Tag Archives: sex

Guest Post: “I was part of the sexual revolution and wish I hadn’t been”

Posted on by April
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Photo by Stuart Conner on Flickr

Today’s post comes to us courtesy of the author at One For Jesus.

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When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t want to grow up to be a porn star. It seemed like the ideal job. Because even growing up in the comparatively innocent 1980s, when the raciest thing on TV was The Benny Hill Show, I got it that sex was the best thing going.

The adult men in my family—all good sons of the 1950s—had married young and missed the sexual revolution by about 15 minutes. As the eldest grandchild and first boy, I was to be their deliverer. I was to get out there and make all the sexual conquests they never could. Continue reading →

Christian and Sexually Empowered

Posted on by April

yes-68480_1920A few years ago, the Church decided to start talking about sex–particularly, married sex. The Church wasn’t doing enough to address it. The sexual revolution had occurred, and the Church had suddenly acquired a reputation for being stuffy and avoidant on the topic. Young people wanted to know about God’s design for sex. Couples wanted to know that sex within marriage was wholesome and healthy, not shameful or dirty. So, the Church has been talking about sex. A lot.

What it hasn’t been talking about, though, is sexual empowerment. Continue reading →

Purity: Can’t be taken, can’t be given away

Posted on by April

purity ringThe Purity Culture movement might just be the single most anti-gospel doctrine in the American Church today.

Yes, I said it.

I don’t think any other doctrine in the Church has been responsible for more hurt, more shame, more pain or more dysfunction. I don’t think any other doctrine has damaged relationships and the souls of women more than this one (except, perhaps, complementarianism).  I don’t think any other doctrine is as far from the pages of scripture than this one. It is a lie. Continue reading →

Why I’m Fed Up with Conservative Evangelicalism

Posted on by April
Procrustes will see you now.

Procrustes will see you now.

You might have seen this this article in Christianity Today about making room for intersex people in the church. The writer, Matthew Anderson, reviewed a book on the subject by author Megan DeFranza to see if it would be a good resource for today’s conservative evangelical churches. Anderson’s conclusion? Nope, not really. DeFranza didn’t do enough to affirm the church’s position on gender binaries, traditional marriage, and sexual ethics. It was too much of a slippery slope.

Here’s the part that, for me, induced convulsive facepalming: Continue reading →

Why We Shouldn’t Say, “Modest is Hottest”

Posted on by April

Insanely on-point meme found at Expert Textperts

Modest is hottest. It’s a phrase that was coined a few years ago to convince Christian women that dressing modestly is sexy and attractive. Because that’s what women care about, right? The male gaze. Knowing that they’re considered pretty and desirable despite ankle-length pants and neck-high collars.

I hate this phrase and everything it communicates. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

It’s not because I like to walk around in short dresses and cleavage-baring shirts. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a skirt in my closet, let alone one that falls above the knee. I love pants, and I’d rather not spend my day constantly adjusting a low-cut shirt to ensure that my “girls” are properly concealed. But every time someone says, “Modest is hottest,” my shoulders go up around my ears. A friend said it on Facebook last summer, and I responded with, “True. I wore jeans outside the other day and nearly had a heat stroke.” (Perhaps not my finest moment.)

“Modest is hottest” is a phrase that needs to disappear. Immediately. It needs to be completely erased from the Christian lexicon—because it plays right into the secular objectification and hyper-sexualization of women.

Let me explain.
Continue reading →