Earlier today, InTouch unveiled allegations by stripper and porn star Danica Dillon that Josh Duggar paid her for sex and then engaged in rough sex that she found "terrifying" and "traumatic." While Dillon described the encounter as consensual, she made it clear that she was not comfortable with what took place between them. You can read more here: “He walked into the Gold Club like a normal patron and said he’d been a fan for a long time and has watched my career grow — he even said from before … [Read more...]
Can You Believe Premarital Sex Is a Sin without Stigmatizing Unwed Motherhood?
August 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Several years ago, in a Facebook conversation with a family friend, I argued that pro-life individuals should favor reducing the stigma on unwed mothers. I argued that when an unmarried woman decides whether to keep a pregnancy or have an abortion, the stigma unwed mothers face factors into her decision (whether consciously or not), and that reducing the stigma would make women in this position more likely to opt to keep their pregnancies. This family friend disagreed vehemently, arguing that … [Read more...]
Josh was “Just Curious about Girls” and the Rank Hypocrisy of the Duggar Excuse Machine
June 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This past Friday, Jill and Jessa repeated their parents' minimization of their brother's actions, complete with their insistence that Josh was "just curious about girls." And what really hit me, hearing that, was the hypocrisy of all of this.First, they're treating what Josh did as something normal for boys his age when molesting prepubescent girls as a teen is not normal sexual behavior for adolescents. But more than that, this is the family that only allows "side hugs" before marriage, and … [Read more...]
How Treating Sexual Thoughts as “Sin” Undermines Relationships
June 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
As an evangelical child and adolescent, I grew up thinking that I would marry a man who would spend his entire life struggling with lustful thoughts---that he would need an accountability partner to help prevent him from cheating on me and that from time to time he would come to me and confess some "sexual sin," whether that be sexual thoughts or pornography use. I anticipated standing by my man as he spent his life battling with sexual desire. And then I grew up and married a guy who doesn't e … [Read more...]
Evangelical Christianity’s Patriarchal Alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey
February 21, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This is probably the creepiest video you will watch this week:. . . yeah.Old Fashioned is a Christian movie alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey, released the same day last week. In the above video, the producers of Old Fashioned compare the hero of Old Fashioned, Clay, with Christian Grey, and frankly, it's not flattering---to either of them.In fact, I found this advertisement so bad I ended up transcribing it:It’s a hard thing for a dad to accept any man as being worthy of hi … [Read more...]
Fifty Shades of Disagreement: Evangelicals and Feminists on Fifty Shades of Grey
February 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
I've avoided discussing Fifty Shades of Grey, but I do feel the need to touch on a specific aspect of the controversy that surrounds the book (and now, the film). Namely, I'm fascinated that feminists and evangelical Christians have been the book's most vocal critics. The two would seem unlikely allies! But then, while both groups have tended to condemn Fifty Shades of Grey as toxic, they aren't truly allies in this, because they oppose the books for completely different reasons. Feminists speak … [Read more...]
Do Traditional Gender Roles Lead to Good Sex? No.
December 25, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I recently read a blog post from several years ago that had me doing that whole "but . . . wait . . . what . . . NO" thing throughout my reading of it. I thought I'd share, because illustrates something we've seen before---the idea that anything good in a marriage must of necessity be a result of following the gender roles God laid out, not, you know, a result of things like communication or compromise. I've covered posts in the past by women who are functionally living in egalitarian marriages … [Read more...]
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