Tony Abbott, Virginity and Hypocrisy

In an interview for Australian Women’s Weekly, when Australian Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, was asked what advice he would give to his daughters, he said that women should treat their virginity as a gift and not give it away lightly.

He has received a lot of criticism for that comment. Julia Gillard said it would confirm Australian women’s worst fears about him. She also said that Australian women want to make their own choices and don’t want to be lectured to. He has also received criticism for being hypocritical, as he did have sex before marriage – and for many years thought he was the father of a son by a former girlfriend.

The first thing that should be noted here is it was advice given to his daughters. He was not preaching to the whole of Australia. And if Australian women don’t want Australian politicians telling them what to do, I don’t think Australian parents want politicians telling them what advice they should give their children either.

Why is not okay for Tony Abbott to give his daughters advice regarding virginity? But it’s quite okay for Julia Gillard to tell Tony Abbott that his parenting advice is wrong? It doesn’t make sense to me.

And I wonder what the reaction would have been if Tony Abbott’s advice had been to go on the pill and use contraceptives?

Furthermore, it seems to me that it is very good advice. I remember when I was in high school and all my friends were at that stage when they had either lost their virginity or considering losing it. Some gave it away lightly. Some waited for a while. And I can’t remember one single person saying to me, gee, I’m glad that I lost my virginity with the first bloke that came along. I heard a lot of my friends say that they wish they had waited. I wish I had waited.

Virginity is a precious gift. And I think when we treat it as something of no value, something that can simply be tossed away as soon as the opportunity presents itself, we do women a huge disservice. Because no matter how society tells us we should think about sex, most women – at least the ones I know – feel that their virginity is precious. And when they lose it, they feel as though they have lost something valuable.

To deny this is not to liberate women. It is to hold them captive. For instead of being urged to value that which is precious, they are told the ‘safe’ ways they can give it away for free. This promotes the view that what they have does not have value. And so the expectation becomes that they will have premarital sex, and have it young. And then when they give into that expectation, they realise that it was not really what they wanted to do.

If someone convinces you that the diamond necklace you were wearing was worthless and you gave it away for free, wouldn’t you feel a bit cheated? I think many women feel cheated too.

In all this talk about liberating female sexuality, we seem to have forgotten that sex is different for men and women. I have had many people disagree with me on this point. But I truly believe that is the case. Sex for women is usually more emotional. It is not just a physical act. And most women feel that when they have sex with someone, they are giving away something precious – whether it’s the first time or the 21^st time. And when there is sex, with no love, with no attachment whatsoever, it often leaves a woman feeling empty. Not all the time. I will say that. There are some women who have many one night stands and are perfectly happy with that. And there are some men who also need love and attachment for sex to be a meaningful act. But the emotional aspect of sex is far more likely in females than in males.

Is that so wrong? Why do we want to pretend that doesn’t exist? So that we can convince a whole new generation of females that having sex whenever and with whoever they want to is natural? And then we leave them wondering why they don’t feel liberated at all?

Anyway, back to Tony Abbott. And hypocrisy.

Because according to some commentators, Tony Abbott’s advice was also out of line because he had sex before marriage.

If being a hypocrite means giving advice that you didn’t actually follow yourself, I would suggest that most parents are hypocrites. At least the responsible ones.

I smoke. Am I then going to tell my children that they should start smoking because I do? Of course not. That would be incredibly irresponsible. Instead, I will urge them not to smoke and tell them of the dangers. I also wasted my year 12 through wagging practically everyday. Does that mean, when my boys reach year 12, that I can’t tell them to go to school? It’s because I know how much I regret wasting that final year of high school that I will give them advice to pay attention to their studies.

And that’s the thing about parenting. Most parents don’t tell the children to do the things they actually did. We want our children to make better choices than we did. Not the same ones. If my children do exactly the same things I did through my life, then they will be making exactly the same mistakes. And yes, children often do need to make mistakes and make their own choices. But you don’t just sit back and let them do something you know they will regret.

That applies for many types of advice, not just parenting advice. I really hope we never see the day when people can only give advice that they follow themselves. People need to be given advice that helps them make better choices. We don’t want to be a situation where each generation keeps repeating the same mistakes, over and over again, because nobody is telling them to do any better.

And this whole concept that everyone is free to do what they want to do and nobody should tell other people how to live is really, really stupid. Part of being human, living in society, in community, is learning from the experience of others. Yes, we may reject their advice. And each generation that comes up will reject at least some of the advice of their parents. But we should at least give it. They should at least have the chance to learn from our experience, if they choose to. Not to simply find their own way, because everyone is too afraid to tell them what to do.

As for Tony Abbott, I think his advice was very sensible. I’m not generally a Liberal voter, but I do like Tony Abbott. I don’t always agree with him. But I like the fact that he speaks his mind, instead of saying what he thinks the Australian public wants to hear. And I think his daughters are lucky to have him for their father.

Australian Courage and Conquering Fear

As today is Australia Day, it seems appropriate to start this post with what I consider to be one of the most courageous moments in Australian history.

Caroline Chisholm had just persuaded the government to give her an empty barracks building as a house for female immigrants. On her first night there, a couple of rats landed on her shoulders. Instead of leaving, she put out some bread and butter for them and watched them. The next night, she added arsenic. The least she counted at any one time was seven. The most was thirteen.

Now that may not seem like much of a courageous moment. Surely, there are other people who have done way more courageous things than that. And it may not even seem like the most courageous moment in Caroline Chisholm’s life. What about coming to Australia or having nine children or persuading the government to let her have the barracks or taking in the homeless women or riding her horse, Captain, around the countryside searching for jobs for them?

Yet it is true that there are many moments that can be said to be more courageous.

But see, I’m scared of rats. Spiders don’t scare me in the least. I have a spider that has currently made his home in my kitchen window. He is right in front of me every time I wash up. He doesn’t bother me. I don’t bother him. So I’ve decided to let him stay.

But staying in a building filled with rats and having rats jump onto your shoulders. I am finding it hard to think of anything more terrifying. (To show you how deep my fear of rats actually goes, I was going to put a picture of a rat on this post. But I couldn’t do it. I started looking at the pictures of rats and gave up. It’s pretty silly when you’re scared of even pictures of rats. And I’m sorry, to anyone who is frightened of spiders.)

Sometimes the things that require the most courage are not necessarily dangerous. I’m a bit strange in that I seem to be more scared of creatures that can’t hurt me than the ones that actually can. I also have a problem with mice and moths. And I’m not too fussed about snakes. But often people are scared of something because it does have the ability to hurt them. Being frightened of spiders may be a very healthy fear to have. I have had people tell me that I should be a bit more scared of them. That’s possible true.

And it does require courage to face situations where we might be hurt. Other great courageous moments in Australian history include John Simpson Kirkpatrick rescuing wounded soldiers on his donkey or Thomas Curnow alerting the train that Ned Kelly was planning to derail. Courageous because it was dangerous.

And then there’s the fear of things like failure, loneliness, poverty and rejection. They may not cause physical harm, but they’re no less scary because of that.

I’ve heard it said that God will never ask you to do anything that you do not want to do. I think that’s a load of rubbish. I think God often asks us to do things we don’t want to do. Not as some divine punishment. But because it’s what we don’t want to do that we often need to do, for ourselves and for the Kingdom of God. And doing what we don’t want to do usually involves conquering some fears.

In the western world, Christians are not likely to face death because of their faith. But following Christ often does mean facing some other fears. There’s the fear of losing the admiration of others, looking foolish, giving up control, being rejected, suppressing our own desires, losing things that are precious to us, changing our lives and being ridiculed. And these are just some of them.

Some of these fears are unlikely to cause any real damage. Others may very likely happen and cause us some pain.

Following Christ is not about losing our fear for these things. And it’s certainly not about saying, well that looks a bit too scary, and God wouldn’t want me to be scared. It’s about having the courage to do it anyway. Truly courageous people are not those that have no fear. They are those who face their fears head on. They are those who might get scared when a few fears land on their shoulder, but instead of running and hiding, they stay and find a way to conquer them.

Confession

Amongst my Protestant friends, the Catholic practice that is most often discussed is confession. Not that it came up a great deal. But I do remember at least a few conversations about it. I can’t really think of any other Catholic practice that has been discussed more than twice.

And the reason I think my Protestant friends are comfortable discussing confession is because they think they understand it. And that ‘think’ should probably be underlined, made bold and highlighted. But things like devotion to Mary and the Saints and transubstantiation are harder to discuss, because they seem so foreign. Whereas confession. That seems easier to get your head around. They think it’s simply telling a priest what you have done wrong. Kind of like pastoral counselling.

But it’s not like pastoral counselling. And I think perhaps that ‘think they understand it’ may be one thing that prevents them from understanding it. Because they don’t look too deeply into it. And as a result, they miss the whole sacramental nature of confession.

It’s hard for me using words like ‘sacramental’ because I always feel like I’m talking about something I don’t really understand. I know I don’t fully understand the nature of the sacraments. I know I don’t come anywhere near to properly understanding the nature and purpose of confession. When I was going to the Pentecostal Church, I thought I did understand it. Now I realise I really didn’t have a clue. So because I do not fully understand confession, I’m actually not going to talk too much about its sacramental nature or anything like that. I’ll leave that to people who know more than me. And in all honesty, I have a feeling this post may be more a Protestant view of confession than a Catholic one. So keep that in mind. (Sometimes I get the feeling that I should start every post with ‘This is written by someone who has no idea what they’re talking about.’) But I write anyway. It’s how I try and make sense of things, I suppose.

Anyway, I have been to confession twice now. And that probably left me feeling more confused than ever. Because it was the same church, but two completely different experiences. For the first one, it was just like having a chat with someone. We sat on chairs. I said what I wanted to say. And that was pretty much it. If I said a prayer, I don’t remember it. It was very casual. The next one was almost the complete opposite. The curtain was pulled over. I knelt down and there was a print out in front of me of what I needed to say and when I needed to say it. That was very helpful actually, because then I knew I things the correct way.

So – confession. My semi-Protestant, semi-Catholic view of it.

In the Pentecostal Church, we are taught that you only need to confess your sins to Jesus. There’s no need for a middle man. But at the same time, they emphasise the importance of fellowship groups and pastoral counselling. So it seems they recognise the value of saying things out loud. And I know, from past experience, that just confessing sins to Jesus alone can leave you feeling a bit unsure about whether your sins are really forgiven. It’s nice to say them out loud and hear that nobody thinks you have been permanently separated from God for what you have done.

But at the same time, sin does cause a separation. And I think that could be a very important point. Because when people are just confessing their sins to Jesus alone, it could lead to them failing to see that separation. When it’s just a simple matter of saying I’m sorry God, good I’m forgiven, then it doesn’t really seem like that big a deal. And confessing to other people in the church may be beneficial psychologically, but spiritually I do not believe it does anything to heal that separation. It’s kind of nice to go, oh well, so and so doesn’t think what I did was too bad and so and so struggled with the same failing. And now I have a whole heap of bible verses to read – that generally (in the church I was at, at least) are more designed to make you feel better rather than anything else.

But speaking from a psychological viewpoint, it can be very hard when you have something on your mind and you can’t tell anyone.

Just forgetting about sin for a moment. There are many occasions when someone has something they would like to say, but they can’t or are afraid to. For instance, I have a friend who really hurt me a while back. We’re still good friends. And I have never told him how much I was hurt by what he did. Because I decided to forgive him instead. And the reason I decided to do that is because I knew nothing would be gained by me saying something. It wouldn’t benefit him. It wouldn’t benefit me. But at the same time, there’s this thought in the back of my head that kind of hurts a bit, because it is left unspoken.

The attitude nowadays seems to be speak whatever is on your mind. Because it is good psychologically to get whatever it is out into the open. But sometimes what you are thinking won’t do anybody any good. It may not even be because it would hurt them. Sometimes it won’t hurt them at all. But it’s not going to benefit them from a spiritual perspective.

I used to think that anytime I had anything nice to say about anybody I should just come right out and say it. I still probably lean towards that view a bit. But I have realised that just because something will make someone feel good doesn’t mean that it will necessarily be beneficial to their soul. And that can be hard sometimes. It can be downright difficult to want to say something but know it’s not the right thing to do.

Anyway, I’ve kind of gone off track a bit here. (Probably a case where the unspoken thoughts inside my head tried to make a dash for freedom.) But the point is that when people have things they want to say, but don’t or can’t, it can be difficult to deal with. It’s hard to live with unspoken thoughts. They’re not the most agreeable of mind-guests.

So emotionally, getting thoughts out into the open can be very good for you. But spiritually, it can be quite detrimental.

So one of the benefits of confession can be simply to get some of those outspoken thoughts out in a safe place. And fellowship groups and pastoral counselling aren’t covered by the seal of confession. I know people who have shared things in fellowship groups that were later shared with others. I myself told the pastor’s wife something, who later went and told her husband.

But it is a very minor benefit, considering what else confession does.

Because if unspoken thoughts are difficult to live with, sin takes it to a whole other level. Unconfessed thoughts affect your mind. Unconfessed sin affects your soul.

And in the grand scheme of things, feeling a bit of mental anguish or emotional turmoil isn’t really that big of a deal. It can be nice to get it all out in the open. But it’s not really that important. If I die with thoughts left unspoken, it’s not really going to matter. But if I die with unconfessed sin, it may very well make a huge difference.

I am going to leave this post here. I don’t feel like I’ve finished. But maybe it’s not a post that can be finished now. Because in order to finish it, I do need to understand more about the reason and purpose of confession and its sacramental nature. It seems like haven’t even touched on what’s important and as soon as I starting to get just a teensy little bit closer to it, I run out of things to say.

It’s the way I feel about a lot of things these days. As though I’m looking at faith through a pair of binoculars. And just as something starts to get into focus, the binoculars fall from my hands. And I realise how far away I am from what I was looking at.