"Boys Can't Stop"

Racoon. Image source.

[content note: purity culture is rape culture]

Okay so I want to talk about this 2021 post from Sheila Wray Gregoire, Fixed It For You! We Fix a Survey Question So It Doesn't Enable Date Rape. Gregoire's post is addressing the idea that girls have to be the "gatekeepers" of sex, because boys can't control themselves. This is obviously a harmful idea, and I definitely was taught this and I totally bought into it, back then. I'm glad to see Gregoire's post addressing this.

Specifically, this post is about a survey question described in the book "For Young Women Only," by Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa Rice. (A book which promotes purity ideology.) Gregoire criticizes this question and the way that Feldhahn/Rice interpret the results in their book. Gregoire says this gives boys an excuse if they rape someone.

Here's the image that shows the survey question, from the book "For Young Women Only":

Image text:

Survey says:

Whether or not you are currently involved with a girlfriend, if you were to be in a make-out situation with a willing partner who does not signal a desire to stop, how do you feel about your ability to stop the sexual progression?

Why would I want to stop the sexual progression? 30%

Almost no ability. When the door is opened, it's just too tough to stop the fun. 18%

Some ability, but it would require a massive effort, and I might go further than intended. 34%

I find it easy to stop the sexual progression. 18%

Okay, so... first of all... uh... as an asexual I would like to know, what "sexual progression"?

I did not understand what this question meant when I first read it- though if I was seeing this back when I believed in purity ideology, I would have just nodded along like "oh yes, one thing leads to another, and then you have sex" because that's what everyone said- even though it didn't make any sense to me at all.

From reading the rest of Gregoire's blog post, I *think* this is what it means: So, when people are making out (this means spending a lot of time kissing), the natural next step is to do something kinda sexual like maybe feeling their partner's sexual parts with clothes still on (???), and then the next natural step after that is something like taking clothes off (?????) and so on, and at some point the next natural step is to have sex.

This is extremely confusing to me, because to me, kissing and sex are completely different things. Like, yes in some ways they are related- for example, the only person I want to make out with is my husband, and also the only person I want to have sex with is my husband. But the idea that making out naturally (???) leads to sex is just completely weird to me.

Especially if I was making out with someone I had never had sex with before. Like, sex is just a whole completely different thing, obviously requiring a whole conversation and soul-searching about what I want- it is very much *NOT* a natural step after kissing, what on earth.

Anyway, so, apparently, as far as I can tell, that's what Feldhahn and Rice's survey question was asking about. They asked boys, suppose you are making out with a girl. How much ability do you have to stop the series of steps that goes from there to sex?

I'm like ?????

OKAY BUT ANYWAY. Let's see what Gregoire has to say about it. (Note that apparently she accepts the idea that there is a "sexual progression" from making out to sex and everyone understands what it is. As an asexual, I squint suspiciously at that.)

Feldhahn & Rice combine the answers like this: 82% say they have little ability/responsibility to stop.

THEY CONCLUDE: “WITH A GUY, IF YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO STOP IT, IT’S BEST TO NOT EVEN START.”

They use words like, “a sizeable minority feel no responsibility to stop.” “Be careful.” “Be cautious.” “Watch out.”

They say, “boys needed the girls’ help” to stop.

What is this telling girls? You are responsible for stopping in a make out situation, because he can’t/won’t. If you go too far, then, it’s your fault, because you know he can’t stop.

Yes. I am glad to see Gregoire calling this out, because it is really harmful ideology. 

And, yeah, back then I literally believed "boys can't stop." (I also believed that girls would similarly reach a certain point where our desires overtake us and we can't stop ourselves from having sex- and I feared this would happen to me- but boys reach that point much much sooner than girls.)

I remember the first time I read on a feminist blog that "consent can be withdrawn at any time." (ie, if you consent to sex, but then later you change your mind and withdraw consent, your partner absolutely can and must stop, otherwise it's sexual assault.) And "just because you consent to one thing doesn't mean you consent to everything." (ie, if you consent to making out, and your partner forces/coerces you to also have sex, that's sexual assault and it's not your fault.) I was just COMPLETELY SHOCKED. Just completely, utterly shocked. I had never heard anything like that before- in fact, I had heard the exact opposite. I believed that once you start doing sexual stuff, boys lose the ability to control themselves- they really can't stop. I was just totally, completely shocked when I came across that feminist blog that said men are better than that, and it is totally reasonable to hold men to that standard. It was so unbelievable to me. I really believed "boys can't stop", just like Feldhahn and Rice say in their book.

Also, I want to stop here and mention: Asexual men exist! Purity proponents like Feldhahn and Rice say they don't, but they do!

Continuing on with Gregoire's blog post:

THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS THAT THEY ASKED BOYS ABOUT A CONSENSUAL SITUATION, AND THEN APPLIED THE DATA TO NON-CONSENSUAL ONES. THAT IS NOT A VALID USE OF THE DATA.
...
They surveyed 400 predominantly non-Christian boys, and said: (a) in a consensual situation where she wants to keep going; (b) what ability do you have to stop?

The problem is that (a) and (b) do not logically go together. What does his ability to stop have to do with her wanting to keep going?

Okay, wow, yes. They asked boys about a consensual situation, and then applied the data to non-consensual situations. I'm really glad Gregoire is pointing this out, because in my experience with purity ideology, there's no awareness of consent at all. Like, people wouldn't even notice that a consensual situation is different from a non-consensual situation.

Also, interesting that Gregoire points out these are "predominantly non-Christian boys." She's making the point that it's likely these boys don't believe it's a sin to have sex outside of marriage, and so it's likely that they'll see nothing wrong with having "sexual progression" if their partner is consenting. Therefore, it's weird that Feldhahn/Rice are using this to scare girls whose situation is totally different- for example, "pure" girls who have made it clear to their boyfriends that they are NOT interested in having sex.

Because purity culture is so oblivious to the concept of consent, there's this idea that non-Christian boys will totally coerce their girlfriends into having sex. If they don't believe it's a sin, then they have nothing to stop them, right? I remember Libby Anne wrote a really good blog post about this- Sex and Respect. Libby Anne talks about how completely confused she was when she started dating Sean, who was not a Christian and didn't believe sex was a sin, but also didn't pressure her into anything, simply because she told him she was not willing to do that. Honestly, yes, I understand how mind-blowing that is. He treated her like her unwillingness to have sex was a good enough reason on its own. He didn't care about the bible or sin or purity or whatever. He truly cared about respecting what she wanted or didn't want, and she said she did not want to have sex. And that is a good enough reason to stand on its own.

From a purity-culture perspective, that's wild and unbelievable.

Anyway, going back to Gregoire's blog post: She says that in order to get good data, we need to ask questions about 3 separate things: the respondents' own personal boundaries about sex, how they would behave in consensual situations, and how they would behave in nonconsensual situations. Here is how Gregoire would write these questions for boys:

Regardless of any past sexual experiences, which of the following statements best describes you currently:

• I am saving sex for marriage
• I do not feel I will be ready to have sex until I’m older
• I am not sure if I am ready to have sex now or not
• I feel ready to have sex now
• I am actively having sex/I am actively pursuing a sexual partner

If you were in a make-out situation with a willing partner who does not signal a desire to stop, how likely are you to want to stop that sexual progression before it leads to sex?

• Very likely – we would not have sex
• Likely
• Somewhat likely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Unlikely
• Very unlikely – we would have sex

...

If you were in a make-out situation and your partner signalled she would like to stop, how likely are you to stop that sexual progression?

• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

You may notice that the first question is not ace-friendly! It assumes that respondents definitely want to have sex eventually, and the question is whether it will be now, some time in the future, or only when they're married.

Also, yeah, like I said, look at how this "sexual progression" thing is talked about in this question. Like the idea that making out leads to sex... like it just assumes that everyone knows that's how it works.

(And Gregoire seems to think everyone is straight! How odd!)

Rebecca Lindenbach is Gregoire's co-blogger, and she chimes in here:

Note from Rebecca: You may have read “For Young Women Only” and not gotten the impression that Feldhahn and Rice were talking about non-consensual situations. We don’t think that they meant to talk to girls in date rape situations, but the problem is that they fail to emphasize that these are consensual situations. They fail to mention that these are situations where she wants it as much as he does. Instead, they tell girls to “watch out” and to be afraid of boys who have little ability and feel little responsibility to stop. If a girl were to be date raped, her boyfriend could easily use Shaunti’s own words to prove to her that it was, in fact, her fault without having to look too hard at all. The caveat in the book about rape means nothing when Feldhahn has written an entire chapter grooming girls for rapists and abusers to take advantage of them in the name of “it’s just too tough to stop the fun.”

Very good point! If a girl is raped, Feldhahn's exact words here say that it's the girl's fault for consenting to making out. She should have known that boys can't stop.

And continuing on, Gregoire says this:

Note that in the original question, Feldhahn asked about the boy’s ability to stop. What does that word imply in context? To imply that a boy may not have an ability to stop the sexual progression implies that some boys can’t help but rape (even in a consensual situation, one should still have an “ability” to stop). But she asked this in the same question she’s measuring boys’ desire to stop. In doing so, she conflates desire and ability to stop sex but then talks about them throughout the chapter as if they are one and the same.

This is very important. As I see it, there are 2 separate aspects of this: First, there's the question of whether people are overtaken with desire and lose their self-control and can't stop themselves from having sex. The answer to that is, if one person withdraws consent, then the other person does have the ability to stop, and should be held to that standard. And second, there's the safety issue. We need to warn girls that even though boys can stop, and should be held to that standard, there are boys out there who are rapists and you need to be aware of that danger. (If you meet a boy like that, don't date him! There exist boys who are not rapists- date them instead.)

These are 2 completely separate issues, but in purity teaching (such as what we see in Feldhahn/Rice's book) they are conflated. Purity culture teaches that boys really don't have the ability to stop themselves from having sex, if a girl has done something that arouses the boy. And therefore if a girl gets raped it's not really rape, it's just what happens when you're alone with a boy, you should have known that, and it's your own fault for kissing him. All boys are like that, they said.

But in reality: Boys can stop, but some of them don't because they choose to be rapists, and that's never the victim's fault, but as a practical matter you should be aware of the safety concerns associated with this. I have never EVER heard purity proponents discuss this as a safety issue; instead it's what you deserve if you commit the sin of kissing a boy/ being alone with a boy you're attracted to/ wearing clothes that you think the boy will like/ etc.

And about the first aspect, the question of whether one's desires can make it more difficult to put a stop to the, uh, "sexual progression." So... yes... okay I have no idea about having a desire for sex, but I can give an example from my own experience with cuddling. So, when I was dating my first boyfriend, let's call him BF1, there were times we were sitting on the couch together, late at night, in the common area of the dorm after everyone else had already gone back to their rooms. Sitting there, cuddling. Like, enjoying hugging each other. And we would say things like "oh I should really go back to my room, it's late, I have class tomorrow", or I would think things like, "I shouldn't spend so much time doing physical things like this with him- it's taking away my purity." But we would continue to sit there and cuddle for a while. It was very hard to leave and go to our separate dorm buildings for the night.

So, I am guessing that the idea that it's "hard" to "stop the sexual progression" is kind of like that. It feels so good and you want it, but also part of you doesn't want it, for reasons that feel kind of faraway and unimportant at that moment, and you just want to ignore those things and keep going. I feel like I can kinda understand that.

But if it's someone, right there, saying "no", or your partner laying there sort of unresponsive and you can't tell if they're enjoying it or not, uh, that's a much more serious thing than some vague guilty sense that you're not acting according to some moral decision you once made. That should be a major red flag, and pull you out of the "wow this feels so good" haze.

I really wonder how consent fits into this purity-culture narrative of a couple who was working so hard to be "pure" and not have sex, but then one night they "stumbled" and somehow ended up having sex and ruining their purity. (I also talked about this question in this post about the book "Boundaries in Dating.") 

One possibility is that Partner A doesn't really know what's going on or how to respond to it, doesn't feel like they have time to even stop and think about what they want, and Partner B keeps going and having sex with them- this is sexual assault. Partner B is raping Partner A. But books like "For Young Women Only" present this as just the normal way that it goes when you start kissing a boy- they don't say it's rape, they say this is how we can expect boys to behave, therefore girls must not even start any "sexual progression" at all. So Gregoire is saying that "For Young Women Only" is WRONG about this, and sending very harmful messages.

But what if it actually is consensual? What would that look like? I imagine it's like, both partners have said that they want to be "pure", but in that moment, keeping their "purity" feels unimportant, because of their attraction and desire, and so they make the decision to go ahead and have sex anyway. But, I imagine they usually don't say so explicitly. It's consensual in the sense that they are both choosing to do it, but, they don't actually say so out loud, and they don't ask each other for consent. They can't; that would be a sin. If you actually say out loud that you are choosing to have sex, that's a much more serious sin than "oh we got carried away and it just happened somehow." Yeah, in purity ideology, it's impossible to have a healthy understanding of consent. And my concern here is, how do you really know that your partner is consenting, if you didn't explicitly ask them? Sure, if you've had sex with them before and you can understand their nonverbal consent, that's fine, but I'm talking about a situation where 2 "pure" "virgins" "stumbled" and it "just happened."

And if you know the other person doesn't want to do it on some level... how does consent work in that case? Like you know the next day they're going to feel guilty for "losing their purity", but right now they are explicitly telling you that they consent. Do you have an obligation to say "no, I don't think you really want this" and put a stop to it? Or is that even worse, because you shouldn't act like you know what someone "really wants" better than they know themself?

Another comment from Gregoire's co-blogger, Rebecca Lindenbach:

Rebecca here for a minute: frankly, it’s bizarre to ask boys who want to have sex (as many non-Christian boys do) if they would have an “ability” to stop consensual sex! Can you imagine if this question were asked of married, Christian men? I’m pretty sure that more than 90% would answer, “Why would I want to stop?” Does that mean that over 90% of Christian married men are marital rapists? Of course not. They’d most likely be answering based on the “want” in the question, not the “able.” Of course we feel out of control during really good sex, but we know that we’re able to stop (I mean, if you were having sex and a raccoon jumped through your window onto the bed, you could stop is all I’m saying.)

YES! OH MY GOODNESS. Yes, absolutely, it is bizarre that they asked boys who presumably want to have sex whether they would be able to "stop" actions that were leading to sex. Wouldn't the respondents be confused, like "why would I want to stop?" (Which is the first option that Feldhahn/Rice offer as an answer to their survey question- but honestly it reads to me like the message that Feldhahn/Rice are trying to tell girls is "wow, look how SCARY boys are, they don't even WANT to stop, OH NO.")

It totally blows my mind that Lindenbach makes a comparison with married Christian men being asked if they would be able to stop "sexual progression" with their wives. She makes such a good point! But I have never EVER heard any comparison like that- in conservative Christian ideology, being married is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION than being unmarried. There is no comparison between a married couple and unmarried couple having sex. The unmarried couple is sinning! Oh, the horror!

And also this bit- "I mean, if you were having sex and a raccoon jumped through your window onto the bed, you could stop is all I’m saying." This little aside is MORE HELPFUL than any purity book I've ever read. Oh my goodness.

Because, in purity land, I got the impression that when you're having sex, it's like you're in a weird parallel universe where everything is different. Where you're just floating along on your feelings of attraction and love for your partner. Where everything just feels so good. A bizarre parallel universe where you have a desire to play around with each other's genitals. (??? Makes no sense on the face of it, so obviously sex must take place in a weird altered reality where that seems like a desirable thing to do.) And it feels so romantic, like you're "becoming one" with your partner, like you're "giving yourself", like you're expressing your love in the most deep and intimate way.

But, let me tell you, sex very much happens in this same reality that we live in. It's an extremely practical thing. You might feel cold. You might feel annoyed at how the blanket keeps slipping off you. You ask your partner "so, what position do you want to do?" You have to learn what method of playing-around-with-genitals works well for you. Sometimes your kid wakes up in the middle of the night and you have to stop having sex.

It's just messing around with each other's genitals, that's literally all it is. If that doesn't sound like something desirable, but you assume that when you're actually in that situation and you cross into the parallel universe, it will make more sense, well let me tell you, no, it doesn't. It really just is doing stuff with each other's genitals. In this universe.

This "racoon" comment makes me think about how totally surprised I was, when I first started having sex, and I was totally in control of my actions the whole time. Nothing happened "automatically." In fact, I couldn't even figure out how the penis is supposed to go in the vagina. (Because, it turns out I had vaginismus.) I had to spend a lot of time figuring that out. Like, thinking scientifically about it. A lot of trial-and-error. It is such a SCAM that for all these years, they had me afraid that sex was going to "just happen."

ANYWAY.

Then Gregoire says:

Rape is not a matter of inability; rape is a conscious choice. To imply that boys’ crossing girls’ boundaries is a matter of “inability” as Feldhahn and Rice did rather than as a matter of sin and abuse is highly problematic, to put it lightly.

AMEN TO THIS!

Next, Gregoire and Lindenbach have a bunch of criticism of the wording of Feldhahn and Rice's survey question response options. Yes, those options were badly written. I agree. (I won't quote all of that in this blog post- if you're interested, go read it in Gregoire's post.)

And then, Gregoire points out that Feldhahn/Rice's conclusion, "For a guy even more than a girl, making out often starts a physical drive towards sex that requires a major effort to override" makes a comparison between boys and girls, but this is not a valid use of the data because Feldhahn/Rice did not ask girls the same question!!!!!

The most similar question that Feldhahn and Rice asked the girls was this:

Many people joke that boys “only think about one thing.” This question is designed to determine whether girls think about and want that one thing as much as boys do. In your experience, if a girl and her boyfriend make out from time to time, but have not made the move to a sexual relationship, do you think the girl thinks about and physically wants sex with him as much as he probably does with her? {Choose One Answer}

• [46%] Yes, I think in that situation she’s wanting to go to bed with him as much as he wants it (whether or not she actually does go to bed with him).
• [42%] No, I think it’s probably the guy that most wants the relationship to progress to actual sex. Most girls would be fine with continuing to make out, without crossing that line.
• [12%] No, I think it’s probably only the guy that wants the relationship to progress to actual sex, and she actively doesn’t want to cross that line (even if she enjoys making out).

(Note from Rebecca: I have… a lot of thoughts about this question.)

I too have a lot of thoughts about this question.

Like, my first impression reading "if a girl and her boyfriend make out from time to time, but have not made the move to a sexual relationship" is, that seems totally fine. They probably both enjoy that and don't need it to "move" to sex (here's that weird "sexual progression" idea again). But then the question assumes that the boy wants to have sex, and asks whether the girl wants it equal to how much the boy wants it, or less than how much the boy wants it. This is so bizarre! What if the boy doesn't want to "move" to sex? What if the girl wants sex more than the boy does? What if they want it but they choose not to because of their own personal boundaries? 

ALSO WHY ARE WE ASSUMING EVERYONE IS STRAIGHT?

And, uh, there's a lot more you can criticize in this question. (Like, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out the difference between the 2nd and 3rd options.) But let's just move on instead of spending time on that.

Anyway, near the end of the post, Gregoire says this:

If a girl who had been date raped read this book, would she know that she had been assaulted? Or would she blame herself? After all, if you want to stop, it’s better not to start! Guys feel little responsibility or ability to stop. You should watch out. Be cautious. Guys need you to do the right thing.

This is rape culture. It formed the basis for a whole chapter in her book. And it was based on extremely faulty research methods.

Church, we simply must do better. Please. What are we doing to our teenage girls? And who are we expecting our boys to turn into?

I gotta say, I was very surprised to see Gregoire use the term "rape culture" here. Because, as far as I can tell, Gregoire is evangelical, and believes sex outside of marriage is a sin. I don't think I've seen people in that subculture use the term "rape culture."

Yeah, this is something that confuses me about Gregoire's post taking a stand against this purity-related date rape justification. I'm pretty sure Gregoire believes you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage. And, as I see it, there's a straight line from there to "it wasn't really rape." Here's how the logic goes:

1. You shouldn't have sex before marriage
2. because your virginity belongs to your future husband, and any sexual experience you have before marriage is taking away from what's his
3. therefore if you have consensual sex before marriage, or if you are raped, both of those hurt your future husband- the difference is whether you are to blame or not
4. therefore we should carefully scrutinize the victim's actions and see if she is to blame.
5. Oh, you enjoyed the kissing? Wow that's suspicious. How could you be so reckless with something that belongs to your future husband? Really really shady to put your future husband at risk just because you enjoy kissing some other boy.
6. Therefore it was your fault. It wasn't really rape.

I'm wondering which of points 1-5 Gregoire disagrees with, since she definitely disagrees with point 6, the conclusion.

When you introduce another person (the hypothetical future husband, or, sometimes, God) who is supposedly harmed by a woman's previous sexual experiences, then it becomes a totally different thing than if it's just about the victim and her safety and her healing and her right to have her consent respected.

All right, and 1 more thing I want to say: When I was dating my first boyfriend, BF1, I totally believed boys were all like this. Boys were all heartless leeches trying to take away my purity.

As it turned out, BF1 was a decent human being who respected my consent. But I totally didn't notice, because I had completely bought into the "you can't trust boys" warnings. BF1 said he wanted to kiss me, and I said no, and then weeks later I was surprised to find that he still wanted to kiss me but hadn't mentioned it, because he didn't want to pressure me. Like, it made no sense to me. I couldn't comprehend this idea of "he didn't want to pressure me"- because in purity culture, they said that boys are always pressuring girls, that's what you should expect from boys, they are all like that. And non-Christian boys, well, you should be even more scared of them, because they don't even have these beliefs about "purity" and "sin" holding them back. (BF1 was not a Christian.)

I didn't have a category to put him in. I didn't have any concept of the existence of boys capable of caring about girls' consent. Sure, I believed that if I explicitly said "no", a boy should stop, but that he would also tirelessly try to find ways to sneak around that. To pressure me, or set up a situation where I wouldn't say "no", and then he could get what he wanted.

And then, when my parents told me I could bring him home to visit for a week, I was very concerned about that. I thought, it's not a good idea, sleeping under the same roof... what if... you know... "one thing leads to another"... And BF1 was a bit horrified, like "you think I would try something???" And I tried to explain to him, no, it's not about you or "trying" something, it's like... you know... it will just happen if we're in a situation with too much temptation.

And he said, "I can control myself." Like it was so easy, he was so confident, he didn't see it as an issue at all. He was completely sure he wasn't going to accidentally rape anybody.

Then I was even more concerned because he apparently was not aware of this big terrible danger. He didn't know that sometimes people are trying not to have sex, but it somehow happens anyway, and this is how good Christians unfortunately lose their purity.

(If you're wondering- yes, in fact, he was right, it was not an issue at all.)

Anyway... 

So, to sum up: Feldhahn and Rice's purity-culture book "For Young Women Only" tells girls that boys have little ability to stop themselves from having sex, once you start making out with them. This is completely false. In reality, consent can be withdrawn at any time, and everyone is capable of respecting their partner's consent. I'm glad to see Gregoire calling attention to this and pointing out how harmful it is.

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Related:

6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent 

Allow Me To Showcase Some Internet People Who Know What's What About Vaginismus 

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts. 

The First Time I Heard About "Locker Room Talk" Was When the Church Taught Me About Modesty

The Shanghai Lockdown and Shared Trauma

Bloomberg photo from May 2, 2022, showing empty highways in Shanghai. Image source.

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak 

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March 16-21, 2022: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23 - May 31, 2022: Second lockdown. 69 days.

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On March 16, 2022, I wrote I'm in Lockdown. And... it lasted for 2 and a half months. 

What to say about it? It was bad. I don't want to go read my blog posts from then to summarize how bad it was. Actually just now I checked Wikipedia, and their article covers it well: 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 outbreak. Though, I will say, the Wikipedia article mentions food shortages, but just from the words "food shortage" you don't understand how bad it was.

I remember going outside to take out the trash every night- we were only allowed out of our apartment building to take out the trash and pick up deliveries- and there were no traffic sounds at all. No sounds of people walking down the street. Only birds. It was so quiet. So bizarre.

Little Square Root would watch all 4 Toy Story movies every day, while my husband and I worked from home.

And the vegetables we were able to get- they were raw, so raw. Dirt all stuck to the bottom. On more than one occasion, I found a live snail in the vegetables.

I wanted to decorate Easter eggs, but no, we didn't do that. Because we had no way of knowing when we would have the opportunity to buy more eggs. We couldn't use up any eggs on that.

And, I eat mushrooms now. I never really liked mushrooms before, but during the lockdown, that was what we had, so I ate them. And now I am fine with eating mushrooms.

And the fear and the anxiety... every day seeing all these things on social media- so many of them that the government couldn't censor them fast enough- and just stuck in our home wondering if it will happen to us. Will we need medical care and the ambulance won't come? Will our son test positive for covid and be taken away from us? Will we have to go to quarantine, and desperately try to find some pet service who can take our cat?

Something I was thinking about recently, is this: It feels so weird to think that everyone in Shanghai had similar traumatic experiences. Everyone. Every random person you see on the street. Every waitress at every restaurant. Every person you sit next to on the subway. They all have a story about what terrible things happened to them in March-April-May 2022.

Usually, with trauma, you don't talk about it because other people won't understand. But this is different. If I'm talking to someone in Shanghai and I mention something about not being able to buy food during lockdown, they will nod along, because they know. It happened to them too.

A few weeks after the lockdown ended, I was out with friends, and someone there was visiting from Beijing. He said he had heard all kinds of stories from people in Shanghai. "One of my colleagues from Shanghai organizes international training courses for hundreds of people," he said. "And then I heard that during the lockdown, she was organizing all her family members to click on an app at the same time, to try to buy some eggs." And we are all like, yeah. Yeah, that's what happened. That's what happened.

It's a weird thing, having a whole society of 25 million people, that all experienced this bad thing. Yes, some people had it worse than others. Some people continued to earn a salary during lockdown, some did not. Most people were locked down at home, but some were sleeping on the streets, at the airport, at their job. Some people already knew how to cook from scratch with Chinese vegetables, and some people didn't even own a pot. Thousands of people tested positive for covid and were taken to quarantine centers with terrible conditions. Some people had emergencies and couldn't get anyone to come help.

So, some had it worse than others, but still, it was bad for everyone.

I guess this is also what happens when a natural disaster strikes an area. Everyone there has a story about how bad it was for them. In my hometown, there was The Ice Storm. I'm too young to remember it, actually, but everyone who is from my hometown and is older than me knows about The Ice Storm.

You could say the same about the covid pandemic itself. Everyone in the world was affected by it, except maybe some isolated groups of people who have no contact with the rest of human society, I guess. 

And for international people in China- Every single one of us has a story about how we weren't able to get out of China and see our families for 3 years, or about how we jumped through so many hoops to get back into China and then stayed 14 days or 8 days or 21 days alone in a quarantine hotel (or, even worse, with a small child in a quarantine hotel). Or about getting stuck outside of China, for months, while your spouse and child are still in China. Or about going to another country in early 2020 to "wait it out" and then the border closes and the only thing you can do is find a shipping service to ship whatever things you really need from your apartment in China, and abandon the rest. Every international person in China has at least one of those traumas.

Such a strange thing... We don't talk about it, but we all lived through it. And if someone did talk about it, everyone would nod along and say "that happened to me too."

---

Links:

China Briefing

China to Resume Issuing All Types of Visas for Foreigners (March 14) Okay, this is HUGE, why can I not find a decent English article on it? There's just this paywalled Wall Street Journal article, and "China Briefing", a site I have never heard of. Also this one from Reuters but it's not exactly what I'm looking for, though it does generally cover the same information. (The perspective I was looking for was, "YOU GUYS. Here are the new visa policies" which is what the China Briefing article is, though in more formal language.)

Anyway, this is HUGE! Tourist visas to China! And if you had a tourist visa issued before March 28, 2020, that visa is now valid again (as long as it's not expired now- these are 10-year visas). Important background info on that is, on March 28, 2020, China banned all foreigners from entering the country, even if you had a valid visa or residence permit.

This is like, wow. Getting very close to "back to normal."

The New York Times

U.S. Will Lift Covid Testing Requirement for Travelers From China (March 8)

Sixth Tone

Past the Peak, China’s Schools Prep For a Normal Semester (February 13)

That's Mags [not sure if this will load if you are outside China- I couldn't get it to load with VPN on]

6 Countries Scrap PCR Test for China Returnees (February 28) On February 28, Chinese embassies in Cambodia, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sri Lanka announced that travelers coming from these 6 countries will not be required to get covid-tested to enter China. It's likely that more and more countries will be added to the list, as time goes on.

SHINE

Up close with Disney characters once again (March 6) So, during the past 3 years, when you go to Shanghai Disneyland and meet characters, there are marks on the floor showing where you have to stand, to social-distance from the Disney characters. (And this is enforced! There are only 2 places I've seen social-distancing enforced in China. The other one was standing in line for covid-testing during lockdown.) Apparently that's over now.

Hong Kong to lift mask mandate from March 1 (February 28)

Blogaround

1. My Latest Book! On “The Many Lives of Psalm 91” (December 8) I am a huge bible nerd, so I am really interested in this book.

2. And it leaves me reeling (March 14) Another very good post from the Slacktivist about revival. Referring to the revival that almost maybe started in 2015, he says, "But whatever revival might have begun there was quickly squelched as InterVarsity began furiously backpedaling, insisting that none of the repentance and renewal pledged by thousands of young people at that event would be allowed to become meaningful or lasting."

3. Why the Effort to Make the Texas Abortion Bans More Humane Is Doomed (March 14) "From the time of previous eras’ abortion bans, exceptions were tailored more to prevent free access to the procedure than to address real problems in pregnancy, and state abortion laws today are no exception."

4. Oscars 2023: Everything Everywhere All At Once cleans up with seven awards (March 13) Yes!

5. Handsome Dancer - Coincidance (2015) Okay I'm sure I must have posted this video before, but this is so ridiculous and funny and everyone needs to watch it.

Vaginismus Is Not A Problem, In And Of Itself

A neon sign that says "Your body belongs to you." Image source.

So I happened to see this youtube video, What Is Vaginismus and How Is It Diagnosed?, and I have some things to say. (I used to have vaginismus- I've blogged about it.)

Basically the video is about what vaginismus is, how it's diagnosed, and how it's treated. Vaginismus is a medical condition where the muscles around the vagina involuntarily contract, so that penetration is difficult and painful, or even impossible.

When the video talks about how vaginismus is diagnosed... it made me sad, because I've never had gynecologists treat me with as much care and respect as what's described in the video. Like, hard for me to even imagine.

Here's what the woman in the video, Denise Conway, says:

You should contact your gynecologist beforehand, to let them know if you think you have vaginismus, because this will ensure that they are aware of your fears ahead of time and they can prepare properly for your visit. When you have your exam, they should begin by giving you a mirror so that you can look at your vulva. They can explain what the different parts are, and they can talk you through the exam before they begin. A speculum is often used for gynecological exams. They may be able to use a small speculum because of your vaginismus. Before they use the speculum, they will likely use a q-tip to see if you can relax for that, and if you're okay with the q-tip, they may guide you to insert either one or two of your own fingers, just to see how you manage with that. They're then going to proceed with the exam, if it's possible. And they will grade your vaginismus if they find that you have it.

Wow! Imagine such a utopia, where gynecologists did all those things! That would be so wonderful.

Do only patients who know the word "vaginismus" get to be treated so well? And if you don't know that word, and you just naively trust that doctors know what they're doing, then you get treated like your pain isn't real and you're a wimp? (Speaking from experience here...) Is that what they teach in gynecologist school?

Anyway, next in the video, she says,

Once you've been diagnosed, then you can discuss the treatment options.

She first recommends some yoga exercises which can help to relax the pelvic muscles. Also, she recommends therapy or couples counseling. And dilators. What are dilators, you ask? It means you get a set of special medical dildos of various sizes, and you practice sticking them in your vagina.

So... I mean, yes, that's what the treatment is, from a medical perspective. But I think something very important is missing. I think we have to take a huge step back, before doing any treatment, and ask: What do you want? 

You, the person with a vagina. What do you want? Your body belongs to you. Your sex life (or lack thereof) belongs to you. What do you want?

Because, here's the important thing, which I never see mentioned in medical articles about vaginismus: Vaginismus is not a problem, in and of itself. If you have vaginismus, and you want to put things in your vagina, now THAT'S when it becomes a problem. But if you just want to go about your life never putting anything in your vagina, then yes, that's a perfectly valid solution. No problem with that at all.

Before you start any kind of "treatment", ask yourself why it needs to be treated. Why is it so important to put things in your vagina? Is it really important enough to justify spending your time on exercises, and therapy, and trying to grit your teeth and tolerate it while you "train" with a series of increasingly-bigger dildos? (Note that the "therapy" mentioned in the video was about figuring out why you have so much anxiety around sex- not about figuring out what you *actually* want.)

What do you want?

Not "what does society want?" Not "what does your male partner want?" Not "what does your doctor want?" 

What do you want?

As I see it, there are a few reasons that people might want to put things in their vagina:

1. You want to have vaginal sex
2. You want to use tampons
3. You want to have medical exams such as pap smears
4. You want to get pregnant

For each of these, you can evaluate your own situation and decide if it's really necessary or not. Perhaps your desire to do any of these 4 things is not high enough to justify putting yourself through all the trouble of "treating" your vaginismus. (And let me say something about #3 there- don't think you "have to" just because it's a medical procedure. If you have never had vaginal sex, the risk of having cervical cancer is extremely low, and it's quite possible that the risk is low enough that it's truly not worth putting yourself through the pain of doing a pap smear. I'm not a doctor, so don't take medical advice from me, but my point is, you should definitely *not* think it's as simple as "I HAVE to get a pap smear because the doctor said.")

It just makes me so sad, seeing this video about vaginismus jump straight from diagnosis to treatment. (And actually all medical resources on vaginismus do this- don't take this as me singling out this video for criticism. It's all of them.) Like, they're saying that if you have vaginismus, something's wrong with your body and it needs to be changed. Why should your doctor get to decide that? 

SO WHAT if you can't have vaginal sex? That's only a problem if you want to have vaginal sex. Notice that I said it's about if *YOU* want to have vaginal sex. That's not the same thing as "my male partner wants to have vaginal sex." That's not the same things as "if you're married then you have to have vaginal sex."

I'm just imagining a good little girl, who always wore "modest" clothes because she was told her body was dangerous to men, who was very careful about following the rules about purity... She finally gets married and she knows that it will be her responsibility to make sure her husband's sexual "needs" are met... and then it turns out she has vaginismus, and she can't even have sex correctly, oh no, she's not good enough for her husband, she's not holding up her end of the marriage vows. She has to go to a doctor and the doctor will tell her what she needs to do to make her body good enough for a man. She has to spend her time on yoga, because her body isn't good enough for a man. She has to endure the pain of trying to push dilators in, trying to force herself to relax, hoping she can make herself good enough for a man.

Meanwhile, what is her husband doing? Is he causing pain to his genitals? No, of course not. (Nobody expects men to put themselves through anything like that.) He is very kindly and patiently waiting for his wife to get back on track. He tolerates the delay, and doesn't even cheat on her, even though, well, you know how men are. Poor guy, this must be so hard for him. What a saint.

What do you want?

One of the risk factors for vaginismus is having a conservative religious background. The kind of background where girls aren't allowed to really ask themselves the question, "What do I want?" Where girls are told that their body does not belong to them, it belongs to their "future husband." Where masturbating is a sin. Where instead of real sex ed, there's just "abstinence only" and extended metaphors about how gross and unlovable you will be if you're not a virgin. That's why we can't jump straight from diagnosis to treatment. There's another option besides treatment- it's living a life where you never put anything in your vagina. Do you think you could be happy with that kind of life? If so, vaginismus is not a problem.

And, if you still want to have sex, please note that the clit is on the outside, and you can get an orgasm through clitoral stimulation, without any vaginal penetration required at all. (Here's a link to Scarleteen.) Why is everyone acting like vaginal sex is so important? Just because men like it? I'm imagining that naive young woman again, who has never even had an orgasm- even though THE CLIT IS ON THE OUTSIDE and she could totally have an orgasm with no pain at all. But no, she's not doing that. What's she doing instead? She's spending her time wincing in pain as she tries the dilators, for the sake of her husband's orgasms.

What do you want?

And okay, I recognize that when a patient tells their doctor about some medical issue, it's because the patient sees it as a problem and wants it changed. I'm not sure that doctors' typical approach would lead them to say, "Maybe this is not actually a problem, and we should dismantle all of society's heteronormative assumptions instead." That seems like... not really the thing that doctors focus on.

And that's why I'm glad I found the asexual community, instead of a doctor.

I tried to have vaginal sex, and couldn't figure out why it was so painful, sometimes even impossible. Everyone talked about sex like it was so easy and wonderful, and I couldn't understand why. I asked several doctors about it- "why is sex painful?"- and they said "just relax" and other completely useless things. Then I started to wonder if I was asexual- if this is what sex is, then NOPE I very much DO NOT have a desire for that.

And I read more and more about asexuality on the internet, and it was all about "What do you want?" They said that just because society says "everyone" has sexual and romantic desires, well, that's not true, you can figure out for yourself what desires you have. They said there are different kinds of attraction, and you can analyze your feelings and figure out where you fit in. They said some aces masturbate and some don't, and that's fine. They said some aces have sex and some don't, and that's fine.

What do you want?

That's how I found out that my body belongs to me. My sexuality belongs to me- not my husband. My identity belongs to me. My desires are my own- nobody else can tell me what my desires are.

And I started from there, and I explored what I want. And one of the things I wanted was to have vaginal sex- sort of for healthy reasons and sort of for problematic reasons- but there were other things besides that. I wanted to understand my own body- which definitely would not have happened if I had found a doctor to treat me for vaginismus instead. I would have been totally clueless at the start, and then totally clueless at the end, but with dilators, and the shaky hope that I might be "good enough" for my husband. No, that's no way to live.

One thing I should make clear here: I was never officially diagnosed with vaginismus, and never had treatment from a doctor- instead I figured out what to do MY OWN DAMN SELF. So here in this blog post, perhaps I am making it sound like whatever treatment doctors give for vaginismus is very scary and painful- but actually I don't have any experience with that, so that's not what I mean. I don't mean the treatment itself. I mean the idea of doing those treatments while still completely in the dark about how my body works, and only motivated by my fear of not meeting a straight man's standards. That's what horrifies me. 

Sticking a dilator in because you have a whole flourishing sexual understanding of yourself, you know what orgasms are, and you specifically want to work on the vaginismus issue because you have goals about what you want to get out of sex, long-term- that's great! Sticking a dilator in because the only thing you know about sex is "penis goes in vagina" and you can't even manage that, therefore something is wrong with you, and you need to fix it before your partner gets fed up with you, because it's so unfair that you're doing this to him, this isn't what he signed up for- NOT COOL. DON'T DO THAT.

The next step after a vaginismus diagnosis should be to challenge heteronormativity, to challenge compulsory sexuality, to challenge the male-centered view of sex. A doctor is not going to do that for you- you have to do it yourself. And then, after that, after you've challenged those ideologies and figured out what you want, you may find that it is useful for you to get guidance from a doctor to address the specific physical bodily processes that cause vaginismus.

But if it's a choice between "strike out on your own and figure out what you want" (like I did) or "let a doctor tell you what to do, to change your body, just like you've always let men tell you what kind of sex you're supposed to have", well, definitely choose the first. Definitely.

So people who have vaginismus should ask themselves, "Is there any reason I need to put things in my vagina?" Perhaps there is, perhaps there is not. Only you can answer that question for yourself. Not your doctor. Not your male partner. Not any cis man. Just because you have vaginismus doesn't mean you have to get treatment for it. Only do it if it's what you want.

---

Okay and 1 more thing I want to say about the video:

Near the 42-second mark, there are these 2 COMPLETELY WILD graphs:

Graph titled "From initial penetration, normal without vaginismus." The y-axis is "Pain & Discomfort" and the x-axis is the number of "Penetration Attempts." The pain starts at a "10" for the first 1-5 penetration attempts, then goes down gradually, till it hits "0" on the 35th attempt, and stays at "0" after that.

Graph titled "From initial penetration, with vaginismus present." Same axes as above, but this graph shows the pain is a "10" every single time, even to the 55th penetration attempt.

Okay, first of all, wow, maybe this explains why I've heard people talking about "the first time is painful for women" but something about it seemed *different* from my experience. Like, I have often felt confused about why I hear people say "sex is often painful for women but we don't talk about it enough" and also I hear people say "women enjoy sex but we don't talk about it enough." These graphs kind of show the idea of pain being sort of a "normal" thing, but the vaginismus experience is completely different than that.

And my second thought was, wait, it's "normal" for sex to be a 10 on the pain scale the first bunch of times, if you have a vagina? Like, is the idea "this is just the way it is" or is it "sadly, people don't understand foreplay, and therefore women are experiencing a lot of pain which is COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE"?

Scene from "The Lion King" where Timon says "And everybody is OK with this?" Image source.

Like, why are people with vaginas even having vaginal sex, then? Seems like a total scam. I guess there must be some desire for it, where you intuitively believe that it's the sort of thing that, in the long run, will feel good?

Oh and also, no idea where the source data for these graphs came from. It's possible they're completely wrong. Who knows.

---

Related:

How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus) 

On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles

Sea Monsters on Land, and My Life With Vaginismus

My Husband Is Not The Entire Focus Of My Sex Life

Separating Vaginismus From Asexuality

Blogaround

1. AO3 Comments and Why People Aren't Leaving More of Them (March 5) About comment culture on Tumblr and its influence on Archive Of Our Own.

And another one also from Coyote: Arguments Against Wikia/Fandom (March 3) About wiki sites hosted by Wikia/Fandom and how the whole system is kinda dysfunctional.

2. Here Is Our Registration To Blog In Florida, Mister Knucklef*ck Sh*thead State Senator, Sir (March 3) "You really thought that through! You don't mention whether the bloggers must be resident to the great state of Florida, one of those oversights that can happen when a bunch of [*******] idiots get elected to make 'laws.' We'll assume that it applies to everyone everywhere in the known universe, since you didn't say it ain't."

3. A Summary of Issues with Every Man's Battle (with Download) (February 22) [content note: quotes from "Every Man's Battle" describe women in disgusting oversexualized ways] I never read "Every Man's Battle" (or any of the related books) but I knew it was a well-regarded best-selling book in Christian circles. Umm, turns out the book is actually about how men are all disgusting pigs who want to objectify women constantly and masturbate about it- like, presenting this as perfectly normal behavior for men, this is what we should expect from all men, it would be unreasonable to hold men to a higher standard than that... and apparently the solution is men need to learn how to *only* objectify and use their wife, rather than every woman they happen to see. Eww.

Anyway, glad I never read that book. It would have messed me up even more than The Modesty Survey did.

In reality, it turns out that men are perfectly capable of respecting women. And in fact, the vast majority of men go about their lives treating women like normal people rather than sex objects. The church explicitly teaches that this is not possible.

(Also gotta love the asexual erasure right there in the title- "Every Man's Battle.")

And a follow-up post: You Don't Need to Objectify Women to Identify with Those Fighting Lust (February 27) "The descriptions of women’s and girls’ bodies are everywhere, and they are salacious. Fred Stoeker, in Every Young Man’s Battle, goes on and on about the specific type of porn he loved, describing it, and the girls’ bodies, in detail."

4. Why doesn’t EA divest from crypto? (March 7) "But perhaps these critiques lack specificity, so let’s add some in. Lack of internal diversity causes EA to be dominated by the viewpoints of techies who tend to be into crypto. Reliance on wealthy people such as SBF makes EA unwilling to fight the systems that created that wealth such as crypto. Earning to give practically encourages the most exploitative career paths such as when SBF was advised by EA leaders to follow his career path. It all points to crypto."

5. China’s First Deaf Lawyer Beat The Odds. Now, She’s Giving Back. (March 8) "The problem is further compounded by the fact that interpreters and the deaf community use different forms of sign language. While interpreters use Chinese Sign Language, the standardized form officially promoted since the 1990s, many of China’s deaf only use Natural Sign Language, which has different grammar and varies from region to region."

And another article also from Sixth Tone: Chinese Boss’ Call to Work Weekends Sparks Discussion on Overtime (March 10) "'When I was still in that company, many people envied me,' Chen told Sixth Tone. 'I was the example to follow for younger students. I gave up my break time for those pointless expectations.'"

6. Is the sun setting on solitary confinement? (March 8) "For instance, in day-to-day practice, solitary confinement is less a punishment for in-prison violence and more a 'catch-all' for anyone (seriously mentally ill, pregnant, gender non-conforming, litigious, juvenile) who cannot function within the existing rules of the prison system. And there is no evidence that solitary confinement reduces in-prison violence."

7. The Nonsense of Nonviolence (King Legacy Pt. 2) (February 8) "When you hear these principles, one thing ought to strike you: this seems like it would be impossible for someone if they aren’t a Christian. ... It requires a trust in a Savior who will win even if you lose. It requires trust in a God who will bring justice even if you die in the struggle. That takes courage indeed."

Also from the same blog: Slavery and Redemption in the New Testament (February 2) "How do we translate doulos in this passage? In the original context, it unquestionably meant 'slave,' but if we use the word today, then a modern reader will be so focused on that fact as to miss any other points in the story. We are  likely to to ask: how on earth can that man justify keeping a slave in the first place, and to treat him so roughly? So we say servant (or handmaiden), and miss the total subjection and constraint implied by slave. Quite likely, the word slave is now so tainted as to be (so to speak) beyond redemption. So what do we do? Any translation we offer will miss the cultural context."

The Privilege and Complicity of Fix-It Felix Jr

Fix-It Felix receives a medal at the end of the game. All the Nicelanders are smiling, and Ralph looks unhappy. Image source.

[content note: spoilers for the Disney movie "Wreck-It Ralph"]

The movie "Wreck-It Ralph" (2012) is about a video game character named Wreck-It Ralph, from the fictional video game "Fix-It Felix Jr." Ralph's role in the game is to be the "bad guy" who wrecks the building, and then the "good guy", Fix-It Felix Jr, comes and fixes the building. Ralph isn't actually "bad"; that's just the role he has to play in the video game. Ralph is unhappy because none of the other characters in the game appreciate him. They make him live in a dump, while they all have parties without him in the apartment building. They don't want to have anything to do with him, because he's "the bad guy." Ralph decides to leave his game and prove he can be more than just "the bad guy", and, well, that's what the movie is about.

I want to talk about Fix-It Felix, though. I LOVE Fix-It Felix. He is my favorite character from this movie, and Sergeant Calhoun is my second-favorite. I love him because he's so innocent and very much wants to work hard and do what's right. And his character is really exactly what you would get if the hero from a simple fixing-the-building video game came to life. (And I love Calhoun because she's exactly the character from a typical arcade first-person-shooter set in some post-apocalyptic world.)

But Felix lives in a society (in his video game) where he is on the top and Ralph is on the bottom. Ralph suffers, while Felix gets medals and admiration from the Nicelanders (the other characters in the game). Felix has privilege. And it's not Felix's fault that Ralph is treated unjustly- no one blames him for it in the movie- but since he's at the top, shouldn't he do something about it?

Here's how Ralph describes Felix, at the beginning of the movie:

So yeah, naturally, the guy with the name Fix-It Felix is the good guy. He's nice enough as good guys go. Definitely fixes stuff really well. But, uh, if you got a magic hammer from your father, how hard can it be? If he was a regular contractor, carpenter guy, I guarantee you, you will not be able to fix the damage that I do as quickly.

Ralph says this at the "Bad Anon" meeting, a gathering of video game "bad guys" learning to accept themselves for who they are. Notice how he describes Felix- "He's nice enough as good guys go." Like, there's nothing wrong with Felix personally, but they all know that as a good guy, Felix won't understand how Ralph feels.

And yes, Felix fixes the building using the magic hammer from his father. He was born into this role. That's just the way it is. And there's nothing wrong with that. But he should realize that not everyone had the opportunities that he had. Felix might say "I worked hard fixing the building, I deserve to have these medals and recognition"- and yes, I agree with that. He did work hard, and he deserves those things. But you can't stop there- Ralph also deserves those things. Plenty of other people work hard too, but they don't get the same rewards that Felix gets, because of the role they happen to be programmed for, in their video game.

At the beginning of the movie, there's a scene where Ralph shows up uninvited to the party that Felix and the Nicelanders are having. And Felix is polite to Ralph, even brings him into the party because it seems like the polite thing to do- despite the fact that Felix is obviously uncomfortable with Ralph being there. When Ralph gets into an argument with Gene (one of the Nicelanders), Felix tries to diffuse it. He's nice and just wants everyone to get along.

Gene is the one who's actively being mean to Ralph. He says:

If you won a medal, we’d let you live up here in the penthouse! But it will never happen, because you’re just the bad guy who wrecks the building.

(Gene does have a point though, because Ralph does smash the cake at the party.)

Felix isn't mean like that. He tries to be nice to everyone. But he's at the top of their society, and he doesn't question that. He was born into a system and taught that this is how things work: He needs to work hard and fix the building, and then he will be rewarded with medals and pie, and that's the way it is. He doesn't think about the fact that other people haven't been given the opportunities he has. He doesn't think about the fact that society treats Ralph unfairly and makes him live alone in a dump, even though Ralph is just doing the job he needs to do in their game.

Felix just goes along with it. He himself never treats Ralph badly... but I would say he's complicit. Because if you're in that position, you should eventually realize that other people have it worse than you- even though your whole society is structured to prevent you from realizing that. At some point, though, you're complicit, because you should have realized it and taken action to change it.

Anyway, when Ralph goes missing and the Nicelanders discover that their video game doesn't work without him, Felix goes to look for him. Of course he does- he's a good guy, and he feels a responsibility to always fix things that go wrong. When he and Sergeant Calhoun discover that Ralph accidentally brought a dangerous cy-bug into the video game "Sugar Rush", Felix insists on going with Calhoun, even though she warns him it's dangerous. (And she clearly has seen a lot more danger than he has; it's very entertaining how dark and terrifying the language is that she uses to describe what will happen if they don't catch that cy-bug, while Felix is so innocent and polite, calling her "ma'am" and using fake expletives like "I don't have to do boo. Forgive my potty-mouth.") Of course he insists he has to go with her- he's a good guy, and he feels a responsibility to solve the problem that Ralph caused, because those are the roles they always play in their game.

Anyway, here's the scene where Felix finally gets it. He's been put in the jail in the "Sugar Rush" game, and Ralph comes to break him out and ask for his help:

In the clip above, Felix says:

No, Ralph! You don't know what it's like to be rejected and treated like a criminal.

And Ralph tells him,

Yes, I do. That's every day of my life.

And Felix finally gets it.

It's not Felix's fault he was programmed to be the good guy and Ralph was programmed to be the bad guy. It's not a bad thing that he received a magic hammer from his father. It's not his fault that his hard work fixing the building leads to winning medals and being admired by everyone, while Ralph's hard work only gets him rejected and ostracized. Felix is a good person. He's never mean to Ralph in their one-on-one interactions. He tries to be nice to everyone and to do what's right. But he lives in this system that puts him on the top and Ralph on the bottom, and he doesn't see anything wrong with it- not til he's the one that ends up thrown in jail unjustly.

Felix just goes along with it, very naive and innocent and totally buying into this lie that his society tells- "if you work hard, you will get a medal"- without realizing that's not how it works for Ralph. The lie "Ralph deserves to live in the dump because he's the bad guy." Felix is a good person, and none of this is because of anything he did wrong- but at some point, he should have been able to get a glimpse of what life is really like for Ralph, and realize that they don't live in a just society. And vow to change it. 

For all the years that he just accepted the way society treated him and Ralph, he was complicit.

---

Related:

Buzz Lightyear and the Years We Lost to Covid 

Zootopia, an Adorable Disney Cartoon about Systemic Racism 

I Didn't Like the Ocean in "Moana" Because it was Too Much Like God

Feminism 101: Privilege

Blogaround

1. A Chinese Village Bet Its Future on Tourism. Then, COVID Hit. (March 1) "The village’s 200 or so inhabitants belong to the Yao ethnic minority that lives on both sides of the China-Laos border. Many local men go to Laos to find a wife. Most older people do not speak Mandarin, only Yao."

Also, Sixth Tone is writing a series on the tradition of "bride prices":

Who’s Profiting Off China’s Bride Prices? (February 22) "In rural parts of north China, such as Henan, Shandong, and the northern parts of Anhui province, the bride’s parents generally don’t keep the money for themselves, for fear of being accused of having sold their daughter. Instead, the money is passed to the bride for use in married life."

How to Price a Bride (March 2) "In this instance, the bride’s family was willing to lower its request in line with Bai’s expectations, but as an upstanding local family, they felt they couldn’t open negotiations with a below-average bride price. Instead, they waited for Bai to counter before immediately offering a compromise. Although it may seem unnecessarily roundabout, this negotiation process was essential to satisfying the moral sensibilities of both families."

This must be more of a thing in rural China and not in cities. I married a Chinese man and didn't get any money for it...

And one more from Sixth Tone: Citing Privacy, Wuxi Deletes 1 Billion Pieces of COVID-19 Data (March 3) "'The deletion of such data is in line with existing laws and safeguards the personal privacy of citizens against possible theft and misuse in the digital era,' stated a government notice, adding it reflected a 'people-centered' philosophy for governing data."

2. A deluge of artificial stories: The chatbot crisis at Clarkesworld (February 22) "Which leads to the current question that wiser minds than mine are currently conking skulls over: How does one continue to advance egalitarian and equity-oriented practices on a creative front, when new technology is leveling the playing field in the most brute force way imaginable—by steamrolling over any player with an open-door policy?"

3. A few things in defense of EA (March 4) "Earning to give might be weird, but its main effect is to cancel out the weirdness of extreme utilitarianism. It allows EA folks to basically reach the same conclusion that normies reached by not thinking about it that hard."

4. Let's talk endorsements (March 5) "First, though, my sense is that endorsements function slightly differently in Christian publishing. In many cases, an endorsement stands as a guarantor of theological orthodoxy (as particular camps define orthodoxy). ... Complementarian? Great, that’s all I need to know: 'This book is brilliant, everyone should read it.' End up on the right side of the lgbtq divide? 'This book is a must-read.'"

5. Pastors (and Others) Exempt from Tithing (March 5) "Pastors, if you decide to give regularly, I suggest you choose another entity besides your congregation as the recipient. It’s just weird to give back to the one that pays you."

6. The Fundamental Flaws in Josh Butler’s Argument (March 6) "Ephesians 5 Is Not About Sεx" Yes THANK YOU for saying this.

And another post also from Jackson Wu: The Poor are Honored through Exile (February 21) This is interesting, though I'm not sure I agree with it- I'm very skeptical of the idea that there could exist society-wide disasters that harm rich/elite people more than they harm poor people. But I like how Wu is bringing up the concept of God not treating the entire society as equally guilty, but viewing the poor as *not* deserving of the punishment that the upper class suffered.

7. P!nk - F**kin' Perfect (Lyric Video) I've shared this song before, but, I'm ex-evangelical and it's one of my favorite songs.

The Logistics of a Revival

A whiteboard at the Asbury revival showing the times when the chapel is open on February 16. Image source.

My posts on the Asbury revival:

February 13 Blogaround
"There is no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred": What people do with "revival"
Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides? 
The Logistics of a Revival
Why I Don't Want to be at a "Revival"

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Really great post from Christianity Today: ‘No Celebrities Except Jesus’: How Asbury Protected the Revival (February 23). It's about the very practical decisions that leaders at Asbury University made to keep the "revival" focused on the things they believed it should be focused on. (The article is paywalled, but go ahead and click it because I think they give a few free views per month... Honestly for me it *is* worth paying the $49 yearly subscription fee for Christianity Today, just to read this article. I think that says something about what specific type of nerd I am...)

I love this post SO MUCH, because I think people have this idea that things like revival "just happen" and there's no conscious human decision-making. As if God just does this thing and then everyone is emotionally caught up in it and responds automatically. No, that's not how it works at all. The reality is there's A LOT of behind-the-scenes stuff going on to keep things running smoothly. The initial trigger may have been caused by God, but the things that happened afterward, to direct the event and shape it to be a certain way, was very much a product of human decision-making. (And yes, I'm sure that people prayed about these decisions a lot, and believed that it was God telling them to do those things- still, this is humans taking action, not something that God causes to happen automatically.)

Here, let's take a look:

The school had not planned an outpouring of the Spirit. But when something started to happen in the middle of the first week of February—the middle of the semester, a few days before the Super Bowl—an impromptu mix of administrators, staff, faculty, friends, and university neighbors quickly mobilized. They gathered in a storage closet off the side of Hughes Auditorium and then repurposed a classroom to facilitate and support whatever it was that God was doing.

As word spread, the crowds came, and debates raged online about whether this was a “real” revival, these men and women worked untold hours to make sure that everyone who sought God had food and water and restrooms and everyone was safe. Part of the story behind the story of the revival is the almost invisible work that went into protecting it.

“There were 100 people volunteering at any one time, just to make these services work on the fly,” Asbury University president Kevin Brown told CT. “There was a classroom that got redeployed into almost a command center. If you walked in, there were flow charts on the wall and the whiteboards were covered with information. There was a volunteer check-in station. … It was one of the most impressive technical feats I’ve ever seen.”

Yes! Love this! This is great. A team of volunteers came together to decide how to manage the "revival." And that NEEDED to happen, otherwise it would have become a disorganized mess. But the team of volunteers is doing that work, it's not "God." Like I said in another post on the revival, there's what God does, and then there's how people respond to it.

It wasn't just "God did this"- it was "God did a thing, and then we organized around it to make it into something." (I say this because personally I think there *is* something to this that's really from God- but I definitely understand if you don't believe that, and I am SO not on board with the evangelicals who are like "hooray let's pray that this happens in other universities too!" as if it's self-evidently a good thing.) It could have gone a completely different direction if the humans there had made different decisions.

Then they started thinking slightly longer term: “Will students stay all night? What does that look like? Should we leave the sound system on? Should we let students keep bringing guitars into chapel?”

The group decided to have ministers stay in Hughes and have security watch the building but keep it open. They would let the students stay and pray and sing as long as they wanted.

Other decisions they made in the next few days seem, as the ad hoc committee reflects on them now, almost like they happened by instinct. There was no time for drawn-out discussions. They would meet in the storage closet and make decisions minute by minute. Did they want to put up screens for the lyrics of the worship songs? No. Should ministers who spoke on stage stop to introduce themselves? No. Should they put up signs asking people not to livestream? Yes.

YES! I love this SO MUCH! So practical! These are very real decisions that needed to be made, and it all happened behind the scenes- and people might get the mistaken impression that these things just happened automatically because "God did it" or whatever. 

By evening the crowd had grown to about 3,000, and the university had to set up overflow rooms. At the same time, an uncoordinated infrastructure of support began to appear. An Asbury student set up a table and started handing out tea and coffee. She said Jesus told her to. A woman in Indianapolis baked chocolate chip cookies for a full day and then drove down to give them away. A professor went and got cases of bottled water.

Pizza appeared, unbidden, along with homemade potato soup, cake, a table of protein bars, and what one volunteer called “all the Chick-fil-A.” Someone volunteered to start organizing housing and put up signs with QR codes that people could scan to start the process of finding a place to sleep.

Yessssssssssssssss. Thousands of people descend on this little Kentucky town, creating PROBLEMS like where are they gonna sleep? And people needed to step in and do that organizing work. It's not an emotionally moving spiritual experience, but it's important and necessary.

As news of the singing, praying students ripped across social media and “takes” ricocheted around Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook, the team planned and organized, working out the details of how to deal with that tension. So when someone started blowing on a shofar—the curly ram’s horn trumpet that some charismatic Christians have turned into a symbol of MAGA politics and spiritual warfare—the chapel staff didn’t have a protocol for that exact situation, but they knew what to do. They asked the person to recognize the way God had showed up in the chapel and be faithful to the sweet, humble, peaceful spirit of the outpouring.

They did the same thing, Asbury staff told CT, when someone started praying loudly and aggressively. And again when someone started attempting an exorcism—not arguing about demonology or citing university rules, but invoking the authority of the outpouring itself.

“We want to be true to how the Holy Spirit showed up with our students,” said Baldwin, the vice president of student life. “We experienced joy. We experienced love. We experienced peace. There was lots of singing and testimonies. Those became our signposts. This is how, in front of our eyes, we are seeing the Holy Spirit come upon our students, and we want to honor that.”

Most people complied, though a few had to be asked to leave. One street preacher came wearing a T-shirt condemning gay sex and a plan, according to staff, to shout at students about perversion. He was escorted off the property. Another person wouldn’t stop praying aggressively and was told he had to go outside.

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

So, because this became a huge thing that attracted thousands of people, inevitably they got people who wanted to come and make big political/controversial/wacky overtures. And this volunteer team at Asbury did not allow that. Good for them! I love how practical this is- they don't just naively assume that since this is "from God" then nothing bad will happen.

It's interesting that the reason they give isn't "that's offensive" or "we don't agree with those beliefs"- instead, they said it was because they wanted to stay true to what the revival had been about from the beginning- about people having the experience of feeling God's presence. About singing and testimonies. By using this as the reason, they don't get into debates about which beliefs are right and which are wrong. Very interesting.

But you can see here that these sorts of practical decisions can potentially cause the "revival" to veer away from what God intended it to be. What if that weirdo trying to perform an exorcism was called by God to do that, and the Asbury volunteers were wrong to put a stop to it? Isn't this the kind of spiritual experience where you should be open to whatever God is doing, even if it's something really weird like having somebody loudly perform an exorcism?

So, my point is, this is a decision. If the would-be exorcist was sent by God, and you stop them, then you cause everyone to miss out on whatever amazing spiritual things God was planning to do involving the exorcism. But if you err in the other direction- if they're not from God, but you let them go ahead and do whatever they want, then they are doing something weird/offensive that messes up other people's spiritual experiences. And maybe more weirdos will show up and do other things like that, and turn the whole event into some kind of circus.

They had to make a decision- and it's a human decision, it's not something that happens automatically because "God." (Though yes, I'm sure the Asbury people were praying a lot to ask God what decisions they should make about all these practical things. Probably exorcist-person was also praying though!) Because of my own personal beliefs regarding exorcism, I think this exorcist-person was, uh, wrong, and the Asbury team made the right decision. But you see, my ideas of what's reasonable and what's not are very much rooted in my own beliefs about exorcism. It's not God making that decision- it's humans, with all their existing biases.

It makes me wonder what decisions they would have made on other "controversial" "issues", like existing as a queer person. But, again, these kinds of practical decisions are unavoidable. 

When the chapel staff opened up the microphone again for testimonies, they started vetting them first. As an added precaution, the Asbury team held on to the microphones while people talked.

YES! Vet the testimonies! I LOVE IT! OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE THIS ARTICLE SO MUCH!

I grew up evangelical, so I have been to many testimony services, where any random person from the audience can come up to the microphone and tell their story of how God has been working in their life recently or whatever. Before the testimony time starts, I've often heard the speaker remind everyone of "The ABC's of testimonies: audible, brief, Christ-centered. And D: don't preach." 

I have even been at some testimony services where some adult role model came up and offered a bit of vague pushback on some of the ideas from the students' testimonies. For example, in one testimony service I attended, a few students mentioned God telling them something in a dream. Later, one of the adults went up to the microphone and said, you know, just because something's in a dream doesn't mean it's from God- it could be caused by indigestion. It was very nice, gentle, didn't name names, but just wanted to correct an idea that was mentioned, so people in the audience didn't think that teaching was endorsed by the church in general.

And at Asbury, where thousands of people were coming from all over the country, man, you have no idea who is gonna come up to the microphone during testimony time and what they're gonna say. Vet the testimonies beforehand. Yes. I love it.

(Again, though, this is a point where this very practical, very necessary human decision-making may end up doing something contrary to God's opinion. I wonder what would happen if somebody's testimony was "God is telling me it's okay to be gay. God loves me just the way I am." Or "God is telling me that I need to trust him, and he'll give me the strength to overcome my same-sex attraction." I assume that since Asbury is a Christian university, their policies are not queer-accepting.)

There were also announcements that if people were moved by the Spirit to jump up and down, they shouldn’t do that in the nearly 100-year-old balcony.

YESSSS I love this SO MUCH. Like, there's this idea that in worship, you're supposed to be just totally carried away by your feelings towards God, and you just can't help it if you respond by raising your hands/ dancing/ jumping/ shouting. That's not true at all. You can control yourself. Asbury announced that jumping is okay but not if you're in the balcony.

Seminary students also got involved, sometimes formally, sometimes informally. Hermann Finch, a Methodist youth minister from Zimbabwe who is studying at the seminary, told CT he was asked directions to the toilet. So that’s how he decided to volunteer, pointing people to the port-a-potties for an evening.

This is so real. I was going to just say "he's doing the Lord's work" but people would think I was making a joke, and I'm not- that really is the Lord's work, helping people find the bathroom.

Going into the second weekend, however, the revival committee decided they would need to announce a limit to their hospitality. The town of Wilmore was overwhelmed, traffic was impossible, and news of the revival was only spreading more rapidly. Tucker Carlson, host of the most-watched TV news show, did a glowing segment on Asbury and told viewers the next day he was “still thinking about it.” Carlson said he “didn’t understand it … but whatever is going on seemed wonderful.” On Friday, former vice president Mike Pence tweeted he was “deeply moved to see the revival taking place at @AsburyUniv!” and noted his own religious awaking at a music festival there in 1978.

Early Saturday morning the school set up two large screens in the grassy semicircle outside the chapel to try to accommodate everyone. An estimated 7,000 people showed up that day—more than doubling the number of people in Wilmore. Most had to stay outside the chapel, even though the temperature reached only the 40s. Some reports placed the total number of weekend visitors around 20,000.

At some point, the team decided they had to bring the revival to an end, because the town was overwhelmed with people, and the volunteers were overwhelmed by working there all day long. Okay, this is great, I love this. Very real human concerns, like exhaustion, traffic, not wanting to be a burden on all the residents of this tiny town.

And, also- this is my view, not what the article says- God is everywhere. We don't need to keep this specific instance of "revival" going, because it's just feelings. What actually matters is what you do with it- and we already know what God wants us to do. Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before God.

Another thing not mentioned in the article was that the Asbury team decided to prioritize people under 25 years old ("Gen Z"). For people under 25, there was a separate line which moved much faster, to get into the chapel. (Source- I've heard/read this in a lot of places, here is one example.) This is a very human decision, and I find it very interesting because it is blatant discrimination. Now, I don't think this "blatant discrimination" is necessarily a bad thing- this is a college, of course their priority should be their own students rather than whatever random people drive in from who-knows-where. (They decided to expand it beyond their own students, to everyone in that age group.) I don't think there's anything wrong with that. My point is, this is quite obviously a decision made by humans, not something that God did. (And setting up 2 separate lines and directing people toward which line they should be in- also very much done by humans.)

They believed that the meaning of this revival is closely tied to college students/ Gen Z experiencing God, so that's why they prioritized people in that age group. That was their belief about God's purpose in the revival. I'm not saying it's right or wrong- I mean, I'm fine with it, they're a college, it makes sense that they focus on that age group- but I'm saying this is a human belief about what God is doing and what the revival is supposed to be. Humans decided that, not God. And, again, it's fine, I'm not saying it's wrong- I'm just pointing out that this revival wasn't something that "just happened" because "God did it"- it was very much shaped by fallible human decisions.

Okay, now here's a question: What if someone made the argument, "Yes, it was human decisions shaping the revival- but, since it was started by God, we can be confident that those human decisions were the right ones. Because, God knows the future, and God wouldn't have even started it if God knew that people wouldn't handle it right"?

No, I don't buy that.

I'm just really uncomfortable with the idea that, if you're fated to screw it up, then God's not even going to give you a chance. God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. I think people should have a shot at experiencing revival, even if they're people who aren't going to respond in the most perfect ways.

And, therefore, when God starts something, we absolutely can judge and critique how people respond to it. There's no "well God chose them to experience this, therefore whatever they do is automatically right." (Let's also judge and critique God!)

In summary: Wow, I love that Christianity Today article so much, because it's about the practical, behind-the-scenes work that shaped the Asbury revival. I love it because it's something that most Christians don't seem to be aware of at all. Like there's this myth that God just does these things, and then the rest just plays out automatically- but that's so not true. It was people making these decisions. And things could have been very different if they had made different decisions.

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More posts about the revival:

The New York Times (paywalled): ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town (February 23)

Relevant: Why Asbury University Decided to End Revival Services This Week (February 21)

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Related:

Prayer Rates Don't Correlate With Actual Risk 

The things I've never let myself say about worship

This May Be The Most WTF Christian Article On Sex I've Ever Read

Image text: "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things. Philippians 4:8" This is what I wish TGC had done instead of writing that article. Image source.

[content note: NSFW language]

[update, 1 day later: TGC has removed the article]

Well I got on Twitter today and EVERYBODY is talking about this godawful article at The Gospel Coalition, Sex Won’t Save You (But It Points to the One Who Will) [archive link] [content note: it's overspiritualized misogynistic smut].

If you don't want to read the article, well, that's probably a good choice, so I'll sum it up here: [content note: ugh I feel gross writing this] The writer, Josh Butler, says sex (by which he means, married sex between a cis man and cis woman, obviously) is a symbol of Christian salvation. Specifically, the man's role is the greatest form of generosity, giving his actual self by ejaculating his semen into his wife. And the woman's role is the greatest form of hospitality, welcoming her husband into her actual body. And, since this is also a metaphor for Christ and the church, Christ spiritually penetrates the church and puts his seed in her.

That's really what it says, you guys! Actually my summary here is less disturbing and graphic than the actual article. The actual article has a lot of overspiritualized language to describe semen. Like, you don't even want to know.

A few points I would like to make:

First of all, WTF. Yes. That should be our first reaction.

Second, here's the biggest problem with this article: This guy (Josh Butler) thinks ejaculation is generosity? This guy thinks ejaculation is the highest form of generosity and sacrifice? WHAT ON EARTH? ... I can't believe I am here on the internet pointing this out, but, men WANT to shoot their semen inside their partner. (Not all men, obviously- asexual men exist, and there can be plenty of other reasons to not desire that, besides just asexuality.) It's generally regarded as an extremely pleasurable activity for men. Like, what on earth, this guy thinks that a man "giving" his semen is the perfect picture of generosity. 

(The actual quote from the article is [content note: god help me, I can't even write adequate content notes, it's talking about ejaculation in spiritual language] "And what deeper form of self-giving is there than sexual union where the husband pours out his very presence not only upon but within his wife?" Yes, really, that's what it says.)

Okay, when people (sex-ed educators, for example) talk about being "giving" during sex, here's what they mean, because apparently The Gospel Coalition needs this spelled out explicitly: It means listening to your partner, learning what they want and what feels good for them, and doing the things that they want. Typically this means helping them have an orgasm. I CANNOT BELIEVE this guy really wrote an article about men being "giving" during sex, and it's *not* about a man making sure to "give" his wife an orgasm, it's about "giving" his semen.

Like, WOWWWWWW.

Like, everyone gather around and marvel at how, apparently, women's orgasms are not on anyone's radar at all, over at The Gospel Coalition, even when they are talking about a man being "generous" during sex. Like, my god, how do you miss that?

Like, if you want to say "sex is a picture of the gospel because there's giving and receiving" okay, sure, there's a case to be made there. But, turns out he didn't just mean "sex", he meant penis-in-vagina sex specifically. And, actually, even more specifically, he meant the moment where the man has an orgasm. *That* specifically is what this guy thinks points to Christian salvation.

WHAT.

My third comment on this: Wow, what a great example of how conservative Christian teaching is not inclusive of asexuals. Some people may naively think that since conservative Christianity makes such a big deal about "purity"/ "abstinence only"/ etc, then it would be accepting of asexuals. But, nope! What they actually teach is, you're not allowed to have sex before marriage, but then when you are married, you HAVE TO have sex, and it has to mean these certain things and be associated with these certain feelings. Yeah usually they don't say it in such gross, explicit terms, but there definitely is the idea that married people have to have sex, and it has a specific meaning. 

Fourth, here are some great tweets about how ejaculation is NOT a "sacrifice" (WTF) but all the stuff that women/ people with uteruses go through IS:

Also, ejaculation is not a sacrifice.

Bearing children is.

Menstruating is.

— Sheila Gregoire--The Great Sex Rescue is here! (@sheilagregoire) March 2, 2023

the sacrifice that women make in their bodies for that more closely mirrors the gospel.@jenniferwilkin once did a talk about how men only bleed when something is wrong. but every 28 days women bear witness to the shedding of blood for the renewal of life.

— Becky (and Dwight) (@BeccaLizz) March 2, 2023

Go read @BeccaLizz's whole thread, actually. Like, what is this business about ejaculation being the greatest expression of generosity, when pregnancy exists? Like, you wanna talk about giving your body for someone else? MY GOD.

Fifth, you know what is *actually* a picture of generosity/hospitality/whatever in marriage? Being there for each other. Listening to each other. Caring about each other. Taking care of your spouse when they are sick. I very much reject the idea that sex is the highest form of love or whatever. 

Sixth, The Gospel Coalition is one of those conservative Christian groups that teaches women can't be "in authority over" men. Hmm maybe if they had some women in leadership and they actually valued those women's opinions, they wouldn't have published such... uh... I mean, I've read smutty fanfiction that's not as bad as this.

All right enough about that! Please go and think about something nice now.

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Follow-up post: I need to talk about this "selfish and small" nonsense

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Related:

Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body 

Here's an article about evangelical women and sex

A Post About Masturbation

John Piper Said "Sex Belongs to Christians" and I am Not the Least Bit Surprised 

What My Marriage Is Actually About (It's Not Sex And It's Not Jesus)

Blogaround

1. Meet China’s High Heels King (February 24) Wow, I am really impressed about how this man actually understands how unworkable a lot of high-heeled shoes are, learning it through actual experience. And impressed at how well he's able to run and jump in heels.

2. Can pastors please stop salivating over women’s bodies in sermons? A response to Jonathan Pokluda’s objectification of the ‘perfect’ woman (February 24) "Women deserve better than to go to church and hear all that stops our pastors from having sex with total strangers is a Bible memory passage. We’re all for Bible memory, but we’re also for marriage vows, faithfulness and holding Christian men to at least the same moral standard as your average non-Christian husband at your local Applebee’s." PREACH!

3. Wall-E – Paradise Regained? Reflections on the Garden of Eden and Man’s Labor (January 23) "The movie causes us to ask, what do we think our future will be like? Wall-E, the movie, depicts a world that Man has destroyed through lack of stewardship, and in which they are relegated to living away from their home with technology serving their every need. At first sight, it may seem as though they live in a kind of paradise. Though they have been taken from the earth, they now live a life of pleasure. Is this heaven? Is this what some people, including many Christians conceptualize heaven to be like? No work, being served, just relaxing all the time?"

4. The Origins of the Parable of the Sower (and Other Seedy Riddles) (February 22) "This is not the parable you would tell if you were calling people to action, because it presents a deterministic view of humanity. ... However, at the meta-narrative level, this parable makes perfect sense if it is aimed at Mark’s community—especially those discouraged by a lack of success in their preaching and missionary work."

And another one from the same blog: Did Jezebel Murder Naboth? A Reassessment of Israel’s Most Notorious Queen (January 15) "This is not meant literally; we are not supposed to understand that anyone will actually be eaten by dogs and birds. Rather, such wording constitutes a curse of non-burial; telling someone that their corpse will be consumed by animals implies a shameful death and legacy. Such curses were 'a standard part of treaty and covenent formulas throughout the ancient Near East' (Cronauer, p. 26), and there are many examples outside the Bible."

5. 'Then' (February 28) "Whenever some people start talking about revival, other people will start quoting Isaiah 58." As they should. (This is another post from the Slacktivist about the Asbury revival. All of his posts on it have been extremely good.)