_Soul Virgins_ book review

I'm reviewing an evangelical dating book aimed at young adults in order to understand how the evangelical abstinence literature has responded to the academic research on abstinence education and virginity pledges.

I'll put my conclusions up front because the review itself is long: it's as much my comprehensive notes on the book as it is a review for the reader since I don't know if I have any readers.

They do the expected, which is defining sex explicitly and suggesting a sexual ethic which happens to be Dan Savage's, but they also do some things which I would not have expected:

1. Explicitly acknowledging singles' sexualities, acknowledging that many singles are having sex, and criticizing the church for failing to acknowledge the issues and giving simplistic answers.

2. Actively encouraging some sexual behavior within relationships, and discouraging repression. Limited, of course, but encouraging rather than merely condoning is a big step.

3. Condoning masturbation as an appropriate solution to sexual frustration. It's clear from the way that they wrote the section that this view could be controversial among their readership, which may be why only condoning.

They acknowledge that the expectation that adolescents avoid exclusive relationships and not make out until they're ready to consider marriage may not be realistic for most, but ultimately they have to say this in order for their proposed framework to work. Presumably the number of snogging-only relationships people can have is limited, and if they start in adolescence, that will make people more impatient.


Review:

"Soul Virgins: Redefining single sexuality" by Doug Rosenau and Michael Todd Wilson (2006) is a dating book by two evangelical therapists --- one single; one married --- aimed at evangelical young adults which encourages them to develop and act according to their own sexual ethic. While they do impose the expected limits (no sex, broadly defined), I suspect that the emphasis on independent reasoning as well as some of the specifics of their argument may surprise some. The book starts with an anecdote about telling a fellow Christian pastor that they were teaching a "singles' workshop on sexuality", and the reply was, Two hours? "How many ways can you say 'don't'?"

The authors define a "soul virgin" as someone who "seeks to" fulfill an evangelical Christian sexual ethic, decoupling the question from actual sexual experience and emphasizing that effort really matters. Reframing the virginity question lets them deal with readers who have already had sex without making them feel bad, as well as answer the Bearman and Bruckner finding that virginity pledgers may be using oral or anal sex to substitute for vaginal (oddly, they cite only the Washington Post article in the link rather than the J Adolescent Health paper). They acknowledge that much of their readership is currently sexually active: "many of you are already having sexual intercourse or mutual orgasms with your partner." (p. 213), but not until the very end. Through most of the book, they address their advice irrespective of past, "Regardless of whether you are a physical virgin or not, you can commit to soul virginity by choosing to 'hide' or 'separate' the more intimate expressuions of your erotic sexual behaviors (true sex) from this point forward. This process will also practically serve to re-create and restore your sense of sexual worth and integrity. Virginity is ultimately a heart attitude of chastity and purity." (p.71) This sounds repressive to some readers, but see point three below.

Given adolescents' varying definitions of sex and abstinence, they explicitly criticize the legalisms that bring about "Christian hedonism" (i.e., "anything but") and define true sex to include "all intercourse behavior (oral, anal, vaginal) and mutual orgasms" as "biblically inappropriate outside of a committed marital union." They reemphasize in several places that physical virginity is "not the end itself" and "should not be seen as some magical formula for ensuring sexual purity."

Second, this book deals explicitly with the "how far" question by attempting to make the reader think about their sexual ethic. One of the authors said that when he was growing up, the only sexual behavior allowed before marriage was kissing with a chaperone present, and that the legalistic approach was not motivational. They theorize that slogans like "true love waits" won't affect behavior until people understand "how and why it waits." Perhaps influenced by the research of Bersamin et al, that people who make personal virginity pledges to themselves are less likely to have sex, they encourage people to develop internal motivation for the own stop signs. They give some reasons, as well, such as "building character" since resisting outside sexual temptation is necessary within marriage.

They map out a course of relationships of three C's: "connecting" (friendship, casual dating, and what they call "righteous flirting" - flirting that ultimately leaves both better off than when it started), "coupling" (exclusive relationship considering marriage, including sexual behaviors, with substeps "considering" and "committing"), "covenanting" (marriage, sex.)

At the very end of the book, they have a whole chapter whose subtitle is "The proverbial 'how far can I go?' chapter", which begins, "Some of you probably bought this book just for this chapter and even started reading it first!" They then say that the question itself is immature and selfish, and people should instead be thinking about stewardship of their partner, basically (the gay partnered-but-non-monogamous sex columnist) Dan Savage's campsite rule for dating younger people: leave them better than how you found them. "Righteous flirting" seems to fall into this as well. They say that everyone should think about it for themselves, but they suggest that anything covered by a bikini should be off-limits. They encourage couples to talk about sexual boundaries together.

Their ideal stewardship is one couple where a future groom "expressed appreciation that [his future bride] was a more whole woman in her femininity and sexuality" due to her ex-boyfriend, and so invited him to the wedding.

They distinguish between adolescents and adults with respect to appropriate sexual behaviors: since adolescents are not ready for marriage, they reason, they shouldn't be in exclusive relationships and therefore should not engage in "erotic sexual behaviors" limited to exclusive relationships.


Third, they caution readers not to repress their sexuality, and spend more time talking about the dangers of sexual repression than of sexual excess. For example, "A brief word of caution to those who are... currently sexually active: as you choose to become soul virgins, be careful not to simply repress your sexual behavior. ... Alter your lifestyle..., but don't stop all romantic and erotic relating." (p. 73) "Most tend to err more on the side of Christian hedonism, repression is just as dangerous to healthy relationships. We could relate countless stories of couples that go something like this: A couple tries to control their sexual surging by complete repression. They never kiss, hold hands, or even allow their knees to touch while watching a movie. Even the thought of such things is met with internal messages of being 'wrong' or 'dirty' The couple eventually gets married and on their wedding night find themselves alone for the first time with the expectation that they will undress in each other's presence, touch intimately while naked, sleep in the same bed, and experience blissful intercourse. To their surprise, they can't because the scrit in their minds is still saying 'wrong' and 'dirty'. We aren't suggesting that you nee dto 'practice' certain erotic behaviors for your honeymoon... it's extremely important to recognize and honor your erotic desires in Coupling and not just suppress them....To simply ignore or rebuke these desires altogether can reap an unwanted harvest." (p. 203--4)

They don't officially take a position on masturbation, but implicitly say that it is acceptable. I think it's very clever way to potentially broaden their audience. They note that since the Bible doesn't mention masturbation (i.e., the etymology of "onanism" aside, they say the Onan story is not relevant), everyone has develop their own "theology of masturbation". They include this very Buberian imaginary dialogue with Jesus in which he says, "Why do you Christian leaders waste so much time debating masturbation...? Have you considered the hypocrisy of your Christian culture?...What does masturbation mean to you?" They then give several pages of caveats to the accepting of masturbation, including avoiding pornography, "the rampant disease and vice for the average Christian", and the single co-author admits he's addressed the issue in his own life. They seem to criticize secular culture at least as much for hurting women's body images than for pornography.

As is clear from the above passage on masturbation, they don't hesitate to criticize Christian culture, such as for being obsessed with sexual sin and for overemphasizing traditional roles for women. (They also note that everyone is both masculine and feminine, and note that the married author is less logical and more emotional than his wife.) They criticize Christian culture's simultaneous emphasis on abstinence without explaining what is allowed. "The statement 'sex is for marriage -- be abstinent' without any practical explanation of what is meant by itself can send a distrubing underlying message: 'we aren't comfortable discussing what you do with your sexual desires as a single person. If you just abstain from all erotic sexual behaviors, you'll forget you're a sexual being and won't struggle anymore.' Another unspoken message then becomes, 'As a single person you are asexual until marriage --- then you can turn your sexual switch on.' Obviously, single adults are sexual beings and do have sexual desires."



Remaining true to the genre, they have the requisite excruciatingly long drawn-out metaphors, followed by tedious explanations, such as this one comparing sexuality to a laptop. After several paragraphs discussing how Jane got a laptop and her father taught her to use it, it ends, "Jane is coming home again from grad school with excitement --- along with some embarrassment and shame. Her laptop really has changed her life for the better. She remembers, though, that first heart-wrenching experience when she allowed a friend to install some software. It crashed part of the system and affected the functioning of many programs. She also inadvertently got an email virus that she still isn't sure is fully eliminated. Lots of the computer functions seemed so easy when her dad explained them, but now she feels so confused. Her father understood both her excitement and her need for help. Despite her guilt and shame, he was very supportive when she told him about her mistakes, 'Don't worry, sweetheart,' he gently replied. 'Just bring the computer home. I'll teach you more about it and restore it like new.'" (p. 92-3) No comment.

There are a few other memorable lines, such as "Some days of the month, I'm so turned on I whistle back at construction workers." !


Conclusions:

I read the book to understand how the evangelical abstinence literature has responded to the academic findings about abstinence. It seems that they have a few responses.

They do the expected, which is defining sex explicitly and suggesting a sexual ethic which happens to be Dan Savage's, but they also do some things which I would not have expected:

1. Explicitly acknowledging singles' sexualities, acknowledging that most singles are having sex, and criticizing the church for failing to acknowledge the issues and giving simplistic answers.

2. Actively encouraging some sexual behavior within relationships, and discouraging repression.

3. Condoning masturbation as an appropriate solution to sexual frustration. It's clear from the way that they wrote the section that this view could be controversial among their readership.

4. Most importantly, framing the ideal behavior as an average rather than perfection, and acknowledging that the process is dynamic.


They acknowledge that the expectation that adolescents avoid exclusive relationships and not make out until they're ready to consider marriage may not be realistic for most, but ultimately they have to say this for their proposed framework to work. Presumably the number of snogging-only relationships people can have is limited, and if they start in adolescence, that will make people more impatient.

Viewing this book as a cultural artifact is revealing, but the more interesting question is whether it's reasonable for single young adults. Any plan in any book on any domain of life including diet, exercise, psychology, gardening, cleaning, etc. only gets followed to a limited extent, to the extent that it gets followed at all, and all authors realize this. The fact that they make the ideal as an average does make it more attainable.

Of course my question is whether people who consider themselves as implementing this program will lie on surveys about whether they've had sex.