"Men Prefer Debt Free Virgins (Without Tattoos)" shouted the headline of the article. "That's judging the exterior, and what about the boys?" grumbled the response.
Now from my perspective, there's really only one response to a statement like that of the original article.
That marriage minded men would prefer women who are debt free, child free (with minimal prior sexual partners), and capable of making the kind of sound judgements that preclude getting lots of tattoos or piercings at an early age should be self evident and uncontroversial. It's right up there with other uncontroversial and incontrovertible statements like "Water is wet.", "The sky is blue.", and "Hillary Clinton is a lying shitweasel."
But, apparently this isn't the case. Look, I get why the bitter, loveless writers for Jezebel would hate on the article, but that's not where the fire was coming from this time. Instead it was from some of my old classmates from Fundie school, who apparently took issue with a number of things in the article.
The original article can be found here. At this point, I should probably note that I had not previously heard of The Transformed Wife. This may have something to do with the fact that I am not a housewife, not female, and not a Transformer. I do, however, like to make up my own mind about things, so I checked out the original post and site.
Okay, look, I have a few problems with The Transformed Housewife. Most notably, she's a big fan of the Duggers, whom I absolutely can't stand for their fake as Joel Osteen brand of prosperity gospel, quiverfull BS. But that's a rant for another day. If Herron Walker can get something right for Jezebel, then Mrs. Alexander can definitely be right just as often, if not more.
So let's dig into the substantive criticism of the article, shall we?
The first argument that I saw was that the article focuses too much on outward appearances, on being debt free, and doesn't present a salvation message, or hope for ladies who aren't debt-free, aren't virgins, or have tattoos. To which I can only respond with "Do you get mad at a can of Pepsi for not being an ice-cold lemonade?"
God's grace is for everyone. No matter who you are, where you're from, or what you did (and if you were a teen in the '90s, I bet you've got that song stuck in you're head now), God's grace is for you. But this article isn't for that group, it's advice to teenage young ladies for what to do or not do, if they'd like to be married before they're thirty-five. And it is absolutely, statistically inarguable that being debt free, and not having children before marriage are choices that tend to lead to a happier, more successful life. This applies to men and women, too.
Tattoos, well, one can argue that's more of a preference than anything else, but it seems like most eighteen- or nineteen-year-old folks who get tattoos tend to regret them later in life. Why mark yourself up in a permanent way for the kind of impulsive decision that most college-age people are known for? I'm not even arguing against all tattoos here. If you want ink, go for it, but do it as a calm, thought out, sober process, not as a drunken dare.
Which brings me to argument Number Two, which is the claim that there's a double standard between what the church teaches young women, and what they teach young men. Which in my past experience as a young man, I consider to be utterly absurd.
All right, story time. Cue DC Talk's I Don't Want It for some background music as I go back to the '90s as a church kid. We all got the same talks: God's best is that you stay a virgin until you get married. Don't look for the right one, be the right one. Everyone was reading Josh Harris's book I Kissed Dating Goodbye (which turned out to be a bit of a mistake, in hindsight). As I recall, a roughly equal number of both guys and girls stood up at the front of our church one Sunday morning and made a purity pledge, putting gold bands on our left ring fingers and promising to not remove them until we could give them to our future spouses as physical symbols of our purity.
Now, I'll admit that's it's been almost eighteen years since I last paid any attention to advice about dating. I stopped needing that kind of advice once I slipped my grandmother's ring onto the finger of my Beloved after she agreed to be my future wife. But it seems highly unlikely that churches have done a one-eighty degree pivot on the topic of sexual purity since that time. Oh, there may be a few that have unspoken double-standards, but I don't believe those are a majority. Perhaps I simply wasn't cool enough as a teen to be invited to the double-secret meetings in the secret cave under the baptismal where the youth pastor read the Secret Eleventh and Twelth commandments from the forbidden book of Hezekiah, advising the teenage boys of the church to ignore all publicly taught lessons and instead nail every hot piece of tail you can find, then complain that the only women you can find are sluts when you're ready to settle down.
But somehow I doubt that. Let me phrase one of the oft repeated dating lessons of my youth - "Don't look for the right one, be the right one" a different way. Law of Attraction. Like attracts like. For guys this meant (and still means) that if you want to find a moral, family minded, debt free woman with few prior partners and no kids, be that kind of person yourself first! Conversely, if a guy plans on getting enough ink on his skin to make a sailor blush, run up massive debts, and sow wild oats whenever and wherever he can, he shouldn't be surprised when his dating options have all made similar choices in their past.
What's the conclusion. Primarily, it's that The Transformed Wife is right on the money with this one, whatever her other issues may be. And secondly, for women protesting this, well, as Shakespeare once wrote: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."
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