Jessa, Ben and Spurgeon Part Seven

[lizzybee]

I was on a Bates thread and we were directed to watch the episode of 19KAC where Erin marries Chad. It just struck me how different Jessa and Ben are now to how they were then. It's almost like they switched personalities. Jessa's peppy and smily and Ben is now weird and negative. In the clip Jessa was so surly it was unbelievable. The only time she smiled was when she was making fun of Ben for thinking the wedding ceremony was romantic. Now, looking at them, it's like she took a syringe and sucked all the joy out of him and ingested it herself. 

[SassyPants]

5 hours ago, lizzybee said:

I was on a Bates thread and we were directed to watch the episode of 19KAC where Erin marries Chad. It just struck me how different Jessa and Ben are now to how they were then. It's almost like they switched personalities. Jessa's peppy and smily and Ben is now weird and negative. In the clip Jessa was so surly it was unbelievable. The only time she smiled was when she was making fun of Ben for thinking the wedding ceremony was romantic. Now, looking at them, it's like she took a syringe and sucked all the joy out of him and ingested it herself. 

I think the sex must not be as good as Ben thought it would be...and they have a kid... and have to obey the cult of Jimbob...and depend on him for everything...and his wife was molested by his creepy BIL who is back in town...and he has the responsibility of a kid...and the sex is probably not as good or as often[worth repeating over and over again].

In his mind, he's 21 and has nothing much to look forward too.

He should cut bait, find a job, housing, move and tell JB to stuff it.

[Carol]

14 hours ago, ophelia said:

I really dislike Brecken. It's nearly as bad as Spurgeon, who BTW has a beautiful middle name. Why can't they just call him Elliott?? And Edyn has nice sound, but the way it's spelled somehow looks tacky to me.

Yep. Exactly my thought.

Why can't fundies come up with something funny for once?! Evangelical porn or something like this.

Brecken reminds me of the movie, Myra Breckenridge, from the late 60's.  Here is a partial Wikipedia description of the movie.  Hilarious.  You couldn't make this stuff up...

Myra Breckinridge is a 1968 satirical novel by Gore Vidal written in the form of a diary. Described by the critic Dennis Altman as "part of a major cultural assault on the assumed norms of gender and sexuality which swept the western world in the late 1960s and early 1970s,"[1] the book's major themes are feminism, transsexuality, American expressions of machismo and patriarchy, and deviant sexual practices, as filtered through an aggressively camp sensibility. The controversial book is also "the first instance of a novel in which the main character undergoes a clinical sex-change."[2] Set in Hollywood in the 1960s, the novel also contains candid and irreverent glimpses into the machinations within the film industry.

[defraudedbychipendales]

On 6/2/2016 at 11:05 AM, albanuadh_1 said:

Ben has not been his usual preachy self lately; nothing much on Twitter and Instagram. Poor Ben, wonder what is wrong, or, perhaps ... they are filming and he's been told to shut it.

Looks to me like Jessa is in charge of the social media accounts in that family - HA! A Duggar girl who wears the pants in the family!

[MatthewDuggar]

It does make one wonder what's up with Bin's social media silence.  I doubt (and hope) they aren't filming.  Perhaps he's been banned from stirring up any sort of controversy while TLC decides which way to go with these people.  

[BabyBottlePop]

46 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I think the sex must not be as good as Ben thought it would be...and they have a kid... and have to obey the cult of Jimbob...and depend on him for everything...and his wife was molested by his creepy BIL who is back in town...and he has the responsibility of a kid...and the sex is probably not as good or as often[worth repeating over and over again].

In his mind, he's 21 and has nothing much to look forward too.

He should cut bait, find a job, housing, move and tell JB to stuff it.

All the above definitely true. Or maybe the sex is good but there's nothing else there? Think about the first person we were really sexually attracted to. Wanting to bump uglies does not a love story make. 

Then again, Ben comes off as such a horn dog to me the sex probably isn't good. 

I mean, I doubt they're taught anything about pleasure. Ben might be not able to get Jessa off so she's not interested, so she's frustrating him. We don't know if they're the missionary only type fundies, but I bet oral or other forms of sex that are not explicitly pregnancy causing aren't taught. And where are Jessa and Ben going to learn that without traipsing into a valley of sin?

There's something also to be said about masturbation. I've been told masturbation helps a man lengthen the amount of time before climax. Considering Ben touching himself is a no-no, maybe he has no control and the sex has remained teenage boy-esque, i.e., quick and embarrassing.

i learned about my body by reading trashy bodice rippers and eventually erotica. I doubt J & B have explored at all in any way (I know they're not reading what I did!) and that may be a factor.

Sorry if this is rude or TMI. 

[JesusCampSongs]

47 minutes ago, BabyBottlePop said:

I mean, I doubt they're taught anything about pleasure. Ben might be not able to get Jessa off so she's not interested, so she's frustrating him. We don't know if they're the missionary only type fundies, but I bet oral or other forms of sex that are not explicitly pregnancy causing aren't taught. And where are Jessa and Ben going to learn that without traipsing into a valley of sin?

Tim LaHaye (co-wrote the Left Behind series) and his wife, Beverly, wrote a fairly explicit sex manual back in the 1970's that was dedicated to helping good Christians improve their sex lives. They're more conservative evangelical than fundie, though. Growing up in that environment (Southern Baptist), the message I always got is that marital sex is supposed to be The Best Thing Ever, and there was nothing wrong with liking sex and having a lot of it as long as you're married. Not sure where Gothardism is on that, though. Didn't the Duggars used to claim that they were Southern Baptists?

[BlessedMajorNeglect]

10 minutes ago, JesusCampSongs said:

Tim LaHaye (co-wrote the Left Behind series) and his wife, Beverly, wrote a fairly explicit sex manual back in the 1970's that was dedicated to helping good Christians improve their sex lives. They're more conservative evangelical than fundie, though. Growing up in that environment (Southern Baptist), the message I always got is that marital sex is supposed to be The Best Thing Ever, and there was nothing wrong with liking sex and having a lot of it as long as you're married. Not sure where Gothardism is on that, though. Didn't the Duggars used to claim that they were Southern Baptists?

I'll do some googling but I'd be curious about this too from anyone knowledgeable.

 

Within a lot of mainstream Christianity sex tends to be framed as an expression of God's love/a gift from God so long as it's done willingly by both people, who are under the covenant of marriage to one another.

Even within the context of Gothardism I don't know how they could justify forbidding oral, maybe forbidding the man "finishing" anywhere besides while doing PIV but then a ton of their other rules don't make biblical sense.

 

[twinmama]

16 hours ago, ophelia said:

I really dislike Brecken. It's nearly as bad as Spurgeon, who BTW has a beautiful middle name. Why can't they just call him Elliott?? And Edyn has nice sound, but the way it's spelled somehow looks tacky to me.

Yep. Exactly my thought.

Why can't fundies come up with something funny for once?! Evangelical porn or something like this.

I also know a Brecken. And one of my kids is named Beckett and someone once called him Breckett, which totally made me laugh.

1 hour ago, BabyBottlePop said:

All the above definitely true. Or maybe the sex is good but there's nothing else there? Think about the first person we were really sexually attracted to. Wanting to bump uglies does not a love story make. 

Then again, Ben comes off as such a horn dog to me the sex probably isn't good. 

I mean, I doubt they're taught anything about pleasure. Ben might be not able to get Jessa off so she's not interested, so she's frustrating him. We don't know if they're the missionary only type fundies, but I bet oral or other forms of sex that are not explicitly pregnancy causing aren't taught. And where are Jessa and Ben going to learn that without traipsing into a valley of sin?

There's something also to be said about masturbation. I've been told masturbation helps a man lengthen the amount of time before climax. Considering Ben touching himself is a no-no, maybe he has no control and the sex has remained teenage boy-esque, i.e., quick and embarrassing.

i learned about my body by reading trashy bodice rippers and eventually erotica. I doubt J & B have explored at all in any way (I know they're not reading what I did!) and that may be a factor.

Sorry if this is rude or TMI. 

On this front, I bet they are all so crazy hung up about sex it's not even funny. How do you go from sex is the worst possible thing you could do, you aren't allowed to even think about it let alone get to know your own body... to a really good lover with no experience at all. I grew up Catholic, knew all about sex but still only really heard "just wait til you're married" and I still find it hard to shake off the weirdness regarding sex. I bet they are too self conscious to explore and figure out what works for both of them. 

Read someplace that if the sex is good, it's 5% of the relationship, if the sex is bad, it's 95% of the relationship.

[nst]

1 hour ago, BabyBottlePop said:

All the above definitely true. Or maybe the sex is good but there's nothing else there? Think about the first person we were really sexually attracted to. Wanting to bump uglies does not a love story make. 

Then again, Ben comes off as such a horn dog to me the sex probably isn't good. 

I mean, I doubt they're taught anything about pleasure. Ben might be not able to get Jessa off so she's not interested, so she's frustrating him. We don't know if they're the missionary only type fundies, but I bet oral or other forms of sex that are not explicitly pregnancy causing aren't taught. And where are Jessa and Ben going to learn that without traipsing into a valley of sin?

There's something also to be said about masturbation. I've been told masturbation helps a man lengthen the amount of time before climax. Considering Ben touching himself is a no-no, maybe he has no control and the sex has remained teenage boy-esque, i.e., quick and embarrassing.

i learned about my body by reading trashy bodice rippers and eventually erotica. I doubt J & B have explored at all in any way (I know they're not reading what I did!) and that may be a factor.

Sorry if this is rude or TMI. 

wifey anyone by Judy Blume 

put me in the camp that they are filming hence the silence 

as for Ben and Jessa and their sex life - I think with Spud they figured it out yet still can't kiss properly 

as for the changing of personalities - that bus ride was painful to watch and her reaction to him at first was mean I thought 

he now I think has no clue on how to live

 

[BabyBottlePop]

42 minutes ago, BlessedMajorNeglect said:

I'll do some googling but I'd be curious about this too from anyone knowledgeable.

 

Within a lot of mainstream Christianity sex tends to be framed as an expression of God's love/a gift from God so long as it's done willingly by both people, who are under the covenant of marriage to one another.

Even within the context of Gothardism I don't know how they could justify forbidding oral, maybe forbidding the man "finishing" anywhere besides while doing PIV but then a ton of their other rules don't make biblical sense.

 

An explicit sex book by the writer of Left Behind...I would never have guessed. Weird fact of the day! Haha

In response to both you and @twinmama, maybe sex is a little more talked about than I said among married Gothardites. But even if it is, it's got to be really hard to switch your mindset from "Evil!! Don't be tempted! You will be forever dirty and tainted!" to "all day, every day, every way, and God smiles at your act", etc. I grew up Catholic too, and had to rationalize losing my virginity outside of marriage as "Well, I'm going to marry him someday anyway so it's ok" (spoiler-- I didn't but I digress).

My family barely talked about sex, so it wasn't like I thought it meant eternal hellfire if done the wrong way, but it did take time for me to transfer how I felt about things. It took years, not the length of a few month courtship! 

[twinmama]

1 minute ago, BabyBottlePop said:

I grew up Catholic too, and had to rationalize losing my virginity outside of marriage as "Well, I'm going to marry him someday anyway so it's ok" (spoiler-- I didn't but I digress).

lol I was kind of the opposite, I was so intent on having sex before I was married because I don't believe in any of that stupid oppressive stuff, then I ended up marrying the first guy I had sex with. Though we did it years before we were married, then we lived together, then eventually we married.

[PennySycamore]

I have actually read the La Hayes' The Act of Marriage although it's been years and years.  Tim and Beverly courselled that it would be better for the couple to forego intercourse the first night and just get to know either others bodies and what was pleasurable, IOW, make out or pet.  They did realize that this was not what most couples would do, but did recommend that couples do that after the wedding night. They did teach about the importance of the clitoris and also about the wisdom of the wife doing kegels to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.  They did not counsel that couple should not kiss before marriage.  They advised avoiding oral sex and felt that abortion was ok in the case of birth defects.  They also weren't anti-contraception, but of course they were totally opposed to homosexuality.  Some of their beliefs might have changed in the 40 years since I read the book and they may have gotten more conservative.

[BlessedMajorNeglect]

37 minutes ago, twinmama said:

lol I was kind of the opposite, I was so intent on having sex before I was married because I don't believe in any of that stupid oppressive stuff, then I ended up marrying the first guy I had sex with. Though we did it years before we were married, then we lived together, then eventually we married.

Same here. I was raised atheist and my dad always told me that while he felt sex was best in the context of love, that I'd need to sort it out what made me happiest and then he basically said he highly encouraged me to not be a virgin when I marry because sexual compatibility is important. I ended up "living in sin" with the first man I slept with, we got married, had a baby, yada yada.

The funny part is we converted to Purgatorial Universalist Christianity so still pretty fringe or liberal, but still Christian. 

It's kind of funny to me because despite only having one child we would appear to be very traditional (SAHM, go to church or church events more than once a week, we even fast weekly) but our social values are wildly in the opposite direction. 

[twinmama]

3 minutes ago, BlessedMajorNeglect said:

The funny part is we converted to Purgatorial Universalist Christianity so still pretty fringe or liberal, but still Christian. 

I've never heard of that! Is it different than Unitarian Universalist? I know they accept basically anyone, I don't think you even have to believe in god to go to a UU church.

[BlessedMajorNeglect]

9 minutes ago, twinmama said:

I've never heard of that! Is it different than Unitarian Universalist? I know they accept basically anyone, I don't think you even have to believe in god to go to a UU church.

Yeah it's different but the Universalist part is similar- there is no "us" and "them", we are all "us". The essential gist of PUC is the belief that all of mankind's souls will be reconciled to God's love through Christ, and that Hell is both a finite and ultimately corrective thing for the soul so they can come to God. There are Universalists sprinkled throughout a lot of denominations and the beliefs do date back to the early church though they've always been controversial.

But yeah, it definitely changes the way you see the people around you. The fundamentalists and fire and brimstone type people, honestly at times even I'm amazed we claim the same God and Savior, LOL!

[nvmbr02]

On 3/06/2016 at 11:21 AM, Coy Koi said:

Brecken just seems like a completely neutral, generic word to me. There's nothing pleasant or unpleasant about it, it doesn't mean anything (as far as I know), and it's not an established name. So I really don't get how someone would choose that above all the other infinite possibilities as a name for their kid. Spurgeon is obviously hideous, and Edyn is just stupid for the spelling, but not unusually bad.

I completely agree with you on all three names.

Brecken is becoming pretty popular here though, at least in our little suburb. My 1st grader has one in her class, there are a few at the school I work at and at least 3 families in our neighborhood have named their child Brecken in the past 2 years. Eden is pretty popular too, but at least it is generally spelled Eden and not Edyn.

[Mercer]

Not gonna lie, when I hear the name "Brecken" I expect the words that follow to be "the law."

[Mothership]

On Bin's instagtram account, the pictures of Jessa and Spurge are cute--she is a happy and attentive mom.  Here comes the snark:  with her hair pulled back, it looks like she's got the previously male only Duggar hairline.

[Gobsmacked]

On 3 June 2016 at 3:44 AM, myhobby said:

We had a Brighton Early in middle school.  He was always in trouble, so he was constantly being paged over the PA system.  

That is just so sad. I hope he sues his parents!

Dick is a surname found frequently in the Scottish Highlands.

[Jinder Roles]

1 hour ago, Mothership said:

On Bin's instagtram account, the pictures of Jessa and Spurge are cute--she is a happy and attentive mom.  Here comes the snark:  with her hair pulled back, it looks like she's got the previously male only Duggar hairline.

Oh she definitely has that hairline. I think that's another reason most of the girls wear their hair down so much.  At least she's not balding. Although I believe pattern baldness gene is maternal. If so, then poor Spurgie. 

[BabyBottlePop]

14 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

I have actually read the La Hayes' The Act of Marriage although it's been years and years.  Tim and Beverly courselled that it would be better for the couple to forego intercourse the first night and just get to know either others bodies and what was pleasurable, IOW, make out or pet.  They did realize that this was not what most couples would do, but did recommend that couples do that after the wedding night. They did teach about the importance of the clitoris and also about the wisdom of the wife doing kegels to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.  They did not counsel that couple should not kiss before marriage.  They advised avoiding oral sex and felt that abortion was ok in the case of birth defects.  They also weren't anti-contraception, but of course they were totally opposed to homosexuality.  Some of their beliefs might have changed in the 40 years since I read the book and they may have gotten more conservative.

Things really have changed! I don't know about them personally but I could see the Southern Baptists I know not liking this book at all. The abortion thing particularly. People talk about us being more progressive now but there are a lot of things I've seen from the 70s and 80s that would never fly now.

1 hour ago, Mothership said:

On Bin's instagtram account, the pictures of Jessa and Spurge are cute--she is a happy and attentive mom.  

I went to go see this post on Instagram and couldn't help but notice Spurgeon was wearing a t-shirt with his name on it. So you know they had to special order that. And then I noticed there are arrows on his shirt. In all likelihood they didn't mean it this way but all I can think is "First arrow in the quiver!"

[MakeItSo]

As a freestyle snowboarder "Brecken" reminds me of Breckenridge...really cool place if you're into riding park (rails, kickers, boxes, transition, etc....I assume I've lost half of you but anyway. It's got one of the funnest terriain parks out there. but nothing compares to Whistler/Blackcomb, of course ) Uh....my point...yes, there was one...I think I have never heard of or met anyone with the name Brecken. Is it a unisex name? Generally given to boys? Or is it a girls name? 

[Kira]

7 minutes ago, MakeItSo said:

As a freestyle snowboarder "Brecken" reminds me of Breckenridge...really cool place if you're into riding park (rails, kickers, boxes, transition, etc....I assume I've lost half of you but anyway. It's got one of the funnest terriain parks out there. but nothing compares to Whistler/Blackcomb, of course ) Uh....my point...yes, there was one...I think I have never heard of or met anyone with the name Brecken. Is it a unisex name? Generally given to boys? Or is it a girls name? 

It's a boys name: http://nameberry.com/babyname/Brecken

[patsymae]

57 minutes ago, Kira said:

It's a boys name: http://nameberry.com/babyname/Brecken

It sounds like a German pastry to me