Through Dawn Eden’s blog, I found two interesting links: the first to a Nightline story about Christopher West, a popular evangelist for the “theology of the body” teaching now sweeping the church; the second, to a post by Father Angelo Geiger in response to West’s television appearance. The headline out of West was his comparison of Hugh Hefner to John Paul II, and this:
“I love Hugh Hefner,” said West. “I really do. Why? Because I think I understand his ache. I think I understand his longing because I feel it myself. There is this yearning, this ache, this longing we all have for love, for union, for intimacy.”
Father Geiger is concerned, and explains why. I’d never visited his site before, and I appreciate some aspects of his post, particularly his willingness to proclaim that asking women to cover up is not the right solution to the problem of male objectification of women. The padre gets props for this:
…men are perfectly capable of controlling themselves. I think too much attention paid to controlling women’s fashions… just leads to a kind of negative preoccupation with sexuality that does err on the side of prudery.
Nicely put. But then the priest goes off the deep end:
A more exalted view of human sexuality is needed and a preoccupation with the sinful nature of inappropriate sexuality should be avoided, but in this age when men have been so feminized and have so often recoiled from duty and consoled themselves in soft and lazy sensuality, they do not need to be encouraged to think about sexuality more, they need to be encouraged to mortify themselves, to be men, to be soldiers for Christ…
Hefner has been sleeping with multiple partners for his whole career. His playmates are exactly that, and he has never grown up. The man, now in his eighties, is sleeping with women that are barely legal. Hefner is quoted as saying “The interesting thing is how one guy, through living out his own fantasies, is living out the fantasies of so many other people.†That’s the fact and those fantasies are concupiscence run wild and fueled by a soft and effemninate indiscipline and by a very sophisticated and gnostic rationalization. God forbid that the association of John Paul II and such a “playboy†should end by promoting a religious version of that effeminate gnosticism.
Bold emphases are mine, of course. Geiger has completely — and bizarrely — misread Hefner, both in his assertion that the permanently be-robed octogenarian is a gnostic, and that his sexual exploits are somehow evidence of effeminacy. (Most Christian gnostics were radical dualists, rejecting the idea that Christ had ever been incarnate and exhibiting a hostility to the way of the flesh.) Hefner’s life is, in many ways, wrapped up in a rejection of the Protestant work ethic (with which he was raised) and with the rigid straitjacket of American male adulthood, characterized by a strange blend of self-sacrifice and frantic acquisitiveness. For Hef, the title of the magazine gives it away: “Play, Boy!” The opposite of play, of course, is work; the opposite of boy, is not “girl” or “woman”, but “man.”
It’s a point first made, brilliantly, by Barbara Ehrenreich in her The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment. Ehrenreich devotes a whole chapter to Playboy, and famously concludes:
Playboy was not the voice of the sexual revolution, which began, at least overtly, in the sixties, but of the male rebellion, which had begun in the fifties. The real message was not eroticism, but escape—literal escape, from the bondage of bread-winning.
What Father Geiger sees as Hefner’s degenerate effeminacy, Ehrenreich sees as the skillful marketing of a strategy for permanently avoiding commitment. And while there is very little about Hefner that could be called — even remotely — feminist, it’s important to understand that his enduring appeal lies as much in his eternal boyhood as in his advocacy for everlasting sexual novelty. Father Geiger’s misogyny shows all too clearly; for him, sexual indulgence and irresponsibility is somehow a feminine, rather than puerile, trait. Like the pagan Romans before him (or like the pagan Robinson Jeffers), Geiger wants men to “edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.” But for the playboy, that luxury isn’t rooted in an effeminate nature –it’s rooted in a boyish refusal to make the commitments and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Geiger has the wrong dichotomy: he confuses “masculine v. feminine” with “boy v. man”, and assumes that Hef is on the wrong side of the former dyad.
I may not have much time for Hefner, though I honor his cultural impact; I have even less time for these “theologians of the body.” The theology of the body, summarized in a sentence, teaches that all sexuality is about creation and connection — and that pleasure can never be an end in itself. That’s a destructive message, insofar as it centers baby-making and the heterosexual family as the highest goods rather than centering joy and love for their own sakes. At its most absurd and dangerous, theologians of the body see masturbation as a particularly great sin because it takes inward (to the self) what should only be outward (towards one’s spouse). And the TOB embraces the idea that yes, biology is not only destiny, but divinely ordained reproductive destiny. As a Christian and a feminist, it drives me bonkers.
And Hef? Hef centered male pleasure and created an enduring model of the ideal woman as unattainable fantasy. From a feminist standpoint, he’s hardly an ally, particularly when he — at his most outrageous — insists that his “Playboy philosophy” has proved liberating to women as well. In a way, he is indeed like the pope — though not in the way Christopher West suggests! If — and this is a very big if — one sees enduring romantic commitment as a chief indicator of maturity, than both the permanently celibate and the permanently promiscuous are boys forever, pueri aeterni. Popes and playboys, by definition, don’t marry; they can — literally — pontificate free from the particular burden (and particular reward) of a single enduring sexual commitment to another person. This makes them both particularly untrustworthy guides for how any of us who are in — or who long to be in — these relationships ought to live.
One of the (many) things I find annoying about Hef is that he gets older and older, but the women he romps with stay about the same age. I might find the “Playboy philosophy” liberating (as Hef claims it is for women) if it didn’t send the implied message that females older than 22 are no longer desirable.
You’re kinda all over the place on masturbation, if I can bring that up Huges: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/03/29/some-very-long-thoughts-on-fantasy-and-masturbation/
I don’t know about this theology of the body stuff, but if it’s anti-masturbation (or if it sees self-pleasure as similar to murder) then that’s all I need to know. Yuck. Yet it seems to hold some appeal for you even as you see the problems with it.
Growing up, I looked at Playboy when I was very young, 8 and 9 years old. They were my grandfathers, which seems kind of disgusting in one sense but was actually not at all weird in my household. I already knew I was queer, or suspected that I was because of my attraction to girls. I was not turned on by the centerfolds, but I remember studying the pictures very intently and eagerly. There was something there I wanted to see; perhaps part of it was wanting to get a sense of what was considered beautiful on a woman in the eyes of others.
Re: Bold emphases are mine, of course. Geiger has completely — and bizarrely — misread Hefner, both in his assertion that the permanently be-robed octogenarian is a gnostic, and that his sexual exploits are somehow evidence of effeminacy.
Hugo,
In my experience, ‘gnostic’ or ‘Manichaean’ is something of a catch-all term of abuse that often doesn’t really correspond to a well defined meaining. Something like ‘Fascist’ or ‘Stalinist’ in our day. Gnosticism was one of the only heresies mentioned specifically in the New Testament, and therefore has been regarded as the mother of all heresies, so if you can tie your opponent somehow to gnosticism, no matter how tenuously, then you’ve scored a big coup.
But I agree with you: Hefner isn’t a gnostic, he’s a materialist, the exact opposite.
As for Christopher West and the theology of the body, I am not too well acquainted with them. There’s a young lady I’m interested in who is a big fan of Christopher West though, so perhaps I should learn more. Personally, I don’t think all sexual acts must be procreative, but I do agree that jerking off is essentially immoral. If you believe to any degree that sexuality is intended to be relational and other-centered (and I think most sensible people, Christian or not, would agree with this), then masturbation violates the basic purposes of the sex act: not just the procreative but the relational ones. I make no claim to be personally virtuous in this regard: as it’s said, “There is no man righteous, not one.”
well, I glanced at that Christopher West story and it rather had me rolling my eyes. The man appears to be too conservative in many regards (I’m for birth control, agnostic leaning to positive on whether homosexuality is OK) and too liberal in some (The way to God is through great sex? Really? What about abstaining during Lent, and so forth?).
But the biggest problem is that he isn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said before by Popes, poets, and theologians. If you want to understand the connection between romantic love and divine love, you’d do much better to read Dante than to go to a Christopher West speech.
Surely “relational” doesn’t preclude masturbation, any more than enjoying eating alone precludes gathering for a Thanksgiving feast. Food, like sex, can be enjoyed on one’s own; as with food, however, most of us will have our most memorable and light-filled sexual experiences with others.
Still, one can enjoy baking for others — and watching the delight on their faces when they taste, say, one’s vegan cranberry scones — and still enjoy making a batch of said scones all for one’s own enjoyment. Eating alone doesn’t make one into a hermit incapable of dining out.
The tongue is for tasting and speaking; it has dual purposes. God is big enough and good enough to endow sexuality with multiple purposes, some relational and others not.
The problem with your way of thinking, Hugo, is it seems to take the premise that we are the masters of our bodies, and that we can use them as we see fit, and reshape the sexual and other faculties to have the meaning that we choose to give them. But that’s deeply contrary to the Christian faith. As it’s said, in one of the Apostle’s more powerful remarks, “Your body is not your own, for you were bought at a price.”
The biological purpose accomplished by eating can be accomplished alone, while neither the procreative nor the relational aspects of sexuality can thus be accomplished. We can understand digestive physiology in a species by observing one individual, but we need at least two to understand reproductive physiology. Hence your analogy fails. Thus, self-pleasure is against the natural, teleological orientation of the sexual faculty. We should avoid it if we can, and if we succumb then we should confess it and be repentant.
If pleasure is not a biological purpose, Hector, explain the clitoris. In particular, why is the ultra-sensitive clitoral glans conveniently located where a woman’s hand can reach it — and not inside the vaginal canal, where it might be stimulated during reproductive intercourse? I loathe arguments from design, but do note that they can bite both ways.
If pleasure is not a biological purpose, Hector, explain the clitoris.
Furthermore, is pleasure isn’t part of the point, why is sex so ecstatically pleasurable? Working under the premise that sex is given to us by God for specific purposes, beyond just reproduction, it doesn’t make much sense that pleasure isn’t one of them, since it’s one of the defining features of sex (along with reproduction and love). Wouldn’t the cause of relationship be much better served by an intensely emotional, but physically unexceptional activity? Sex is so pleasurable that it gets in the way of relationship almost as often as it engenders it. To say that pleasure as a function of sex is meaningless or unimportant, but relationship is key, is serious cherry-picking.
“we are the masters of our bodies”
What a radical idea.
Faith,
It’s hardly a radical idea today: on the contrary, it is the characteristic lie of our age (and, at least in the West, for since Locke and Jefferson). It is no less a lie for all that.
Hugo,
I dislike speaking this crudely, but if you talk to one of the evolutionary biologists with a more fertile (pun intended) mind for speculation, he will probably tell you the clitoris is designed to be stimulated by men (by hand or whatever, not limited to sexual intercourse). The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse is a feature, it means that women will get more sexual pleasure in long term relationships where the man cares about them enough to take time to stimulate them by hand. In the times when our species was evolving, this was good because it helped the formation of long term relationships which contributed to the better surtvival and rearing of offspring. (I’ve heard simnilar evolutionary arguments made for the origin of the hymenal membrane).
God, of course, uses evolved things and functions to accomplish His own purposes, and He uses nature to His ends the same way He does with human history.
though I honor his cultural impact
His cultural impact is that it is now far more lucrative for an attractive woman to sell her body (literally by whoring or figuratively by making pornography) than to work a nonsexual job.
His cultural legacy is that my daughter’s tits will have a much higher market value than her brain.
What’s worth honoring in that?
How fitting, Hector, that you would regard perhaps the most sensitive part of a woman’s anatomy as appropriate only for men to touch. “Chattel theology” indeed.
Of course, you no doubt have an equally charming explanation for the male nipple.
“The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse is a feature, it means that women will get more sexual pleasure in long term relationships where the man cares about them enough to take time to stimulate them by hand.”
You are one phenomenally misogynistic piece of work.
“In the times when our species was evolving, this was good because it helped the formation of long term relationships which contributed to the better surtvival and rearing of offspring.”
You do know that the practice of female genital mutilation (an act which often involves cutting off a woman’s clit) evolved due to the idea that women with an intact clit are more likely to express sexual pleasure and therefore are far more likely to engage in infidelity??
Now, I’m going to go stimulate my clit right now all by myself. Let the immoral slutitude commence!
“It’s hardly a radical idea today”
It’s called sarcasm, Hector. It isn’t a radical idea at all. It’s quite a logical one. While you have every right to believe that your body belongs to god, you have no right to tell me or anyone else that our bodies belong to god. I’m not christian. I don’t believe in god. If I don’t believe in god, or jesus, or any other deity, then who else could my body possibly belong to but me? When your god shows up and says, “Ok, time to shut up and pay attention!”, then I might worry about god. Although, knowing me, I’ll likely jump up in his face and demand he answer some questions that I’ve been dying to ask him.
As far as I’m concerned, the idea that our bodies belong to god is nothing other than a destructive belief designed to enact control over human beings, usually women.
“The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse”
Erm. Actually. It often is. Depending upon the position and environment of the specifically male-female genital intercourse. Sexual ignorance. cough. you’re killing me! …please stop building up worldviews based on completely erroneous foundations.
Now I want to slap together an instructionary pamphlet. Somebody stop me!
Re: How fitting, Hector, that you would regard perhaps the most sensitive part of a woman’s anatomy as appropriate only for men to touch. “Chattel theology†indeed.
Hugo, I regard male masturbation as against nature as well, to the same degree as female. This is not to say that it’s a terribly bad sin, and it’s not to make a personal claim of sexual purity. It is to say that there is no man righteous, and that all of us are under the domination of the “phronema sarkos”.
Re: If I don’t believe in god, or jesus, or any other deity, then who else could my body possibly belong to but me?
That’s absurd. If you belong to God, then you belong to God, regardless of whether you want to or not. God is not a democrat who derives his authority from the consent of the governed. You seem to be taking the political idea that states derive their authority from the consent of the governed (which is in itself a highly dubious proposition) and extrapolating it into the theological sphere.
Just to let you know Hugo, my point of reference for my remarks about gnosticism and effeminacy is the attempt of Christopher West to sell the Catholic view of chastity by means of special knowledge (his version of TOB) that falsely promises to minimize or eliminate concupiscence. My point is that the Church’s teaching on the goodness of human sexuality is nothing new and we don’t need experts to reveal it to us; moreover, I think that making a promise of something akin to original innocence does encourage a soft and lazy approach to sexual discipline.
In suggesting a parallel between West’s position and that of Hefner, I am merely focusing on the comparison which West himself established. Whether it is valid or not is another question and your point on the puerile nature of Hefner’s approach is well taken. Even so, insofar as it is a sophisticated apologetic for puerile behavior, I believe the “Playboy Philosophy†can be legitimately referred to as “esoteric,†and it would be an interesting argument as to whether boys who refuse to grow up are effeminate or not. In any case my comparison is more analogous than univocal.
As to my alleged misogyny, I don’t think that an effeminate man is the same thing as a feminine woman. Say what you like, I think that when a man avoids conflict that he needs to face and engage, he not only acts like a boy, but also as one who has not yet identified more with a father than with a mother. Playing indoors all the time, where one can’t get hurt and always having the soft touch of a woman is not necessarily boyish, but it certainly is effeminate.
Also a clarification:
That is true only in the sense that for a Catholic nothing ultimately is an end in itself, since all things ought to be ordered to the glory of God. The Church has never taught that married couples may only enjoy the pleasure of sex when it is willed secondarily to the glory of God and procreation, anymore than it teaches that one may only eat when the pleasure of eating is intended secondarily to nourishment. To say that the unitive and generative aspects of sex may not be separated is not to say that pleasure may not be enjoyed for its own good.
As for your “big ifâ€: indeed. Your comparison of popes and playboys is no more valid than West’s.
“Hector: “The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse is a feature, it means that women will get more sexual pleasure in long term relationships where the man cares about them enough to take time to stimulate them by hand.â€
Faith:You are one phenomenally misogynistic piece of work.”
Whatever the merits of such a speculation. I really don’t understand what makes this misogynistic in your opinion. Would you mind to elaborate briefly?
SamSeaborn,
The irony is that it isn’t even MY speculation. I’ve heard it said by some people in the behavioral biology field. That isn’t my field, and it’s not particularly even my interest. I heard this speculation, and I reported it (without necessarily endorsing or denying it). I don’t even particularly care why the clitoris evolved, although it might be interesting to know.
“That’s absurd.”
Still rubbing. Stroke, stroke, stroke.
“I really don’t understand what makes this misogynistic in your opinion. Would you mind to elaborate briefly?”
Hector stated that masturbation is immoral. He then went on to state that the clit is designed to be stimulated by men in order to keep them in a long term relationship with them.
My body was not designed to give men pleasure, nor am I designed to be in a long term relationship with anyone. My body is my own. Arguing that my clit exists to essentially bind me to a man takes my sexual power and control over my own body away and gives it to men. The same can be said to be true for all other women. The idea that women’s bodies exist to somehow serve men’s interest in arrogant and misogynistic.
“God is not a democrat who derives his authority from the consent of the governed”
Nor is he republican or christian. He isn’t either because, as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist. When you come up with prove that your god exists, and proof that your beliefs based on and from the bible are fact, then those of us who haven’t been convinced into following what very well may be a mythical entity might start paying attention. And even then, we’d only have to pay attention to god, not you, eh?
“Erm. Actually. It often is. Depending upon the position and environment of the specifically male-female genital intercourse. Sexual ignorance. cough.”
Thanks for pointing that out, Lisa.
Me: I dislike speaking this crudely, but if you talk to one of the evolutionary biologists with a more fertile (pun intended) mind for speculation, he will probably tell you the clitoris is designed to be stimulated by men (by hand or whatever, not limited to sexual intercourse). The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse is a feature, it means that women will get more sexual pleasure in long term relationships where the man cares about them enough to take time to stimulate them by hand
Faith: My body was not designed to give men pleasure, nor am I designed to be in a long term relationship with anyone.
Er, what? Is there an issue of clarity here? I cited (quoting some unnamed ethologists, and not myself) the following argument:
1) The clitoris can often be better stimulated through manual stimulation
2) Only in a long term relationship will men be willing to perform this kind of stimulation
3) Thus, women will get more pleasure out of long term relationships
4) This promotes long term relationships, which in turn promote better child rearing.
It doesn’t seem to me that there is an argument there about what’s more pleasurable for men, rather one about what kinds of sexual stimulation would give pleasure to women, and how that pleasure might affect pair bond formation. I’m genuinely mystified where you get the idea that the paragraph above is about securing pleasure for men.
Re: Nor is he republican or christian.
This is silly too. I meant ‘democrat’ as opposed to ‘authoritarian’ or ‘dictator’, not Democrat as opposed to Republican. Let me put it more clearly. All American political parties- Democrat, Republican, and Green- hold that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed. This is, in my view, false even as applied to human governments and CERTAINLY as applied to the divine government. God is less similar to an elected president than to an absolute and perpetual emperor. Obedience is owed to God by all beings- human, angelic and otherwise- whether or not they want to obey Him or not. They are free to reject His authority, but in doing so they sin.
Hector’s sexual confusion is the stuff of legend, and like the Phoenix, continues to be reborn in post after post. The concept that male masturbation is “against nature” is a whole new level of Hectorian imbecility, however. There is a well documented correlative connection between enforced celibacy (including masturbation, as with cloistered monks)and prostate cancer. This would suggest that flushing out the reproductive system is, in fact, healthy and natural, while celibacy and sexual mortification as practiced by Catholic monks, is both unhealthy and unnatural. Besides, Hector, as I’m sure you well know, there are two kinds of men: the ones who masturbate, and the ones who lie about it.
Furthermore, I’d ask Hector about the “male G-spot” and why there are pleasure receptors inside a man’s ass, but I’m afraid I’d get some ghastly post about how it’s just the right size for a shrived and married woman’s finger only. Either that, or his head might explode like some 1978 horror movie special effect at the very thought, and on the off chance that Hector is still a virgin, one doesn’t want that on one’s conscience.
“This is silly too. I meant ‘democrat’ as opposed to ‘authoritarian’ or ‘dictator’, not Democrat as opposed to Republican.”
::the mind boggles::
Hector,
My point was that I do NOT believe in god. If I do not believe in god, then god is nothing.
“The fact that it isn’t stimulated automatically during intercourse is a feature,”
Have you ever actually had intercourse with a woman? I’m sorry, but seriously? Have you? Because your ignorance of female anatomy and how we derive sexual pleasure is astounding.
“rather one about what kinds of sexual stimulation would give pleasure to women, and how that pleasure might affect pair bond formation.”
Dude, you said that it is immoral for me to touch my clit, but hunky-dory for men to touch my clit. That is taking my ability to have autonomy and control over my own body – and to experience immense sexual pleasure – and literally putting it in the hands of men. What you are saying is not comforting to me. What you are saying is that you believe my body is literally designed to be manipulated by men in order to keep me in a relationship with them.
“Obedience is owed to God by all beings”
When god shows up from wherever you folks who believe in him believe he’s hanging out, then, as I’ve already said, I’ll consider what god wants. Although, I must say, if god is supposed to be a father, he’s a damn lousy one. Good parents don’t just expect children to be loyal to them without them having earned the privilege of a child loving them and respecting them. Good parents -prove- to their child that they are worthy of their love.
“There is a well documented correlative connection between enforced celibacy (including masturbation, as with cloistered monks)and prostate cancer.”
There has also been evidence of celibacy leading to sexual health related problems in nuns, as well. Our bodies create sexual energy which builds up in the body. It must be released in some fashion. There are methods of channeling that energy throughout the body without actually having sex or masturbating, but not many people are aware of this fact or have any ability to harness that energy in order to channel it.
So playing indoors and avoiding conflict are effeminate? What does that say about frangelo’s opinion of women?
So only long-term-relationship-oriented men have any interest in or skill for finding the happy-happy spot? Where’s the stats? How come I hear of so many married women that aren’t getting the pleasure they could?
Things that are against nature include medicine, clothes, cooking one’s food and heating the house in the winter. If self-pleasuring is unnatural, it has some very good company.
I owe no obedience to any absolute and perpetual emperor, particularly one that has let this world go this far down the drain. Thanks for the truth, Faith, and while you’re at it, knock one off for me too…
Faith,
I don’t think any of us rightfully have ‘autonomy’ over ourselves in a strong sense. Men or women. That’s basically the self-ownership idea of Locke and Jefferson, which I reject. As it’s said, “your body is not your own, for you were bought at a price.”
You seem to think that I think it’s OK for men to enjoy casual sex, pornography, childless marriages, or what have you. I don’t. I’d like to raise men to the moral place of women, not lower women to the moral place of men. Tolstoy had some interesting things to say on that theme.
Hey Hector, I wasn’t planning on posting, I was going to give it a rest but I couldn’t resist this.
The vast majority of women get the quickest and easiest pleasure and sexual satisfaction from their clitorises. This is either alone or with a partner. It is, in my experience and knowledge incredibly easy to climax this way, it’s the easy option – anyone (with permission) could do it. No great skill required. HOWEVER, the vaginal orgasm, caused by penetration (Errrmmm by reproductive activity amongst other things) is so elusive it has often been considered a myth. There are three spots, two of which take some finding – the other is often tricky. And even if a couple work together to find the woman’s vaginal orgasm stimulators over a period of time – and it does usually take time – penetration with a penis is usually not the most reliable way of producing an orgasm. So! I’d say a desire to solve the riddle of the vaginal orgasm was a far greater motivator for longer term relationships with women.
The clitoris provides us with a quick and easy way to explore our sexualities. I think God would rather I did that myself than have me pick someone up.
Also, if the theory you cite above holds true, then does that mean that the existence of the prostate gland in men means that God wanted all men to be penetrated?i.e. be homosexual? Because there lies its logical conclusion.
Actually, when it comes to making decisions in life and taking responsibility for them, yes, we do have autonomy over ourselves. I think Paul’s comment about the body is about who created us; if God controlled our every actions, we wouldn’t sin at all; for that matter, sin wouldn’t be a concept we’d be living with, as God would have controlled Adam and Eve to never disobey in the first place.
Angiportus, you hit the nail on the head. Frangelo’s mentality is the exact same as the thuggish bullies I recall in middle school (now, if he wants to clarify what he said, he can go ahead… but that’s what his post sounded like).
I’m in love with Michael Rowe right now. Yeah for the male G-spot. And yeah, too, to the idea that orgasm is healthy for all of us. It releases needed chemicals without artificial drugs, is great for curing insomnia, and teaches us how to love our bodies.
I still remember Huges’ lecture, the one in which he made the off-hand but at the time totally on point remark that girls who grew up in very conservative andd controlling families needed to do three things:
1. Quietly set aside enough money to have first, last, and a security deposit
2. Find quiet healthy ways to rebel
3. Learn to masturbate without guilt
My friends still talk about that one, but I remember something similar from All Saints.
And WTF, Hector, with pornography now equaalling childless marriages? Even if a couple is using the rhythm method that you Catholics teach everyone to use?
Hector, with every post you make, I’m becoming more and more convinced that you need several years of intense psychotherapy and/or the services of a skilled red-light “masseuse.” Probably an older one, who will have more patience for your nonsense.
Did you SERIOUSLY mean what you posted, that you “don’t think it’s OK” for men “to enjoy childless marriages?” I must have missed the Biblical passage where You were transfigured with light and a dove alighted on Your head, and a voice came down from the heavens saying, “This is Hector, with Whom I am well pleased. His opinion on whether or not me should enjoy childless marriages is relevant. Let yourselves be guided by Him.” What’s a man to do if he and his wife are childless, Hector? Weep? Gnash his teeth? Pine?
And “raise men to the moral place of women?” Wtf? In the same way that it’s a well-documented fact that frequent masturbation and/or intercourse, it’s also a well-documented fact that men with a “madonna” complex are raving misogynists. Of course, that was one of the options that arose from your preposterous thesis that women can only receive oral sex from a man in a “committed relationship,” though out of Christian charity, I chose to believe that the comment spoke to your late-life virginity and utter cluelessness about sex rather than misogyny. On the other hand, since some of the women posting have already noted it, I fear my charity was in vain, alas.
Typo:
“…frequent masturbation and/or intercourse [are essential to prostate health], it’s also a well-documented fact…etc.”
1) The clitoris can often be better stimulated through manual stimulation
2) Only in a long term relationship will men be willing to perform this kind of stimulation
Hector, I found #2 only to be true among very young men — and often it wasn’t a lack of will, but of experience. Men with more experience are often eager to be thought of as competent lovers, even in short-term relationships, and are aware that not being willing “to perform this kind of stimulation” will seriously damage their reputation (if nothing else).
“As it’s said, “your body is not your own, for you were bought at a price.†”
Not if I don’t believe in your religion, it wasn’t. It is incredibly rude and inappropriate for you to tell me my body belongs to a deity that I don’t believe in. Telling other people they must accept your own religious beliefs is also a behavior that has a terrible tendency to start wars and end up with thousands or even millions of people getting killed. Although, now, apparently, I should believe that my body belongs to god, but my clit belongs to men.
“I’d like to raise men to the moral place of women, not lower women to the moral place of men.”
The “moral place” of women has never been moral. The moral place of women which you speak of has never been anything other than control and oppression.
“1) The clitoris can often be better stimulated through manual stimulation”
Actually, in my experience, it’s usually much easier and more effective for the clit to be stimulated orally than manually. Stimulating a clit manually takes more dexterity and usually requires maintaining a rhythm. A rhythm that can often lead to your hand cramping up before the woman has an orgasm.
“2) Only in a long term relationship will men be willing to perform this kind of stimulation.”
What Jen said. Although I would add that it isn’t only the inexperienced men, but also the genuinely misogynistic ones who essentially view the women they are having sex with as blow-up dolls. In my experience, however, experienced men love to stimulate a woman’s clit and the inexperienced ones enjoy having an experienced woman who is willing to show them how to stimulate her clit without embarrassment.
Given that Christians are supposed to be chaste unless and until they marry, masturbation would seem to be a fine way of avoiding temptation.
And anyone quoting “evolutionary biology” who doesn’t understand that the clitoris and penis are analogous structures is, bluntly, completely ignorant of the subject.
Robert, isn’t Hefner really just the ultimate patriarch? God is a man. Women are there to be looked at, not to compete with the boys.
A few influential and severely neurotic theologians in the early church St. Augustine of Hippo (origin of word Hypocrite?) who famously wrote, ‘Grant me chastity and continence, did tremendous damage.
The perversion of the earlier harmonious melding of sexuality and spirituality (see sacred prostitutes) has driven a wedge between would-be adherents and the essential sexual nature of humanity.
Too bad, so sad but if it contributes to the ultimate enlightenment, then it’s all good.
Oh, and you may have guessed that I am an athiest. I used to be a radical agnostic (one who says, “I don’t know if there is a God, and you don’t either!”), but now I have a working hypothesis that has yet to be refuted by any evidence — there is no God.
I left off the end of Augustine’s quote “…but not now.”
I’m a better lover to another person because I learned about self-loving first.
It’s really very simple. I eat, I sleep, I excrete, I respire, I masturbate. I can refrain from doing any of these things for varying lengths of time and with varying levels of discomfort and distraction as a result. Masturbation is unique as the only one of the above processes which can be avoided indefinitely.
But I defy anyone to feel the way I do in the middle of menstruation and concentrate on anything besides their need to orgasm. I am absolutely certain that I can serve God better by dealing with that severe physical distraction, and then returning to the work of the day with a clear mind, than I can by devoting my attention to avoiding my body and any activities that might remind me of it – which in some months can include walking, breathing and thinking.
But I defy anyone to feel the way I do in the middle of menstruation and concentrate on anything besides their need to orgasm.
Word, Froth. Except I’d amend it to “right before starting menstruation” for me.
Yeah, orgasm and penetration are pretty essential at mentruation for me. And they’re the best cramp/pain relievers by a million miles. We’re not so fertile then either, so it can’t be about getting instantaneously pregnant.
The sound of Hector’s shrill screaming as he reads matey and Luisa’s posts is so ear-splitting that I’ve had to turn off the speakers on my laptop.