and hypergamy, and judge women for failing to meet all of your criteria on your checklist of ideal femininity.  Not that there isn’t a place for Roissydom, but it’s nice to know that not all men hate themselves for having a marshmallow center, either.

**Such as asking out the girl with the biggest boobs in school and then taking her to an REO Speedwagon concert to impress her, only to get AMOGed by drunken twentysomethings at the show; deciding to move across the country for the summer in order to break up with a girl he didn’t really like; enduring a day at Cedar Point with his crush and her boyfriend after he and his crush had secretly made out; and getting the woman who eventually deflowered him up to his bedroom only to freak out and play two games of MouseTrap on his bed before forcing himself to face the music.

From a certain point of view.

If it weren’t for sex…

If it weren’t for sex, it would be so much easier to be single (Christian-style, anyway).

If it weren’t for sex, it would be so much easier to find someone to marry.

Anthem for the gameosphere (NSFW).

Also works for Christian honeymoons!

Most men don’t care if they marry virgins.

Everywhere in the manosphere, men obsess over virgins like they’re some sort of magical unicorns that have healing powers and can tell the future.  Everywhere, the refrain of “MARRY A VIRGIN” rings out like a catechism.

But realistically, most men, and I include Christian men in this, don’t care if they marry a woman who is a virgin on their wedding night.  They only care that she is a virgin at the time they begin dating.  I think the majority of Christian men, if they were honest with themselves, are happy to marry non-virgins, so long as the non-virgin is their non-virgin.

Rebecca St. James to marry Beefcake Missionary.

Friends, we are on the brink of the end of an era.  What era, you ask?  The first decade of the aughts?  No, we’ve already passed that mark, and moreover, I speak of something far more momentous:  the end of the era of Rebecca St. James’s virginity.

It was announced today in the press that Rebecca St. James has become engaged to Jacob Fink, a Colorado native and sometime missionary to South Africa who now resides in SoCal pursuing his “career in music” (whatever that means, which is most likely “doesn’t really have a job”).  Judging by the photo of the couple, Fink is your basic ideal Christian beefcake beta:  good-looking enough to be desirable, not dangerous enough to be sexually threatening or do something risky like skateboard down a railing or drink semi-copious amounts of alcohol.

For those not in the churchian loop, Rebecca St. James is a very physically attractive Christian pop/rock singer whose main claim to fame is her very public proclamations of her virginity and her determination not to have sex until she is married.  She has been the poster child of the True Love Waits campaign and, since she has been Christian-famous since she was about 16 years old or so and is now 33, it has been a very long, very public wait indeed.  So, with that in mind, congratulations are quite obviously in order.

But St. James’s case is an interesting one, and one made even more interesting by the articles that have been published about the announcement.  The first question is obvious:  what took so long?  St. James is very good-looking, so lack of male interest couldn’t have been a problem for her.  Moreover, she is famous in the circles where she would be most likely to find a husband, which certainly had to add to her perceived attractiveness.  (I believe that fame always adds to a person’s perceived attractiveness regardless of sex, if not in looks, then certainly in interesting-ness.)  And because St. James is both good-looking and famous, she had to have access to some of the highest-quality men that she would consider acceptable marriage material.  So what took so long?  Was she unreasonably picky?  Was she just too busy with her career to put in the time necessary?  Was she not that interested in marrying young?  Was her father’s dual role as her manager an impediment to her ability or desire to meet men?

Second, is Jacob Fink the best that St. James could do?  My knee-jerk reaction is no, especially given that Fink seems to have no significant life accomplishments beyond doing well in college and being a missionary in South Africa for two years.  We can infer from the articles that Fink has no notable pedigree, is not independently wealthy, and does not have a prestigious job (or any job at all?).  Yet St. James, who is famous and beautiful and far better of a Professional Virgin than Britney Spears ever was, is marrying him.  Couldn’t she have done better?  Don’t women want to marry up?  Why is St. James tying herself to a man she’ll probably have to financially support until she dies?  Well, there are a few plausible possibilities.  One is that at age 33, St. James hears the clock ticking and is more willing to settle.  Another is that St. James regards Fink’s beta qualities as Christian-alpha.  Ten bucks says he’s kind, good with kids, and devoted to a fault.  For someone with St. James’s mindset, which places top priority on fidelity and “cherishing,” Fink probably looks like a manly man uber alles.  Plus, I’m sure a good percentage of her brain is sublimated by his inoffensive beefcakey-ness.  My third theory is more of a subconscious level idea, which is that Fink IS actually the best that St. James could do, given her requirements.  To get someone as good-looking as Fink who also is able to keep it in his pants for somewhere between 28 and 36 years (I’m going to assume Fink is a virgin due to St. James’s statement “We are truly amazed at finding our dreams and ideals met in the love we’ve found. We are exceedingly grateful for this precious gift from God.”  [my emphasis] The whole thing seems cloaked in virginity-speak), St. James pretty much had to go beta.  A Christian alpha would have either married young or fooled around until he felt like marrying.  Additionally, Fink is good-looking enough to be sexually appealing while harmless enough not to be threatening.  St. James could date him and feel sexually attracted while not experiencing anguishing despair over her desire to surrender her virginity.  Fink allowed her to remain in control of her sexual destiny.

So what lessons can single Christian women take away from St. James’s story?  Well, one, it is indeed possible to meet and marry someone in your thirties.  The caveat is that however much more attractive St. James is than you, you need to subtract that from the attractiveness of Fink to get an idea of the ballpark where you’ll be playing.  Second, I think St. James is the exception that proves the rule, which is that for the most part, physically attractive men who may still be virgins in their late 20s or 30s and who are faithfully following God to the point that a devout Christian woman would find them attractive, are nearly impossible to find; that St. James is far more attractive than the average 33-year-old woman, which gives her opportunities the average woman will not have; and that St. James, despite the advantages of her wealth, fame, beauty, and virginity, could not get the “whole package” because Fink apparently doesn’t have a job worth mentioning in the press.