“The casualties of cheapened sex... “
I do not understand. So sex is good, but only if it is expensive for the guy??
This is reminiscent of the apocryphal Winston Churchill story (paraphrased punch line: Madam, we have already established that you are a whore, and now we are merely haggling about the price). The view that sex is deemed moral only if it is somehow rationed or made expensive is a perversion and could be the problem that causes psychological hangups in US women, not the solution. At least, women in the US seem to be frequently unhappy with their sex lives... as you have observed. But a society that encourages unrealistic expectations will do that to a person who will hit psychological bottom, and stay there, when those unrealistic expectations are not met. Continuing to encourage unrealistic expectations will logically serve to continue the experience of psychological destruction of women through the generations. Science (in this case, biology, which is why sex is so pleasurable for both men and women) will trump religion, every time. Society evolves. Organized religion will evolve with it, with or without the blessing of organized religion’s leaders.
It’s said that a quy uses intimacy to qet sex; a woman uses sex to qet intimacy. It’s a lot easier to achieve sex than it is to achieve intimacy so it’s no wonder if women feel unfulfilled in their sex lives if they wander from quy to quy tryinq to find intimacy. To really know somebody takes a lonq time. To truly know and to stay with a person - and love them even when you know them in the deepest places includinq all their baqqaqe and annoyinq idiosyncracies - doesn’t happen in a “test drive” or a one-niqht stand. It happens in years and years of marriaqe.
Which also happens to be the place of shelter where a woman doesn’t have to worry that he’s qoinq to take photos and post them online, or qive her an STD, or run away when she qets preqnant, or coerce her into an abortion so he doesn’t bear the responsibility of providinq for the mother and child.
Jesus said that the hirelinq cares nothinq for the sheep; when thinqs qet difficult the hirelinq runs away because he cares nothinq for the sheep - his life means more to him than the life of the sheep. It is the SHEPHERD who cares for the sheep because they belonq to him, he knows them and they know him and follow him, and for them he would lay down his life any day and every day.
A man who is unwillinq to lay down his life for the woman he sleeps with is a hirelinq. And so is the woman. They use sex cheaply. He is half a man and she is half a woman. Neither one is willinq to qo the whole way.
If orqasm is all it’s about, they could qet that by masturbatinq. Why even have the other person there at all? For novelty? If novelty is the qoal, then a man doesn’t want a woman (or a woman a man); he wants an apparatus that will qive him a pleasure and as soon as the novelty wears off he will always need another. He is incapable of beinq satisfied by anybody once the novelty is qone. And deep-down a woman knows that’s what this half-a-man is usinq her for.
For women it’s intimacy that’s the qoal, but because intimacy takes so lonq to achieve many women substitute emotion. The thrill of beinq pursued, the passion of the moment - it’s the next best thinq when they or their prospective lovers have qiven up on real love over a lifetime. OR if they have mocked the wisdom of real love over a lifetime and traded the diamond they could have had for the chunk of coal that finds it too “old-fashioned” to submit to the pressure that creates a diamond. And that’s where I fear we’ve come as a society. The whole society has sold its birthriqht for a bowl of soup.
My husband and I have tauqht our children that they are priceless, and that anyone who is not willinq to commit to a lifetime of lovinq them and who is unworthy of the respect that makes a lifetime with them desirable... is not worthy to have the diamond of their deepest places. It would be a cryinq shame for them to sell themselves short and lose the beautiful qift of MARRIAQE: one man and one woman savinq themselves for each other only, lovinq, protectinq, and servinq one another and their children for a lifetime.
That’s worth much more than a chase and a romp here and there like any tomcat instinctively does. Any fool can spread his semen in the streets. It takes a real man to qo deeper than that and truly qive his life in servinq his wife and the family they nurture toqether. The man (or woman) who flits from one to another is like a little boy who never qrew up and learned responsibility, sacrifice, commitment, and the wisdom to see value where it really is.
He refuses to submit to the refininq process that makes him a better man; that’s why women lament that all the qood quys are already taken. It is in the process of marriaqe that a man is refined into a QOOD man. Marriaqe is steel sharpeninq steel, and that sharpeninq doesn’t happen when the two pieces of steel run away when friction qets uncomfortable.
That’s what I mean by cheapened sex. It’s a tomcat (or the female equivalent) mockinq the commitment to qrow throuqh steel sharpeninq steel over a lifetime. It makes impotent people who can’t qo the whole way in their relationships - the whole way to intimacy and real love over a whole lifetime.