Sex In The Public Square - Kissing Michelle Vitt - Comments

Chelsea

JanieBelle — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 08:27:19 -0700

I appreciate your candid response, and I'd like to take a bit to consider your comments.

Just wanted you to know that they have not fallen on deaf ears.

Cheers to you

Give me the child until he is seven

Lou FCD — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 07:30:50 -0700

"Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man." Francis of Xavier, one of the 16th century founders of the Jesuits.

Elizabeth, having spent a far too large portion of my young adulthood on the dark side of the fence, and now becoming a battle scarred old salt of this side of the culture wars, perhaps I can offer my own bit of insight on these questions, for whatever that may be worth. (Probably about what you just paid for it?)

The questions you have presented are honest and valid questions. In any other context, they would be the first things I would want to know. However, after more than twenty years of ever shifting points of perspective on the fundamentalist movement in America, there are certain undisguised hallmarks and markers that manifest themselves in cases such as Miss Vitt's. These are not accidental tells, like a poker player's unconscious giving away of his hand, but rather deliberately cultivated and celebrated badges of pride pinned on children by parents in a manner and for a reason not altogether different than the parking of the brand new mercedes at the end of the driveway rather than in the protection of the empty garage.

From the original article:

loves the singles group at her church

...

Vitt said her decision was made when she was little - one that she has stood by, even when it has been difficult.

...

"You hear everybody say, well, I wish I had waited," she said. "Everybody has their regrets. I don't have a regret about doing this."

...

and after home schooling through her high school years, attended the Potter's School for a theology degree and then took several semesters at Coastal Carolina Community College with a focus on elementary education.

...

"One thing I've always wanted to be is a wife and mother," she said.

...

She grew up with a strong Christian background, she said, and was encouraged to have high standards by her parents. But the decision to save kissing for marriage is one she made on her own.

...

She wants to be able to share something special with her husband one day, said Vitt, and keep herself as pure as she can until then.

...

she has received a lot of support from people at her church who share her high standards.

...

"I've got this list made out of what I want in a guy," she said. If men don't match up with her standards for important things like faith, she said, then dating them is not an option.

Taken individually, or even in small groups, each of these statements is innocuous enough, but the confluence of the entire set is enough to begin to see the pattern as indicative of the whole of Miss Vitt's upbringing.

Self perpetuation and proselytization are the stated goals of fundamentalist religion, and the much heralded method of choice to achieve those goals is unashamedly trumpeted from their pulpits:

"Come out from among them and be ye separate, sayeth the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." - II Corinthians 6:17

This New Testament passage is the basis for the extremists' withdrawal, insulation, and sequestration of their children from society. It is the motivator of the home-school movement and their church singles' groups, the branding of their businesses with Christian verbiage, the marking of their cars with fish containing Greek acronyms. While some of these symbols and practices have been adopted generically by Christianity at large, the sole purpose of such things in this particular subculture of America is to ensure that their children are not exposed to ideas that may cause them to think outside prescribed, well controlled and dictated ideological limits. Should someone overcome all of that and even hint at disagreement with doctrine in the slightest way, whether in terms of biology, history, theology, sexuality, etc. they are immediately shamed with labels such as "liberal" or "apostate" for having "fallen away from the church", commonly referred to as "backsliding". Should the offender fail to return to the marching cadence, the faithful are actively encouraged to "separate" from them, and to explicitly face that person and tell them so. "I can't hang around with you anymore..."

In short Elizabeth, I can honestly tell you that given just these bits of information in the article that no, Miss Vitt had no meaningful access to alternative viewpoints, no useful or meaningful sex ed, and no freedom to do other than she has without serious backlash. It is also unlikely that it has ever even occurred to her that there are legitimate alternatives to her parents' way of thinking, and I will personally streak naked through Time Square at Noon on New Year's Day if she has not been taught that man was created in his present form 6000 years ago by an invisible old man in the sky, bad things happen because Eve ate a piece of fruit, atheists are just mad at God, and muslims are really Satan worshippers, they just don't know that.

I am only slightly less confident that if asked she will tell you that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian just like her, and that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Given all of that, I cannot see that abuse is too strong a description of what has befallen Miss Vitt.

more on Michelle Vitt

chelsea summers — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:39:05 -0700

If, JanieBelle, as you say you hold Michelle Vitt's parents and her socialization responsible for Michelle's choices, then I have to wonder why your post sends such vitriol in the specific direction of this young woman. If you want to take her parents, their decision to homeschool her and her fundamentalist religion to task, then that is what you should do, and instead pointedly call her "brainwashed" and "uninformed."

I can't help but think that Michelle Vitt is probably pretty well aware that most people are kissing. In her daily life in this culture, she undoubtedly has read a novel, seen a movie, watched television or looked at an advertisement\. She has to be at least somewhat familiar with the concept that the vast majority of adults, if not teens, have kissed other humans for reasons outside of familial respect. And although I certainly find it unusual that a woman would choose not to kiss, I wouldn't take time out of my day to castigate her for her choices. I have to wonder why you do.

Furthermore, I take specific issue with this portion of your piece:

Your parents tell you that everybody says that, the people in your isolated little fundy world might say that in church, but the truth of the matter is that people tend to regret the things they didn’t do much more than they regret the things they did do. It is only the warped programming of your parents’ religion that would cause you to believe kissing before your marriage is regrettable.

You directly address Michelle here, and you do so in a condescending manner. You call her background a "fundy world" and sneer at her "warped programming." I fail to see how this kind of tone is helpful to anyone--to Michelle, to the discourse at large, to your own ethos as a writer, or to your argument. Instead of appearing as a thinker with the intellectual suppleness to approach this particular human with compassion, you come off with the kind of strident disregard for others with which you yourself condemn your opponents.

Finally, I don't buy your assertion that "people tend to regret the things they didn't do much more than they regret the things they did do." I suspect I'm older than you, and perhaps I've made more mistakes than you, or at the very least, I've considered more completely the choices I've made. I have to say in complete honesty that there are far more things--and people--I regret having done than those I did not. At the end of the day, I fail to see how judgment helps either side of the fundamentalist/sexually free debate. I really can't see how addressing a young woman with the kind of hostility you have in this piece helps anyone--not you, not her, and not anyone who suggests that sex, and positive sexuality, is a community issue.

best,

chelsea summers

Most certainly not

JanieBelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:37:56 -0700

Michelle is a victim here, and I don't believe I implied otherwise.

My scorn is for her parents and the system of repression that they represent.

Michelle's decision, whether she sees it that way or not, is at its heart perversely skewed by a system of destructive sexual repression embodied in fundamentalist religion. I refer back to her comment about "since I was little..." Note also that she was homeschooled, an increasingly common tactic amongst the most extreme fundamentalist sects to ensure that children are not exposed to any influence outside the reach of the home and church. Michelle's choice was deliberately limited, her freedom of thought restricted, and her natural maturation stolen from her to advance a very specific agenda of control.

As for your sexual choices, hers, Elizabeth's, or anybody else's, I make no judgement whatever. Had Michelle Vitt made this decision outside the environment of oppressive, misogynistic, warped and sequestered theocratic authoritarianism, it would not have garnered comment either from me or from the local newspaper.

My issue is with Mr. and Mrs. Vitt, and their religion that seeks to dominate and regulate the sexual behavior of everyone it can get its tentacles wrapped around, and with a culture and media that kneels obsequiously before its altar of degradation of the human condition.

I make no apologies for not dancing respectfully and lightly around a system of debasement, with respectful words of polity.

I will not lie below, and I will not stand by quietly while others are forced to lie below. It does not matter if they are forced by indoctrination or by sword, it is coercive either way, and I will not be silent or polite about that.

In short, I am angry for Michelle, not at her.

Best to you as well,

JanieBelle

Brainwashing v. socialization, and chosen limits v. oppression

Elizabeth — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:49:56 -0700

Chelsea, your post helps me clarify some of the complicated thoughts I've had about this post also.

I first got stuck on the term "brainwash," which to me connotes coercion and not socialization. All socialization is, in a sense, a form of "brainwashing" in that it is a form of structuring how we think, what we are likely to value and how we are likely to act. But socialization is not uniform, and there are subcultures and counter cultures that compete with the dominant culture in most societies. "Brainwashing" implies, to me anyway, a coercive uniform reprogramming of a person's thinking.

Michelle Vitt was socialized into a restrictive subculture, certainly. But that does make it sound rather like a neutral process. It's true that she herself has harmed nobody, except to the small degree that the press attention she gets for this story supports the restrictive subculture in question in its efforts to further cut access to things like sex ed funding, contraception, access to abortion and so on. (Of course the political activities of that fundamentalist voting block and the candidates who cater to them are very harmful.)

But has she herself been harmed by her socialization? This is another place I initially got stuck in reading JanieBelle's post. I think she has been harmed, but we can't know for certain without seeing the curriculum she was exposed to. If she was exposed to abstinence-only education I would say she was harmed. If she was told that sex would make her dirty or cause her to go to hell I think she was harmed. But was she abused? Maybe. It's harder for me to say so.

The third reason I had a hard time with this post initially is a personal one: I just spent a week with my partner's family and am reminded that these fundamentalists are respectful of views that differ from theirs, and their own views are more complex than their religious faith would lead you to believe. In particular I am always happy to spend time with my partner's siblings and their kids. These are good-hearted, open people who, on some issues that are important to me, hold views I'd probably abhor, yet with whom I can often have interesting conversations about issues that we about which we disagree because we can talk about the many sides of the issues without becoming personally involved. These are well educated, smart people who hold to a restrictive faith and whose votes I will try very hard to counter by good organizing!

All of that is to say that it does irk me to see generalizations about groups whether they are groups I get on well with or groups I have lots of conflicts with. If one is speaking about the whole group, a generalization is appropriate. But often the point is about an individual or smaller group within the subculture, and then a generalization based on the larger group can miss important details.

Back to Michelle Vitt... If we knew more of her story, beyond the sort of fluffy profile in the Jacksonville Daily News, I'd wonder about the following:

-Did she have access to groups who differ from hers and support in her desire to learn about them and interact with them? (Or did she have no desire to learn about people different from herself and her subculture?)

-Did she have access to accurate information about health, biology, and sexuality? Or was she given inaccurate information about contraception failure rates and given inaccurate information about the risks that come with sexual activity?

-Did she make her choice with some freedom, that is, with good information about alternatives? Or was she really very isolated and thus unable to make a clear choice?

A choice, made with some freedom, to remain a virgin or even to refrain from kissing is not in itself offensive. But socialization into a subculture that denies science, proffers inaccurate information about sexuality, supports bias and discrimination makes it difficult to frame Vitt's commitment as a clearly made individual choice.

The fluffy news profile seems to valorize the outcome of what is an oppressive process. It is not her lack of kissing that bothers me. It is the socialization process that I suspect she was subject to that bothers me. And that is a process I can't be sure of from the story without investigating details that seemed unimportant to the reporter. (And while I'd like to do that investigating, I just don't have time. If anybody would like to look up info on the curriculum used by Vitt's parents when homeschooling her, or by the Potter's School theology program or by Coastal Carolina Community College's elementary ed program I'd be curious to know what you find out.)

And then, while we're on the subject of groups that don't act the way our stereotypes would lead us to believe they would, we should be talking about how even the Democrats just voted to increase funding for abstinence-only "education" though many of them claim to oppose those porgrams!

Appalling, really.

judgment: not just for fundamentals anymore?

chelsea summers — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:48:26 -0700

I read this post a few days ago and it's taken me some time to realize why it bothered me. And it bothered me because I found your treatment of Michelle Vitt unfair.

I myself have a sex life I would guess you, JanieBelle, would approve of. I first kissed at thirteen, gave my first blowjob at fifteen, lost my virginity at sixteen, tasted my first pussy at seventeen, and since then have kissed, touched, groped, licked, frottaged, sixty-nined, buttfucked, spelunked and fucked more people than I can exactly recall. I've enjoyed a great lot of it, but I would never, ever say that there are moments I don't regret.

Nor would I suggest that my way is the way for everyone. I have two very close friends who are both virgins for religious reasons. We don't see eye to eye on sex, but it doesn't stand in the way of my respecting them or their respecting me. They know I write a sex blog, and they know I am paid to write about sex for national magazines. They are supportive of me, and I support them, and we recognize that while there are limits to how much we have in common in this set of choices, we love and cherish the parts of life we do share.

It really bothers me to see writers who consider themselves sex positive slam people whose choices differ from their own. You would never, ever castigate a person on this site who chose to celebrate her anniversary with a gang-bang, nor would you make fun of a man who dresses in girly-girl clothing, complete with ruffled panties. There is a whole broad spectrum of sexual activity that you would rightly champion in the name of sexual freedom. And yet, you have no problem calling a woman who has made the choice not to kiss "brainwashed" and "not capable of making an informed personal decision."

I admit it: I am no fan of the religious right. I'll never be waving a big foam finger for the people who want to take away Plan B, birth control, abortion rights, daycare funding, and evolution. That said, nothing Michelle did or said, according to your piece, impinged at all on anyone's rights. Not yours and not mine.

It's Michelle's decision to deny herself kissing until marriage. Is it a decision that I would make myself? Obviously not. Is it one that I can even understand? Not so much. But is it a decision that hurts anyone else? Not at all.

And at the end of the day, I like to save my scorn for those people whose decisions do hurt others, not people like Michelle, who hasn't.

best to you,

chelsea g summers

As a matter of fact,

Elizabeth — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:26:00 -0700

I don't. But I just gave one as a wedding gift, and it went over very well. I need to pick one up for myself. I do, though, have a lovely suede flogger. I suppose that will have to suffice for now!

Oh Patrick

JanieBelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:49:21 -0700

It is so good to see you here!

We all blow opportunities. The point here I think is to take the opportunities that present themselves, and Miss Vitt isn't even considering taking them because of the sequestered environment in which she was raised.

She has been robbed of those opportunities by the Fundamentalist repression of her parents, and that's morally criminal, if it's not legally criminal. Further, if it's not legally criminal, there's a good case to made that it should be.

Perhaps that last thought is fodder for a spunky discussion of its own...

No, My Dear Elizabeth

JanieBelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:42:10 -0700

The fault lies not with you here.

I was well and justly chided and, I might add, expertly and gently like a mentor with velvety leather gloves.

Got a matching riding crop, perchance?

Your humble servant,

JanieBelle

;)

Challenges

Elizabeth — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:21:55 -0700

JanieBelle, I understand your frustration and did not mean to make you feel unprofessional. It's my job to try to make sure the "structural parts" of the site reflect the tone I want the site to set. It sounds like your challenge is finding a balance between venting frustration and expressing yourself in a tone you call "professional."

My challenge is finding a balance between my tendency toward neutral language of cultural relativism and my need to express my very real sense that some things are just right and other things are just wrong. It'll be interesting to watch the two of us as the site develops!

Very Well

JanieBelle — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 06:41:53 -0700

I've responded to the fictional/factual issue there.

Forgive my lapse in professionalism in the tag, and thank you for correcting it, Elizabeth. I, like all you ~~meatbags~~ embodied souls, sometimes get frustrated and angry. I occasionally foam at the mouth and lose my perspective. And when I see people so messed up by a misogynistic, repressive, authoritarian fist, be it political or religious, that they can't/don't enjoy normal, healthy, wonderful parts of life like kissing (in this instance), I can be a little teeny tiny itsy bitsy bit less than the ideal professional, detached reporter of facts.

I admit it. I have on occasion been slightly obnoxious, believe it or not.

Just don't tell anyone.

This may have been one of those times, but I do find it utterly shameful that this girl has been so... sorry, I just can't fully articulate how I feel about the damage that has been done to Miss Vitt. It is beyond the pale.

A note on public discourse

Elizabeth — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:30:42 -0700

A couple of quick but important thoughts on the conducting of discussion on Sex in the Public Square:

First, I think that dismissive or insulting name calling has to be unacceptable all around, so I am going to change the tag "fundies" to "fundamentalists." I would do the same if someone used the tag "homos" instead of "homosexuals" or "gays" in a way that was clearly dismissive. My point here is not to water down the criticism but to keep the "official" language of the site accurately descriptive as possible, and to maintain an atmosphere that encourages debate and dissent.

Second, I know that all fictional characters have back stories, and yet since JanieBelle has asserted herself as "entirely fictional" it sits funny with me to read her assertions about a past and a history to challenge the experience claims of another person. I don't know how we should handle this, but JanieBelle, I wonder if it would be useful for readers to be reminded your fictional status when you refer to your past -- or at least to the past that extends backward to the time before your online story begins, especially when you are using that experience to challenge someone else's experience claims.

Since this site is most definitely in its development stage I welcome responses to thse "procedural" questions. I suspect that JanieBelle would prefer that we keep comments on her blog relevent to the topic she blogged about, so let's have that conversation in the forum dedicated to answering the question "Are there rules about what I can say and what I can't say?". I'll move a copy of this comment there.

Of course discussions of Ms. Vittt's decision should continue here :)

I wish I had ... I wish I could

Patrick — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:35:29 -0700

I always wish I had on far too many occasions. Being the geek-nerdthat I am, I never did until I was 24 and I never have since ... and I wish every day that I could, but being the geek-nerd in the society that I exist in, I seldom get the chance and when I do, I blow the opportunity ever single time.

I wish I had.

Story of my one chance here http://themyst.livejournal.com/691263.html

Catchy Comment Title

JanieBelle — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:05:56 -0700

That caught my eye, nicely done!

RC, in all honesty, I really and truly hope that that is the case here. Nobody deserves to be that messed up.

Michelle shocked

RC — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:35:43 -0700

These sorts of cases are disturbing and, I must say, pretty hard to believe. I find them quite literally hard to believe, having grown up around (and been educated by) some pretty experienced "virgins." In the final analysis, parents only controlled the story, not the places fingers and faces got into...and newspapers do the same. I'm sure there are some actual true believers out there that manage to thwart psychology and physiology and deny themselves basic human experience. I can't say I have much sympathy, though.

Kissing Michelle Vitt

JanieBelle — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 09:15:52 -0700

Michelle Vitt looks happy enough. She’s pretty in the picture of her in today’s Jacksonville Daily News. Sitting in the Starbuck’s there on Western Blvd., in her Abercrombie T-shirt, pretty smile, lovely cheeks, cell phone and keys on the table next to her frozen coffee drink, you might think she’s just your average American college age girl. But Hope Hodge of the Daily News Staff tells us there’s something very atypical about Michelle that you can’t see in that photograph, or even in person.