As a rule, fundamentalists firmly believe that all sex education should happen at home between children and their parents. If the parents happen to be absent, immoral, or too timid to have ‘the talk’ then the fundy church provides them with a safe, caring environment where they can learn…pretty much nothing. Sorry, kids! Maybe someone on the Internet can help you out.
The Bob Jones high school biology text notwithstanding, education about matters reproductive in fundy schools often consists of thundering chapel messages about fleeing fornication. Even there, some kids who haven’t gotten the scoop on what “fornication” means may only know it happens at public schools and liberal churches and probably has something to do with breaking dress code and watching late-night television.
If you were old enough to vote before someone clued you in to where babies really come from…you might have been a fundamentalist.
Ironic.
I was talking with some friends, who are now married, about the pre-marital counseling they got, (I am hoping to go thru the same counseling soon…).
Anyway, They told me about another couple a pastor counseled. Apparently, a few months after this couple was married, they came to the pastor a little frustrated. They told him they had trouble becoming pregnant. So, naturally the pastor asked some questions dealing with how they were trying to become pregnant. Frustrated, they told him they had been kissing and kissing, but she still wasn’t becoming pregnant and they couldn’t figure out the problem.
Now, this almost seems too funny to believe, or sad depending on how you look at it, but I believe this is a true story. It does seem like one of those too good to believe stories, but it is possible.
I’ve heard that story repeated in so many different forms. I’d label it apocryphal at best. 🙂
Touchy subject (pun intended). I learned about sex on the back of the church bus…does that count? I believe my parents would have rather had their toe nails ripped off then ever broach the subject. It must skip a generation because we have had the talks with our kids and are very open to address it in our home.
“I’ve heard that story repeated in so many different forms. I’d label it apocryphal at best.”
Same here. I’ve even heard a lot of uncomfortably detailed versions about frustrated coital attempts. But one of my professors at BJU had a great quip about this kind of myth. “You know what an apocryphal story is, right?” he’d say. “It’s a story that probably isn’t true… but it should be.”
I go to secular state college. I’ve gotten a LOT of sexual harassment because people thought I was dumb and straight off the farm when I told them I was homeschooled. They’ve always wanted to know how I learned what I was supposed to “do”. They’d ask me personal questions and laugh at my sensitivity about guys touching me.
Fortunately, I have a tough streak and this didn’t last long. However, I know a lot of dumb girls that are way too sheltered. Creepy guys pick up on this immediately and it scares me that some of these girls want to go into ministry.
There should be some compromise between liberal teachers who give out condoms and complete, prudish silence. :-/
(I know this blog is supposed to be satire but I’ve had some really, really bad experiences with this.)
“I’ve heard that story repeated in so many different forms. I’d label it apocryphal at best.”
Fair enough.
I do have family though that have told me they weren’t told details till the night before the wedding. They almost didn’t get married, given I know this is true, I didn’t find it that hard to believe the apocryphal could be true too.
Ha. That approach has worked super duper awesomely here in my state.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/28/texas-contraception/
Oh my word, this post is so true! LOL! No lie, although I heard some vague details from a friend, I got most of my first sex-ed by reading the high school BJU biology book at our Christian school. I remember hearing evangelists preach that “sex ed should happen on someone’s wedding night.”
So true. . .we skipped the passage at my christian school . . my teacher simply said. . .well, let your parents go over taht with you. ..
My friend and I argued because she thinks that people should only have the sex talk right before they get married because telling them earlier is like telling them how it’s done and then saying “don’t do it.” I said that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Not to mention dangerous.
People need to be educated. Then they need to be educated WHY having sex before marriage is immoral, why purity is important, etc. Ignorance is not bliss. Simply following a bunch of do’s and don’ts works for almost nobody.
First time I’ve seen this post. I heard that story as well but with a twist:
….Frustrated, they told him they had been kissing and kissing, but she still wasn’t becoming pregnant and they couldn’t figure out the problem. So the pastor demonstrated with her what to do to get pregnant and afterward told the couple it may more than once for her to get pregnant. The couple thanked the pastor for showing them and asked how many appointments they should schedule with him to assure she gets pregnant.
Oh wait that was Pastor David Hyles wasn’t it? Should’ve known….
If your mother carefully edited the National Geographic, putting an OK on the upper right corner of the front cover identifying which magazines had tribeswomen now wearing modest black magic marker tops on, you might be fundy.
If your parents glared at you for bringing home a picture of Michelangelo’s David from a study tour of Europe you took with your fundy college, you might be fundy.
If you were kind of mad at God because He put a dirty book like the Song of Solomon in the Bible, you might have been a super-sheltered fundy girl.
If you have ever asked your mom what “pi$$eth against the wall” in your KJV Bible meant, you might also be a super-sheltered fundy girl (who didn’t have brothers).
@pastor’s wife…
I asked my dad what “pisseth against the wall” meant when I was about 7 or 8. I didn’t have brothers but there was a little boy in our home church that peed with the bathroom door open so I already kinda knew what it meant. Boy, oh boy! My dad turned about 45 shades and red and said, “You know when Danny goes to the bathroom?!?!?”
Also, the pastor of that same home church would take the Sunday comics and mark the ones we kids weren’t supposed to read. I read them anyway. LOL
Same pastor would grant his son (peeing Danny) to go to the bathroom during lunch and then spank him afterwards for “leaving the table before his finished”.
Same pastor and his wife would administer lonnnnggggggg spankings to their kids, switching off when one got tired.
Sigh. How’d I get off on him. I could go on and on. 🙁
@ Jess, my mom just said it wasn’t decent to talk about, which greatly embarrassed me and annoyed me because it was in the Bible, so why couldn’t I at least ask about it?
And about the pastor – it’s so sad that a desire for holiness and Christlikeness becomes warped in so many homes and churches leaving real scars. God is gentle and loving, not mean and vindictive and harsh. So sorry those kids saw an inaccurate picture of Him. I’m curious if those children turned away from the Lord or followed in their parents’ footsteps.
@Pastor’s Wife, it is truly a sad story what happened to those kids…much too involved to get into here. 4 of the 5 children turned away from God for at least a time. I think one has come back.
2 of the girls were the classic “starved for love” types and were sexually molested by the pastor of a different church they went to when they were teens. the idiotic parents blamed the girls for seducing “God’s man”, but also told them that they had to let “preacher” do that because he was “God’s man”.
1 of them ran away, got pregnant, etc.
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@Don: I’ve heard stories about Dave Hyles too. My former Youth pastor told me how he heard Dave preach when he was a teenager. Hyles would say things like-Boy teens you ought to wait till marriage.Iit will be great. me and my wife.. we get it on. MyYP said when he was a kid it sounded cool,but when he got into a place of authority around teens not so much.
@ The teen girls and the preacher? That’s sick. How sad.
@Pastors wife: Were refering to the comment above mine?
@ Phil, yes. Sorry I didn’t clarify. It’s just so sad to see lives hurt and children damaged from faulty teaching done in God’s name.
@Pastors Wife: When I was a little kid,my mom told me to never show anyone private parts if they asked and never let anyone touch them. They always kept me close in the store.(We watched Amerca’ s most wanted alot). That seems like a pretty simple thing to teach a kid.
When I was a kid, my dad read James Dobson’s “Preparing for Adolescence” to me, but he skipped the sex chapter. Of course, I sneaked the book out of his desk and read it myself. Hmm… maybe Dad wasn’t as dumb as I thought!
I have to give both my parents and my Christian school a lot of credit here. They both did a very good job in the sex ed department. My parents and I could talk about anything along those lines, and we did, lots of times. And my Christian school not only covered the biology part of it, they brought in a Teen-Aid program at night and encouraged all the teenagers to attend with their parents. Most did. I understand that since then, that particular Teen-Aid program has been recognized as one of the nation’s best. It gave full information on sex, on various types of contraception, and talked in a fun way about how to set boundaries in dating. I’m grateful for all of that, especially after hearing the horror stories here.