Pastor Blasts Women for Lack of Modesty

[Crashland]

I think that was the point. If you don't care about people saying "beached whale" then why are you offended by someone who says "filthy dishrag" to a bunch of people who probably all agree with him? Why not just ignore it?

I just answered that question in the same post you are responding to. Because some women do not appreciate being devalued if they have sex before marriage, especially when men are often not held to the same standard. Its not such a terrible thing to call people out on being $#@!s.

[PaulConventionWV]

I just answered that question in the same post you are responding to. Because some women do not appreciate being devalued if they have sex before marriage, especially when men are often not held to the same standard. Its not such a terrible thing to call people out on being $#@!s.

Fat people don't appreciate being called whales either, but like you said, you don't really care about that.

It's not about calling people out for being $#@!s. It's deliberately listening in on a meeting of like-minded people just to get offended over something. Why are you listening to it in the first place? Do you call out Klan members for saying offensive things when they have meetings or do you just kind of shrug it off and it doesn't affect you?

[Rothbardian Girl]

I think that was the point. If you don't care about people saying "beached whale" then why are you offended by someone who says "filthy dishrag" to a bunch of people who probably all agree with him? Why not just ignore it?

One of the biggest problems with the "purity culture" that pastors such as this one tend to preach is that it demonstrably harms women's perceptions of their own sexualities. You may remember the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case; she was abducted and repeatedly raped by the man who kidnapped her. She has spoken at length about how her religious, purity-based upbringing made her feel worthless after the first rape. Even high school sex ed classes, particularly in the South, aren't immune to this horrendous rhetoric. The "filthy dishrag" imagery evokes a lot of painful self-loathing in rape victims. That is why pastors using this rhetoric need to be called out, and people who listen to them should be educated on the psychological dangers these situations present.

Like it or not, pastors are simply filing a demand. People willingly listen to them because they want to hear what they have to say. They are not obligated to you or anyone to change their message.

But what drives demand? Subjective processes; what people value culturally. It is not unlibertarian to attempt to influence these values. Even Mises acknowledged the effects of social activism; quoting from Human Action (Chapter 15),

The market is a process, actuated by the interplay of the actions of the various individuals cooperating under the division of labor. The forces determining the- continuously changing- state of the market are the value judgments of these individuals and their actions as directed by value judgments.

[jmdrake]

About things being categorically immoral, I think I would make a distinction between applying this to actions, such as torturing a child, or shooting a person who is black, versus ideologies or attitudes, such as sadism or racism. I believe that actions are inherently amoral in and of themselves, but they become moral or immoral depending on context. Attitudes such as sadism or racism, however, essentially are antithetical to what I feel is my own definition of morality which has a lot to do with human empathy. In describing those things I would be much more apt to consider those to be categorically immoral. You might consider this to be "having it both ways", but I think it is consistent as long as that distinction is made.

It's consistently childish and stupid. I learned long ago "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." All of these people that got bent out of shape because Donald Sterling is a racist even though Donald Sterling made Doc Rivers one of only a handful of black team managers in professional sports are retarded. What's changed thanks to that other than the ownership of the team? And sorry, but to excuse torture of a child but to be concerned about some politically correct garbage is beyond ridiculous. You're right. They aren't the same. What you advocate is senseless. If someone called my child the n-word, I would help my child deal with the hurt maybe talk to the other person, but that would be the end of it. If they called me that I'd laugh it off. But if they ever tortured my child, even for some stupid "situational reason" there would be hell to pay! I could care less if they said "By torturing your child we saved 1 million other people". There would be hell to pay! This "We can excuse immoral acts but not immoral thoughts or words" is what is wrong with this damn country! And nothing the pastor said was immoral! You might not like it. That doesn't make it immoral!

Honestly, I don't really have a strong opinion on the "beached whale".

That's what I thought. Which is why you have no justification to be all panties in a knot over the "dishrag" comment. Some women are just as offended by being referred to as a "beached whale" as you, and the silly woman in the video, are concerned about the dishrag comment. She didn't thing sleeping around made her a dishrag? Then she shouldn't take that offense upon herself. A fat person doesn't see himself/herself as a beached whale? Then that person should be happy with himself and ignore people who are too ignorant to know otherwise. I know you don't believe in God. But that doesn't make you God. You are not the judge of what should be or should not be offensive.

Now some atheists have adopted the libertarian morality of NAP. I'm sure hanging around here as long as you have, you have heard of it. NAP is very simple. I can't initiate any force that harms your person or your property. Your freaking feelings are not "property." So I can call you or your girl a dishrag or a beached whale or a whore or whatever. Is that nice? No. But it's not immoral under NAP. Torturing an innocent child is always immoral under NAP regardless of what kind of moral calculus you might come up with to justify. While I take a broader view of morality than that, at least NAP is consistent. You don't have to sit around trying to wonder whether or not the particular insult "rises" to the level of being immoral. Nor do you have to do any time of silly calculation to decide if this time hurting a innocent person is worth it or not. It never is. Period.

[jmdrake]

What else would pastors/the Church do with their time if they couldn't focus it on regulating morality (especially women)?

Certainly can't spend it spreading peace and love. Too old school.

I have no idea. I don't attend that church. Who knows what happens there besides the 5 minutes of the soundbite?

[jmdrake]

One of the biggest problems with the "purity culture" that pastors such as this one tend to preach is that it demonstrably harms women's perceptions of their own sexualities. You may remember the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case; she was abducted and repeatedly raped by the man who kidnapped her. She has spoken at length about how her religious, purity-based upbringing made her feel worthless after the first rape. Even high school sex ed classes, particularly in the South, aren't immune to this horrendous rhetoric. The "filthy dishrag" imagery evokes a lot of painful self-loathing in rape victims. That is why pastors using this rhetoric need to be called out, and people who listen to them should be educated on the psychological dangers these situations present.


But what drives demand? Subjective processes; what people value culturally. It is not unlibertarian to attempt to influence these values. Even Mises acknowledged the effects of social activism; quoting from Human Action (Chapter 15),

Yes of course. We need the sex ed classes where children as young as 11 are taught to go take baths and sleep together in oversized PJs as an alternative to having sex. And the sex ed that's going on in the U.K. that's apparently turning some disturbed boys into rapists. Screw it all. Just drop em off at a strip club and be done with it.

[jmdrake]

I just answered that question in the same post you are responding to. Because some women do not appreciate being devalued if they have sex before marriage, especially when men are often not held to the same standard. Its not such a terrible thing to call people out on being $#@!s.

Some women don't like being devalued by being called fat. Why doesn't that register to you?

[jmdrake]

Do you really think people in those congregations are going to change their views because you got offended?

Exactly! If anything the added attention will make the congregation grow larger. And that's another reason why you won't see me doing something stupid like making videos trashing klan speeches. Anyone who would listen to that isn't going to be open to my philosophy either. Why do I want to spread their message for them?

[Rothbardian Girl]

Yes of course. We need the sex ed classes where children as young as 11 are taught to go take baths and sleep together in oversized PJs as an alternative to having sex. And the sex ed that's going on in the U.K. that's apparently turning some disturbed boys into rapists. Screw it all. Just drop em off at a strip club and be done with it.

Please, do continue putting words in my mouth and suggesting that I endorse any of what you're mentioning. Well-formulated argument there.

[jmdrake]

Please, do continue putting words in my mouth and suggesting that I endorse any of what you're mentioning. Well-formulated argument there.

Oh I wasn't putting any words in your mouth at all. I'm just talking about all of the wonderful non-southern sex education that's out there. After all it's the woman in the OP video that's all creeped out by "purity balls" and such, yet has nothing, apparently, to say about sex education that teaches kids to skinny dip in the tub together. Sex education that tells adolescent kids its a good idea to wait before having sex. Oh the horror! The horror!

Edit: Of course at the same time while we're telling little boys that they should be having all kids of "almost" sexual encounters with little girls, we'll also tell them that trying to at all approach a strange woman in public, even if you take pains to be polite, is "street harassment." And tell the if at the end of a date they try to lean in and get a kiss without asking first that's "attempted sexual assault." And regardless of how much a woman seems to be in to them, they need to, at every step in a sexual encounter, stop and ask "Are you really sure you want to do this?" Yes. Let's hypersexualize children, then make it as awkward as possible for males to engage in anything even remotely sexual.

[James Madison]

Oh I wasn't putting any words in your mouth at all. I'm just talking about all of the wonderful non-southern sex education that's out there. After all it's the woman in the OP video that's all creeped out by "purity balls" and such, yet has nothing, apparently, to say about sex education that teaches kids to skinny dip in the tub together. Sex education that tells adolescent kids its a good idea to wait before having sex. Oh the horror! The horror!

This thread is just another example of why men are beyond crazy to date/marry an American woman. Yeah, yeah, some are still good, but it's a simple numbers game that you're not likely to win.

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Man that video is offensive, that feminazi just won't shut up.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Oh I wasn't putting any words in your mouth at all. I'm just talking about all of the wonderful non-southern sex education that's out there. After all it's the woman in the OP video that's all creeped out by "purity balls" and such, yet has nothing, apparently, to say about sex education that teaches kids to skinny dip in the tub together. Sex education that tells adolescent kids its a good idea to wait before having sex. Oh the horror! The horror!

Purity balls are creepy, though. Fetishizing virginity by saying it needs to remain under lock and key is a positively medieval practice. Civilized societies don't sell their daughters into marriage and value virginity above all else. Telling women their bodies aren't really theirs and that having sex is basically like driving a car off a lot is incredibly damaging. When people in charge of sex ed say things like this, they tend to get imprinted in girls' memories. I'm only a few years removed from these ham-fisted attempts at getting us not to have sex, and I remember them well. This is damaging under all circumstances, but especially in the case of rape victims; how can the culture live with itself knowing that it has caused women to feel devalued over a non-consensual act? Intelligent, thoughtful and vibrant women shouldn't be reduced to what is between their legs, yet this is what occurs all the time in "purity ball" culture. The thought of a father zealously guarding his daughter's sexuality should probably provoke at least a bit of thought about what that conveys, if not outright revulsion.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between the "nobody wants chewed gum" model and the "skinny dipping" model when it comes to sex ed. Moreover, I have a hard time accepting the argument that kids choose to skinny dip/any other outrageous piece of advice together just because some overworked, overstressed and usually unattractive school educator tells them to do it. Kids don't attentively absorb what they are taught in sex ed; the whole thing is one big joke. They didn't send the hot gym or science teachers to administer my middle school sex ed class, they purposely sent the thoroughly unsexy health teacher who clearly hated his job to do it, he went through his spiel, and that was it. I'm willing to bet this scenario is usually what ends up happening. Purity culture is not telling people "it's a good idea to wait before having sex," it's specifically and harmfully linking a person's intrinsic worth to their genitals rather than his/her intelligence or creativity, and promoting double standards whether knowingly or unknowingly. It introduces judgment to a situation where judgment can be incredibly harmful. And that's what's so "the horror! the horror!" about it.

[PaulConventionWV]

One of the biggest problems with the "purity culture" that pastors such as this one tend to preach is that it demonstrably harms women's perceptions of their own sexualities. You may remember the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case; she was abducted and repeatedly raped by the man who kidnapped her. She has spoken at length about how her religious, purity-based upbringing made her feel worthless after the first rape. Even high school sex ed classes, particularly in the South, aren't immune to this horrendous rhetoric. The "filthy dishrag" imagery evokes a lot of painful self-loathing in rape victims. That is why pastors using this rhetoric need to be called out, and people who listen to them should be educated on the psychological dangers these situations present.

Women don't have to listen to this pastor. The ones who do are there of their own free will and volition. If you're a woman, why not just ignore the guy and not give him any credence? Also, don't you think you're blaming the church for a rape that some idiot committed? Why blame someone other than the idiot who did it? Isn't that what you SJW's keep saying? Blame the person who did it, not the church. Anything she thought was her own thinking. Nobody else put that into her head. She accepted certain beliefs. If she didn't want to believe the things she did, she didn't have to.

But what drives demand? Subjective processes; what people value culturally. It is not unlibertarian to attempt to influence these values. Even Mises acknowledged the effects of social activism; quoting from Human Action (Chapter 15),

Activism is fine, but if you've already won and you're still seeking out things to be offended by, listening in on private meetings so that you can be offended, you need to change your goals. Rape is and has always been condemned by society. There's no reason to go around infiltrating every little nook and cranny so we can find people saying offensive things and try to bring them down. Just ignore them. If you see some idiot with a foolish minority view spouting his rhetoric, just ignore him. Why do people feel the need to listen in on a private congregation and blast the preacher when nobody even knew he said those things besides the congregation until a feminist put it on the internet? Why do that?

[PaulConventionWV]

I have no idea. I don't attend that church. Who knows what happens there besides the 5 minutes of the soundbite?

Moreover, who cares? Why is it suddenly everybody's business what a private congregation does in their own time?

[PaulConventionWV]

Purity balls are creepy, though. Fetishizing virginity by saying it needs to remain under lock and key is a positively medieval practice. Civilized societies don't sell their daughters into marriage and value virginity above all else. Telling women their bodies aren't really theirs and that having sex is basically like driving a car off a lot is incredibly damaging. When people in charge of sex ed say things like this, they tend to get imprinted in girls' memories. I'm only a few years removed from these ham-fisted attempts at getting us not to have sex, and I remember them well. This is damaging under all circumstances, but especially in the case of rape victims; how can the culture live with itself knowing that it has caused women to feel devalued over a non-consensual act? Intelligent, thoughtful and vibrant women shouldn't be reduced to what is between their legs, yet this is what occurs all the time in "purity ball" culture. The thought of a father zealously guarding his daughter's sexuality should probably provoke at least a bit of thought about what that conveys, if not outright revulsion.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between the "nobody wants chewed gum" model and the "skinny dipping" model when it comes to sex ed. Moreover, I have a hard time accepting the argument that kids choose to skinny dip/any other outrageous piece of advice together just because some overworked, overstressed and usually unattractive school educator tells them to do it. Kids don't attentively absorb what they are taught in sex ed; the whole thing is one big joke. They didn't send the hot gym or science teachers to administer my middle school sex ed class, they purposely sent the thoroughly unsexy health teacher who clearly hated his job to do it, he went through his spiel, and that was it. I'm willing to bet this scenario is usually what ends up happening. Purity culture is not telling people "it's a good idea to wait before having sex," it's specifically and harmfully linking a person's intrinsic worth to their genitals rather than his/her intelligence or creativity, and promoting double standards whether knowingly or unknowingly. It introduces judgment to a situation where judgment can be incredibly harmful. And that's what's so "the horror! the horror!" about it.

But why do you care if purity balls are creepy? Let the religious people do their thing and stop trying to change them. They are who they are because they wanted to be that way. They're not doing anything illegal.

Are we going to start being all, "It takes a village" and tell Christians how to raise their kids?

[jmdrake]

Purity balls are creepy, though. Fetishizing virginity by saying it needs to remain under lock and key is a positively medieval practice.

Then don't go to one. All this "Virginity is bad, but so is being friendly to a strange woman" nonsense is creepy. You have your values. Other people have theirs. Raise your daughter to have all the sex before marriage they want to, but snap on some guy that says "Good evening" or "Smile more" if that's what you believe. Live and let live.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Women don't have to listen to this pastor. The ones who do are there of their own free will and volition. If you're a woman, why not just ignore the guy and not give him any credence? Also, don't you think you're blaming the church for a rape that some idiot committed? Why blame someone other than the idiot who did it? Isn't that what you SJW's keep saying? Blame the person who did it, not the church. Anything she thought was her own thinking. Nobody else put that into her head. She accepted certain beliefs. If she didn't want to believe the things she did, she didn't have to.



Activism is fine, but if you've already won and you're still seeking out things to be offended by, listening in on private meetings so that you can be offended, you need to change your goals. Rape is and has always been condemned by society. There's no reason to go around infiltrating every little nook and cranny so we can find people saying offensive things and try to bring them down. Just ignore them. If you see some idiot with a foolish minority view spouting his rhetoric, just ignore him. Why do people feel the need to listen in on a private congregation and blast the preacher when nobody even knew he said those things besides the congregation until a feminist put it on the internet? Why do that?

I don't think you have read my posts very closely. The point is that we all internalize messages on both a conscious and an unconscious level. I think Crashland mentioned it before, and I'll reiterate: the same thing is happening here that happens when people absorb messages from the media (we've complained about it countless times when discussing why more people don't like Ron Paul). It's really easy for people who haven't personally experienced it to say "why don't women ignore the guy," but the thing is, these women often are very receptive to the purity message and only realize its destructive effects after they have personally experienced rape or have known others who have been raped. I'm not blaming the church for the rape, I'm blaming it for being a catalyst for a harmful reaction to rape. Of course it's the rapist's fault, but the specific point here is how harmful and flawed teachings provoke self-hating reactions from victims. This is a very serious problem that anyone interested in genuinely understanding the crime of rape, with its associated psychological implications, should be investigating.

This situation has nothing to do with "society condemning rape", or "women being there of their own free will and volition" (your assertion that it has always condemned rape is plain wrong; do you need to familiarize yourself with the legal history of marital rape, as a starting point?), it has to do with the things internalized by women in a congregation, some of whom are sadly statistically likely to be raped and who may experience feelings of self-hatred as a result of the teachings of their purity culture. I'm specifically talking about internalized teachings before a rape occurs. I'll just quote Elizabeth Smart specifically:

I think it goes even beyond fear, for so many children, especially in sex trafficking. It's feelings of self-worth. It's feeling like, 'Who would ever want me now? I'm worthless.'

That is what it was for me the first time I was raped. I was raised in a very religious household, one that taught that sex was something special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other. And that's how I'd been raised, that's what I'd always been determined to follow: that when I got married, then and only then would I engage in sex.

After that first rape, I felt crushed. Who could want me now? I felt so dirty and so filthy. I understand so easily all too well why someone wouldn't run because of that alone.

Smart's tragic feelings are the direct result of the purity culture in which she was raised. She's talking about what her religious community taught her prior to her rape, so it isn't a "free will and volition" problem, it's about subconscious, internalized feelings and teachings provoking a specific reaction to her own rape.

Then don't go to one. All this "Virginity is bad, but so is being friendly to a strange woman" nonsense is creepy. You have your values. Other people have theirs. Raise your daughter to have all the sex before marriage they want to, but snap on some guy that says "Good evening" or "Smile more" if that's what you believe. Live and let live.

And... where did I say virginity is bad, again? I personally chose to wait a while until I had sex, so the simple act of abstaining from sex is certainly not something I'd consider a bad thing. Do I think it's a bad thing that virginity in our culture is put on such a high pedestal? Yes, I think it's fairly easy to demonstrate (and I have demonstrated) why doing so is unspeakably harmful to victims of sexual violence. As far as a personal decision, however, I am fully aware and supportive of the fact that people have different ages and benchmarks for when they are ready, willing and able to engage in sexual activities. I approve of parents teaching their children that sex may have emotional effects that are hard to prepare for, and so it may not be a great idea to rush into it in certain situations.

But what I do not approve of is teaching that virginity is some sort of dividing line that becomes irreparably crossed. As a side note, I find that most people do not even understand the biology of what they're discussing. Some women aren't even born with a hymen, and they certainly aren't supposed to break or be subject to pain during a sexual encounter. (If it's painful, you probably didn't do foreplay right.) They can break if a woman falls off her bike or goes horseback riding. So it really becomes useless from a biological point of view. Moreover, if that weren't enough, virginity usually fails as a social construct because some people think only PIV sex results in "loss of virginity", among other reasons. There is literally nothing useful about the concept in this day and age, and it's incredibly damaging to think otherwise, so why bother to have it? I'll continue to argue against it because I happen to care that other women feel shamed by something that happened to them and was out of their control. I am a decent person in that regard; excuse me for caring or showing the slightest bit of interest in other people.

[euphemia]

Can't a preacher preach to his own congregation? If you are not a Christian, I don't see why you care. If you are a Christian, you should be concerned if you are causing someone else to sin by your lack of modesty.

I want to address this just a little bit. Certainly a pastor should be able to preach to his own congregation. What he should not do is depart from the basis for the faith and doctrine of his church. In this case, the pastor was talking about modesty. He was not using the word in a proper biblical context, and he did not base his words on anything the Bible actually says. I have talked about this throughout the thread. I think he was not living up to what his calling would demand of him, and his church deserves better.

I also think a pastor is required to teach what the Bible calls "the whole counsel of God." In other words, he does not get to preach and teach only about his pet topics or passages. He is requires to "rightly divide the word of truth" and so a scholarly study on the whole Bible, using good principles of hermenutics (Bible interpretation). Over time, his congregation should be exposed to a comprehensive study of the whole Bible.

This is one of the reasons we attend a liturgical church. They follow a centuries-old lectionary that will be followed by other churches in our denomination all around the world. I have come to see how this builds accountability into the doctrine of the church and gives even a casual attender a good scope and sequence for their own spiritual growth.

That's my opinion. YMMV.

[PaulConventionWV]

I don't think you have read my posts very closely. The point is that we all internalize messages on both a conscious and an unconscious level. I think Crashland mentioned it before, and I'll reiterate: the same thing is happening here that happens when people absorb messages from the media (we've complained about it countless times when discussing why more people don't like Ron Paul). It's really easy for people who haven't personally experienced it to say "why don't women ignore the guy," but the thing is, these women often are very receptive to the purity message and only realize its destructive effects after they have personally experienced rape or have known others who have been raped. I'm not blaming the church for the rape, I'm blaming it for being a catalyst for a harmful reaction to rape. Of course it's the rapist's fault, but the specific point here is how harmful and flawed teachings provoke self-hating reactions from victims. This is a very serious problem that anyone interested in genuinely understanding the crime of rape, with its associated psychological implications, should be investigating.

Why do you care who internalizes what? If they internalize it, they did that with their own thoughts. Nobody forced them to think that way. You can't make people stop going to church and listening to what the pastor says. If they do that, then they're the ones responsible for their own thoughts and responses. Nobody else can make you respond to something. Only you can do that.

This situation has nothing to do with "society condemning rape", or "women being there of their own free will and volition" (your assertion that it has always condemned rape is plain wrong; do you need to familiarize yourself with the legal history of marital rape, as a starting point?), it has to do with the things internalized by women in a congregation, some of whom are sadly statistically likely to be raped and who may experience feelings of self-hatred as a result of the teachings of their purity culture. I'm specifically talking about internalized teachings before a rape occurs. I'll just quote Elizabeth Smart specifically:

I'm a believer in self-determination. You can't control what other people think. If you have a friend who goes to church, then by all means, tell them how you feel about that. But the idea that we need to try to change society so that other people can think about rape differently is flawed from the start. If you are concerned about someone's attitude toward a bad experience they had, then talk to them about how they can improve their attitude. It is foolish to try to infiltrate private meetings because we're afraid it's going to somehow make women think bad thoughts about themselves. It's absurd. You can control your own thoughts, nobody else.

Smart's tragic feelings are the direct result of the purity culture in which she was raised. She's talking about what her religious community taught her prior to her rape, so it isn't a "free will and volition" problem, it's about subconscious, internalized feelings and teachings provoking a specific reaction to her own rape.

Her religious community did not force her to accept these ideas. She did that herself. There are several ways to deal with the problem, but trying to change the culture is the absolute least productive way you could possibly go about doing that. It all starts with YOU. If you don't want to feel bad, then stop thinking the thoughts that make you feel bad and focus on the ones that make you feel good. Yeah, I know it's not that simple, but it's a hell of a lot better than trying to stop people from living their lives like they see fit. You can't change the conviction of religious people, so why try? Why not just focus on your own reaction and what you can do about it instead of making a million other people stop teaching their kids a certain way. You have far more power over your own situation than you do over what other people think and believe.

In summary, the culture is not responsible for how a person feels. If you're that fragile, then it's your problem, not society's.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Why do you care who internalizes what? If they internalize it, they did that with their own thoughts. Nobody forced them to think that way. You can't make people stop going to church and listening to what the pastor says. If they do that, then they're the ones responsible for their own thoughts and responses. Nobody else can make you respond to something. Only you can do that.

Basic, well-researched psychoanalytic theory says you're wrong. Internalization is the indisputable product of many factors, including social ones. It isn't a question of force; you're missing the point entirely as usual. I don't want to make people stop going to church. The idea is to present people with information that reveals the harm of purity culture, so that they may make informed decisions as to whether church teachings are helpful for them. I am contributing to the marketplace of ideas. You're claiming you've consciously chosen whether to accept or reject everything your parents ever told you, and I don't believe it for a second. You are more like the influential forces in your life (family, friends, church) than even you realize, and it can't all be chalked up to conscious decisions of acceptance or rejection.

If your theory were true, what's the point of literally any social action at all? Why are you advertising your book in your signature? If I buy your book, it is my decision and my decision alone, and your price point of $10 won't make any difference to me at all. Why didn't struggling black families just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and start thinking positive thoughts about themselves instead of engaging in all those silly little sit-ins and demonstrations? They weren't ever going to change the way white people thought of them, after all...

[jmdrake]

And... where did I say virginity is bad, again? I personally chose to wait a while until I had sex, so the simple act of abstaining from sex is certainly not something I'd consider a bad thing. Do I think it's a bad thing that virginity in our culture is put on such a high pedestal? Yes, I think it's fairly easy to demonstrate (and I have demonstrated) why doing so is unspeakably harmful to victims of sexual violence.

A) Sexual purity is in general no longer on a "high pedestal" in this country.

B) It's ignorant to assume that people who put sexual purity on a "high pedestal" are not sensitive to rape victims or even to girls who get pregnant from consensual sex.

I was just at a Christmas pageant at a conservative church which double as a baby shower for a 15 year old girl who had quit coming to church years before. I think these fathers who go to purity balls with their daughters are not at all "creepy" and most would be the strongest to defend their daughter if she got raped. I fact many of these fathers put the fear of God into the young men who would date their daughters. I more men thought "If I mess over this girl her dad will kill me" before taking her out on a date, we wouldn't have to deal with silliness like college "You'd better get verbal consent first" date rape rules.

[William Tell]

A) Sexual purity is in general no longer on a "high pedestal" in this country.

B) It's ignorant to assume that people who put sexual purity on a "high pedestal" are not sensitive to rape victims or even to girls who get pregnant from consensual sex.

I was just at a Christmas pageant at a conservative church which double as a baby shower for a 15 year old girl who had quit coming to church years before. I think these fathers who go to purity balls with their daughters are not at all "creepy" and most would be the strongest to defend their daughter if she got raped. I fact many of these fathers put the fear of God into the young men who would date their daughters. I more men thought "If I mess over this girl her dad will kill me" before taking her out on a date, we wouldn't have to deal with silliness like college "You'd better get verbal consent first" date rape rules.

Yes, in fact people call others virgins as an insult now. I can't say how many times I've seen someone on youtube say "you must be a virgin" to someone else.

[Rothbardian Girl]

A) Sexual purity is in general no longer on a "high pedestal" in this country.

B) It's ignorant to assume that people who put sexual purity on a "high pedestal" are not sensitive to rape victims or even to girls who get pregnant from consensual sex.

I was just at a Christmas pageant at a conservative church which double as a baby shower for a 15 year old girl who had quit coming to church years before. I think these fathers who go to purity balls with their daughters are not at all "creepy" and most would be the strongest to defend their daughter if she got raped. I fact many of these fathers put the fear of God into the young men who would date their daughters. I more men thought "If I mess over this girl her dad will kill me" before taking her out on a date, we wouldn't have to deal with silliness like college "You'd better get verbal consent first" date rape rules.

So now we have a problem with men not respecting boundaries unless they are dictated by another man, who isn't even a party to any possible sexual encounter. Yes, that sounds like a great way of conceptualizing rape defense. Do you not see how women's autonomy isn't even being discussed in this situation, and why that should scare you? As a woman, I don't like the idea of two men negotiating over sexual access to me.

Purity balls imply a father values the flawed concept of virginity more than the daughter, and that the dad has an interest in his daughter's sexuality. They reinforce the idea that women can only be taken advantage of, and that men can only take advantage when it comes to sex. Why are there no purity balls for sons? If a woman wants to pledge to herself not to have sex until she's emotionally and physically ready, I would have less of a problem with the model. Pledging to a father is just weird.

I personally still find that sexual purity is an important concept for many people, just from my observations on social media. And you're right, I probably do generalize people in this culture, but there's no denying the harm that Elizabeth Smart's upbringing caused to her perceptions of her own rape after the fact.

[Crashland]

It's consistently childish and stupid. I learned long ago "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." All of these people that got bent out of shape because Donald Sterling is a racist even though Donald Sterling made Doc Rivers one of only a handful of black team managers in professional sports are retarded. What's changed thanks to that other than the ownership of the team? And sorry, but to excuse torture of a child but to be concerned about some politically correct garbage is beyond ridiculous. You're right. They aren't the same. What you advocate is senseless. If someone called my child the n-word, I would help my child deal with the hurt maybe talk to the other person, but that would be the end of it. If they called me that I'd laugh it off. But if they ever tortured my child, even for some stupid "situational reason" there would be hell to pay! I could care less if they said "By torturing your child we saved 1 million other people". There would be hell to pay! This "We can excuse immoral acts but not immoral thoughts or words" is what is wrong with this damn country! And nothing the pastor said was immoral! You might not like it. That doesn't make it immoral!

I was not one of those people getting bent out of shape about Donald Sterling. The only real justification for getting him out of the ownership was because he was responsible for creating a PR disaster which was manifesting itself financially.

The reason you are saying there would be hell to pay if your child was tortured in order to save 1 million other children from being tortured, is because your better judgment is being clouded by an emotional response to a distressing concept. I don't understand why you keep fixating on this torture issue, which you said yourself is the most extreme case where the chances of a justifiable use are so remote that they are barely even worth considering at all. All you have to do is take it down one level to see from a better angle what is going on here. Take, for example, the act of killing someone. I assume we can both imagine a scenario where killing a person is not justified, and also a second scenario where killing a person would be justified. The act of killing a person is therefore amoral, because the morality of it depends on things that are outside of the act itself. What would be inconsistent, would be to arbitrarily apply this principle to some actions but not others.

Technically, the act of calling someone the n-word is also amoral, because there exist remote hypothetical situations in which doing so could be the lesser evil in a dilemma. This would be about on par with torture though, where such a situation is very unlikely to occur. I treat these issues the exact same way. In almost all possible cases, they would both be immoral. Same goes for this pastor's "dirty dishrag" comment. You know, maybe calling women (but not men) who have sex before marriage 'dirty dishrags' somehow results in more people being saved from eternal hell. If that is the case, maybe it's justified! Some of us though, including many Christians I would assume, see that sort of language (and diminishing women but not men) as doing a lot more harm than good. (For harm, I refer you to Rothbardian Girl's posts.)

That's what I thought. Which is why you have no justification to be all panties in a knot over the "dishrag" comment. Some women are just as offended by being referred to as a "beached whale" as you, and the silly woman in the video, are concerned about the dishrag comment. She didn't thing sleeping around made her a dishrag? Then she shouldn't take that offense upon herself. A fat person doesn't see himself/herself as a beached whale? Then that person should be happy with himself and ignore people who are too ignorant to know otherwise. I know you don't believe in God. But that doesn't make you God. You are not the judge of what should be or should not be offensive.

Yes, and actually the best way to figure out what is offensive is to listen to people who are offended. You could be right about the "beached whale", but I don't hear that many people complaining about that. I do hear a lot of people complaining about the way some religious institutions indoctrinate people into viewing women in a negative way.

Now some atheists have adopted the libertarian morality of NAP. I'm sure hanging around here as long as you have, you have heard of it. NAP is very simple. I can't initiate any force that harms your person or your property. Your freaking feelings are not "property." So I can call you or your girl a dishrag or a beached whale or a whore or whatever. Is that nice? No. But it's not immoral under NAP. Torturing an innocent child is always immoral under NAP regardless of what kind of moral calculus you might come up with to justify. While I take a broader view of morality than that, at least NAP is consistent. You don't have to sit around trying to wonder whether or not the particular insult "rises" to the level of being immoral. Nor do you have to do any time of silly calculation to decide if this time hurting a innocent person is worth it or not. It never is. Period.

A moral system that says you can devalue people for any reason as long as you don't physically harm them, I can toss that right into the garbage. NAP might have some merits, but not as a moral system. Perhaps we both agree on that but for different reasons.

[Crashland]

Exactly! If anything the added attention will make the congregation grow larger. And that's another reason why you won't see me doing something stupid like making videos trashing klan speeches. Anyone who would listen to that isn't going to be open to my philosophy either. Why do I want to spread their message for them?

This is why the distinction between Klan speeches, which have almost no impact on our culture today, versus something that is preached in countless churches all across the country, is important.

[jmdrake]

I was not one of those people getting bent out of shape about Donald Sterling. The only real justification for getting him out of the ownership was because he was responsible for creating a PR disaster which was manifesting itself financially.

The reason you are saying there would be hell to pay if your child was tortured in order to save 1 million other children from being tortured, is because your better judgment is being clouded by an emotional response to a distressing concept.

Or maybe it's because I'm not full of crap.

I don't understand why you keep fixating on this torture issue, which you said yourself is the most extreme case where the chances of a justifiable use are so remote that they are barely even worth considering at all. All you have to do is take it down one level to see from a better angle what is going on here. Take, for example, the act of killing someone. I assume we can both imagine a scenario where killing a person is not justified, and also a second scenario where killing a person would be justified. The act of killing a person is therefore amoral, because the morality of it depends on things that are outside of the act itself. What would be inconsistent, would be to arbitrarily apply this principle to some actions but not others.

Someone who is going to take a relativistic position on torture has no right to take an absolutist position on a pastor saying "What happened to a girl saying I'm not going to be touched by every guy. I'm not going to walk down the aisle like a filthy dishrag."

I went back and listened to that part of the clip once more to get it right and it shows just how full of it you are. He wasn't talking about girls who have been raped. He wasn't talking about girls who simply aren't virgins. He was talking about girls who give it up to every guy they meet. Have you ever watched paternity court? It's an interesting show. They have women coming on the show trying to establish paternity who have no idea who the father might be. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 men who all had sex with her at around the same time. That's pathological. There is something dreadfully wrong with that picture. And yes there are men who have 3 or 4 different women pregnant at the same time. And if you aren't a polygamist that's pathological as well. And you say "Well why doesn't he talk about the guys?" Maybe he did. Maybe that's another clip. Typically when I've heard sermons like that each gender is addressed separately. Oh.....but playing that part would't fit into the feminist agenda of the woman who compiled the video.

Technically, the act of calling someone the n-word is also technically amoral, because there exist remote hypothetical situations in which doing so could be the lesser evil in a dilemma.

Ah. But saying "there was a day when women didn't want to let every guy touch them. They said 'I don't want to walk down the aisle as a filthy dishrag" is always immoral. I reject your definition of morality.

This would be about on par with torture though, where such a situation is very unlikely to occur. I treat these issues the exact same way. In almost all possible cases, they would both be immoral. Same goes for this pastor's "dirty dishrag" comment. You know, maybe calling women (but not men) who have sex before marriage 'dirty dishrags' somehow results in more people being saved from eternal hell. If that is the case, maybe it's justified! Some of us though, including many Christians I would assume, see that sort of language (and diminishing women but not men) as doing a lot more harm than good. (For harm, I refer you to Rothbardian Girl's posts.)

LOL At you thinking that a 5 minute clip represents the entire sermon. I would hope you would be more analytically than that. Rothbardian Girl saying nice things to a woman on the street you don't know is "street harassment" so forgive me for not giving any credence to what she says on this subject.

Yes, and actually the best way to figure out what is offensive is to listen to people who are offended. You could be right about the "beached whale", but I don't hear that many people complaining about that. I do hear a lot of people complaining about the way some religious institutions indoctrinate people into viewing women in a negative way.

Really? Well you need to educate yourself. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16882830

A moral system that says you can devalue people for any reason as long as you don't physically harm them, I can toss that right into the garbage. NAP might have some merits, but not as a moral system. Perhaps we both agree on that but for different reasons.

A moral system that says you can sometime torture innocent kids is moral but saying something that may "hurt somebody's feelings" is by definition immoral retarded. I care nothing about what someone who believes as you do has to say about morality at all. I'd rather trust my kid around a klansman.

[jmdrake]

This is why the distinction between Klan speeches, which have almost no impact on our culture today, versus something that is preached in countless churches all across the country, is important.

Your "distinction" shows a complete lack of understanding of what I'm saying. But that's not surprising.

Edit: You know I was going to just leave my response to a smart-ass statement, but I didn't to explain. The number of klan meetings and their influence isn't the point. If they aren't advocating public policy, then bringing attention to what they are doing only helps them spread. The people who are in the klan aren't going to be persuaded by my attack of klan videos. Instead I would be drawing attention to the very people I was trying to marginalize. Now if they were in some larger arena that would be a different story. That's why I will call out racism when I see it here at RPF. It's a larger arena.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Or maybe it's because I'm not full of crap.




Someone who is going to take a relativistic position on torture has no right to take an absolutist position on a pastor saying "What happened to a girl saying I'm not going to be touched by every guy. I'm not going to walk down the aisle like a filthy dishrag."

I went back and listened to that part of the clip once more to get it right and it shows just how full of it you are. He wasn't talking about girls who have been raped. He wasn't talking about girls who simply aren't virgins. He was talking about girls who give it up to every guy they meet.

It doesn't matter that he wasn't talking about rape victims. It's really simple and I don't know why you're continuing to obfuscate the point: if a woman listens to that sermon and, God forbid, is raped sometime after that, it could be likely that she will consider herself to be irreparably damaged in some way specifically because of that sermon and because of other aspects of the purity culture.

That mentality is what the pastor is encouraging by linking sexual activity to filth and dirtiness, and it's the same mentality that contributed to Elizabeth Smart's tragically warped thinking after she was kidnapped and raped every day by her captor. I'm not just pulling this out of my butt here; this is how women who haven't received proper sexual advice from mentor figures tend to think, regardless of whether their "education" came from a pastor, or their parents, or some other authority figure. When a society is unable to have frank discussions about sexuality, we see these kinds of results.

You don't even have to think I'm right about everything to accept my views on this (which is completely ridiculous, by the way; I suppose you agree with Ron Paul 100% of the time?), because Ms. Smart summed it all up right there.

[PaulConventionWV]

Basic, well-researched psychoanalytic theory says you're wrong. Internalization is the indisputable product of many factors, including social ones. It isn't a question of force; you're missing the point entirely as usual. I don't want to make people stop going to church. The idea is to present people with information that reveals the harm of purity culture, so that they may make informed decisions as to whether church teachings are helpful for them. I am contributing to the marketplace of ideas. You're claiming you've consciously chosen whether to accept or reject everything your parents ever told you, and I don't believe it for a second. You are more like the influential forces in your life (family, friends, church) than even you realize, and it can't all be chalked up to conscious decisions of acceptance or rejection.

You can definitely consciously choose whether to accept or reject the big things that your parents told you. Many kids go against their parents religion and many other things in life. Teenagers go through a rebellious phase because they're learning how to be independent. And I honestly don't care what psychoanalytic theory has to say. Nobody makes you think of yourself a certain way. I never said it was easy to change your view of yourself, but it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to change society. If you're just presenting information to people, that's fine. Do what you want, but frankly the idea that you can change anything by listening in on private meetings and sharing them with the world is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody was even thinking about this pastor's sermon until that feminist made a video about it. Why not let private things remain private? The stuff they're saying doesn't even concern you because he's not talking to you.

If your theory were true, what's the point of literally any social action at all? Why are you advertising your book in your signature? If I buy your book, it is my decision and my decision alone, and your price point of $10 won't make any difference to me at all. Why didn't struggling black families just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and start thinking positive thoughts about themselves instead of engaging in all those silly little sit-ins and demonstrations? They weren't ever going to change the way white people thought of them, after all...

I never said there wasn't a point to social action, but this specific kind of social action is just absurd. There are better ways to achieve what you're trying to achieve. Nobody can tell you you're worthless unless you let yourself believe them. You can control your own thoughts. It's true that people can influence you with their words and actions, but they don't control you. You make the decisions about yourself in the end. We should be focusing on helping these victims recover, not trying to make society a place where they never encounter anything offensive because it just ain't gonna happen.

Also, you cannot compare this to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Those people were actually being oppressed by an actual government, not by "society" (although that was a factor as well). Point is, they had to be really strong to go through that, and they still have to deal with some of it today. We can't control that. What black people can control is what they do with their lives. I'm not saying it's fair for them because I don't think it is, but complaining about how society needs to change to suit you is about the last thing I would think of to try to help them. The civil rights movements made no fuss about thoughts and how people acted in their own time in private settings and gatherings. They didn't complain about these abstract notions or ideas that people held that kept them down. They were there because they faced real oppression and real rejection in society, not some abstract ideas that somehow made them unable to think for themselves.