So much unnecessary sadness is being spread in this foolish, shallow attitude. Mr. Howerton is stuck in adolescence and possibly will never know what it is like to be an adult, and he wants other perpetual adolescents to keep him company. That's not being "young at heart," it's just being immature.
53 years ago I met a PERSON. She had a beautiful face, a cute figure, and a remarkable mind. I acknowledge that as a 20-year-old, her face and figure were the first things I noticed, but after only a couple of minutes of talking with her, the PERSON was irresistibly attractive. She was smart, caring, honest, fair-minded, and independent. Shortly into our first conversation, she said something about never wanting to be dependent on a man. I was hooked. I didn't want a docile, servile, living sex toy, that was stuff of my 13-year-old puberty. I wanted an equal PARTNER. I was very lucky in two ways: I met her when I did, and I had not been indoctrinated into Christianity's retrogressive sexism.
We've been inseparable since that first meeting, always mutually respectful partners helping each other through each stage of life. Now in the last stages, as Alzheimer's disease is slowly stealing my partner's personhood, I must endure the grief and be steadfast in my respect, love, and caring for her as she is, ...as she is, ...as she is, one fleeting moment at a time.
Even with all that, I wouldn't trade her for anyone else.
That's not a joke. Here's a joke. What does God and Mr. Pastor Josh Howerton's wife's clitoris, have in common? Mr. Pastor Josh Howerton claims to know both, but there is no evidence he's even met either of them.
Though their sacred inerrant Bible says you're supposed to wave the bloody sheets out the window on the wedding night. I'm shocked they haven't gone back to that. (...yet.)
Left up to the religious right, women would be reduced to the status of property as they were in the Old Testament. He's giving his backing to the toxic masculinity that destroys any marriage that does not involve a wife willing to be a doormat for Jesus.
Hey look, what are you complaining about? The husband had to stand around in a suit he didn't want to wear for 𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 and then 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛. Complete sexual servitude every night (and nooner, and, well any time he wants) for the next several decades is surely a fair trade for that unimaginable pain.
Question: is it possible to string together more cliched tropes about wedding days and wedding nights? Honestly, I'm not certain. And Howerton's lame assertion that he was making a joke doesn't wash here. The whole issue of a woman's "duty" to submit to her husband in the evangelical community is entirely too well known to survive any attempt to wave that statement off as humor.
No, this isn't quite the whole "barefoot and pregnant" routine we all know ... but it ain't far from it.
True story: My husband and I had been living together before we were married (sin #1). On our wedding night, we were so exhausted that at our hotel we fell asleep in our wedding clothes, so no fun times (sin #2). Fast forward 10 years later, I divorced his ass (sin #3). Hell bound for sure. 🙄
Christianity's views on marriage and intimacy have never been healthy, and that's well before the subject of things like misogyny come up. The Christian understanding of consent is more than a shade dubious, too. To quote Mrs. Betty Bowers, "Remember, in the Bible it's not rape if the man says 'I do!'"* It's not like she's wrong, now is it?
Something I admit I only recently considered was the whole story around Mary and the birth of Jesus. If you stop and think, even from the Christian view Mary was never asked if she wanted to have a divine baby; nope, she's just suddenly in the family way. The punishment for that under Jewish law, as I understand it, is death by stoning or possibly marriage depending on the particulars. If her opinion had been asked, the chances of Mary agreeing to a divine pregnancy would have been slim to none. At this point, one could reasonably assume that the Christian god doesn't regard Mary as a person in her own right since her consent for this plan isn't needed, or that human free will is considerably more negotiable on the divine level than previously advertised. On top of all that, 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑, 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑎𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜. In truth, Mary is more a caricature than a person, it's only no wonder most women can't meet that inaccessible standard, and why should they?
TLDR: Women are people, not doormats; therefore they should be treated as people, not doormats.
I submit that the most likely explanation is that Joseph was the daddy and very well knew it; and finally decided Mary was worth keeping for whatever reason. Considering the source material, I'm not convinced anyone - strange men, friends, or family - showed up after the birth anyway. According to the tale, Elizabeth is pretty much the only other family Mary had still living, and Joseph had none at all.
Really, the whole thing starts falling apart the moment you look closely at it with unbiased eyes. There are so many holes, inconsistencies, and what appear to be outright lies there is zero reason to trust the writer(s).
More evidence that Christians need to stay as far away as possible from comedy. They simply don't get how it works. Their level of understanding of humor is on a par with their comprehension of their own holy book. Which is to say zero.
That's not true. Christians can be funny. Just look at the first Christian. Jesus said he would be right back, and he's fucked off for the last 2000 years. That is some Kaufman-level joke telling.
3 days of peace and quiet away from his idiot followers. Notice how he hasn't returned? Think he really wants to come back to people waving crucifixes at him?
There’s that cartoon where an alien standing next to his flying saucer says to a human, “Jesus? Great guy. He comes around every couple of weeks and we throw him a party. Why, what did your people do when he first came to earth?”
Is it just me, or does this guy look like he came right out of central casting for "generic infomercial salesman?" Something about him just screams "𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳, 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘺- 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘸!"
Because participating in a ceremony you instigated yourself and continuously agreed to is the same as having sex with no input.
I remember my wedding night, we got to the hotel, put on a movie and fell asleep halfway through. Because we were exhausted from the full week of preparations and the day being so hectic. I mean my mother was still sewing my dress as I headed for the aisle. We were still touching up the decorations before the guests arrived and then we stayed to cleanup after. And, my hubs participated in every aspect, making plenty of important decisions the whole way. Yes, I thought about my wedding when I was growing up, but it wasn’t my whole personality, and I took my time finding the right person to stand up with. This “joke” implies women don’t care so much about the who as much as the extravagant ceremony/party. This church culture promotes that type of thinking, though. That women need to marry as soon as they can, doesn’t matter who, and follow his instructions no matter what.
We just had a civil ceremony, so I don't even remember the wedding night. Might have been a weekday afternoon. But we had an absolute kick-butt honeymoon the next summer, and THAT was well worth remembering. But bad news fundies, except for me dragging her to see "another pile of rocks" (Greek ruins), it was also fully consensual.
I never thought about wedding before we had shared appartement for two years. The sad thing is I was xian at the time, so it happened in a church. Fun party afterwards with much talking, singing and dancing. My husband's biological father and his wife was pissed at me because the persons who actually had raised him got the traditional seats of the groom's parents.
My husband's biological mother was invited but decline. She lived in US and knew she could not get a passport to herself and the kids. I never met her before she died.
So much unnecessary sadness is being spread in this foolish, shallow attitude. Mr. Howerton is stuck in adolescence and possibly will never know what it is like to be an adult, and he wants other perpetual adolescents to keep him company. That's not being "young at heart," it's just being immature.
53 years ago I met a PERSON. She had a beautiful face, a cute figure, and a remarkable mind. I acknowledge that as a 20-year-old, her face and figure were the first things I noticed, but after only a couple of minutes of talking with her, the PERSON was irresistibly attractive. She was smart, caring, honest, fair-minded, and independent. Shortly into our first conversation, she said something about never wanting to be dependent on a man. I was hooked. I didn't want a docile, servile, living sex toy, that was stuff of my 13-year-old puberty. I wanted an equal PARTNER. I was very lucky in two ways: I met her when I did, and I had not been indoctrinated into Christianity's retrogressive sexism.
We've been inseparable since that first meeting, always mutually respectful partners helping each other through each stage of life. Now in the last stages, as Alzheimer's disease is slowly stealing my partner's personhood, I must endure the grief and be steadfast in my respect, love, and caring for her as she is, ...as she is, ...as she is, one fleeting moment at a time.
Even with all that, I wouldn't trade her for anyone else.
My heart aches at what you’re going through, but rejoices at your beautiful love story. Take care of yourself as well.
I don't know what you're going through and, honestly, hope I never do. But you have my sympathy.
My heart is broken for you both going through this, but there is some joy in that you are in it together as you always have been.
That's not Jesus's plan.
Jesus was a lifelong bachelor giving out marriage advise.
Like Catholic priests?
Dudes in dresses grooming children and they're not drag queens.
You write so beautiful. My mother is where your wife is. I can't take care of her, but I visit as often as I can. You have all my sympathy.
'It’s also implied that she knows nothing about sex while her virgin husband seems to know exactly what he wants."
One can wonder where does this knowledge come from. I thought good christian men and boys were supposed to use apps to keep each other in check.
Only with their sons. That makes it godly.
D-uh! They had hands-on training from the pastors, remember?
The son's either gone old-school and is hiding magazines under his mattress or he's using a friend's phone.
That's not a joke. Here's a joke. What does God and Mr. Pastor Josh Howerton's wife's clitoris, have in common? Mr. Pastor Josh Howerton claims to know both, but there is no evidence he's even met either of them.
And his wife, like Lot’s wife, is nameless.
That is a perfect joke!
The spouse that will not be named.
Well, she was a salty bitch..... **Looks around** what too soon?
Never ceases to amaze me what the religious see as humorous.
Marital rape? Chattel slavery? Seriously? As a mere immoral atheist, I find those things abhorrent.
Still, comedy is not pretty. The jokes are so last Bronze Age. Cringe worthy.
For 90% of them, the virginal wedding night is a social fiction everyone just plays along with. Like Trumpists pledging allegiance to the republic.
Though their sacred inerrant Bible says you're supposed to wave the bloody sheets out the window on the wedding night. I'm shocked they haven't gone back to that. (...yet.)
That requires that they have read the Bible.
Left up to the religious right, women would be reduced to the status of property as they were in the Old Testament. He's giving his backing to the toxic masculinity that destroys any marriage that does not involve a wife willing to be a doormat for Jesus.
Hey look, what are you complaining about? The husband had to stand around in a suit he didn't want to wear for 𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 and then 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛. Complete sexual servitude every night (and nooner, and, well any time he wants) for the next several decades is surely a fair trade for that unimaginable pain.
A REAL man brings his wife to jesus, never to orgasms.
That's why she's pegging him.
Question: is it possible to string together more cliched tropes about wedding days and wedding nights? Honestly, I'm not certain. And Howerton's lame assertion that he was making a joke doesn't wash here. The whole issue of a woman's "duty" to submit to her husband in the evangelical community is entirely too well known to survive any attempt to wave that statement off as humor.
No, this isn't quite the whole "barefoot and pregnant" routine we all know ... but it ain't far from it.
Good recruiting pitch for new male members.
True story: My husband and I had been living together before we were married (sin #1). On our wedding night, we were so exhausted that at our hotel we fell asleep in our wedding clothes, so no fun times (sin #2). Fast forward 10 years later, I divorced his ass (sin #3). Hell bound for sure. 🙄
See you at the bbq!
the bbq in hell has beer so hot it is boiling.
I don't even want to joke about this one. After years of indoctrination, no wonder people are like the way they are - uncaring, abusive, insular.
Christianity's views on marriage and intimacy have never been healthy, and that's well before the subject of things like misogyny come up. The Christian understanding of consent is more than a shade dubious, too. To quote Mrs. Betty Bowers, "Remember, in the Bible it's not rape if the man says 'I do!'"* It's not like she's wrong, now is it?
Something I admit I only recently considered was the whole story around Mary and the birth of Jesus. If you stop and think, even from the Christian view Mary was never asked if she wanted to have a divine baby; nope, she's just suddenly in the family way. The punishment for that under Jewish law, as I understand it, is death by stoning or possibly marriage depending on the particulars. If her opinion had been asked, the chances of Mary agreeing to a divine pregnancy would have been slim to none. At this point, one could reasonably assume that the Christian god doesn't regard Mary as a person in her own right since her consent for this plan isn't needed, or that human free will is considerably more negotiable on the divine level than previously advertised. On top of all that, 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑, 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑎𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜. In truth, Mary is more a caricature than a person, it's only no wonder most women can't meet that inaccessible standard, and why should they?
TLDR: Women are people, not doormats; therefore they should be treated as people, not doormats.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvlpT7kkO2Q
Like you said, the punishment for that is death by stoning. So the more logical conclusion is that Joseph is a cuck.
After all, why else would three strange men show up on the baby’s birth with presents?
I submit that the most likely explanation is that Joseph was the daddy and very well knew it; and finally decided Mary was worth keeping for whatever reason. Considering the source material, I'm not convinced anyone - strange men, friends, or family - showed up after the birth anyway. According to the tale, Elizabeth is pretty much the only other family Mary had still living, and Joseph had none at all.
Really, the whole thing starts falling apart the moment you look closely at it with unbiased eyes. There are so many holes, inconsistencies, and what appear to be outright lies there is zero reason to trust the writer(s).
Just one of uncountable many.
Mister Zappa
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/435121621_432166505842458_8979408659020038914_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=Z1QQSymkCN8Ab7DFxyE&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&oh=00_AfAxe5JqQ8txxCyrG-rfTi-E7qvwFRL_GRjTveuaWOs70A&oe=6613A19B
He was a genious artist. To bad he did not see a doctor in time.
Not to hear Lori Alexander tell it. That is one fucked up woman. And not in a good way.
It's also important to note that "it was just a joke" is an oft invoked defense of abusers when called out on their abusive behavior.
More evidence that Christians need to stay as far away as possible from comedy. They simply don't get how it works. Their level of understanding of humor is on a par with their comprehension of their own holy book. Which is to say zero.
That's not true. Christians can be funny. Just look at the first Christian. Jesus said he would be right back, and he's fucked off for the last 2000 years. That is some Kaufman-level joke telling.
You don't know him but Christian Blachas was funny (the good way).
Jesus did come back. 3 days later. The line to speak with Yahweh was stupid long.
3 days of peace and quiet away from his idiot followers. Notice how he hasn't returned? Think he really wants to come back to people waving crucifixes at him?
There’s that cartoon where an alien standing next to his flying saucer says to a human, “Jesus? Great guy. He comes around every couple of weeks and we throw him a party. Why, what did your people do when he first came to earth?”
But...but...Jesus is everywhere and everything. You just have to believe!
I believe if I were him and remembered the way I'd been treated by them when I was alive, I'd tell them "Fuck all y'all."
To be fair, nothing Pastor Howerton said came anywhere 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳 comedy, so I'm pretty sure 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘺 is safe.
His congregation, on the other hand, had to listen to... 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 that was.
Unfortunately, they liked what they heard.
They need to stay as far away from everything.
They need to stay away from rock music, too. Their music sucks.
Comedy is punch down. It’s always funny to see those beneath you suffer.
If there is ONE thing I learned about sex throughout my long life it is that anything other than mutual enthusiastic consent is just a form of rape.
Is it just me, or does this guy look like he came right out of central casting for "generic infomercial salesman?" Something about him just screams "𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳, 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘺- 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘸!"
Not just you. He reminded me of an infomercial pitchman on late night TV as well.
The only difference between an infomercial pitchman and a televangelist is that the infomercial pitchman is selling something real.
I tried looking up Ronco to see if any of the products they sold were faulty or simply didn't work at all. Couldn't find any examples.
Ron Popeil had an integrity religious hustlers will never know.
Half bakked's products worked fine, they kept his banker happy.
Even his Doomsday food? Didn't he gag on his own soup? 😂
It was fine if you seasoned it with the survival blanket.
Didn't he do the hair in a can? : )
Supposedly, it really worked. But only on short hairstyles. 😃
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GeF7A05zQ8
And what does spray painting your scalp do to it in the long run?
Didn't he used to sell the Shamwow in one of those middle-of-the-night infomercials?
I thought of that too, it made me think of the Shamwow guy who was a complete weirdo but the product is real. Here’s Popular Mechanics take:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/a3804/4294482/
This is nothing but spiritual abuse dressed up in faux comedy to serve misogynistic ends.
Because participating in a ceremony you instigated yourself and continuously agreed to is the same as having sex with no input.
I remember my wedding night, we got to the hotel, put on a movie and fell asleep halfway through. Because we were exhausted from the full week of preparations and the day being so hectic. I mean my mother was still sewing my dress as I headed for the aisle. We were still touching up the decorations before the guests arrived and then we stayed to cleanup after. And, my hubs participated in every aspect, making plenty of important decisions the whole way. Yes, I thought about my wedding when I was growing up, but it wasn’t my whole personality, and I took my time finding the right person to stand up with. This “joke” implies women don’t care so much about the who as much as the extravagant ceremony/party. This church culture promotes that type of thinking, though. That women need to marry as soon as they can, doesn’t matter who, and follow his instructions no matter what.
I thought about a lot of things while growing up, my wedding day was not among them. And look, 43 years old and still happily not married 😁
67 and still happily not married.
I give it up for Lent every year. 😉
60 yo and happily married. We've been a couple since July 1983, married in 1987. I have been incredibly lucky.
❤️👏👏👏👏
We just had a civil ceremony, so I don't even remember the wedding night. Might have been a weekday afternoon. But we had an absolute kick-butt honeymoon the next summer, and THAT was well worth remembering. But bad news fundies, except for me dragging her to see "another pile of rocks" (Greek ruins), it was also fully consensual.
Noooo! Consent! The fundies’ weakness!
I never thought about wedding before we had shared appartement for two years. The sad thing is I was xian at the time, so it happened in a church. Fun party afterwards with much talking, singing and dancing. My husband's biological father and his wife was pissed at me because the persons who actually had raised him got the traditional seats of the groom's parents.
DM nearly not invited her biological mother*, it's her grandmother who convinced her.
* Her brother, step father and probably her sister were invited.
My husband's biological mother was invited but decline. She lived in US and knew she could not get a passport to herself and the kids. I never met her before she died.
Naturally, I laughed as much at your wedding night as I did my own. I’m sure we’re not alone. 🙂