Several commenters to my post Lowering the boom asked if I could elaborate on my statement that what Joel and Kathy were describing was actually the plot of the movie Fireproof. Since the plot is discussed in detail below you won’t want to read further if you haven’t yet seen the movie and don’t want the plot spoiled.
One thing which is crucial to understand about Fireproof is that while it is widely considered the preeminent Christian movie on marriage, it is not a movie about Christian marriage. This subtlety is something the movie’s defenders will fairly quickly point out if you ask how the movie managed to ignore (or get backwards) nearly all of the key New Testament instruction on marriage. This they will explain is why Caleb was taught in the movie that his viewing pornography is a form of sexual sin, but Catherine isn’t taught that her denial of sex is in fact creating temptation for Caleb to commit sexual sin (1 Cor 7:2-5). They will further explain that when the movie shows Caleb submitting to his wife, it isn’t offering this as a Christian husband’s role in marriage but as a way for a man inspired by Christ’s sacrifice to win the love of his wife. Likewise, Catherine isn’t rebuked and never repents for lining up the doctor for either an affair or as husband #2 (adultery either way you read it) or for her decision to frivolously divorce, because she isn’t a Christian when she does all of this and her conversion occurs off-screen. If this were a movie on Christian marriage they will tell you, it would of course have to cover the core New Testament instructions on marriage. But it isn’t, so it doesn’t. If you think I’m making too fine a point of this, note how careful they are whenever describing the movie. For example, from the outreach page for churches (emphasis mine):
Use this movie to help strengthen marriages and couples in your church and community. FIREPROOF is an unprecedented opportunity to communicate God’s design for relationships.
They don’t say it communicates God’s design for marriage, because again this would have required addressing God’s design for marriage.
Fireproof is a movie about Christian conversion where the catalyst for God to change Caleb’s heart is Catherine initiating divorce.
Divorce is the beginning of something wonderful…
Catherine is of course ultimately rewarded for helping God make Caleb into a better man; she receives a better husband, a new wedding ceremony, a happy marriage, and is inspired to accept Christ herself. But none of these wonderful things could occur before she helped God by putting Caleb in a state of crisis when she decided to divorce him.
This is the core message of lowering the boom; wives divorcing their husbands are doing God’s work by creating enough pain for him so that God can then work to make him a better man. As Joel and Kathy explain, crushing a husband with the machinery of no fault divorce won’t always work because of free will, but it creates the essential opening God requires for transformation to be possible:
Will every man turn his heart back toward his family? Of course not. If God could control every man, he would. But He can’t. This wife’s actions have simply given God an open door to deal with her husband.
This uncanny similarity between Joel and Kathy’s lowering the boom philosophy and the plot of the most celebrated Christian movie on marriage doesn’t necessarily suggest that the Kendrick brothers are fans of Joel and Kathy however. The theme of wife initiated divorce leading to winning the cosmic jackpot is a very common one. In this sense Fireproof can best be seen as the Christian entry in Hollywood’s divorce fantasy genre.
Consider the blockbuster movie and bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love. As with Fireproof it starts with an unhappy wife who triggers an incredible process of empowerment and spiritual rebirth by divorcing her husband. Where Elizabeth gains spiritual wisdom from a Hindu Ashram as an ultimate result of her frivolous divorce, Cathrine comes to accept Christ as the ultimate result of hers. Likewise, while divorce is Elizabeth’s exit out of an unhappy marriage and her path to finding the love of her life, the exact same thing is true for Catherine with the twist that her “new” perfect husband is the result of God fixing the one she already had (and all He needed was a little help from her). In between of course both divorcées are delighted by being courted all over again.
Dominos image licensed as creative commons by aussiegall. Checked boxes from checkbox example image licensed as creative commons by Marekich. You are free to use the lowering the boom table image above with the same license as the original checkbox example image.
It seems that crushing a husband is the standard marital advice across the spiritual spectrum. And once the husband commences a’groveling, the wife loses even more respect for him. Yeah, brilliant plan.
Reading this and the previous piece together, I suddenly realized that Joel and Kathy are writing pornography, but with a twist…. it’s pornography they encourage and aid their readers in acting out in “real life.” Suppose we switched the genders and showed a man making a woman “grovel” and cater to his every sexual desire. Suppose we showed this same man publicly humiliating the woman in question. Suppose we showed the man beating the woman when she did not obey him, and her being forced to accept it and still grovelling before him and servicing him. Sounds like the “classic” plot of a certain Marquis de Sade, does it not? Yet this is what Joel and Kathy write, including the physical violence against men (from your last post, and yes I did follow the link to their website). It’s actually sadism dressed up in pretend “Christian” language and aimed at womyn. The difference between this and sado-porn aimed at men is that the current legal system in this country will support, aid and abet what Joel and Kathy preach.
Another striking thing about what Joel and Kathy have to say is, “If God could control every man, he would. But He can’t.” They go on to explain at length how Paul’s admonition for women to obey their husbands in silence and submission “won’t work.”
Joel and Kathy FLATLY DENY God’s power. They deny God’s plan will work, and then substitute their own (sadistic) plan. They deny that God is even ABLE to control a man (which is an entirely separate discussion from whether He actually does so).
At any rate, I think it would behoove us to view J&K’s writing for what it actually is…. Kathy’s twisted sexual fantasies of S&M being publicly played out on as many men as she is able to hurt. She vents her self-evident rage against Joel (just look at the body language when they are together) on as many men as possible through her “ministry.” It’s dominatrix porn for womyn who want to be actually dominatrixes, it’s sadistic, it’s abusive (look at the excuses for womyn who physically attack their husbands), and it is unnatural.
So, if a husband must prove faith through his wife’s tingles, does that mean Saint Peter is now standing outside her labia?
Real talk.
That movie was horribad, besides being just plain bad.
Ironic timing. I was doing my annual New Years week office cleaning and found an old copy of the Love Dare. We had done that together before I learned the truth about men and women. Am going to give it a quick scan to see if it makes any sense given my new real world views. Also have Wild at Heart 2, whatever its called (More Wilder at Heart?) sitting on book shelf awaiting review.
I never sat down and watched the whole movie but have seen a couple of scenes when she is scolding him for some stuff. Did they have kids together? If not he should have ended that whole thing with threre’s the door honey. You still look good enough to get on the cock carousel I’ll pray that god will bless you with joy happiness.
Wild at Heart was really appealing in my pre red pill days. I was ready to sell everything and take a group of men to the wilderness to teach that stuff, it sounded all flannel and stuff, and I like to fish and occasionally shoot quail and dove so not shaving and bathing sporadically while climbing rocks and teaching men to serve was nirvana the the blue pill man.
Oh the horrible horribleness of these Christian movies is in a way another symptom of something wrong with churchianity, some related to red/blue pill and some related to outright intellectual dishonesty. These movies come out and the churches, and the people in them, run around like Spongebob with his arms in the air screaming you gotta get to the theater and support this. If we were all on a ship it would list side to side as the lemmings scramble to look off at the next release of bad cinema. With this backdrop is it any wonder about the not so subtle messages being misconstrued by, for example, the poster called Wiggins I believe, whose well intended but wrong interpretation fit the narrative perfectly.
Remember this image as a litmus, the man sitting in church weeping, his wife rubbing circles on his back, as he realizes, again, what a horses rear he is and how he just needs to rerererererere-commit to step up and be that man he is called to be. If a book or movie or sermon makes most men in church feel that way it is usually wrong.
“When fascism comes to America it will be waving a flag and carrying a bible.”
So, if a husband must prove faith through his wife’s tingles
Tingles über alles
Oh, and the price of fixing Caleb’s marriage was a full set of disabled modified furniture for his father in law at the expense of the boat he wanted…..no more, no less. All the rest of his supplication was noise……show me the furniture!
Nailed it. I saw a premier of Fireproof in 2008 before its release. I thought much of the same things. The entire movie aimed at the husband’s faults. The church I was going to at the time jumped on the Fireproof bandwagon, and we had sermons, movie showings, and small groups based around it.
I kept asking why we never heard anything about the wife’s contributions to the troubles and failures of a marriage. All I got back from the other men is “We need to love our wives more”.
For a while, my wife and I were having problems and I ended up going to the Fireproof groups alone because she wouldn’t go with me. None of the other wives attempted to reach out to her, and the other men, while patient, kept up with the whole “you’re just not loving your wife enough. You’re just not loving Christ enough”.
@empathologism
Yes, that scene near the end where she has about two seconds of cognitive dissonance and then skips from being madly in love with the doctor she is leaving her husband for and being madly in love with her husband is something everyone should watch even if they can’t stomach the entire movie. No one would believe it without seeing it. The furniture itself is only a symbol though of:
1) Who won the bidding war for Catherine’s heart.
2) Caleb’s complete submission to Catherine.
So wait, isn’t the doctor only sending $500 for the furniture akin to giving her a pack of Skittles for her birthday or telling her to bring da movies?
@ar10308
But remember, she “chose Caleb in the end”, and her time with the doctor “is a part of who she is”. So all is well in lesser beta land. The slogan should read:
“It seems that crushing a husband is the standard marital advice across the spiritual spectrum.”
As one who’s familiar with this scene in fundamentalist Churchianity, that’s what it is, but of course it’s not portrayed that way. Rather, it is “submission to Christ” so you can “love your wife as Christ loved the Church” because He “gave his life for your sins, so the least you can do is give your life for your wife”. And we’re told that submission to Christ is not just required by Biblical standards, but is “sexy” and “attractive”.
“And once the husband commences a’groveling, the wife loses even more respect for him. Yeah, brilliant plan.”
Yes, but you don’t get to see that part in Fireproof. Instead you see a wholly unrealistic conclusion: He grovels and weeps at her feet, begs for her forgiveness; essentially purchases her love by giving up $25K he had been saving for a boat and instead buys the used medical furniture for his mother in law, and she realizes he has become a “beautiful” man.
A more realistic conclusion would be that after Caleb buys the used furniture for MIL, Catherine returns to him out of a sense of obligation. But she goes ahead and sleeps with Hunky Doctor anyway, to give Doctor a test run. She then has her choice of Caleb the Faithful Neutered Lapdog, or Dr. Dangerous the Adulterer. Catherine has this vague, nagging sense of unhaaaaappiness with Caleb that she can’t quite put her finger on. He is faithful, loving and kind. She feels just terrible that he repulses her, sexually and otherwise. She shouldn’t feel this way, but she does and she cannot get past it. She goes ahead with the divorce because she’s still not haaaappy with Caleb even though he did all she demanded of him.
If your wife is tempted by Alpha f***s, win her back with beta bucks!
This is why women like this movie so well. The women watching it assume that she already has attraction for her husband and that she is just angry that he doesn’t treat her right. None of them can see that his supplication is an utter attraction killer because they don’t feel it. In these movies/books/whatever attraction is always assumed by women. With attraction assumed, his buying her the furniture was a huge “awwwwwww” moment. And that the doctor fellow, IIRC, was just somehow trying to buy her affection turned into a huge a**hole. It was effective, but as you point out, beyond emotion, it is terrible.
But hunky Dr. in that movie was another beta, so she really ends up under the church bus (driver).
Surprisingly, I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve read so much about it that I feel like I don’t need to see it. Christian cinema, whether the message is wrong or right, is just always so bad. It’s like Christian heavy metal.
This was a great analysis, Dalrock. I tend to think about feminism within the church as a continuum, but in some ways, the continuum isn’t so much how feministic but rather how overt versus how covert the feminism is. J and K come right out and say the woman is in charge. The Kendricks (if Courageous, which I have seen, is any indication) tend to have women using holy manipulation to be in control.
@Dalrock
Thanks for sharing this. Fireproof and Courageous were shown in my previous church a number of times in this part of Asia. It became a conversation topic with couples discussing their marital problems in their respective cell groups.
This part of the Christian Manosphere shattered whatever pre-conceived fairy tales I have about marriage. I’m stuck because I want a mate (hopeless in finding one) but now fears marriage.
[D: Don’t give up on marriage, but do be aware of the risks and understand the difference between Fireproof, etc, and biblical marriage. Real biblical marriage is wonderful. I hope this might help you in your search for a wife.]
Listen, this point is just so critical. Fellow Christians, we have got to do a better job of getting at least this one thing out of the sphere and into the larger Christian world! Most Christians just won’t come into the manosphere and read. They just aren’t going to do it. We need a consistent, easy to understand message, no “alpha f-cks” comments or detailed discussions of evolutionary psychology, when we take this message out. We just have to start doing this. I am going to try to find one place per week totally unconnected to the sphere to drop this message.
Here is my suggestion for the simplified message. Maybe others can improve it.
1. Christian woman uses unbiblical manipulation and/or outright divorce threats to control husband 2. Husband is freaked out by possible divorce and kowtows to wife. The marriage now has a female head.
3. Wife is happy for three seconds until she realizes she now finds her husband sexually repugnant because she does not respect him.
4. They never have sex.
5. Now that he’s never having sex with her, he notices for the first time what a fat b-tch his wife has turned into.
6. They fight all the time
7. He sleeps in the spare bedroom.
8. They divorce.
If I were satan himself, I don’t think I could create a better marriage-destroyer than that.
A more red pill Fireproof might look something like this:
The initial conflict is set up with Caleb and Catherine’s unhappy marriage. The big fight in the first 15 minutes of the film sets up the conflict: He’s into porn because she won’t sleep with him and is wrapped up in her strongindependentwoman (TM) life. She’s sexually frustrated because of her Daddy Issues and remorse over her premarital sexual history.
She demands he give up his porn; he retaliates by saying he needs SOME sexual outlet because she’s frozen him out. She ridicules his dreams of buying a boat and demands that he instead buy the medical furniture her mom needs. Caleb responds by telling her he should be able to purchase a few things he wants for himself and besides, his MIL’s medical care is not his financial responsibility, The fight culminates in his telling her how ungrateful and wicked she is. She tells him she wants out. He says “go ahead and leave”. He doesn’t really want a divorce; he loves her, but doesn’t really know how to go about saving his deeply troubled marriage.
He talks to his dad, who tells him the best thing he can do is detach from her emotions, and let her feel them. His friends at the firehouse, when they’re not dancing in front of the bathroom mirrors or posturing by guzzling bottles of hot sauce, tell him to stand back and let her walk this out. His “brother from another mother” is himself divorced from his bitch ex-wife and is socked every month with insane alimony and child support payments. If she really wants a divorce, there’s not much he can do about it and at least he won’t have to pay a lot of alimony (because Catherine earns more than Caleb does) or child support (because they have no kids).
Catherine is lunch-dating the doctor but hasn’t taken the plunge yet. He has no idea about it. She files for divorce. She demands he leave the house. He refuses, saying she is the one who wants out of the marriage, so she should leave. She refuses, permitting the plot to develop. He countersues Catherine for divorce, citing her sexual deprivation of him as “extreme and repeated mental cruelty” and asks for indefinite alimony from HER (because, remember, she outearns him). He starts lunch dating the firehouse secretary and makes no secret of it to Catherine. The secretary calls the house for Caleb; Catherine answers; prompting another fight. Catherine commiserates with her work friends, who tell her she needs to return to her husband and stop being such a bitch.
Catherine is finding herself strangely attracted to her husband.
Caleb is injured at work. Dr. Adulterer treats Caleb who by now knows of his advances upon Catherine. Caleb is nonchalant. He says “I know you’ve been dating my wife. You want her, you can have her.” Catherine tries see Caleb at the hospital because of her genuine concern for his well-being; he refuses to see her.
In the meantime, Caleb buys his boat and is seen enjoying it on the water with his firehouse friends.
Catherine weeps with her mom and dad. Her mother tells her she needs to do what she can to make amends with her husband. Catherine cannot seem to fight the newfound attraction she has for Caleb. She is drawn to him but just can’t seem to figure out why. He has pulled back from her. stood up to her, refused to tolerate her maltreatment of him, and even sued her for divorce. She realizes she wants Caleb, not Dr. Adulterer. She goes to the firehouse, where her tearful reunion with Caleb is depicted. Closing shot on Caleb who smiles at the camera. He now has the wife he wanted; she now has the manly husband she wanted.
There’s a pop song on the radio lately where a woman sings to her ex about how she’ll never take him back. There’s even a weird part in the middle where they seem to play a bit of an interview or something where she explains how he was pestering her to get back together, so she wrote this song to burn the bridge for good. I’ve heard DJs laughing and talking about this, speculating about who the guy is, and everyone seems agreed that it’s a real hoot — empowering for her, of course, but pretty funny too. I don’t keep track of these people, but I think she’s one of the pop/country crossover stars who’s generally thought to be a nice girl, not one of the skanky Britney clones, though I could be wrong about that.
So I was thinking: imagine if a male singer came out with that song. Would people gleefully figure out who the girl in question is, and have a good laugh at her pathetic pursuit of him? Would he be congratulated for standing up for himself, or criticized for being uncouth and dragging private matters into the public eye?
It’s just like these divorce porn movies and pushers: whatever a woman wants, whatever she thinks in the moment will make her happy and able to move on with her life, she’s entitled to do, with no consideration of how it might hurt anyone else, or how it might seem less awesome in the long run. If that’s not a whole bucketful of feminine imperative, I don’t know what is.
That movie is shitty too.
Empathalogicalism
Remember this image as a litmus, the man sitting in church weeping, his wife rubbing circles on his back, as he realizes, again, what a horses rear he is and how he just needs to rerererererere-commit to step up and be that man he is called to be. If a book or movie or sermon makes most men in church feel that way it is usually wrong.
“Rubbing circles on his back”, is that a feature of the movie? I’ve not watched it all the way through. But in more than one church in the last, eh, 8 – 10 years I’ve seen the “man leaning foward in a position of great concentration while the wife rubs one or more fingers in a slow circle on his back” pose. It’s not unique to any one denomination, although I never saw it going on when the man was wearing a jacket. It’s not a pose I see anywhere else. I don’t see men reading a book or a newspaper or a tablet in coffee shops with women rubbing circles in their back. I can’t recall ever seeing it in an airport departure area. Only in church.
So now I have wonder, and ask, what’s this all about? Where does it come from?
[D: See this.]
“If your wife is tempted by alpha f***s, win her back with beta bucks!”
In that scenario there is no “winning back”, only “buying time” for the beta man, but at a higher price than earlier.
@Cail Corishev,
I have a female friend who is really into celeb gossip. The song is about Jake Gyllenhall (one of the gay cowboys from Brokeback Mountain).
Deti, what if the movie you described were made?
Would it be heralded from the pulpit? Would Small Group curricula be written around it? Would you watch it with the other people in your Monday Night Married Couple’s Bible Study class and then discuss how deeply impacting it is? Would Tuesday Morning Ladies’ Bible Study jump right on that? Would you be able to buy the T-shirt at Family Christian Book Store?
No, of course not, despite the fact that your plot line is more Biblical (except for the dating other people while still married bit) than the original.
Cail: Taylor Swift?
SSM, putting on my Socratic toga, why do you suppose that Deti’s plot line would not lead to a movie that would garner wide success within modern churches? Why do you suppose that women and White Knights would not like that movie one bit
Oh, are we going to talk about the inappropriate neck rub? One of my favorite topics!
It is as ubiquitous as it is nauseating. I noticed this within a month of becoming a Christian, before Stuff Christians Like made it a famous meme. I even saw it happen once in a teaching video during the obligatory crowd shot.
Why do women need to rub their husbands in church? No idea. Men never do this to their wives; at most they put an arm around them. But women, even if he’s not weeping and she’s not asserting postural dominance over him with the little-circles back rub, seem unable to keep their hands out of their husbands hair or off their necks during the sermons. As if no one is sitting behind them watching this public display of foreplay. I told HHG early on that I would be rubbing no part of him in church, much to his relief.
SSM I do this almost daily. I do it whenever and where ever I find commentary related to marriage written on politically conservative websites. I’ve noticed that after I do so, links to my blog from that site happen for a day or two, so MAYBE some guy gets something out of it.
The other thing to do is go to and at churches in person and by email. Ive been doing it for years now. I had a pastor from one of the largest churches in my city, 10,000 plus members, actually come to my office and sit with me for a couple of hours and hear me out, and since them we trade emails, and I link things to him. You are correct that I get reluctant to send them where they will encounter things that, while I am not easily offended, would paper over the important stuff.
I think its TFH who harps on actual activism, and I agree with him. Its all fine to sit here and pontificate, I think we all enjoy it, and Ive said before its catharsis in many ways, but it reaches the point where it tests the strength of convictions if we do not DO something, one on one, man man, woman to woman, in the non-blog portion of life.
Pingback: How Fireproof lowers the boom. | ChristianBookBarn.com
@SSM,
There’s a reason they have fold-down knee rests-in Catholic pews. I suppose you just aren’t using them right.
So now I have wonder, and ask, what’s this all about? Where does it come from?
Fascinating…..I had no idea, truly, that I was actually onto something with this. Now it deserves examination doesn’t it? Months ago I wrote that and Dalrock mentioned it in a comment or a blog entry and I thought, hmmm, maybe he saw that once. Now the reports are pouring in!
I found it especially prevalent after fathers day sermons, to the extent if the circular motion could be harassed we could lower foreign oil dependence. There is a corollary image. This one can happen under numerous scenarios, I will describe where I noticed it. In the Promise Keeper Days (PK 1) as we drove around gathering the vistims/men to attend, wives would walk to the driveway with the man as he embarked. The look on her face was so serene but conveyed something like when you’d send a bad boy to the military prep school combined with a knowing look of self satisfaction as if “my work is done here”….there are other thoughts conveyed in that look but it would be a babbling brainstorm to start listing more….they all say looky my man is about to become the man God (me and Personal Jesus) has been calling him to be and then we can sit together and do a testimony video that will be shown in Anytown Grace Fellowship megachurch.
[D: See this.]
Well, that was fast
Or after the fourth checkmark, the man finds Roissy’s blog and initiates marriage game and creates a happy marriage for himself and as a result also makes his wife happier than ever.
Some good points being made here. I have to wonder, though, sunshinemary, why the “fat bitch” comment? In the movie, she is an attractive (by most standards) woman. Do you think the storyline is improved? And, c’mon, sex or no, a spouse will notice if the other puts on weight.
Cail, think of “We Are Never Getting Back Together Again” sung by a man, with the target being ALL women… Taylor Swift has inadvertently written the MGTOW theme song and anthem.
You haven’t been in church lately, have you dear?
Dalrock, that pingback to Christian Book Barn! That is laugh-out-loud funny. I hope someone lands here from there.
Even after reading your earlier overviews of Fireproof, openly comparing it to Eat, Pray, Love nailed it for me.
Imagine Taylor Swift singing Trash Can Murders…..
The Runaways and the late 70’s were special
Dalrock
[D: See this.]
I recall that posting but I did not recall Empathalogicalism mentioning the “rubbing small circles on his back”. In this context, it clearly seems to be something of significance.
So what is this “small circles on the back” business, then? Some sort of mild postural dominance, as hypothesized up the thread? That would make it, hmm, a form of kino? Or is it foreplay, as SSM suggested? Seems like it would be a distraction no matter what the reason.
More data is needed. The next time I see this going on, I will strive to remember to talk with the couple in question, try to determine if he’s an AFC or not just for a start.
ChristianBookBarn?
Someone took the call to activism to heart. Send smelling salts.
Anon Reader:
*raises hand, grunts like Horshack* oooh! Ooooh! pick me!
Such a movie will never garner success in Churchy Churches because men who act like this are not kind gentlemen, but are boorish, rude, selfish beasts who could not possibly be the “kind soft vaguely effeminate Jesus in that famous painting” that all women want. Moreover, the women will tingle hard at the man’s conduct, but will roundly denounce the movie from all quarters. They will focus solely on the man’s using porn and retaliatory lunch dating and castigate the male character for adultery while glossing over her stepping out on him.
Women and white knights won’t like it because it presents a worldview which simply doesn’t fit the Disney/church narrative. The nice guy always gets the girl! The girl always notices and gets with her best boy buddy, who she was supposed to be with all along! Jerks like Caleb aren’t supposed to stand up for themselves! They are supposed to submit to Jesus by bowing and scraping in church, open weeping, public repentance, and giving her whatever they want!
Men aren’t supposed to know anything about child support and alimony! Those are all just a bunch of wives tales (heh)! Besides, if those men do what we tell them to do and what they’re supposed to do, they have nothing to fear from divorce court. Any man who gets hit with child support? Well, he made the babies with her. He’s gotta pay. Any man who has a cheating wife? He drove her to it, and if he had been a good Godly husband she wouldn’t have been attracted to another man. Any man who has to pay alimony? Well, he decided to marry her and have her stay at home. He’s gotta pay.
Listen, this point is just so critical. Fellow Christians, we have got to do a better job of getting at least this one thing out of the sphere and into the larger Christian world! Most Christians just won’t come into the manosphere and read
We need a radio show.
@sunshinemary
This may sound sadistic, but I really hope you and others do watch the movie with the checklist in one hand and the remote in the other (to scan forward a bit when the pain becomes too much). Don’t take my word for it. You really have to see it.
I don’t fault individual Christians for not seeing how patently unchristian this movie is (and many individuals did recognize this), but that Christians as a group didn’t notice is deeply, profoundly troubling. Surely one of the major Christian leaders should have noticed something this blatant. But lacking that, where is the pastor from a local congregation who saw this and it smacked him on the head how profoundly unbiblical and damaging to marriages this is, and he set out to sound the alarm? With the help of our conversation here this could and I pray will still happen, and I praise such a pastor in advance. But that Christians as a whole could be lead so far astray for so long should cause some much deeper introspection. Christians are being sold what they (we) want to hear, and it isn’t a view of marriage which comes close to what is explained in the Bible. I realize I’m jumping ahead a few pages here, but it is the truth.
@ Fascinated:
“Some good points being made here. I have to wonder, though, sunshinemary, why the “fat bitch” comment? In the movie, she is an attractive (by most standards) woman. Do you think the storyline is improved? And, c’mon, sex or no, a spouse will notice if the other puts on weight.”
The “bitch” part is more important than the “fat” part.
But: When a woman gains weight and lets herself go, in part what her husband sees and hears is this: “I know you found me physically attractive and that’s one of the reasons you married me. But I don’t care enough about you to put much effort into my physical appearance. You wanted a good looking woman as your wife, but I don’t really care what you want. Your wants and needs and desires just aren’t important to me. I don’t love you, respect you or appreciate you or care about you.”
“So I was thinking: imagine if a male singer came out with that song.”
—
Actually, “Bitch Came Back” by Theory of a Deadman is very much along these lines. It’s not exactly playing on every station, though, and I haven’t heard any DJ’s laughing along with it.
@ sunshinemary
“why the “fat bitch” comment?”
“You haven’t been in church lately, have you dear?”
Hmmm, come to think of it, there are a few chubtubs in church, women and men. No bitches, though. They are all really nice people. (Except a particular beta man, he is definitly his wife’s bitch! lol) I don’t think church CAUSES people to get fat. It is more likely the typical American diet.
In fact, I’d say your linking “fat” and “bitch” is, well, bitchy. Dear.
[D: You are welcome to argue your feminist perspective here, but if you get into catfights with the other women I’ll ban you without a second thought. At that point the potential benefit of your input simply won’t be worth worth the disruption.]
@ deti
The same can be said for men who let themselves go, though I think pregnancy and biology to make it more difficult for women to keep the weight off. If a man lets himself go and acts like a total jerk, does his wife still have a christian duty to have sex with him? Even if he treats her like dirt?
AnonReader wrote:
I had been assuming that the small-circle backrub was postural dominance but the inappropriate neck massage was foreplay. I assume everyone has trouble with 30-second sexual fantasies in church, right, it’s not just me? I mean, you’re sitting there all warm and comfy squashed up next to your spouse, it’s hardly surprising that your mind might briefly turn from the Gospel to wondering if you could convince Jen and Bob from Small Group to take your kids home with them for the afternoon so that you and your spouse can, uh, study the Scriptures together in peace.
But now I wonder if I’ve misread it and if the neck rub serves the same function as the back rub – postural domination.
Yes.
Less bitchiness out the mouth and more boom boom in the room!
@ssm, recall on your blog that i pointed out to JoJ that explicitly bringing in AK’s teaching, an avowed athiest, might be a bad idea? the loyal commenters accused me of doing satan’s work for being willing to compromise (i prefer to call it knowing your audience). JoJ defended the move, as well, saying that his guys liked reading the athiest book because it was “compelling” or something like that.
now you are echoing my sentiment: make marriage game innoffensive to Christians so that it can help them.
we commenters on these boards seem more interested in arguing intellectual purity, and polemicizing (is that a word?) any chucrhy leader or idea or movie or book that opposes us.
instead of being dogmatic, i think we should be pragmatic. Dalrock, and a few others, God Bless Em, do dogma really well. and they should continue. at some point, though, some of us others have to try to improve our buddies’ lives with this game stuff. after we have improved our own.
i took my pastor out for whiskey and cigars right before christmas. he knows my views, and remains neutral on them. however, he did initiate a discussion on the pussification of the church. his angle on the problem is that pussification marginalizes the men. a church without engaged men is impotent in serving/impacting the community. he’s starting to come around.
RE that wife-neck-rubbing stuff. reverse the polarity. i talk dirty to my wife in church and paw her up in the pew (tastefully). cuz church is where we celebrate love, right?
Fasc:
“If a man lets himself go and acts like a total jerk, does his wife still have a christian duty to have sex with him? Even if he treats her like dirt?”
FeministHater beat me to it. Yes. Here’s why.
If a woman lets herself go and refuses to have sex with him, he still has a Christian duty to support his wife and love her as Christ loved the church.
Oh, Feminist Hater, I’ve missed you! And I can imagine that you would be the type to treat a woman like dirt (only in the biblical sense, I’m sure!) and expect her to “service” you. IF you are getting any at all I suspect it has quite the air of “service” to it.
How about if the wife gets fat, but is a “good, submissive wife” and the husband is so repulsed by her he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Does he have any sexual obligation to here?
The State enforces this duty even if the couple are divorced. The man is never let off the hook.
Moderation note: I’ve deleted some of the off topic comments. Please don’t let Fascinated derail this thread. If need be I can ban her.
Fascinated:
The problem is what does “Loving her as Christ loved the Church” and “not treating her like dirt” look like.
To most women, including most women who claim Christ, these things mean “I am the boss of the house, the husband submits to me, I do whatever I want, and he gives me whatever I want. I can be a total and complete bitch, and he still has to love me.”
Sorry for getting a little off track. I just wanted to know what sex she was as that helps put things into better focus as to where a person is coming from. No need to ban her unless she is really in need of tingles (she want to be banned)
[D: No problem, and thanks for understanding. SSM’s comment up thread about others coming in new is a good one, and I think this is one post which especially fits that bill. At the same time, hopefully newcomers understand that the internet is a big place, and the views of each commenter can only represent themselves. For context on Fascinated, here is the thread where she first showed up.]
“How about if the wife gets fat, but is a “good, submissive wife” and the husband is so repulsed by her he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Does he have any sexual obligation to her?”
Yes. But nota bene: If the wifely requirements of submission and femininity were as enforced in the church as hard and as ridiculously as the husbandly requirements of self-sacrificial love are, oral sex would be elevated to a sacrament, and a woman gaining 5 lbs would be grounds for divorce.
Dalrock, Apologies. I am duly chastened. It was not my intention to derail your thread. Feminist Hater just gives me such tingles.
Deti, I just don’t see where this “most women” thing comes from. And really, why isn’t there a Christian duty for BOTH parties to stay in great shape, love and respect each other and continue to enjoy each other’s bodies? I realize this often does not happen and maybe it is the wife to blame sometimes, maybe even most of the time, but sheesh, why such a broad brush?
The truth is, that if husband and wife kept themselves relatively fit and stuck to their duties in marriage, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Oh let fascinated play, as long as she doesn’t get near the expensive nick knacks or wobble around with an open container of grape juice over the beige carpet she won’t hurt anyone.
You are so right, FemHater. Wow, common ground, a beautiful thing.
How about if the wife gets fat, but is a “good, submissive wife” and the husband is so repulsed by her he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Does he have any sexual obligation to here
——————————————————–
Actually, yes, in the context of all things being ordered Biblically and her working to rectify the situation…..but the context spoils the emotional triggers you are trying to pull.
empathologism, thank you kindly, sir. Although, really, I prefer to serve my sweetie pineapple juice!
RG3 – “RE that wife-neck-rubbing stuff. reverse the polarity. i talk dirty to my wife in church and paw her up in the pew (tastefully). cuz church is where we celebrate love, right?”
I have always rubbed/massaged my wifes neck, shoulders and upper back whenever I’ve been stuck in some boring scenario (church, awards dinners, waiting for flights, etc.). I cannot recall ever doing it without thinking about sex. It does seem that it also tended to get her thinking about sex as well, as she’d usually start reciprocating, usually rubbing my arms, legs, or elsewhere (when the situation would allow her to do so discretely). Frankly, in most such situations, I’d rather think about sex than what ever else is going on – especially true of most sermons.
I’d never have though about it as a dominant posture. Come to think of it, if my wife rubs my back, neck or shoulders, I pretty much always start thinking about having sex. I’d have to go with the touching-as-foreplay line of thinking on this one.
Whoa, just a minute there. Did they really say:
If God could control every man, he would. But He can’t. This wife’s actions have simply given God an open door to deal with her husband.
They have bigger theological problems than an unbiblical view of marriage. Like, for example, not understanding what “omnipotent” means. God most certainly COULD control every man, he chooses not to. He’d rather we have free will. He certainly doesn’t need the wife’s permission to “deal with her husband.”
Feminist Hater:
The truth is, that if husband and wife kept themselves relatively fit and stuck to their duties in marriage, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
I think that’s right.
Women have more of an inborn tolerance of a dude getting fat than vice versa; in the same way that men have more tolerance for a woman who wants to quit working and stay home (esp. after kids are born).
A woman getting overly fat in a relationship is the rough equivalent of a man who quits his job and refuses to find another one* in the same relationship. There are double standards on both sides, which are just due to the way we are built (Boxer is not an adherent of “gender as social construct feminism” or other looney ideas).
(*I am not knocking fellas who quit their jobs to take care of house and kids, while their wives work, if that is something that works for them, just to be clear. I’m equating fat wife to man who quits to slouch around and waste time. I know a couple of homemaker brothers, and those men are heroes in my book, as they’re doing what they have to do for the next generation.)
[D: Nailed it.]
Aleph One – “God most certainly COULD control every man, he chooses not to. He’d rather we have free will. He certainly doesn’t need the wife’s permission to “deal with her husband.””
Nor does he need her “help”. I think this God-needing-the-woman’s-help is intended as an appeal to the growing new-age influence in Churchianity, not limited to , but certainly inclusive of the women-as-Godesses meme. God needing their help would serve to elevate them to his level, thus appealing to their desire to see themselves that way.
[okay, that was really just intended as snark, but…]
“Deti, I just don’t see where this “most women” thing comes from.”
The manosphere has devised a number of generalizations about male and female sexuality and intergender dynamics, based on research, observation and anecdote. Those generalizations are usually widely accepted because they have been shown to be generally true in the experience of the commenters and bloggers. Are there outliers and exceptions? Sure, but they simply prove the rules. Perhaps if you point me to the “most women” principle you object to or disagree with, we can discuss it.
“And really, why isn’t there a Christian duty for BOTH parties to stay in great shape, love and respect each other and continue to enjoy each other’s bodies?”
Take it up with St. Paul. there is a duty for both parties to enjoy each others’ bodies, but no real duty to “stay in great shape”. The duty of a husband is to love. The duty of a wife is to respect.
“I realize this often does not happen and maybe it is the wife to blame sometimes, maybe even most of the time, but sheesh, why such a broad brush?”
see above. Generalizations become such because they are generally true.
Curious, I am currently plowing through a set of essays by Clifton A. Emahiser; in particular, his essay on the Two Seedlines: the serpent’s and Adam’s [http://www.israelect.com/ChildrenOfYahweh/Emahiser/two_seedline.htm]: the premise is that Eve was seduced by and copulated with Satan; in other words, even before she lay with Adam, she chose the ultimate “bad boy.” In short, women rejected the good man from the beginning. ( If you know the legend of Lilith, then Eve is also Lilith in this scenario).
Choked on red pills:
“This part of the Christian Manosphere shattered whatever pre-conceived fairy tales I have about marriage.”
Good.
” I’m stuck because I want a mate (hopeless in finding one) but now fears marriage.”
Marriage isn’t something to be feared, but rather to be understood and planned for. Understanding begins with understanding God’s plan for marriage and the respective roles of the man and woman in it, and also understanding the respective natures and sexuality of men and women. There are generally applicable rules and maxims, and they can be understood if not mastered.
I also noted that you “want a mate (hopeless in finding one)”. First thing to do is read Dalrock’s posts on interviewing a prospective wife. Then focus on living your own life, making your mission your priority, and upping your attractiveness and confidence.
“A woman getting overly fat in a relationship is the rough equivalent of a man who quits his job and refuses to find another one* in the same relationship.”
Because the greatest asset she brings to the relationship is access to her sexuality. The greatest asset he brings to the relationship is his commitment to her, usually measured in how well he provides for her.
“Wife knows God has transformed her husband, only once she falls back in love with him.”
Yes, the versatile, one-size-fits-all means for women to determine the spirituality of the man in their life.
They’ll admit that while their feelings prove nothing specifically on their own, but if they aren’t in love, there must be something else that is wrong, because God wouldn’t want them to be unhhhhaaaaapppyyyyyy. Therefore, someone (else) must not be following God’s plan.
After all, it couldn’t be God’s little princesses (TM) that are slaves to their own biology. Their desire for eternal serial monogamy must be in God’s will! It is God’s plan!
the greatest asset she brings to the relationship is access to her sexuality. The greatest asset he brings to the relationship is his commitment to her, usually measured in how well he provides for her.
This makes Christian women go apoplectic generally, the idea that men marry for access to sex. That translates to, if there was NO access to sex, men are not going to marry, generally. This notion pisses them off to histrionics. There is much for blue pill men to learn by witnessing a conversation among mixed Christians about sex in marriage, yet even many of them cannot see what they behold. 6’5″ ex military airline pilot neighbor of mine, appearance wise about as alpha as it gets, physicality over the top….attended the same church as us, early 2000’s. The pastor one day made some reference to how a wife should not with hold sex.
Later that couple was with us and the guy was so angry he would have punched the preacher because in his words, “how dare he suggest she must open her legs at my demand”
The layer of bad notions is very thick…..VERY thick.
Rollo and Alpha Game’s posts are as relevant as ever in terms of what women want/need from their husbands (see below). This glamorisation of divorce is incredibly scary. The impact on children is so horrific that no sane person could ever want it. Yet here we have our culture encouraging and promoting it. Makes no sense whatsoever .
Women want men to “just get it”… Women despise a man who needs to be told to be dominant…
As I’ve written a thousand times, a cardinal truth of the universe is that genuine desire cannot be negotiated. The moment you tell your wife, your girlfriend, that you will exchange a behavior or attitude or belief or any other compromise for her desire you fundamentally change her organic desire into obligation…
We can go on and on about how most women LOVE good beta traits, but they simply ARE. NOT. TURNED. ON. BY. THEM.
http://3rdmilleniummen.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/manosphere-become-a-better-man/
empathologism, Of course men marry for sex. And women for love. But one without the other… what is the point? (Though some men here would likely disagree with me…)
Wow, empath, that is unbelievable. Shouldn’t that biblical suggestion (not withholding sex) have been met with cheers by the husbands in the crowd? That he was offended by that is jaw-dropping.
And Boxer’s 1:04 p.m. comment = +1
That he was offended by that is jaw-dropping.
Not really. Look at how he chose the word “demand”. In our culture today, this is cutting it too close to rape. Also, women are to be given respect, no matter whether they deserve it or not. Many men considered this very disrespectful. Sex is her choice, not his. That she might like that he demand sex is too much. Add to that that I think a lot of men do not want to think that their wives would want to be demanded or dominated. It is too slutty, which is very unfortunate for everyone.
Women like the one in this movie need to be kicked to the curb and the man needs to grow some nads and go get some young-snatch…
@okrahead: Continuing with your line of thought, I honestly think the “50 Shades” series has actually done much good for the average Christian man while religious works such as “Fireproof” and its ilk have been a huge negative. Think about it – which work is showing the man as the dominant, confident one?
Perhaps you religious types should take the comparative success of “50 Shades” over “Fireproof” (which I believe is several orders of magnitude) as a sign of some sort.
If you won’t acknowledge the above, at the very least, know that Dalrock understands what he is talking about.
Women do not marry for love. They marry for resources and status.
+1 Stingray. That man would likely be operating in a neo-Victorian mind set where his wife is to be delicately cherished as some sort of cut-glass figurine that must be treated delicately, lest she shatter. It is also likely he retained enough alpahness to keep his wife attracted to him. If the couple was somewhat older, likely she had a low N, maybe even zero N before meeting him, that would help as well. A lot of White Knights appear to be men over 45, who married long before VAWA and Girls Gone Wild, to women with low N’s. They assume everyone else is like them, and that every other woman is like their wife. This assumption, or perhaps a better term would be “unexamined premise”, colors how they see the world. They may be able to intellectually grasp the notion of high N sluts divorcing for cash and prizes, but not at the gut level.
Or the pedestalization training may be too strong in them to be easily overcome by reason.
Now, who is served by this phenom? Answer that and my question posed to SSM, with my Socratic toga on, is also answered.
Now, who is served by this phenom?
Pee Wee Herman?
One Christian leader to watch for commentary on mainstream media is Father Robert Barron (search YouTube for wordonfirevideo). He’s a Catholic priest who’s pretty consistently orthodox, and he comments on movies and major events. He mostly does blockbusters and things that intersect with Catholicism, so he hasn’t reviewed this movie yet as far as I can tell. He might if a few people asked him to, though. He did a piece on the ‘hookup culture’ that I’m going to listen to later.
I recommend posting Deti’s alternate /red pill plot of “Fireproof” as its own big post.
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Cail,
I have been watching The Catholicism Project and reading the corresponding book and they are excellent. I have been searching Word On Fire and watching a lot of his videos and listening to his homilies a lot lately, as well. His teachings on marriage are very good. I have been trying to find some teachings of his on wifely duties/submission/being subordinate and have not been able to find anything. I really wish he would talk about this, but I wonder if he ever will.
Stingray, if you’re interested in a traditional Catholic take on marriage, including headship/submission and the scriptural basis for those and how we go wrong, go here and scroll down to the section on marriage: http://www.sensustraditionis.org/multimedia.html
The audio quality is poor in some of them, but the content is solid.
@empathologism,
“Later that couple was with us and the guy was so angry he would have punched the preacher because in his words, “how dare he suggest she must open her legs at my demand””
Why did this this guy get so angry by this?
Bee:
Read Stingray’s comment above at 1:56 PM. Some men have become so conditioned to seeing women as nonsexual creatures and conditioned to feminist thought that they recoil at the notion that a woman has an obligation to regular sex with her husband, and yes, at the husband’s demand.
But what we forget is that a woman’s marital obligation to provide sex was the traditional notion of Christian marriage. In law, up until oh, around 1950 or so, a wife was legally considered to give standing consent to sex with her husband. Until that same time it was considered legally impossible for a man to rape his wife, because of that standing consent (and also because a husband and wife are “one flesh” and thus he would have to be raping himself, which is impossible).
Cail, truly, thank you! I have been searching for more information on this, but didn’t know which sites to trust. It is too easy, it seems, to turn scripture on its head. That’s why I like Word on Fire so well. Father Barron wants people to understand traditional Catholicism. I was disappointed when I couldn’t find anything on submission from him. I will be looking at that site you provided a great deal. Thank you, again.
The “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together Again” song is Taylor Swift. A singer most notable for her repeated habit of dating extremely Alpha guys (i.e., fello muso John Mayer), then getting pumped & dumped, which inspires her to write a new song about how bad that makes her feel! Solipsism sqared. Cubed, even. Hey, whatever pays the bills.
This post does an excellent job of showing the reality of the female imperative; a thing, by the way, about which there should have been no debate among Christians who have kept their Genesis 3 in mind. “You shall want him…”
It’s fabulously demonstrated in the movie, as Dalrock has painstakingly pointed out, but the comments below really drive it home. Because even those who profess to know it–unlike those stupid Churchians–don’t address it in their own midst. What irony, that in the discussion of a film centered on the perversion of women policing and leading men that a woman should say:
Whatever the solution for men is, it is certainly not direction from one more woman; not even the ones who purr for affirmation about trouble with sexual fantasies in church. Which, by the way, RG3 got to the point of when he said, “It’s about love.” Exactly. Church is about communion…unity…oneness…a physical and spiritual coming together for the good and joy of the whole Body; where one partner rejoices in receiving the flesh and blood of the other, and from which union fruit is born. For the loving husband and wife that flow of love can only (and blessedly!) spill over the brim of our cups into each other’s. It’s not trouble, it’s not fantasy, and it’s certainly not just you. I have learned to loathe even the specter of “naughtiness” to be brought into discussions of the Christian sex. It is holy, and holy means dark and secret to those outside.
Then there’s Fascinated, who is bored, and doesn’t feel like this conversation has enough of her approval, or her particular flavor.
To sum up: Generalizing is wrong for others to do about her, or about a group that might be construed to be about her. However; it’s acceptable for her to generalize the appropriate behavior of literally everyone else: they ought to act and react the exact the same, to the same stimuli, and for the same reason, but they ought not “paint with broad brushes”.
Well, her brush couldn’t be more broad: It’s artless, indiscriminate, and desires to paint everything a Fascinated shade of gyno-pink. And if she can’t get it with her logic–which she must know is really very bad–then she’ll distract you with some sleight-of-mouth.
Apparently, she’d like to make it a big issue.
A good scene for Fireproof would have been the wife and the doctor, standing in line at the hospital cafeteria; joking together; perhaps talking about church, or complaining about their spouses. When they get to the drinks, the wife says, “Oh. Mygosh. You’re a doctor, so maybe you know. I heard the funniest thing about pineapple juice the other day. Well, it’s kind of naughty…”
“Listen, this point is just so critical. Fellow Christians, we have got to do a better job of getting at least this one thing out of the sphere and into the larger Christian world!”
I am a Christian guy that has lived with the threat of frivolous divorce for as long as I’ve been married. I have attempted to speak on this with other guys at the Church– and on Fireproof in particular– but there is simply no comprehension whatsoever. It’s like I’m from another planet or something. If I speak sharply and directly on the subject, people start backing away slowly or else attacking me for being an bad bad naughty unspiritual man. I’m not sure how much of this is cluelessness or cravenness on the part of the church’s leaders. My gut tells me it is the latter and that they would sell me out in a heartbeat. The subtle signal to NOT ROCK THE BOAT is all to clear to me.
(I should know by now how the social/political game is played. It certainly doesn’t include people from the herd thanking me for pointing out how the mainline culture (and them included) is acting contrary to scripture.)
The only thing that caused me to switch from blue pill to red pill: when I realized that my wife wouldn’t like me regardless of how many bullet points I checked off on her list. That list was just a rationalization and “proof” that I didn’t love her. When I “took the love dare” by turning the other cheek and then stoicly working through it… well… I could no longer blame myself for the broken relationship. Years down the road and she couldn’t concede one single thing… not one. *That* was when I needed a new framework to explain and model what was happening. That was when I became red pill.
No one should have to live a decade of reductio ad absurdam. But it is almost impossible to reason with counselors and church leaders about this stuff.
I really dislike how women try to argue “logically” at times because I see a lot of this happening. What I mean is that they have this strategy to make everything a wash (Men: Women do X, Women : oh yeah, well guys do Y). That is ok as I try to get relative/practical value of what is said but when women use this strategy, they use it to sweep the details under the rug.
I have been thinking about it and the best analogy i can come up with at the moment is that…..There are two people and they both have the same gun (heck, they can share it for all I care, it makes the analogy even better). One of the two goes out, loads the gun, walks up to…… the cashier at some establishment, points the gun at the cashier, and successfully kills that person. Person two, also goes out, loads the gun, walks up to the President of some country, points the gun at the president, and successfully kills the president.
Women will try to argue that they did the same thing and try to sweep the magnitude of what was done under the rug. Its a wash in their book.
Cane I am glad to see you. I disagree , maybe, about the reaction to naughtiness but I suspect that is because I misunderstand your point. The wrong interpretation would be the one that I see so many Christian women having as they try and make marital sex limited to some uber spiritual experience to the point I’ve even seen it written that if sex is ever approached from physical desire it is not sanctified. There is a man with a porn ministry called mychainsaregone….I think, who even describes he and his wife testing him by sitting and conversing naked until its proven he isn’t compelled by her nudity, only then and with mutual indifference to pleasure, do they proceed to sex. He writes of healing a man who was agape at his wife each time she exited the shower…
This may seem irrelevant to the thread but its all interconnected.
The wrong interpretation would be the one that I see so many Christian women having as they try and make marital sex limited to some uber spiritual experience to the point I’ve even seen it written that if sex is ever approached from physical desire it is not sanctified.
I completely agree that this would be the wrong interpretation, but that’s not what I interpreted from his words, which i agree with also, by the way. I thought he made it clear that he was referring to “discussions” of Christian sex. Whatever my issues with Dalrock, (and we’ve had a few) I’ve always appreciated the way he never, ever discussed the details of his sex life in this public forum.
I interpreted CC’s comments as an admonition to refrain from the kind of behavior we are warned against in Ephesians 5:4.
I would hope it is universally understood that marital intimacy can and should be fun. Just private.
I allowed as such, the only reason I raised it is apparent in the later portion of the post. I agree there need by neither titillation nor coarseness in words as much as I veer into it jokingly myself on occasion
SomeGuy:
The Kendrick Brothers’ films are seen as the pinnacle of Christian filmmaking. The films and their production values lend an imprimatur of legitimacy and polish to Christian art while paying homage to Churchian values. Thus nothing they do can be questioned, ever.
You guys are awesome. That comment run here was just awesome. dalrock you are one good host. The only prayer you will ever need with this follow is a pray you don’t become arrogant. I wish I new some film makers in the Dallas Fort Worth area because I bet that red pill fireproof would be really interesting project.
Boxer
Boxer That is the way I see it on the getting out of shape thing and most normal people do.
http://mychainsaregone.org/MCAG-welcome.htm
Thats the site I referred to earlier.
This will be interesting if it garners enough attention. The reflexive response to the mere mention of porn is repulsion and stop listening. Even what I have written here to this point, because it does not contain vehement hate and condemnation of the (spittle) porn user would be called defense of porn, though Ive made no value judgement whatsoever.
So, many will read the site and perhaps miss the problems on it.
This is the porn recovery adjunct to Joel and Kathy Davisson. Ive interacted with *Ed* a great deal and maybe through that I have deeper insights into where he is coming from than you can get from the site.
Please believe me, it belongs in this thread, it fits.
SSM wrote:
“Would it be heralded from the pulpit? Would Small Group curricula be written around it? Would you watch it with the other people in your Monday Night Married Couple’s Bible Study class and then discuss how deeply impacting it is? Would Tuesday Morning Ladies’ Bible Study jump right on that? Would you be able to buy the T-shirt at Family Christian Book Store? ”
I’m not trying to pick on you, but it’s interesting to me why you chose these things. It seems that these things represent churchian life and my impression of this life is that the people are desperately embracing the form with no substance. They’re busy doing church while not really changing much.
IDK, I could be way off base here, but something about the evangelical/non-denominational/mega-church life makes me ill.
@deti,
Thanks for the answers. I read what Stingray wrote and she made sense.
Do you think this could also be part of his thinking?
He is retired Military Officer, ex fighter jock, 6′ 5″ tall. He has status and is probably a confident, dominant, natural born Alpha. Probably never has had to consicously work on Game or try to “up his Alpha”. As a result he probably gets all the sex he needs from his wife without him thinking about it or working on it. He probably has no idea what it is like for the all the beta guys who do not get banged as much as they need. He probably has no understanding or empathy for what beta guys might be going through.
Cane Caldo
This post does an excellent job of showing the reality of the female imperative; a thing, by the way, about which there should have been no debate among Christians who have kept their Genesis 3 in mind. “You shall want him…”
There’s the answer to my question. Women want a man they can control who nevertheless is a great, big alpha when they want him to be. They want fried ice. They want churches controlled for the benefit of women. They want to sing “Good Christian Folk, Rejoice” because that’s all nice and incluuusive, not ikky patriarchy like “Good Christen Men, Rejoice” (field report from a man in another state). But they also want strong men who will defend them, and be manly in the bedroom. A tamed tiger. A circus lion. But not too tamed, and not too circusy, lest attraction vanish.
Fried ice. The feminist imperative wants fried ice. The femininist imperative wants fried ice. The feminine imperative wants fried ice. Each one manifests the desire for fried ice in different way.
Let us consider “FIreproof” as a huge, multimedia, ongoing, national fitness test. Perhaps that will clarify what the response should be?
@Cane Caldo
Truly beautiful.
IDK, I could be way off base here, but something about the evangelical/non-denominational/mega-church life makes me ill.
As a recently reformed mega churcher I agree. Yes the things pointed out are de rigueur in those places. These churches invented DayTimer Christianity (well, Outlook now) and all manner of Tony Robbins ish and 7 Habits crap, leading to the creation of The Spiritual Leader TM who, if a man does not embody, I kid you not, ive seen it mentioned as fodder for frivorce.
Its about expectations, as I explained to local mega pastor.
Girl sits in church and hears yearly how men CAN be….and how women CAN help, all that help meet stuff gone sideways. They hear pastor chortle ” ladies you gotta cut us some slack, yuk yuk, cause we just aint gettin’ it and we are clueless, ha ha ha ho ho ho ha ha”
Mothers day gush
Fathers Day men step up, you CAN do it men!
Oh, and men you can learn how to meet the deepest emotional needs of her heart, and you can learn to listen and not fix. Oh and to tend the fire all day for the heat that night. On and on.
After teen years and the purity pledge ring falling under the car seat after “the lift” a few times, she marries, and then she hears that
1. you read your Bible every morning….at 7AM
2. On Tuesdays the ladies meet for coffee (and to talk about husbands)
3. You send the men to conferences
4. You are the sexual gatekeeper
5. Husband must dress in robes and sandals and do paper cut outs of Bible figures with the kids nightly, after the group scripture reading, and after Hubby’s Utmost for Wife’s Highest
6. She learns that hubby will stay under the correction of the church but that may not be sufficient
7. Grace is the only important thing because it allows you to pursue happiness guilt free
8. The Spiritual leader is a foot washer, the image of foot washing neednt be combined with ANYTHING to illustrate spiritual leadership
9. One can be “released” from their marriage, well, usually The Personal Jesus releases women in groups of 3 or so so they have a small group for empathy.
Outside of relationships they offer a 3 part sermon using a basic single scripture as common and John 3:16 (relationally benign) and can show you
How to handle anger
How to handle stress
How to be cheerful
How to prosper
How to not worry
and other challenging exegesis topics
Please delete my petty disagreement with cane’s post….it was not needed.
@Elspeth
Thank you.
I don’t think that was his point at all. As I read it, he was saying that attempts to “purify” Christian married sex are wholly unfounded.
Thanks, Empath. Glad to be missed.
Well, that’s a wrong interpretation because there is a wrong assumption of nearly everyone. There is no merely physical sex, or just emotional sex, or sex that does not have spiritual ramifications. One doesn’t “make” sex a spiritual experience anymore than you “make” it a physical experience. It’s unavoidable. A human is mind, body, and spirit. You can no more leave your spirit out of it than you can leave your chest out of it.
These people talking about making sex a spiritual experience (mostly women or their pets) are either confused, or lying. Most times, they are really talking about making it an emotionally focused experience. More particularly, such a woman has made a fetish out of a certain feeling, the way a man might make a fetish out of big boobs. The difference, though, is that our society will just say flat out that there is no expectation that a wife will, or even could have the perfect breasts for him. If she does, she will lose them. Moreover, we acknowledge that a fetish has the characteristic of diminishing returns: Were a wife’s breasts to stay miraculously pert and yet pendulous, the man who made a fetish of them would still wish they’d become, oh, just a smidgen bigger. There is no satisfying a fetish.
Conversely, we have thrown women to the pornography wolves. So much of media and advertising is a come-on to female desires, and no one treats it with any seriousness without risking being labelled at least a Control-Freak, and probably a dreadful Abuser. Women are surrounded by emotional porn, and one of the effects is going to be that diminishing rate of return on the emotional aspect of her sex life. Since neither she nor her husband understand that fem-centric media is almost universally pornographic, or that emotional pornography is a thing unto itself, then neither of them understand that emotions can be fetishized. That gets compounded with good old American prudery which says physical urges are for men and dirty girls. This cause women who really want to be good girls to interpret their physical urges into the safe emotional ones. Once a woman has developed her fetish for a big thick ego, it is hard to be satisfied by a normal man who merely wants to enjoy the wife of his youth. She’s not after enjoyment, but a high.
American prudery is born of the ascetic traditions of the American expressions of Christianity, and so this ties it back into those exercises you (Empath) spoke of; lying next to a wife without getting aroused; etc. in an attempt to “make it a spiritual experience.” Ascetics are also known for equating (mistaking) emotional experiences for spiritual ones. “If it feels good, do it” is really just asceticism’s “If it’s right, it will feel good.” It’s the same mistake we make when we look at a man who is successful, and say he must be doing something right, or when we look at the poor man and say it’s all his fault. In this case, the money is emotion, the rich man is the woman, and the poor man is nearly every man. Slumlord writes some on this, and he’s right–though I gather he’s not popular with many here, anymore. Too bad.
So, no, that’s not what I was talking about. I was talking about was the passive-aggressive way Oholah and Oholibah paraded their sexual prowess and appetites before Assyrians on the Internet.
I’m going to watch Fireproof on Netflix later. I’ve heard only good things about the movie until now, so it was interesting read this critique.
I’ve recently been told that wifely submission to husbands is no longer necessary. When the Bible was written women were at the mercy of their husbands for their basic survival. Submission was to save her from being beaten or abandoned. Now that women can survive on their own and are no longer subject to the whims of a man it isn’t necessary. I’m not sure that I believe that, but I thought it was interesting.
@Dalrock
Thanks!
@Dalrock and Elspeth
Yes, exactly. You cannot purify what God has already made holy; not even with prayer.
However; it can be adulterated by opening the secret chamber to others. That doesn’t mean sex cannot be discussed; it can, even frankly. This is especially true among sex-segregated people, and even more true when help is genuinely asked. Unrequested demonstrations of sexual desire and prowess though, are almost never helpful, and even less so online.
@Cane Caldo
Thank you. I’m going to give some more thought to your point about ‘secret chambers’. If I’m reading you right, it isn’t about ‘purifying’ in the sense people think of that (tends to go hand in hand with repression) but about not making the private public for the sake of titillation and gratification. Is that close?
More particularly, such a woman has made a fetish out of a certain feeling, the way a man might make a fetish out of big boobs.
My assigned proclivities of men and women explained with examples….perfect
One is sick, the other virtue, right?
Keep posting these things and we may hear the tearing of the churchian veil, audibly.
Awesome day at Dalrock, I hope not just the Dalrock Tabernacle Singers are not the only ones being preached to, not that there is anything wrong with that
I’m curious on your views on Jewish marriage, both observant (Hassidic and Orthodox) and secular (everything else). I thought you might have some interest because the New Testaments views would be somewhat influence from the Old Testament.
Last tonight, was too active her today….
Adding the last comments on the bad news thread I realized a good primer on statistics and statistically suggestive language like generality, needs to be written. Wrote one awhile back but a better and more comprehensive explanation of why generalities ARE valid tools of discourse, and “men do it too” is not a valid refutation of a point. Are we morally interdependent, relativism, all that?
Include the idea of balance….a tired overworked word that makes people feel good. There are a dozen concepts that shatter the churchians hamsters head……gory, but they are rodents
@CL
Yes, that’s close. I want to stress that I did not bring up purification, Empath did. (No offense, Empath. I realize you were asking a question.) The case could be made that sex between a Christian and his spouse plays a some role itself as a sanctifying act.
(1 Corinth. 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.)
lzozozzozlzlzlzllzlzlzllzzozozoz
hey dal rock how come there aren’t mor wise men like you?
why do so many men just smile and shurrg as chrirtaisnityy loses its meaning?
for jesus came to fulfill da law of moses and da propehetsz, not to abolish it
nowwonder dey crucccifed himz!!!
@Cane Caldo
The case could be made that sex between a Christian and his spouse plays a some role itself as a sanctifying act.
I have thought about that too. I think there is something to that, and that each helps to sanctify the other. It seems to me that in a permanent exclusive sacramental marriage/(relationship), many things are fine but numerous prudish Christians wrongly deem these things verboten. Some things, especially artificial contraception, are wrong, but most typical ‘churchians’ preach against perceived evils rather than real ones.
How’s about getting a Jewish wife instead of a xxxChristian wife?
Speaking of movies, I just figured out why I didn’t really like the recent film “Looper”. It’s because the theme is “women save men”.
As an older man Bruce Willis is saved by the pure love of a woman, who is killed by a powerful,warlord. The younger Bruce sacrifices himself to save a woman who is in the process of saving her young son with her pure love.
I don’t think I buy the premise anymore.
@ Anon7
Didn’t like the movie at all despite the 94% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Far as I could tell, the film didn’t have a point to it.
And there wasn’t really any choreography that justified its making.
“Now that women can survive on their own and are no longer subject to the whims of a man it [submission] isn’t necessary.”
Premise underpinning the state-sanctioned and government subsidised divorce industry.
All hail the strong, independent woman. . . (TM). . .
I’m a bit late to the party, but I hope you don’t mind the plug. The book I wrote to smack down Fireproof, “The Altar”, has a similar “lower the boom” beginning… since she brought divorce papers to her marriage retreat cruise with her beta husband…
ouch.
Anyway, shameless plug:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Altar-ebook/dp/B0092AWJY4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357281986&sr=8-2&keywords=the+altar
thanks Dalrock, hope the link doesn’t wig out
[D: No problem.]
BTW the rubbing circles on a man’s back is motherly. It is a mothering move.
Mom in charge of poor little woebegone Johnny.
“I’ve recently been told that wifely submission to husbands is no longer necessary. When the Bible was written women were at the mercy of their husbands for their basic survival.”
I supposed they know nothing about Genesis 3:16 or Matthew 5:17.
The game changer was artificial birth control and subsequently legalized abortion. Those two things are what will bring down the United States.
I’ve recently been told that a husband’s duty to love his wife as Jesus loves the Church is no longer necessary. When the Bible was written men hard to work to support their families for basic survival. The State now takes care of this…
taterearl
You ain’t seen nothing yet. If or when men get a birth control pill. Imagine everything you know. Now add to that a woman can not have a child unless a man agrees to it no matter how much deception she uses it is still his call in the end and she will never know until he tells her. At present reguardless what some woman says she is 100 percent in command of what happens to her pussy. You wouldn’t think so looking at the law and hearing women and mangina’s talk about it.
@empathological
“Later that couple was with us and the guy was so angry he would have punched the preacher because in his words, “how dare he suggest she must open her legs at my demand”
Here the difficult part. I recall on a christian radio show a woman weeping that her husband supposedly was supposed to help her and love her(she was a broken woman by the way had bad history) felt entitled to her body and raped her. To then say that it is the woman’s obligation to do so would be in the minds of many the acceptance of rape.
There was something I gathered from “Wild at Heart” that I grasped onto that still holds true post red pill. That is don’t follow the woman. I think that is very valid (red pill even).
infowarrior
The obligations all of us have are not subject to force. I shouldnt have to disclaim that, but such is the churchian culture. I believe it is as simple as tying it back to emotion good, sex bad, or even woman good man bad in order to find the leverage that is brought to bear regarding marital rape.
Whipping out marital rape when discussion Biblical admonition to sex is a predictable (not aimed at you info) reaction, taking any point they disagree with, using the extreme as the comparison, and shouting down the other side with it.
Limit divorce? Women stuck in abuse
Sex as an obligation? Marital rape
One group Ive encountered has stated that the biblical admonition to have sex with each other isn’t even there in that scripture, that the scripture REALLY just says afford due benevolence and nothing about sex.
“Marital rape” is another reason to not marry a slut.
All their poor choices and bad emotions from the cock carousel get taken out on you.
My quibble comes in when they have no problem protecting women to the nth degree with rape laws and other domestic violence laws that can and are used to harm men who are often innocent pawns but yet when you merely utter that men require some mere semblance of protection against women, especially sluts, and all hell breaks loose.
Men are always at fault. It serves no purpose to argue with them that men and women are both sinners, that makes you a women hater and not fit for marriage anyway. More’s the pity.
I wouldn’t marry a slut. Never ever marry a slut! Thanks Taylor Swift!
greyghost- Yes, the histrionic reactions to the MGTOW movement and the evidence men are avoiding marriage is a harbinger of the elephant poop to hit the fan if male birth control becomes available.
The reality is, women depend on men being locked into their traditional gender roles, for their survival, prosperity, and long-term happiness. We will see more Feminists collaborating with female supremacist traditionalists to strongarm men back into provider roles.
If you liked Fireproof you’ll love this:
It was just a matter of time, but now Blair Witch Project (cinematography) is Christian Kosher®
And speaking of Christian Kosher®
https://www.facebook.com/50ShadesOfGodlyMarriage
Now 50 Shades of Grey (thematically) is fair game.
have to be raping himself, which is impossible).
The US has a living constitution, with penumbras and stuff, so don’t say impossible.
When the Bible was written men hard to work to support their families
The “support” part is still true, but not necessarily the “their” part.
Hey Dalrock, not sure how to get in touch with you. I’m the admin over at the new subreddit reddit.com/r/theredpill . Wondering if you’d be interested in doing an AMA (ask me anything) style interview.
Feminist Hater
“I’ve recently been told that a husband’s duty to love his wife as Jesus loves the Church is no longer necessary. When the Bible was written men hard to work to support their families for basic survival. The State now takes care of this…”
A lot of men don’t do this. Actually I’m not sure what submission and loving like Christ loves the church looks like in a marriage. I’ve gotten a good idea of what it is not from reading along here, but not much about what it is. Would you share your thoughts or links to a clearer explanation?
I wasn’t looking to get a wife anytime soon. I don’t believe there is any sort of discussions like this for Judaism, although I bet the same sort of rot is there. Its possible this may be a result of Frankfurt school of Marxism as well, with the goal as destruction of the family.
@Samuel Solomon
My wife pointed out that you don’t rub circles on someone’s back to actually make them feel good/better, it is strictly a physical version of saying “there there”. It is very different than say rubbing someone’s shoulders, but if you aren’t paying attention it can give the impression of being the same thing. This was an excellent observation on her part. I was surprised at how viscerally she reacted to Empath’s “rubbing circles on his back” quote, or at least how specifically she was repelled by a woman ever rubbing circles on her husband’s back. She and I fairly regularly come up to the other and rub the other’s shoulders/neck/back, but she pointed out that never in 20 years has either of us rubbed circles on the other’s back. Why would you ever do that? It doesn’t feel good, relieve stress or pain, etc. She is right, but I didn’t make the connection until she pointed it out. It isn’t just the condescending context of the touching (showing public approval for his public self disgrace), it is the very nature of the touch itself.
Your wife put the right words to it…..perfect!
There there, excellent.
Its pity and encouragement and smugness and motherliness
@taterearl
Great point. I would also add a question: “What would the Bible say if it actually meant it?” The assumption is that it must have been conditional to the times, yet it isn’t framed that way at all. One thing is very obvious when you start looking into this question: even the people who hate the idea of wifely submission can’t come up with a semi-compelling argument against it. If Joel and Kathy could find a good argument, they would quote it. Likewise Sheila Gregoire and Dr. Mohler. Instead they write the most incredibly foolish things in an effort to get around it, and they just look dumb. If there is an argument against submission that even sounds good on the surface, I have yet to come across it. This is very telling.
The game changers are no fault divorce with cash and prizes, and child support.
I was surprised at how viscerally she reacted to Empath’s “rubbing circles on his back” quote, or at least how specifically she was repelled by a woman ever rubbing circles on her husband’s back.
It is truly a disgusting gesture from a wife to her husband.
Its pity and encouragement and smugness and motherliness
The encouragement part is there only in the sense that she hopes that what people see from it. It is not there in actuality. It is more of a gesture of superiority/”I told you so”. If there is any encouragement, it is the lowest feeling on the totem pole.
Condescending encouragement? Maybe thats better
@infowarrior1
True, one way or another you will be accused of being as I wrote here a “perverted wife raping bastard” if you don’t condemn the Scripture. All you can do is know it ahead of time and make peace with it. It also doesn’t hurt if your wife looks at you with a gleam in her eye, especially if she does so while you are confidently explaining the Scripture to others.
Edit: One other tack is to focus on the frame, since there is no intellectual argument here*. They are framing you as a wife raping bastard in an attempt to get you to renounce the Scripture. Without being drawn into such a nonsensical argument reframe for what it is, them being a feminist (male or female) who is ashamed of and at war with the Bible.
*This can be difficult to identify in the heat of the moment. If you don’t identify this, you will be drawn into an intellectual argument about why you aren’t a perverted wife raping bastard, and they have checkmated you by drawing you into this ridiculous frame. Respond to logical arguments with logic, and to cheap reframes by imposing your own frame. They won’t be used to this so it will come as a huge shock.
re: back circles (after some thought, since I haven’t witnessed this)
It’s also intrusive. If he is praying, either get down there and pray with him, or just sit quietly and leave him alone with the Lord. Sheesh! It’s like she’s thinking “Thou shalt have no gods before me” (subconsciously of course, but that’s the message and that’s why people here are reacting with visceral repulsion to it).
So what sort of torture is approved to in the quest to “cause enough pain” to create an opening for God to make a better wife (for her own good, of course)?
I do not know verse like many here. What is the exact verse about a woman not withholding sex?
I ask because if she is called to not say “no” then technically there cannot be rape. If I remember correctly, it is not that a man can demand sex whenever he wished, it is that a woman should grant him access, right? If this is the case, there can be no demand and therefore, no rape. Is my thinking correct on this?
Just saw your link, Dalrock. Should have gone there first.
I assume you are being sarcastic that the man being grinded down is a good thing, correct?
[D: Not sarcasm, I’m simply explaining the plot/message of the movie and the divorce fantasy genre in general. If you are asking if I agree with the messages of Fireproof, EPL, & Joel and Kathy, then the answer is very much no.]
No. The opposite of this is that a woman has a right to use violence to compel her husband to support her. Both things sought without consent are the realization of an imperfect right by force. An imperfect right is a right one has, morally, but which cannot be realized in the real world consistently. For example, children have an imperfect right to a stable two person household.
Now if one spouse makes the household incapable of functioning, the other spouse should have a right to seek legal redress. For example, in your scenario eventually the husband ought to be able to seek a civil divorce with cause which should ideally deny her a stake in the assets and limit custody of the children due to her malfeasance.
@ Mike T
LOL
Modern Christianity is suffused with moral relativism. Ergo, the movie IS about Christian marriage – modern Christian marriage where the Bible is used as a tool for rationalizing sin, not as a guide or symbol of divine knowledge.
Your points talk a lot more about the state of Christianity than the role of Christianity in the movie. The definition of the Christianity you attempt to hold the movie to is a dying one that is rarely taught and even more rarely adhered to in the modern age.
Not trying to be depressing, just stating the truth. Welcome to 2013.
Re: rubbing circles, it strikes me as a public display of “look at how compassionate I am being to this poor, pathetic man.”
Also, I agree with Anonymous Reader that Fireproof really looks like a large scale fitness test and should be responded to as a fitness test. Societies and groups take on lives of their own as institutions. It seems reasonable to expect feminized Christianity to fitness test, even though the movie itself was produced by men: in general we should expect female-driven institutions to behave in a characteristically female manner.
The men in question are usually not praying when the circles are rubbed. They are slumped forward, defeated by yet another step up message, framed of course as you CAN do it men, just follow these godly steps.
Re: spousal rape, I second what Mike T said. It is possible at one and the same time for the wife to be obligated to provide sex for her husband and for it to be morally wrong for him to force her.
Zippy,
I fully agree with that. There are times that a wife will have to say no. Medical reasons, for example. But in the reading itself, force is never implied. The call for husbands to love their wives should biblically cover circumstances where the wife must say no. I’m not trying to say that a husband cannot technically force his wife. Biblically speaking though, there is no mention of the word “demand” anywhere.
If I just moved the goal posts, that was not my intention. I just don’t get where this demand or force comes in anywhere in the reading of 1 Cor 7:5.
taterearl wrote:
In addition to marital rape, there is also marital chastity as a possible end result for a man who marries a a formerly slutty woman. Here is first hand testimony from a converted woman who had been a carouseler (she know refers to it as “allowing men to use her sexually”) who married and now finds there are lengths of time when she must withhold sex from abstain from the marital embrace with her husband. She writes of her husband:
On the one hand, it is kind of her husband to want to help her with her past issues. On the other hand, they have been married for 15 years; you would think she’d be done with needing this by now.
(Note: Much of her article is quite good, and I agree with her on many points, but this one point stood out to reinforce the issues that come down the line from past sluttery.)
I can answer where the demand or force comes from. Its simply inferred in order to then rebuke the scripture. Its not there. See Dalrocks comment above about how the arguments go. It necessarily has to be there in order to establish “no” as a unilateral permitted response to sexual overture from husband. At the very least it must be made conditional.
That a man marries for access to sex, morally, is offensive and must be ratcheted back to it being so called icing on the cake of marriage, not part of the actual batter
“The game changers are no fault divorce with cash and prizes, and child support.”
Nope…side effect of the disease. Without artificial birth control…the utopia of feminist doctrine doesn’t exist and the immoral deeds women do is reduced a ton.
Think how many cocks she would attempt to ride on if she didn’t have the luxury of artificial birth control. At the very least she’d know she’s at higher risk to get pregnant.
empathologism:
The men in question are usually not praying when the circles are rubbed. They are slumped forward, defeated by yet another step up message, framed of course as you CAN do it men, just follow these godly steps.
It is astounding to me the extent to which modern men give credence to the opinions of the Oprah brigade about what it is to be a man. I don’t understand what makes the Slumped and Circled Men even care what preachers think about manliness.
You fellas know that in some ways guys like me don’t “get it” (though I’m trying). But I wonder if there isn’t some value for you in my “old school” perspective on (since I’m RC) priests. Priests are there to bring the Sacraments to the faithful and to preach on matters where the Church has a special charism: faith and morals. The idea that a priest has any special insight on manliness qua priest though is completely alien to my perspective. A priest lecturing me on manliness is most likely going to make me laugh: I am no more likely to accept his opinion qua priest on manliness than I am to accept his opinion on quantum mechanics. Until he demonstrates competence in the subject there is nothing special about his opinions.
Oy, marital chastity….I suppose to PROVE his undying lerve he must carry that cross for her.
In this vein, after watching comments at CF for years I came to the conclusion that every single Christian woman was sexually abused as a child or teen and was in recovery and needed hubby to just lay low and understand and not rush her. NO emphasis on recovery for recovery sake and for the benefit of the union, no sir, wallow in the (alleged) pain to keep him and arms and legs length
I am to accept his opinion on quantum mechanics
Hey hey hey, the Presb. preacher who married us had a copy of Quasar Quasar Burning Bright right there on his shelf in the office!
I believe the bible verse taken out of context about martial chastity is 1 Corinthians 7:5.
However there is the part in the end where you come back together…otherwise Satan will lure the man with porn and willing subordinates and the woman with divorce and alpha cocks.
In fact 1 Corinthians 7 has a lot of powerful stuff…such as the wife’s body is the husband’s and the husband’s body is the wife. Sorry ladies…the “my body my choice” doesn’t fly here.
However there is the part in the end where you come back together……………
Hallway sex, you know the joke
sunshinemary:
In addition to marital rape, there is also marital chastity as a possible end result …
As a very minor point, chastity isn’t the right word here. Continence or abstinence would work. Chastity doesn’t mean no sex: it means morally good sexual behavior (which sometimes implies abstinence).
Another commonly misused word is celibacy, which simply means remaining unmarried.
@ empathologism,
I can answer where the demand or force comes from. Its simply inferred in order to then rebuke the scripture. Its not there.
Thank you. That is what I was grasping at. Logically speaking it shouldn’t be an issue because it’s not there. It is created to distract from something not liked.
I just wrote a new post on just this topic.
There is a reason for that. If they don’t have an excuse, then they have to admit: ok, all that premarital sex I had? I did it because I wanted it. It was fun to sleep with a bunch of guys and it felt good. To say that is to admit that one was a voluntary slut. To reframe it as an abuse response makes it “not her fault” that she slept around. The abuse clause is also an oft-used “get out of icky marital sex with one’s beta husband” card.
@Stingray:
I’m far from a Bible scholar, so perhaps others know of other verses, but the one I see most commonly cited with regards to marital sex is 1 Corinthians 7:1-6 (Here). More specifically lines 3-5, but I included the whole paragraph for context.
As I understand it, the admonition (from Paul) is that marriage is purposed to prevent sexual sin from occurring, and if you can’t stand to be celibate, you should marry. Therefore, since the (or a) major purpose of marriage is to prevent sexual sin, BOTH parties are to yield to one another’s sexual needs to prevent temptation due to lack of self-control (which occurs when needs are not met). Since each spouse’s body belongs to the other, then, as another commenter pointed out, marital “rape” from a Biblical frame means raping one’s own self – which is just mind-bending.
@Sunshinemary
Yes. She has sex when it is forbidden and denies sex when denying it is forbidden, and both acts of rebellion on her part make her a victim. I saw an example of this by a commenter on Sheila’s blog recently. I’m still working on that post so I’ll hold off on the link, but it is really amazing how common this line of thought is among sluts Christian men “manned up” and married.
Yup: Manning up (@The United Church Observer)
I’ve never seen a wife doing the circle rubbing thing to her husband, but I did see a mom doing it to her son once. In that case, she seemed to be trying to soothe him, probably to keep him from getting bored and causing trouble. That was creepy enough; I can’t imagine seeing what people are describing here in my own church.
The dearth of masculine priests in the last generation has been a tragedy. I didn’t meet many until I was nearly 40 and went hardcore traditional. They are out there, though, especially in the traditional orders, and they tend to be very good on this topic (and many others). In addition to their theology and philosophy training, they get a constant dose of reality in the confessional (where modernist priests don’t spend much time anymore). There’s no way you could hear confessions every day and maintain blue-pill fantasies about the world.
Cail Corishev:
The dearth of masculine priests in the last generation has been a tragedy.
True enough (the rest of your comment too). But to clarify, I wasn’t criticizing the masculinity of priests (or at least not as set apart from everyone else). I was just suggesting that I don’t consider (and don’t know why anyone would consider) a priest to be in any special position to pass judgement on another man’s manliness. I gather from this discussion that a lot of this “man up” stuff goes on from the pulpit in some Protestant confessions, resulting in the hunched over posture and wife circle-rubbing ritual.
What I don’t get is why men are making the opinions of pastors/preachers as such the measure of manliness. The Church has no special charism for discerning what is true about quantum physics either.
Your analogy is flawed, though, because a priest should know something about masculine virtues like fortitude and courage — not only so that he can counsel men, but also because they’re critical to his own vocation as a priest. Unlike quantum physics, the Church, via both Scripture and Tradition, does have specific things to say about the proper roles of men and women, marriage, the home, and so on. I’m not saying we should make any random priest’s opinions “the measure of manliness.” But if a priest is solidly orthodox on other topics, I’d expect him to have something useful to say about this one.
I can’t say I’ve seen this “man up” stuff in Catholic parishes, even modernist ones, to the extent that people are talking about here, so you’re probably right that it’s a Protestant/non-denominational thing. But I have seen plenty of the feminine imperative from Catholic pulpits: Mother’s Day sermons about the inherent wonderfulness of women, for instance, stacked up against Father’s Day exhortations for men to be more responsible. (Nothing wrong with the latter; it’s the difference between the two that’s interesting.) I’ve heard the “Mary was a single/homeless mother” sermon (a total lie) more than once, and listened to priests insist on awkwardly opening every prayer with “My dear sisters and brothers” as if reversing the order of the words is necessary to correct some ancient wrong.
We may not have it as bad, or have the sillier manifestations of it, but we’re certainly infected.
Cail Corishev:
Well, I agree that priests – like all men – should be manly. I just have no expectation that they will be better at it, or have better advice on it, or have any more credibility in a “man up” speech, than any random collection of men. I don’t understand why we should expect from priests what ought to be supplied by fathers, uncles, neighbors, etc.
The Church has certain special charisms. Teaching manliness to young men and passing judgment on who is and isn’t acting like a man isn’t one of them.
You fellas know that in some ways guys like me don’t “get it” (though I’m trying). But I wonder if there isn’t some value for you in my “old school” perspective on (since I’m RC) priests. Priests are there to bring the Sacraments to the faithful and to preach on matters where the Church has a special charism: faith and morals. The idea that a priest has any special insight on manliness qua priest though is completely alien to my perspective.
Unfortunately true in the contemporary American Catholic Church.
While we are talking (writing?) about wrongly giving and withholding sex, I thought that this link
http://passionwithinmarriage.blogspot.co.uk/2008_02_01_archive.html
especially reading the “about me” green column on the right explains how a woman can rationalise sin to think that she is the better Christina in the couple.
The fact that some folks see church as ‘Sunday morning nightclub’ for picking up women for sex, and that there are so many men around whose wives are being asexual within the marriage suggests to me that too often we Christians teach what is contrary to Scripture and often fail to ensure that our churches teach what is Scriptural.
Sunshine Mary has given space to Joe of Jackson to illustrate what happens when a man starts teaching game to other men within the church, and how the church, without due regard for Scripture, will rally round the feminist agenda defenders against such a man. This should tell us that we need to be careful about how we do what we do, and we may need to bide our time, until we exercise careful judgement and wise questioning when our churches are selecting new pastors so that we can be sure that the church selects a man who accepts and teaches the whole of Scripture, and not just the easy parts that conform to the spirit of the age.
SunshineMary, Dalrock:
I can’t resist turning the hamsterlator on the passage SSM linked to.
“In my own marriage, my husband and I have had to work through major trust issues stemming from the years I allowed myself to be used sexually by men. When we were married, my husband promised to love me unconditionally. But with my history, it was hard to believe him. During the early years, I frequently misinterpreted his physical affection for manipulation; I’d stiffen each time he hugged me because I suspected he was just trying to use affection to get sex, as all the other men had.”
Hamsterlation: For years I didn’t trust my husband because I screwed a bunch of other men before I met him. Those men deposited their genetic material on or in me and I absolutely loved, loved, LOVED it. My husband loves me unconditionally which means he has to love me despite the fact that I showed him the ultimate disrespect by giving it up to every Tom, Dick and Harry who presented himself to me. Since every other guy just wanted my body I figured my husband was the same way, so I continually refused him.
“Over the years, my husband has accepted that I have a fear of being used and he works hard to assure me his motives are loving. He’s still affectionate during the fertile time when we’re trying to avoid pregnancy. He abstains without complaint (and with much humor) when necessary. He cares for our children so I can have time to myself, and still calls me his bride after nearly 15 years of marriage. He prays for me. He knows my interior struggle to trust, so he often sacrifices for me in very tangible, visible ways so that I can see that his love not self-serving, but truly is unconditional and for me as a person.”
Hamsterlation: I’ve worked hard to train my husband to submit to me and accept the fact that he’ll just have to take whatever dribs and drabs of sex I’m willing to give him. He’s a good little monkey who knows his sexual urges are bad and malevolent, and they need to be reined in. He does whatever I demand. When I say “jump”, he jumps, because he knows that’s what he’s gotta do so I’ll let him stick it in me.
“For my part, I’ve learned to remind myself that his motives are good when he reaches for me. I have to practice charity with my husband and deliberately choose to replace those fearful voices in my head with the truth. I’ve also made it a habit to ask the Holy Spirit to be with us during the marital embrace. Years of such practices have helped me to be able to offer the gift of myself to my husband joyfully, without the nagging fear of being used that haunted me early in our marriage.”
Hamsterlation: I’ve learned to grit my teeth, lie back and think of England when he jackhammers on me. I know he’s a knuckle dragging Neanderthal who just HAS to have sex, so as long as he pays my bills, I’m good with it. I’ve learned to replace those nagging voices of “you’ve had better sex with hotter men” and “you settled” with “This is for the good of my husband and children” and “I’ll do it even though I don’t love him and am not attracted to him”. I’ve had years of practice in this and I’m pretty good at convincing him I haven’t completely ruined myself for sex with just one man.
“It wasn’t the times we were together that were most healing for me, it was the times we weren’t. Seeing my husband abstain from something he treasured (being with me physically) for the good of our family and my health is what reinforced most deeply the truth about his love for me. His willingness to embrace the cross of abstinence for my benefit enabled me to bury the painful mistrust born of promiscuity.”
Hamsterlation: God, I am so glad for the times he leaves me alone and he can’t pester me for sex. I’m damaged goods, and there are times I just can’t do it. I’ve got him trained so well. He was so willing not to have sex for me, he can’t see how my being so f*cked up has f*cked him up too. He’s so willing to abstain, he’s willing to take on my issues and make them part of his marriage.
See, the problem isn’t that I completely f*cked up my life and now have to spend years fixing the damage. No, the problem is my husband’s sex drive and his wanting to have sex. Well, we got that fixed, didn’t we!?
I particularily balked, when I read it, at the passive-aggressive ‘allowing myself to be used by men’. Oh come off it! – she is the one who has been using and abusing guys – it is always easier for women to obtain sexual favours than for men to do so – yet even in her public confession she is less than frank and shifts the blame to men, whilst humiliating her husband, when what she really means is that regrettably she is no longer young enough to shag every guy who takes her fancy and her husband does not turn her on but finances her: excellent hamsterlation!
I always love it when ladies come here to boast/abase themselves; such as the recent commentor whose name I forget and whose contribtution I strangely can no longer locate, but who was explaining about her perfect relationship with a perfect man and her perfect sex-life (you were supposed to understand that you were all a bunch of losers) and yet somehow their joint finances made it impossible for them to marry. Balloney! I suspect a hamsterlation would reveal without much doubt that she is looking for another guy because we know that if she found the some alpha-cad who turned her on, common-sense over finances would be out of the window – or else he was merely some fly-by-night friend-with-benefit.
[Presently listening live to ‘Live from The Met’- two nations separated merely by a radio link.]
‘allowing myself to be used by men’.
I was going to say before: I wish promiscuous women, and formerly promiscuous women, would own their prior behavior and admit to it instead of half ass mealymouthing around about it.
No, you didn’t “allow yourself to be used by men”. Just once I’d like to see one of these women fess up to it and say:
“I had sex with a string of men who turned me on and tingled me so hard I couldn’t stand it. I did it because I could, because they were available, because it was fun and felt good. because there were no strings attached and no judgment accompanying it, because I didn’t have to commit myself or anything else to an unwanted “relationship”, and BECAUSE I WANTED TO.”
@ deti – women admit to that among friends.
T:
The reason they don’t admit it to the world at large, even though it’s the unadulterated truth, is because they know it will submit them to judgment they don’t like, because they know it will make them look like sluts to other men, and because THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG.
@Deti
I was going to hold off on linking to this but changed my mind. Similar to the woman SSM linked to above, check out Sarah at Sheila Gregoire’s site. She refers multiple times to her “past” and how she loathes sex with her husband. But the frame isn’t repentance, understanding that she has chosen to push the entire cost of her previous sexual sin onto her husband. Her frame is that she is a victim, and that he will bear her poor treatment of him no matter how willful if he is an honorable man. I’ll include links with the excerpts so you can read the whole thing, but here it is in a nutshell, starting with this comment. All emphasis mine:
Then some excerpts from this comment:
But really, what is the problem?
Being cruel to your husband is funny, especially when you consider how much he wants what you are denying! Commenter Jenny points out:
Sheila agrees, but then is careful to explain that she doesn’t want Sarah to feel any more guilt than she already does:
Here it comes. They called her out on her outrageous actions, no matter how carefully. This must not be. We must all remember that Sarah is the victim, and that her husband wants icky sex:
Sheila being Sheila, the answer is not for Sarah to repent from her choice to have sex when it was forbidden, and to refuse sex when refusing is forbidden. The answer is not to accept her massive culpability in making something holy into something she finds disgusting (that would add more layers of guilt). The answer is more “relationship” mumbo jumbo (if only the Apostle Paul understood, he could have explained it himself):
@deti – “The reason they don’t admit it to the world at large, even though it’s the unadulterated truth, is because they know it will submit them to judgment they don’t like, because they know it will make them look like sluts to other men, and because THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG.”
I’m not sure that they know its wrong. Many of them will argue that it is right and that they are sexually free, empowered, or something like that. But you are spot on about the fear of judgement. The most surprising part of the story for me was that she told her husband about it instead of lying about her past. I recently asked a friend how sexually free and empowered can she really be if she can’t be honest about who she is and what she’s done with her fiancé.
It is always “not her fault”. It is always the fault of some man who mistreated her, and that is why she turned into a royal slut and is also why she is now frigid. I wrote about this awhile back, too. The huge problem with this line of thought is that the woman never truly repents of her sin. She can’t be a proper wife if she is clinging to her past filthy rags instead of allowing Christ to transform her. If single, she also must admit that she might never be able to be a proper wife and she should consider not marrying as the consequences for her past sin, even though she is now not condemned to death if she has accepted Christ’s forgiveness.
Are you still going to post about this, Dalrock? This is a massive problem I think, and we are observing just the tip of an iceberg. Men should be aware of this before they marry formerly slutty women, despite all the man-up rants. I don’t believe Sarah’s husband knew what he was signing on for. Slutty women can be truly converted and repentant, I think, and perhaps become a proper wife. Dalrock, how would a man go about assessing that? If he wanted to marry a Christian non-virgin, would you (or a reader) be able to advise him on what to consider carefully first? I think you would be doing still-single men a favor. For the ones who are now married to frigid sluts, sadly all we can do is pray for them.
Dalrock:
I haven’t read this yet. But you had said you were going to make a post out of ths. I hope you will so it will garner the attention it deserves. I think it’s an important point to make particularly regarding a woman’s withholding sex, how it is a sin against her husband.
And also, this ties in with my trading comments with you about a year ago that a woman’s premarital promiscuity can unnaturally increase her needs for alpha; and will make unattractive to her the men who are willing to marry her.
She’s caught in a dilemma: she is attracted to the men who will sex her but won’t marry her. At the same time, she is hopelessly unattracted to the men who would be willing to marry her, and she’s rendered herself unable to be attracted to those men.
T wrote:
What rot. Christian women never admit to it. I’ve participated in enough ladies’ Bible studies by now to know. It’s never her fault.
I listened to a young woman in a prayer group once tell how she had become a Christian and gotten engaged to a Christian man. They decided to remain abstinent before marriage (and rightly so) even though neither of them was a virgin. But oh dear, she ended up sleeping with a hot guy from work, and once she got married she felt so guilty about it that she could not achieve orgasm with her new husband. So we were supposed to pray for her to be released from that guilt (’cause now there’s no condemnation in Christ Jesus!) so she could, you know, be satisfied by the man she had married and now found to be not so thrilling in bed as the hot colleague. And people prayed for her. I had only been a Christian for about a year at that time, but I sat there feeling like hey, something is not quite right with this picture.
SSM:
“Slutty women can be truly converted and repentant, I think, and perhaps become a proper wife. Dalrock, how would a man go about assessing that? If he wanted to marry a Christian non-virgin, would you (or a reader) be able to advise him on what to consider carefully first?”
1. Make sure she’s worked through her baggage first.
2. Is she truly reformed, or “reformed”? Is her Christian faith true? Is she walking the walk and not just talking the talk?
3. Proceed with a lot of caution. Sexually experienced women tend to need more alpha to be or feel attracted. Can he pull this off?
4. The man needs to make sure that she is physically and sexually attracted to him.
5. She needs to lay out her entire sexual history for him. All of it. He needs to ask the hard questions: STDs? Prior marriages? Prior pregnancies ending in miscarriage or abortion? Her sex partner count? Name names.
6. Google her name and see what he comes up with. In today’s day and age, potential dates and marriage partners need to be investigated a bit. NEXT her if she’s got a bunch of self-shots.
7. Women with extensive sexual histories, STDs or abortions can have fertility problems. The man should consider this if he wants kids.
8. There is one study showing a correlation between a woman’s premarital N and odds of divorce. Thus, statistically, she is a higher divorce risk.
9. He absolutely needs to make clear he will not tolerate one ounce of shit from her. Any acts of dishonesty or disrespect will be IMMEDIATELY confronted, corrected and shut down.
10. He will have to make her qualify herself HARD. He will have to insist on her showing him that she has truly changed, she is willing to be faithful and sexually available, and she has what it takes to be those things.
Frankly, most men will look at the high N woman and simply say “Nope. Too difficult, too hard, not worth the hassle, return too low for necessary investment outlay.” That’s why chastity behooves a woman.
@SSM:
I thought about this previously, the only way I could come up with a solid, systematic way would be something like a “Sexual History Audit”. You’d need names, dates, locations. Every. Single. Detail. Then you check with her friends about who they’d seen her with. Check with her family about who she was “dating”. I’d go even so far as to, lightly, bring up the topic with co-workers.
You’d need every gory detail. And she would have to lay them all out. No flinching. No reframing. No quarter on the details. And if it gets past 3, it’s “out the door!”, sadly.
Only real way I could come up with a way to deal with it. Aside from it requiring you to establish a completely firm frame on the issue.
Looking Glass:
I think you’re right. I think you would have to make her sit down and take that audit from her. All the details. ALL of them. Then you check with her friends. Then you Google her.
SSM:
I forgot:
11. He should look for what her view of her past is. He doesn’t ask this directly; he notices signs of how she treats her past and what her relationship to it is. Does she feel a vague sense of pride or lack of humility about it? What does she say about it? How does she dress, who does she associate with?
— She says: “I don’t regret it. It made me the person I am today. I had a lot of fun then, but I’m ready to move on now.”
— She keeps in touch with old flames or BFs in any way — even through facebook.
— She hangs out with her old friends from her slut days, and reminisces about “the good times”.
— She talks a lot about one BF in particular who was a total and complete asshole. (This is the BF she was totally in love with and who sexed her up just right. this is a telltale sign that she is still pining for him.)
— every single one of her old BFs was an asshole, No man has ever treated her right. (this is a sign of a woman with very high expectations for a man. She also has a poor track record of making relationships work.)
— She talks frequently about past sexual experiences.
— She confesses to fantasizing about past sexual experiences or creating fictional ones to fantasize about.
On the other hand:
— She expresses remorse and regret over her past sex life.
–she never keeps in touch with old BFs.
— she’s moved on from her slut friends from the old days.
— She never talks of old BFs.
The incentive for her to lie would be enormous. Asking about partner counts could get dicey that way. That’s why I was wondering about other indicators – some of which I see in the list you made, Deti, so thanks for that. I’m going to wait a few days to see if Dalrock is going to post on this, since he’ll do a superior job if he does. If he doesn’t, I’m going to turn this into some sort of little post at my place at least to give men the chance to warn and advise single Christian men.
There is something very “through the looking glass” about a “reformed” slut saying that she “allowed men to user her sexually”, as if she were just a passive agent who failed to defend herself from those bad men.
For men violence is relatively easy. For women getting sex is relatively easy. There must be a way to unpack the idea that cowardice is to men what sluttiness is to women a bit in this context. A now-frigid former carousel rider who blames her state on those bad men who she allowed to use her is like a cowardly man who was literally beaten up by women for a decade or two blaming those mean women for his constant sniveling bad temper. Or something. There is an analogy at the edge of thought there that I can’t get to gel.
But in any case her refusal to take responsibility is as unfeminine and cringeworthy as a man physically groveling in front of a bunch of women is unmasculine and cringeworthy. Someone should rub circles on her back.
SSM:
These are the types of women a man should just simply avoid for LTR or marriage:
1. Any woman more than 2 years older than he is.
2. Any woman over 30.
3. Any woman with more than 10 prior sex partners.
4. Any woman who has ever been treated for any kind of addiction.
5. Any woman who has ever been treated for a mental condition.
6. Any woman who has ever in her life had any kind of sexually transmitted disease.
7. Any woman who has ever had an abortion.
8. Any woman who cannot or will not get her weight under control.
9. Any woman with a living child by another man, unless she is a widow.
These are the kinds of men a woman should just simply avoid for LTR or marriage:
1. Any man more than 2 years younger than she is or more than 10 years older than she is.
2. Any man who has not held down one job for at least a year.
3. Any man who cannot support himself independently.
4. Any man who has an unhealthy relationship (or no relationship at all) with his mother.
5. Any man who has no male friends.
6. Any man who has no hobbies or interests outside of work.
7. Any man who shows chronic dishonesty about his life, his past, his work or his family.
8. Any man who cannot be alone or live alone.
9. Any man who has no mission, no goal, no plan, and no way to get or find any of them.
Deti
On the other hand:
– She expresses remorse and regret over her past sex life.
–she never keeps in touch with old BFs.
– she’s moved on from her slut friends from the old days.
– She never talks of old BFs.
Some of the twelve-step programs, such as the original Alcoholics Anonymous, used to insist that people who were truly serious about working through the program had to pull themselves away from any friend associated with their previous way of living. I once knew a man who either dropped out of college or flunked out due to seriously over the top boozing. Later ran into him, he’d moved 100 or more miles away and was living a different life, and he regretfully could not meet me for a lunch because he was staying away from every person he’d known in his “drunk phase”, in order to keep himself away from being tempted to fall off of the water wagon.
Not all alcoholics have to do that, I knew one who wasn’t bothered by other people drinking but he always checked his beverage closely to avoid any accidents. However, there are those that can’t make it work if they are around their old boozy pals.
On a previous thread last year someone asked what “Sluts Anonymous” would look like, and there was some degree of agreement that “no contact with people from the past”, with perhaps the exception of relatives, would be a key part. On the other hand, I’ve known some families where the only way to avoid any number of social ills required staying away from almost everyone else – one of my co-workers once self-described as ‘the white sheep of the family”, and pointed out how far away they all were from that job, and it was no accident.
To sum up: +1 Deti.
Dalrock, are you following this?
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-feminized-church-is-anti-christ.html
SSM:
Relevant to whether a slut is truly reformed or just “reformed”:
The slut who is not reformed:
–Says:
“I just want a nice guy who will treat me right.”
“I’ve had my fun. I want to settle down and meet a nice guy and get married.”
“I’m not like that anymore.”
“How dare you judge me!”
–is quick to defend sluts.
–decries the sexual double standard, i.e. “Hmmpf. If a woman has sex with a lot of guys, she’s a slut. But if a guy has sex with a lot of women, he’s a stud. It’s not FAAAAAIIRRR.”
–shows an abrupt change in her taste of men. In the past she dated meathead jocks, players, gym rats, the guitar player in the local shitty garage band, the cool dude with the motorcycle; the fratboy dickheads. You know: She used to date Alpha McGorgeous, Harley McBadboy, and/or F*ckbuddy Rockbanddrummer. But now that she’s looking to get married, she’s decided that she’s really attracted to nebbish, pudgy accountants. This is a HUGE tell.
–still dresses like a slut. Is immodest and garish.
So those two criteria alone disqualify over half of all single women, for marriage. So be it. This means that most single men should not marry.
Earlier Dalrock expressed sadness that so many men are not going to be able to marry. I was tempted to respond to that, just as I’m tempted to respond now.
I think there is misunderstanding about men who don’t end up marrying, among those men who do. Each group simultaneously pities the other based upon their own narrow viewpoint.
For me, I feel no loss that I won’t get the opportunity to tie myself down. I know I’m not alone. The odd thing is, if my life had gone differently, I am pretty sure I would be in the position of the married men here, feeling like those on the other side were missing out on something.
I almost suspect men are modular in that regard. We may be built, biologically, with a series of “if a then b” switches. If most women are sluts, then activate bachelor mode and don’t get too deeply involved.
In any case, this is a first rate discussion and I don’t want to shift the topic.
[D: I can respect that, and shared my own perspective on what you are referring to here. This analogy then took on a life of its own<.htma>. This is separate from the issue of sexual morality of course.]
Hi deti:
shows an abrupt change in her taste of men. In the past she dated meathead jocks, players, gym rats, the guitar player in the local shitty garage band, the cool dude with the motorcycle; the fratboy dickheads. You know: She used to date Alpha McGorgeous, Harley McBadboy, and/or F*ckbuddy Rockbanddrummer. But now that she’s looking to get married, she’s decided that she’s really attracted to nebbish, pudgy accountants. This is a HUGE tell.
I think most of your comments are priceless and most here would be wise to read them carefully. This one is a bit ambiguous though.
The way to reform your life and truly change, internally, is to do exactly this. Quit hooking up with Harley and Rockbanddrummer, and go find some dude with a business degree and poor judgment.
In this case, I think the tell would be if she were still dating Harley and Rocky, but seeing Accountant dweeb on saturday night without letting him know what she was doing the rest of the week. If she abruptly changes her taste of men, it could be symptomatic of an authentic change and a desire to improve herself. It takes a lot to change your social network, and I don’t think anyone does it lightly.
8oxer:
I wouldn’t say you’re missing out on something. I think you’ll find a sentiment from a lot of married men that if they had it to do over again, they’d do things a lot differently. You’ll see that from many married men in the manosphere. Marriage, and sex in marriage, can be absolutely beautiful and holy — but if you don’t meet a woman capable of giving that to you, then it’s better not to marry.
TFH:
Women are absolutely not capable of taking responsibility for their own actions.
This looks like an AWALT claim. If it is, it follows that NAWALT is a valid counterclaim rather than a red herring against valid generalities. I mean, what’s a guy to believe: a blog commenter or his lying eyes?
“If she abruptly changes her taste of men, it could be symptomatic of an authentic change and a desire to improve herself. It takes a lot to change your social network, and I don’t think anyone does it lightly.”
Yes. The issue is: is it a real change because she truly wants a better life for herself? Or is it a self-serving one for the purpose of locking down a beta provider because time’s running out and she doesn’t want to be the only one without a husband, thus consigning her to a life of cougardom and working at her shitty job?
One of the things that shocks me, is that when I was growing up, no one, whether parent or teacher or wise elder-uncle type, ever advised me of those things that one ought to consider when even considering dating a female. In their defence I have to say, that that was probably because in their day no problem was likely to occur. Most people married young, to a girl of their own social class, and from their locality. There simply was not the opportunity for a girl to rack-up a high N count or the STDs or abortions to go with it, but if they did their reputation would go before them. Times, however, were a-changing and so I spent many years drifting from one unsatisfactory female to the next and without having the focus to see exactly where things were going wrong, which problem was of course compounded by high testosterone (and lets hope, high desirability) – one learned by expereince; lots of it.
Deti’s checklist, even if it should only be a mental check-list, is what I should have borne in mind and had I done so, I would have avoided all sorts of females who should have been off the radar. Ones mates of course are no help whatsoever, partly because they are just as lost and usually white-knight mercilessly. This is my observation, that: in the main, sluts are unreformable, and it is not your responsibilty as a man to accept the task of doing so. The slutting in any case usually hides far more serious problems usually of the Daddy-type. Likewise divorcees, although often with that bit more savoir-faire than single girls, should nevertheless – especially those with children – be completely avoided. The divorce may not be their fault, but again it is not your responsibilty. Some women are prone to violence: drop them instantly. So am I saying that one should only pursue virgins? Well, actually no, because the thirty-year-old virgin who is not promiscuous, or riven with the STDs is just as likely to be a prick-tease, and if she is like that before marriage you have no reason to suppose she will change afterwards. If she has done it once, she will do it again. She is not single by accident. One has to make a judgement because the perfect woman is as unlikely as the perfect man.
This, I think is in an ideal world what a man should aim for: a woman who seems right to him (taking, if one can, the pussy out of the equation – if in the slightest doubt, don’t ) though there is no one right woman, who probably never married or even cohabited, who is without STDs, Abortions, or Children. She should have a job but not be a ‘corporate bitch’. The man should probably be in his late twenties, the woman a few years younger – young enough to be young but old enough not to jump at the first guy who impresses her. If the guy is older, and the woman is too, watch out for baby-rabies, although that may be a sign of coming maturity; and especially watch for the aging cougar who feels that you can fill that gap in her life. Consider her friends: does she hang out with the guys too much? Are her female friends the sort of people you can approve of or are they the posse from hell? What are her parents like? I find that if I take to the girls mother (and vice-versa) this is a good sign. There is no one right answer but these are merely general guidelines. No one is under a responsibility to marry. You are or should be a catch, so don’t undersell yourself and never, never, take a woman’s tears for truth. She will surely by-the-by reveal any unpleasent little secrets so you don’t need to be the Spanish Inquisition for as SSM says she will only lie – lull her into a false sense of security.
Dalrock:
My thoughts and observations on the exchanges you summarized and quoted at Sheila Gregoire’s site:
1. I can’t tell fully what’s going on with Sarah. But has her own site in which she notes she was born in 1978, making her now 34. Sarah met her husband in 2000 during her last year of college; they eloped on January 1, 2001 when she was 22 or 23. She says she miscarried her first child in 2001 which suggests she was pregnant when they married or got pregnant soon after.
2. She refers to her “past” vaguely including her husband’s desire to engage in sexual activities which remind her of her past when she wasn’t a Christian. This suggests premarital sexual history, and a warped view of what it means to engage in married sex as a Christian. Perhaps she doesn’t know “the marriage bed is undefiled”.
3. Sarah sounds a lot like she’s just not attracted to her husband. Could have to do with both of them being overweight.
4. Sarah doesn’t want to get better or change. She’s obese and fine with it. She doesn’t like sex (though she’s OK with it for procreation) and is fine with it. She insists that her husband simply accept it. Sarah is defensive when confronted with her sin and demands that she not be judged. She refuses to engage in any self-critical analysis.
5. Sheila doesn’t want to make anyone feeeeel bad. She mealymouths around and tells her to “work with him” on it.
This last point is most important. It’s endemic of sites operated by women, really. A woman comes for advice. A commenter gives her some truth. The bloghostess steps in and calms everything down. The truth-giving commenter is shut down. The hostess can’t get down to the basic truth; but instead gives the Sarahs of the world some watered-down advice that isn’t helpful and doesn’t get all the way to the bottom of the issue.
Too bad, really.
Re: why fatness is less of an attraction killer for women than men.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoutStrength
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Acrofatic
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBeautifulMan
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HugeGuyTinyGirl
My favorite example: a buddy of mine had a wife who flirt*ed* (emphasis necessary) with every guy in sight until he began to powerlift. He’s still fat and he’ll never have a waist under 36″, but his ability to literally lift her one-handed over his head has done plenty to tame her overt hypergamy.
Game practitioners say the same thing: if you can’t be buff, be fit and fun (if your fitness leads to outsized strength or unexpected speed/agility/deftness, all the better.) Never underestimate the tingle-generating ability of dwarfing a woman.
@fascinated-this is the reason why overweight men are treated with less disgust than overweight women. No matter which part of the planet you’re currently on, you’re far more likely to meet a big guy who can keep up with his smaller counterparts than the female equivalent. This is whether you’re talking about athletics, physical labour or *fun* (compare the stamina levels between a fat guy on Saturday night versus a fat girl. Unless the girl is question is a trained professional, she isn’t going to be able to keep up with the bigger guy who just wants to have fun.) Barring the stereotypical “Cheetos and Mountain Dew” basement dweller, its pretty rare to meet fat guys who are less physically capable than fat girls. Or, you could just watch a season of “The Biggest Loser” and compare male-female results.
TFH:
Are you actually saying [that many] women [whom I know personally] honorably volunteer to take responsibility for their actions?
Yes.
It is a weakness of (some) manosphere discourse that a great deal of what various parties claim is contrary to the personal experience of some readers. That is fine as long as NAWALT cuts both ways: personal experience is a poor guide to overall social trends.
I’m far more tolerant to the incongruence (among other things) than most men. So I’ve willingly engaged the manosphere and taken its concerns seriously.
If so, where is even the *small* group of women protesting the preposterously unfair anti-male laws, ranging from due process for DV accusations to child custody rights?
What does that have to do with taking personal responsibility for one’s personal actions?
@Deti & Opus, you both had some pretty good stuff about selecting a spouse, information that I wish I’d had before I met my ex. It’s good stuff, and I come round these parts for just that reason, so I am well armed as a parent in my quest to help my kids grow up and make wise choices in life and to understand the nature of the world these days versus when I was their age versus when my parents were their age.
The thing that I don’t see much of is a discussion of maturity and it’s role in successful interpersonal relationships. I see discussion of being more manly, or adopting alpha behaviors, but I get the generalized feeling that what we’re really trying to say is to grow the hell up and become a mature adult.
IDK, maybe I’ve spent too long out here in the wild of the pickup world and the MR world since my divorce. These days, I can’t imagine being the hapless beta beaten down and castrated by society.
It’s like this. I look around me at the world, at the people I run into and the people I work with and so on, and I don’t figure that I’d call more than perhaps 1/3 of them mature adults. What kind of odds are you going to get on having a successful marriage when it involves a man-child and a woman-child neither of which recognize their own immaturity?
One thing I recognize in myself is that as I’ve matured, my ability to deal with immaturity has increased. Thus, if I had come to my marriage the man I am today, there is a good chance I’d still be married. Of course, if I was then the man I am now, I wouldn’t have married her. Thus, I preceive two things at work. As maturity increases, so does the ability to deal with immaturity as does in an inverse manner the degree of willingness to get involved with immaturity.
Just some random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon.
I went over to Sheila G’s site and read some of the comments with Sarah. Next, I went to Sarah’s website and read a little. I saw she has two kids.
My summary, Sarah is SELFISH. She refuses to serve her husbands biggest marital need. She does not care that sex is important to him. She refuses to go to counseling, she refuses to take medication prescribed. She refuses to go through the motions with her husband even though that would be an improvement for him. She refuses to do things with her husband that she did with her carousel rider boys. She gives less sexually to her husband than she gave to guys who would not comitt and would not support her financially. She is too selfish to see that her husband gets the crumbs and her old boyfriends got steak.
Serving others is an important part of the christian life. Serving others involves powering through the drudgery, repetition, boredom to do meet others needs. If she served her husband sexually eventually she would recognize some benefits for herself. Physically it is true that we can, “fake it until we make it”. This principle has been validated by Dr. Amy Cudddy:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/31/body-language.aspx
@UnicornHunter,
Good point about mature adults. I can’t think of many social institutions that are teaching and encouraging young people to learn to be mature. It’s all about “wish upon a star”, “follow your heart”, “do what you love”, “find yourself”, “if it feels good do it”, “live for the weekend”, “party down”, etc.
TFH:
I think you are under the impression that I disagree with you more (or certainly in a more general sense, rather than on some very specific points) than I actually disagree with you.
Look at it this way: who are your natural allies? Men (and women) who agree with you about the horrific unnaturalness of feminism and the astonishing unfairness of misandric divorce laws. Men like me. Where are you most likely to find women who do in fact take personal responsibility for their own actions? Amongst your natural allies.
In my case I know any number of women who, absolutely without question, would throw themselves in front of a bus or do some other astonishingly selfless act for me and/or other men in the right circumstances. Their loyalty is absolute, their selflessness and honor no more in doubt than that of any man, and certainly far less than the average man. Like me they weren’t born that way: it is to some extent a matter of socialization. Lord of the Flies and all that.
Now maybe it is something about me that makes them the way they are. Maybe it is something about them that makes me the way I am. Probably some of both, and doubtless that isn’t the whole story. But telling me that my lying eyes are “blue pill” doesn’t shame me into thinking I should take the “red pill”: it makes me conclude that there are limitations to the red pill/blue pill analogy. There is nothing wrong with it having limitations. Most concepts and analogies do, and it doesn’t invalidate them to acknowledge their limitations: in fact quite the opposite.
Now, as you suggest (and as I preemptively suggested before you), anecdote isn’t a very good guide to large scale social reality. Beyond that, I don’t live in an Amish village and it is quite clear to me that the larger story — hypergamy, divorce porn, etc – has a lot of truth in it. I agree in substance with the great majority of what Dalrock writes, and only have my doubts on Game/Evo-psyche and a few other things that aren’t really the main focus of what he does here.
I’m just an audience of one, and I won’t pretend to offer marketing advice. But from my little perch in the world there is too much equivocation on NAWALT. Either NAWALT is true and what is being described is trends and statistics that individual women shouldn’t take personally, or the claim is really AWALT — and AWALT conflicts directly with the NAWALT before my lying eyes.
If the manosphere has natural allies you should expect to find them in NAWALT enclaves. So the AWALT message appears counter to the goal of bringing in natural allies. On the other hand, I do appreciate the difficulty Dalrock pointed out in his dispute with Darwin Catholic: in a concentrated enclave where there are plenty of women who aren’t like that (or weren’t like that, since we all get older and carry our experiences forward while the world changes under us) there is a tendency to extrapolate to the wider world that simply doesn’t work, or a tendency to write off the wider world since we live in the catacombs anyway.
TFH had asked:
where is even the *small* group of women protesting the preposterously unfair anti-male laws
I replied:
What does that have to do with taking personal responsibility for one’s personal actions?
TFH replied:
That you can even ask such a question is astonishing.
I don’t see why. People like me live in a world that is unremittingly hostile to most things we hold dear, our whole lives. You seem to think that any woman who takes personal responsibility for her own actions must therefore specifically be a legal men’s rights activist of some kind; therefore the (putative) absence of female MRAs means that no women exist who take responsibility for their own actions. I can’t imagine why you think such an obvious non sequitur has any traction.
If I extrapolate what you appear to be claiming here, the lack of significant MRA representation by Group X implies that nobody in Group X ever takes personal responsibility for their actions. Maybe it is just that the things that form the center of your universe don’t form the center of the universe for Group X.
Look at it this way: if you have lived in the catacombs all your life why would legal activism about Roman divorce law be a top priority for what you do with your personal time?
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And if you’ve done that and decided that you can live with her past, the next step is to prepare for the future problems that her past is sure to create. This thread is too old to get into it here, so I’ll write something on my blog about it soon, but I’ve already decided that if I get married again (at my age, it will almost certainly be to a woman with some baggage) I will have a couple of up-front requirements:
She doesn’t get a smart phone. A regular cell phone, fine, but no social media. Rollo is dead-on that that stuff is a conduit for one guy after another to offer her a good dicking. I don’t ever want to hear her phone chime and wonder if it’s some guy asking what she’s doing that night, no matter how much I trust her to decline.
Likewise, she doesn’t get a personal social media account. If we’re on Facebook, it’ll be a shared account. I used to think that couples with shared accounts were being too cute, but now I think that’s the only way to go. Again, a woman with an account of her own is a target who will be getting regular offers of dick — weekly if she’s plain, daily or hourly if she’s hot — and it doesn’t matter in the least whether her status says married.
No contact with any exes, period. No phone calls, no Christmas cards, no saved mementos (widows excepted), nothing. That’s also something I’d be monitoring during the courting/engagement, and any offenses would be the end — one strike and you’re out.
I’ve got more, but I’ll save them for later. Basically, I intend to be so demanding and condescending that the only way a woman would agree would be if she’s desperately in love with me and can’t live without me.
Cail, I like your ideas. As an “older” guy, who would like to be married (again), this site has been extremely helpful in understanding why things went south in the past. It has also helped me see the realities, and terminate some relationships early that were going to lead to trouble. Please add more to your list for “older” guys.
The only thing Fireproof lowers is the bar. That movie was nothing more then a poorly written, poorly acted, poorly paced infomercial for a questionable marriage saving system. I did a full review on my blog if anyone’s interested.
http://landsharkattacks.blogspot.com/2012/12/bechtloff-movie-night-fireproof-2008.html
OMG Dalrock! That is 2 hours of my life I will never get back! You are a mean man indeed sir! (sarc)
Cail, interesting. I just saved your site, will be looking forward to this particular post.
As an aside, my wife wants to get rid of her smart phone. Too many probs with the phone setting itself to weird parameters. Don’t forget, that smart phones have GPS and can be tracked, like this – http://www.modbee.com/2013/01/08/2523397/small-group-of-motorists-clogging.html
And now, up here in the great white north, it appears that companies will be able to send unsolicited pay texts. @ 3.95 a pop, that can add up real quick.
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A young man does an original post about Fireproof on a Finnish, closed but enormous Facebook group (almost 10 000 members, so it is practically public), called something like Young Believers. Here:
I was at our freechurch youth group a moment ago. At the end of the evening we watched a movie called Fireproof. I had seen it before, but it was so good and it had so important message, that I could watch it every day. It is worth seeing. It is a Christian movie about marital problems and how to get over them. I am not married myself and don’t even have a girlfriend, but there were good parts that you can and should apply for the betterment of your relationship with God. For example, a good advice, if you have addictions, just anything that takes you further from God, is to just kick them. It is difficult and hurts sometimes. But think about it, what do you want in your life? Do you want to hang onto something other than God, or do you really want God to be number one in your life? Without further ado, get this movie if you don’t own it already. Bless you and God be with you. Remember, we are not battling alone. Jesus is with us. Sometimes it feels like we are battling alone, but that is only because we didn’t understand to give up our battle fully to Jesus. Here was this short, combined advertising and finalizing talk or something like that.
*** Another young man replies:
Guess I’ll have to see it. You are (name of the OP) a fine man of God.
*** Original poster replies:
I’m trying my best and in Him I can do everything, for He gives me strength.
*** A young woman replies:
I have seen it numerous times and I also must point out that it is a wonderful and touching movie.
*** A divorced woman who elsewhere in the group gloated about her post-marital singleness:
Yeah, really worth watching. There was something for both, men and women, to think about their behavior.
*** Another young woman replies:
Guess I’ll have to see it after seeing this good advertising for it. My mom has given it to me when I had problems in my own relationship and I have intended to watch it, but it’s still waiting there in my bookshelf.
*** Then I come and crash the party:
It teaches that woman should always threaten divorce and get a lover when a man does not do what she wants. Then it’s the man’s responsibility to fix everything. Fireproof is like a secular movie about divorce, except that the new honeymoon is with the same man.
It is a Christian movie about marriage, but it is not a movie about Christian marriage. It manages to pass over or have backwards every instruction in the New Testament about marriage.
Fireproof is a movie about Caleb’s conversion, where the divorce filed by Catherine acts as an initiating force.
*** What comes next?
I assumed that they would try to sidestep the issue of man being responsible for everything. But they didn’t even see it. I assumed they would feel threatened by my mention of the movie having the New Testament backwards. But nobody noticed that. I assume everyone here knows how this goes.
If I had expected anything more, I would be desperate about these people now. But I didn’t.
My wife decided to divorce me. The people who have known the problems we’ve had over the years (even the believers) are mostly happy the struggle is over. I even had a pastor tell me he never really thought we matched well.
But the other Christians, who just find out about it, are driving me nuts. “You need to fight for your marriage!” Yeah, why didn’t anybody tell me that five years ago? Would have made all the different, Never once occurred to me that I should fight for my marriage, or ask God for help, or any of that…
Then I’ve had several Christians tell me to get “The Love Dare” (I have a copy) like it’s some kind of magical tool. I keep wanting to ask them “You know Fireproof was just a movie, right? And even at that, not based on a true story?”
Ain’t Churchianity wonderful?
Sorry to hear that. Now is a time to take care of yourself very carefully so that you can at least manage to have a halfway decent divorce. It’s always a terrible time, no matter what, but if you can manage to keep it together you have a better chance at managing it to not be an even more disastrous outcome for you personally.
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@Eric S. Mueller STOP trusting a pastor that has helped fuel the destruction of your family. Even if a pastor says what makes sense, they are still obligated to carry the message. State Farm sponsored MTV VMAs. State Farm sponsored MTV VMAs are complained about because of twerking? Hilarious since your pastor has a similar agreement to pitch a similar message. The audiences overlap. I wish I could afford to advertise on the VMAs like State Farm. Your pastor enjoyed the longest running number one song, the audience does too. In all of this talk – talk – talk done by the people here, their ‘pastors’ have a budget. How much is spent on true influence? MTV figured it out. State Farm helps fund it. That’s smart since it has real influence, and it affects the course of human events. I don’t recommend pills, but I’ve seen the movie ‘Limitless’ – maybe it could help your pastor think through the message and change.
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This movie is total crap. I’m still not sure as a) a Christian, and b) a husband whose marriage is seriously on the rocks – what could the husband (Kirk Cameron) have done differently? I know he should have been different, but suppose she did say she wanted a divorce. What could he do to:
1. Get her to see his leadership/headship?
2. Be obedient to the will of God?
any advice would be much appreciated!
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Here is one of your posts where I think I disagree with you. While I think you are rightly criticizing Joel and Kathy for using divorce as a weapon – the comparison you are drawing with the movie Fireproof seems very unfair to me. Forgive my saying so but you sound a little indignant.
What is offensive to me about Joel and Kathy’s teaching (as you have explained it here) is that they make it sound as if God needed help from people to change a person and the one sure way to do that is to threaten divorce. For those of us who have walked with God, we know that God works in His own ways and doesn’t not need proven human devises to help him. In fact, God’s ways often surprise us and are different and unique for our situations. I think Christians should try to not come up with methods to replace God’s unique work in each individual’s life. Also I can’t imagine Jesus would encourage wives to act that way. It certainly does not seem in line with the Bible.
In defense of Fireproof, as I watched the movie, I wasn’t thinking it was so much a movie about marriage as it was about going through hard times in a relationship. In fact, I was also very touched by the relationship between the father and the son. I also think that Fireproof was not the kind of feminist message where the woman was right and the man wrong. If we are fair, the man had more faults in the movie than the woman. And the part you mentioned about pornography and withholding sex being kind of the same is not very accurate. Watching pornography was a direct sexual sin which was offensive to the marriage. Withholding sex started after things had gone bad already. The woman in the movie was in a state of temptation while the man was more sinful already. I am afraid you are becoming a little biased and side-ing with woman vs man issues. As human beings, if you ignore the gender of the character in the movie, the woman was being tempted to give up her marriage and we should sympathize with her position. She was hurt where as the man was angered and his pride was hurt. Eventually the man himself becomes hurt and humbled. My point here is that I don’t think comparing Joel and Kathy and Fireproof is unfair.
You nailed it, Dalrock.
You’ve got the movie down exactly.
Thank you!
This movie and the brainwashed converts it has spawned have caused me and my children tremendous misery, and I am probably understating it when I say that.
Nino Samuel,
With all due respect, I think you should pull your head out of the wrong end of your anatomy. I will examine what you said, and your words I will put in quotation marks:
“I also think that Fireproof was not the kind of feminist message where the woman was right and the man wrong.”
You’re kidding, right? I mean, seriously, you’re putting us on, right? This is a joke (right?)–JF
“If we are fair, the man had more faults in the movie than the woman.”
Of course, Nino! In our society, the man ALWAYS has more faults than the woman. That’s because men are inherently evil and women are inherently pure. Just ask Glenn Stanton and Focus on the (Feminist) Family. He’ll tell you the same thing.
“And the part you mentioned about pornography and withholding sex being kind of the same is not very accurate.”
Nino, I have been in a “marriage” with a woman who for the last DOZEN YEARS OR MORE has withheld sex from me on a regular basis, and her feminist evanjellyfish friends and some hireling shepherd counselors have emboldened her on this. Let me tell you, Nino, when you’re wife cuts you off like that and turns sex into a seasonal affair (literally) IF I behave her, let me just tell you, if you are a man with any kind of a normal sex drive, then the easy temptation of porn at the flick of your fingers becomes VERY TEMPTING indeed. However, if my wife would open her jezebelic legs to me, this would not be a problem. Am I making myself clear, Nino? Because I tell you, when you write words like you just did, if you are a man, then I would tell you that I wish a curse upon you that you would someday marry a domineering Ice Queen like I have; however, I wouldn’t even wish this upon my own worst enemy. And if you are a woman, SHAME on your. Just SHAME on you, period.
“Watching pornography was a direct sexual sin which was offensive to the marriage. Withholding sex started after things had gone bad already. The woman in the movie was in a state of temptation while the man was more sinful already.”
How do we know that? How do we know that for certain?? The movie didn’t show her later “conversion” which was supposed to have taken place off screen. So how the heck can we be sure if she wasn’t cutting him off earlier in order to “whip him into shape” about something. Given her nature of what is depicted, this rebellious jezebelic behavior would be in perfect keeping with her character.
“I am afraid you are becoming a little biased and side-ing with woman vs man issues.”
No kidding, Nino. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what this site is about. Did you really not notice this?? And by the way, the reason there are a FEW sites like this that discuss such things, is because the ideological feminism has effectively declared war upon men, and upon the Scriptures. Sites like this are a small oasis of sanity for us men who today find ourselves sojourning in a large desert of rampant misandry all around us everywhere. Again, where have you been?
“As human beings, if you ignore the gender of the character in the movie, the woman was being tempted to give up her marriage and we should sympathize with her position.”
I do NOT sympathize with her position and neither should you. She was lionized in the movie for becoming a Jezebel and rendering her husband into a groveling Ahab. Her tool of emasculating power was the No-Fault Divorce that so appeals to her lust, her natural feral hypergamic lust. And the movie BRAINWASHES dumbhead evanjellyfish women of today to thus go out and do this to their husbands, to close their legs to him and deny him their intimacy and affections, until he “comes around.” Trust me, I know. My rebellious wife currently has a gaggle of these “christian” women endorsing her and emboldening her right now. They all LOVE this movie. This is Jezebelism. If you feel sorry for her, you’re still brainwashed. In which case, what are you doing here?
“She was hurt where as the man was angered and his pride was hurt. Eventually the man himself becomes hurt and humbled.”
Oh, so only women can be “hurt,” huh? Men don’t get “hurt.” Men only get “angry” and their “pride gets hurt” only. This is Glenn Stantonism you are selling, Nino. Now I am convinced you must be a female. NO MAN CAN WRITE SUCH A SENTENCE. To actually believe that a man does not get HURT when his wife cuts him off sexually, not to mention usurping his headship in using sex as a WEAPON against him, not to mention cutting off all intimacy and affection from him of any kind as a further WEAPON. And I haven’t even addressed the wife’s use of enticing a rival adulterous lover to further twist the knife into her husband.
You can’t be a man. You are a woman and you have taken some kind of “Genders Studies” courses in college at some point. There is no way a man could ever write such a thing, much less believe it. And BTW there is no way a legitimate CHRISTIAN WOMAN could ever write or believe such a misandric thing either.
You hate men. Whether you are female or male, you hate men. You are oblivious, totally indifferent, to the sufferings of men; in your world, only women can suffer. This is Stantonism: men are evil, women are good.
You hate men.
Go look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why.
No married person has any legitimate excuse to cut his/her spouse off sexually. Marriage is blanket, life-long consent to sex availability. To say otherwise is to call the Bible a book of lies, because that’s what it says in I Corinthians Chapter 7.
I know this is a very old subject, but it’s a question I hain’t seen before, and I have time on my hands, which is the devil’s plaything, as Tam the Bam will tell ye…
He could file divorce papers. Even the most literal, fundamentalist Christian will attest to the fact that if the other party starts banging his/her boss, the divorce is kosher under a strict reading of scripture.
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
The minute that slut cucked him with the doctor, Kirk Cameron had a green light from the church fathers themselves to boot her sorry ass out of his life. He should have jumped on that technicality and not looked back.
Regards,
Boxer
That’s actually a good point I had never considered, Boxer. Kinda humorous when you think about it that way.
In my case, I consider that “motion picture” to be no small contributor to what is and has been propping my wife up in her rebellion. Not to mention her brainwashed churchian girlfriends. It was them who introduced us to the movie a few years back–they were overjoyed by its message and we just had to see it! They thought it would be efficacious for our marriage!
Ugh.
I actually think things started going downhill (once again) after we partook in that travesty of a movie. Even my wife could, like me, cringe at the amateurish acting and equally bad screenplay writing. But the message—ah, yes, I think that permeated her. That and the fact that she hangs out with her mindless girlfriends who think it’s the greatest movie in the world or something.
And as I have already indicated, that movie’s message, and the current feminist Focus on the Family crap, definitely had and has an effect on the couple of hireling shepherds who “counseled” us. Although, I didn’t do any favors by letting them know that I considered them to be hireling shepherds and their “churches” to be double-minded, unequally yoked corporations. Should have kept my mouth shut on that, but would not have been honest. I was so desperate for SOME spiritual authority to reign my wife in, I submitted myself to them. And they screwed me. They limpwristedly screwed me over good.
Had there been a REAL spiritual leader, a REAL UNincorporated church in my neck of the woods, I would have been all right. But try finding one of those these days. That would be like trying to find an NON-licensed church in 1930s Hitlerian Germany, and yes I mean that very literally. The percentages are about the same nowadays as they were then. About 1 to 2 percent tops. That’s it. Sad, sorry, sign of the times we’re in.
All right, enough venting.
But to hell with that movie. Just to hell with that awful thing.
There really ought to be a clearinghouse on the web for these huckster marriage counselors that prey on you brothers. Someplace with names, locations, and horror stories. The tales I hear around here suggest that most “religious” psychoanalysts and counselors are third-rate charlatans, and that the average dude would get fairer treatment for his relationship woes from a hairy smelly bull-dykes down at the feminist counseling center.
For the record, I think most of you guys who face this sort of thing *should* divorce a cheating wife, but I pass no judgment on those who don’t, and trust others feel the same. None of us knows your situation. It may be worth playing the long game, if there’s large sums of money to be hidden or (especially) little kids to raise before dropping the d-bomb on a deserving bitch. Take care of yourself, and try not to let her antics get to you.
I sorta chuckled through parts of Fireproof years ago, largely because of the write-up and comments on this blog made me curious. I remember it being sorta hard to believe it was as terrible a film as Dalrock blog reviews suggested, but there it was. It’s a great film for single guys (like me) to watch, to know what you married bros sometimes go through.
Best,
Boxer
I now forget his reasoning, but Leo Tolstoy was of the opinion that the words ‘saving for the cause of fornication’ was an interpolation which made nonsense of the verse. If you put away your wife you cause her to commit adultery (or so he averred). As Countess Tolstoy had the hots for Alexander Scriabin (unrequited by him) perhaps just being married, especially to Leo Tolstoy, causes some women to want to commit adultery or perhaps stuff like the Black Mass Sonata or the Poem of Ecstasy – with synesthesia – is just milf-magnate material.
milf-magnet
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Boxer: “There really ought to be a clearinghouse on the web for these huckster marriage counselors that prey on you brothers. Someplace with names, locations, and horror stories. The tales I hear around here suggest that most “religious” psychoanalysts and counselors are third-rate charlatans, and that the average dude would get fairer treatment for his relationship woes from a hairy smelly bull-dykes down at the feminist counseling center.”
JF: Boxer, what you say about heathen bull-dyke feminist counselors may be true. They certainly could not have treated me any worse. I had one hireling shepherd stick a metaphorical knife in my back, then another one did me the same, and then a female “christian counselor” stuck me with two all by herself. It all sure made my wife feel good, though—gave her the “You go, girl!” moral high ground tingles.
JF,
Dude, you went to female Christian Counselor? Good grief, man… WHY? 1 Timothy 2:12 says, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
Some years ago when my father was still a full-time pastor, a new “pastor” from a church in the next town dropped by the church/parsonage to visit. She was a woman. My dad asked her how she could justify her claim to be called into a pastoral ministry, since the Bible clearly states that only men may hold that position. Apparently she was unfamiliar with that and mumbled something about having to give it some thought. She never came back to visit again.
@Lyn87:
I know, I know.
Believe me, you cannot know how desperate I was.
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Dalrock, not sure if you’re seen this, but my wife and I watched Grace of Monaco on Netflix this past weekend. It is a profoundly conservative movie, showing how a woman’s submission to her role as a wife and mother truly fulfills her. The plot is basically the opposite of Fireproof. I’d be curious to hear your take.
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Darlock,
Would be interested to hear your talk on my experience with the Fireproof movie.
https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2016/04/17/why-the-movie-fireproof-offers-unbiblical-and-bad-marriage-advice/
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