Let's Talk About Sex
Disclaimer – Really long post ahead that is sure to piss at least a few people off. Enjoy.
I’m usually very wary about Christian books that deal with sex for two basic reasons. Generally they so super-spiritualize sex that it becomes nearly indistinguishable from say a prayer meeting or worship service. Secondly I find that I usually completely disagree with the typical Christian conceptions about sex. And this is where I get in trouble. Where I cross the lines of taboo topics for decent Christian conversation and confirm people’s worst fears about me/young people/the emerging church. Where I either make people uncomfortable or just piss them off. So I usually play by the rules, avoid the topic, and let everyone assume I think like a “typical evangelical woman” (whatever that is) on the subject.
Well it’s kinda hard to keep my mouth shut when I’m sent a book to review that I have serious disagreements with on this topic. So at the risk of stirring up another hornet’s nest here, I have to say that I have issues with Michael Leahy’s new book Porn Nation (and honestly I continue to find it amusing that these anti-porn sites/books have porn related titles. I know it’s meant to bring porn users to them, but it also brings up all sorts of real porn when one searches for them on Google or Amazon.) The book is Leahy’s story about how his sex addiction destroyed his life. Of course it also has sections on how our culture is oversexed and some really generic ideas for spiritual healing. In all it was a very short book that I found didn’t end up saying much at all and what it did say was based on false assumptions and dichotomies.
I don’t deny that a sex addiction is harmful or that it has destroyed families. As with any addiction the potential exists to cause harm to those one loves the most. I appreciate the author’s vulnerability in telling his story and admitting how his addiction hurt others. I also don’t deny that porn can exploit and often has connections to sex trafficking, forced prostitution, rape, and slavery. Or that there are illegal and deviant forms of it. Sex can be used to hurt, control, and demean. Such injustices are always wrong wherever they occur. But as I read the book I had the distinct feeling the author was throwing the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. His personal pain caused him to swing to the opposite extreme of viewing all sexuality as bad and to blame the sexuality in our culture for his struggles with selfishness and addiction. While I question his naïve historical view of sex (assuming that we are the first generation to ever be sexual), as well as tendency to lump all cultural expressions of sexuality under the porn label, it is his negative view of sexuality that I had the most problem with.
Early in the book as he describes his first experience with sexuality (an accidental orgasm and the thrill of seeing a topless picture of a women), the author assumes a tone of disgust and regret. From the awkward and incomprehensible “sex ed” class taught by a priest to his own sexual experimentation, the assumption is that being a sexual being is a bad thing. This is his message after working through his sexual addictions, but it is also the message I have heard my whole life from the church. Even before the recent trends within evangelical Christianity to describe the sole purpose of sex as being procreation (basically for anti-homosexual reasons), sex wasn’t something to be celebrated. In typical modern dualistic fashion, our bodies are disparaged and sexuality is seen as the basest expression of that despised flesh. Sure some books like Intended for Pleasure hinted at that aspect of sex, but only as long as there wasn’t too much pleasure involved and sex was described as really being about spirituality. Basically the vicissitudes of Platonism haunted the bedrooms and made an easy scapegoat of sexuality.
This view of sex defined the way children were raised and youth were taught. Children were taught in the most Skinneristic of fashions to be utterly ashamed of and disgusted by their bodies through the quick reproves of parents whenever they attempted to touch their genitalia. Youth pastors held the sacred honor of scaring teens away from sex by whatever means necessary. A mixed bag of fear tactics, heavy guilt, and extreme suppression usually made up their arsenal. It generally worked too (at least for appearances sake, those who “sinned” through dressing too sexily or by getting pregnant were not so subtly asked to leave). Anyone one who expresses curiosity about sex openly was silenced and generally ridiculed. But of course everyone knew that most of the guys and a good handful of the girls were exploring their sexuality on their own trying to ignore the conditioned guilt they felt at being a sexual being.
Sexual memoirs like Leahy’s just portray the continuation of this rejection of the body. At one point in the book he describes the sad situation of girls who feel like they have to “put out” for guys or dress really sexy in order to be affirmed as a person. I agree, that is bad and is part of the continued evils girls face as we emerge from patriarchy. Girls should be taught to respect their bodies and themselves. This respect includes understanding who they are as sexual beings and the best way to discover healthy sexuality. Leahy though decides to merely lament the fact that girls these days are not innocent (once again historical naivety – were they ever!?), and proceeds to blame Brittney Spears, MySpace, and rap music for the downfall of the young. Apparently denying and ignoring sex (along with figuring out how to shelter “children” from it) is preferred over teaching healthy ways to interact with it.
Of course in Christianity where sex is to be saved for marriage whole other issues arise because of a lack of healthy ways to understand sex. Girls, taught to be ashamed of sex from birth, are generally told that although they will most likely not enjoy sex they had better give it to their husbands or else it is their fault if he strays. Years of suppression and guilt are to be overcome in a night. They need to please men enough to keep them from sin (affairs, porn, fantasy…), but of course stay within healthy spiritual boundaries. Anything that indulges in the sheer physicality of sex or that encourages sexual exploration and fulfillment is taboo. Only tasteful lacy lingerie on occasion is permitted, the lights should always be off, no games or stories or toys, no sex vacations, no experimenting with positions, no movies or fantasy play, no masturbation, and, most assuredly, no talking about any of this stuff ever. Couple who do cross those lines face lingering guilt and wonder if they are doing something wrong by enjoying sex with their spouse. Women become angry and ashamed if the husband tries to be intimate in those ways. They blame his deviant sex addiction and shut their sexuality down even further.
And the resources given to help are books like Porn Nation that continue to spread the “sex is evil” lie and tack on a few pages at the end about how after years of struggle they found healing and are now happily married. Sorry, but I find that lacking. I firmly believe that God created sex and that we are meant to enjoy it. Yes, I think that should happen with a committed relationship – that relational connection and intimacy being part of what it takes to be fully enjoyed imho. So I won’t deny that I am a sexual person. Nor will I play the game of attempting to hide that away by being made to feel guilty for dressing a certain way (that “way” varying depending on who is doing the judging) or just because I am a woman. I will not run from expressions of sexuality in culture or think they hold the power to destroy people (addictions and selfishness are problems, sexuality is not). I will not see the physical body as something only to be shamed by, or see developing my relationship with my husband sexually as anything I should ever feel guilty about. Yes, sex can be used to harm and destroy, but there are ways to develop a healthy sexuality that strengthens and respects people that doesn’t require the extremes of disparaging the body or suppressing sexuality.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
This post rocks, Julie. Have you considered writing a healthy-appreciation-for-sexuality sex book?
julie, i don't think i've ever heard anyone state my convictions quite like you just did. even most Christian leaders/writers/thinkers who assure their followers/readers that sex is beautiful and to be enjoyed fully by both marital partners never really come off as 'sex positive' because of the list of stated or implied boundaries their arguments are fraught with.
i'm sorry mom & dad (if you ever read this), but i bear more scars from the sex/sin/secret association burned into my emotions than i ever have or will from sexuality in the media or porn. and unfortunately my wife has been made an unwitting victim of my indoctrination as well, since all of that guilt and shame about sex in general cannot be 'shut off' at bedtime.
thank you julie for saying this. bless you. :_(
A few semi-random responsive thoughts:
Julie, why would anyone who knows you at all assume that you hold any opinions that a "typical evangelical woman" would hold on any subject, after reading your blog or any of your writings available on the internet? That's a bit of an irrelevant aside, but I almost laughed out loud when I read that line. If on any topic I might have an idea of what the "typical evangelical woman" would think, then in order to arrive at "What Would Julie Clawson Think?" I would immediately assume that she thinks the opposite of that stereotypical evangelical woman.
Otherwise, I agreed with just about everything you posted. Thankfully, many others in our generation and even in generations before ours have seen this error, and there are resources available that make these same points and seek to correct that damaging gnostic tendency. I've been exposed to some of what you describe, especially as a kid in fundamentalist circles. I'm sorry that it sounds like you really did experience a lot of the worst that American fundamentalist Christianity has to offer, without much of a counterbalance (until later in life) to show you early on that there were other Christian ways of looking at those topics. I'm thankful that in addition to fundamentalism I also encountered a good bit of more balanced teaching and writing on a truly Christian view of sexuality. It's out there. I wish I'd had more of the positive view as a kid, and less of the bad anti-sex, anti-body stuff that you write about.
At the same time, porn and sex addiction is a big problem for all the reasons you list and others. Really big. Porn's easy and anonymous availability through the internet is the equivalent of crack cocaine for someone who is vulnerable to the addiction, but who would never had dared to buy a magazine over the counter or visit a strip club or adult bookstore in the pre-internet days. Yeah, there is nothing new under the sun. Sexual addiction, unhealthy sexual expression, lust, etc. has always existed. But the 'net has added a new dimension to the issue. I'd hate to see that lost in a valid discussion of how some Christians over-skew things in this area.
Karl, both Julie and I grew up in mainstream evangelicalism, not extreme fundamentalism. And in both of our upbringings the sex-positive messages were few and far between, and when they did come they were far overshadowed by the constant negativity and guilt. More positive Christian approaches may be out there, but they are not getting through in most cases.
And I agree with Sean. The guilt complex about sex imposed by my evangelical upbringing has been more damaging to me than anything in the "secular" media or porn. In fact, I would say that my own struggles with porn in the past have been as a direct result of some of those scars.
Mike, I agree that negative conservative Christian messages on sex and the resulting guilt complexes, hidden shame, driving of exploring sexuality underground, etc. can contribute to people's problems with porn. No doubt. I agree with Julie's post and I'm not defending the bad way prudish Christianity has dealt with sexuality. But I think it would be an extreme exaggeration to place the majority blame for the soocietal problem of sex addiction or pornography, on that type of upbringing. In a given case, maybe that was a big contributing factor. But not in all.
Feminist author Naomi Wolf authored an interesting article on porn for New York Magazine several years ago. I'd highly recommend it to supplement discussion/consideration of this topic:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/
I meant no insult; maybe because of my exposure to Falwell's and Bob Jones' versions of what it means to be Baptist, I automatically think "fundamentalist" rather than "evangelical" when I hear "conservative Baptist" which, IIRC, is what you said you grew up as. Julie's descriptions of what she encountered in her upbringing sound a lot more like my Bob Jonesy fundamentalist private school experience, than anything I experienced in evangelicalism. But the lines do blur between the two (Falwell for instance, used to proudly call himself a fundamentalist and then some time in the 80's or early 90's began calling himself an evangelical without noticeably changing his theology), so I'll take you at your word that the two of you grew up in mainstream evangelical churches.
Have you read Growing Up Born Again (GUBA) by some of the editorial staff of the Wittenberg Door? Hilarious book that you'd both probably get a kick out of. They do a riff on the youth group "sex talk" that is familiar and hilarious.
Julie,
Good post. I had a similar upbringing in regards to sex. I can't remember anyone really explaining to me its purpose and the joy in it. Just seemed to be a list of "Do nots."
I grew up mostly in the Baptist General Conference (BGC), affiliated with Bethel College in the Twin Cities and John Piper's denomination, so yeah, mainstream conservative evangelical, not "independent fundamentalist" or even GARB. My mom listened to nothing but Christian radio in the 1980's and 90's (e.g. Dobson, Colson, Steve Green, Amy Grant, Michael W Smith, etc.) I did go to a conservative Christian private school in elementary, and they did use Bob Jones curriculum, but we didn't go to the church it was affiliated with because they were too fundamentalist for my parents. (As they put it to me at the time, "They won't let us watch movies if we go there.") I was in YFC and went to their DC '94 conference. I even did their "True Love Waits" campaign that year. I did youth group, and "witness wear", and read C.S. Lewis in high school. I even lived full-time at a BGC camp where my parents worked during Jr. and Sr. High. I went to Wheaton College, did a summer of street evangelism, worked for Christianity Today in grad school, and became the youth pastor of a small BGC church in Wheaton. So yeah, again, mainstream conservative evangelical through and through.
Hey … don't be too hard on evangelicalism in this instance. I was brought up as agnostic in New England during the 70's … and um … I'm just as confused. So, I think our culture in general is conflicted and has problems in this arena.
My mother handed me a book ("Love, Sex, and Growing Up") as the sum total of my sex education. And I found "The Joy of Sex" in her dresser one day. So, go figure.
Now that I have a teenage daughter and a pre-teen son, I'm beginning to have a better understanding of what a nuanced subject this is to teach as a parent. It's difficult under the best of circumstances … and our culture (church aside) is not the best of circumstances.
The church may have magnified some of what was/is happening in the larger culture, but it's still going on.
Thanks for sharing that Mike, I agree that = conservative evangelicalism. I resonate with your and Julie's experiences with the effects of Christian taboo-ing of sex, as they sound similar to mine both at home and in the school I attended. I wish it had been different and I went down some unhealthy paths that I think I might have been spared from if it had.
At the same time I did hear some pretty good teaching on sex in the middle of all that – it was just drowned out as you point out, by the majority-negative voices. It was only later as a young adult that I began to look for and find better Christian writing, thinking, teaching and mentoring in the area of sexuality and began to find some healing for the wounded places. So I agree with Julie, but I think hers in this post is no longer just a lone voice in the wilderness, but is one voice among a rising chorus of voices that's been going on for a while saying this same thing ("hey, we children of evangelicalism were really screwed – pardon the pun – by the puritanical approach to sexuality we got in our upbringing"), and that chorus is moving from being a seldom-heard minority you had to seek out or be lucky to find, to a hard to ignore presence, even in evangelicalism.
Hmm, I'm not sure it's actually evangelicalism that's the main voice of that message Julie, Mike and Karl. I grew up mainstream United Methodist and my parents were nominal Christians – yet they had those exact messages for me with regard to sex. When I was in Japan we (the international students) had a bunch of discussions on sex – and the concensus was that we (the US students) had the weirdest baggage…
It may be a cultural message that is getting framed by the religious context…rather than a religious message being framed by the culture.
BTW, great post Julie. This would be great to talk about at emerging parents as it relates to how we can change it for our kids…Let's not pass it on to the next generation. I just wish I had more positive models to follow – because I really haven't seen any yet.
Sorry, went back and read Karl's Naomi Wolf article – very good points – but it brought to mind one of things my girlfriends and I have discussed.
Porn is not limited to men.
I agree with Naomi Wolf's assessment that it dilutes the sexual experience – it leaves women competing with on-demand "me" centered interest. And we can't compete – we're people, not things. And sex is about two people, not one person.
But women engage in porn as well.
And it does the same thing to men. What man can measure up to the hunk in the romance novel that not only delivers every emotional nuanced stroke to the female ego, but also brings flowers — and his woman to a four page orgasm over and over again??
Let's make sure we aren't sexist in our porn discussion (which as Christians we're taught to be) and let's find a way to have sex with our partners not the peak of the american conception of sexuality – the biggest, mostest, supersized-est, mr/ms everything we hope/dream/imagine always.
Perhaps we need to remember that if we have everything all the time, there is nothing left to look forward to.
Let’s make sure we aren’t sexist in our porn discussion (which as Christians we’re taught to be) and let’s find a way to have sex with our partners not the peak of the american conception of sexuality – the biggest, mostest, supersized-est, mr/ms everything we hope/dream/imagine always.
Perhaps we need to remember that if we have everything all the time, there is nothing left to look forward to.
Excellent points, Charlotte … and there is no one telling women that those romance novels are unhealthy or mind candy. Just the opposite (in fact).
So women get the double hit of expecting themselves to have the body of those heroines and their husbands to perform like the heroes … that should make for a healthy marriage. Not.
Sonja and Charlotte, I think you make some excellent points. Some of us received a particularly evangelically-flavored negative view of sex, but I agree that such a view isn't limited to evangelicalism or even to Christianity, and may be a cultural thing.
I'm not convinced though, that the other extreme is any more healthy. i.e. a more permissive culture with much more openness to pornography and other varieties of sexual expression, such as in much of western Europe, may not have exactly the same sexual pathologies that America does, but it might (almost certainly does) have its own, different problems with regard to sex. We'd probably all agree that the desired end is more nuanced than simply puritanical repression on one side, and sexual libertarianism on the other.
Sonja, I agree there's a lot less being said about the soft porn of romance novels. Christianity Today has had several pieces about that very topic on its website within the past few years.
Julie, I love you.
This line resonated with me the most:
So I usually play by the rules, avoid the topic, and let everyone assume I think like a “typical evangelical woman” (whatever that is) on the subject.
As a single woman interacting with other Christians, this is particularly diffiuclt ground to walk. Take all of the flinching fear that emergents feel about being labeled as heretical and multiply it a couple of times to get a sense for why I generally dodge the topic rather than admit that sometimes I sleep with men that I'm not married to. My fear is that I won't be able to get to explain that these have been committed relationships and that it's complicated negotiating this post-modern world recognizing that although sex with one partner is ideal and God's plan, this is a broken world and not at all ideal.
For instance, the first man I slept with was my husband and we had a marriage of terrible sex. How do I marry again in ignorance about that part of the relationship? Experience is necessary to make good choices. I hate to use the cliche, but you might have to break some eggshells to get at the protein.
You're right, the trick will be how to teach our children so that they are not ignorant but so that they don't irreparably damage themselves.
You're awesome to speak so candidly, allowing the rest of us to do so.
To finally get back online to this discussion…
I fully agree that this isn't just an evangelical thing. That has been my background and appeared to be the target audience of the book, so that is how I framed my post. Cultural attitudes towards sex have varied across cultures. I was just reading about how in China they are just getting away from physically punishing premarital sex and how still single women cannot get residency documents for children without a husband. Other cultures and time periods have viewed sex very differently.
I think anything – porn, romance novels, computer games, football… – that promotes a "me centered" attitude that allows a partner to withdraw into his or herself at the expense of the other is dangerous. As is anything that creates false expectations for the other. Expectations that are not created together in partnership can destroy. Honestly I see nothing wrong at all with romantic fantasy or kinky sex if that is something desired and discussed by both partners. Ignoring one's partner in favor of imagined others or being disappointed in the reality of one's partner does not strength the relationship, but destroys it.
That said I'm also not a huge fan of making the alternatives the typical extremes of "boys will be boys" (which assumes women aren't sexual at all) or "run away, run away". Seeing an attractive person, or something sensual and being "turned on" shouldn't be something one obsesses over – either by objectifying it solely into one's personal fantasy or by trying to suppress it. Silly Christian games of "eye bounce" or blaming women for how they dress or whatever just make the issue worse. I'm more about becoming comfortable in my own skin, not fearing being attractive and confident (and yes I recognize the irony of writing that while I am in the waddling stage of pregnancy…), and admitting what I find sensual and sexually attractive. I'd rather be able to admire beauty than automatically feel ashamed by it… things I wish I could have affirmed at the start of marriage instead of struggling to discover over the past nine years or so…
Julie, very good discussion. Have you been reading Rachelle Mee-Chapman's thoughts on the topic?
http://www.magpie-girl.com/20080424/why-im-not-teaching-my-kids-abstinence/
and http://www.magpie-girl.com/20080501/abstinence-kids-and-faith-thoughts-from-the-comment-gallery/
I'm interested in the topic not just for myself, but also as my daughter, now almost six, amazes me at how boy crazy she is, and how much I hate the prince/princess fairy tale stories that don't give women a voice in who they love. They are simply targets of the prince's choice. I feel like every time we watch a movie or read a book, I have to spend time detoxing her
My church upbrining was similar to the ideas that you shared in this book. In fact, my "talk" involved my father handing me a copy of James Dobson's, "Preparing for Adolescence." Needless to say, I unfortunatley didn't emerge from childhood with a healthy view of sexuality.
Just yesterday I found myself talking with a youth pastor friend who was asking about how to get his kids to stop having sex and drinking. I shared with him that this totalitarian attitude that "Sex is Bad," does little to inhibit sexual behavior and in fact encourages hidden and rebellious expressions of sexuality. I proposed that he open up a dialogue with students about their sexual choices minus the judgement and fear-mongering and include discussions about how students should engage in sex (responsibly, safely, etc) if they should choose to do so. Unfortunately, I don't think he's ready to lose his job yet. Thanks for the post, Julie!
Julie–Off topic but not–I found I was most impressed with the appearance of my own body when I was in the waddling around stage of pregnancy. I find pregnant women some of the most attractive people I see. When I studied to be a midwife one of the topics was sex during pregnancy. Try opening that kettle of worms in a polite circle of Christians…humm…
Chris–Your advice to your friend was spot on. At the same time, the emotional baggage so to speak that we carry around with regard to sex is not all "guilt because the Church or God or even worse our mothers said we shouldn't and we did" some of it is real pain from sharing our most intimate self with someone who proved not to be trust worthy. This too needs to come into our conversations with our children, their friends, each other…
great and provocative past, julie.
about five years ago a mom at my kids school invited me to a For Your Pleasure party. FYP is a line of products designed to enhance the bedroom experience. At that time I blushed and became flustered when the mom invited me. I politely declined. Later, I asked a close friend about it and she discouraged me from even having second thoughts about going. "Is it going to help bring you closer to your husband or just give you a thrill?" Ok….
Fast forward five years. Another invite (actually an EVITE!). And this time I'm going. It's tomorrow night. As for my friend's question, well, after twenty years of marriage bringing fresh thrills into our intimacy would most definitely bring my husband and I closer!
Another point I want to touch in on is how conservative women are often taught to hide our curves. Big shirts, loose fitting pants and flowy dresses and skirts. I hid my curves for years wearing ill-fitting clothes. Until I started watching What Not to Wear. For real. And then I realized, hey, I am a woman with womanly curves. I have boobs. It's ok to wear clothes that prove this. And so, I now enjoy wearing things that actually fit and do not worry about looking too curvy. I'm a woman. I'm supposed to have curves! I might as well have been wearing a burka considering how oversized many of my shirts were in an effort to hide my boobage.
Here's to freedom to be curvy and sexy and discover the healthy sexuality that God intended for our pleasure!!!
oops……….LOL, I meant POST!!!!!!!!!!!! Not past, but that is a hoot how that sounds…:-)
so, um, what? "Real women use vibrators?" The problem is, in the US we are a nation of extremes. That is why you can have the seeming dichotomy of porn and sex glutted media juxtaposed with people who deep down feel that sex, even in a totally appropriate context, is nasty. And often even within the same person. Often the obsession with sex is a reaction formation to the underlying phobia of even appropriate sexuality. Sex addicts actually are terrified of true intimacy for various reasons. Hence the preference for say, a prostitute they will never see again or a magazine picture instead of someone they have formed a lifelong bond with.
When it comes to clothing: really perhaps it would be better for girls/women if it comes phrased as self respect rather than being all about men.
Maybe as someone who grew up completely out of the Christian loop, I can have an objectivity here: after a certain point in my unChristian, unsaved life before Christ, I reached the conclusion that Cosmopolitan had lied to me. Big time. One hundred degrees opposite of sick is still sick. Most people, maybe especially most Americans, but probably not, its probably human nature; tend to react in extremes before they (if ever) come to a true, balanced view of reality. No doubt the US prior to the free love fests of the sixties was rather puritanical (I mean not even saying the word "pregnant" on national TV?)But the answer to that is not reducing sex to just another recreational activity, devoid of any meaning but the pleasure one gains. In people I have talked to, nonmarital sex results in one of two things: either they become totally broken by giving themselves away to someone who eventually leaves repeatedly OR they harden themselves and begin to see sex as no more than a nice meal to which they are entitled, so as to prevent themselves from bonding and connecting and having their heart broken by serial relationships that take on the character of marriage but do not result in the lifelong commitment of marriage.
Pam – I totally agree. I've never been to one of those pleasure parties (although they sound fun). I was asked once if I would host one and I honestly didn't know if I knew anyone who would attend so I declined. and there is so much freedom and confidence that comes from wearing clothes that actually fit. It's crazy how that works…
Minnow – I've heard about the whole sexy when pregnant thing. I think if I was able to stand up for ten minutes straight without passing out and wasn't wearing a monitor with all these wires and electrodes that might make a difference.
Liz – I think there needs to be open dialogue about how people can avoid the extremes. Seek intimacy and pleasure. To me having self-respect means that I don't flaunt or hide my body. But these are messages that I rarely hear.
Julie, I like how you said that: "don't flaunt or hide…" That sums up the two extremes pretty well.
maybe as an adult convert to Christianity I have missed this. But if anything I have seen people who don't take modesty seriously enough in church. Examples: Girls wearing swimsuit tops and shorts to church. Women wearing dresses that looked spray painted onto their bodies. Serious cleavage issues. A pastor's wife(!) with a skirt so short that if she moved wrong you could see her underwear. The only people I have known in my Christian walk who have overdone the 'coverup" bit were people who were into the whole homesteading, have a bazillion kids and grow all your own food thing. Who felt that real Christian dress is looking like Laura Ingalls Wilder. (with no disrespect to LIW…she is great…just not someone whose clothing style is exactly, uh, modern). I am of course, not counting the chubbos among us whose reasons for wearing non clingy clothing have nothing to do with legalism and everything to do with sparing the world a closeup of our bellyfat. Good taste is NOT a bad thing. I really don't like to be behind some chick bending over and sharing a view of her thong with me whether it is at church or anywhere else. That said, I also realize plenty of people come to my church who are very broken. Probably the way they dress is way down on the list of stuff God wants to deal with on them. Clothing has never been an issue with my daughter but when she was around nine she went through this "well why CAN'T I wear a belly shirt"? stage. I really explained it in terms of how she presented herself and self respect as opposed to providing temptation to men. That may be a side reason, but it is hardly the main reason to dress modestly and respectably. As an aside, in my Cosmo reading days, I read more than one "how to snag a quality man" article in various tomes that stated the conclusion that women often don't realize: the type of guy you want to be interested in you will be totally turned off if you are dressed like a streetwalker and far more interested if you are dressed more modestly. Many many guys have said they are just grossed out by overtly sexy clothes and far more turned on by the woman in "normal" clothing who has no clue how attractive she looks in them.
I should say my experience with people from very legalistic backgrounds is that they devote an enormous amount of energy to seeing just how close to the line they can get and still be considered Christian. Maybe I would feel differently if I grew up in some church where they went around measuring hemlines or forbade jewelry or some such nonsense…but I don't go around thinking just how worldly can I dress today?
I would also add that I consider myself on the unprudish end of things as far as sex (between married heterosexuals) is concerned. However I would die of embarrassment before I would go to a sex toy party. Some things are just private. I just can't imagine sitting around and passing a vibrator around a room with a bunch of people I barely know. Besides, I really dislike selling parties whether they be for Tupperware, candles, discovery toys or sex toys. I hate the pressure to buy and the way people who host these parties make out like its just girls getting together to have a fun time, when of course everyone knows its so everyone can buy stuff so the hostess gets a boatload of freebies (I just won't go there with wondering what the bonus gifts for a sex toy party might be….) Truth be told, when I was in college, pre Christian days (this was the late seventies..but hey..it was California…) someone threw one of those parties in my dorm. Obviously the message was here was a bunch of college freshman, ready to start copulating. I really didn't know quite what to make of it. All I remember was a couple of girls bought this humongous dildo to plant in the room of this very prissy girl later on down the line.
Interesting timing. The online version of "Today's Christian Woman" has an article up titled "Pornification Nation" that bears some on the topic of the book reviewed, and suggests a link between porn, porn addiction and sex trafficking. If you (those of you who are emergent) don't let the evangelicalness of the site and article throw you, I think she makes at least a few good points, most of which I think Julie would agree with based on some of her comments in the review.
If one is willing to go to great lengths to wear justly-produced clothing and eat justly-produced food, and to see all kinds of linkages between buying an innocuous looking T-shirt and supporting slave labor . . . then shouldn't one be equally vigilant about the linkages between a hypersexualized culture and sex trafficking, sexual addictions and other social ills and depersonlalizing abuses, and work to stop them as well – not just at their source (i.e. not just punishing really bad sweatshops when you find them) but also at the consumer level (i.e. if you don't buy the possibly sweat shop produced t-shirt, then be equally diligent about not doing things that indirectly contribute to a hypersexualized culture desensitized to the specialness and sacredness of sexual expression).
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2008/mayjun/2.50.html
Liz and Karl – I see your points, but part of the issues I was raising is wanting to get over the idea that our culture is hypersexualized and that the sexuality portrayed is always toxic. That article while bringing up some of the ways sexuality does become dangerous plays into the same old evangelical stereotypes – sex is for men, our bodies should be hidden not celebrated, and that certain sex acts with their husbands are off limits for nice Christian women.
I too think the source of these issues need to be addressed, but I don't think that expressions of sexuality are the source at fault. I think allowing sex to be devoid of personal connection and intimacy is. Telling supermarkets to hide magazines, condescending judging what women at church are wearing (and assuming things about their character at the same time), and continuing to make guilt the basis for thinking about sex do more to continue the problems imo than does the more open nature of sexuality in the culture as a whole.
A woman taking off her clothes as part of foreplay is nothing new so to assume the bedroom stripper thing is some toxic result of modern culture is a bit naive. Telling women that it is toxic, to be avoid at all costs, or from satan (as one comment put it) is absurd. This isn't about dehumanizing women if women are the ones comfortable enough with their own bodies to have no problem giving that part of themselves to their husband. The objectification occurs when real women are told to hide themselves and that very powerful part of sexuality. Men (and women) don't just stop finding each other visually attractive, but end up only finding that it strangers who haven't had confidence and respect of their own bodies drilled out of them.
Soling the true sex problems in our culture shouldn't be about running away from sexuality but redeeming it.
Julie, my point would be that most American cultural and media expressions of sexuality *are* "devoid of personal connection and intimacy." And hence, by your definition, they are a source of problem. They are desensitizing, just like the images and messages of consumeristic capitalism can desensitize us to American greed and injustice.
It's a time, place and manner thing. It's fine to say that we shouldn't run away from sexuality in our culture and should rather redeem it. I agree with that – the answer isn't found in what fundamentalism offers in the area of sexuality. But I do think we should avoid and protest, if not run away from, the BAD sexuality offered by most of western culture – from objectifying sexuality devoid of committed intimacy, just as much as from repressive puritanism. And every bit as much as we should run away from (i.e. avoid and protest against) sweatshop clothing.
"A woman taking off her clothes as part of foreplay is nothing new so to assume the bedroom stripper thing is some toxic result of modern culture is a bit naive. "
- I don't really get that comment. Was she really saying women taking their clothes off for their husbands in an erotic manner is problematic? Or that women taking their clothes off for the pleasure of men – one man in private or for men in groups – hadn't happened until recently? I don't think so. But there's no denying that the strippercise stuff, the making of stripping into a culturally chic thing, is a fairly recent American fad. Not that Americans just invented stripping or that it's never been done before, but that the mainstreaming and glamorizing of it is an undeniable, recent trend in the U.S. I'd have a hard time buying the argument that the trend is a healthy one – or that it is primarily about committed, connected, intimate and trusting sexuality. It may be well-meaning for some. As in, let me learn from a pro (a stripper who does this for groups of men in an objectifying atmosphere but therefore really knows what turns men on) so that I can do it in private for my husband. But that doesn't really pass the smell test for me.
I also didn't get from the article that "certain sex acts with their husbands are off limits for nice Christian women." I DID get that, much as Naomi Wolfe argued in the article linked above, widespread porn is setting the standard of people's expectations when it comes to sex. Setting the base line of what is considered normal, so that not only is it OK if a couple decides they both want to do a specific act b/c they both enjoy it, but now they both think there is something wrong if one of them doesn't want to do that act, or finds it uncomfortable or objectifying, and the other feels justified in her or his outrage that the partner won't [fill in the blank] because you can just do a google search and find thousands of men and women doing that very thing for/with/to each other and apparently enjoying it.
Karl, you said it much better than I could. I am desperately trying to keep this discussion untainted by the fact that I would not look very good in a form fitting dress anyway. Just for the record I think that men should be held to the same standard as women. Interestingly, as men's appearance and focus on showing off the ole bod has increased, so has the incidence of eating disorders in boys. There is no need for people to go around in a grocery sack, but feeling the need to "show off" to anyone but one's own spouse, in private, leads to a lot of stuff that is not neccessarily good. I find a woman in a tight dress to be just as unappealing as men in speedos. And it is not because I am "ashamed" or "hate sex". It is a matter of good taste.
I have to wonder with a lot of these issues: do some of you actually think this stuff out rationally or do you simply react on an emotional level to the extreme legalism that you grew up with?
Karl, I agree with the thing about the sexual standards thing. I have heard it said that the constant talk about sex everywhere raises the standard to where sex is no longer about expressing love to a partner, but a performance. The endless bombardment at the checkout counter about "spicing things up" in the magazine headlines leaves many many people feeling that either they deserve better than what they are getting or insecure that they need to do more or they will lose their partner. Its no longer then about love. This leaves most people thinking that everyone else is doing stuff that they are not when the reality is most of them have pretty vanilla sex lives but would be damned if they would admit it to anyone else. If anything, sex has been elevated to a place way out of its importance in our culture. Maybe this springs from the prudishness of times past (we think in extremes, remember) but that doesn't make it any healthier. Like anything of the world, it never satisfies, which is why you see the bar raised higher and higher on kinkiness.
Karl – the presence of sexuality in culture is a strange thing. by nature it will to an extent be unpersonal because one can never have a connection to everyone. But should it be hidden because of that? Striking a balance between being comfortable with sexuality and not objectifying people will be a very nuanced thing. There are no easy answers and I think the solutions the church and culture have proposed so far have been lacking.
I guess I just disagree on the striptease thing and with the approach to certain sex acts. To define either as "going to far" or as necessary for good sex is a mistake. Both approaches fail to respect where individuals are at and forces outside definitions of pleasure and intimacy on people. Encouraging couple to respect each other is key. Of course they shouldn't ever pressure each other to engage in uncomfortable acts but neither should they feel guilty if that is honestly what works for them.
Liz – just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they haven't thought rationally about things. I am hearing from you many of the same messages i have heard my whole life – that sex isn't healthy, it is a taboo topic, it should be suppressed not celebrated. The opposite of such opinions isn't the free love that many assume it must be. What I am seeking are alternatives to the extremes that seem to be the only options being bounced around here.
As for the clothing issue. Who gets to define "good taste"? that whole topic is so relative to culture and individuals it is difficult to discuss. But I've learned to avoid judging the the motives of others by their outward appearance. I've also learned to be true to myself, confident in who I am, and not be afraid to look attractive to me husband. Sure that may annoy some people, but their objectification of me as a body is their problem.
gee Julie, thats rather interesting that you think I am sending you the same message you got growing up. You are totally and completely projecting onto me because I have a very healthy view of sexuality. The fact that you feel that you have to make an issue of your "right" to flaunt it tells me you have an awful lot of unfinished business in this area. Have you ever heard it said that those who talk about it the most, do it the least? I have been stunned when I have heard beautiful, well dressed women who almost define the word "sexy" talk about the emptiness of their sex lives even with their own husbands. Yet I have also been stunned when I have heard very plain women who walk around in jeans and baggy sweats hint that they apparently have pretty busy lives going on. I see zero connection with flaunting ones sexuality and actually having a healthy view of it. If anything the person fixated on flaunting it probably is deeply insecure and/or is engaging in reaction formation to the shame they feel. sex is but one good thing in life. It is not the ONLY thing. Whether you are avoiding it or fixating on it, neither is terribly healthy. And if you think calling for some balance and modesty is "that sex is bad"…uh…you really have some more work to do.
uh, Julie, unless your pictures of yourself are not representative of what you usually wear, I think you are still in the bounds of modesty. As for what people wear: I am not going to assume a motive because there could be many possible reasons that someone is dressed in revealing clothes. Maybe they were abused and that's all they see themselves as is a sex object. Maybe they are deeply insecure and want attention. Maybe they are a drug addict and this is the least of their worries. Maybe they grew up in the world nurtured on the Cosmo mindset and it just hasn't crossed their mind that there is another way. No one is going to grow in Christ if fellow believers zero in on their clothes and critique them. God loves us no matter what we wear. But I don't think that is what you are saying at all. I think what you are saying is that you have no problem as a mature Christian advocating that it is perfectly OK to thumb your nose at standards of modesty because of your reaction to your own overly legalistic background.
Liz and Julie, on the issue of modesty I think this from C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" is helpful (even though overly focused on female modesty alone):
"We must now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christians call the virtue of chastity. The Christian rule of chastity must not be confused with the social rule of 'modesty' (in one sense of that word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes. A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally `modest,' proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste). Some of the language which chaste women used in Shakespeare's time would have been used in the nineteenth century only by a woman completely abandoned.
When people break the rule of propriety current in their own time and place, if they do so in order to excite lust in themselves or others, then they are offending against chastity. But if they break it through ignorance or carelessness they are guilty only of bad manners. When, as often happens, they break it defiantly in order to shock or embarrass others, they are not necessarily being unchaste, but they are being uncharitable: for it is uncharitable to take pleasure in making other people uncomfortable. I do not think that a very strict or fussy standard of propriety is any proof of chastity or any help to it, and I therefore regard the great relaxation and simplifying of the rule which has taken place in my own lifetime as a good thing. At its present stage, however, it has this inconvenience, that people of different ages and different types do not all acknowledge the same standard, and we hardly know where we are. While this confusion lasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be very careful not to assume that young or `emancipated' people are corrupt whenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return, that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritans because they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.
Julie, I think we agree about the bedroom stripping stuff, as between a married couple. I (and I'm guessing probably the author of that CT article) have no problem with whatever two married adults decide that they want to do to, for, or with each other in the bedroom. None. As long as they both agree and want that activity. But if we can agree that strip clubs where groups of men go and pay money to watch young women take their clothes off are dehumanizing and objectifying and not that far removed from prostitution, then to say to a stripper or the prostitute "ok, I'm going to ignore the fact that you are a victim of and/or participant in the sex industry – can you tell me how to turn my man on in the privacy of our own bedroom? – just strikes me as wrong and as simply using that person to further your own bedroom pleasure while trying to disconnect from the reality of what is being done to and through her, in order for her to have that "expertise" to share.
Same with watching porn together. If the porn industry is half as destructive as it appears to be of the lives of the young women it chews up and spits out at an alarming rate, then the fact that my wife and I might get turned on watching those women do their thing with some stud (or group of studs, or other woman/women) and then go at it with each other in the privacy of our own bedroom with renewed passion . . . the fact that it's "just between us" doesn't sanitize it. What if we got turned on watching hidden cam videos of sweat shop bosses beating third world slave workers? I don't think the fact that we weren't the victimizers, and that we just used the video to turn ourselves on for each other in our own bedroom, would make it a cool thing to do, or would be good for us.
thank you Karl, very well put.
So how far are you willing to take this Karl? If your wife (or yourself) wears a bathing suit at the beach (even a one piece) and someone happens to get turned on by her form and exposed skin, has she offended against chastity? Does a woman wearing an evening gown to an elegant function offend against chastity if the men there look at her and think that she is sexually desirable? Am I offending against chastity if I put on a nice suit and cause some women besides my wife to think "Wow, he looks good"? (I'm not saying that ever happens anymore, but just speaking hypothetically.
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I'm just not sure that what Lewis calls "exciting lust" is always a bad thing. We are sexual beings. We get turned on by the opposite sex, and we like being attractive to the opposite sex too sometimes. Trying to ignore this or deny it all the time seems unhealthy to me.
I think there are lines somewhere and if we are led by the HS, we will find those lines. On one end, you have people who are clearly trying to provoke lust. On the other, you have people who feel that nothing short of a shapeless ugly dress is immodest. There is obviously discomfort even among nonChristians about the level of provocativeness in our culture or you would not have women like Wendy Shalit (jewish) writing about modesty. Clearly a lot of women (and men) are tired of being leered at and would like to be appreciated for less base qualities. As for the beach: I for one am very very glad that things like board shorts and tankinis have appeared on the swimwear horizon. I don't like to feel I have to prance around nearly naked to enjoy a swim and one piece suits are almost worse in that they are completely form fitting. Why do you think picking a swimsuit is so agonizing for so many women? They are acutely aware that they are going to be evaluated and might possibly be seen as "less than". It is objectifying whether you want it to be or not. And men in speedos: that isn't even attractive, it is just gross. A lot of what people think is "sexy" is actually really unappealing. I suppose people can be turned on by people in anything but that's a bad excuse to say it doesn't matter if someone is deliberately dressing provocatively. I guess the question is "why" is a married person wanting to flaunt it? Are they that insecure? Do they feel the need to prove that they still "have it"? And an unmarried person…well…that is really what is at the root of our society treating people like commodities. One can look nice and fashionable and attractive without deliberately trying to look "sexy".
Years ago, I used to work as a cocktail waitress. We were all encouraged to wear low cut shirts and bend over just enough for a good look (better for business and we would get better tips). And high heels (again: sexy and so what if you are on your feet for an eight hour shift). I refused. I am surprised I wasn't fired. I have to say, I made just as good, if not better, tips than the girls dressed provocatively. I was nice and friendly and moved quickly and remembered what people ordered. I took plenty of heat from a (now ex) "friend" for refusing to tart it up.
I think you two have baggage from the extremely legalistic environment you grew up in and are reacting to that.
Weren't you paying attention? We've already said as much. That's the whole premise of this post.
of course I was paying attention. MY point is that rather than have a balanced view, I think you two have just gone to another extreme. Maybe not as far as some who just shed all inhibition in reaction. But I don't know that where you are coming from is necessarily any more biblical than extreme repression. I realize you can't control what might turn some person on, but to then use that as an rationalization to dress provocatively or encourage others to dress provocatively (the better to shake off their legalism) isn't correct either. I also realize that quite possibly what extreme legalists consider "provocative" may not even be that. It may very well be that what you are considering is pretty conservative by our cultures standards. Your wife certainly doesn't look like Cosmo is going to chase her down for a cover anytime soon, unless how she dresses on the website photos is not representative. It may be that just wearing "normal" clothes seems incredibly freeing compared to what you grew up with. Maybe i don't give this much thought since i never was involved in this type of church AND I grew up in the world and it was nice to drop the Cosmo lifestyle and just dress like I wanted to instead of looking at every item for its man attracting potential.
Mike, the key phrase you ignore in the portion of Lewis's quote that you highlighted is "in order to."
If you dress in a way that you are comfortable with, and aren't doing it in order to be sexually provocative toward others around you, then I don't think you have offended against chastity even if someone else looks at you and thinks lustfully about you. As Lewis points out, in such a case you *may* have (either knowingly or unknowingly) offended against the social rule of modesty current in your culture and for the context/event in which you are situated. Maybe you've shown poor taste. And if you did so intentionally, to make others uncomfortable and to thumb your nose at convention, you may have offended against charity. But that's a separate issue from whether you have offended against chastity.
Maybe part of the problem is that you seem to be conflating "dressing to excite lust" with "dressing to look attractive." I realize some ultraconservatives do the same thing, but I am surprised that you would do so. Your thought is usually more nuanced than that. Do you really see no difference between them?
I think the real key to the Lewis quote though, lies in part you didn't quote:
"A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems."
again, thank you Karl. You hit the nail on the head. I guess some of the stuff I have criticized with the emergent people may stem from the fact that 99 percent of them seem to come from a very legalistic background and are probably reacting to stuff. I came from the world. I went through a very brief extreme period which was promptly nipped in the bud by some of my odd ideas not really working out. I didn't really gravitate towards the KJV only, dress code types of places. Mostly I was relieved to be away from the Cosmo/MTV culture. The other thing is, some of the stuff like social justice, environmentalism, allowing people to be real,talking intelligently to people instead of throwing sound bites at them is stuff that was assumed by me to be part of the Christian faith from the beginning (hey I was an Episcopalian for the first part of my Christian walk) I also saw a lot of people for whom the "good works" were so important that the gospel ceased to matter: all that mattered was making the world a better place. And Christ clearly addresses this. If we are all sinners because our own pride, self interest, etc poison even our best deeds, then "just" doing good works is not going to cut it. I guess when I see people who seem to think they have discovered some radically new form of Christianity, my first thought is that no, you didn't dream this up, my (non emerging) church believes this as well. I do realize though that I have heard stories and maybe i have just been extremely fortunate to only have hearsay about some folks that claim to be Christians. I struggle though with seeing people throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because I know so many people who HAVE engaged with the idea of doing good in the world, being good stewards, engaging in intelligent discussion, allowing people the freedom to be themselves and not have to be fake WITHOUT throwing out orthodox doctrine and muddying the lines between Christianity and other faiths. Therein lies my frustration. I am NOT one of those pat answers for every situation Christians, but I just see "truth' being completely chucked out in the name of including things that have been part of the Christian life from the very beginning, even if pockets of American christians seem to ignore them. It doesn't mean they all do. Or even most.
So it is with this issue of sex. I guess I have heard some very frank discussions of sex at church (and no, my church is NOT emerging, we do not have women "pastors" although there are women on staff) No one I know advocates dressing like androgenous Pat but most I have heard express an opinion on this matter lean far more in the direction of showing less skin, having less form fitting clothes than not.
another thing: I think what I find disturbing in the whole vein of the social justice focus is not the idea of doing good. Yes, people look at our lives to see if we are consistant or hypocritical. yes sometimes people come to know Christ because of a relationship with us. But the big picture is inconsistant with scripture. By and large, the masses of converts in the early church were NOT won through painstaking years of relationship building and good example setting. The apostles came to a town and people responded to truth. we should be loving BECAUSE Christ commands us to, NOT because we have seen this as the ultimate evangelism strategy. There are totally situations where it is appropriate to present a logical argument for Christ whether in a converstation with a stranger or in print or whatever. It almost seems like the emerging church is curling up in a ball and saying "see, we really are OK, please like us and we promise not to say anything about the exclusivity of Jesus while we are at it". I see nothing wrong with Christians being compassionate. I don't see every time one speaks with someone as an opportunity to cram something down their throat. But by gosh, I think if one is led by the spirit, the times when God WILL tell us to speak the truth WILL come up. Its not a bad thing to be avoided at all costs. the bible DOES say that the truth will be divisive, does it not?
No Karl, I didn't ignore that phrase. I just don't see how it affects my position at all. I simply disagree with both you and Lewis that it is necessarily wrong to be "sexually provocative toward others around you" or to "excite lust", regardless of whether it's being done "intentionally" or not.
Nope, I really don't. That seems to be nothing more than a semantical game. For instance, when you say "dressing to look attractive", what do you mean by "attractive"? If you don't mean physically attractive to the opposite sex, then what in the world are you talking about?
Sorry Karl, I don't see the relevance.
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"when you say “dressing to look attractive”, what do you mean by “attractive”? If you don’t mean physically attractive to the opposite sex, then what in the world are you talking about?"
Mike, I do precisely mean physically attractive to the opposite sex. But to be physically attracted to someone is not the same as to lust after them, no more than noticing that someone has a nice car and even appreciating the niceness of that car, equals coveting. That's not a new idea even if it's been obscured by simplistic and wooden legalistic teaching. You seem to have retained fundamentalist categories and habits of thought even while rejecting fundamentalist conclusions.
The last paragraph, the relevance of which you don't see, is a restatement and application of the second great commandment. We shouldn't condemn the person whose chosen dress offends our sense of propriety (rather, we should "believe all the good" we can of them and assume their motives are pure). Nor should we offend against charity by purposely flouting the "social rule of modesty" in our present culture and setting, dressing so as to make others uncomfortable – i.e. you shouldn't go to a mosque wearing a bathing suit that would be just fine on Miami beach (Lewis's "desire to make others as comfortable as you can").
I agree, lust is something different. In fact, I think the mistake is in thinking that lust primarily has to do with our sexual desires. I do not equate finding someone sexually desirable with lust, nor do I equate dressing sexily with "exciting lust". Lust is something far more serious. Lust, at its core, is a desire to possess and control. I can find a woman sexually attractive without desiring to own her, to control her.
As for "dressing to excite lust", this strikes me as a "blame the victim" idea. If someone is truly lusting after another person, it is the fault of the person doing the lusting, not the person they are lusting after, no matter how he or she is dressed. This is why I get really annoyed by all the advice to Christian women about dressing "modestly" – it basically places the blame on them for men's own sin.
To use your analogy, if your neighbor buys a nice new car that you covet is he guilty of exciting covetousness in you, or is your covetousness your own problem? Should he park it in the garage at all times and only drive it at night so as not to accidentally cause you or others to covet?