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‘the act of marriage’ live-blog: ch. 13 (time-out for evangelism)

12 Tuesday Jun 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3, ch 4-5, ch 6-7, ch 8-10, ch 11, ch 12.

Welcome back! Now for the chapter you’ve all been waiting for … the obligatory time-out for evangelism! Some of you may have been assuming that since the entire thrust of The Act of Marriage narrative is that a) the readers of the book are overwhelmingly Christians and b) being Christian means you’re gonna have awesome God-boosted sexytimes, that the text needs no explicit shout-out to repent and be saved. After all, you’d be preaching to the choir, and for anyone who doesn’t already know the words to the hymn you’ve got the best sales pitch ever: BETTER ORGASMS.

Oh, but you would be so wrong. Because Christians can never be saved enough. This was a major theme of the fundamentalist evangelicalism I encountered during my thesis research: individuals who had repented and been “saved” face continual pressure to recommit to Christ out of fear that their born-again experience was somehow less-than (think Jesus Camp). Putting the fear of God into those already in the fold is part-and-parcel of any proselytizing among fundamentalist evangelicals. And given that Tim LaHaye is, first and foremost, a minister, means that this remains a key aspect of his modus operandi:

Unless [the] God-shaped vacuum [in every person] is filled by a personal relationship with God, man is condemned throughout his lifetime to an endless treadmill of activity in an attempt to fill it (219).

This chapter is full of infographics arguing that people without Christ in their lives will be full of guilt, fear, purposelessness, emptiness, confusion, and misery.* In contrast:

When Christ controls one’s life, that person seeks to do those things and think those thoughts that please the Lord, who in turn will grant that person an abundance of the joy, love, and peace which guarantees the happiness every human being desires … When [Christ] directs a person’s nature, that person’s clean thought patterns will produce good feelings and in turn turn engender the physical responses that everyone wants (230). 

As Hanna points out, this makes Jesus sound like the worst micro-managing boss ever. It also makes Jesus sound like a drug you might find in the stash of your buddy who sells pot out of his back garden.

Which, I suppose, if praying is what does it for you — why not?**

There’s a couple of things going on here I want to comment on, before we move onto the final, Q & A chapter next week (the final chapter! can you believe we’ve made it through the whole book?!).

I think it’s really intriguing — and particularly evident in this chapter, since this is the chapter that’s basically selling Christ as an awesome trip — that the LaHayes feel the need to sell Christianity as the path to the good life and that the “good life” doesn’t just mean the absence of hellfire and brimstone (the afterlife is, actually, noteably absent throughout The Act). The argument to being/becoming Christian isn’t “if you don’t accept God you will BURN IN HELL,” though I’m sure most of their target audience received that message loud and clear in other places. No, the message in The Act is be/become Christian and you will have “good feelings” and “the physical responses that everyone wants” (read: ORGASM).

Jesus: A Really Good Fuck. Maybe the brides of Christ were onto something?

No only will Jesus/God give you a really good time in bed, but he’ll also give you and your partner together a super-awesome roll in the hay, which makes Jesus/God sound like something between a sex therapist and a congenial fuck buddy:

When Sara accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior in my office that day, she cancelled their divorce proceedings and went home to become a loving, submissive, gracious wife … within ten weeks [her husband] Sam also came to the saving knowledge of Christ, and they have enjoyed a compatible relationship for many years (232).

This sells Christ not as “Lord and Savior” in the Biblical sense — though obviously that is the ultimate end goal, saving souls — but rather as a means to an end: a “compatible relationship” between husband and wife (and perhaps every-other-Thursday also the Son of God?). Such a pitch effectively twines together a prosperity gospel ethos with a reconfiguration of sexuality as something with positive spiritual possibility, even outside of the context of procreation. And both of these themes became absolutely central to late-twentieth-century American evangelical culture. Sexual conservatives, to this day, will argue (either in psuedo-scientific or blatantly theological terms) that Christians who remain chaste until marriage and lead a Christ-centered sexual life thereafter will experience the best most satisfying sex there is.

Maybe they do? Who am I to judge. But I’ve been disqualified from that particular club since age eleven, when I met my friend J’s offer (made in the backyard tree house, if I remember aright)  to help me “accept Christ into your heart” with a blank stare, so.

And then there’s the whole premarital lesbian (albeit monogamous) slut thing. I’m pretty sure I get demerits for that.

IN SUM: Adequate Lady-Spouse Metric

-50 –> not accepting Christ into my heart at age eleven (or at any age thereafter)
-50 –> believing the spiritual vacuum can be filled with other-than-Christ shaped religion
-20 –> engaging in premarital
-20 –> lesbian sexytimes
-20 –> and not regretting it
-30 –> and not turning to drugs and/or alcohol as a result

Chapter 13: -190 points

Chapter 12: -29.5
Chapter 11: -35
Chapters 8-10: 0 (n/a)
Chapters 6-7: -62
Chapters 4-5: +30
Chapters 2-3: -33
Chapter 1: -50

Cumulative ALSM Score: -369.5

*Before you ask no, there is no data to back this up — it’s simply assumed to be self-evident FACT.

**Hanna also pointed out, because she’s smart like that (I’m not really just marrying her for the lovely ass), that spiritual/religious/metaphysical life is an important part of meaning-making for most people — even if it’s important because you’ve consciously chosen not to prioritize it. I don’t think the LaHayes are terribly mis-guided to encourage people to consider their spiritual centering … I only think they’re wrong to argue that only Jesus and/or the evangelical Christian god will suffice.

‘the act of marriage’: ch 12 ( d) none of the above)

31 Thursday May 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3, ch 4-5, ch 6-7, ch 8-10, ch 11.


Finally! The chapter you’ve all been waiting for (I know!): the Christian sex survey. Convinced through anecdotal evidence and a belief that believers must do it better, the LaHayes set out to gather empirical data to support their thesis.

Why do Christians do it better? I mean, we all know why feminists do it better: the less hamstrung by notions of oppositional, binary gender roles, the more real people can be. And the more real we can be with our partners — the less compelled we feel to follow a specific script for sex — the better off we’re gonna be. Less shame, more gain. But why would being a member of one religious community — particularly one which, historically-speaking, has a rocky relationship with human sexuality — lead one to better sex?

Well, the short answer is because folks like the LaHayes believe that being a Christian makes everything better. It’s sort of an exercise in circular thinking: Why does Christianity make things better? Because life is better when you’re a Christian.

The slightly longer answer is that they believe that they believe “a Christian’s relationship with God produces a greater capacity for expressing and receiving love than is possible for the non-Christian” (195). They argue that Christians, with their greater capacity for love, do not have “an obsession with sex, they do not need dirty stories*, pornography, or artificial stimuli to motivate them toward each other” (195). Basically: God gives you the capacity to love; everyone else is faking it.

To assess the state of Christian marital relations, the LaHayes asked participants in their Family Life Seminars (sexuality education for Christian adults) to fill out and return written surveys on their sexual experiences — think The Hite Report for Christian couples. They amassed 3, 377 responses (from 1,705 women and 1,672 men) and chapter twelve offers us a look at the results. In comparing their own results to that of a contemporary Redbook survey of 100,000 women they conclude that “Christians do enjoy the sublimities of the act of marriage more than others in our culture” (197).

I can’t reproduce the survey results in full, here, but a quick word about demographics and then some of the questions and responses. The couples they surveyed (and yes, they were all married) were the average age of mid-to-late thirties, had been married 7-15 years, and had 2-3 children. forty percent of the women and sixty percent of the men were graduates of four-year colleges, and nearly forty percent of the men had attended graduate school (I suspect a high proportion of seminarians). Forty percent of the wives worked part- or full-time outside the home and over sixty percent of the men were working in “professional or managerial” positions. In short, these are middle to upper-middle-class families. The survey doesn’t ask about race, but I’d say it’s safe to assume a majority white demographic.

The majority of couples married after a courtship lasting 6-12 months, but fifteen percent courted for 3-5 years before marriage. Reading was the main source of sexuality education before marriage, and while the majority approached marriage with “anticipation” of sexual activity, roughly twenty percent of both men and women were “apprehensive” about sex as they headed toward tying the knot. About a third of respondents (slightly lower for women, slightly higher for men) had engaged in “occasional” premarital intercourse, though the LaHayes are quick to point out that these numbers could include people who had “not yet received Christ as their Lord and Savior” (200). Almost forty percent of couples used birth control pills as their preferred form of contraception. While only about one quarter of wives reported having reached orgasm on their first night of lovemaking, seventy-seven percent indicated that they “regularly or always” experienced orgasm making love at the time they filled out the survey.

A few example questions, and the responses:

14. Impression of parents’ sex life:

Fulfilling… 36% (wives’ response) 36% (husbands’ response)
Casual… 28% / 34%
Cold… 28% / 20%
Other… 8% / 10%

36. Minutes from beginning of foreplay to orgasm:

Less than 10… 6% / 7%
10-20 minutes … 51% / 55%
20-30 minutes … 31% / 26%
30 or more … 12% / 12%

40. How often do you have intercourse per week:

0-2 times … 61% / 61%
3-6 times … 36% / 37%
7-9 times … 3% / 1%

41. How often do you desire intercourse per week:

0-2 times … 48% / 27 %
3-6 times … 49% / 62%
7-9 times … 3% / 11%

The rest of the chapter is taken up by graphs comparing the sexual satisfaction of Christian couples (as reported in the survey) with the sexual satisfaction of the respondents to the Redbook survey. The LaHayes do point out that there is no way of knowing what percentage of those who responded to Redbook were also Christians**, but persist anyway in arguing that Christians do it better.

Wearing my historian’s hat, I find it particularly fascinating to see certain themes emerging in these chapters which today sit front and center in the Christian arguments against non-marital sexual activities. For example, the argument that non-marital sex before marriage will be destructive to the marriage relationship: “Our survey indicates quite clearly that premarital sex is not necessary and, according to statistics, may hinder sexual adjustment” (210). They also devote a section to the notion that the practice of oral sex is on the rise, “thanks to amoral sexual education, pornography, modern sex literature, and the moral breakdown of our times” (212). While the LaHayes are not particularly censorious of oral stimulation, they take pains to encourage their readers to ensure that penis-in-vagina intercourse remains the central sexual act in their relationship. All things considered, you could set this chapter up alongside the data presented in the reactionary Premarital Sex in America and — substituting anal for oral — you’d have roughly the same arguments being made, fifty years apart.

IN SUM: Adequate Lady-Spouse Metric

It was a little difficult to come up with a way of grading myself on this chapter. So what I did was this: I completed the questionnaire myself, and then gave myself two points for every instance where my answers matched the top answer for the wives, one point if it was the second-place answer, and half a point for third-place or below.

Chapter 12:
1st place answers: 24 questions = 48/48 points
2nd place answers: 11 questions = 11/22 points
3rd or below: 11 questions = 5.5/22 points

TOTAL POINTS: 64.5/94 points = -29.5

Chapter 11: -35
Chapters 8-10: 0 (n/a)
Chapters 6-7: -62
Chapters 4-5: +30
Chapters 2-3: -33
Chapter 1: -50

Cumulative ALSM Score: -179.5

*So sad! No smutty fic!

**Note that “Christian” to folks like the LaHayes doesn’t mean “anyone who attends a Christian church and/or reads the Bible as a sacred text,” but rather anyone who has had a born-again experience and/or accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

‘the act of marriage’: ch. 11 (aka "children fulfill the psychic design of your mind")

25 Friday May 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3, ch 4-5, ch 6-7, ch 8-10.

If I had to pick the number-one aspect of The Act of Marriage that situated it in the 1970s, it would be the LaHaye’s attitude toward birth control and abortion. Namely, that they’re not categorically opposed to either. Let me reiterate: The best-selling protestant Christian evangelical sex manual of the 1970s was not anti-abortion or anti-birth control, even hormonal birth control (aka “The Pill”) which today has so many fundies up in arms.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be posting, verbatim, the passage in which The Act of Marriage takes up the question of abortion. I think it deserves its own post because there’s so much interesting stuff going on vis a vis contemporary abortion politics within it. But for now, we’re going to take a brief look at chapter eleven, “Sane Family Planning,” which deals exclusively with pre-conception solutions for controlling pregnancy while sexually active.

“Almost all Christians today seem to believe in limiting the size of their families” (185)

The LaHayes start out with the observation that, given the number of years the average woman is fertile, the vast majority of Christian couples are self-evidently practicing some sort of family planning strategy. And they do not disapprove — nor do they believe God disapproves. The distinction they make is not between contraception vs. no contraception, but rather between parenting and not-parenting. “Christian couples should, if at all possible, have children, they assert” (183). Intention here matters. If one is delaying childbearing, or spacing out children, or deciding that [ideal number] of children is the limit of persons your family resources can provide for, then this is an acceptable (“sane”?) orientation toward parenting.

What’s not acceptable? Deciding that your ideal number of children = 0.* Because “the chief enemy of personal happiness is self-interest” (185) I’ve honestly never understood how realizing you don’t have the resources (material, emotional, or otherwise) to be a good-enough parent is the selfish route while having little ones because they are “a tangible expression of your [marital love]” or because “children fulfill the psychic design of your mind” (I shit you not!) is the unselfish way to go (183-85). But apparently that’s the truth of things, and who am I to argue with God?**

I lose MAJOR lady-spouse points for this (I figure double ’cause I’m getting hitched to someone who’s completely comfortable with the non-parenting state of affairs. More so than I am, actually. So, you know, clearly I went the way of satanic and self-centered temptation there.

What can I say. She has a really great ass.

IN SUM: Adequate Lady-Spouse Metric Returns!

-20 –> for coming to the conclusion that the answer to the question “how many children does God want me to have?” is “Zero” and
-20 –> for getting myself hitched to a partner who believes this even more strongly than I
-20 –> plus the whole “two eggs can’t make a baby” thing, which is surely a strike against us
+15 –> still, I do agree that human being are a pretty awesome “gift of eternal creativity”
+10 –> and that even couples wanting to create babies should have access to family planning tools

Chapter 11: -35

Chapters 8-10: 0 (n/a)
Chapters 6-7: -62
Chapters 4-5: +30
Chapters 2-3: -33
Chapter 1: -50

Cumulative ALSM Score: -150

* Maths people! What would the equation for that look like … “solve for X if  x > 1”?

**See also.

‘the act of marriage’: ch 8-10 (when things go wrong)

21 Monday May 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3, ch 4-5, ch 6-7.

Welcome back, folks, to the ins and outs of Christian marriage and sexytimes. We’ve reached the middle of the book and it’s time to talk about sexual dysfunction. Namely: “the unfulfilled woman” and “the impotent man.” There’s not a lot for me to rate myself on here (“frigidity” isn’t a particular problem of mine, nor is impotence), so I’m going to set aside the Adequate Lady-Spouse Metric for the next three chapters and instead just make a few more general observations about how healthy, positive sex is construed in The Act of Marriage, what major problems the LaHayes encountered in their marital counseling, and what solutions they suggest for those problems.

Overall, we continue to have a number of … I’ll call them tensions in the text between the desire to understand sexual intimacy as normal and God-given, with a number of possible paths to sexual fulfillment, and as a site for self-improvement. A sort of moral and physical proving-ground. So The Act yo-yos back and forth between encouragement (e.g. pointing out that the majority of women labeled “frigid” will respond sexually in situations where they aren’t pressured to perform in certain ways) and a fairly narrow definition of what “the act of marriage” entails (e.g. penis-in-vagina intercourse following adequate foreplay). Trying to reconcile these two goals isn’t always an easy task, and sometimes leads to baffling or conflicting advice.

Most notably, as I believe I’ve already pointed out, in the recognition that clitoral stimulation is necessary in most cases for women to experience orgasm while simultaneously holding up mutual orgasm during penetration as the sexual ideal for married couples. This, in turn, leads to a lot of paper and ink and effort spent on instructing couples how to practice just enough “foreplay” to push the woman toward orgasm while delaying male ejaculation so that (God forbid!!) he doesn’t come before penetration and/or before his partner. Because “lovemaking is impossible without an erect penis” (128).

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Let’s examine the main sexual woes of women and men in turn, and the solutions presented for each.

“The tragic tale of female sexual frustration winds its way through almost every tribe and people leaving literally billions of married women sexually unfulfilled” (103).

“It is safe to say that, except for Christians, the majority of women do not regularly enjoy orgasm in the act of marriage” (106).

The main sexual woe of women, according to the LaHayes, is Not Enough Orgasms. While “More Orgasms!” is a public health campaign I could totally get behind, the LaHayes give their own particular spin to the struggle of “unfulfilled” women in a couple of ways. The first, as the above quote suggests, is to try and argue that being a Christian will lead you to a better sex life. It’s unclear, as yet, why this is the case since they also illustrate this chapter with many examples drawn from pastoral counseling in which peoples’ beliefs about sexuality and Christianity are part of the problem, not the solution. But argue it they do: anorgasmia among women is at epidemic proportions, and the cure is a combination of religious faith, sexual education, and …  the all-mighty kegel.**

So, okay. Points for saying women can, and should expect to, enjoy wanted sexual intimacy. That’s the “yay for sex-positivity!” part. But then we get into the “ur doin’ it wrong” part of the section, in which women’s inability to come is largely attributed to her own moral, emotional, and physical failures. Yes, men are encouraged to slow down love-making and be attentive to their wives’ bodies (as well as to delay ejaculation; I’ll be getting back to this shortly) … but the majority of the burden falls on the wife. Which would be okay if the message was, “it’s okay to learn, and ask for, what you want in bed!” This is not what the LaHayes have in mind. Instead, they chastise women who don’t experience orgasm for experiencing negative emotions such as anger, resentment, guilt, and fear.

Reading “The Unfulfilled Woman” chapter, we learn that women who’ve experienced sexual abuse at the hands of their fathers should forgive the fathers (!!) in order to experience sexual satisfaction with their husbands. That women who are domineering (“choleric,” anachronistically enough), who feel guilty about premarital sex, who are passive, who are overweight, who are tired — all of these women may suffer from a lack of sexual fulfillment. And, basically, it’s the woman’s job to sort out her shit and get with the program.

While the kernel of truth in all of this is that each of us, individually, is responsible for exploring and communicating what we want sexually, the tone taken in The Act of Marriage is, well, preachy. And incredibly, incredibly callous toward people who have experienced sexual trauma. And in general absolve the husband of any responsibility to address relational issues (outside of the whole length of sexytimes/ejaculation thing) that might be contributing to sexual unhappiness — like, for example, a mother of young children who’s shouldering an unequal share of the parenting responsibilities, and is thus too worn out and/or alienated from her spouse to find much pleasure in sexual intimacy with same.

“After his fortieth birthday a man’s most important sex organ is his brain” (155).

“A rigid penis is absolutely essential for satisfactory consummation of the act of marriage” (157).

While the tragic dearth of lady-gasms can be cured with a combination of better sexual skill, physical self-improvement, and a judicious injection of Christian forgiveness-of-male-sins (and penitence for female ones),  the main struggle for married dudes is ejaculation: “premature,” “delayed,” or none at all. Like wives, husbands are counseled with a not-altogether-logical mix of “no matter how your body functions, you can still enjoy sex,” and “BUT YOU SHOULD REALLY BE FUNCTIONING IN THIS ONE SPECIFIC WAY.” While the LaHayes do emphasize that the majority of “impotence” issues stem from anxiety of one sort of another, rather than physical difficulties, they put men in a double-bind by basically increasing rather than decreasing, the cause for concern. To wit, in the section on the types of fear that contribute factor to impotence, they write:

(d) The fear that he will lose his erection. To a large degree, satisfying lovemaking is dependent on the husband’s ability to maintain an erection. A limp penis is unsatisfactory to both partners and humiliating to the husband (161). 

So basically, rather than offering reassurance that a “limp penis” can still experience pleasure and that partners can find alternate ways to engage in sexual intimacy, they just end up reinforcing the man’s fear that his ability to perform on cue is the linchpin of the entire experience.

Mirroring their advice in chapters seven and eight, the LaHayes concentrate narrowly on men’s sexual skills and knowledge vis a vis their wives when it comes to maintaining a sexually-satisfying marriage (e.g. remember to stimulate the clit! don’t penetrate too quickly! ohmygod don’t come before she does!!***) while it falls to women to maintain the broader emotional-relational health of the marriage. In the chapter on male impotence, for example, women are admonished not to be “nags” or be “passive,” and not to have a “sagging vagina” (get on those kegels!).

Once again, I’m left with the impression that while both partners in the marriage bear responsibility for successful marital relations, the work of women is much more nebulous and therefore potentially vast in scope — while the work of men is physical and weirdly self-absent. Where, in this landscape of orgasm/ejaculation delay and carefully-scripted lovemaking is there time for guys to just be with their partners and enjoy — without the anxiety or performance — sensual contact?

Stop back in on Friday to check out what the LaHayes have to say about family planning (I think it might surprise you)!

*For example, their claim that “until around the turn of the century, millions of women each year were cheated out of the exciting sexual climax that most men enjoy regularly” is wince-ably inaccurate. While women prior to 1900 navigated a cultural landscape that treated women’s sexual arousal as a disease to be cured, I’m pretty sure lots of them got off in creative and satisfying ways. Likewise, it’s not like twentieth-century gals had it easy in the “take my sexual desires seriously” department. If we had, terms like “sex-positive feminism” wouldn’t be tossed around with quite such frequency.

**Yep, you heard me right. The reason women’s sexual dysfunction takes two chapters and men’s only one is that women get a whole chapter on the wonders of the kegel. While I’m all behind exercising pelvic floor muscles, I’m not sure kegels have quite the transformative properties The Act of Marriage seems to ascribe them. They end up sounding like you’ll be able to jet around like the elderly kegel-practicing ninja lady from American Dad‘s Live and Let Fry.

***And what ever you do, DO NOT MASTURBATE. While it may not kill you or make you grow hair on your palms, it’s clearly contra-indicated from a Godly perspective and will probably destroy your marriage.

‘the act of marriage’: ch. 6 and 7 (care and keeping of a wife)

14 Monday May 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3, ch 4-5.

Following what I’ve come to think of as the “sexuality 101” chapters come two intriguingly-titled sections, “For Men Only” and “For Women Only.” Thus I was faced with a dilemma. The “For Men Only” chapter instructs one on the care and keeping of one’s wife, while the “For Women Only” chapter instructs one how to be a wife.

Since I’ll both have  AND be, well, I decided the best  thing was to read both chapters just to be sure I had all my bases covered. I have a few overall observations about the differences between the two sections and the overall assumptions being made about what makes for positive sexual intimacy and martial relations. But first, the nitty-gritty details (you know you want them!).

Here’s what one must do in order to sustain one’s marriage:

Husbands Wives
1 Learn as much as you can.
Quote: “Since skilled lovemaking is not instinctive, a wise husband will learn as much as he can from a reliable, Christian source.” (i.e. the last two chapters of this very book!)
Adequate lady-spouse metric (8/10): I love learning about sexuality, but I can’t say I depend very heavily on “reliable, Christian source[s]” so why don’t we say five out of ten for this one.		 Maintain a positive mental attitude.
Quote: “Three areas in a woman’s sexual thinking pattern are very important to her: (a) what she thinks about lovemaking; (b) what she thinks about herself; (c) what she thinks about her husband.”**
Alsm (10/10): Lovemaking = awesome, self = good enough to be getting on, wife = sexy, compassionate, smart, and kick-ass. Think we got this covered.
2 Practice self-control.
Quote: “Be careful not to overdo it, but concentrate on something that will delay your ejaculation and give your wife sufficient time for her emotional build-up.”
Alsm (2/10): I’m all for paying attention to where my partner’s at and making sure she’s enjoying  herself – but I’m not sure how that jives with delaying orgasm by thinking about football.		 Relax! Relax! Relax!
Quote: “It should come as no surprise that a virgin will be rather tense in anticipation of her first intercourse.”
Alsm (5/10): While I’ve got the relaxing bit down, I think I probably lose 50% for not actually being virginal on my wedding night.
3 Concentrate on your wife’s satisfaction.
Quote: “Since a woman’s orgasm is much more complex than a man’s, it takes her longer to learn this art.”
Alsm (5/10): With two complex lady-gasms to worry about, you’d think future-wife and I would have it extra hard! Maybe that’s why the fundies are against same-sex marriage — because they worry lesbians won’t achieve enough simultaneous orgasms?		 Chuck your inhibitions.
Quote: “Though modesty is an admirable virtue in a woman, it is out of place in the bedroom with her husband.”
Alsm (4/10): I’ve got the bedroom covered, but what about the living room or kitchen? And the whole we-aren’t-actually-technically-wedded-in-holy-matrimony-yet thing might move my lack of inhibitions from the “admirable quality in a wife” column to the “shameless hussy” column.
4 Remember what arouses a woman.
Quote: “Men are stimulated by sight whereas women respond more to other things — soft, loving words and tender touch.”*
Alsm (10/10): Not gonna be a problem, so much. 		 Remember that men are stimulated by sight.
Quote: “The sight of a bedraggled wife may engender sympathy (though it’s doubtful) but it will rarely inspire love.”
Alsm (0/10): Oh, god, I’m always bedraggled. Future Lady Spouse despairs.
5 Protect her privacy.
Quote: “Men are far more inclined than women to be sex braggarts.”
Alsm (5/10): Since I’m a woman, you’d think I have this covered but I write a blog in which I talk about stuff like orgasms and erotica and how much I enjoy both, which probably makes me a braggart on some level.		 Never nag, criticize, or ridicule.
Quote: “Nothing turns a man off faster than motherly nagging and criticism or ridicule of his manhood.”
Alsm (6/10): I agree that “ridicule” and treating one’s spouse as if they were a dependent to be controlled*** rather than a person to be respected as an equal it’s time to re-evaluate what you’re doing with this person as a spouse. But I don’t agree that avoiding confrontation, substantive argument, or asking for change is wrong.^
6 Beware of offensive odors.
Quote: “A thoughtful lover will prepare for lovemaking by taking frequent baths, using effective deodorant, and practicing good oral hygeine.”
Alsm (10/10): I have it on the authority of Future Lady Spouse that she is in favor of my odors.		 Remember that you are responder.
Quote: “Except for those occasions when a wife is particularly amorous and initiates lovemaking, a husband makes the first approach most of the time.”
Alsm (0/10): We don’t have a husband, so there’s a technical difficulty here. Oops!
7 Don’t rush lovemaking.
Quote: “The time spent lovemaking varies with the culture. Researchers have indicated that the average experience runs from two minutes in some cultures to thirty minutes in others.”
Alsm (10/10): I just gotta say I find it really amusing that “more is better!” is something that has to be spelled out here.		 Observe daily feminine hygiene.
Quote: “Every woman must be careful of body odors for two reasons: first, in some women the vaginal fluids … can emit a strong odor unless they bathe regularly; and second, she may become immune to her own smells.”
Alsm (8/10): While I’m a fan of the daily shower, and enjoy our wide and indulgent array of Lush products, I’m deducting points here on principle ’cause I think our ladybits smell just fine thank you.
8 Communicate freely.
Quote: “I have been appalled to learn that even well-educated people find it difficult to discuss their love lives frankly.”
Alsm (10/10): I hyperverbalize and I love sex … need I say more?		 Communicate freely.
Quote: “Unless a man has read the right books or sought knowledge in the right places, much of what he knows about women is likely to be wrong when he enters marriage.”
Alsm (10/10): <– See left.
9 [I guess men aren’t responsible for prayer?] When all else fails, pray.
Quote: “I’m convinced that God never intended any Christian couple to spend a lifetime in the sexual wilderness of orgasmic malfunction.”
Alsm (5/10): While I’m all for a pro-orgasm God, I … what? (Although bonus points for phrasing!)
Okay, so … lots going on here, but a few general observations.

Notice how the instructions for men involve practical things (keeping clean, gathering information, controlling ejaculation) and are largely confined to the specific situations of sexual intimacy. Men are encouraged to slow down their love-making, learn how their lovers bodies work, respect their partner’s privacy, and to communicate with their partners about sex. So far, so good! Except for what it leaves out: men’s emotional lives. Men are assumed to want sex basically whenever their wives take their clothes off, and all of the instructions in the husband’s section are geared toward getting him to control his bestial (physical) urges and pay attention to his partner’s needs.

Now notice how much emotional work is expected from women. First on the list is the admonishment that women get into the right headspace for sex, which in the chapter involves three sub-sections worthy of discussion. Women, not men, are expected to have emotional baggage around sex being shameful, their bodies being shameful, and their partners being undesirable. In addition to basic bodily hygiene, women are expected not to look “bedraggled,” not to “nag,” and to pray (attend to the spiritual health of the couples’ relationship) when all else “fails.” Men have no analogous last-resort advice.

Finally, although none of these specific points touch on it, I want to recall from chapter five the argument that the best lover is an unselfish lover who attends to their partner’s needs and desires above their own. I think this assumption continues to play out in chapters six and seven: Husbands are instructed to subordinate their physiological response to the course of their wife’s arousal, while wives are instructed to tidy up all messy emotional and psychological issues so their husbands will be able to love them. While mutual empathy is, obviously, a major indicator of any successful relationship (sexual or otherwise), there’s a serious case to be made for the notion that selfish sex is the best kind of sex. That is, learning and owning what you enjoy, how your body responds, and how to communicate your desires, is key to pleasurable sexytimes. While focusing on your partner’s pleasure is laudable, knowing what you want and need and how to ask for it is equally important. And that’s one of the key pieces I see missing in The Act of Marriage.

IN SUM:

Ability and willingness to fulfill the duties for having a wife: 60/80 = -20
Ability and willingness to fulfill the duties of being a wife: 48/90 = -42

Chapters 6-7: -62

Chapters 4-5 score: +30
Chapters 2-3 score: -33
Chapter 1 score: -50

Cumulative ALSM Score: -115

*Having experienced first-hand what seeing my wife’s nakedness does to stimulate arousal, I’m baffled by this assertion.

**Aren’t these a good rule of thumb for anyone in sexually-intimate relationships, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, or gender?

***This isn’t the place to unpack the “motherly nagging” assumption, but if you’re treating your kid through passive-aggressive control and shaming ridicule, you’re doing it wrong.

^See also.

‘the act of marriage’: ch. 4 and 5 (how to do it 101)

10 Thursday May 2012

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See also: intro, ch 1, ch 2-3.

Once the LaHayes have established that sexual intimacy is God-approved (chapter 1) and that men and women both get things out of it, even if they be different things (chapters 2-3), they move on to the basics of anatomy and how-to. Chapters three and four are a really amusing mix of accurate, fairly non-judgmental sexual health information and prescriptive sexual coaching that would put a drill sergeant to shame. It follows the 90%/10% rule*: You’re reading along with a sentence and nodding and then — what the fuck?! it just takes a u-turn into not-good places.

Let me illustrate with several verbatim passages.

On sex education:

An in-depth study of sex is best pursued just prior to marriage. Let’s face it — the material is simply not that complicated. God didn’t give Adam and Eve a manual on sexual behavior; they learned by doing. We are convinced that modern Adams and Eves can do the same, provided they are unselfish enough to consider their partner’s satisfaction more than their own. A few good books on the subject, studied carefully two or three weeks before marriage, a frank discussion with their family doctor, and pastoral counseling are usually adequate preparation (45).

Continue reading →

‘the act of marriage’: ch. 2 and 3 (his and hers)

06 Sunday May 2012

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See also: intro, chapter one.

We learned in chapter one that sexual intimacy between married hetero couples carries the God-seal of approval. Chapters two and three take us on a tour of “what lovemaking means to” men and women. Because men and women are different creatures, each creature gets their own chapter and hierarchy of meaning.

You see, the male creature gets five things from the act of marriage, as does the female creature. But because they are different species, what they get out of lovemaking is different in kind — and when similar in kind, different in meaning.

I offer a Handy Dandy Chart of Comparison:

Males Females
1. It satisfies his sex drive.
Translation: Dudes be horny and must have with the fucks.		 It fulfills her womanhood.
Translation: How do you know you’re a girl unless a man puts his penis inside you? Also: Babies! And homemaking.
2. It fulfills his manhood.
Translation: Fucking things cures all feelings of emasculation. (aka The Magic Cock).		 It reassures her of her husband’s love.*
Translation: If you don’t put out he’ll leave you. Sex is the way to a man’s heart.
3. It enhances his love for his wife. 
Actual quote: “When you have a Cadillac in the garage, how can you be tempted to steal a Volkswagen off the street?”		 It satisfies her sex drive.
Actual quote: “Each thrilling lovemaking event increases her sex drive drive” (aka Married women who have good sex will become insatiable nymphos)
4. It reduces friction in the home.
I don’t think they actually meant this as a double entendre, although they do spend a lot of time on the benefits of lube later in the book.		 It relaxes her nervous system.
Because suddenly we’re going to get all nineteenth-
century on your ass.
5. It provides life’s most exciting experience.
By which they mean orgasms, which I’ll be talking about later (really? the most exciting?)		 The ultimate experience.
I’m struck by the slightly different wording here. Also, is there anyone else who can’t help think of Wet Hot American Summer?**

SOOOO many questions!

Why is orgasm the “most exciting” experience for men, but the “ultimate” experience for women?

Why does sex drive rank #1 for men, but #3 for women?

Why does libido come before ego in the hierarchy of needs in men? Does that mean that masculinity matters less than getting it on?

How does affirming womanhood through sex lead to marriage, a house, and babies? (I mean, besides the obvious sperm-meets-egg thing)

If you’re going to lubricate your marriage, what brand is best?

Why does sex “enhance” a man’s love of his partner, while merely “reassuring” the woman? Is love something men do and women receive?

If women want sex more after every successful instance of lovemaking, how quickly will her sexual needs spiral out of control in the average Christian marriage?

Inquiring minds wish to know!

In addition there’s an extra bonus section in the “males” chapter dealing with the issue of “mental-attitude lust” which basically instructs us that guys fantasize about hot chicks. ALL THE TIME. But they shouldn’t. So men are counseled to police their thoughts and never have sexual thoughts that don’t involve their wife. How they’re supposed to do this isn’t clear, except it’s probably the wife’s responsibility to play the role of Cadillac so her husband doesn’t turn to auto theft as a hobby.

Women don’t get the lecture on mental-attitude lust because, see, we don’t have any. “A woman does not seem so readily tempted to fantasize as does her husband.” (Let’s just say there was hysterical laughter in my house when I read that passage aloud to the almost-lady-spouse). Apparently, we’re only capable of “remember[ing] romantically those exciting experiences of the past. Consequentially each thrilling lovemaking event increases [our] sex drive” which presumably, over time, would turn us into succubi. Though he doesn’t mention that bit.

Mostly, I just love how women here are incapable of original, imaginative sexual thought and instead can only harken back to good (and bad) sexual experiences that have previously happened to them. And my use of the passive construction is deliberate here.

IN SUM: The adequate lady-spouse metric

I figure I get negative points for all the ways I experience “male” sexuality and positive points for all the ways I experience “female” sexuality.

 -15 – for being spontaneously horny but
+15 – for also being an experience-driven succubi (the more good sex I have, the more I want!)
  -5 – for not believing that a dude’s ego is lodged in his dick
+10 – because I do feel reassured of my lady-spouse love when we enjoy sexytimes but
 -2 – for not being an extrovert
  0 – for not having to train my sweetie in empathy (women automatically have “bedside manners”)
 -2 – for not being interested in white knights and angels, except in the m/m sense
 -4 – while I respond well to treats, I generally put out anyway so clearly I’m a cheap slut
   0 – while my “passion” flares with my cycle, lady-spouse would say I’m only slightly capricious.
-10 – I’m confident my lady-spouse means what she says when she says she won’t go stealing cars
+10 – and also don’t plan on car-jacking myself***
  -5 – I’m a believer in the benefits of lubrication to ease friction
 +5 – and also find sex to have a beneficial effect on my nerves (I’m in that 10-20%)
+10 – for enjoying orgasms as a “most exciting” experience but
 -10 – for not experiencing “the ultimate” (p-i-v intercourse) with actual penes
 -30 – and obviously for being full of mental-attitude lust (slash fiction anyone?)

Chapters 2-3 score: +50/-83 = -33

Chapter 1 score: +35/-85 = -50

Cumulative: -83

*Bonus: Wives need five sub-types of love. We’re just that high-maintenance. Companionable love (all women are extroverts by nature), compassionate love (sex somehow trains a man to practice empathy, a womanly virtue), romantic love (“my white knight/not a Lancelot/nor an angel with wings …”), affectionate love (women, like pets, respond well to regular treats), and passionate love (the capricious kind).

**Wet Hot American Summer:

J.J.: He gets so uncomfortable whenever we talk openly about sexual issues. You know he’s never been with a girl before.
Gary: McKinley needs to experience “The Ultimate” And I think you know what I’m talking about.
J.J.: You mean, penis-in-vagina?
Gary: No, dickhead. Sex.

***Though if we’re doing car comparisons, I expect Hanna would rather be compared to an Impala than a Cadillac.

‘the act of marriage’: ch. 1 ‘the sanctity of sex’

04 Friday May 2012

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See also: intro.

So one of the reasons that The Act of Marriage was such a ground-breaking text in the mid-70s was that it was one of the first modern Christian fundamentalist, evangelical books on marriage to be all “whee! sex be awesome and of the Lord!” And that’s really the message of chapter one: Good Christians can make with the sexytimes.

In “The Sanctity of Marriage” I learned that:

1. God’s okay with people married, hetero couples doin’ it.  “Some people have the strange idea that anything spiritually acceptable to God cannot be enjoyable” (15). But nope. Sexual intimacy outside of marriage is “condemned” and people who commit the “sin” of pre-marital sex will likely have to confess and receive forgiveness before they can proceed along the path of righteousness orgasms.

2. God made our bodies, and therefore our bodies are good. “God designed our sex organs for enjoyment” (11). I’m not actually going to snark about this one, because if you’re going to believe in a creator I don’t think it can hurt to believe that the creator looked upon human embodiment as something positive, rather than negative, and gave us our bits for a reason. Especially the clit. Because I’m fond of clitori.

3. “Spirited” sexytimes are all over the Bible. Old testament, new testament. Everywhere. Adam and Eve were likely getting it on in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. (For true!) All I could think about reading this section was the episode of Futurama in which Leela and Zapp Brannigan crash land on an Edenic planet and Zapp tries to convince Leela she has a duty to make it with him in order to re-populate a supposedly destroyed Earth. There are fig leaves and everything.

4. When supporting your argument that sexual intimacy is Christian, and proof-texting is the way to go. This isn’t surprising, because the cultural of evangelical fundamentalism encourages this sort of behavior. If you make an assertion, you need a bible verse to back it up.

5. Have I mentioned sex outside of marriage is a no-no? Well it totally is. In any way, shape, or form. In fact, according to the LaHayes’ interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7: 2-5,

1. Both husband and wife have sexual needs and drives that should be fulfilled in marriage.
2. When one marries, he forfeits his control of his body to his partner.
3. Both partners are forbidden to refuse the meeting of the mate’s sexual needs.
4. The act of marriage is approved by God.

I love how these four tenants are such a surreal combination of yeah, I’m down with that and ohmyGODwhatareyouTHINKING. It’s like a sandwich made with fresh-from-the-oven artisan bread and  with a filling that carries botchialism.  Both partners, male and female, have sexual needs? The act of marriage (sexytimes) comes with the God-stamp seal of approval? Well, hooray! Particularly if you’re coming from a God-saturated worldview, and from a patriarchal religious background, those things are babysteps toward a way better place. But then OH MY GOD it’s so full of NOT OKAY in the middle!!! “Forfeits control of his body”?! “Forbidden to refuse”??!

o_O

And I’m totally not distracted by the “he” and “his” pronouns here. Because (I peeked) chapters two and three are about male and female “lovemaking” needs? And men totally want more sex than women. So even though the language is neutral, paired with the universe of wrong that is gender essentialism this is about making the ladybits 25/8 accessible for the magic, randy penes.

IN SUM: The “adequate lady-spouse metric”

My friend Molly commented on the intro post that she was looking forward to learning how she measures up  as a lady-spouse. And in honor of her, I decided to give myself grades after each chapter according to how well I have/will perform as a lady-spouse myself (a girl’s gotta have something to strive for, right?). So here’s my score for chapter one:

+15 –> in agreement that mutual pleasure is key to sexual intimacy
+10 –> down with the idea that God made flesh and flesh is good
+10 –> down with the idea that, since flesh is good, sex is also good in the eyes of the Lord.
-20 –>  and yet I’m a pre-marital slut 
  -5 –> who’s not guilt-ridden about it
-30 –> and oh wait, I’m also a dyke*
  -5 –> who’s busy enjoying “spirited” “acts of marriage” with my (almost) lady-spouse**
-25 –> and plans to retain “control” over my body and right of refusal re: sexytimes post-vows


Chapter 1 score: +35/-85 = -50

Watch this space on Sunday for the gloriousness that will be a comparison (with tables!) of “What Lovemaking Means to a Man” and “What Lovemaking Means to a Woman.”
Let’s just say … I’m doing it wrong.

*Technically, I’m probably worse being bi/omni/fluid whatever. I could be making myself available to the magic penes, but I’m not ’cause my almost-lady-spouse doesn’t happen to have one.
**Does committing acts of marriage with an almost-lady-spouse technically make them “acts of pre-marriage”?

live-blogging ‘the act of marriage’: part the first

02 Wednesday May 2012

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this is the cover art on my edition

When Hanna and I were on our trip to Michigan back in early March, I picked up a vintage copy of The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love by Tim and Beverly LaHaye (Zondervan, 1976). Y’all probably know the LaHayes for their right-wing political organizing and Tim LaHaye’s phenomenally popular Left Behind series. Bet you didn’t know the couple are responsible for one of the mid-twentieth-century’s ground-breaking Christian sex manuals.

Yeah. I’ll let that one sink in for a minute.

And of course I bought it. Duh. Because it’s a perfect confluence of all the shit I’m interested in: sex and Christian evangelical fundamentalism and heteronormativity and the 1970s and sex. All in one book.

This was before Hanna and I decided to get married, but now that we’ve set a date and all, I decided I should probably study up on my wifely duties. The introduction to The Act of Marriage specifically instructs that it “should only be read by married couples, those immediately contemplating marriage, or those who counsel married couples.” I told Hanna over coffee this morning that, since I now fall into category #2 (although does “engaged to be married” count as “contemplating marriage”?) I can safely read this book without jeopardizing my bridal purity.

She looked at me like I’d just turned into a hedgehog and went back to her Spanish latte.

I’ve only read the introduction so far, but two things:

1) Tim assures the readers of TAM that Beverly’s presence as one half of the writing team preserves the respectability of their project — and simultaneously assures his audience that Beverly herself was not harmed in the writing of this book. It’s a fascinating use of ministers wife as moral shield. Sort of like having one around is the equivalent of a personal shield emitter. Haha! You think talking about sex is dirty and un-Christian? Well, you see, I have a minister’s wife on hand to protect me!

2) The introduction puts forth the assertion that Christians have better sex than non-Christians. This is hardly the first time I’ve heard this argument made (and, to be fair, feminists also made the case for better fucking … though I doubt their definition of “better” is the same as the one at chez LaHaye). I’m promised survey data latter in the book that will support this thesis and, frankly, I can hardly wait to find out what they asked the couples they counseled and what “secular” data they compare and contrast their results with.

I’m looking forward to my lunch break so I can see what Chapter One has to offer. Stay tuned for more!

live-blog: caitlin flanagan on WBUR

20 Friday Jan 2012

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I got home from one of those days in which I was dashing hither and yon doing work-related stuff and found what I really wanted to do was listen to Caitlin Flanagan fulminate in front of Tom Ashbrook and the ever-articulate Irin Carmon on On Point (WBUR). Basically, I listened to the episode so you don’t have to. Here’s are my “live blog” responses to the conversation.

For more considered reviews of Flanagan’s Girl Land see here and here, and while you’re at it read Amanda Marcotte’s reflections on this same interview over at Pandagon.

Update: Irin’s own reflections on the interview, and Caitlin Flanagan’s concern trolling of Irin’s girlhood, can be found here.

1:57 – Caitlin Flanagan (CF): “Across time and culture there are certain things about [female adolescence] that are constant.” Wait, what? People making claims about anything being “constant” across time and culture is a huge red flag in my book. Especially when it’s something as historically situated as “adolescence” which, as historians of the family will tell you, is an invention of modernity.

2:48 – CF: “[Adolescence is an] emotionally exquisite experience.” For all girls? Fess up to the fact that you’re talking about yourself, not everyone. At least, I think she was talking about herself? It was confusing. The rose colored glasses were coming out big time here. And I speak as someone who was pretty happy with my life between the ages of twelve and twenty.

3:32 – But then she acknowledges that teenage/adolescent period is a twentieth century phenomenon. So she’s already contradicting her argument about things being constant “across time and culture.”

4:25 – CF is wishing to bring back “protective” mechanisms for girls. She keeps saying “girls” when she’s actually talking about teenagers. Children are not being discussed here.

4:48 – CF talks about how teenagers today are “steeped in pornography,” “sexting” and “hook-up” culture. She’s using the language of moral panic here, which is particularly interesting given the recent data which suggest that the people doing the most “sexting” aren’t teenagers, but adults.

5:46 – CF presents princess culture as innate girlhood, rather than culturally shaped. She should do her homework and read Peggy Orenstein’s book Cinderella Ate My Daughter (or listen to this 40 minute interview) about how princesses are being relentlessly marketed to girls.

6:29 – Tom Ashbrook (TA) uses the phrase “time immemorial.” Oh, Tom, please. She doesn’t need help universalizing this supposed phenomenon.

6:52 – Only six minutes in and I’m already hating the erasure of boys. What about boys who are “drawn to romance”? I knew boys who loved Austen novels and who were sweet and nurturing and interested in sustaining meaningful relationships (of sexual and non-sexual kinds) throughout adolescence. It makes me sick that the only way CF can picture cross-gender relationships is to sexualize them, and the only way she can contain those scary sexualized relationships is to require them to be “dating” relationships.

7:25 – CF: “All she’s thinking about is attracting the attention of other boys that she knows.” So … when teenage girls experiment with gender presentation and dressing up and sexuality, it’s all about male attention? What year is it again, and what rock have you been hiding under?

7:40 – CF: “She’s opened up to a world of sexual threat” … but not joy also? Developing sexuality is going to be entirely framed by fear and threat? “It’s almost not politically correct to admit that it is [threatening].” Oh kill me now. Seriously? The “politically correct” card is such a lame disclaimer to play. Way to make me stop taking anything you say after said disclaimer seriously.

8:05 – CF: “It has been through the ages” again with the universalizing. SO WRONG.

8:30 – TA asks what would be an ideal world [for “girls”] in CF’s eyes, and uses nice qualifiers. Specifically asks for her opinion, not as if she’s an expert. CF looking for “protection.”

9:20 – She keeps circling back to the Internet. Seriously. Like it’s this totally overwhelming thing we as human beings don’t mediate as users.

9:45 – Are girls not capable of making their own rooms a protected space? She keeps talking about how adults have to force their daughters into using their rooms as retreats, when shouldn’t the daughters themselves be making that call? My parents weren’t forcing me to spend hours and hours in my room reading novels and exchanging (totally private, emotionally intense) letters (and later emails) with my closest friends. Why do parents need to enforce this, if it’s what girls want? She doesn’t explain this disconnect.

10:08 – CF: “The school day is so intense for them” – girls specifically? And again, if adults are able to make this space for themselves, why can’t teenagers, if they need it. If CF walks away from “the Internet” when she’s overwhelmed, can’t she just model good self-care to her children?

10:48 – CF [about college students having mementos of childhood in their dorm rooms]: “Men in college don’t have that”? On what basis do you make this assertion?? Have you looked at any young man’s life recently? It makes me wonder how much you know about your own sons, because the men in my life are all over the treasured memories of their childhood. It’s equal-opportunity nostalgia in my own social circle.

11:13 – CF: “There’s no more dating as we knew it” and therefore girls are totally at risk. Again, I wonder where is the trust that young women will make the world the way they want it? Where is the agency? Dating was somehow this magical land of unicorns and rainbows, and this new land of (allegedly) no dating is a nightmare that is being forced on girls? I think straight women might have had something to do with the evolution of hetero courtship?

11:57 – TA acknowledges “pushback” from feminists (thanks TA!), asks is this “just life” that you’re protecting girls from? Good question!

12:27 – CF talks like there’s only “two schools” for raising girls/children — either you’re totally controlling or totally permissive. Her language is one of moderation, as if she’s offering an alternative to all-or-nothing, as if she wants the gains of the feminist movement without the … well, it’s unclear what, but whatever it is, it’s BAD THINGS … but her word choices are all those of moral panic over SEX and girls and SEX.

12:41 – CF talks about “imperatives of male sexuality” which is such a total red flag to me. It’s gender essentialism and it’s bioreductive bullshit. As an example of the loaded language: girls are now “servicing boys”?! TA pushes back on her equation of “freedom” with “oral sex” (and oral sex that is about “servicing,” making it sound like sex is something girls do to comply with manly sexual urges when they’re forced to do so by this awful new freedom thing).

13:50 – I find myself wondering why CF things “support” for girls and young women equals “protection” and control?

15:00 – Again, she’s promulgating a very extreme duality here, despite her tone of moderation: either parents “protect” their girls by limiting their girls’ access to avenues of exploration, or they’re pushing their (unwilling?) daughters into having wild, meaningless sex with bestial boys.

15:39 – A call-in listener introduced as Vica observes that a “dichotomy has been set up” by Flanagan, and that as an Armenian immigrant who’s done cross-cultural research on women, she questions whether freedom is a bad thing. “I’ve had the freedom to explore,” she says, observing that her mother gave her the “same sorts of freedom that she now gives my little brothers.” She points to the risk of socializing women into fear, inferiority.

18:02 – Another listener, Caroline, starts out on a good note: “I’ve found it impossible to actually shield her… you have to talk to them about it.” She argues it’s important to find “talking opportunit[ies] with your daughter” … “you have to equip them” for going out into the world. Then, she describes going through her daughter’s computer history to check for porn access. What. The. Fuck. Invasion of privacy. Not okay.

20:41 – CF: “I think everything that Caroline said is fantastic” … says all parents should be asking their daughters “what are you going to require in a boy?” (God she’s so relentlessly heteronormative) … “[Boys will do whatever it takes to get access to female companionship and ultimately female sexuality.” UM WHAT? FUCK YOU. If girls don’t hold high expectations, “that’s what you’ll end up with.” Basically, if partner mistreats you, it’s all your fault for not demanding better treatment. Places girls in the role of the gatekeeper. She totally needs to hook up with got on a date with Iris Krasnow.

[Irin Carmon joins the program]

23:44 – Irin Carmon (IC): “We need to talk more about how we’re raising our boys and not have such a low opinion of them” … “there’s only so much you can protect girls” and so it’s important to model critiquing the culture, for both girls and boys.

25:04 – IC: “I don’t recognize the girl land CF describes” … Irin’s teenage years were a “fertile time” for her, recognizing that she was lucky to be in safe, supportive community of people. It was okay to talk about sex, to have Instant Messager in her room, etc.

26:17 – IC argues that the real question is “how do you create a dialogue around sexuality that’s about knowledge and not shame” — and how do we bring boys into that dialogue. I love her talking point here, and how it relentlessly calls attention to the fact that CF is relentlessly focused on policing girls’ lives, even as she places the main threat for girls on the shoulders of over-sexed boys.

26: 56 – CF: “I’m the last person to demonize boys” (you smarmy snake-oil saleswoman). Yet she goes right on to say that boys will “follow cues” that girls give them (what are they, pets?).  “Boys will be thrilled with hook up culture,” with “pornified culture.” Like, all boys? All boys are totally interested in sex the way it’s depicted in mainstream, mass-marketed porn? Why exactly do you think boys are “thrilled” with hook-up culture? Because they’re led by their dicks? And what their dicks want is access to pussy 24/7? Please check your research, listen to some actual boys and men (and the researchers who listen to those boys and men) and then we’ll talk. ‘Cause that’s not what I’m hearing. I happen to think men and boys are just as varied in their sexual desires as women, and that it’s irresponsible to start any sentence with “Boys will …” if it’s going to end with a generalization about sex or relationship desires.

28:04 – IC: “I feel like you’re conflating pornified culture with safe sex education.” AMEN.

29:40 – TA questions CF about her argument that the shift from boy/girl dating (in her idealized past) to group activities (which makes it sound like group sex, but I think she means, like, people hanging out together in friendly ways?) hurts girls. What I’m struck by is that back in the very period she’s idealizing (the 50s!), adults were concerned about the very opposite trend. The worry back in the 50s and 60s was that  teenagers were doing too much pairing off, when really they should be hanging out in groups and dating around before “going steady.” Really, I wish she’d done some basic research. Like, any research. At all. Into this period she’s supposedly harkening back to.

29:46 – CF on IC’s adolescent boyfriends: “They didn’t really treat her very well…” Oh. My. God. is she concern trolling!! Poor Irin apprently needs to be “treated nicely,” to “find a way that boys would treat her kindly.” It’s like we’re supposed to train boys like circus animals or something. Jesus H. Christ.

31:42 – IC (kicking ass, as usual): “Frankly, my adolescence was fine and so were some of the growing-up boys that I dated” … “I feel really okay … I feel fine about it because I was in a community of really supportive parents” … We’re not doing girls any favors “if we lock them up in their rooms without an internet connection.”

33:05 TA asks CF point-blank: “Is that really the measure of a good adolescence, if you had a boyfriend in high school?” THANK YOU TA.

33:25 – IC: our job is to help teenagers to be “resilient in the face of humans hurting each other.” Because sometimes people are shit even when we do everything right. Newsflash Ms. Flanagan! Women and girls (some of whom aren’t that kindly themselves) can’t domesticate the entire world and make sure no one ever, ever gets hurt by exuding perfect femininity. Or something.

34:55 – CF: “Talking about date rape is almost useless now because kids don’t go on conventional dates”??

35:20 – IC likes TA’s question about what makes a good adolescence: “I emerged feeling happy and connected and with healthy relationships” … and while she says “date rape” as a term is problematic, it’s because (duh) the qualifier makes it seem like there’s gradations of rate. “What we should be talking about is sexual violence” full stop.

36:32 – IC: “My job to actively critique and push back on” the assault on women’s rights. To ask “how do we send girls and boys out into the world … with the resilience to respond” to corrosive messages about what it means to be masculine and feminine, and to be in relationship with one another?

Again, I find myself wondering where, in Flanagan’s view of the world, is the trust that young people will know their own limits? Will grow and learn about themselves? Will say “no, I’ve had enough,” or “that’s not for me”? Why are parents depicted as the enforcers?

38:58 – CF: “If you’re in a marriage and you’re raising children that is the model they will follow.” Um … what about abusive families? What about kids who don’t want their parents’ marriage? What if a girl likes her dad, but actually wants a different sort of man as a sexual partner or … gasp! … a woman? Or both?

39: 35 – TA pushes back against CF’s characterization of IC’s childhood (THANK YOU). Again, CF uses loaded language like “unfettered” and “untrammeled” when talking about access to the Interwebs. “Parenting a teenager [is hard] … now we need to be as vigilant and hardworking as when they were toddlers.”

41:31 – CF: girls are asking “am I capable of being loving and loved by an adult man.” … um. hello? queer women? TA pushes back on the privilege bleeding all over this portrait of family life and CF places responsibility on the wife to keep marriage intact (I’m telling you: Flanagan needs to shack up with Krasnow and they can totally get off one one anothers’ view of wifely responsibility).

42:08 – IC: CF has “nostalgic ideas about family” … while she had a great two-parent home growing up, what “if one of my parents had happened to be abusive,” or “incarcerated”? “You’re setting up a value ‘what do nice girls do'” as if they can create that whole world around themselves. Yet often things happen to us that are beyond our direct control.

43:48 – CF is pretty clearly blaming women for marrying jerks, arguing that we engage in “magical thinking” about how easy marriage is, and become “self-defeating” (I’m telling you: Krasnow/Flanagan is all I can see now, and I totally wish I could erase that from my brain).

44:28 – TA: “I don’t know who’s describing [marriage] as a crap shoot …”. I love how he’s trying to be impartial, but is so clearly skeptical of Flanagan’s hyperbole.

45:06 – CF: “It’s a hardship to be raised without a father.” And … we’re out.

Yeah, I know. It was a little like shooting fish in a barrel. But I had a glass of wine and needed to unwind for an hour. No need to thank me :).

Thankfully, no actual adolescent girls were harmed in the making of this blog post. Or boys either. Or folks who haven’t decided what their gender is. I hope Flanagan’s sons find their own way in the world, and learn to make up their own minds about what it means to be a guy. ‘Cause frankly, their mother’s picture of manhood is depressing as hell.