A great “how to” for you nerdy guys who scored a hot chick and now want to convert her to the geek side.

My DH scores higher on the geek scale than I do, and over the years that we’ve been married he’s slowly made inroads at getting me to read SF, watch the LOTR series (more than once), play a few computer games, and navigate the blogosphere.

But I’ve rubbed off on him, too. He now eats more salads, has adopted a more liberal political view, and has even attended a folk music concert along with me.

How have you and your partner’s tastes influenced each other?

Remember when Joseph wrote about the 30 Day Challenge a few weeks ago? My DH is totally keen on giving this a try. We’re making a list of different things to do or to try each day of the challenge, just to keep it fun and interesting.

We’ll be kicking off our 30 Days soon. Anyone else want to join in on the fun and report back here at the VC?

When discussing the topic of waxing, I suspect that I am more than a bit old-fashioned. I don’t see the need for women to get a wax every few months–it actually seems a bit barbaric to me.

From what I’ve heard, this is really a generational issue. Gals in their 20s and late teens consider waxing to be a normal part of their beauty regimen. My friends in Singles’ Wards say that many of the girls get full brazilian waxes regularly even though they aren’t even sexually active. This seems completely extreme. I can understand wanting a wax before a honeymoon or another special occasion, but not just for everyday life as an LDS virgin.

And what do you think about men who are also starting to get into the habit of regular waxing? When I was at a local spa recently there was a man sitting in the waiting room, too. I wasn’t sure if he was there for a facial, a wax, or some other procedure, but it seemed pretty strange to me.

One of my LDS friends once lamented to me that she had such a cute body when she was a teen, but she was obsessed with being “modest” and never wore anything that highlighted her curves or showed off her cellulite-free thighs. She said that after having several kids and gaining quite a bit of weight in the process, she felt sad that she no longer had a body that would look good in sexy clothes.

I thought of my friend today when I watched this video. Joy is indeed beautiful and her physical confidence is charming. I can’t believe that big women actually receive the slurs and insults that she relates in this clip.

The following letter is to be read in California Sacrament Meetings on June 29th:

Dear Brethren and Sisters:

In March 2000 California voters overwhelmingly approved a state law providing that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The California Supreme Court recently reversed this vote of the people. On November 4, 2008 Californians will vote on a propsed amendment to the California state constitution that will now restore the March 2000 definition of marriage approved by the voters.

The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between and man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children. Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.

A broad-based coalition of churches and other organizations placed the proposed amendment on the ballot. The Church will participate with this coalition in seeking its passage. Local church leaders will provide information about how you may become involved in this important cause.

We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.

Sincerely Yours,

The First Presidency

I’ve been thinking about this Law of Chastity issue a lot, not just because of my art and how that fits into the church paradigm, but because, well, I was 34 when I got married (in the temple)—and I was a virgin.

You have to do a lot of thinking about it to get yourself in that sorry and sad state.

Prenuptially, I was ever so proud of my accomplishment (though really, all it took for Mr. Right to find me was one well-placed ultimatum to the Deity expressing my somewhat miffed state), but postnuptially…not so much.

Why?

Because I feel like I missed out on a whole lot that my husband didn’t. And I kind of resent that. Obviously, I don’t know what I missed out on, so I could’ve just missed out on a surprise! pregnancy (as a single mother) or a lovely case of crabs or even something less desirable than that, but my imagination fills in the blanks of what mind-blowing sex I could have had had I let my Inner Slut loose.

What really got me thinking about this in particular was yesterday’s post about adultery here and the Exponent’s post about teaching chastity. I started to wonder what chastity means to me, why it means that, and does it make any difference in the long run (spiritually)?

When I was “saving myself” for marriage, I had a curious paradox going on inside me. I was hot to trot. I knew, somewhere deep down, that I would be indiscriminate in my choices of lovers if I were to cross that boundary because I was (am?) the kind of girl who’d do pretty much anything if it got my rocks off.

On the other hand, I’m also the kind of girl who thinks that a kiss is a promise; one or two a-little-more-than-makeout sessions that failed to yield nothing but an expression of disgust directed toward me in the broad daylight and I was emotional toast.

Put those two issues together and you can see I had a bit of a tussle on my hands. My OCD reared its rescuing head and said, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” So really, my staying pure-ish didn’t have much at all to do with church standards. It had to do with the war between my romantic, needy soul and my libidinous body.

Yet that didn’t stop me from trying to justify it because I was ashamed of both. I came up with all sorts of intellectual reasons to stay chaste, which include the litany of standard sociologic reasons that economist and social scientist types come up with. It was an intellectual balm to the two warring factions that both embarrassed me.

It wasn’t until after I got married and did the deed for a while that I realized that yes, hey, it’s possible to have sex purely for sex’s sake and not feel a connection at all. Sometimes that’s great; sometimes that’s not good at all, but it can be done. It may have taken me a long time and a lot of lovers before I got to that point outside of marriage and it’s nice to be able to say that from inside the shelter of a committed, eternal marriage (which, yes, that has made me think twice about saying “screw it,” though I don’t presume to think that’d be the same for everyone who got married in the temple).

But now I’m looking at it from where I’m at and not from where I think I might have liked to have been. This is what I’ve been sorting through the last couple of days with the two posts I linked. I have a five-year-old daughter whom the fashion industry wants to sexualize by leaving me no choice as to the cut of the clothes that are for sale (meaning I’m going to have to go back to sewing, which is more expensive in time AND money nowadays, but I digress).

She’s going to learn about sex earlier and from someone else if I don’t step in, but how do I do this? I teach her the correct body part names (to an extent…it’s more difficult to tell a girl what all her parts are called when there are just so many and they do so many different things—The Boy’s parts are not so fraught with etymological traps). When she asks where babies come from I try to be as straightforward as possible without completely confusing her. I refuse to allow either of my children to nickname the boy’s body parts (again with the terminology problem on female genitalia—she can’t get past “ure—” for urethra). No “wee-wee,” “pee-pee,” etc., and that goes for dad, too, who gets a dirty look if he doesn’t comply. So what I’ve run into first is a language problem and a perception problem. That is, she can’t see what’s in all those nooks and crannies and she can’t even pronounce their names anyway.

Now, onto the teaching of the chastity part.

I don’t have a clue.

The Exponent did a good job of pointing out that the other side of the chastity coin is the atonement, but how do you commingle the messages? “No, you shouldn’t, but if you do, don’t worry, you can repent” or “Yeah, you can repent, but it won’t mitigate the fact in your soul if something goes wrong.”

Because in my somewhat, rather, okay, really limited experience, remorse for sex (and then not for the sex) happens if something goes wrong: Pregnancy. Disease. Emotional/social fallout.

I’m torn. I want my kid to be chaste until she gets married. But I’d like to know my kid had something better than I did going into marriage and if she does pop up with a healthy libido, I certainly don’t want her to feel like “chewed gum,” “licked cupcakes” (oh, so many joke opportunities there), “smashed bananas,” the one bullet in a revolver**, or a rose with its head torn off.

Intellectually, I get that the Law of Chastity is an artificial construct that, nevertheless, has more redeeming social value than wholesale promiscuity.

Before the Victorian/Edwardian era, the upper classes had its standard of morality based on inheritance: The heir and the spare. Once that was accomplished, the woman took a lover or six and the man had a mistress if he could afford one. In this societal construct, the unmarried girl who was not a virgin was, therefore, not marriageable on the grounds of a financial contract between father and suitor. In other words, a virgin was desirable for her virginity not on a basis of moral purity but on the basis of her status as a brood mare.

Then came the industrial revolution, Queen Victoria, and the middle class. In a scene in My Fair Lady, Alfred P. Doolittle tells Professor Higgins that he’s too poor to be able to afford “middle-class morality,” and it makes perfect sense as he defines it. When he comes into money unexpectedly, his common law wife of double-digit years then demands he marry her and make her ‘respeckable’ and he laments that now his money has shackled him to the middle-class morality he never wanted in the first place. (Why is it morality always comes down to money in the end? But that’s another post.)

Now, in the wake of virgin-as-property, middle-class Victorian mores, and the ’60s sexual revolution, what we’re left with is a mishmash of…something I don’t think anybody really understands. So, the LDS Law of Chastity, artificial construct or not, is at least some standard to hold onto and it’s not a bad one.

Yet…

I keep wondering what I missed.

So my desires for my daughter’s future, and what she learns and how, are at cross purposes with each other. I feel like a bloody idiot for even putting it on paper. How do I explain this to her? Or do I? When do I start? How do I start? What tack do I use? I have no answers and I’m only really asking rhetorically (though feel free to answer!).

I don’t resent the Law of Chastity as a cornerstone of our cultural tradition (and I do believe it’s more cultural than doctrinal) and I even agree with it as a sound economic/sociologic principle. What I do resent are the ways it’s taught; the dire warnings of eternal damnation for thinking about it, touching oneself, having sex before marriage (I’m looking at you, Miracle of Forgiveness and the intellectual bullcrap you spawned); the long-term damage it does to fragile psyches who may have actually weathered any of the other bad consequences of promiscuity better than those sparked by its teaching.

But you never know that until the damage has been done.

**By the way, I’m a committed gun owner and concealed carrier (in my state, that’s kosher), and I’d have gone to war over bringing a gun (loaded or not) to church to use as an object lesson, particularly as an allegory to sexual sin. I have never seen this particular demonstration (thank heavens), but–as a gun owner and carrier–I was completely appalled.

I recently argued that discussion of “Adultery” was not “anti-Mormon” nor off-limits as a topic at The Visitor’s Center: Celebrating Mormon Sexuality.  Here is an example…

Have you heard about the website The Ashley Madison Agency?  As their website boasts, it is “The World’s Premier Discreet Dating Service, with over 2,140,000 likeminded members.” 

“So what?” you say, “Internet dating is as old as the Internet, and it has even become socially acceptable.”

Ah, but this isn’t your ordinary dating agency, this is a dating service that specializes in married people looking for a little somethin’ somethin’ on the side.  Their tagline, “Life is Short. Have an Affair,” even comes with a little “TM” to indicate that it has been trademarked.  Wonderful.

I’ve been hearing Ashley-Madison commercials on the radio for the past few months.  The Ashley-Madison phenomenon also pops up on TV now and then.  The website boasts, “As Seen On: Larry King, FOXNews, 20/20, Ellen Degeneres, Dr. Phil.”

I’ll admit it, when I hear these radio commercials, my first thought is, “What the F%@&!?!?  Who are these people?” followed by a stupor of thought.

My second thought is, “What the F%@%?!?!  Who are these people?”

These people are out there.  They walk among us.  In fact, as of this writing, the Ashley-Madison website says that there are “32,504 local members online right now!” 

“32,504 members?”  No, more like 32,504 cheaters who are going straight to Hell, than you very much! J

But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe these 32,504 members are just trying to save their marriages.  At least that is what Mira Kirshenbaum argues.

A new self-help book by Mira Kirshenbaum called “When Good People Have Affairs” argues that an affair can help save a struggling marriage, and that because society has so far failed to have a sympathetic discussion of infidelity, the positive sides of cheating have been ignored.

Hmmmmm…

If only this book had come out before Mother’s Day.  Oh well, my wife’s birthday is coming up…

But seriously, I ask again, “What the F%@%?!?!”

Here’s what Kirshenbaum argues:

“Sometimes an affair can be the best way for the person who has been unfaithful to get the information and impetus to change.”

“I’m not encouraging affairs, but underlying the complicated mess is a kind of deep and delicate wisdom. It’s an insight that something isn’t working and needs to change.”

Most philanderers are good, kind people, she argues, who are seeking real happiness and love.

“These people are suffering terribly and need to be relieved of their sense of guilt and shame because those emotions are paralyzing.”

“If handled right, an affair can be therapeutic, give clarity and jolt people from their inertia.”

“You could think of it as a radical but necessary medical procedure. If your marriage is in cardiac arrest, an affair can be a defibrillator.”

But she is convinced that an adulterer must never confess, not even if their partner asks directly.

“This is the one area in which the truth usually creates far more damage in the long run,” she said.

“If you care that much about honesty, figure out who you want to be with, commit to that relationship and devote the rest of your life to making it the most honest relationship you can.”

Wow.  If you are scoring at home, Kirshenbaum advocates both cheating AND dishonesty. 

So what say you, Vistor’s-Center-ites?  Are you thinking, “Woo Hoo!  Where do I sign up?”  Or are you like me and thinking, “What the F%@&?!?!”

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. This online sex shop, Book 22, offers products that are specifically chosen to enhance intimacy in a Christian marriage. They say:

The twenty-second book of the Bible is Song of Solomon. We believe that God intended that such love, as spoken of in Song of Solomon, be a beautiful and normal part of marital life. Unfortunately this gift from God has been grossly distorted and abused by both ancient and modern people. Book22 is offering quality products to enhance the intimate life of God’s children. Our hope is that our products will serve as intimacy enhancers for your marriage.

Would you be more likely to buy items from a Christian sex shop than from a typical online vendor?

Recent sex-related posts from the bloggernacle:

Some funny sex discussion at the Exponent retreat.
Erotic images and female desire from ancient Greece.
Devyn S. wishes he had a uterus.
I like sex, Ed.

That’s all I remember off the top of my head, but I’m sure I’m missing some. Have you seen other good (or bad) blog posts about sexuality in the bloggernacle recently?

All about the ’nacle and General Conference are stories and opinions and exhortations re pr0n, both pro and con and undecided. Recently, Letters From A Broad had a lively discussion concerning the feminist take on pr0n, which ranges as wide a gamut as the opinions amongst the various factions of LDSdom. However varied the opinions, all seem to agree that the overriding purpose of pr0n is to arouse.

Nowhere, however, have I seen a discussion of genre romance, erotic fiction, or erotica as agents provocateur of arousal. This is most likely because I’m the new kid on the ’nacle block and have just missed it, but even in the lengthy discussions of sex, masturbation, pr0n, and various and sundry other sub-topics of sex, I’ve not seen it mentioned. ’Tis a puzzlement.

Amongst other things, I write genre romance with an edge. The edge isn’t sex; the edge is previously unexplored themes in genre romance like, oh, the juxtaposition of spirituality and sexuality while still heavy on external conflict. This earns no brownie points with agents and acquisitions editors. (The cry, “But we don’t know where to shelve it!” is still ringing in my head, even after a year.)

I don’t write erotic fiction, which is different from romance in that its sole purpose is to arouse yet has emotional content, but very little plot and more often than not, I’ll choose a story that promises a weighty external conflict. It is also different from erotica in that the sex in erotic fiction serves a purpose within the story but isn’t the story. I do occasionally write straight erotica in small doses, but, quite frankly, disemboweled sex (i.e., without an emotional connection) doesn’t really do anything for me. Kinda like looking at pictures of nekkid peoples doesn’t really turn me on although I’m a visual learner.

While my husband teases me about my pr0n, I don’t really know how to draw any lines between genre romance where the sexual content is anything from kiss-and-fade-to-black to take-a-cold-shower-graphic, erotic fiction, and erotica—because it’s all meant to arouse. It may arouse me more easily simply because I’m 40 and therefore have the libido of a 17-year-old boy, but with regard to romance and some erotic fiction (occasionally dubbed Romantica™), the aim is to arouse through the conduit of emotional connection and love.

Regardless my comments on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight here and elsewhere, it’s an erotic tale. All the subtext is there, naturally, but without having to read in between any lines whatsoever, the scenes between Edward and Bella wherein he doesn’t kiss her, but sniffs at her neck, are hawt. It’s all in the execution. Eugene Woodbury’s upcoming novel, Angel Falling Softly had me catching my breath in a few places, too, though his sex scenes are simply elegant.

It did occur to me that perhaps the written word not otherwise slapped with the label “Penthouse Forum” is seen as literature, which is an art form. I mean, do you read a 350-plus-page novel for the sex? I think not. You read it for the story; it just takes too much work and a rather lot of brainpower to read one of these things and doing it for the sex is counterproductive. There is effort involved, the reader’s effort, the contract between author and reader—

—but it’s arousing and that’s one of its purposes.

So by that definition and within the context of the never-ending exhortations by Teh Brethren to avoid that which arouses the natural man, is it pr0n?

Discuss.