It's a busy site, because there are lots of them. Oh, and the abstinence only crowd is only a half step removed from them, so don't think this isn't relevant.
We talk a lot about modesty here in Hell, so I thought I'd show you the natural result of being raised with such beliefs:
Its got to do with love making. I hope i dont offend anyone by being blunt but id rather get to the point rather than not stating properly what i have on my mind. Ill start at the beginning. During my teen years i started to develop strong attractions for the opposite sex and my mom told me thats normal and taught me on saving myself for the man God had for me.
I am not going to mock her use of English. It's painful to me, but she was homeschooled for the purposes of pushing out as many babies as she can while keeping the house clean and her husband fed, nothing more. It's not her fault.
I found this very hard as i felt myself getting 'turned on' easily if i saw a handsome man that i fancied or got very aroused if a boy i liked touched my hand - eek i said it-However i kept pure and trained my thoughts with the Holy Spirits help to be pure and not think those things even though i struggled many times. Fast forward a few years, i got married young but by that point my struggle to not think impure thoughts about men had vanished. I thought oh when i get married i can finally think of my husband in that way.
You know where this is going, right?
Well, the strange thing is, i feel nothing. I mean i am very much attracted to and in love with my husband but -embrassed to say this- i feel NOTHING physically during love making. This was a shock to me because i was so easily turned on before. I no my hormones were crazy then because of puberty but still. I read a book 'The act of marriage' before getting married which explained how women get aroused etc but i dont no whats wrong with me. Im not on any medication, pills, my diet is good, no health problem because i checked that out already. I have only been married for a year but i can tell things are not looking good for us. I am extremely sad because we have such an amazing relationship and im trying to be the best helpmeet i can for my dear husband except for this one vital area. When it comes to love making i dont feel any pleasure, its not painful or anything and i can do the act just feel no pleasure. Its frustrating me so much because i cant O.... and my DH because he feels its one sided. Is this normal or what? Everyone told me once im allowed to have sex, it will be amazing and id be doing it non stop but to be honest i feel that i can easily live without sex since i feel nothing. Urgh i am so sad
Oh, honey. You trained yourself, no doubt with great effort and difficulty, to never think a sexual thing about another person and now you're surprised that you can't? *sigh* Of course you can't think sexual thoughts. The mind gets very good at whatever it practices. If you practiced adding large numbers in your head, you'd get good at that, too. Unfortunately, you practiced turning your brain into a Ken doll.
See, you can't turn off your sexy thoughts and then assume you can just turn them back on when you want to. And, there's the fact that the only reason you would turn off your sexy thoughts is because you were led to believe they were bad. It's ridiculous that people told her that as soon as she was married, she'd just love sex and be thinking sexy thoughts nonstop and having neighbor-scaring, bed-shattering fuckfests 24/7.
I think there is another issue at work here, as well. There is such a thing as chemistry. See, I never restrained my sexy thoughts. I also wore miniskirts and dated and had- gasp- premarital sex. It didn't take me long to learn that my body likes some people and doesn't like others, and it's not always related to how my brain feels about those people. I can like a man, find him intelligent and funny, find being around him an absolute joy and feel not an iota of sexual interest in him. I can also find a man to be an arrogant prick and my body is raring to go. If your relationship is going to include sex (I'm not saying relationships have to, asexual people need love, too), you need to be in a relationship with someone you are physically attracted to.
Unfortunately, this poor woman turned off her sexual attraction, so she would have no way of knowing whether or not she was attracted to her husband. Maybe she isn't. If she's not, not matter how hard she tries, she's never going to be into sex with him.
This is, btw, why I'm terribly leery of expecting teenagers to simply turn off their sexual urges instead of teaching them about safer sex. Evidence says that most of them can't turn off their sexual urges, and now we can see the price of actually doing so. Poor woman.
Well said!
ReplyDeleteI feel a great deal of sympathy for this woman, as someone else who "turned off" -- no, let's call it what it really is, REPRESSED -- his sexual desires for years. That sort of thing really has a way of messing a person up.
It's why I can't even engage the idea that gay people should suppress their desires. My sexual desires are so innate to me as a person, I cannot imagine suppressing them.
ReplyDeleteI mean, sure, if I have to pee, I can hold it until we hit a rest stop, but I can't hold it until 2030. Sexual desire is that basic an urge. To me, anyway.
(Paraphrasing)
ReplyDeleteMust not think about sex... must not think about sex... must not think about sex... must not think about sex... must not think about sex...
...Now I don't think much about sex. Weird.
Yeah, that seems like a pretty predictable bit of cause and effect. Actually, the big surprise to me is that she apparently actually managed to stop thinking about sex and attraction. I'd expect that being told to never think about sex would have exactly the opposite effect on most people.
PF: Maybe she isn't. If she's not, not matter how hard she tries, she's never going to be into sex with him.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that was one of those things that I figured out somewhere around the tail-end of high school. We all spent so much time hearing about not having sex/not thinking of ourselves or each other as sexual beings and, y'know, eventually getting married. One day I realized, "What if I end up marrying someone who I don't want to have sex with?"
The answer to that question was as logical as it was, well, sinful...
This is, btw, why I'm terribly leery of expecting teenagers to simply turn off their sexual urges instead of teaching them about safer sex.
My buddy (known occasionally 'round these parts as Big A) and ran a men's group with the WIU InterVarsity chapter for a bit. The sponsor never liked our approach, since he thought we should spend all of our time making sure we were browbeating each other over lustful thoughts. That was the Promise Keepers approach, apparently, and he thought it was all men were supposed to do when they gathered together to discuss Bible stuff.
A and I were both pretty sure he was a robot. We concluded that being a robot was the only end result that could come from completely subverting your sexual desires.
MM: I'd expect that being told to never think about sex would have exactly the opposite effect on most people.
In my experience, it ends up that way for almost everyone, but there are always a few statistical outliers.
Oddly, I find that now that I'm a godless heathen, I think about sex significantly less often than I did when I was a good little Christian. Apparently sex is like a purple elephant. If you tell someone not to think about it, it's almost impossible to not think about it...
How sad.
ReplyDeleteIf you take two people who (a) have been trained to basically never think or learn about sexual pleasure and (b) might also think any form of sexual behavior other than the missionary position is sinful, I fear her prospects for achieving the big O are going to remain slim to none.
Two inexperienced people can figure stuff out but it takes good communication and comfort in experimenting with other, erm, techniques.
That's really sad. The fact that she's so bothered by this indicates shes not completely turned her desire off. But she has shut off her ability to feel it. That's really sad.
ReplyDeleteIt's also really sad that the only thing she can do about it in her culture is "try to be the best helpmeet she can". I'm sure there's all sorts of treatments out there, but she'll never know about them because her friends and family will just tell her she's not being submissive enough and not praying enough before, during and after the act. (That's assuming they don't just tell her to shush)
What everyone else said, and also (I personally think) that part of figuring out really good partnered sex is figuring out solo sex. Knowing ones body etc etc Susie Bright and so on. And also your partner knowing WTF (heh) they are doing. Which has a learning curve. Even without the repression of desire, the sex that two (presumable)virgins have is probably not going to be very good. I'm not saying it won't get better, but uh.. it probably won't get better without some study. Which, if you're a good Christian couple who was told that everything would be dolphin fucking unicorns on rainbows in heaven as soon as the P went into the V, you are probably not going to read/watch erotica, or sexual technique guides, or much of anything.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost certainly impossible to talk to anyone this couple knows for advice, and *sigh* once she gets pregnant it will probably be infinitytimeseleventyillion worse. It's just a really sad thing because happy, enthusiastically consensual sex and sexuality (or asexuality!) are so important in life.
Worse than all that. It's the entire culture she was raised in.
ReplyDeleteYeah the "don't think about sex" played into it, but it was compounded by "sex is only for procreation" + "sex outside of marriage is evil" + "women should be chaste" and all the rest of the messed-up concepts the Scary Christians are raised with.
The worst of which boils down to "anything done for pleasure is sinful" (i.e., if you aren't glorifying god every minute of every day, you're going to hell). It mixes into a giant knot of psychological problems that even an expert may not be able to untie.
On the other hand, it makes them real easy to mess with...
oh, that poor baby!!!
ReplyDeletethis is what i dealt with, with my best friend. she had been raised this way [though not as extreme] and really, truly thought ANY sex beyond missionary was "sin" - but also that she had to "obey" her husband - so every blowjob he demanded was damning her, every time he raped her she knew she was further tortured in Hell.
she's getting better, because she escaped the lifestyle. this poor baby probably won't.
i also feel bad for her husband - he seems like he wants HER to enjoy sex, too [which a LOT of the P/QF men DON'T] and it has to be a bit painful for him, too... :(