I've always figured really sane, truly virtuous religious right sexual morality would more closely resemble the sexual morality espoused in your average Shakespeare comedy: well aware of sex, can talk and laugh about it, planning to enjoy it robustly when married. This victorian smothering the candle under a bushel-basket thing never really made sense to me.

P.S. My idea of a chick flick is anything with Rutger Hauer in it. Which, other than Lady Hawk pretty much ain't.

Busy, busy day today. Already had a doctor's appointment (see LiveJournal about that. CRAZINESS!). Now I'm at school. Gotta run and get my big loan check. Then it's off to classes, then off to work. I'm done at 5:30. Someone remind me I can do all this!

I'm kind of afraid of him. And not in that good way in which I get afraid of Detective Stabler. I can't really explain it.

You can absolutely do it, bug.

Today is blood drive day again. I have been organizing these for years. And for the last year, I have popped up as too anemic to donate. And yet, I keep making appointments and trying to donate....10:30 today I get to try again.

I take iron suppliments. I eat some red meat, though not all the time. I am not drinking tea today (not sure how that affects iron levels, but someone told me it does). GAH.

Today is blood drive day again. I have been organizing these for years. And for the last year, I have popped up as too anemic to donate. And yet, I keep making appointments and trying to donate....10:30 today I get to try again.

I take iron suppliments. I eat some red meat, though not all the time. I am not drinking tea today (not sure how that affects iron levels, but someone told me it does). GAH.

Go vw! You can totally do it!

Good luck, Maidengurl. I've had trouble donating in the past when the blood just stopped flowing into the bag. It's kinda frustrating.

I've always figured really sane, truly virtuous religious right sexual morality would more closely resemble the sexual morality espoused in your average Shakespeare comedy: well aware of sex, can talk and laugh about it, planning to enjoy it robustly when married.

That's a sexual morality I could understand. Not that I'm the arbiter of such things. Still, it makes sense to me.

The original article that was linked was, I thought (although I only skimmed it) more along the lines of, "If your fantasy life and real life are out of balance, get with the balancing." I thought they used the dictionary def which states that pornography evokes an emotional response to make a point. I don't even think it was that ridiculous. I read it more as saying, "It's easy to point to skin flicks and say, 'This can be a problem,' but there sure are other things people get too obsessed with, that also cause problems in their lives, including relationship problems."

I know I have seen relationships break down because of unrealistic expectations be they in regards to finances, material comfort, sex, romance, or whatever. When I was a teenager, my mother (probably talking about TV, but maybe something else, I disremember) once said to me, "If something is becoming more important than people, the something is likely a problem, and you have to re-prioritize." I don't think that's wrong, even if I try to put all my religious ideas aside in some box, while I consider it.

I think it was Susan's Campus Group that was saying something more along the lines of touch not the unclean thing. I don't understand that POV, or at least, I think it is too broad a charge to take it seriously, so I won't even attempt to dissect or defend it. I'm not sure it doesn't deserve an angry letter with a lot of points from Paul on faith versus works, but I'm too lazy.

But I do sometime wonder if the whole Thou shalt not read Silhouette Romances thing is an attempt to lower expectations on the part of the extreme religious right. If a woman marries as a virgin, never reads any racey novels, never plays with herself, and never has an affair or gets divorced, she's not going to have a lot to compare her one and only fella to. She might be less inclined to pressure her husband to bother with things like figuring out how to get her off or help out around the house so she has more energy for good sex, etc. if she doesn't know that hot, multi-orgasmic sex is an option. If the goal is to produce undemanding, obedient brood mares for the patriarchy, that does seem to be one way to go about it.

Eh, maybe on the extreme religious right as you say, but remember that they are fringe, and the fringe of the right isn't actually recognized or listened to by those in power, any more than the real fringe of the left. They might try to placate them so they don't have to deal with them, and the left obsesses about them, but they're little more than a boogie man really, and don't drive the agenda.

You're far more likely to hear an evangelical Christian (including very religiously and politically conservative ones), or a Catholic priest, for that matter, telling a husband to help around the house, and to be appreciative of his wife, and be sensitive to her needs (emotional and physical), and then take delight in the results it will produce, including in the bedroom. That's common sense, and sex/gender-role transferable, because when you boil it down, what it is saying is, being good to your partner is good in all kinds of ways.

That said, the Christian idea of sex is different from the secular idea of sex, and from sex in some other religions. Now, I'm not talking about the mistaken (heretical) idea that sex was the original sin, or that women are evil temptresses, which also certainly did exist and I'm sure still does on some fringes. But you find misogyny (and misandry, and misanthropy, for that matter) in lots of places. That's a human ill that's tainted doctrine in the past, and sure it still taints some people's views, but that says more about people who misinterpret and misuse it, than it does about the biblical idea of sex. The Hebrew word English Bibles translate as "helpmeet" in regard to the role for Eve, is also applied to God (that is, God as our helpmeet) in relation to humans. That this was mistakenly read as some sort of insult to women can pretty much be chalked up to human (continued...)

( continues...) error.

There is an idea of purity though, and by purity, I don't mean virginity. It's a reverence for sexuality, and the idea that it is a gift best enjoyed in a committed, monogamous, lifelong relationship, because that brings intimacy on both the groinal level, and in all other areas of the relationship. It's a sex is good-for-your-relationship, and your-relationship-is-good-for-your-sex-life sort of thing. Depending on where a given Christian falls on the conservative-liberal spectrum, this is going to rule out certain expressions of sexuality as being contrary to the purpose of sex. But most comprehensive religions do speak to all aspects of life, and we're sexual beings--sex is a big part of our lives. There are people on this board (who are not Christians) who dress to meet certain modesty standards, as part of the practice of their faith.

So, yeah, there's a point at which fantasizing might be seen as falling somewhere between counter-productive for your relationship and actually sinful. That said, I spent my entire childhood in a really religiously conservative church and youth group, and attended an evangelical Christian College, and was raised by a mother who attended what wiki would call a fundamentalist Bible School, and have never once been told not to read romances, fantasize or masturbate, for that matter. What I did hear was, and I quote (from former youth group leader who was also a car-nut), "Look, you can have a luxury car, or a junky tricycle. You might be desperate for wheels now, but don't settle for that rusted old tricycle. If you miss out on the Caddy, while you're trying to fix a flat on the tricycle, you'll regret it."

I've driven both. He was right as far as my life is concerned, and I'm glad I didn't miss my chance at the Caddy.

The original article that was linked was, I thought (although I only skimmed it) more along the lines of, "If your fantasy life and real life are out of balance, get with the balancing." I thought they used the dictionary def which states that pornography evokes an emotional response to make a point. I don't even think it was that ridiculous. I read it more as saying, "It's easy to point to skin flicks and say, 'This can be a problem,' but there sure are other things people get too obsessed with, that also cause problems in their lives, including relationship problems."

I know I have seen relationships break down because of unrealistic expectations be they in regards to finances, material comfort, sex, romance, or whatever. When I was a teenager, my mother (probably talking about TV, but maybe something else, I disremember) once said to me, "If something is becoming more important than people, the something is likely a problem, and you have to re-prioritize." I don't think that's wrong, even if I try to put all my religious ideas aside in some box, while I consider it.

See, Cindy, I think that, in those 2 paragraphs, you presented the same viewpoint as the article, but in a much more reasoned, sensible way -- a way that looks at people as more than 2-dimensional.

I think the original article took far too simplistic a view of human sexuality and human emotions w/r/t relationships/sex. After I see a chick flick, I *don't* go home to my cats and ice cream and feel more lonely than ever. And it's simplistic to imply that women do that.

Which *you* don't imply. Go you!