Jim Bob's bike analogy

[AVENues]

I find it absolutely terrifying that the headship is considered god. Not the parents. The Male. The spare rib only does what the Male orders her to do.

I patriarchal families, they use religion and their tailored-to-taste Gods to carry out oppression. Interestingly, their god image always resembles of the Headship and would always want them to do what the headship thinks is right.

[NjoyingNsanity]

He will not. The male dominant arsehole, who's still not over having been a dork once, will get all the revenge he can on women for not dating him, and on his wife for dating others, and on his daughters for Michelle's "baggage". He is a toothy grinned, sinister male-dominant asshole. He's scary because he hides his agenda behind sugar coated Christian crap, and misleads people. Actually, stupid as some people are, gets people to follow his idiocratic ideas.

Jim Boob should really do allot of praying first he should be thanking God for the fact that Michelle ever noticed he was alive much less married him. He should also be thanking God that she's not the sharpest tool in the shed, and that she guzzled enough of the koolaid not to have had enough of his misogynistic bullshit and pulled a Lorena Bobbit on his ass. Honestly I doubt Jim Boob will be getting into heaven since he most likely had to sell his dorky little soul to get her to notice him in the first place.

[DistantStar]

Michelle married Jim Bob at 17, and they dated for a while beforehand, so chances are she WAS a virgin when they married. The "baggage" he refers to is most likely her kissing other boyfriends -- giving away pieces of her heart.

Woopsie -- good point. I was thinking maybe her "sordid past" involved actual sex with somebody else. Have either of them said anything definitive on the topic? I am not well read on the Duggars, I admit.

I got a lot more info on sex from the proto-Internet than my mom really knows about, but thankfully I had enough decent info already to filter out the garbage. At least the concept of birth control was raised in school, if pretty much skipped over in favor of "this is how your period happens" which is so not helpful in the 10th grade. By then? We all knew about it, from personal experience! The 4th grade version of that was useful, for other girls if not so much for me as I didn't get mine until I was 13.

I'll tell you what, if I had a kid, I'd get the UU materials on sex and use those as a guideline. You want comprehensive sex ed, that's a great place to go.

And I'll also say I don't necessarily have issues with "when you have sex with somebody you're having sex with everybody they've had sex with" because, in the right context, it's a call for responsibility. Not "don't have sex with anybody" but "be careful and take precautions when you do." Best case scenario? There's nothing to worry about, precautions have been taken anyway, no worries. Medium case? Somebody has a disease, precautions are taken, said disease is not passed on. Worst case? Somebody has been lied to about disease prevention and has sex anyway without said precautions with somebody carrying something and afterwards has a disease that could have been prevented but wasn't. Let's just hope they know to get themselves to a doc quickly.

[Kitty]

Wow. Just...wow. They are seriously allowed to go beyond just teaching "Abstinence is best" and can go right to the slut shaming? That's just terrible. :(

When I was in 7th grade (back in 2005, in North Carolina, which is NO LONGER abstinence-only :dance: ) we had:

-2 paper hearts glued together, to represent two people who had had sex but were breaking up

-"Speedy the Sperm," a yellow throw pillow with some yellow crepe paper on the end, held up next to a penny that was supposed to represent HIV, a fun little tool to explain how condoms were UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST AIDS :roll:

-This fun little phrase: "Girls give sex to get love, boys give love to get sex." For bonus points, we were taught that kissing was bad since it always led to sex, at least when it took place in a bedroom.

- A whole bunch of anecdata about how evil porn was, how condoms were also UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST PREGNANCY, etc.

In eighth grade, more of the same, only this time we learned that the only way to prevent rape was to never ever be alone with boys. Both sex un-education classes were segregated by sex, so I have no clue if the boys were really told that they were all selfish, borderline sociopathic rapists unless they got married.

Yes. North Carolina, United States of America, two thousand fucking five. Fortunately, the General Assembly finally saw the light, and the more populous counties like Wake and New Hanover weren't going along with the slut-shaming bullshit anyway. My county did, and we're #28 in the state for teen pregnancy.

[roddma]

Jim Bob says the craziest things. How many cars are test-driven before they are bought?

While it is true you aren't setting 'a golden standard' staying a virgin, a person can get emotionally attached to the first person they slept with. Others will likely be compared to this person. I think this happened to my niece on husband's side. The kid's daddy is in jail, but if he got out, we think there is a chance she may dump her current guy. We dont look down on her at all. We just wish she had made wiser choices in men. Of course, Fundies aren't told such things since they never date or pick their own mates.

[synchroswimr]

When I was in 7th grade (back in 2005, in North Carolina, which is NO LONGER abstinence-only :dance: ) we had:

-2 paper hearts glued together, to represent two people who had had sex but were breaking up

-"Speedy the Sperm," a yellow throw pillow with some yellow crepe paper on the end, held up next to a penny that was supposed to represent HIV, a fun little tool to explain how condoms were UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST AIDS :roll:

-This fun little phrase: "Girls give sex to get love, boys give love to get sex." For bonus points, we were taught that kissing was bad since it always led to sex, at least when it took place in a bedroom.

- A whole bunch of anecdata about how evil porn was, how condoms were also UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST PREGNANCY, etc.

In eighth grade, more of the same, only this time we learned that the only way to prevent rape was to never ever be alone with boys. Both sex un-education classes were segregated by sex, so I have no clue if the boys were really told that they were all selfish, borderline sociopathic rapists unless they got married.

Yes. North Carolina, United States of America, two thousand fucking five. Fortunately, the General Assembly finally saw the light, and the more populous counties like Wake and New Hanover weren't going along with the slut-shaming bullshit anyway. My county did, and we're #28 in the state for teen pregnancy.

o.O That's all I got. Wow

[NjoyingNsanity]

When I was in 7th grade (back in 2005, in North Carolina, which is NO LONGER abstinence-only :dance: ) we had:

-2 paper hearts glued together, to represent two people who had had sex but were breaking up

-"Speedy the Sperm," a yellow throw pillow with some yellow crepe paper on the end, held up next to a penny that was supposed to represent HIV, a fun little tool to explain how condoms were UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST AIDS :roll:

-This fun little phrase: "Girls give sex to get love, boys give love to get sex." For bonus points, we were taught that kissing was bad since it always led to sex, at least when it took place in a bedroom.

- A whole bunch of anecdata about how evil porn was, how condoms were also UTTERLY USELESS AGAINST PREGNANCY, etc.

In eighth grade, more of the same, only this time we learned that the only way to prevent rape was to never ever be alone with boys. Both sex un-education classes were segregated by sex, so I have no clue if the boys were really told that they were all selfish, borderline sociopathic rapists unless they got married.

Yes. North Carolina, United States of America, two thousand fucking five. Fortunately, the General Assembly finally saw the light, and the more populous counties like Wake and New Hanover weren't going along with the slut-shaming bullshit anyway. My county did, and we're #28 in the state for teen pregnancy.

Oh I can relate I graduated in 1995 from a high school in Virginia that sits just over the state line, and things were much the same back then. Honestly they just recycled the same getting your period bullshit they taught us in 5th grade all the way through 10th grade after which we no longer had to take PE/Health class. It was pretty messed up it was taught by the school nurse who was and well past retirement age at that time, and she wasn't actually allowed to teach us anything about safe sex or birth control. Worse yet she was really old and stuck in the social mores of her youth, so there was some very badly disguised patriarchial ideas about modesty and purity going on in that class.

We made up for it by being complete bitches to her and asking really in depth questions, and way oversharing about sexual escapades both real and imagined. Yes it was a bit juvenile of us but we were sick of their shit we had two classmates who were already pregnant, one who had contracted the HIV virus from unprotected sex with a much older guy, a few who happened to be gay or lesbian and didn't exactly appreciate being refered to as sexual deviants, the rest of us were just sick of having our intelligence insulted year after year.

There were enough of us with ex-hippies for parents that we got excellent instruction on how to preform acts of civil disobediance when we felt the school system had their collective heads up their asses. We had lots of really great teachers, but the school board while I was in high school was taken over by a bunch of conservative Christian nitwits. I remember first noticing it when they hired a fundie preacher on as a substitute teacher. He was substituting for our French teacher once when a guy who was sitting behind me kept annoying me by flipping my bra strap. I warned him to leave me alone several times before I got fed up with his shit and turned around and punched him in the nose, and called him a perverted asshole. The teacher sat there and watched me warn him off several times and did nothing, when I finally snapped he sent me to the office, but not before giving me a lecture about how the whole incident was my fault for dressing too provocatively and arousing the boy's lusts. I was wearing jeans and a oversized sweatshirt. That was the environment of the public high school I graduated from at the time and why so many of us students had had enough. I don't know if any real changes were made to the sex ed classes after that year, but enough parents complained that the classes after us did have new teachers for that class who happened to be our liberal feminist, girl power, girl's volleyball/basketball coach and our openly atheist, science can answer any question, completely unflappable biology teacher.

[jaynie]

I am suddenly so, so thankful for my sex ed. We did get "abstinence is the only 100% effective preventer of pregnency" but I clearly remember our teacher saying "if you actually stick to it, which a lot of people don't, so don't count on it". (This class was about consentual sex specifically so the rape thing didn't really factor into it). Moreover, though he was very obviously uncomfortable, he did answer all questions in detail, including the one (anonymously asked) about how gay men have sex. At the time everyone sort of assumed it was a joke (as 13 year olds are wont to do), but a guy in that class did come out later, so there's that. We learned about all the major STDS (and prevention thereof) individually too.

I cannot imagine being given glued-together hearts or glasses of water or flowers, or being compared to an inanimate object with no free will! I think at least half of our class would have walked out at that point, not least because that is unbelievably patronizing and kindergartenish (I mean craft projects? Really?).

[kiwimusume]

I got absolutely no sex ed in school besides an in-depth and completely scientific biology unit on how babies were made (though I got a comprehensive education from girls' magazines), which surprises me as I was in high school from 1997-2001 and this kind of religious stuff definitely doesn't hold as much sway in New Zealand as it does in America, but at least I didn't get that kind of propaganda. :shock:

[Visionoyahweh]

Good parents would've tracked down the thief and made them pay, or at least bought their own child a new bike.

This is just like how how don't really believe in forgiveness. Once you've ridden a bike/lost your virginity/had an independent thought THAT'S IT, GOD IS GOING TO GET YOU and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Frumpalicious]

Man, this thread is bringing up so many old memories... I was raised in South Carolina and we got the most basic sex ed in 5th grade: girls got their periods when their bodies were mature enough to become pregnant, it was nature's way, and that's that. No other information. No information on STIs, ways to prevent pregnancy, or even abstinence-only. It was like sex didn't exist. It was just information on why girls would start bleeding soon.

In 9th grade, we got a little more information about sex, but it was abstinence only. Then, I was in a high school level pre-nursing program, and we all had lots of questions about sex, but the teacher could not say anything about it. She did tell us we could find all the information we needed in the books for our class.

Also, Boob, you're an asshole.

ETA: The stupid 9th grade "sex ed" was so stupid! It was run by a religious organization, but I didn't know that until well after my high school career was over. They had us mix test tubes of water with five or six other partners, and one test tube had something that turned pink when mixed with another thing. It was to simulate how "disease" was spread among people who had sex - no mention of condoms, after all. We were given questionnaires asking if we were planning to have premarital sex (which was a BAD THING and we would GET PREGNANT and then DIE if we did) and if not, why would we do something so terrible (our future husbands had a right to marry a virgin, virgins are COOL and if you're not a virgin you're a dirty slut, etc). God, that was terrible.

[samithemage]

My 1998 Arkansas sex ed had only the briefest mention of various forms of birth control, with the statement that they didn't really ever work. STDs were mentioned as things that you got if you had the dirty dirty sex. Mostly though, sex ed was about how sperm and eggs develop and it was all very clinical. The actual "sex" part was limited to don't do it or you'll get herpes! Or AIDS! Or a baby!

[SpeakNow]

I will never forget my 9th grade health class. It was taught by a rather old teacher (she was at least 70) and she made things interesting. She tended to talk about her sex life, and said the famous line (not one of my classmates has ever forgotten this), "You think your grandparents aren't doing it? Think again!"

She taught us that the only way to prevent STDs is to not engage in any sort of physical intimacy, but that most people choose to become physically intimate with others, so we needed to be prepared. She talked about all different types of birth control etc. It was quite comprehensive (I also attended a small, liberal private school that year).

Her big message was that you should always try to have saferrr sex. The three r's stand for "rubber, respect, and realistic." Basically, always use birth control (rubber), make sure you are making good decisions and honoring your partner's wishes (respect), and remember that sex can have physical, medical, and emotional repercussions--it is not without some risks (realistic).

[Miggy]

Question for Jim Bob...

What if it was your child broke into the shed and took the bike intended for him before Christmas and did all that damage himself? Is it ok because, hey, who cares if he does it before or after Christmas? or Is it bad because the parents didn't get to see their son open his present? (Has that made the analogy creepy enough for everyone? :lol: )

My husband opened his bike before Christmas. I am the only bike he has every ridden and he looks after me really well. He is the only person I have ever let ride me. I am actually rather glad his parents weren't there to see his look of gratitude when he first rode me ...

[SisiL78]

Question for Jim Bob...

What if it was your child broke into the shed and took the bike intended for him before Christmas and did all that damage himself? Is it ok because, hey, who cares if he does it before or after Christmas? or Is it bad because the parents didn't get to see their son open his present? (Has that made the analogy creepy enough for everyone? :lol: )

My husband opened his bike before Christmas. I am the only bike he has every ridden and he looks after me really well. He is the only person I have ever let ride me. I am actually rather glad his parents weren't there to see his look of gratitude when he first rode me ...

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[JesusFightClub]

Not always.

I have known atheist feminists who condemned and shamed sex workers ( by which definition i mean porn actors as well as traditional prostitutes and strippers) in the strongest possible terms. Not as exploited victims of the patriarchy ( which I don't agree with, but could understand the reasoning behind), but as immoral sluts who have somehow collaborated with their oppressors and let down the female cause.

Very few sections of society accept full sexual freedom for women, especially when women use those freedoms in ways that others don't agree with or understand.

This is a discussion which has come up (as it were) on many Left groups I belong to. How to organise sex workers, and should we at all? Is it helping workers or legitimising patriarchal practices?

I have comrades who feel very strongly that sex workers are fellow workers and they should be organised into a union and comrades who feel very strongly that this legitimises oppression of women and homosexuals, and makes the profession seem acceptable and "just another job". It's a difficult call but I think the second argument is correct. I've known people who worked in the sex trade and it wasn't fun and games to say the least of it. There aren't many Belle de Jours, but there are a hell of a lot of scared Eastern European teenagers. I'm not convinced that shady types, their pimps, really respect a union...

A, well, I'll not call him a comrade but an acquaintance of mine was an anarchist who worked as a bouncer at a brothel. He used to call the women there, patronisingly, "our girls" and say things like "Our girls aren't exploited! They love it!" So because they were women and WOMEN ARE BUILT FOR SEX Y'ALL AND CRAVE IT DESPERATELY AT ALL TIMES they weren't in the same position as any other worker. Hey, they should be grateful they get to have sexy time with any man who pays the right price!

:doh:

[lilith]

I have a very close friend who is an independent sex worker.

The situation is different in Australia, as sex work is legal in most states, but here there are sex worker organisations that act as unions. They lobby for law changes and more legal protection, provide information about how to practice safe and legal sex work and visit brothels to try to ensure that all the workers are willing and legal, and provide resources to help unwilling sex workers.

My friend loves her work, and feels very strongly that the option of sex work is part of her bodily autonomy and sexual freedom. She is a far more outspoken feminist than I am, and explains her position very articulately - I have argued it with her, starting from the position that prostitution was inherently exploitative, and she has reasoned my opinion around.

Whilst any sexual exploitation is immoral, she has helped me see that a lot of prostitutes make a valid decision to enter the industry and that it's part of women owning their own sexuality to allow them that option, no matter how uncomfortable it may make other women.

The more intelligent, educated, independent and confident women choose to be sex workers and to organise, the less places there are within the industry for exploitation to thrive.

[treemom]

I will never forget my 9th grade health class. It was taught by a rather old teacher (she was at least 70) and she made things interesting. She tended to talk about her sex life, and said the famous line (not one of my classmates has ever forgotten this), "You think your grandparents aren't doing it? Think again!"

She taught us that the only way to prevent STDs is to not engage in any sort of physical intimacy, but that most people choose to become physically intimate with others, so we needed to be prepared. She talked about all different types of birth control etc. It was quite comprehensive (I also attended a small, liberal private school that year).

Her big message was that you should always try to have saferrr sex. The three r's stand for "rubber, respect, and realistic." Basically, always use birth control (rubber), make sure you are making good decisions and honoring your partner's wishes (respect), and remember that sex can have physical, medical, and emotional repercussions--it is not without some risks (realistic).

You know what usually bothers me is that the abstinence is presented as solution until marriage. As if undesired pregnancy and STDs never happen when two people are married.

[Visionoyahweh]

Also, riding a bike is the same experience every time. Sex tends to improve with experience. So the vagina isn't a bike, it's a baseball glove. Who wants a new baseball glove?

Hey JB, put that in your metaphorical pipe then refuse to smoke it because Smoking Is Wrong.

[doggie]

What if that boy maintained and blinged out that bike and was better then new. ? Better then the cheapass parents that bought it in the first place.

But then again there could now be two bikes in that shed too.

[Closed Womb]

Also, riding a bike is the same experience every time. Sex tends to improve with experience. So the vagina isn't a bike, it's a baseball glove. Who wants a new baseball glove?

Hey JB, put that in your metaphorical pipe then refuse to smoke it because Smoking Is Wrong.

you right now.

[redhotmess]

I have not read this entire thread but I must say this is one of the most offensive Duggar things I have ever read. Really? Really? I mean REALLY?

[SisiL78]

I have not read this entire thread but I must say this is one of the most offensive Duggar things I have ever read. Really? Really? I mean REALLY?

It makes sense if you see the fundie POV that your wife and children are your possessions and not human beings. I get the feeling more and more that these men see themselves as gods with the power to do whatever they like to their family/things. A child is a thing. A wife is a thing. A bike is a thing. So your wife getting it on with another guy before you met her is, in fact, no different than someone riding your bike before you were able to. And you are entitled to a shiny and unridden bike because you are a godlike creature who should never have competition or challenge. Buy used and save the difference is the mantra your things have to live by, your children can wear threadbare clothes and eat junk and be grateful for it. But, you're king and you cannot "settle" for less than what you think is best.

[Visionoyahweh]

you right now.

I have a bat and balls. Let's rock.

[Maggie Mae]

I have a bat and balls. Let's rock.

I disagree that riding a bike is the same every time, but I agree with the overall point you were making.