Monday, December 7

The Christian Side-Hug is of the Devil

Why do I find this so fucking catchy? This video has been featured on a couple of my favorite corners of the internet recently and I am annoyed by it but it gets stuck in my head really, really easily. I'm not sure if they're serious; now, obviously, to most normals, the entire idea of this "rap" is ridiculous. But sometimes extreme Christians are not exactly normal - watch Saved. It's pretty accurate. Anyway, now that it's stuck in my head for eternity, I bequeath it to all of you. Don't thank me.



Also, because I'm crazy and have a lot of time on my hands, I watched all the rest of their YouTube videos, which were just a series of parodies of The Office featuring some mediocre characters but also a guy who does a really excellent Michael Scott impression. If anyone feels the need to waste as much time as I do, you can find the videos by clicking on the video above and going to their username's videos. Probably not. Anyway, again, I think this may be a Christian group that's actually for real, because 1. I found a group related to their YouTube name on Facebook (TFH = The Father's House. I research my shit) AND their one other video seems to be rules for some sort of church youth group. Why do I find this fascinating? Not sure but more google searches of TFH and Genlife led me to this really terrifying blog, which I will now share with y'all because it made me question the state of people today. It's called "The New Sexual Revolution," and it claims to be a Christian perspective on sex in today's craaaazy society. I only read one article; it was enough to piss me off. Emphasis mine.


"You’re Teaching My Kid What?
Exposing the Sex-Ed Biz

November 10, 2009

This commentary contains material that may not be suitable for children.

Dr. Miriam Grossman was lecturing at a Philadelphia college about sexual health. The students had invited her to talk about something they’d never encountered in all their years of sex education—the dangers of non-marital sex.

Grossman will never forget the girl who told her that everything she’d said about sexually transmitted diseases was correct. “I always used condoms, but I got HPV anyway, and it’s one of the high-risk types,” the girl said. If the infection did not go away, she had a 40 percent chance of developing cervical cancer.

In her new book, You’re Teaching My Child What?, Grossman says she felt “a wave of sorrow” at the girl’s words—but she was hardly surprised. The girl was yet another victim of a destructive philosophy that has been forced on America’s youth under the guise of “sex education.”

The sex-ed lobby has always claimed it was all about health—teaching kids how to stay safe. But in reality, their goal was not preventing disease, pregnancy, and emotional distress. It’s about indoctrinating them into a radical ideology—sexual freedom. Kids are urged to consult websites that urge them to begin “exploring” their sexuality at a young age, insist that sex at any age is a right, and encourage them to engage in bizarre and dangerous activities.

The findings of science are not allowed to interfere with these radical teachings. If new research proves the dangers of the behaviors they advocate, the so-called “sexperts” simply ignore it.

For instance, sex educators urge kids to avoid pregnancy by engaging in oral sex. But two years ago, cancer specialists found that oral cancers were on the rise among young adults, who used to be at very low risk if they did not smoke or drink.

If kids interact with five or more partners, they increase their risk “a whopping 250 percent.” And yet sex educators, Grossman writes, portray this activity as safe and normal.


What’s the result of this teaching? One in four American girls now has a sexually transmitted disease.

What do the sex educators say about this? They shrug it off, telling kids that “most” people contract an STD in their lifetime—as if such a thing were normal and unavoidable.

This ought to make us really angry. The “comprehensive” sex educators have done enormous harm to our kids. They keep right on teaching kids that life is a sexual-free-for-all with no consequences as long as they use so-called “protection.”

Read Dr. Miriam Grossman’s book, You’re Teaching My Child What? You can get a copy at BreakPoint.org. And then, share it with the teens in your life. They need to know the truth—that while STDs, cervical cancer, and heartbreak may be increasingly common, they are no more “normal” than swine flu.

Once again, science is backing up the truth of the Judeo-Christian worldview. That is, sex ought to occur exclusively within the context of marriage. And anybody who tells us otherwise is sacrificing truth, science, and the health of our children."


Personally, I think this kind of article is fucking dangerous. Maybe I'm alone in this because, granted, I have a weird Sex Ed background (public school in the south coupled with Unitarian Univeralist church) but this is NOT the kind of education I got. We weren't encouraged to have sex at any age or taught that oral sex was something that could be done with no risks - we were told 1. Abstinence, 2. Protection, and 3. Oral sex is just as risky, for transferring disease, as vaginal or anal sex! This was pointed out and repeated so that we would get it through our skulls, which is a good thing. Bad mouthing Sex Ed as a field is probably the worst thing that could be done for the sexual health of school-aged kids. Sex Ed is about educating the kids who don't get any information at home from their super conservative/shy/uncomfortable/overwhelmed/uneducated parents (any or all of the above can be true, and aren't any sort of indictment on parents - my point is, teaching your kids about sex is hard, so having a place for them to learn about it in a safe environment is CRUCIAL) so they need somewhere else to go (that isn't the internet).

But even if the above weren't true - even if my Sex Ed and OWL teachers (OWL = Our Whole Lives. It's a sexuality and relationship education program that is taught at UU churches for teenagers in a youth group to bond and learn together about what makes a good friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, what's ok, what's not ok, what's normal, what's safe, etc. It's a great class; I've taken it three times and personally I think every teenager should take it. It covers everything from lessons in communication to what constitutes date rape - seriously, it is a great program) had been irresponsible and hadn't taught me about the dangers of oral sex in the form of STI's, I still would have a problem with this blog post because of the part that I've bolded. Basically, they claim that mouth cancer is more likely in girls who participate in oral sex. There is no citation for this, no evidence to back up this huge claim - just this blanket statement. Where the fuck do they get this? In all the classes I've taken, which is quite a few, I've NEVER heard this. And furthermore, it doesn't make sense. Do pregnant women get cancer along with their baby when a dude ejaculates inside them? Or do guys just naturally develop testicular cancer because their balls hold semen? Not to my knowledge, and do you know why? Because it's SEMEN; it's not fucking radioactive, it's not a fucking carcinogen, it's a natural body fluid that half of the people on the planet have. If semen causes cancer, we're fucked. But this is what they're saying is the truth. What good does this do? What good does fear-mongering do? Seriously, they're trying to scare kids into not blowing each other by threatening them with cancer? Is hellfire not enough?

This stupid Christian side-hug thing is just another way of expressing this same idea - that teaching kids anything other than to just avoid intimacy of any kind until marriage will put them in danger. God dammit, teen pregnancies are highest in countries where girls are uneducated. Education is the solution to problems that arise from ignorance. If you want your kid to wait until marriage to have sex, you can raise them believing in romance and God and whatever you want, but ultimately it's their decision and if you don't give them any sort of education about the dangers that can arise from sexual relationships then you are crippling them and putting them in danger. But for the love of God, don't just make up extra shit to scare them as well. What sort of complexes are you raising your daughters to have? And honestly, if a guy's waited his whole life to have sex, how's he going to react when his wife says she won't go down on him because she doesn't want to have to breathe through a hole in her neck?

Stop lying to kids. Maybe if Bristol Palin had learned to use a condom, nobody would ever have heard of Levi Johnston. This is a lesson for us all.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

1 comment:

  1. People listen to this? Okay. Wow. I mean, they quote the Imperial March from Star Wars at 1:18. Seriously?

    I am amazed people feel like they need to "translate" the message of Christianity to make it relevent to people today. I think speaks to a deep-seated lack of faith in their own message if they think it has no power to affect people without significant pop-culture window dressing.

    Not to mention that they're not good at it. If you're going to use music to push your own freaky agenda, at least produce something that has even an ounce of musical merit.

    Which is actually how I feel about the article as well. It's duplicitous, but it's not even that good at it. They put two unrelated facts next to each other and claim causation. That will convice . . . pretty much no one who didn't already agree with them. If you're going to try and hoodwink a bunch of people, at least be good at it.

    So yeah. This pisses me off. But I think if there is any power in the world strong enough to combat a culture of sexual repression, it is the younger generation's libido.

    Oh and thank god that you can't get STDs from sex once you're married.

    ReplyDelete