On today’s “The 700 Club,” a viewer in his early 20s wrote to hosts of the show with a question. The letter writer says he is a virgin and wants to wait for marriage to have sex. The guy said he found out his girlfriend is not a virgin. He wanted to know if dating her is wrong.
You can watch the video yourself here:
(Link): Marriage and Tithing questions (question from male virgin about dating a non virgin)
The 700 Club show provided a transcript:
PAT:
THERE IS NOTHING THAT SAYS YOU SHOULD MARRY A VIRGIN. PROBABLY INTERESTING.
THE FACT THAT SOMEBODY HAS A LITTLE [previous (pre marital) sexual] EXPERIENCE ISN’T NECESSARILY A BAD THING.
I DON’T THINK YOU CAN SAY, IF YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS PER MISCOWOUS [sic] AND HOPPING IN AND OUT OF BED WITH MULTIPLE SEX PARTNERS, IF SHE HAPPENED TO HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH SOMEBODY SHE WAS DEEPLY ATTRACTED TO, GET OVER IT...
Keeping in mind that Pat Robertson engaged in fornication himself (see previous posts on this blog for more on that, complete with links), which is why, I suspect, he tends to excuse hetero fornication, any time someone writes in asking him these types of questions...
Btw, I've been planning to another Christian public figure (not nearly as famous) and tell him something like the following:
If fathers today (those born after 1960) more or less refuse to tell their daughters to abstain until marriage or refuse to talk as though they have their hearts set on their daughters doing that, maybe it's NOT because they're cowardly liberal sheep. Likely it's because:
1. They don't want their daughters laughing in their faces or behind their backs and cutting off communications.
2. They know that their daughters already know that even average conservative fathers, as a rule, do not ask their sons to abstain until marriage or act miserable when their sons don't abstain. (Super-religious families are in the minority these days, after all.)
3. Most fathers would agree now that the double standard isn't just unfair, it's downright HOSTILE to women and their sexuality. Why would a daughter want to cater to that - or marry a man who expected to her to abstain when he didn't? Sounds like a likely setting for adultery - or worse.
4. Most fathers today would agree that there really are much worse things than premarital sex (with condoms) for their daughters - namely, marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. A loving father does not want to see his daughter suffer by marrying the wrong man at 18 or even 21 just because she was tired of waiting to have sex. From what I hear, this is precisely what often happens in Mormon and evangelical communities - especially when the young men are virgins and tired of waiting too. The alternative, of course, is for the couple to divorce after a few years of struggling to stay married, which likely means that there will be a couple of babies to feed. And guess who's likely to be supporting them in part at least? The grandparents. What father of a teen girl wouldn't dread that possibility?
5. Ever since the late 1970s or so, young men have been saying, in effect, that they're actually more AFRAID of marrying virgins than not, because they associate virginity with what used to be called "frigidity." And teen girls KNOW that, more or less, so there's no point in their fathers' lying to them about that. If a woman has the right to suspect a 25-year-old male virgin of being asexual or gay (I'd guess that even a very religious man would rather marry in haste than wait that long for sex), a man has the right to suspect that of a woman that age.
6. If a man DOES insist on marrying a virgin when he isn't one, chances are the only virgins available are about 20 - and most parents don't WANT their daughters marrying that young anymore, for all sorts of economic reasons. (Also, see 4.) Neither do the daughters. If the man is pushing 30, that makes him all the less desirable to a 20-year-old.
7. If a woman marries at 30, her father has problems if he's sad to find out that she's not a virgin on her wedding day. (More to the point: Why is it considered civilized for parents to be nosy about their kids' private lives once they've left home for good? What's wrong with "don't ask, don't tell"?)
Maybe you can think of
lenona
at December 30, 2016 6:18 AM
I was saying: Maybe you can think of more reasons to add.
lenona
at December 30, 2016 6:19 AM
NONE of your points make any sense. (Not picking on you. I guess we come from vastly different backgrounds and experiences.)
A "mature" person learning life's lessons as they go along would not do any of the above on a permanent basis because they would be learning "kindness" via observation of the "hurt" their actions caused or by observing others that they admire.
Males and females "hurt" others unintentionally as well as because they do not care about others. Some grow out of this and some do not. Some need to do it.
Do you really think that religious cultures are the only reasons young people marry too early? Seriously? It's all sexual repression due to religious teachings?
Did not realize that all of these teens having babies so early were just scratching an itch. Stupid me thought there was something deeper going on, maybe cultural maybe not. Maybe just hormones going really really strong.
Glad I now know it's all religion (only Western of course - all others are cultural and thus okay (India cough cough).
BTW, I have know several married couples (India, Cambodia) whose marriages were arranged by their parents. They were/are very happy because they were taught to be kind to each other, become friends, and that sexual pleasuring each other was a good thing.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at December 30, 2016 7:52 AM
In the this deal is getting worse all the time category.
Undergirding that ridiculous and unmeasurable plan is the installation of solar panels in government infrastructure, along with guidelines to make the city “solar friendly.” This allows the city to spend oodles of tax booty to prop up its green industry. But when Greg McGuire installed rooftop solar panels in his historic Ann Arbor home, this happened:
The assessed value of McGuire’s property jumped more than $32,000 after the solar panels were added, and the taxable value went up roughly $10,000.
That translated to a $458.91 increase in property taxes the next year, which McGuire said essentially wiped out the energy cost savings he and his wife factored into their financial calculations when deciding to go solar.
Following this morning's reports that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would recommend to Russian President Vladimir Putin a retaliation in kind, and expel 35 American diplomats, saying that “we cannot leave such acts unanswered. Reciprocity is part of diplomatic law" with Putin spokesman Peskov adding that "there is no doubt that Russia's adequate and mirror response will make Washington officials feel very uncomfortable as well", it was ultimately up to Putin to decide how to respond to the US.
Which he did on Friday morning, when in a stunning reversal, the Russian leader took the high road, rejected the Lavrov proposal, and in a statement posted by the Kremlin said that Russia won’t expel any Americans in retaliation to US moves, in a brutal demonstration of just how irrelevant Obama's 11th hour decision is for US-Russian relations.
If you replace White with uh, black, Asian, Illegal Immigrant, or Islamic, will George Ciccariello-Maher's employment fate at Drexel University be different?
Sixclaws
at December 30, 2016 8:58 AM
Well that's obvious Sixclaws. He's stated the "right" "satirical comment".
Kinda like how feminists are concerned about a single student not wanting to use a private bathroom provided for him but instead use the girl's locker room. The 13 yo females w/social or body issues typical for their age DO NOT MATTER because ???? (no one has stated for some reason).
There are "right thinking people" and then there are the deplorables who are ill-educated and self-hating. (Not sure why since there seem to be plenty of people hating our guts but ...).
More license restrictions will be coming your way.
Let's just run that again: In Illinois, if you don't do your domestic-abuse training course every two years, you'll lose your hairdressing license - and your livelihood.
As I write in After America, in the Fifties one in 20 members of the workforce needed government permission to do his job. Now it's one in three. The original justification for requiring a government permit to cut another person's hair is that a salon contains potentially dangerous chemicals such as coloring products. Making the license conditional upon acing sexual-assault training courses is not just the usual Big Government expansion but the transformation of the relationship between a private business and the state:
Althouse offers some advice to the progressive columnist who discovers she's carrying a boy and wonders how to raise him.
When he is born he won't just be A Boy. He'll be a particular boy, a particular individual, not the stereotype you dwell on when you have so much time to think about him when he's there but not really there in his pre-birth form. Respect the boy. Respect the person. Respect your own home and the worthiness of your family. Love your husband and let him show his love for you.
Explanations are overrated. The power of the presidency is overblown. Find love and meaning where it really is.
It's much simpler than you're willing to say, perhaps because you have a career writing columns about feminism and politics. That's nice for you, but be careful. It's a brutal template, and you are having a baby.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at December 30, 2016 11:54 AM
How quickly they backslide IRA. This woman assumes her "boy" is a boy because he has a penis.
A comment pointed that that attitude is quite conservative.
Can't wait for the SJWs to come down on her hard.
Still waiting. Going to get popcorn. Tap Tap Tap.
Nothing?
Bob in Texas
at December 30, 2016 1:04 PM
A "mature" person learning life's lessons as they go along would not do any of the above on a permanent basis because they would be learning "kindness" via observation of the "hurt" their actions caused or by observing others that they admire.
_______________________________________
Could you make yourself a little more clear, please? Examples? It's way too vague as is.
_________________________________________
Males and females "hurt" others unintentionally as well as because they do not care about others.
_______________________________________
Seems to me that not caring IS a form of intent to hurt. It's certainly a good way for even a small kid not to have many friends, if any, which should wake that kid up in a hurry. Elie Wiesel once said: "The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference." Someone who doesn't care needs remedial lessons in empathy, which is the parents' job - while they're still minors, of course.
_____________________________________
Do you really think that religious cultures are the only reasons young people marry too early? Seriously? It's all sexual repression due to religious teachings?
_________________________________________
Not all, just most. (Of course, a lack of education or motivation in the general family or neighborhood can be a big factor too.) I can count the number of under-23 marriages I know of personally on one hand - and in one case, the bride was pregnant. If you're talking about marrying, at age 25 or 30, someone you've only known for a month, that's different.
_________________________________________
Did not realize that all of these teens having babies so early were just scratching an itch.
________________________________________
I wasn't talking about having babies out of wedlock, deliberately or not - again, that's something different. Also, IIRC, married couples are a bit more likely to be careless about birth control than unmarried couples - or at least adults are. Not to mention that when bc fails, it's those girls and women who have real futures to live for who have abortions - and most do not regret it.
lenona
at December 30, 2016 1:39 PM
Not to mention that in many cases of early marriage, it's the PARENTS who want them to marry early, like it or not.
From 2000 (this was a cover story in The New York Times Magazine, with photos)
The Baptist parents in the article believe in courting, not dating.
Near the end:
"...There is something fundamentally right and useful about the argument that American culture promotes independence at the expense, often, of the more nurturing virtues, but something sad and scared about the idea that the safest solution to this is early marriage. If the Scheibner philosophy allows girls to linger longer at the threshold of adolescence -- not having to worry about being thin or sexy -- it also pushes them much earlier into wifely domesticity."
Re the HuffPost: I can't open the comments. Any idea why?
lenona
at December 31, 2016 6:21 AM
Btw, I should have said "I've been planning to CONTACT another Christian public figure."
And re "Glad I now know it's all religion (only Western of course - all others are cultural and thus okay (India cough cough)."
I have no problem with arranged marriages, in any country, IF both of the young ADULTS happily consent to it. There is no shortage of young women and men (often still in their teens, never mind child "marriages") who are forced into it. After all, re marrying for love, G.B. Shaw once said: "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, exhausting state until death do them part."
Or, as Harlan Ellison wrote: "Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled." This especially applies to teens.
That should not, however, mean that you should have to consent to sex with a person you hardly know even after a year or two of marriage. Growing up in a culture of arranged marriages doesn't necessarily make the idea of sex with a practical stranger less horrific to women, especially.
Other points:
Re point #1, about communication, the late psychologist/author, Dr. Sol Gordon, often said: "Parents need to know there are no inappropriate questions...If you want to be an askable parent, if a kid asks you a question, whether they're 4, 5, 7 or 14, there's only one answer: 'That's a good question'" (and then follow it up)."
Example: "When...Stacy was asked by three year-old Roger, 'Mommy, where do babies come from?' she blurted out, 'Oh, they just get in there.' Later, when she was calm, she went into Roger’s room and said, 'Remember when you asked me where babies come from? Well, I didn’t give you the whole story.' That was Stacy’s first step to becoming an askable parent. Roger, now nine, feels comfortable asking her anything."
After all, not wanting to talk to one's parents on a subject just because you don't agree on certain details means the kid will likely get all sorts of misinformation from the media and friends.
Re #4: There are perfectly good reasons that relatives cluck "it'll never last" behind the backs of many ADULT bridal couples, never mind teen couples who marry. This may well be why teen marriages for girls in the US have been out of fashion for longer than many think - they were only the majority before 1800 or so, and became somewhat common in the 20th century ONLY in the 1950s. (Which may well be a big factor in the huge number of divorces in the 1960s and 1970s, after which the divorce rate went down, IIRC.) Also, the pregnancy rate - that's "pregnancy" not "birth rate" - was higher in the 1950s than the 1980s. As Stephanie Coontz said of the 1950s: "Young people were not taught how to 'say no,' they were simply handed wedding rings."
Re #5 and #6: Many young men are understandably opposed to marriage. Since the age for first-time marriage keeps rising for both sexes, if a man changes his mind and decides he wants to marry, chances are he's already over 25 - and not a virgin, unless he's super-religious. So, again, he should not expect someone close to his age to be one either.
Re #1 and #7: A father can expect to be laughed at when he tells his daughter that she HAS to marry someday. Girls already know they don't have to do that - AND that they can have nothing but lovers if they want. So when a father tells a daughter to abstain till marriage, he's really telling her "abstain till marriage or death, whichever comes first." If a woman never marries and is very private, the father would be setting himself up for bitter disappointment, since he can easily guess what's going on. Why should he do that to himself?
Re the point of young people getting hurt, I WILL say that if girls don't like the current "hookup" culture, which is supposedly based on consent, for the sake of avoiding heartbreak (such as when a girl finds out that no boy wants to be with her outside of the bedroom) it's the girls' job to refuse to participate without acting snooty about it - or acting entitled. Example: If she wants old-fashioned, non-sexual dating, the least a girl can do is pay for half the dates and let boys know that she's happy to do that.
More in a bit...
lenona
at December 31, 2016 7:18 AM
I admit, I probably should have said: "those fathers born after 1970," if only because most fathers born in the 1960s likely don't have minor children any more.
In 2014, a man told advice columnist Amy Dickinson "You should grant the term 'sexually pure' a little more respect. A lot more, actually." She said:
"I always applaud people making healthy choices. In terms of granting the terminology 'sexually pure' more respect? No, I don’t think I will. I would consider throwing some respect its way if this term were equally applied to boys (as well as girls), but it never is."
Finally, in the 1990s, in the essay "True Love Waits," old-fashioned liberal and skeptic Wendy Kaminer pointed out what I did above - that very few teens are willing to abstain until marriage or death, and that the trouble with abstinence education is that it promises a reward that may never come - what if no one wants to marry you or stay married to you? Early on, she quoted a woman who said "I would have been a much unhappier person had I grown up with the taboos of the 1950s...I would have married the first man I slept with and been miserable." Kaminer wrote, near the end:
"'What are the benefits of abstinence?' I asked a group of five women friends who came of age in the 1960s. They were momentarily stumped. Everyone readily recited the evils that abstinence avoided — disease, unwanted pregnancies, and considerable heartache — but we had trouble identifying the goods that it offered, even to young women in their late teens. Self-discipline was rejected; celibacy seemed more like self-denial. Finally someone pointed out that chastity might help some young women achieve autonomy. It allows them to focus on satisfying themselves instead of pleasing their boyfriends. It puts school before sex. But chastity is a path to autonomy only when it is divorced from romance.
"The sexual revolution didn't eliminate romance but did temper it a little, with experience, and the opportunity for autonomy without abstinence. At least, that's how it looks in retrospect..."
Cruzing Youtube I happened across I can't make you love Me.
IIRC, it's the only tune I've seen where people bleed in the comment thread. See for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfj-peP6a7o
There's dozens of covers of this song posted, and the same thing happens in some of those threads too.
Been there; a lady once gave me this CD. For a reason.
Lastango at December 29, 2016 10:48 PM
I stumbled on this. Unbelievable. Especially since the woman is the one who had sex.
From November of 2013:
https://christianpundit.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/christian-tv-show-host-pat-robertson-disrespects-virginity-says-pre-marital-sex-is-not-a-bad-thing/
First paragraphs:
On today’s “The 700 Club,” a viewer in his early 20s wrote to hosts of the show with a question. The letter writer says he is a virgin and wants to wait for marriage to have sex. The guy said he found out his girlfriend is not a virgin. He wanted to know if dating her is wrong.
You can watch the video yourself here:
(Link): Marriage and Tithing questions (question from male virgin about dating a non virgin)
The 700 Club show provided a transcript:
PAT:
THERE IS NOTHING THAT SAYS YOU SHOULD MARRY A VIRGIN. PROBABLY INTERESTING.
THE FACT THAT SOMEBODY HAS A LITTLE [previous (pre marital) sexual] EXPERIENCE ISN’T NECESSARILY A BAD THING.
I DON’T THINK YOU CAN SAY, IF YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS PER MISCOWOUS [sic] AND HOPPING IN AND OUT OF BED WITH MULTIPLE SEX PARTNERS, IF SHE HAPPENED TO HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH SOMEBODY SHE WAS DEEPLY ATTRACTED TO, GET OVER IT...
Keeping in mind that Pat Robertson engaged in fornication himself (see previous posts on this blog for more on that, complete with links), which is why, I suspect, he tends to excuse hetero fornication, any time someone writes in asking him these types of questions...
(snip)
_________________________________________________________
Btw, I've been planning to another Christian public figure (not nearly as famous) and tell him something like the following:
If fathers today (those born after 1960) more or less refuse to tell their daughters to abstain until marriage or refuse to talk as though they have their hearts set on their daughters doing that, maybe it's NOT because they're cowardly liberal sheep. Likely it's because:
1. They don't want their daughters laughing in their faces or behind their backs and cutting off communications.
2. They know that their daughters already know that even average conservative fathers, as a rule, do not ask their sons to abstain until marriage or act miserable when their sons don't abstain. (Super-religious families are in the minority these days, after all.)
3. Most fathers would agree now that the double standard isn't just unfair, it's downright HOSTILE to women and their sexuality. Why would a daughter want to cater to that - or marry a man who expected to her to abstain when he didn't? Sounds like a likely setting for adultery - or worse.
4. Most fathers today would agree that there really are much worse things than premarital sex (with condoms) for their daughters - namely, marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. A loving father does not want to see his daughter suffer by marrying the wrong man at 18 or even 21 just because she was tired of waiting to have sex. From what I hear, this is precisely what often happens in Mormon and evangelical communities - especially when the young men are virgins and tired of waiting too. The alternative, of course, is for the couple to divorce after a few years of struggling to stay married, which likely means that there will be a couple of babies to feed. And guess who's likely to be supporting them in part at least? The grandparents. What father of a teen girl wouldn't dread that possibility?
5. Ever since the late 1970s or so, young men have been saying, in effect, that they're actually more AFRAID of marrying virgins than not, because they associate virginity with what used to be called "frigidity." And teen girls KNOW that, more or less, so there's no point in their fathers' lying to them about that. If a woman has the right to suspect a 25-year-old male virgin of being asexual or gay (I'd guess that even a very religious man would rather marry in haste than wait that long for sex), a man has the right to suspect that of a woman that age.
6. If a man DOES insist on marrying a virgin when he isn't one, chances are the only virgins available are about 20 - and most parents don't WANT their daughters marrying that young anymore, for all sorts of economic reasons. (Also, see 4.) Neither do the daughters. If the man is pushing 30, that makes him all the less desirable to a 20-year-old.
7. If a woman marries at 30, her father has problems if he's sad to find out that she's not a virgin on her wedding day. (More to the point: Why is it considered civilized for parents to be nosy about their kids' private lives once they've left home for good? What's wrong with "don't ask, don't tell"?)
Maybe you can think of
lenona at December 30, 2016 6:18 AM
I was saying: Maybe you can think of more reasons to add.
lenona at December 30, 2016 6:19 AM
NONE of your points make any sense. (Not picking on you. I guess we come from vastly different backgrounds and experiences.)
A "mature" person learning life's lessons as they go along would not do any of the above on a permanent basis because they would be learning "kindness" via observation of the "hurt" their actions caused or by observing others that they admire.
Males and females "hurt" others unintentionally as well as because they do not care about others. Some grow out of this and some do not. Some need to do it.
Do you really think that religious cultures are the only reasons young people marry too early? Seriously? It's all sexual repression due to religious teachings?
Did not realize that all of these teens having babies so early were just scratching an itch. Stupid me thought there was something deeper going on, maybe cultural maybe not. Maybe just hormones going really really strong.
Glad I now know it's all religion (only Western of course - all others are cultural and thus okay (India cough cough).
BTW, I have know several married couples (India, Cambodia) whose marriages were arranged by their parents. They were/are very happy because they were taught to be kind to each other, become friends, and that sexual pleasuring each other was a good thing.
Bob in Texas at December 30, 2016 7:06 AM
Heh.
https://twitter.com/20committee/status/814631886261719044
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 7:48 AM
Is the 700 Club still a thing?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 30, 2016 7:52 AM
In the this deal is getting worse all the time category.
http://karendecoster.com/the-disincentive-to-government-incentives.html
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 8:06 AM
Say wut?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-30/putin-stunner-we-will-not-expel-anyone-we-refuse-sink-obamas-level
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 8:14 AM
And I wonder..
http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2016/December/Message-to-community-on-academic-freedom-inclusivity/
If you replace White with uh, black, Asian, Illegal Immigrant, or Islamic, will George Ciccariello-Maher's employment fate at Drexel University be different?
Sixclaws at December 30, 2016 8:58 AM
Well that's obvious Sixclaws. He's stated the "right" "satirical comment".
Kinda like how feminists are concerned about a single student not wanting to use a private bathroom provided for him but instead use the girl's locker room. The 13 yo females w/social or body issues typical for their age DO NOT MATTER because ???? (no one has stated for some reason).
There are "right thinking people" and then there are the deplorables who are ill-educated and self-hating. (Not sure why since there seem to be plenty of people hating our guts but ...).
Sigh.
Bob in Texas at December 30, 2016 9:53 AM
"Welcome to the party. pal!"
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/814553573921013760
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 11:07 AM
More license restrictions will be coming your way.
http://www.steynonline.com/7657/license-to-dye
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 11:25 AM
Althouse offers some advice to the progressive columnist who discovers she's carrying a boy and wonders how to raise him.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-message-to-womans-magazine-columnist.html
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 11:40 AM
The author of Wisconsin's Black Power List says "I intended this list to highlight the beauty of the diversity in our community."
Yeah, because having a racially-exclusive list is all about diversity.
I wish this was from The Onion. I really do.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 30, 2016 11:54 AM
How quickly they backslide IRA. This woman assumes her "boy" is a boy because he has a penis.
A comment pointed that that attitude is quite conservative.
Can't wait for the SJWs to come down on her hard.
Still waiting. Going to get popcorn. Tap Tap Tap.
Nothing?
Bob in Texas at December 30, 2016 1:04 PM
A "mature" person learning life's lessons as they go along would not do any of the above on a permanent basis because they would be learning "kindness" via observation of the "hurt" their actions caused or by observing others that they admire.
_______________________________________
Could you make yourself a little more clear, please? Examples? It's way too vague as is.
_________________________________________
Males and females "hurt" others unintentionally as well as because they do not care about others.
_______________________________________
Seems to me that not caring IS a form of intent to hurt. It's certainly a good way for even a small kid not to have many friends, if any, which should wake that kid up in a hurry. Elie Wiesel once said: "The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference." Someone who doesn't care needs remedial lessons in empathy, which is the parents' job - while they're still minors, of course.
_____________________________________
Do you really think that religious cultures are the only reasons young people marry too early? Seriously? It's all sexual repression due to religious teachings?
_________________________________________
Not all, just most. (Of course, a lack of education or motivation in the general family or neighborhood can be a big factor too.) I can count the number of under-23 marriages I know of personally on one hand - and in one case, the bride was pregnant. If you're talking about marrying, at age 25 or 30, someone you've only known for a month, that's different.
_________________________________________
Did not realize that all of these teens having babies so early were just scratching an itch.
________________________________________
I wasn't talking about having babies out of wedlock, deliberately or not - again, that's something different. Also, IIRC, married couples are a bit more likely to be careless about birth control than unmarried couples - or at least adults are. Not to mention that when bc fails, it's those girls and women who have real futures to live for who have abortions - and most do not regret it.
lenona at December 30, 2016 1:39 PM
Not to mention that in many cases of early marriage, it's the PARENTS who want them to marry early, like it or not.
From 2000 (this was a cover story in The New York Times Magazine, with photos)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000227mag-christian.html
The Baptist parents in the article believe in courting, not dating.
Near the end:
"...There is something fundamentally right and useful about the argument that American culture promotes independence at the expense, often, of the more nurturing virtues, but something sad and scared about the idea that the safest solution to this is early marriage. If the Scheibner philosophy allows girls to linger longer at the threshold of adolescence -- not having to worry about being thin or sexy -- it also pushes them much earlier into wifely domesticity."
lenona at December 30, 2016 1:45 PM
Wait, it's actually a category?
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Coloring-Grown-Ups/zgbs/books/11357541011
Sixclaws at December 30, 2016 3:29 PM
Iowahawk: national treasure.
http://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2016/12/30/like-a-boss-iowahawk-expertly-dismantles-medias-election-hacking-b-s/
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 4:57 PM
Rational thought in HuffPo?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosie-devereux/dumbass-stuff-we-need-to-stop-saying-to-dads_b_9186948.html
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2016 5:07 PM
Re the HuffPost: I can't open the comments. Any idea why?
lenona at December 31, 2016 6:21 AM
Btw, I should have said "I've been planning to CONTACT another Christian public figure."
And re "Glad I now know it's all religion (only Western of course - all others are cultural and thus okay (India cough cough)."
I have no problem with arranged marriages, in any country, IF both of the young ADULTS happily consent to it. There is no shortage of young women and men (often still in their teens, never mind child "marriages") who are forced into it. After all, re marrying for love, G.B. Shaw once said: "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, exhausting state until death do them part."
Or, as Harlan Ellison wrote: "Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled." This especially applies to teens.
That should not, however, mean that you should have to consent to sex with a person you hardly know even after a year or two of marriage. Growing up in a culture of arranged marriages doesn't necessarily make the idea of sex with a practical stranger less horrific to women, especially.
Other points:
Re point #1, about communication, the late psychologist/author, Dr. Sol Gordon, often said: "Parents need to know there are no inappropriate questions...If you want to be an askable parent, if a kid asks you a question, whether they're 4, 5, 7 or 14, there's only one answer: 'That's a good question'" (and then follow it up)."
Example: "When...Stacy was asked by three year-old Roger, 'Mommy, where do babies come from?' she blurted out, 'Oh, they just get in there.' Later, when she was calm, she went into Roger’s room and said, 'Remember when you asked me where babies come from? Well, I didn’t give you the whole story.' That was Stacy’s first step to becoming an askable parent. Roger, now nine, feels comfortable asking her anything."
After all, not wanting to talk to one's parents on a subject just because you don't agree on certain details means the kid will likely get all sorts of misinformation from the media and friends.
Re #4: There are perfectly good reasons that relatives cluck "it'll never last" behind the backs of many ADULT bridal couples, never mind teen couples who marry. This may well be why teen marriages for girls in the US have been out of fashion for longer than many think - they were only the majority before 1800 or so, and became somewhat common in the 20th century ONLY in the 1950s. (Which may well be a big factor in the huge number of divorces in the 1960s and 1970s, after which the divorce rate went down, IIRC.) Also, the pregnancy rate - that's "pregnancy" not "birth rate" - was higher in the 1950s than the 1980s. As Stephanie Coontz said of the 1950s: "Young people were not taught how to 'say no,' they were simply handed wedding rings."
Re #5 and #6: Many young men are understandably opposed to marriage. Since the age for first-time marriage keeps rising for both sexes, if a man changes his mind and decides he wants to marry, chances are he's already over 25 - and not a virgin, unless he's super-religious. So, again, he should not expect someone close to his age to be one either.
Re #1 and #7: A father can expect to be laughed at when he tells his daughter that she HAS to marry someday. Girls already know they don't have to do that - AND that they can have nothing but lovers if they want. So when a father tells a daughter to abstain till marriage, he's really telling her "abstain till marriage or death, whichever comes first." If a woman never marries and is very private, the father would be setting himself up for bitter disappointment, since he can easily guess what's going on. Why should he do that to himself?
Re the point of young people getting hurt, I WILL say that if girls don't like the current "hookup" culture, which is supposedly based on consent, for the sake of avoiding heartbreak (such as when a girl finds out that no boy wants to be with her outside of the bedroom) it's the girls' job to refuse to participate without acting snooty about it - or acting entitled. Example: If she wants old-fashioned, non-sexual dating, the least a girl can do is pay for half the dates and let boys know that she's happy to do that.
More in a bit...
lenona at December 31, 2016 7:18 AM
I admit, I probably should have said: "those fathers born after 1970," if only because most fathers born in the 1960s likely don't have minor children any more.
In 2014, a man told advice columnist Amy Dickinson "You should grant the term 'sexually pure' a little more respect. A lot more, actually." She said:
"I always applaud people making healthy choices. In terms of granting the terminology 'sexually pure' more respect? No, I don’t think I will. I would consider throwing some respect its way if this term were equally applied to boys (as well as girls), but it never is."
Finally, in the 1990s, in the essay "True Love Waits," old-fashioned liberal and skeptic Wendy Kaminer pointed out what I did above - that very few teens are willing to abstain until marriage or death, and that the trouble with abstinence education is that it promises a reward that may never come - what if no one wants to marry you or stay married to you? Early on, she quoted a woman who said "I would have been a much unhappier person had I grown up with the taboos of the 1950s...I would have married the first man I slept with and been miserable." Kaminer wrote, near the end:
"'What are the benefits of abstinence?' I asked a group of five women friends who came of age in the 1960s. They were momentarily stumped. Everyone readily recited the evils that abstinence avoided — disease, unwanted pregnancies, and considerable heartache — but we had trouble identifying the goods that it offered, even to young women in their late teens. Self-discipline was rejected; celibacy seemed more like self-denial. Finally someone pointed out that chastity might help some young women achieve autonomy. It allows them to focus on satisfying themselves instead of pleasing their boyfriends. It puts school before sex. But chastity is a path to autonomy only when it is divorced from romance.
"The sexual revolution didn't eliminate romance but did temper it a little, with experience, and the opportunity for autonomy without abstinence. At least, that's how it looks in retrospect..."
lenona at December 31, 2016 7:44 AM
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