The Pleasure Police: Imposing Christian Morality, Suppressing Sexuality
By Brian Worley
My wife asks the question, “Honey, would you ever cheat on me?” I answered, “I hope not.” She replies, “What do you mean you hope not?” The tension builds. She continues by saying, “Either you know or you don’t know.” I answered her this way because I have learned to respect a certain principle I have learned while working on this article.
I answered my wife by saying, “Honey, I adore you and I hope that I would not do something stupid to mess up what we have together.”
I could tell she felt some comfort with my reply but that it was still an insufficient answer to her initial question. More on this later.
Suppression creates tension
At this point, I need to ask you to be patient with me as I develop a few thoughts. Imagine yourself standing in a pool of water at least waist level high but lower than your ribs. When someone throws an inflated floating ball into the water, it naturally floats on the surface. Observe when you place force on that floating ball to hold it under water. The more (deeper) you suppress that ball; the stronger the pressure on that ball to return to its natural state. Once the tension that holds that suppressed ball is released, the force in which that ball returns is so great that it will exceed its original natural resting place on the surface of the water and leap into the air above it. You say, big deal every one knows this.
What I want the reader to see is the undesirability of suppressing something in others that is natural. When you view the subsequent results, I will propose that we often find that we would have been better off to not say anything at all! This suppression results in a matching degree of compelling desire to consume what was suppressed or withheld.
Suppress and watch it grow!
Look at dieting programs, nutritionist say that the data indicates that participants often will soon regain that lost weight resulting in a heavier post-diet weight. Just as the ball surpassed its unsuppressed resting point when released, so likely will imposed wishes when you force them upon another person.
Parents and teachers of teenagers are often in a strategic position when it comes to giving instruction. They want to impart important matters, and yet not trigger the rebellion switch. Tell someone that you can’t do something and watch what happens. Trade an athlete to another team, they often respond with their best performances when they play the team that traded them away. Look at past Christian history, their numbers increased when they were persecuted.
Introducing the pleasure police
Suppression against what is truly harmful in life is often necessary for success and survival. If you desire to suppress your sexuality, there is nobody better or more experienced than the Christian pleasure police. They pre-date Dr. Ruth and the first millennium C.E.! If you are in doubt, just ask the pleasure police about sexual matters and they are quick with a Bible verse. The Christian Bible gives commands to people on how they are to conduct their lives. Christians will tell you that many people will not convert to Christianity solely for the purpose that the person doesn’t want to relinquish the “life of sin” that they enjoy. Everyone knows that there is a great amount of sexual tension within the Christian community. The same is true when you get outside of the Christian community, but for the most part those outside deal with that tension differently. When I look at what happens to Christians due to repressed sexual desires, you can’t help but notice the results it produces.
Sex should be fun, pleasurable, and practiced as often as you desire without any guilt when you don’t violate another’s wishes, trust or society laws contained within the penal codes. Amongst these are incest, rape, adultery; most people know the difference between right and wrong in sexual matters! I desire to keep this article relatively short. So I will limit this to brief discussions on pre-marital sex, masturbation, pornography, and celibacy.
Pre-marital Sex, Masturbation & Pornography
Single Christians have a lot of pressure upon them. The pleasure police aren’t kind to them. Single Christians are told to not have sex before marriage and to avoid masturbation. With no escape valve here, the normal path is to: 1) marry quickly, 2) suffer and deal with guilty thoughts, and 3) sin and deal with guilty deeds.
Now, I still agree with some advise or wisdom that we were given while in Bible college, that is that sex can keep two people together that in reality shouldn’t be together. Without the sex, they would find that they don’t have enough in common to continue the relationship. We were challenged to see if our relationships would survive without sex. When you don’t have sex it is much easier to determine if the couple is truly compatible with each other because the relationship is not kept together by sex, but by compatibility. If a couple survived this probation period, just think of the joy they will have once married and sexual relations begin. Hard to argue with this, that is if you can control your hormones and not go crazy!. The other exception is this, suppose the couple forgoes sex until marriage, what if you find that your partner has sexual problems that if you had known previously would have prevented your marriage from happening? Sex is an important part of relationships for most people. The push to marry quickly obviously has its problems; these problems often result in divorce. Look at the data from the National Center for Policy Analysis. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=10961
I’m sure the pleasure police have suppressed this data as well.
Masturbation when carried into the marriage as a substitute for sex with your spouse is another problem. No, and I don’t expect you to find data on this either. LOL! Have you heard this humorous masturbation stat that I was told in jest while in college? Only 7% of Christians admit to masturbating, the other 93 % are in denial and lying about it. You can’t discuss masturbation without pornography, can you?
I find it interesting when I view my website traffic data. Occasionally in my searches, I will find visiting websites that help keep Christians from going to what they deem as an undesirable website. Imagine them suspecting Exminister? Companies have found a large enough market in the Christian community to run a business that emphasizes that they can help prevent Christian men and women from frequenting pornographic websites, etc.!
Celibacy and the clergy
Prior to my de-conversion in 1999, I worked for a wonderful company that took individual church family pictures and made a collective church family pictorial directory. I am referring to the Chattanooga. TN based company, Olan Mills. At that time, I was also filling pulpits for churches that were without ministers on the weekends.
My own personal code wouldn’t allow me to stay on the job when I left the Christian faith. I just couldn’t look another minister or priest straight in the eye and lie about what church I attended. It wasn’t a requirement from the company to be a Christian, but it was definitely a good idea to be a Christian and attend a church. I didn’t want to hurt the company in any way. Nor did I want to be a distraction to a company that was very good to me. Maybe someone from a central California church might remember me? I have intentionally saved this topic up until this last point. I do so because of an experience when speaking to a Catholic priest while with Olan Mills, just before I left. Incidentally, I never gave the true reason to Olan Mills for my departure, it was my de-conversion!
I will go in a different direction here than what the reader might suspect. In my territory, I had over a thousand churches that I called upon. I had basically a Baptist background; yet I learned to talk with all the other faiths’ church leadership when they were due to do a directory.
I walked into a Catholic church in Stockton, CA and before too long; I was speaking with Father Robert Silva. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was the Catholic President of the National Federation of Priests’ Council. He didn’t tell me of his position, he had class, but someone else in the church alerted me to this. Now I have always tried to treat all people with the same type of respect that I would treat a President, so I can truly say that I never strayed from my normal disposition.
The celibate conversation
We had a rather pleasant conversation; we spoke about other Californian dioceses and priests. I had noticed several parishes appeared to be without a priest, and he spoke of recruitment efforts of the church briefly. He never told me of his background and position, I never told him that I was an ordained Baptist minister. After about 15 – 20 minutes, he looks me in the eye and asks, “Brian, have you ever considered becoming a priest?” I gathered my composure and instinctively replied with the following, “Father Silva, I don’t know how you do it?” He said, “do what?’ I sheepishly said, “you know?” He says, “I am not sure what you are referring to?” I said, “being celibate?”. I said that, ”I could never do what you do, because I desire a woman’s companionship too much!”
Have you ever instinctively said something and quickly ask yourself, “Did I just say what I think I just said”? Too late now, the damage is done and I’m waiting for his reply. He looks at me, laughs and says with a smile, “the Lord will give you grace”. I just laughed and we proceeded to discuss the ministry and then something else.
I look back and have always enjoyed this memory. Even today with Exminister’s subject matter some people might feel that I might want to throw all the clergy “under the bus.” I just couldn’t do this! Nor do I think that you the reader should. Why, because when you get to know someone a little, it is almost impossible to find a reason to dislike them. I know of several clergy that has been nothing but kind to me, these are also good people. I believe these men to be sincere and true to the cause that they believe in. Yes, they are sincere and yet, I see them as sincerely in error. Out of respect for them, I have refrained from trying to do anything that might cause them local difficulty. If one of their members curiosity causes them to stumble upon my website, great, but it won’t be because I was hunting for them. You can call me inconsistent on this matter and I would have to agree with you. I have sensed an unhealthy hostility towards Christians from some atheist that I just don’t care for. Atheist views should be noticed not because of some zealous adherent being an ass, but because of a solid presentation of reason.
With this said, you can’t even think of the Catholic church without thinking of all the disgusting behavior of wayward priest and nuns. It makes me very angry to think of all the violated people, most of these are adolescents or younger. They live with the aftermath for a long time. I personally know of a very special elderly lady that was violated in her youth by a Catholic priest, and all under the cover of a Holy God. It makes your blood run cold. Maybe if these priests found more conventional and reasonable means to express their suppressed sexuality the church community would be a safer place to dwell in. Rome, are you listening to your people? Better yet, I still feel that it a better idea to do away with Christianity. These things keep me writing and after the societal cancer of religion.
Sexual common sense
Sexual desire is a natural phenomenon. There is a price to be paid for the denial of this natural phenomenon. I love reason and I believe in personal responsibility. When I was in the US, I listened to Dr. Laura Schlessinger whenever possible. I think most who dislike her do so for her inclusion of religion into the arena. I don’t care for this aspect either. Personally, I welcome anyone who emphasizes personal responsibility and taking care of your own business. If you extracted the religion ideas, you would find for the most part an emphasis on human responsibility and reason. The world is a better place when we take responsibility for our relationship actions, we must love and nurture the children that resulted from our relationships.
It is just a simple reality that the world needs love and needs to express that passion sexually. This includes those outside of a relationship due to a divorce or death of a spouse. The pleasure police are hard at work to hold them down. I know that divorce isn’t pleasant in most cases. I can tell you that it isn’t only Mic Jagger who sings, “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Why is there a stigma to those who for whatever reason find themselves alone, discovers a partner to express their sexual passions with? The pleasure police seeks to make them immoral people. I am not referring to prostitution here, but to normal everyday good people.
Is the problem that bad? I can tell you that guys that hang out in the clubs go looking for the divorced women. Why, because they know there is a need there and that their chances of getting laid with them are pretty good.
I write from experiences observed while living in the US. I’ve noticed Europe is much more relaxed about sexuality. Finding porno on television after 10 PM in Europe is easy. I’ll never forget while stationed in what was then West Germany in 1984 the surprising eyeful of feminine flesh while walking through a public park. The guys knew of my Christianity back then, but as you might suspect they enjoyed testing my devotion to it. We were walking from the normal point A to point B. This time, they took a different route to show me the many naked women in the park on a warm summers day carelessly passing the Frisbee. Imagine this in America? Most guys would welcome this! But not the pleasure police! Years afterwards, they are still railing against Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction!
Europe doesn’t have the degree of sexuality problems like America has. I see the connection between openness and suppression as a key factor. The suppression sure does generate a profitable pornographic business in the US. To the many hungry Americans whom desire more provocative TV without paying the programming premium cost. Once again, I will borrow the famous line from the Godfather movie, “It isn’t personal, it is only business”.
I’ll close with this, if your spouse ever asks you a question like my wife asked me in the opening paragraph, just repeat Nancy Reagan’s useful phrase and “Just say NO!”
Brian Worley Exminister.org Feb. 2008 All rights reserved.
My wife asks the question, “Honey, would you ever cheat on me?” I answered, “I hope not.” She replies, “What do you mean you hope not?” The tension builds. She continues by saying, “Either you know or you don’t know.” I answered her this way because I have learned to respect a certain principle I have learned while working on this article.
I answered my wife by saying, “Honey, I adore you and I hope that I would not do something stupid to mess up what we have together.”
I could tell she felt some comfort with my reply but that it was still an insufficient answer to her initial question. More on this later.
Suppression creates tension
At this point, I need to ask you to be patient with me as I develop a few thoughts. Imagine yourself standing in a pool of water at least waist level high but lower than your ribs. When someone throws an inflated floating ball into the water, it naturally floats on the surface. Observe when you place force on that floating ball to hold it under water. The more (deeper) you suppress that ball; the stronger the pressure on that ball to return to its natural state. Once the tension that holds that suppressed ball is released, the force in which that ball returns is so great that it will exceed its original natural resting place on the surface of the water and leap into the air above it. You say, big deal every one knows this.
What I want the reader to see is the undesirability of suppressing something in others that is natural. When you view the subsequent results, I will propose that we often find that we would have been better off to not say anything at all! This suppression results in a matching degree of compelling desire to consume what was suppressed or withheld.
Suppress and watch it grow!
Look at dieting programs, nutritionist say that the data indicates that participants often will soon regain that lost weight resulting in a heavier post-diet weight. Just as the ball surpassed its unsuppressed resting point when released, so likely will imposed wishes when you force them upon another person.
Parents and teachers of teenagers are often in a strategic position when it comes to giving instruction. They want to impart important matters, and yet not trigger the rebellion switch. Tell someone that you can’t do something and watch what happens. Trade an athlete to another team, they often respond with their best performances when they play the team that traded them away. Look at past Christian history, their numbers increased when they were persecuted.
Introducing the pleasure police
Suppression against what is truly harmful in life is often necessary for success and survival. If you desire to suppress your sexuality, there is nobody better or more experienced than the Christian pleasure police. They pre-date Dr. Ruth and the first millennium C.E.! If you are in doubt, just ask the pleasure police about sexual matters and they are quick with a Bible verse. The Christian Bible gives commands to people on how they are to conduct their lives. Christians will tell you that many people will not convert to Christianity solely for the purpose that the person doesn’t want to relinquish the “life of sin” that they enjoy. Everyone knows that there is a great amount of sexual tension within the Christian community. The same is true when you get outside of the Christian community, but for the most part those outside deal with that tension differently. When I look at what happens to Christians due to repressed sexual desires, you can’t help but notice the results it produces.
Sex should be fun, pleasurable, and practiced as often as you desire without any guilt when you don’t violate another’s wishes, trust or society laws contained within the penal codes. Amongst these are incest, rape, adultery; most people know the difference between right and wrong in sexual matters! I desire to keep this article relatively short. So I will limit this to brief discussions on pre-marital sex, masturbation, pornography, and celibacy.
Pre-marital Sex, Masturbation & Pornography
Single Christians have a lot of pressure upon them. The pleasure police aren’t kind to them. Single Christians are told to not have sex before marriage and to avoid masturbation. With no escape valve here, the normal path is to: 1) marry quickly, 2) suffer and deal with guilty thoughts, and 3) sin and deal with guilty deeds.
Now, I still agree with some advise or wisdom that we were given while in Bible college, that is that sex can keep two people together that in reality shouldn’t be together. Without the sex, they would find that they don’t have enough in common to continue the relationship. We were challenged to see if our relationships would survive without sex. When you don’t have sex it is much easier to determine if the couple is truly compatible with each other because the relationship is not kept together by sex, but by compatibility. If a couple survived this probation period, just think of the joy they will have once married and sexual relations begin. Hard to argue with this, that is if you can control your hormones and not go crazy!. The other exception is this, suppose the couple forgoes sex until marriage, what if you find that your partner has sexual problems that if you had known previously would have prevented your marriage from happening? Sex is an important part of relationships for most people. The push to marry quickly obviously has its problems; these problems often result in divorce. Look at the data from the National Center for Policy Analysis. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=10961
I’m sure the pleasure police have suppressed this data as well.
Masturbation when carried into the marriage as a substitute for sex with your spouse is another problem. No, and I don’t expect you to find data on this either. LOL! Have you heard this humorous masturbation stat that I was told in jest while in college? Only 7% of Christians admit to masturbating, the other 93 % are in denial and lying about it. You can’t discuss masturbation without pornography, can you?
I find it interesting when I view my website traffic data. Occasionally in my searches, I will find visiting websites that help keep Christians from going to what they deem as an undesirable website. Imagine them suspecting Exminister? Companies have found a large enough market in the Christian community to run a business that emphasizes that they can help prevent Christian men and women from frequenting pornographic websites, etc.!
Celibacy and the clergy
Prior to my de-conversion in 1999, I worked for a wonderful company that took individual church family pictures and made a collective church family pictorial directory. I am referring to the Chattanooga. TN based company, Olan Mills. At that time, I was also filling pulpits for churches that were without ministers on the weekends.
My own personal code wouldn’t allow me to stay on the job when I left the Christian faith. I just couldn’t look another minister or priest straight in the eye and lie about what church I attended. It wasn’t a requirement from the company to be a Christian, but it was definitely a good idea to be a Christian and attend a church. I didn’t want to hurt the company in any way. Nor did I want to be a distraction to a company that was very good to me. Maybe someone from a central California church might remember me? I have intentionally saved this topic up until this last point. I do so because of an experience when speaking to a Catholic priest while with Olan Mills, just before I left. Incidentally, I never gave the true reason to Olan Mills for my departure, it was my de-conversion!
I will go in a different direction here than what the reader might suspect. In my territory, I had over a thousand churches that I called upon. I had basically a Baptist background; yet I learned to talk with all the other faiths’ church leadership when they were due to do a directory.
I walked into a Catholic church in Stockton, CA and before too long; I was speaking with Father Robert Silva. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was the Catholic President of the National Federation of Priests’ Council. He didn’t tell me of his position, he had class, but someone else in the church alerted me to this. Now I have always tried to treat all people with the same type of respect that I would treat a President, so I can truly say that I never strayed from my normal disposition.
The celibate conversation
We had a rather pleasant conversation; we spoke about other Californian dioceses and priests. I had noticed several parishes appeared to be without a priest, and he spoke of recruitment efforts of the church briefly. He never told me of his background and position, I never told him that I was an ordained Baptist minister. After about 15 – 20 minutes, he looks me in the eye and asks, “Brian, have you ever considered becoming a priest?” I gathered my composure and instinctively replied with the following, “Father Silva, I don’t know how you do it?” He said, “do what?’ I sheepishly said, “you know?” He says, “I am not sure what you are referring to?” I said, “being celibate?”. I said that, ”I could never do what you do, because I desire a woman’s companionship too much!”
Have you ever instinctively said something and quickly ask yourself, “Did I just say what I think I just said”? Too late now, the damage is done and I’m waiting for his reply. He looks at me, laughs and says with a smile, “the Lord will give you grace”. I just laughed and we proceeded to discuss the ministry and then something else.
I look back and have always enjoyed this memory. Even today with Exminister’s subject matter some people might feel that I might want to throw all the clergy “under the bus.” I just couldn’t do this! Nor do I think that you the reader should. Why, because when you get to know someone a little, it is almost impossible to find a reason to dislike them. I know of several clergy that has been nothing but kind to me, these are also good people. I believe these men to be sincere and true to the cause that they believe in. Yes, they are sincere and yet, I see them as sincerely in error. Out of respect for them, I have refrained from trying to do anything that might cause them local difficulty. If one of their members curiosity causes them to stumble upon my website, great, but it won’t be because I was hunting for them. You can call me inconsistent on this matter and I would have to agree with you. I have sensed an unhealthy hostility towards Christians from some atheist that I just don’t care for. Atheist views should be noticed not because of some zealous adherent being an ass, but because of a solid presentation of reason.
With this said, you can’t even think of the Catholic church without thinking of all the disgusting behavior of wayward priest and nuns. It makes me very angry to think of all the violated people, most of these are adolescents or younger. They live with the aftermath for a long time. I personally know of a very special elderly lady that was violated in her youth by a Catholic priest, and all under the cover of a Holy God. It makes your blood run cold. Maybe if these priests found more conventional and reasonable means to express their suppressed sexuality the church community would be a safer place to dwell in. Rome, are you listening to your people? Better yet, I still feel that it a better idea to do away with Christianity. These things keep me writing and after the societal cancer of religion.
Sexual common sense
Sexual desire is a natural phenomenon. There is a price to be paid for the denial of this natural phenomenon. I love reason and I believe in personal responsibility. When I was in the US, I listened to Dr. Laura Schlessinger whenever possible. I think most who dislike her do so for her inclusion of religion into the arena. I don’t care for this aspect either. Personally, I welcome anyone who emphasizes personal responsibility and taking care of your own business. If you extracted the religion ideas, you would find for the most part an emphasis on human responsibility and reason. The world is a better place when we take responsibility for our relationship actions, we must love and nurture the children that resulted from our relationships.
It is just a simple reality that the world needs love and needs to express that passion sexually. This includes those outside of a relationship due to a divorce or death of a spouse. The pleasure police are hard at work to hold them down. I know that divorce isn’t pleasant in most cases. I can tell you that it isn’t only Mic Jagger who sings, “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Why is there a stigma to those who for whatever reason find themselves alone, discovers a partner to express their sexual passions with? The pleasure police seeks to make them immoral people. I am not referring to prostitution here, but to normal everyday good people.
Is the problem that bad? I can tell you that guys that hang out in the clubs go looking for the divorced women. Why, because they know there is a need there and that their chances of getting laid with them are pretty good.
I write from experiences observed while living in the US. I’ve noticed Europe is much more relaxed about sexuality. Finding porno on television after 10 PM in Europe is easy. I’ll never forget while stationed in what was then West Germany in 1984 the surprising eyeful of feminine flesh while walking through a public park. The guys knew of my Christianity back then, but as you might suspect they enjoyed testing my devotion to it. We were walking from the normal point A to point B. This time, they took a different route to show me the many naked women in the park on a warm summers day carelessly passing the Frisbee. Imagine this in America? Most guys would welcome this! But not the pleasure police! Years afterwards, they are still railing against Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction!
Europe doesn’t have the degree of sexuality problems like America has. I see the connection between openness and suppression as a key factor. The suppression sure does generate a profitable pornographic business in the US. To the many hungry Americans whom desire more provocative TV without paying the programming premium cost. Once again, I will borrow the famous line from the Godfather movie, “It isn’t personal, it is only business”.
I’ll close with this, if your spouse ever asks you a question like my wife asked me in the opening paragraph, just repeat Nancy Reagan’s useful phrase and “Just say NO!”
Brian Worley Exminister.org Feb. 2008 All rights reserved.
I don't see what any of this has to do with your wife's question. You can stick with an agreement you made about monogamy, or you can't. If you can't, you owe it to your partner to say "Gee, honey, I just can't do this." It has nothing to do with suppression, it's a choice you make. If your sexuality needs to be expressed outside of the relationship agreement you made, just say so and get on with it.
ReplyDeleteLynn, I am very happy in my relationship and strongly believe in honoring all commitments that you make in life, especially with your spouse. I emphasize this in the article. I am drawing attention to a principle, namely of suppression. I was playfully using dry humor and admit in the last paragraph that this wasn't a good way to express that idea. I am trying to help people lighten up some sexually. People ARE way too uptight!!!
ReplyDeleteYou said, ”I could never do what you do, because I desire a woman’s companionship too much!”
ReplyDeleteAnd the Catholic priest laughs and says with a smile, “the Lord will give you grace”.
Yeah, the little 8 year old girl named "Grace", who was molested over and over again, permanently injured, while the priest was moved from parish to parish preying on little "Graces" again and again.
Brian, I think you are a perfect example of what happens with the person (extreme interest in sexuality) with religious background...others might think sexuality as something by the way
ReplyDeleteSconner,
ReplyDeleteI hear your anger and the Roman church deserves the wrath it receives for covering up its shenanigans rather than take responsibility for its actions. We should all be upset with this but being upset is just the first step in the right direction. I don't think reform is the answer for what anonymous sees as a super charged sexual interests by religious clergy. I think religion needs to go period! If people agree with me then we should take that anger we have an use it as motivation to work to destroy what I call the cancer of society, religion.
Many who come to this site were once believers. I must ask you, would you want to have been branded because some other religious person did something awful and have someone say that you are just like them just because you were also a believer?
Good and bad deeds are done by people, the organization above them is the next level. If reason is to prevail, we must win on the personal level first!
Anonymous, I just don't quite understand your point. But your comment confirms to me that people are way too uptight about sexual matters and that this subject matter needs much attention and work. I like to write about matters that get the silent treatment. I am no expert on clergy sexuality by no means. But I feel that the suppression of the clergys sexuality DOES create problems just like it does in non clergy.
Yes, I agree with your post. But, really, it's not just "people" who are too uptight, it's us goddamned Americans who are too uptight. People are laughing at us, you know.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, one thing I like to point out when people say Christians are the pleasure police (which is true), is that Christianity is ultimately a hedonistic religion. What are they going for? What is their ultimate aim; what is their ultimate reward? Eternal bliss, pleasure. You ask a christian, and they practically drool, telling you all about the EARTHLY PLEASURES they tend to expect from heaven. No matter how wholesome these pleasures are (and you can read about them in any christian forum), they are always earthly. Eternal pleasure. It's what Christians ask for--no, they believe they DESERVE, and atheists have given this up.
So whose the hedonist, eh? ;)
Hellbound,
ReplyDeleteI LOVE THE POINT THAT YOU MAKE HERE! The majority of Christians do want something now for their "service". It is kind of like watching "ass kissers" hang around the boss or the rich man. You know they aren't true in character but will do what they do SO THAT the boss or the rich man might do them a favor or give them money or something else of value. I really respect those bosses and wealthy people that are wise to these "brown nosers".
I have this subject marked to write about in the future, so I will say no more for now!
I had a co-worker who didn’t believe in ‘dating’ just ‘marrying.’ (I still don’t understand how that’s supposed to work). She was 26 when she married and the preacher shared with the whole wedding audience that she managed to save herself for her husband. (Nary a word on HIS purity). Anywho, I suppose I’d feel a little more inclined to pat her back if she bothered to date her husband for more than six week before getting engaged and marrying him six weeks after that. (I’m not saying that they wouldn’t have married further down the road…but blue balls played a part in the quickie courtship…and she still got to thumb her virginity at everyone).
ReplyDeleteShe lost about 30 pounds after the wedding…
You owe a lover/partner so much more than you do anyone else in your life – not just sex but emotional support as well and it takes a lot brain energy to bring it all together.
They didn’t even hash out the Skippy or Jiff argument.
Or the farting and nose-picking rules.
Let alone: “Come on, I just had a shower!” And, “Are you going to shave your legs any time this month?”
or
“Why are you breathing like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that. Could you stop?”
“But I’d pass out.”
“So, just stop breathing, OK. Just stop.”
They’ve been married now for 18 months and seem happy. I wish them nothing but happiness yet it seems to me they added some initial difficulties in the beginning of their marriage that could have been avoided if there had been a longer courtship.
With the marriage issue in Christianity, it should be noted that people in these circles tend to make a big deal out of relationships. I've heard, read, and seen single Christians who given a hard time by married Christians within their circles about being single (especially when 1-they're not one of the types who got married right out of high school or college and 2-in a non-Catholic church). My point is I can see this contribute to the frustration with sex, love, and marriage in Christendom.
ReplyDeleteLife of Brian:
ReplyDeleteBrian?s mother: "Stop thinking about sex!"
Brian: "I wasn't!"
Brian?s mother: "You're always on about it. "Will the girls like this? Will the girls like that? Is it too big? Is it too small?"
IMO, Marriage doesn't mean commitment anymore, not with a divorce rate of 50%. And how many of those that stay married still cheat on their partners? Commitment means commitment whether married or not.
Is it cheating if you have permission?
And why get freaked over one boob on TV when CBN and TBN have dozens?
Stronger Now,
ReplyDeleteI didn't understand you, so I read your profile. I am quite pleased that your wife understands you.
Reading comprehension is great, it includes the desire to understand. Think about it!
I agree completely. I have a family member, she is very religious. She rushed into marrying someone so she wouldn't feel the guilt of premarital sex (about 5 months of dating). Now less than a year later he has drained the bank accounts, moved out, and left her with a little surprise called the Herpes. In all fairness, even if she had just had sex instead of getting married first she would probably still have this. But at least she would have had her money and a little less heartache. Just proving Christians are not corning the good-decision market and tend to make blind faith decisions in order not to anger God.
ReplyDeleteSorry Brian. Didn't mean to confuse you. The first part of my comment was from Monty Python's Life of Brian movie.(I thought it would be funny)
ReplyDeleteNext was my opinion on what seems to be the growing trend of people getting married to each other but NOT making any commitment to each other in any way. And then I stated that people can have a committed relationship with one another without the need for a ceremony.
Then, the question I asked was to see if anyone could support a polyamorous relationship as a valid commitment to more than one person or/and if it is considered immoral to redefine a committed relationship as something other than sexual monogamy, as in open marriages. And if so why and how?
It seems to me that without religious interpretation as a defining basis for relationships, that a committed relationship then becomes defined by the people in the relationship and not society. Leaving the people in the relationship the ones to decide whether or not it's a healthy one, regardless of sexual monogamy.
Do you understand where I'm going with this now or have I confused you even more?
I know of some people who claim a committed relationship to more than one person. I also know of people who claim a committed emotional relationship yet have a non-monogamous one.
It seems they are fulfilled and happy, at least as happy as anyone else in a committed relationship is, except that they cannot come out about how they live and love for fear of attack by religious people.
My questions were not just directed at you but in the hope that someone will give me a different perspective on relationships, and to offer one of my own without a lot of verbiage.(oh well)
Then lastly there was a dig at christian television.
Hope this helps.
Stronger Now,
ReplyDeleteI did understand the CBN & TBN "boobs" and laughed about it. I haven't viewed Python's Life of Brian, I probably should.
The other material is for another discussion. I have read enough of Carl Rogers "Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives and other writers to be familiar with other alternatives. Yes, they do make some good points. But I still like the traditional marriage concept best. To me, anything other than a 100% commitment is in reality just a preference. I wouldn't want to try to build a relationship on only a preference. Preferences are just like the weather....always changing. To think of something different when kids are involved...well, I just don't like it.
Kids need guidance, instruction and the best home base that they can possibly get in a warm loving atmosphere. It is very important that the kid knows mom and dad love each other. I got a vivid picture of this reality today.
My wife, 1 year old daughter and I were playing together on the floor today. Suddenly my wife starts to tickle me aggressively and we were both playfully laughing about this. But my daughter loudly cried out. Why? Because she thought mom was hurting her da-da. It was a precious moment for us and a reminder that kids can easily be confused. I don't understand how those who according to their "better way" alternative could fail to miss this point....especially since they are so enlightened!
Brian, Glad to see I can clear up the confusion I cause. And thanks for your insight, it is appreciated.
ReplyDeleteYou really do need to see that movie!
--Stronger now--
Why cant you and your stupid wife be celibate? Why do you have to have sex you loser?
ReplyDeleteChristians are so against people living together without them being married, however once two people do get married and if it doesn't work out those same christians don't have to pay for a divorce lawyer either.
ReplyDeletePlus they bitch, ache, and moan about gay marriage, and they talk about how children need to grow up in a home where there is one man and one woman, where there is more stability, however 60 percent of these conservative christians end up in divorce and a lot christian families are dysfunctional.
A fine example of "Christian Hypocrisy". They can't even keep their own damn marriages and families together. Nor does their God (Who hates divorce) lend them any help to keep their marriages and families together.
And christians expect for us to find credibility with their faith and their faulty God.
What a bunch of idiots!
Ziggy,
ReplyDeleteYes, many of those Christians do give single Christians problems. I didn't marry early in life, I just couldn't find the right fit. I was once involved in a church where one of the "key members" daughter took a liking to me. I wasn't in anyway interested in her. So this family places the implication within the church that I must be gay to not like their daughter. I suppose that their daughter might still be single...anyway. The typical screwed up family like Advocate wrote about. Great point and well said Advocate.
You guessed it, I read those idiots the riot act and moved ahead.
When Brian told me that he doesn`t really know would he cheat on me or that he hopes he wont – it was like, hmmmmm, thanks God that Brian isn`t the last man on the world J.
ReplyDeleteWell, I do believe in God but I`m coming from non religious family. I like to read the Bible occasionally and think that it has to be taken as a spiritual guide, not literally. Yet, I support Brian`s actions on www.exminister.org because I`ve seen how religion or misinterpretation of religion divides and hurts people.
Here we are married and having a wonderful child, as a fruit of our great love and compassion. Commitment, love, similar principles and freedom of thoughts (as well as passion and sex) keeps our family together and growing. You ought to be an individual, a personality to build a complimentary unit as a whole.
I believe that deep down everybody wants to be loved and be that only one, exclusively special sexually and emotionally for their spouse and feel the same about their spouse. When this is working, it`s like a basis of life and you can do other important things on top on this and be successful. When this is in question or not appreciated, people start or keep looking around, invest that basic energy and here we go – so many cheating and divorces around us.
In America, I think, its partly because of massive “sexy” marketing, where even a simple drink as Coca - Cola is made “sexy”. You have to be sexy and buy, buy, buy from one side and you have to be moral and pray, pray, pray from another… side. Internal conflict makes people to loose themselves, their real being and their own opinion on things. The same happens with suppression etc. Europe, on another hand, might be too relaxed on sexual matters. Seems that it`s overdosed here and almost became a boring subject. Differences visualize, when you compare American woman`s aggressive and exposing beauty standard with opposing simple and elegant beauty standard of a French woman. I think, it tells a lot about the sexual life in both sides. And there is no need to compare, each beauty can find their catching eye. I won`t talk about the differences in looks of men to not make it too long J.
Keep this simple - sex is a great pleasure, as long as it pleases and doesn’t hurt anybody. No matter where and who you are, do what`s good for yourself and others + yes, lighten up! You can`t be mistaken then.
I can't say that I relate to christians putting pressure on me to get married.
ReplyDeleteI have been in several different churches, and they usually told me not to focus on being married, that I should be more focused on serving Christ through being single.
Most of the churches that I was involved with encouraged singleness.
I wonder if it could have anything to do with the demographics of where I live or the denomination that I was involved with which was mostly Southern Baptist.
I do know that Christians in smaller towns and more rural areas do tend to look down on single people who are in their late 20's and older years who have never gotten married. I happen to live near a major city in my state.
I was asked by a few people (hicks) in a smaller town about why I had never gotten married and if I was gay. I was 28 at the time. Today I am in my late 30's and I still have not gotten married.
We were coerced into marrying at the age of 17. Later on in life we felt we missed out on exploring sexuality before we got married. When we left Christianity we researched the swinging community for a while and let off some steam. It was a great year and we had some amazing experiences... Gotta tell ya, it was the best thing for this couple.
ReplyDelete