I just read The Thrill of the Chaste by Dawn Eden. I agree with the message of this book entirely. I am 100% behind Dawn Eden not having sex before she gets married. I don’t think words can express how much I am in support of Dawn Eden’s abstinence lifestyle choice. Judging from the evidence in The Thrill of the Chaste, I am more certain that abstinence is the right lifestyle for Ms. Eden than I am of evolution, atomic theory, and the theory of gravity. Combined.
I am just slightly confused why she is generalizing from herself to all women. (No, I’m not.) So I will now present a guide to how to know if you, like Dawn Eden, would benefit from not having sex until you get married.
1) All you want is marriage. I mean, there are less effective husband-finding strategies than casual sex. Joining a nunnery. Complaining on Reddit that there are no good men left. Axe murder. And it’s certainly possible to find a spouse from casual sex (in fact, that’s how one of my boyfriends and his fiancee met). But most of the advantages of casual sex are things like “having sex with lots of attractive people.” If you’ve never daydreamed about a zipless fuck with the hot guy on the bus, you will probably not enjoy casual sex. Might I suggest a book club? You could meet lots of guys at a book club.
2) You don’t quite get the ‘casual’ part of casual sex. If you tend to have casual sex with people, make up personality traits about them, fall in love with the imaginary them in your head, and then be heartbroken when it turns out– surprise!– the casual sex was casual… yeah, Dawn Eden, you really shouldn’t have casual sex.
3) You can’t have casual sex without objectifying people. Ms. Eden says that casual sex is, to her, inherently objectifying. I am like “buh?” because I have had lots of casual sex and I do not generally treat my sexual partners like objects. You can treat someone like a person with desires and agency and a rich inner life, and still only see each other once a week for two hours of torrid fucking. In fact, that’s what makes casual sex better than a session with your favorite sex toy. Not even to get into the issue of “sex with friends” (which, by the way, is highly recommended). Turns out, you can hang out, get Chinese, talk about what sins the Slug God would damn slugs to the Pit of Eternal Salt for, and then fuck! Miracle of miracles!
4) You feel sick and bad and violated after sex. Life rule: you should absolutely never ever ever ever ever have sex that makes you feel sick and violated afterward. If you feel sick and bad and violated after any sex that isn’t with your life partner, because to you sex is something special and sacred and romantic, then you should absolutely not have sex with anyone other than your life partner. I and the rest of the Sex-Positive Mafia have your back here. (I was going to put something like “as long as you admit that other people don’t feel sick and sad and violated after casual sex” but you know what? Fuck that. Everyone has the right to not have sex that makes them feel violated. Even dickheads.)
The necessary corollary: any person who tries to get you to have sex that makes you feel sick and violated afterward is, at best, so much of an asshole that it is a wonder they manage to spew words instead of fecal matter. (In the worst-case scenario, of course, they’re a rapist.) Secure adults recognize that other people have different opinions about sex and that doesn’t mean that they’re bad, wrong, uncool, or somehow threatening to the validity of your sex life.
5) Casual sex makes you more attracted to players and less attracted to nice g… okay this point doesn’t even make any sense. I know lots and lots of people who have casual sex! All of them are nice people! I do not know why Dawn Eden finds it so difficult to find nice people who have casual sex. Are they all hiding in Florida? Maybe geeks are better at casual sex? (Ms. Eden does not like geeks very much: she reassures the reader that not every guy you meet at trivia night will be a geek and defines “fanboy” using Wikipedia as if fanboys are these strange exotic creatures normal humans never encounter.)
Honestly, I think the problem is that Ms. Eden’s definition of “nice guy” is entirely unrelated to actual niceness. Being a “nice guy,” in Ms. Eden’s world, seems to mean paying for dates, giving flowers, opening doors, and not wanting casual sex. It’s true that people you’re having casual sex with very rarely give you flowers and usually want casual sex. But I am unclear on why I should prefer that definition over the “treats people well and respects boundaries” definition.
I have a final two points that aren’t connected to anything but I’m just going to say them:
1) Dawn Eden really sucks at Christianity. She seems to view it as a sort of dating service. If she prays enough and is a good enough Christian, God will give her a husband. Apparently the Fruits of the Spirit got mistranslated and they actually ought to say “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and a really hot husband who’s sensitive yet also manly.”
Also she seems to think of volunteering as something Dawn Eden does to improve Dawn Eden’s own personal soul as opposed to, you know, the lives of people in need. While generally I’m in support of any motivation to get people to help people, Jesus is pretty clear on the “help people for its own sake” thing. Besides, people who help people to improve their own personal souls have a bad habit of doing things that make them feel warm and fuzzy rather than things that actually help.
2) OXYTOCIN ABUSE! That’s right, it’s time for everyone’s favorite game, the Hot Showers Game!
When a man or woman [takes a hot shower], a hormone called oxytocin is released into their bloodstream. In women, oxytocin is known as the “cuddle hormone,” because women’s oxytocin levels go up when they’re simply cuddling. For that reason, and also because it’s released in nursing mothers, oxytocin is believed to facilitate emotional bonding. If the hormone is released during [hot showers] and there’s no one with whom to bond, then of course one is going to feel bereft.
Bonus points to the first commenter who guesses what I replaced with “hot showers.”
Oxytocin is also what causes LABOR PAINS. I think you might be able to use it for salad dressing and floor wax, too, but don’t quote me on that.
Did you replace ‘marmalade’? I think it was marmalade.
I can see why you chose this inspiring tome. Salty Christian blog queens are few and far between. Come now, you didn’t write this description for her, now did you?
Footnote: “Description” referred to above is about the incredible, and I do mean that with all sincerity, Amazon Book description, which I realize was probably not clear.
” I have had lots of casual sex and I do not generally treat my sexual partners like objects.”
Because of course, nobody ever objectified somebody without knowing they were doing so.
” If you feel sick and bad and violated after any sex that isn’t with your life partner, [...] then you should absolutely not have sex with anyone other than your life partner.”
This made me tear up a little because it’s so true and took me this long to figure out. I kept feeling like unless I actually take every opportunity I get to have sex with women, I’m just a straight girl who’s pretending pansexuality for the attention. And then every time I tried makin’ it with someone outside my marriage, I’d end up curled into a sick little ball of misery going “why did I do that, that was a terrible idea” while my husband patted my back and tried to console me.
So fuck that. Being pansexual and monogamous is a thing that happens. I can tell I am pan because of appreciating non-guys’ appearances in a pants-tingly way. I do not need to have actual sex with someone beside my husband if that makes me sick and miserable as fuck because it just feels WRONG to me.
And yay for people who can have casual sex! I salute you and hope you guys have a great time.
Nobby: It was *definitely* marmalade.
Derpington: …No, actually, I’m pretty sure I treat people I’m with like people. I mean, I just asked a couple of people I’ve had casual sex with and they were like “*blink* of course you did.” So.
Dee: Yep! It turns out, scientists have discovered, that you have have pantsfeelings for all kinds of people and not want to do sexy things with them and it does not make your pantsfeelings less real or legitimate.
@Dee: I’ve been trying to work my way through similar experiences. My husband and I are poly (in practice for him; in theory for me). I’m pretty sure I’m demisexual (officially this probably makes me poly demi-bisexual, or something similarly ridiculous-sounding, which I kind of love), so while I haven’t decided I’m just going to be monogamous, I know that casual sex is not a thing I can do, so I am giving up on the dating game (dating causes me nothing but stress and anxiety and confusion), and I will likely be functionally monogamous for the most of the rest of my life (barring a friendship or two that could feasibly blossom into something sexual). And convincing myself that there’s nothing wrong with that has been so very liberating
*solidarity hugs if you want them* (since you don’t seem to need sympathy hugs
)
@Kasey: I’ve taken to referring to myself as “polymonogamous” – meaning, I have a husband, and am dating a girl (so, poly) but I would feel bad and weird about pursuing people outside those two relationships (monogamous). I do that mainly because making up words is fun, but also because polyamory and monogamy are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Much like there is no gender binary, I think there is no binary between casual sex and committed sex (and thus casual/committed relationships): there are a wide range of relationships that fall somewhere on the casual-committed spectrum, and that’s okay.
@Dee: I’m seconding Ozy and Kasey here. I’m so sorry you’ve been made to feel that way; no one should ever have to “prove” their sexuality for it to be accepted. You are the only one who knows what you feel in your heart (and in your pants!), so you have the freedom to define yourself however you wish. And you have the right to expect that the people in your life who matter will accept that at face value.
@Ozy: Marmalade? Damn, I thought it was tap dancing.
Penny: Sometimes that’s called polyfidelitous.
Ah! I like that.
I have a feeling that the title of the book should be The Thrill of the Chaste, or, Why Some People, Including Dawn Eden, Get Off on Waiting Until Marriage to Have Sex.
Typical Mind Fallacy, Will you ever go away?
Oh, wow. This sort of book pretty much sums up everything I was taught about premarital sex. And guess what? Everything I learned about premarital sex turned out to be absolutely false for me! Sex, in general, doesn’t necessarily make you feel dirty and violated, and if it does, you’re doing it in a way that is wrong for you.
And that whole, “pray and God will make the hot man of your dreams come to you” thing made my date-free high school days quite miserable. And I don’t even know where to start on the whole “charity is to make me feel like a better person” thing.
Bonus points to the first commenter who guesses what I replaced with “hot showers.”
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! It’s “indiscriminate whoring around like a filthy heathen,” isn’t it? That sounds like the way Ms. Eden would word it. Which is yet another reason why I’m glad I left the “chastity is the best choice for everyone” mindset far behind.
The_L: Nope, actually it was masturbating. >.>
Ozy: I thought that (for men, at least; women don’t ever masturbate, obvs.) masturbating was a (peculiarly solitary) subset of whoring around like a filthy heathen? Because you’re spreading your seed something something onanism something?
It ain’t called a date with Rosie Palms for nothing! =)
I don’t think it’s even Typical Mind Fallacy. I think it’s self-absorption and a desire to sell books. Eden’s written before about how awful it is because she doesn’t want children, but she wants to get married so she can have sex and have her husband treat her like the princess she is BUT her Catholic faith means that in such a marriage she’d have to have children, O THE DILEMMA. (Plus, let’s be honest, the kind of guy she wants to marry is the guy who rants on blogs about how, as a middle-aged finally-successful dude, he’s entitled to marry a 19-year-old hottie to have his babies and wash his socks.)
@Dee: saluting you right back, for being someone who is pansexual and monogamous and doing what she damn well needs to do, instead of being pushed into sex that makes her feel icky.
Well, then, obviously what Dawn Eden needs is a handy excuse for a hysterectomy (at worst it’s only one sin, right, rather than lotsa little sins for every time you use temporary contraception?).
“If the hormone is released during [hot showers] and there’s no one with whom to bond, then of course one is going to feel bereft.”
*snicker*
Haha, omg, that’s why i feel so berfet after masturbating! I just lie in bed like “buuuuhuuu I can’t cuddle I hate my life I’m the lonliest person on EARTH!” and feel dirty and violated afterwords.
….
….
Nah, just kidding, actually, I lie in bed thinking “WOOHOO damn! You sure know how to please me!” and cuddle myself thinking how awesome in bed I am.
Perhaps the desire to control other people’s sex lives should be considered as a kink, though not an ok one to play out in the real world.
Ozy: Lemme guess, she’s Catholic? I know a lot of other Christian sects are anti-masturbation, but very few are quite that vehement about it. Yuck!
Joek: The “women never masturbate” implication always made me feel deeply abnormal, especially when coupled with Thomas Aquinas. (why the hell was he sainted, again?)
The_L: Yep, she’s a Catholic. And St. Thomas Aquinas was sainted because he was really really really really good at Catholic theology.
Yeah, but Thomas Aquinas was also the one who first introduced some really unhealthy ideas about sex into Catholic doctrine. The fact that his bullshit about masturbation and homosexuality and all these other things being evil has become central to Catholic teaching on sex is one of the reasons I was so damn neurotic as a teenager.
The early-medieval Church was actually pretty laid-back WRT sex, and in fact there were a pair of male saints (now mostly forgotten) who, in essence, were a married couple in all but name.
Man, I love those two saints.
I don’t think you can blame everything on Aquinas tho… Augustine and John Chrysostom and so on were also *amazingly* anti-sex.