Libby Anne wrote an excellent piece about how evangelicals view teenage boys in light of whether they allow them to babysit young children or not.
She writes:
And that is the crux of her article, which brings me to a curious thought.
I am convinced that mainstream Christianity, evangelicals, and fundamentalist, et al, have the cause and effect backwards.
They think young boys and men are so sexually driven, they would stop at nothing to rape your child. Thus, you have to beat into their heads the idea that they are sexual beasts and must be saved from themselves. They are taught that they have only a desire to do bad things and cannot, of themselves, be good. Once they firmly believe this, and only then, can they have the tools to NOT rape a child. But even then, it isn't good enough. They simply cannot be allowed to get into a situation that puts a child at their fingertips while alone.
Again, this is back-ass-wards.
If you tell a child they are bad, they believe this about themselves. They do! I know. I was called a liar my whole childhood. I believed it with my whole heart - until a few months ago. I had flogged myself for decades, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if the person I had just spoken to had really believed me or not. One day, I had an epiphany of sorts and realized that I was a very truthful person. So truthful, in fact, that I hurt myself all the time, due to it. I was so honest, Abe freaking Lincoln would burn in hell for his lies and I would be granted eternal bliss in a Purgatory-less heaven. Angels had nothing on me.
(Except for that one time, where I lied....oh nevermind. The CIA reads this)
To my point, if you are constantly barraged with the idea that you are a sexual predator, capped only by rules and carefully prying adults, why would anyone be surprised if you end up believing the lies and becoming the evil they tried so hard to save you from?
In short, it is my non-objective, completely subjective, and entirely biased opinion, that the purity culture breeds deviants.
Maybe it's time we began to educate people about sex instead of scare the living sperm out of them.
She writes:
[Evangelicals appear] to think that the fact that many (most?) teenage boys would give their right hands for a girlfriend and the chance to have consensual premarital sex means that these same boys would just as readily channel their sexual energies into sexually molesting children.
And that is the crux of her article, which brings me to a curious thought.
I am convinced that mainstream Christianity, evangelicals, and fundamentalist, et al, have the cause and effect backwards.
They think young boys and men are so sexually driven, they would stop at nothing to rape your child. Thus, you have to beat into their heads the idea that they are sexual beasts and must be saved from themselves. They are taught that they have only a desire to do bad things and cannot, of themselves, be good. Once they firmly believe this, and only then, can they have the tools to NOT rape a child. But even then, it isn't good enough. They simply cannot be allowed to get into a situation that puts a child at their fingertips while alone.
Again, this is back-ass-wards.
If you tell a child they are bad, they believe this about themselves. They do! I know. I was called a liar my whole childhood. I believed it with my whole heart - until a few months ago. I had flogged myself for decades, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if the person I had just spoken to had really believed me or not. One day, I had an epiphany of sorts and realized that I was a very truthful person. So truthful, in fact, that I hurt myself all the time, due to it. I was so honest, Abe freaking Lincoln would burn in hell for his lies and I would be granted eternal bliss in a Purgatory-less heaven. Angels had nothing on me.
(Except for that one time, where I lied....oh nevermind. The CIA reads this)
To my point, if you are constantly barraged with the idea that you are a sexual predator, capped only by rules and carefully prying adults, why would anyone be surprised if you end up believing the lies and becoming the evil they tried so hard to save you from?
In short, it is my non-objective, completely subjective, and entirely biased opinion, that the purity culture breeds deviants.
Maybe it's time we began to educate people about sex instead of scare the living sperm out of them.
Yes!!!! Much research to back up what you say.
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