Celebrating Love.

I was privileged to attend the marriage celebration of a dear friend yesterday.

It was everything such an occasion should be.  The photos speak for themselves:

 There were many moments that were sheer perfection yesterday, but the moment that sticks out most for me is when Hanniel (the bride) tore her dress under the arm.  She wasn't devastated.  In fact, she smiled and said, "It's more than okay.  It's perfect." 

Fifty Shades of Grey: My Thoughts

There's been quite a lot of buzz about the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy by E.L. James.

It's interesting because erotic fiction doesn't always make it into the mainstream critical circle, let alone into the hands of most mainstream readers.

Fifty Shades... obviously, has been different.

As you all know, I lean strongly to the feminist side of the femininity spectrum.  I'm for equality in all things.  I absolutely believe that we are currently living in a rape culture where victim blaming is rampant.  I still see the struggle for women to get the same jobs as men, to be treated in the same way, to be upheld as truly equal members of society.  I have serious issue with the fact that, as a woman, it is up to me to "make the right choices" when it comes to walking home at night or doing a trail run alone, rather than up to our society at large to say that rape is unacceptable and disgusting and I should be able to walk wherever I please without fear.

But there are things where I differ.

Things where my love for Jesus and my husband and my family trump the feminist party line. 

One of those things is when it comes to lust.

There are those feminists who feel that women should be able to express their sexuality just as much as men should.  Here I agree.  But there are also those feminists who believe that this means we should be able to put our bodies on display if we want to, sleep with multiple partners if we want to, watch porn if we want to, and generally behave as men behaving badly. 

That's not the kind of equality I'm looking for.

I'm looking for an equality that looks more like mutual respect.


In college and part of high school I hoped that men would look at me with lust in their eyes.  It meant attention, and that was what I craved.  It was good enough for me.  I thought lust was equatable with love, or at the very least "like".  Now I'm a little more aware of what that means.  Lust is never love.  Lust is undressing with your eyes.  It's masturbation when you're alone in your bedroom or in the shower with a certain person on campus in mind.  Lust is thinking about sex with that person with whom you don't have the emotional and mental relationship to back up the physical longings.  It's not love.

I have always had issues with lust.  Ever since I had an inkling about sexuality, lust has been a problem.  My having issues with lust and giving into those wants does not make me more of a woman.  Cheating on my husband mentally and emotionally is still cheating.  Looking through pictures of muscle bound actors covered in beads of sweat and feeling my heart-rate increase for kicks?  Still cheating.

I stopped watching romantic movies years ago because I always left the theatre feeling empty.  Feeling "why isn't my boyfriend like that" or "why isn't my husband like that" or "why don't men understand that".  I always left with all sorts of activated triggers about ex-boyfriends and handsome colleagues and the cute barista at Starbucks.  I didn't think about the fact that the writers were writing specifically to play on those places in my psyche.  To hold men up to an impossible standard - one they could never achieve.  That's not equality or respect.  In fact, it's the opposite of both.

I see this as porn for women, essentially.

And porn is something that feminists get all hot and bothered about.  A thing that Christians get all hot and bothered about:

It's degrading.  It's wrong.  The women in that industry are sick or needy or damaged.  Or whatever.  Some of us say "it's okay to watch it under these circumstances".  Or women and men should both watch porn and enjoy it in a healthy way.

Whatever.

It's porn.  When men watch it, we call them pigs.  We say they're struggling with an addiction. 

When our husbands have a cache on the computer filled with naked women we're enraged.

When we find Playboys under our son's bed or in our dad's closet we are mortified.

Because we feel cheated.  And cheap.  And we feel like we must not be good enough if they need this other thing to satisfy this part of them.  And it feels crappy.

And yet...

I see my women friends, who also claim Christ posting pictures of shirtless men on their facebook pages as "motivation".  Women who would be scandalized if some other women's husband posted a picture of some babe in a bikini.

And tons of women around me from all faiths and walks are filling their minds with Fifty Shades of Grey.

At the pool today I heard a woman recommending it to a friend: "It's SUCH a great book."

Bottom line?  It's porn.

I'm not writing this to pass judgement on you for reading it.  Maybe you can read it and feel nothing.  Maybe it doesn't affect you physically.  Maybe you don't get all hot and bothered reading eroticism.  Maybe you don't put the book down and wish your life were something else.  We are not all strong in the same areas.

Some of us, like me, can't watch a romantic comedy without bitterness.  And I certainly can't read Fifty Shades... without sinning.


A book like that is like poison for a person like me.  

And yep, I call myself a feminist.  I'm absolutely looking for equality.  But real equality.  Like in my marriage - I trust that my husband isn't looking at magazines with pictures of scantily clad women and wishing I were more like them later that night - because aside from the sin argument, it would make me feel crappy.  And when love somebody, you don't want them to feel crappy.  You want them to know you love them.  That's supposed to be clear.  And for my part, I'm staying away from anything that will make me wish he were something different than what he is. It's not about asserting my feminine independence or sexuality or anything else.  It's about the mutual understanding between me and the man I love that we won't intentionally do things to make the other person feel crappy.  Cause that's a big part of equality.  Love.  Respect.

If we all worked hard to stop making people of other genders feel crappy, equality wouldn't be an issue.

So...  all that said...  if you can read Fifty Shades of Grey without making someone feel crappy (including you in those moments after you put it down), go ahead and read it.  I've heard it's all the rage.  But if you can't, then don't.  Get your partner a sexy grey tie and work it out amongst yourselves.

Summer of Selfishness.

I've been told pretty much my entire life that selfishness is a gross quality.

No one wants to be called selfish.  Call me mean.  Call me a bitch.  Call me a jerk.  Call me stupid (okay...don't call me stupid...) but don't call me selfish.

To be selfish is to be ultimately the worst friend, lover, mother, Christian, teacher, or whatever you can possibly be.

We want to be seen as giving and self-less at all times.  Humble.  Compassionate.  Etc.

The thing is, reading this post by The Organic Sister today gave me a bit of a new perspective on the selfishness ideal and what exactly that means for me, as a person.

I've had a lot of guilt about this summer.

Guilt over the things I'm doing for me.  There are three huge things.

Three doesn't sound like a lot, unless you're a theatre person, in which case you will understand exactly what three things means:  I'm directing a musical at the local community theatre, I'm acting in an off-broadway playwriting fesitval, and I'm working at my newly opened art studio, where I'm teaching two acting classes every week.  These activities run from June through August: the entire summer.

I have margined my life enough to go on our annual family camping trip, do something nice for my anniversary with the hubby, and to do a weekend with my parents in July, but that's it.  Otherwise, literally every evening on my calendar is booked solid for the next three months.

Okay - right now you're probably thinking - wow, you SHOULD feel guilty!

But here's the thing - these things I'm doing now are opportunities that aren't going to come a'knockin' every day, nay, every year - some may be once in a lifetime.  I spend all morning and afternoon with both of my kids every day of the week.

My husband honestly isn't all that interested in quality time.

So while I leave the door wracked with guilt every evening after hugging my kids and kissing my man, the only person really suffering is me.  I'm the one who is losing sleep worrying about spending enough time with my family. I'm the one thinking about how my husband is doing with cooking dinner and wondering if he gave my daughter the antibiotics for her ear infection while I should be painting.  It's me who's taking the hit - not them.  My husband is the most supportive man on the face of the planet (I don't think this is an exaggeration), and kind of likes it when I do my own thing - that way he doesn't have to feel badly about doing HIS own thing (quality time IS important to me).  My kids are well-adjusted, mature-for-their-ages, fun, intelligent, creative kids who get to play with me all day long and will for years to come (we're unschoolers).  Guilt doesn't help them.  It doesn't make up for anything.  It just makes me feel like crap.  And that's just stupidity.

So I'm ditching the guilt for the summer.  Please hold me to that. 

Tomorrow I'm at my studio from 9 - noon.  I'm teaching a preschool art class and I'm working on two paintings and a colored pencil drawing.  Three glorious hours to bask in creativity and color.  When I get home, I will be energized and ready to hang with the fam.  I'll be a better me - and isn't that better for everyone?

Defined

Last night my husband and I were talking about a friend - let's call her Jane.

Jane was a friend of my husband's in high school, and is now a facebook friend with whom he keeps in some touch.  Last night while he was perusing his news feed he shook his head and said, "That poor girl."

Curious, I came over to the computer desk, "Who?"

"This girl from my high school, Jane."  He said.

"What's the issue?"

"She's one of those girls who completely defines who she is by who she's with."

I nodded.  Somewhat sadly.  This was a phenomenon I understood well.

He continued, "She just got divorced less than a year ago, and she's engaged again."

"Did she know this guy before she got divorced?"

"No," he said, "It wasn't like that.  It wasn't two months after she and her husband split she was posting on facebook that she needed a man, and she was surfing all the dating sites."

"Yeah."  I said.

I wasn't sure if I should post about this, considering there are a lot of women and girls in my life who do, in fact, define themselves by who they are with.  But, as per usual, I figured that was a pretty good reason to post about it.

Sometimes, that whole, defined by your boyfriend thing works out for girls.  They find themselves genuinely interested in the things their boyfriend is interested in and the changes are sometimes positive.  Sometimes those girls end up married to that man and he cares enough about her to work hard to discover who she really is underneath all that insecurity.  I've seen this happen.

The truth is, however, this isn't the norm.

Most of the women and girls I know who are defined by their relationships are on a serial dating track that seems to spin in an endless circle and lead to nowhere.  When they get married, they end up supremely unhappy, because the person they are inside has been so suppressed.

It reminds me of that movie, Runway Bride, with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.  She kept balking when she walked down the aisle and running away, because at the wedding she realized that she wasn't who she was at all.  That she had become who that person wanted her to be.

The most poignant scene for me was when Gere's character went to all of her exes and asked them what sort of eggs she liked.  All of them said the type, and then, "...same as me."  She had changed even the sort of eggs she liked to fit the man.  When he questioned her, she didn't even know what kind she liked all on her own.  They had to do a taste test to figure it out.

The movie was a good example of how this can happen to a woman, and what it makes her feel, though I must say I was a little disappointed that it made it seem like she needed ANOTHER man to figure out who she really was.  It just continued the cycle of dependency stereotype that has been propagated forever.  The very stereotype that made the woman who she was in the first place.

I guess what I'm trying to say is two-fold.

1.  If you don't know who you are when you're single, you probably don't know who you are at all, and you'd better take some time to figure it out.

2.  If you think you need a boy to make you complete, or a man, for that matter, then you need to go somewhere else to fill that void.  It's not fair to a guy to require them to complete you.  To be your whole world.  To define you as a human being.  That's too much pressure for any man.  Maybe that's why the relationship cycle has become serial.  They run scared.

Can you blame them?

Ladies, I want to tell you - the only One who can fill that void is Christ.

I know this seems like a cop out answer.

I know that when you're down there in the dating trenches it feels like that boy is the whole world and sun and stars.  That if you could just be with him, you could be happy.  That if you could just be with someone, you wouldn't have to feel alone.

I want to say that there are girls I know who had that philosophy.  And now they are married to that boy.  And feel more lonely than singleness ever felt.

Juliet's question, "Dost thou love me?"  Am I beautiful?  Am I lovely?  Women have asked them since the world began and we keep going to men to answer that question for us.

The problem is that you can go to every man in the world and he will falter.  He will mess up.  He will hurt you somehow, sometime.  Maybe that relationship can be patched and there can be healing.  But if your worth is totally tied up in what that man thinks of you at any given second of the day the chances are high you will be disappointed.  You're talking about a human being.

The only One who can consistently answer that question, Juliet's question, "Dost thou love me?" with a resounding yes, unconditionally, every single time, is Jesus.

So take it all to Him, ladies.  He can take it all.

May you find peace and comfort in this.

Peace.

The Lord says,
[Return to me]
Then I will heal you of your faithlessness;
my love will know no bounds,
for my anger will be gone forever.
I will be to [you]
like a refreshing dew from heaven.
[You] will blossom like the lily;
[you] will send deep roots into the soil
like the cedars of Lebanon.
[Your] branches will spread out like beautiful olive trees,
as fragrant as the cedars of Lebanon...
O, ...stay away from idols!
I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you.
I am like a tree that is always green;
all your fruit comes from me.  - based upon Hosea, Chapter 14, verses 1 - 8

Christian Radio

So I admit that sometimes I listen to Christian radio.

I know that it's relatively obvious that I am a Christian from previous posts - but listening to Christian radio is like a whole other classification of Christian-ness.

I listen to this money management program in the afternoons when I got to pick up my son from school and I listen to some other stuff on occasion when the fancy strikes. I don't believe everything I hear. You've got to be SO discerning. It makes me upset, because I feel like the listener trusts this station to be all truthful and perfect and to not have an agenda - but the politics on the station are out of this world. The news broadcast only covers ultra-conservative issues - bit news is the latest pro-life rally rather than the war in Iraq or the economy or the murder down the street. Not that I like hearing bad news, but I do like hearing - well - news. (I'll probably get stoned for all this...)

Anyway, I can get past all those things, but last night I was trying to listen to music on the station, which is a rare occurrence in the first place and in the second place finding GOOD Christian music is pretty impossible - let alone merely RECENT Christian music...

ANYWAY - I was listening for the music and there was this talk program on (SURPRISE!), and I decided to listen because it was about wives loving their husbands better. I figured this was something worth hearing, so I tuned in as I drove through the icy obstacle course that was the road from my house to my destination.

It started out just fine. It talked about the needs of men vs. the needs of women and while they were somewhat questionable, I could accept them. The program said that men have three main needs: to be a hero, to have sex, and there was another one I can't remember right now. Women have two main needs: to be cherished and to be protected. I think Captivating and Wild at Heart are way better at explaining these things and not being offensive and allowing you to keep your dignity - so I would recommend them - but in spite of that, I decided I would accept these terms of needs, and continue listening to the program.

My problem with the whole thing arose when they started talking about how women should cater to men's needs. And what it meant to need "to be protected".

It went off on the whole "wives submit to your husbands" verse in the Bible, which I respect and understand and even follow - but not exactly like they described in the broadcast.

In the broadcast they talked about how since men need "to be a hero", we should allow them to be that by showing our "weakness" whenever the opportunity arises. I think I've talked in this blog before about my experiences when counseling and lifeguarding at Girl Scout Camp during a few summers in late high school and early college.

I was supervising fourth grade girls and they were playing with mice. Yes - mice from out in the middle of the woods. One of my fellow counselors said "Aren't you guys afraid of mice?" and the girl holding the mouse said, "Not really. We just pretend to when boys are around so they'll think we need them." I thought that spoke volumes about our society.

The funny part of the broadcast was that they followed up saying we needed to "show our weaknesses" and even sometimes concoct weaknesses to make our men feel more manly, by saying that women are too manipulative and we need to stop doing that. Isn't pretending to need help when you don't need it being manipulative?

I am happy to have my husband around when I can't open a jar or when there is a mouse in the house (I'm not afraid of them, but I'm not keen on being the person to deal with them, either), but I'm not going to pretend to be afraid of something I'm not afraid of. I'm afraid of plenty without pretending. Perhaps they only meant in this broadcast that we should be HONEST with our husbands, and maybe I was listening with a biased ear - but I don't think so...

The other thing that upset me was that they talked about women who are single and make something of themselves as being discontent and generally unhappy with this situation.

I am a huge believer in the GIFT of singleness.

On the broadcast they discussed how even though there were women out there who were professionals and supporting themselves, none of these women were happy with their situation.

They also explained that women who were married but were the primary breadwinners were not having their need of "being protected" met sufficiently by their men. This is offensive. Period.

I know several women who are the primary breadwinner in their home. They happen to have, for example, a law degree, while their husband is maybe a teacher, or a garbage collector, or a stay at home dad - and so they bring home the bacon, so to speak - and they have a good relationship in spite of this. I also found it offensive that they implied it was emasculating for the man to not make as much money as his spouse, and so even if we, as women, are capable of making more, we shouldn't do it, because it hurts our husband's manhood. I find this faulty on so many levels.

And this is coming from a stay at home mom.

I can see how a man would feel emasculated, but I don't think it's necessarily because he's hard wired that way - I think it's because society tells him that he needs to be the sole supporter of his family - and him letting his wife do that is wrong.

I know that the Bible talks about this - but I also know that the woman was created to be an equal partner to the man - a helper to him - if she needs to work to help the family and her husband as well, to have the lifestyle that they choose, then I don't see anything wrong with that.

I especially see nothing wrong with a single woman making her way in the world and being content with that. Or a mom who decides to work outside the home. I have friends who have tried the stay at home mom thing and totally hated every second of it. They find they are better parents when they work during the day and get to spend real quality time with their children at night.

Having been on both sides of this coin - I really get that. I stay at home now, but I admit I had more energy to do QUALITY time when I was working. Now it's something I have to really work at. When I was working, it came very naturally, as every second spent with my children was a precious commodity.

I'm not trying to say what's wrong and what's right. I think it's up to each couple what works for them, and it's certainly up to each single woman, what is right for her. I think that programming to help us to be better partners is important, but I don't think saying that a woman who is a professional cannot be fulfilled in her life without a husband who is the primary breadwinner is appropriate or accurate.

They also talked about how feminists have ruined the family and the correct relationship between men and women by saying that women should be able to choose to work outside the home. I'm outraged by this as well, of course. Feminism, with all it's foibles, is another human rights movement in it's own right. Maybe the feminists of the seventies were a little crazy - but they made great strides in opening dialogue about tons of issues that were completely taboo before: rape, domestic violence, menstruation, choices in how to give birth to your children, sexual harassment, and more. Their contribution to our society was and is VERY important. They also paved the way for the third wave of feminism, happening right now, the one where it's about what a woman chooses to be and do, rather than what she HAS to be and do, and I feel like this is a GREAT place to be. A woman can wear something feminine to work and still be respected as an equal in the professional world - that's where we are now - or at least moving steadily toward. During the second wave we had to dress like men and act like them to be treated as worthy of the workplace. Now we can contribute AS women. How amazing this new wave will be for our world!

So maybe I should just stop tuning in to that particular station, since it clashes with who I've become as a person... or maybe I should keep tuning in, but with a discerning ear... either way, just be careful what you read and listen to, and accept ultimately as truth. Everyone has an agenda.

99 Ways to Please Your Man.

Okay, readers. I have decided to start a smallish series on the evils of consumer media and culture, beginning with magazines and how they have defamed, de-faced, and de-valued women.

This is the first in the series.

99 Ways to Please Your Man was the approximate title of one of the articles selected for my reading pleasure in my "Cosmo experience".

I admit that when I first read the article, I tried to read it for humor. I tried to look at it and really picture people attempting to do these things in all seriousness - and I admit that this was, well, at times, hilarious, but by the time I finished reading the article I realized that mostly, it was just sad.

I can remember a time during study hall in middle school where I saw a friend who was reading Cosmo at her desk. She informed me that she had swiped the magazine from her mother's collection and that I HAD to read some of the articles inside. This was a big deal for us seventh grade girls. We were just starting puberty, for the most part. We barely knew what sex was, let alone "how to please [our] man", so this was big stuff: educational stuff. I can still remember some of the things in that article. In fact, I used some of them later, when the opportunity arose. The thing about all of this is, it's fake.

I'm not saying that the theories and ideas aren't scientifically proven - they well might be - I'm sure that there has been all sorts of research done regarding nerve endings and stimulation and everything else. What I am saying is, reading these things simply isn't healthy - for an adult woman - let alone a young teenaged girl.

Articles like this served me in my life only to make me do things that I otherwise would not have ever done or thought necessary. They made me think that there were certain things I had to do in order to keep a boy interested, in order to make him happy, in order to make him like me, to make him find me fascinating and beautiful. When things got stale with a boy, I'd think back to that article in Redbook or Cosmo or Seventeen, and I'd try a new trick. I relied on those magazine articles, on the movies I'd seen, on the television programs I watched, to keep a boy interested.

The results were that, sure, he would be sort of interested - but the problem with that is, he wasn't interested in me. Or my ideas. Or my personality. Boys who really DID like me for who I was had this warped idea of what I was into, what I was about, what I liked to do with my time - all because I thought that this is what it took to keep a boyfriend. To be honest, I think some of the stuff probably just scared them.

Why do we read these articles? Is it because we think that our instincts aren't good enough? Is it because we think we're lacking something essential when it comes to our sexual relationships all by ourselves? Is it that we feel we NEED this help in order to be attractive to our boyfriends? And no, ladies and gentlemen, these articles are NOT fashioned toward the old and married, they are fashioned toward the single and boyfriended. Is this truly what we feel will keep a man interested in us?

This hurts my heart.

I fell into this trap as a young girl. I tried all sorts of things to keep boys around. I think the saddest part was that I was trying these things on boys who really did love me. Who really did want to be with me WITHOUT all these tips and tricks that made me feel shameful and dirty. I think that most of my relationships ended because I wasn't confident in simply being myself. I was so worried about pleasing my boyfriend physically, so terrified that he would be bored with me - not because he had indicated that he needed these things, but because the media told me that this was what men are about.

What a huge disservice to men! To be labeled as solely sexual beings? To be told that you want nothing else in a woman except for her to be good in the bedroom? I am certain that men find this a nice attribute when the time comes, but really? How shallow to be defined by this!

But we buy it.

This is why Cosmo puts it in the 'zine.

We feel like we NEED these tips to keep men interested. We feel like we are NOT good enough all on our own. We feel like if we don't give in to sex with our boyfriend then we are going to be passed over for the next girl who will. We feel like there is NO MAN ALIVE who would want us for who we are and not what we can dish out physically. Wow, ladies, if I were a man I might be sort of offended. Do we really feel this way? And if that's true then why in the world do we want a man anyway?

No, there is more. We know that men are more than a body in the bedroom. We know that we are more than that too - but we're so afraid.

We're afraid of being alone. We're afraid of giving up our hearts and then having them shattered on the floor in front of us. We're willing to do anything to avoid that feeling - that shattering feeling when our broken heart is handed back to us, mangled and unrecognizable and we have to go back out and face the cold world with nothing...

This is a scary thing. It is a hard thing. It is hurtful and it breaks us. But we are better than this.

1. We do not need a man in order to have value.


2. In order to keep our man, we do not need a magazine to tell us new things to try in the bedroom.


It has taken me a long time to write those words, to be honest. I have never been very confident in myself. Not just me all by myself and alone. I was about twenty when I decided that I wasn't going to pretend to be someone I wasn't in order to get a boy to like me. That I wasn't going to spend hours getting ready for a CLASS that that hot boy shared with me just to hopefully gain his coveted attention. It has taken me even longer to understand #2.

I'm not huge into magazines, but I have let them and the media affect me. I have always felt inadequate, even since marriage (things don't magically change in this department when you get married, I was dismayed to find). It has taken me until VERY recently to understand that when you are married to someone, when you have a deep trust with someone, when you both know that breaking up isn't something you're laying out on the table over every petty argument - it is only then, with REAL trust, that you can open up to a person physically: sexually. It is only then that you can be creative all on your own.

When you have a relationship like this you don't NEED a magazine to tell you 99 new tricks to try on your man. You just need to know that you are loved unconditionally, and that you love unconditionally, and things just sort of... fall into place.

I know that many of my friends don't have marriages like this. I know that many of my friends are still dating, or engaged, and that it is very hard to believe. It is very hard to wait. I know. I have been there. I have wanted so desperately to do the right things to make a man love me. I have thought that I could figure it all out through research - that someone else could tell me what I needed in my relationship - that TV really showed me what my boyfriend wanted me to do and be like. The truth is, it's all lies.

Oh, readers, I have only just learned this. I think this is why the article touched me the way it did. I went through so much of my life trying to be someone I wasn't. I went through so much of my life doing things that made me feel ashamed and whorish and ugly just to get a boy to stay with me or love me more or to "make him happy". I wish I had just listened to myself. I wish that I could've avoided all of those things and that all the boys around me could have too. How much happier would we be if we could just trust one another and ourselves to know what to do when the time comes?

After all, sex is a holy command. One of the few given to us from the beginning, way back in the garden. God said "be fruitful and multiply": go and have sex. We KNOW how to do this, ladies and gentlemen. We don't need a magazine or a porno or a television program as a how-to. It's built in. When everything is as it should be. When there is mutual respect and trust and the knowledge that our marriage commitment is the REAL deal - not just a contract that can be broken, but a convenant commitment, then we'll know exactly what we're doing, and we won't have to be ashamed.