TresSugar

Group Therapy: Does Religion Matter in a Relationship?

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:00:00 -0700

I started dating a wonderful guy a month ago. We clicked automatically and we have amazing chemistry. From the beginning, he has known that I am atheist and I have known that he was Christian. I don't mind the fact that he follows a religion and he has stated that he doesn't care for me any less for me because of my choice in beliefs. The only thing that I've been wondering lately is, in the future, could our differences affect us? His family is very religious and I'm afraid of how his family will react, being as how they don't know of my position yet. I really enjoy the company of his mother and I'd hate to think that she might think less of me because I'm not a devout Christian like herself.

Do you have any advice on how to coexist with these completely different sets of beliefs? Or perhaps how to handle his family?

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To be involved in more GROUP THERAPY, click here]

Source

Fierce: The Hot Mess Make-Over Show

GiggleSugar — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:07:00 -0700

If SNL had its way, Christian Siriano - the fiercest Project Runway winner of all time - will get his own hot mess of a makeover show on Bravo. All them b*tches with nasty hot messes up in their closets will undergo a fiercification process to look and feel fierocious. It'll all be so fierce, even Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn will get up in this hot mess. SNL's Amy Poehler, playing Christian here, has an idea of how the show will go down:

Seriously Y'all, This Is Fierce!

GiggleSugar — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:00:00 -0800

This season of Project Runway is pretty much a one-man show starring Christian, the fiercest of the fierce. His hair is fierce, his ego is fierce, his models are fierce, his size eight (juniors) pants are fierce, and most of all, his talk is fierce. In fact, every other word is fierce. Like, literally fierce. (Thanks, Best Week Ever!)

Relationships and Religion

DearSugar — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:00:00 -0700

Religion can be a very sticky subject for a lot of couples that date inter-religiously.

I know many women who will only date Jewish men if they are Jewish, or Catholic men if they are Catholic, but personally, I think it's more important to date for love rather than religion. I have never been one to think that religion mattered much, as long as both people's values were respected and celebrated. Compromise is key when people come from different religious backgrounds, and as long as both people are open and communicate their needs in a sensitive way, I think it can totally work. It can actually be really amazing to mesh your two cultures, family values, and holidays.

So what do you think? Does the religion of your significant other matter much to you? Is it super important to your family to marry someone who shares the same religion? Or does religion never even cross your mind?

Source

You Asked: Did I Corrupt This Guy?

DearSugar — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:15:00 -0700

Dear Sugar--

I met this great guy online, and we started dating maybe a week and a half ago (but had been talking for about a week beforehand). We got along great, and he was the first "professional" I've really been attracted to. I am entering a professional career, and have had a hard time dating peers. Anyway, I fell hard--something I didn't know I was still capable of doing.

Early on I learned that he was religious and later figured out he was very religious (bordering fundamentalist). I didn't notice when we were together and on our third date, we got very very drunk, much more drunk than he has ever been before. He also bought cigarettes and entered a gay bar. These are all things I find acceptable, but he doesn't. The result of the evening was something I never do: unprotected sex.

Ever since, he has been very distant and meditating on the sin we engaged in. As the non-Christian, is this more my fault? Should I be apologizing or should I have been more careful? The unprotected sex aspect is horrible and that is the first time I have done so in 7 years, but everything else -- should I have tried to steer him away knowing it would cause him pain in the morning?

--Regretful Rayna

To see DEARSUGAR's answer read more

Dear Regretful Rayna--

You did NOTHING wrong as far as he's concerned. It's good that you realize that unprotected sex is a bad idea (hello STIs and pregnancy), but he is in charge of his own actions. If he knows he doesn't want to get himself into certain situations, than he should never have had even one sip of alcohol to impair his senses. It was his decision to drink, and to get drunk. He walked into that gay bar, and he also had sex with you. I wouldn't be hard on yourself at all. None of this was your fault.

If these things were so important to him, he should have been honest from the start and set guidelines about what he was comfortable with. I'm sure he's very upset because he feels like he is the one who made the mistake (we are our own worst critic), and he probably feels awful about it. It really stinks that he's putting distance between you as a form of punishment, so I don't blame you for feeling the heat.

He owes you a good conversation about this. Since you were getting along so well, and you loved being together, maybe you guys can come up with a list of boundaries for the future. These should be "rules" that you both agree upon, like no more drinking alcohol, or no more unprotected sex. He has to realize that you can't change the past, you can only learn from your mistakes and try not to make them in the future. I hope things work out!

Source

BF and I Decide to Stop Having Sex After a Year...Now What???

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 04:00:17 -0800

I lost my virginity to my current BF a few months after we had been dating (yea I know). We have always fought about sex because he has a VERY VERY active sex drive. I mean he wanted and still wants tsome kind of sex numerous times a day. We started off having sex almost twice a day. Then it just got exhausting especially since I was on the exact opposite end of the whole sex drive thing.

At the beginning my BF was very religious and struggled with a lot of things including sex. He told me that he was hesistant to be in a relationship with me because I was not close to God. Over the past year, I have completely turned my life around (I'm not perfect but I have definitely put God first in my life). He on the other hand has drited away from God. I think that sex brings you closer to a person, which is great, but I think you need to have a solid relationship without sex. We fought soooo much about sex--when to have it, why has three whole days gone by without it, why I've never been able to have an orgasm from intercourse....and the list goes on. Like I said, it was exhausting.

So I prayed about it and talked to some Christians and read some articles. Basically, I think there are valid religious AND non religious reasons. When I told my BF I wanted to stop having sex and explained why he was very upset. He was mostly upset because it the beginning he claims that he did not want to "bring me into sin" and he told me that sex would "make things complicated" but that I convinced him to do it when I said that I was ready. I had NO idea that he felt so strongly about waiting. NONE. He had also been with SEVERAL women before me. Anyway, he was mad only for a while and then he came around. He even told me that at one point in high school he had made the same decision in a relationship.

We "slipped" a lot of times. It actually only lasted for about 3 weeeks. Then we started back having sex. Now we've stopped again and we have noticed a difference in our relationship. There is now a hole where sex used to be. We haven't stopped COMPLETELY fooling around which may be hypocritical...I don't know. There is still the issue about me not wanting to fool around as much as he does. An it's interesting how lately he doesn't talk about us in the future anymore and says that we should focus on the present when he always used to say that we should get married. I don't know what to do and there is a lot of pressure to have sex. It's crazy because one day (after we had started back having sex) he called me out of the blue and said "I think we should stop again." That lasted for about a day.

Now he keeps saying that he feels like something bad is going to happen and sometimes he's really hard on himself and says something might be wrong with him because sex should not be that important to him. He also cannot answer a definite "no" when I ask if he thinks he'll cheat on me. He just says "I don't know." I told him that he should just let me know if he needs some time apart.

This whole thing has just revealed so much to me. I really think sex is intended for husband and wife because it comes into a relationship of years or months or whatever AFTER the two of you have grown together. We started having sex so early on that it was always a part of our relationship. Am I being unfair? I just wish we could be on the same page....he says that his penis and his heart are telling him two different things. Am I setting myself up for heartache?

Confused Christian

A Creepy Yet Insanely Catchy Homage to Christian Bale

GiggleSugar — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:42:32 -0700

Just when you thought we were finished with the Christian Bale freakout comes this genius music video for The Mae Shi's "R U Professional." The catchy dance number pays homage to the "swing kid with a violent streak" with excerpts from Bale's famous onset explosion and lyrics like "newsies will get you tonight!" The video features clips from his movies - including Bale eating a live snake and running naked with a chain saw - that kinda help you understand how the dude got so extreme.

5 Gays Talk Project Runway Fall, at Least One Blames Women

TresSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:00:46 -0800

From moving to the West Coast, to the influx of celebrity judges, to casting drama over talent, five gay men have offered their theories on why viewership of Project Runway fell 25 percent between the premiere of season six and its ninth episode. One faults having three female finalists (though that happened on Bravo's final season too) saying:

"I am all for diversity and playing to your audience’s demographic, but please. And not to sound completely misogynistic, but three women as finalists? No fags? Really? These women were probably the most talented, but obviously when you tell the Bunim/Murray casting juggernaut, 'This is Lifetime: Television for Women, not talented gay male fashion designers,' you get what you get!"

While he jests (mostly), women probably miss the Christian Sirianos who sharpen their tongues before even threading a needle each morning just as much as gay men do. But what do I know? I only watched the first three episodes.

Source: Lifetime

Nigerian Archbishop: Polygamy Makes a Mockery of Christians

LibertySugar — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:00:00 -0700

Polygamy isn't limited to America, where a second child was born to an underage member of the FLDS in custody. Archbishop Peter Akinola, the leader of Nigeria's Anglican Church, is telling Christian polygamists to cut out the big love.

Nigeria is religiously divided: the north is predominately Muslim, while the south is mostly Christian and animist. As a sort of recruiting tool, Muslims converting to Christianity were allowed to maintain their polygamist lifestyle.

Not any more. In a letter to his congregation, which includes 17.5 million Nigerians, the Archbishop wrote:

The observation [of polygamy] will destroy our witness if not firmly addressed. We cannot claim to be a Bible-believing church and yet be selective in our obedience.

Women that give up the polygamous lifestyle - which the Archbishop says is necessary - often remain single, even though they are free to remarry in the church. Their children remain with their ex-husbands.

Should women converts be forced to separate from their husbands and leave their families? Since Christians inevitably are selective in what they follow in a sometimes contradicting Bible, should an exception be made for Muslims who want to convert, but don't want to break up their families? Or, should these converts accept monogamy as a crucial tenant to the faith to which they hope to convert?

Source

Christian Bale Freakout: The Remix

GiggleSugar — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Talented and handsome actor Christian Bale has a ~~bit of a~~ gargantuan temper issue. On the set of the new Terminator movie, the DP (director of photography) seems to have been adjusting some lights and wandering around while Christian was shooting a scene. If you want to hear the unremixed tirade, click here. But if you want to dance, dance, dance . . . watch the video below. (This is the same person who remixed Babs Streisand having a cow.)