parallel posts (like deuling banjos but better)

On her blog, Redefined Juliet mentions an article my wife had her read in a Cosmo (link to the blog by clicking her name).

Said article, 99 Ways to Please Your Man, was written by a female, probably one of those "I'll never marry but bang every guy I meet to write articles for softcore porn magazines." Let us be real: Cosmo is Penthouse without the nude folk.

Sorry, that's what the taste of bitterness looks like written.

My bitterness isn't that she's banging tons of dudes and I'm not, it's far from that. Far far from that. A few things, actually.

First, It goes back to what I said yesterday about Christian production values.

Where is the Christian 'Cosmo' at?

Yes, if we take the concept and turn it into what we do best (ie: screw things up) we'll get articles about how Magic: The Gathering is witch craft and Pokemon are agents of the devil. Even if I agree Pikachu is a bit satanic: please.

How about we get real for once, folks, and really talk about things we need to talk about.

When was the last time you prayed for the guy who cut you off, or the guy who took the last carton of milk, or the little kid who threw up in line in front of you, or for the people in the accident that made you late this morning?

Go into church this week and when someone asks "How's it going?" tell the truth instead of "Good, good. Things are... good..."

When was the last time lust grabbed you by the neck and screamed to be released?

Where do you pray? Where do you eat? Where do you do your business no one wants to know about but Jesus does?

When was the last time you thought of 99 ways to please your man/woman in a non sexual way?

Now, back to the list at hand. I read through them, and being married I knew the chance of any of those things happening were zilch to none. Mainly because I'm over weight and handicapped and some of the positions would take way more than my body could produce.

The sad part was, I began to think of times when even these 99 things done to me, one after another, would only please me for a bit, if that, and when it was over the moment would be too and my overall pleasure would be 'meh'.

Seriously speaking, when was the last time you had sex and it made the rest of your week perfect?

When was the last time you prayed and it made the rest of your week perfect?

99 Ways to Please Your Man: 1 through 99: pray for him, pray with him, and hug him from time to time, and he'll love you ever so more than you can imagine. I bet dollar to donuts that suggestion wasn't on their list.

Finally, why does it take sex to please a man? I mean, who made that into fact? Some days a doughnut (I'm hungry, sorry) would please me more than sex. Spending time hanging out in sweats, in front of the TV with my family, pleases me more than sex.

Sex with my wife is amazing, don't get me wrong. Being with her is pleasurable, but I am not a one dimension character on a badly written situation comedy. I am a human, with feelings, layers of feelings, complicated layers of feelings. Like an onion or a parfait, everyone loves parfait! I'm not here for sex and food. No, I'm here for love and companionship and family and Christ and His Church and sex is pleasurable but it takes more than that to make it pleasurable.

The "lets do it because we haven't done it forever" reason makes sex a bit less sexy. The "lets do it because I've been staring across the table at you all night undressing you with my eyes" sex is better. The "lets have sex because I love you and you love me and we were created to be together in this moment" sex is the greatest. If you've never had the kind of sex where you look over to your spouse and your eyes meet and it isn't animalistic lust driving you but overwhelming love, I think you need to really evaluate who you're with, or why you haven't reached that.

Yes, God created us to have sex to reproduce but at the same time, God also designed one specific person for you to be with and when you find that person, life is just that much better. I'm not making you question that the person you're with isn't the person you're supposed to be with, I'm making you question the reason you have sex with them.

No matter how you look at it, real sex is for the creation of life but in that real sex there has to be a bond formed beforehand of real love and if there isn't, what the hell?

I'm not going near the mole hill that is "what constitutes as married sex" because that is the same thing. When you are married, you are married for love, for the realization that you want to continue God's work with this person for the rest of your life, raising smaller versions of yourself in God's word, building up a community of God's people with a spouse in hand, children in tow.

Anything less than that is lust.

Question (didn't see that coming, did you? BAH!): Is it wrong to lust after your spouse? Shouldn't every bit of feeling we have towards them be love? When we look across the room and we want to Parkour over the couch, table and chairs, rip their clothes off and pleasure them in 99 different ways you have to take a minute and look at the reasons why.

Are your own feelings coming first? Pardon the pun, but are your own emotions of self gratification overwhelming the emotions of love? If so, it's bad lust. You can love someone so much that every ounce of you can't focus without touching them (even in non sexual ways) and still not be lust.

Yes, there is a fine line between lust and love and it's up to you to really understand the difference in any given situation.

What brought on this feeling? Was it the way she walked into the kitchen. That simple little way she walks that reminds you of the first time you met? That's love, folks. If something they do brings up strong emotions of that person, it's love. Smiling is the strongest sex potion EVER. You want to have sex with your spouse tonight? Smile. Really. Not that stupid goofy smile, but smile at them. When they look at you, even for a moment, smile like you're afraid to say something because it'll be embarrassing and you'll make an ass of yourself for doing it. It's cute, playful, and a turn on (from a guys POV, at least).

If that feeling came because you've had two too many beers. Lust. Or if the feeling came from watching television or a movie unless the movie reminds you of the person. The Notebook, a lovely little movie about old and new love, reminds my wife of our story (don't know why but it does) and it reminds her of the love we have for one another. It starts her mind into that direction, and even though she wants to dive over couches at me, that 'lust' is fueled by love.

If that feeling comes because you've been hit on all day by some other person, that's lust and not only a bad lust but a destructive lust. If that feeling comes because you've been hit on all day by your spouse, by all means, spend the evening locked away in the bedroom or shower or back seat of your van you bunch of love birds you.

If you video tape it, it's lust, and disturbing. If we have learned one thing since the beginning of the internet is that sex tapes ruin lives. See, self porn is still porn.

In the game of paper, rock, scissors; love beats lust and porn every time.