Regarding not wanting to be St. Joseph, that’s a very egalitarian view you are espousing. I’d point out that male leadership in chastity is consistent with male leadership generally, while female leadership in chastity is not consistent with male leadership generally–if you see what I mean.
Yes, that’s a logical conclusion. I accept some measure of increased responsibility for joint decisions and actions on account of how men tend to initiate or otherwise lead, but I refuse the kind of exaggeration where not only the woman isn’t responsible for her own decisions but the man is responsible for his own and hers too, because, let’s say, he should know better. That sort of thing only works if the woman essentially entrusts herself to the man and he accepts that kind of position of trust or some sort of undue influence happened. Otherwise (mutual decision to fornicate or some sort of spontaneous thing) sorry, she’s an adult, she’s mostly likely received the Sacrament of Confirmation, a.k.a. Christian maturity, so how come she’s treated like a child below the age of consent now (and advantages only, no disadvantages)? Nope, ain’t gonna work that way.
In terms of male leadership in general, yes, I believe it exists, but it’s like captain & co-pilot, not like platoon sargeant & green recruit.
(Not like the platoon sargeant and that one special green recruit with two golden bars either, which is the way some women see it.
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–It’s a bad idea to stick around for more temptation.
The only way to completely avoid all temptation is to stay home. Even that doesn’t really work. And if you want men who have completely mastered self-control, I’m afraid you’re mostly down to old Buddhist monks and a couple of Christian ascetics long-pledged to perfect continence.
For the record, the same applies to female self-control in these matters.
–Is this guy actually a fantastic Catholic gentleman that it would be amazing to be married to? Aren’t we potentially signing up for a lot more boundary testing and whining with regard to marital sexuality and other inconvenient features of life with a practicing Catholic? Being married to a practicing Catholic is if anything more of a hassle than dating one (from a mainstream perspective).
As above. Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn’t, too early and too little data to tell.
And nobody said anything about ‘more boundary testing’. The only thing I said was the guy would — for example — respect the decision per se but betray some signs of not being all too pleased with it, i.e. having his own opinion*, as opposed to being the sort of emasculated lap dog who takes a woman’s opinion for his own, which is feminism’s ideal of masculinity these days (make big eyes but not too big lest you make her feel uncomfortably, then wait on her decision, which is whatever impulse goes through her head, then wag your tail and make a big enthusiastic woof when she decides to kick you in the face instead).
(* About something like, say, holding hands was okay on Tuesday but isn’t on Wednesday, it might again be on Thursday. Not talking about fornication or foreplay.)
–Unfortunately, you can cross over very quickly and unexpectedly from boundary pushing to sexual assault,
Oh yes, and men progress from verbal aggression to bloody murder every day.
My point: If a guy physically tries to challenge a clearly and recently communicated boundary, especially repeatedly and over the woman’s clear objections, then yes, big chances are he’s an abuser bone in his bone.
On the other hand some dude who was rebuked for trying to hold a girl’s hand some month and several deep conversations since the last time he was told it was a bit too early, that guy is a shy romantic, not an abuser. Any woman who saw signs of abuse in that would see signs of abuse in
anything (she would essentially be seeing herself as put in danger by the mere existence of men or the possibility one could become interested in or emotionally attached to her) and be in urgent need of counselling for her own problems. ACoD would be my guess (and I’m familiar with it), or assault survivor with serious complications. There’s no shame in needing some counselling after that sort of thing before opening oneself to interactions with the opposite sex.
A big issue here is that the sort of person getting this sort of advice tends to be young and/or inexperienced.
Yes, and they effectively get the advice to flee from any member of the opposite sex who happens to be a healthy human being and not on sedatives.
Hence, they don’t actually have vast experience of what amount of boundary pushing is acceptable from a romantic prospect or a lot of experience speaking up for themselves. So my hard core NO BOUNDARY PUSHING advice is primarily for the young and inexperienced, to keep them out of trouble.
My issue isn’t even really with that but with how far the definition of ‘pushing’ goes. I really really don’t want to be any less than a nice person in saying this, but you do seem to have rather extreme definitions. I may be exaggerating a little perhaps, but it kind of looks like anything less than full immediate and unconditional affirmation of whatever a woman does or says is abusive, which would obviously be a secular feminist and not a Catholic proposal. Perhaps not radfem, but far on the spectrum nonetheless.
