Why, oh why, did I have to stumble upon this website? I could be doing, say, work. Or something productive. Instead I’m stuck reading their forums and getting sucked into their strange — but interesting — world.
Let me put it out there that first and foremost I feel really bad for these kids. Some of them seem like they have it together, and are making the decisions that they think are best, given their moral code. Some of them argue with the premise that girls must “protect” boys by being modest, and assert that men have to take responsibility for themselves. It’s pretty awesome. Most of them are pretty smart, and even if they have fundamentalist religious beliefs, they’re able to discuss and dissect those beliefs to a degree that would be impressive in most adults.
But not all of them seem so self-assured.
Example A: A girl starts a thread with the question “Does turning heads equal causing guys to sin?” The answer, as expected, is “not if you’re dressed modestly.” Which, by implication, means that if you aren’t dressed modestly — and note that there isn’t a universally agreed-upon idea of what “modesty” is — then it is your fault if the boys sin. Some of the girls on the forum took issue with the premise that girls are supposed to protect boys from dirty thoughts, but they were shot down. What struck me, though, is the initial poster’s reason for asking:
Hmm, I see. I was thinking of this past week. I was at a weeklong christian conference and with our church, there’s a big separation between guys and girls. No dating is an unspoken rule (someone once said that asking “want to go out for a coke?” equals “will you marry me”.) So for the most part, guys don’t talk to girls and vice versa. We’re all there for the Lord so there really isn’t any boy girl stuff going on…
So, I was usually talking/laughing/walking with my girlfriends but I noticed that practically half the guys I’d pass or be around would be looking at me. It seems like any time I’d look up there’d be some guy(s) looking at me… ???
For the record, I dress as modestly as I know how, I usually check with the Lord before putting anything on and my dad’s ok with my clothes. It’s just that someone somewhere mentioned that turning heads = causing sin and I thought I’d better check with ya’ll because I really don’t want that.
And along those same lines, how much does a girl have to take responsibility. I mean, if a girl gets whistled at it’s not always her fault right?
You can imagine where I’m going with this.
Men have a choice to whistle at women or not. It’s not an uncontrollable physical response to seeing an attractive female, as a boner may (very arguably) be.* And as any woman who’s walked down the street in a city like New York knows, the whistle has very little to do with how attractive or seductive you are, and very much to do with a culture of male bonding over women’s bodies, male entitlement to public space, and assertions of male power over women who cross through that space. I’ve been whistled at, stared at, told to smile, told I was pretty (and then yelled at for not saying “thank you”) by complete strangers on the street, often when I’m in sweatpants or a long coat or generally looking like a ragamuffin. I was constantly harassed when I visited Cairo, even though I was covered in loose-fitting clothing (including a long skirt, not pants) from ankles to neck to wrists.
It’s not about how physically enticing you appear. It’s about entitlement and power. What else does that sound like?
Putting responsibility on women to behave in a way which will stop men from harassing them or physically assaulting them is beyond irresponsible. The way that women and girls dress is not a deterrent or an attraction for men who have already decided that women are unworthy enough to be publicly objectified, and who believe that women exist primarily for their pleasure.
Not surprisingly, someone tells this girl that if a guy turns his head to look at a girl whose body isn’t fully covered, then yes, it’s her fault.
This is the kind of mentality that breeds rape apologism — “I couldn’t help it, she was dressed so sexy!” It also teaches these girls that if a man does something which is sex-related and unwanted, she did something to tempt him and should be sorry.
Girl sins, shame on her. Guy sins, shame on him. Girl can cause guy to stumble, guy can cause girl to stumble. What is ridiculous?
We don’t ask women to wear burkas, only to dress modestly so as not to make it hard for the guy who is legitimately standing in front of a female when she leans over (or other similar situations where the guy must fight not to look at what the female is showing).
See, ladies? Be happy! We don’t make you wear burkas!
Likewise, we ask guys not to say things that can cause issues for females, like teasing about marriage or being the one, or saying things to make the female desirous.
So what is ridiculous? Everyone struggles and has weak areas. Society tries to play on the weaknesses of most men, and makes them all the more vulnerable/weak. Society doesn’t play on female’s weaknesses as much, though I won’t pretend society has passed females over in the least. The ample number of romance novels itself attests to that; society plays the female’s desire to be held, touched, cherished, and loved (and I note this very topic is being discussed in a public topic presently).
No, it isn’t your responsibility if a guy looks at you and lusts. It isn’t my responsibility (as a guy) if you desire to be held or touched by me (which can be or can lead to lust). It is your responsibility not to do things that will lead that guy to stumble.
[quotes scripture]
So long as we do our part not to encourage sinning, we bear none of their sin. But if we encourage sinning, either by our neglecting or our intention, then we bear part of the sin. So, whether it is another’s problem depends on what you are or aren’t doing.
So it’s not your fault, except when it is.
Men apparently feel desirous over titties and booties. Women feel desirous over wedding rings and romance novels. Huh.
Oh but it gets better:
i’ve been reading in the newspapers about the amish way of life (after the terrible tragedy when a deranged man shot some of their children).
it seems a good way for children and teens to be raised without all the pressures in secular society.
girls wear no jewellery or make-up and wear skirts no shorter than eight inches from the ground. They also wear push-down bras to hide their curves.
boys and girls are segregated at school from an early age, and as children get older, they are not allowed to spend time alone with a member of the opposite sex.
dating is only permitted after the age of 18 and consists of a boy taking a girl home in his horse-drawn buggy.
dates also often chaperoned and young couples are not permitted to hug, kiss or hold hands.
they are only allowed to chat and are banned from spending time together in the dark. touching is banned. any single Amish youngsters taking holidays are chaperoned and are not allowed to share rooms with a member of the opposite sex.
sex education is not taught in Amish communities, and flirting is frowned upon.
Push-down bras and sexual ignorance? Sign me up!
Then there’s the question of what’s allowed before you’re married. The idea of sitting in laps is apparently the worst thing ever:
Did I say anything about a guy raping a girl because she sat in his lap?? That’s great that your boyfriend can control himself and not rape you. How are his thoughts though?
However, we are talking more about purity of THOUGHT. So… in THAT case – is sitting in your boyfriend’s lap helping him any? Is it helping YOU?
~NOOOOOOO!!!!! It makes me sick to see girls and guys sitting on each ther’s laps.
Sitting in laps? Oh yeah, lets just invite satan to come in and party, EW.
about sitting on laps – my church used to insist on boys putting a wooden board across their laps if a girl was going to sit on their lap.
What’s the point of all of this? Marriage. Which is taken so seriously that these kids are proposing to each other at 15. And 7. And 5. And making sure that the boy asks the girl’s father for his permission. It starts out with the story of a 15-year-old girl getting proposed to by a 15-year-old boy. Other commenters then toss is their proposal stories (curiously, none of them seem to be actually married). In addition to the teenage charm of getting proposed to via text message, there’s a whole heap o’daddy issues involved:
I got “proposed to” when I was around… 6? 7?
Actually my parents were taking care of some of our friends from church while their parents were on a weekend trip. The day they left my wonderful dad (who I really DO love) lined the three of us up, looked at the little boy (who was about 4 or 5) and said “Okay, which of my daughters do you want to marry?”
And he pointed at me.
How quaint. And by “quaint” I mean “fucking creepy.”
One girl is apparently engaged for real. I can’t figure out how old she is, but the comments point to “not very.” Example:
Does 15 count as a Spinster? Just wondering! lol!
Other comments talk about the legality of getting married at 14. But, hey, they say they want the newest model…
They also do the predictable “guys are hunters, girls are hunted, and when the hunted go out and act like dumb sluts they ruin the whole hunt” thing. Although, at the very least, they’re straight-forward about why sexual experience is a no-no: If you have sex with someone other than your spouse, you might have some idea that sex can be good. If you only do it with the person you marry, you’ll never know any better:
I somewhat forgot to add this earlier, and othershave echoed it one form or another, but if you both are virgins, your spouse won’t know any different, so you will give her the best (s)he has ever had (and hopefully, the only (s)he will ever have). If your spouse is not a virgin (of heart mind you), then obviously either you are being foolish, or the Lord is leading, in which case either (s)he willl be able to teach you (if you are behaving foolishly) or intecourse will not be a high priority as the Lord will be working on hearts through you.
So, no matter how you as a Christian look at it, the lie of ‘experience’ fails dismally.
Now, what to make of those “experienced” girls? One girl who “messed up” shares her story:
I agree totally!!!!! God is gonna write my love story!! The thing is, that when you do mess up, it’s hard to forgive yourself! I have never had sex outside of marriage,(Thank goodness!), but when I was younger, 5,6,7, I kissed a guy. Not on the lips, but it still leaves a scar. I knew better than that then too! I didn’t know how it would effect me in the future obviously, and I didn’t totally know all about purity, but I knew not to go around kissing boys! I feel soooo bad now, and it is soo hard sometimes to forgive myself for it! Purity is sooo important, and whether you can see it now or not, even something as small as a kiss can effect you!
STAY STRONG IN PURITY!!!!
That is one of the saddest things I’ve heard in a long time.
Where is the virtue in a world view which guilts five-year-olds for playground kisses, and raises children to believe that a kiss has scarred them for life?
Then there’s abortion:
And you speak specificly or rape, but non rape situations, the woman gives up her privacy when she lets the man in.
This is a fascinating concept. Having sex means you give up your right to privacy? Or does it only count if you’re the person who is penetrated?
but about your rape situation abortion still isn’t the answer. My question to women who want to have an abortion after being raped is “Why punish the child”? Now i can’t imagine having to carry a child for 9 months from someone who were to rape you. It would be horrible, but why kill a baby because of your own selfishness?
Selfish rape survivors, not wanting to be forced to carry their pregnancies to term! As for the whole double standard thing that people like me often bring up, they address that, too:
Pike actually has a point (not one I like though) about the guy being able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. The only requirement is that the GIRL be a virgin on the wedding night. Not the guy. Nice, huh? Trust me, this came up at a courtship class at our church and all of us women got real riled up but even our pastor (who is a big advocat for abstinence until marriage) quietly reminded us that it wasn’t what HE said but what God said. God never said that the guy had to be a virgin.
Deuteronomy 22:
Quote
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
Quote
If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
My opinion, based on the verses staring me in the face…all in context of each other and the rest of Deutoronomy would be that God wants us to have sex. He wants us to be committed to the person we have sex with. If we aren’t, we better get on board with that, but if you have sex with someone who’s already in ANOTHER commitment? You get owned. So does she, and if the girl breaks her commitment to sex as a part of marriage AT ALL anywhere, she gets owned.
Really, for the girls…it is clear, for the guys it isn’t. Girls can’t have sex before marriage without sinning. Girls get sex with one guy in marriage, period. You’re right, that is clear.
Guys, though…Guys get as many as they want, whenever they want, so long as they aren’t some other guy’s girl yet. At worst, they pay some money for rushing the timing. I’ll provide verses for this if necessary, but Solomon, David, Exodus 22 *with the whole rape thing and the fining* pretty much is where I’m coming from.
And that’s without getting into the distinction between marriage and wedding and what constitutes a marriage, the daughers father’s approval, and whether or not all of those roles and customs are constant.
Now there’s a healthy view of sex. Also, immodesty will kill you, especially if you’re uncivilized:
In Africa, it’s the tribes that are immodest. Every civilized area is modest. None of those tribes are Christian. And if you want to equate the immodesty of Africa to relevance, Africa has the highest AIDS rate on the planet.
Later, gay people are compared to serial killers. And then there are those uppity women:
Feminists, i.e. those who think men are worthles, women should run everything, and men try to hold women down.
Yes, either feminism caused this trend of men being feminized (in order to understand the suffering a woman goes through), or whatever caused feminism has caused men to step back, or to feminize.
I won’t try to say it was the chicken or the egg, but I do know, at least in the US, rebellion unpunished against authority allowed people to express themselves more freely, and both allowed abused/suppressed women to speak out, and allowed men to take advantage of women “free love”. I.e., I speak of the 1920s to 1960s. The time when dating became the norm, when God was kicked out of (public) school, the time when family became a broken and restitched entity (divorce, remarriage), and the list goes on. All of this is what allowed the creation of rock n roll, cohabitation, drastic increase in unwanted pregnancies (and thus abortions) and now, the homosexual and feminist movements.
All this has been a long time comming. It started when our grandparents were young, and it was something they did not realize would allow such issues. The problem is, while our grandparents see the problems now, and perhaps our parents, we don’t always see them. They see ‘the experiment’, intentional or not, failed. Yet we, young and knowing it as the only way of life, often see what has proven to succeed, as ‘strict, booring’.
The only way to solve the issues are to return to the point were the wrong turn was made. Some people are doing this, but the genie is out of the bottle. Short of a revival, this country will only continue to slip as people continue searching for what was lost when their grandparents were young.
We need to strive to be men and women of God, honoring Him and serving Him. It isn’t always easy, but it is the only way. No, things won’t be perfect, but they will be better. We must strive for the best God has to offer, not jsut what we can get away with having.
One of the main reasons that men are being “feminized” is because women are taught to be aggressive, and masculine. We are stealing the men’s job, and honor of leadership. Due to the fact that two people can’t “wear the pants”, men are being forced into a feminine role. I know a family where the wife is a doctor. Her husband stays home all day, keeps house, homeschools the kids, cooks, and plays the role of wife. They recently divorced. It just didn’t work. The kids weren’t getting the love and attention of a mother, she rarely got to see her kids due to long hours, and her husband had no self esteem, I mean really, his 4ft 5 wife was supporting him. Not a very good place for a guy. God gave us men to be leaders, for multiple reasons. Now I’m not against a woman getting a good education, and a great job, in fact I encourage it, however, when the roles switch, there is a problem. Honestly, the fact is, women can’t do everything men can. We weren’t created to. Likewise with men, God gave us each unique abilities, we need to embrace them, and not try to steal someone else’s.
Women in Leadership- ok?
I used to not believe in it, but it seems that in some cases it’s ok, while in others it’s not, and it seems to me it would be one way or the other based on Scripture. So I’m starting to question what I was grown up believing, which is that women pastors aren’t ok. However, it seems that the same people who said that isn’t ok, believe that it’s ok for a woman to get up and share her testimony in church…and all the Bible says is that women shouldn’t speak in church at all.
Then there are other passages which have women prophetesses and Priscilla teaches over a man…so it’s all very confusing, and I could see it going either way.
Can women teach small groups/Bible studies where men are present? I used to think no- but then, I do speaking engagements there are guys present that I’m trying to “teach” about purity…It all seems very contradictory, I’m so confused!!
I think that in general, women should not be above the men. But if there is no one BUT a women, then I think that if God is truely calling them, that they better do what he is telling them, and not be concerned about a rule that was obviously not brought about by God. I think that if God called a single woman to go to a foreign country and be a leader there to a village or something out in the middle of now where, that would be fine, but only b/c God called her to do it. God used women in the bible, and I believe that God can still use women if there is no one else to be a leader for God. If a guy is less spiritually mature than you, as a girl, then I don’t how him being up there would be any better than you being up there. I think that, although guys should generally be in charge, if no men are willing to come forward, then women should come forward.
No woman pastors! I agree with what Andrea09 said….
I do think it is okay for women to teach other women,and children, but men are still the biggest leaders, and should be. That is how God created them.
I believe that it is wrong for a woman to be in leadership of a church, and would prefer that they not be solely in charge within businesses/organizations… but that is a different matter.
Why? Well, first of all, coming from experience, men are more doctrinally sound because they focus on facts, while women are less so, because they allow emotions to influence them. Second, because it is implied, and stated in the Bible: women should not lead men. Where? Well, there is in Genesis, the account of creating man– Adam, and then Eve… leader, then follower, and later when sin had entered the world, the statement that Adam would rule over Eve was made. Right there, we see an establishment of who should be in charge. Also, we have the judge, Deborah– she led the men, because she was the only one available to do it… and while doing so, stated that they should be ashamed of themselves, as they were not willing to follow God’s call, thus the people of Sisera would be defeated at the hand of a woman. In the New Testament, we find statements saying that the husband is the head of the family, and that the women should be silent in church.
What then would I say a woman should be permitted to do?
– Teach Sunday school
– Lead a ladies Bible study
– Offer leadership to her home (under the authority given to her by her husband)
– Speak on matters that are not spiritual in nature (ie, talk about a missions trip, rather than preach on a passage)
I’m sure there are more things that a woman could do; I just have not got them in my head. 🙂
What I would say they definitely should not do:
– Preach to the church (men & women together)
– Lead a church (be head or assistant pastor)
– Be a deacon, warden, or other leader in the church which would require leadership of the men
Exception: If there is no male person available to do the job needed, then a woman could step up to the job needing to be filled, and fill it until a man is available to do the job.
I’m really hoping I was clear enough that people will understand what I’m saying– not that women can never lead, but that as a general rule, they shouldn’t be leading a church/Christian organization. 🙂 (And, the organization should just be not on their own– a male could co-lead with a female… just not just allow a woman to run the show.)
It’s quite an interesting read.
Here’s what stands out: These kids are smart. And thoughtful. They’re forthcoming, interesting, and respectful of each other. They discuss these issues, but have such dogmatic starting points that it’s interesting to see them grapple with the inherent contradictions — like the fact that they believe women shouldn’t be in positions of authority and shouldn’t teach men, and yet the person who founded and runs this chastity-education site is female.
I suspect that many of these kids are smart enough to eventually break out of their narrow religious confines. Not that they’ll necessary renounce Christianity, but that perhaps they’ll realize that the Christianity they held at 14 — which precluded even holding hands, discouraged dating, and relied on Dad for everything — isn’t the same religion that they’re comfortable practicing at 18, or 25, or 40.
I certainly hope so.
*Note: An erection may be a response to visual stimuli, or to nervousness, or to certain thoughts, or to stress, or to just being a teenage boy. The erection is natural and normal. The idea that the erection causes the boy to do something violent is not natural or normal, or anywhere near true.