Reflections On Lori Alexander’s Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos
(Post updated below.)
I used to be a gender complementarian, and I wrote about that in (Link): this post. I rejected complementarianism many years ago.
Lori Alexander is an extremist Christian gender complementarian (some may consider her more of a patriarchalist, I suppose) who has a Facebook group and a blog called “The Transformed Wife,” where she dispenses what many consider to be extremely toxic, harmful, and sexist advice to women, which makes most women want to gag or vomit.
Lori Alexander recently wrote a post called something like, “[Men Find] Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos [More Attractive].”
If you are new to my blog, a little about myself, so you can see my qualifications for addressing Mrs. Alexander’s commentary:
I was a conservative Christian for many years and a gender complementarian until around the age of 35. I am currently between the ages of 45 and 50 and am still a virgin (that’s right, I’ve never had sex, not even when I was a college student).
I was committed to the idea of waiting until marriage to have sex, and I never found “Mr. Right,” ergo, I never had sex.
I attended college, which my father paid for (thanks, dad!), so I never had any student debt.
I have a college degree.
I’ve never had any tattoos. I’ve also never drank alcohol, smoked, or abused drugs.
Someone on Twitter posted (Link): these screen captures of posts by Lori Alexander. In those screen caps, Alexander is recorded as writing the following (which I will critique below):
By Lori Alexander (“The Transformed Wife”)
Do you know how much more attractive debt-free virgins (without tattoos) are to young men?
Unfortunately, there are so few of these types of young women anymore because of the high costs of college (debt) and sexual promiscuity even within those in the church. [snip URL Alexander cites to her blog post on this subject]
— end Lori Alexander quotes–
A summary of my conclusions and opinions on this matter:
Mrs. Alexander, you are simply incorrect. I am a virgin, I don’t have any tattoos, I have no debt, for many years I was the epitome of the good, godly, sweet, demure, lady-like complementarian, I’ve never identified as feminist – but none of that enabled me to catch a husband, Christian or otherwise. I remain single past the age of 45.
There are no guarantees that a woman will gain a spouse if only she follows a certain set of dating advice or rules, such as… prays for a spouse, “trusts the Lord” for a spouse, follows complementarian teachings, refrains from attending college, or refrains from receiving a tattoo or dabbling in feminism.
I’ve been maintaining this blog for approximately eight years now.
In that time, I have blogged about the topic of virginity and celibacy on many occasions, including explanations of how Christians pay a lot of lip service to respecting the concept of virginity until marriage, but they don’t sincerely mean it, because they offer no support, practical or emotional, to honest- to- goodness single adult Christian virgins who are past the age of twenty-five.
Churches and Christian culture continually prefer to focus all time, energy, attention and money on married couples, especially married couples who still have small children living at home.
Single adults are completely disregarded by Christians, when not being put down, or treated as losers, for not having married.
Furthermore, as I’ve noted numerous times (with examples), Christians have, in the last decade, chipped away at the importance of celibacy and virginity largely to ease the consciences of those who have had pre-marital sex.
They’ve been trying to re-define “purity” from meaning “lack of sexual activity” to some kind of abstraction, (like purity of spirit or heart), which ultimately makes physical virginity meaningless.
They’ve done this because the fornicators have become a very vocal group in the last few years, claiming that the Sunday School lectures they heard in their teen years, where fornicators were compared to used chewing gum, have scarred them as adults.
There are Christians who actually attack the concepts of virginity and celibacy (see links below for examples, under “Related Posts”).
Even over the last several years, conservative Christians, not just the progressives, have made concessions to secular, liberal feminists on the issues of sexual sin, celibacy, and virginity.
There are also men who state that they prefer women who have sexual experience, that they’d rather not be with virgin women – I’ve read secular articles that say as much. (I believe I have a post somewhere on the blog about that, but I cannot find it at the moment.)
Years ago, when I was in my mid to late 30s, I joined a few dating sites after a friend hounded me into joining.
So I joined several dating sites, including a Christian one.
On that Christian site, I noticed on the profiles for Christian single men, that many of them stated up front, quite boldly, that they want a women who already has sexual experience. These Christian men do not want to date or marry virgin women.
Maybe in the good ol’ days, men preferred to marry virgins, but somewhere in the last decade or so, that changed.
My mother raised me to be a very proper, lady-like, Christ-like goody two shoes, the very type of woman that Christian complementarians insist is guaranteed to attract a Christian Prince Charming like a bee to a flower, but it never worked for me.
I remind you again: I’m over the age of 45 and have never been married – and I’m a virgin with a Bachelor’s Degree who does not have tats or debt.
Based on my lived experience, Lori Alexander’s advice in this area (and many others) simply is incorrect and does not work.
The fact is, not everyone who wants to marry will be able to get married, whether they are a tattoo-free, debt-free, virgin or not, because there are no guarantees in life.
If being debt- free, tat- free, and a virgin were guarantees of matrimony, I would’ve been married to a sexy, fine, Brad Pitt look-alike years ago. Alas, it never came to pass.
Lori Alexander’s advice to single women, her comments about single women, and her other attitudes about dating, or about what men supposedly find attractive in women, reminds me of the two or three conservative dating and marital advice books I’ve reviewed on my site about how, supposedly, all men prefer meek, mild, passive women. Please see these links for my reviews of those books:
If you would like to see previous posts on my blog where I’ve explained how Christians do not support adult virginity or celibacy, and that Christian men don’t want to date or marry celibate Christian women, and other such topics, please use the links below under “Related Posts (on this blog),” and use the blog’s search features and tags (most off to the right hand side) to look up more. Thanks.
UPDATES
By the way, I just noticed this:
Lori Alexander has posted this (unhelpful) clarification of her post (about “Debt Free Virgins with Tattoos”) on an ultra-conservative political forum:
Godly Men Prefer Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos – by Lori Alexander, on Free Republic
Her new aspect is to add the word “Godly” prior to the word “Men”, as if that makes it less obnoxious or wrong, but it does not.
I used to lurk at the Free Republic site, back in my more conservative days, but I’m not surprised to see most of the posters under Alexander’s post on that site agreeing with it.
Of course they do.
I’m still a conservative, but I’m no longer off the reservation about it, as the Freepers are on some things, like on this topic.
Follow Up Post to This One:
Related Posts (on this blog):
(Link): The Christian and Non Christian Phenomenon of Virgin Shaming and Celibate Shaming
(Link): No, Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity or Sexual Purity
(Link): When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments
(Link): Sex Regarded as Passage Into Adulthood
(Link): Following the Usual Advice Won’t Get You Dates or Married – Even Celebrities Have A Hard Time
(Link): The Contemporary Church Undervalues Celibacy / Virginity
(Link): Single Christian Women Feel Pressured to Fornicate In Dating / other topics (Link Dump)
(Link): I’m 45, Single And Childless. No, There’s Nothing ‘Wrong’ With Me. by M Notkin
(Link): Older Single Christians And Sex – article by Julia Duin
(Link): All Dating Advice Is As Terrible As the People Who Give It
(Link): Article: 30 And Single? It’s Your Own Fault
(Link): How the Dating Scene Became Stacked Against Women
(Link): ‘Why Are You Single’ Lists That Do Not Pathologize Singles
(Link): Christians and Churches Discriminate Against Unmarried People / Singles
(Link): Please Stop Shaming Me for Being Single by J. Vadnal
(Link): Forget About Being ‘Equally Yoked’ – Article: ‘My Abusive ‘Christian’ Marriage’
(Link): Jesus Christ Removed the Stigma, Shame From Being Single and Childless – by David Instone Brewer
(Link): Bethke: “Christians Do Not Need To Get Married To Live A Full And Flourishing Existence”
(Link): Woman Wildly Happy She Got Divorced (Dear Abby Column)
(Link): Stop Pressuring Women to Be Moms: It’s Insulting to Assume We All Want The Same Thing by R K Bussel
(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Is Not
(Link): Creepy: ‘Barna Study: [Christian] Women Value Family Over Faith’
(Link): Sorry, But Being A Mother Is Not The Most Important Job in The World, by C. Deveny
(Link): Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband
(Link): Gotta Maintain that Propaganda that Married Christian Sex is “Mind Blowing”
(Link): Christian Preacher Admits He Won’t Preach About Sexuality For Fear It May Offend Sexual Sinners
Christian Pundit 
Yep! I had similar thoughts yesterday as this made it’s rounds through my Facebook groups. I, too, did the whole Christian Woman TM thing perfectly, and no Godly man ever materialized. Instead, I did everything right and have found myself on the outside, hence why I left the evangelical church. I’m now in a progressive Disciples of Christ where I don’t feel othered, or alone. It’s nice. Conservative Christian culture is a crock. You follow exactly what they say, and end up with none of the rewards (Godly husband and family), and then they blame you for it. Nope. Never going back.
Thank you for writing this.
I did a follow up post to it today.
Alexander has made a new post, where she inserted the word “Godly” before “men,” as if that makes things better.
Here is the follow up post:
The Unfortunate Anti-Virginity Fall-Out from Christian Misogynist Lori Alexander’s Wacky “Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos” Post – The Problem is Not Supporting Virginity, It’s Complementarianism
Ashley said,
You have fortunately realized this much younger than I did.
I wish I had known in my mid or late 20s that it’s a crock.
But it took me by around my mid 30s to slowly begin catching on, only in my 40s to fully realize it’s 100% crock.
You have more time to correct things.
I don’t know any more about the usual Christian counseling in this area, about being passive and trusting God to send you a spouse –
At this stage, I suspect all the effort is on us to make it happen, not withstanding those nifty OT passages about how thus and so a infertile woman prayed to God for a baby and presto, it happened.
I don’t know why the Bible is chock-full of such promises and stories since they don’t seem to come true for believers today.
So, while in your 20s, you may have to do a lot of dating. Try dating sites, ask friends to set you up, go out and pick up hobbies, etc etc. The pray and wait thing does not work. Being good and trusting God and praying about it doesn’t seem to work.