Reports About Sex Week / Male Modesty / Online Dating Scammers / Rampant Pre Marital Sex Among Christians / Single Christian Women Feel Pressured to Fornicate In Dating / other topics (Link Dump)
I do not have the patience to make separate posts out of each link / story / topic below, so here is another link dump, with links to lots of different sex, infertility, marriage, online dating, purity, and whatever, editorials and stories.
I’m not necessarily in agreement with any or all of the views expressed in any of these pages. I post them only because they touch on topics I regularly discuss on this blog.
Some of these links from The Christian Post I present below are from the last two to three weeks, but they cover topics I already discussed here on this blog weeks before (CP authors are sometimes weeks or a couple of months behind material I post to this blog first).
Sometimes, The Christian Post quotes people I don’t agree with about everything, such as Mark Regnerus – see this link and this link for more about that.
Regnerus pushes for early marriage and seems to engage in a bit of singles-shaming (blaming singles who want marriage for being single, for not being able to find a partner), which is wrong. You can see the links above for more about that.
About me covering stories before The Christian Post does.
Take this first link of their below as an example – not only did I cover this story first (on Jan 28, 2014 here, this link, but also on Feb 8, 2014, see this link), but also some of the web sites the author references in his series (which makes me wonder if he’s been to my blog and is copying my material):
Excerpts:
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- BY MORGAN LEE, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
February 12, 2014
Survey Reveals That 61% of Christian Singles Are Willing to Have Casual Sex
A majority of single Christians are rejecting biblical doctrine by choosing to have sex before they are married. Sixty-one percent of self-identified Christian singles who answered a recent ChristianMingle survey said they are willing to have casual sex without being in love, while only 11 percent said they are waiting to have sex until they are married.
…But despite this realization, after Lindsey moved to New York, she did not abide by this new sexual ethic. Instead, she entered and exited relationships frequently, often sleeping with the men she was dating.
“Even though I knew it was wrong, I continued to have sex outside of marriage,” Lindsey told The Christian Post. “Why? Because when you’re single you don’t want to be lonely.”
“I was the girl that broke up with one boyfriend and had another one on speed-dial—that afternoon I’d already be going out with somebody else. I kept a boyfriend because I liked the attention,” she continued.
For Lindsey, her behavior was not simply a result of her conforming to the sexual values of her non-Christian peers. Instead, she had friends from church with similar sexual ethics and even dated and became sexually involved with a man who was serving at the same church that she was.
“We all went to the church. We were hypocrites. We said we loved the Lord but we ignored the scriptures that said that fornication is a sin,” said Lindsey.
Lindsey eventually cut off all people that had been a part of that lifestyle. Several years ago she got married and moved to Atlanta, where, now 31, she is the founder and CEO of Pinky Promise, an organization that encourages single and married women to “rise above cultural pressures and to “stay determined to live for Christ regardless of their circumstances.”
So she’s a fornicator being used as an example of sexual purity now? LOL.
Why do Christians do this? You have actual, honest- to- God virgins who are over 30 and 40 years of age, but Christians rarely if ever seek them out for inspiration or interviews. Instead, they seek out people who engaged in fornication constantly, and ask them to serve as role models about sexual purity.
This odd situation is a topic I have addressed in older posts, including this link (“born again virgins”), this link, this link, or this link, How About Using Celibates as Role Models For Celibacy? (Oddity: Christians Holding Up Non-Virgins [Fornicators] As Being Experts or Positive Examples on Sexual Purity).
(Link): Christian Dating Culture (Part 2): Does Church Attendance Impact How Often You Have Sex?
Excerpts:
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- BY MORGAN LEE, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
- February 13, 2014
Christians who attend church and read the Bible at least three times a week are less likely to have sex outside of marriage than those who do not engage in those religious practices.
In a 2012 study of Millenial Christians by the National Association of Evangelicals and Grey Matter Research, only respondents who attended worship services at least once a month were considered. Of the 1,007 polled by NEA and GMR, only 44 percent of unmarried Evangelicals ages 18-29 had had sex.
In contrast, in a ChristianMingle study released in January, only 50 percent of female Christians and 39 percent of Christian males said that they went to church at least once a month. Of the 716 Christians surveyed, 90 percent of them said they would be comfortable with premarital sex and 61 percent without any strings attached.
… Mark Regenerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, concurred with the findings of this research.
“When you see greater religiosity, you’re more apt to have measured at the same time a more pronounced awareness of the sexual norms of Orthodox Christian communities and a person’s willingness to abide by them,” he told The Christian Post in an email.
Regenerus also pointed to the lack of institutions also promoting the church’s ethic of abstinence as one reason for the high numbers.
“It’s certainly true that unmarried Christian adults are more ‘at risk’ on sexual matters (attitudes, behaviors), because there are now few (and maybe no other) institutions that reinforce Christian sexual ideals today. And there are more unmarried Christian adults too. So it’s a recipe for some cultural clash over sex, for sure,” he wrote.
Daniel Weiss, the founder and president of The Brushfires Foundation, whose organization exists to help “people discover and live out God”s design for sexuality and relationships,” said that the Church must wake up to the fact that it is not the primary influencer of many Christian young people’s sexual ethics.
Excerpts:
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- BY MORGAN LEE, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
- February 14, 2014
Evidence suggests that Christians are increasingly tolerant of casual sex, but what does the dating scene look like for those who are choosing not to engage in premarital sex?
A ChristianMingle poll released last month suggests that Christians are increasingly open to having sex outside of marriage. Sixty-one percent of the 716 Christians surveyed said they would be willing to have sex without any strings attached. Only 11 percent indicated they would be willing to wait until marriage.
To get a sense of what the dating landscape looks like for Christian women who are unwilling to treat sex casually, The Christian Post talked with three women who shared how they feel their moral convictions are treated by men and the culture at large.
Sexual ethics of Christian men
Several years ago Lisa Anderson signed up for online dating.
Anderson, 42, who heads Boundless, Focus on the Family’s ministry to singles and young adults, and is single herself (“I am the true 40-year-old virgin” she laughs,) decided to be upfront with potential boyfriends about where her sexual ethics lay.
“As I got to know these guys, I think they sensed pretty early on that I was not going to go there, so I think that that probably ended it. It was never a situation where we’re together and that’s going to go too far so I stopped it,” Anderson told CP.
Yet she was surprised that many of the Christian men on online dating sites openly admitted that they expected sex in a relationship.
“When I did some of the dating sites, one of the first questions I would throw out is, ‘What is your view on premarital sex?’ I would say of self-described Evangelical Christian guys, at least 75 percent of them would say that it was ‘okay,’ or if it was in a ‘committed relationship’ or ‘once you’re engaged,'” said Anderson. “I was shocked at the level of confession in that, and [that it was] not even sheepishly put forward. It was very much a matter of fact, 75 percent.”
As someone waiting to save sex until marriage, Anderson declined pursuing relationships with any of the men.
“There cut 75 percent of the potential guys that I would meet online. … And I’m not just talking about, ‘I’m a Christian because I was raised in Texas.’ I’m talking about guys who actually wrote out Christian testimonies on the site in their profiles,” said Anderson.
…Anderson’s difficulty resonates with Belle Vierge, 26, a pseudonym for a Midwestern professional who blogs on her decision to save coitus until marriage.
… Although Vierge considers herself as “generally Protestant,” she said that she does not believe the Bible forbids premarital sex, a perspective she gained after a “feminism biblical interpretation” course in college.
… Regardless of motive, Vierge still found it difficult finding someone who was on the same page as her, though her current boyfriend (who is an atheist), shares her convictions.
“For a lot of people [not being willing to have premarital sex] is a deal breaker,” said Vierge. “For me, it means my current boyfriend is my first boyfriend.”
Emily Maynard, 28, a writer from Portland, Ore., said she casually dated men willing to respect her sexual convictions, even if they did not agree.
“If that came up, It was made clear that I wasn’t someone willing to have sex casually,” Maynard told CP. “I found people really respected that, actually. Whether or not they held it as their own value, I found that people were very receptive of ‘You know what you want, that’s fine.'”
(Link): It’s the In Vitro Fertilization Baby Boom
- by Hillary Crosley, Feb 2014
Over 61,000 babies were conceived via IVF in 2012, which means 1.5 percent of America’s 3.9 million births that year were ushered in that way. It was the biggest year for IVF on record, and those numbers are the culmination of a rising trend over the last ten years.
… NPR reports that there was a 6 percent chance that women between the ages of 35 and 40 would have triplets in 2003, but now it’s about .7 percent. Doctors have begun using fewer embryos during each IVF round but Coddington says there are still “outliers.”
(Link): Six charged in connection with alleged internet dating scam
Excerpt:
- The Guardian, Friday 21 February 2014
Hampshire police arrest five men and a woman in connection with alleged fraud involving users of Match.com
…Hampshire police arrested the suspects following a “lengthy investigation” into the alleged fraud, which involved women being asked to give “significant” amounts of money after meeting men on the Match.com site.
(Link): When It Comes to Orgasms, Size Does Matter–Cliterally
Excerpt:
- Amidst the lack of knowledge regarding female sexual dysfunction and the constant hullabaloo regarding a “female Viagra,” we actually may be one step closer to cracking (or stroking) the enigma that is the female orgasm.
Researchers have found that in women who have orgasm issues, the direct distance between the clitoris and the vagina was 5-6 millimeters longer than average. Also, their clitorises (clitori? clitorati?) were smaller in size. But scientists aren’t quite sure if orgasm affects anatomy or the other way around.
(Link): Match.com Scammers Busted for Fleecing Dates
- Six British ne’er-do-wells have been charged with scamming Match.com users in the U.K., because people are much more gullible than we could ever imagine.
Here’s how the set-up probably went down: woman logs onto Match.com and, surprise, she meets a handsome man on the dating site. Brilliant! They go out and it’s awesome times at the pub and then the cinema that night. They go out a couple more times and he still rocks. Then suddenly he shares a heartbreaking story that requires her to part with a “significant” amount of money. Instead of saying no, she says yes and probably never sees said Mr. Handsome again … until she watches the evening news on the BBC and realizes that her man of the hour was just arrested for fraud.
(Link): Wives Are Now More Educated than Husbands In the U.S.
Excerpts:
- More women are “marrying down,” at least academically.
By Belinda Luscombe
Feb. 13, 2014
For the first time in 50 years, the educational balance among married couples has tipped towards women. Wives are more likely to be the better educated partner than the other way around. The trend is particularly sharp among newlyweds; in 2012 almost 40% of college educated women were married to a guy without a degree.
(Link): More Women Are Marrying Down
- Women are increasingly marrying dudes who don’t haven’t racked up the same number of degrees, according to the latest research. In fact, it’s now more common than men marrying women with lower levels of education—though only by a hair. This is a first!
(Link): Men, Manliness, and Being Naked Around Other Men
- A culture that tells people to “man up” when it comes to nudity invites strange problems.
by RICHARD SENELICK
… The assumption behind these urinals, and the open-door stalls at my grandchildren’s school, is that boys do not need privacy.
Communal bathing and spas have been around for thousands of years, but the concept of modesty is a relatively recent one for Western culture. Many indigenous people would play sports without any covering, and athletes in ancient Greece also competed naked. In fact, the Greek word gymnasium means “a school for naked exercise.”
Taboos against nakedness grew in Europe in the 18th century. Women began to wear more layers of clothing and protected their modesty and avoided the gaze of men at the beach by entering the water through elaborate bathing machines. In the United States, bathing suits were exceedingly modest until the bikini arrived after World War II.
But certain aspects of the tradition of naked competition still existed when I was a young man growing up in Chicago in the early 1960’s. One of my worst experiences was being forced to swim in the nude in high school.
This was a common practice in Chicago and other large city schools until the 1970’s. You had a choice: either swim in the nude for four years of high school or take ROTC to get a waiver.
Envision 30 young boys at various stages of puberty, with a wide variety of body shapes, lining up so the coach, in his well-fitted swimsuit, could take attendance.
There was my dramatically overweight friend with his eyes staring straight at the ground and my other friend, a “late bloomer,” just waiting for the inevitable insults about his manhood.
There was also the constant anxiety that a pubescent erection could appear at any time.
You could only hope that you were already in the pool when it struck. The reasons for this barbaric and hurtful practice were ill-founded—the need for hygiene, the fear of bathing suit threads clogging the pool or the desire to “build cohesion” between young men. Talk to any man raised at that time and you will get similar stories of shame and embarrassment.
After physical education we took mandatory showers, our names methodically checked off a list by the now fully-clothed coach. I always looked for a place in the corner of the shower and tried to keep my towel close at hand. Schools and many athletic facilities for men still have communal showers, no stalls.
I was already in medical school when I took my military entrance physical for the doctor draft. It was high school all over again. Grown men of different shapes and sizes, lined up to be poked and prodded.
No one ever forgets being told to “bend over and grab your ankles.” With the increasing number of women in the military, I decided to research the current military physical exam.
The article contains a section, “For Women Only,” where it proudly states that, “your visit with the physician will be in a private room.” Not so for the men, apparently. Six paragraphs down under a section titled “Do”, it says “Wear normal underwear. You will be sorry if you don’t!” Once again, a man’s modesty is a joke.
Many men don’t speak up about their desire for privacy in fear that they will be mocked for not being “man enough.” In Texas we ask young men to “cowboy up.”
There is the assumption that men bond by swimming or showering together in the nude, but I can assure you that, given a choice, we would have rather worn a bathing suit and showered in a stall. Locker rooms and the military are obvious examples, but let’s not forget the doctor’s office. In medical school men are instructed on how to examine female patients and respect their modesty.
I must admit that for many years I never instructed a medical student on the need have a similar concern for men.
(Link): 5 Myths Crushing Marriage
Excerpts:
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- BY JESSICA MARTINEZ, CP REPORTER
- February 13, 2014|3:18 pm
The True Love Waits movement, known for spreading the message of sexual purity among young adults, has launched a new resource featuring a video-driven Bible study designed to encourage teenagers to pursue God through abstinence.
…”The ultimate goal in life should be more than simply being a virgin on your wedding day. It should be to belong to Jesus on Judgment Day,” Clayton King, who wrote the program along with his wife, Sharie, told The Christian Post. ///
– Then why bother staying a virgin until one marries? And what on earth does this mean: “It should be to belong to Jesus on Judgment Day”? Is he referring to virginity? What a weird comment.
I don’t want to think of my sexuality (flip side of my virginity) as belonging to Jesus. Maybe that guy means well, but it comes close to sexualizing Jesus – Jesus is not my husband or boyfriend, thank you. See these links: link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6 (“dating Jesus”).
Excerpt:
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- BY TYLER O’NEIL , CP REPORTER
- February 1, 2014|10:43 am
Christian researchers say the “Sex Week” events on college campuses are an opportunity for Christians to share their understanding of sex. While some of the advocacy may be harmful, the discussions can also allow Christians to share evidence that the best and safest sex is in marriage.
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Related links this blog:
(Link): Modesty: A Female-Only Virtue? – Christian Double Standards – Hypocrisy
(Link): Man Who Tricked Tinder Dates Out of $50,000 With Bogus Sob Stories Jailed
(Link): Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual Purity
(Link): How Can Churches Treat Singles Better? By Embracing Celibacy (by J. Boulmay)
(Link): Christian Preacher Admits He Won’t Preach About Sexuality For Fear It May Offend Sexual Sinners
(Link): Christian Television Host Pat Robertson Excuses Female Adultery – hey, we are all “sexual beings”
Christian Pundit 