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Friday, August 20, 2010

You don't get to redefine my virtues.

I just found something massively offensive. A blog about the "Male Chastity Lifestyle", along with book sales and moneymaking schemes. I find the name incredibly offensive, because it's a parody of chastity. Chastity is when you only have sex inside marriage. This thing they are calling "Male Chastity Lifestyle" is when the woman makes all decisions about orgasms, often including denial play and the man wearing some kind of "chastity belt" device to which the woman holds the key. OK, see, there's a perfectly good name for that, sex denial, and you do NOT get to appropriate the name of a Christian virtue for your kink. I practice chastity, and if you like the idea of cockblocking you are the opposite of what I'll be looking for.

You know, I really don't like this "Male Chastity Lifestyle" thing. I'm kind of wary of saying this because I'm skeeved by a lot of kinks that perfectly decent people enjoy. But I have a really bad feeling about this one. Let's take a look at the list of reasons offered to practice it:

In this male chastity guide you will discover:

* How you'll know if the male chastity life­style is right for you... or if it'll cause more prob­lems than it fixes.
* Why 90% or more of everything you read about male chastity is noth­ing more than a made-up fantasy writ­ten by wan­nabe "mis­tresses" and sad, lonely men.
* How to ensure his energy and affec­tion is all focused on YOU... and no-one BUT you... just like it was when you were court­ing!
* Why he will NOT be able to keep his hands off you... but he's NOT a pest (and the minute you tell him "No!" he hap­pily obeys... and with a smile on his face!).
* Exactly how his libido sud­denly increases by 1000% or more... yet there is abso­lutely NO chance of him EVER stray­ing, no mat­ter how long you make him wait (and he'll LOVE you for this, too).
* Why he'll prac­tic­ally beg you to let him help you with the house­work, (even the stuff he really hates like iron­ing) but he's NOT a weedy spine­less and sub­missive "slave". Unlike most, this male chastity guide is writ­ten with REALITY in mind, not silly unreal­istic fantasies.
* How to guar­an­tee he'll have the energy and "stay­ing power" of a man 20 years younger... and will be will­ing to spend hours tak­ing you to heights of ecstasy you barely dared even dream of (Warn­ing: if you've never had Earth shat­ter­ing mul­tiple orgasms lit­er­ally "on tap" before, then this male chastity guide might be too much for you).
* Why his orgasms (when and if you allow them... and that's a BIG if) lit­er­ally send him into uncon­trol­lable, gasp­ing ecstasy... and he's a total slave to his desire (I guar­an­tee he's NEVER had orgasms like this before... they're so power­ful they're addict­ive, and you're the only one who can give them to him)
* And much, much more!

The whole list is there, I didn't leave anything out. Notice anything about it? Maybe that all of it is from the point of view of one side of this completely asymmetrical kink. Notice anything else? It's not the "chastity lifestyle", it's the "male chastity lifestyle."

We don't want to judge people's kinks. But lust for power over your fellow humans is a pretty universally recognized sin, flaw, or bad behavior. So is selfishness. I'm not really worried about readers who don't share my faith disagreeing with me on that. Sometimes people take things that are just plain vices and dress them up as lifestyle or kink. Making cockteasing the method in selfish lust for power doesn't magically fix the fact it's selfish lust for power.

It's particularly abhorrent from a Christian viewpoint. First, the practice is specifically unbiblical:

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:3-5, NIV)

Notice something about that? It's gender-equal. And further, neither may deprive the other. And THAT is part of Christian chastity.

Second, my chastity is my virtue; it's not my wife's. If someone else is making your decisions, then the virtue is gone; you have no chastity, you are left only with obedience.

Via Rouge Bambi.

UPDATE: I want to make it clear that this post is not an objection to kinks like Orgasm Denial or Tease & Denial; those I don't share, but if you're into that, fine. This post is an objection to the idea that this is chastity, and also an objection to the manipulative, sexist and predatory aspects presented in the quoted material.

6 comments:

  1. Nicely said. Odd, isn't it, just how much promoting sexual equality in the bible (true equality, not this "men and women are exactly the same" schtick) is ignored. There's a whole chapter in Proverbs (chapter 31, I believe) about a woman's work--and it ain't what most people think the bible says it is.

    I suppose if people paid attention to what was actually there, and not the cultural trappings of where the Church first gained a foothold (Rome, of the 300's, specifically), they'd have one less club to beat Christians and Christianity with.

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  2. Thanks! There is a lot more about sexual equality than most people think. On the other hand, there's some inequality that I have to accept even though it makes me uncomfortable and I don't see the need.

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  3. I just have to point out that there really are men out there who love orgasm denial and want someone to do it to them. As with most BDSM practices, what looks like one person bossing the other around is really someone giving tacit permission to boss them around.

    Admittedly, this is a bit more fraught with peril than other kinds of dom/sub behaviour because the woman could flat-out refuse to unlock her sub's chastity device even when he was seriously requesting to be let go - but no good dominant would ever do that, because we all know fucking well that the sub is actually the one in control. We're just there to consensually push the envelope a bit.

    Interestingly, I've heard guys reference that Bible quote, but only to the extent of saying "The Bible says my wife has to fuck me whenever I want!" - they always leave out the fact that the quote goes both ways. lluminating! Thank you. :)

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  4. perversecowgirl, since writing that I read a bit of Denying Thumper, a blog by a man involved in this lifestyle. He game me some idea why a man might enjoy or value orgasm denial, and I have nothing bad to say about the way he engages in it. In his case, I don't even object so much to calling it chastity, because it is a method he is using to help him with that difficult virtue. It's kind of like calling Alcoholics Anonymous the temperance lifestyle; indeed AA does help people struggling with temperance in drinking, though those of us not in AA are not therefore intemperant.

    But the things he likes about it do not address my fundamental points of objection based on this presentation, the "male chastity blog" written by a profit-seeking woman who advertises solely the advantages to women.

    I should update this entry to express the idea that I don't object to orgasm denial in itself (except if it's applied to me, of course, but that's just because it's not my kink).

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  5. It strikes me that your reaction to fetish "chastity" is probably similar to what I felt when I was vegetarian (for animal rights reasons, and I gave up most of my favourite foods in the process) and would happen across self-proclaimed "vegetarians" who just didn't eat meat because they never liked it much. Or people who called themselves "vegetarians" but ate CHICKEN for fuck's sake.

    Mind you, it doesn't say anywhere that the word "vegetarian" is connected to having deeply held spiritual beliefs. I presume the word "chastity" is defined that way somewhere. So it's not quite the same. But my point is, I feel your pain.

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  6. You're right, I've heard the word vegetarian abused the same way. Sometimes people just use it as cover for avoiding foods they don't like.

    I try to avoid any chicken or eggs that aren't cage-free and I don't eat veal, but I'm not a vegetarian.

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