Sex is Not the Primary or Only Basis of Marriage – Rape Victims / Asexuals / Bestiality ~ Zoophilia / Sexless Marriages / Park Bans Single Men -AND- Single Women – Rebuttal to Blogger John Morgan
I actually already addressed this briefly in an older post from a few days ago, but I really feel this needs its own post.
That guy who used to post to this blog, who has his own blog about Christianity and celibacy (his name is John Morgan, and he blogs (Link): here), who I banned from my blog several months ago, keeps asserting in some of his recent blog posts that two people having sex (which he limits to a man having sex with a woman, if I am understanding his views correctly) constitutes marriage.
Here are some of the posts where he equates having sex to being married:
I disagree, for a few different reasons, but right off I want to say that this teaching can be damaging to sexual assault victims.
Do you really expect me to believe that a woman who is raped by a man makes the two married, and particularly in our day and age?
We are living in the year 2015 in the United States.
We are not living in the same setting and time in which the Old Testament was written, a patriarchal, Middle Eastern culture of 5,000 or 2,000 BC, when women had few rights and we’re looking to keep the family tree pure to be able to trace the Messiah.
Women today are simply not expected to marry their rapists, if they are raped.
One of my family members was raped prior to the age of ten by another family member of hers.
I had an online friend for a few years who is about the same age as me. She confided with me that she has never had consensual sex (she is waiting until marriage for sex), but she was raped by one of her uncles when she was a teen.
While I realize that rape is considered less about sex than it is about power and control on the part of the rapist, it still involves a man placing his penis in a woman’s vagina, or possibly other sex acts.
For John Morgan to run around insisting that sexual intercourse between two people is the basis for marriage is troubling and insensitive – because not everyone who engages in this is doing so of his or her own choice or volition.
In some parts of the world, little girls (and sometimes boys) are sold into the human sex trafficking business, where they are forced to have sex with adults all day. Don’t tell me these horribly abused little kids are “married” to their “clients,” that is deranged and sick.
There are some marriages – like with asexuals – where the marriage is not consummated. There are also marriages that become “sexless” after so many months or years because one or both partners have mental or physical health problems.
Paul in the New Testament tells Christians not to step too far out of bounds with whatever culture they are living in, because it could cause harm to the testimony of the faith.
That is, if you are needlessly refusing to go along with culture on some disputable matter or another – say, for example, riding a plaid ostrich to work, when all other Americans are riding horses to work, and the horse-riders think you a fool or odd-ball for riding an ostrich- you are making all Christians and the Gospel by association look like wacko, weirdo, fruit cakes, and Paul said to Knock That Off.
Paul was saying if something is not explicitly spelled out in the Bible, if God does not condemn it, such as what mode of transportation to take, he said, go ahead and ride a horse in your culture, if that is what all your neighbors are using. Don’t be an ass and go against the grain.
You can argue, well, there is a single verse in the Old Testament that says some guy rode an ostrich to his job. Okay, but unless that verse specifically said, “Thus saith the LORD, I hate humans riding horses and forbid all believers from riding horses for all time,” don’t assume that the ostrich thing is a prescriptive for Americans in the year 2015.
Ditto on the how to get married angle.
The Old Testament is chock full of kings having 300 or more concubines, or 20 wives. Abraham had sex with his handmaiden as well as with his wife Sarah, and rapists were commanded to marry their rape victims. Do you really want Americans in 2015 emulating those types of marriages?
Just because Adam and Eve in the Garden as mentioned in the book of Genesis did not have to go to a courthouse and sign papers to make things legal with a government in Year One B.C. does not mean that Christians in 2015 can or should disregard going through governmental channels and get a marriage license.
Adam and Eve were under the direct supervision with God prior to the fall. As an American today, I don’t have that face to face contact with God. So I cannot get God to validate a marriage of mine.
My parents were very old fashioned, traditional, Christian people.
My parents always said that when two people live together – when a man and woman live under the same roof, are having sex with one another, they do not go to the courthouse, don’t sign on the legal papers – they are not married, they are “shacking up.” This was regarded as a sin by them and many other Christians for the past few decades.
If an American couple in 2015 is living together and having sex without the government license that recognizes their union as being a marriage, they are NOT MARRIED.
(There is such a thing as common law marriage, but that is neither here nor there.)
The sex act alone is not sufficient to say a couple is “married.” ~ Not in the USA in the year 2015.
For all the couples who are married but asexual (there is no sexual intercourse), they are still married. They would probably be pretty offended for John Morgan to insist their marriage is not really a marriage because of absence of sex.
What if a husband who is serving in the Marines gets deployed to serve in Afghanistan and hence is not having sex with his wife for a year or more? Does their marriage cease to be a marriage just because there’s no sex?
What if the husband gets into an auto accident, and remains a vegetable or very brain damaged, is like an infant, until he dies five years later (this actually happened to an aunt of mine)?
Are you going to tell me that because there is no longer any sex in that marriage it suddenly makes it a non-marriage? What bunk.
How does John Morgan define “sex,” anyway?
Many Christians cannot even agree on what constitutes sex.
Many evangelicals, who are brought up in “purity culture,” are taught that only penis-in-the-vagina action is “sex,” so, to get around this limitation, they engage in anal sex, oral sex, petting prior to marriage – the get involved in anything and everything short of P in V sex.
You have lesbians who get angry at Christians over discussing the importance of virginity (seriously, yes, see this old post), because, they recognize that many Christians define sex as being only or predominantly “penis-in-the-vagina action,” which lifelong lesbian women may never experience, yet, those lesbian women are performing oral sex on each other, or what have you.
From the lesbian perspective, from what I’ve read, they consider oral sex or scissoring, or whatever else, to be equally valid to P in V sex.
So, these lesbians are having sex with each other – but according to John Morgan, that means these women are “married” to each other. (Or is he going to define sex to mean only P in the V?)
Yet Morgan seems to feel that “homosexual marriage” is not “real,” and he also (and this is very strange) feels that celibacy is only for HETERO-sexuals (see this post for more on that). He definitely believes that (Link): Are Homosexual Thoughts Sinful [Yes, he says] .
Er… according to Morgan, homosexual thoughts are sinful, but homosexuals should not practice celibacy? His views are really mixed up.
In the Gospels, Jesus said to even “look at in lust” another person was seen as God as being as wrong as actually having sex with that person….
Does that mean every time a person fantasizes about “doing the nasty” with their favorite celebrity or their crush (that is, they just think about it, they don’t actually DO IT), they are “married” to that person? According to John Morgan logic, yes, but I don’t think so.
Are all the porn stars who have sex with each other for the sake of making a naughty movie, are they “married” to each other, even in God’s eyes? I doubt it.
How about this pervert mentioned in an (Link): older blog post of mine: he sticks his penis into a horse’s vagina at least once a month and has sex with the horse, or sometimes performs oral sex on the horse.
Do you really expect me to believe God would think this sicko is “married” to that horse? And does the horse get a say in any of this?
If your only criteria as to what makes a marriage a marriage is Penis In the Vagina (or any other sex act), you really need to re-examine your views.
I don’t have the perfect all encompassing definition of marriage myself, but I know a true marriage when I see it, AND I think I know what IT IS NOT, and it’s not merely penis in the vagina activity. I think it takes more for one person to be married to another than sex.
As to this, in (Link): one of his posts,
Yeah, I blogged about that and tweeted about it weeks before he mentioned it there on his blog,
By the way, unless I overlooked it in the reporting, the stories said ALL single adults are banned, not just men. That would mean unaccompanied WOMEN singles are also barred.
Yep, the (Link): NY Daily News said,
- A British theme park has banned unaccompanied adults from entry — in case they are pedophiles.Bosses at Puxton Park, in Somerset, forbid men and women from visiting the attraction on their own just in case they are child sex predators, reports the Western Daily Press. The rule came to light Thursday after a bird-watcher was barred from visiting a falconry display.
Why, one wonders, does Morgan keep laser focusing on MEN?
Morgan keeps painting this picture on his blog of celibate / single males having life ten times worse than celibate / single women. I don’t think so, bub. That article says unmarried men AND women are banned, NOT JUST MEN.
Do I think single men have life tough in some regards? Absolutely – especially in a Christian environment, where most Christians worship marriage.
However, I don’t think single men necessarily have life more difficult than single women. Women actually have it a bit worse because they are expected to reproduce and make babies. Men don’t get near as much pressure to reproduce.
Single men past the age of 40 are often called “confirmed bachelors,” while single women my age get more derogatory terms thrown their way, such as “spinster,” “crazy cat lady,” or “old maid.”
Women my age or older who desire marriage are often automatically (Link): pegged as “being desperate,” by some people, including Christians, but I don’t see men my age (or older) who want marriage get tarred with the same terminology or assumptions.
(But, I would say that older single men get pegged with the (Link): “You Must Be A Pedophile” view more often than the single ladies do. Thank Dog that is one less stereotype I have to deal with.)
I still wonder if Morgan visits my blog or Twitter feed and takes material or story ideas? If he does, the polite thing to do is cite his source – in the blogging community, it’s common to give hat tips to one’s sources.
I also find it funny because Morgan thinks I am untrustworthy because I don’t give my real name. I’m trustworthy enough to take news story ideas from, apparently. If you think I am untrustworthy please stop visiting my blog and/or Twitter and taking news links or story ideas from me!
But Morgan really, really needs to realize how much his equation of “Sex = Marriage” harms some people (such as rape victims), and it’s a view that makes no sense, and opens the door for homosexuals (the ones having sex with others of their own gender) to argue they can consider themselves “married.”
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Related posts:
(Link): Blogger Guy John Hugh Morgan Who Accused Me Of Being Untrustworthy Finds My Blog Trustworthy Enough to Use as Resource
(Link): True Love Waits . . . and Waits . . . and Waits – editorial about delayed marriage and related issues – and a rebuttal to John Morgan’s comment on the page
(Link): Christian Double Standards on Celibacy – Hetero Singles Must Abstain from Sex but Not Homosexual Singles
(Link): Sex, Love & Celibacy by Dan Navin [written by a homosexual celibate]
(Link): Virgin – and Celibate – Shaming : Christian Double Standards – Homosexuals Vs Hetero Singles – Concerning Thabiti Anyabwile and Gag Reflexes
(Link): Male Entitlement and Adult Virginity: Who has it worse, Male Vs. Female? John Morgan Says Men Are, I Say He’s Full of Crap on That
(Link): Civil, Secular Authorities and Marriage and The Dippy Christian “Marriage Pledge” Preachers are Being Asked To Sign
(Link): Why I Post Anonymously ( Part 2 – the John Hugh Morgan Fiasco )
(Link): “Marriage is the closest you can come to being like Christ.” ~ says an obnoxious married Christian man to an unmarried woman
(Link): Regnerus’ Misplaced Blame – Blame the Wimmins! Common male refrain, even from Christian men
(Link): Celibacy is Not Just for Homosexuals or Roman Catholic Priests / and a critique of a post at another blog
(Link): Sexual Equality, Sexual Decadence: The Emerging Menace of Female Predators – from The Other McCain – Also quotes feminists as saying Virginity Invalidates Lesbianism and is Hence a Terrible Concept
(Link): The Contemporary Church Undervalues Celibacy / Virginity
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