Husband: (sitting at the table) Where are you going?
Wife: (just emerging from sleep) I’m going outside to take pictures of the glowing trees.
Husband: (watching me zip up my coat) It’s a good thing you got that new coat.
Wife: (still liking my coat) Yes. It’s coming in a lot of handy.
Husband: (looking up through his glasses) A lot of handy??
Wife: (perplexed but undisturbed by my wording) Yes.
*cue laughter and positive feelings

Samuel D. James wrote an article again that didn’t upset me like the last one, but it did get my thoughts turning wish we could just sit down and have a three hour conversation. That’s not going to happen. So at the very least before the rest of my day I thought I could sit down and try to type out some thoughts on this topic that just continues to bug me. I had to see what Jen Hatmaker meant by sexual renaissance.

Because what it sounded like to me, was that Samuel D. James thought sexual renaissance, from a Christian man’s perspective, meant that he (as in a general Christian man) would finally be free to cast off the restraints of the rules. The expectations that he be faithful to his wife (if married). The extreme expectations that he would not engage in any non God-approved sexual activity for the rest of his life.

And that the reason this would be considered a sexual renaissance is because there are a lot of urges inside of men that cause these restraints and expectations to be very hard to live out. So these urges have to be deadened or numbed or ignored or even disciplined. This part of them is not accepted, and so as some people say, it comes out sideways. I have no idea if this is making any sense. If he was here I could ask him.

Well anyway. I didn’t go digging super deeply but I did find an article where she was talking about purity culture teaching women to hate their bodies. That was not my particular experience, though I do think there were things about it that caused women/girls to overthink and become more self-conscious. Dressing in a way so as to not cause your (apparently very sexually charged) brother to stumble was a big one.

Ug, I’m getting lost and am not quoting any sources. I don’t think purity culture was the cause of women hating their bodies. Instead, I think certain things about it may have fed an already present tendency. When I was in 8th grade, there was a guy who I’d had a massive crush on for almost two years. He was in my class and dating a 7th grader. The girl and I were cheerleaders. I remember wondering what it was about her.

One day during a basketball game (I’m getting a feeling like I have told this story before) I noticed her stomach showing when she lifted up her arms. Something clicked in my mind. That must be what it is because there was just something about it that made me go, “I want my stomach to look like hers” because this was the way to the man (the 8th grade boy I had a crush on). So I starting making myself throw up for three years.

Surprise, it didn’t work, either my stomach being flat or getting the man I wanted. When I think about the times where I have been unhealthily focused on my body or looks, it is always tied to the belief that my body is the commodity that keeps me valuable to men, and that sexual value is the highest form of importance in terms of how I am judged by the opposite sex. I do think that both men and women want to be valued by the other.

So teaching women to love their bodies I don’t think is a bad thing. Many women did spend many years hating and mistreating them. Going and sleeping around with men would not be loving, to them or to us. I don’t think promiscuity is what Jen Hatmaker is meaning by sexual renaissance. I think she means being more of who she was meant to be as a woman who is free to be sexually fearless in the context of a loving relationship.