Is virginity even relevant past age 30?

As I’ve discussed before, the church sends out different messages about sexual purity depending on what age group you fall into.  If you’re still in high school, Sex Is Bad.  (It’s Good if you’re married, but since you as a high schooler have no hope of being married any time soon and since most of you are going to college for four or more years during which you will not get married, Sex Is Bad.)  If you’re out of college, then abstinence is rarely mentioned, with the sort of implicit understanding that everyone understands that Single People Don’t Do It.  Not that I’ve ever seen anyone hauled in front of the church to be disciplined for fornication, other than mostly regretful single male worship leaders who were saying goodbye because they got caught.  I would bet good money that in churches with lots of people returning to the fold (you know, the loving, nonjudgmental churches), there are regular attendees aplenty who are fornicating with delight, with many even openly cohabitating.  But let’s not be harsh, because we don’t want to give anyone the impression that legalism still mars the church.  God will convict their hearts in His own good time.  Besides, if I point a finger, someone might point a finger back at me, and that would be unpleasant and rather unedifying.

In the manosphere, there is a constant to-do about a woman’s “number” and a woman’s history of riding the “carousel.”  As far as I can tell, there isn’t a specific “number” beyond which a woman becomes a carousel rider, but it seems generally agreed upon that a woman’s “number” must be three or lower to qualify as “good.”  I’m not sure if this means the husband is number three or number four, but it does seem that most men who are shopping for a wife definitely get uncomfortable beyond five.  Even if a woman has always only ever had sex with men with whom she is “in a committed relationship” and has never strayed, six is just too many.  Even if it was a decade ago and she’s been living like a nun since, she’s still likely to be branded damaged goods.

Committed Christian men are even more hyperobsessive about the almighty “number” because (if they’ve been 100% pure themselves) marriage is their one and only shot at finding a sex partner, and no one wants to marry the town bike.  It’s understandable that the idea of treading where a score of other men have tread before is not a particularly appealing one, especially when one has tread nowhere oneself.  Still, with the age of first marriage being so high, and living in a sexually permissive culture where many Christians do not adhere to traditional sexual morality, it becomes increasingly unlikely that a Christian will be able to or even be able to expect to marry a virgin, especially after, say, age 25.  It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s just that in many cases, it won’t be.  By the time someone is 30, hoping for virginity in a future spouse is like hoping to see a unicorn.

So is virginity, in a practical sense, really even that relevant after the “prime marrying years” are past?  I think most Christian men beyond college age would agree with the “three is a magic number” approximation.  So if you’re an attractive 32-year-old Christian woman who’s had sex with two guys and haven’t had sex with anyone in the past five years because you’ve rededicated your life to the Lord, are most single Christian men going to say, “Um, sorry, not a virgin, bye.”?  I doubt it.  A lot of those men won’t even be virgins themselves, and since the woman is still under the magic number, she’s still marriage material.

I’m not condoning fornication.  God’s rules are God’s rules.  As the creator of sex, God knows what He’s doing in setting boundaries.  Paul says, “‘Everything is permissible’ – but not everything is beneficial.”  This is one of those “rubber meets the road” areas, where “faith is being certain of what we do not see.”  As I get older, I’m not sure that I see that there’s much personal benefit in getting married a virgin vs. getting married somewhere under the magic number, but as I also see the societal havoc (and personal devastation) that fornication has wrought, I am reassured that God is, as always, infinite in his wisdom.

Like paper near a flame.

One consistent drum beat I’ve heard in the manosphere is that of a nearly obsessive fear of marrying a woman with a low or nonexistent sex drive.  This coincides with the idea that a man needs to “test drive” a woman before shackling himself to her with a ring, because what if she never puts out after the wedding night and horror of horrors you didn’t know this was going to happen because like a chivalrous white knight idiot you never had sex with her before the wedding?  Or – even worse – what if she only wants to have sex for a couple of years and then, after she gets her baby, she never wants to have sex again?  Sure, there’s a lot of derision of Carousel riders, but when push comes to shove, at least a Carousel rider is going to let you ride.  (Well, until she finds the next rider and takes half of your fortune with her, but at least you got your turn, which for most men seems to be better than no turn at all.)

In the Christian community, male fear of a sexless marriage seems to be as widespread as outside the church, but even more intense and much more underground.  It’s intense because devout Christian men know that they have one shot at marriage, which in turn is their one shot at finding a sex partner for life, and underground because Christians like to pretend that sex is a mystery that doesn’t exist don’t like to talk much about sex other than “Teens, don’t do it.”  For the Christian alpha male, there’s not much cause to worry – Christian alpha males almost always get snapped up right after college, or, if they delay marriage, whenever they feel like it’s finally time to leave and cleave…er, I mean, whenever the Holy Spirit speaks to them about the next season of life.  (As has been said here before, did anyone ever believe that Christian dating guru, pastor-to-be, megaflirt Joshua Harris was going to have genuine trouble finding a wife?)  It’s really the Christian beta males who must trek through Mordor to get to Mount Doom, only to possibly discover Gollum waiting to chomp off their finger.

The conundrum facing Christian beta males seems obvious:  Christian women don’t want beta males any more than non-Christian women do, Christian women have been trained not to give any signals of attraction, Christian women want to be “friends” for an unspecified amount of time first…yet Christian women expect men to “man up” and charge ahead, brandishing leadership skills in every facet of life, but not in too sexy a way, lest he be branded a sex-craved deviant or cause a sister (whom he should be treating with absolute purity) to stumble, but not so unsexy that the woman would rather wash her hair.  And a brother is somehow supposed to divine his future wife’s sex drive out of this?

While I empathize with Christian men facing the Leviathan of holy dating, I also think that the fear of marrying a low sex-drive woman is overblown.  I don’t know any single Christian women who are not confirmed spinsters who aren’t jonesing for sex.  As one of my single Christian female friends has said on a number of occasions, “I need to get married soon, because I’m ready to explode.”  It’s like shaking an unopened 2-liter bottle of soda and leaving the cap on.  You may not see a ton of bubbles, but the pressure is most definitely building up inside.  Men, please be encouraged that you won’t be buying a bottle of soda that is flat, but a bottle that is very agitated and waiting for the right time to unleash a torrent of passion.*

Interestingly, this subject came up in the comments of a recent Boundless post.  What began as comments to the female follow-up to “I’ll Go Out With You If…” (featuring the usual drivel) somehow morphed into some women admitting that yes, they did have sex drives that they were working to keep a lid on.  In one comment, a poster named Ashley summed it up thusly:

This is probably unrelated to the actual topic at hand, but I have never been able to explain this to a guy in a way that he can understand. There’s just no good way to tell someone, “I am so fantastically, unrestrainedly into you that I’m going to need us to work on the relational/emotional/intellectual connection here and I am going to need you to not. touch. me. until we talk about it — and I really have to warn you, I may need you to pull the breaks on me.”

Commenter Andrea-Elena responded:

Or how about…

I haven’t gotten to be physical much with guys in my life and I’m longing so much to touch and do all those things that even if I’m not over-the-moon into you, I might still pounce on you just ’cause I like you enough and I find you attractive enough and women get horny too!!!

I feel as if I ought to have a business-size card with that on it to give to a guy when we first start dating.

…

I was inexperienced until the age of 23. So I didn’t really know my own “strength” (heh, heh). I didn’t know I could be or would ever be the aggressor in making out. And there were times I was. Sure, that’ll be awesome when I’m someone’s wife. But it’s awfully dangerous during dating, especially at the beginning stages when it’s so easy for the physical bonding to escalate and go at a much more rapid pace than the “who we are as people” aspect of getting to know each other. And some guys don’t defend their own boundaries very well at times. Just as some of us gals don’t either at times.

So, men, take heart.  Chastity is not synonymous with a lack of sex drive.  Sometimes women may seem distant with affection because it’s the only way they can stop the snowball from accelerating down the mountain.  That said, I think it’s prudent for a couple who are getting serious to talk about sexual expectations in marriage.  If those expectations don’t line up and there doesn’t seem to be a way (or willingness) to make them line up, then the relationship really should be reconsidered.  Generally speaking, instead of spending a lot of time worrying about whether or not his future wife is going to want to have sex with him, a smart man would use that time to work on making himself so irresistible that his wife would have no choice but to jump him and have her way with him.

* Another way of putting it:  I DIDN’T WAIT THIS LONG SO I COULD HAVE FIVE MINUTES OF LAME, DUTIFUL SEX ONCE A MONTH.

Beauty is not insurance against infidelity.

Just weighing in on the Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher cheating thing.  Yesterday Roissy was gloating that, as he had predicted, Ashton Kutcher cheated on his significantly older wife.  (According to Wikipedia, Kutcher is 32 and Moore is 47.)  Roissy’s assertion was that Moore was just too old to keep her husband’s sexual attention and that she was a fool for thinking she could.

Well…yes and no.  I don’t think Demi Moore would have been much less in danger of having her husband cheat on her if she were 25 instead of 47.  Best-case scenario is that it just would have taken longer for him to cheat.  Ashton Kutcher has sufficient looks, fame, and wealth that regardless of whom he was married to, he would still be faced with constant temptation.  It’s more likely that Kutcher, like so many men in Hollywood before him, simply succumbed to the temptation of a young woman who was freely offering herself to him and pumping up his ego.  And in Hollywood, such women are numerous, especially when they can get something else out of the affair, like fame or access to even higher-status men.

Would it have been wiser for Kutcher to marry someone younger (if he had to marry at all, which he probably shouldn’t have)?  Possibly, but many beautiful women in Hollywood who are younger than Moore have been cheated on.  The only way female beauty is a protection against male infidelity is when the woman’s beauty greatly outpaces the man’s status, so that the man feels he has something irreplaceable to lose, and even then, it’s not a sure thing.  (Real-world example:  Roissy’s regular commenter Gorbachev, a self-proclaimed 6 who has been dating for a few months a woman whom he considers the hottest woman he’s ever seen in real life, a woman who gives him agonizing oneitis – and he still cheated on her.  And then went on the internet and told everybody.)

Basically, if you don’t believe that marriage is an exclusive sexual relationship for life, you shouldn’t marry.

Singles’ Top 5 Relationship Temptations (according to Perry Noble).

A friend Facebooked a blog post by Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina, discussing what he thinks are the top five temptations singles face when considering a relationship.  Here’s what he had to say:

#1 – Compromise! Hands down this is the first temptation…and I would argue that it is the girl that deals with this way more than the guy.  She begins wanting “Mr. Right” but will settle for “Mr. Right Now” if she perceives that all of her friends are getting married and she is not.  God has NEVER called His followers to compromise…EVER!!!  (And…ladies…if you are constantly having the defend the guy you are dating, then you know you are compromising.)

AND…ladies…if he is not pursuing you in a godly manner (which means he is not constantly trying to stick his hands down your pants) then drop him!

Yes, the abuse of exclamation points and ellipses is tedious, but if you can get past that, what we have is a grade-A example of the type of dating advice that leaves Christian singles single well into their 30s.  While there are plenty of marriage-obsessed young women out there who jump at the mere hint of any halfway decent man’s attention, this NEVER COMPROMISE advice is why there are numerous 30-year-old Christian girls who have never had a boyfriend.  I also think this type of advice plays into the pedestalization of women that the church is so (in)famous for – if you’re a female 4 who loves the Lord, waiting for your heroic Christian male 8 to wake up and realize you’re the one for him is just not going to work out well for you.

Re: men who are “constantly trying to stick his hand down your pants” – the most church alpha way of dealing with a woman regarding sexual desire is to acknowledge it openly and then draw a line in the sand and stick with it.  Constant pushing of limits can get you branded a pig who is just looking for a warm body.  Primly abstaining out of “respect” or pretending you don’t struggle with temptation will just make her angry.

#2 – Believing That Marriage Will Solve The Struggles You Are Facing While Dating! Marriage is a magnifier…and if it is a small deal when you are dating then I promise it will be a BIG HONKIN’ deal when you tie the knot!

Can’t argue much with this.

#3 – Going Too Fast! Anyone can fool anyone for a short period of time!  You need to date someone “until the new wears off!”  If two people are in a hurry to get married then it is usually because they are trying to hide something from the other person…or because they just want to have sex!

I don’t think that short courtships are a problem per se.  The problem is infatuation clouding good judgment.  Basically, if the only thing you like about the other person is making out with him or her, then you probably shouldn’t rush into marriage.  But if you have values in common and enjoy doing things together other than sucking face, then I don’t see how dating for 2 years versus 9 months is really going to make a substantial difference in the success of your marriage, especially when you’re out of college.

#4 – Trying To Be The Person That The Person They Are Dating Wants Them To Be Rather Than Who They Are – If you are having to lie about who you are to date someone…then you need to break up today!  Ladies…DO NOT SAY you love football and want to go to games with him if you don’t know the difference between the offense and the defense.  Dudes, DO NOT SAY you absolutely LOVE chic flics and want to watch them for hours if doing so drives you crazy!  If you are doing things you HATE to do…but have refused to be honest and tell the other person the truth…then you are being dishonest with them.

There’s a difference between being honest and being an intolerant stick in the mud.  If you don’t like football but your loved one does, be honest about it but be willing to participate without whining the whole time about your sacrifice.  Also, it’s okay not to do every single thing together as a couple.  Just because he doesn’t want to do something with you doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you.

#5 – Seeking Advice And/OR Affirmation From The Wrong People! Single people…please, if you want marriage/dating advice…then go to people who are actually married and have been so for a long time!  Why in the world would you ask a single person for marriage advice?  Why would you ask someone who has literally blown through relationship after relationship how to have a relationship?  Because they read a book?  Because they know some Bible verses?  REALLY?  If you want to know how to have a successful relationship…ask those who have one.

This is TERRIBLE advice.  By the same logic, you should not listen to teenage moms preach abstinence or alcoholics preach sobriety.  Truth is truth no matter whom it comes from.  It may taste better coming from someone who’s walking the walk, but marriage advice from married people isn’t necessarily going to be better than from an unmarried person.

Even Christian girls want men to put the moves on them.

I am not advocating that men pressure women for sex, or refuse to take no or other signs of disinterest/discomfort for an answer.  But even a Christian woman wants to know that the man she is dating has some sexual interest in her.  This is not easy to determine if the man refuses to touch her in any way* or basically acts like there is a 3-foot virginity forcefield surrounding her that will not allow him to get any closer. (*Sidehugs excluded.)  If this goes on for long enough, the woman will seriously start to question why the man is even dating her.

The other reason a man should not act like he will become electrocuted should he touch the woman he is dating is that it’s a DLV.  It makes the man seem deferential and complacent – maybe even fearful – without even having tested the waters.  This is a big tingle-killer.  If a man tries to put his hand on the woman’s waist and she pulls away, and he doesn’t try again for the rest of the night, a woman will respect him more than if he never tried at all.

One caveat:  this kind of touching is generally not appropriate for a “getting to know you” date.  If you’re meeting a stranger or someone you only cursorily know at a coffee shop, for example, it’s better to keep your hands to yourself.  Otherwise you’ll just get branded Grabby McHandsallover:  Sex-Crazed Pervert.  But if you’ve been on a few dates and it’s looking like this may turn into a regular thing, a woman is going to want you to assert your sexual interest.  A little touch goes a long way in assuring a woman that you are attracted to her.

On statutory rape.

Yesterday Roissy made a post about the show Californication, at first praising its portrayal of an unrepentant divorced manwhore named Frank Moody who is the master of cocky/funny game, then complaining that said character is also a white-knighting chump who defends all of the women who treat him badly.  One such woman happens to be a 17-year-old who seduces Frank, then steals his manuscript and passes it off as her own, while threatening him with the specter of statutory rape if he tries to expose her fraud.  Roissy then veered off on a tangent complaining about statutory rape laws and how inconvenient it is to have to think twice about having sex with an attractive young woman if there’s the possibility she’s underage.  After all, there are well-developed 13-year-olds out there!  Many of the commenters on the thread vehemently agreed – how dare these evil feminist laws exist that prevent men from taking what has historically been available to them!

The thing is, historically older men were able to have sex with attractive 15-year-olds because they married those 15-year-olds.  Which meant that in addition to getting the sex, these men were also taking on the responsibility of housing, clothing, and feeding these 15-year-olds – FOR LIFE.  And also taking care of any children their union might produce, which, in the time before birth control pills, patches, and implants, was highly likely (and one of the primary societal reasons for marriage to exist in the first place; a society of bastards won’t remain a society for long).  Even if a man were having sex with a 15-year-old on the downlow, if she got pregnant, he would be under enormous societal pressure to marry her so as to avoid the bastardy of her child.

Men today can still have sex with the 15-year-old of their dreams, legally, by marrying her.  At that age in the United States, parental consent is required, but surely an older man who has the skills to woo a busty and willing 15-year-old must have the ability to charm her parents as well, no?  But if all the 15-year-old and man want is sex, then why shouldn’t the law shield her from a man who will not marry her?  Who may pressure her to abort their child if she does conceive?  Who could leave her emotionally devastated when he tires of her and moves on to the next tasty 15-year-old?  Because the age of first marriage in the U.S. has risen so high, why shouldn’t there be laws shielding young women from early sexual experiences that will greatly impact their ability to marry later on?  How can it possibly make sense that a functional, stable society with a high age of first marriage also has a low age of consent?  If men want the age of consent to drop, then the age of first marriage has to drop with it.  No matter how sexually mature of a body a 15-year-old may have, her mental and emotional states are not nearly as developed as those of an older woman.  And even older women have great difficulty handling the emotional aftermath of sexual relationships that end.  If men will not be the guardians of a woman’s mind, heart, and body, then the state will step in and try to do the job.

Additionally, the reasoning behind these complaints smacks of Adam-and-Eve to me.  The men who gripe that they can’t go out and bang the voluptuous teenybopper of their choice without fear of criminal repercussion are the same ones who believe that women are fickle and irrational and are in great need of a man’s authority, guidance, and protection from herself in their lives…except when it comes to women’s sexual impulses, apparently.  Especially if they are impulsing in his direction.  Then it’s all the woman’s choice and “hey, she wanted it, so why is it my fault?” – just like Adam in the Garden of Eden when God confronts him about eating the fruit:  “the woman gave it to me, and I ate it.”  Interestingly, God does not say, “Well, Adam, you’re right.  You just did what Eve wanted you to do.  You’re off the hook, bro.”  Instead, God metes out a punishment with the ultimate domino effect – cursing all men to work to live – while specifically condemning him for listening to Eve.  The argument against the high age of statutory rape laws is as old as time, and about as effective.

There’s always a price to pay for sex, and female sexuality in particular has always been pretty pricey.  In the past, it was protected by social pressure and personal restraint through religious convictions.  Now that both of those have largely fallen by the wayside, the law has stepped in to mandate self-restraint.  Kind of ironic that women are more “available” than ever, but in order to achieve that, the most desirable women are less attainable than ever.

Preventive thinking.

Unlike most people my age, I’ve never had sex with a stranger (a.k.a. one night stand) or even made out with/groped a stranger.  Part of the reason for this is that I don’t hang out at places where things like this usually get started (bars and clubs), part of it is that single men in my age range (make that men in general) very rarely even try to strike up conversations with me, and part of it is my morals.  Usually when I am considering bending my morals, though, the following thoughts usually start running through my head:

• What if it’s bad?  Like, repulsively bad?  I don’t want to be stuck with that kind of memory.
• What if it’s bad because of me and he tells all of his friends how awful I am and I become a dinner party story?
• What if he gets fat and bald and I see him again in the future and am stuck with the knowledge that I made out with that bald lardball?
• What if he becomes obsessed with me?
• What if it’s awkward afterward?
• What if I become clingy and emo?
• What if he has a girlfriend?
• I probably don’t mean anything to him.
• He probably wouldn’t care if it’s me or some other girl.
• What if I find out that he regularly hooks up with dumb, trashy girls?
• What will my friends think?…oh, who am I kidding?  I know what they’ll think.
• You’ve been in such a long dry spell…is this the guy you really want to end the dry spell with?
• Am I going to be glad or embarrassed tomorrow?

I know, I should probably be thinking of Bible verses against sexual immorality instead, but vanity works, too.

The most famous chastity story of all time?

No, I’m not referring to Britney Spears circa 1999-2001.

I was thinking the other day about the Bible story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.  For those who are woefully ignorant unfamiliar, basically what happens is that Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, is sold into slavery by his jealous older brothers.  He is purchased by Potiphar, the Egyptian Pharaoh’s captain of the guard.  God gives Joseph success in everything he does, and Joseph rises through the servant ranks.  Eventually, Potiphar puts Joseph in charge of his entire household, which prospers as a result.  Unsurprisingly, Potiphar’s wife starts getting massive gina tingles, to use a Roissy-ism noticing that Joseph has both a great face and great bod, and eventually starts coming on to him.  Joseph, however, respects both God and Potiphar and refuses Mrs. Potiphar, explaining that he cannot betray his master or sin against God by sleeping with her.  Joseph starts to avoid Mrs. Potiphar, who only finds this resistance more gina-tingling refuses to take no for an answer and continues her pursuit.

One day Mrs. Potiphar manages to corner Joseph when the house is empty.  According to the biblical account, she grabs his cloak and once again asks Joseph to sleep with her, but he runs out of the house, leaving the cloak in her hands.  Mrs. Potiphar then calls to her servants and accuses Joseph of trying to rape her.  She holds on to Joseph’s cloak and waits for Potiphar to come home.  She then repeats her fake rape attempt story to her husband, who flies into a rage and has Joseph thrown into jail.  (The story ends well:  Joseph prospers in jail just as he did in Potiphar’s household and eventually is put in charge of the prison, and one thing leads to another and blah-de-blah ends up being Pharaoh’s Number One, saves Egypt from famine, and ends up having a happy reunion with his family.)

The Bible doesn’t give us any details about Potiphar’s wife other than that she tried to seduce Joseph and, when spurned, epitomized “hell hath no fury” revenge.  As a result, it’s very easy to superimpose your own image of what Potiphar’s wife must have been like.  When I was growing up, I always pictured her as a cougar-ish, menopausal woman who was clearly past the prime of her beauty but accustomed to wealth and privilege.  I imagined her heavily-made up eyes following Joseph around like a hungry hawk, and her pouncing on him unawares, aggressively demanding sex at random times.  I imagined her howling like a banshee and her indulgent husband white knighting for her honor.  And as far as I can recall, no pastor or speaker that I’ve listened to has ever presented a really different idea of what Potiphar’s wife was like.

It’s very possible that Potiphar’s wife really was a menopausal cougar, an Ancient Egyptian crazy lady who refused to accept that she’d grown old and unattractive to men and basically had a psychotic breakdown when confronted with reality.  There’s nothing about this take on Mrs. Potiphar that doesn’t jive with Scripture, or feminine nature as we know it today.  Any woman who’s brazenly thrown herself at a man and been rejected usually suffers a horrible mixture of rage, embarrassment, and depression all at once.  Mrs. Potiphar’s reaction, while a bit extreme, really isn’t anything out of the ordinary, especially if you watch a lot of Cops or any of the myriad of judge shows on afternoon TV.

More recently, though, in light of reading some Game blogs, I’ve started to rethink my idea of Potiphar’s wife.  For starters, if Mrs. Potiphar were old and menopausal and therefore not all that attractive to a younger man whose own attractiveness was starting to peak, would it have been such an issue to turn her down?  Why would Joseph’s refusal seem to contain an element of regret?  Gen. 39:8-9 says,

“But he refused.  ‘With me in charge,’ he told her, ‘my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.  No one is greater in this house than I am.  My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?'”

This doesn’t sound like a dude saying, in essence, “Mrs. Potiphar, I’m not the kind of guy who sleeps with his boss’s wife, but even if I were, well…I’m, uh, just not that into you.”  Instead, Joseph seems to be saying, “Look, you’re really attractive, and if the circumstances were different, maybe we’d have a chance.  But because things are the way they are, we don’t and can’t.  I’m sorry.  You need to accept this.”  Another point to consider is that Potiphar was a very powerful man.  As captain of the guard, not many men in Egypt had higher social standing than Potiphar.  It seems very believable that Potiphar would have had a young, beautiful trophy wife rather than an aging crone of a wife.  Maybe Mrs. Potiphar was even the second or third Mrs. Potiphar (the previous ones being “retired” as Potiphar ascended in rank).

The story takes on a much more dramatically and emotionally interesting read when you put a young, gorgeous, attentive, and admiring Mrs. Potiphar into the story.  It wouldn’t have been (as) hard for Joseph to turn down a 40-something, papyrus-skinned Mrs. Potiphar whose bathroom was stocked with twenty different Jewel of the Nile anti-aging cold creams and mud masks.  I imagine it would have been painfully difficult to turn down a soft-bodied, sweet-smelling, lush-lipped Mrs. Potiphar who was always impressed by the way he did things and never failed to say so, who might have teased him about finding the right girl for him while looking at him from under long, sooty lashes, who was open about being lonely and not able to relate to her much-older, always busy, never there husband.

It’s easy to imagine this scenario:  New slave Joseph proves again and again that he’s very good at whatever task he is given, and what’s more, he doesn’t gripe or complain.  The other servants like and respect him, and Potiphar starts to realize that Joseph is a much better administrator than the guy who’s currently in charge of the house.  Potiphar says “smell ya later” to the current guy and puts Joseph in charge of the household.

With Joseph in charge, the household has never run better.  It’s clean and organized, bills are paid on time, the other servants are getting along and are more productive, and Joseph is even talking about getting those long-put-off renovations taken care of.  Potiphar is thrilled and wonders why he didn’t put Joseph in charge much earlier.  At night, Potiphar talks up Joseph to his gorgeous new wife, who agrees that Joseph is doing a great job and mentally makes a note to take a closer look at Joseph herself.

Joseph notices that Mrs. Potiphar is being more friendly these days.  She also looks and smells amazing as she teases him about his cute accent.  Joseph reminds her that he’s busy, but he’s struck by her charm.  His boss is a lucky man.

Joseph is inspecting part of the property with another servant, making notes for improvements, when Mrs. Potiphar joins them.  Joseph greets her with a smile and begins to tell her about his tentative plans to landscape the area.  Mrs. Potiphar listens politely for a few minutes, then dismisses the other servant, saying she has business to discuss with Joseph.  Joseph asks her what she needs help with.  Mrs. Potiphar says that her husband is going to be out of town for a few days.  Joseph says that Potiphar had recently informed him — just a business trip, nothing major.  Mrs. Potiphar lays a hand on Joseph’s arm and says that they can get to know each other better while her husband is away.  Every hair on Joseph’s body stands on end.  He jokes that they know each other pretty well already, as he can name her favorite foods, how she likes her clothes laundered, and what her favorite song is.  Mrs. Potiphar tells Joseph that she knows he can feel the chemistry between them and that it’s not wrong.  And they get along so well, Joseph really gets her, unlike her husband.  She asks Joseph if he’s ever wondered what it would be like to be with her.  Joseph’s brain is about to explode — she’s standing so near, it would be so easy to take a taste — and then somehow all of his convictions about God and his morals come rushing back, and he removes her hand from his arm and tells her that she is the one thing he cannot have, and that he could not betray his master nor sin against God this way.  To his surprise, Mrs. Potiphar doesn’t seem disappointed; oddly enough, she seems charmed.  Joseph quickly excuses himself and goes back to the house.

Joseph does everything in his power not to be in the same room as Mrs. Potiphar.  When she enters a room, he leaves.  When she calls for him, he sends another servant in his place.  But he can’t avoid her always, and he endures some very tension-filled moments where he tries not to look her directly in the eyes.  At night he prays for relief from the situation, but none seems to come.  Things get to the point where the other servants have started whispering about them.

One day Joseph goes to the house to look for some documents in storage.  The house is quiet since all of the other servants are outside.  Joseph opens the closet where Potiphar keeps his files and is so deep in thought mode that he doesn’t notice that someone else has entered the room.  A rush of cool air on his back — his cloak — he spins around to see his master’s wife clutching his cloak to her chest, her eyes full of feminine victory.  He stammers her name — she presses a finger to his lips as she comes closer.  “I’m yours,” she says, and now her hands are touching his chest.  “You can have me however you want.”  Joseph tries to speak — no words come — her touch burns trails of fire — all his blood — her tunic drops to the floor  — “I’ve given the servants a lot of work.  We won’t be bothered.”  Suddenly he receives a bright-white moment of clarity — and he runs — runs hard — past the servants — to the most distant corner of the property.

Inside the house, Potiphar’s wife is stunned and embarrassed.  Joseph left.  He ran.  He ran away from her, when she offered him the finest curves he could ever hope to find in all of Egypt.  She picks up her tunic and starts to redress — and then it occurs to her:  what if he tells Potiphar, or word somehow leaks out?  Potiphar adores Joseph, like a combination of a brother and a son.  Fear paralyzes her for a moment; Potiphar is a permissive husband but very possessive.  He will not suffer a wayward wife.  Self-preservation kicks in, along with a hot streak of anger.  Joseph just made a huge mistake.  He didn’t know who he was messing with.  No one walks away from her and gets off scott free.  She screams, then screams louder.  She hears the sound of running footsteps, and within seconds, two servants burst into the room.  Potiphar’s wife clutches her tunic to her body with one hand.  In the other hand she holds Joseph’s cloak.  “He tried to rape me!” she screams.

When Potiphar arrives home from work, the atmosphere at the house is chillingly subdued.  A servant greets him.  “Your wife would like to speak with you.”

Potiphar finds his wife lying in bed, disheveled and listless.  He asks what’s wrong, and she tells him.  Potiphar can hardly believe it — but his wife wouldn’t lie — of course Joseph would have tried to take her, she’s beautiful, and Potiphar had given Joseph too much power.  A seed of anger bursts into a raging fire.  He yells to his servants.

As Joseph is being escorted out of the house, Potiphar can’t bear to watch.  As angry as he is about Joseph’s betrayal, he can’t help but feel pain at losing the best house manager, and maybe even friend, he’s ever had.  Kid was so promising.  Such a shame.

Tough luck, old virgins.

Having grown up in the church, I feel like there are two different virginity messages communicated to the unmarried.  Which message you get depends on which age group you fall into.

If you are a teenager, you are bombarded with True Love Waits-type messages.  Youth leaders stress HOW IMPORTANT it is to SAVE YOUR ~MOST PRECIOUS GIFT~ FOR YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE.  This is (I suppose for teenagers) the ULTIMATE ACT OF LOVE.  Even more than actually consummating a relationship as an act of love, the act of saving that consummation is the true mark of love.  The reason that it is SO IMPORTANT to save your Precious Gift That You Can Only Give Away ONCE — did you hear me?  ONCE!!  ONCE ONLY!!  THINK ABOUT THAT before you let some hormone-addled boy with only one thing on his mind separate you from your Calvins — is that many terrible things will befall you if you don’t.  You might get a Loathsome Disease.  (This scare tactic was very popular in the ’80s.)  You will Have Regrets (this can range from good, old-fashioned guilt to terrible lingering memories of someone other than your spouse to learned behaviors, desires, and expectations that your future spouse will not share, therefore paralyzing and ruining your marriage).  Last but not least, and actually not mentioned so often now that birth control, contraceptives, abortion, and lack of societal pressure to marry exist, you might get pregnant.  Bottom line?  TEEN SEX = BAD.  Don’t do it.  Don’t even think about doing it.  And don’t even think about doing it with someone who’s done it, much less actually do it with someone who’s done it, because I think we all know what that makes you, hmm?

However, if you are 20 or older, you hear almost zero admonitions to maintain your virginity (or to remain abstinent in the wake of divorce or being widowed).  It’s like the church either assumes adult singles are so negligible in number that it’s not worth devoting a message to sexual purity after high school, or it assumes that single adults already “know,” so there’s no point in repeating such a message.  I think this is a mistake.  Most single adults live on their own, or at least apart from their parents, and are financially independent.  They are steeped in a culture which expects and often encourages non-marital sex, and their own bodies have been biologically ready to go for at least a decade and oftentimes more.  Who is more likely to give in, a teenage girl armed with teenage fervor for serving the Lord and teenage idealism for the Perfect Romance, or a 29-year-old with her own apartment who finally has a man interested in her after longing for a relationship for the past 15 years?

In addition, if you are a single adult who has managed to remain a virgin, the church’s attitude about marrying another virgin pretty much amounts to “eh.”  All of the True Love Waits admonitions from high school go poof, and you’re stuck with, “Suck it up, you’re not entitled to marry a virgin just because you’re still a virgin, and I can’t even believe you would put virginity on a pedestal.  Who do you think you are?  We’re all sinners in need of redemption.  Hmmph.”  Most single adults in the church, especially those over the age of 30, understand that realistically, there’s a next-to-none chance of marrying a virgin, but it smarts when all your life you’ve heard “Virginity Matters A LOT” messages…only to discover that these messages have an expiration date.  All of the messages about how important it is to wait and to share the Greatest Intimacy Ever only with your spouse suddenly become, “Well, does he (or she) feel bad about it?  Really, REALLY bad about it?  Has this person been keeping their pants on since starting to feel bad about it?  Yeah?  Well, then shut up and settle.”

I’m still trying to reconcile these two messages.  I understand the spiritual and general societal reasons to promote virginity to the youth.  Teenagers are swimming in hormonal upheaval and don’t have the emotional or financial means to deal well with any fallout.  But what about adulthood makes virginity so less important?  Is it better coping mechanisms?  More pragmatism?  Or maybe the church is just quietly accepting that most single adults are no longer virgins and through silence is acknowledging that it would be ~awkward~ to talk about it and make those single adults feel bad about something they presumably have already repented of.