Are girls allowed to say a firm no to a boy?
That seems like a ridiculous question, doesn’t it? Of course girls are allowed!
But back up the truck, because this doesn’t seem to be what’s being taught to girls in evangelical circles, and I want to explore today WHY that’s the case.
We’ve talked about Dannah Gresh’s work before, most recently in our critique of the book Lies Young Women Believe, which also has a download of our findings.
She’s one of the queens of purity culture.
This week, I posted on Facebook about her instructions to girls if they’re in a makeout situation that they want to stop. In her book And the Bride Wore White, Dannah says:
OK, things have gone too far. He is reaching for the forbidden fruit … or maybe you are. It is time to say, “Freeze.” What words will you use to do it? I’ve been collecting these comeback lines since this book came out a few years ago and I love hearing your ideas. Be sure to join my Dannah Gresh Facebook page and send me your ideas! Below I have given you two of the best comeback lines I have heard. You determine what other eight you will add to your list.
10. Isn’t it cool that God is watching us every minute?
9. Hey, have I told you that my father dusts me for fingerprints when I get home from a date?
Let’s set the stage: here’s the moment when the girl is the most vulnerable, when she needs to be able to communicate clearly and be heard.
But what is she told to do? Beat around the bush, make jokes, and not say anything directly.
We had a really rich conversation on Facebook about this, and several readers were able to put into words something that I hadn’t quite expressed:
I think what is telling about Dannah’s responses is that they both appeal to an authority who is higher up in the hierarchy than the boy. I’m guessing she subconsciously believes that a boy will not listen to a girl saying no (because whatever patriarchal reason she might subscribe to about men, women, and their sex drives), so the girl must invoke the image of an authority figure finding out. Authority figures mean the man faces consequences. Her not wanting to is of no consequence to the boy so easy for him to ignore.
Leanne echoed this:
Because of the church’s teaching on authority, she can’t say no. And yet she has to. Everybody knows her no is meaningless and won’t be respected, so she has to appeal to a higher authority– God or dad. This won’t change, and her no will never be respected, until churches teach that she has a voice too.
Exactly! They have so built up a theology that says that girls must listen to authority that, when placed in a situation where girls simply must assert themselves, the only way to do that is to rely on SOMEONE ELSE’S authority–in this case, her dad’s or God’s.
Her own authority over her own body isn’t enough of a reason to get him to stop.
Their theology has backed girls into a corner
They CAN’T, within their theological framework, tell girls it’s okay to say a firm no. THIS is where it all starts to fall apart, because if your theology tells you that you can’t even protect yourself, that you have no right to speak on your own on your behalf, then that theology leaves you tremendously unsafe.
Other commenters saw this too:
“My dad dusts me for fingerprints” because I’m obviously just an object to be owned, not a whole human with agency and dignity. Ugh…do they think about what they’re saying??
I also feel like this goes along with how they teach women not to be clear in their communication with their husbands, always telling us to stroke their ego, hint, and tiptoe around the issue. Good Lord, it’s no wonder we are all stressed out and have no real boundaries!!
And Laura K said something similar:
How this expects a young man to recognize her dad’s ownership of her body, rather than her own. I could write a whole book on how this stuff harmed me, but you already did!
So the only way she has of getting the boy to stop is to:
- Rely on someone’s authority that is even greater than the boy’s
- Recognize that someone else owns her body
They can’t actually tell her to just say no, because to do so would undermine the whole system of authority that they’ve set up in their books, about how women must be under men.
If women must be under men, then women really have no right to say no, UNLESS there’s a man with even greater authority she gets to rely on.
(And think about what this means for marital rape–if she can only say no because a male authority would back her up on this, then she has absolutely no right to say no in marriage, when her husband is her male authority).
Male hierarchy does not protect women
They keep saying that this system protects women, but it ultimately falls apart here, doesn’t it? Because if it so protects women, then why is she made so vulnerable that she can’t even say no when a boy is sexually assaulting her?
Now, in the moment it’s often not safe to say no if you are being attacked, and the fawn trauma response (or the freeze trauma response) can be triggered. I’m not arguing against that. But what I see here is that Dannah’s suggested response to girls actually IS the fawn trauma response, even before an assault starts. She’s setting fawning as the default, not something you do under duress when you have no other option to protect yourself.
Fawning can send the opposite message
As commenter Sarah said:
“I think many, many guys would take the above two lines as a “playing hard to get” flirtation. To the point where I wonder if that’s intentional from the author.”
When you can’t distinguish saying “no” from flirting, you’ve got a real problem.
But that’s what’s happened here, isn’t it? We wouldn’t want to undermine the boy’s authority or make him feel bad, and so her only response is to try to use her feminine wiles to get him to back off easily, without being offended, so he doesn’t hurt her.
After all, it was also Dannah Gresh, in the book Lies Young Women Believe, who told girls that they had to submit to the boys they were dating, so they would have practice submitting by the time they got married. She’s already telling girls that they have to listen to boys. And boys are getting the same message–her voice doesn’t really matter.
So he’s already inclined to not take what she says that seriously.
Yet what happens if she is assaulted?
Let’s say that he doesn’t care that her “dad dusts her for fingerprints”, and he sexually assaults her.
What is the first question that people will ask her?
As Bethany noted:
“And yet, if he DOES go too far, what will they ask? “Did you tell him no?”
So she’ll get blamed for not telling him a firm no, and yet, in their theology, she also can’t give him a firm no.
She is seriously backed into a corner, and everything falls apart.
If girls don’t have the authority to say no to rape, they are not being protected.
This is where the rubber hits the road. They can say all along that the whole system of male authority is set up to protect women; that men are designed to be the protectors, and that’s why women should submit to them.
But here, when it most matters, we see how it doesn’t work at all.
This doesn’t protect her. This leaves her incredibly vulnerable.
For girls to be safe, they need authority over their bodies.
Women and girls need to be able to say a firm no, based on nothing else other than that they don’t want something.
Their “no” has to be enough.
But their no will never be enough in a theology which puts men in charge of her. If she always has to appeal to a man’s authority to say no, then you’re already setting up a culture where men and boys don’t have to listen to women’s voices. So why should the boy listen to her no at all?
I feel so dreadfully sad for Dannah Gresh, to be honest.
What must she believe about women and girls? To write that 8-year-old bellies have the ability to intoxicate grown men– how must she feel being around little girls, sexualizing them and feeling like men want to rape them all the time?
How must she feel desperately trying to teach teen girls to stay safe in a theology which paints men as animals who are constantly undressing them and “finishing the picture” of their bodies, and wanting girls to maintain their innocence at the same time as feeling like the world is so, so dangerous?
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How must she feel if the world is genuinely as dangerous as her theology teaches, and yet women aren’t able to protect themselves unless they fawn and try to make the boy like them enough to stop?
That’s such a scary world.
It’s not a world I want to live in.
In fact, it’s a world I refuse to live in. And that’s why we simply must teach girls that no is a complete sentence, and that they do have authority over their own bodies.
Please, read She Deserves Better for a whole chapter on consent, with exercises you can do with your daughter to help her recognize coercion and learn what to do in these situations.
Because our girls do deserve better than this–and it’s up to us to stop this dangerous theology from spreading.
What do you think? Do you think these authors and teachers realize they’ve made it impossible to truly teach consent? Let’s talk in the comments!
The only thing I can think about is what kind of guys she is surrounded by for all of this to be “normal”. Like, no one she is around regularly, male or female, has ever come to her and told her “hey, this is kind of creepy if a guy is acting like this?” I still remain convinced that many people don’t think through the consequences of their theology. So long as the “key words” are correct, no need to examine things further, in their opinion.
And these same authors lament that so many people aren’t jumping to get married. If they say marriage is supposed to be like this, can you blame people for going “no thanks”?
I think the same thing. I truly wonder what her “normal” is.
Yuk.
This reminds me of an article I saw once about an anti-rape campaign at a university somewhere. The campaign had posters of guys holding signs saying “she’s somebody’s _____” with words like sister, daughter, friend, etc. It was meant to discourage violence by getting guys to stop and think about how they’d feel if one of their own female family members or friends was assaulted. Well intentioned, but didn’t go over well with survivors or advocates. They responded with signs that said, “She’s somebody.”
And that’s it, really. She’s somebody. Full stop.
Oops this was meant to be a standalone comment not a reply
There’s also an implicit threat here – if a guy hears “no”, he might get mad, and then all bets are off. She’s not only appealing to male hierarchy with these vague and ridiculous comments, she’s protecting the guy from humiliation – and protecting herself from the male violence that might follow.
Absolutely. It is the fawn trauma response.
This is a masterful dismantling of the “hierarchy = protection” fallacy! I have intellectually come full circle from purity culture to freedom from it – praise God! But so many of the messages are still deeply ingrained, so it can still be difficult for me to spot the lies and deception in purity culture and patriarchal messages at times. I can usually sense something is off, but not always articulate what or why. Thank you for stating it so clearly, Sheila!
You’re so welcome!
Gresh had probably been taught that women aren’t allowed to say no. I see this in grown women and have heard some say, “I never say no to my husband.” I hope the ones I know who have said that probably only say it to make other women around them think that they are good, submissive wives who do what they believe the Bible says. In fact, I have noticed these women do not always act out what they claim to do or believe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Danna Gresh had experienced trauma in her teen years. I do remember from her book, she mentioned not being a virgin until she married and made it sound like she was fully responsible for that. She was probably coerced and felt like she couldn’t say no.
When I had sex Ed back in the 90s, we were taught that we could say no, but then as an adult once you’re married, these lousy church teachings say you can never tell your husband no.
“I think many, many guys would take the above two lines as a “playing hard to get” flirtation. To the point where I wonder if that’s intentional from the author.”
Exactly.
It isn’t something I noticed until I spent a lot of time in evangelical culture: it aggressively trains women to talk like fools.
It’s a win-win for men: they can “misinterpret” to their heart’s content because she “wasn’t clear,” and then she can be blamed for not being clear. They can also laugh at women for using lots of words and talking all the time and not being able to communicate their emotions (all the while saying that’s our skill, because we are bad at math, right?).
But if she speaks clearly and plainly, she will be ignored, shamed, called “cold,” or men will STILL act like her words must have a super-secret meaning because that’s how it always works.
The correct response if a man pushes your boundaries? “I already told you that I am waiting for (marriage, my period to be over, an exclusive relationship, at least a few months) for sex.” Then see how he reacts. If he withdraws his hand, good. If he whines, complains, pushes boundaries, then leave the situation and leave him.
“It isn’t something I noticed until I spent a lot of time in evangelical culture: it aggressively trains women to talk like fools.
It’s a win-win for men: they can “misinterpret” to their heart’s content because she “wasn’t clear,” and then she can be blamed for not being clear. They can also laugh at women for using lots of words and talking all the time and not being able to communicate their emotions (all the while saying that’s our skill, because we are bad at math, right?).”
Ouch!!!
Yes.
Thank you!!
Yes! I’ve even had other women use this tactic on me because they’ve been raised in this structure. I had concerns with one of my professional mentors, so I sent a calm but direct email listing my issues with her teaching methods. She responded by cutting off contact with me, then referred me to a higher up who called me a “black sheep” and said my communication style was “harsh.” Why can’t women be direct? Why must we couch our opinions with “I think,” “I feel,” “I prayed about this,” “maybe,” “possibly”?
We deserve so much better—from men, from other women, and from the church.
Isn’t it exhausting to have to soften your words all the time, so that they aren’t taken seriously and then it takes three times the time necessary to get anything done? So exasperating!!
Amen! Let’s view these as red flags rather than normalizing them.
I’ve been trying to figure out if adding this in is helpful to the conversation…. I’m doing it – but still not totally sure.
Before your book for girls, this was the only place I knew of to direct people to, to have this conversation:
https://giftoffear.com/
Part 6 deals with girls saying NO.
(TRIGGER WARNING – this series deals with sometimes graphic real life stories of rape and assault.)
Gavin de Becker is the author of “The Gift of Fear” and the MOSAIC threat assessment system.
His emphasis is on how girls are trained out of paying attention to their “gut” reactions through the process of having to be “nice”. Sometimes they find themselves in situations which they should never have got into if they had paid attention to how they were really feeling.
We are trained in church that our hearts are deceitful, that our inner voices are untrustworthy. and as women, that the guy knows best.
Trying to get people to tune back into their inner voice when they’ve had a church background can be very challenging.
Obviously a girl in a make out situation may have started out wanting to be there – and the situation isn’t totally the same.
But this has some other thoughts to consider and I hope someone finds it helpful.
(The series is called a Masterclass – but it is free.)
I absolutely ended up in some situations I didn’t want to be in because I was trying to be nice. It’s so, so hard to break that.
My church and marital situation required I shut down that inner voice for three decades, because “God’s will.” It’s been kinda scary to realized that I’m not sure I can reliably hear it at the moment!
Hi, I lurk on the blog and I just remembered something that really comforted me from like 20+ years ago, so wanted to share. I was going to a therapist who was a Christian and a dear, dear wonderful man(a real therapist not nouthetic or whatever lol). I was telling him about growing up in a Christian school and being taught about women obeying husbands, and how as a kid it bothered and angered me to hear that and made me feel inferior as a woman. He said to me, “Stacey, I believe that was God’s witness in you””—that the Holy Spirit was telling me it wasn’t right. He affirmed my feelings 100%. Those ideas made it hard to trust God or believe He loves me, but Vin my counselor modeled God’s love to me. He’s in heaven now, but I am still grateful God put him in my life.
That’s so beautiful; thanks for sharing it. It does speak to me!
Oh Lisa!! You’ve shared some of what you had to live with in previous comments you’ve left.
The fact that you feel like you cannot hear your own self is a testimony to the hell you’ve endured.
I am so, so sorry.
You have been amazingly strong – and when you’re in that survival state trying to listen to your feelings (which are screaming because of your circumstances) can be counter productive.
I hope that as your life calms down from abusive stress and trauma that you can find your whole self again and feel safe enough to hear your intuition.
Again. I’m so sorry. ♥️
I read “The Gift of Fear” many years ago. Great book on personal security and should be read by everyone. As I recall, when Gavin walks you through the different red flags that indicate someone is trying to manipulate you and is working towards a situation that can threaten your personal safety, he openly acknowledges that many of these tactics are used by many men just to try and get a date or in the context of an existing relationship to get something they want.
Sheila , you REALLY need to get Gavin on your podcast as a guest.
Sheila,
Sorry I was rude there. Let me rephrase. I think Gavin would be a great guest on your podcast.
By the time you reach adolescence, as a girl in purity culture, you’ve already seen your parents’ patterns, and what they teach you at the Christian school, and what you’re told at church about male headship — and your No is already long gone. I didn’t even know how to say it. I was lucky I didn’t go out much because I had almost zero boundaries with boys — I only ever learned that male = boss. I had learned fawning and manipulation. By that point, I had already been molested in childhood by a grown man, a respected church leader.
They are SETTING US UP TO BE ASSAULTED. Whether they mean to or not doesn’t matter — that’s what they’re actually doing.
Exactly. They don’t mean to–but it’s still happening. And when you point it out, they ignore you.
I’m sure some of them borderline mean to.
I can understand higher authority somehow, for are we not supposed to obey God as Christians, and He does indeed see us all the time, but “My dad dusts me off for fingerprints”, that’s…just weird. And unhealthy.
When me and hubby were still dating, it was in fact HIM that told ME we are not supposed to have sex before we are married, because that’s what God tells us and we are going to obey Him together. I was a new believer in those days, very green and ignorant. It was my husband-to-be who was the “gatekeeper”.
I’m glad I never read Danah Gresh’s books. Perhaps they were not even available back then. We got married before the Purity Movement really kicked off.
I just wonder, what kind of dating is that what she recommends. The girl needs to submit to the boy as an “exercise”, even when he is disobeying God by pushing her boundaries? If they are preparing for a Christian marriage, are they not both supposed to obey God, listen to His voice and honour each other’s boundaries?
I would advise the girl on question to say firmly NO, but I would also advise her not to date boys who have so little respect for her and so little personal conviction and desire to follow God’s instructions.
This is all so true. When I was in college, the young women were taught that the only decision a girlfriend can make in the relationship is to break up. In all other things, she must submit. And of course the next logical step in this is that in marriage, the wife can make NO decision since divorce isn’t even an option. My husband and I were told that divorce wasn’t even to be in our vocabulary.
The entire system is set up for men to abuse women. She can’t tell him no without falling into sin. He can do whatever he wants because she has to submit and divorce isn’t going to happen. He has free reign to behave however he wants–whether that be abusive or lazy or both.
After I got married, I was told a myriad of harmful teachings that led to horrific abuses. I was told never to tell him no in bed, nor was I to tell him I didn’t like anything–fake it til you make it! He is my authority. I need to drop my interests and hobbies and take on his, because I’m supposed to live my life around him, not the other way around. Plus many other things along those lines.
You know which one REALLY messed me up? After trying to get help for his outrageous verbal abuses (he would yell at me for hours on end on a weekly basis, if not more) I was told this: How would you respond to Jesus if he was treating you like that? That’s how you need to respond to your husband.
Do you know how messed up that is??? I was told to imagine JESUS yelling at me and calling me names and swearing at me for hours on end!! I was made to believe that Jesus would do that to me!! I was not told that my husband was in sin, that I did not deserve to be abused. No! I was told that Jesus would do the same to me and I basically deserved it–and how would I respond to him when he did? That *I* needed to be more loving!!!
That is so messed up, so abusive. Those people piled more abuse on me — and how DARE they insinuate that Jesus could act like that? Can you imagine how hard it is to trust a God who would do that? How do I even try to deconstruct those evil lies?
EOF – I’m feeling rather speechless!! I’m so sorry!!
1 Cor 6v10 says that revilers do not inherit the kingdom of God. I can only believe that this counsel came from someone who has a different Jesus and heaven than you do?
Whoever they were they have forfeited any claim to speak for God into your life. – you are absolutely right. They DID lie about Him.
I hope this blog post may help you: https://myonlycomfort.com/2017/06/02/christians-who-revile/
Thank you for sharing that. I spent a lot of time asking the same questions as you do in the blog post. How was it that the Bible said not to even eat with such a person, but I was expected to live with an obey such a person just because I had made the mistake of marrying him? My husband has done things that the Bible says makes him worse than an unbeliever. He has refused to work for so many years, and the Bible says such a man should not eat. Yet I was told to work because that was submitting to his decision to not work, and I was pleasing God. (All the while still dealing with the hellish verbal and emotional and sexual abuse.)
What kind of a sadistic god do these people serve??
The kind of god that gets woes pronounced on them:
“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5v20)
The kind of god you don’t need to worry about “measuring up” for!
The kind of god that you don’t need in your life.
The kind of god who loves slavery and oppression.
If you have a problem with this god – YOU are NOT the problem!
(P.S. I wish I had written the blog post, but I didn’t. It was something that helped me and that’s why I hoped it would help you, too! ♥️)
Not sure where to ask this (there isn’t like a Bare Marriage online community?) so I’ll post it here, but after reading GSR and SDB, devouring most of the content on this blog and binging tons of podcast episodes over the past few months, I finally went back to read 9 Questions That Change Marriage book.
It seems kinda out of sync with a lot of Sheila’s recent stuff? Only addresses men, generalizes according to gender often, doesn’t seem to rock the boat that much… It kind of feels safe and more main stream than the typical awesome counter culture stuff I’ve come to expect from Bare Marriage content. Has Sheila ever discussed this book or how she has changed since writing it?
“Good GUY’s Guide” … with my apologies.
“Good Boy’s Guide” sounds like a pet owner’s manual or a patronizing joke, doesn’t it!?
Oops!
The 9 questions book is one of her older ones, and I think she actually pulled that one out of publication, so I’m guessing that you have an old copy of the book. She talks often about how her views have changed and how she has actively worked to right the wrongs of what she used to teach.
Hi Mark!
Just in case Sheila is busy and doesn’t see your question for a bit … she has mentioned that her views have shifted a bit since she started writing. That’s why they revised the Good Girls Guide and Good Boy’s Guide books.
BUT!! Sheila and her husband Keith HAVE been writing a new marriage book that they met their submission deadline for about a month ago, and it will be out next spring!! 😁
The thing that really stood out to me was the words ‘forbidden fruit’. Labelling body parts like that is objectifying and dehumanising for a start but also the idea that she’s only allowed to not want it if it’s forbidden by her church’s teachings and not because she just doesn’t want it. Like she’s supposed to go along with it until she reaches the point where the church would want her to stop. It just feels like she doesn’t have any ownership of her own body whatsoever and the church owns her body. I guess it kind of ties in with what the commenter posted about higher powers really.
That’s a really interesting thing to pick up on too! Absolutely right.
I recently heard a song on a country radio station. As it played, I realized this blog post is exactly why it made my stomach churn. She IS her OWN person, with WORTH all by herself! *Note I’m not trying to rail against the artist as I’m sure he meant it well, but it’s this kind of thought that permeates so much of culture.
“She’s somebody’s daughter
She’s somebody’s everything
She’s somebody’s little girl
Even if she’s grown up and moved away
She’s somebody’s whole world
She’s somebody’s baby
And if you don’t treat her right
Hers won’t be the only heart you’re breaking.”
The message: if you break her heart, that won’t be good but really, don’t break her heart because her parents’ feelings are really the important ones.
Yes, that’s exactly the message that we’re giving with that song!
I hate that song! We listen to a lot of country music and I told my boys exactly why, although well intentioned, it isn’t a good message.
Oh this is so real. When I was in purity culture, I basically believed that I should say NO to something a boy wanted if it was a sin. And if it wasn’t a sin, then I should probably just go along with it because if I say no, then he might feel rejected, and if a boy feels rejected, that would be the worst thing ever, or something.
There was one time, I was dating a guy, and when we held hands, he would rub the ends of my fingers, and it drove me crazy, I totally hated it. But it wasn’t a sin, and it wasn’t sexual at all, and there was no “purity” dimension to it- I just didn’t like it. I spent so much time trying to come up with a very very nice way to tell him to stop, so that he wouldn’t “feel rejected.” Then when I finally told him, it turns out it was actually not a big deal at all.
(But if he had been all dramatic about it, and acted like I was doing a bad thing by saying “no”, I would have thought his behavior was normal! That’s what purity culture says boys are like.)
I would change it from theology that “lets” girls say no to a theology that “empowers” girls to say no.
Excellent article. Thank you, Sheila, for so clearly pointing out the completely no-win situation that purity culture/gender hierarchy puts girls in.
Good point!
Yes this exactly! Purity culture *requires* girls to say no to certain things boys want, and *requires* girls to say yes to other things boys want. It’s all about following the rules, it’s never about the girl actually having a choice, or being empowered, or anyone caring what she wants.
Okay, this is a whole other layer I hadn’t seen. This is so sad!
Just a few years ago my daughter was in kindergarten at her Christian school, and they have a fairy tale ball where the kids dress up in costumes and actually dance at school. Ahead of it my daughter came home and in distress told me that her teacher told the girls they had to say yes if the boys asked them to dance. She was very worried about it, and I told her no, you do not have to say yes to anything you don’t want to do.😱 I couldn’t believe it. I text the teacher and told her that my daughter did not have to dance just because a boy asked. I have a son and I get not wanting to hurt their feelings, but honestly boys need to learn to deal with subtle rejection or they will never be resilient enough to deal with bigger rejection or disappointment. It is not the girl’s responsibility to coddle the boys pride or emotions. I just couldn’t believe that at such a young age this message was being sent-that girls can’t say no to boys-that girls’ comfort and safety is less important than a boys temporary feelings. I think it’s part purity culture and part southern manners where I live, but either way, I couldn’t believe they were telling 5 and 6 year old girls this message. 😔
Oh my word! That’s insane. That’s so, so weird. That’s a weird event to have too for 5 year olds?
I’ve been reading “Entitled”, by Kate Manne, which makes the point that we tend to think of rape and sexual assault as involving physical force or at least the threat of force, but actual serial abusers tend to get their way with simple verbal pressure.
Manne makes the point that, given how humans are wired to “go along” with a social script, and given how women in particular are socialized to prioritize the needs of others over their own feelings, an insistent, repeated “please” or “I need…” or “it would make me so happy…” actually has more coercive power than a threat of violence.
A few years ago I was convicted that even asking my wife for sex is overstepping my bounds; that asking for access to her body is like showing up unannounced at my friend’s house with a bag of chips and asking to have a party. “Don’t even ask” probably sounds extreme, but it makes perfect sense if you understand how hard it is to say “no” and how asking can act coercively even if you don’t mean it to.
“Wait, you always leave it to her to initiate?” you’ll ask. That sounds unbalanced. But it’s actually a different paradigm where one person “initiating” isn’t a thing. I offer what’s mine to offer: my interest in her, my attention. I do that with open hands and no expectation of anything beyond that we’ll snuggle and talk.
But that means that we’re often in that kind of relaxed but intimate and vulnerable state together, which as Sheila has said elsewhere, is where you want to be before you even think of going further toward arousal. And my wife knows it’s safe to be in that space and it doesn’t have to go further except on the relatively rare occasions when she finds she wants it to.
What did Jesus say about saying no?
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)
Being a bit snarky here ripping this out of context of oaths but I still think it applies. Because what Jesus is saying here is that our yes or no should be truthful and enough. They should be taken seriously without any qualifiers or calling on higher authority.