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My 55 year old parents just got back from a evangelical marriage retreat where they were given Altoids as a party favor along with a book on improving your sex life. My mother, giggling like a 12 year old, asked if I knew what the Altoids were for... hard to believe this is the same mother who told me masturbation was a sin when I was a kid. (Only she didn't use the word "masturbation"... she called it my "dirty thing").
What has happened to Protestantism? Evangelicals have been doing everything they can to shed the image of being uptight and boring. They have thrown out the hymns and long sermons... they dance, have rock music in their services, and now even lay claim to having the secret to sexual pleasure (waiting until marriage.. and now 55 year olds evangelicals are spicing up their marriages to help sustain the myth). They are now INTENSE... ON FIRE...
Of course, it's all just marketing spin. Rebranded rituals and symbols have been carefully designed replace the traditional ones Americans rejected back in the 1960s.
Personally, though I rejected Christianity at 22, I didn't have sex until I was 26 but it brought to an end to a decade of depression which I largely blame on sexual frustration. My only wish was that I hadn't believed the lies and had experimented sexually a lot sooner.
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