Male Entitlement and Adult Virginity: Who has it worse, Male Vs. Female?
The guy, John H. Morgan, behind this blog post I am discussing was eventually blocked from this blog about a year ago (read more about that (Link): here), but I think he still visits this blog regardless (which wouldn’t bother me too much if he’d (Link): give credit to this blog once in a while when and if he uses it to generate ideas for his own blog, because he apparently still visits this blog and uses it as a resource).
This is a rebuttal to a few of the points in this blog post:
(Link): How Does God Define Sex (posted Sept 4, 2014)
Here is excerpt 1:
- Women who are waiting until marriage are virgins as pure as the driven snow. Men who wait until marriage become crippled with sexual confusion and permanent awkwardness . . . or worse. This double standard has existed for as long as men have walked the earth.
Maybe 50 or 60 years ago that double standard was in place, but no more.
The only places that double standard may still be alive today are certain extremist Christian cults, such as Quivering, Reconstructions, and patriocentric kook Christian groups, but not so much in run of the mill Baptist or evangelical circles.
Male adult virgins do not have life more difficult than adult women virgins.
The stereotypes male virgins endure (which I’ve written about a time or two previously) are not necessarily worse than the ones women adult virgins are subject to.
I would actually argue that adult women virgins, especially in the realm of Christianity, have to deal with harsher, or more prevalent stereotypes, more often than men virgins do.
While there may be a minority of Baptist or evangelicals who shame men for not marrying and reproducing young, such as disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll and Southern Baptist Al Mohler, who tend to depict single males past 25 as being stuck in adolescence, the vast majority of mainstream evangelicalism shames women far, far more for being virgins past a certain age than it does men.
Why is this so?
Because even in secular culture – this is true for Christians too – men who do not have children are not questioned as much about their childless status. It is assumed that there is something wrong with a woman who does not have children, that she is unloving or horrible for not being “maternal.”
All of this revolves around the topic of sex, since, to become pregnant in a conventional sense, one must have sex, obviously.
Christians often teach that a woman’s greatest, or only godly calling in life, or only acceptable role, is to be a mother (see (Link): this page and (Link): this page)
I have never once heard a mainstream Christian group insist that fatherhood is a man’s most godly calling in life.
While I have heard conservative Christians say that fatherhood is important, and they criticize culture for making fathers look like clumsy goof balls in movies (see this link), I’ve yet to hear them insist that “fatherhood is a man’s most godly calling or role in life.”
If you are a Christian, single woman who is a virgin, you are obviously not getting pregnant and giving birth.
Ergo, in much of Christian culture, you are thought an oddity, a freak, a selfish pig, or a failure as a woman because, in much of Christian thinking, your primary duty and greatest calling in life is to have a baby. And all just because of faulty biblical interpretation borne of sexism, and that you have a uterus and vagina (ie, the necessary biological baby- making and baby- carrying equipment).
Even Non Christian women in secular culture are confronted with these ideas that a woman has failed, is flawed, or weird in some way, if she has not had sex and gotten pregnant and given birth.
You have your secular, left wing feminists such as Salon writer Marcotte telling adult women who choose to remain virgins until marriage that they or their choice is “silly.”
Note that Marcotte’s editorial is, for the most part, specifically addressing female adult virginity, far more so than male virginity:
The pressure for women to have sex prior to marriage is so heavy that one young lady, who I assume is a Non Christian, wrote an editorial about it that was published in a secular magazine:
Secular, left wing feminists have been, since I was a teen in the 1980s, been giving propaganda to young women telling them that it’s okay for them to have sex prior to marriage, and they encourage women to do so. Even some progressive, Christian women are now telling women to go ahead and have as much pre-marital sex as they wish, and not to feel guilty about it.
Women who choose to sexually abstain are constantly ridiculed and disrespected by secular feminists and progressive Christians.
There are entire “anti purity” groups on blogs and Facebook that do nothing but insult and put down the entire concept of virginity and women who choose to remain virgins until they marry. Here is one example:
Witness, via the links below, how secular media endlessly speculates and interrogates women movie stars as to why they have not had children, and they are repeatedly asked when they are going to start having babies, along with a few apologetic pages which defend these ladies for being single and non-mothers:
(Link): Jennifer Aniston: Don’t Measure My Value By Whether Or Not I Have Kids
(Link): Jennifer Aniston: Decision to Have Kids (or Not) “Is Sometimes Out of Your Hands”
The world has long been concerned with what’s happening—or not happening—in Jennifer Aniston‘s womb.
The actress, 45, spoke about this obsession in an interview airing Wednesday on Today, pointing out, too, that motherhood shouldn’t be what defines her “value as a woman.” The same day, E! News’ Jesse Giddings caught up with Jen at Hollywood premiere of Life of Crime, where she talked more about the “unnecessary pressure” we put on women to get married and have kids.
It’s also an “unnecessary kind of thing to put on women, especially,” she said, “to feel as though they’ve achieved their goals if they’ve procreated, and I don’t think that’s fair or true.”
(Link): Not ‘selfish’: Women open up about choosing to be child-free (mentions scrutiny actress Cameron Diaz has faced for remaining childless and single)
Aug 2014, by A. Pawlowski
Some women simply don’t want to have kids. Hard to believe that’s still a controversial decision in this day and age, but women who are child-free by choice say it is. Meanwhile, men who make the same choice don’t face the same scrutiny.
…. “I was never drawn to being a mother,” Diaz told Esquire magazine. “It’s so much more work to have children,”
(Link): Cameron Diaz on Loving Her 40s, Why She’s Not Having Kids: ‘I Was Never Drawn to Being a Mother’
(Link): Why Cameron Diaz Doesn’t Want to Have Kids
(Link): NOTE TO SELF: Jennifer Aniston is 45, unmarried with no children – so what?
by Rachel Agnew
I was really interested to read Jennifer Aniston’s comments recently about the constant interrogation she gets about her marital status and in particular about her lack of children at the age of 45. Aniston goes on to say that she finds it appalling that somehow people think that she has failed as a woman because she hasn’t had a child and that they assume that she should feel less fulfilled because she isn’t a mother.
I really felt for her when I read these comments because I think it’s extraordinary that people are still so judgemental about someone’s marital and parenting status, particularly women. When was the last time you heard someone ask a man why he hadn’t had children or if he felt less of a man because of it?
(Link): Don’t worry Jennifer, there’s more to life than having kids
In their book Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today’s Church, authors Colon and Field describe biases that single, adults face.
The authors devote several pages to the specific, typical stereotypes male virgins face, and several to the specific ones women virgins face.
Far from valuing and supporting female virginity, both secular and Christian culture insults female virginity and treats adult, female virgins like losers or repressed freaks.
Here are some excerpts from Singled Out by Field and Colon, which discusses the discrimination and stereotypes adult women virgins face in culture:
Sex Outside of Marriage Seen as Normal and Expected
In response to this idea that sexual urges are so powerful that they cannot be controlled, sex outside of marriage is seen as normal and expected. (25)… So the question in today’s secular society really isn’t whether a single adult should be having sex outside of marriage but rather when it is appropriate to start having sex.
American society still frowns on younger teens having sex, as was demonstrated when the “First Sex Friday” segment mentioned above came to a quick end when the horror-struck hosts realized one of their callers was a high school girl calling to tell them about losing her virginity after the prom.
The media frequently emphasizes the problems that occur when young teens engage in sexual activity without being ready for its responsibilities.
…The message changes, however, as teenagers mature, for, following from Freud’s ideas that sexual repression may have serious repercussions, many representations of teenage virgins imply that they must lose their virginity at an appropriate age: they must be mature enough to handle the consequences but young enough so that they have not developed the neuroses that inevitably occur from repressing sexual desires.
Pages 27 -29:
Rules for Women
For women, the “appropriate” age for losing their virginity seems to be at nineteen or twenty (in the first two years of college).
Young women who maintain their virginity through high school are often valorized and presented as the “good” girls, but when they go to college, they soon discover that losing their virginity is an important step in maturity that they must take before it is too late.
While this tradition goes back to Donna in [the television series] Beverly Hills 90210 and Felicity in the television show of the same name, Rory from Gilmore Girls is a more recent example. [Rory is portrayed as being wise and good for staying a virgin while in high school, but the character later loses her virginity while in college]
Rory’s intelligence and diligence are somehow wrapped up in her decision to remain a virgin [while in high school]. When she goes to college, however, virginity is no longer such an important commodity, and at the end of her freshmen year Rory loses her virginity to her ex-boyfriend who happens to be married.
In a discussion about her choice to have Rory lose her virginity, Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls, remarks, “Having sex at 19 doesn’t make you a bad girl … it makes you a human being.”
The phrasing of Sherman-Pallandino’s comment is interesting. On one level, it implies that everyone gives into temptation. On another level, it implies that sex is what ultimately makes someone a human being. Without this sexual encounter, apparently, Rory couldn’t mature and develop into an adult.
[Snip discussion of the TV show “Friends“ and how the characters talk about sex and associate having sex with maturity]
For a thrity-year old woman, Monica [who is a character on the show “Friends”] is incredibly immature.
A conversation about sex provokes giggles and a ridiculous comparison of her virginity to a flower that might work for 12 year olds but sounds inane coming from the mouth of a grown woman.
The writers of this episode clearly link that immaturity to her virginity.
[Snip another specific example of how the entertainment industry associates women having sex with being necessary to foster maturity]
The film [about a woman who loses her virginity] may uphold the idea that love is an important component in a sexual relationship, but it also demonstrates that by not having sex at an appropriate time in her development, a woman risks becoming so neurotic and unstable that she may never find true love.
Page 30:
If we are to believe the models in the secular media, choosing a celibate life after the early twenties is an extremely risky decision: one that turns women into bitter, neurotic creatures who take out their sexual frustrations on the people around them and one that turns men into pathetic adolescents who sublimate their desires onto their fantasy worlds.
For Christian singles today who are committed to a celibate lifestyle, these images are frustrating. No one wishes to be perceived as neurotic or immature, yet throughout much of the media this is how virgins, in particular, are portrayed.
~(end book excerpts)~
That is just secular media and secular culture at work: Christian women get slammed with this ten fold in Christian culture in addition to prejudices by secular culture, because they also get the same accusations and stereotypes from other Christians at church, in Christian sermons at church, in radio shows, TV shows, magazines, books, and pod casts, for being single, virgins, and not being mothers.
You have widely-read Christians, such as blogger Rachel Held Evans, Tim Challies, and Russell Moore, telling women that their virginity means nothing, they should not define their worth by whether they are virgins or not.
Here is one small sampling of such Christian thinking:
You will notice that the majority of articles by Christians that argue that “virginity is no big deal, you’re more than your virginity” are almost always directed AT WOMEN.
Not men. Women.
Women are getting no support in remaining virgins, and certainly not from Christian circles.
Women are instead being told, even by conservative Christians, (and especially liberal ones),
“Hey, we are so sorry your Sunday school teacher compared you to used chewing gum when you were 15 years old in sexual purity lectures, and you later had sex at 18 with your college sweetie, and those old “chewing gum” comparisons made you feel ashamed when you turned 30. Don’t sweat it, God still loves you, virginity is not that important. Even fornicators are virgins now.”
Instead of supporting female virginity and celibacy, much of Christian culture today supports, excuses, downplays, and defends female fornication (e.g., Christian host (Link): Pat Robertson Excuses Female Adultery – hey, we are all “sexual beings”).
It’s quite the opposite from what this Morgan guy thinks. He seems to feel that women celibates get a mountain of support or admiration from Christian churches, when the reality is, they get none.
For John Morgan of the (Link): Christian Virtue in the 21st Century blog to maintain this idea that adult women virgins get lots of support and applauded for being virgins past the age of 25 is laughable and woefully out of touch. He must be living in a parallel universe from mine.
There are also additional stereotypes Christian women must deal with that Non Christians do not have to deal with, mainly, that they are failing their supposedly “God ordained” roles to marry and procreate, which I discussed above.
Christian men who do not have children do not face near as often the same suspicions, pity glances, questions, accusations, negative assumptions and interrogations for their childfree or childless status as Christian women do.
One other quandry single, childfree women get on a regular basis that a lot of conservative, single males do not have to deal with: childless women are often assumed to be extremist, left wing Democrats who support abortion.
I am right wing, pro-life, have pretty traditional values, and always vote Republican, yet, my fellow conservatives often associate, (for women), being over 30, single, and childless with being a man-hating, selfish, anti-family, left wing feminist who loves abortion, Obama, and demands tax- payer supported birth control. This assumption is constant on right wing political sites, and it’s quite irritating.
I don’t see childless, conservative males accused of being, or being assumed to be, Democrat- voting, left wing, pro- abortion types by other right wingers.
Where Morgan writes of societal attitudes that male virgins remain sexually confused even after marriage,
- Men who wait until marriage become crippled with sexual confusion and permanent awkwardness . . . or worse.
I think he is referring to the news articles discussed in my previous post:
I find it odd that Morgan would depict that study as bashing virginity in some manner. All the study pointed out is that Christian men who stay virgins until marriage get no support from their churches in regards to sexual matters after they marry, which can lead to problems for some of them, which they themselves said in interviews. I find that a valid point, not a form of virgin-bashing.
It’s similar to what churches do with adult singles: after you reach age 25 or 30 and are still single and celibate, most churches just ignore you. You are left to fend for yourself.
Most churches have no idea what to do with adult virgins who are age 30 and older. They prefer to cater to young married couples who have children living at home. So it seems to me that churches are making the same mistake in regards to men who marry: only offering sexual support for men while they are single and up to age 25, but once they marry, their same church offers no counseling or support at all.
It is a fact that some people who are virgins when they marry do have sexual problems because of how the church teaches about sex and virginity. See for instance:
However, unlike the progressive Christians, I do not see stories like the one above as being justification for ceasing the support of Biblical teachings about sex, which includes remaining a virgin until marriage.
Excerpt by Morgan (which is again, from (Link): this blog page):
- But how does God define sex? Most people would be surprised to know that the word “sex” does not appear in the Bible in any translation
I have no idea what the relevance is behind this point.
The Bible may not use the word “sex,” but it mentions it via other terminology. The KJV translators used phrases like, “Adam knew Eve,” or “Adam went into Eve,” to connote the idea the two had sexual intercourse.
Excerpt from Morgan’s post:
- It is not possible for sex to exist outside of marriage.
Yes, it is quite possible for “sex to exist outside marriage.” Hence, the Bible’s prohibitions against the very activity, e.g.,
Exodus 22:16-17 ESV
- “If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins.
Deuteronomy 22:20-22 ESV
- But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Excerpt from Morgan’s blog post:
- Comfortable euphemisms like “premarital sex” and “cohabitating” fool only those who use them. There is no such thing as premarital sex. God’s term is fornication.
I don’t agree. I realize a lot of Christians and culture paper over sexual sin by slapping other terms on sexual sin, such as referring to fornicators as “born again virgins,” but, the particular terms he mentions all convey the same idea – people who are having sex prior to marriage, so I see no problem with such terms.
Excerpt:
- There is no such thing as premarital sex. God’s term is fornication. Just as someone in a tanning booth really didn’t get a suntan – but a tanning booth tan, someone having sex outside of marriage really didn’t have sex – but a fling of fornication.
This is an odd argument, and I cannot totally agree with it.
The unmarried couple is most certainly still having sex, only not when the Bible says they should be doing so (ie, after marriage).
I take it his point is that married sex is holy or meaningful, or only approved of by God, more so than unmarried sex – or something of that nature, but it’s an awkward way of stating it.
Sex is sex. The mechanics of it remain the same, whether done by a married couple or unmarried couple.
The fact is, a woman who has sex prior to marriage can become pregnant or receive a sexually transmitted disease as a result, every bit as much as a married women can from her husband.
Excerpt:
- Maybe if other men who are waiting until marriage talked about it more and churches were open to conversations about Christian sexuality, tragedies like this wouldn’t happen. Maybe he [referring to Elliot Rodger, who shot women because he was frustrated at being a virgin in his early 20s] wouldn’t have felt so crippled or tormented if he knew he was not alone.
That was a point I raised when I discussed that news story several months ago (Link): here. Yep, I first posted about Rodger back in May 2014; Morgan is now posting about it Sept. 2014.
Excerpt from Morgan’s blog (the page is, again, located here):
- Maybe if other women who are waiting affirmed and encouraged virtuous Christian men and told them they were worth waiting for instead of spending their time at purity balls and women’s conferences, they would find the number of Godly single men in their churches increase. Virtue can’t survive in a vacuum or in a zoo cage.
There’s an undercurrent of sexism and misogyny here. Morgan sounds angry at women. He seems to be blaming them for his situation.
There is definitely a current of entitlement going on as well, which I saw him espouse in previous posts before he was banned at this blog.
He really thinks Christian women should act as cheerleaders to single, celibate, Christian men. WRONG.
Male virgins: nobody owes you anything. Women do not owe you anything.
Women who are Christian or virgins / celibates do not owe you support, attention, friendship, smiles, or chats.
Women do not owe you support, props, encouragement for being “godly” or celibate.
Adult, women, Christian virgins do not spend their times at “purity balls” and “women’s conferences.”
I sure as heck did not attend such functions and events, and most Christian women, married and single, virgin and sexually active, regard these things – the conferences and purity balls – as sexist, and they dislike them. I also blogged about how (Link): I find purity balls creepy and how I disagree with some of their premises.
I wrote about related, strictly gendered things that some Christians are fond of (Link): here. And I said in that post I did not like such things.
About the few women who do attend such things – the Christians’ women’s conferences – are the women who already fit the Christian stereotype of a godly woman: married women who have children. Some of the women hired to speak at such meetings are in it for the money – they get paid to show up and speak.
Note that there are a few Christian’s mens conferences held through out the year each year, such as the “Act Like Men” conference. You can view the “Act Like Men” site (Link): here.
Note that at no time on this blog (or elsewhere in my life) have I ever argued thusly:
- “If Christian, single, celibate men would stop spending all their time at men’s conferences and in support of Christian, single, celibate women, maybe you’d get more women at church.”
Based on summaries I’ve seen online and in videos or have read about, women’s conferences almost always contain material on how to be a better wife and mother. Such conferences are not appealing to women who are widows, divorced, childless, child free, or single.
Do you know who is to blame for the purity balls and strict gender roles, where single, childfree people are deemed failures, or are simply ignored? Christian men, that’s who. It’s not the women who deserve your ire, but MEN.
Men are the ones who teach that women cannot and should not be leaders, teachers, pastors, or make “big” decisions in marriages and in church life.
Men, who are in control of evangelical and Baptist churches, do not allow women to have meaningful input on anything. These male leaders also teach that married women are to “submit’ to their husband in all matters, so that women do not even get a voice within their own marriages.
Women are barred, by male leadership, from making choices or having a say in most of the Christian faith and how the faith is practiced.
It’s the men who cook up, promote, and defend the “gender complementarian” teachings, which emphasize that all men and women should marry and procreate, and which leads to further insanity, such as the idea that young women should pledge their virginity to their fathers.
It’s not, by and large, women who are espousing this crapola (which tends to idealize marriage and procreation) but MEN such as Al Mohler, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Owen Strachan, and Wayne Grudem, among others.
Within mainstream evangelicalism, there are a small number of Christian women authors and bloggers who defend and promote gender complementarian teachings (teachings which idolize marriage and parenthood), but it’s mostly pushed and supported by men.
It’s not the Christian, celibate women who are teaching this un-biblical hog wash, it is married MEN (with a small number of token women, who they parade around at their conferences to make it appear as though most women are fully on board with these teachings).
I’m a female virgin, and male virgins don’t owe me anything. Churches do not support or encourage women, adult virgins. So do stop with the “Christian single women owe single, Christian men encouragement” shtick.
If single, adult Christian men are not attending church, it’s because they choose not to attend – not because women are tying them to chairs and forcing them to stay home. Accept personal responsibility for why you choose to stay at home – it’s your choice to do so; not the fault of the entire female gender.
Mainstream evangelical culture ignores any adult, single virgin past the age of 25, male and female.
Women virgins do not get compliments or props from Christians for staying virgins.
As Julia Duin noted in her book “Quitting Church,” and as I’ve seen reported on Christian news sites, single, adult Christian women attendance is down in churches as well. Single women are dropping out of churches in droves, but nobody is reporting that.
On the contrary, some Christians still like to hype the falsehood that churches are too “feminizied,” which turns males off and causes them to stop going to church, when in reality, churches remain male-dominated.
See this post for more on that topic: (Link): The “Feminization” of the Church by K R Wordgazer
We can just as easily swap around Morgan’s terms to come up with this, and it would be just as accurate:
- Maybe if other men who are waiting affirmed and encouraged virtuous Christian women and told them they were worth waiting for instead of spending their time at purity balls and men’s conferences, they would find the number of Godly single women in their churches increase. Virtue can’t survive in a vacuum or in a zoo cage.
My life as a celibate, single adult woman would have been easier had churches I attended been supportive of adult virginity and singleness, but my virtue survived thanks to me alone, with having received zero support from churches, Christian culture, or celibate, adult males.
Edit. I found the following material pertinent.
Reader comments under article about sexist douche who got angry at a woman on a dating site for not accepting his vulgar offer to suck his dick (source):
- by elise the strange
- I’m disturbed by how many men think they are straight up entitled to women after giving a “compliment.” It’s part of rape culture – men have some internalized [idea] that they are entitled to a woman and that this kind of rage is an acceptable response to minor rejection.
- The Nice Guy variety also have a thing where they think that because they got up the nerve to approach a woman, she owes them something because they “put themselves out there” and it’s so much effort, man!
And:
- by justmakingitup
- When I (very nicely) rejected a guy because he was way too young for me and told him I was sure he could find someone more age appropriate, he told me he gets shot down over and over. I suggested, again nicely, that he might want to rethink his approach. He became enraged, and told me that there is nothing wrong with his approach at all. His problem is that women don’t want ‘nice guys’. ALL women.
- So, in the face of repeated rejection, instead of saying ‘hey, I think I am the common denominator here’ he chose to think that the problem is ALL WOMEN, because they don’t like nice guys. Always run far away from any man who tells you he is a nice guy.
And
- I’m also perplexed by the odd mental gymnastics these guys go through – “All women are awful! I hate women! But I really want one of these people I hate to have around! Hey, where are you going? I really liked you, you bitch!”
Related posts:
(Link): Depressing Testimony: “I Was A Stripper but Jesus Sent Me A Great Christian Husband”
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