tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post6131382430764870256..comments2024-03-15T17:06:31.642-05:00Comments on The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: From the Archives: Evangelicals and Premarital SexEric Reitanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-39766246012468139782011-11-02T11:21:02.261-05:002011-11-02T11:21:02.261-05:00Dear Most Recent Anonymous,
That was 30 seconds o...Dear Most Recent Anonymous,<br /><br />That was 30 seconds of my life, spent reading your comment, that I'll never get back.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-74297370794233487002011-11-01T13:21:20.242-05:002011-11-01T13:21:20.242-05:00Eric, I think you need to get a job in a real-life...Eric, I think you need to get a job in a real-life, technical field (Engineering? Law?) so that you can learn to write articles in a clear and concise manor. I had to re-read each paragraph 3-4 times and I still don't quite have more than a morsel of what you're getting at in this long-winded, flowery, over-educated rant. Please, we understand you're a super smart, sophisticated, enlightened post-grad, we really do, but please spare us of the empty, self-absorbed rhetoric. That was 10 minutes of my life I'm never gonna get back, rats.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-77639319672326614112011-10-31T16:14:55.753-05:002011-10-31T16:14:55.753-05:00Pardon my intrusion, I stumbled in here, and I'...Pardon my intrusion, I stumbled in here, and I've been thinking about the last comment all day. I think Eric's point still stands. Because if as the more experienced dancer, you marked someone's performance as throughly and utterly delightful, it would mean more now then it did back when you were flush with the excitement of all the new experiences. Now, performances that delight you are much harder to come by, but when they do, they must truly be something remarkable. I think that was the point of Eric's assertion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-80662011685163092932011-07-15T03:33:25.955-05:002011-07-15T03:33:25.955-05:00A comment to your last point: in a weird way, I...A comment to your last point: in a weird way, I'm not sure that the trained violinist is more satisfied hearing a great violinist than an enthusastic listener without training - the trained violinist will understand in depth why the great violinist is great, but I suspect the overall satisfaction is the same. Let me explain: when I first started swing dancing, I loved it. I was excited. I danced for hours three nights a week and traveled to other cities to dance with people there as frequently as possible. I lived and breathed lindy hop and blues. Four years later, I could hold my own at national events and was teaching classes, but I didn't love it in the same way - the number of dances I deemed great were fewer, because there were fewer people at my level available - especially as a follow, dancing with a lead that's not of similiar caliber ranges from boring to painful (sometimes literally). So while my technical skills were greater and I was objectively better and could more fully engage with good dancers, I was also less passionate about the entire affair. At this point, I've moved on to an entirely different form of dance and only swing dance a couple of times a year - and it's not an uncommon cycle.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-44229525412359923432011-04-05T12:08:00.865-05:002011-04-05T12:08:00.865-05:00(Continued from above)
In other words, couples wh...(Continued from above)<br /><br />In other words, couples who pursue this ideal of "purity" until marriage, when asked about their satisfaction with the sexual/physically romantic parameter of their married lives, will be assessing it in the absence of any standard of comparison and (at least potentially) based on a strong incentive to ignore all potential dissatisfaction from the first moment that they experienced this element of their relationship. Neither of these things will be true of your typical American, who enters marriage after having "vetted" the potential mate through premarital sexual closeness (even if not through intercourse), possessing a standard of comparison with other physically intimate relationships.<br /><br />On the one hand, judging and comparing (as well as being judged and compared) may have a negative effect on the actual quality of a sexual relationship. One of the effects of the "purity" requirement is to effectively make comparing impossible and judging pointless (since you're already married and you're supposed to stick together, what's the point of deciding your partner is a sexual dud? Habits of judging never develop, and so even if your partner is less exciting than a noodle, you never really notice). In effect, that's one way to reduce the marital conflict that can come from comparing and judging (especially when the comparisons and judgments are negative).<br /><br />On the other hand, cultivating our capacity to compare and providing a framework for making fully informed judgments before deciding to marry has obvious potential payoffs for married couples, even if all we are talking about here is promoting vibrant sex lives. Couples with this background expect more--but this does not just mean that they are more likely to be dissatisfied (which is true enough); it also means that they are more likely to devote attention to trying to actualize the potential of their relationship along this parameter. They'll have a sense of what their physically romantic life COULD be, and they'll have more motivation (at least at points in their marriage when that has a legitimate claim on being a priority) to pursue the equivalent of virtuousity. <br /><br />And when couples who have had these opportunities claim to be very happy with the physically romantic side of their married life, it really means something. A "very satisfied" from them just MEANS something different than a "very satisfied" by the couple that practiced purity before marriage (analogous to the difference between the satisfaction a trained violinist might experience upon hearing a great violinist perform, and the satisfaction that someone without such training might experience).Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-90174683498565321312011-04-05T12:07:38.992-05:002011-04-05T12:07:38.992-05:00Anonymous,
This is an interesting question, and I...Anonymous,<br /><br />This is an interesting question, and I can't say I know the answer. It would be interesting to explore whether any empirical studies have compared couples who somehow manage (despite a culture unconducive to it) to put off until marriage all expressions of sexual and romantic feeling (both in general and with each other) with couples who do not, in terms of marital success, subjective measures of satisfaction in marriage, etc. <br /><br />But I think there would be inevitable impediments in such comparisons. Putting off all expressions of sexual/physically romantic feeling until marriage has at least two implications, it seems to me. (1) One has not had any kind of romantic/sexual relationship with anyone other than one's spouse, and so has no basis for comparing (favorably or unfavorably) the quality of that relationship with other relationships (whether those other relationships are recalled honestly or idealized). (2) Since one is already married by the time one first has any experience of one's spouse in terms of this parameter of a relationship, one has some incentive to ignore/downplay dissatisfaction with respect to this parameter from the moment one first expriences this parameter. <br /><br />To explain what I mean on the latter point, it may help to think about a Romanian saying that a friend of my mother put in a wedding greeting: "Open your eyes as wide as possible before marriage, and shut them after." Taking this seriously would mean that those who put off all sexual/physically romantic expression until marriage never have their eyes open at all.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-80545093722434835062011-04-04T20:49:37.373-05:002011-04-04T20:49:37.373-05:00I enjoyed your essay, and if you're still arou...I enjoyed your essay, and if you're still around, I have a related question-- From what I read from evangelicals, it seems like the push for "purity" includes postponing until marriage as many aspects of desire and sexuality as possible. For instance, I read about couples who save their first kiss until marriage, or aspire to. How well does this work out for people who carry this off successfully? For me, at least, pursuing physical relationships has meant learning a lot about how I felt and what my needs were. I really wonder whether anything has been written about whether these people find their spouses are compatible in this way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-1611046905382278832011-03-28T17:01:29.310-05:002011-03-28T17:01:29.310-05:00Nick--An interesting idea. I recall encountering s...Nick--An interesting idea. I recall encountering some of this public praise of one's spouse by clearly patriarchal Christian men who see themselves as the head of the household. I remember wondering if it was a way of "putting flowers on her chains" (to borrow Marx's language). But the sincerity of the praise suggests that it is not a deliberate ploy to make the spouse more accepting of her subordinated lot. It might, however, be a spontaneous expression of the romantic overlay that helps to perpetuate the patriarchal pattern.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-35147245242755463572011-03-27T23:38:49.545-05:002011-03-27T23:38:49.545-05:00I wonder how the culture of 'marrying up' ...I wonder how the culture of 'marrying up' as expressed by evangelical male's on their facebook status, or in conversation, etc.... reflects the mythologization of the female role in marriage. Could evangelical males' hyperbolic and public statements of their wive's "hotness"/"i'm so blessed" etc... be in part an extension of the patriarchal understanding of marriage that you suggest?nick bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-61251318534147340462011-03-26T22:22:17.948-05:002011-03-26T22:22:17.948-05:00Apologies, I took a closer look and those pdf file...Apologies, I took a closer look and those pdf files don't include the entire book (the page number was incorrect in my pdf read, it originally said 400 pages when I opened it). It only includes the introduction from your book, which I suppose is legal.David Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13714637134009580948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-19901236524192961292011-03-26T22:14:40.229-05:002011-03-26T22:14:40.229-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.David Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13714637134009580948noreply@blogger.com