I'm not sure how you can have any clarity with respect to evaluating suitability if you're making out with someone. There's nothing natural about that. You only perceive it to be natural because of the influence of secular modernity. Hand-holding is a sign of commitment and exclusivity. Its definitely not helpful in the getting to know one another phase because you're already playing at being together instead of trying to work out whether you should be together. If you're committed then get engaged; if you're not committed then don't hold hands.
Hugs Are Dangerous
- Thread starter Roosh
- Start date
This.
Can you imagine marrying someone and then finding out you don't like the way their hands feel?
I understand Roosh’s position. If small touches lead him into temptation due to his past, then it is good for him to abstain. It may not be good for those without his past.
No couple (Christian or not) who is attracted to each other completely avoids minor physical touch. That is a part of courtship and an indicator of attraction. I think the serious line starts at kissing/petting. If my girlfriend who I’m courting didn’t want to hold hands or hug before I leave for work for 3 months I’d be concerned.
This article makes the mistake of running to the other end of the spectrum from RVF 1.0. Thinking like this is very prevalent in homeschool circles and leads to poor relationships and warped individuals (weak men especially) The best alternative to fornication and hookup culture is not the complete absence of female touch until marriage. The solution lies in raising good, strong Christian men and women within a tight community that emphasizes marriage for those that should marry.
No couple (Christian or not) who is attracted to each other completely avoids minor physical touch. That is a part of courtship and an indicator of attraction. I think the serious line starts at kissing/petting. If my girlfriend who I’m courting didn’t want to hold hands or hug before I leave for work for 3 months I’d be concerned.
This article makes the mistake of running to the other end of the spectrum from RVF 1.0. Thinking like this is very prevalent in homeschool circles and leads to poor relationships and warped individuals (weak men especially) The best alternative to fornication and hookup culture is not the complete absence of female touch until marriage. The solution lies in raising good, strong Christian men and women within a tight community that emphasizes marriage for those that should marry.
Last edited:
This sounds like the argument about having sex before marriage to find out if you two are 'compatible'.
My knee-jerk reaction when I started reading this was to roll my eyes and dismiss these comments as Roosh overdosing on the hyperbolic writings of monks, setting standards nobody can actually live up to in modern times.
But as I went on, I realized Roosh was right. I wasn’t Orthodox when I started dating my wife back in 2015, though even in the evangelical tradition I knew better than to engage in any intimate contact. Yet I did it anyway, hugging and kissing from the start of our relationship, having all sorts of intimate contact and eventually sex before marriage. Deep down I knew all of it was wrong.
Not a day goes by now that I don’t think about how I almost certainly would have made radically different choices if I’d been self controlled and thought with my brain instead of my junk. I had doubts about our relationship about two years in, which I eventually dropped because of escalating physical contact. I am married to someone who will almost certainly never become Orthodox, who has completely different priorities and interests from me. Each day feels like an exercise in hardship I could have avoided.
Physical contact deluded me and intimate contact has evaporated anyway. It wasn’t worth it at all. These circumstances frequently tilt me toward despair and regret. I’m convinced it all could have been avoided if I’d eschewed physical contact and made wiser decisions.
Learn from my cautionary tale: don’t let physical contact warp your perceptions or dismiss what Roosh is saying, it’s actually wise advice. Because once you make these mistakes there may be no escape until you’re dead or, worse, divorced.
But as I went on, I realized Roosh was right. I wasn’t Orthodox when I started dating my wife back in 2015, though even in the evangelical tradition I knew better than to engage in any intimate contact. Yet I did it anyway, hugging and kissing from the start of our relationship, having all sorts of intimate contact and eventually sex before marriage. Deep down I knew all of it was wrong.
Not a day goes by now that I don’t think about how I almost certainly would have made radically different choices if I’d been self controlled and thought with my brain instead of my junk. I had doubts about our relationship about two years in, which I eventually dropped because of escalating physical contact. I am married to someone who will almost certainly never become Orthodox, who has completely different priorities and interests from me. Each day feels like an exercise in hardship I could have avoided.
Physical contact deluded me and intimate contact has evaporated anyway. It wasn’t worth it at all. These circumstances frequently tilt me toward despair and regret. I’m convinced it all could have been avoided if I’d eschewed physical contact and made wiser decisions.
Learn from my cautionary tale: don’t let physical contact warp your perceptions or dismiss what Roosh is saying, it’s actually wise advice. Because once you make these mistakes there may be no escape until you’re dead or, worse, divorced.
Last edited:
true humility would be accepting that I may be more vulnerable to certain sins than the people who didn't burden themselves in a similar way before dispensing universal advice
Why did you so conveniently skip what I wrote about Jacob and Rachel?
If you ever went to the Middle East you would see that even men are regularly walking holding their hands. We don't do that because we consider it gay.
There are different stages of commitment, and being exclusive is very different from being engaged. She introduced me to her parents as her boyfriend before we even kissed. We are dating with the mutual exception of marriage, but we are not there yet. We are talking about the future, we are praying together and yes, we are also making out. I expect to propose to her by the end of the summer - only a fool would propose without proper vetting and I'm praying daily that God shows me if she's really the wife for me and to separate us if we aren't supposed to be together.
On the other hand, you with your talking about what is "natural" without any Scriptural support - tell me, why do you think that you are qualified to tell me what I should do? Are you in a fruitful marriage where you didn't kiss your bride before the wedding day? Or did fornication make you an expert in godly courtship? I'm really curious.
Unfortunately, you sinned and suffer the consequences. That does not mean the total absence of touch is the godly way to court. The same mistake in the overall article of sinning at one extreme and swinging to the other to avoid future temptation, but also projecting the consequences of personal sin to the body as a whole.
I never was a serial fornicator and I hugged women without setting off my cannon, believe it or not. Maybe I just can handle myself. Roosh is like a cocaine addict who needs equal cure and caution to break even. Not everyone falls into extremes like that or is prone to it the same. Mediterranean people view hugs in a different way. If he were really on top of his lust he could hug a girl in an amiable fashion and not take anything other from it. His mind would not even attribute anything sexual to it. No such thought would enter his mind. He doesn't know how to really solve this problem yet, so he tries to remove the stimulant while instead he should remove sexual association from his thought process.
Last edited:
True, although we first have to know our limitations. Notice he said it is dangerous, not sinful. Physical intimacy with a girl you are obviously attracted to is indeed dangerous, although how much depends on our past. I would liken it to video games or secular music. Some are more prone to falling down that rabbit hole than others.
I agree with much of the article. I would just add that it's important to communicate with whomever we are courting. Just tell her why you don't want to hug. She will appreciate it and it can open up an important conversation about lust, something you two will be dealing with whether or not you get married.
What is appropriate or not can be different for different cultures
I lived in Brazil 2 years and it’s normal to greet a woman with a kiss on the cheek. Also I had a lot more affection with friends too like it’s not a big deal you can put your arm around your guy friends and there’s nothing sexual about it. (Wouldn’t do that with women though). Here in America we just shake hands it’s ridiculous - anything beyond that can be seen as “gay”. I wouldn’t know what Americans would think about the disciple that leaned on Jesus chest. Physical affection doesn’t always imply sexual lust. If it does trigger that then just don’t get close to others then.
Respectfully - and I'm aware you were not speaking to me - I would say that the Bible implies that Jacob only kissed Rachel upon meeting her, and not again until marriage. If he had been so familiar with her kisses and closeness, scent, etc. it would not have been so easy for her father Laban to pass off her sister Leah as Rachel on the wedding night, in the dark (gen 29:25).
Also, Jacob kissed Rachel's father Laban as well (gen 29:13), so there is the idea that kissing did not mean the same thing in their culture as it does in modern western culture (I assume you're western, apologies if I'm incorrect).
Also, in their culture if they were to have engaged in fornication (as a result of lust from physical contact) and the father did not approve of their union there would have been some very serious, deadly even, consequences, that are not the norm in modern western society.
This is also true. It is our added burden to bear that we be more vulnerable to sins we have in the past committed.
all clamy and what not
I love the hard line you are taking here, Roosh. It reminds me of Fr. Seraphim Rose’s style - uncompromising.
I do think it would be appropriate to catch a woman’s scent before marriage, because it an indication of compatibility. To do this, however, it isn’t necessary to hug.
I do think it would be appropriate to catch a woman’s scent before marriage, because it an indication of compatibility. To do this, however, it isn’t necessary to hug.
Exactly. My older brother has clammy hands, and I couldn't stand it when I was a kid. So he would like, put them on my face, are wrap them around my arms and make as much skin to skin contact as possible with his terrible damp hands.
Really makes it seem like getting a good wife is an insanely difficult find. The fact about her being beautiful in and of itself is what struck me, because I can definitely see men being infatuated by beauty and marrying a woman despite any red flags.
I don't think it's difficult in the sense that God will put a woman in front of us when the time is right. She will, however, be at least a little broken, but we are all on a spectrum of brokenness.
I actually think women can heal faster than men in the context of a family. Men find some healing with family but mostly in solitude. Women find pretty much all of their healing within a family. I'm not concerned with a woman's past. As long as she's younger than me and is willing to follow Christ/join me at church, that's enough.