Physician (you), heal thyself

Can you be Christian and red pilled? This guy followed the script he heard in church, put his wife first, and got duty sex and a dead bedroom. Since then, he’s learned that women aren’t attracted to the doting butler. So he tried being a jerk. It worked. And he hates it. He writes: I miss making her smile. I want to buy her pretty things and give her chocolates and go to the same lame restaurant she likes instead of the one I like. I don't want to play hard-to-get. I want to treat her like a princess and make her life easy and nice. And she appreciates it, the same way she appreciates the plumber coming to unclog the toilet. As he describes his earnest Christian life before marriage, I can’t help thinking (like Jesus with the rich young ruler), “I love this guy.” There’s so much earnestness. So much desire to sacrifice to do the right thing. There’s just one thing he lacked. Masculine frame. And frame is everything. This gentleman looked at Jesus’ commands, to go the extra mile, to serve others, to esteem others as better than himself, and dedicated himself to them. He figured that if he did that, his own needs would be taken care of. And so he entered into a covert contract with God and neighbor: “If I put your needs first and make meeting them my guiding light, others will reciprocate and I’ll be taken care of.” Sounds spiritual. But it’s got poison in its core. Because it’s trying to love from a position of lack rather than abundance, and is thus using love transactionally to get taken care of. A man who does this outsources his agency and vocation to the “others” that he “serves.” He takes a slave posture, expecting them to make the decisions, give him the assignments, and meet his needs. Let’s be clear: the Bible doesn’t want us to be selfish monsters who ride roughshod over the people that God loves. But the Bible NEVER asks us to surrender our own agency—our own stewardship of the vocation we have from God. We are held accountable to shepherd that, care for it, and protect it. And that is what “frame” is all about. Take Israel in the Old Testament. They were created to be a light to the nations. All nations were to be blessed through them. But the temptation was always to be “people pleasing” among them. Worshipping their gods and intermarrying to be esteemed well in their eyes. That kind of “putting others first” was a betrayal of Israel’s vocation. It was a loss of frame. The problem with the “be a good servant that puts others first” narrative that guys get in church is that it flies in the face of every Biblical example we have. Nearly every saint of the Old and New Testament had frame. They each had a strong sense of vocation, and fierce fortitude around it. They were forces to be reckoned with, and not to be trifled with. It’s on the foundation of that frame that the saints could build concern for others’ needs. First, be filled to fullness with the goodness of God themselves, be lit on fire with his vocation, and THEN they could bring others to share in what they’d been given—especially when shepherding God’s people was PART of that core vocation. Jesus is the ultimate example. He was full of compassion for the lost sheep of Israel. He healed, he cast out demons, he fed the multitudes, and he taught them with authority. Those who tried to turn folks away were rebuked. Those who tried to put rules (like the sabbath) in his way were thrown back. Jesus was grasped by his vocation, and nothing trumped that. But the same frame that gave him such compassion turned fierce whenever someone tried to pull him off the path. He refused to play either part the Pharisees offered him in the “pay taxes to Caesar” debate. He snapped at Peter when he tried to turn Jesus away from his mission. And he refused to help a Syrophenecian woman with a demonized daughter, until she framed helping her in terms that fit with his core mission. And, though the crowds would smother him with need, he always withdrew to desolate places to pray and commune with God. Jesus put on his own oxygen mask before assisting other passengers. It was only from the fullness he had from the Father that he could THEN give so abundantly to the crowds. Ultimately this man’s wife isn’t going to be served by him being an actual jerk. But she does seem to be responding to him having his own frame, even if it’s a caustic one, over him being a drone in her orbit. If you look at Ephesians 5, it isn’t about Christ putting the church over his mission. Rather, he gave himself up for her because he had a purpose for her to shine. He made the church part of himself. And so with his wife, the man needs something inspiring that he’s ALREADY doing with his life, to bring her into. That’s why she’s responding well to him not being at her beck and call—because it communicates that he actually has important things to do. He has a mission outside just “whatever she wants.” That’s how you square the circle. You find a way to live that is rewarding, whether or not your wife responds to it. And you live it with all your heart. And THEN, you invite her to be a part of it. And then you lead her, which sometimes involves challenging her and pushing her. But there’s also space for that tenderness you are missing. I’ve written before about how we can engage our wives sexuality differently in different parts of their cycle. So in the luteal phase, when they are feeling particularly crappy, bring some of that soft goofy side back out. It’s not gone forever, it’s just part of a whole. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How does a man love himself? Yes, at times giving himself a break and being understanding. But also? A lot of the time it’s by pushing himself to suck it up and do hard things. It’s by not being sidelined by lies and excuses and fussy special pleading. You hold your own feet to the fire—in service of your own frame: the vocation God has given you and has lit a fire under your belly to pursue. In the end, this allows a much richer love to grow. Not a transactional love. Not a sneaky nice guy covert contract love—that loves to feel good about himself, or in hopes of reciprocity—but an authentic love that flows from sucking all the marrow from life and tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

This story describes the worst nightmare of any parent and is, if anything, far too kind to the people who deliberately put everyone around them at risk of it. Probably the gentle, blame-free approach is the more effective one but it's extraordinary that she is capable of it.

“The state” does not make that choice for anyone. The hep B vaccine is recommended at birth. It is not forced. It never has been. Parents have always had vaccine choice

If you met a woman who was perfect in every way, she would marry you, be loyal to you, etc., but you could never have sex with her, would you marry her?

I truly hate this argument, which assumes men simply have names but women’s are all somehow men’s. By this logic, it’s not your dad’s name either - it’s his dad’s. And not his either - his dad’s. Your name is actually your name. And yes of course women should have the legal right to change their names in marriage but let’s please not lie to ourselves that marital name-changing isn’t incredibly sexist and a very literal manifestation of patriarchal power. So is patrilineal naming for children, btw. One answer to “but it’s my dad’s name” might be to stop giving children dad’s name for a while.