Stitching Up The Seams

Sex, as commonly conceived, is something a couple do together. But the sexual act itself is not quite like that. It is, and remains, something a man does to a woman. They are not both working at the same thing. He is giving, she is receiving. He is the lover, she the beloved. Now, if they both set out to “have some Sex,” the whole delicate balance is wrecked, and neither can find his own role. What is happening is that the difference we all love so dearly is taking a bad beating. The wife is being backed into a decreasingly feminine role, even in overtly sexual matters, and the husband is finding that he has less and less of an object to be masculine toward. He is getting what he wants, but not what he needs. He asks frequently enough, but he has lost sight of what to ask for; and that is deadly.

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Robert Farrar Capon, Bed and Board, p. 51

Hi. Stitch here. Not sure if anyone’s been following the whole Gospel Coalition thing that’s been going down for the past week. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s a few links for you:

• The Gospel Coalition, sex, and subordination via Rachel Held Evans
• The Writer’s Burden via Dianna Anderson
• Marital Rape? Doug Wilson on Dominance and Submission in the Marriage Bed via Patheos
• Rape: A Punishment for Egalitarians? via Sarah Moon
• Doug Wilson, The Gospel Coalition, and Sanctified Rape Culture via Are Women Human?
• “It’s not me, it’s her, isn’t it?” via Dr. Camille Lewis

This just hits home to me even more firmly and irreversibly that gender roles are man-made constructs. That complementarianism and patriarchy are not all that different, and are both very dangerous ideologies when taken to their logical end.

I am so thankful for a husband that does not view me as an object to be masculine towards, and that he doesn’t view sex as a thing that he does to me. Instead he sees me as an equal human being that does not need the masculine domination of any man, a partner equal to him in every respect. And that he views sex not as an act done to me, but as an act done together - he doesn’t bang me or tap that or any other disgusting euphemism that says EXACTLY what the above says (“it is, and remains, something a man does to a woman”). But it is the two of us together, human to human, making love.

There are not words for my disgust at this perversion and abuse propagated by so-called men of God in His name. If that’s not taking God’s name in vain, then I don’t know what is.

(Source: dougwils.com)