Steven Crowder apparently waited until he got married to have sex, and would like to tell us all about it.
In general, I am happy for Mr. Crowder. He waited until he got married to have sex and had a very enjoyable loss of his virginity. I’m glad! I think everyone should have the right to do what they like with their own bodies. While monogamy and abstinence are not for me, I have no problem with anyone’s sex life, as long as it’s consensual, emotionally and physically healthy, and honest. In particular, I applaud him for managing to keep his virginity; many men who want to be abstinent endure all kinds of mockery and virgin-shaming, which is completely wrong. One is no less of a man for choosing not to have sex.
Where I start running into problems is when Mr. Crowder starts telling me that my sexual choices are wrong.
Mr. Crowder was a virgin until he married because his religion commanded it. Which is okay! Serious members of many religions have strange practices. Serious Christians remain virgins until they wed, serious Muslims fast during Ramadan, serious Jews take purifying baths after they menstruate, and serious atheists get into tedious arguments about elevators. But many Christians have this odd tendency to declare that their religion’s peculiar practices are The 100% Best Thing For Everyone To Do Ever, objectively, even outside of the context of their religion. Most Muslims don’t recommend fasting during Ramadan as a diet practice and most Jews don’t say that mikveh is a wonderful way for Gentiles to get in touch with their bodies. Why are Christians continually going on about how everyone needs to stop having sex except with their spouses?
Because, you know, Mr. Crowder, when you start saying things like “their fickle manhood tied to their pathetic sexual conquests” or “live-in harlot/mimbo” (I think the word is ‘himbo,’ sir), I rapidly start losing my sympathy for the problems of people making fun of you for remaining a virgin until you’re married.
And my sympathy entirely disappears when you start talking about how terrible other people’s relationships are.
Our wedding was truly a once in a lifetime event. It was a God’s-honest celebration of two completely separate lives now becoming one. Physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually, everything that made us who we were individually was becoming what bonded us together. Our family traveled from far and wide to celebrate the decision of two young people to truly commit themselves to each other, and selflessly give themselves to one another in a way that they never had before that very night.
The people next to us that morning [who had had sex before marriage]? Well, theirs was just one big party. And the morning after? Just another hangover.
I realize this may be a difficult concept for you to grasp, Mr. Crowder, but marriage is about more than sex.
Marriage is about having a life partner, someone who is always going to be by your side. It’s about staying up until 6 am when you have work the next morning because your partner is sick and needs someone to take care of them. It’s about your partner paying the bills because you hate keeping track of finances, and you doing the dishes because they have some kind of blindness that only applies to spaghetti sauce. It’s about stupid injokes about velociraptors and jam and arguments so old that no one outside the relationship can even keep track of what you’re fighting about. It’s about your partner’s sudden knowledge of guns and Team Fortress 2, despite their lack of interest in either, just because they hang around you so much. It’s about a shared history and shared lives and what the fuck does any of that have to do with whether a penis entered a vagina before or after the “I do”s?
Yes, a wedding is basically a big party. A wedding is a party that celebrates two people making that kind of stupid, ridiculous commitment to each other. But it really doesn’t matter whether your lives merged together all at once after a big wedding or slowly over a period of years. You’re still married regardless. It’s still beautiful.
Further remarks:
1) Wedding-night sex sucks sometimes. Especially for people who are losing their virginities. I am glad, Mr. Crowder, you enjoyed your loss of virginity, but it is no great loss to your cause to admit that sometimes wedding-night virginity-loss sex sucks. Just like a Muslim can admit that it sucks to fast during Ramadan during the summer! It doesn’t prove the people who were assholes to you right.
2) What do you think happens when people live with each other? I’ve lived with my partners for more than a year now, and it’s far less Live-In Mimboing, whatever that is, and far more Live-In Waking Up Early To Surprise Each Other With Clean Dishes And Stealing Each Other’s Books And Demanding Snuggles When We Are Sad. You do things when you live with someone besides have sex with them.
3) I… suppose it’s nice that Mr. Crowder is slut-shaming guys now? Fuck. This is the wrong kind of equality.
About ozyfrantz
Steven Crowder apparently waited until he got married to have sex, and would like to tell us all about it.
Uum, you don’t have to go to Fox for that. There’s a whole series of articles on why we should wait until marriage to have sex, right here on the GMP.
You missed that?
Yeah, I often feel like every time I venture out of this little corner and look at the rest of the site, I run right into a heaping helping of crappy gender essentialism. I still wonder why NSWATM migrated from its own blog to here.
I wish that Mr. Crowder paid equal attention to the whole Biblical thing about “judge not lest ye be judged.” Because that whole article is chock full of smarmy self-righteous judgementalism. Live and let live (without intentionally hurting people) is a good philosophy.
If it weren’t for selective, self-serving Bible interpretation we would have no Bible interpretation at all!
“I realize this may be a difficult concept for you to grasp, Mr. Crowder, but marriage is about more than sex.” THIS. SO. MUCH:
It never occurred to me on my wedding day to think “Oh crap, we can’t celebrate the first-ever joining of two bodyparts because we’ve already done the dirty deed”. I mean, it was about celebrating our life, that we’re soulmates who’ve found each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together. It was certainly not “just another party”.
Besides, the idea that the wedding guests would consider themselves celebrating the First Ever Fuck of the bride and groom is… disturbing. I’ve been to a wedding where I knew the couple were virgins, but it’s not like I was thinking about the fact that “OH THEY’RE GONNA HAVE SEX FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER” during the ceremony or the party.
There seems to be something of a tendency among the people I know to call guys sluts sometimes, though not particularly for Crowder’s reason of extending slut-shaming to guys; rather, it seems to correlate more with people I know not thinking of “slut” as much of a criticism. I wonder if a widespread attempt to slut-shame guys along Crowder’s lines wouldn’t have more of a tendency for people to stop taking such criticisms as seriously when applied to either men or women, rather than Crowder’s hoped-for result of successfully shaming men.
Why is it that you are allowed to describe all the advantages of pre-marital sex and cohabitation, but when you opposition suggests that there might be some slight advantage to waiting it’s an unacceptable act of judgment? Isn’t this a bit unfair? Perhaps a bit judgmental in and of itself?
Consider every manifesto about how great casual sex is. The people who write such things are evangelizing every bit as much as Steven Crowder is. They are saying, ‘If you had our values and acted as we did, you could be having as much fun as we are! The only thing in your way is your silly traditions…’. That is every bit as judgmental as our side saying, “If you had our values and acted the way we did, you could have a stronger marriage and a better life. The only thing in your way is you silly base instincts…”
I also think Ozy’s argument about Muslims not evangelizing for the Ramadan fast falls a bit flat. Of course many Muslims do evangelize for the Ramadan fast… They just do it as part of evangelizing the greater religion. Lots of religions are quite happy to tell you that they are the ‘right’ religion and that their values are ‘right’ for everyone.
I realize this may be a difficult concept for you to grasp, Mr. Crowder, but marriage is about more than sex.
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Mr. Crowder is thinking. Hence all the discussion of the two becoming one physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually. If anything, I’m more confident that he understands this because he and his wife decided to wait. If they really did just think marriage and relationships were just about sex, I doubt that would have decided to choose each other and build a relationship without sex.
I’m a non-believer who intends to be abstinent until marriage for that and a number of other reasons. Which is why I bristle mildly at Ozy’s suggestion that this is merely a tradition or a matter of faith. I’m making this sacrifice so that someday I can be a better husband, and I can have a stronger marriage. Sure, mine isn’t the only way to build a good marriage, and people who have had sex with others prior to their marriage can and do build good relationships. That’s still a good thing. But, I still think my approach is better. Simply put, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel that way.
Excuse me if I’m being rude, but have you read anything Ozy has written, ever? Zie has literally NEVER said anything to the effect of “premarital sex is the best and anyone who decides to be abstinent is a silly backwards yokel”. I’d argue more, but I’m about 90% sure that you’re a troll, so l2readplzkthxbai.
No, I never said that Ozy intended to send that message. Despite that, I did get a bit of that feeling from the comparison to various purely symbolic acts that various religious groups preform. This why I phrased my closing paragraph in terms of how I personally feel and think about. I purposefully do not make any claims about what Ozy zirself is trying to do.
Or, were you referring to my opening paragraph? My overall point is, “If the sex pozzies can brag about how good casual sex is, then why can’t Steven Crowder brag about how good waiting for marriage is?”. And, yes, I have seen Ozy and a lot of zir ideological compatriots do just that. Now, to be fair to Ozy, zie is doing reasonably good job of respecting the other side here, unlike say, Dan Savage, who seems to be eagerly hoping a divorce.
Beyond that, what is your operational definition of troll in this context? I’m not attempting to get a rise out of anyone, nor am I manipulating anyone’s emotions here. I know that I’ve got a minority belief here (and, just about everywhere else for that matter.), and I’m okay with that. I read this place because I like having my beliefs challenged and this is no exception.
Normally discussing one’s beliefs and wonderful experiences would be a good thing. However it seems that the focus of Crowder is equally about putting down anyone who disagrees with his marriage-only sex beliefs. There is a “damned if you do; damned if you don’t” scenario as the marriage-only and pro-sex groups clash, somebody somewhere is going to point and sneer no matter what you do. However that doesn’t really make sneering back okay, or at least not when your aiming it against virtually everyone. Most people have mixed feelings about sex. There are a lot people who identify as sex-positive, but are more pro-sex.
This reminds me of Cliff Pervocracy’s post about how weirdly obsessed with sexual sin Christianity is. I believe Cliff pointed out that no parent ever kicked their kid out of the house for the sin of pride or something along those lines. I have read some Christian literature (was a practicing Christian when I was younger) and though I took it all on board at the time, these days I sometimes think that no sex before marriage is some kind of bargain with God, sort of ‘this will make our marriage so special and holy that it will never stop working!’ Which of course is not always true.
Also, unfortunately the nature of Christianity (well, the evangelical denominations anyway) means that there will always be this ‘you should all be into what I believe!’ stuff from Christians in a way that is not the case with other religions. When I was a Christian, evangelism was a BIG thing. And while my church, as I remember, was generally advocating being nice and positive and non-pushy with it, I’m sure some of the people there would be incapable of not interfering with stranger’s lives and personal beliefs during their evangelism, and who would probably need a little reminding about ‘judge not lest ye be judged’.