When you examine the chart below you’ll note that the sex-housework correlation was significant. Kornrichdescribes this relationship in the way that only a man with a Ph.D. would: “These effects are statistically significant and substantively large. Overall, these results suggest that sexuality is governed by enactments of femininity and masculinity through appropriately gendered performances of household labor that coincide with sexual scripts organizing heterosexual desire.”[152]
Though minor in importance, the following details from the study are noted purely for entertainment purposes: There was a negative correlation between sexual frequency and educational attainment (poor Kornrich and his Ph.D.) Happily for me and my ilk, there was a positive correlation between sexual frequency and those self-identifying as “Conservative Christian,” so now you have yet another way to entice an unredeemed man to join you for church. An even higher positive correlation was for those who self-identified as “Black Protestant.” Unless you’re black, there’s not much to do but envy your black brethren, but if you’re a black Catholic, by all means, convert. Yet the world thinks Christians undersexed prudes! Poor atheists.
In addition to considering the negative correlation of men performing core domestic chores and sexual frequency, please note the important positive correlation between men’s performance of traditionally male domestic chores and sexual frequency, you know, the red line.[153] So grab those tools men and fix the car or that leaky faucet. If everything is in tip-top shape, click off the bathroom circuit breaker and then “fix it.” Yes, I do accept cash, credit cards, and Paypal. Make your remittance proportional to the benefit received. (Note to churchians: From pre-publication focus group testing, it was deemed necessary to state that the bathroom breaker bit is intended merely as a joke, seeking to provide temporary relief from the important, but dry, supporting statistics.)
If this next study doesn’t bring a Cheshire grin to your face, you have no sense of humor whatsoever because, as it turns out, there are other benefits of housework: It helps your wife to maintain her girly figure and improve her health by keeping off the excess pounds. According to this hot-off-the-press study:
From 1965 to 2010, there was a large and significant decrease in the time allocated to household management. By 2010, women allocated 25% more time to screen-based media use than household management (i.e., cooking, cleaning, and laundry combined). The reallocation of time from active pursuits (i.e., housework) to sedentary pastimes (e.g., watching TV) has important health consequences. These results suggest that the decrement in HMEE [household management and energy expenditure] may have contributed to the increasing prevalence of obesity in women during the last five decades.[154]
Isn’t it fascinating that so many people waste the time gained via modern conveniences on modern contrivances? Freed to accomplish so much, we often choose to accomplish nothing, or worse.
To the virtuous woman desiring marriage to a good, godly, and successful man, know this: Whatever you do for your husband to free his time, to release him to accomplish, to send him into the world hungry to succeed, ready to sacrifice to provide for his family, you will receive rewards in return. The man leading a loving, calm, and organized home can accomplish much. All men will fritter away some time, some men will waste much time, but the worthy man, the one you’re looking to marry, will generally put it to good use, redounding to the benefit of you and yours for a lifetime and beyond.
To the good man, without setting aside God’s mandate to love her well, understand that you will never be the perfect husband, and it’s not within your control (nor is it even your place) to meet all of her needs, as unmet needs keep us, both men and women, dependent upon our good God. A person absent of need wouldn’t be following or seeking God.
Summary for a happy marriage: Become a good and capable man, and marry a virtuous woman who is happy being a woman.
Raising Your Daughters
For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into this kingdom and glory.[155]
— The Apostle Paul
A young, attractive woman should eschew the attentions of the hoards, for their motives are generally bad and their actions tend to inflate the woman’s ego sufficiently that she often overlooks, or even rejects, indications of commitment from a moral man, thinking, “It will wait.” Not so. For a woman, time is the enemy. Instead of basking in shallow male attention, she should earnestly seek the life-long love of one good man, for his love will enhance her life forever, while those who would chase the wind inherit the wind.
Though this book has focused on helping men navigate the tricky waters of the LSR culture, it should be apparent that the same lessons apply equally well to young women. Many of the women who fall into the LSR trap have “daddy issues,” not enjoying a good relationship with their fathers. Be a quality role model for her, helping her form a healthy model of the marital relationship by observing a father who loves his wife and children well and leads intentionally. Such models are best built over time, starting from childhood, and are best inculcated when observed in daily life. A woman blessed with an authentically Christian father will be prepared to easily discern the counterfeit man from the genuine article. Love her, hug her, play with her hair, tease her, touch her face, talk with her, read to her. You are her God-given protector, teacher, and guide.[156] If you build a proper relationship with your daughter, you’ll also become a model of what she’ll be seeking in a husband. As you examine your life from this perspective, the love you have for your daughter will naturally motivate you to become a better man.
This is important because your daughter needs your guidance and counsel even more than your sons. She will reach her peak sexual market value at a younger age and will maintain it for a shorter period of time. She must use those few years of peak SMV well, working to attract quality men, rapidly ascertaining their willingness to commit, and moving on if timely commitment is not forthcoming. Many women have waited for five or more years for commitment that was never to be given but, mark this, almost always having provided sexual access during those waiting years. Those making decisions while panicked tend to make poor decisions, so though her time frame is compressed relative to men, you should encourage her to move purposefully while seeking to live with the joy and peace that only comes by trusting God.
Teach her to guard her sexual access gate carefully to both attract a good man and to encourage him to open his gate of commitment and invite her in. In referring back to that ever helpful law of supply and demand, the lower the supply of a good in relation to the demand for it, the higher the price that must be paid. Just as the rare flawless diamond stands in stark relief from its much more numerous flawed counterparts, the rarity of chastity preserved in an LSR culture is extremely attractive to a wise and moral man. True chastity isn’t merely stopping short of full intercourse, but is also a state of mind, a woman intentionally reserving her body and her affections for her future husband: “So they are no longer two, but one.”[157] Though it should go without stating, a Christian woman should never consider marrying a man who’s not a Christian: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.”[158] The Apostle Paul provided direct advice to young widows - advice that is applicable to any single woman - when he wrote: “But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.”[159] No Christian should even entertain the thought of marrying outside of the faith. It’s a well-trod path, one full of anguish, a veritable river of tears. The marriage bed is not the place to schedule an evangelical crusade. At the same time, many a man genuinely lives for his God without wearing a WWJD bracelet. You must observe and act with discernment.
I cultivated and continue to enjoy a wonderful relationship with my oldest daughter, Jacy. During her teen years we spent many hours together discussing what was before her – the opportunities, the temptations - and what she might
do to successfully navigate those tricky waters. During those years I wrote her numerous letters, notes, and cards. With her permission I am sharing a few of those letters throughout the rest of this chapter. If you are like most, upon reading this chapter and the letters, you’ll find my tactics well out of the mainstream for today’s world. Over the years I have received some complaint and criticism for my methods but the best part of being a man of conviction, I simply do not care what others think or do. I simply did what I believed was right and Jacy eventually embraced her daddy’s protection wholeheartedly, basking in it, for she absolutely knew that I loved her and was seeking the best for her. It wasn’t about me. My other two daughters will benefit from Jacy’s experience as we learned what worked and what didn’t. May your daughters benefit too.
The Christian man is called to do his best to raise his daughters well, in spite of the LSR culture in which we reside. Though it will be challenging, do not stand aside, dad, while your daughter is tempted, pushed, and prodded into immoral sexual activity. America has gone full LSR, the low sexual restraint culture now waxing from sea to shining sea as it feeds upon our sinful nature, already at its apex in our inner cities, with the rest of America following the plume.
Historically this is nothing new. Ours is far from the first nation to succumb to the LSR culture and, barring our Savior’s return, it won’t be the last. It’s just that cultures don’t long survive on an LSR binge. Sodom may have been the pinnacle LSR culture in all of ancient history, but she and her sister city were only small outposts compared to America. Yet how many virtuous women lived there?[160] Probably none! Sodom’s fathers were too busy satisfying their animal lusts to even care about their daughters. Today’s inner cities are little different, imprisoned or otherwise absent fathers leaving daughters without dads and teenaged boys running rampant absent a father’s strong but loving hand for guidance and restraint.
While she was in college, my daughter Jacy served as a volunteer counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. One young inner city mother, age fourteen, was literally startled when Jacy advised her that it would be in her best interests to avoid further sexual activity until she was married, that in the meantime she should just say no. This fatherless young child responded, “I didn’t know I could say no.” This young girl is living in a culture no different than that of Sodom. May God and His followers help her and her myriad sisters of all creeds and colors. Most receive no guidance or protection from their fathers; don’t unwittingly let your own daughters join them.
As your daughter is maturing she will hear many voices that stand in stark contrast to yours, for the Enemy knows that virginity given in marriage strengthens the marital bonds and wishes to destroy that bulwark thoroughly before her marriage is consummated. You must equip yourself to guide her with authority and a father’s love, to hold sway. Our culture is awash in sexual stimulation, the goal to trigger and hold people in a constant state of sexual arousal. In an informative and oddly applicable study by Charmaine Borg at the University of Groningen, it was found that women who were sexually aroused were more willing to perform tasks that might be deemed disgusting.[161] Sex is no doubt messy and weird, initially disgusting for most when its secrets are first revealed. This disgust factor may well have helped women protect their chastity in other times, but in a sex-obsessed culture intentionally creating constant sexual arousal in both men and women, those protective disgust responses fall by the wayside, many times at a very young age. You will do well by her to limit her exposure to such stimuli.
Protect your daughter always. Do not stand aside and allow the wolves to encircle her. (And you know they are wolves!) As I have previously shown, when faced with a desire-reason dilemma, a woman relies on her emotions much more heavily than a man. The wolf will take full advantage: “Come on baby. Everybody’s doing it and I have to. We need to. I love you. I’m going to die. Don’t deny me your love. Don’t deny me your love!” [her sexually aroused emotions override her reason] “Yeah baby, that’s it! Oh baby, you feel so good. Wow! Oh baby, baby, baby!” He takes her virginity, step one to wrecking her future marriage to another man. She probably cries from the pain before the act is even over, but the Enemy celebrates, and the wolf is satisfied if only for the moment. She regrets but will return again, to him and likely others, and pregnancy is only a matter of time. Most women who find themselves in this pressure cooker will succumb, so keep her far from it.
Once you identify a potential wolf, outthink him. Any social pecking order is only valid in its particular context, so the alpha male role is always situational. For example, only about five percent of the over one million high school football players ever play in college and the pros draft only a miniscule two hundred and fifty-five players a year. That high school star chasing around your daughter with his alpha cred in tow probably won’t ever play a single down in college. He’s not Joe Flacco, so give your daughter a proper perspective. Belittle him a bit. I’m not suggesting you harm the potential predator, just keep him well-heeled, for a woman will not willingly have sex with someone she doesn’t respect.
When Jacy was in her first year of high school I was walking through her school gym in suit and tie and saw just such an opportunity. I seized it. The sophomore boys were performing two-armed free weight curls using absolutely horrible technique. I stopped at their group and explained the proper technique, instructing them that, in order to extract the full benefit from the curl exercise, they needed to raise and lower the bar slowly, thereby strengthening their arms through the full range of motion, not cheating by using the momentum of the bar to make it easier to start the lift. One of them tried the exercise with proper technique but had too much weight on the bar to do it right; without the bar’s momentum he could barely even get started and then failed utterly. Being the good man that I am, I stepped in to demonstrate, grabbing the bar and showing them all the proper technique, intentionally performing the exercise with just one arm as opposed to their two, raising it very slowly while using my other arm to point and instruct them during the entire demonstration, thereby providing irrefutable proof of my vastly superior strength. I put the bar down and instructed them they’d be better off reducing the weight until they’d built their strength a bit and then walked away, every single one of them knowing beyond a shadow of any doubt that I was fully capable of crushing them like bugs should the need ever arise. (Warning: When you initiate such a lesson, make 100% sure that you can pull it off or it will have the precise opposite effect. By all means, work to build and maintain your strength; however, if you weren’t endowed with a strong physical body, creatively apply your particular gifts and abilities to the same effect.)
You can bet that I found a low-key way to make certain Jacy found out what had taken place, making sure that she knew her most likely potential boyfriends wolves were mere little playful puppies. That’s how you do it, men: Actively cultivate your daughter’s respect for you, and annihilate any respect she might have for a potential wolf. Will the wolves hate you? Not if done well and with a smile, but do you really care what they think when you thwart their designs on your daughter? The sex act is the ultimate submission for a woman. If she doesn’t respect a man, she will not voluntarily have sex with him, ever. Note that once a good and godly man appears on the scene, you’ll need to reverse course and begin slowly and carefully building her respect for him as his commitment level increases.
Early on Jacy and I established that anyone who wanted to take her on a date had to come to my office and visit with me first. I was as friendly as a dad can be in these visits but they were full of straight talk, right down to demonstrating the parts of my daughter they could touch (a very short list) and the parts that were forbidden. At the end of each visit I handed them the following letter:
May 29, 2003
Dear Wolf Puppy (just kidding),
I wanted to write you this note so that we could develop an understanding of the responsibilities you accept when interacting with my dau
ghter. This will help make sure there is no confusion about my expectations. First, know that Jacy is a much-loved, delightful young lady. At some point, she will make some lucky man a wonderful wife and companion.
Until that time my God-given responsibility is to protect and nurture Jacy, a responsibility that I take very seriously. One of my goals (and Jacy’s) is to have Jacy enter her marriage with no regrets or apologies. God’s plan for marriage is “one man and one woman” and we must seek to honor that during our premarital days. Today, God’s way and our culture’s way are in direct conflict. I challenge you to seek and follow God’s path in your relationships. Our popular culture says sex (any kind of sex) is great. God says that sex outside of marriage is wrong and has many negative consequences. He created sex for His good purposes but warned us to enjoy it only within the bounds of marriage.
From all accounts, you seem to be a solid young man, blessed with many talents and abilities. As you no doubt know, Jacy enjoys your company very much. Because of this, you are in a position to bring her joy but you also present her with danger - spiritually, emotionally, and physically. To that end, as you and Jacy spend time together, I request that you keep the following points in mind:
1. While you are with her, her safety is your responsibility.
2. Seek to keep yourselves accountable and around other people at all times.
3. Always, always be a perfect gentleman. (I’ll be asking her if you have been.)
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