Question from an outsider

[Keith Martin]

Awesome, @FollowingHim!

This reminds me of a Christian sex ed talk that I watched as a teenager, where the lady made a great point. She said that everyone wanted to know where the line was (in terms of what level of petting of a girl/boyfriend would be ok etc). She said something like "I'm not going to tell you the line. You all just want to know where the line is so you can go right up to the line on the first date, and then having gone there already you'll end up on the other side." Her concluding advice was intentionally simply "Keep your pants on".

And there's the line, although it's probably really just "Keep your hands and feet and everything else to yourself." It hasn't stopped most of them from crossing that line, but I taught all my children what I believe to be the case: kissing is most definitely sex. We can't all get away with being Bill Clinton, but boy do we try! Defining sex down to only being when a penis is inside a vagina (or an anus); some I know don't even count it as sex if a rubber is used. But the truth we all know inside us is that petting is definitely sex. When we engage in it, we are very purposefully encouraging the exact type of arousal designed by our God to lead us to be fruitful and multiply, so when it comes down to it the only fully appropriate time to engage in such behavior is when the creation of permanent commitment is already behind you.

I would further emphasize that by stating that, if one has never experienced a sexual episode one fully intended before it got going to end something short of risking pregnancy that one just didn't have the wherewithal to hold back from, then one has seriously missed out on one of life's greatest pleasures. But that means that, in order to do the big compromise of "only going so far," one has to learn to suppress one's natural impulses in a way that develops self-repression habits that are perhaps so hard to break one never gets one's full functioning back.

If kissing isn't sex, then one is wasting one's time -- or one may as well be kissing one's great-grandmother.

It's fine to conduct a medical examination of another guy's penis, but if while doing it you feel the temptation to "examine" it with your mouth or anus, you need another job.

I would probably have a different take on that, because there's real value in being able to delay gratification, and there's also real value in being able to fully appreciate one's profession. Personally, I don't care if my (male or female) general practitioner or proctologist fantasizes about ravishing me (at least he'd be more likely to be less rough than some of the people I've had to endure -- I'd rather have a prohibition against proctologists with big thumbs, for that matter).

c) Can't see any number mentioned in scripture, so by default one entry to the forbidden zone is the line.

I tend to agree with you, but I was wanting to know what @Mojo thinks, and my question was inspired solely due to his use of "repeated" in the phrase. I have had friends who adhere to the Greco-Roman sensibility regarding homosexual behavior: as long as they have sex with their wives more often and have a greater desire for male-female sex than male-male sex, they believe it is entirely permissible for them to occasionally engage in such fun with other males, the younger the better.

Some of this is hopelessly tied up in the matter of unraveling the knots that Constantine and the Roman Church inserted when they sewed together Christianity and paganism.

 

[FollowingHim]

Her concluding advice was intentionally simply "Keep your pants on".

And there's the line

No, in that talk she was very clear that that was not the line, it was intentionally advice that was overly simplistic and left the question unanswered, as it also didn't take into account petting that would not technically breach that "line". It was a deliberately incorrect "line" intended to leave people having to work out where to stop themselves. But with a grain of truth in it in that if you have to take your pants off to do it, that's a pretty good indicator that you probably shouldn't be there.

 

[Keith Martin]

No, in that talk she was very clear that that was not the line, it was intentionally advice that was overly simplistic and left the question unanswered, as it also didn't take into account petting that would not technically breach that "line". It was a deliberately incorrect "line" intended to leave people having to work out where to stop themselves. But with a grain of truth in it in that if you have to take your pants off to do it, that's a pretty good indicator that you probably shouldn't be there.

Well, either you misunderstood me by focusing on part of a sentence that was part of a contextual paragraph, or you're saying the line is at the point of the penis entering the vagina (or anus, in the case of male homosexuals).

If you're asserting the latter, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. I fully get that your teacher was both saying that keeping one's pants on was kind of the line but one should probably stay away from the ultimate line, but what I'm asserting is that the real line is far removed from getting all the way to the finish line, because sex is very much like a bike race in which the entire course is downhill and only front brakes are allowed. When one engages in sex, powerful forces are unleashed that adults have no business encouraging the children over which they have influence to engage in and those children (and even most unmarried adults, especially those who have never been married before) have no business considering themselves capable of successfully wrestling with forces they don't even want to acknowledge exist.

But we can disagree about where the line is. In fact, you have popular opinion on your side. In my experience, people of almost all religious and secular stripes prefer to draw the line somewhere between just shy of penetration and just shy of being full-term, and I believe that it is reasonable to believe that line belongs anywhere this side of penetration.

On the other hand, it's entirely irrational to leave two unmarried teenagers alone when they have feelings for each other in combination with believing that "with my kids it will be different." I'll say what I've said before: what I believe is often behind granting that freedom when it's not a matter of cluelessness or bad memory is instead a matter of cognitive dissonance inspired by having a good memory about how one crossed the lines oneself when one was young and feeling guilty about denying one's children that kind of experience that one remembers with great fondness despite knowing full well that it violates the teachings one has been raising one's children with. If one is going to feign cluelessness in that regard when one's children reach the blistering horniness stage, then one may as well skip all the happy talk at home or in Sunday School about how it's best to save one's virginity for the wedding night.

 

[Mojo]

Great question, @Mojo, and, no, you needn't post this elsewhere (although it might work at rockfoxautozone.com).

I used the word 'behavior' in the original post, because I was specifically referring to Lev. 20:13, which doesn't speak to thoughts or desires but to actual male homosexual behavior (I've posted elsewhere that my fairly extensive but still decidedly incomplete research on the etymology of Lev. 20:13 indicates to me that it was purposefully mistranslated from a Hebrew phrase that was spoken in a responsive voice -- possibly in response to a what's-good-for-the-goose question about fairness asked of Moses when he returned from Mt. Sinai -- meaning instead that a man may not sexually share his wife with another man, but for the purposes of this particular thread I'm assuming the meaning conveyed by perhaps the only instance of universal unanimity in translation in Scripture: a man shall not lie with another man as one would with a woman, which is generally assumed to mean that a man shall not have penetrative sexual intercourse with another man). With all due respect to the titan authority on Scripture, former president Jimmy Earl, The Word generally addresses prohibitions against acting on impulses. YHWH knows what is in our hearts, but He generally restricts us to being punished for our deeds.

The main point of the thread was to address rebellion of children, not so much homosexual behavior (Lev. 20:13 was used to compare how differently we now enforce two prohibitions), but right behind rebellion this thread clearly ended up addressing the grace of YHWH we're to emulate.

Now that you've brought it up, though, and given that this thread fizzled out almost 4 weeks ago, I have a another thought inspired by your question: (a) Is there a sin distinction between male:male "entries into the forbidden zone" and "interactions of a sexual nature with other males?" I do get that other behaviors aside from anal penetration could occur between men that would still be entirely sexual -- and they aren't actually mentioned in Scripture, that I can recall -- but the general assumption in our religious and secular cultures is that it's all part of one package (no pun intended) and is either collectively condemned or collectively celebrated. (b) I know this is like the third rail of fundamentalist patriarchal Biblical polygyny, but, if there is a distinction, and the other sexual behaviors are not specifically prohibited, does that at all open the door to condoning or tolerating them? (c) Does it really matter how many entries there are into the forbidden zone; i.e., is it only after one develops a habit or a serious pattern of bone smuggling that YHWH asserts it is abominable?

I knew the original intent of your post, but since I'm not a Torah guy, I didn't feel comfortable replying to that specific inquiry.

But, your talk of homosexuals piqued my curiosity on your viewpoint. I agree that the actual act (and only once is required) is the violation/abomination that is being spoken of, but since scripture doesn't use the term homosexual in either OT or NT, I was curious as to how you were using it in relation to your conversation. Paul perhaps comes closest when he refers to the effeminate and abusers not inheriting the kingdom, but it still doesn't address the topic of our modern definitions of homosexuality, I suppose.

Does a person who is curious and commits the abominable act just once a homosexual?
Is hand pleasuring abominable? Does a desire to do so, while fully appreciating and enjoying all the pleasure of a female on a regular basis make someone a homosexual, or just a deviant?

It opens up a can of worms I have no interest in engaging, because I don't desire those things, but some men may, and wonder if it will cause them to lose the kingdom, or at least lose fellowship with their maker. Does it make them a homosexual by your terms? That's all I was getting at. I wasn't trying to create a primer on "how to get close to the abominable, but not cross over". I have no desire to touch another man's junk, nor he mine, but some pious men may have had the thought and struggle.

 

[FollowingHim]

Well, either you misunderstood me by focusing on part of a sentence that was part of a contextual paragraph, or you're saying the line is at the point of the penis entering the vagina (or anus, in the case of male homosexuals).

I think you're misunderstanding me.

The line between what behaviour you should vs should not engage in is very early, exactly as you have described - basically you should be stopping before the point where the activities each start rapidly encouraging you on to the next potential activity on the list.

The line of what is technically sin is much later - and I'd draw that line at penetration, just to have a technical point to draw it at. That technical line is completely unhelpful to inform behaviour though, as if you try and do everything before it and think you'll be able to stop there - you won't stop there. So the practical line comes far, far earlier, and again you've described it well.

 

[Keith Martin]

I think you're misunderstanding me.

The line between what behaviour you should vs should not engage in is very early, exactly as you have described - basically you should be stopping before the point where the activities each start rapidly encouraging you on to the next potential activity on the list.

The line of what is technically sin is much later - and I'd draw that line at penetration, just to have a technical point to draw it at. That technical line is completely unhelpful to inform behaviour though, as if you try and do everything before it and think you'll be able to stop there - you won't stop there. So the practical line comes far, far earlier, and again you've described it well.

So, would any of us consider his wife free from sin if she restricted herself to letting herself be fondled but refrained from ever having other men's penises inside her? Or limited herself to letting herself fondle other men?

If nothing else, we should be consistent between what we excuse pre-wedding and what we excuse post-wedding.

I also request that those reading what I'm writing don't read 'sin' into every behavior I caution against. I don't know if being a homosexual is sin, but, if the translators are universally correct about Lev. 20:13, then one particular homosexual act is sin, because YHWH specifically prohibited it, just as he prohibited men having sex with their mothers or daughters. To go beyond that is to have the hubris of divine presumption.

I also would not label unmarried heterosexual penetration as sin; it's generally foolish, but as long as those involved are willing to tackle every ramification of the act without attempting to escape any consequences, then it's not sin; it's instead what we call marriage, because according to YHWH the two would be married in His Eyes -- but we've had that argument elsewhere already. If my exegesis is correct, though, everyone is a virgin until marriage, and the only potential sins involved are divorce, domestic abuse and abandonment of children. I know we all want to excuse the nooky we got either with someone we didn't marry or someone we did marry before we married hir, but really it's a matter of talking apples and oranges on the subject. It's not so much that the sex was the problem; it's either (a) the effort to deny that it has consequences beyond pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, or (b) talking out of one side of one's mouth regarding the sexual behavior by looking for YHWH's law on the matter but talking out of the other side of one's mouth regarding what authorities we look to for the definitions of when marriage occurs. Are we considering ourselves married under the authority of YHWH, knowing that He sees and knows all? Or are we considering ourselves married when a Priest, a Preacher, a Justice of the Peace or some guy with a mail-in diploma from the Universal Life Church performs a ceremony?

 

[Keith Martin]

I knew the original intent of your post, but since I'm not a Torah guy, I didn't feel comfortable replying to that specific inquiry.

But, your talk of homosexuals piqued my curiosity on your viewpoint. I agree that the actual act (and only once is required) is the violation/abomination that is being spoken of, but since scripture doesn't use the term homosexual in either OT or NT, I was curious as to how you were using it in relation to your conversation.

The Bible doesn't mention the word masturbation, either, but that doesn't stop us from knowing that's what Onan was doing when YHWH struck him down not for spanking the monkey but for thumbing his nose at the Levirate law.

I'll move on to specific definitions in a minute, but we generally know what homosexual means. If you hearken back to my previous posts, you'll discover that I'm making a distinction between desires and deeds. Homosexual behavior does not necessarily make one a homosexual, but that doesn't stop certain homosexual behavior from being condemned by YHWH (again, assuming the validity of the translations, and plese don't go to Bible Hub for a translation from Hebrew, because I'm pretty sure in most cases they're just referencing the Septuagint).

Does a person who is curious and commits the abominable act just once a homosexual?

In modern day civilized society, we have excellent working definitions of these words. A heterosexual is someone who only desires sexual intercourse (in its various forms) with members of the opposite gender. One who behaves heterosexually only has sexual intercourse with members of the opposite gender. A homosexual is someone who only desires sexual intercourse (in its various forms) with members of the same gender. One who behaves homosexually only has sexual intercourse with members of the same gender. Set Kinsey's highly flawed research aside; he claimed that only 10% of all people are heterosexually oriented and that fully 10% of all people possess a homosexual orientation, with all others being bisexual on a continuum from mostly heterosexual to mostly bisexual. This was oversimplified wishful thinking on his part, and subsequent real research has yielded a fairly consistent result of about 1.5% females (1 in 66) being homosexual and 2.5% males (1 in 40) being homosexual, whereas anywhere from 40-60% are heterosexual. It is not the case, as gay activist tend to assert, that most people would come out as gay or bi if it weren't for societal stigma. That accounts for some of it, but the driving dynamic is that the fact that most people are either straight or just slightly bisexual is what causes the stigma in the first place, because majority rules.

Let's complicate this further: an entirely heterosexual person can engage in a homosexual act -- and even find some degree of gratification from it -- and still be entirely heterosexual, because, afterward, no gay lust is inspired. Conversely, an entirely homosexual person can engage in a homosexual act and also experience some gratification, without changing hir stripes in the matter. One use of the word concerns a person's sexual orientation, and the other use of the word concerns a person's sexual behavior.

Is hand pleasuring abominable?

My vote would be No, because YHWH didn't mention it. That doesn't make it divinely inspired or anything, and I would echo what I've written above about the wisdom and efficacy of avoiding engaging in such behaviors with another human being when one isn't fully prepared to spend the rest of one's life with hir, but it's not abominable.

Does a desire to do so, while fully appreciating and enjoying all the pleasure of a female on a regular basis make someone a homosexual, or just a deviant?

Neither, and, just so you know, if your protestations about how you've never had any desire to mess around with another man are sincere (and, believe me, I'm not doubting you or any other specific individual), then that would put you into a rare minority of men. Again, the research has been done, both through anonymous questionnaires and electrode stimulation testing.

By definition, if one fully appreciates and enjoys all the pleasure of females on a regular basis, one literally cannot be a homosexual, because homosexual men only desire the pleasures of other men; they can behave heterosexually -- and many do to pass as straights -- but that is not recipe for fully desiring and appreciating a woman.

The word 'deviant' is also overly loaded. Literally it just means someone who significantly deviates from the norm. The norm in moral and squeamishness matters becomes what is labeled as Good, but that is somewhat arbitrary, just as, if most people were schizophrenic, not being schizophrenic would be considered insanity, legitimately so (the progressives are dedicated right now to redefining what we have considered normal up until now as mental illness). Being deviant doesn't make someone unwholesome, sinful, bad or immoral, necessarily. We can get fairly close to universal agreement that wanting to have sex with dogs while torturing cats is disgustingly morally deviant, but it is also entirely deviant for couples who have been married for over two decades to be madly in love with each other -- and yet some are, and they're definitely far out of the norm, so they qualify as deviant, but do they qualify as worthy of condemnation just because they're deviant.

One thing fundamental Christendom is very uncomfortable with is the notion that God created people the way they are and that this also applies to those who identify as homosexual, but they need to prepare themselves for what looks like relatively overwhelming evidence. It's not evidence just because some gay people turn themselves around (or in knots) to dedicate themselves solely to a heterosexual marriage (I have a friend who did that); empirical evidence (you know, that thing that scientismists like Fauci pretend to refer to when they say, "Follow the Science?") is increasingly pointing to that homosexual orientations probably are present at birth -- or before. It's nature over nurture, and mountains of effort has been wasted trying to wrestle gay men into not being gay.

I don't desire those things, but some men may, and wonder if it will cause them to lose the kingdom, or at least lose fellowship with their maker.

These hypothetical men have nothing to worry about; whether they believe it deep in their souls, and whether Torah or non-Torah, the official Word is that those behaviors are not associated with salvation. I'm not going to discuss the fine-tuning of what job description one might end up with in the Kingdom on Earth or that in the Celestials based on particular transgressions, but the really meaty question is salvation, and, please, brothers and sisters, let's not argue about whether or not Paul made it clear that salvation is entirely based on faith in the healing power of Christ's Passion and Resurrection.

Every one of us is a sinner and has no claim on higher status because of supposedly lesser-level sins. We are all sinners, and we're all broken. Again, if the Seventy Special Translators who saw fit to translate Scripture from the language of Moses into the language of their oppressors got it right, then a man entering through another man's back door is an abomination, but the punishment listed for that (whether the maximum or the minimum, and I do like that maximum interpretation) is the same as for a son's second episode of talking back to his parents, and I can't remember either being tagged with non-salvation.

Does it make them a homosexual by your terms?

No, because to be a homosexual one has to have no desire for the opposite gender.

I have no desire to touch another man's junk, nor he mine, but some pious men may have had the thought and struggle.

As human beings, male or female, we struggle with many of our thoughts. It is why we are blessed with an El Who sacrificed His Own Son on our behalf to wipe away our sins and impute His Goodness as our own.

Because we simply cannot, no matter how hard we try, do it on our own.

 

[FollowingHim]

So, would any of us consider his wife free from sin if she restricted herself to letting herself be fondled but refrained from ever having other men's penises inside her? Or limited herself to letting herself fondle other men?

No, we'd certainly consider her in sin - because I expect all of us husbands have the expectation that our wives do not permit themselves to be fondled by other men. Being fondled by other men would therefore be sin, because it is disobedience to her husband.

On the other hand, if a young single woman is fondled by a man, I wouldn't consider her married to that man, yet - but to be on a clear path in that direction.

If nothing else, we should be consistent between what we excuse pre-wedding and what we excuse post-wedding.

I agree. And I am fairly sure that I am more prudish than you in what behaviour I would excuse in either case! I am simply cautious not to claim something is "sin" without clear scriptural grounds. I am very conservative in my use of the label "sin", but liberal in my use of "don't do that, it's foolish"!

I would not excuse fondling (for instance) with a man other than the intended / actual husband either pre- or post-wedding. Fondling with the intended husband is on the other hand simply foreplay leading to that physical wedding - so should only occur once it's clear that a wedding is the intended destination.

The wedding itself being consummation.

 

[Keith Martin]

No, we'd certainly consider her in sin - because I expect all of us husbands have the expectation that our wives do not permit themselves to be fondled by other men. Being fondled by other men would therefore be sin, because it is disobedience to her husband

You and I are in general agreement. I'm wondering, though, if your assertion is really that a wife being fondled by other men would only be sin because it is disobedience to her husband; what if her husband gave her permission to be fondled by other men? Here's a non-hypothetical (because a woman at the dating site contacted me with this situation): what if a husband becomes medically-verified physically impotent, he and his wife still love each other, but she doesn't want to spend the next 30 years of her life sans sexual intercourse, he doesn't want her to spend the next 30 years of her life sans sexual intercourse, and the solution they have devised to handle this dilemma is to seek a man who will make love with her while the husband watches? What is your opinion about what the sin would or wouldn't be in this set of circumstances? Just a guess on my part, but let's stipulate for the sake of thought experiment that no danger of impregnation exists.

 

[Julia Mykaele]

what if a husband becomes medically-verified physically impotent

Well.. not only his body is impotent, but also his masculinity.

If I have a husband like that I will even separate.

And if I were in this condition of physical impotence, I would rather die..

 

[FollowingHim]

You and I are in general agreement. I'm wondering, though, if your assertion is really that a wife being fondled by other men would only be sin because it is disobedience to her husband; what if her husband gave her permission to be fondled by other men?

I know that's not hypothetical, and I had it in mind when writing my last post.

My gut feel on this is that it is obviously sinful for a wife to be fondled by other men. However, if someone were to challenge me to back that from scripture, I realise I would be unable to. Scripture does not define the line. So I cannot prove from the text that my emotive reaction that this is sin is necessarily correct. I can assert that penetration constitutes sex, so that is the firm undeniable line where sin is clearly occurring.

But I do know that the vast majority of men will also feel emotionally (rightly or wrongly) that this is sin, and that in itself makes it sin - and negates the need to find a clear scriptural line. This resolves the conundrum, in the vast majority of real cases.

The case of a husband who willingly permits his wife to be fondled is a case where all that determines sin is God's line - which is not clearly defined, but likely lies somewhere between what we emotively react to and penetration. The couple that decides to willingly risk crossing that is foolish and will answer to God for their sin - He knowing precisely what parts of what they did were sin in His eyes.

Note also that a decent subset of husbands who give their wives this freedom may well be unwilling to do so but feel forced to because of guilt (they're messing around themselves and giving their wife the freedom to do the same makes them feel less guilty about their own behaviour), feminism (their wife wants to and they feel no right to control her) or other factors. The number of men who truly feel comfortable with this would be much smaller.

 

[Mojo]

@Keith Martin , thank you for your apologeia. It helps me to understand where you are coming from. We differ in some aspects, but agree in most.

Two notes:

1) I used 'deviant' in its strictest form (deviating from the norm-biological or societal). I wasn't implying a value judgment.
2) I guess I'm in the rare minority, then. I've never desired inserting in or being inserted by a male, or any pleasuring of any kind. I won't go into psychoanalyzing you or anyone else on this forum, but I think many of us males on this forum probably fit into that category, but I won't ask for confirmation.

 

[Keith Martin]

Well.. not only his body is impotent, but also his masculinity.

If I have a husband like that I will even separate.

And if I were in this condition of physical impotence, I would rather die..

Hi @Julia Mykaele . For the sake of this particular thread, could you please identify whether you are (a) a Torah Keeper, Messianic or Hebrew Roots person, or (b) not a member of one of those groups?

 

[FollowingHim]

I guess I'm in the rare minority, then. I've never desired inserting in or being inserted by a male, or any pleasuring of any kind.

I wouldn't ever have thought you're in a minority. I find the idea of sexual activity involving another male so instinctively disgusting that I have no subconscious desire to watch even heterosexual pornography, because although there might be an interesting looking woman in it the very presence of a man in the picture would spoil the whole thing! Just to make clear that I'm not just trying to sound all self-righteous and am simply explaining my mindset: this does conversely mean that I can understand the attraction of lesbian porn, since that would eliminate that majorly offputting factor (not that I indulge in it)!

I was as surprised at Keith's statement as you were. @Keith Martin, I wonder how representative the survey samples were in the studies you refer to. It's entirely possible that @Mojo and I are in the minority but never realised it, but I think it seems more plausible that people with an agenda would have conducted research that indicated purely heterosexual men are in the minority simply to assist in the cultural normalisation of homosexuality. Obviously Kinsey was doing just that, and his work is untrustworthy - but that doesn't mean that people who have reached lower results that still support that social agenda are being honest. Kinsey may have been a deliberate set-up to make the rest look plausible by comparison and deflect tougher critique of their findings.

 

[Keith Martin]

@FollowingHim -- it just occurred to me that the number of times that you and I have mentioned that we are being misunderstood by each other could also create the impression that we're in stark disagreement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my perception is that you and I are predominantly in agreement here. I see what we're discussing as being a matter of helping each other provide greater fine-tuning on exploratory understandings of Scripture and how It is applied.

I know that's not hypothetical, and I had it in mind when writing my last post.

My gut feel on this is that it is obviously sinful for a wife to be fondled by other men. However, if someone were to challenge me to back that from scripture, I realise I would be unable to.

Well, far be it from me to disagree about your own assessment of your inabilities, but I suspect you would indeed be able to back that up with Scripture, and all you'd have to do is take your argument here . . .

The number of men who truly feel comfortable with this would be much smaller.

. . . and apply it to the Adultery section of the Decalogue. I'm not at home right now and too lazy to do a broad Internet search, but someone whose book I've read in the past few years (Luck?; I don't think so, but maybe) provided brilliant scholarship convincingly asserting that the current-day-modern-culture-mixed-with-church-induced-dogma interpretation of adultery is substantively different from the working definition at the time of Moses and that the Hebrew words associated with that particular thou shalt not was best translated as participating in any sexual behavior that is humiliating or degrading, a broad category that included even the rape of one's own wife, but it would certainly include the one thing that we seem to have left in the definition, which is one's wife having sex with another man while already married to her husband, because, in the realm of human nature, it is nearly universal that the husband would be humiliated by that, given that, as you say, not only would he not want her to be messing with other men, he also wouldn't want anyone to know she was messing with anyone else -- for a great many reasons.

What I'm driving at, especially when looking at Torah, is the realm of exceptions -- both the exceptions we resist that maybe we shouldn't and the exceptions we may be too cavalierly condoning.

In the first category, we have the couple who mutually (I may not have emphasized that enough) desire for the wife to engage in sexual intercourse with other men with the stipulation that the husband always be present to experience it vicariously. In such a case, no significant humiliation can be inferred, because the couple is not only seeking this, they are also doing so in a relatively public forum with posted non-nude photographs of themselves. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the mystery author's historical research (s/he pointedly cited the biblical passage about a couple engaging in full-on sex in a public garden without condemnation as an example of how public displays of affection could have been considered non-humiliating as compared to how such behavior is generally legislated against in modern times, but also citing either a scripture or an extant historical document from the same time period indicating that a man was punished severely for committing adultery because he had very purposefully and degradingly ravaged his wife in public -- because it was considered an act intended to humiliate her, whereas some stranger rapes were not considered adultery, because, even though the parties were not married, the act was not cooperative on the woman's part, and the rapist neither knew the woman's husband nor raped her to humiliate her; in fact, he had attempted to do it in a way in which it would not be discovered if the woman hadn't reported him), but if adultery during the Exodus was assumed to require some degree of humiliation, wouldn't what this couple is doing fail to meet the full definition of adultery?

In the second category of exceptions we might be too cavalierly condoning, though, what comes to mind is a concept I used to entirely dismiss out of hand: the possibility that promiscuous sex (even just fondling for the sake of sexual excitation) with anyone but someone one forms a lifetime commitment is adultery, because it's a transgression against the fondler's future spouse(s). Here I bring back in the issue of consistency: if we're going to label fondling by or of one's spouse adultery (and, really, the only scripture available with which to label such behavior as sin is the prohibition against adultery), is it only adultery because one of the participants is married to someone else? Or is it inescapable that adultery itself is prohibited essentially because it is sex (messing around with nearly untamable forces) in a context lacking proper respect for the ramifications?

To be consistent, I don't see how we excuse ourselves for condoning one if not the other, and I will also add in here that it is a rare man who isn't at least somewhat disturbed contemplating the other men with whom his wife has already accepted penetration -- especially when he knows that others have direct knowledge of those earlier encounters. It is for this very reason that a nearly universal code among 'brothers' exists to discourage men from dating their close male friends' ex-girlfriends.

But I do know that the vast majority of men will also feel emotionally (rightly or wrongly) that this is sin, and that in itself makes it sin - and negates the need to find a clear scriptural line.

@FollowingHim, when you read this as it's printed (and I promise I quoted it accurately), doesn't it read like not only (a) that humans have the power to define what is sin, but (b) that a man can define sin based on his emotions?

 

[Keith Martin]

2) I guess I'm in the rare minority, then. I've never desired inserting in or being inserted by a male, or any pleasuring of any kind.

I really should further clarify that particular comment in my earlier message: I was intending to be very literal when I asserted that it was relatively rare for a male to have never had any kind of impulse, desire, momentary fantasy, etc. involving another male. Statistically, a large percentage of very young boys (the most typical age is between 4 and 6) engage in exploratory sex play; even those boys are ultimately heterosexual -- they've discovered their own penises and can't resist the impulse to see if another one might be just as much fun, and they know that the adults are uncomfortable with what they're doing, which is why it's almost instinctual for parents to refrain from letting boys wrestle around naked without at least some casual supervision.

Now, add to that percentage anyone else who even for a moment (as odd as this may sound, one of the most common times for men to fantasize about another man is while with his own female sexual partner during moments of relative boredom in the midst of what is predominantly a very exciting, engaging set of interactions) and perhaps only one time in his life contemplates the body of another man in a way that excites him. Yes, some men are 100% devoid of ever having had either of the above-mentioned experiences, but they are rare. Perhaps in this Biblical Families cohort, those rarities are over-represented . . .

I think many of us males on this forum probably fit into that category, but I won't ask for confirmation.

. . . and, yes, I know you didn't ask for confirmation, but it's fairly likely you're accurate about that. However . . . what's most important about this discussion of definitions of 'homosexual,' 'bisexual' and 'heterosexual' is that, when the accurately-assessed categories of those men who are heterosexual and predominantly heterosexually-oriented bisexual are combined, that combination accounts for the vast number of men, period. If I'm remembering the percentages perfectly, approximately 20 times as many men are heterosexual as those who are homosexual in orientation. Now, even though almost as many men have a bisexual orientation as have a homosexual orientation, those bisexual men do not have a bell curve graph; i.e., they are not evenly divided in regard to how many are mostly straight versus how many are mostly gay. In fact, empirical research of a varying approaches has confirmed that, just as statistical analysis would predict, they are skewed in a way that reflects the discrepancy between straights and gays in general: men who identify as bisexual are about 20 times more likely to report being mostly straight than they are to be mostly gay. Thus, approximately 95% of all men prefer sex with women to sex with men -- no matter what the percentages seem like when one watches primetime TV sitcoms.

The other thing that is important to remember is that neither playing around with some other little boy when you're 4 nor letting another 12-year-old boy suck the chrome off your gearstick nor enjoying imagining watching your wife mount some other stud stops a man from being completely straight. If you have ever had a close friend who is truly gay, you will know exactly what I'm talking about: a homosexual man looks at a woman's vagina and might as well be looking at a concrete block. No one in this group is in that category. Some closeted gays will pretend to be straight to the extent of getting married to a woman, but the motivation of that is to fit in, so already here we have at least TWO reasons why a gay man wouldn't pretend to be a polygamist.[/user][/user]

 

[Keith Martin]

I was as surprised at Keith's statement as you were. @Keith Martin, I wonder how representative the survey samples were in the studies you refer to. It's entirely possible that @Mojo and I are in the minority but never realised it, but I think it seems more plausible that people with an agenda would have conducted research that indicated purely heterosexual men are in the minority simply to assist in the cultural normalisation of homosexuality. Obviously Kinsey was doing just that, and his work is untrustworthy - but that doesn't mean that people who have reached lower results that still support that social agenda are being honest. Kinsey may have been a deliberate set-up to make the rest look plausible by comparison and deflect tougher critique of their findings.

Two responses to this:

1. You know I have great comfort with a number of things (e.g., my take on Wuhan Flu Hysteria) that many would label conspiracy theories, but what you're suggesting involves way too much advance planning, and, given that it's a progressive agenda, there's no way that Kinsey could have had the wherewithal to organize people who weren't even born before he died to conduct research that was faked just enough to look real because of how fake his research was. Not possible. But his research is beyond fake; it was just ludicrous and is only even known about today because when it came out it was all the very beleaguered homosexual activist community had to glom onto. And it made them feel like they were far less statistically deviant than in reality they are.
2. You'll have to either take my word for it or take the time and effort you believe it to be worth to discover what I'm pointing to when it comes to how rare it is for men to not be at least a tiny bit excited by the opposite sex [one of the many and one of the most telling methods of determining one's level of excitation is to hook one up to a set of electrodes designed to measure momentary reactions in different reaction centers in the brain, capable of distinguishing between pleasurable excitation and disgust excitation; this can also be done with electrodes attached to the penis and/or test observers monitoring penile reactions: all of this takes place as one is shown a series of slides -- it's not entirely unlike some of what takes place in the Stanley Kubrick movie, A Clockwork Orange]. The taboo against having such feelings is so overwhelmingly overwhelming in our JudeoChristian-heritage culture, with ramifications that, up until sometime in our lifetimes put one at risk of being pummeled to death with baseball bats (it's rather easy to forget how near in history that was when one focuses on the current mainstream popular entertainment media) that it makes taboos against polygamy pale in comparison. I just found out after his death this year that a guy who could have been our homecoming king in high school was gay -- no one we went to school with knew. I got in trouble back then for being tolerant about homosexuality and was entirely comfortable with anyone's sexual orientation unless a guy tried to push me into doing something, but I frequently sat on the bus with this guy and never suspected a thing. I thing that most of us wouldn't surprise people who know us well when they find out that we want to be married to more than one woman. Anyway, what I'm saying is that the taboo is strong enough to cause even the most self-aware man to suppress anything that comes close to desire for another man. When I was being trained as a sex therapist, my mentor asked this question: "When someone feels disgust for bodies of the same gender, is that disgust hard-wired from birth as part of one's orientation, or is it a disgust that arises from fear of the ramifications of being known as someone who would have such attractions?" I'm not asking that question to cajole or coerce anyone to respond to it personally. In fact, I was very disappointed when I came to this thread and discovered that anyone was offering up testimonials about being 110% straight. We were talking about definitions here, and I was just sharing objective statistical facts (which, by the way, are as heavily researched as the weight with which sex holds importance for human beings), but that doesn't mean anyone has to prove anything one way or another.

One should be very cautious before engaging in such forms of self-disclosure, not only for one's own sake but for the sake of those who may not happen to possess the particular set of perfectly non-homosexual impulses that are the only guarantee of full approval in a decidedly patriarchal community.

 

[Keith Martin]

Oops. Was I not supposed to respond to him? I didn't realize that was part of the etiquette here.

It's not really my place to define the etiquette here, @Philip, because I'm not Hebrew Roots, but I would say as the original poster of this thread that you did nothing by responding. The poster of the post to which you responded may also have been unaware of his actual violation of etiquette, but it was that. As someone who fits somewhere into the Messianic/Hebrew Roots/Torah Keeper rubric, you can probably appreciate there being somewhere within this widely-varying-range-of-religious-orientations support group for patriarchal Biblical polygyny where you can limit any conflicts to being only those within that rubric.

It also works the other way around, because those who don't adhere to the bounds of that rubric do not fancy being attacked for not doing so elsewhere on this web site.

I post here, as far as I'm concerned, as a guest, so it is incumbent upon me and the rest of the guests to treat our hosts with all due respect. I can be a contentious sort, and it's observable that I'm even being contentious in this particular thread about some concepts that are in dispute in general, as opposed to being in dispute between the M/HR/TK and GA (Grace Alone) camps.

 

[FollowingHim]

@FollowingHim -- it just occurred to me that the number of times that you and I have mentioned that we are being misunderstood by each other could also create the impression that we're in stark disagreement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my perception is that you and I are predominantly in agreement here. I see what we're discussing as being a matter of helping each other provide greater fine-tuning on exploratory understandings of Scripture and how It is applied.

I completely agree. We are largely in agreement. We are simply devoting most of our words to talking about some very small areas where we are in disagreement, or more accurately not-yet-in-agreement as we're still kicking around ideas.

In those areas, some of what you say makes me decidedly uncomfortable - and that is a good thing, as it challenges me to think more!

I really should further clarify that particular comment in my earlier message: I was intending to be very literal when I asserted that it was relatively rare for a male to have never had any kind of impulse, desire, momentary fantasy, etc. involving another male.

That explains your point completely and makes my comment somewhat irrelevant. I understand where you're coming from better now, and am comfortable with your explanation as to why these studies are likely not fraudulent.

One should be very cautious before engaging in such forms of self-disclosure, not only for one's own sake but for the sake of those who may not happen to possess the particular set of perfectly non-homosexual impulses that are the only guarantee of full approval in a decidedly patriarchal community.

I was actually thinking about the same thing, but in this case I rightly or wrongly felt it was actually good to make such a comment, because I felt there was a risk of strongly heterosexual readers (whom I assume are the majority, because we all assume everyone is like us...) feeling that they would not fit in here after your comment!

But I do know that the vast majority of men will also feel emotionally (rightly or wrongly) that this is sin, and that in itself makes it sin - and negates the need to find a clear scriptural line.

@FollowingHim, when you read this as it's printed (and I promise I quoted it accurately), doesn't it read like not only (a) that humans have the power to define what is sin, but (b) that a man can define sin based on his emotions?

Yes, that sentence doesn't come across well in isolation. I had explained it better in my previous post and was summarising there. My point was not that just because we feel emotionally that something is sin, then it is automatically sin. My point was rather that if a husband feels something is sinful then he will forbid his wife from doing it, making doing it disobedience to her husband, and therefore sinful.

 

[FollowingHim]

the working definition at the time of Moses and that the Hebrew words associated with that particular thou shalt not was best translated as participating in any sexual behavior that is humiliating or degrading

I'd like to see the scholarship behind that, if you suddenly remember where it came from and can put your hands on it easily (I'm not asking you to spend hours hunting for it). It's a major assertion that I'd need to see more justification for than just some-guy-I-read-once-said-this!

I have always looked at the 7th and 8th commandments as paralleling the 10th commandment. Don't take your neighbour's wife (7), or his stuff (8), - actually, don't even think about taking his wife or his stuff (10). When looked at with that parallelism it becomes a simple matter of theft.

However, that isn't the whole picture, because it leaves open the question of "what if you do X with his wife but don't steal her", or "what if he permits you to do X with his wife". It's far too limited. We know from scriptural examples that sex with another man's wife is sinful even if she is not taken away from him completely. So adultery is broader than this and does cover any sex with another man's wife - however we define sex.

There is also the parallel of idolatry, which also helps us to see that adultery is taking service that is due only to a woman's legitimate head, and giving it to someone who is not her head.

I don't see any way to shoehorn "humiliating or degrading" into that definition. It seems an entirely different matter. I can't find any suggestion of this in Brown-Driver-Briggs or Gesenius' lexicons either. So until I see some evidence of that I'm going to set aside the idea that it could refer to any "humiliating or degrading" sex, and stick with the concept that adultery is simply taking another man's wife in some way.

Incidentally, this is a great way to teach the concept to children! It lets you explain adultery even to kids who have no knowledge of sex, and without using the word "adultery" and confusing them. Too many kids are taught "husbands and wives should not commit adultery", which is simply a way of reading it to children while deliberately leaving them confused as to what it means because you don't want to talk about "icky" sex stuff with them, so use a word they don't know the meaning of. Far better to tell them "don't steal other men's wives", or even "don't break marriages" as that is an even clearer broad concept that they can understand. But I digress.

I like your approach of looking at the exceptions. My answers for them may be inadequate, but here are my thoughts:

the couple who mutually (I may not have emphasized that enough) desire for the wife to engage in sexual intercourse with other men with the stipulation that the husband always be present to experience it vicariously

Clearly the wife is not being stolen from the husband, so the first parallel is not helpful.
But if we parallel this with idolatry - would God be happy to allow us to offer worship to idols provided He could watch and enjoy seeing us dancing around and so forth? Obviously not.
So as marriage parallels our relationship with God, this has to be considered adultery.

In the second category of exceptions we might be too cavalierly condoning, though, what comes to mind is a concept I used to entirely dismiss out of hand: the possibility that promiscuous sex (even just fondling for the sake of sexual excitation) with anyone but someone one forms a lifetime commitment is adultery, because it's a transgression against the fondler's future spouse(s). Here I bring back in the issue of consistency: if we're going to label fondling by or of one's spouse adultery (and, really, the only scripture available with which to label such behavior as sin is the prohibition against adultery), is it only adultery because one of the participants is married to someone else? Or is it inescapable that adultery itself is prohibited essentially because it is sex (messing around with nearly untamable forces) in a context lacking proper respect for the ramifications?

Adultery, in every lexicon, is defined as sex with a married woman. In every scriptural example of adultery where the identity of the parties is given (I have listed them all before to check this), the woman is married or betrothed. And the above parallelisms also show adultery is with a married woman. Therefore I think it is entirely reasonable to say something is only "adultery" if the woman is married (or betrothed) to somebody else.

However, adultery is just one type of sexual sin, "fornication" being a catch-all term for more sins than this. Promiscuous sex with an unmarried woman is not "adultery" - but may be fornication. I'm not excusing it, just being precise with the terminology.

I would say that if someone has sex (ignoring the question of what "sex" is) with an available, unmarried woman, they have an obligation to take her as their wife. If they fail to do so, they are sinning. But the sex itself was not the sin - the sin is the failure to follow through on the obligation created by that sex. So I am not condoning that sort of behaviour in any way whatsoever.

The sex cannot be sin against a future spouse, because if they had followed through with their obligations there would not have been any future spouse that they were transgressing against - they themselves would be the spouse. So the sex is not committing adultery against a hypothetical future spouse, because at that point they themselves are the rightful future spouse and cannot be sinning against themselves by having sex with their own rightful future spouse! Yet abandoning that person is sinful - and having sex with the intent of abandoning the person afterwards is sinful for the same reason.