{"id":1127,"date":"2012-09-26T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/women-sexuality-the-church\/"},"modified":"2012-09-26T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T18:45:00","slug":"women-sexuality-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/women-sexuality-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Women, Sexuality & the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abstinence before marriage has long been held as an ideal; from the tribal Middle East origins of the monotheistic traditions to contemporary Christianity.\u00a0 <\/span>Even the \u201cmother of God\u201d was abstinent as well as a virgin when she delivered Jesus.\u00a0 <\/span>As the Christian church evolved, some traditions like polygamy and arranged marriages were left behind; while the practice of abstinence, especially for women, remained firm.<\/p>\n

Judith Butler examines the role of gender and its formation in social theory.\u00a0 <\/span>I would like to take a look at a specific idea in her writing and relate it to women, sexuality and the church.\u00a0 <\/span>The following quote references a French female philosopher and writer, Simone De Beauvoir who wrote The Second Sex<\/u>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is something right in Beauvoir’s claim that one is not born, but rather becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a construction that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and resignification.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of \u201cbecoming\u201d or \u201cidentity creation\u201d as a transformational practice leaves a world of possibilities for a human.\u00a0 <\/span>In short, one does not have to remain<\/em> anything; one can create and recreate identity, just as the cells of our bodies do.\u00a0 <\/span>Staying in this line of thinking let\u2019s turn this concept to women, sexuality and the church.\u00a0 <\/span>The story of a young Jewish \u201cRebecca\u201d who, after \u201cbecoming\u201d a young woman is arranged to be married to Isaac seems from a bygone era.\u00a0 <\/span>Today, most young girls \u201cbecome\u201d women as young as ten years old.\u00a0 <\/span>However, as a society we do not recognize them as available for marriage until they are eighteen.\u00a0 <\/span>Today the average age of men at first marriage is 28.7, while the average age for women is 26.5.\u00a0 <\/span>So, this is an issue for both sexes.\u00a0 <\/span>Many churches, Catholic and Protestant, still teach abstinence until marriage.\u00a0 <\/span>However, many young adults are following their natural instincts and having sex even though they are not married.\u00a0 <\/span>Along with this choice comes the unfortunate emotions of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and deceit; deceit possibly being the most concerning as it can manifest in other areas of life and later in relationships.\u00a0 <\/span>These emotions can impact a young woman\u2019s sexuality as she begins forming who she is as a Christian woman.\u00a0 <\/span>Her body and sexuality become labeled with negativity and disdain unless she is like Mary – holy, pregnant and a virgin.\u00a0 <\/span>Women must sustain the objectification of her body from society with its pressures to be sexier, skinnier, and more perfect.\u00a0 <\/span>And within the church she must sustain the pressures of being holy, modest, and non-sexual.\u00a0 <\/span>The formation of a woman, according to Butler, is \u201copen to intervention and resignification.\u201d And I would add, pliable, amazing and divine.
<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what will be the church\u2019s responsibility in helping the \u201cconstruction\u201d process of a spiritually healthy young woman?\u00a0 <\/span>Does the church have a responsibility?\u00a0 <\/span>Or should the young woman look to other sources for development in this area?\u00a0 <\/span>Will \u201ccovenant\u201d rings and bracelets to maintain virginity continue to be given to the youth?\u00a0 <\/span>Will there be stronger sermons on the necessity of \u201cpurity?\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Will the ideal of sex only after marriage be held and younger marriages encouraged?\u00a0 <\/span>Will the church completely stop addressing the issue? Will celibacy be the requirement within holy singlehood?<\/p>\n

This short writing barely scratches the surface of this topic.\u00a0 <\/span>I definitely don\u2019t have all of the answers, but am interested in the conversation.<\/p>\n

As a final note, I deeply adore the Virgin Mary, and feel a sense of compassion mixed with adoration for her.\u00a0 I seriously do…I’m not just saying this out of guilt. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Perhaps some of these issues might be resolved by looking at the humanity of Mary.<\/p>\n

Elliott, Anthony (2009-03-21). Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction (p. 217). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/03\/28\/study-college-debt-marriage-loans-rates-rising_n_1385548.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abstinence before marriage has long been held as an ideal; from the tribal Middle East origins of the monotheistic traditions to contemporary Christianity.\u00a0 Even the \u201cmother of God\u201d was abstinent as well as a virgin when she delivered Jesus.\u00a0 As the Christian church evolved, some traditions like polygamy and arranged marriages were left behind; while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[144,253,2,238,437,438],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-dminlgp","tag-elliott","tag-sexuality","tag-virginity","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}