Women Are More Interested In Sex Than You Think, (2016) Studies Show – Men underestimate their wife’s or girlfriend’s sexual desire; read the signals

Women Are More Interested In Sex Than You Think, (2016) Studies Show – Men underestimate their wife’s or girlfriend’s sexual desire; read the signals

The majority of Christians will disregard this study, because it does not fit their culturally- based gender stereotypes that men are sexual animals and visually oriented while all women are supposedly, basically uninterested in sex and only interested in emotional closeness, weeping at beautiful poetry, and knitting scarves.

It is true: for all their bloviating on how they adhere to “sola scriptura,” many Christians take their secular-cultural based assumptions about women and read them back into the Bible. The Bible no where teaches that “God designed men to be visual” or that “men are more interested in sex than women are.” Christians get those assumptions from their culture or perceived personal experiences – not from the Bible.

(Link): Women Are More Interested In Sex Than You Think, (2016) Studies Show

Excerpts

by E. Bernstein

Men underestimate their wife’s or girlfriend’s sexual desire; read the signals

Rarely are researchers’ findings so satisfying. Women may want more sex than their husbands or partners think.

New research by psychologists at the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario, (Link): published earlier this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that men in long-term relationships often underestimate how often their wives or girlfriends want to be intimate.

The research consists of three studies, following a total of 229 long-term couples, most of whom are heterosexual. (The sample of homosexual couples was too small to be statistically significant, the researchers say.) Participants ranged in age from 18 to 68 years old; the couples had been together six years on average, and they reported they had sex an average of one to two times a week.

….All three studies showed the same thing: Men consistently underestimated their female partner’s desire, while the women had an accurate read on whether or not their partner was interested in sex. And on the days when the men thought their partner was less sexually interested than she actually was, the women reported being more satisfied in and committed to the relationship.

Taking the Opposite Position from Neo Calvinists Just Because It’s the Opposite of Neo Calvinists

Taking the Opposite Position from Neo Calvinists Just Because It’s the Opposite of Neo Calvinists

I touched on this in an earlier post or two, such as this one: (Link): No Man’s Land – Part 2 – On Post Evangelicals or Ex Christians or Liberal Christians Ignorantly Hopping Aboard Belief Sets They Once Rejected.

But this time, I wanted to discuss Neo Calvinism and spiritual abuse blogs and advocates in particular.

I do not support Neo Calvinism, or even old school Calvinism. I think Calvinism is a crock of crap.

Many of the NC’s (Neo Calvinists, aka YRRs), are arrogant, narrow minded jerks.

My problem with seeing NC guys, their churches, or their positions discussed and picked apart by some bloggers is that the anti NCs go into reactionary mode.

Their positions often time seem not so much well thought out in and of themselves, but that they will take a position opposite of that held by most NCs just because it’s the opposite of that held by NCs.

I do know a little bit about NCs and their theological beliefs, but not as much as their frequent critics.

According to their frequent critics, NCs believe in a literal six day creation, not an old age of the earth.

(As for me, I am NOT an NC, and I believe in a literal six day creation.)

My issue when I visit blogs or Twitter accounts by people who are vehemently anti NC is that they will, it appears to me, automatically take the opposite position on anything John Piper, The Gospel Coaltion, and other NC guys say just to be contrary.

Parents who kill their children by intentionally leaving them locked in hot cars all day – Dad was sexting while his toddler son was dying in car

Parents who kill their children by intentionally leaving them locked in hot cars all day – Dad was sexting while his toddler son was dying in car
—————————————–
Notice from Christian Pundit blogger: There is coming a time when I will either not be blogging as frequently or not at all. Please read more about that here in this post (Link): Blog Break – May 2014 – and List of This Blog’s Best or Most Relevant Posts
—————————————-
There was a story in the news this past week of an idiot father, Harris, who killed his toddler son by intentionally leaving him locked in a hot car for several hours.

The police examined Harris’ home computer and say both he and his wife researched information online on ‘how long does it take for child to die in a hot car’ and so forth.

But wait, it gets even better. According to headlines I saw today, not only did Dirt Bag Dad leave his toddler son to die in a hot car, but he “sexted” women, including TEENAGERS, while his kid was dying, and in the weeks before. (See links to that below for more.)

I’m in my early 40s but am like a cranky old woman when it comes to babies and children. I have never married and never had children. I do not like children or babies or being around them. I try to avoid them if I can.

But you know what: I would never intentionally harm or murder a baby or a child. If I saw a kid in trouble, I would come to his or her assistance, or at least call the police.

I bring this all up because it is a common, nasty stereotype in Southern Baptist, Reformed, Fundamentalist, and evangelical Christianity that single adults and the childless (or childfree) are selfish, warped, weird, immature losers, but that parents and the married are instantly more godly, ethical, and more mature. I think news stories like the ones I’ve linked to below debunk these Christian stereotypes.

Understand that I am NOT opposed to people remaining virgins until marriage, but:
I also think this news story blows holes in the evangelical sex propaganda that if people just maintain virginity until marriage, that the sex will be mindblowing, great, frequent, and constant.

How “mindblowing” was this married father’s sex life if he was sexting women and teen girls with nude photos?

On a last note: some Christians will argue that you must become perfect and godly before God will reward you with a spouse. Is a man, like the one in this news story below, who murders his own two year old son and who sends pornographic photos to young teen women, perfect and godly?

If you’re a Christian who believes in the nonsense that an unmarried person must clean herself up, become godly and perfect, before God will reward her with a spouse, please explain what it was this dirt bag father did to merit a spouse from God? He is far from perfect, godly, and loving.

(Link): Detective: Dad who left child in hot SUV showed no emotion after boy died

By KATE BRUMBACKASSOCIATED PRESS
updated Thursday, July 3, 2014

Harris was exchanging nude photos with several women, including teenagers, even on the day his son died when he was at work, Stoddard said. In the weeks before the boy’s death, the man also had looked at a website that advocated against having children and had done an Internet search for “how to survive in prison,” the detective said.

(Link): Detective: Dad had 2 life insurance policies for son

MARIETTA, Ga. — A Georgia man charged with murder in his 22-month-old son’s death was sexting with several women on the day of his son’s death and that he had two life insurance policies on his son, a detective testified Thursday.

During a probable cause hearing in Cobb County Magistrate Court for Justin Ross Harris, Cobb County Police Detective Phil Stoddard said Harris, who is charged with murder and child cruelty in the June 18 death of his young son, Cooper, intentionally left his son in the car.

Stoddard testified the two life insurance policies on Cooper were for $2,000 and $25,000.

The detective also testified that Harris had accessed websites advocating “child free” and searched “how to survive prison” before Cooper died.

(Link): Georgia Dad in Hot-Car Death Case ‘Sexted’ Other Women: Cops

The suburban Atlanta father accused of murdering his toddler by leaving him in a hot SUV for several hours was in an unhappy marriage and wanted a “child-free life,” a detective testified Thursday.

Justin Ross Harris, 33, of Marietta, had even been sexting with other women in the two weeks before son Cooper was found dead in the back seat of the family SUV on June 18, said Cobb County Det. Phil Stoddard.

Prosecutors during Harris’ probable cause hearing were building a case for why Harris allegedly left his son in a sweltering car on purpose while he was at work. “Evidence shows he has this whole second life … with alternate personas,” Stoddard said. It was also revealed that Harris and his wife, Leanna, had two life insurance policies on their 22-month-old son.

(Link): Watch live: Prosecutor says Justin Ross Harris sexted while toddler in car; witness describes him as sobbing father

(Link): Dad Charged With Toddler’s Hot Car Death Was Sexting While Boy Died: Cop

The Georgia dad charged with killing his toddler son by leaving the boy in a hot car all day was exchanging graphic texts with multiple woman, including a teenage girl, in the hours before he found the boy dead, a detective testified today at a court hearing.

Christian Confusion on Sexual Ethics – Sexual Purity is For All Ages and All Marital Statuses, and Sexual Sin is Not Just Limited to Adultery – Rape is Not An Extra Marital Affair

Christian Confusion on Sexual Ethics – Sexual Purity is For All Ages and All Marital Statuses, and Sexual Sin is Not Just Limited to Adultery – Rape is Not An Affair

Conservative Christians keeps presenting some very skewed views about sex and sexual sin.

While a lot of Christians have watered down the biblical teaching of “virginity- until- marriage,” the ones who still do bother to give it lip service seem to think that sexual sin only befalls unmarried people who are younger than age 25.

There is an ignorant assumption by most Christians that married couples will never commit sexual sin, because they are supposedly getting their sexual desires satiated on a regular basis with their spouse (which is false, see these links: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, for just a few examples).

In some recent news stories about rape, some Christians have been characterizing the reported rapes as being “extra marital affairs,” and one young lady, who was raped several times at age 19 by a co-worker, told her Christian college (B.J.U., Bob Jones University) about the rapes, and was told by college staff that she needed to repent of her sin of being a rape victim.

I wrote about the first story here:
(Link): Married Youth Pastor Jailed for Sexually Assaulting Teen Girl Writes Editorial About Said Abuse for Christianity Today, Uproar Ensues On Christian Blogs

One rape victim also made the comment in an interview that she thought in terms of sexual sin as being ‘adultery’ and did not have a concept of rape.

As one commentator over at SCCL Facebook group pointed out in regards to this news story about BJU’s mishandling of response to sexual assault victims (source),

The lack of a working, moral vocabulary for sexual violation is a huge blindspot for faith communities. The Christianity Today article last week was also couched in “adultery” terms. The discussion of sexual morality has to grow outside the marriage/adultery frame. Also, that moral vocabulary has to do a better job in connecting to broader social justice. Less hush-up. More call-out.

It is true that often, in their stereotypes about sex and sexual sin, the Christians who do bother to preach against sexual sin any more (many do not preach against it), still often neglect to teach that celibacy applies to married couples (e.g., when one partner cannot perform, or the couple are apart for whatever reason), as well as to unmarried people, and that sexual purity applies to people of all ages, not just to teen-aged kids.

(Link): Rape victims say Bob Jones University told them to repent

Excerpts:

June 18, 2014 1:00PM ET
by Claire Gordo

Raised in a conservative Mennonite home in rural Ohio, Katie Landry was a sheltered kid. She hadn’t even held hands with a boy when, at age 19, she says her supervisor at her summer job raped her. Two years later, and desperate for help, she reported the abuse to the dean of students at her college.

He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin,’” Landry remembers. “And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.”

…But most damaging was how, through the language of Scripture, victims say they were told that their sins had brought on their rapes, that their trauma meant they were fighting God and that healing came from forgiving their rapists.

[Katie Landry discusses having been raped by a co-worker]

Landry didn’t know the word rape; she only knew adultery, and liked the man’s wife, she said. Afraid of her attacker and deeply ashamed, she said she failed most her classes first semester, and kept her assaults a secret until her junior year.

I do think there is something very amiss with any so-called Christian group, church, or denomination, that speaks of sexual sin only in terms of adultery, so that when a young, unmarried woman is sexually assaulted, she does not even have the terminology to describe it, or is not even familiar with the word “rape.”

I also wonder if the church Ms. Landry attended did not read aloud from the Scriptures, where episodes such as the rape of Tamar are discussed (see (Link): 2 Samuel 13:32).

Christians have idolized marriage to the point that it’s given them faulty views about sexual sin, where some of them think only un-married adults are capable of sexual sin, or others think that the only sexual sin married people are capable of is “adultery” (never mind all the married men who view porn, use prostitutes or who sexually fondle children, aside from men raping 19 year old women).

I see a lot of outrage over this B.J.U. story from left wingers, ex Christians, etc, and rightly so – but – these are the same groups who criticize sexual purity teachings, which I find a tad hypocritical.

If Christians supported and taught sexual purity across the board rather than only emphasizing virginity for females ages teen to 25, but also taught and upheld the biblical views that males are to remain virgins until marriage as well, and that any sexual activity outside of marriage (rape, consensual affairs, porn use, etc), was wrong, maybe some of these problems could be lowered.
————————-
Related posts:

(Link): Marriage Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)

(Link): Perverted Christian Married Couple Wants to “Wife Swap” (For Sex) With Other Christian Couple – Why Christians Need to Uphold Chastity / Celibacy For All People Even Married Couples Not Just Teens

(Link): No Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity – Christians Attack and Criticize Virginity Sexual Purity Celibacy / Virginity Sexual Purity Not An Idol

(Link): Males and Females Raped at Christian College, College Doesn’t Care – Equally Yoked is a Joke

(Link): How Feminists Are Making Women Easier Rape Targets

(Link): The ol’ Christian myth that married couples are impervious to sexual sin but singles have lots of sexual sin

(Link): New ‘Christian Swingers’ Dating Site Offers Faithful Couples Chance to ‘Hookup’

(Link): Marriage does not guarantee sexual purity: Married guy discovers his wife is having sex chats with online buddy

(Link): Why Christians Need to Uphold Lifelong Celibacy as an Option for All Instead of Merely Pressuring All to Marry – vis a vis Sexless Marriages, Counselors Who Tell Marrieds that Having Affairs Can Help their Marriages

(Link): Jason the Christian’s Sexless Marriage – Christians promise hot regular steamy married sex but it isn’t true

(Link): AARP post: How to Handle a Sexless Married Life – But Christians Promise You Great Hot Regular Married Sex

(Link): More Married Couples Admit to Sexless Marriages (various articles) / Christians promise you great frequent sex if you wait until marriage, but the propaganda is not true

More Criticisms of the Pope’s Anti Childless Anti Childfree Comments

More Criticisms of the Pope’s Anti Childless Anti Childfree Comments

The Pope recently said that people who do not have children will end up “bitter” and “lonely,” among other anti-childless, anti-childfree comments. Here are some editorials criticizing his views.

(Link): Why Parents Can Still End Up Lonely

Hey, Pope Francis: Being child-free doesn’t make you bitter, and having kids certainly isn’t proof against ending up alone.

• Amanda Marcotte (Link):

has already done a fabulous job

• outlining why Pope Francis was wrong to dismiss those of us living the child-free life as shallow, future bitter types.

But besides misjudging those who consciously choose not to have children when they are not financially or emotionally ready to be good parents as selfish, the pope’s argument has another flaw: the idea that having children is a surefire way to avoid loneliness later in life.

(Link): Hey, Pope Francis: Kids Aren’t a Retirement Plan

• ADULTS WHO HAVE KIDS CAN STILL BE PLENTY LONELY, WRITES KELI GOFF

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff
Posted Jun 9, 2014 11:57 AM CDT

(NEWSER) – Pope Francis recently exhorted his followers to have kids, saying that to do otherwise would lead to “old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness.”

Well Keli Goff at the Daily Beast has some news for the pontiff: “Children are not a surefire way to inoculate against loneliness.”

Adult children constantly abandon their elders to nursing homes, for one. “One director of a local nursing home said 85% of his residents had no visitors,” the head of a volunteer organization called Visiting the Lonely Ones tells Goff.

Loneliness can set in before nursing home age, too— “I know of divorced people who struggled during holiday seasons” as custody arrangements kept their kids away, Goff writes.

Ultimately, your happiness is your own responsibility, and there are no guarantees. “I think it is selfish to have a child only to have a caregiver later in life,” one family therapist says. “I think that is quite narcissistic to do something like this.” Click for Goff’s full column.

(Link): Conservative and Childfree

• Does being a conservative mean I must have children?
• By A. J. Delgado

Daily Beast columnist Amanda Marcotte is getting rough treatment from conservatives over her Friday piece “Pope Francis Is Wrong About My Child-Free Life,” which makes a persuasive case that it’s OK to not have kids.

Full disclosure: I am in that child-free camp. (I call it “child-free” while some pro-parentage folks may prefer the term “child-less” — one’s choice of term likely gives away one’s view on the matter.)

Like Marcotte, I’m a woman in my 30s (34 to be exact) with, at the present time and likely into the future, no interest in being a mother.

Motherhood seems wonderful for others, and I respect and cherish the role, though I have sensibly decided it simply isn’t for me. I’ll pass on parenting.

But I am also a conservative. Can those two be reconciled? Does being a conservative mean I must have children or, at the very least, like Pontifex, encourage others to do so?

It’s a question that has been lingering for quite some time. After all, conservatism is family-friendly and socially traditional, stressing family as the core building block of society. But as more and more men and women nowadays rule out the idea of having children, are these individuals any less conservative than those who are parents?

When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men – and how the stereotype flipped

When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men by A. Goldstein

This mirrors views I have been repeating on my blog for over a year or two now – this paper is broken up into three web pages:

(Link – to Page One): When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men – and how the stereotype flipped By Alyssa Goldstein

(Link – article on Single Page): When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men – And how the stereotype flipped.

Excerpts:

By Alyssa Goldstein
March 19, 2013

In the 1600s, a man named James Mattock was expelled from the First Church of Boston.

His crime? It wasn’t using lewd language or smiling on the sabbath or anything else that we might think the Puritans had disapproved of. Rather, James Mattock had refused to have sex with his wife for two years.

Though Mattock’s community clearly saw his self-deprivation as improper, it is quite possible that they had his wife’s suffering in mind when they decided to shun him.

The Puritans believed that sexual desire was a normal and natural part of human life for both men and women (as long as it was heterosexual and confined to marriage), but that women wanted and needed sex more than men.

A man could choose to give up sex with relatively little trouble, but for a woman to be so deprived would be much more difficult for her.

Yet today, the idea that men are more interested in sex than women is so pervasive that it seems almost unremarkable.

Whether it’s because of hormone levels or “human nature,” men just need to have sex, masturbate, and look at porn in a way that simply isn’t necessary for women, according to popular assumptions (and if a women does find it so necessary, there’s probably something wrong with her).

Women must be convinced, persuaded, even forced into “giving it up,” because the prospect of sex just isn’t that appealing on its own, say popular stereotypes.

Sex for women is usually a somewhat distasteful but necessary act that must be performed to win approval, financial support, or to maintain a stable relationship.

And since women are not slaves to their desires like men, they are responsible for ensuring that they aren’t “taken advantage of.”

The idea that men are naturally more interested in sex than women is ubiquitous that it’s difficult to imagine that people ever believed differently.

And yet for most of Western history, from ancient Greece to beginning of the nineteenth century, women were assumed to be the sex-crazed porn fiends of their day.

Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world by Catherine Deveny

Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world, by Catherine Deveny

Christians are guilty of, as this writer below says, “The deification of mothers.”

Trust me on that one, as the voice of experience.

Try being over 40, still a virgin – never married, no children – and you feel very excluded in many conservative churches.

The exclusion against childless and older single women is not always deliberate in Christian culture, sometimes it is.

Some churches and preachers intentionally “bash” singlehood and adults who are childless or childfree (such as Southern Baptist (Link) Al Mohler, or (Link): this church in Raleigh).

However, the un-intentional put downs and un-intended insults can be almost as hurtful. Most often, married Christian mothers, the instant they learn you are over 30, never married and have no children, lose all interest in getting to know you further.

Some of these married mothers act instantly uncomfortable and awkward around you once they find out you are still single and childless… you are treated like an alien from Mars, rather than a fellow human being. It’s hurtful, awkward, and is one reason of many I no longer attend church.

Churches constantly host Mother’s Day ceremonies or do things like monthly invite all new mothers foreward to pray for their newborns, but when is the last time you saw a preacher call all never-married women forward to pray for them, or to cheer on their accomplishments, such as buying a house alone, getting a work promotion, getting a college degree? Yeah, never. Only motherhood is viewed as a significant “accomplishment” for women in churches.

(By the way, I do not hate motherhood, and I am not opposed to women being mothers: I am only opposed to how adult single women, the infertile, childless, and child free are excluded, insulted or marginalized by so many Christian churches, denominations, and media.)

Here’s the article:

(Link): Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world

18 November 2013

It’s time to drop the slogan. It encourages mothers to stay socially and financially hobbled, it alienates fathers and discourages other significant relationships between children and adults

Being a mother is not the most important job in the world. There, I said it. Nor is it the toughest job, despite what the 92% of people polled in Parents Magazine reckon.

For any woman who uses that line, consider this: if this is meant to exalt motherhood, then why is the line always used to sell toilet cleaner? And if being a mother is that important, why aren’t all the highly paid men with stellar careers not devoting their lives to raising children? After all, I never hear “being a father is the most important job in the world”.

The deification of mothers not only delegitimises the relationship fathers, neighbours, friends, grandparents, teachers and carers have with children, it also diminishes the immense worth and value of these relationships. How do gay dads feel about this line, I wonder? Or the single dads, stepdads or granddads? No matter how devoted and hard working you are, fellas, you’ll always be second best.

I’m also confused as to what makes you a mother. Is it the actual birth? Or is a “mother” simply a term to describe an expectation to care for children without payment? Is this empty slogan used to compensate women for gouging holes from potential careers by spending years out of the workplace without recognition?

Enabling this dogma devalues the unpaid labor of rearing children as much as it strategically devalues women’s worth at work. If being a mother were a job there’d be a selection process, pay, holidays, a superior to report to, performance assessments, Friday drinks, and you could resign from your job and get another one because you didn’t like the people you were working with. It’s not a vocation either – being a mother is a relationship.

Even if it were a job, there is no way being a professional mother could be the hardest when compared to working 16 hours a day in a clothing factory in Bangladesh, making bricks in an Indian kiln, or being a Chinese miner. Nor could it ever be considered the most important job in comparison with a surgeon who saves lives, anyone running a nation, or a judge deciding on people’s destiny.

~ Read the rest here ~

---

Related posts this blog

(Link): Parenthood Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)

(Link):  Motherhood Is Not A Woman’s Most Important Job by J. Wright

(Link): Women Are Having Fewer Babies Because They Have More Choices by Jill Filipovic

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

(Link):  Facebook’s motherhood challenge makes me want to punch my computer screen by F. Everett

(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Mother’s Day Ain’t A Happy Holiday For Some

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian

(Link): Widows and Childless and Childfree Have Better Well Being Than Married Couples and Parents says new study

(Link): Bearden: Staying childless right decision for many women

(Link):  Facebook’s motherhood challenge makes me want to punch my computer screen by F. Everett

(Link): Christian Patriarchy Group: God Demands You Marry and Have Babies to Defeat Paganism and Satan. Singles and the Childless Worthless (in this worldview).

(Link): Don’t Judge Me, I’m Childless (from Today’s Christian Woman)

(Link): Southern Baptist’s New Sexist “Biblical Woman” Site – Attitudes in Total Face Palm of a Site One Reason Among Many This Unmarried and Childless Woman Is Saying Toodle-Oo to Christianity

(Link): Is The Church Failing Childless Women? by Diane Paddison

(Link): 26, Unmarried, and Childless – by A. Mast

(Link): Idiot Author Thinks Childless and Childfree Should Pay Higher Taxes to Subsidize Parents

I already have a bachelors, never cared much if I had children or not
Your opinion that “being a wife & mom is the most glorious work a woman can do” is just that – your opinion
I don’t base my self worth or identity on gender stereotypes or other people’s opinions / preferences https://t.co/OGj25bGBjb

— sololoner (@sololoner2) August 27, 2022

No Man’s Land – Between Agnosticism and Christianity / Also: It’s Emotional Not Intellectual (Part 1)

No Man’s Land – Between Agnosticism and Christianity / Also: It’s Emotional Not Intellectual (PART 1)

This will be a series of posts where my thoughts wander in and out and all over, and it rambles, but there is a point or two behind it.

Since I’ve been in a faith crisis the last couple of years, somewhere between being an agnostic and a Christian, I have noticed I don’t fit in anywhere. I reside in No Man’s Land.

(Even before then, when I was a total, committed Christian, and politically, I was, and am, right wing, I still didn’t fit in at most blogs and forums, including political ones, and including ones for right wingers!

I tend to be one of those personalities who annoys or angers everyone, even those on “my side” of an issue, except a small number of people, who are either on my side of a topic or not, who “get me” or who appreciate where I’m coming from – again, this is true for even the ones who disagree with me on whatever topic we are discussing.)

I am in this really weird place now, where I am critical of some aspects of conservative Christianity, and see where conservative Christians get some doctrines and other things wrong, but, too, I am not fully on board with militant atheism (I find the New Atheists to be arrogant, vile, hateful and rude), and I don’t even care for lukewarm atheism.

Nor am I in the camp of anything and all things liberal Christianity, except where I think they get the occasional point correct (such as their rejection of gender complementarianism).

Since drifting away from the Christian faith more the last few years, I more often began frequenting forums or blogs for and by atheists, ones by liberal Christians, ones by ex Christians, or by Christians who were abused by a former church who remain Christian but who dropped out of Church, or who now are on a crusade to expose abuse by preachers or the absurdity and harm of current evangelical gimmicks.

THE MILITANT ATHEISTS

A clarification: when I say I have been visiting atheist forums and blogs more often, I am very picky about which ones I regularly visit.

I do not like the frothing- at- the- mouth, extremely bitter, biased- against- Christians- type atheistic communities.

The bitter atheist groups sound like a bunch of irrational, hate-filled loons who reject Christianity for emotional reasons, but who lie to others and themselves and say, “Oh no, it’s purely intellectual.”

But their unrelenting, insane amount of hatred at any and all things God and Christian, is just a total turn-off to me, so I try to avoid such sites.

These angry, always-ranting atheists are really nothing more than Fundamentalist Atheists or Taliban Atheists. They are just as dogmatic about their atheism as Muslims are in their Wasabi Islam or Baptists are in their Neo Fundamentalism.

Really, those types of atheists are just as bad as the religious groups they claim they hate, but they don’t seem to spot that they are. It’s ironic – and it’s hard to stomach the day in, day out anger and hatred, so I try to avoid their sites.

HYPOCRITICAL CHRISTIANS VS NON HYPOCRITICAL CHRISTIANS

Also, you have to be honest with yourself, which I do not find militant atheists to be, by and large: not every single Christian is a hypocrite, jerk, idiot, dullard, or complete jackhole.

I say this as someone who is very fed up with Christianity and Christian persons myself these days.

But your average militant atheist will never admit that some Christians are in fact okay and not being hypocrites.

I have known and met a few Christians who were sincerely trying to live the Christian faith out, such as my mother, who is now deceased, and her mother before her (my grandmother).

I’ve met a few honest, sincere Christians online who do help people and show compassion to the wounded.

So it’s not fair to completely dismiss the entirety of Christians and their faith or treat them all like jerks because some are liars, mean, or abusive.

Which is not easy for me personally, because at the same time, I do keep noticing that a lot of self-professing believers do NOT live out what the Bible says.

Many self professing Christians today, for example, do not protect victims, such as young church members who have been sexually molested by preachers.

Nor do many church goers today hold accountable preachers who bilk their church goers out of millions to buy big mansions and jets.

These idiots, these lemmings, actually defend their greedy pastors online, which I’ve written about here: (Link): Your Preacher Sucks – and People Have a Right To Say So And Explain Why.

Then you have a conservative or evangelical culture, which claims to care deeply that people preserve sex until marriage, but if you actually find yourself 40 years of age and still single – and therefore still a virgin, such as myself – these same churches and Christians do not offer you any support.

You either go ignored, or preachers and talking heads of such groups “run down” and insult celibacy as well as older, celibate adults. Churches treat single (and especially celibate) adults as though they are flawed, lepers, weirdos, or losers.

Churches wrongly counsel abused wives to return to their spouses – this is particularly true, again, of churches or Christian groups who buy into “biblical womanhood” (aka “gender complementariansm”) or “patriarchy.”

Churches and average Christians also remain ignorant or callous about matters pertaining to mental health issues, from P.T.S.D. to depression and anxiety attacks.

Some Christians wrongly and insensitively teach that “real Christians” can never get depression or other mental health maladies.

Or, some Christians believe and teach that prayer, faith, service to the poor, or Bible reading alone can cure one of mental illness.

Still other Christians (or the same type) will shame and guilt suffering Christians for using anti-depressant medications, or for seeing secular or Christian psychiatrists and therapists (see this link for more, “Over 50 Percent of Christians Believe Prayer, Bible Reading Alone Can Cure Mental Illness (article) – In Other Words Half of Christians are Ignorant Idiots Regarding Mental Illness”).

Yet other Christians are incompetent at, or unwilling, to provide more ordinary, “every day,” run- of- the- mill comfort to other Christians who are hurting, such as a Christian who is stressed out over a job loss, someone who is in mourning for a deceased loved one, etc.

Christians are dropping the ball in numerous ways.

And this failure, this huge failure, causes life long Christians like me to look long and hard at the faith and wonder if it’s true at all.

It causes even someone such as myself to ask if the faith is true, because

• it doesn’t appear to be working,
• it doesn’t make a difference in people’s life who profess it,
• most who claim to follow Christ don’t actually do what he taught,
• and some Christians refuse to hold Christians caught in bald faced sin accountable but excuse them for the sin,

~ and it makes you wonder “what is the point, then.”

I find this discrepancy between confessed belief and actual practice shocking, because I myself sincerely tried living out the faith since childhood.

Also, my Christian mother was a role model for me, and she genuinely, consistently lived out and by biblical teachings, including getting up off her ass and actually HELPING people (giving them money if they were in a bind, cleaning their homes for them when they were sick, listening to them cry and rant about their problems for hours without judging them or interrupting them, etc).

I am not seeing most other Christians do any of this. They say they believe in those things but then they do not do them.

BLOGS AND FORUMS FOR SPIRITUALLY ABUSED OR THOSE HURT BY CHURCHES

Before I actually get into this topic (which I discuss more in Posts 2 and 3), here is some background leading up to it.

As far as the sites I have visited by liberal Christians, ex Christians, atheists, as well as sites by Christians for the spiritually abused:

By and large, these have been wonderful, supportive sites and groups to visit (the ones run by Christians for hurting Christians).

I have noticed, though, that there are problems even within these types of communities, and I don’t entirely fit in at them, either.

Gender Complementarian Christians Who Teach Gender Inequality Even in Afterlife – an UPDATE

Gender Complementarian Christians Who Teach Gender Inequality Even in Afterlife – an UPDATE

Hat tip again to Julie Anne of the Spiritual Sounding Board who announced in a Tweet today that CBMW (which is a Christian gender complementarian group) removed a looney editorial by Walton from their site, which I wrote of in an earlier post, here:

(Link): Christian Gender Complementarian Group Teaching That There Will Be Marriage in Afterlife and That Women Must Submit To Males in Heaven

Julie Anne wrote an update about the situation recently, here (at Spiritual Sounding Board):

(Link): Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Removes Article about Complementarian Roles in New Creation Did they change their minds?

• Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood removes Article about complementarian roles in new creation

… Let’s be clear – pulling the article does not mean CBMW has changed their ideology.

She also provided a link to the screen shot of the CBMW page, before it was removed, and it can be viewed here:
(Link): Screen capture of Weirdo “marriage in the afterlife” CBMW Page by Walton

Someone in the thread linked to this related material, from the Strange Figures blog:
(Link): A letter to our sisters, on biblical womanhood in heavenly places

The piece starts out serious (as you can see from the excerpt below), and the author goes into satire (not excerpted here):

• • I think the author, Mark David Walton, has shown us the end toward which complementarian theology is heading. While Walton’s piece is several years old, it’s still out there as a resource and other articles have expressed the same idea – the gendered headship/submission model is not temporal. It’s eternal. Get used to it, ladies.
  — end  excerpts—

Julie Anne also mentioned that Owen Strachan is the Executive Director of CBMW, and Rachel Held Evans recently took Strachan to the woodshed here:

(Link): If men got the Titus 2 Treatment…

Also related (off site; from RHE’s blog):
(Link): Patriarchy and Abusive Churches

From RHE’s blog:
(Link): If marriage is not eternal…

(Though I do have excerpts from Walton’s the page on (Link): my previous post as well, if you’d like to read for yourself some of the nutty things Walton wrote.)

---

Related posts, off site:

(Link): Complementarianism: even in its best form, it is Patriarchy

(Link): The “CAN’T” Chant of Complementarianism

(Link): Com­ple­men­tar­i­an­ism Sucks : Telling Women to Stay Quiet in the name of Jesus

(Link): Question to complementarians: What is my [single, adult woman] gender role?

I agree with point 3 on the list on this site (I do not, however, agree with the author that a literal understanding of the Bible should be rejected, or that the Bible supports homosexuality):
(Link): Reality: The Problem with Complementarianism

---

Related posts (on this blog):

(Link): Christian Gender Complementarian Group Teaching That There Will Be Marriage in Afterlife and That Women Must Submit To Males in Heaven (post at Spiritual Sounding Board)

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Independent Fundamentalist Baptist College Kid Friendship Permission Form – Christians lowering marriage rates due to their own stupid teachings about sex, dating, marriage, etc

(Link): Christian Gender Complementarian Group (CBMW) Anti Virginity and Anti Sexual Purity Stance (At Least Watered Down) – and their Anti Homosexual Marriage Position

(Link): Celestial Sexism: Why Don’t Muslim Women Get Rewarded With ’72 Studs’ in Paradise?

Ways To Avoid Sounding Like a Sexist Jerk – Even If You’re a Woman (mentions marriage and parenthood)

Ways To Avoid Sounding Like a Sexist Jerk–Even If You’re a Woman

This list has eleven tips. I am only copying 2 or 3 of them.

(Link): 11 Ways To Avoid Sounding Like a Sexist Jerk–Even If You’re a Woman

by Jessica Bennett

Sheryl Sandberg wants to ban the word bossy, but that’s just the tip of the demeaning language iceberg

Whatever your opinion of the campaign by Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In foundation to ban the word bossy — which, for the record, I advised on — one thing is indisputable: the power of words is stark.

Call a little girl “bossy” and she starts to avoid leadership roles because she’s afraid of being seen as unlikeable. People are already wary of assertive women at work, but call a woman “aggressive” out loud and they will probably like her less.

Call a female politician a ballbuster enough times, and people may actually be less likely to vote for her.

Words tell us something about the way our culture perceives women in power, and whether we believe they’re supposed to be there.

So, in an attempt to save you — writers, speakers, humans, journalists — from falling into the gender bias trap unintentionally, we’ve put together this handy guide:

On Husbands and Marital Status or Being a Mom.

We’re talking about pointing out that a woman is “unmarried” or even that she’s a “mother of two.” As Allyson Jule, the author of “A Beginner’s Guide to Language and Gender,” puts it: “These representations of women trivialize their lives and place an extra level of personal judgment on them.”

Please Stop Asking If Women Can ‘Have It All.’

When in doubt, read this column, from the public editor of the New York Times, published last month amid outrage over a magazine cover titled, “Can Wendy Davis Have It All?” “Despite its well-intentioned efforts,” the Times ombudsman wrote, “this piece managed to trip over a double standard with its detailed examination of Ms. Davis’s biography, including her role in raising her two daughters.”

And while we’re at it, let’s stop asking how women manage to “do it all.”

Tina Fey declared this “the rudest question you can ask a woman.” Because the answer is simple. She’s doing it the same way a dude would, except that he doesn’t have to answer questions about it.

—————————–
Related posts this blog:

(Link): Five Things Single Women Hate to Hear

(Link): Annoyances of Being a Christian Single

(Link): Conservatives Are Rather Inconsistent About Morals and Women’s Sexuality – Regarding: The College That Considers Valentine’s Day Cards A Form of Sexual Harassment

Gender Complementarian Advice to Single Women Who Desire Marriage Will Keep Them Single Forever / Re: Choosing A Spiritual Leader

Gender Complementarian Advice to Single Women Who Desire Marriage Will Keep Them Single Forever / Re: Choosing A Spiritual Leader

Usually, I am not a fan of the “and that’s why you’re still single” view dished out in Lonely Hearts columns, but can I tell you, if you are a single Christian woman wondering why it is you’re 35, 45, or 55 years old and still single – though you want marriage – it may just be that you have too many qualifications you insist a man must meet before you will consider marrying him.

This isn’t quite the same thing as scolding a woman for “being too picky.”

Often, being “too picky” is distorted by critics of singles to mean that “you insist every man look like actor Brad Pitt and be a multi-millionaire,” when, usually, a woman who is “being too picky” is merely holding out for a solid, average guy, someone who has a steady job and who will treat her well.

And there’s nothing wrong with having standards, ladies.

Don’t settle for some ugly, fat, broke, and/or abusive guy just for the sake of being married, or getting your marriage-obsessed family to back off.

No, I’m not talking about being picky (having standards). I’m talking about erecting all manner of laughable, unwise, unduly limiting, idiotic restrictions on to mate selection that some Christians recommend you do, such as only be willing to marry a Christian man if he is your “spiritual leader” or if he goes to church every week.

From the ladies’ section of Christianity Today online magazine:

(Link): Advice to Women: Marry an Evangelist by Megan Hill

This seems to be a newish trend with Christians, erecting more and more criteria to what they feel – not what the Bible says, but what they feel – a Christian woman should insist upon in a partner.

For example, take this moronic, legalistic advice to single women from preacher Mark Driscoll:

• (Link):

Obnoxious and Sexist Preacher Mark Driscoll Wants Christian Singles to Stay Single Indefinitely – And Even Though Unwanted, Prolonged Singleness has Been a Huge Issue For Christian Singles for A Couple Decades Now – Driscoll: ‘Christians should not marry pro choicers’

See how that’s designed to limit the number of potential mates a single Christian woman may choose from? Yeah, and it’s not helpful.

Look, in my Christian days, all I was looking for in a guy (in- so- far as religious traits were concerned) was that the guy was a sincere Christian.

I was not even insisting and demanding that a suitor had to be more spiritually mature than me, be my spiritual head, lead me in prayer, be at the same level as me spiritual-maturity-wise, or know the Bible better than me, or attend church weekly. And I am still single in my 40s.

There are not a lot of men out there who meet the Basic Christian Criteria – which is, the guy accepted Christ as Savior, so what makes the author, Hill, believe a single woman cannot only get a Christian (a man who accepted Christ as savior), but also one who is her “spiritual leader”?

Rapper Arrested For Abusing His Own Son

Rapper Arrested For Abusing His Own Son

(Link): Rapper Young Jeezy Arrested For Battery And False Imprisonment

(Link): Young Jeezy Arrested — Allegedly Made Terroristic Threats Against Son

Young Jeezy was reportedly arrested and charged with false imprisonment, battery, making terroristic threats against his son, according to TMZ.

On Jan. 7, the report surfaced that in September 2012, rapper Young Jeezy (real name Jay Jenkins) was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia after getting into a fight with his son, throwing him into a door and threatening to kill him.

(Link): Jeezy Arrested For Alleged Violent Assault On His Son Atlanta rapper reportedly facing charges including making ‘terroristic threats’ against his son.

By Nadeska Alexis

Young Jeezy is facing serious charges after an assault on his son, which came to light more than a year after the incident took place back in September 2012.

The rapper was arrested and released on $45,000 bond last Friday, according to TMZ. He’s charged with battery, false imprisonment and making “terroristic threats” against his son.

A detailed summary of the incident reportedly reveals that Jeezy (born Jay Jenkins) got in a fight with his son that quickly escalated to violent levels. The victim alleged that he was thrown into a shower door and cut his head on the glass, before being dragged into the bedroom where he was repeatedly assaulted.

During the assault, Jeezy’s son claims that a bodyguard prevented him from escaping, while his father choked him and threatened, “I will kill you. If I could get away with it, I would kill you.”

————-
Related posts:

(Link): Parenthood Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread) Confronting Refuting Correcting Rebutting Christian Propaganda Arguments Stereotypes About Parenting Parenthood and the Childfree Childless Singles Unmarried

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian