Dalrock’s brilliant description of Sheila Gregoire is spot-on. Her hyperactive hamster is probably the most annoying part of reading her ministry, as Dalrock writes:
I’ve been reading through blog posts by Sheila Wray Gregoire for an upcoming topic, and the thing which strikes me the most about her writing is how painfully inconsistent she is.
She’s all over the place in her positions, as I’ve chronicled before. As I wrote there:
I’ll say from my own experience the hyperactive hamster stuff gets tiring. But it’s not hard to see through her act and see the destructive influence that Sheila Gregoire has on all marriage, not to mention Christian marriage. She’s a rebel against God through and through who’s sole goal is teaching women to rebel against the pattern of Godly Christian marriage.
As I wrote here about my life induced blogging dry spell, I could provide links to other posts that would adequately give examples of the method to her madness. What I put in bold above is my chief concern and why she comes up here. The dry spell is over, so time to take up that particular topic.
Sheila Gregoire decides to take up the verses of Scripture that indicate that sex is a mutual obligation of love in a marriage that is not to be willfully refused by either party. Saying yes to Marriage 1.0 means saying yes to this. As most men know, making sex into a conditional activity (“I will do it if you…”) or willfully refusing it turns sex into a weapon. We find out that this is ultimately Sheila’s intent. One of the basic teachings of her ministry is predicated on turning sex into a weapon and putting it in the hands of wives.
Gregoire starts in in terms of feelings as all good Churchians do, relating a couple of stories. In doing this she satisfies point #3, trying to paint the normal access of the marital debt for the husband as disgusting and repugnant. “How dare you would make your wife feel this way! How dare you would make your wife do it (after pregnancy/menstruation)!” Moving on, Sheila shows her attitude towards objective Christian faith and affirms her rationalization hamster, worshiping her personal Jesus. She writes:
I believe that most things in the Christian life are not cut and dry. We live in constant tension, and indeed, the Bible is in tension. Is it grace or works? Is it justice or mercy? Is it free will or predestination? None of these things has easy answers; the truth is always found in the middle, after struggling. And that struggling is important, in and of itself. We’re supposed to wrestle with God on the hard questions.
This isn’t a hard question, and there are no sides to it. Our God is not a God of confusion, and He is very clear on this. Sex is not to be a bargaining chip in marriage! Sheila Gregoire is like most other feminists, following her own god. This Scripture offends her personal Jesus (#1), so her goal is to rationalize it away into something she can handle:
He wrote do not deprive.
Deprive is not the same as refuse. I believe many people interpret this verse to mean refuse. Are women obligated to have sex every time a man wants it? Are we ever allowed to refuse?
She uses word semantics to bend things so this Scripture fits her will (#2), conforming Scripture to herself instead of herself to Scripture. Paul actually wrote apostereo there, but there’s enough here to see what is going on for us English speakers. From the dictionary, we can see no difference:
Deprive: to remove or withhold something from the enjoyment or possession of (a person or persons): to deprive a man of life; to deprive a baby of candy.
Refuse: to decline to give; deny (a request, demand, etc.): to refuse permission.
She goes on to compare a husband who wants sex from his wife to a well-fed child tugging at its mother’s apron for Cheetos (the animal comparison I used is similar to what she is doing here), saying this is what Paul means. It fits her outlook on sex, given the impressions from the other writings she has made. Sex is not a physical need akin to hunger to her, so she doesn’t see the difference. It also fits her view of what a husband should be to a wife – submissive to the wife as a child would be.
But we are fortunate to have Greek references to see that Paul uses the word apostereo there as well as see what it means as well as compare it to other Scriptures. You can read those on that link, but here are other Scriptures with the word in it. So what is Paul really saying? The NIV, which Sheila used, proves itself to be The Feminist Bible again in this case. The KJV uses the word defraud, which is more consistent with the way the word is used in the other Scriptures (my hermeneutic rule is always to let Scripture define Scripture if a definition is needed):
defraud: to deprive of a right, money, or property by fraud: Dishonest employees defrauded the firm of millions of dollars.
So we have a conclusion to the matter. To paraphrase Paul in simple terms we can hopefully all understand: “Wife, your husband has a right to your body. Husband, your wife has a right to your body. Don’t rob one another of what is rightfully theirs!” This right of unconditional sexual access given to each spouse was understood perfectly, before feminism took root (as an exercise to the reader, look up the historical definition of rape versus the feminist definition, you’ll find it interesting). Willful sexual denial, as Gregoire repeatedly advocates on her site to force submission of the husband to the wife, was considered rightful grounds for divorce traditionally. However, women rebel against God in this, as they have many other things.
Sheila Gregoire then twists the preceding two verses (#2, #3) to assert a right of submission of the husband to the wife:
If her husband’s body belongs to her, then she has the ability to also say, “I do not want you using your body sexually right now with me.” If she feels sick, or is really sad, or is exhausted, then her having ownership of his body also means that she can say, “I just can’t right now” without needing to feel guilty–if she is at the same time not depriving him.
Gregoire’s twisted falsehood in this section sounds good, and for me it’s not hard to agree with certain points she makes because there are truths there in light of other Scriptures. By the husband’s love for her, it’s reasonable that he would willingly not follow certain desires for sexual access if he knows his wife can’t do something for whatever reason. And to not lose perspective in this, these verses go the same for the wife’s access to the husband. But Sheila wouldn’t tolerate a husband’s willful sexual refusal at all, like she does wives. In any case, the issue of what each partner genuinely can and can not do, opposed to Sheila and most wives’ will not (stamp foot), is always up to reasonable negotiation and not blackmail. Marriage should represent a whole and healthy intimate relationship where this happens in a selfless way to find what both parties can do, right?
But in this case, Sheila Gregoire is speaking against this Scripture because she is asserting the right of wives to use sex as a weapon against their husbands to gain their submission to them! This is further accentuated in the attitude on her site towards porn use, especially when it results out of the willful sexual refusal of their wives. Her and her followers incapability to see the willful and protracted sexual refusal of wives as a contributing factor of blame in the porn use of husbands drives this point home with certainty (along with the proof of the hatred of men that drips from her site)! Doing this would take the sex weapon out of the hands of wives. Continuing:
I believe that the admonition “do not deprive each other” refers to the relationship as a whole, not to each individual moment. So if, in the relationship as a whole, you are having regular and frequent sex, then if one of you says, “not tonight”, that is not depriving. That is simply refusing for right now.
In other words, “I believe as long as a wife throws out a treat to her dog husband when he performs the tricks the wife wants him to perform to her satisfaction, she’s not violating the Scripture as given.”
Anyway, this post got a little longer than I planned. I’ll pick up on her other two posts later, if I see anything worth commenting on them about.
Off topic from this post:
Yep, some of the comments you read by men on these marriage websites are precisely why Christian women are beginning to advise each other not to risk marrying a Christian man! (I’m not kidding).
This was what I referred to in the other post. The bitter seething hatred that these women have for Christian men should be appalling! In other words, the whole quote was basically “How dare you real Christian men expect us to act like real Christian women! Don’t you know that we are special snowflakes with pure and wholesome hearts endowed by the personal Jesus with niceness and good feelings! How dare you want us to do such icky digusting things!” Basically, Churchian women who are completely unfit for real Christian marriage in any way. Real Christian men don’t want you either.
I do not know why no one is commenting to this article.
For myself, I don’t get it.
I don’t see the logic.
Naturally, I guess.
Are you saying it’s unbiblical for both to refuse each other at all times?
It is certainly unbiblical to refuse your spouse.
But the problem comes from thinking about marriage as a contract. It is not a contract, but rather a covenant. In a covenant one party undertakes to take on obligations to the other, irrespective of the counterparty taking on any obligations to the first party. So, if my wife decides to deprive me of access to her body, I do not have a right to find sexual satisfaction elsewhere because my covenant states that I will be sexually faithful to her. Correspondingly, if I start looking at porn, my wife does not have a right to deprive me of access to her body sexually, because in both cases the fact that one party is not keeping to their side of the bargain does not mean that that the other party is relieved of their obligations
On the original post, one thing to understand about why Feminists will *always* try to make sex into a weapon: the “Power over Sex” is the only intrinsically female power. Since Feminism, as we know it, is an off-shoot of Marxism, it cares only about Power and acquiring more, never to relinquish any of it. So it will take this unique Power that women have and tell them to *never* give it up.
To a man, however, we’re constantly giving up bits of our Power of Arms for the “greater good” and “our own personal well-being”. Civilization is built on giving up bits of Power in trade for greater net benefit. (Marxism denies that a trade like this is possible, which is why they can’t process a trade as benefiting both sides. It’s the oppressor/oppressed stupidity they get stuck in.)
I try not to go for the strict Powers discernment approach for a lot of Theological or Philosophical discussions, but it’s pertinent for this discussion. Beyond just the rebellion against the Scripture because it’s “giving up too much”, the rebellion is about giving up nothing and taking everything. Thus, to use sex as a weapon, allows a married woman to “have her cake and eat it too”. She remains in control of the 1 thing a man cannot otherwise acquire for himself, consistently, by his own work. (There’s obviously more to a relationship, but if she’s denying him sex, the rest is gone already) This is why the more explicit “trade” aspects of the marriage relationship are both sides subsuming some of their Power & Freedom to their partner. Using sex as a weapon is an outright assault on the Marriage.
This is always why the topic will pop up among women. It’ll get even worse in the future as Sex is pretty much all that most women will even bring to a marriage for the near-term future.
@Femmy:
I’ll assume you’re asking in good faith, otherwise there’d be a lot of mockery in this response.
You’ve made an Obtuse assertion of what Ballista actually wrote. He never said “it’s unbiblical for both to refuse each other at all times” nor implied it. You have taken an, unfortunately, taught logical method that is in false on in its premise and used it to assert something never said. Thus, I will give you what an actual, logical question would be:
“Where does the grant of marital debt run against other Scriptural commands?”
And it does run into issues with a husband’s command to “love” his wife (Agape). Sexing her up the day one of her parent’s dies isn’t necessarily loving her in an “Agape” way (depending on the woman). Putting her in severe pain during sex because of a recent surgery runs into that issue. Further, a wife sexing up her husband right after he gets out of back surgery runs into this problem.
Everything in life has bounds. The only thing that doesn’t is God. So, please don’t use the Obtuse argumentation style again. It, in most cases, is really a sign of low intelligence, but we’ve made it into a cultural art form. Something that’ll take a long time to remove.
Dear Looking Glass,
Thank you for taking the time to reply and for assuming I ask in good faith.
It seems that I’ve been well-trained since childhood to use the obtuse argumentative style when questioning something I don’t understand; a habit I don’t see, and which will take a long time to remove. Meanwhile, I’m afraid that you will have to patiently practice the grace of long-suffering every time it manifests itself. I beg your forgiveness ahead of time.
Regardless of how low my intelligence may be on a number scale, wouldn’t it be kinder and more helpful to me if things I do not understand were explained to me?
I only wish to learn more, which is why I read this blog and comment. Thank you to you and other commentors who commented on my question as well. It is appreciated.
“It’ll get even worse in the future as Sex is pretty much all that most women will even bring to a marriage for the near-term future.”
Can you explain this, LG?
I’m saying that it’s unbiblical to not live up to your commitments. Unconditional sexual access is an implied commitment made by one spouse to the other on the wedding day. Now Looking Glass explains this in greater detail when it comes to the Biblical limits that are there. Like I wrote, there’s an issue of can not and will not. Can not should be pretty obvious, though people like Gregoire sow confusion with their readers when they take these extreme cases and make them normal for those who believe what she writes. Looking Glass gives good examples of can not above, but it’s up to the one who holds the rights to love the other person enough to either bid down or cease from their sexual access.
Will not occurs when a spouse is perfectly capable of providing the sexual access, but willfully chooses not to. This is defrauding access to the marital right given by commitment. This is going back on the spouse’s marital vows if it happens frequently enough – as 1 Cor 7:5 indicates, the idea of unconditional sexual access is to take both temptation to defile the marital bed and control via sex off the table for both partners (sex can be weaponized by the husband as well, though unlikely – usually though the spouse with the lower libido is the one able to do this).
Thank you for explaining, ballista.
It is difficult for me to see anything wrong in what Gregoire writes. It seems good. Most women were taught to think that way. I appreciate your dissecting.
While you separate the “can not” and the “will not”, the typical modern woman sees it differently; she believes both of them mean the same thing.
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please don’t use the Obtuse argumentation style again. It, in most cases, is really a sign of low intelligence, but we’ve made it into a cultural art form. Something that’ll take a long time to remove.
Its been taught to the point where its like those random sentence generating machines, push a button and one of maybe five words pops out, push the buttons in order and it creates a functional sentence.
I do not believe that the typical modern women believes can not and will not mean the same thing. It would take me 5 minutes on a different topic to get that modern woman to be all over the DIFFERENCES between can not and will not. The dynamic is not so simple as a flawed definition or perception. The problem is a frame that is programmed per issue. Raise a topic, she will have a frame, whatever terms need to be redefined or whatever twisting must be done is then done, because the frame must be upheld. She has heard the frame over and over, it FELT right, therefore it IS right. That words actually mean specific things matters not. Infer some subtext is usually the solution, create a straw man, incorrectly analyze an analogy, or when all else fails just stomp off saying “thats just wrong”
@Femmy:
Ah, it’s nice to know system negs even work over the internet, haha. But, I tossed that first line in my comment for a reason. Around this parts, most women that show up are just looking for a fight/attention/tingles, but your post didn’t come across as condescending, so I figured it was worth a shot responding to the actual topic. (Most of the time, that’s not actually the topic they want attention about, but it’s hard to figure out from a short comment)
I can wrap both my comment about “(s)ex is pretty much all that most women will even bring to a marriage” and the Obtuse argumentation issue into one point. Women aren’t trained in anything that’s important for marriage anymore. Further, they’re trained to be “Defective Men with Vaginas” (haha, DMVs, I’ve got to remember that), which just goes to the argumentation point of view.
The base male argumentation point of view, from age 5, is “Danger/Not Danger”. You are forcibly taught over time to expand on that thinking. Logic is forced upon you by life and the training societies put into you. You have to learn to think ahead a bit, otherwise you’ll always be abused by others.
However, the base female argumentation point of view, from age 5, is “experiential extrapolation”. “My dog is fluffy, so all dogs are fluffy”. There is no end point to the extrapolation and no end point is forced upon a woman as she grows up. Her family, due to a dominant mother, works like this. She’s taught & reinforced this type of thinking in school, churches and open discussion. It’s pretty much the only thing that happens inside our Politics. There is no reason to ever leave the comforts of the argumentation style because it *ends* discussions. You can’t discuss a topic with someone that uses it, as they’re using it to force their conclusion on the topic. Which is why the only actual response is mockery. But, if someone comes with an honest set of questions & will listen, I’m more than happy to explain.
And, in life, I have to do a LOT of explaining to people.
Expanding further on “women don’t bring anything but sex” issue, the truth is that men don’t care about a woman’s accomplishments. Does she treat him well? That’s always the first issue. After that, how she looks and what’s her likelihood of ruining him? Given that the Marriage laws put men under the power of a woman’s whims (without much direct cost to her), the risk profile she presents is about the only thing that’s important. When have you ever heard that in another place?
LG, Thank you for your detailed explanation.
Thank you to Empath as well.
@Femmy:
You do have one improvement, at minimum, over your peers. You say “thank you”. You wouldn’t probably realize how rare that is, haha.
Here’s how “can not” and “will not” is confused, Empath’s disection notwithstanding (because he is so spot on but: logic vs hamster). “Will not” becomes “can not because I don’t FEEL the SPIRITUAL connection with you that I need…..” Thus, it’s either the man’s fault or, better yet, God’s fault. You wouldn’t want to go contrary to God’s will now would you? I’m bitching but deadly serious.
@Looking Glass – On the original post, one thing to understand about why Feminists will *always* try to make sex into a weapon: the “Power over Sex” is the only intrinsically female power.
I think this emphasizes the lack of balance in Marriage 2.0 and these faux ‘Christian’ marriages. It’s said women are the gatekeepers to sex, and men the gatekeepers to commitment. In such marriages, the woman has obtained the commitment, but reserves the right to continue to be a gatekeeper for sex. As you and ballista74 allude, it’s not that she can choose whether to ‘provide’ sex, but why she chooses to. The church is quick to condemn men for withholding elements of that commitment – fidelity, emotional intimacy, spousal attention, shared housework. That condemnation has resulted in the expectation that men will supplicate themselves to their wives to ‘earn’ what should be unconditionally given.