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October 22, 2005In praise of square-ness: Self-respect is not pruderyWhen I was a junior in high school, I knocked a tooth out of the head of some guy that called my sister a whore. Today, every girl’s a “ho” and we’re ok with it. I can’t wait to hear some punk assed freak call my daughter “bitch” or “ho”. I know I can get probation…as long as someone stops me before I kill him. So…yeah…I’m old fashioned in that regard. Obviously, we are - some of us - not ok with it. But the movers and shakers of the world certainly do seem to want to convince us otherwise, and to especially convince us that virginity is overrated.
… Translation: It’s those damn prudes and squares on the right - if they would just stop trying to pretend that chastity is possible for a teenager, or that virginity actually means something, these poor kids could be foregoing oral sex and getting down the way we did in 1973! We have moved beyond the hymen and are now deeply into our vaginas where everyone else should be, too! We have evolved to where the hymen - like the appendix - no longer has a definable relevence! Instead of fretting that - by suggesting that virginity is both meaningful and manageable - we prudish conservatives are making things much too difficult for our children, perhaps we should question whether those advocating otherwise are simply, as SCA suggest looking for a way to rationalize easier, less “hands-on” parenting. When my sons were at that age where every car ride became an opportunity for talking about those tough-questions-better-answered-by-keeping-ones-eyes-on-the-road, we talked, very frankly, about sex and abstinence and self-respect, and respect for others. Even when the topic was decidedly biological, faith and morals would always come into it. Sex, my kids were told, is not “good.” It is “great.” But it is also sacred because in the act of lovemaking, the essentials of all life and all creation are fully engaged, and that is powerful…and that much power demands respect and serious discernment. “Sex,” they were taught, “is about more than slapping on a condom and hoping it doesn’t break - it’s more than ‘getting off.’ And virginity is not simply a membrane put there for no reason. The hymen was created for a purpose.” It won’t mean anything to an atheist, of course, or to an adherent of a religion which does not worship the Triune God of Abraham and Moses as Creator of All. But to those of us who do, and who understand that both Old and New Covenants were sealed by the shedding of blood, it makes perfect sense that a Marriage Covenant - which is not only shared between two created creatures, but made before their Creator, with whom they now join in the mystery of Creation, itself - would also be sealed by the shedding of blood. And so…it has meaning. Real meaning. Divine meaning. Spiritual meaning. Mature, adult meaning. I must hasten to add, btw, that celibacy, self-restraint and virginity are still valued in other belief-systems - I am simply specifically speaking about the idea of “covenant” and its connection to blood. When I was a little girl - a very “tail end” boomer - I watched the teenagers and young adults around me who were so certain that everything that came before them was meaningless (every standard, every ethic, every moral, every doctrine, every ritual, every rite of passage); I watched them deconstruct notions of honor and conformity and even Eternal Truths, and I wondered how it could be that everything had to be changed to suit them and their unsurpassed brilliance and wisdom. Now I look around at the fruits of that brilliance and wisdom.: People who dress like convicts or whores (and dress their kids the same way) to be in the fashion. Marriages made with “temporary vows” if they are made at all, virginity tossed into a metaphorical gutter, chastity derided as “impossible.” Babies and children thrown off of piers, mother’s finding strangers to take their daughters virginity so they can get it over with. All of it comes back to the recurring theme of what the “enlightened” generation is all about - the utter devaluation of anything that has formerly been deemed as “sacred,” including human life, itself. And the strange mindset that suggests that a child’s reasoning is more credible than an adult’s. After all, grown men may are not respected to make their own decisions as to whether they will go to war and possibly die, but the decision of a 13-year old to have an abortion must be more than respected - it must be celebrated. And we must never, never ask how that 13 year old got pregnant, either, and examine how much exploitation is really going on. Charmaine Yoest looks at the pregnancy of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and wonders if perhaps social censuring might not be warranted, these days:
Did Dan Quayle cover this many moons ago, when he tackled the issue of glammed-up single motherhood? Yes, to a point. He was sneered at, of course. Such judgemental prudery, so unenlightened, so square. Seems, to me, though that the “square” people are actually thinking about these issues and how they affect the community of humanity, as a whole. Whether they’re right or wrong, they are actually trying to think these matters through, they’re not simply rationalizing them away. Speaking of “thinking these matters through” SCA gave a guest post over to a young lady named Sara who is a “non-prude” virgin who intends to remain so until marriage:
SCA have very kindly hauled out a whole collection of posts and guests postson this topic, bceause it is certainly a subject that is worth our serious consideration. More than any other blogger I can think of, SCA will pull provocative commenters from their threads and invite them to guest post re subjects on which they, they guests, display exceptional insight or understanding. They are very generous bloggers, and the collection of posts they’ve lined up here are all worth reading. UPDATE: Fausta has more on this subject. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/10/22/in-praise-of-square-ness-self-respect-is-not-prudery/trackback/ 14 Responses to “In praise of square-ness: Self-respect is not prudery” |
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:47 pm
I’m at the beginning of the boomers. I was born in 1947, the product of unmarried sex between my mother and father. They never married each other. I have plenty of half siblings but no full siblings. During school and everywhere else, actually, it was as though I were the one who committed the sin. I was the one with the stigma of having no father. Finally in high school the guidance director was interviewing me and asked my father’s name. I simply replied for the first time, “I don’t know.” “YOU DON’T KNOW???” “I don’t know.” I knew my father’s name but it was not on my birth certificate. My birth certificate says by father’s name “undisclosed”. I had to show these papers to employers and schools and felt as though I had done something wrong.
I was therefore determined to never do that to a child of mine and my virginity was saved for marriage. I have never had an intimate relationship with anyone other than my husband. We have two children who are full siblings.
This was back in the 50’s and 60’s I’m talking about. See how much morals have changed since then. Now I would be celebrated. The stigma is on the child. I can vouch for that.
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:52 pm
Excellent post.
I recall a radio interview in which a guest asked, ‘Doesn’t anyone blush anymore?’ Another guest replied, that as a society, ‘we are evolving so we don’t need to blush anymore. What human activity could possibly make us blush?’
I was flabbergasted, to say the least- and I’m glad to see you discussing the subject.
At any rate, like you, I have some fanatastic readers. I have had some terrific guest posts on sex and growing up.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Anyone care to place a bet on how long it will be before this will be cause to get DCFS(Department of Children and Family Services) involved? Parents might some day lose custody of their children for raising them this way. I’ve already heard the groundwork laid in the TV discussions. It couldn’t possibly be the child’s decision.
October 23rd, 2005 at 1:10 am
I understand perfectly the meaning of the stigma. It was quite powerful, and still is, in Puerto Rican culture.
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That’s why I had no idea that I was born ‘illegitimate’, and that my parents had not married… until a week before my father passed away unexpectedly.
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When I found out about it, I was shocked. Dismayed. Why would my parents do that to me? Why do they want for me to carry that stigma? I was to suffer the consequences, not them.
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For that reason, and many others, I left my hometown when it was time for college. It was a chance for me to start a new life, and not to look back. Sadly, I still do.
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Today, I am happily married for ten years to a wonderful guy - the only man I ever slept with, really. That may sound very surprising in 2005. He, a guy who encountered Jesus Christ after we became serious, likes the fact that he is the only guy ever to get closer to me than one foot.
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It is, in fact, very honoring to say “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” - Song of Solomon
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:54 am
Our great insight into marriage comes from the New Testament, and is found in the words of Jesus, in Matthew 19:4-6:
“Haven’t you read, He replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and teh two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (NIV).
We forget that it is the sexual union that cements the two together so they are no longer two, but are one. This is a major reason why divorce is so traumatic, because we are tearing the one into two.
Recall, this is Jesus speaking. There are people in this world that refuse to lay any credibility to Jesus and Christianity. If Jesus is not real, and His words really have no substance, then this passage can have no bearing on anybody.
Also, once when I was facilitating a drug rehab group, one member constantly referred to women as “whores”. One day, in group, I asked him if all women were “whores” to which he answered “yes”. I then asked him if all women included his mother. He had not entertained that thought before, and realized that if all women were whores, he would have to see his mother in another light. He chose to no longer see all women as whores.
October 23rd, 2005 at 11:29 am
Excellent post.
“The Sexual Revolution has gone so far that it is not about freedom anymore.”
Exactly- if it ever was. And I think it is no accident that increasingly the ‘pro-choice’ movement is not about ‘choice,’ but about the ‘obligation’ to abort in a growing number of circumstances.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Often, we are astute to go back in history to understand the present. In the idyllic days of our parents living in the garden of Eden, there was no knowledge of good and evil.
We are instructed that Satan introduced “pro-choice” into the vocabulary of pre-fall humanity.
We need to ask ourselves what benefit we have accrued through choosing to deny God’s instructions.
Of all the trees in the garden, you may eat, but of the tree of good and evil you may not eat.
OK, God, You said it, I believe it, that settles it for me.
Did God really say that you would die if you ate from the tree? You are free to choose what you want, who does God think He is to stop you from making up your own mind?
Obedience is walking a very narrow road.
Do we choose to believe God, or do we reserve the right to make our own decisions?
May God be praised.
October 23rd, 2005 at 12:52 pm
For me it was about respect. Actually, I was quite admired and held up to young people around my circle of friends as someone who, by my mid twenties, had not had sex. For me it was never about waiting for marriage, but was a gift to be shared only with someone I truly cared about. My goddaughter was 9, and her stepmom and I had many discussions about why it was important to wait.
October 25th, 2005 at 2:16 am
I only hope that square conversatives dominate the social season when my children come of age. I’m reading a book about sororities right now (Pledged, by Alexandra Robbins), and am horrified, beyond horrified, at how cheap those girls hold themselves, and how damaged they are, physically and emotionally, by the way sex has been cheapened. My mother (of course) was right all along: all that the sexual revolution did was turn all girls into easy sex for the boys. Equality in this area is an illusion.
October 25th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Squares
The Anchoress has a very good post on virginity.
She has an interesting explanation of why marriage is a blood covenant. I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I think she’s right. Very cool.
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October 25th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
I wrote a bit about the mother who dropped her kids into the Bay: http://marchhareshouse.blogspot.com/2005/10/tragedy-on-so-many-levels.html
October 29th, 2005 at 11:33 am
[...] “Free love,” sputtered Uncle Jim, “it’s immoral! It’s damaging to the family!” Suddenly every film hero or heroine is having free, uncomplicated, undamaging sex, and flashing some gratuitous T and A at Uncle Jim in the process. “I dunno,” he smiles to Aunt Sally as he settles back, “maybe it’s not all that bad…” [...]
August 29th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
[...] Hmmmmm….and maybe, just maybe, the hymen - so long thought to be a useless, value-less part of the body - is worth hanging on to, and even has meaning? [...]
May 25th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Siggy had this link on his post today and I found it excellent.