( continues...) Though very honestly, there are times when that discretion feels more like a immoral act of omission. I don't think the Catholic Church would be having a massive, institutional scandal about raping children if people hadn't bitten their tongues for centuries. You bite your tongue often enough and you cut off speech. But I'll try to err on the side of discretion. Because (among other things) I love you enough that I wouldn't want to hurt you, or tar you with such a broad brushstroke.

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I don't think waiting is a stupid choice. It's just a choice, like eating meat or not eating meat. You go where your belief takes you.

I do think, however, that US culture gives us some seriously mixed messages about sex, to the point that even those of us raised without religion can find ourselves feeling the pressure to remain chaste, and then feeling dirty when we don't.

(Of course, mass of contradictions that I am, I also feel that most people have sex long before they're ready for it emotionally.)

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I'm pretty sure Jim Elliot (the missionary who started this conversation) went to my college.

Wheaton, maybe?

I think the culture treats sex as if it were as significant as a Kleenex.

Interestingly, my best friend and I were talking about this last night.

Heh. That happens to me a lot--something comes up somewhere, and then I hear it in a bunch of very separate places, for a few days. How did you get on the subject?

Paul was, actually, not a woman-hating bastard, and I can explain further if anyone likes, or you can wait for JZ.

Gee, I wish you would, Teppy. Every time I start, I end up shutting my browser window in frustration, and not just because I itch when we hold historical figures to today's standards, but that's a part of it.

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OK, I guess he can get partially quoted like anyone. Or, admittedly, I could be saddling him with stuff that's Augustine's or Luther's because I'm underinformed about those things, comparatively. Go for it, if you want, Tep. I don't know...I think we're caught in the middle, a little, between both extremes, our prudish past and a rather commodified present.And I'm not sure how much the media, being created to sell stuff, really reflects real feelings, barring stuff like "Buffy" and "Homicide". And I admire Hec's rant muchly. I have my own baggage about religion from the crazies telling me I have demons, my grandparents fleeing their backgrounds...stuff like that. Maybe one day, I need to devote some time to that. But it doesn't feel safe to now(not here...country-wide)

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Hec, I think you should surprize JZ with a dress from this page

She has been complaining that it's been a long time since wardrobe updates.

I'll bet Hec would look good in a dress.

I looked very fetching in a skirt.

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I do think, however, that US culture gives us some seriously mixed messages about sex, to the point that even those of us raised without religion can find ourselves feeling the pressure to remain chaste, and then feeling dirty when we don't.

Then there's the opposite side, which makes it sound like you're some sort of 'loser' if you haven't had sex before age 20. Yes, this is an exaggeration, but it's there.

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Heh. That happens to me a lot--something comes up somewhere, and then I hear it in a bunch of very separate places, for a few days.

Plate of shrimp?

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I don't think waiting is a stupid choice.

I didn't put this in my post because it seemed like a slightly different topic, but being pregnant with a baby girl has made me think a lot about what I want to tell her about sex.

I guess I do believe that sex is a simply a choice. It ought to be something you do because you want to. And yet, only with DH was sex ever something that I did because I wanted to *have sex* (so I guess I married the right guy). With other people, it just seemed like it often got tangled up in other stuff. That's what I want my daughter to avoid.

I've typed and erased about ten different thoughts here, so I guess I have no overall point, except that I'd better figure something out by the time she's a teenager.

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I think the culture treats sex as if it were as significant as a Kleenex.

Actually, I disagree completely.

Yes, sometimes our entertainment (which is not our culture, just part of it) sometimes depicts sex as being significant as kleenex (though I would also argue that frequently that same entertainment depicts nasty consequences for treating sex as significant as kleenex, just like the Bible does).

But the sheer fact that nothing, not even horrible violence, is as guaranteed to get a large number of Americans all up in a tizzie as the depiction of any kind of sex, significant as kleenex or otherwise, is evidence enough that our culture does not, in fact, treat sex as significant as kleenex.

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As a tangent to the sex & religion discussion: I have a couple of friends who were raised with very conservative religious values, and have since … wandered away from some of those values in regards to pre-marital sex. But they refuse to use condoms; they’re all on the Pill. When I asked one of them the other night why on earth she wasn’t using condoms, because the Pill doesn’t protect against disease blah blah blah, she told me that she didn’t did have sex with someone until she ‘felt ready for it emotionally’. To which I replied “Yes, which averages out to about two weeks for you, and you’ve had three boyfriends in the past five months. ‘Emotionally ready’ doesn’t mean ‘sure they’re disease-free’.” As the conversation progressed, it became clear that, in her head, condoms meant the sex was more sinful then sex without condoms. Both were not okay according to how she was raised, but condoms were a bigger sin.

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