The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or Happiness, Meaning, Purpose

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness, Meaning, or Purpose

After entertainer Chelsea Handler uploaded (Link): a Tweet with a video of herself listing the numerous ways she enjoys life due to being childless – I didn’t see anything in the video mentioning abortion – a lot of other conservatives jumped to shame and scold Handler for being happy about being childless and publicly expressing that happiness.

Others have said that Handler had two or three abortions in the past. The fact that Handler previously had abortions does not change the substance of my problems with conservative reaction to Handler’s video.

I am pro-life, not pro-choice, so I don’t agree with Handler’s actions to terminate her pregnancies.

However, again, I don’t recall Handler’s “happy to be childless” video advocating abortion or mentioning anything about abortion.

I don’t think her video criticized or shamed women for being mothers or for wanting to be mothers.

The only possible, even remotely “anti motherhood” take away one can get from her video is that mothers – assuming they are good, non-abusive mothers – invest a lot of time in child-rearing, but Handler doesn’t frame it in an anti-motherhood way.

It’s Okay For Women to Be Childless at Any Age and to be Happy About Being Childless, Just Like It’s Okay For Mothers to Be Happy About Being Mothers

Handler was just showing ways she has more free time because she doesn’t have to participate in childcare – which is not the same thing as being “anti-motherhood,” or telling other women they are wrong to be mothers.

It’s perfectly fine for a woman to be single and childless and to be happy about it.

Women can and should find meaning and purpose apart from marriage and motherhood. It’s unhealthy for any person to wrap up all their happiness, meaning, or purpose into one identity, station of life, or role.

If you are a married mother, your children will grow up, move out, and seldom visit you once they’re gone. Your husband may develop dementia, abuse you, or cheat on you, so that you will be without emotional support or you will have to divorce him.
In all these situations, you will be left with yourself, by yourself, and god help you if you never forged purpose, identity, happiness, or meaning apart from a spouse and children.

There’s no reason to criticize or shame an adult, man or woman, for being single and childless and for being happy about it and posting about it.

My fellow conservatives often push motherhood (via podcasts, tweets, magazine articles, church sermons, blog posts, etc) to a loopy, creepy, fevered pitch, about how super awesome, fulfilling, and wonderful motherhood supposedly is – but goodness forbid a childless woman lists or publicizes the ways she’s happy with being childless – and do so without criticizing motherhood or mothers. That’s a huge double standard.

I also didn’t agree with Handler’s mockery of single women who choose to remain virgins until marriage or to remain chaste (I blogged about that (Link): here a few years ago).

Unfortunately, in the midst of criticizing Handler, a lot of conservatives today were conflating “womanhood” to married motherhood. 

However, a woman remains a woman regardless if she has a child or is infertile, childless, or childfree, or whether she wants to have children or not.

An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

A link to this article, from a site and Twitter account called “Truth Over Tribe,” came through my Twitter feed today.

I don’t think I am following these guys; this was a suggestion by Twitter that appeared in my timeline. The “Truth Over Tribe” site says on their site that they are “too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.”

Okay… I’m somewhat in the same place. I’m a conservative who occasionally disagrees with other conservatives, but I sure don’t agree with many positions of progressives.

After having skimmed over some articles on this site – the site owner and author seems to be a Patrick Miller – he seems to lean left of center.

I can tell he’s left of center from some of the commentary and language he’s used – for one, in the article below, he puts his Intersectional Feminism (a left wing concept) on full display by talking about how “self care” was really started by black people, white women love it, and these days, only white woman can (financially) afford it. (Though I didn’t quote those portions of his article below, but they are over on his site.)

(Does Miller realize that left wing darling BLM (Black Lives Matter) is misleading people financially or that they spend more on transgenderism than on race related issues?)

At any rate, let’s get on to the article on this site that alarmed me, and I will provide a few excerpts, and then I will comment on them to explain why I feel this piece goes horribly wrong:

(Link):  Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness

Excerpts:

by Patrick Miller

“To be happy, you need to leave toxic people behind.” The preaching Peloton instructor continued, “I’m talking about people who take more than they give. People who don’t care about your dreams. People whose selfishness impedes your ability to do what you want to do.”

 Oh crap. She just described my two-year-old. I guess it’s time to cut him off.

This is the gospel of self-care. The notion that the most important person in my life is me, and anyone who impedes my happiness is an existential threat to my emotional and physical well-being. …

… What’s the Religion of Self Care?

Pastor Tells Men: “The Best Person to Rape is Your Wife” by Sarah Einselen

Pastor Tells Men: “The Best Person to Rape is Your Wife” by Sarah Einselen

(Update Below)

Another indication of why single, Christian women especially should never, ever take any type of dating advice by Christians…
Because if Christian pastors are teaching it’s acceptable for married men to rape their wives, you can feel sure in assuming such men and their churches or denominations won’t have YOUR best interests at heart if you are a single woman. 

You – if you are a woman, whether you are married or single – need to look out for you and not expect to get loving, wise counsel from such sexist douche waffles, like this male pastor, who always prioritize the feelings and needs of men above that of women.

Contrary to what this guy is teaching, yes ladies, you are your own; you have a right to have boundaries. Here we go again with patriarchal, complementarian Christian men assuming that Codependent relationship habits for women are “biblical,” though the God of the Bible frowns on Codependent behavior in EITHER biological sex (men or women).

Also, the “equally yoked” rule is bunk. If you’re a single, Christian woman, don’t limit yourself to only dating Christian men – because some of these self-professing Christian men are dirt bags who have no regard for women; you’d be better off dating and marrying an ethical, loving NON-Christian man than a dirt-bag Christian one who thinks it’s acceptable for a husband to rape his own wife.

(Link): Pastor Tells Men: “The Best Person to Rape is Your Wife” by Sarah Einselen

Nov 22, 2021

A New York pastor recently told men in a video clip posted on YouTube that “the best person to rape is your wife.”

The pastor, Dr. Burnett L. Robinson, is senior pastor of (Link): Grand Concourse Seventh-Day Adventist Temple in New York City. And in the clip, Robinson urges womento submit to their husbands and tells them, “In this matter of submission, I want you to know up front, ladies, that once you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your husband’s!”

Robinson then expresses dismay that a woman can sue her husband for rape and states, “I would say to you, gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife.”

The video was posted by Sarah McDugal, an advocate and abuse recovery coach.

(link to You Tube video: Pastor Promotes Rape & Abuse from the Pulpit)

But the doctrine he preached is common in some fundamentalist evangelical circles, too.

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

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

Updated:

Lori Alexander has posted this (unhelpful) clarification of her post (about “Debt Free Virgins with Tattoos”) on an ultra-conservative political forum:

(Link): 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 actually 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.

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The Unfortunate Anti- Virginity Fall Out Due to Lori Alexander’s “Debt Free Virgin” Post

If you’d like more background to this post, and an explanation for who Lori Alexander is, please see my previous post about it here:

(Link): Reflections On Lori Alexander’s Debt Free Virgins Without Tattoos

If you are new to my blog, a recap:

I am over 45 years of age and still a virgin.

I was reserving sexual activity for marriage. I’ve never had sexual intercourse. I was expecting to be married but never found Mr. Right.

I do have a libido.

Contrary to what Christians ASSUME about older virgins, Celibacy, being sexually abstinent for as long as I’ve been, is not “a gift” where God granted it to me and supernaturally removed my libido and makes it easy-breezy to cope with.

For many years, I was dedicated to remaining a virgin until marriage, due to Christian ethics, (these days I’m semi-agnostic), but also due to other reasons as well, which I shall not get into here but have explained in older posts on the blog.

In the last ten or so years, I’ve seen a disturbing trend where secular, liberal feminist views about sex have trickled into liberal Christian corners, where there is much railing against “slut shaming” and there is strong opposition to judging any woman for her sexual behavior or choices.

This trend became so common that these same views, disturbingly, began appearing on liberal Christian blogs and sites, whose progressive, feminist, Christian authors began writing editorials saying virginity is of no import, God only cares about your heart and spiritual purity, and God does not care so much anyone’s sexual behavior, (Link): intact hymen, or sexual past.

This anti- sexual purity thinking (which includes the down-playing, condemning, or mocking of physical virginity and adult celibacy) has even crept into mainstream moderate- to- conservative churches and Christian writing and thinking, unfortunately.

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

So, I saw this headline from Christianity Today.

This seems to be an annual thing with Christians.

At least once a year, I see a major Christian magazine or blog publish some kind of article lamenting the declining marriage rates, or the rising age of first marriage, and that also push the idea that people should marry before they hit the ripe old age of 22.

Here we go again. Yet another one. (There will probably be another one in 2019, and one in the year after that, and so on and so forth.)

I notice that often times that the people who write these types of articles admit to having married pre-age 25.

I take it that the REAL motivation is that these people feel defensive about their life choice – they feel as though culture is “looking down their noses” at them for marrying young because most people today are not marrying at all, or not until they get to age 30.

The thing is, though, nobody cares that they married when they were 21! These sorts of articles are largely unnecessary.

If anything, the opposite type of editorial is needed, because authors like this one shame or judge people for not marrying young, or for not marrying at all. Christians continue to push marriage and baby-making as the “norm,” when the Bible does no such thing.

I will excerpt the editorial then comment on it below:

(Link): Why I’m Happy My Son Married at 20

Excerpts from that editorial:

In a world of hookups and cohabitation, he took a leap— and made an act— of faith.

by REBECCA BREWSTER STEVENSON

…Then in 2013, the Knot Yet Report revealed that those averages are higher still: Couples now are postponing marriage to age 29 for men and 27 for women.

A Response to the Editorial “America Needs a New Sexual Revolution” by Melissa Mackenzie

A Response to the Editorial “America Needs a New Sexual Revolution” by Melissa Mackenzie

I guess Ms. Mackenzie drank from the Gender Complementarian Kool-Aid, or something like it.

The complementarian world is a world in which one is taught there are only two options concerning women (I know this because (Link): I used to be one myself for many years):

-either be and live as a traditional values person who believes all women are, or should be, passive, dainty, and delicate and should marry young and have children,
or,
-be and live as a bra-burning, man-hating, liberal feminist.

I present a third option, which is hated by some liberals (when I bring it to their attention), and it’s an option that is never even considered by other conservatives, which is as follows:
I am a right wing woman who rejects sexism, and finds fault in both the left and right wing on some women’s issues, but who also sees some merit to some arguments on either side, depending on the topic.

In this blog post, I am commenting upon this editorial on The American Spectator:

 (Link): America Needs a New Sexual Revolution by Melissa Mackenzie

A foundation of the opening of this editorial rests upon a presupposition that, and to paraphrase my understanding of the author’s perspective:

“Everything that is wrong today in regards to culture, sex, marriage, dating, and women, is liberal, secular, FEMINISM, and feminism is EVIL! One can directly trace the downfall of American sexual morality to the feminism of the 1960s!!”

Such thinking is a common trope in about every right wing publication I’ve ever read on these subjects.

To that point, about feminism supposedly being to blame for all of society’s marital or sexual problems, I would ask you to read this off-site post, which is by a Christian (not by a left wing, secular feminist):

(Link): Perhaps Feminism Is Not The Enemy

What I will do here is provide excerpts by MacKenzie then, under her comments, offer my thoughts.

MacKenzie writes (source again):

There’s a coarsening of relationships between men and women, parents and children, and people with each other.

// end MacKenzie quotes ///

I don’t think secular, left wing feminism was the start of the “coarsening of relationships between men and women” but is a response to it.

One can read the Old Testament of the Bible, which dates back several thousand years, to see men raping their own sisters, owning harems of women (in some cases, women having no choice but to be in a harem, or to be a concubine), and men committing adultery. There was no 1960s, American- style feminism around in Biblical days.

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

A woman named San wrote to Christian program “The 700 Club” to say she’s in a marriage where her husband is ignoring her in favor of TV shows and his job and so forth. Pat Robertson’s son Gordon answered her letter.

Here is her letter to The 700 Club:

I have been very lonely in my marriage.

My husband’s priorities fall in this order: work, television, and then his phone. I have brought it to his attention so many times. I find myself only relying on God and Him being my true friend but I am still lonely.

Yes, I have God to turn to and I talk to God all day, every day, but it would be nice to have a husband in my life who I can truly share my life with. What should I do?

[signed] San

I didn’t completely agree with the host’s answer.

A June 2017 Viewer Tells Christian Host She’s Suicidal Over Being In Sexless Marriage for Twenty Years

A June 2017 Viewer Tells Christian Host She’s Suicidal Over Being In Sexless Marriage for Twenty Years

Christians often tell people that if they reserve sex for marriage, the sex will be great and regular. When I was growing up, Christians never acknowledged that sometimes, for whatever the reason, some marriages are sexless.

Then there is this secular and Christian notion that only men want and enjoy sex, while it’s assumed that women don’t want or enjoy sex.

But here we have a letter from a married woman who says she is in a sexless marriage and is so distressed over it that she is suicidal. She says her husband only wants sex at most once or twice per year:

Very shortly after we got married my husband said he could take or leave sex. I was shocked but thought he’d lean more towards the take it rather than leave it side. We’ve been together for 20 years and have sex once or twice a year.

Frustrated Husband Chops Off His Genitals With A Knife After His Wife Hadn’t Had Sex With Him For A DECADE

Frustrated Husband Chops Off His Genitals With A Knife After His Wife Hadn’t Had Sex With Him For A DECADE

Am I the only one who’s heard of the concept of masturbation? If your wife isn’t doing it for you, you can do it for yourself, if you know what I mean.

The article says every time this guy asked for sex, it was when he was drunk, and understandably, his wife was not interested in “getting it on” when he was drunk.

I guess getting married did not guarantee this guy a steady diet of sex, which runs contrary to what Christians tell you – that if you reserve sex until marriage, the sex will be recurrent and great.

(Link): Frustrated husband chops off his genitals with a knife after his wife hadn’t had sex with him for a DECADE

• Ghasi Ram, 37, cut off his penis after his advances were rejected
• His wife, Manjhri Devi, said he was regularly drunk and never listened to her
• The couple have been married for 18 years and have a daughter and two sons
• It happened in Uttar Pradesh in northern India 

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Related Posts:

(Link):  Lonely Life of Roberto Esquivel Cabrera, the Man with the World’s Longest Penis

(Link):  ‘Sex Starved Wife’ Cuts off Her Husband’s PENIS After He Refused to Make Love to Her for Ten Years 

(Link):  Guy So Depressed Over Being Single He Cut Off His Own Penis (article)

(Link):  Man undergoing minor surgery given vasectomy by mistake

(Link): Husband Forgets How to Have Sex After Botched Cancer Surgery‘

(Link): Spiritual leader allegedly manipulated 400 men into removing testicles to be ‘closer to God’

(Link): Woman arrested AGAIN for battering man who declined to have sex with her…

(Link):  Ohio Preacher Asked Men if they Performed Oral Sex on Spouses, Asked Males if they Had Large Penises, Asked to Look at their Penises, Asked One Actor if He Shaved His Pubic Hair, Encouraged Women Congregants to Get Abortions, Males to Get Vasectomies / Another Blow to “Be Equally Yoked” Christian Teachings

No, Focus On the Family, I Do Not Want to Civilize a Barbarian – via Biblical Personhood Blog

No, Focus On the Family, I Do Not Want to Civilize a Barbarian – via Biblical Personhood Blog

There is certainly nothing wrong with marriage or the nuclear family, but often times, in attempting to defend the nuclear family or the institution of marriage, a lot of Christians and conservative groups (such as Focus On The Family) err too far in making an idol out of both and denigrating singleness (or childlessness) in the process.

I have taken Focus on the Family to task before on that issue and one or two others.

Another blogger, Biblical Personhood, caught wind of a Focus on the Family blog post by  Glenn T. Stanton – well, it’s on a blog called “First Things,” which the lady blogger of Biblical Personhood says is an off-shoot of Focus on The Family.

I have discussed Stanton on my blog before, such as in these posts:

(Link): Focus on Family spokesperson, Stanton, actually says reason people should marry is for ‘church growth’

(Link):  Mefferd Guest Incredulous that Preachers Push Kids To Marry Early

Based on what I remember about Stanton, he can veer a little bit too much into idolizing marriage.

At any rate, here is the link to the blog post by Biblical Personhood, with some additional comments by me below this excerpt:

(Link): No, Focus on the Family, I do not want to civilize a barbarian via Biblical Personhood blog

Here is an excerpt from the opening (please click the link above to visit the other blog if you’d like to read the entire page):

From Biblical Personhood Blog:

(Link): Focus on the Family recently suggested something that seems, at first glance, to flatter women. I did not feel flattered at all. They suggested women are the number one way to change men for the better:

/// start quote

… the most fundamental social problem every community must solve is the unattached male. If his sexual, physical, and emotional energies are not governed and directed in a pro-social, domesticated manner, he will become the village’s most malignant cancer. Wives and children, in that order, are the only successful remedy ever found. – Glenn T. Stanton

/// end quote

This is highly problematic, to say the least.

From the theological perspective :

Have Focus On The Family never heard of Jesus and being born again? Surely Jesus is better at changing humans – even the alleged “malignant cancer” called unattached males – from the inside than any woman is? How could a Christian™ organization say that women, not Jesus, is the only remedy for men’s bad tendencies?

(( read the rest here ))

If you are an unmarried man (and you either want to stay single for the remainder of your life, or are aware you may never marry, even though you may want a wife), I’m sure you must really appreciate guys like Stanton saying you are basically a raging animal, or an immature man-baby, unless you are married to a woman.

You, if you are a single (unmarried) man, are a nothing, an incompetent, immoral loser unless you have a wife, is how Stanton’s reasoning comes across. You must have a wife and possibly father a child by said wife to count or to be a “real man.” This is pretty insulting stuff, especially bearing in mind that the Bible that Stanton likely would say he reads and agrees with, says nothing of the sort.

I did read over the Biblical Personhood blog post a day or two ago, but I don’t remember exactly everything that blog author wrote.

I will here add my own thoughts about the Stanton penned blog post. Some of my observations may be similar to those by the Biblical Personhood blogger.

Stanton writes:

 Women create, shape, and maintain human culture. Manners exist because women exist. Worthy men adjust their behavior when a woman enters the room. They become better creatures. Civilization arises and endures because women have expectations of themselves and of those around them.

I disagree with just about everything he said there, on different levels, and for different reasons.

Most cultures are patriarchal, and this has been the way the world has been for thousands of years.

Women are not allowed to shape or maintain politics, marriage, or church – let alone culture, because men hold all the power. Women are taught by parents and culture from girlhood that this is normal, that men should be in charge, and females are conditioned from childhood to accept this and go along with it, especially Christian girls.

As much as I dislike blatant sexism, where men sound like cave-men and make loud, rude, condescending claims, such as women are not as logical or intelligent as men (this is used to justify limiting women in the workplace and so on)-
I also do not appreciate this (Link): benevolent sexist, noble-sounding, sappy and fouffy writing that tries to convince women that being subservient to men, allowing men to lead and protect them, and thus they can and should give up self-determination and their agency, is in their best interest, because dang it, women are so much more morally superior creatures to men.

This sort of writing is sugar-coated sexism. It’s asking women to give up their personhood,  identity, or their independence, in exchange for something else (in this case, the betterment of men or culture).

I’m really tired of how sexists keep demanding things of women, and nothing of men, of expecting women to fix men, or to fix society.

Teen-Raping Texas Pastor Gets life in Prison After using the Bible to Justify Abusing Women – Equally Yoked is BUNK

Teen-Raping Texas Pastor Gets life in Prison After using the Bible to Justify Abusing Women – Equally Yoked is BUNK

Far below is a link to a page about a pastor who raped girls in and from a church. Notice in the article how other church-goers who went to church with this guy described him as being “very nice” or as being a “good Christian.”

My Christian parents brought me up to think if I wanted to marry, that the best place for me to meet potential spouses would be at a church. I suppose the assumption with that is that the type of men who attend church regularly are going to be “safer” or better moral choices than the type of dude you might meet at a bar.

However, in the last few years of running this blog, I have seen (Link): so many news stories of church-going Christian men who get arrested for abuse or perversion, I now have my doubts about that.

Secondly, single women out-number single men in churches. I know that every church I’ve been to in person, I’ve been one of the few singles there. The only men in attendance and 80 years old, which would be fine if I were 80 too, but I’m not, and May December relationships (Link): make me want to barf. (I do not want to date or marry dudes who are over 5 or 10 years my age.)

I’ve done blog posts before about Pat Robertson, who has criticized women on his Christian TV show, for having married jerks, perverts, or abusers. Robertson seems to think women should be able to instantly spot if a man is a jerk, creep, loser, or abuser from the start. He’s wrong and an idiot about this.

The fact is, as this article below shows, even other adults who go to church with these kinds of deviant men are not aware of what a creep or pervert these guys are.

These are not people who are dating the guy – they are simply sitting next to him in church every week. If they cannot spot the perverts among them easily, why do Christian conservative men like Robertson think women who date men should be any better?

Preacher Perry Noble Gives Advice to Adult Singles On How To Date and Marry Days Before Articles Say He’s Having Marriage Problems – Consider the Source

Preacher Perry Noble Gives Advice to Adult Singles On How To Date and Marry Days Before Articles Say He’s Having Marriage Problems – Consider the Source

As I’ve said before, Consider the Source when listening to dating advice.

On July 6th, Christian Post published a page with dating advice by pastor Perry Noble.

On July 8th, Christian Post published an article suggesting that Noble may have been fired from his church for, among other things, marital problems.

Why is a guy who is in the midst of having marital issues writing dating advice for singles? Please. Does the phoniness in contemporary Evangelical Land know no limits?

From what I’ve seen on the internet the last two, three days, Noble’s church is expected to announce tomorrow that he was fired, probably due to marital conflicts or alcoholism or something.