Men and womens different responses to chastity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael1985
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Michael1985

Guest
For a number of years I have been involved with teaching young people about chastity. I’ve found I can get men to have a serious rethink about their attitudes to sex outside of marriage and pornography. They can accept that these things are destructive, in fact some groups have been really easy to get them to question the norm. I suspect deep down they knew these things were hurting them they just needed someone to speak up.

I have not had the same success with female groups, they often struggle to see that sex outside of marriage is wrong.

I usually talk about, fulfilment, emptiness, being used and sex is for a lifelong commitment and children, I can get men to see the Churches view but not many women.

I’m a male, have other people had the same experience?
 
I haven’t but I do know that it’s easier to get men to dress appropriately for church than women…all I get from women is…

“You hate women blah blah…If you cannot control yourself then that’s your problem blah blah…don’t blame me this is who I am blah blah.”

So I think chastity and modesty are intertwined however trying to bring that up with women is like kicking a hornets nest…so I try and refrain.

I think the reason women may not see anything wrong is because whenever they commit adultery, they conveniently blame it on the man.

“He used me…he seduced me…not my fault blah blah.”

This is my experience, I know the arrows of mysoginist accusations will come hurling my way, but whatever…can’t blame me for what I see.🤷
 
I’m not in any way implying that women are more sinful or anything like that. In my experience more women take an active role amoung the lay faithful than men. I was wondering if there was something perhaps wrong with the way I approached the situation, I simply wanted to know if others had the same problem.
 
I can’t help you from a Catholic perspective I’m afraid, specifically from a Catholic woman’s perspective, but I’m wondering if it might help, or might be more appropriate, if you had a female co-worker to deliver the seminar to women, rather than a man?

Sorry, not much help I know, but there are many women who might feel more comfortable, and respond more openly or explore the issues more openly if the leader of the seminar was a woman, or shared.

Sarah x 🙂
 
Michael1985 said:
I’m not in any way implying that women are more sinful or anything like that. In my experience more women take an active role amoung the lay faithful than men. I was wondering if there was something perhaps wrong with the way I approached the situation, I simply wanted to know if others had the same problem.
Click to expand...
Well I also don’t think they are more sinful, if that’s what you assumed.
 
There’s the saying that men use love for sex and women use sex for love. I think that a lot of young women might not see sex outside of marriage as that bad because they are pursuing love (in a disordered way of course). The guys, on the other hand, know that their motives are less than noble so its easy for them to understand why its wrong.

I think it would be helpful for the girls to hear testimonies from other guys (maybe in a video form) of how they have used women for sex. I don’t think girls fully understand how guys think in this regard. And I think the best examples would be from the “nice guys” in long term relationships. Girls get that guys looking for what night stands are using them but they may not understand how their boyfriend is also using them.
 
LucyLight said:
There’s the saying that men use love for sex and women use sex for love. I think that a lot of young women might not see sex outside of marriage as that bad because they are pursuing love (in a disordered way of course). The guys, on the other hand, know that their motives are less than noble so its easy for them to understand why its wrong.
Click to expand...
Yes, these were my thoughts as well.
 
Michael1985 said:
I’m a male, have other people had the same experience?
Click to expand...
You know what? The last thing I want is some guy who hasn’t got a clue what life for a single (or any other) woman is like trying to tell me anything about sex or sexuality.

The real problem is: they can’t talk and you wouldn’t hear them if they did. Obviously.

Find a woman to partner with and stick to your own gender.

Hey, could you please just start in middle school? Then maybe when they get big they won’t be such jerks about it all.
 
Julia_Mae said:
You know what? The last thing I want is some guy who hasn’t got a clue what life for a single (or any other) woman is like trying to tell me anything about sex or sexuality.

The real problem is: they can’t talk and you wouldn’t hear them if they did. Obviously.

Find a woman to partner with and stick to your own gender.

Hey, could you please just start in middle school? Then maybe when they get big they won’t be such jerks about it all.
Click to expand...
Speaking as a man, I don’t think the issue is that we can’t talk. It’s because we can’t listen, or at least listen properly.

We tend to treat what women say as data when in reality they tend to communicate feelings. It leads to huge misunderstandings, inappropriate advice and, well, hurt feelings.
 
I saw a study were fidelity was most important to a man - once it was broken by his partner the relationship was over - which was general to almost all men.If a mans partner had romantic feelings for another man but did not cheat he was fine with that.

For the woman - if her partner cheated by had no romantic attachment to the women he cheated with - she was willing to forgive in most cases depending on how much of a romantic attachment she had for her partner - but if there was a romantic attachment the relationship was over.A man who had romantic feelings for another woman but does not cheat on his partner would be unacceptable to his partner and would likely end the relationship.

So it seemed from the study that men must have fidelity in a relationship for it to survive.
The woman needs full romantic attachment to her alone for the relationship to survive.

How widely it varied - It was an interesting study.
 
OraLabora said:
We tend to treat what women say as data when in reality they tend to communicate feelings. It leads to huge misunderstandings, inappropriate advice and, well, hurt feelings.
Click to expand...
No, you treat our data as if it were feelings because you have cultural programming that says men are rational and women have periods.

You are right about not listening, tho.’
 
Michael1985 said:
For a number of years I have been involved with teaching young people about chastity. I’ve found I can get men to have a serious rethink about their attitudes to sex outside of marriage and pornography. They can accept that these things are destructive, in fact some groups have been really easy to get them to question the norm. I suspect deep down they knew these things were hurting them they just needed someone to speak up.

I have not had the same success with female groups, they often struggle to see that sex outside of marriage is wrong.

I usually talk about, fulfilment, emptiness, being used and sex is for a lifelong commitment and children, I can get men to see the Churches view but not many women.

I’m a male, have other people had the same experience?
Click to expand...
Are you kidding?
 
LucyLight said:
There’s the saying that men use love for sex and women use sex for love. I think that a lot of young women might not see sex outside of marriage as that bad because they are pursuing love (in a disordered way of course). The guys, on the other hand, know that their motives are less than noble so its easy for them to understand why its wrong.
Click to expand...
See, I would think it would be the opposite problem. As a woman who remembers what it was like to be a horny teenager, I remember feeling insulted when I was told all this about how “you don’t really want sex, you just want love.” Um, no - I really do just want sex.

Anyway - there seems to be this HUGE disconnect - we understand that men have sex drives, so chastity education for men tends to be along the lines of - “I know you want sex, but here’s why you should deny yourself.” For women, the assumption is that they don’t really have a sex drive, so chastity education for women tends to be along the lines of “You don’t know what you want. Here, let me tell you what you really want.” When you basically start off with a lie, your entire credibility and the rest of your message is completely shot. If you are talking to women about being used, the first reaction (for me anyway) is “used? How is that possible? I want sex!”

I think we would have more success with women if we said (similar to the guys) “I know you want sex, but here’s why you should deny yourself.” First of all, there’s the practical - the responsibility of bringing new life into the world responsibly (here’s a clue - if you would not have the self-confidence of Ellen Paige’s Juno while pregnant, you’re not ready to be pregnant), and since NO birth control is 100%, there is always the possibility. Then the risk of STD’s tends to fall mainly on the woman.

If I were teaching the class instead of you, I would drop any lingering “right to wear white” type stuff or any discussion about a woman’s “purity” - it always comes off demeaning. And I would not focus too much on the bright line of pre-marriage vs. post-marrige - it always comes across as “when we wave a magic wand, what was once ‘dirty’ is now ‘good’.” Obviously, we have to mention the bright line of pre-marriage vs. post-marriage at some point, but I would do it after discussing the following:
  1. relationships in which sex means something in context
  2. risks of being asymmetrical in relationships that involve sex (*) which segues into
  3. when sex is good in a symmetrical, loving relationship. So good, in fact, that sex in any other type of relationship just seems kinda pointless in comparison
  4. ideally, when your relationship is at the point where you are ready for sex, you will be married. If not, get thee to the altar. Conversely, ideally, when you are approaching the altar, your relationship will be at the point (symmetrical and loving) where you are ready for sex. If not, don’t get married. (See what I did there? The focus is not on the magic-wand moment, but on the natural progression of the relationship with the bright-line standard thrown in. More intuitive (and honest) that way.)
  5. Watch out for just wanting sex so SO bad that you rush to the altar but its okay because you were chaste up until the wedding. This is an example of a relationship being all about sex, even though the couple was abstinent. This is also an example that I have NEVER heard except from secular sources who (rightly) point out this phenomenon. No Catholic / other Christian sources I have seen have ever pointed this out; probably because the simplistic “magic wand” approach can’t deal with this reality (which is why I recommend just throwing the “magic wand” approach out, since kids are smart and they see it for the baloney it is).
  6. returning to the subject of relationships in which sex means something in context, let’s talk about:
    a) what a healthy relationship looks like and how to recognize one
    b) what long-term love looks like - shared joy and sacrifice
    c) what an UNhealthy relationship looks like and how to recognize one
Obviously #6 is rather ambiguous but it’s very important to the overall picture.

Anyway, the above is the culmination of ~15 years of off and on thought about this subject, as well as quite a bit of experience, which includes practicing monogamy for the last 4 years. So, in sum, I believe I know what I’m talking about.

(*) NOT the “you’ll get used by guys for sex” but rather something along the lines of the issues that can arise when one person is thinking “friends with benefits” and the other person falls in love. How it’s not always obvious what the other person is thinking / feeling, and how in most cases it takes time to really let the relationship develop.
 
AthenaC said:
See, I would think it would be the opposite problem. As a woman who remembers what it was like to be a horny teenager, I remember feeling insulted when I was told all this about how “you don’t really want sex, you just want love.” Um, no - I really do just want sex.

Anyway - there seems to be this HUGE disconnect - we understand that men have sex drives, so chastity education for men tends to be along the lines of - “I know you want sex, but here’s why you should deny yourself.” For women, the assumption is that they don’t really have a sex drive, so chastity education for women tends to be along the lines of “You don’t know what you want. Here, let me tell you what you really want.” When you basically start off with a lie, your entire credibility and the rest of your message is completely shot. If you are talking to women about being used, the first reaction (for me anyway) is “used? How is that possible? I want sex!”

I think we would have more success with women if we said (similar to the guys) “I know you want sex, but here’s why you should deny yourself.” First of all, there’s the practical - the responsibility of bringing new life into the world responsibly (here’s a clue - if you would not have the self-confidence of Ellen Paige’s Juno while pregnant, you’re not ready to be pregnant), and since NO birth control is 100%, there is always the possibility. Then the risk of STD’s tends to fall mainly on the woman.

If I were teaching the class instead of you, I would drop any lingering “right to wear white” type stuff or any discussion about a woman’s “purity” - it always comes off demeaning. And I would not focus too much on the bright line of pre-marriage vs. post-marrige - it always comes across as “when we wave a magic wand, what was once ‘dirty’ is now ‘good’.” Obviously, we have to mention the bright line of pre-marriage vs. post-marriage at some point, but I would do it after discussing the following:
  1. relationships in which sex means something in context
  2. risks of being asymmetrical in relationships that involve sex (*) which segues into
  3. when sex is good in a symmetrical, loving relationship. So good, in fact, that sex in any other type of relationship just seems kinda pointless in comparison
  4. ideally, when your relationship is at the point where you are ready for sex, you will be married. If not, get thee to the altar. Conversely, ideally, when you are approaching the altar, your relationship will be at the point (symmetrical and loving) where you are ready for sex. If not, don’t get married. (See what I did there? The focus is not on the magic-wand moment, but on the natural progression of the relationship with the bright-line standard thrown in. More intuitive (and honest) that way.)
  5. Watch out for just wanting sex so SO bad that you rush to the altar but its okay because you were chaste up until the wedding. This is an example of a relationship being all about sex, even though the couple was abstinent. This is also an example that I have NEVER heard except from secular sources who (rightly) point out this phenomenon. No Catholic / other Christian sources I have seen have ever pointed this out; probably because the simplistic “magic wand” approach can’t deal with this reality (which is why I recommend just throwing the “magic wand” approach out, since kids are smart and they see it for the baloney it is).
  6. returning to the subject of relationships in which sex means something in context, let’s talk about:
    a) what a healthy relationship looks like and how to recognize one
    b) what long-term love looks like - shared joy and sacrifice
    c) what an UNhealthy relationship looks like and how to recognize one
Obviously #6 is rather ambiguous but it’s very important to the overall picture.

Anyway, the above is the culmination of ~15 years of off and on thought about this subject, as well as quite a bit of experience, which includes practicing monogamy for the last 4 years. So, in sum, I believe I know what I’m talking about.

(*) NOT the “you’ll get used by guys for sex” but rather something along the lines of the issues that can arise when one person is thinking “friends with benefits” and the other person falls in love. How it’s not always obvious what the other person is thinking / feeling, and how in most cases it takes time to really let the relationship develop.
Click to expand...
You have some good points here, but I would like to clarify something. I wasn’t saying that girls don’t want to have sex. Females tend to prioritize the relationship above sex and guys tend to prioritize sex above the relationship (I’m not talking about a married couple here). I don’t know why that would be offensive to a girl it certainly is more virtuous. FYI, In my marrriage NFP is just as hard for me to follow than it is for my husband.

I don’t think it’s offensive to women to point out that women tend to have more control of themselves sexually than guys. I could imagine a guy might be offended by it though. What is offensive is when guys are let off the hook for not being chaste because of a boys will be boys mentality.
 
LucyLight said:
You have some good points here, but I would like to clarify something. I wasn’t saying that girls don’t want to have sex. Females tend to prioritize the relationship above sex and guys tend to prioritize sex above the relationship (I’m not talking about a married couple here). I don’t know why that would be offensive to a girl …
Click to expand...
I think what’s offensive is having people tell us what we feel and think and making false assumptions. Men really do have this is idea that we have less investment in the physical sexual aspect than a man. I think it probably scares them a bit to realize how high our expectations can be.

The nature - the physical nature - of large primates in social groups, is that the female wants a stable family group which usually includes herself and her offspring and peripherally her own siblings and is protected by a strong male leader. The male has the most interest in having as much sex as often as possible with as many females as possible in hope of passing on his genes. In nature, the females decide with whom they will mate and the males compete for the privilege. Forced sex is virtually unknown amongst higher primates. Except for us where it is so common as to be institutionalized in most cultures. Men don’t have less control. They just give one another more permission.

This basic biological reality informs, but does not control, how our genders interact. Unfortunately, we have almost completely in Western culture lost the large family groups of multigenerational households. The nuclear family is as unnatural as can be.
 
There does seem to be quite a cultural push among society that the Church is against-women. So no matter who is doing the presentation in favor of the Church’s view, they have to overcome that media bias that the Church is anti-woman. Like how the media often twists the Church’s view not to pay for people’s contraception into the Church “preventing women” from getting women’s health.
 
LucyLight said:
I wasn’t saying that girls don’t want to have sex.
Click to expand...
I realize that, so let me in turn clarify something - there seems to be a lack of recognition that girls also want no-strings-attached sex. Hence my suggestion that the way we talk to women and men should be more symmetrical (i.e. “I know you want sex - here’s why you should deny yourself.”). Apart from what you specifically were saying, any chastity resources I have seen are completely blind to this simple fact.

Conversely, I have seen many cases where guys fall in love after a one-night stand or a casual “friends-with-benefits” relationship, so the issue of emotions getting tangled up in sex isn’t as simple as “guys will use girls for sex because guys just want sex and girls just want love.”
I don’t think it’s offensive to women to point out that women tend to have more control of themselves sexually than guys.
Click to expand...
Depends on the woman. 😉
What is offensive is when guys are let off the hook for not being chaste because of a boys will be boys mentality.
Click to expand...
True dat. Such an attitude is usually accompanied by a “girls who have sex are dirty evil sluts” attitude, which is doubly offensive.
 
MarcoPolo said:
There does seem to be quite a cultural push among society that the Church is against-women. So no matter who is doing the presentation in favor of the Church’s view, they have to overcome that media bias that the Church is anti-woman. Like how the media often twists the Church’s view not to pay for people’s contraception into the Church “preventing women” from getting women’s health.
Click to expand...
At least around here I don’t think most people would fall for Obama’s “war on women”. Several of the posters here seemed to think that the girls would be more convinced or more comfortable if the advice was coming from a woman. I actually thought it would be more convincing coming from guys.
.
 
@OP: in what context are you speaking, and who are you addressing? Teens, college, marriage prep?

@Athena: interesting points and good posts. Side point, you certainly can be used even if you as the participant want sex too - - mutual use, no? Either way it is beneath one’s dignity as a child of God to use another person or to be used, even if you consent to the use.

@julia: A little harsh on the OP? He is here looking for help. He may have a set of materials that he is given to work with.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top