Entries Tagged 'LOVE & Other High Risks' ↓

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. —1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Generally this verse is presented as how we should behave toward others.

My interpretation, and the one I recommend for you to share with your daughters, is to use this as a guide to know whether people truly love them, or want to possess them, want them to be their servant, want to use them as emotional crutch or emotional punching bag.

As a test, we should ask ourselves, and teach our daughters to do the same : Is this person patient and kind? Or envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, insisting on his own way, irritable, and resentful? Is he rejoicing in wrong-doing and being untruthful?

If he can’t pass this test, then, this is not Love. It must be something else then.

There are other things that masquerade as “Love.” Especially when we’re young, naive, inexperienced and hormones are coursing through our mind, body and soul, throwing us off-kilter. Most media messages about love do us no great service by making every single emotional and sexual attraction out to be love.

Our daughters need to know that there are other exciting and thrilling emotions that masquerade as love. You’re the perfect person to explain this, because you’ve probably experienced some of them.

It might feel like what you imagine love might feel like, a rush of Oxytocin to the brain, a Love Drunk, a passionate high, a crazy persistent, all-consuming crush, the smell of his pheromones lighting up yours, sexual attraction, physical chemistry, an irrational need to be desired by a specific person because he’s the quarterback or the cutest guy you’ve ever seen.

Still, if he can’t pass The Love Test, it might be a lot of exciting, thrilling, scary, intoxicating, dangerous things, but it’s not Love.

It’s a great test for any human being who claims to love you, but behaves otherwise.

Valentine’s Day is coming. Now, would be a prime time to address the difference. Love is in the air. But, so are a whole lot of other things masquerading as Cupid and Aphrodite.

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I just finished Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife by Irene Spencer.

I grew up Mormon so I have an historical interest in polygamy. I even have some limited personal experience with it. My father’s great-great’s were polygamous. Legend goes his great-great grandfather was polygamous when polygamy became outlawed in Utah in 1890. This caused a fracture in The Church, where many families continued to live by The Principle and the majority abided by the law. My dad’s great-great remained married to the youngest and prettiest wife and divorced the others, causing resentment from the rest of the wives, his great-great grandmother included. I could have this wrong. It’s only what I recall of family lore.

Added to that, one of the first boys I dated in Junior High in Orem, Utah came from a polygamist family. Two of the wives had divorced by the time I dated him, but he had 19 sibling-cousins. His father had married two sisters.

At times I watch Big Love or read books like this and think, “This might have been my potential future.”

Reading this book, what struck me was the common thread of men using religion and “the Word of God” to get what they want from women. The author, Irene Spencer, speaks in great detail of her personal feelings as a wife. So many of the justifications she used to convince herself to participate in things her own heart, soul, spiritual intuition and her own inner voice told her not to do, she did because her husband told her to and she believed he had to obey him to get into heaven and avoid hell.

The thing is, I’ve heard the exact justifications used by men to control women in every religion. This pattern of women ignoring their own innate spiritual guidance systems, their own promptings from the Holy Spirit, or whatever terminology different religions use, is a common thread in religion and the history of religion.

The other connection I made is her willingness to do anything for the promise of love. Not actual Love – just the promise of it. This is a common thread of women and girls in abusive situations. Love – it’s our Achilles heal. This desperate need for love must have been what the authors of Genesis referred to as “The Curse” when Eve was told she “would love her husband.” That’s why women will consent to abuse, tyranny and inequality in their relationships. In my opinion, the point of the story is to warn women NOT to do this – to overcome her curse – only then will she save herself. This same verse has tragically been used in countless congregations to convince women they should submit to their husbands.

Irene reminded me of Biblical figures like Sarah from Genesis. Following their husbands and prophet to the ends of the earth, often times to disastrous ends.

The fact that these stories end in disaster makes me question whether we’ve been reading The Book wrong. Many of these stories, in fact, appear to me as “what not to do” warnings. Still, we hear it preached from the pulpit as the example to follow.

I read Irene Spencer’s account of being enslaved by the dictates of male religious authorities, social orders of a legalistic religious nature, and blindly doing what her husband commands of her – ignoring what her own spiritual authority and divine connection is telling her – as an account of “what not to do.”

The real tragedy is that women don’t trust their own spiritual authority and divine connection more than they trust male authority figures.

Think of the profound, divine insight the planet has missed out on.

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Remember when Kevin make a body-centered comment to a girl he liked and didn’t understand why he got slapped in the face? Then he emailed me and asked for advice, which he brilliantly followed. Dating ensued.

Ericka, the lovely girl he insulted, then made-good with and now respectfully dates, emailed me the below Thank You note.  It’s very sweet and I just love that this is working out for them. . . Oh and if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about you can find the previous posts below.

Hi Tracee.  This is Ericka, the girl that Kevin met at the dance a while back.  I don’t know how to thank you for giving him advice.  It turns out that he’s a really sweet guy and we have a great relationship.  Lots of guys my age are jerks and I guess I assumed the worst about him when he made the “hourglass” comment.  I’m happy with my body shape but it’s really frustrating to be judged for your bra size and not your brains.  I do remember that he looked ashamed rather than angry after I slapped him and I was hoping I was wrong about him.  I was thrilled when I saw his email!  We’re having a great time and can now laugh about the first time we met.  Without your help, this might not have happened so you should feel great!  Also, I saw your blog entries covering this topic and thought they were excellent.

Thank you so much Tracee and abosolutely you can publish it on your site.  Kevin is such a gentleman and I definitely see long term possibilities.  We have so much fun together.  On a funny note, he is really tall at 6’6″ and I’m a short girl at 5’2″.  I really had to get on my toes and reach in order to connect with that slap, lol.   When I looked over about a minute later, he was still standing there by himself, holding his cheek, looking dumbfounded….I knew then that he was probably a nice guy who had just made a silly mistake.  I was thrilled when I heard back from him!
Body Image Question from 17-year-old Kevin

Respect Pays Off For Kevin

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Teen girls aren’t as stupid as I thought. I know, this is a totally pro-girl website. That doesn’t meant I think girls are always the smartest. Sometimes — especially when boys and men are involved — girls can be quite stupid. Myself included. Hell, historically, myself mostly.

I’ve been subbing at the high school and junior high this year. It’s pretty fun. I adore teenagers. I’m a freak like that. I’ll take a classroom of teens over a gaggle of snotty toddlers that want to cuddle with me any day.

Their regular teacher warned me that this class was really, really bad and that they couldn’t be trusted not to talk if I even let them whisper and she wanted names of anyone who uttered so much as a whisper and she would dully punish them.

Uh ok.

The whole not talking thing struck me as stupid when I was in junior high. It still does.

I went back to reading the 3rd book in the Twilight Series, Eclipse. What I won’t do for The Girl Revolution, caught off guard with nothing to read, with access to a junior high library.

If you’ve been here before you know that I hate the Twilight Series because I think Bella is the stupidest girl character on the Planet Earth. But, whatever, at least girls are reading. Who cares if they’re reading training material for being a battered girlfriend?

That teacher was so right. As soon as the girls saw what I was reading they started talking about Twilight. This is, after all, THE girl-culture phenomenon of their time. They couldn’t escape it if they wanted to.  Everyone’s talking about it, everyone has seen the movies, read the books, bought the branded accessories and school supplies.

Bella is so stupid! one girl said.

Really? How so? I said, totally shocked.

She wants to die. Don’t you think that’s stupid? they said.

Yeah, I think it’s stupid, but I thought girls thought it was romantic, I said.

No, she’s totally stupid. She goes for Edward and he’s totally ugly! they said.

In the book he’s not ugly, he’s the most beautiful man in entire history of mankind, well vampirekind! I argued.

In the movie he’s ugly and pasty. Jacob is sooo hot! they declared.

One girl pulled out a photo of Jacob. He’s hot.

So, you don’t think it’s romantic to give up everything and die for a boy? I asked.

No way! I don’t want to die! Why would you want to die? Would you want to die with an ugly man? they asked.

I hate to break it to you, but most of you will probably die with ugly men. Look around ladies, this is as good as boys get, eventually they are old and bald and pot-bellied, I said. I’m sorry I can’t help myself. The truth pops out of my mouth before I can stop it sometimes.

They looked around shocked and laughed.

One of the boys said something like, Twilight is so stupid.

To which I responded, Smart boys will read it so they know what girls want. Otherwise they’ll constantly be wondering how come they disappoint their girlfriends.

Seriously, you don’t want to give up your whole life, your whole family, your ability to have children, college, careers and all that for a boy? I asked them. I thought perhaps I might cry with relief.

No way! Besides, she should have gone with Jacob, he’s way hotter, they said.

That settles it. There is hope for the future of girls in spite of trashy-romance-novels-turned-propaganda-for-eternal-marriage.

In fact, now that I think about it, it makes those girls smarter than lots of women I know. At least for now, while it remains hypothetical.

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Remember Kevin? He was our teenage friend who wanted to know why women didn’t like being called curvy. I suggested, in a nutshell, that maybe the girl wanted her self to be acknowledged before Kevin got all into her curvy bod. Click HERE if you don’t remember.

Kevin took my advice and it worked out for him. He and the girl have been on a couple of dates. With their permission, here’s how the juicy goodness of respectful dating went down:

Dear E,

Kevin

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