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Casual sex.

I was asked recently why I’m opposed to casual sex.

I’ll tell you:

The purpose of sex is twofold: procreation and unity (spiritually, emotionally, biologically). A lot of people among the people who disagree with that embrace an assumption that we who believe sex is for babies and bonding don’t also believe sex should be pleasurable. That assumption is false. Sex should, in fact, be pleasurable (spiritually, emotionally, biologically) — yes, even according to we who believe sex is for babies and bonding.

But we who believe sex is for babies and bonding also believe the following:

1. We aren’t supposed to decide to unite because uniting is pleasurable. We are supposed to experience the pleasure because we decided to unite permanently.

2. When sex is as it should be, it isn’t about getting. It’s about giving.

And we don’t take that lightly. Both the unity and the procreation imply that sex should be selfless.

In uniting, sex is meant to be selfless: Each person gives self to the other, turning two into one. It’s at once a metaphor for the marriage covenant and a reflection of Christ’s covenant with the church. Procreation also requires selflessness: If sex partners make a baby, each person gives of self to and for the child, before and after the child is born.

In our culture, unity (the biological part of it) happens in multiple contexts:

  • marital sex
  • pre-marital sex (the partners intend to marry each other)
  • non-marital sex (the partners either don’t necessarily intend to marry each other, definitely don’t intend to marry each other or haven’t gotten that far in their thoughts about the future)
  • extra-marital sex (one or both of the partners is married, and neither partner is married to the other)

Mostly within the contexts of non-marital and extra-marital sex, the sex might just be casual. Casual could mean no strings attached, no commitment. It could be a “friends with benefits thing,” or an “I just met you” thing. It is, in any case, “happening by chance, without serious intention, careless or offhand, apathetic,” according to dictionary.com.

By default, to engage in sex that is casual is to be closed off to the possibility for procreation. Few who have casual sex are ok with it if it results in the making and subsequent co-parenting of a baby, in other words. Also by default, to engage in casual sex is to take sex lightly. And since the purpose of casual sex is not procreation and unity, the purpose of casual sex is pleasure, be it physical or emotional or both. But whether one, the other or both, the sex, therefore, is self-focused.

It’s a decision to unite temporarily because uniting is pleasurable.

It isn’t about giving. It’s about getting.

And when sex is about getting, sex is distorted. It becomes mutual use.

And to use your partner is to turn your partner from “person” to “object.”

And to objectify someone is to rob him or her of what comes standard with hearts and souls:

dignity.

And that is why I’m opposed to casual sex.

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Women and men, sex, dating, and the following question: Do you know what that’s like?

A friend of mine and fellow blogger – the lovely SVB – recently wrote a thought provoking post about dating on one of her blogs.

In it, she mentioned a magazine article she had read, written for women, but by a man. Here’s a snippet from SVB’s post:

[The magazine article’s writer says women] shouldn’t be quick to give themselves physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to every man who shows them attention. Rather, they should be more concerned with falling in love with God and letting that be enough and then patiently waiting for God to bring them a man–someone who will value their faith and virtue, and encourage them in it. It’s a beautiful sentiment. It’s hopeful, optimistic.   

I can’t believe it.  

I say those words not in a, “Oh wow, this is so beautiful, I can’t believe God loves me this much, this is amazing!” type of way. I mean I literally cannot believe what this man is saying. I want to believe it. I agree that what the author lays out is how things should be, but it’s not how things actually are.

Indeed it isn’t. So how are things actually?

Complicated.

There is no short answer, no explanation that isn’t complex, no reality completely pleasant. Relationships are messy and people are a mess. If I could sum up the struggle SVB wrote about in her post, I’d put it like this:

As Christians, we are told to, called to, want to save sex for marriage, to seek first the kingdom, to discern before we date, all in a culture that doesn’t.

We are told, called to, want to do X, in other words, while we are…

  • surrounded by Y
  • in a culture that sets us up for Y
  • where Y is normal, and where X, therefore, is not.
Do you know what that’s like?

It’s like growing up with unfettered access to unlimited texts, instant messaging, instant movies, fast food, an iPad, an iPod and iTunes (which is now the norm – a norm which, by default, renders patience and moderation obsolete) but being expected to become an adult who can be patient and participate in anything only moderately.

So, basically, our culture is an environment that is not conducive to patience. Kids rarely (if ever) have to wait, and if we ever tell them to wait, we subsequently discover that they literally can’t. Which makes sense, because you can’t provide a kid with a life that requires no patience and have it result in an adult who can be patient. You can’t provide a kid with a life of excess and have it result in an adult who embraces moderation. And I think deep down, people know this, which is why our culture’s response to it is disheartening: We see that kids are impatient, so we accept kids as impatient. Kids see that adults expect them to be impatient, so they don’t think they have to be patient. And rather than teach them that they have to be patient and show them how to be patient, we just lower the bar (which results in a bunch of impatient adults).

In the same way, most people who want to do X in a culture only conducive to Y will wind up going for Y.

It’s like this:

We see that people don’t save sex for marriage.

We see that many men and women lack integrity, or are selfish, immature or dishonest.

We can continue not to date them, or we can lower the bar.

Most people lower the bar.

But most people don’t understand the damage that it does.

When we lower that bar, “a man or woman who a) lacks integrity, or who b) is selfish, immature or dishonest, or who c) will not wait until marriage to have sex with us (or some combination of the three)” ceases to describe men and women who aren’t good for us. It just becomes a description of men and women, period. So regardless of whether the men and women who exhibit those traits are the norm, we decide that they are.

And once the men and women who exhibit those traits are simply “men and women” to us, we either don’t date, or we date anyway. And if we do date, because the men and women who exhibit those traits are the norm, they are also the expectation. And when we expect that, we can accept that. So we settle for men and women who fit that description. But we don’t even realize we’re settling, because, as far as we’re concerned (once we’ve lowered the bar), we are just getting guys and girls who are normal – guys and girls who are good as guys and girls can get. But as long as we assume that that is as good as guys and girls can get, we will feel content to have wound up with a guy or a girl like that. And as long as we are content to wind up with that kind of person, people will be content being that kind of person.

Which is how that kind of person becomes the norm.

Which is why people like SVB and me are single a lot.

Back to the question. Do you know what that’s like?

Regardless of who you are and how you live, even if you don’t believe in soul mates or “the one” (and sorry kids, but neither exists!), meeting somebody with whom you are truly compatible is like finding a needle in a haystack. But when you’re saving sex for marriage, seeking first the kingdom and discerning before you date, you can’t even find the haystack.
SVB puts it this way:

 …sometimes I wonder if we, the Christian girls, have got it all wrong. What if this so-called man the author outlines, the one that is supposed to fall in love with us and our virtue and faith, doesn’t exist?

If we lower the bar, he doesn’t have to exist.

If we lower the bar…

He sees that we don’t expect him to aim higher.

So he doesn’t.

We give him permission to sell himself short.

So he does.

We act like a man can’t date without having sex.

So guys don’t have to date without having sex.

Really, we sell them short.

I think the fear here is that so many bars are so low now that no guy will want to reach as high as ours.

And that is a risk I am frankly willing to take.

– – – – –

Click here to read SVB’s post in full.

Click here to check out SVB’s other blog, “That’s What She Said.”

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Books in 2012: unPLANNED

unPLANNED: The dramatic true story of a former Planned Parenthood leader’s eye-opening journey across the life line is — as of this afternoon — the eleventh book I’ve read in 2012.

The book (written with Cindy Lambert) is by and about Abby Johnson, a woman who worked for Planned Parenthood for years, until shortly after she assisted in an ultrasound-guided abortion. During the procedure, she held the ultrasound probe on the patient’s belly and watched the unborn baby react to the cannula (the tube used to remove a fetus from a uterus). Her life (and her values and career) changed instantly.

It says a lot about unPLANNED (and/or about my taste in books) that I read it in under 24 hours. I started it last night, slept with it in my hands and finished it today under the porch fan by the light of the afternoon sun. I found the book fabulous, as a Roman Catholic Christian, and as a woman, and as a writer, and as a mental health professional. Johnson shares her experience of becoming a Planned Parenthood volunteer and employee, of encountering the Coalition for Life (a pro-life organization a couple doors down from the Planned Parenthood where Johnson worked in Bryan, TX) and of discovering over time that the Coalition’s goals resonated more with her than Planned Parenthood’s did.

Some thought provoking excerpts (sometimes followed by commentary):

A talking point Johnson would use while employed by Planned Parenthood, to explain part of the organization’s purpose: 

“The only way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. The only way to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies is to provide additional funding for contraception.” -page 42

Um, I can think of at least one other way. (Just sayin’.) In the book, Johnson never said whether she is or isn’t still a proponent of the use of contraception to control fertility. The latter line in the above excerpt irks me. This is not solely because I am a proponent of chastity (which involves abstaining from sex before marriage), but because of all else contraception accomplishes. I haven’t discussed contraception much publicly, but for now is this: One of contraception’s purposes is to prevent the unprepared from becoming parents. It says “yay for fewer unfit parents!” loud enough that nobody hears the following over the noise: if you are unprepared to be a parent, maybe you are actually unprepared to be having sex.

What a great definition of integrity:

“…I particularly admired how his faith shaped his values and choices. I sensed a strength and consistency in his life—an integration of his beliefs with his practices…” -page 50

On being a churchgoer simultaneously as she worked for Planned Parenthood: 

“On Sunday mornings, I felt like a spiritual misfit, surrounded by people in touch with God while I just felt left out in the cold. But I wanted to belong—really belong—among other Christians. I was careful to avoid conversations about where I worked.” -page 63

This passage is a great example of what Harriet Lerner wrote in The Dance of Fear, the book I blogged about yesterday: “The extent to which you hide something important about yourself or another family member is a good barometer of shame.”

A really good point (read it to the end):

“When it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere, I turned to head back into the clinic. But I’d only taken a step or two when I turned back to [a pro-lifer who often prayed outside the clinic] and said, ‘You know—‘ He looked taken aback, as if he thought I was going to get nasty. But I just thought he should see our point of view. ‘There have always been people like us—like Planned Parenthood—defending the rights of women and human rights in general. Isn’t that what the emancipation movement was about in the 1800s, and then in the early 1900s, the suffrage movement? In World War II, people tried to stand up for the Jews. And now there are people like us, standing up for the reproductive rights of women, just as the suffrage movement stood up for their voting rights.’

He listened respectfully, and then he simply said, ‘Abby, you don’t have to justify your job to me.’

What? Justify my job? ‘I’m not justifying,’ I said. ‘I just want to explain—“

‘And you don’t have to explain what you’re doing either. The truth is, you just cited two instances of injustice—[regarding] the slaves and the Jews—that could only exist because a whole segment of our population was dehumanized. Society’s acceptance of that is what allowed injustice to continue. And that’s exactly what Planned Parenthood does to the unborn.’ -page 84

On the pro-choice friends she lost, and other people — the ones who prayed at the gates of the Planned Parenthood in Bryan, TX, who — even before Johnson quit her job — became her friends:

“But the process of seeing previously close friends turn away from me because we now disagreed about the crucial issue of abortion reminds me of the very different brand of friendship I’m also seeing in action these days. I’m thinking of people like Elizabeth, Marilisa, some friends from church and even college days—people who befriended me and stood by me for years even though they did not agree with what I did at Planned Parenthood, even though they do not believe in abortion. Those people modeled for me something far deeper, far stronger than situational friendship: they loved and accepted me even when I was (or am) doing something they found morally objectionable. They didn’t just talk about love—they put flesh on that concept.” -page 220

And I think we can all learn from that.

– – – – –

Click here to read about all the books I read in 2012.

Click here to learn more about unPLANNED.

Click here to learn more about Abby Johnson.

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Books in 2012: Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?

I’d kind of like to invite Margaret and Dwight Peterson to dinner at my house. We’ll have chicken parm, play a little Jenga and when the opp arises, I’ll thank them sincerely for their book.

Are You Waiting for “The One”? Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage is the ninth book I’ve read in full in 2012. It is a refreshingly realistic exploration of friendship, love, sex, marriage and family that challenges the status quo set by the world (which, as the Petersons point out, is often unwittingly perpetuated by Christians).

In many Christian books as in many Christian churches, important stuff like sex and gender and dating is broached only superficially. What those Christian books and those Christian churches don’t get is that it does serious damage to consider topics taboo that ought to — nay, must — be discussed deeply. The Petersons get it. And that is rare, and therefore, delightful.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

On hooking up:

“It is difficult to believe, however, that the hookup culture is anything but bad for anyone, male or female. The more casual sexual behavior becomes, the less it serves to deepen existing intimacy and the more it becomes a substitute for and even an impediment to intimacy.” -page 14

On real love: 

“Real love grows through use. You do not have to worry that if you spread it around, you will run out. Nor do you have to worry that if you enter into an intimate friendship with someone whom you do not end up marrying, that person will abscond with part of your heart and there will be less of you than there was before. If you hope to marry someone and do not, of course you will be disappointed. But a great deal of the pain of heartbreak comes not from disappointment in love, but because partners have not, in fact, treated one another lovingly. If you and your friend really do love each other, and really do treat each other well, you will grow in and through the relationship, whether or not it moves toward marriage.” -page 27-28

“Real love develops into deep, meaningful intensity. It does not start with it. The time to look for sparks to fly is after you know one another well enough actually to mean something to one another.” -page 27

On conflict, mutual submission and gender:

“Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution, however much we might like it to be.” -page 81

“Mutuality takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to talk with one another and listen to one another, for long enough that it can become clear what the issues are, what the feelings and desires of both spouses are, and what some possible plans of action might be. Headship as decision making, by contrast, can seem quick and easy and far less personally demanding. Husband and wife don’t really even have to work together: he just does his job and decides, she does her job and goes along, and they’re done. And that is exactly the problem. They haven’t actually dealt with their differences; they’ve just done an end run around them. They are no more united when they are done than they were when they began. There has got to be a better way.” -pages 94-95

“But before we talk about what a better way might be, we have to tell one more unpleasant truth about the control-and-acquiescence model of male-female relationships. Defining male headship as control and female submission as acquiescence is not just misguided; it is dangerous. By idealizing rigidly defined gender roles, assigning power in relationships disproportionately to men, and encouraging both men and women to see this as spiritually appropriate and desirable, a theological ideology for abuse in intimate relationships is set in place.” -page 95

On communicating via social media:

“Self-revelatory statements are made in isolation, and often to the world in general rather than to anyone in particular. They in turn are read by recipients who are busy with many other things or who may simply happen to be trolling the web for status updates. The result is less an electronic equivalent of conversation, and more a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism.” -page 114

On sex:

“One of the first things to be said about sex is that it is okay not to know everything. Our culture glorifies sexual prowess—many people simply assume that sexual experience and personal maturity go together, and that anyone who is virginal or otherwise inexperienced is for that reason a mere child. … In reality, experience and maturity are not the same thing. It is possible to have a great deal of sexual experience and to be a thoroughly immature person, and possible likewise to have little or no experience of sexual relationship and yet to be secure and well grounded in one’s own masculinity or femininity.” -page 137

“The foundations for a positive marital sexual relationship begin to be built long before the wedding night. If you and your partner are cultivating an intimate friendship in which you can enjoy one another playfully, talk with one another openly, work on shared projects cooperatively, problem-solve constructively, and relax together trustingly, you are well on your way to building a relationship in which sex can play a positive and intimate part.” -page 144

On contraception:

“On its invention fifty years ago, the birth-control pill was hailed as a great advance over barrier methods, precisely because a woman did not have to negotiate its use with a sexual partner. Now the sense is that a once-a-day pill is too much trouble; people need ‘fool-proof contraceptives that require almost no thought or action.’ The obvious problem with this is that where contraception is foolproof and thoughtless, sex will be too. Is that really what any of us wants? Is that really compatible with Christian notions of what sex and marriage and human life itself are really all about?” -page 164

 

[callout]Click here for more information about (or to order) Are You Waiting For “The One?”. [/callout]

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The new normal: births outside marriage — Part 2 of 2

In yesterday’s post, I wrote some commentary on a recent New York Times article. The story cited a study that says a baby’s birth to an unwed mom “used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.”

I don’t doubt the study’s results are legit. (In fact, I’m responsible for putting birth announcements in the newspaper for the county in which I work, and at least in that neck of the woods, babies with unwed parents far outnumber babies whose parents are married.) I don’t disagree that lots of people opt not to get married after conceiving a child or after giving birth. But, as I pointed out in Part 1, the story about this unintentionally implied that marriage and “a piece of paper” are one and the same when, in fact, they are not. Marriage is a miracle that helps us “to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving,*”

Which is awesome.

But as awesome as that is, few people our age are interested in it. Few currently-married couples exemplify it. And so I was compelled to ask a question:

Why?

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that. For one, I don’t know (at least not with any kind of exactness), and for two, I do know the answer is so complex that I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. What I can do is list some factors that, in my opinion, contribute to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.

1. People don’t know what marriage actually is.

Refer to Part 1.

2. People don’t think enough (some can’t, some won’t).

Part of the story says the following:

A woman, “27, was in an on-and-off relationship with a clerk at Sears a few years ago when she found herself pregnant. A former nursing student who now tends bar, (she) said her boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind. ‘It was like living with another kid,’ she said.“

Another part says this:

“In Lorain as elsewhere, explanations for marital decline start with home economics: men are worth less than they used to be. Among men with some college but no degrees, earnings have fallen 8 percent in the past 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the earnings of their female counterparts have risen by 8 percent.”

The point the story makes is that these women aren’t marrying the fathers of their children because to do so would be financially irresponsible and/or of no financial benefit. But if our focus is on deciding not to marry a man because marrying him is of no financial benefit, we miss a deeper point. The young woman in the story wouldn’t dare marry a man-child who can’t afford his own cigarettes, which is good, and I commend her, because she shouldn’t. But, then, I’m left wondering: if a dependent guy isn’t good enough to marry, why is he good enough to date? Why is he good enough to make a baby with? This points to the deeper point:

There are so many questions to ask before we promise exclusivity to someone and before we make babies with him or her — questions that few are asking.

Questions like is this person emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be my spouse? Would he or she make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like this person? Am I emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be a spouse? Would I make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like me?

We need to think about our answers to these questions, which implies we have to answer them. I think lots of humans are so generally horrified that the answer to any of them will be no that we neither ask nor answer them. But know that if an answer is no, it does not not mean it has to be no forever. It means somebody has some work to do — some growing to do. And that’s ok, and always will be.

Lots of other humans do think about their answers to the questions, but their thoughts backfire because they are are under the impression that if an answer is no, the act of entering into a marriage — or even just moving in together — will transform the non-marriageable half of the couple into a marriageable one. But that’s not how it works.

From the article:

“Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.”

This is because when a relationship isn’t working, doing something that complicates it never makes it work. We’re better off taking something out of the equation (such as one of the people, or sex) and seeing what happens.

Which brings us to a third factor that contributes to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.

3. People treat the sacred (sex, in this case) like it isn’t.

In our culture, you hit a certain age and the assumption is that if you’re dating someone, you’re having sex with them. And in an overwhelming majority of cases, that’s a safe assumption. It’s the norm. Which is one of several reasons we know what the norm isn’t: treating sex like it’s sacred.

Sex is not kept sacred when it’s something we do with every person we date. It’s not kept sacred when we participate in it selfishly. It is not sacred when we decide to have sex because we believe we can’t not have sex.

“It’s impossible to wait” is a lie. Humans, in my opinion and experience, are stronger than that — we can control our appetites. A couple of my favorite quotes about this are as follows:

“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains healthy discretion.*”

and

“The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.*”

There are far fewer people who believe that than who simultaneously a) believe marriage is a piece of paper, and b) are currently unfit for a piece-of-paper-marriage, let alone for a real one, who c) are so unwilling or unable to acknowledge that they are currently (and probably temporarily!) unfit for marriage that they d) date while they e) are completely convinced they cannot date without having sex.

And that, over time, combined with a lot of other factors, results in new normals like the one in the article.

– – – –

To read Part 1 of this post, click here.

To read the New York Times story in full, click here.

*This quote comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.