I’m working my way through Dawn Eden’s The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On. And I did decide, after all, to read it on the subway. So far, so good. No nosy questions, or weird ones.
I think I’m going to take this chapter by chapter so I can discuss the book in depth. Though, honestly, most of the criticisms will be the same: while Dawn writes well, she’s starting from a terribly flawed premise, which is that every other woman in the world approaches dating and sex the same way she did when she was sleeping around and therefore there are a lot of women with husband-sized holes in them. Even when they have husbands — because Dawn knows, after all, that without God and chastity, those marriages are shams. How she knows this without ever having been married herself, let alone happy, is a question for the ages.
I probably wouldn’t be so irritated with Dawn and with this book if she had written it as her own story, rather than the story of Woman. Just because Dawn Eden realized that the way she conducted her sex and dating life — in particular, trying to use sex as a man-trap to get the relationship she says she wants — was not making her happy, it does not follow that other women, all other women who are having premarital/nonmarital sex or casual sex or what have you (lesbians don’t seem to be a factor in Dawn’s World) are unhappy. It also does not follow that because Dawn has found some measure of fulfillment or clarity via chastity that every other woman who is not chaste is deluding herself. Dawn may have found an answer for her own life (though it’s apparent from the book that she’s still struggling with it, and it hasn’t brought her any closer to being married than fucking drummers and hoping they’d fall in love with her did), but that doesn’t mean she’s solved everyone else’s problems. Or even that she’s identified anyone else’s problems but her own. And I have my doubts, reading this, that’s she’s even identified her own problems.
Oh, and there’s plenty of mythologizing about “sex a la New York City” and generous mention of Sex and the City. Which, really, needs to stop already. Carrie Bradshaw’s shoulders are too slender — and too fictional — to bear the weight of all the shame, blame and opprobrium heaped upon them. The show’s been off the air for years now and the statute of limitations for blaming the show for all the evils in the world is up. But more about that in a future installation, since Chapter 2 is titled “Sex and the Witty.” No, seriously. I fwowed up.
Onward, then: The Introduction.
Dawn starts off with the mythologizing of “sex a la New York City,” which wasn’t working for her. And how do we have sex here in Gomorrah on the Hudson? “[B]owing to urges and temptations, rushing into sex in the hope that love would develop, or using sex in the hope of landing a commitment.” She further describes dutifully following the Cosmo* rule or the Sex and the City [argh!]** rule, or the “Universal Single-Person Rule in our secular age: ‘Sex should push the relationship.’”
Red meat for the red-state pantysniffers, I suppose — what empty lives those fast city girls lead! Not like here. Yes, it’s very convenient for Dawn’s purposes to characterize her own neediness as “sex a la New York City.” We’re just a big bunch of soulless sluts here in NYC, hopping from bed to bed in a desperate effort to make someone, anyone, love us. Or so says Dawn, and she Speaks For Us All.
Here’s the thing: what Dawn describes is neither universal nor exclusive to New York City. What she’s describing is sex as a bargaining chip: I give you my body, you give me your love. I daresay that the girls who are going to purity balls are being taught that very idea out in the vaunted Heartland™ — and so are the boys being sent to integrity balls. Certainly, they’re being taught to view women as commodities whose value depreciates once they’re driven off the lot, so to speak. Sort of the other side of Dawn’s coin — sex is still being used as a bargaining chip, but it’s the withholding rather than the provision of sex that’s being used as a means to an end.
Nowhere in the Introduction does Dawn talk about what she herself got out of sex, just what she didn’t get out of sex. Namely, love and marriage:
I don’t have a potential boyfriend at the moment, but even so, I believe that right now I am closer than ever before to being not only married but happily married.
I’m sure that sounds outrageously optimistic, if not downright irrational, to someone who believes the only way to get married is to be sexually available. Yet, I can write with authority, because I’ve experienced nonmarital sex and I’ve experienced chastity, and I know what lies at the core of each.
But you haven’t gotten married either way, Dawn.
Again with the universalizing of her own shit: who is she addressing in that paragraph, this person who “believes the only way to get married is to be sexually available”? Sounds a lot like, “you remind me of a young me.” That’s not to say that there aren’t women who believe this and are looking for something different. There are. And that’s who Dawn should be addressing with this book, trying to convince them that chastity is the way to go. Problem is, she’s projecting her own neuroses onto all of single women.
Both experiences are centered on a kind of faith. One of them, sex before marriage, relies on faith that a man who has not shown faith in you — that is, not enough faith to commit himself to you for life — will come around through the persuasive force of your physical affection.
I’m gonna need to make a macro for those times when I want to point out Dawn’s projection. Because that’s certainly not how I use sex. Sometimes I want to have it just for the sake of scratching an itch. Sometimes I want to have it as part of a relationship. Sometimes I have it because I feel needy. But I don’t kid myself that it’s my skill in the sack that keeps a man around, when I have a mind to keep one around. No matter how good I am in bed, if a guy’s not into my sparkling personality, he’s not going to want to be with me out of bed.
And it may not have occurred to Dawn, but it works the other way, too — no matter how much the earth moves, if a guy is racist, angry, judgmental or a crashing bore, I won’t stick around. Because while sex is important to me, it’s not THE most important thing. Certainly not so important that I can overlook a mismatch in personality or general asswipery.
It forces you to follow a set of Darwinian social rules — dressing and acting a certain way to outperform other women competing for mates. A man who’s attracted to you will eventually learn who you really are — but by then, if all goes according to the rules, your hooks will be in too deep for him to escape.
Um. Ew.
Did she really follow these rules while she was sleeping around? She makes it sound like the pussy is a Venus flytrap. Certainly, she makes women who have sex before marriage sound like a bunch of succubi. Which I suppose is part of the religious thing.
The other experience, chastity, relies on faith that God, as you pursue a closer walk with Him, will lead you to a loving husband. Chastity opens up your world, enabling you to achieve your creative and spiritual potential without the pressure of having to play the dating game. Your husband will love you for yourself — your heart, mind, body and soul.
I’m a little unclear how you’re supposed to find a husband if you don’t do any dating. *** She makes it sound like finding a husband via chastity is a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, where God blindfolds you, spins you around and then guides you to your husband (who was behind the sofa all along!) without any effort on your part except for the being chaste thing. Though I think Dawn is using “dating” as some kind of dog-whistle term meaning “slutty slut slut” rather than, “meeting for coffee and seeing if we like each other.”
All that being said, I do agree that “dating,” however you define it, can be rather confusing, frustrating and inefficient if what you really want is to get married. There’s a lot of trial and error, and a lot of luck involved, and in my own personal experience, the worst part of the end of a relationship is knowing that I have to go back out there and start all over. I’ve gotten to the point over and over where I just don’t want to do it anymore, that I’ll happily be alone the rest of my life. And then I go and get a completely inconvenient crush on someone, which inevitably goes wrong or isn’t returned, and then I feel hurt and don’t want to do it anymore. And I’m not even looking for marriage.
But unlike Dawn, I don’t assume that what works or doesn’t work for me is going to work or not work for everyone else. And I’m certainly not going to judge someone for trying to make sense of her own life. I do want to be clear that I’m not mocking Dawn’s decision to become chaste — if it works for her and brings her some peace and clarity, more power to her. What I am mocking, however, is the flawed premise of her book — that single women who have nonmarital sex are empty, broken and deluded, and that it’s the sex that’s to blame — and the conclusions she draws from that flawed premise.
___________
* A word about Cosmo: As irritating as Helen Gurley Brown became in her later years as it became apparent she was frozen in time, both Sex and the Single Girl in 1962 and Cosmopolitan after she took it over in 1966 played a big role in letting women know that there were other women out there at that time who were also having premarital sex. As we’ve seen recently, the rate of premarital sex has remained constant over many, many decades — 95%. What really changed during the sexual revolution was people’s attitudes towards premarital sex — suddenly, it wasn’t something to be ashamed of. The Kinsey Reports — which after all, simply described the sexual habits of Americans — created a huge stir in the late 40s and early 50s because it blew the lid off the shame and denial and made it plain that having sex was normal and natural and not something to be hidden.
**I hardly think that a show that first aired in 1998 can be cited as the source of a 37-year-old woman’s approach to sex in her 20s. Unless Dawn has a time machine we don’t know about. OOH! If she does, can we send her to the 50s, so she can live her fantasy?
***I used to work with a woman who was originally from India, and there was a lot of family interest in her getting married. When she was ready to get married, the entire family mobilized. It was fascinating from my perspective. But the thing is, she still had to go on dates to find a man she wanted to marry; the right man just didn’t fall out of the sky.
Similar Posts:
- The Thrill of the Chaste, Chapter 2 by zuzu January 23, 2007
- The Thrill of the Chaste, Chapter 3 by zuzu February 12, 2007
- Couldn’t have said it better myself by Jill January 23, 2007
- The Singular Woman by Jill January 4, 2007
- Dawn Eden: Nasty Little Piece of Work by zuzu December 23, 2006
The fact that marriage contiues to be held as the ultimate goal by some women saddens me. Of course, everyone wants to find someone that they love and want to be with, and everyone wants to be loved. And wouldn’t it be nice to find that one person so you don’t have to keep looking.
But is it really about marriage? Marriage is just a ceremony and a peice of paper, it doesn’t make two people compatible. It doesn’t make them happy, it doesn’t give them a get out of jail free pass, nor do they get to pass go and get $200. It’s just a symbol of a commitment. But if the commitment isn’t their, marriage isn’t going to put it there.
Perhaps is she fixated less on the idea of marriage and more on finding guys that share her values to spend time with and get to know she might have more luck. I mean, as a feminist I rarely say this, but where are the men in this scenario? She seems to have forgotten them. It’s not about maybe, that she was desperately chasing relationships with guys who had no interest in relationships. There ARE guys who want to date and have relationships, but they usually aren’t drummers in my experience. It sounds to me like she’s looking for a man, any man to love her. Memo Dawn: Desperate is not attractive.
Unfortunately for her I think she’s going to have a rough time finding a guy who will want to date a women who wrote a book about chastity. But you never know, maybe she could find some nice widowed preacher or something. And they could travel the world together telling other people how to live their lives based on their own clearly psycho worldview.
Zuzu, I’d just like to say thanks for reading this book so I don’t have to. From the introduction, it seems painfully clear to me that Dawn has a warped and sad view of sex, men, and relationships. And women, too, for that matter. I mean, we all knew that, but she really lays it out. I’ve never ever felt the need to use sex to gain someone’s commitment or to compete with other women for a mate. It all seems so exhausting, so tragic, so indicative of low self-worth.
Good luck and godspeed as you soldier through chapter 1. :)
Dawn has a serious marriage fetish that borders on the way, way icky.
Everything she’s done is in it’s pursuit. She isn’t chaste because she thinks it is the *right* way to be…she’s chaste so she can land a husband. She didnt sleep around because she wanted to – she slept around to try and land a husband.
It’s all about the gold band. Poor Dawn. Even if she succeeds in getting married, I have a sneaking suspicion that marriage is not going to live up the fantasy she’s had in her head for 37 years. No relationship could.
The projection onto all women thing really makes me giggle. Dawn’s experience of “what women want” flies in the face not only of what I want, but what most women I know want.
It’s also interesting that she says ” I believe that right now I am closer than ever before to being not only married but happily married” as though being married were the actual goal, and happily just the frosting on the cake, nice if you can work it out, but not really the point.
I feel sorry for Dawn – being a bit older and wiser, from where I sit, she’s headed for major disappointment even if she gets what she thinks she wants.
I admire your fortitude, honestly. I’m working on and off on a big ole Dawn post, but I haven’t convinced myself to read her book. I don’t know if I could handle it.
zuzu, you’re a braver woman than I. Even just reading the snippets from the introduction makes my head hurt.
Or like getting an organ transplant, since All Women have the big gaping “husband-sized hole.”. To get on AOTA’s list for a liver, you have agree to certain conditions, like not drinking; to get in God’s line for a man, you have to agree to not have sex. And then one day God calls and says “he’s here!”
Or who wrote a book about her all-consuming drive to get married and how a man’s willingness to buy her a ring takes full priority over, oh I don’t know, his identity? I think if I were dating Dawn Eden, I’d feel a little unspecial.
I think the word you’re looking for is either opprobrium or disapprobation, but opprobation isn’t a word. Just to be the vocab nazi. Feel free to delete my obnoxious post. I just couldn’t control myself!
However, that’s the only bone I have to pick with this post.
when im reminded of her my first thought is always “sheesh ive had my fair share of sex with uh more than one person and ive had 3 of those people ask me to marry them (and they were serious beleive it or not) and im only 20 (hah and planning on marrying my current boyfreind)…what kind of people is she screwing?”
then after reading what she writes it really just seems like shes either really neurotic or a lil crazy. does she honestly beleive that since she cant find someone to marry her (which is a sad thing to strive for anyways) that NO woman who has sex can? like for serious?
I have slept with a LOT of men and women, and I never used my sluttiness to try to find a husband or wife. When I was in my early twenties and fucking around, it was because I enjoyed sex. The partners that made me unhappiest were the ones that didn’t respect my boundries for a casual relationship and tried to drag me into some kind of serious alter-headed thing I didn’t want.
The kind of sluttiness Dawn is talking about bears absolutely no resemblence to my life so the idea that her “solution” could be applicable on a large scale would be harmful if it weren’t just so damn bizarre. I mean, what is wrong with this woman that she really thinks that her experiances are the only ones in all existance?
The thing that confuses me most about her desire for marriage is that she doesn’t seem to want children, as she admitted in the Salon interview. I for one don’t want to get married and would only get married if I were over 30 and with a guy I had been with a long time that I could see myself being happy with forever and HE really wanted to get married. Then, since probably I would have decided by that time to stay with him as long as he’d let me, I’d go along with it because, hey, why not.
But, I don’t want children. Most of my friends (male and female) who actively want marriage (none quite so desperately as Dawn Eden, thank God) also want kids (one friend is even pretty sure that if she’s unmarried and financially stable at a certain age, she’ll adopt at least one kid anyway, because she just really wants children to be a part of her life). And I can understand that if raising children is something you want to do, you want to do it with a life-partner because raising kids is hard and sounds to me can be very lonely. (in my feminist liberal utopia, this wouldn’t be a problem because the nuclear family mode would be no longer necessary because we’d all be very into communal child raising, with friends and extended family and neighbors pitching in and federal daycare and it’s all really wonderful in my head. sometimes I wish I could move there).
But Dawn doesn’t even like kids. So what exactly is she looking for?
I think that’s the nut of it, really. I don’t know how long she’s been trumpeting chastity as Teh Way, and certainly she knows what’s best for her, but IMO, she’s not really changed her fundamental views (that Women need marriage and must coerce Men into it) at all, she’s just flip-flopped on the how-to aspect. Instead of “Sex will fill my husband-sized hole” (sorry, had to go through with it), it’s “Chastity will fill my husband-sized hole.”
A real revelation would be if she were to realize that she might be better off without imagining herself as fundamentally complete–there is no hole. Maybe I’m being too charitable to Ms. Eden? Maybe she’s as full of holes as her logic.
Crap. That should be “…without imagining herself as fundamentally incomplete. Crap.
Someone to validate her existence. Mostly b/c she can’t admit that she doesn’t feel that love from the god she claims to believe in.
As someone who all through college braved and explored the strange laberynth of conservative Christianity I can sort of understand where Dawn comes from. (although with a degree of detachment…being born and raised in a liberal college town by parents with a devout but healthily moderate Christianity sort of made me immune to sucking in the Christianist world view). Most people who embrace more extreme forms of religion and its social teachings are people who have failed the worst in trying to live normally. I spent years at a conservative college being preached to about the frightening dangers of “the world” and contraception and sex outside of marraige and scared to death of all the tradgedies that were supposedly the result of the sexual revolution. People gave their testimonies about all the brokeness they experienced because of their sexual mistakes.
After graduation, I moved out into the “real world”, got some regular twentysomething friends, and started to realize that there were lots of healthy, balanced people who were having sex in non-marital relationships and happy with it. I eventually learned that my parents and all of the adult married couples I had known growing up had had sex before marraige. Some of the happiest middle aged women I know had wild sexual pasts. But what all the sexually happy people in my life have in common is that they are fundamentally happy with themselves as persons and with their lives. I think that the people that get attracted to the abstinence movement are people who are broken in other areas of life and blame sex for everything bad that happens to them. They are people with fragile emotional constitutions, and controlling sex becomes a source of personal power. For some people like Dawn, I think “chasitity” is a sort of sexual anorexia; its about the one thing they can control in otherwise uncontrollable lives.
Personally, I think what should define a person as “chaste” is whether or not they have integrated their sexuality with their person. A person who is comfortable with their sexuality, can communicate and express it honestly, and owns their moral code and their decsions with full responsibility is a “chaste” person. Sex because you are in love and want to have sex with that person is chaste. Sex because you damn well like it and aren’t going to make excuses is chaste. Not having sex because it is right for you personally at that moment in time is chaste. People who always OWN their sexual descions, whether they be casual, in relationships, or only in marraige, will never be unhappy with their choices.
In contrast, I think unchastity is defined as using sex as a commodity or a thing. As leverage in a relationship, as something to fill another need, as a way to “hook” someone, as a “gift” to a future husband-owner; people who look at sex like that will always be empty and unhappy with themselves.
For me personally, virginity has been a good choice so far. But I respect my friends who have sex, whether it be only in relationships or recreational. When I am ready to have sex, it will not be because I have manipulated a man into putting a ring on my finger but because the time is right and I feel good about the person I am with.
I think there are plenty of women and men who are “broken deluded and empty” and I agree it has little to do with having or not having sex.
It has more to do with not knowing what they want from their lives and consequently from their mates.
Wow, zuzu, are you going to do a series on the whole book? That’ll take some patience. Looking forward to reading about the next chapter!
LiberalCatholicGirl:
Yes! The corollary, of course, is that while it’s certainly possible to eat what’s not best for you* or overeat, food itself is inarguably a healthy and natural part of life, and so is sex. I guess you won’t wither away and die from lack of sex, but hey, a dry spell can sometimes can feel like it.
*and with both food and sex, that kind is often the most fun.
What’s creepy is that Dawn absolutely will not admit that sex has any other purpose than man-service. When pressed repeatedly on it in the Salon interview, she admitted that her sex partners made her face go through all kinds of contortions (that’s almost a quote), and that’s as much as she would say about the idea that sex is pleasurable for women.
Y’know, I have NEVER identified with the whole “Gee golly, how do you get a man to committ?” whine. Or the “He’s Just Not That into You” thing. Everyone I’ve had sex (or dinner) with has insisted on staying the night and calling me to get together again and all that.
I suspect that when you run into a date (or bed) reeking of desparation, it frightens the other person away.
rushing into sex in the hope that love would develop, or using sex in the hope of landing a commitment.
FWIW, though “rushing into sex in the hope that love would develop” and “using sex in the hope of landing a commitment” both have their downside, they also sound to me like two different things.
“Rushing into sex in the hope that love would develop” sounds to me like “Boy, this guy is hot, so hot I want to go to bed with him ASAP, and I also really, really like him and really, really hope he’ll like me back.”
“Using sex in the hope of landing a commitment” sounds to me like “I’m not really even all that enthusiastic about having sex with this guy, but I really, really want him to commit to me, so I’ll need to have sex with him first.”
Everyone I’ve had sex (or dinner) with has insisted on staying the night and calling me to get together again and all that.
I suspect that when you run into a date (or bed) reeking of desparation, it frightens the other person away.
Actually, there are guys that freak at crossing the “going all the way” line, though no one tells you that – it’s supposed to be only women who take it seriously enough to freak. But I can well remember sitting across from a guy who, on finally having reached that point with me, now, minutes later, needed time away – I was “so desirable” but also somehow like cocaine, dangerous I guess. I really don’t think it was an act he was pulling because I was so lousy in bed; I think he was truly freaked on some level I’ll never understand.
Kim, I think it’s more that desperation attracts jerks. (Which is not to say that it’s All One’s Own Fault if a partner turns out to be a jerk, of course.)
Hmpf. I’m just going to claim that it is a word NOW.
Kim, I’ve definitely been with men who change once we’ve had sex. It’s demoralizing to get the fuck and run, especially when for the first several dates they’ve been telling you that you’re so wonderful, they see themselves growing old with you, etc. But it’s not the sex that causes that reaction, it’s their inability to deal with whatever it is they’re unable to deal with.
The only time I had sex for reasons not involving my own personal enjoyment were when I was having sex far too young for my age emotionally. Introduced to sex at a time when those at my age level were not participating in sexual activity, meant that I was used by others older than me. Being severely emotionally needy as well set me up to have a very warped sense of what sex was; it wasn’t an act for my pleasure (as I had not physically or emotionally matured enough to grasp pleasure in such a construct), but an act engaged in as a bargaining chip for the affection and affirmation I so horribly lacked at home.
This is the only inference I can come away with when reading Dawn Eden’s description of her sexual past; her bargaining behavior aligns perfectly with my then 14 year old behavior.
Also, this quote:
Got me to thinking about the fact that just possibly, as she matured, her groupie lifestye was peetering out as she no longer could compete with younger 20 somethings on the rock and roll scene.
If I had to guess I’d say that she did a lot of drugs and drinking in her early 20′s during her ‘wild phase’ that possibly set her back in her apparently already stunted emotional development. Now she’s stuck and her anger about what she saw as constant rejection (the ones she hoped for didn’t want her like she wanted them to) is driving her thinking now and keeping her from embracing herself and moving on. She’s withholding sex as a rebellion against all the bad men and the bad world that’s done her wrong (like Catholic girl said — spot on about fundie’s world view).
And since her personal development hasn’t moved beyond a very teenageresque view of her feminine identity she has nothing new to work with. Just the same old handbag she’s been carrying around except this time she turned it inside out.
Also, I think that if she were to speak for herself alone and accept and validate other experiences, she would then have to see that her high horse is no steed, but just the rickety bouncy-horse she’s been riding furiously to nowhere.
Just have to holler out to LiberalCatholicGirl and her magnificent post on “chastity.” What a beautifully thought-out position!
LCG, just so you know, your Auntie Social here has, by your remarkably elegant and righteous definition, led a long life of chastity — and I’m not snarking, I’m thanking you for a beautiful way of re-framing (a la Lakoff) my own choices, and those of lots of women like me (and not like me, too).
I’m in my late 40′s, never married, living in a big city with two cats. I’ve had lots of sex with several men throughout my life. Two have wanted to marry me; I wanted one of them, but later he realized he was gay; I don’t want the second one, even though he’s awesome in bed (he’s also angry and judgmental). Others have been short-term lovers, or even one-time lovers. I don’t regret a single one of them; I wouldn’t give any of my memories or experiences in exchange for “generic” marriage.
My chastity consists of the fact that I have not ever had sex for an ulterior motive: I have never fucked a rich old fart so he would buy me things; I have never fucked a guy I didn’t like so as to get closer to a person, job or advantage I DID want; I have never fucked another woman’s boyfriend or love-interest to spite her, and most of all, I have never and wouldn’t ever fuck a guy just to get a goddamn wedding ring off him. I also wouldn’t NOT fuck a guy just to get a goddamn wedding ring off him, and that’s why I am far more “chaste” than Dawn Eden will ever be, no matter how many of her old vibrators she throws away and no matter how many kind, interesting former Catholic priests (and wouldn’t they be her best-possible dating pool, all things considered?) might wish to ask her out, but not have a chance because she’s too “pure” to date.
The real point is integrity. Chastity, by your definition — and mine, now that you’ve explained it! is personal integrity in a sexual context. I love that.
It was an interesting comment, LiberalCatholicGirl, and I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments, but it’s not chastity. Integrity is closer, I guess. I just think it’s better not to advocate arbitrary chastity than to change the word into something it doesn’t really mean.
I think “integrity” is a good word, too.
As someone who is Catholic, though, albiet a liberal one, who works in a theological field, I do have a vested interest in using terms like “chastity” and exploring and developing possible meanings of old concepts in light of the experience of modern life. So in my post I was playing off the definition of “chastity” that is actually given in the Catholic Catechism, which is essentially “integrity” and “body-soul integration”.
Considering all I do love about my religion, (God as a community of Love, the Divine taking on flesh, Social Justice for the poor and teachings on Peace, etc) I guess I do feel some need or respondibility to speak within the terms it gives me.
Oh no. Integrity is for men. It’s chastity, or purity for women..
purity…ick
The whole concept of sexual “purity” for women gives me hives
I am a whole lot more positive about the possibility of marriage at this point in my life.
You know why?
Because I’ve started ignoring people like Dawn Eden.
Middle-class, Southern living is chock-full of conversation on marriage; idealized, fluffy conversation that can truly scare a person. As if things weren’t bad enough on that front – we have talking heads like Dawn, basically scaring us into believing that marriage is a walk in the clouds, and anything love-related that happens outside it is DISGUSTING.
As a teenager, I couldn’t deal with that kind of pressure. It freaked me out.
Now that I’m a little older, and making frequent trips back home to Ukraine, where I, for some reason, have more friends in committed relationships (don’t know why that is – divorce and singlehood are just as common in Ukraine, if not more so, than in the States), I have begun to understand that there is nothing ideal, or fluffy, about marriage, and that there shouldn’t be.
All these extravagant weddings, blushing bride syndromes, moralizing diatribes from the likes of Dawn – they’re psychotic. They do not reflect reality.
Real life is imperfect, and icky, and sometimes scary. People waver in their commitments, people glance at pretty strangers, ring on the finger or no. Married life is just as complicated as single life, and there are no guarantees. None. Zero.
And even if you do stay together – who’s to say that you are going to be happy? If not downright miserable?
My parents have been together for nearly 24 years, and have been at each other’s throats for a decade or so now. La-dee-fuckin’-dah. This stuff happens. There is no easy way out.
I wish that Dawn would realize that there is nothing particularly ugly about the single life – it’s life in general that tends to be hard. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. If she’s found hers, great. Even so, it won’t work for all other women, and, here’s a shocker, it won’t work for her ALL the time either.
People like Dawn are filling women’s heads with pretty garbage. Love is not a shampoo commercial.
I think the type of people who are attracted to really socially conservative ideas about sex and marraige and religion are terrified of the “messiness” you speak of, Natalia. They know life is messy…they just don’t want THEIRS to be, so they try to construct a fool proof ideal as a safety crutch to avoid hurt and suffering.
Unfortunately, it only causes more suffering when they realize their ideal does not exist, and they still have not learned to cope with life’s messiness.
I also found this to be one of the more ridiculous or sad parts of Dawn’s thinking
It forces you to follow a set of Darwinian social rules — dressing and acting a certain way to outperform other women competing for mates. A man who’s attracted to you will eventually learn who you really are — but by then, if all goes according to the rules, your hooks will be in too deep for him to escape.
What on earth does she mean by a man eventually learning ‘who you really are’? And from where comes the idea that finding out who you really are will cause the man to want to escape? If by some misfortune I met a guy who liked me less when he’d got to know me I’d be wanting him to run away as far as possible.
As others have said, it’s the projection of her own feelings onto others that really rankles and mirrors the post-abortion trauma thread elsewhere on Feministe. ‘I wasn’t happy before I had all the sex, and since the sex I haven’t been happy, therefore the sex is to blame (and I must save other women from themselves for they know not what they choose).’
[...] .2007
The Thrill of the Chaste, Chapter 1
Posted by zuzu @ 1:57 pm
Introduction here. Dawn begins Chapter 1 w [...]
I sometimes wonder if people like Dawn Eden want a wedding, or a marraige? Because, you know, they are working towards “getting married,” not “finding a soul mate,” or “finding a life partner” or even “finding someone to raise kids with,” but instead are working towards this mythical goal of “getting married.” What do they think is going to happen next? A wedding doesn’t make a marraige. A ring won’t make you compatible or good parents or happy. A marraige certificate is just a legal document. It is not the One True Path towards a happy life.
I find this goal of Getting Married very troubling, because it’s likely going to lead to lots of unsatisfying, incompatible relationships once people realize that “happily ever after” doesn’t happen in real life.
Dawn Eden reminds me a great of Hildegard Hamhocker, the husband-hunting spinster in Tumbleweeds. I’m surprised she’s hasn’t broken a copy of The Husband Hunter’s Handbook. :)
Forgive me if someone has made these comments already and I missed them:
But first – I hate, hate, HATE people who cite to popular television shows as the root of evil who clearly never watched an episode, or bothered to find out more than what the TV Guide blurb or episode title might tell them. And while I grant you, this is besides the point, the linked-to Salon article has D.Eden describing Carrie Bradshaw as “having sex like a man.” She doesn’t. She did ONCE, in the pilot, and then wrote it off. That’s the point. SATC gets too much blame for what’s wrong with girls today and too much credit for being cutting edge.
Second – D.Eden describes herself as a devout Catholic, right? At least in that Salon article, she’s all hardcore on the anti-contraception bandwagon, etc. But she doesn’t want children?
Hey there missy, but while inability to have children doesn’t DQ you from marriage in the Catholic Church, a predisposition against kids is grounds for annulment. Yeah, that means no Catholic priest should marry you in the church if you tell him you do not want and do not plan on having kids. “Maybe I’ll want them later,” doesn’t cut it.
A professor at my college would periodically give a chapel lecture titled, “Dating as Emotional Fornication.” True story.
[...] 2007
The Thrill of the Chaste, Chapter 2
Posted by zuzu @ 12:17 am
Introduction Chapter 1 As promised, the d [...]
[...] chastity as anorexia
Filed under: the christ, the culture — Joanna @
Feministe book review via Prettier than Nap [...]