Older Pervy Dudes Hitting on Younger Women – and they meet them at church
A few years ago, I found an online article where some guy was advising other guys how to “pick up women” at churches.
If I remember correctly, this guy was promoting the idea of being deceitful and tricking and manipulating Christian women into casual relationships and sex.
I don’t think the author or the men he was advising were even Christians (not that it would be okay if they were Christians, it would actually be worse, IMO). If I can find that article again, I’d like to place it here on this blog.
I think Christian women should be aware not to let their guard down in a church environment just because it’s church. Don’t be trusting of a man just because he claims to be a Christian and has the external trappings of a Christian.
If secular men are targeting Christian women to take advantage of them, they need to learn what tricks these men are using. (I hope I can find that article again and post it.)
To Christian ladies: you are no more safer in a church or around church-goers than you would be at a night club, walking down a city street, among a group of Satanists chanting to Satan in the woods at midnight, or anywhere else.
You can be taken advantage of by church men, in a church, or outside of a church.
Men you meet at a church are not necessarily more safe, ethical, reliable or honest than guys you meet on dating sites or in bars.
Guys at your church may be drug addicts, child molesters, or whatever, but are very good at hiding these things and wearing a mask and saying all the Christian lingo so they can pass as Christian when they are around church people.
I have linked before to a dating advice site by a lady who calls herself Ms. Heart Beat (such as here and here) who primarily aims her material at African-American ladies (she herself is a black lady and an atheist). I find most of her advice applicable to women of ANY skin color or ethnic group.
“Ms. Heart Beat” had a very good web page telling black, single women to stop holding out to meet a “Mr. Right” at churches, because it’s a scam.
I’ll skip over some of the arguments she brought up, but one is that most churches are places of healing; they attract people who are broken, who are recovering drug addicts, and so forth.
And, if I remember right, she says she’s fine with that, she understands that religious faith exists for such a purpose, BUT, she warns, that is one reason why churches are not safe grounds for mate selection.
If churches attract mainly broken, wounded, hurting people (such as bitter men who are angry at women because they are recently divorced, or men who are recovering or relapsing drug addicts), that is precisely why you should maybe avoid churches to meet men with the intent of dating or marriage or be very cautious about men you meet there.
Some churches have “men’s accountability” groups, where men who are on-going pornography addicts meet to get support from other men not to lapse back into porn use again.
These unmarried (and sometimes married) Porn Addict Christian Guys who make use of the church’s “Men’s Groups” are the very same guys who may sit in front of YOU, Christian single woman, during Sunday morning services.
Are you sure, Christian single lady, that you want to enter into a relationship with Mr. Single Guy Who Can’t Stop Viewing Porn?
(Idiot Christian sociologist Mark Regnerus thinks yes, you should – really he does, (Link): please see this former post – but your buddy Christian Pundit asks you to reconsider that).
I can see how back in my parent’s era, any where from the 1940s and the 1950s, maybe most men who regularly attended church back then were “safe bets” for a woman to date, but the times have changed.
My father -who is a decent Christian guy- once went to a small Baptist church for two or three years (this was probably around the years of 2003 – 2007) and found out via a local news paper one day that the dude who sat in front of him in Sunday services every week was a child rapist of boys and male pre-teens.
My dad had no idea. And my dad is one smart cookie. He’s not stupid or naive (unlike most Christians, who are usually VERY naive and TOO trusting).
My dad sat behind this man for like 2, 3, 4 years, and greeted him every Sunday, shook his hand.
The church’s preacher and preacher’s wife thought highly of this man (they didn’t know he was a child rapist) and repeatedly tried to fix this pedophile creep up on dates with their single daughter.
If my dad and the church preacher did not have this guy pegged as a child rapist, Christian single lady, let this be a warning to you to be VERY careful what type of men you associate with or date.
Just because a man attends church, or says he believes in Jesus, or you see him reading the Bible or serving in the church choir, does NOT mean he is good, moral, or trustworthy.
It it irrelevant if such men are “real” Christians or not.
Christians often like to get bogged down in debates about if such men are actual Christians or not, if they were ever “truly” saved to start with, but so far as we are concerned here, where your personal safety is paramount, we don’t care if the man in question is “really” saved or not.
By the way, abuse is not confined to only physical mistreatment.
Just because a man is not giving you broken ribs and black eyes does not mean he’s not abusing you.
If the man you are with regularly verbally berates you, puts you down, and/or uses THREATS of physical harm (even if he does not go thru with them) to control you, or if he limits your bank account, spending habits, if or when you can have friends or visit them or leave the house, he is an abuser.
If your husband or boyfriend financially exploits you – keeps asking you for money but never repays (especially if he promises to repay but never does), that is abuse. He is exploiting you. This is not a man who cares about you. He is USING YOU. That is NOT love.
I featured, in a news link here, about a month ago, a report of a man who met his Christian, single women rape victims on a Christian dating site.
One Christian, single woman who was victimized by this man said she was specifically looking for a “godly,” Christian man to date, and that she exchanged many posts with this guy on the dating site, and he talked a lot about Jesus and what his favorite Bible verses were. He passed all the tests of “being a Christian,” so she agreed to meet the guy.
There was another story I reported on my blog of a Christian man who sexually tortured his wife.
I really think the “be equally yoked” teaching, combined with other facets of Christian assumptions and teachings, such as Christian gender complementarianism, and the permanence view of marriage (ie, divorce is supposedly ALWAYS wrong, or only permissible in cases of adultery), puts Christian, single women in a very dangerous, vulnerable position to be easy prey for rapists or for controlling, abusive, or manipulative men.
Christians teach women to intentionally let their guards down around everyone (especially men), be passive, be trusting of men they meet at church, because it’s church and not a sleazy bar.
Once Christian women obviously end up marrying abusive assh*les – because Christian single women have been taught by churches and preachers to accept being treated like trash by men – Christians turn around and say to the victim (for real, I have seen this same story NUMEROUS times on blogs for Christian women who were in abusive marriages, as well as in books about spousal abuse),
- “Sorry, honey, but you’re stuck with him, God hates divorce, so you can never leave him. If you do, you can never remarry. Don’t call the police, either, Christians are supposed to settle things “in house,” just trust the preacher to handle this.”
And how do most preachers handle abusive marriages?
Preachers assume abusive men can be reached with the love of Jesus, if they just get shamed into loving wives more, it is thought they won’t abuse the wife any longer, or, if they can give these men the Gospel message one more time, the man will change.
These preachers will also typically counsel the abused wife to stay and submit to the abusive husband even more, to cook the man his favorite meal often, put out sex regularly, and be a good little loving wifey.
If you read books by experts on domestic abuse, you will find that asking the women in these abusive marriages to “do” more for the abusive husband- put out more sex, never complain, don’t burn his meals, be more nice to the guy- does not halt the abuse, it only ENABLES it and the abuse will continue.
But Christian preachers keep giving this counter intuitive advice to abused wives constantly, when they should be telling these women to DIVORCE the clown and should be helping her to leave the guy, by giving her a place to stay, giving her money, helping her gain employment, etc.
Christians set women up to marry abusers in the first place (via complementarian teaching) and then tell them they cannot divorce the jerk. It’s very demonic how they are putting women in this position and telling them it’s God’s will for women to boot. It’s absolutely evil.
I was taught as a kid and teen by my Christian parents and Christian magazines and books I read that if I wanted to marry, church was the place to find a decent man to marry.
I was told as I was growing up it was totally verboten for a Christian to marry a Non-Christian (doing so was referred to as “being unequally yoked”), and that bars are seedy places that only attract scruffy, scum ball, drug addicted men – so those aren’t the places to go if you are mate hunting.
I’m no longer hung up on the “equally yoked” teaching but remain somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of going to bars, personally.
Not only do most evangelical and Baptist churches LACK single men of ages of about 25 to 55, but the ones who do attend regularly, my experience has been, are not date-able material at all, for one or more reasons.
I was reading an entertainment blog not too long ago – a professional one, not some personal one like mine here – I don’t want to link to it, but, I found one conversation interesting.
The people in the thread were discussing celebrities who do not act their ages.
In the midst of that conversation thread, some lady in the comments said that a guy who is about 15 years older than her, one who is in his mid-50s, began hitting on her. This is a guy she met because he goes to HER CHURCH.
Creepster Guy began flirting with her on Facebook.
She said he would make juvenile, annoying Facebook statuses aimed at her.
She says he’s single (divorced or widowed) and has a few grandchildren.
Despite the fact she said she made it clear to him repeatedly that she would never, ever date him or be his girlfriend, and told him to knock off the flirty posts, and to just LEAVE HER ALONE, he would not let up.
She said after she rejected a dinner date with this moron, he then wrote a Facebook status about how lonely he was eating pizza by himself, and he later put a copy of the song “Don’t Want To Be All By Myself” on his Facebook page.
One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation was the part where she said this guy goes to the same church as her. I assume that’s where they initially met and why she friended him on Facebook.
She said she notified the clergy of her church and said she she told the clergy she will get a restraining order if he does not back off, and ever since, he’s kept several feet from her. But, she says, he stares at her all the time, he sits directly behind her in services, etc.
She says that this creepy guy who won’t take No for an answer, has untamed ear hair, and is obese (over 350 pounds).
This happens to be a lovely song, and I’m sure everyone can relate to it. Everyone feels lonely at times, (even married people!), but I would not appreciate some over-50 year old guy sending this to me on social media in a passive aggressive manner because I turned down a pizza date, spare me.
Anyway… even when women do meet men in church (though single, adult men are pretty rare) they sometimes turn out to be too needy, weird, abusive, porn addicts, pedophiles.
And again, it doesn’t matter how mature, smart and “Christian” these women are. Even mature, Bible believing women end up with losers and perverts for husbands.
I think Christian women can maybe lessen their chances of ending up with an abuser or pervert if they learned to disregard all the bullshit they’ve learned about gender roles (complementarianism, or biblical womanhood) that churches are peddling.
Christian women need to learn it’s okay to put themselves first, get their own needs met, to have boundaries and be assertive and not take mistreatment from anyone.
Many abusive men are on the look-out for weak women(*) who are too deferential, sweet, naive, compliant, too afraid to stand up for themselves, too forgiving, quiet, and submissive – all the qualities Christians and groups such as CBMW tells them to have.
CBMW – Christian gender complementarian group, read one critique of one of their views (Link): here
Some comments from that thread:
- by Hannah T
- Barbara Roberts just sent me a copy of a new article her and her husband have published.It Critique’s the CBMW on abuse and also how their views of roles within marriage.
- (Link): PDF article – Critique of CBMW article
- [If that link no longer works, please try this]:
- Critique of CBMW’s Statement on Abuse (off site link)I thought it was very GOOD!
- by Don
- Yes, very good.
This is an area that is tricky for CBMW [Christian gender complementarian group] to discuss. Statistics on abuse show that the #2 predictor of abuse is a belief in hierarchy in marriage, #1 is substance abuse.
They know they need to come out against abuse, but they also want to deny that the things they teach facilitate abuse. So they walk a VERY fine line and I am sure that they do not agree among themselves about what constitutes abuse.
To get back to one of the main points of this post: older men feeling as though it’s fine for them to hit on much younger women in church and/or women out of their league needs to stop.
I don’t think single Christian women can necessarily trust that church is a good or safe place or the best place to meet men for the purpose of dating or marriage.
————-
*One side note on that: I did read one book about domestic violence that said some abusive men prefer to seek out “strong” women as their choice of target, because they view taking down and controlling a strong woman as a greater accomplishment than targeting a weaker, more passive one.
But by and large, most everything I’ve read on the topic of domestic violence so far indicates that the majority of abusive men, workplace bullies, or kid bullies on playgrounds prefer weak, passive, insecure, compliant doormats as victims.
If you are a Christian who thinks God would never permit you to be the victim of abuse – he’s going to send you Mr. Right, a Mr. Right who would never harm you or take advantage of you in any way- think again.
All the women I’ve seen on Christian spousal abuse recovery blogs thought the same thing. However, God still allowed them to end up with abusive men, or husbands who were pedophiles. God isn’t going to make an exception for you.
If you are being abused, God is not going to come to your rescue.
Though I’ve never been married, and hence never a victim of spousal abuse, I have been emotionally or verbally abused as a student when younger, into my adult years by older siblings, and by a boss on one job.
Though I prayed and pleaded with God to make the boss stop the abuse, God never did a thing. I had to get out of that situation myself using my own talents, skills, and strength.
I know it’s difficult for some Christians to accept, especially with all those pretty sounding promises in the Bible and nice sounding rescue stories of God delivering Moses from Pharoah with supernatural means and what all, but my personal experience in dealing with abusers and bullies has been that God does NOT intervene on my behalf but has been strangely quiet and absent. Which means I’ve head to learn to become assertive and defend myself.
If you are in an abusive marriage or abusive workplace situation, do not count on prayer to change your situation or for God to protect you.
Do not count on other Christians or your church to help.
Often times, their counsel will amount to this (in the case of spousal abuse): “Divorce is always wrong. You can move out for a time, but you can and must never leave him permanently, not divorce. For now, I advise you to return and love him out of his anger. Be more submissive.”
Most churches, from what I’ve read, will NOT help you leave your husband… they won’t give you a place to stay, or money to get an apartment, or whatever. They so idolize marriage, they place keeping an abusive marriage intact over and above the safety and well-being of the wives who are married to these cretins.
Do not trust that a man who goes to church and/or who professes Jesus Christ is a good catch, a nice guy, or a caring, humane person. He can very well be an abuser, a child rapist, or an all around selfish scum ball.
Related posts:
(Link): Single Woman Meets Stalker Guy at Church – letter to “Ask Amy” Advice Columnist
(Link): Convicted Sex Offender on the Run for 20 Years Found Living New Life as Pastor in Alabama
(Link): Church: Set Up Your Singles (from Christianity Today)
(Link): Male Entitlement and Adult Virginity: Who has it worse, Male Vs. Female?
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