Or “Radical Pastor Challenges Married Couples to Actually Have Sex, Inadvertently Says Sex Is ‘The Best Thing’ Couples Can Do For Their Relationship”
Last week, CNN posted this video of a Texas pastor discussing his campaign to encourage church couples to have seven straight days of sex in an attempt to strengthen their marriages. I’ll admit, it is rather unusual to hear a Baptist church official laud sex as positive, so I can understand some surprise, but the anchor interviewing him is plain blown away by the concept. She objects to his proposal on the grounds that if the couples wanted to be having sex, “they would [already] be having sex” and claims that him telling his congregation to do it makes their sex involuntary. She also suggests that taking on this seven days of sex is akin to raping your partner, given that one of the participants (according to her, it won’t be the man!) may not be feeling it on Wednesday, or Friday, or any of the days, for that matter.
It is pretty whacky and actually a little disturbing to watch their exchange. I just don’t understand the anchor’s insistence upon this inherent rape-y nature of the idea. She seems unable to believe that sex might actually foster intimacy, or that there’s any type of implied consent with coupledom, married or no. (It reminded me of an old Dan Savage column which can be found here.)
Of course, every husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend should have the right to refuse sex if they’re not in the mood. I’m not claiming that rape can’t exist within marriages. But I also don’t think it’s damaging or wrong or unhealthy to work with your partner to try to get in the mood when you’re not already there. Haven’t we all heard that when you smile, you actually start feeling happier? It’s true—everyone can coax their emotions by mimicking it with their bodies. I think that’s what this pastor is hoping to achieve. I’m picturing these couples setting aside time to work at arousing and connecting with each other, while the CNN host is apparently imagining some husband holding down his wife when they’re in bed for the night. Which scenario do you all think is more likely?
[Photo by jspad]
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Comments
is it true that teenagers are very fertile? because i didn’t think that was true. i don’t buy the ‘men are attracted to fertility’ bullshit, so i’m biased, but i’d like to see some kind of research on that if people are going to say it, you know? at least here it’s abotu age and not big boobs or something. big boobs do not equal fertility.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:26 amAl Oof,
Yup, on a total biological reducionist aspect thats one of the reasons why men tend to prefer blondes and big boobies. Our genes are looking for fertility, same way
ladies look for protection/support.
Generally speaking, as a specie; hair is lighter when younger, and big boobs are the best telltale sign of age. if they big and old they sag, if they big and young they stick out firmly, if they small you cant really tell.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:47 amSame way beauty is regarded basicaly through facial simetry, which is a the best correlated outer sign of genetic health.
but isil, big boobs that stick out are not a sign of youth or fertility. just ask any 18 year old girl with big boobs. they may be perkier than they will be when she is older, but that doesn’t mean that they’re objectively ‘perky’. facial symetry is also not a sign of good health. hair is not lighter when we’re younger either. except again perhaps as compared to our own hair when we are older. but the vast majority of people in the world would never ever have blond hair at any point in their lives and a goodly number of them have jet black hair at birth.
i just can’t believe that our innate feelings of attraction would evolve to be so terribly misled to find things that do not actually signal fertility attractive. again, i would like to see the information that purports that teenagers are more fertile than women in their mid to late 20′s. seems to me that our periods even out as we get older, to a point, and it seems odd to me that regular periods would not be a sign of fertility, and that irregular teenage periods would be.
all that said, boob development almost always follows menarche, which could mean something about fertility, but so many women have such small boobs that this still seems like a pretty fucked up mistake on the part of nature or god (whatever you believe in).
November 20th, 2008 at 3:25 pmMaybe the anchor did focus on the probability of rape a bit much–she certainly saw the negative more than the positive, but I think that’s in part because the pastor didn’t at all take it seriously or seem like he really thought through the implications of his experiment.
The odds that a woman in (or man) in his megachurch congregation is already getting pressured into sex or raped by their partner is very high. And yes, a man or a woman can be less inclined to want sex, but women are more likely to be pushed into it, feel obligated to do it, do it when they don’t want to, etc. In addition, I would hypothesize that it tends to be more conservative or religious folk (not necessarily this guy) who still believe wives must “perform their marital duties” and/or that a woman cannot be raped if she’s married. Given this very plausible hypothesis, I think the concerns about rape or sexual agency are warranted.
I also have a problem with it all being about having “sex”–which I’m assuming (rightly or wrongly) he’s defining as penis-vagina penetration. There are lots of other sexual ways to foster intimacy. Emphasizing sexual communication would have a greater impact. Otherwise sex-a-day might actually hinder intimacy.
I agree that it would have a positive impact for couples (even ones not in families!) to take time for intimacy, though his toilet-water-sex-negativity ruins anything sex-positive about his message.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pmYes, the bizarre toilet analogy was horrible! Ultimately, I guess I think there was some truth behind both of their positions, but they each expressed their ideas in less than ideal ways. As I’m not religious (at all), I’m probably out of touch with the degree of influence a pastor exerts over his congregation—but I think you bring up good points, Withoutscene. I can certainly imagine a situation in which a husband might take the pastor’s instructions as carte blanche for sex with his wife that doesn’t satisfy her or may even be unwelcome. And I agree, too, that sex should certainly be more than PIV.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:39 pmal oof,
I know it might sound awful or something, but
Science says the younger a girl is the higher her chances of getting pregnant/delivering with less complications.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18847603?ordinalpos=10&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Science says we tend to look for certain signs even if we dont realize we do.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9107011?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Do trust nature do, we are not mislead. We go for things we were programmed to seek eons ago.
Whats “misleading” is culture if you wish, turning oldies into barbies and confusing poor lonely hunting boys, girls going for a big money providing male instead of a physically protective deer killing machine dude, etc, etc. Again its quite reducionist
withoutscene,
thats very interesting, 2nd highest risk factor for child abuse is belonging to a strict religion congregation.
Not sure whats worse, being raped on the street by a stranger once or being forced to have sex with a husby you didnt quite choose while inmersed in such a limited sociologicalzoo all your life.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:19 amLeave a reply :