Hitting a glorified nerve at Patheos

The world’s largest multi-religious website takes aim at Σ Frame.

Readership: Regulars

Introduction

A week ago, Σ Frame posted the firebrand article, Why do Christian women have the reputation of being whores? (February 23, 2019). I knew this post would spark a controversy, because it is an unseemly characterization that no Churchian person wants to consider.

The article has apparently hit a nerve with Suzanne Titkemeyer, a writer at Patheos who penned a criticism, Christian women are whores? (February 26, 2019)

Instead of honestly contemplating the question I posed in the title of that post, she resorted to the point and shriek reaction instead, much like Warhorn did with Dalrock.

Well, I can understand such a reaction, although the reasons a woman could have that reaction are many. I’ll politely refrain from speculating about Titkemeyer’s personal motivations for writing her article. Instead, I’d like to express my gratitude to the editors at Patheos for bestowing such an honor on me. Also, my daily viewership has doubled, so thanks for the traffic! I’m glad to have you as a partner in getting the RP gospel out to those searching for spiritual substance on Patheos. Hallelujah!

To be honest, I felt a little ashamed for stating that question in the title of the post, because I knew it wasn’t going to glorify Christ. But on the other hand, it does crucify the flesh. This is something that we’ve grown unaccustomed to in the age of instant digital gratification.

Some TV series, like The Affair, glorify the glorification of women having glorious affairs. Producers cash in on SAHM’s desire for vicarious fornication by broadcasting female pornography directly into millions of living rooms across the nation. It’s Showtime!

The drama has grown so titillatingly good, that it’s hard to deny it any longer. It’s time to separate the sheep from the goats. Some anonymous Christian RP blogger needs to finger this out – that among Christians, sexual purity should be important!

⁶ “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”

⁹ “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.” ~ 1^st Corinthians 5 (NKJV)

Here, the apostle Paul makes it clear that sexual immorality in the church is unacceptable. Yet Christian women, as much as Christians are inclined to deny it, are known to the world as being looser than the norm. I covered three case studies in the other post, just to illustrate this very point. The question is, why has this impression reached phenomenological proportions?

A review of the criticism

I’ll respond to a few statements in Titkemeyer’s article.

“…many of the female cultural enforcers have started to embrace these men devoid of any morals. I didn’t quote the parts where he called Christian women demeaning names like whore and worse.”

Female cultural enforcers are beginning to wake up to the fact that if they don’t have men on board, then their enterprises won’t go very far.

As to the charge of being a man devoid of any morals, I won’t deny that I’ve been immoral in the past, especially in my search for a Christian wife, but that doesn’t change the truth of what I’m saying. In fact, it confirms it. To be clear, I am certainly not endorsing sex before marriage as the way to go, if that’s what Titkemeyer means by immoral. I’m just pointing out that this is the norm for most people everywhere, including those in the church. Personally, I tried to avoid premarital sex as much as possible, but after many years, I had to face the fact that it’s essentially a prerequisite for marriage. I say this to the shame of western society.

But perhaps Titkemeyer thinks something else is immoral about my post – namely that I had the gall to bring such things to light, and label it for what it is. Surely, no one likes their sins to be exposed, and women are certainly no exception.

But which is more immoral? An immoral person pointing out immorality and saying it’s a problem, or a pretentious person pointing out that it’s immoral for the immoral person to point out immorality?

If someone really wanted to make the case that I am immoral, I think the best way to go about that, would be to argue that I am being legalistic, ungraceful, and profane. But that still doesn’t affect the truth of what I’m saying.

Please keep your sheeple trimmed and tidy in preparation for glorification… or slaughter!

“…he is arguing that Christian women are more likely to have an affair during marriage.”

She’s not reading well here. I didn’t make the claim (in that article) that Christian women are more (or less) likely to have an extramarital affair. I think this is largely determined by personal characteristics and context. I only posed the question of why Christian women have the reputation of being easy, and gave some anecdotal examples of how or why people might think so. I didn’t offer a conclusive answer to the question in the title of that post, but instead left it open for readers to reflect on.

The answer to why Christian women are thought to be easier is complicated, and is further complicated by context, but in general, I think it’s about values and having a sense of life purpose. Feminist culture has hijacked both of these. In the conclusions, I pointed out that modern western culture has removed all consequences of illicit sex. There definitely needs to be a “coming out” from the culture, but since most churches are converged, there is no place for marriage minded people to congregate.

“He claims as many as 65%, based on the figures by another guy. I don’t know if it’s that high.”

She obviously misunderstood the meaning of the 65% figure as representing the number of Christian women who have had an extramarital affair. But according to another guy’s post, 65% is the number of regular church-going women who say they had premarital sex. The figures don’t say how many men those women slept with before marriage, but with a figure that high, it’s reasonable to assume that for many, or even most of these women, their eventual husband wasn’t even their first partner. That’s where Cane came up with the label of whore.

Since this is a slippery slope assumption, I’ll go into a bit more detail to show why it’s reasonable.

First, there’s this data from a scientific study, showing that the number of premarital sex partners is going up on the average.

Secondly, there’s this grain of salt from Ask Men: Science Discovers Strange Link Between Promiscuity and Divorce (June 17, 2016). This is actually a concise summary of many issues discussed around the ‘sphere.

Third, we consider the sex selective dickotomy of self-perception. In a couple previous posts, Hamster’s Hierarchy of Sluts (October 11, 2017), and Bon Mot of Slut Science (October 13, 2017), I examined how men and women have different definitions for a slut. If a woman has more than three to five lifetime partners, a typical man would consider her to be venturing into slut territory. Whether she is a Christian or not, doesn’t make any difference at all to men in determining this label. This is because this assessment is rightfully based on the information previously mentioned, and how one’s sexual history affects the marital relationship. Women, on the other hand, use the term slut loosely, and their appraisal is largely based on their personal experience relative to their social standing. Consequences be sheared!

For example, a woman who has had 5 partners would think that another woman who has had 30 partners is a slut. Through this comparison, she can avoid considering herself to be a slut, but nevertheless, a man would. The same thing goes for the N = 30 woman when she judges a woman who has had a hundred partners. To men, they are all sluts. But from a woman’s viewpoint, it’s relatively immoral for any man to call a woman a slut, regardless of her N count. This is partly because the feminine imperative requires women to have the sole voice concerning their own bodies, and however they may choose to use them. Never mind that a Christian woman’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Men are not allowed to have any opinion about women’s sexuality or reproductive potential.

Furthermore, the terms, slut and whore, are generally synonymous, but there is a slight difference. Oholah whores are slightly better than Oholibah sluts. Sluts do it just because they can, or just for the fun of it, whereas whores expect some kind of return investment from the man. For example, prostitutes are whores that do it for the money. We can assume that a Christian woman who had sex with a man before marriage did so because she expected to receive that man’s commitment, possibly a marital commitment. So you see, Cane and I are being generous in generalizing these women as whores and not sluts.

Continuing on…

“Seems to me that infidelity across religious/non-religious lines might be similar.”

Yes, we agree on this point. But surprisingly, she makes her own case for Christian adulteresses next.

“The statistics I keep finding cited at both legitimate studies, several books and in newspaper articles on the subject put women’s infidelity at about 33%, or as high as 40% depending on which study you cite. It’s not 65% cheating, unless something has changed drastically in the church.”

I don’t know what sources she is citing, but I presume she is readily admitting to 33 to 40% infidelity of Christian women, after marriage! These figures actually suggest that Cane’s claim of 65% having premarital sex is reasonably accurate.

This really turns my tripe!

In my earlier post, I made the offhoof comment,

“…the only times I have ever seen women spiritually glorified is when they were having an affair, or were just about to. I’ve seen this so often, that now, whenever I see a woman glorified, I automatically jump to this conclusion.”

Titkemeyer responded to this point as follows.

“This seems so wrong!

So if you seem happy, or glorified, or spiritually fulfilled you are either having an affair, or will have one. How is he determining this? Is he aware that personal observations without empirical studies and peer reviews are relatively meaningless.”

I am a professor who is very familiar with research methods, so my personal observation of 4 women revealing this phenomena is worth 4 data points. My pastor’s opinion could be considered a peer review, because in addition to being an ordained minister, he is a professional psychologist and counselor. Well, he actually agreed with me on this. (He added the “…or are just about to” addendum.) So I think his observation is worth at least 5 points, maybe more. So how much data do we need to form a predictive model?

“This is like looking outside at twilight, with the sun sinking while bathing the green grass with a reddish hue. You might momentarily see ‘red’ grass, but that is not proof that the grass is actually red. It’s still green.”

I appreciate the meditative pastoral reflection based on the 23^rd Psalm.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not [remain in a state of] want.
² He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³ He restores my soul;

According to additive and subtractive color theory, green grass in red light would appear mostly black, with only a little red light reflected. (See photo below.) An object that appears green in white light (which contains green light) cannot appear green in the absence of green light. Moreover, the visual appearance of an object’s color depends on a particular color of light being present (additive color theory), and the ability of that object to reflect that color (subtractive color theory).

I’m not sure how this analogy supports her argument, because the church should not be a red light district. Maybe she is hinting at the allegory of Christians being in the light, as 1^st John 1:5 says,

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

Well now, if you can’t see the true color of objects, then you’re not experiencing the full spectrum of God’s light of Truth. BTW, black is pretty dark, and black sheep appear black, even in white light.

“While I don’t doubt there are more very unhappy marriages with spouses thinking about cheating in Quiverfull and Evangelicalism I do doubt that more of them take that step. That is another one of the very harmful things taught in religion, that you’re somehow sinful if your mind strays or you glimpse someone else you find attractive in a sexual way.”

Yes, religion does have an effect. As Cane reported, those who never attend church have a 96% occurrence of premarital sex, while 88% of those who occasionally attend church put their spoons in the haggis pudding before dinner is served. So 65% among the fully churched is indeed lower. My original question still stands, but reviewing this statistic just makes the incongruity more glaring. If regular churchgoers are less likely to have premarital sex, then why do they have the reputation of being more likely to get on down and party?

Figure 12.2 Premarital sex by religious service attendance. Image taken from Relationships in America: How common is premarital sex?

“I am skipping a great deal of this man’s post because he is using words unprintable on Patheos.”

Translation: “I can’t wrap my head around many of the questions he poses because he’s speaking an unregulated, non-PC dialect.”

“Here he goes on to brag that if you want to find someone to have sex with find a Christian women.” [sic.]

I’m not bragging. Laaamenting would be a better characterization. As I mentioned earlier, I’m rather ashamed to have to point out that Christian women have a reputation of being easy, and that my personal experience tends to confirm this notion.

“I cannot believe I’m having to defend the notion of Christian women being more likely to cheat. But this is telling, this is exactly the kind of men that The Transformed Wife’s Lori Alexander purposely chooses to quote and hang around with on Dalrock’s blog.”

Again, this statement is more evidence that she misread the discussion of premarital sex as being one about adultery, instead of premarital sex. Furthermore, she clearly wishes to distance herself from others who are verbalizing uncomfortable truths, or else, maybe the Indignation™ is intended to be an authoritative literary effect of superiority.

The comments section is mostly comprised of presumptions that I am a basement dwelling incel who’s down with yellow fever. ***Sighing with a smile***

They took particular issue with my statement,

“If a man wants to have a “Christian marriage”, he’s wiser to marry a thin, mature, submissive, respectful, Buddhist woman, and lead her to Christ in the process.”

Of note, the descriptors “thin” and “submissive” received considerable criticism, which is predictable.

A couple of them did pick up on the irony of the term, “vertical dance” in my post, but they didn’t get the meaning that vertical comes before horizontal. They thought it should read “horizontal dance” instead.

Conclusions

Overall, Titkemeyer’s article leaves me with the impression that she’s feigning shock that I violated a feminist taboo, and that this is what makes me and my blog worthy of being labeled immoral. This confusion redefines a moral conscript according to a Power vs. Fear ethical structure. Let’s not forget that true morality is determined by one’s ability to discern right from wrong, and to take the most appropriate action determined by the situation.

Also, Titkemeyer doesn’t really come out and say this, but I get the impression that by highlighting the 33-40% adultery marker as a fact, her article is normalizing Christian women having affairs. I’m afraid that this may be empowering to any sheared ewes who are on the sledge of glorification.

Related

• Huffington Post (feat. (John Halstead): Why Did Over A Dozen Bloggers Leave Patheos? (February 6, 2017)