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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums10 Most Absurd Sex Tips from the Christian Right
from the Detroit Metro Times:
10 Most Absurd Sex Tips from the Christian Right
By Amanda Marcotte
Modern conservative Christianity is obsessed with marriage, relationships, and sexuality to the point where these concerns crowd pretty much everything else out. Here are ten examples of evangelical advice that show how far adrift the Christian right advice industry is from the real world:
1) BE A BETTER HOUSEKEEPER to prevent cheating. Recently, Pat Robertson addressed a question that haunts many a woman who has a husband with a wandering eye: How to get past his cheating? Robertson all but told women not to worry their pretty little heads about their husbands infidelities, suggesting that male infidelity in nigh-inevitable. He did, however, make some suggestions on how to minimize the straying: What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesnt want to wander.
2) WOMEN NEED TO SUBMIT to their husbands. Throughout fundamentalist Christianity, one piece of advice rings out above all others, which is that marriage only works if wives submit to their husbands. When speaking to outsiders, they often play it off like submission is just a bit of Biblical-language goofiness isnt to be meant in the secular sense, but in practice submit to your husbands means exactly what it sounds like. Michelle Duggar, right wing Christian icon and reality TV star, summarized some of the points of practicing wifely submission. She specifically singled out financial independence as something women should never have, saying, Love is killed by self-sufficiency. Sheryl Sandbergs loving husband would be surprised to hear that!
3) HOW TO MAKE SEX interesting in a Christian marriage. Conservative Christians are expected to abstain from sex until marriage, but for evangelicals, at least, as soon as you get married, youre supposed to immediately drop years of prudish sexual avoidance and throw yourself completely into your intimate relationship. (Indeed, many proponents of wifely submission come down hard on women who are reluctant to have sex as often as their husbands want to.) In an attempt to overcome the obvious problems with these expectations, some Christians have created sex advice websites like Christian Nymphos, to get their readers in touch with those sexual desires they spent years repressing. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/news-features/10-most-absurd-sex-tips-from-the-christian-right-1.1496846
egold2604
(369 posts)kickitup
(355 posts)and you get a full dose of crazy.
"If your wife is throwing a fit, storming out of the room, slamming doors, yelling, and generally acting like a child prior to a spanking, then she's trying to avoid or get out of the spanking. There really is no excuse for this kind of behavior. In an instance such as this, I would recommend having your wife spend some time alone in the bedroom until she's ready to handle the situation like an adult. If this is a persistent problem, rather than get angry and increasing the punishment, I would recommend you sit down with the wife on the bed and comfort her BEFORE the spanking. Often times when the husband is understanding and loving, the wife will calm down and realize she can handle her punishment. Hold her, reassure her, and calm her down before the punishment. Let her know things will be alright, and she will be alright as well once the punishment is over."
http://learningdd.blogspot.ca/2011/06/frequently-asked-spanking-questions_14.html
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)This says "Prior". So this is some sort of "what to do if wife brakes a rule" thing? Like not having dinner on the table right a 8 pm?
This kind of thing should not fly in modern society.
kickitup
(355 posts)and it's making me sick. It's called domestic discipline and/or Christian domestic discipline. There are how to books and web sites devoted to how to practice it. It's honestly making me sick. I started reading about it and kind of got sucked into the blogs - it's like watching a train wreck. And I've tried making comments and the women all say it's nobody else's business if they want it in their homes or that I'm intolerant. So, I don't know what to do but I feel like someone should do something because they basically are justifying the beating of one's wife.
I have nothing against kinky sex play and enjoy it myself, but this is something else entirely. They claim it is not erotic at all.
This is from the latest post from a certain blog: "Spanking in a domestic discipline relationship is a physical act of love, which is something couples generally appreciate. Assuming you understand how the domestic discipline works (or is intended to work), obviously discipline spankings are done lovingly with intent to correct, protect, etc., so spanking the one you love for disciplinary reasons shows an elevated amount of love for them. It shows that the HoH cares enough about their partner and their relationship to do whats necessary to ensure everything stays on the right track." Link: http://learningdd.com/blog/mailbag-monday-week-9/
Is it just me, or does that sound exactly what abusers say to justify their behavior? And it's like nobody cares.
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)If the guy does something, breaks a rule, she can't spank him?
This is so messed up!
kickitup
(355 posts)There is one "head of the house" who has final say and that is typically the male, especially among the "Christian Domestic Discipline" folks who think this is God's will. They use scripture to justify punishing their wives and the guy whose website I quote in the previous post has admitted to praying before spanking his wife. It's so twisted.
There are older threads on here about it but I guess I'm late to the party.
Major Nikon
(36,831 posts)6) IF HUSBANDS WANT MORE sex, women should do everything they can to give it to them. Focus on the Familys marriage counselor Juli Slattery is blunt about: Married men need sex, and so wives who arent providing enough need to step up.
7) HOWEVER, IF WIVES WANT more sex, they should learn to go without. Slattery has very different advice for wives whose problem is that they want to get laid more, but have unwilling husbands. While you should move heaven and earth to drum up more desire for a husband who wants more sex, if youre the undersexed one, youre instructed to tell yourself friendship, seasoned love, and shared history are often enough to maintain a marriage in which sex is no longer possible.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Wait, it's not working!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Then they seem to be in the closet with it, and well closeted. In my local BDSM community, the vast majority I know are atheist.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Today's Conservative Christian woman not only has to be a serf to the king of the house, even if he screws around with other women, she has to go out and find a full time job to make ends meet then come home and do all the housework and child care. Not a life many women want. So the US has the highest divorce rate in the world. And there are more single women in the US then ever in the history of our county. American women (at least the majority of them) are not putting up with crappy men and never ending workloads, despite what conservative Christians want you to believe.
Today women can order food, pay for laundry service, hire a cleaning and lawn care service, get someone else to take care of their children and all without a husband and no stigma. Thanks to the anti-choice movement, having a child out of wedlock is no longer considered a stigma. Thanks to corporate greed, women don't have to ever do any household chores. Thanks to a failing economy, women are expected to go out into the workforce full time. This is the exact agenda Communist Russia tried to implement in families and failed when they first implemented communism. Funny how capitalism made it happen without anyone noticing.
If Conservative Christians had a brain in their heads, they would realize that the biggest obstacle to their traditional family is American capitalism.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)I've been married 18 years and I can tell you my marriage and sex life are nothing like a conservative Christian's.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)I think most women's sex lives are probably as good or better than when traditional marriage was the norm. I was not addressing sex in any manner except that many women are having children out of wedlock.
I've been married for over 30 years. But ours is not a traditional marriage. I worked, he stayed home with the babies. Then we switched when the kids were teenagers. Now that they are out of the home, we run our own business. We share everything equally. My husband is not the boss and I'm not the boss. We make a point of saying we feel exploited when one or the other thinks they are doing more than their fair share. But that has very little to do with sex and more to do with equality in a marriage.
I would never stay with a man who fooled around on me. I don't need sexually transmitted diseases and lies in my marriage. I want a friend and an equal to be may partner, not a lord and master.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)traditional, but not all traditionalists are conservative Christians. You can have a traditional marriage and not have some crazy dominant husband who demands an obedient wife and and sex whenever he wants it. I have a traditional marriage, but my husband and I are complete equals in every part of our relationship. He never gives me a hard time if I'm not in the mood. And like most men including conservative Christians(although I'm sure the conservatives won't admit it) my husband loves it when I initiate sex. That's great that you and your husband run your business together. My husband and I are thinking of opening a business together as well. In fact, he was telling me today he would love it if I took care of the finances of the business. There was a time when he took care of the bills here at home and he was terrible at it. So, I started taking care of our house finances and it turns out I am good at it and I enjoy it.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)There's nothing emasculating about that. I just spent long enough in the Marine Corps that, by God, wherever I live will be free of all filth.
We actually tried it with her cleaning house because her conservative Bengali family said she should. It's not that she didn't have time or anything, it's that I have a fucking eagle eye for dirt, and I end up mopping and scrubbing after her anyways. And if that's how I am, why the fuck shouldn't I be the designated housekeeper?
That article is, of course, bullshit. My fiancee (wife in 4 weeks!!! inshallah) is Hindu. She comes from an even more conservative creed than I do. The fact is, couples who love one another can find ways to make this work. Did I forget something? Oh, yes: fuck people who try to dictate others' lives.
woodsprite
(11,951 posts)I buy and cook the food, he cleans up and the kids put the clean dishes away. It works (with minor grumbling from the 13yo).
Every time I load the dishwasher, hubby will come along and rearrange them, so I just struck this deal with him. If my daughter and I are baking and we want to start a load, we have to load it and start it right away before he walks in the kitchen. Oh, and he doesn't like it when I soak dishes while I'm cleaning the rest of the counters. If I'm 'caught' doing that, I'm told about it. Not that it hurts anything, but
When my daughter was little, if hubby had a business trip or meetings at work, I'd take a day off just to I could clean house on my own terms.
brooklynite
(95,308 posts)His advice makes some sense IF you hear the opening question. The wife apparenty wants to forgive her husband for his infidelity. He wasn't saying "your husband provides food, so suck it up"; his response was to have her look for the features that had attracted her to him in the first place. While I'm sure that most of us wouldn't agreed with what's important to a God-fearing, fundamentalist woman, it doesn't seem like a bad place to start.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)One Mr. Robertson more or less says the whole thing was her fault for it to happen. That he is a man and that makes it OK on the husbands part.
We all know that is wrong in so many ways.
Initech
(100,213 posts)That kind of parenting should be akin to child abuse.