Instead of posting on this blog the past couple of weeks, I’ve been cruising the back alleys of the internet. There I stumbled across galtime.com, a website like many others, serving the needs of women in love and life 24 hours a day.
I read about the 3 Mistakes Women Make in the Bedroom that Dr. Jane Greer is most concerned about. There are, of course, many other mistakes women are prone to make, the silly little things, but these three are of a more pressing urgency than the others. Not that the others aren’t important! You should still read 6 Things Women Do That Scare Men Off, 7 Reasons Why You Don’t Want Sex, and 5 Ways to Be a Better Lover. Not to mention 5 Tips For Getting In “The Mood”. Because if you can’t figure that one out, your man’s going to leave you this very week.
Anyway, back to the urgent 3 Mistakes. Here’s a quote:
Mistake #1: Comfy Clothes
I know, ladies, that you want to be in those those comfortable nightgowns, those comfortable jammies, that you wear. But, honestly, the quickest turn-off to your partner or spouse are your comfy clothes. So, if you want to spice things up in your love life, shed those comfy clothes and find a ice, hot bra or a nice nighty, something you can be slinky, sexy and comfortable in that will be a TURN-ON to your partner.
Mistake #2: NOT Taking the Lead
Don’t wait to get asked to dance, meaning you’ve got to take the lead. You don’t have to wait for your partner to ask you to have sex or make love with them. Get involved, get into bed, take the lead and get your partner into bed with you. You’ll both have a lot of fun and enjoy yourselves.
Mistake #3: Criticism
It’s to be avoided at all costs. Nothing will turn off your partner faster than you telling him what you DON’T like and what you don’t want taking place. On the other hand, what will be a complete arousal and turn-on is letting him know what he CAN do to please you and what will excite you if he does it.
So, tell him what you like, wear those sexy clothes and, most importantly of all, take the lead so that you can have the fun you’re looking for!
Remember, ladies, the good doctor tells us that these are mistakes to be avoided AT ALL COSTS! Nothing ought to stand in the way of you keeping your man happy with what, let’s face it, has been pretty mediocre service. This is all good advice, but at the end of the day, Dr. Greer is a woman. If you ladies want a man’s take on these 3 Mistakes, The Giant is here for you. You can read my take, you can watch the video at the end of this post, or you can do both.
Giant Take on Mistake #1: Comfy Clothes
It is well known that husbands do not think it’s sexy when their wives wear hubby’s t-shirts. Wait. What?! Of course they do! And what about the sweet way some flannel pajama pants accentuate the plump shapeliness of the derriere? Or is that just me?
Even if it is just me…come on! Women, are you really going to wear black lacy panties all day every day? Or sneak off to change if there’s a chance of “intimacy”? Or wake up before your husband so you can put make-up on?
The real problem, of course, as it is with the other two “mistakes”, is men and husbands. If it is true that “the quickest turn-off to your partner or spouse are your comfy clothes”, then men are all evil assholes. Husbands, if comfy clothes are a turn-off, learn to look at your wife through new eyes. Because the ones you’re using now aren’t working.
It isn’t they who woo us. It is we who woo them. That means we come to them as they are, and we entreat their affection.
Giant Take on Mistake #2: NOT Taking the Lead
I’m not sure why “not” is all in caps.
Wives apparently mess up by NOT taking the lead.
I’m sure most husbands would be glad to have a wife who did their work for them. Wait a second…that’s already a thing! A few years into my marriage I suggested to my wife that it might be nice if she were a little more assertive, if she went after me once in a while.
Know what she did? She laughed at me and told me to be a man. Seriously. Those were her very words.
And that’s sexy.
Nothing wrong with wifey taking the lead. But husbands, you are men. You’re the hunter, you’re the wooer. And your biology backs that up. You’re always going to be going after her; if she came after you, it would only be for variety’s sake, because she will never come after you the way you go after her (although later on it will be okay if she comes after you). So be content with that. That’s your role. You’re the pursuer. Don’t pout and make her chase you; that’s at least as harmful to the female mind as an unresponsive and arbitrary woman is to her man’s wee little psyche.
Giant Take on Mistake #3: Criticism
When I initially read Dr. Greer’s blurb, I was reading for a laugh. Then I hit this one and I stopped laughing. It hit home a little more. I’ve had this exact conversation with my wife. The point made is not so much that women are always nagging and criticizing their men; it’s that women shouldn’t frame things negatively in bed. Less “don’t do that” and more “yes, do that”.
Great point for both sexes. But in sex, the man is usually the performer. He is the one who is doing it to her. He is more vulnerable to criticism because he is initiating and following through. Fair enough. Women should be considerate of that.
But the underlying assumption is the same stupid thing. That the problems in the bedroom are the woman’s fault. Nothing wrong with asking wifey to frame things more positively. But husbands ought to stop being whiney and susceptible and start being doers. You make it so that your wife feels comfy wearing comfy clothes. You make it so that your wife doesn’t have to take the lead when you’re actually the one who wants to have sex all the time. You be the one to set a positive atmosphere, to praise her beauty and her skill.
Stop whining. Maybe then your wives will stop being so insecure. If you want to be built up, build her up. If you tear her down, you’ll go down with her.
“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
We ate, we drank, we slept, we loved. If you can keep it that simple, thanks be to God.
The quote makes me think of my wonderful wife and our wonderful marriage. Of course, it sums up what we do so well, but it’s also reminiscent of my wife’s own motto for marriage. I also like that the quote includes the word “cheaply”, which is a key part of our marital glue.
My wife’s motto in marriage also puts it neatly. “Sex, eat, sleep.”
When I first got married a pastor who was mentoring me (a Baptist who made the mistake of introducing me to Calvin) gave me his most important piece of advice. “Keep the pantry full. No matter how hard things get, make sure you keep the pantry full.” And there is immense wisdom in this. When Christians run in to trouble in their marriages they often want a hyper-spiritual meta-solution, instead of humbling themselves and taking care of practical things, like eating well, and drinking well, and sleeping well and warm together.
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According to John Thrupp in The Anglo-Saxon Home: A History of the Domestic Institutions and Customs of England From the Fifth to the Eleventh Centuries, wives promised to be “bonny and buxom at bed and at board”.
Everything one needs to be bonny and buxom.
I’m going to talk about how awesome that is for husbands. If you don’t like that you can go read my moralizing for husbands while you suck on a lemon.
The bride’s vow, closely related to today’s traditional vows, is “I take thee John to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, to be bonny and buxom in bed and at board till death do us part, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
A “troth”, by the way, is pledged loyalty and faithfulness, as in “betrothal”.
The groom’s vow was briefer, less beautiful, and less alliterative. “I take thee Alice to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, at bed and at board, for fairer for fouler, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, till death us do part.” It’s interesting to note as an aside here that the groom’s vow contains a promise to stay with her even if she gets old and wrinkly and ugly.
Just saying the words of the wife’s vow is a pleasure. They’re so bouncy! Try it, out loud: “Bonny and buxom in bed and at board.” Or maybe “Sassy and sweet in sack and at seat.” Sweet and bouncy…and bouncy goes so well with “buxom.” We all know what we think first when we hear the word “buxom”.
I’ll bet you don’t think “obedient and tractable”. Yep. That’s the first definition at Merriam-Webster, although it’s plainly labeled as obsolete. The word is from Middle English buxsum, from Old English būhsum; akin to Old English būgan to bend, or bow.
1. obsolete a: obedient, tractable b: offering little resistance : flexible <wing silently the buxom air — John Milton>
2. archaic: full of gaiety
3. vigorously or healthily plump; specifically: full-bosomed
Yes, every man reading this had already thought “full-bosomed”, but that’s the last thing mentioned by dictionary nerds, who are men we should all strive to be more like.
Every young man wants a wife who is flexible.
The oath the bride is giving is one of Christian submission to her husband. The most awesome thing about that is that we’re talking about cheerful obedience. You could even put a hyphen in there and turn that into one word. So we’re talking about cheerful-obedience, a much bally-hooed but seldom seen Christian quality. Buxom meant obedient and flexible, but it must have even then been a word charged with good cheer, since it followed “bonny” so closely, and since it evolved to mean “gaiety” and “bouncing big breasts”.
So Christian wives are called to cheerful obedience in bed and at the table. There are a lot of distractions, and lots of other work, but that’s the core of practical marriage. Thank God for this every day, o you husbands. And pray that you be made worthy.
Ah, Christian husbands. Sweet, sweet Christian husbands. Caught up in the carnival of oversexualization and shame that is our society, trying to navigate your marriages, your wives, your sexual sins and hangups, and your immense horndogginess, all at once.
That’s awkward. Also, I feel awkward about using the word “immense” just now.
May I suggest that your marriage could use a little more rock n’ roll? You know, from a Biblical perspective. And make that rock hard. Make that roll smooth.
Each of these songs can be your guide through different times and phases of your walk with wifey. Share these with her. These are for couples. Some are more directed toward husbands, some more toward wives. As always, there are no accusations, but mutual support and encouragement.
1. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites
During certain times you might want to keep your hands to yourself. For example, during the gentle phase many call “courtship”, and the less pious call “dating”, during which this song is clearly set.
No hugging, no kissing until you make her your wife.
Once she is your wife, this song can also be helpful during your brief times of mutual sexual abstention, as prescribed in 1 Corinthians 7:5, for devotion to prayer. Always remember, however, St. Paul’s admonition that this should only be for a brief time. It is always good to “come together again”. And I think you know what I mean.
Please don’t nag your woman. Men are always in peril of being sexual “drippers“, all the while believing that their wives are the only nag in the marriage. If you’ve memorized the “Can We ______?” in Mark Driscoll’s sex book, you might be in danger of being a dripper. Consider keeping your hands to yourself for a time.
2. Abracadabra, Steve Miller Band
Husband, let your woman know a) that you want her, b) that her deeds in the bedroom are appreciated, and that c) her deeds in the bedroom are effective.
Your wife should know that you want to reach out and grab her. Every wife wants that from her husband all the time. Obviously you both have other things to do besides grab each other, but a standard part of the Christian marriage package that a husband should give his wife is the confidence that he desires her. You know, like a burning flame full of desire. Appreciation and gratitude to God and wife are the order of the day if one wishes to let the fire get higher.
Once the wife knows she is wanted and appreciated, she is better able to make the husband say “you make me hot, you make me sigh. Keep me burning for your love…” Because it’s not about some sort of technique or ancient Eastern secret. It’s about love and enthusiasm. It’s about kindness and consideration. You know, mature married stuff.
3. I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl, Nina Simone
Okay, this isn’t really rock n’ roll. But it belongs here anyway.
O husbands, have you complaints about the wife of your youth? Pray to God for mercy and realize that everything is your responsibility. Yours. You aren’t to be your wife’s accuser before God; you’re to be her advocate. You can’t worry if she’s taking care of her end or looking after your “needs”. So…you better start giving.
Give her some sugar in her bowl. Give her some honey deep in her soul.
What’s the matter, daddy? Come on, save her soul. I ain’t fooling. Now that’s a theologically profound idea. It might even provide an insight into the always difficult 1 Timothy 2:15.
In your entire marriage, and in your chambers, o husband, you be the generous one. Give her some sugar. Right in her bowl.
4. Afternoon Delight, Starland Vocal Band
Why wait until the middle of the cold dark night?
Everything’s a little clearer in the light of day. Be open, be communicative, and make love all day. And those of you who know me know that I cannot have used the phrase “make love” casually, since I view its use as a euphemism as deplorable. “Make love” is still listed in Merriam-Webster as to “woo or court” before it’s listed as to “neck, pet, engage in sexual intercourse”.
So make love to your wife all day, send her texts, make phone calls, do favors, speak sweet nothings, whatever. Consider yourself to be in a never-ending state of wooing; win your wife every day.
Do this, and your sky rocket might be in flight afternoon, evening, and night. Maybe even in the morning, before you’ve had your coffee, which is difficult but worth doing.
5. Squeeze Box, The Who
There are principally two things that Christians can learn from this tune (I say “principally” because the rich lessons that can be extracted from this subtle work are surely myriad).
First, regularity and frequency must be an important part of any marriage. For the mommy and daddy in this song, that meant all night, every night. That, it seems, was what their marriage required to be healthy. That might not be the way for all couples, but each should find their own rhythm. Where Afternoon Delight reminded us that hubby should always be in woo mode, Squeeze Box might serve to remind wives not to make their husbands work too hard.
Second, in a non-creepy way, it’s a family affair. Squeeze Box is about a mommy and a daddy. I’m not saying that you should make it so that the kids can’t sleep or that the neighbors are kept awake by the “music”. Modesty is meet and right.
But modesty is a glorious and strong thing, very different from shame. Marriage is fundamentally a sexual relationship. That is what it is. It is the only Biblical sexual relationship (depending on how one uses the word “sexual” I here add distractingly). Your neighbors should know that you’re married. Your kids should be confident that mommy and daddy love each other. They may not understand it now, but when they’re older and trying to figure out how to play the squeeze box in their own marriages, they’ll look back and see how you made music, and whether or not you loved it. You’re teaching your kids about music right now, whether they hear you occasionally from the other side of the house or not.
Last weekend I was at a neighbor’s Independence Day party. Beer was being drunk, children were running around with sparklers, mulleted rednecks were playing terrible terrible terrible basketball on a hoop placed in the packed dirt and grass of this guy’s yard. I was sitting about twenty yards from the hoop, talking to an older gentleman about his days as a machinist. The ball rolled toward me, so I scooped it up, continuing my conversation, beer in hand, and chucked the ball at the rim with that sweet little rotation you know is a part of my shot.
Nothing but net. I sat back down with supreme nonchalance as the crowd erupted.
I won’t pretend I didn’t love it.
A few days later I was at a construction site with a basketball-loving co-worker. There was another basket on the grass of this house’s yard, and a ball lying about ten yards from the hoop. I picked up the ball, related the above story to this friend of mine, and as I described taking the first shot, I chucked the ball I was holding at the basket. I had to keep the shot low to get through the branches, but there was never any doubt. It rattled in.
I was sure to remind my friend a few more times that day that I’d made a shot while talking about making a shot. That, to coin a phrase, is so meta.
So as we headed out of the house this morning I picked up one of our basketballs and called out to my wife. I told Kimberly the story of the first shot, and of the crowd’s glorious reaction. I told her how I’d cold-bloodedly hit a shot while talking trash to my friend. And as I told her that I’d “made a shot while I was talking about making a shot”, I launched the ball at the rim without a shadow of a doubt that it was going straight in.
Allison Glock is moving back South, because she wants to raise her girls to be strong and confident. Here’s an inappropriately long quote from the original article over at Garden and Gun. She’s a senior staff writer at ESPN, you can find those archives here.
There are other defining attributes, some more quantifiable than others. Southern women know how to bake a funeral casserole and why you should. Southern women know how to make other women feel pretty. Southern women like men and allow them to stay men. Southern women are not afraid to dance. Southern women know you can’t outrun your past, that manners count, and that your mother deserves a phone call every Sunday. Southern women can say more with a cut of their eyes than a whole debate club’s worth of speeches. Southern women know the value of a stiff drink, among other things.
I grew up, like all Southern girls, babysitting as soon as I was old enough to tie my own shoes. I was raised to understand that taking care of children was as natural and inevitable as sneezing, that when we were infants, somebody looked after us, and thus we should clutch hands and complete the circle without any fuss. I was also taught that your children are not supposed to be your best friends. Southern women do not spend a lick of time worrying about whether or not their kids are mad at them. They are too busy telling them “No” and “Because I said so,” which might explain why there are rarely any Southern kids acting a fool and running wild around the Cracker Barrel.
I have two daughters, Dixie and Matilda, and when we go down South, they are surrounded with love from the moment we cross the Mason-Dixon. Elderly men tip their hats. Cashiers tell them they are beautiful. To be a girl these days is more fraught than ever. But growing up among Southern women sure makes it easier.
Which is why we are moving back home. I want my children to know they belong to something bigger than themselves. That they are unique, but they are not alone. That there is continuity where they come from. Comfort too. That there are rules worth following and expectations worth trying to meet, even if you fail. If nothing else, I want them to know how to make biscuits. And to not feel bad about eating a whole heaping plate of them.
There are, according to Ms. Soraya Chemaly, at least 10 Reasons Feminism is Good For Men and Boys. They include “broader range of work and life options” (you could grow up to be a nurse), “more time with fathers” (because mom is working and dad’s at home), and “greater academic success” (because boys who have an “entitled sense of power” don’t do well academically).
Boys and girls, you know I’m no feminist. If you read Ms. Chemaly’s article you’ll find many points that I think are problematic because they are supported by underlying assumptions that feminize boys, which you know I would rejoice to attack. And although I’m sure that’ll leak out a bit as I write this post, that is not the tack I’m going to take. Most of the gender/feminism debate revolves around “gender roles” and inequality, but they shouldn’t at all.
The real problem with feminism is that it buys into our dehumanizing modern society.
Ms. Chemaly wants boys to think about girls and their roles in society, which is a laudable goal. According to her,
This isn’t about “feminizing” men or about demonizing them as women-haters. It’s about expanding the definition of human to include what is female and about working together to dismantle systematized biases in culture.
Dismantling systematized biases in our culture. Great idea. How about we dismantle the systematized bias toward identifying all human beings as workers? That’s what our society does. It asks how well we fit into the economy. Ms. Chemaly quotes one Michael Kimmel as an enlightened man. The bulk of the quote is focused on the next great step in feminism being the work of men, but the quote starts with this:
In every arena — in politics, the military, the workplace, professions and education — the single greatest obstacle to women’s equality is the behaviors and attitudes of men.
In every arena, politics, military, in the workplace…every arena clearly means the workplace (can there be a more hyper-masculine way of thinking?). That, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with feminism. It claims that the only things that count are our contributions as workers. Feminism is an economic way of thinking; it is part of a world in which money (capitalism, communism) defines us.
Look at all these workers! I mean, humans, humans! Now get started making them productive members of society!
Ms. Chemaly expresses frustration early in her article with the falling away from orthodox feminism of the recent generations of women. Fewer and fewer women identify themselves as “feminists”. The problem for Ms. Chemaly and most other professed feminists is that they’re not able to see why women are making the choices they are, i.e. having children, putting marriage and children before “career”. They can’t see because career, profession, is how they identify themselves; it is what they are.
Women don’t want to be slaves to men. As Ms. Chemaly herself says, they want to be human. Well, to be human means to have a home. You don’t need a job to be human. Don’t get me wrong, you do need work, but work is not the same thing as a job.
These women want a family. It’s more important than a job. And the way our society is constructed, both men and women need to make difficult choices when they decide to center themselves around their family. The family, not the individual, is the main economic unit for these people. Ms. Chemaly is sorely deceived if she thinks that mom working means more time with dad for the children. If dad is checked into our society’s definitions of work as job, his identity will focus on that. He won’t spend more time with the kids unless his identity focuses on the hearth.
We’re having the wrong argument. Even talking about feminism is a mistake. We should be talking about economic models, humanizing work, and communal life. Instead, we argue about which philosophy makes us better slaves of capitalism. Feminism’s not a bad choice for that.
A new and deadly serious study on beards is out. Canadian and Kiwi scientists asked Samoan and Kiwi women to judge the faces of men, both bearded and shorn. All the presscoverage is focused on the result that women found the bearded men to be less “attractive”, while the study itself seems to focus on the women finding the bearded men “to be older and ascribe them higher social status”.
I suppose that this is important information in a divorce culture, when I might be expected to have to once again attract a mate when I’m 35. Meanwhile, I’ma keep rocking this thing.
From the study’s abstract:
Women and men from both cultures judge bearded faces to be older and ascribe them higher social status than the same men when clean-shaven. Images of bearded men displaying an aggressive facial expression were also rated as significantly more aggressive than the same men when clean-shaven. Thus, the beard appears to augment the effectiveness of human aggressive facial displays. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the human beard evolved primarily via intrasexual selection between males and as part of complex facial communication signaling status and aggressiveness.
So the result seems to be that bearded men are more awesome. Like so many scientific studies, it took a lab and a small staff of beavering scientists to discover what is obvious prima facie to the rest of us.The Most Interesting Man in the World has a beard. Of course.
I have so many questions, which would perhaps be answered if I were willing to pay for a subscription to Behavioral Ecology, although of course, I am not. Questions like who did they ask? what did they ask? What did the single women say? what did the married women say? what did the women with kids say?
What does “attractive” mean?
So I thought I’d set up a completely unscientific survey for the ladies. Let’s ask what women “prefer”. I guess the study is telling us that all other things being equal, a woman would rather kiss a shaven man, but would rather hold the arm of a bearded man. I hope the phrasing in this survey, the results of which I will be sending to Oxford, help distill the question down to a “package deal”. And I am confident the bearded package will rise triumphant.
I here remind the reader that I write primarily for men on this site. And this is a pretty broad article. I didn’t want it to get any longer, but I’d love discuss the stuff I’ve left incomplete in the comments section.
An aeon of internet time ago, that is, three weeks ago, a friend of mine and I exchanged a couple of tweetitudinous comments on whether or not men and women can be friends, inspired by this article. I told this friend that I loved her too much to be friends with her. She suggested I write about it; I do so now.
And yes, I’m calling her a friend just to be annoying and confusing. Or to make the point that some of the debate depends on how you define “friend”. I’ll allow for some flexibility in defining the term; I do believe rather inflexibly that it is inappropriate for a man to have a relationship with any woman who is not his wife that can approach what a friendship between two men is.
Call my relationship with this woman what you like, it would be an insult to my wife and to her if I had a true “friendship” with her. In fact, I believe that by dint of culture and biology it is impossible for me to have such a relationship. And I’m okay with that; I think you the reader should be okay with it too. After all, you can’t have everything…where would you put it?
Thankfully the past few years have seen an emerging impatience with the idea that men and woman have the same desires sexually. But there is a tendency on the other side of the pendulum for people to think that men want sex more than women. Four hundred years ago everyone knew that the sexual drive of women was so strong they had difficulty being faithful and true. Today, everyone knows that the sexual drive of men is so strong that they have difficulty being faithful and true. Thinking that men want sex more than women is silly, but there can be no doubt that sexuality and desire manifest themselves differently in men and women.
And just so the male reader doesn’t get bogged down by the preceding point, here’s a parenthetical paragraph. For the sake of argument I would grant that men want sex more often than women, but I will not allow that men want sex more than women. Just more often. Sex is a relationship, which we’ll hit later. Moving on.
A young man cannot be emotionally close to a young woman without wanting to have sex with her. But there’s a sexual element to such a friendship from a woman’s perspective as well. When women have friendships with men who aren’t their man, or when they’re not attached but have several relationships of equal investment and profundity with several men, there’s some dishonesty on their part (perhaps with themselves) at play. Consider what pornography looks like for each sex. Pornography for males is very straightforward and visual, sex reduced to the brief act. And porn for men is ubiquitous. Well, so is porn for women. There’s soft porn, like the Twilight series, and there’s hard porn, like Harlequin romances. These things focus on a bunch of things that women look to get out of a sexual relationship; most of all, they focus on being wanted. Men want. Women want to be wanted.
Our society has accepted so thoroughly the idea that the sexes manifest desire in the same way that we can’t conceive of “cheating” as being anything besides physical. They had sex together. They made out. They kissed. Those are all physical things that would constitute cheating. Well, how about “they hung out at a cafe together for hours sharing each others’ dreams and aspirations”? I wouldn’t like it if my wife did that with someone, and I can guarantee my wife would hate it if I did the same. Even worse…imagine if your wife sought and trusted the advice of another man more than yours. *shudder*
You're such a good listener. My husband never wants to hear me complain about how things are at home, but you don't seem to mind at all!
There is no such thing as platonic love. Platonic love is a sexual love. It was originally meant as the more spiritually pure sexuality of the Greek philosopher: the lover of knowledge was not subject to the sexual greed that women imposed on him. The lover of knowledge, who of course is a man, disdains the earthly woman and instead has sex with the spiritually purer boy or man. Is it possible to love something in a non-sexual way? Of course. But the popular modern version of “Platonic” pretends it’s possible to abstract sex from human relationships (but is strongly associated with Uranian thought). The question that should be asked about love is not about sexual desire. It is whether the love is meet and right. Whether it is appropriate.
A potentially distracting yet hilarious cartoon.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything human is societal. And that includes romantic love. Imagine that I am married (which I am), and that a have a relationship with another woman that is equivalent to the relationships I have with my other friends. I ask this other woman for favors, I do favors for her; I ask her for advice, I give her advice; we get together occasionally for beers and dominoes; we go hiking together every once in a while (I couldn’t bring myself to say “hunting”); maybe we grab a cup of coffee before work and discuss our personal challenges and triumphs. Through some bizarre biological circumstance I don’t want to have sex with her (p’shaw). Fine.
This love is not meet and right. It’s not appropriate.
All three of us, she, I, my wife, know it’s wrong. I’m telling my wife and the world that I don’t particularly care about my wife’s exclusive claims on me. I’m telling this friend of mine that my woman and my children are not a central part of my life. And I’m telling myself that I’m an individual who is free to love anyone he likes, instead of confessing that I’m a man who owes his love to his women and children.
Why is this so?
Because the quality of the love a man can have for a woman is not the same as the quality of the love a man can have for a man.
The Greek, gnostic, and Enlightenment efforts to spiritualize or intellectualize everything, to make less of sex, fails to do so. We end up having to cut it off or find somewhere new to put it.
We think that when Christians used to speak, say, of a village having a population of 200 souls, they meant 200 “spirits”. But they didn’t. They meant 200 human beings. A soul is a human being. And human beings have bodies. They live in relationship to one another. Men are not spiritual skeletons with penises. They are full human beings, body and spirit, in communion with other humans.
Not knowing how that communion, how those relationships, are supposed to work is what introduces all this sexual confusion. The Greeks reacted to unreasonable lust for women by replacing it with irrational lust for boys. There’s no escaping sexual desire. But you shouldn’t want to escape it, you should simply want to do it right.
The inability to perceive what doing it right looks like is what makes it impossible for moderns to correctly hear David telling the dead Jonathan that his friend’s love for him surpassed the love of women. We can’t hear that without thinking of sex; we tell ourselves that we are free to love whomever we like, sexually or non-sexually. But all that ends up doing is sexualizing all love.
I have one sexual relationship. That’s my marriage. It’s the only sexual relationship I have. In fact, I’d be willing to say that the totality of my marriage is summed up by saying that it’s a sexual relationship. Does that mean that I only think of my wife as a “sexual object”? Of course not. It means that I have one sexual relationship; the sexual relationship. I have my woman; I have my children. They are my most intimate relationships.
I am free to love whomever, in the sense that I am free to show charity. But I am not free to give myself to just anyone. I’ve given myself sexually to only one person. That limits those I am free to give myself to emotionally and in other ways, and that’s fine. It’s part of the deal. The sexual relationship, my marriage, is one of the most important relationships in my life, and it is exclusive by nature of the compact we made. Christians understand that and tell themselves, “I won’t cheat on my wife, I’m just studying at the library with a fellow student.” But it’s not just about “cheating”, it’s about building trust, and showing through meaningful, symbolical acts that you hold your marriage higher than other relationships.
If I am married I’m not free to give myself to other women, and that’s what friendship is, it’s giving. I can give myself to other men. I ask other men for favors, I do favors for them; I ask them for advice, I give them advice; we get together occasionally for beers and dominoes; we go hunting together every once in a while; maybe we grab a cup of coffee before work and discuss our personal challenges and triumphs. I can trust and rely on men in a way that is not disrespectful of my wife.
And why should you be resentful of this limitation? Your woman is a whole universe to herself. You will not be done exploring her by the time you die. You can’t act as if God is being cheap with you, because you’ll never be done exploring all the blessings he’s given you. There’s just this one tree you can’t have, but of course, you resent that the tree is there at all.
I'll tell you how I got permission to come play tonight. I asked the missus if she'd mind if I started going to the ladies' sewing circle instead. And I called it "The Sweet n' Sexy Sewing Circle".
In the beginning of this post I called a woman “friend”. And she is. As I said, it depends on how you define terms. The fundamental idea here is that men and women can’t be intimate with each other outside of marriage, because of their own natures and because of the importance of their other relationships. But they can be friends. Couples can be friends with each other. I can be friends with a woman through her husband, which definitely does not mean that I invite the couple of over and then hang out with the woman. I can be friends with a woman through the intermediary of art; perhaps we’re both basketball coaches, or lovers of Renaissance history. We can be friends with intermediaries, which can be people, places, things, but we can never be friends the way I could be with a man. True friends I can put my trust in. True friends my wife can trust.
I have nothing in common with the guy who was the best man at my wedding, except and most importantly, the one thing that allows us to be truly intimate: we’re both Christians. We have none of the same interests, we have none of the same work. We talk once every year or so. For five minutes. Usually when I can’t find anyone else to answer a computer question. You’d think we have no relationship at all, but actually we don’t have any intermediary reason for the relationship. It’s pure friendship. We completely trust each other. I know that if I needed anything I could call him and he would help me. Without hesitating. People, we often finish our phone calls with “I love you”. Seriously. ‘Cause we love each other.
That’s what real friendship is. Can you imagine me having a relationship like that with anyone who wasn’t my wife? Please.
My relationship with my wife is much deeper and more intimate than my relationship with my best man. I feel like I would die if wifey died; if my best man bites the dust I’ll shed a few tears and move on. But even if I was very unromantic about my marriage, loyalty and faithfulness alone, obligation alone (all manifestations of love), would demand that I not have a relationship like that with a woman who wasn’t my wife.
My wife and I were talking today about some of the ideas in this post. In the course of the conversation she said that it was great to have male friendship the right way. Of course, she meant her marriage. Marriage is not a friendship, but you ought to be friends with your wife. And being friends with your wife does something to you that being friends with another woman cannot. It balances you out; each spouse becomes much more like the other. And not in a permanent way, either. But as long as the husband is around, it’s like the wife gains man superpowers. And as long as the wife is around, the husband gains woman superpowers. There’s a thorough meshing of selves that you will only be impeding if you insist on being “friends” with women.
I spoke earlier of the “quality” of love. I said that the quality of the love a man could have for a woman was different than that a man could have for a man. I hope you see that I’m not speaking hierarchically, as if one love were better than another. I’m speaking of the nature, form, and place of love. Think of your love for your wife as one that consumes you, that completely involves you, that takes up all the room. There’s no room for other women. Don’t you want that sort of intimacy? And if you’re single, trust me, you want to be working towards that. Getting ready to feast on the huge banquet that your wife will be, not snacking on the saltines that your “friendships” with single women end up being.
The title of this post is too high-flown for what I actually wrote. I just really wanted to write “The Emaciation of our Self-Esteem”.
Chubby cheeks. Chubby Checker. Chubby hubby. Chubby is a pleasant word. The blog 22 Words has some interesting pictures from a day when companies thought it a good idea to market to “chubbies” instead of “plus sizes” or, heaven forbid, “women’s”.
As more and more of us become overweight through what is, honestly, vice (a vice no more pernicious than Chris Traeger levels of concern with fitness), we change the language to pretend the problem isn’t there.
The shift to “plus size” was bad enough, but making “women’s” the code for “bigger clothes” moves straight into wicked. Because, of course, as with “everyone’s a winner” self-esteem programs in athletics or school, the artificiality of the process has the opposite effect to the one intended.
While you shop in the “women’s” section, smaller women shop in “misses”. And your teenage daughter knows that she never, ever, ever wants to fall out of misses into women’s. Because then she’d be fat.
I can’t help but think it would have been better for her to have been “chubby”.
Instead of posting on this blog the past couple of weeks, I’ve been cruising the back alleys of the internet. There I stumbled across galtime.com, a website like many others, serving the needs of women in love and life 24 hours a day.
