Yahoo News has an article from USAToday by a lady named Elizabeth Sandoval. "A neo-feminist's view of abstinence" is well worth the read, although - sadly - far too short!
I don't want to have sex. Clarification: I do want to have sex, but only with my husband. And I don't have one of those yet.No, I am not an ultraconservative who is cohabitating with a houseful of cats and TiVo'ing Lifetime movies. I'm a middle-of-the-road 32-year-old who likes tattoos and loud music. And yes, I am cute (I've been told by friends and strangers alike). So you can put aside the notion that I'm bitter about not being offered the chance to have sex.
What I am is a neo-feminist. Definition: "One who respects her body so much that she won't allow it to be used as someone's playground."
Major STANDING OVATION! Speaking as someone who has been-there-done-that, and regrets it (although the Best Husband in the Universe is baffled by my regrets, God love him), a lot of anguish and angst would be avoided if people just kept their pants on.
The "You Have to Know if You're Sexually Compatible or the Marriage Will Be Doomed" club will argue that one out of two marriages end in divorce, so you have to know that you're sexually compatible before you can even contemplate marriage. Well, maybe one out of two marriages end in divorce precisely because people are too free with sex. Many people don't take time to establish real communication with one another. It's false intimacy.
Who is Elizabeth Sandoval? I want to read more from her!
(HT to Jayson at PoliPundit, who finds this attitude attractive - may he be blessed with the woman of his dreams!)
Of course the best answers to lifes problems are common sense ones..Like choice begins in the bedroom. Women who want to choice should keep there legs closed!
Sounds harsh, but it is common sense ( MY reply to feinstein or was it boxer? argument on women and choice). Life can be made so much simpler if we all just used common sense!
Posted by: kc | August 20, 2005 at 12:15 PM
I couldn't help but think about this editorial while we were watching "Must Love Dogs" tonight. Especially "Sherry," the young woman who slept with "half the office" and whom no one respected.
Posted by: Beverly | August 21, 2005 at 03:06 AM
So, you've "been-there-done-that," and now you regret it, so that means all women should do what you think is best, "keeping their pants on" until they're married?
Why do you think your experience should dictate everyone else's?
Posted by: Gwen | August 23, 2005 at 02:07 PM
Did I say that? Did I say that? No, Gwennie, dear, I did not say that; I expressed my opinion. I did NOT issue an edict that all women ought to be celibate until marriage. And what about the men? Shouldn't they bear some responsibility? Geeze, you're so fem-centric. Sounds like you need some sensitivity training.
Now, sweet-pea, if you look through my blog, you will see the obvious fact that I am in favor of abstinance until marriage from the positions I take on various issues. At no point will you find me "dictating" that everyone should follow my opinions. Frankly, I don't have that power, and I wouldn't have that power even if (Deity-or-no-diety forbid, I hear you say) I were President.
Don't come on to my blog and try to supress my right to my opinion. Your experience may be different, and perhaps you might find that spreading your legs to every Tom, Dick, and Harry works for you and makes you happy. If it does, great, fine, whatever, but I think you would be cheapening yourself terribly.
And I think that, the older you get, the lonelier you'd find yourself, if you choose that lifestyle. Tom, Dick and Harry don't generally go after 40/50/60 etc.-something worn out women, after all.
I would suggest that you find a good, solid, honorable guy who'll be true to you and love you, and give him the same respect. Until then, why waste your time with someone who's just interested in a fuck? You'll be happier in the long run, trust me.
Posted by: Romeocat | August 23, 2005 at 02:28 PM
This girl is only 32 and the tides are turning in her direction. Hell, Victoria's Secret is now marketing bikini panties emblazoned with the words "I'm Waiting" in big letters.
In my day, I'm turning 50 in November, it was really tough! I basically wrote her essay for her, only I was 15 years old at the time. I used to say that I wasn't a "receptacle" for anyone's penis. Not a bad line, if I say so myself.
No one (except the extreme crater-faced dorks) would go out with me past the third date if I didn't "put out". Some only gave me one date - it was the 1970s, afterall.
To top it off, I look like Christie Brinkley, tall, thin, blue eyes, long straight naturally blonde hair, etc. I used to cry and cry, but believe that the right man for me would come along. My grandmother used to say "there's a pot for every lid" - well I never found mine.
I finally "gave it up" at the age of 38 to a man who I thought finally really loved me, but he turned out to be a lying sociopath with narcissistic personality disorder, who took my maidenhood and then turned into a different person! And, he sucked in bed!! But, I didn't care because I loved him!
Eight months later, I was fixed up with a guy who I wasn't in love with. He was the sharp, playboy type who would never give me the time of day past the third date. I decided that, what the heck, what have I been saving myself for anyway! Not only did I have mind-blowing sex with him, but I also smoked pot for the very first time. We didn't work out - he was never really my type, plus I could never trust him after learning 1 month into our relationship (I still hadn't slept with him yet), that he had a girlfriend the entire time, who me unceremoniously dumped for me. He, however, didn't have any personality disorders and didn't screw with my head, like guy #1.
TEN, count 'em 10, years passed and I barely dated. I had decided that the next time I had sex, it would be with the man I was going to marry and there would be no condoms involved as we would be trying to have a baby.
I met a guy on the internet, who remarkably lived within 2 miles from my house. We started off as friends and after 1-1/2 months, we did it w/o contraception for the purposes of getting me pregnant. I managed to conceive easily within 30 days, at the age of 48, no less! Then, all hell broke loose. I found out that I had managed to link up with another lying, narcissistic, sociopath who acted out though extreme passive-aggressive avoidance techniques which were well-honed in 51 years! Example: Took him almost two months and my breaking up with him for him to inform ANYONE that we were engaged - and then he barely talked to me or touched me for a week. He kept injuring himself everytime we were supposed to go looking for engagement rings or do anything which would carry the relationship forward. And, to top it all off, he owed $100,000 on credit cards that his parents (who paid all his bills or the electric would be turned off) didn't even know about. And, he didn't even have the bachelors degree he noted on his dating profile - because he refused to take the 2 units necessary for completion!!! I had also asked him to get tested for STDs and he told me they were all negative.
The distress of my finding all of this out weighed greatly on me and I had a miscarriage at the 2 month mark.
Flash forward 1-1/2 years from the breakup and I discover that the little irritation I've been having "down there" which started about a week after sleeping with him, is, yes, HERPES 2 - Genital Herpes.
So, no one wanted me in my youth, despite being absolutely gorgeous, because I was saving it. And, now no one will want me because I have a disease and am still looking to have a baby at my age (and I still can, probably because I didn't screw up my fertility by sleeping around).
Elizabeth Sandoval thinks she has problems? Mine are much, much worse! She's still young.
Everyone is forgetting how we live in a country where the President of the United States cheated on his wife habitually and SHE NEVER LEFT HIM!!! What kind of example is THAT for the young women of today????
P.S. email address for me is a fake for obvious reasons
Posted by: SCREWED in L.A. | August 25, 2005 at 10:39 PM
Forgot to mention: ALL MY FRIEND WHO WHORED AROUND IN COLLEGE AND GOT HERPES AND WORSE ALL FOUND MEN TO MARRY THEM BEFORE THEY WERE 30, AND THEY ALL HAVE CHILDREN! SOME OF THEM HAVE EVEN BEEN MARRIED MULTIPLE TIMES.
Some of them were ugly, fat and had herpes! And, no one wanted me! Maybe if the insipid dogs that call themselves men were looking for something more than a woman to "service their organ" - they would link up with the right girl in the first place. Gee, COURTING, what a novel concept. And, I've been saying it for over 35 years, long before Elizabeth Sandoval was even BORN! She's lucky she didn't "come of age" in the 1970's as I did, when everyone was getting stoned and laid with absolutely no vision for their future! At least in the 2000's with AIDS, diseases, The Religious Right, etc., the tides have turned a little bit and she stands a fighting chance!
Posted by: SCREWED in L.A. | August 25, 2005 at 10:50 PM