Sexuality and Gender

“It’s Just Sex” and the creation of a new ethic

As many of you know, I’m on a self-imposed hiatus of sorts to get a handle on all of the stress in my personal life. But I read Aaron’s fantastic post, It’s Just Sex, last week and I knew I had to respond.

If you haven’t read it, please go do so. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. When I reached the end of the post, I had two thoughts. First, it highlights the chasm between the experiences of boys or young men and those of girls or young women. Second, there’s a big and important thing that Aaron doesn’t say–and I’m glad of it.

What struck me first is that there are enormous differences in the way Christian culture treats boys and girls. Specifically these two things:

. . . the lust machine that men are.

and

You just don’t talk about “sexual sins” unless you were at the yearly men’s retreat, having a night of emotional confession and healing.

Girls and women are never even told we have a sex drive, let alone that we might be “lust machines.” We are not the do-ers, we are the done. Receptacles for male body parts and fluids. Pressured to “give it up.” Heck, this doesn’t even come just from Christian culture. It’s virtually everywhere.

We women also don’t get to bravely cry over our porn-watching or masturbatory habits at the annual retreat. When we sob out our stories of our sexual misdeeds, it is always in the context of how impure we are for letting a penis near our flowering garden of womanly virtue. Whether we slept with one man or many, it’s about having robbed our husbands or future husbands of the privilege of dibs on us. We call ourselves “bad girls” if anyone has had access to the magical VaginaLand, regardless of the circumstances.

If we ever do talk about a “lust problem,” it’s usually a few giggles over barely-smutty romance novels (or mockery of Fifty Shades of Grey). We women obviously don’t ever touch ourselves or watch porn or read something dirtier than a Harlequin book. And it’s never about the sex, either–it’s about how, once again, we are robbing our men of their divine right to own our orgasms.

Returning to Aaron’s post, the good news for women actually comes in what he doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say

he “ruined” the girls and women he fooled around with and had sex with.
“it’s just sex” applies only to men.
his wife’s history had a vast, negative impact on him (or the other way around, for that matter).

These are good and important things. That he never once goes there means we can read his story freely, with the full understanding that it is meant to apply to all of us. A healthy ethic is not based on which set of anatomical parts we possess but on how we treat and care for those around us.

I think my favorite part of the whole post is

I don’t mean to diminish or minimize sex. It’s something special for sure, but let’s not turn it into the unicorn of human experience. Let’s not elevate orgasm into esoteric, spiritual realms.

It reminds me very much of what Rabbi Schmuley Boteach says in this piece (the context is actually the homophobic statements of Phil Robertson, but it applies nicely here, too):

The essence of an ethical violation, as opposed to a religious infraction, is injury to an innocent party. This is not the case with two unattached adults entering a consensual relationship that is not based on deception or lies.

He also says (again, regarding homosexuality, but it fits):

There are 613 commandments in the Torah. One is a prohibition on homosexual relations. Another is an obligation to have children. I tell gay couples all the time. “You have 611 commandments left to you. That should keep you busy. Now, go give charity, honor the Sabbath, put a mezuzah on your door, keep a kosher home, and pray to God three times a day for you are his beloved children and He seeks you out.”

These are important considerations when we approach the creation of a healthy sexual ethic. Instead of making this the “unicorn of human experience,” why not look at the entire rest of the Bible to find wisdom in how we should live? We might remove the many layers of guilt and shame regarding the spectrum of human sexual practice and be free to focus our energy on love and kindness over rules and regulations.

Unnatural selection*

Relationships, Sexual Morality

Well, color me surprised: Matt Walsh is at it again.** I never know where to begin with this guy–should I start with his imaginary friends that write him letters and emails? Or maybe with the fact that he’s created caricatures of people for the sake of taking them down? Actually, I might go with just shaking my head at how many people seem to like and follow this guy.

This week’s installment is “stereotypes of liberal college professors.” Oh, nice one, Matt. Let’s take on academia! Because no one has ever done that before and done it better than Matt Walsh! I think it’s hilarious that Matt tries to sell us on his being the subject of conversation in high schools and colleges (remember the one about health class?). No, dude, you are just not that important.

I’m pretty sure my favorite part of the fake email is where, since he couldn’t actually think of something to write, Matt says,

[Five more sentences of insults and pretentious self-aggrandizement]

Oh, okay. We get to hear all about how “worried” this fictional professor is that Matt is a topic of conversation, thus stroking Matt’s ego, but we don’t get to read about the “self-aggrandizement” of the professor.

The gist of the email is that the fictional professor believes monogamy is not natural to humans (particularly men) and is no longer necessary. He then goes on to personalize it, suggesting that Matt will inevitably cheat on his wife. I will admit that I’ve met people who believe this and who are unkind about the way that some people choose to live their lives. However, none of them fall into the stereotypes Matt has suggested here (well-educated atheist in academia), and none of them have had the misogynistic overlays Matt has used in his fictional scenario (that is, only men cheat, only men believe monogamy is unnatural, etc.).

After making a couple of snide remarks about the “professor,” Matt goes on to say:

A married person who doesn’t believe in monogamy seems an awful lot like a Satanist in a church choir, or an existential nihilist performing lifesaving heart surgery. There’s a bit of a philosophical conflict of interest at work, wouldn’t you agree?

No, Matt, I don’t agree, and you’re an ass who doesn’t understand any of the things your conflating here. Matt is equating non-monogamy with cheating. Those are not the same thing. We can have a conversation about whether it’s moral or a good idea or whatever, but we need to do it on the terms of what the concepts actually are. A person can be non-monogamous in a marriage without sneaking around and having illicit affairs.

Matt tells us why he bothers answering these fake emails:

In fact, I wouldn’t even bother to address such absurdity if it wasn’t becoming so widespread. What you people — you socially “progressive” academics — have realized is that you can not launch a salient attack against the ideals behind marriage, or abstinence for that matter, so instead you’ve decided to make the bizarre case that these things are somehow mythological.

“Widespread”? Really? I’m not seeing it. Also, this is not a new thing. People who believe humans are not wired for monogamy have been around for a long, long time. Goodness, I remember reading this stuff back when I was in high school in the ’80s, and it wasn’t new even then (though as a high schooler I thought I’d stumbled on some terrifying new philosophy). Matt needs to catch up a little.

As for not being able to “launch a salient attack against the ideals behind marriage,” Matt needs to catch up there, too. In so many ways, marriage and family have changed. I don’t mean in the last half-century with the changes in divorce laws or in the last ten years with more states legalizing marriage equality. I mean over the course of human existence. The purpose, function, and practice of marriage are ever-shifting, and that isn’t a bad thing at all. I, for one, am happy that I’m not still considered property, for example. The ideal behind marriage–which I would argue is a mutual expression of love, trust, and commitment–can still be present no matter how a couple decides to live that out.

The more you say it, the more people believe it, and the more they believe it the more true it becomes. It’s a clever trick. You’ve succeeded, at least partially, in shouting at a reality until it disappears.

But conservatives never, ever do this. Nope. And it’s never been used to bully, shame, and abuse people. Ever.

Monogamy is not natural. You’re right about that.

It’s supernatural.

I honestly don’t even know what he means by this. He also goes on to talk about “rationality” and a whole bunch of other stuff that generally makes very little sense to me. Maybe I just don’t have Matt’s incredible intellectual powers of debate. At no point does he bother explaining how monogamy is supernatural. I was expecting some stuff about, you know, God somewhere in there, but he never gets around to that.

It’s above our nature. It might not be realistic. Space flight isn’t realistic, either.

I think Matt and I have vastly different definitions of “realistic.” Does he mean “naturalistic”? Because realism, by definition, is something that is real. Space flight has been real for over 40 years.

I’m already bored with Matt’s not-really-a-rebuttal. There’s no direction here. He’s basically saying that the “professor” is wrong because he’s wrong. Or because of space flight. He finally tells us what he really thinks:

If you won 600 million dollars in the lottery, would you go out the next day and break into cars to steal the change from the cup holders? That’s what sleeping around is like when you’ve already found a woman who will pledge her life and her entire being to you for the remainder of her existence.

Ah. So there we have it–he sees non-monogamy as “sleeping around.” Because in Matt’s world, there are only two kinds of sexual expression: Man-Woman-Marriage sex and Get-It-On-With-Anyone sex. On, off. Black and white. He cannot imagine anything outside of those options. (This is, of course, how we know the “professor” doesn’t exist, by the way–he’s created as the anti-Matt.)

You tell me that you are in an “open marriage.” I will probably be lambasted for “judging” you for it, but, sorry Professor, an “open marriage” makes about as much sense as a plane without wings or a boat that doesn’t float.

Matt means it doesn’t make sense to him. I’m willing to bet it makes sense to the people who choose something different. My concern is less about Matt judging a fictional character for a scenario that, in this case, doesn’t actually exist than about the fact that Matt just doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about and isn’t arguing his case particularly well.

Marriages, by definition, are supposed to be closed.

By whose definition? In the Bible, marriages certainly weren’t “closed.” Multiple wives? Check. Concubines? Check. Song of Solomon may even be referring to an unmarried couple. Human history and culture is full of a wide variety of configurations, all of which were considered acceptable. The fact that we’ve now caught up with ourselves socially (to an extent) and can embrace marriage as a choice rather than as a business deal is wonderfully freeing.

If you aren’t strong enough to stay committed to one person, that’s your business. Walk down that path of loneliness and confusion, but you can’t drag the entire institution of marriage along with you. Personally, I like circles but I hate squares. Can I subvert the laws of geometry and suddenly decide that all squares shall henceforth be circles? No, because geometry is geometry, despite my strange square-hating quirks. Similarly, marriage is marriage, no matter how many college professors insist otherwise.

Oh, Matt. You poor soul. Though I now see exactly where he’s gone with this. He seems to think that this one fictional character can single-handedly take down marriage. I don’t think this fake letter is about non-monogamy at all. I think it’s a disguise for Matt’s frustration with the trajectory of marriage equality. I’ve heard that argument before, that marriage is on its way out. You know what’s really shooting down marriage? It’s not people who live happily in open marriages. It’s not same-sex couples. It’s not polys. Heck, it’s not even divorce (I can’t imagine telling someone who has escaped an abuser that s/he has ripped the fabric of society). No, it’s people like Matt who want to cling to a very narrow definition of what marriage is or should be (which is fine, if that’s what the couple wants) and then enforce it so everyone else must follow suit.

Matt seems content to blame crumbling marriages on nebulous philosophies and the relatively small number of people who are honest about their non-monogamy. But that denies abuse, addiction, actual cheating (vs. non-monogamy), religious oppression, misogyny, and homophobia as far bigger contributors. It’s important to open the conversation about how people can live moral, healthy lives. That’s not what Matt’s done here. Perhaps that’s because it’s easier to hide behind imaginary academics than it is to engage with live human beings.

____________________

*I think that was actually the title of a Far Side book. Man, I miss Far Side.

**If you get the chance, check out this page. The Five Drunk Rednecks (I love it) posted a couple of comments on my previous posts about Matt Walsh (it’s so gratifying that I have that much reach with my tiny little blog). So I ventured over to their page. I would call it a treasure trove, except “treasure” isn’t the word I want and I’m not sure what its antithesis is. Anyway, read up on it over there. Matt Walsh has been saying douchey things for ages.

The meaning of pinkhood

Gender Roles

By tanakawho from Tokyo, Japan (Not a black sheep Uploaded by Petronas) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the gender expectations for boys and girls. I suppose this is because this great post about toy shopping in Target has been circulating. I admit to loving it–it’s funny in a snarky way, and it certainly hits at what I feel is one of the biggest problems in toy advertising/store arrangement. But something has been bothering me, and it wasn’t until last night that it really solidified.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you may know that both of my kids are in multiple dance classes. Currently, my son is taking private ballet lessons, as there was no class for his age group. Yesterday, we arrived a few minutes before the end of class so we could watch him do a little combo with his teacher. Afterward, he gave her a card he’d made and she gave him a small gift–homemade Chex mix and a little bag containing mini bottles of coconut-lime shower gel and hand lotion.*

He was thrilled. I commented that his teacher sure knows him well, and he agreed. It was a very sweet moment. Now, what had me thinking about it is the number of adults in my circles who would find that strange or even bad. Why would a ten-year-old boy want such a feminine gift? Thus begins the speculating on my son’s life and future.

And that, right there, highlighted the real problem for me.

It isn’t merely that we think it’s not okay for boys to like dolls or fancy hand lotion or pink cook stoves that don’t feature boys on the box. It’s the erasure of anything that seems too feminine.

The Big Questions that always come up are: Why can’t they market toy stoves and tea sets in neutral colors? Why can’t doll clothes come in blue as well as pink? Why can’t I find a boy doll? Why can’t Barbies utter oddly specific action phrases when you push a button on their backs? Why must all Legos be placed in the boys’ section?

Meanwhile, I’m asking an entirely different set of questions.

Why can’t boys own a full set of My Little Pony figurines? Why doesn’t Batman say, “Give me a hug!” when you press a button? Why isn’t it okay for a boy to be featured on the toy stove box, even if it is pink?

We’ve gotten very comfortable asking why the girls’ aisle is hosed in pink and frills while the boys get action and adventure. We intentionally choose to shop for our daughters among the Legos and Monster Trucks and superheroes. We’re okay with urging our daughters to try out sports and climb trees and wear any damn thing they want to.

We’re getting better at it with boys, but often it’s coupled with speculations about their future sexuality. Hardly anyone talks about how much they will still love their football-playing daughter if she turns out to be a lesbian; it’s assumed that even if she is still sporty as an adult, she will at least marry a sporty Prince Charming and ride off into the WifeMommy sunset.** But should a boy show an interest in ballet, pink, and Cher’s greatest hits, suddenly parents take to their blogs to assure the world that they will still love their obviously gay sons.***

When it’s not tied to our sons’ orientation, then it’s tied to the color-coding. We demand the same “girl” toys for them, only we want them in blue and orange instead of pink and purple. God forbid little Johnny play with a pink toy microwave or drink from a pink teacup. We also rarely encourage boys to play with toys that we associate with relational skills. It’s okay to own not-pink cookware, but the world might end if we purchase the latest Fisher-Price dollhouse for our boys. I mean, they don’t actually need to learn the skills associated with caring for home and family.

It seems to me that the reason for this is that we like the erasure of cultural femininity more than we like the erasure of cultural masculinity.

Cultural femininity is seen as weak and bad. How many of us have gone from feeling stifled by the lack of options to feeling guilty that we still want some (or most) of those feminine things? How many men feel like they are less, somehow, because they have traits usually associated with women?

It took me a long time to accept that I like the color pink and that I like stories with a little romance. I sort of felt like I couldn’t even enjoy a Disney princess movie without having to examine its problematic elements first. This erasure of anything culturally feminine means that in order to survive, I must become more like a man. But if I become more like a man, not only do I destroy that which is considered feminine in myself, I also end up being told that I actually want to be a man! Or I’m a bitch or a ball-buster or some other negative term for a woman who isn’t “woman” enough. Yet if I give up and go home, then my femininity makes me invisible again. We often don’t have the option of being both culturally feminine and strong.

This erasure is part of what drives parents to ponder their sons’ sexuality. It’s a grudging acceptance that if our sons want to play at being girly, we will then convince ourselves that it’s okay if they don’t live up to our expectations of what real men are like–that is, virile heterosexuals. That is both misogynistic and homophobic, and it certainly doesn’t do any favors for straight men who are naturally more culturally feminine. (Don’t even get me started on the erasure of bisexual men and gay men who are perceived as stereotypically masculine; they often get shit from all sides.)

I would like to see this all just go the eff away. I see a lot–and I do mean a lot–of anti-pink snark. But what is so wrong with pink? Or girls liking pink and playing with pink things? I understand the concern that we don’t want our daughters (or, hopefully, our sons) to be limited by the color-coding in the toy aisles. I certainly understand that we don’t want to limit our children to one idea or another about what makes a “good” girl or boy. But what if we rearranged our thoughts a little?

What if instead of changing the color-coding, we simply expanded our options? Maybe it would be okay to associate pink with home and family if we stopped assigning the math as

Pink = Girls

Home and family = Girls

Therefore, Home and family + Pink = Not for Boys

I don’t think manufacturers, advertisers, or stores are going to change the way they deliver to consumers. If we want change, it has to come from us. We need to be the ones willing to say, “Eh, screw it. I’m buying the pink stove for my son” or “My daughter would love that Hulk action figure” or “Hmm…I think my kid would like to wear this Snow White costume while building this robotic car” or “Superhero cape and an Easy Bake Oven? I think yes!” We can’t expect the world to change for us–we have to change the world ourselves.

_________________________

*My son gets very chapped hands in the winter, and his teacher has been sharing her lotion with him. He loves the scent, so she got him his own.

**Lesbian erasure is also a real thing and very bad. So are assumptions that women will all be happier if they are married with kids. No woman was ever happy being single, and all women–being such natural nurturers–want children, right?

***I could write a whole blog post on why I think speculating about our kids’ sexual orientation is a really, really terrible move on the part of parents. Perhaps I will.

On stereotyping and pushing back

LGBTQ+, Sexual Morality

It’s taken me three days to figure out why a series of tweets rubbed me the wrong way and what I wanted to say about that. It’s a very dangerous thing to insert oneself into a conversation that is by, about, or for another audience. In this case, though, I think that I can manage not to alienate the people who started the conversation. If anyone else is bothered by what I say, then perhaps you are the person I’m talking to here.

I had to do some digging to figure out what started it. I think it may have been a combination of this post by Rachel Held Evans and the two articles linked in this HuffPost piece (helpfully shared by a friend of mine). Let me sum up the response (which I completely agree with, by the way): Straight allies are defending LGBT people by telling others that not everyone is a stereotype and by saying or implying that same-sex couples are pretty much exactly like opposite-sex couples only with 100% more gay; don’t do that, because it reinforces the idea that LGBT people must fit into heteronormative boxes.

As far as I’m aware, I have not used any argument that resembles “let gay people get married because then they can prove they are just as moral as straight people.” You all can correct me if I’m wrong (though I will point out that I’ve been doing this for about 4 years and I’ve evolved, so if you find somewhere I’ve done that, I shall immediately apologize and do better in the future). Anyway, since I agree with the sentiment–which means the exhortation wasn’t directed at me–then why did it bother me?

Here’s why: It wasn’t the response, particularly to Rachel Held Evans’ post, that bothered me. It was the original post, but I couldn’t formulate why until I gave it a good deal of thought. I realized that the stereotype most straight people (particularly those who are not allies, but even some allies do it) is based on what they know/think they know about gay men.

If what we straight people believe is based only on gay men, then of course the pushback is going to be centered on that. In the process, guess who gets erased? (In case you didn’t quite get it, that would be anyone under the LGBTQI umbrella who isn’t a gay man and even some who are.) I care very deeply that no one’s voice be lost, especially when those people have consistently been silenced in other ways as well.

Don’t misunderstand me–the pushback is necessary, and the consequences are absolutely not the fault of those who responded. That’s not what’s flawed here. The problem is in the fact that anyone still cares about someone else’s life so deeply that they have to find ways to craft their actions as moral in order to support them.

The answer is not really for allies to fight the stereotypes. It is simply for us to stop caring whether anyone else’s life looks like ours. So what if it doesn’t? Why is it so important that everyone share the same belief about what is or is not acceptable for themselves? And why are we so deeply invested in anyone else’s sex/relationship life, anyway?

If you want to be an ally–really be one, not just be one if you think that the person is morally deserving–then please use a different method. If you (like me) support marriage equality, then do it because there are people who want it, not because you think the ability to get married will magically make people share your values. If you (like me) are a Christian and believe that every believer is welcome to love, serve, and lead in the church, then stop wondering about the person taking communion next to you and whether or not they are “just like” you.

Oh, and while you’re at it? Stop trying to figure out what other people do in the privacy of their lives. Unless it directly involves you, it doesn’t concern you. It would be great if we could all concentrate a little harder on what goes on behind our own closed doors.

The birds and the bees and…the bees?

Parenting, Sexuality and Gender

By Artist not credited (Argument in an Off Key.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s a busy day and I don’t have time for my usual overthinking things. Instead, I’m going to share a story from the summer that I can’t believe I’ve never posted. It was the worst (best?) combination of MomFail and Proud Mommy Moment. Warning: sex stuff. And gay sex stuff. Careful of your gag reflex.

When my son turned ten this summer, I did as I do every year and took him to the doctor for his well visit. This story is not about that, though it factors in peripherally. While dude was sitting there in his underwear waiting for the doctor to come in, he said,

“Mom, when are you going to tell me how babies get made?”

I gave a nervous glance at the door, sure the doctor would open it literally the moment I started to speak. I took a deep breath and said, “After your appointment. I want to have this conversation with you, but not right now because there won’t be time for us to really talk.”

Whew. Not that I didn’t want to explain it to him, I just didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle. Turns out that was a Very Good Thing Indeed.

After his appointment, we got back in the car and I asked if he was ready to talk. He said he was. I carefully and matter-of-factly explained the mechanics of straight sex to him. He already knew about sperm and eggs, so there wasn’t much more to say other than how the parts fit together. He understood it about as well as any ten-year-old, I suppose.

And then I learned that I should never, ever have these conversations while driving.

As soon as I’d finished explaining and he indicated he understood, he said, “So, when a boy has sex with another boy, he puts his penis in the other boy’s butt.”

We nearly got in an accident.

Once I had regained control of the car, I did what any good mother would do. I calmly answered my kid, right? Guess again.

I will admit this was not my finest parenting moment. I said the first thing that came to mind: “Where did you learn that?!” I was honest to god having visions of my kid clicking on a pop-up window while surfing the Internet and learning far too much about the naked human body. For about ten heart-stopping seconds, I was in a full-on panic.

Then my son, who is nothing if not logical, said, “No one. I just guessed. Boys don’t have vaginas, so that was the only hole I could think of.”

I decided that a discussion about how some men do, in fact, have vaginas could wait.* I replied, “Well, yes. Some men have sex that way.”

And that was that.

We moved on. I told him that the most important thing for him to know is that his body is his and no one has the right to touch it without his permission. I told him the same thing applies to others, and that he should never, ever touch anyone without making sure it’s okay first.

His response? “That makes sense, Mom.”

My work here is done.

______________________________

*We have since had that conversation, in case anyone was wondering.

Health class and hook-ups

Education, Sexual Morality

Last night, I got an email from one of my readers.* She sent me the link to this mind-bogglingly awful blog post by Matt “Stay-at-Home-Moms-Are-Awesome” Walsh. I’m not sure that we should have expected anything different from his guy, given the chipper and vaguely misogynistic tone of the post about motherhood. Please be sure to read Matt’s post, or none of this will make any sense.

Let’s start with the “email” Matt received from “Jeremy.” Aside from the fact that it doesn’t sound like anything a teenage boy would write, I had to laugh at this:

One of my teachers actually mentioned it in class once after you wrote something (she didn’t mention it in a good way lol)

Oh, really, letter-writer? I suppose it’s possible that one of Matt’s previous posts could have been popular enough to be read by an apparently non-Christian high school health teacher. It’s not anywhere near likely that the teacher would have mentioned it in class, and almost certainly not including the name of the blogger.

“Jeremy” goes on to say that his teacher does the following things that I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a teacher do and still keep his or her job:

Calling abstinence “out-dated” and “unrealistic”
Encouraging students to have casual sex
Asking students to raise hands in a show of sexual history

This is a classic argument against sex education in high schools. It doesn’t actually happen this way–in fact, more often than not, teachers hands are tied in regard to giving students proper information because some parents throw a fit every time the teacher tries. The conservative families who don’t want comprehensive sex education come up with strange arguments about how teachers are going to start telling kids to just go ahead and do it.

The sad reality is that there isn’t nearly enough good education about sex. I grew up in a non-religious household, but I knew people whose parents wouldn’t even allow them to go to school during fifth grade puberty lessons. I remember those classes being embarrassing but halfway decent; my sex education steadily declined thereafter. It ranged from having to diagram a penis for an exam (but not a uterus, because dicks are more complicated, ya know) to a teacher putting in a filmstrip about STDs. The one teacher I had who might have done a better job never got the chance. My grade 10 biology teacher had us submit 3 questions we wanted answered, and he was going to spend one double (lab) period answering them. That was the year we had a huge ice storm, lost a week of school, and that lab got slashed as “unnecessary.” Unfortunately, my teacher gave us the list of questions (ranging from “I think this whole thing is a joke” to good questions about relationships) without giving us any of the answers.

Anyway, if I were a teen in need of support, Matt Walsh is probably the last blogger I would write to. His response to this “kid” is full of the same self-righteous crap spouted by most conservatives. It’s condescending, it’s shaming, and it won’t help anyone make good decisions.

Believe it or not, I tend to agree with Matt that it’s not a great idea for teenagers to be having sex. I’m not unrealistic enough to think they won’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t teach my kids that it’s not a decision they need to make in high school. I absolutely agree that the vast majority of adolescents are not equipped to make adult decisions about relationships. We don’t expect our teens to know how to navigate the adult world in other ways; why should sex be different? But the way Matt approaches it–including referring to teens as “emotionally immature juveniles” (that’s not at all condescending)–isn’t helpful.

I think this may be my favorite part of the post:

There’s plenty of ignorance on the subject. Plenty of confusion. But it’s the lies I hate. The lies that come from people who know better. The people who have made mistakes and now encourage others to make them, too.

I hate the lies, too, Matt. I hate when people use their religious convictions to make up fake emails (whether this was Matt or a “concerned parent” posing as a kid, we may never know). I hate when kids are given misinformation or none at all because of fear that telling them something will make them go try it. I hate that kids are growing into adults who also don’t navigate sex and relationships well. I hate that people are shamed for what they chose (or were forced) to do. I hate the heteronormativity inherent in these conversations.

Casual sex proponents are the ones who have turned sex into something trivial, banal, utilitarian, pointless, joyless, one-dimensional, lifeless, lonely, and disappointing. How could the ones who hold it as sacred also be the ones who make it “boring”? No, it’s mainstream culture that’s made sex boring. It’s mainstream culture that is, in fact, afraid of sex. That’s why we spend so much energy shielding ourselves from every natural aspect of it, other than the physical sensation itself.

I’m so glad that Matt thinks he knows the minds of every person and how they feel about their sexual experiences. Plus, he cleared it up for us–there are only two ways of thinking about sex! We can have “meaningless” casual encounters, or we can have holy married sex. Whew! Good to know. Now when I talk to my kids, we don’t need to have a conversation about sex in a long-term, non-married relationship. Great!

This is exactly my problem with having conversations about sex with a certain brand of conservative-minded people. They set up these straw-man arguments about how “the world” is teaching us that we should (Matt’s words here) “throw ourselves at strangers.” Not even one word about the damage done by purity culture and how shame plays a big part of it–especially for girls and anyone who isn’t straight.

My second degree is in health education. One of the first things we learned is that statistically speaking, abstinence-only education does not make any difference in rates of STDs and pregnancy among teens. On average, teens who pledge abstinence wait 6 months to a year longer than their peers. What is different is that with abstinence-only programs, students don’t learn how to be responsible. Would you like to know what does make a difference–regardless of religion–in keeping kids safer and healthier? Parent involvement.

Yep, that’s right. It’s not about what the teacher says or doesn’t say. It’s not about abstinence-only or standard sex ed or even some teacher spouting off about the perks of casual sex (not that the last one ever happens outside the made-up world of certain conservative Christian bloggers). It’s about parents who are willing to have open communication with kids–not just a one-time “birds and bees” lecture but a lifetime of teaching them to respect themselves and others.

Believe it or not, this is the line that disturbs me most:

And, when the time comes, you’ll express love. Then, you’ll be able to say that you only ever expressed this sort of love to the one person who deserves it.

“Deserves it”? That phrase haunts me. Was I more deserving because when I got married, nothing other than a tampon had ever been in my vagina? Is someone who has had casual sex–and enjoyed it–less deserving? Or is this just a reference to how awesome married sex is? I can’t tell. I would like to hope that Matt didn’t mean it to sound so shaming, but I’m not convinced.

If “Jeremy” is real, here’s what I would like to say to him (and any other “Jeremys” our there): If you want to wait, that’s cool. Don’t feel pressured to do anything you’re not ready for just because someone else said you should. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you must have sex in order to know for sure if that’s the person you want to marry. But also? Don’t listen to Matt Walsh or anyone else who tries to tell you that there are only two options–hook up with strangers or marry your one true love. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you should feel ashamed of your choices. And don’t feel like you need to figure this out on your own. Find people you trust who are open to talking about it. In the end, the decision is yours and yours alone who you choose to have sex with. You have the right to live your life without shame.

______________________________

*Dave Barry always said those letters were from Alert Readers. Stephanie Drury (of Stuff Christian Culture Likes) calls them “email of the day” or “comment of the day.” I suck at naming things, so if anyone wants to suggest a clever name, feel free.

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