50 shades of pray
April 14, 2016 2:35 PM Subscribe
Perhaps the only kink you might not find in San Francisco, Christian Domestic Discipline is a community of women looking for a theological reading of sex and submission.
"Practitioners of CDD enact a literal obeisance to the words of St Paul in Ephesians: ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.’ On this faith-based paradigm of patriarchal submission, punishment (‘corner time’, spankings, humiliation) helps the wife correct any problematic behaviour – from spending too much money on clothes to lying about oversleeping on a work day. ‘Maintenance’ spankings, punishment not for any infraction but rather as a reminder of the husband’s supremacy, are also common."
"Practitioners of CDD enact a literal obeisance to the words of St Paul in Ephesians: ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.’ On this faith-based paradigm of patriarchal submission, punishment (‘corner time’, spankings, humiliation) helps the wife correct any problematic behaviour – from spending too much money on clothes to lying about oversleeping on a work day. ‘Maintenance’ spankings, punishment not for any infraction but rather as a reminder of the husband’s supremacy, are also common."
A relevant 'blast from the past': Fisting and God's Will
posted by LMGM at 2:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LMGM at 2:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
‘Maintenance’ spankings, punishment not for any infraction but rather as a reminder of the husband’s supremacy, are also common."
I've got nothing against kink, but whenever I hear about this kind of neo-patriarchy worship, I think of an image from Luc Sante's Evidence - a mother who gassed herself and her kids because her husband had died and there was no way for them to support themselves (or no way that wasn't hideous). The sex here isn't problematic, but the rest of it is a fantasy of a much more deluded and toxic kind.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:51 PM on April 14, 2016 [11 favorites]
I've got nothing against kink, but whenever I hear about this kind of neo-patriarchy worship, I think of an image from Luc Sante's Evidence - a mother who gassed herself and her kids because her husband had died and there was no way for them to support themselves (or no way that wasn't hideous). The sex here isn't problematic, but the rest of it is a fantasy of a much more deluded and toxic kind.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:51 PM on April 14, 2016 [11 favorites]
Like the "1950s household" kink, but with Jesus?
posted by edheil at 3:24 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by edheil at 3:24 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
Perhaps the only kink you might not find in San Francisco...
It took me under a minute browsing a CDD group on FetLife to find a member who lists San Francisco as his location, so I wouldn't be so sure you wouldn't find it there.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
It took me under a minute browsing a CDD group on FetLife to find a member who lists San Francisco as his location, so I wouldn't be so sure you wouldn't find it there.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
Like the "1950s household" kink Gor series, but with Jesus?
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2016 [7 favorites]
The theology of this is on point.
When describing the authentic to Christianity an erotic love for God really is, I was surprised they went for the saints that Evangelicals tend to ignore rather than the entire book of the bible that Evangelicals necessarily can't avert their gaze from. The Song of Soloman is all about telling the story of the relationship between God and Israel as well as the relationship between Christ and the Church using the allegory of two unmarried lovers so burning with passion for each other that they sneak around to get it on in the fields. It is beautiful, there is appreciating of her bouncing gazelles, thrusting of hands into openings, and fellating in return - but get this, we're the bride and God or Christ is the bridegroom. It seems that according to proper little o orthodox Christianity, at least in a sense, God loves us like a straight dude loves boobs while we are expected to want God like a straight woman really wants the D.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:53 PM on April 14, 2016 [11 favorites]
When describing the authentic to Christianity an erotic love for God really is, I was surprised they went for the saints that Evangelicals tend to ignore rather than the entire book of the bible that Evangelicals necessarily can't avert their gaze from. The Song of Soloman is all about telling the story of the relationship between God and Israel as well as the relationship between Christ and the Church using the allegory of two unmarried lovers so burning with passion for each other that they sneak around to get it on in the fields. It is beautiful, there is appreciating of her bouncing gazelles, thrusting of hands into openings, and fellating in return - but get this, we're the bride and God or Christ is the bridegroom. It seems that according to proper little o orthodox Christianity, at least in a sense, God loves us like a straight dude loves boobs while we are expected to want God like a straight woman really wants the D.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:53 PM on April 14, 2016 [11 favorites]
edheil: "Like the "1950s household" kink, but with Jesus?"
You can just say "1950s household kink".
posted by boo_radley at 3:54 PM on April 14, 2016
You can just say "1950s household kink".
posted by boo_radley at 3:54 PM on April 14, 2016
Tie thineself to the Speed Queen.
posted by clavdivs at 4:09 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 4:09 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
So by far the squickiest part of this is the idea that there's no safe words, no revocation of consent, ever. Without the possibility of non-consent, there's no possibility of consent. This is really gross, and I think it goes beyond kink.
These people are trying to work out their relationship to God, to their lover, and to their own sexuality. Any one of those three things can feel overpowering and all encompassing- I can't imagine reckoning with those relationships without consent.
posted by DGStieber at 4:15 PM on April 14, 2016 [39 favorites]
These people are trying to work out their relationship to God, to their lover, and to their own sexuality. Any one of those three things can feel overpowering and all encompassing- I can't imagine reckoning with those relationships without consent.
posted by DGStieber at 4:15 PM on April 14, 2016 [39 favorites]
Thank you, DGStieber. I was trying to articulate why exactly this makes my skin crawl--and it's the lack of consent.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:20 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:20 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
It seems that according to proper little o orthodox Christianity, at least in a sense, God loves us like a straight dude loves boobs while we are expected to want God like a straight woman really wants the D.
I haven't studied Christian theology seriously, but C S Lewis was a small-o orthodox Christian theologian and he implies this quite strongly. I.e., being a feminist precludes you from being a good Christian, because the husband:wife relationship is patterned on the God:human one. In fact the heroine of That Hideous Strength is very nearly damned, literally, and is redeemed only because she finally gives herself (again: literally) to her feckless waste of a husband who had previously been sucking up to the forces of evil. Because his failings aren't her business; being his wife is.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:35 PM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]
I haven't studied Christian theology seriously, but C S Lewis was a small-o orthodox Christian theologian and he implies this quite strongly. I.e., being a feminist precludes you from being a good Christian, because the husband:wife relationship is patterned on the God:human one. In fact the heroine of That Hideous Strength is very nearly damned, literally, and is redeemed only because she finally gives herself (again: literally) to her feckless waste of a husband who had previously been sucking up to the forces of evil. Because his failings aren't her business; being his wife is.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:35 PM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]
"So by far the squickiest part of this is the idea that there's no safe words, no revocation of consent, ever."
The general line of reasoning is often that consent is granted when agreeing to marry. If you don't want to be in this sort of relationship then you don't get married to this sort of person in this sort of church.
More to the point, no one said anything about "No safe words." A husband as the leader and caregiver has the responsibility to use his his authority and power responsibly, this could (and should!) include safe words.
Beyond that, Christianity, in general, has resources to deal with problems in a marriage from appeals to clergy for intervention, to annulment, to divorce. So, there is usually, some kind of revocable consent.
It's certainly not perfect (but what is?) and it may not suit you, but these are adults making their own decisions. (Of course! in the cases where these aren't adults making the decisions or that the marriage decision is coerced, then there are clear problems. )
Mind you, I'm neither endorsing nor accepting this sort of relationship. Just adding a data point.
posted by oddman at 4:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
The general line of reasoning is often that consent is granted when agreeing to marry. If you don't want to be in this sort of relationship then you don't get married to this sort of person in this sort of church.
More to the point, no one said anything about "No safe words." A husband as the leader and caregiver has the responsibility to use his his authority and power responsibly, this could (and should!) include safe words.
Beyond that, Christianity, in general, has resources to deal with problems in a marriage from appeals to clergy for intervention, to annulment, to divorce. So, there is usually, some kind of revocable consent.
It's certainly not perfect (but what is?) and it may not suit you, but these are adults making their own decisions. (Of course! in the cases where these aren't adults making the decisions or that the marriage decision is coerced, then there are clear problems. )
Mind you, I'm neither endorsing nor accepting this sort of relationship. Just adding a data point.
posted by oddman at 4:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is just spousal and child abuse packaged in a religious garment. It is not any sort of "play", but a way of life and it does involve children, as there was a mention of fathers using "discipline" on daughters as well as husbands on wives. And as another noted, there does not seem to be a way for the women not to consent if it is what the man wants.
Also, not a lovely biblical metaphor like Song of Solomon, but involves actual beatings and actual, not pretend or kinky, punishment of females by men, evidently never the other way around.
In fact as one raised Catholic I never did like the idea of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, it always just sounded like "Christ owns and screws his Church."
posted by mermayd at 4:44 PM on April 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
Also, not a lovely biblical metaphor like Song of Solomon, but involves actual beatings and actual, not pretend or kinky, punishment of females by men, evidently never the other way around.
In fact as one raised Catholic I never did like the idea of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, it always just sounded like "Christ owns and screws his Church."
posted by mermayd at 4:44 PM on April 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
I used to believe in the whole consenting-adult thing until I thought about the many women raised in fundamentalist households in which they are taught from the very beginnings of their lives that they are lesser than and must be submissive to men. And then I thought, hmm, what about consenting adults who consent because they have had no exposure to other world views? Naturally, there's no ethical way to police this stuff or interfere but I'd give money to deprogrammers to take a crack at the Duggar women and children, males included, I totally would.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 4:48 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]
Yeesh... the story of Jane, the woman who tries the leave the movement and can't, is harrowing. And the last paragraphs refer to again as if she weren't trapped in an abusive relationship.
posted by zompist at 4:58 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by zompist at 4:58 PM on April 14, 2016
CDD is some weird extreme version of complementarianism, which is plenty bad enough on its own.
A husband as the leader and caregiver has the responsibility to use his his authority and power responsibly, this could (and should!) include safe words.
The problem is that the sort of men attracted to CDD (from a true theological standpoint and not because they're into kink but need religious justification for it) and complementarianism in the first place are, I'd wager, less inclined to behave responsibly in this manner to begin with. I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that many men drawn towards a theological position defending the superiority of men and "separate but equal" when it comes to gender roles in the church have a very healthy idea of consent and boundaries.
And as for divorce? Pfsh. Forget it. John Piper is a bigwig in complementarian circles and he's infamous for insisting that a wife endure abuse for a season.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 5:10 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
A husband as the leader and caregiver has the responsibility to use his his authority and power responsibly, this could (and should!) include safe words.
The problem is that the sort of men attracted to CDD (from a true theological standpoint and not because they're into kink but need religious justification for it) and complementarianism in the first place are, I'd wager, less inclined to behave responsibly in this manner to begin with. I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that many men drawn towards a theological position defending the superiority of men and "separate but equal" when it comes to gender roles in the church have a very healthy idea of consent and boundaries.
And as for divorce? Pfsh. Forget it. John Piper is a bigwig in complementarian circles and he's infamous for insisting that a wife endure abuse for a season.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 5:10 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that many men drawn towards a theological position defending the superiority of men and "separate but equal" when it comes to gender roles in the church have a very healthy idea of consent and boundaries.
Upon rereading, I think this could be a hasty and unfair generalization on my part. I've run into well-meaning garden-variety complementarians before (although I still believe that the theology itself is inherently toxic). But there's no way to deny that this theological position attracts men who simply want to justify retaining their privilege over women. And when you get into CDD, which is complementarianism on steroids? Well, at that point I'm not sure whether that doesn't describe all of the men involved.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 5:16 PM on April 14, 2016
Upon rereading, I think this could be a hasty and unfair generalization on my part. I've run into well-meaning garden-variety complementarians before (although I still believe that the theology itself is inherently toxic). But there's no way to deny that this theological position attracts men who simply want to justify retaining their privilege over women. And when you get into CDD, which is complementarianism on steroids? Well, at that point I'm not sure whether that doesn't describe all of the men involved.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 5:16 PM on April 14, 2016
At the bookstore where I work, the proportion of customers buying 50 Shades type S&M erotica who are also buying Christian romance novels is extremely high.
posted by mygothlaundry at 5:59 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by mygothlaundry at 5:59 PM on April 14, 2016
Verse 21, immediately proceeding the bit about wives submitting quoted in the FPP says: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." So maybe they should be alternating weeks on the sub/dom roles.
Following the quoted section about wifely duties are the reciprocal obligations of husbandry, which should be included in the discussion if you are going to talk about the wifely bits.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Again extending the church or Christian:Christ, wife:husband metaphor. The bit about avoiding blemishes might be problematic if the discipline gets overenthusiastic.
posted by Across the pale parabola of joy at 6:17 PM on April 14, 2016
Following the quoted section about wifely duties are the reciprocal obligations of husbandry, which should be included in the discussion if you are going to talk about the wifely bits.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Again extending the church or Christian:Christ, wife:husband metaphor. The bit about avoiding blemishes might be problematic if the discipline gets overenthusiastic.
posted by Across the pale parabola of joy at 6:17 PM on April 14, 2016
"The general line of reasoning is often that consent is granted when agreeing to marry."
I'm pretty sure this was part of why spousal rape was once considered impossible and it seems to me like a very dangerous and abusive line of thinking.
posted by xarnop at 6:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]
I'm pretty sure this was part of why spousal rape was once considered impossible and it seems to me like a very dangerous and abusive line of thinking.
posted by xarnop at 6:38 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]
Yeah this is the kind of thing my mind at first is all like "how strange tell me more i must explore the universe" but tonight just nope, no thanks, going to go have normal sex and count my pagan blessings okay.
posted by vrakatar at 6:43 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by vrakatar at 6:43 PM on April 14, 2016
Izzy, shut this off. I'm done.
posted by crazylegs at 6:51 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by crazylegs at 6:51 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't understand this type of thinking in our time. Women consistently close the wage gap and perform most of the house keeping and child rearing. Husbands typically increase a women's workload and I'd only marry if he were doing some serious life enrichment for me. Husbands are not a necessity but more a burden to modern women with good jobs (from a purely practical standpoint). Ain't no way I'd put up with this. It's brainwashing to abuse.
posted by Kalmya at 7:09 PM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Kalmya at 7:09 PM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]
God loves us like a straight dude loves boobs while we are expected to want God like a straight woman really wants the D.
You've just made me love God a little more.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 PM on April 14, 2016
You've just made me love God a little more.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 PM on April 14, 2016
Yes. What adults do together is their business. I was reading along and vaguely amused and confused and all that. Your kink is okay, et cetera.
Then I read the paragraph about the woman who was subject to "maintenance whippings" from her father as a child, and my blood ran cold, and it wasn't funny anymore.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 7:36 PM on April 14, 2016 [14 favorites]
Then I read the paragraph about the woman who was subject to "maintenance whippings" from her father as a child, and my blood ran cold, and it wasn't funny anymore.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 7:36 PM on April 14, 2016 [14 favorites]
Also potentially relevant "In her lab experiments where she placed adolescent boys and girls in a stressful situation and then took samples of their saliva and urine, Seltzer surprisingly found that girls with histories of harsh physical discipline didn't experience the cortisol rush that we would expect. Instead, that group had a huge spike of oxytocin, known as the "comfort" or "cuddle" or “love” hormone that causes people to feel emotionally bonded to each other, and acts as the body’s built-in counter to stress." Why you should never spank your daughter.
posted by xarnop at 7:52 PM on April 14, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by xarnop at 7:52 PM on April 14, 2016 [10 favorites]
Even putting aside the questionable issues on consent, it's creepy, and I'll gladly step up to defend people who might be into conventional BDSM; there have to be clear boundaries and communication for those kinds of relationships to work. This is like some sexual role play game that never ends, a blurring of the boundaries to the point there aren't any. This is not something I can understand. It's like cult behavior. There must be strong social reinforcement mechanisms, the community effect, in play. It's a whole creepy lifestyle and totalizing belief system. It seems like there's a lot of that sort of thing out there now. Even more than usual--and America's been full of communities of true believers pretty much since the beginning. Weird.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:52 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 7:52 PM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm a masochist and it's just such a clusterfuck to read this stuff. Consent is key. Don't get kids involved. But trauma in childhood doesn't mean you can't be kinky as an adult, and I find religious masochism deeply interesting. Ugh.
posted by mmmbacon at 7:55 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by mmmbacon at 7:55 PM on April 14, 2016
I'm also sympathetic to people who want to extend their sexual experiences or practices outside an isolated bedroom encounter. You can't just turn off and on your sexual identity.
posted by mmmbacon at 7:58 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by mmmbacon at 7:58 PM on April 14, 2016
I could have gone my entire life without this information. It has added a level of creepiness to life. I need to shake it off somehow.
posted by cairnoflore at 9:04 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by cairnoflore at 9:04 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
I could have gone my entire life without this information.
I feel like this has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years, usually in a LOL sort of way. (And really, the jokes do write themselves.) I know a couple of people whom I wonder if this is maybe their thing, but if it is they keep it behind closed doors and don't talk about it openly.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:20 PM on April 14, 2016
> The Song of Soloman is all about telling the story of the relationship between God and Israel as well as the relationship between Christ and the Church using the allegory of two unmarried lovers so burning with passion for each other that they sneak around to get it on in the fields. It is beautiful, there is appreciating of her bouncing gazelles, thrusting of hands into openings, and fellating in return - but get this, we're the bride and God or Christ is the bridegroom.
Just a data point, but the wonderful Rev. Dr. Renita Weems doesn't see it that way, and I've always found her take pretty convincing (and ideologically preferable, natch):
Just a data point, but the wonderful Rev. Dr. Renita Weems doesn't see it that way, and I've always found her take pretty convincing (and ideologically preferable, natch):
But the love passages are usually interpreted as being about Christ's love for the church.posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:24 AM on April 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
RW: Yes, Christ's love for the church, if you're Christian--or God's love for Israel if you're Jewish. It was not originally an allegory. Only later did we begin to look at it as an allegory, but this is how we have come to explain or rationalize its presence in the Bible.
That article is great, although the site is full of blinky ads. Rev. Dr. Weems also notes that the "wives, submit to your husbands" section from Paul is preceded by "slaves, submit to your masters". No amount of wishy-washy "oh and husbands should be clean and make an effort to feed and clothe their wives" and mentions love for both but only respect for the husband is going to outweigh that kind of inequality.
posted by harriet vane at 2:13 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by harriet vane at 2:13 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
Paul was talking to a community that was made up largely of slaves, foreigners with few rights, and dispossessed citizens - not many slave owners. Noting that slaves should submit to their masters was not a gift to slave masters or slave kidnappers, he was in fact incredibly hostile to the slave kidnappers early Christians would actually have an opportunity to interact with, but a way to define the Christian revolution by defining what it wasn't - a slave rebellion like all of the others that failed to end slavery. Paul very conspicuously doesn't use the institution of slavery as an allegory for basically anything, despite his epistles being essentially a rolling series of allegories for Man's relationship to Christ and God. His references to slaves and and aspects of the institution of slavery are all weirdly dry for him, save how those who kidnap slaves are used over and over again as an example of people who deny God and their essential natures by doing so.
The Pauline model for marriage however is all about avoiding porneia, the institution of chattel sexual slavery ubiquitous in the Hellenic world, and the laundry list of examples of sexual exploitation of vulnerable women that he gives as being just like it. Without Pauline marriage there was no protection from being used by a partner until old and discarded to the elements; Paul stipulated headship but also repeatedly, inescapably, and radically mandates that men place their wives before themselves, that apostasy and misconduct are the only appropriate reasons for divorce, and that women are no less than men before God. The early church was flooded with women attracted by this radically feminist message that women were actually people with dignity that was inherent to them and needed to be respected by men. Even today porneia is by no means gone, in absolute numbers there are more women in sexual slavery today than there have ever been at any point in human history. However, most of the women who aren’t will be able to avoid it into a Pauline model marriage, some variety of post-Pauline marriage, a functionally equivalent model, or into a world made safer by them.
Christianity developed in a world where for women, or vulnerable men, who you slept with determined who served as your source of protection from omnipresent sexual slavery. Mandating that men pick a wife and stick with her, among other things, stabilized life for women, served to combat sexual exploitation in general, and was indeed a pretty decent way for not-shitty people to interact with a society still defined by the laws of Draco. Paul doesn't write anything so wishy-washy or bullshit as "oh and husbands should be clean and make an effort to feed and clothe their wives," but instead mandates that husbands put their wives before themselves. Something far more radically sacrificial than anything he mandates for women, and something manifestly absurd for the time.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:30 AM on April 15, 2016 [8 favorites]
The Pauline model for marriage however is all about avoiding porneia, the institution of chattel sexual slavery ubiquitous in the Hellenic world, and the laundry list of examples of sexual exploitation of vulnerable women that he gives as being just like it. Without Pauline marriage there was no protection from being used by a partner until old and discarded to the elements; Paul stipulated headship but also repeatedly, inescapably, and radically mandates that men place their wives before themselves, that apostasy and misconduct are the only appropriate reasons for divorce, and that women are no less than men before God. The early church was flooded with women attracted by this radically feminist message that women were actually people with dignity that was inherent to them and needed to be respected by men. Even today porneia is by no means gone, in absolute numbers there are more women in sexual slavery today than there have ever been at any point in human history. However, most of the women who aren’t will be able to avoid it into a Pauline model marriage, some variety of post-Pauline marriage, a functionally equivalent model, or into a world made safer by them.
Christianity developed in a world where for women, or vulnerable men, who you slept with determined who served as your source of protection from omnipresent sexual slavery. Mandating that men pick a wife and stick with her, among other things, stabilized life for women, served to combat sexual exploitation in general, and was indeed a pretty decent way for not-shitty people to interact with a society still defined by the laws of Draco. Paul doesn't write anything so wishy-washy or bullshit as "oh and husbands should be clean and make an effort to feed and clothe their wives," but instead mandates that husbands put their wives before themselves. Something far more radically sacrificial than anything he mandates for women, and something manifestly absurd for the time.
Ephesians 5:21-33, Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.Of course Paul's advice to the Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians has important limits to its applicability to a world radically changed by this radical idea that women are people (whose value is inherent to their natures as co-equal children of God rather than their impaired ability to defend their personhood), but it would be ridiculous to abandon Paul's radically feminist message to people who would twist it to justify their misogyny.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:30 AM on April 15, 2016 [8 favorites]
I have a really hard time seeing "Paul's radically feminist message". Perhaps if I had studied theology on a Ph.D. level at some very liberal school and knew all the complicated laws of slavery in the ancient world, I could eventually see this, but as a Catholic kid sitting in the pew and hearing Paul's letters read every Sunday, all I got was this guy does not like women and wants them to sit down and shut up. (with heads covered). Also Men Rule, second only to God. Women may get to be some kind of vaguely equal in heaven, but not here on earth. I feel Paul was in many ways the ruination of Christianity for women, not a beacon of feminism.
The way the metaphor of marriage being really about "Christ and his Church" was used at Catholic weddings when I was young was profoundly depressing, like the couple getting married did not even matter as individuals, and the metaphor was the only thing that even made marriage tolerable in a church composed of celibate priests and nuns.
posted by mermayd at 4:02 AM on April 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
The way the metaphor of marriage being really about "Christ and his Church" was used at Catholic weddings when I was young was profoundly depressing, like the couple getting married did not even matter as individuals, and the metaphor was the only thing that even made marriage tolerable in a church composed of celibate priests and nuns.
posted by mermayd at 4:02 AM on April 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
> "It was not originally an allegory. Only later did we begin to look at it as an allegory, but this is how we have come to explain or rationalize its presence in the Bible."
Yeah. I mean, first, this is historically the case in terms of the changing attitudes in how the poem was interpreted, but second, I've read the Song of Songs a bunch of times, and I ain't never seen no allegory in there.
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah. I mean, first, this is historically the case in terms of the changing attitudes in how the poem was interpreted, but second, I've read the Song of Songs a bunch of times, and I ain't never seen no allegory in there.
posted by kyrademon at 5:04 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Beyond that, Christianity, in general, has resources to deal with problems in a marriage from appeals to clergy for intervention, to annulment, to divorce. So, there is usually, some kind of revocable consent.
Unfortunately many times those resources that could be used to help someone escape an abusive situation (I don't think it's really allowing for the revocation of consent if an outside person is required to intervene) are used to pressure someone to stay in the abusive relationship. See Jane in the article. Not that CDD is the only variant of Christianity with this problem.
posted by ghost phoneme at 5:14 AM on April 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Unfortunately many times those resources that could be used to help someone escape an abusive situation (I don't think it's really allowing for the revocation of consent if an outside person is required to intervene) are used to pressure someone to stay in the abusive relationship. See Jane in the article. Not that CDD is the only variant of Christianity with this problem.
posted by ghost phoneme at 5:14 AM on April 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Well the sky god impregnates the earth goddess is the story in a lot of religions and it's only after Yahweh's followers become monotheists bent on destroying reverence for any other deity or the divine femenine that Asherahs temples were destroyed and raged against and everyone flipped out about how bad anyone who dared worship the goddess. Monotheism by a male god and patriarchy go so well together.
God's wife might not be too pleased either, what is the little patriarch trying to get up to in her absence? Nothing good. Maybe she should return and stand up to him-- or perhaps it's his followers who destroyed her who need a bit of education.
Submit to god my fucking ass (oh don't want to give that jerk any ideas) no way... no you want to make women submit, I defy you. It's on bro. You are the creator but I am the STUFF OF CREATION, you used the power to create, but I AM THE POWER.
And you can not create a being designed for your titillation against their will without repercussions. Your power will dissipate and gather in the hands of those who deserve it.
If they are just stories, let's change the stories. If they are not- let's make right what's wrong. I worship no tyrant.
posted by xarnop at 5:32 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
God's wife might not be too pleased either, what is the little patriarch trying to get up to in her absence? Nothing good. Maybe she should return and stand up to him-- or perhaps it's his followers who destroyed her who need a bit of education.
Submit to god my fucking ass (oh don't want to give that jerk any ideas) no way... no you want to make women submit, I defy you. It's on bro. You are the creator but I am the STUFF OF CREATION, you used the power to create, but I AM THE POWER.
And you can not create a being designed for your titillation against their will without repercussions. Your power will dissipate and gather in the hands of those who deserve it.
If they are just stories, let's change the stories. If they are not- let's make right what's wrong. I worship no tyrant.
posted by xarnop at 5:32 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sorry, Blasdelb, I'm just not seeing it. The section you quoted sounds possessive and suggestive of women as valued property rather than any old property. Which I'm sure was a huge improvement on the situation at the time, but is hardly useful advice today.
I'm pretty vanilla myself, but consenting adults can spank each other silly if it makes them happy. The world could do with more happiness, so rock on, spankers. This CDD, however, doesn't make authentic consent possible, and Paul's writing gives misogynists plenty of cover for abuse. In the same way that it's hard to tell ironic racism from actual racism, it's hard to tell progressive-for-70AD sexual values apart from regressive-for-2016 sexual values. The difference is pretty minimal when you're the one being told to quietly obey for your own good, with the threat of damnation for finding your own path.
posted by harriet vane at 6:01 AM on April 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm pretty vanilla myself, but consenting adults can spank each other silly if it makes them happy. The world could do with more happiness, so rock on, spankers. This CDD, however, doesn't make authentic consent possible, and Paul's writing gives misogynists plenty of cover for abuse. In the same way that it's hard to tell ironic racism from actual racism, it's hard to tell progressive-for-70AD sexual values apart from regressive-for-2016 sexual values. The difference is pretty minimal when you're the one being told to quietly obey for your own good, with the threat of damnation for finding your own path.
posted by harriet vane at 6:01 AM on April 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
"I have a really hard time seeing "Paul's radically feminist message". Perhaps if I had studied theology on a Ph.D. level at some very liberal school and knew all the complicated laws of slavery in the ancient world, I could eventually see this, but as a Catholic kid sitting in the pew and hearing Paul's letters read every Sunday, all I got was this guy does not like women and wants them to sit down and shut up. (with heads covered)."Paul's feminist legacy has unfortunately been hard worn by whoever it was that actually wrote 'his' First Epistle to Timothy but, while he did get really weird about women both by modern and particularly classical standards, that weirdness was profoundly feminist. Paul was incredibly sex negative, but his very reactionary asceticism cannot be meaningfully judged outside of the context of the society he was reacting against. In the world that Paul was trying to change, the magnitude of male privilege was such that women were fundamentally unable to exist economically independent of men. Examples of independent women who did not rely on sex work in the Greco-Roman or Hebrew world were very few and far between, and almost exclusively either widows or only daughters who were simply attached to dead men rather than live ones. Sex outside of the commitment of marriage really was functionally very much like porneia, and was a clear path to the bare naked thing, while sex within marriage carried its own hazards. If we take Paul at his word that he, unlike his contemporaries, felt that women were no less than men in Christ then his position on porneia becomes just a logical extension of the inherent dignity of women through Christ.
Far from expecting women to sit down and shut up, Paul himself praises a women as a prominent apostle, implicitly recognizes a women as at least a co-pastor if not head of household that he felt deeply indebted to, explicitly recognizes a women as a deacon with exactly the same status as male deacons and uses her as an envoy to Rome to represent him, and unabashedly corresponds internationally with a woman whose advice he values.
Paul didn't like sex, but he had good reasons not to, and there are plenty of examples of women he very much did like and clearly respected as peers.
"Women may get to be some kind of vaguely equal in heaven, but not here on earth."One of the greatest failures of biblically illiterate protestantism dominating popular culture is the idea that The Kingdom of Heaven is some vague distant place in the sky filled with winged blond people dressed like Greek gods who dispense Philadelphia cream cheese that will only be relevant to us after death, rather than anything resembling what is found in the bible. According to Jesus' extensive descriptions in the Gospels, The Kingdom of Heaven is a very terrestrial phenomenon brought to us by him, something that we hold in our hearts and make real by our faith and our actions. A counterintuitive "Kingdom" founded in the surrender of the living God rather than the violence of the powerful that is absolutely supposed to guide our life on Earth.
"The way the metaphor of marriage being really about "Christ and his Church" was used at Catholic weddings when I was young was profoundly depressing, like the couple getting married did not even matter as individuals, and the metaphor was the only thing that even made marriage tolerable in a church composed of celibate priests and nuns."...But using metaphors backwards pretty much always leads to weird byproducts like this, marriage was a concept people understood and made sense, while the concept of a religion that the divine would have a mutually loving rather than extractive or reciprocal relationship with was absurd and didn't make sense. The idea is to explain that Christ and the Church are meant to love each other like lovers mid-limerence love each other, not explain that marriage is meant to be institutionally impersonal or like more intuitive but less orthodox relationships between communities and God.
posted by Blasdelb at 6:07 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
Blasdelb, you spin and spin and spin, but so much goes right over my head and is nothing I see reflected in actual life in the 21st century, or in most Christian Churches I have had any experience of. What Paul left the majority of women in Christianity in practical terms is not the least uplifting.
posted by mermayd at 8:44 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mermayd at 8:44 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Institutional Christianity absolutely has systemic and inexcusable problems with women, but those problems aren't from Paul. If you want a boogeyman I'd start with dudes like Gregory of Nyssa, but to blame Paul for their misogyny is to continue to carry their water for them, and fuck that. What Paul left the majority of women in Christianity in practical terms is a series of Epistles that explicitly and repeatedly defends their personhood as coming directly from their relationship with God rather than their relationship with some man who could defend their at best second class status, documents a community filled with uniquely empowered and dynamic women, rebukes men who rape women trafficked in ubiquitous and otherwise uncontroversial sexual slavery as being the lowest of the low, challenges men to instead establish relationships with women that provide economic security and at least a sort of jointly corporate agency.
If anything it is Paul and his immediate community that kept Jesus' feminist message alive and tried their damnedest to live it as best they could, before the church became increasingly co-opted by Greco-Roman norms. If we see the arc of the moral universe as being long and bent towards justice, Paul got out and pushed it hard enough in the right direction that it can only seem backwards for how far we've come due in large part to his efforts.
posted by Blasdelb at 9:33 AM on April 15, 2016
If anything it is Paul and his immediate community that kept Jesus' feminist message alive and tried their damnedest to live it as best they could, before the church became increasingly co-opted by Greco-Roman norms. If we see the arc of the moral universe as being long and bent towards justice, Paul got out and pushed it hard enough in the right direction that it can only seem backwards for how far we've come due in large part to his efforts.
posted by Blasdelb at 9:33 AM on April 15, 2016
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