Being Amber Rhea

Tonight I read Part II (comprised of chapters 5 & 6) of Every Young Man’s Battle, and let me tell you, it is chock full of good stuff. But I can’t get ahead of myself. First I have to write my review of chapter 4.

Chapter 4: Nobody Escapes From Adventure Island

It’s been pretty good up until now, but chapter 4 is where things really get cookin’. We get to hear more stories of agony from young Christian men who just can’t seem to get themselves together. We also learn a lot about the female of the species.

The chapter begins by describing how young men today have “been dealt some lousy cards.” Specifically, you’re in school until you’re 18, then 4 more years if you go to college, and then (according to our authors, who are apparently the experts on the subject) you’re expected to postpone marriage for a few years while you “get settled with your career.” Danny, one of the tortured Christian young men, says, “I feel like God made me a sexual being, but He’s asking me to live as though I’m not.”

Hmmm… interesting point there, Danny boy. Want to ride that train of thought a little further, see where it takes you?

The authors don’t have a direct answer for Danny. They simply say, “We hear you,” and then veer off on a tangent.

There’s a tiresomely long section about how our society views adolescence and adulthood as distinct, separate stages in life, whereas in Christ’s time, you were considered an adult when you turned 13. Borrrr-ing!

But they do have a point to this, apparently. It’s supposed to help show how masturbating when you’re 16 can ruin your marriage when you’re 26. (I wish I were making that up.)

I particularly enjoy the part in this chapter where they use The Lion King to make an extremely long-winded analogy, but offer the parenthetical statement, “Okay, we know you prefer more manly fare like Gladiator or Pearl Harbor, but humor us.” That’s right guys… only queers like Disney movies.

Anyway, after the teen/adult exposition and the Disney analogys, we get to the really interesting stuff.

The attitudes, opinions, and assumptions about women in this book are astounding. Often these attitudes are expressed indirectly — which is far more insidious than a direct statement — such as in this remark from a teenager named Jason:

[He] has two hours after school each day “with no mom around and a junior high girl down the street who comes over to my house and lets me do anything I want to her.”

Sweet suffering Jesus on the cross. Is anyone else as frightened and taken aback by that as I was? Any red flags going up? I know it’s not just me. [Update: a illustrative interpretation courtesy of Pat!]

This is the critical bit, that is reinforced again and again throughout the book: “…lets me do anything I want to her” (emphasis mine). It’s always about the man doing things to the woman. It’s about what he wants, what he’s doing — never is there any wording about “we” or “together” or, really, any mention of the woman at all, other than as the one who is having something done to her. She might as well be an inanimate object. (Hmm, maybe that’s why it’s so easy for them to claim, as we’ll see in Part II, that intercourse and masturbation are essentially the same thing.)

Anyway… chapter 4 continues, and we hear from more young men and their constant struggles with sexuality — and the guilt, oh God, the guilt!! These men explain how ashamed they are, how conflicted, how they want to be ‘a man of God but keep getting pulled back into “sin”… one even says, “I’m in hell!” Yeah, buddy, it sounds like you are. Living day to day with that much guilt and shame piled on yourself is, well, hellish!

I read all these men’s stories, and I couldn’t help but think they’ve got it backwards. They think their “sins” of lust, masturbation, pornography, etc. are causing a “separation from God,” and this is what they’re experiencing when they feel guilty. Well, how about this? The guilt is caused by the overwhelming pressure, the all-or-nothing mentality, the ridiculously unrealistic standards they feel they have to meet. This perversion of religion that they’ve been fed is completely screwing them up. We can laugh at it, but really, it’s no laughing matter, it’s what’s wrong with our society… these warped views of sex and — in the case of the guys who swallow this BS — women. It’s scary, all the problems it causes — for the individual and for society as a whole.

I have to interject a personal note here, as well. Reading these stories from these guilt-ridden men, I was reminded of this guy I fooled around with for a few months during my senior year of high school. It was one of the few things I’ve done that could maybe (depending on your standard) be called “sordid.” I was 18 and he was 24… and in the Army, for godsake. Even at the time I had to laugh at the stereotypical-ness of it all. We met at Barnes and Noble; I don’t remember exactly how. I didn’t know at first that he was some sort of born-again Christian. I found that out when, one day, he said that he was in a lot of pain and was doped up on Percocet because he was undergoing a series of laser procedures to have an elaborate sun tattoo removed from his abdomen. I asked why (it was a pretty cool tattoo), and his answer had something to do with not defiling the temple of God. I should’ve known right then and there how this pseudo-relationship would ultimately play out, but I thought he seemed like an intelligent and reasonable person, who wouldn’t bring Jesus to bed. Besides, we’d already fooled around a few times.

Well, I was wrong. First of all, this revelation led to a series of intense debates about religion (including one in which he insisted that all Muslims were evil), which I could’ve done without. More importantly, from this point on, without fail, every time after we’d fool around (”fool around” sounds silly, and this is the third time I’ve used it, but I hesitate to say “have sex,” because… -well, I don’t want to get too graphic here… you can figure it out), he would proceed to give me (and, it seemed, himself) a lecture about why sex outside of marriage was wrong. He was perfectly fine with it in the heat of the moment — hell, he was usually the one starting things up, I wasn’t just some little 18-year-old seductress! Needless to say, we stopped hanging out pretty quickly after that. Who needs that shit?

My [incredibly long-winded] point is this: I watched him wrack himself with guilt, rationalize, apologize, all kinds of complex maneuverings… What was the point? Where did it get him? It was all so unnecessary.

Anyway, back to the book… the rest of chapter 4 is devoted to basically complaining about wives who don’t put out. The first line of this section is, “If you’re looking for sexual nirvana… marriage isn’t it.” Well, that’s just GREAT, isn’t it! These poor guys… they’re not allowed to even think about sex… everything is about waiting until marriage… and then they’re told, they might not even get laid regularly when they’re married? What kind of a cruel, cruel joke is this?

It is in this section that we learn about a fundamental difference between men and women:

[S]ex has different meanings to men and women. Men primarily receive intimacy just before and during intercourse. Women gain intimacy through touching, sharing, hugging, and communicating deeply. Is it any wonder that the frequency of sex is less important to women than to men, as Mark woefully discovered?

“Touching, sharing, hugging, and communicating deeply?” Gag me!

There’s not much more to say about this beautiful excerpt, because it really speaks for itself. Yep, there you have it, folks. The “Christian” idea of women. And remember, this type of crap is being mass-produced in those fabulous abstinence-only textbooks.

Then the authors go on to list various reasons why a man’s wife might not want to have sex with him every waking moment of her life. One particularly hilarious possibility is that she might “be far more interested in her career than in fulfilling him sexually.” That selfish bitch!

This lack of sex with your wife will cause you to — guess what! — be sexually impure again. You’ll find yourself watching “sensual R-rated movies.” Your eyes will “lock on passing babes.” You might even masturbate!

The explanation for this is quite simple:

You see, before marriage, Satan does everything he can to get you to have sex with your girlfriend; after marriage, he does everything he can to keep you from having sex with your wife. (emphasis original)

What a miserable, sorry existence. Does this book make you want to be a Christian or what?

And thus ends chapter 4. Next we will move on to Part II: “How We Got Here.” Stay tuned…!