Celebration [of a Type] of Discipline

There may be some "yikes" in the following-

You've been warned.

One of the Bible (read Dispensationalist Theology) teachers at the small Christian high school I used to work at thought it was necessary to tell his students that sexual intercourse not of the so-called missionary variety was wrong. I don't know how this fit into the general curriculum of coloring books and fill in the blank Bible verse memorization sheets, but somehow it was important to communicate this to the children.

And so it was. And since I taught Health there, many students asked me if this was true. And while perhaps some unpleasant, oily, and sticky part of me envied the certainty with which others made pronouncements on matters like what type of sex offended Jesus and whether clones could have souls, I could only say it depends, and ask them why they thought he would say that, how he might justify it scripturally, what it might mean to know God in our sexuality, but, in all, if they wanted to be such and such, they weren't ready for sex. Maybe that helped some.

It's a part of discipline- it's a part of becoming the people we are becoming to be told this is something we do or don't do, this is how we think about this. If we cross that line we are something different, but sometimes it's a weird thing saying where those lines or what the things we don't delineate are.

The chase-

Now any transition that I offer here as an explanation of how I came across the weirdness that follows will sound like a stilted over the top, there's-nothing-to-see-here account of how I came across the weirdness.
So what were you doing that you 'found' that site?- Defense
Though I ultimately have to be comfortable in my skin- I feel the need to justify my existence to others. I could just say I found it at Broadsheet, the feminist blog I often read, and leave it at that, but then I miss the opportunity to obtusely insert how I, the individual, relates and exists in account to some or another community.

That was too confusing for what it might have accomplished. Anyway- this exists. This being a site explaining how one might be a part of a Biblical marriage- a Biblical marriage being one that is marked by a husband that beats his wife. The site goes to some lengths to clarify that such beatings are consensual- a Biblical wife submits to her husband's authority, a husband is answerable to God for how he treats his wife and so everyone is happy- but without a doubt, to them, it is a husband's right and responsibility to beat his wife- or discipline her, as they say- for her benefit. It is a matter of obedience and desire to correspond to the way God wants things.

There are two blogs on the site allegedly written by women who participate in this type of marriage. One is written from the perspective of someone who seems to consent to the idea of being "spanked" by her husband. She says that she needs to overcome her pride and be corrected for secret errors of judgment and missteps, so she regularly asks her husband to spank her. The other is written from the perspective of a woman who never knows when she will be "corrected." She lives in terror of the moments when her husband discovers some mistake she didn't know she made and decides it is necessary to beat her. Both defend their choices as Biblical, right, volitional, and superior. One seems playful and, though not everyone's cup of tea, part of the couple's romantic life. There seems to be a situation wherein consent can be given. The woman is on a footing to give or rescind consent and therefore appears to have some degree of control over the situation. Though perhaps dangerous, there is an element of performance to it; husband and wife are playing roles that they have negotiated and understand as their relationship progresses. The other is written from the perspective of someone who lives in terror and could not possibly consent to the situation in which she finds herself. She writes in the classic idiom of one who thinks she needs and deserves to be mistreated. They are the difference between a boxing match and a street fight.

On their blogs, they make reference to but delete comments that are critical of their lives and choices, to which they offer some form or another of "you just don't understand." They are right, I don't understand, and it makes no difference if I or a million other people stand and shriek in our most nasally Dobsonian voice, fingers wagging, "Wrong!"

Set aside questions of what conditions are necessary to give consent and whether you think this is right, as a grammatical matter, when someone says what they do is God-ordained, that's all there is. There is no reason beyond that.

But to that issue of consent. It seems that when one gives consent they are giving permission, so they have to be in a position to also not give permission. No? Maybe in some instances of this practice, someone wants to be beat and someone wants to be beating, this arrangement provides a nice forum for those actions. They dress it up in their religious talk and with a wink and a nudge they play their game. If it gets to be too much, consent is taken away and it ends. If that escape is not possible, then there is originally no consent. Everything is nice and friendly, even if not exactly friendly.

In this case, it doesn't seem that this group is all that concerned with consent other than their mention of it as a perhaps legal requirement. In the ontological (sorry) justification of their ways- the consent of the wife is as important as my bike's consent to being ridden; it doesn't matter because that's just what they're for. It would be as silly to ask my bike if it wants to be ridden as it would to ask a wife if she wanted to be beat for one of her stupid mistakes.

But what if it's not possible to give consent to certain things? What if by saying I consent to be eaten by a bear perhaps suggests I am not fit to give consent? What if this is something like that? What if by saying I want to be eaten I am saying I lack the capacity for deciding whether I should be eaten because anybody who could properly think it through would not want to be eaten? Of course it's possible that play is a different situation and what consenting adults decide to do is done in a spirit of play. So if they're faking it- then it's great, or, if not great, at least tolerable.

But then if it's tolerable, don't I have to say, "It's okay that they do that- even if it offends my vanilla sensibilities?" It's not for me, but I guess it is for them. But think of the children- doesn't it seem like this is the kind of thing we desperately want to say is a no-no? It's the kind of thing we want to tell kids they shouldn't do when they ask if this thing or another is right or wrong.

I say it's wrong, but I would bet that matters very little to the Christian Domestic Discipline crowd. I would bet it matters as much as any of us saying some or other practice of a 12th century Mayan is wrong. We're not a part of the same world. There is no reference for relation between me and the Mayan, so it really doesn't matter. Though the Christian Discipliner and I might have more in common, as I described what they were doing as wrong and laid it all out for them, they might only hear clicks and clacks in my moral assessment. In fact, they seem to make it clear that that is all they hear from their critics. If we want to describe what they are doing, or more specifically, make some moral claim about what they do, we should be clear that such a claim is about who we are and what we do. Maybe though, as we're clearer and clearer about who we are- we might provide a point of contrast through which some sense of difference may enter. It's only in this sense of difference where any moral dissonance can occur (did I really say only?). We only have moral dilemmas in those areas where we have actual choice.

Even after all this talk- whether I should beat my wife is not a moral dilemma for me- beating my wife is not a real possibility, it's not a choice for me (although- if she keeps leaving her shoes where I can trip all over them...). I think I'm part of a group that says we don't do that. More broadly, there are things we are and do because of what we understand God to be for us. As we're clearer and more direct about who we are, what we do and why- we are possibly that context for contrast. Maybe that has something to do with being the Body of Christ. There are things we (some very fluid, but identifiable group of we) say are wrong and it makes sense to us. It just doesn't makes sense to do such and such if we say we are 'x.' There also seem to be those things we don't quite agree on- even as we are still the same group. Though, in this case, for this to work we may have to be much more public about things that we describe as private- namely sex, and saying it's private- or at least our conception of what private is- seems to be part of the problem- the problem that makes us want to create lists of dos and do not dos rather than something that is a part of the life of who we say we are.

That is, even our sex lives need to be public- political even. If we understand ourselves to be a creature of God, then our lives, our sex lives included, need to be subordinated to the needs of our community that worships God rather than my individual needs or desires. For some this might mean only a certain objective set of practices are appropriate in relation to a god that has revealed itself in history to have a unique interest in foreskins and distaste for bodily fluids. For others it might mean that we are part of the ongoing and still unfolding story of people struggling with God that has most clearly been revealed in Jesus.

It seems we should be saying something like this is what we do as a people who are learning how to respond to God. This is where and how we learn to overcome the understanding that we are a people who struggle with God even in light of what we increasingly understand God has done for us, or this "we" we are trying to be is an analogue for the Word in flesh.

Or, what is right or wrong is clearly written in some leather bound catalogue or vellum scroll of dos and do not dos wherein the acceptable and unacceptable actions for all people everywhere and anytime are found.

I don't know, though I do suspect.

It turns out the site no longer allows visitors; it has probably been receiving extra attention lately. You have to somehow prove you belong to their community in order to navigate their site. Since the public at large has been blocked from the site- I tend to think it is real rather than fantasy.