While Sex Week at Yale (SWAY) and its counter-part, True Love Week, received national media attention this past February from the O’Reilly Factor, US News , USA Today , and NBC, another Ivy League multi-day event on sexuality slipped by somewhat under the radar.

The IvyQ conference at Brown on February 16-19 attracted about 420 students from all eight Ivy League campuses, both those who identify as LGBT and their allies.

According to its website, the IvyQ conference, which was first held at UPenn in 2010 and then at Columbia in 2011, aims to “create a pan-Ivy community of LGBTQ students and allies equipped with the skills to examine their identities, value those of others, and understand intersectionality.” To accomplish this goal the conference strives to “creat[e] experiences which foster meaningful and productive social networks; educat[e] students about the history and multiplicity of voices in the LGBTQ movement and the possible trajectories of its future; and empow[er] all students to feel confident in their identities and their potential to instill positive change in their own lives and the communities they inhabit.”

Students could choose to attend six out of thirty-six offered breakout sessions at the conference, all of which fell into one of six pre-defined categories: Health and Sexual Assault, Identity, Internationality and Culture, Practical Applications, Queer History, and Sex and Body Positivity.

It is reasonable to assume that these categories were chosen in order to meet the expressed interests of the participating students as well as the goals of the organizers. Certainly, in the case of the first five topics, one can easily see how these themes would be generally fitting areas of discussion and inquiry for the participants of such a conference. However, the sixth session category – Sex and Body Positivity – should give us some pause.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “sex positivity” refers to the ideology that all consensual sexual activities are healthy, and that all types of sexual pleasure and experimentation are good.¹

On the one hand, that the IvyQ conference would prioritize a whole series of lectures to this single category seems fitting. The LGBT movement is, by all appearances, one that prides itself on accepting the sexual identities and expressions of all persons. Therefore, it would seem logical that the popular ideology of the LGBT movement, broadly speaking, would be one that similarly accepts the diverse sexual preferences and sexual activities of all persons, making no moral distinctions between them.

And yet, a closer look at the IvyQ Sex and Body Positivity sessions reveals little real diversity of sexual choice and expression, not to mention little consideration of sexual health. With sessions such as “Negotiating the Kinky Culture of Consent”, “Designing Your Open Relationship”, and “Queering the Toybox”, there is no consideration of the choice or desire of some members of the LGBT community for monogamous, chaste friendships. And while “Health and Sexual Assault” is given a category unto itself, there is a disturbing absence of sessions covering the health repercussions of the sex positive lifestyle advocated by the conference.

That this conference should overlook chastity and sexual health in these ways is discouraging and unjust on multiple accounts.

To take the latter issue first, one has to wonder what the organizers’ understanding of sexual health is when one browses the lecture topics in this category: “Queering Reproductive Justice”, “Intersections of LGBTQ Identities and Healthcare”, “What ‘Yes Means Yes’ Means: The Whys and Hows of Enthusiastic Consent”, “The Ethics of Lust: A Panel on the Politicization of Desire”, and “Working Towards Queer Love”. Nowhere are the physical and emotional risks of certain sexual behaviors given consideration. And yet, minimizing risk of sexual infection and understanding the importance of consent are the two issues in collegiate sexual health education that are regularly deemed most important to communicate to young men and women. That the conference failed to meet even this low standard is deeply problematic.

However, had the health risks of the sex positive lifestyle been addressed, the attendees would have been in for a dour message indeed. According to the CDC, men who have sex with men (“MSM”) and women who have sex with women (“WSW”) may be at higher risk for various sexual infections than other populations.² Additionally, one’s risk of sexual infection dramatically increases with the number of sexual partners³ one has over a lifetime, and multiple studies link a higher incidence of depression with higher numbers of sexual partners⁴ as well. Men and women who have engaged in anal sex or who have had one-night stands are also far more likely to report an STD than those who avoid such behaviors.⁵

It is an injustice to the students who attended the IvyQ conference to encourage and teach risky sexual behavior without addressing the serious consequences of those choices. In this way, the IvyQ conference is objectionable for the same reason many students, alumni, and parents of students at Yale University took issue with Sex Week at Yale. It is misleading to young men and women to use the term “sexual health” in such a loose and inaccurate way. In such a context, “sexual health” means nothing of physical and emotional health, and is instead reduced to the subjective opinion that it is freeing and better for one’s personal confidence to indulge one’s sexual desires. The suffering young men and women experience as a result of risky of sexual behaviors is very real. There is no excuse for calling those behaviors that substantially increase risk, “healthy”.

Nor is there an excuse for those who boast respect for different sexual identities and expressions to repeatedly ignore the needs, concerns, and questions of those who experience same-sex attractions, or who identify as LGBTQ, but who desire to be chaste. The student leaders affiliated with the Love and Fidelity Network are becoming more aware of classmates who feel uncomfortable with and alienated by the assumption that all LGBTQ and same-sex attracted persons do and should practice their sexuality in a sex positive manner. Initiatives are currently being organized by some student leaders to collaborate with LGBT centers, groups, and individuals to foster more open discussion of abstinence as a positive sexual choice and to identify resources for students who desire to make this choice⁶.

Although the chairs of the conference offer the caveat “that not everybody will necessarily feel like their identity niche is supported by this conference,” one must wonder what the organizers would do with the proposal to host sessions in the future that relate abstinence and chastity to the needs of LGBTQ and same-sex attracted students. Regardless, one can be assured of our own growing commitment to this end, and our continued effort to bring accurate and intellectually honest sexual health information to college men and women.

1 Unfortunately, the only places to reference besides Wikipedia for this definition are sexually offensive sources. Hence the following citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_movement

2 The CDC reports that “[s]ubgroups of MSM are at high risk for HIV infection and other viral and bacterial STDs”. It also reports that recent studies indicate that some WSW, particularly adolescents, young women, and women with both male and female partners, might be at increased risk for STDs and HIV as a result of certain reported risk behaviors”. See http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/2010/specialpops.htm. Also see, http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/pdf/hiv_factsheet_ymsm.pdf .

3 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9104606

4 http://sti.bmj.com/content/88/1/40.full.pdf; http://www.everydayhealth.com/longevity/can-promiscuity-threaten-longevity.aspx; http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/06/sexually-active-teenagers-are-more-likely-to-be-depressed

5 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9104606

6 Exodus International, Courage, and NARTH are three popular resources for students who experience same-sex attractions, but who do not want to act on those attractions.

Filed under: College, Events and Impact, Friendship, Sexuality | 1 Comment »

Human development across the lifespan is largely misunderstood or disregarded in today’s world. It does not operate in a vacuum, as is often suggested by the popular media and social elites. It occurs one developmental stage at a time, with the experiences and choices of the prior having a large effect upon the present.

The written criticisms to the Love and Fidelity Network’s Valentine’s Day campaign mentioned here seem to not have taken this into account. Indeed, each inadvertently opposed the tagline that college students’ sexual choices now may make a difference in their future. One critic, in particular, argued that an individual’s sexual choices may have no effect upon his or her future marital happiness. Another was disturbed by the campaign’s reference to “marital dissolution” as something one might “experience.” (For clarification, “experiencing marital dissolution” is an academic term used throughout the scholarly literature and repeated in the posters). The author suggested that the terminology implied “that divorce is something that just happens to you, dictated unavoidably by your past.”

Ironically, the first critic’s criticism and the second’s contradict each other. As was recognized by the first and misunderstood by the second, we were, indeed, suggesting that the possibility of separation and divorce increases with the number of sexual partners, as it does with other risk factors. We acknowledge that “divorce is a decision made by one or both members of a marriage” as was stated by the second critic, while also reinforcing the first premise of the campaign:  research demonstrates that divorce is more likely to occur in marriages according to the number of sexual partners of one or both spouses.

The statistical reasoning will be addressed later. The conceptual reasoning, now.

Human development is determined by a (complex) relationship between both continuity and change of individual emotions, thoughts, and behavior as influenced by experiences throughout the life course.

The validity of this broad definition is demonstrated by one of the most complete longitudinal studies of human development ever performed. Developmental psychologists from the University of Minnesota closely tracked 180 children from the prenatal period to adulthood. Remarkably, they not only found predictive significance for salient experiences in each separate age period upon development at the next, but they also found that salient experiences in early childhood were significantly associated with emotions, thoughts, and behavior in early adulthood.[1]

The researchers created a “global adjustment measure” to envelop the developmental success of young adults in three major criteria: adequate progress in the work/training/school area; meaningful relationships with family, friends, and partners; and a functional level of self-awareness.

The researchers used this to measure the cumulative impact of experiences, influences, and choices from each developmental period throughout childhood and adolescence on the young adults’ global adjustment. They found that a composite “early care” variable from ages 6 months to 6 years was moderately correlated at .34 with the global adjustment measure at age 19. For the behavioral sciences, correlational coefficients of .10, .30, and .50 . . . are, by convention, interpreted as small, medium, and large coefficients, respectively. [2] The correlation’s moderate significance is therefore impressive, given more than a decade of development’s worth of separation in between young adults’ “early care” and their current adjustment.

Even more noteworthy, however, is that the correlation grew stronger the more that other criteria were added: When elementary peer competence was combined with early parental care, the resulting multiple correlation with global adjustment in young adulthood was .45. Furthermore, when the researchers added the amount of stress and social support that the young person experienced in middle adolescence to the other measures, the final multiple correlation was .55.

In other words, the study demonstrated that a young adult’s global adjustment could largely be measured by the sum of his or her experiences leading up to that point. These findings were unparalleled; the developmental “building block” type pattern had not been previously been shown through longitudinal data over such an extended period of time.

The researchers, concluded their findings, in part, by saying,

Because humans participate actively in creating their own experience, what they experience and take forward from any given age frames their later experience to a notable degree.”

They also acknowledged that,

At the same time, salient experiences, especially experiences in important relationships, can have a transforming influence on the person . . . this does not mean that the prior experience is then erased; rather it simply means that there is a new level of complexity of the person . . . In light of transforming experience, prior experience now is part of a different framework for facing the future and interpreting the world. But it is ‘still there,’ and its relative salience depends on many complicated factors, such as particular circumstances, stresses that may arise, particular settings, and the nature of subsequent experience.”

No part of the Minnesota study is directly related to the claims of the Love and Fidelity Network’s intercollegiate poster campaign this past February. Yet the conclusions made by its researchers generally apply. In line with the first conclusion, it is safe to say that choices—including sexual choices—now will make a difference in life (and quite possibly marital) outcomes later. In line with the second conclusion, it is also important to acknowledge that it is certainly possible for an individual to have a number of sexual partners and report the same marital happiness as an individual who had only had sex with his or her spouse, but 1) on average it is less likely and 2) the individual will still be influenced by the prior choice.

The statistical specifics are worth exploring and discussing, but according to this understanding of human development, it is false to claim —as our critics have—that  sexual choices are free from developmental consequences in young adults’ futures.

Social science researchers are just beginning to study the effect of the number of sexual partners prior to marriage on a variety of relationship (including marriage) outcomes. There is much to determine, but, when considering a larger perspective of human development, it is not surprising that initial results are demonstrating some (rather than no) effect.

And currently the effect being found is that having multiple sexual partners before marriage inhibits healthy relationship formation and leads to higher rates of divorce.[3] As Jason Carroll, Ph.D. and LFN guest blogger who introduced the theoretical basis for our Valentine’s Day ad campaign via this post, said

In a just-completed study of nearly 2,700 married individuals, my colleagues and I found that spouses who had multiple sexual partners before marriage had lower levels of sexual quality, communication, and relationship stability in their current marriage, even when controlling for a wide range of variables including education, religiosity and relationship length. These findings were similar for husbands and wives. We found no evidence that increasing the number of sexual partners before marriage benefitted later marital outcomes.

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[1] Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The Development of the Person. The Guilford Press: New York, NY.

[2] Green, S. B., and Salkind, N. J.(2008). Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and Understanding Data. Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

“For the behavioral sciences, correlational coefficients of .10, .30, and .50 . . . are, by convention, interpreted as small, medium, and large coefficients, respectively.” (p. 259)

[3] Heaton, T. B. (2002). Factors contributing to the increasing marital stability in the United States. Journal of Family Issues, 23(3), 392-409; Kahn, J.R., & London, K.A. (1991). Premarital sex and the risk of divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53(4), 845-855; Paik, A. (2011). Adolescent sexuality and the risk of marital dissolution. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 472-485; Teachman, J. (2003). Premarital sex, premarital cohabitation, and the risk of subsequent marital dissolution among women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 65, 444-455.

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When I was in college I became concerned about divorce. Ironically, divorce was foreign to me. It had not occurred in my immediate or extended family. In fact, I grew up in a secure and loving home environment with parents who had been happily married for over 20 years (now 30). I belong to a church with a divorce rate that is significantly below the national average. Models of good marriages had surrounded me throughout my life. I was dating guys of great character who treated me with a respect uncommon to young twenty-something year-old men. Yet somehow, despite all of this, the slight possibility of divorce still scared me.

My (once-held) fear of divorce does not seem unique among young people today. Irrespective of age, race, or class, young people generally fear, or, perhaps worse, come to expect, the possibility of divorce.[1] In fact, this fear has been noted by some couples as the main reason for cohabiting: to “test-drive” their relationship before making any sort of marital commitment[2], to avoid the emotional pain and financial burden of divorce should it not work out. (Ironically, cohabitation—particularly prior to engagement—has been found to put couples at greater risk for marital distress and divorce).[3]

Regardless of the pervasive fear of marital dissolution and attempts to avoid it, young people’s desire for a lasting marriage has not waned.[4] Actually, there seems to be a disparity between young people’s desire for a lasting marriage and their collective confidence that they should be so lucky as to have one.[5]

How sad.

Do these young people have reason for concern? Certainly. Is their concern exaggerated? Likely (especially if they are college students), which may be augmenting the problem.

The fact of the matter is, while college students can rattle off a “current” divorce rate of 50 percent[6], their chances of divorce simply aren’t 50/50.

For one, the commonly-held “divorce rate” is not a prediction rate.[7] Beyond that, and more relevant to the college population, couples with college educations tend to have more stable marriages than do those with less education.[8] This is especially poignant given that the divorce rate for college-educated couples has been declining since the late 1970’s while remaining basically flat for couples without college degrees[9]—creating what some researchers have called the “marriage gap”[10].

Additionally, individuals who marry after 25 years of age and have their first child after marriage have also been shown to have lower rates of divorce.[11] The list of protective (and risk) factors goes on. Certainly there are more associations between divorce and life experiences and/or choices than can be enumerated here (and many are interrelated).[12]

Taken together, however, these associations demonstrate that the notion that any given individual’s chance of divorce is 50/50 is a misnomer. While it is often stated that 1 in every 2 given people who marry will divorce, the reality is that—in consideration of the cumulative choices and experiences of various populations—it is more likely that 3 in 4 will divorce in some populations and that 1 in 5 will divorce in others.

Knowing this, college students who make choices shown to act as protective factors against divorce should largely be able to bury fears about it.

They should be able to. Yet many college students are unaware that their thoughts are largely informed by a popular interpretation of research, as opposed to an understanding of the research itself.

This points to a broader problem: for as much public discourse as there is about choice, particularly for young people in an environment favorable to experimentation, little attention is given to the power of cumulative choices in creating a stable, not to mention happy, marriage and/or life.

It is no wonder, then, that misunderstandings and resistance, bred by limited understanding of development across the lifespan, can occur when attention is given to research that contradicts what is publicly known and accepted in relation to any given “choice”.

We, at the Love and Fidelity Network, were not surprised that such was the case when sharing, through our poster campaign surrounding Valentine’s Day, the overarching message that the sexual choices that college students make may have an effect on their future marriages and lives. This is not a popular message. Much like with the research on divorce, the research on sexual behavior is not publicly well known or accepted: It shows an association between sexual choices and marital outcomes, even while young people are generally told to experiment and sow their “wild oats” now, without being encouraged to consider the affect it may have upon their future.

Students at Princeton, Columbia, and Harvard—three of the twenty-one schools where posters were displayed—published written criticisms to the campaign, which we would like to address.

While the criticisms vary, and there is some validity to portions of them (which we will specifically acknowledge), together they demonstrate a couple of prevailing misunderstandings. The first is regarding human development and the overarching message we were sharing about it. The second is regarding the studies referenced as the basis for the five ads, as well as our statistical and theoretical interpretation of them.

These two prevailing misunderstandings will be addressed in the next two posts on our blog.

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[1] A study showed that, among high school seniors, over a third (36.7%) of females and even more males (43.1%) thought it was uncertain or unlikely that they would stay married to the same person if they got married:

Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four trends of decades in attitudes towards family issues in the United States: The 1960’s through the 1990’s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4), 1009-1037.

[2] Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2009). Couples’ reasons for cohabitation: Associations with individual well-being and relationship quality

Note: As cohabitation has become an increasingly common arrangement scholars have found that couples cohabit for a variety of reasons.  Couples who cohabit because they have doubts about making a marriage work may be fewer than those who cohabit out of convenience (but still demonstrate a lack of intentionality towards marriage). In the study cited here, scholars suggest that it is possible that those who “cohabit because they have they have doubts about making a marriage work may be most at risk for later divorce, should they marry” (p. 234), but that more research should be done to determine this.

[3] Cohan, C. L., & Kleinbaum, S. (2002). Toward a greater understanding of the cohabitation effect: Premarital cohabitation and marital communication. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(1), 180-192.

Kamp Dush, C. M., Cohan, C. L., & Amato, P. R. (2003). The relationship between cohabitation and marital quality and stability: Change across cohorts? Journal of Marriage and Family, 65(3), 539-549.

Kline, G. H., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., Olmos-Gallo, P. A., St. Peters, M., Whitton, S. W.,et al. (2004). Timing is everything: Pre-engagement cohabitation and increased risk for poor marital outcomes. Journal of Family Psychology, 18(2), 311-318.

Stanley, S. M., Whitton, S. W., & Markman, H. J. (2004). Maybe I do: Interpersonal commitment and premarital or nonmarital cohabitation. Journal of Family Issues, 25(4), 496-519.

[4] These studies have shown that over 90% of 18-29 year-olds desire marriage:

Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four trends of decades in attitudes towards family issues in the United States: The 1960’s through the 1990’s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4), 1009-1037.

Whitehead, B. D., & Popenoe, D. (2001). The state of our unions: The social health of marriage in America. Retrieved April 2012 from http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/SOOU2001.pdf

[5] Whitehead and Popenoe’s study also demonstrated that 88% of 20-29 year-olds agreed that the divorce rate is too high and that the nation would be better off with fewer divorces

[6] While this figure has remained fairly constant for decades, it has experienced some variation over time. One prominent scholar on divorce, Dr. Paul Amato, stated that other researchers (Schoen and Canudas-Romo) “estimated that the probability of a marriage ending in divorce for women increased linearly since 1910 and then reached a plateau between 1990 and 2000, the final year for which the authors provided estimates. At the end of the 20^th century, 43% to 46% of marriages were predicted to end in dissolution. Because a small percentage of marriages end in permanent separation rather than divorce, the common belief is that about half of all marriages are voluntarily disrupted is a reasonable approximation.” (p. 651)

Amato, P. R. (2010). Research on divorce: Continuing trends and developments. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(3), 650-666.

Schoen, R., & Canudas-Romo, V. (2006). Timing effects on divorce: 20th century experience in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68,149-158.

[7] The U.S. Census Bureau determines the annual marriage and divorce rates per 1,000 people. Clearly, there is not a lot of overlap between those who marry and divorce each year, so it is not possible to determine from this data what percentage of each marrying cohort will divorce.

Hurley, H. (2005). Divorce rate: It’s not as high as you think. Retrieved April 2012 from http://www.weddingplanningonabudget.com/Doc/NYT-DivorceRates.pdf

[8] Bramlett, M. D., & Mosher, W. D. (2002). Cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the United States. Vital and Health Statistics, Series 23. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[9] McLanahan, S. (2004). Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition. Demography, 41, 607-627.

[10] Wilcox, W. B., & Marquardt, E. (2001). The state of our unions: The social health of marriage in America “when marriage disappears: the new middle America”. Retrieved April 2012 from http://stateofourunions.org/2010/when-marriage-disappears.php

[11] Waite,  L. J., & Gallagher, M. (2000). The Case for Marriage. New York: Doubleday.

[12] Family scholars have repeatedly documented major risk factors for divorce. These include being poor, experiencing unemployment, living with one’s future spouse or another partner prior to marriage, having a premarital birth, bringing children from a previous union into a new marriage (especially among mothers), marrying someone of a different race, being in a second- or higher order marriage, and growing up in a household without two continuously married parents.

Amato, P. R., & DeBoer, D. (2001). The intergenerational transmission of marital instability across generations: Relationship skills of commitment to marriage? Journal of Marriage and Familv, 63, 1038-1051.

Bratter, J., & King, R. B. (2008). But will it last? Marital instability among interracial and same-race couples. Family Relations, 57, 160-171.

Sweeney, M. M., & Phillips, J. A. (2004). Understanding racial differences in marital disruption: Recent trends and explanations. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 639-650.

Teachman, J. D. (2002). Stability across cohorts in divorce risk factors. Demography, 65, 507-524.

Filed under: Cohabitation, College, Divorce, Hook-up, Sexuality | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, the NY Times had a strikingly poignant article on the effects of cohabitation upon relationships and marital expectations. Here are a few important excerpts to note:

Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million. The majority of young adults in their 20s will live with a romantic partner at least once, and more than half of all marriages will be preceded by cohabitation. This shift has been attributed to the sexual revolution and the availability of birth control, and in our current economy, sharing the bills makes cohabiting appealing. But when you talk to people in their 20s, you also hear about something else: cohabitation as prophylaxis.

In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, “You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along.” About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.

But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.

Researchers originally attributed the cohabitation effect to selection, or the idea that cohabitors were less conventional about marriage and thus more open to divorce. As cohabitation has become a norm, however, studies have shown that the effect is not entirely explained by individual characteristics like religion, education or politics. Research suggests that at least some of the risks may lie in cohabitation itself.

…

WHEN researchers ask cohabitors these questions, partners often have different, unspoken — even unconscious — agendas. Women are more likely to view cohabitation as a step toward marriage, while men are more likely to see it as a way to test a relationship or postpone commitment, and this gender asymmetry is associated with negative interactions and lower levels of commitment even after the relationship progresses to marriage. One thing men and women do agree on, however, is that their standards for a live-in partner are lower than they are for a spouse.

Sliding into cohabitation wouldn’t be a problem if sliding out were as easy. But it isn’t.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Filed under: Cohabitation, Divorce, Marriage | No Comments »

At the beginning of the 21st century, researchers announced a void of dating on college campuses. The absence of dating likely existed for years before researchers made it better known to the world outside campus. Still, the lack of dating was enough of a change from a decade or two prior to create a stir. This new-found understanding regarding the collegiate landscape seemed to beg the questions: How would young men and women explore their romantic interest in one another? How would a young man or woman find and select a significant other? How would the absence of dating change pathways to marriage?

A decade later, while LFN students (as well as many of their peers) are trying to navigate romantic relationships in the absence of such structure, researchers have found that dating within marriage is more highly associated with factors of positive marital relationships. The National Marriage Project’s “Date Night Opportunity” report, shows that couples who devoted time to each other at least once a week experienced higher levels  of communication, sexual satisfaction and commitment than couples who didn’t have this kind of alone time.

USA Today published an article with further details about the “Date Night Opportunity” report. Here is an excerpt of the USA Today article by Sharon Jayson:

Because there are no nationally representative surveys with questions directly addressing date nights, the ‘Date Night Opportunity’ report, [. . .] released [. . . by]  the National Marriage Project, analyzed data on one-on-one couple time from two nationally representative data sets and found that wives who spend couple time with their husbands at least once a week are 3.5 times more likely to enjoy above-average levels of sexual satisfaction, compared with wives who have less than once a week couple time. Husbands report similar results.

‘What happens outside of the bedroom seems to matter a lot for what happens in the bedrooom as well,’ says co-author Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist who directs the project at the University of Virginia. ‘Couple time and generosity and commitment all create a context where both partners — maybe particularly women — are more likely to have sex and to enjoy it.’

The report reviewed data from a nationally representative survey of more than 1,600 married, heterosexual couples ages 18 to 55, conducted in late 2010 and early 2011 by the National Marriage Projectand data from the National Survey of Families and Households, a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 adults (some married, some cohabiting), conducted from 1987 to 1994. Both surveys asked how frequently individuals spent time in an activity alone with their spouse or partner.

The data also show that married men and women who have ‘couple time’ at least weekly were 3.5 times more likely to report being ‘very happy’ in their marriages, compared with those spending less alone time with their mates. The researchers controlled for income, age, education, race and ethnicity, the report says.

So perhaps the generations before us were right to scratch their heads. Perhaps the research begs the (slightly altered from above) questions: Should young men and women in college return to exploring their romantic interest in one another through dating? How would the presence of dating bring about healthy and lasting relationships (not to mention marriages)?

And another: Should college students try to revive dating through creating a date night challenge (as has been done for married couples)?

Visit the full USA Today report for more details on the revival of date nights for married couples around the country. Start a dating revival on your campus!

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What we lose when we forget what sex is for. Here are selections from an excellent article by Dr. J Budziszewski, a Natural Law professor at UT-Austin, who just released an excellent book, On the Meaning of Sex.

Shelly is getting herself drunk so that she can bring herself to go home with the strange man seated next to her at the bar. One o’clock. Steven is busy downloading pornographic images of children from Internet bulletin boards. Two o’clock. Marjorie, who used to spend every Friday night in bed with a different man, has been binging and purging since eleven. Three o’clock. Pablo stares through the darkness at the ceiling, wondering how to convince his girlfriend to have an abortion. Four o’clock. After partying all night, Jesse takes another man home, not mentioning that he tests positive for an incurable STD. Five o’clock. Lisa is in the bathroom, cutting herself delicately with a razor. This isn’t what my generation expected when it invented the sexual revolution. The game isn’t fun anymore. Even some of the diehard proponents of that enslaving liberation have begun to show signs of fatigue and confusion.

….

A young man remarked in one of my classes that he longed to get married and stay married to the same woman forever, but because his own parents hadn’t been able to manage it, he was afraid to get married at all. Women show signs of avoidance too, but in a more conflicted way. According to a survey commissioned by the Independent Women’s Forum, Norval Glenn and Elizabeth Marquardt of the Institute for American Values found that 83 percent of college women say marriage is a very important goal for them. Yet 40 percent of them engage in “hooking up” — physical encounters (commonly oral sex) without any expectation of relationship whatsoever.

Do you hear a little cognitive dissonance there?

….

“Melissa was in a foul mood. Her ‘friend with benefits’ had just broken up with her. ‘How is that even possible?’ she said, sitting, shoulders slumped, in a booth at a diner. ‘The point of having a friend with benefits is that you won’t get broken up with, you won’t get hurt.’”

But let there be no mistake: When I say we aren’t designed for this, I’m also speaking of males. A woman may be more likely to cry the next morning; it’s not so easy to sleep with a man who won’t even call you back. But a man pays a price too. He probably thinks he can instrumentalize his relationships with women in general, yet remain capable of romantic intimacy when the right woman comes along. Sorry, fellow. That’s not how it works.

Sex is like applying adhesive tape; promiscuity is like ripping the tape off again. If you rip it off, rip it off, rip it off, eventually the tape can’t stick anymore.

….

Let the sexual revolution bury the sexual revolution. Having finished revolving, we arrive back where we started. What your mother — no, what your grandmother — no, what your great-grandmother told you was right all along. These are the natural laws of sex.

For the entire article “Designed for Sex”, please click here.

Filed under: Hook-up, Sexual Integrity, Sexuality | No Comments »

“Pornography is of great harm to the individual, the couple, and the family.” It is an epidemic, and now researcher, psychologist and scholar on our Speakers Bureau, Dr. Patrick Fagan, discusses the role pornography plays in the culture:

Dr. Fagan is available to speak on your college campus. For more information, please contact Ashley Crouch at acrouch@loveandfidelity.org

For more great video resources like this one, check out PornHarms.com.

Filed under: Pornography | 1 Comment »

“Men are pigs.”

“Men just use women.”

“All men care about is beer and sports.”

These phrases and others can be found cluttering the pages of Glamour and Cosmo or typed as the header on young singles’ blogs. It appears that in recent decades, women have largely lost faith in men: in their ability to be gentlemen, to be decent, to be industrious. “He’s never going to get married.” “He’ll still be playing video games when he’s eighty.” Women, more than ever before, doubt men’s desire to settle down and raise a family, commonly labeling them “commitment-phobes” and “eternally boyish.” They often think men poor in taste, in civility, in character, in will. Feeling discouraged, frustrated, and fed up, they turn to a “girls’ night out” or a cocktail and a movie. “Who needs a man? Not me!”

In her book Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care, Kathleen Parker explains this modern phenomenon, saying, “In the process of fashioning a more female-friendly world, we’ve created a culture that is hostile towards males, contemptuous of masculinity, and cynical about the delightful differences that make men irresistible, especially when something goes bump in the night. In popular culture, rare is the man portrayed as wise, strong, and noble… One would assume from most depictions that the smart, decent man who cares about his family and who pets the neighbor’s dog is the exemption rather than the rule.” In short, men are assumed to be bad. Period. It’s in their DNA.

Yet according to The State of Our Unions, a new research project by W. Bradford Wilcox and Elizabeth Marquardt on the health of marriage and family life in America, 77% of men desire marriage. For most, having two or more children is among their top priorities. And married young men are between 11 and 28 percent more likely to report that they are “very happy” in life, compared with their unmarried friends. When we assess these realities, “Call of Duty” begins to take on a whole new meaning as it relates to the twenty-something American male.

The fact is that good men are among us. They are in our classes, on our sports teams, in our workplaces, at the grocery store. They may be more rare than we’d like; but they are far from extinct. My girlfriends and I very often have the door held for us. Male friends in my dorms have killed bugs on my ceiling more times than I can count. Such gestures are small, and surely not indicative of everything about a given man; but they are often indicative of a broader character and nobleness possessed by many. To those men who have felt unfoundedly criticized by the media, or unjustly slammed in their masculinity, I would like to pronounce: “I’m sorry! I recognize the valuable role you have to play in society and I appreciate it!”

Might I celebrate just some of the qualities (admittedly, not exclusive to men, and not all necessary, verbatim, for any given good man) that make men worthy of praise.

I see many great things about you.

Door-holding and bug-killing aside:

Good men are steady. I appreciate that I don’t have to wonder what kind of mood a man is going to be in on a given day—pleasant or irritated, cheerful or rude. With the rare exception, he is going to be essentially the same as he was yesterday: neither overly excited nor incredibly unhappy. He will be content. He is fine. A good man does not cause those around him to walk on eggshells. He is the anchor in the midst of a maelstrom. He is predictable.

In a similar vein, good men are uncomplicated. They usually say precisely what they mean, offering reliable, straightforward answers. Advice is given freely and frankly. A wife is not left wondering what her husband thinks, because he just told her a few days ago. And it is generally safe for her to assume he still holds that opinion today. Painless. Uncomplicated. Easy.

Good men are merciful. A good man is eager to extend forgiveness, particularly towards the woman he loves. I might remember something he did two years ago; he forgets what I did yesterday. It seems that men generally hold grudges less often than women, rarely entangling past wrongdoings into their overall tapestry or perception of a person. They are also good at forgiving their children. How many times is a toddler’s tearful apology met with a swift scoop into daddy’s arms, or a piggyback ride to the car? My father always forgave me. And a good man exhibits humility among his friends, as he is not prideful enough to think himself without fault and thus does not demand perfection from others.

Good men are brave. Most men are willing to take bold risks when they glimpse the possibility of a desirable outcome. If there’s any chance of the job promotion, he’s going to work harder. If the outcome is unlikely, he’ll chance victory and track it anyway. This may also be depicted in a young man pursuing a woman whose interest has yet to be confirmed, or in a male employee seeking a raise that his boss could reject. He has the courage to exert himself and look for the best. Those who claim contentment are often the very ones who lack a will to fight; they are defeated from the start. A brave man, on the other hand, is rarely content with himself.

Good men are playful. They know how to rough around with each other, wrestle out a bet, and bond on a sports field. As fathers, they tend to out-do their wives as playmates, proving playfulness to be valuable in parenting as well. Many children love few things more than playing with Dad. By age three, I was practically a professional at “flying airplane” on my daddy’s feet in our living room and “riding horsie” around our backyard. Dad will challenge you to climb to the top of the tree where Mom would get worried and tell you to come down. Men help others stretch and grow.

Good men show just anger. They are not neutral in matters of integrity. A good man is one who has trained himself to recognize that which is wrong and reject it—to respond with due disapproval which may be vehement. My father never raised his voice; but he did always speak with seriousness when one of my sisters or I was treated wrongly. A good man is less concerned when he himself has been offended, but is intolerant of injustice against the ones he loves— particularly his wife or children. Just anger is a sign that a man’s conscience is well-formed, that he has made himself skilled in distinguishing good from evil. Because he boasts virtue, he can identify vice. He is a model in morality.

Finally, good men are protectors. They have a unique ability to defend others, especially women and children, who, on a purely physical level, tend to be more vulnerable. When I was a little girl, my father descended the stairs any and every time our alarm system sounded at night. Racing into my parents’ room to cuddle up to my mother, I was always amazed that Daddy wasn’t scared. Yet dads guard their children emotionally, too. Margaret Meeker M.D., in her book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, writes: “My dad protected me fiercely… not from predatory boys or monsters, but from myself. I was young and too trusting of people and he knew that long before I did.” A good man cares for his wife and children sacrificially, to the point where he is willing to forego his own wellbeing to ensure theirs. He makes a habit of small forfeitures (in matters of preference, never principle) in order that he may possess a predisposition towards selflessness should a larger, necessary sacrifice present itself. He is both motivated by and oriented toward self-abnegation.

This list is in no way exhaustive. Yet, though no man displays all of these qualities all of the time, nearly every man embodies some of them some of the time. This makes men great! When women lament that men are ‘this way’ or ‘that way,’ may we be re-inclined to remember that they are also this way (brave!) and that way (uncomplicated!)—ways which oftentimes women are not, and ways which can many times balance the qualities women possess. Such masculine qualities make men good at being husbands to their wives, talented at serving as fathers to their children. In their constitution (physical, psychological, spiritual, intellectual), men complement women quite well!—garnering hope that marriages can and will flourish, and that the model of a good husband, wife, and family is not beyond our reach.

So what woman needs a man? Every woman. Even a woman living a single life needed her father.

Josemaria Escriva said, “There is need for a crusade of manliness… to counteract and nullify the savage work of those who think man is a beast. And that crusade is your work.” As a woman, I say, “Men: an army of you have already proved yourselves well. Carry on!”

Filed under: Masculinity, Parenthood | 12 Comments »

On March 3, the Love and Fidelity Network cosponsored a day-long conference with the Muslim Life Program and AltMuslimah.com called “Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce: The American Muslim Happily Ever After.” This event brought together a diverse group of thinkers ranging from community activists and academics to religious leaders and professionals to discuss the common experiences many Muslim young adults face when trying to navigate the confusing path to the altar and afterward.

Here in the introduction from this lecture:

The happy couple: the couples that have mutual satisfaction and happiness. These are the couples doing well, the one’s we don’t talk about… We don’t talk about the couples doing well and how they got there; what makes them happy? There has been a lot of research done on the topic of happy couples, looking at what things are working and why they are together. This is part of what I am going to share with you today, so that you are empowered, even if you’re not married – these are things you should incorporate into a relationship – and if you are married, these can be incorporated into a marriage.

So what does it take to build a long-lasting, satisfying marriage?

Click here to watch the lecture!

Building Strong Marriages with Munira Lekovic Ezzeldine from Muslim Life Program on Vimeo.

This video features: Munira Lekovic Ezzeldine

Munira received her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Counseling at California State University, Fullerton. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a trained PREPARE/ENRICH© facilitator providing pre-marital counseling services.

Ezzeldine is currently co-hosting an internet radio show, Family Connection, on One Legacy Radio and she is also a contributing writer for suhaibwebb.com and altmuslimah.com.

Ezzeldine is the author of Before the Wedding: Questions for Muslims to Ask Before Getting Married. She continues to speak and educate on the topics of marriage and parenting at conferences and universities throughout southern California. She is married and the mother of three boys.

Filed under: Divorce, Marriage | No Comments »

On March 3, the Love and Fidelity Network cosponsored a day-long conference with the Muslim Life Program and AltMuslimah.com called “Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce: The American Muslim Happily Ever After.” This event brought together a diverse group of thinkers ranging from community activists and academics to religious leaders and professionals to discuss the common experiences many Muslim young adults face when trying to navigate the confusing path to the altar and afterward.

Highlights:

• “Boundaries in courtship: 1. It is purposeful – it’s not just to have fun to play with people’s emotions or try out what it means to flirt. It’s actually for the purpose of marriage. There is a purpose there and intention there, and both sides know what it is.”

• “Talk about the process of courtship… Some people have two completely different notions about what the courtship process is. For one, it might mean getting to know someone over 2 years. For someone else, it could be 2 weeks… This is a technical conversation to have, and not a romantic one, but this is the first conversation that needs to happen. How are we going to determine whether this is going to work out?”

• “The problem stems from even a younger age; A lack of education in regards to interacting with the opposite gender. If we don’t understand how to interact with the opposite gender from a young age, how are we going to know how to approach marriage? … This is not only a problem prior to marriage, but also afterwards.”

• “When is the right time for marriage? This is part of the whole complication thing: I need to finish x,y,z, and then I’m going to get married. {Marriage} is like a checking off the box thing, instead of a relationship. A relationship is not a task, it’s a relationship. There is something that has to happen organically. There isn’t a particular time…. We need to not say “I’m going to finish this, and that, and then I’ll get married..” We need to open our hearts from an earlier age to the possibility of meeting interesting people. From this will stem more interaction with people and you’ll get to know a lot of interesting people.”
  

Courting with Sohaib Sultan, Zeba Iqbal, Aman Ali, Munira Lekovic from Muslim Life Program on Vimeo.

Filed under: Courtship, Marriage | No Comments »