Fascinating article

[mamadeb]

This article "Red Sex, Blue Sex" in the current New Yorker offers an interesting explanation as to why the Evangelicals were not bothered by Bristol Palin's pregnancy.

And just who the "family values" crowd really is in practice.

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Wow. How depressing. Those poor people.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It really is. Those poor girls in particular.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I grew up in West Virginia. This is a very TRUE article, and so I didn't find it depressing; what I found it was enlightening, because it explained so much of what I saw growing up.

[sdelmonte]

The whole thing strikes me as so very odd. It's such a different mindset than what Orthodox Jews have, if nothing else.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a study on Orthodox Jews - affects of sexual segregation, young (if post-teen) marriages, sexuality in spite of these things.

[sethg]

Also the effect of being an actual minority religion/ethnicity... although evangelical Christians like to portray themselves as an embattled minority.

Also, umm, tznius.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. That didn't link to an article about modesty.

[sethg]

The girls in the photo.

(I know I'm being ethnocentric, or some kind of -centric, for projecting my own culture's fundamentalists' definition of "modest dress" onto another culture's fundamentalists. I just can't look at pictures like that without feeling gears grind uncomfortably in my brain.)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was actually thinking the same thing. I've gone to Mormon modest clothing sites (more of them than Jewish - more of them than Jews, after all) and they have a different definition.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I help run modest_style and we had a Christian come on the comm to promote her business and she was very shocked and upset when she was told that a lot of us don't wear pants (at least not without a long shirt or skirt over them) or short-sleeved shirts. I don't think she would have been told in quite the same tone if she hadn't herself been so smug, or if the shirts she was promoting hadn't been so smug.

On that community one of the first questions we ask is "what's your tradition?" when trying to help folks solve problems.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying modest_style - and whoever got frumfashionista on board is a hero. :)

It's not that differing ideas of modesty are wrong, it's that they, well, differ.

I do like, though, that neither hijab not tzniut preclude looking attractive, whereas there seems to be that undercurrent in some (not all) Christian modesty sites.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

frumfashionista rocks in stereo.

Yeah, the Rockethical girl was the only person I've ever seen addressed in judgemental tones, and it was because she was so obviously shocked and horrified when she was told that actually, no, not everyone there could wear what she was selling.

There are some people doing hijab that think you are not supposed to be attractive at all outside the home--if your jilbab is an adornment you're supposed to wear another one over it, etc--but they are certainly not the majority.

OK, this is a personal opinion here: I don't actually think most Christian modesty sites are anti-attractiveness (some certainly are though) but their aesthetic is really, really weird, similar to but not the same as that of the Mormon fundamentalists who practise polygamy. I actually like prairie dresses if they fit, and there's nothing wrong with wearing a denim jumper to clean house or do other kinds of work. But there are other kinds of clothes, and I'm not sure where they got the idea that tiny floral prints are the sine qua non of modest style or would even look good on most people. A lot of Christian modest clothing sites seem to do nothing but denim jumpers and floral skirts and dresses. It's very odd. Also they like those huge white collars from the 1980s. But I think that many of the people who dress that way must think that it is attractive?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

LDS fascinates me these days the way nuns fascinated me when I was in college.

I read Carolyn Jessop's book Escape (http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Carolyn-Jessop/dp/0767927567/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226081870&sr=8-2) this past summer, and she offers a clue.

When she was in high school, it was dominated by the many daughters of Merril Jessop, who was one of the leaders of one of the fundamentalist groups. And these girls and their followers discovered Fascinating Womanhood (http://www.amazon.com/Fascinating-Womanhood-Helen-Andelin/dp/0553384279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226081982&sr=1-1), and even though none of them were married yet, nor yet evangelical Christian, they took the message of looking/acting uberfeminine to heart. One of the trademarks of this group was wearing the prairie dresses (and, yes, on the right people and tailored correctly, they can be very attractive, as can the high-pompadour/french braid on the the right woman.) It seems to have spread.

(The last name? Not a coincidence. Before she finished high school, Carolyn was a stepmother to those same girls - her father being high in Jessop's faction.)

You forgot the vests. The sites you're talking about love vests.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, the vests!!! Some of which are scary awful.

I've read that book, my stepmother had it. Such a weird book. :)

Carolyn Jessop is awesome, but I have not yet read her book. I've read other books about them though, they fascinate me too. Do you watch Big Love?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I do. (I even like the way Chloe dresses. It fits her.)

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

frumfastionista is the alias of hipstamom who actually hasn't even completed her conversion yet, but she's really very cool. I love what she comes up with.

[owl]

Do you practice modest dressing? I've had to do some adjustment of my idea of you--you know how it is with people you see on FriendsFriends, you get this vague idea of them but you don't actually know them, and you end up being surprised :)

My mother used not to wear trousers, but we corrupted her as we grew to be the same size as her, by passing on our old jeans for rough work. My standards of modesty are: covered from neck to knees, nothing too tight, trousers are fine as long as they're not tight or too low. (I'd hate to do business casual in skirts, and my building is sort of overenthusiastic on the air conditioning, so it would have to be woolly tights if I was wearing a skirt.)

What hate is certain young men of my acquaintance (all of whom seem to have a certain resemblance to Mr Collins) dictating to the young women anent trousers, skirt lengths, head coverings etc. It's this mixture of "You must tick these boxes I define rather than following your own conscience", "My word, the fact that I can see you have two separate legs makes me think about sex! Cover yourself!" and "Women are not meant to wear men's clothing. No trousers plz." (To the last we would reply 1) Try wearing these trouser and see how well they fit the male body 2) in Moses' time everyone wore robes. Work away, then.)

It all descended to farcical levels one evening when the most vocal of these young men wandered out to answer the phone in his boxers when the house was full of (rather noisy, so I don't see how he could have failed to notice) female visitors. :)

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I surprise a lot of people :)

I have a mouth on me, and often a foul one; but I typically may be found in long skirts, long-sleeved blouses and the like. My Japanese lolita skirts are the shortest ones I own and I won't buy the ones that don't cover my knees standing, sitting and running for the bus. I prefer ankle-length skirts every day.

In addition to religious/spiritual reasons, I'm also in rebellion against a society that says women have to dress to be attractive to men at all times to be noticed at all (try getting a job without makeup, it's hard, and what is the point of see-through stockings exactly?) and then penalises and belittles them if they're too good at it. My brains are not solar-powered and I'd rather men look at my face when I talk. :)

[owl]

I have been known to have a mouth myself on occasion. It doesn't bother me (a good thing, since my team is inclined to curse their code at least once a day); what deeply bothers me is the name of G-d as a swear word.

I got my current job while wearing no makeup, but I made the interviewers laugh :) I only ever wear concealer or a little transparent powder, and lip balm in winter. Basically so that it looks like I'm not wearing any.

I get the my-face-is-up-here thing even covered up, but I think it's because geeky guys often have trouble making eye contact. It's certainly not like my breasts are anything spectacular.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I get where you're coming from, but since the English word "G-d" is not actually G-d's name...it doesn't actually bother me very much when people do this. If I saw someone using the actual name of G-d as a swear word or in any other inappropriate way I'd be horrified, but.

[owl]

To me, the English capital-G word is the primary word I use when I'm thinking about Him, but actually, yeah, it doesn't have the same visceral punch as someone using the actual name as a sort of put-down, or people using 'Christ' (and the rest of his family) as swearing (oddly enough, it's the sorta-lapsed-but-not-all-the-way Roman Catholics that seem to do this).

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see that...though "Christ" is not the name of G-d to me, it would be to you :)

[owl]

Yeah, quite. Christianity: treble the vulnerability to causal blasphemy :-P

(I was just about to say that Christianity inherits the variable nameOfG-d from its superclass, Judaism, and then I realised object-oriented programming has broken my brain, clearly. Ah, well, must be doing something right, then.)

Actually IRL people are quite often surprised when I say it bothers me, because they tend to assume I'm Jewish, going by my name (Hebrew-origin forename, stereotypically Central-European-Jewish surname; I have no clue how it came to be attached to a family of Protestant Irish middle-class farmers)

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

It is interesting, we do have a lot of friends in common; there are also a lot of people on your flist who really don't like me at all.

[owl]

Heh, I didn't think I had many f_w-ers on my flist :)

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

You have a lot of Sugarquill on your flist. :)

And you're a canon-shipper, which I don't have a problem with, but since I'm very adamantly not, a lot of canon-shippers have a problem with me, because, I'm not saying that you're like this, a lot of canon-shippers think it's somehow wrong or bad to write outside canon and get angry at people who do. And I'm never going to write inside canon, because doing that bores me.

It's the difference between people who write fanfic because they want more of the same, and people who write fanfic because there's something that irks them that they think wants fixing, and people who write fanfic to explore roads not taken. I'm in categories 2 and 3 and tend not to even read category 1 fic because category 1 fic usually doesn't tell me anything I haven't heard before and is not quite like reading canon--if I want to read and watch canon that's what I do?

[owl]

Yeah, I jest about f_w. It would be very wearing to actually watch their users all the time.

I practice don't like, don't read a lot. (And ignore-the-existence-of for my squicks.) Something like AJ Hall's fic I actually just think of as a different canon altogether. I read 1 and 2 mostly, and what I generally write is missing scenes which the writers unaccountably leave out. Eg, by this line, A is clearly aware of B's recent brush with death, why is the emotional backlash being ignored?

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Don't like-don't read is the wisest policy.

Actually it's not true that I won't ever write canon pairings, but I have to like the canon pairing to write it and there are relationships that are canon that I just don't like--I don't like the way they interact and I just don't want to have to write it.

Also, I do write about equal amounts of slash and het, and the slash of course is almost never canon.

[owl]

I tend to take canon more systematically; if it jumps the shark for me I quietly drop out of the fandom. Life's too short.
I'm mostly all about the gen, myself.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

They're not modest even by most Christian standards of modesty.

The minimum standard of Christian modesty for Christian groups that actually promote it appears to be: no cleavage, no bare midriffs, no short-shorts or miniskirts, cover the knee, no strapless tops.

This is also close to the Mormon standard, which requires short or cap sleeves and skirts or shorts to the knee.

Tznius...I'd say you and I both know what it is, but despite the clear rules, standards do vary between communities and it's interesting to see what different people are willing to be more lenient with themselves about. I have friends I think are more tzniusdik than I am, but then one day I see them wearing something I would never wear. *shrug*

Of course Muslimahs cover everything but even then there are differences--when are pants allowed, do you have to wear a jilbab or chador over your clothes, if you wear a jilbab or chador does it matter what you wear underneath, should you cover your face...

I've come to the conclusion that what matters is that you try and that you think about it and do *something*; and in a world where I can get on the bus and sit down and have someone's bumcrack shoved in my face, see someone's pubic hair at the top of their jeans, &c, I'm always grateful for anyone who tries :)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I know. I wear the longest skirts in my circle of friends, but that's because I rate comfort and freedom of movement more than fashion.

But there's a lot of interpretation of the rules out there, which is as it should be.

[sdelmonte]

I have no real evidence, but the fact that I never hear any rumors about teen pregnancy in my neighborhood makes me think that, if nothing else, it's not a huge problem. (I could also say it's because we also don't speak loshon hara, but I have no proof of that either.)

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

A recent survey (http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Judaism/2004/07/Survey-Evaluates-Sexual-Attitudes-Among-Orthodox-Jewish-Women.aspx) said that American O Jewish women who kept Taharat Hamishpacha were much less likely to report being physically and emotionally satisfied with their sex lives than the average American woman.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

But also note that fully one quarter didn't answer. I think sethg_prime is right - modesty plays a role.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Are you assuming a correlation between sexual satisfaction and modesty in reporting it? I can see a couple of ways that correlation could occur. Something to look at in future surveys, I guess.

I general I read surveys about sex with a shakerful of salt. "Everyone lies about sex." is a reasonably accurate rule of thumb, IMO.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I think that modesty means that many women wouldn't say anything - that we have a fair bit of null data.

The other thing is, there is a high percentage of double virgin marriages, with a taboo on discussion. There may well be couples who honestly don't know they can experiment with each other.

I've heard stories of young couples who go to doctors to find out why no pregnancy after six months or whatever, and it turns out she's still a virgin.

Hi-ho, Silver!

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

Vewy intewesting...

The article mentioned "the silver ring thing" and that was the first time I'd ever heard of it being a symbol for abstinence. I've been wearing silver rings for years as part of my religious and psychic path. In my homeworld's religion, silver represents water in the psychic sense, and you wear the ring either on a finger or on a chain to help focus psychic energy. If you lose it that means the ring is full and will be found next by somebody who needs that kind of energy. I found (and lost) my first one back in the 80s and have been through half a dozen. Galana (back when she was Galana) got a silver ring for our handfasting but lost it at that Lunacon in that awful hotel in the Meadowlands.

Re: Hi-ho, Silver!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Just did some research on "the silver ring thing."

It used to be federally funded until someone realized it was religious in nature.

It costs to attend the concerts and the programs and to buy the rings, and they treat it as a business, not just a calling. (If you lose the ring, it costs even more to replace it, by the way. Speaking of losing silver rings.)

And, of course, it doesn't work - it only postpones matters.

I have a silver ring, set with a turquoise (not sure if stones make a difference here.) My mother gave it to me for my 20th birthday. There was a time when I lost it, about 18 years ago, but I found it and I've been wearing it ever since.

Re: Hi-ho, Silver!

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

Then by my religion, you needed to store that energy away until it was needed again. Btw, they're also supposed to be cleaned regularly so they don't fill up so fast. I lost one somewhere in my apartment and it's probably waiting for Samantha to move away before it reappears.

As for stones, they're optional; the ring is supposed to be just silver but adding a stone (esp. a birthstone) brings up all the energies semiprecious stones are supposed to generate. I won't go into comparisons of Terran v. Sartine energy indications. Maybe I'll put it in a zine (or future novel).

Re: Hi-ho, Silver!

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Silver Ring Thing is very specific. I think it even has specific rings.

A gold band is for the husband to give, so Daddy gives a silver one instead.

Re: Hi-ho, Silver!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It's not Daddy. That's a purity ball. The kids buy their own rings at SRT events.

Strikes me it's rather for profit.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That article made a real impression on me too. Though it does match what I've seen of how many people think.

Not that people won't be hypocritical about it. Bill O'Reilly was happy to defend Bristol's pregnancy since her family would pay for it, but he blamed Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy at the same age on the "pinhead parents."

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

From my point of view (raised non-Orthodox Jew), it's a failure of the parents in both cases.

My mother told me last week that if I'd shown signs of sexual activity in high school, she'd have sat me down and told me the facts of contraception. She'd already made plans. I suspect I'd've been on the Pill before college if she thought it was necessary. Note that high school was late seventies, so we were at most worried about herpes.

I have a wonderful, pragmatic mother.

As I was a social outcast in high school (and college), that was never a factor, and she trusted me to do the right thing as an adult.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

your mom sound remarkably like mine, sometimes.

my mother, when I was 13, said to me "Honey, if you decide to start having sex, I will not be happy. But I will pay for birth control. And you'd better use birth control, OR I WILL KILL YOU."

yes'm!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

And I suspect my mom is at least a decade or so older than yours, too.

As in, had four kids before the sexual revolution.

[owl]

I find that article eye-opening and somewhat bizarre, coming from a different evangelical (Irish) background, where an unmarried pregnancy is viewed as a disaster, and it's expected that you'll remain a virgin until marriage, which tends to take place in the early twenties. Most of the young couples wait till the late twenties or early thirties before starting a family. There is no hoopla about pledges or rings, though some parents ban/discourage their children from dating until 16 or 18, and there is a sort of tradition where the young adults will have discussion with the teenagers, and group-based activities, which, while the pairing-off will happen, seems to delay it somewhat.

It works pretty well, compared to what the articles describes; I know of only one out-of-marriage pregnancy, at twenty, and while she took the same route of getting married as the girls in the article, it seems to be working out happily enough. It doesn't have a great deal in common with the red sex of the article.

I couldn't understand where all these religious right Americans were coming from, because I was assuming a similar situation to my own subculture. Shows where assumptions get you.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

It's an excellent article.

And it goes with my perception: As long as you say the right words, you can get away with anything. It's ALL about keeping up appearances.

My mother was horrified to learn I'd been sexually active before I got married. (I married at 21). I'd given such a good impersonation of a prude, she actually sat me down for a talk before the wedding.

OTOH, my sister was sexually active at 15, made no bones about it, and Mom calmly put her on the Pill.

The whole idea is to marry them young, breed them hard and never let them find out anything else. Some sects discourage driving for women, and most discourage college. This is why young people raised in this culture leave at a rate of about 80%.