I was talking with a young woman who works as an aide to a colleague of mine. She’s 19, and has a boyfriend the same age. "He cheated on me", she blurted out to my colleague and me yesterday; "We broke up." We made vaguely soothing noises, and listened to her story as best we could. One part in particular struck me:
"He told me he can’t be faithful right now. He’s got too many ‘wild oats’ to sow."
And this made me realize I’ve never posted about "wild oats." Doing five minutes of quick Internet research reveals that the expression "sowing wild oats" to refer to reckless, usually promiscuous behavior on the part of young men, goes back to at least the 17th century. And while many old-fashioned phrases have vanished from the idiom of today’s college-age population, most of them are quite familiar with the "wild oats" notion.
The popular "wild oats" thesis is basically this: young men (usually in their late teens and twenties), have an enormous amount of sexual and creative energy. (Depending on whom you talk to, this is attributed to their "essential masculine nature" or "testosterone" or the "Y chromosome".) It is natural and good and right for men in this age bracket to be a bit wild, a bit irresponsible, and to be unwilling to make enduring commitments. Those who love them — and are wounded by the carelessness of young oat sowers –are given the cold comfort of being told "Sooner or later, they grow out of it. They just have to get them (the oats?) out of their system."
I’ve noticed that the "wild oats" theory is closely linked to the "get it all out of your system" idea. The latter notion is that we men have a finite amount of "wildness" within us. After we’ve sown our oats for three years, or five, or ten, we’ll be "done." After we’ve slept with 5 women, or 25, or 250, we’ll presumably be "all out of oats" and ready to settle down into monogamy and responsibility.
There are a couple of things I loathe about this theory. One, women rarely get to use the "wild oats" excuse. Teenage and twenty-something women who exhibit reckless or sexually adventurous behavior get shamed as sluts. Since we all "know" that "women don’t really have wild oats", a woman who behaves as if she does is "unnatural", "perverse", a "whore."
Now, I spent a fair amount of time on a ranch growing up. I know a bit about oats. Men don’t have them, women don’t have them — be they wild or genetically modified, oats are not found in the human body unless they enter through the mouth and get processed through the digestive tract. Now, both men and women — particularly when young — have adventurous spirits. Both men and women have strong sex drives, though we tend to want to deny that women’s libidos make much of an appearance before 32. But nobody got no "oats" no how.
The other great problem with the wild oats theory is more subtle. It suggests that if we indulge irresponsible and reckless male sexual behavior for a given period of time, young men will just "grow out of it." Remember, the implication is that the number of oats inside each lad is finite. Once he’s sown them, he’ll be "done" and be ready for settling down. Clearly, this isn’t an accurate description of how most of us work! When we do something pleasurable and exciting, the more we want to do it. Rather than getting rid of our wild oats, we become more and more accustomed to the lifestyle of sowing them. If there are oats inside young men, and I don’t think there are, then the better understanding would be to say that the more we sow, the more oats we grow.
We all know many men who have prolonged their adolescence into their thirties, forties, and beyond. Some fellas out there have been sowing their oats fairly consistently since the early days of disco, and their internal barn shows no sign of being depleted any time soon. Pity the poor woman who waited years and years for Johnny to finally "get it out of his system." I can think of half a dozen male friends of mine, all well my senior, whose "systems" keep right on producing the urge to be irresponsible and commitment-phobic.
On this blog, I have argued many a time for the notion that faithful Christians need not automatically embrace chastity as the only acceptable sexual state for the unmarried. (See here, and here, for examples.) At the same time, I reject the notion that young people can easily transition from a world of "random hookups" to the very serious — but infinitely rewarding — challenges of long-term monogamy. We learn to do things by practicing them. If we practice recklessness, we become more reckless, not less. If we practice dishonesty, it becomes easier to lie — not harder. It’s bad psychology to suggest that engaging repeatedly in a pleasurable activity will ever get it "out of one’s system". Rather, the more one does it, the harder it will be to change in the future.
When I was in college, I was encouraged to "sow my wild oats." I sowed them. I enjoyed sowing them. And then I tried to transition seamlessly into my first marriage. I found that, whoops, I still had more oats. So that marriage ended. Back to sowing, in the hopes of getting rid of the last little clusters still lurking. I got married a second time. Wouldn’t you know it? The dang oats were still there! Second divorce (not yet thirty). I went on a wild oats rampage for a couple of years, ending only with a dramatic series of events that led to my complete emotional collapse and spiritual conversion. Trying to get "done" and get all the oats out nearly killed me, and it broke the hearts of quite a few other people in the process!
Years ago, not long before my final collapse, I had a particularly spectacular "oats sowing" experience. No details, save for this: I was walking a young woman to her car afterwards, a woman I had only met hours earlier. As we made the kind of awkward small talk that often seems to follow these sorts of encounters, I looked into her eyes and said "You know, I can’t keep doing this." "Why?", she asked. "Because I want to be a father someday, and when you’re a Dad, you can’t do this sort of thing." The gal took a step back as if I had slapped her. Her eyes welled up, and she stared into the distance. She shuddered once, and then looked back at me with a firm gaze, saying with great intensity: "No, you can’t keep doing this. Not if you want that." She kissed me on the cheek (an odd thing to do, considering what had just happened between us) and climbed into her car. I never spoke to her again.
I don’t know why I said what I did. It wasn’t because I felt "done" with my oats-sowing. But I knew that as much fun as I was having, it was slowly killing me. Having the same experience over and over again with different people was as fun as ever — but it was making me progressively more and more miserable. I had just assumed, you see, that I would "grow out of it" naturally. But at the time I said this to this nice young woman, I was over thirty and showing no signs of "slowing down." If my life changed, it would have to be because of God’s grace — and, of at least equal importance, my commitment to changing my behavior despite the enduring desire to "sow oats" until the cows came home. (The cows, in my experience, never came home.)
So the point of this rambling, personal essay is simple: we do a great disservice to both young men and women when we encourage and indulge the reckless sowing of wild oats. While adolescents and twenty-somethings should have new and interesting experiences, we make a mistake in assuming that all of them will inevitably outgrow the desire to behave wildly. Put another way, if there are wild oats inside us, then it’s pretty clear that a lot of young women have them too. And it’s pretty clear that some of us have an inexhaustible supply, one that is endlessly replenished. What we practice at 19, I’ve found, becomes what we still want to do at 29, 39, 49, and beyond. That may not be true for all, but it’s true for enough to make the "just let him sow his oats" remark a very dangerous bit of advice indeed.
Feel free to erase this comment if you want to…
but doesn’t this directly conflict with the advice you gave “Pete” last spring? Especially your last part about how what we practice at 19 will be what we want to do at later ages.
How does this compare to your quoted quip “Dear God give me countenance, but just not yet”?
Paint me confused (but not accusatory!).
What are the differences in your mind?
Q, I was urging Pete to change his life. The speed at which we surrender our bad habits will vary from person to person. I did not endorse bad behavior, but I did acknowledge it was difficult to give up and might be given up incrementally.
And the quote (continence, not countenance) is from Augustine — I quoted it to illustrate I understood Pete’s dilemma, but not as an endorsement. Augustine himself didn’t use it to justify bad behavior.
Why do you think the young woman you describe had that immediate reaction? You mention your reasons for saying what you did but I’m not exactly clear what you’re trying to get at with that story.
Vacula, I have no idea. The anecdote is about recognizing the need for a radical change, and her reaction was no doubt part of some larger story from her past that I can only guess at.
This is what happens when you post early in the morning, stream-of-consciousness!
It’s never been fully explained to me (at least) how this society perceives people (young men especially) who feel that they really haven’t had many “wild oats” to sow in the first place. I’ve just never been that impulsive, to tell the truth.
Had I been that woman, I probably would have reacted similarly. Thank you for the thoughtful and truthful post.
It would appear the world is coming to an end. I suppose I should have converted when I had the chance.
I agree with Hugo.
I think it is very unlikely that having reckless, random sex will exhaust anyone’s desire to behave in that fashion. If anything, it will simply reinforce it, especially if the person becomes rather successful at it. Until that person has a external need or internal desire to change, or unless s/he has an unfortunate experience, they will continue to do it. I think this is more true for males than females since even when people find the behavior reckless and even dangerous for the male, no one does much more than pat him on the back and say “You should slow down.” If society were to stop ranking masculinity on how many women one could have sex with, I think most males would avoid that behavior.
Of course, one must keep in mind that a lot of males lie about their promiscuity to fit in, so one must wonder just how rampant this behavior actually is.
I went into college planning on four years of promiscuity and ended up getting into a relationship with my now husband about two weeks into college. I like monogamy - I really do - but it took me a while to get over the fact that it doesn’t sound interesting, and it’s not “cool” by any common definition of the word. In a society where people spend so much time crafting and narrating their lives - blogging, myspace, chat - it’s a little hard to give up the interesting narrative, even if it exists only for the benefit of others.
I went into college planning on four years of promiscuity and ended up getting into a relationship with my now husband about two weeks into college.
Hah. Sara, that reminds me of the old saying, popular in 12-Step and church circles:
“Want to hear God laugh?
Tell him your plans.”
Wickedness never was happines…maybe that means one way to measure the “wickedness” of an action is to measure the “happiness” it brings. I have heard very very few stories of men sowing their wild oats for years on end with a happy ending.
Brilliant post, Hugo.
Dudely, though I hesitate to create an equation where promiscuity invariably equals wickedness, I’ll give an “amen” to your last sentence. And Jendi, thanks.
I know several guys in their mid-30’s that are very commiment phobic and “sowing their wild oats” actively. I’ve found that the ones that are not misogynistic and fairly happy are men that are also able to have long-term and positive, platonic friendships with women.
The “boy’s boys” that seem to do this sexual activity thing as part of fraternal bonding (sharing conquest stories, going out en masse with their buddies to bars and clubs and seeing who can get laid that night, etc) don’t tend to fare well in this game.
I think people can sow oats happily as long as they have genuine friendships and the ability to connect with folks on a deeper level past the simple “what I want” mentality.
Great post Hugo.
I know several guys in their mid-30’s that are very commiment phobic
The term “commitment phobic” implies that the men (or women) so termed are suffering from some sort of pathology. It’s right out of the inquisition, woe unto those we call heretics!
Turn it around. Supposing I were to term women who refused to engage in casual sex as “sex-o-phobic” or perhaps “frigid”. I think you’d be rightly offended by such labelling.
It’s typical of how too many people can not tolerate other people’s choices. Men (and women) have a right to say “no” to commitment. Any attempt to pressure people into “committing” ought to be seen in the same way as pressuring people to engage in sex: as a form of rape.
Gotta concur in part, dissent in part.
we do a great disservice to both young men and women when we encourage and indulge the reckless sowing of wild oats.
This part I agree with, insofar as “life scripts” do a disservice to people by shoehorning them into roles they may not want. Saying that you have to be sexually promiscuous in your 20s isn’t any better than saying you have to be married with children in your 40s.
But you go on to promote “monogamy and responsibility” (which are *not* by any means the same thing) as a life script - that we all, as our ultimate goal, want to be married with children. Sure, some folks vary it slightly - maybe they’re married but childfree, maybe they’re in a long-term relationship but not married, maybe they’re polyfidelitous - but the overall goal is the same, abandonment of “wild oats” in favor of stability. And that’s just another life script when we assume that’s what is most rewarding for everyone.
I’m not saying this out of ill will, but my reaction to your anecdote was that it was a very narcissistic thing to do - it’s not her problem, and making her adopt the role of your moral guardian wasn’t fair to her. Suss out what you do want, find a path from point A to point B, and don’t make it someone else’s responsibility to get you there.
Normally, I’m a lurker who comes by, says ‘huh - interesting,’ and grabs a few ideas to think on for a while. But something in today’s post grabbed me, and hasn’t let my brain go. In discussing your post-30 wild oats days, you said that you’d told a woman you were with that you’d have to stop because you wanted to be a father. Describing her response, you said “[t]he gal took a step back as if I had slapped her. Her eyes welled up, and she stared into the distance. She shuddered once, and then looked back at me with a firm gaze …”
I know that this post (and this blog) are about your life and your thoughts, but I was expecting more exploration of her reaction - that’s a pretty evocative description, and the lack of any further discussion seems very abrupt and dismissive.
I know that my response to this is heavily influenced by my own experiences (female friends feeling that they don’t have a ‘right’ to be a parent because they don’t fit into the monogamous model, feeling that my parents’ marriage was threatened by my father’s possibly infidellity, etc.). I freely admit that her reaction intrigued me, and so there’s a bit of pure curiosity that’s driving my interest.
However, I really was (and am) surprised that you wouldn’t at least explore her reaction a bit more, or acknowledge that you weren’t exploring it. You recognize that she had a powerful response, but don’t seem to recognize her as a person here, just as someone/something that had an effect on you. It struck me as uncharacteristically dismissive, and I think that’s what’s been nagging at me.
I wasn’t expecting your discussion to center so exclusively on the male perspective, since you started out talking about the effect of the wild oats theory on women. I know that you can’t explore *every* aspect of a theory, but this exclusion felt wrong to me, because it evokes so many narratives where women are simply acted upon, and their responses ignored. That’s definitely not the norm here, which is what makes it so striking in this instance.
It’s typical of how too many people can not tolerate other people’s choices.
Well, if it were my boy friend who had claimed I was his one and only, then cheated on me, and then tried to excuse the cheating after he was caught by saying he wasn’t ready to be faithful because he had too many “wild oats to sow,” you’re darn right I wouldn’t tolerate his choice.
Alice, I am very reluctant to project in a situation where I don’t know anything, really, about the woman involved. Her reaction to my mentioning fatherhood and responsibility was visceral, which suggests (obviously) that she had some very strong, likely negative association with irresponsible father figures. But can I know that? No.
It’s dangerous to ascribe intent or meaning to a woman’s actions when you don’t know anything about her. (Ask Jessica Valenti about this!) I’m not being obtuse, just cautious.
But I suppose I could explore it more regardless, and will do so in a future post…
“Her reaction to my mentioning fatherhood and responsibility was visceral, which suggests (obviously) that she had some very strong, likely negative association with irresponsible father figures.”
Hm, that wasn’t obvious to me at all. I would’ve guessed she was reflecting on her own behaviour and hopes for the future.
There are some good points in your post and the comments, but my first reaction is that you may be taking the “wild oats” thing too literally.
I think the idea behind that meme is not that there is literally some finite quantity of “wildness” that is expended until it’s gone. Rather, it just calls attention to the fact that youthful behavior tends to be more indulgent, less focused on the long-term, and, implicitly, that this is to some degree natural or unavoidable. It’s understandable, on this view, that people would want to spend their young adulthood enjoying themselves in a carefree way, satisfying some of the interests and desires that had been growing in them from youth but had never previously had an outlet. They would then take a more serious attitude, and aim at more distant horizons, after they’ve done that. (Note, too, that on this reading, women would be expected to have “wild oats” as well; that this is a male phenomenon is testimony to the repression imposed on women, especially in sexual matters, not evidence that only men want to indulge themselves.) On this understanding of “wild oats”, it’s not some sort of mythical quantity or drive that has never been experimentally observed - it’s just a natural desire to plunge in and explore one’s new freedom after childhood restraints are finally lifted, one that gradually fades as the novelty wears off.
Whether or not the “wild oats” phenomenon is a good thing, and whether or not it can justify the refusal to commit to serious relationships in one’s younger years, I think it can be explained in ways that appeal to fairly reasonable common-sense psychology, without requiring some sort of dubious biological quantity. And that makes it non-dismissable, even if we decide it is not supportable.
Of course, you can’t actually sow wild oats, that’s what makes them “wild”. (By this point in the post and comments, the word “sow” has ceased to have any meaning for me at all…) Oats that are “sown” are, by definition, not wild.
It seems to me that this is important — sowing domesticates plants, and one should only sow when one is ready to harvest what one has sown, which is to say, when one has settled into domesticated living. The “oats” one sows before that are not wild in themselves, but in that they will bear harvests outside of the domestic sphere, which is to say, harvests that become someone else’s burden to reap. All this farming lingo is really getting to me, so let me put it in plainspeak: any pregnancies that result from the “wild oats” phase aren’t a young man’s problem, they’re the *woman’s* problem. This used to be enshrined in law — it’s why some children were “bastards”. This kind of legal structure authorized, for example, relationships between masters and their slaves, because any offspring would be illegitimate (and doubly delegitimated by inheriting their mothers’ blackness) and thus barred from displacing the “pure” white wife’s children from their rightful inheritance.
This is why women don’t “have oats” — I suppose we could say (following the farming metaphors) that they go through a “fallow fields” period, but that implies an expectancy of pregnancy, and pregnancy is subject to all those social controls — hence the shaming of women who allow themselves to be “plowed” by men “sowing wild oats”.
As usual, I’ve got mixed feelings. I strongly dislike any “he just can’t help it because he’s a man/he’s young/both of the above” excuse, so “wild oats” has never held much water with me, and I liked your analysis of the problems with the mindset.
On the other hand, I do wonder what you’re proposing as an alternative; would you suggest that teenagers and young adults approach every relationship with an eye toward long-term monogamous committment? If so, I can’t agree; while I don’t condone behavior that is actively dangerous or inconsiderate of others’ feelings, I do think there’s some validity in the idea that it’s best to try new things and get some experience (I don’t necessarily mean sexually– dating experience, relationship experience, meeting-new-people experience, etc) before “settling down.” And while the guy in your initial anecdote handled the situation badly and should not have cheated, I find it difficult to be too harsh on a nineteen-year-old who decides he’s not ready for a long-term exclusive relationship. As someone who’s been there, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the alternative– staying in the relationship as is, growing more and more resentful each day at the opportunities you’re missing and the fun you’ll never get to have, feeling trapped and stifled and projecting that frustration onto your partner– is not at all preferable.
I won’t say that young people shouldn’t commit– after all, I did it and was very happy with it for a while, and if anyone had tried to tell me it was a bad idea I would have seriously bristled– but I will say that I think talking up monogamous committment as an ideal for teenagers and young adults has the potential to do nearly as much harm as encouraging them to participate in “random hookups” does. There are ways to enjoy one’s freedom, to pursue variety and excitement, to explore new experiences and people, without being reckless or cruel; if we’re going to promote anything as a universal ideal of healthy behavior for youth, it should be that.
(Also, Sara, I found your comment about giving up the “interesting narrative” extremely insightful. That’s something I’ve struggled with as well, although I think I ended up coming to a different conclusion than you did, and that line summed it up perfectly.)
I would have to agree with L. Cougar. Hugo, I feel your description of the woman doesn’t require an interpretation of her response, though I suppose it’s fair we, as your readers, would be curious about your speculation on the matter. Provided your description was a faithful one, I would let her response speak for itself.
“Her reaction to my mentioning fatherhood and responsibility was visceral, which suggests (obviously) that she had some very strong, likely negative association with irresponsible father figures.”
Hm, that wasn’t obvious to me at all. I would’ve guessed she was reflecting on her own behaviour and hopes for the future.
And my interpretation was completely different than both of these. I thought she reacted viscerally because she thought Hugo was slut-shaming her.
I sometimes wonder if I am “settling down” too young. And indeed, I went through a period of questioning my relationship last year because I thought I needed tp “sow my wild oats.” I thought about breaking up with my boyfriend because of the notion. Thank God I figured out that it was a lie. I would have (not may have) made the worst mistake of my life.
In my experience in fundy evangelical Christian standards THERE WAS NO DOUBLE-STANDARD. If anything, men were raised to be “dependable,” “good providers,” and definitely not waste time and money on fashionable clothing, etc. I was not the only one to experience this; see the comics at: http://www.whichcircle.com/index.html
Hugo’s speculation about abuse from a father figure strikes me as the type of reflex characteristic of much feminist “thought.” Anything we say is pretty baseless speculation, but the two alternative propositions (which are pretty similar) #1: that his discussion of consequences, future, childrearing, and family would cause her to realize that her lifestyle wasn’t leading her toward marriage/motherhood and #2: that she was being slut-shamed are less likely to suffer from Occam’s razor than speculation on her childhood.
The charge of “commitment phobia” must be analyzed as to whether it is developmentally and appropriate, as to whether commitment-worthy relationships are available.
I agree with many of the criticisms of the phrase of “wild oats.” But doesn’t Hugo’s experience demonstrate some validity to the theory? It doesn’t sound like he wants to go out and have casual sex these days.
I agree that promiscuity is a bad habit for someone who wants to become monogamous. But I was also told that the serial monogamy of typical “dating” is training for divorce. All I’ve done is sit on the sexual sidelines in the 16 years since I hit puberty, but I don’t know that I would have been completely damaged by either a few long term relationships (but how is this possible with someone I don’t like enough to consider marrying?) or even a few casual hookups.
Anyway, I do agree the phrase is flawed, but think that maybe there’s a middle ground of just following one’s whims for a while between aggressive promiscuity and commitment.
K -
My experience growing up was the same THERE WAS NO DOUBLE-STANDARD. I had the same shame in my sexuality as my female peers - those in my sect, anyway. I am now in awe of the courage of the preacher’s-daughter who tried to initiate a sexual exploration with me when we were maybe 12 or 13 - I balked because my little sister was in the front seat of the car at the time. I shamed her, I am sure, but only because *I was ashamed. I ran away from her.
“Wild oats” are a metaphor for mistakes-with-consequences, nothing more. The metaphor has been abused, I’ll grant you, but it is still valid. Would you punish a 16-year-old and a 45-year-old the same for the same behavior?
The only way to learn sometimes is by doing.
And heaven help the man or woman who at 45 is trying to do what s/he ought to have done at 17…
(please?)
Thanks, Oriscus. The fact that men are typically the initiators, I think, makes fundy boys much more likely to actually KEEP our abstinence pledges. I signed the same True Love Waits pledge as my female peers (many of whom did seem to marry young with very few trial relationships), and was given the same books like “Passion and Purity,” “Quest for Love,” and books by James Dobson. I was even told about the “courtship model,” which scandalizes even innocent, non-sexual dating, and narrowly avoided reading “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” The youth devotional that I read at 14 that said, “Don’t date anyone that you would not or should not marry,” began with an example of a MALE teen who said “Someday, I plan to marry one of the GIRLS I date, so I won’t date anyone I shouldn’t marry.”
But, anyway, a TLW girl will possibly find herself with a sexually active man at some point. She can say “I gave in,” “I just couldn’t resist,” or “it just happened” and put most moral culpability on the man. But a purity-focused man is unlikely to “make a move” even toward kissing.
There’s also a strong bias (which Hugo admitted in an old post about a discussion in his youth group) toward the popular, attractive, and precocious. The focus seems to be on “How can we help the homecoming queens and football captains keep their hands off each other’s pinup-quality bodies?” These people are so sexy that they can survive pretty much any obstacles placed in their way, and generally have no trouble finding desirable mates in even the most repressed context. But for the geeky guys, the one pretty girl in church that we liked usually rejected us…so what next?
Also, we were supposed to be “mature,” “serious,” “responsible,” and “good providers.” This doesn’t lead a guy to spend much on flashy clothes, go into massive debt to buy a sexy car, and engage in steroid-fueled bodybuilding, so my peers and I weren’t the most attractive guys around. In contrast, though a few girls were taught to wear ankle-length floral dresses, many others engaged in social shopping and keeping up with fashion, which were encouraged as appropriate interests for young women.
In the same vein, I remember several of the girls from my fundy church going to secular universities and joining sororities. Perhaps this is because girls were seen as inherently pure…this puzzled me, because I saw fraternities as “dens of iniquity.” At the time, I thought “Why would a sincere Christian guy pay thousands of dollars per year to join a group dedicated to drinking and fornication?” So the double standard on that was actually more permissive for girls.
Here are some good descriptions of the purity that men are taught in fundy circles, which I, unlike the cartoonists, am not quite willing to abandon:
http://www.whichcircle.com/episodes/04.html
http://www.whichcircle.com/episodes/04_commentary.html
http://www.whichcircle.com/episodes/07.html
http://www.whichcircle.com/episodes/07_commentary.html
“I also like the fact that the Christian men are very uptight about dating (sex?) while the women are totally comfortable with the topic.”
http://www.whichcircle.com/archive/ur_menstopics.html
In fairness, the one chapter of Crusade that I know about is actually pro-dating now, apparently after seeing the damage done by past legalism. They’re still anti-fornication, but they encourage dating and many people get married near college graduation, which I think is good.
But the runaway popularity of the “Every Man’s Battle” series should be all the proof that anyone needs about the sexual restrictions placed on men. Of course, the authors are hypocrites who, at one point in “Every Young Man’s Battle” even shame young men for having nocturnal emissions, implying that wet dreams are the result of having “bad thoughts” throughout the day, as opposed to the natural, healthy innocent physical consequence of actually following purity by avoiding sex and masturbation (something I doubt the authors has actualy done since puberty, given the experiences they “share” (really, “brag about”?)).
I strongly doubt that “Every Woman’s Battle” tells women to be ashamed of mensturation or imply that menstration is the result of a woman’s “bad thoughts.”
On a related note, TIME magazine reports that teen boys generally are more romantic and idealistic than teen girls:
http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376235-1,00.html
I will admit to a double standard in one area: It was considered that the emotional consequences of unmarried sex fell disproportionately to the woman (and that women weren’t particularly interested in sex). Of course, a good, sensitive man would also be hurt too. But this was NOT done in a way that gave freedom and license to men: the implication was that we were responsible for protecting girls from the emotional pain and turmoil that supposedly was the inevitable result of any relationship that didn’t end in marriage (especially if sex was involved). Obviously, it was wrong to break a girl’s heart in order to selfishly obtain something only we wanted at a girl’s expense. It was never discussed that often girls liked to go out, to kiss, or even to have sex sometimes, even without marriage on the horizon.
I’m sure some feminists will oppose this (as they do all forms of chivalry), but the point is that, in my conservative fundamental youth, men were restricted no less than the women, and probably MORESO. Kind of a softer version of the double-standard that Hugo agrees to posting from, where he urges himself and his male youth to purity, but encourages his female students to “celebrate their sexuality.”
This is a typical (current) quote in response to a guy who was intimidated with risking rejection. After telling him to be bold, the author continues:
“…more importantly, you need to be completely certain…Let me say this clearly. The ONLY reason you should begin (and continue) pursuing a female is because there is a good possibility you and she will marry.”
http://www.dyscletter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=1
At least the author says positive things about men taking initiative. My generation was castrated with “wait on the Lord,” and “don’t make girls uncomfortable by coming on too strong; get to know each other in group settings / be ‘friends first.”
Also, as far as the “broader culture,” I didn’t read Playboy and other things celebrating promiscuity , but got messages from CNN and the Wall Street journal. The defining discussion of sex centered around the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill saga, hardly a sex-positive story even though Thomas (narrowly) squeaked through. Teen pregnancy, welfare reform, AIDS, abortion, and “defining deviancy down” were popular editorial topics also. So I rarely heard “sex” except as part of “sexual harassment.” I never heard “I’m so glad my boyfriend/husband asked me out,” only “sexual harassment,” “sexual harassment,” “sexual harassment.” When I entered (secular) college, they did talk a little about condoms, but also about the recently revised Sexual Harassment Policy, and how “unwanted sexual advances” would be punished. Being a bit innocent about such things, I was a little worried about what would happen if I asked a classmate on a date and she didn’t like me. Yes, part of me realized this was absurd, but the point is I got a steady stream of 100% negative discussions of sex (and, usually, dating, especially if it didn’t lead to marriage) from family, church, academia, and the press beginning at about age 10.
I need to stop posting here, but came across to another thing, brought up by Carlos Rios in a comment on another post:
“I used to say I wanted a virgin when I marry, and now I accept that women can have the same experiences I do.”
This is opposite of what I was brought up with. A staple of “Don’t Have Sex” literature is the statistics: 99.987% of 16 year old girls are sexually active, blah, blah blah. And, as eloquently discussed on the “Defense of Lauren Winner” page, “recycled virgins” are offered forgiveness. This is somewhat of a practical necessity, I suppose, but even as a very idealistic home-schooled teenage boy, I realized that it was quite likely that girls I would meet in the future would have some sexual history. The only part of the “purity” discussion that I instantly saw past as foolish and impractical at the time was a sentence to the effect of “Want to be free of STD’s? Save for yourself for marriage and marry a virgin.”
I may have been inexperienced, but I knew even then that strangers do not discuss sexual histories early in a relationship. Therefore, I thought that (absent something truly shocking, like prostitution or a known incurable STD) by the time I knew a girl well enough to discuss this, that I’d be too emotionally invested in the relationship to really quibble over her past.
I also knew that, statistically speaking, if I eliminated all non-virgins, I’d have a pretty difficult time finding anyone. As a result of these, I held myself to a standard that I didn’t really fully expect from my future wife.
Perhaps this isn’t too much different than other areas, where a marathon runner might accept someone less devoted to exercise or whatever. But maybe it’s an interesting double standard (or at least further evidence that male sexuality is rarely “celebrated” in any context, especially conservative Christian circles).
Other random thoughts: There is a big gap between virginity and promiscuity. And the earlier discussion about virginal/near-virginal husbands and about retroactive jealousy has been interesting.
Lastly, and somewhat on-topic:
What is the huge moral difference between “wild oats” and serial monogamy? I really don’t understand the nature of many non-marital relationships. Some, obviously, are close, lasting, and even lead to marriage. Others seem to be obviously temporary, with the couple acknowledging some incompatibility (I guess). What sort of “commitment” do we mean? Simply being exclusive “until one of us feels like doing something [someone :)] else” doesn’t seem like too big a deal, since one always has the option of upgrading, and therefore doesn’t seem like worthy of too much respect.
I say this as someone who has had as much trouble with the romantic side of things as the sexual. Some of this is probably due to using my mind to see obvious incompatibilities instead of just following my heart, as apparently Hugo was doing with his date who wore a “Porn Star” cap to a family function, especially depending on where he was spiritually then. Maybe I’m thinking of using cheap sexual flings as inferior substitutes for the romantic relationship I really want…I don’t know. I recall thinking that the sex that my non-Christian friends who were long-term relationships were having didn’t seem as morally objectionable as some other activities, but, on the other hand, the difference between “married” and “not married” is pretty clear, but it seems that many people’s “relationships” may really be lighthearted flings with a veneer of seriousness for social convention’s sake. Like Lincoln’s story about a calling a dog’s tail a leg, does calling a short-term or medium-term sexual fling a “relationship” really make it better?
And the Old Testament does often seem to be concerned more with the legal details (that Jacob’s marriage to Leah was held to be valid, despite the fact that he didn’t want to marry her, and may not even have known her well is interesting, as are the concepts of concubines, polygamy, etc.) than care and love between people. Of course, those legal relationships did imply a degree of responsibility for the woman and offspring, even if they didn’t involve exclusivity or romance.