Radical Womanhood

Porn in Public Libraries

A few months ago, I received this letter from my friend, Pam. It concerned a shock she received at a local public library--a new facility in Montgomery County that is a hit with all the moms of young children in our area. I asked permission to share it with my blog readers because I was curious as to what other people had experienced.

As most of you know, I am not one to go all hysterical, but I am so dumbfounded by what happed to me today, that I thought I should share it with you.

I was at the Rockville Library (without my son, gratefully), when I looked over and saw a young man watching pornography on one of the library's computers. I will spare you the details, but suffice to say it was very explicit and nobody with any sense of sanity would say what I was viewing was open to interpretation.  When I complained to the librarian I was told that by law--because of his right to freedom of speech and right to information--this man had the right to watch porn on the library's computers, and that all they could do was go give the man a privacy screen.  A privacy screen will block the view from the sides but still allow someone standing directly behind him to see what was on the screen.  I should add that there was a group of younger teenagers sitting within sight of this computer as well.

I had a lengthy conversation with the head librarian.  I asked for the library's policy in writing, and she gave me a copy of a policy paper that the American Library Association put out about internet access and the use of filters on library computers.  (The ALA is against them.) While sympathetic in tone, she stated that there was nothing she could do. As I was leaving the library, a second librarian told me that at another library in Montgomery County, the library was forced to reprimand a security guard who forced a patron to stop viewing porn on the library's computer. The guard thought he was doing the right thing (imagine that!)--that patrons were not allowed to view porn at the library--but it turns out he was wrong. When the patron complained, the guard was reprimanded.

Yes, we live in a world that has some how made what is right wrong, and what is wrong right. Maybe you all knew this already, but I pass this along because I don't want your kids to see anything that that they shouldn't. I am mulling over whether there is any additional course of action I might be able to take, as this seems so insane that parents cannot do anything about this. If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would be grateful to receive them.

Pam says she appreciates this library and certainly isn't trying cause any trouble personally for the librarians there. But she is deeply concerned about this policy. Afterward, she learned through some rudimentary research that the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that public libraries do not necessarily infringe on First Amendment rights of free speech if they put filters on their computers, as long as they
are willing to turn the filters off if an adult patron asks. The protection of children was seen as a "compelling interest," she says.

About a month after this experience, she wrote a lengthy letter to the director of Montgomery County Libraries. A few weeks later, she received a response from a library staffer, addressing specifically the issues in her letter.  The library staffer indicated that they are "evaluating" their current policy and talking to other jurisdictions to see how well (or not so well) filters work in other community libraries. She didn't really indicate that the county would be changing its policy, however. "I am hoping to convince other people to write to the director of the library, as well," Pam says. "The response that I received left me with the impression that they are open to input, but I could be wrong on this."

I have to confess I have little reason to be in libraries these days, thanks to the 'Net, so I was unaware of this issue. However, it appears to be a growing problem. One librarian was recently fired from her job for reporting a man watching child pornography. A California man was arrested for viewing child pornography and police found candy, ropes, and duct tape in his car. And an investigative report by KGO-TV in San Francisco found "multiple incidents of people performing lewd sexual acts in public view at a San Jose library while viewing porn." Fortunately, I also discovered that there is an organization called Family Friendly Libraries that has taken on this issue and provides guidelines for communities that want to take action.

Is this an issue in your community, too? I've opened the comment function on this post for a few days to hear from you all on this topic. I would especially appreciate hearing from the librarians. (Comments will be moderated and, due to my schedule, will only be posted for a few days.)

No Appetite for Noise

Ah, I feel so much better knowing that it's not just me. Other people find dining out to be very stressful these days, too.

It's not because of rising prices or rising calories counts. It's because of the rising noise levels in restaurants. People can't hear each other and the strain of conducting a conversation drains all the pleasure out of eating out. So it was with HUGE satisfaction that I read last Sunday's Washington Post magazine article by restaurant critic Tom Sietsema, "No Appetite for Noise." Here are some interesting excerpts:

ACCORDING TO THE ZAGAT SURVEY, whose familiar burgundy restaurant guides cover 42 markets throughout the United States, noise ranks second, just behind service, as the response to the query: "What irritates you most about dining out?"

"A certain level of noise people consider to be exciting or good energy," says Tim Zagat, the guide's founder. "Once it gets so loud you can't hear yourself chew, it's over the top."

The cause of the clatter is just about everywhere a diner glances these days. In a restaurant's hard floors. On its naked tables. At the high ceilings. In other words, the blame for all the noise comes from the clean, slick and modern look favored by so many restaurant operators and their customers . . .

Noisy restaurants affect more than just the ears. Loud sounds can elevate blood pressure, increase breathing rates, intensify the effects of alcohol and make sleep difficult -- even after the noise ceases. At certain elevated levels, some people can experience dizziness and even nausea.

I never felt lightheaded or sick to my stomach at Zaytinya, one of the loudest restaurants in the city, but I did find myself eating faster than usual, raising my voice to be heard and assuming the posture of the Hunchback of Notre Dame as I bent into the table to hear what my tablemates were saying. . .

Exposure to noise may be hardest on restaurant workers, who spend more time in a dining room than do the people they wait on. "Theoretically," says Robert W. Sweetow, director of audiology and professor of otolaryngology at the University of California in San Franscisco, "the sound levels over time are loud enough to get impaired hearing." (Otolaryngology is the branch of medicine dealing with ear, nose and throat disorders.) . . .

According to Sweetow, sounds louder than 80 decibels are potentially hazardous. Which brings up another side effect of loud restaurants. "You have to ask, what is the emotional impact?" he says. The physician, who treats patients with hearing disorders, says many clients don't go to restaurants for fear of embarrassing themselves, because they can't understand what the waiter is saying or have trouble following a table conversation. "It's a big problem."

It definitely is! I make a habit of asking restaurants to turn down the blaring music or lower the TV volume near me. But I also avoid certain restaurants because the noise level is unnerving. So this raises an important point. Since this article confirms what I've long suspected--noise is on the increase--we have to ask ourselves is the fellowship or outreach we expect over a restaurant table really going to occur? Obviously there are times when you go out to a place because you really love the food and maybe deep conversation isn't a priority. But most of us go out because there's someone we want to spend time with over food--a new neighbor, a colleague, a friend from church or school, family members. If we're strategically investing time in these relationships, will a noisy restaurant undermine that purpose?

It's another reason that opening our homes to offer hospitality and good cheer is so important. When we practice hospitality (Romans 12:13), we are honoring Scripture, providing the ambiance for relationships to grow, and giving our hurting ears some rest in this noisy world.

UPDATE: I received some contributions with good ideas for hospitality and negotiating restaurants, so I've added those for everyone's benefit.

The 'Fantasy Land' of the Single Christian

I'm now working on a chapter about feminist influence on sexuality for my book. This is where the influence of the less-defined third wave of feminism (1990s to present) is really found. The female raunch culture of Girls Gone Wild, Sex & the City, Victoria's Secret, and young women who dress for the office like they would for their honeymoon is a direct result of the ideology of third-wave feminism. And it makes for a difficult task to accurately, but discreetly, describe this movement and its effects.

That's why I was actually pleased to read an article that ran in last week's Wall Street Journal, titled "Sex Education." The opening paragraphs are highly discouraging as the author describes the current state of hooking up on college campuses. But then she writes about a class she taught at Boston University that was received surprisingly well by her students:

When last semester I taught Wendy Shalit's "A Return to Modesty," in a class at Boston University called "Spirituality & Sexuality in American Youth Culture," I assumed that my mostly left-leaning students would reject her arguments about the terrible effects that the hook-up culture has on young women and the positive effects of traditional religion and morality on young women's well-being. Instead, my students ate up her critique and were fascinated by her descriptions of modesty as a virtue, especially within the context of faith. One student said that she felt empowered to stop tolerating vulgar remarks about sex made by peers in her presence.

The class was equally attracted to some evangelical dating manuals, like "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris and "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, that I asked them to read. They seemed shocked that somewhere in America there are entire communities of people their age who really do "save themselves" until marriage, who engage in old-fashioned dating with flowers and dinner and maybe a kiss goodnight. They reacted as if these authors describe a wonderful fantasy land. "It would be easier just to have sex with someone than ask them out on a real date," one student said, half-seriously.

I am so grateful I get to live in this "fantasy land"--but my heart breaks for the women who feel they have no other choice except to participate (physically or emotionally) in the denigration of God's good gift of sex. When I meet young women like this, I am eager to introduce them to the young men I know who will be true gentlemen, honoring them and extending kindness and courtesy to them. More importantly, I am eager to introduce them to the Savior who has rescued us from just punishment for our sins and who has redeemed our relationships.

Here's an idea: If you know of a twenty-something (single or not) who needs to be introduced to the community of believers their age--and ultimately to Jesus Christ--please consider sponsoring them to attend the New Attitude conference this Memorial Day.

HT: Justin Taylor.

Three-Parent Embryos

In an era when the two parents can't be counted on to care for their offspring, science now brings us the three-parent embryo. Despite the altruistic intention to prevent hereditary diseases, the ethical dilemmas boggle the mind...

UPDATE: My comment about ethical dilemmas was about the broader scope of medical research that is upon us now. I acknowledge there are those with more biological and medical knowledge than I possess. So I've cleared what I trust are a few helpful comments on this particular article.

Born a Woman

One of French philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir's most famous sayings is, "One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one"--meaning that gender is a social construct. That was the basis of all the gender theories I learned as a young feminist, prior to my conversion to Christianity. The funny thing is, that philosophy lasted mere decades. Medical science quickly and dispassionately dismissed it.

In light of the conversation yesterday on Revive Our Hearts about men and women, I thought I would share with you one of the most interesting articles I've come across about our innate sex differences. It ran back in June, 2005, the Los Angeles Times. "Deep, Dark Secrets of His and Her Brains" is a fascinating article about how brain research has shown definitive differences between male and female brain anatomy and function. Here's an excerpt:

In the last decade, studies of perception, cognition, memory and neural function have found apparent gender differences that often buck conventional prejudices.

Women's brains, for instance, seem to be faster and more efficient than men's.

All in all, men appear to have more gray matter, made up of active neurons, and women more of the white matter responsible for communication between different areas of the brain.

Overall, women's brains seem to be more complexly corrugated, suggesting that more complicated neural structures lie within, researchers at UCLA found in August.

Men and women appear to use different parts of the brain to encode memories, sense emotions, recognize faces, solve certain problems and make decisions. Indeed, when men and women of similar intelligence and aptitude perform equally well, their brains appear to go about it differently, as if nature had separate blueprints, researchers at UC Irvine reported this year.

"If you find that men and women have fundamentally different brain architectures while still accomplishing the same things," said neuroscientist Richard Haier, who conducted the study, "this challenges the assumption that all human brains are fundamentally the same."

Maybe our faster and more efficient brains are the underlying evidence for "women's intuition"--not to mention our ability to discover "missing" items left in plain sight. ;-)

Trend-Spotting

Several things to pray about--and one for which we should thank God.

We start with the good news. One week before the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a new report published in The Washington Post says the abortion rate has dropped for the first time since 1976.

The number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005 -- the lowest level since 1976, according to a new report.

The number of abortions fell at least in part because the proportion of women ending their pregnancies with an abortion dropped 9 percent between 2000 and 2005, hitting the lowest level since 1975, according to a nationwide survey.

But even so, there is some sobering information about potential reasons for that trend, according to the Post.

At the same time, the long decline in the number of abortion providers appears to be stabilizing, partly a result of the availability of the French abortion pill RU-486, the report found, because some physicians who do not perform surgical abortions provide it to their patients.

I also read another piece analyzing a troubling trend. (HT: Albert Mohler)

The Coming American Matriarchy is about the rapid increase in American women's education and professional experience and the accompanying decrease in men's education and professional experience. It is by Jonathan Rauch for the libertarian publication, Reason Online. (It's interesting to note that the writer is not the conservative voice one would expect on this topic, but an openly gay writer who champions gay marriage as good public policy.) Though I cringed a bit at his tone toward women, I have to allow that this article raises some important points for future marriage trends and our nation's interaction with Muslim countries.

Women's superior education will increase their earning power relative to men's, and on average they will be marrying down, educationally speaking. A third of today's college-bound 12-year-old girls can expect to "settle" for a mate without a university diploma. But women will not stop wanting to be hands-on moms.

For families, this will pose a dilemma. Women will have a comparative advantage at both parenting and breadwinning. Many women will want to take time off for child-rearing, but the cost of keeping a college-educated mom at home while a high-school-educated dad works will be high, often prohibitive. . . .

Some of these adjustments will have international dimensions. Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko note, "Almost all countries in the OECD"—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced industrial countries—"now have more women than men in college and have had a growing gender gap among undergraduates that favors women." Yet much of the developing world, especially the Muslim world, remains predominantly patriarchal.

Many tradition-minded cultures in the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia already regard the Western economic and social model as emasculating. Radical Islam, in particular, abhors feminism. As the United States and Europe continue to feminize, will the anti-modern backlash, already deeply problematic in the Muslim world, intensify? As sex roles and expectations diverge, might hostility and misunderstanding mount between the West and the rest?

We need to pray about these concerns. As Rauch noted in his article, it's a "big mystery" why young men are falling behind. While our culture flails about in defining masculinity and helping young boys grow up to be successful young men, we in the church need to make sure we are pointing our sons, nephews, brothers, and friends to what Scripture says about manhood. And we Christian women need to encourage our men to live counter-culturally, too. And needless to say, the gap between the west and the Muslim world is alarming and should have us on our knees.

As I conclude this post, I want to clarify that I've written it as much as a reminder/rebuke to myself than anything else. These concerns are not regularly on my prayer list, as important as they are. Writing this entry has been a fresh reminder of how parochial my prayers can be. And with issues as entrenched as these topics, prayer really is our only hope. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12).

The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir

(Helpful disclaimer: This blog post is not for young eyes...)

Last week, many Europeans noted the 100th birthday of French philosopher and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir. A quick search of Google News shows that few, if any, Americans noted it. Ironically for the woman who, with her long-time companion, Paul Sartres, personified "café society" and its requisite nicotine haze, at nearly the same time France also instituted its smoking ban in cafés, bars, and restaurants.

Beauvoir is often credited with kicking off the second wave of feminism in the mid-20th century. (The first wave began in the mid-19th century, largely focused on obtaining women's right to vote.) She claimed that a woman is made, not born, a commentary on the conforming pressures of men and culture. Yet how is she commemorated by a serious French news magazine? With her nude photo on the cover. As one Irish newspaper stated, "Simone de Beauvoir was the mother of feminism and on her centenary, all they write about is her scandalous love life."

Well, it would be hard not to do so. In fact, as I've researched her for my forthcoming book, I've found it difficult to discreetly but accurately present the facts and results of her life against her philosophical ideas. She made outrageous claims about the position of women, but her own life seemed more downtrodden than her dim view of the status of women. I don't want to euphemize history to the point where readers don't have an accurate understanding of her life, but I also don't want to present more than is necessary. Below is an excerpt from an unedited draft of my book (the footnotes are not included). I welcome your comments on how well I've managed to balance my goals. This is the introduction to a chapter about the classic feminist position that men are the source of and the reason for women's oppression. I present this position and then examine what the Bible says is the source for this tension and the oppression of women: sin.

He was a leading intellectual, a man who published philosophical treatises that he wrote while sitting among like-minded friends in French cafés. She was his equal professionally and intellectually (they took the two top honors in philosophy at the Sorbonne). They met when she was 21 and he was 24 and they decided upon a radical relationship. Forsaking the “confines of bourgeousie marriage,” they defined their lifelong union as an open relationship, one built upon sharing the intimate details of their numerous sexual relationships, including predatory ménage a trois seductions of young women—one who suffered a nervous breakdown, two who committed suicide, and a third who endured three abortions to “spare” Sartre the burden of fatherhood.

In some circles, Jean-Paul Sartres and Simone de Beauvoir are considered one of the most influential couples of the 20th century. Their political cause, socialism, has sputtered to near irrelevance but their influence remains indelible on modern marriage. Simone de Beauvoir was best known for the 1949 French publication, The Second Sex. It has been claimed by feminists as the seminal work of modern feminism. According to Beauvoir, women were “imprisoned” by the roles of wife, mother, and sweetheart; therefore, she maintained that “all forms of socialism, wresting woman away from the family, favor her liberation.”  However, when her life is examined, Beauvoir is a paradoxical feminist, a lifelong partner to a man who compulsively seduced numerous women. 

The arrangement Sartre and Beauvoir designed was a non-monogamous, non-marital union. According to a recent profile in The New Yorker, “Sartre proposed a ‘pact’—they could have affairs, but they were required to tell each other everything.”

As he put it to Beauvoir: “What we have is an essential love; but it is a good idea for us also to experience contingent love affairs.” As matters worked out, the pact meant that Beauvoir not only discussed with Sartre his interest in other women; she often formed intimate friendships with the women herself. Sartre soon stopped sleeping with her, and she had her own serious affairs. But she remained committed to Sartre and to the pact; and the relationship, with its carrousel of changing partners and café tables, lasted fifty-one years.

Far from glamorous, their private correspondence, published after their deaths in the 1980s, revealed jealousies, boorish behavior, lies and contempt for those they seduced—which stunned and angered those intimates who were still alive. These letters also put Beauvoir’s views of marriage and male-female relations to the test.

If “The Second Sex” can’t be squared with the life, we are reduced to the final, depressing theory that the pact was just the traditional sexist arrangement—in which the man sleeps around and the woman nobly “accepts” the situation—on philosophical stilts. Sartre was the classic womanizer, and Beauvoir was the classic enabler. . . Beauvoir was formidable, but she was not made of ice. Though her affairs, for the most part, were love affairs, it is plain from almost every page she wrote that she would have given them all up if she could have had Sartre for herself alone.

With the perspective of hindsight, it would seem that Beauvoir’s life contradicted her concepts. The woman who claimed other women were imprisoned within the roles of wife, mother, and sweetheart lived in sordid bondage herself. Toward the end of her life, she said that nothing she achieved in her professional life was as great as her relationship with Sartre.

He died in 1980, cutting her out of his will and leaving his estate to his final mistress.

I was a feminist before I became a Christian, so I trust my life experience is helpful for this project. My goal with this book is to provide information about the rise of a philosophy that has so permeated our culture as to be accepted as the norm, and then compare it with what Scripture says about some of the same issues. As Christians, I think we need to be honest that those who don't share our worldview are still capable of accurately observing a problem. Feminism arose because women were being sinned against. I think that is a fair argument. But feminism also arose because women were sinning in response. That's a classic human problem--sinners tend to sin in response to being sinned against.

The glorious hope we have is that Christ came to rescue us from this spiral of sin and sinful response. Only the gospel can accurately diagnose the issues on both sides and offer the good news of forgiveness, redemption, and restoration. My prayer is that God will use my efforts to help the women who read this book to understand how we arrived at this point in our culture's development and to understand what hope for freedom is offered in the gospel.

Photo: DPA

(The comments function is open for this post. Comments are moderated.)

 

The Pink Bear Parable

Meet Pink Bear.

Pink Bear is a much-beloved bear. My niece, Claire, has literally loved the stuffing out of him.

Pink Bear was "born" within days of Claire. He has been her constant companion for the last eleven years. He has been patched beyond recognition, but nothing about his appearance lessens Claire's ardor for him. He has a place of honor on her bed along with her newer dolls and bears.

"Don't make fun of him, Aunt Carolyn," she charged me gravely when she granted permission to photograph him. Would that I dared! I once jokingly referred to him as Pink Wad, a mistake I will not repeat.

You see, I want to end up like Pink Bear. I want to love and be loved until all that remains is a tattered remnant. Then may the Lord gently lay me to rest, closing my mortal eyes until the day I exchange an imperishable body for the one that wore out.

Claire did not choose Pink Bear, but she did choose to love him. She received Pink Bear in the hospital when she was just a day or two old. Her commitment to him has been fierce, striking fear and panic into the hearts of her family whenever Pink Bear seemed to be lost.

Pink Bear also gives me hope for her generation. Living in the shadow of those who believed that freedom of choice and "keeping your options open" would lead to maximized personal happiness (which didn't happen), maybe her generation will see the light of truth.

That's why, in honor of Pink Bear, I am highlighting an article that appeared in The Washington Post yesterday, titled "C'mon, Get Happy? It's Easier Said Than Done." The article featured the work of Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, "who has made it his life's work to understand why people not only make errors in predicting what will make them happy, but also why they make the same errors over and over again." Two key findings:

• Keeping your options open won't necessarily make you happier.

Given the choice, people like to keep their options open.

When researchers asked people whether they preferred to take home a poster they had to keep or take home one that could be exchanged later on, most people chose the latter. But it was people who made irrevocable choices early on who ended up happier with their posters.

Gilbert said the finding prompted him to go home and propose to the woman he had been living with: "I always thought love causes marriage, but my data said marriage causes love," he said. "When you lock yourself in something you cannot get out of, you will find ways to be happier. . . . I do love my wife more than I loved my girlfriend, and they are the same person."

• The things you fear are not as bad as you think.

  Gilbert said a number of experiments have found that people overestimate how unhappy they will be after a tragic event, and this keeps them from taking risks in life.

  Torn between life choices? The experimental results suggest the worst option is usually indecision -- no matter what choice people make, they are more likely to be okay with the consequences than if they stay on the fence...

  "For as long as anyone can remember," Gilbert once noted, "people have hungered for information about their personal futures, confident that if they knew their fates, they would also know their fortunes. Alas, knowing the future is not the same as knowing how much one will like it when one gets there."

Ah. God's principles, proven once again.

The bolded sentences are my emphases. Since we are still in the dawning moments of a new year, I suspect there are a few people out there who want a Pink Bear kind of love, but who are hesitant to make a commitment. It shouldn't take a Harvard psychologist to remind us that there is only One Being who knows the future and He is the God who gives us the grace for those future days. Seeking tomorrow's grace today only leads to indecision--the least satisfying, and most importantly, the least fruitful, option.

You may be worried that the one you love today, while still a sleek, unblemished bear, will one day look like Pink Bear does today. Well, it will definitely happen. I can guarantee it. It will happen even if you don't make a decision. Time makes Pink Bears of us all. The wonder is that the commitment to love now and trust God for the future is the very thing that utterly transforms Pink Bear in the eyes of the beholder into a thing of beauty.

Well done, Claire. I have already begun praying for your future husband. May Pink Bear still have enough fluff in him to make it to the day you get married. I think he'd like to meet his successor.

Don't Blame the Feminists

"We need to realize how difficult it is for many women to embrace God's design for male leadership in the home when they've never seen a godly male leader. Many have only seen extreme forms of abuse and tyranny. The fight to uphold a complementarian, or what I would call a biblical, view of gender doesn't start with attacking feminists. It should begin with Christian men--single and married--heeding the call of scripture to be humble, masculine, self-sacrificing servant-leaders."--Joshua Harris

That's the conclusion of an excellent blog post from my senior pastor, titled "Don't Blame the Feminists."

It's a follow-on to the sermon he preached two weeks ago from 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 called "Men, Women and Headgear." We women had been anticipating that message, wondering if Josh would be introducing new fashions to our church. Much to our curiosity, he did walk onstage carrying a baseball cap and a bath towel. These kinds of live illustrations expose the limitations of listening to sermons online--the visuals were great! I would encourage you to listen to this excellent message, even though you can't visualize his hat illustrations. (A tip for those who do listen--in the last illustration, he turns the baseball cap sideways to maximize his street cred).

As Josh explains: "The primary focus of all that he's saying is the way men and women behave in worship. Even though the presenting issue is head coverings, there's something bigger at stake here. So why is headgear so important to Paul? What's the issue? First, we need to remember in all cultures, in every age, clothing communicates. . ."

Virtual Infidelity

Years ago, I read an article that talked about virtual reality taking over carbon-based reality in such a way that people would stop being able to tell the difference between the two. Virtual reality would allow human beings to think they could create a reality apart from God's creation--and thus be free of His authority.

In many ways, we are here now. The virtual world of Second Life is introducing a host of problems. I've never explored Second Life, but I keep reading about it and the implications of its existence. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal introduced a new concept: virtual infidelity. Unlike chat rooms with real, carbon-based people, these are relationships between virtual reality avatars in the Second Life world. The problem is that avatars, like puppets, don't move or interact without someone manipulating them. So the creator/user of the avatar gets sucked into hours and hours of life in virtual reality, often to the detriment of real life relationships.

In this piece, "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?," the WSJ piece seeks to explore the impact on a blood-and-flesh marriage of a Second Life marriage.

On a scorching July afternoon, as the temperature creeps toward 118 degrees in a quiet suburb east of Phoenix, Ric Hoogestraat sits at his computer with the blinds drawn, smoking a cigarette. While his wife, Sue, watches television in the living room, Mr. Hoogestraat chats online with what appears on the screen to be a tall, slim redhead.

He's never met the woman outside of the computer world of Second Life, a well-chronicled digital fantasyland with more than eight million registered "residents" who get jobs, attend concerts and date other users. He's never so much as spoken to her on the telephone. But their relationship has taken on curiously real dimensions. They own two dogs, pay a mortgage together and spend hours shopping at the mall and taking long motorcycle rides. This May, when Mr. Hoogestraat, 53, needed real-life surgery, the redhead cheered him up with a private island that cost her $120,000 in the virtual world's currency, or about $480 in real-world dollars. Their bond is so strong that three months ago, Mr. Hoogestraat asked Janet Spielman, the 38-year-old Canadian woman who controls the redhead, to become his virtual wife.

The woman he's legally wed to is not amused. "It's really devastating," says Sue Hoogestraat, 58, an export agent for a shipping company, who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months. "You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon."

Mr. Hoogestraat plays down his online relationship, assuring his wife that it's only a game. While many busy people can't fathom the idea of taking on another set of commitments, especially imaginary ones, Second Life and other multiplayer games are moving into the mainstream. With some 30 million people now involved world-wide, there is mounting concern that some are squandering, even damaging their real lives by obsessing over their "second" ones. That's always been a concern with videogames, but a field of study suggests that the boundary between virtual worlds and reality may be more porous than experts previously imagined.

What I noted in this piece is that Ric has been married in real life for seven months. But he's been married in Second Life for three months. Not much of a gap there. Sue is not ready to give up on her marriage, according to this article. I hope this couple can survive. But virtual reality is already taking a toll on other marriages:

Family-law experts and marital counselors say they're seeing a growing number of marriages dissolve over virtual infidelity. Cyber affairs don't legally count as adultery unless they cross over into the real world, but they may be cited as grounds for divorce and could be a factor in determining alimony and child custody in some states, according to several legal experts, including Jeff Atkinson, professor at the DePaul University College of Law and author of the American Bar Association's "Guide to Marriage, Divorce and Families."

Any relationship, especially a marriage, requires an investment of time, energy, effort, and communication. When the best of these things is going elsewhere, the relationship will suffer. Virtual reality introduces a new paradigm, but our sinful and self-centered hearts go with it. We obviously need God wherever we are.

I haven't read about gospel-preaching avatars yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn of their existence...

(HT: Paleoevangelical.)