tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post234906809366018394..comments2023-12-25T11:13:04.495+00:00Comments on Seraphic Singles: Brass TacksSeraphichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06251504033428511090noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-49722134229166736662010-11-15T03:40:22.577+00:002010-11-15T03:40:22.577+00:00Sadly chastity lectures are too often given in mix...<i>Sadly chastity lectures are too often given in mixed company. I'd love to give a really rip-roaring, I-know-what-you-think-at-night-ladies lecture to a bunch of college-age women, but I would never do so to a mixed group.</i><br />College age? Why not older, too? (Some of us spent our college years being scared out of our wits by men, and it wasn't until older, calmer, kinder men backed off that issue that we matured. :p )<br /><br />And, um... okay, chastity rant time... why, oh WHY are ANY chastity or sexuality lectures given in mixed company? It's either impractical or immodest or both. You're either not doing justice to the full range of emotions of both sexes (impractical) or you are, at which point it's immodest and not a little bit terrifying. <br /><br />And marital-sexuality lectures should - please, please - be given only to married or about-to-be-married people. I'm going to clobber the next Single man who starts quoting Dennis Prager and talks about how women owe it to their husbands to put out whenever the husband wants sex, the wives' desires and emotions be damned. Ditto for those (Protestant, always) pastors who smirk in front of a mixed Single-Married congregation and talk about how sex is soooo good and having more of it <i>always</i> helps marriage (smirk, smirk, and nudge, nudge, ladies). It's at once both overly personal and entirely depersonalised.<br /><br />(I did say this was a rant, right? :) )theobromophilenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-74618025799132229662010-11-14T00:56:11.817+00:002010-11-14T00:56:11.817+00:00I like the brass tacks. They are solid gold. :)I like the brass tacks. They are solid gold. :)Alishahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08803069677860028673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-13188456056184940742010-11-10T03:17:40.817+00:002010-11-10T03:17:40.817+00:00great great post!
Where have I been to so lately c...great great post!<br />Where have I been to so lately come to this blog???Patnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-55681401807321209712010-11-09T17:21:10.151+00:002010-11-09T17:21:10.151+00:00hahahahah oh lordy.
I think we agree, so I'm g...hahahahah oh lordy.<br />I think we agree, so I'm going to stop being cantankerous.<br />Invite me to that ladies' night lecture. I'll bring the whiskeyClare Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-67478916661988226652010-11-09T16:46:49.172+00:002010-11-09T16:46:49.172+00:00And I have just had a nightmare vision of announci...And I have just had a nightmare vision of announcing to a dinner party of NCBs that I was a sexual actorr, to which their vision-selves replied, variously, with "Father wants to see your Katie Price costume" and "I think you should keep that thought to yourself."Seraphichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251504033428511090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-76848382612125898642010-11-09T16:35:40.548+00:002010-11-09T16:35:40.548+00:00Clare C, you are absolutely right that women over ...Clare C, you are absolutely right that women over a certain age are indeed sexual subjects and sexual actors. <br /><br />However, a girl of 13 in general does not experience sexual desire the way a girl of 19 does and certainly not the way a woman of 25 does, especially not if that women is already sexually active. And yet there are sexually "active" 13 year old girls--mostly because there are boys and men who enjoy having sex with 13 year old girls. <br /><br />In grade school I knew a 13 year old girl with a 19 year old lover. I suppose I should have told somebody. She was a foster kid, and I think her boyfriend was the only "loving" man in her hardscrabble life. She'd already had a miscarriage.<br /><br />Every woman who does not have a morbid fear or hatred of sex knows that she is a sexual subject and, if sexually active, a sexual actor. Most sexually active men must be aware of this, too, these days. However, it is a very bad idea for a NCG to stand up in a chastity lecture and announce this, for it will scare the living daylights out of NCBs and catch the attention of every two-bit Lothario in earshot. <br /><br />Sadly chastity lectures are too often given in mixed company. I'd love to give a really rip-roaring, I-know-what-you-think-at-night-ladies lecture to a bunch of college-age women, but I would never do so to a mixed group.Mrs McLeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095035617334068201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-89927298196448588392010-11-09T14:07:03.290+00:002010-11-09T14:07:03.290+00:00This is very true. My only caveat is this: "i...This is very true. My only caveat is this: "it probably has to do with some women's insatiable need to feel loved more than sexual desire, anyway."<br />My problem with chastity lectures growing up was that they assumed that boys want sex and girls want to make boys happy. But women are complicated and sexual desire is powerful thing. The image of a woman holding herself cheaply, bartering or giving herself for security or affirmation, does not speak to women who are sexual actors, not investors of sexual assets. <br />Is this making any sense at all?<br />This really interests me, and I could talk about it for a while.<br />Basically I am saying that to modern, non-traditionally raised women, the idea of not giving themselves away cheaply, or protecting their assets from rapacious men, is likely to be a turn-off. (Seraphic, I know this isn't what you are saying.. I'm speaking of a trend I see in certain Nice Catholic Circles and what a certain demograhic is likely to read into it.)It may be counter-intuitive, but I truly think that in this day and age, filial fear is the most effective way, if not the only way, to make chastity attractive.Clare Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-76595703050986425852010-11-09T10:35:11.392+00:002010-11-09T10:35:11.392+00:00By the real-life consequences, the things I can th...By the real-life consequences, the things I can think of that are different for women are that women get pregnant (and are sometimes then abandoned and/or frightened into killing the baby) and that women get their hearts broken because sex "means more" to their psyches than it does to men--in general. Some men argue that sex has a huge effect on their psyches, too. I am not sure, though. There are too many men roaming around trying to have casual sex by any means possible, including (especially) lying their heads off. <br /><br />Another consequence, quite apart from a heighened risk of venereal disease (which women apparently contract more quickly than men do), is the risk of cervical cancer, which apparently condoms do not necessarily prevent against (cf Natalie Angier). The risk is particularly high for teenage girls. <br /><br />Quite apart from these worldly concerns is the real-life consequence of being in a state of mortal sin, which is something of course that men share. <br /><br />And religious men who sin sexually know this and are apt to think of their partner in crime (if they aren't truly in love with her) as an occasion for sin, to be avoided, if possible, ever after. "She made me do it" is as old as Adam and Eve. <br /><br />Meanwhile, given how much collosal damage women can do to themselves through sexual sin, it is perhaps not unreasonable for religious people to wonder why on earth the girl holds herself so cheaply as to risk all that. Of course she doesn't, though--she's just not rooted in reality and her passions are overcoming her reason, and it probably has to do with some women's insatiable need to feel loved more than sexual desire, anyway. <br /><br />Loss of reputation is just one more of a list of calamities which which chastity speakers terrify teenagers at big assemblies. I am not myself a chastity speaker, and I don't think fear works so spiffingly well after high school, when one goes to college and makes friends with a lot of women who are supposedly having a lot of sex and yet are not visibly struck down by misfortune. Some women have darned good luck.<br /><br />The number one reason why someone should not give into temptation to sexual sin is because to do so is to insult God. Wishing not to displease God is called "filial fear." That should be our primary consideration. <br /><br />The absolute number one rule I have about sexual sin is that you must not tell anyone about it except a priest in confession and, if you really need to sort it out, in spiritual direction. Really. You simply must not tell anyone but a priest. Let silence be part of your penance. Heaven only knows how many girls have told all to female friends to have those female friends spread the tale to the winds. <br /><br />Too often women are their own worst enemies.Seraphichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251504033428511090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-43452370743979976442010-11-09T04:49:14.935+00:002010-11-09T04:49:14.935+00:00The trouble with unchastity in women as opposed to...The trouble with unchastity in women as opposed to men is that the "real life" consequences of it are so much worse. It's not just our reputations that are more at stake - or rather, our reputations are more at stake than men's because our real-world penalties for unchastity are so steep. Sorry for this statement of the obvious, but it seems important to stress that these things haven't really changed. <br /><br />I liked this post very much, Seraphic One. It was such a clear and concise (in spite of its length!) profession of faith. <br /><br />ClioAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-25806450739816341722010-11-08T20:19:54.649+00:002010-11-08T20:19:54.649+00:00Clare C: I imagine some women do experience tempta...Clare C: I imagine some women do experience temptation to sexual sin just as much (or more) than some men. <br /><br />A thirty-five year old widow or reformed serial monogamist is probably going to feel a lot more tempted than a sixty year old monk who has strictly practised abstinence his whole life. Also, teenage girls who read and watch a lot of sexy trash in books, magazines and TV are going to have a harder time than a married man of fifty-five.<br /><br />The penalties, reputation-wise, are harder for women who sin sexually than for most men (not priests, though), just as they always have been. Although sad in itself and OUTRAGEOUS when it includes actual stonings and other barbarisms, it could add extra support to remaining chaste. That, too, for good and for bad, is one of the established ways of keeping sexuality from destroying. Of course filial fear is better than servile fear, but servile fear is better than nothing. <br /><br />In my experience, younger men and women are much, more more judgmental about perceived sexual sinners than older men and women are. To this day, however, there are people who sneer about my divorce/annulment/remarriage. The shame, I think, is on them, not me. And when I hear someone do their damnedest to destroy a woman's reputation, I do feel disgust, but not for the woman being slandered.Seraphichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251504033428511090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-43090300751003694622010-11-08T18:33:27.049+00:002010-11-08T18:33:27.049+00:00Thank you so much for courageously standing with t...Thank you so much for courageously standing with the truth of the Church Seraphic! (And I completely know what you are talking about on the subject of bridging the "traditionalists" with the "progressivists"!)dark but fairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17929758251543007628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-44727981694061134912010-11-08T17:07:23.519+00:002010-11-08T17:07:23.519+00:00I made it to the end! So I get the great thrill of...I made it to the end! So I get the great thrill of seeing you mention my blog (and a cookie).<br /><br />Thanks! <br />Andrea Mrozek :-)Andreahttp://www.prowomanprolife.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-8149315246363197202010-11-08T16:35:36.314+00:002010-11-08T16:35:36.314+00:00cookies! Yum...cookies! Yum...some guy on the streethttp://epistle-null.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-44725506181977593462010-11-08T15:26:10.767+00:002010-11-08T15:26:10.767+00:00Do you think chastity is harder for men than women...Do you think chastity is harder for men than women in every single case? I agree that perhaps that's a good general assumption, but then the problem is that women for whom chastity is as serious a struggle as men sometimes get demonized or treated more harshly when they do fall. (speaking from personal experience.) <br /><br />Great post. Am considering printing it out and tacking it to my desk.Clare Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6905236167079601771.post-74796697702732052722010-11-08T13:07:17.381+00:002010-11-08T13:07:17.381+00:00Wow, awesome post. Bookmarked for future reading!...Wow, awesome post. Bookmarked for future reading! I'll now go and have my cookie.Frithanoreply@blogger.com