TresSugar

Group Therapy: My Family Believes in Arranged Marriage, but I'm in Love

Tres Community — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:05:00 PDT

This question is from a Group Therapy post in our TrèsSugar Community. Add your advice in the comments!

Hi, I'm a 22-year-old girl from a strict Sikh family, where all my four sisters have had arranged marriages. I have been dating a guy from a Hindu family for four years. His family really likes me and we want to get married next year, but due to my parents we are afraid of the consequences.

My one sister is divorced, and yet my dad is very against love, and if he finds out that I love someone who is not in my cast there is going to be drama. My sister who is divorced also wanted to get married to someone she liked, but my dad apparently got "sick," and she was forced to marry someone who left her in six weeks. I really want to make my family believe that love marriage isn't a bad thing, and the person I love is financially stable and a good person. They even know him and his family, but they don't know about us. Can I please get help on how can make my family accept him.

Have a dilemma of your own? Post it anonymously to Group Therapy for advice, and check out what else is happening in the TrèsSugar Community.

Pope Offers Wider Abortion Forgiveness For a Limited Time Only

Annie Scudder — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:20:58 PDT

Here's the catch. You have to get to Madrid by the end of the week. The pope will arrive in Madrid tomorrow for World Youth Day, and as part of his visit, any woman who confesses her abortion during the event will be forgiven and welcomed back to the Church.

"Special powers" have been given to all priests in Madrid, which they can use to absolve women who confess abortions. A Vatican spokesman explains, "Normally, only certain priests have the power to lift such an excommunication, but the local diocese has decided to give all the priests taking confession at the event this power." To accommodate all sinners, portable confession booths, pictured above, have been set up in the city's Buen Retiro Park.

The Church denies that it's trying attract new members with its more lenient approach to abortion, but the plan does seem a little bit like a gimmicky and arbitrary "get-out-of-hell-free" card. And any Catholic woman who can't make it to Madrid to confess an abortion won't receive the benefit. Even so, do you think it's a sign the Catholic Church is more welcoming of its female members? Or is it just another example of a male-dominated institution trying to control a woman's body and choices?

5 Surprising Finds on Religious Women's Sex Lives

Tara Sharp — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:20:07 PDT

New research from the Guttmacher Institute may debunk the idea that religion and sex don't mix. Using data gathered from a 2006-2008 survey of more than 7,000 US women ages 15-44, this report found that women of a variety of religions - Protestant, Catholic, and Buddhism included - are having sex and using contraception.

These findings are released in the midst of the Planned Parenthood funding debate and help the organization's cause as they show that women from all backgrounds depend on birth control. Maybe even a religious version of the "I have sex" video is in the works? See five of the surprising stats on religious women and their sex lives:

Despite the Catholic church being against contraception, only two percent of devout Catholic women rely on natural family planning.
The number of never-married 15- to 19-year-olds who have had sex is 42 percent, with similar numbers across all denominations.
Ninety-nine percent of all sexually active religious women have used contraception other than natural family planning.
More Evangelical than Catholic or Protestant virgins give religious or moral reasons for abstaining from sex, 63 percent vs. 31 and 36, respectively.
Sixty-nine percent of sexually experienced women of all denominations are using "highly effective methods" including sterilization, a hormonal method like the pill, or IUD.

What has been your experience with religious beliefs and sexuality?

Creepy Advice: Have Your Dad Screen Your Sexy Clothes

Annie Scudder — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 02:00:13 PDT

Pastor C.J. Mahaney has some advice for cluelessly provocative Christian girls: have your dad check you out before you leave the house. If he's turned on, you should change.

Such advice is included in the pastor/author's video sermon on men's thoughts on modesty. Listen carefully ladies. College boys are telling Pastor Mahaney that every day on campus is a battle. "I am thankful God has created me to be attracted to women," one student writes to Pastor Mahaney, "However campus is a loaded minefield. There are girls everywhere." And not just any girls. Attractive girls! To avoid evil thoughts, these boys must actively pray, by quoting scripture or listening to worship music.

Women do not fully grasp, the pastor says, that lust is continual, aggressive, and doing everything it can to lead men to death. Men need women to help deter the goal of lust! But first, women need a man's help. The pastor's sermon presents a solution. Christian women, have your dad screen your wardrobe. He's a guy. He knows more than you do on the issue . . . of whether your outfit will turn men on. "Dad, is my skirt long enough, or is making you lust?"

Link Time - Pole Dance For Jesus

TresSugar — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:45:17 PDT

Pole dancing for Jesus, the new Christian workout - The Frisky
Can you really die from a broken heart? - Huffington Post
Six money life lessons from a younger you - SavvySugar
10 steps to becoming soul mates - YourTango
Balancing commitments with your guy's family - Glamour
He said/she said: decoding text messages - CollegeCandy
Do most guys consider themselves feminists? - Em & Lo
Lessons Rebecca Black can teach us about life - The Hairpin
The best and worst poetry by musicians - Flavorwire

Speed Read - Not Everyone Is Happy With Gender-Neutral Bible

TresSugar — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:00:18 PDT

Gender-neutral Bible makes some people mad - MSNBC
Kate Middleton's iconic see-through dress sells for a lot - PopSugar
Charlie Sheen will make $7 million on his live tour - TMZ
Students upset with SAT question about reality TV - Nerve
Sarah Palin not content with defunding NPR - Jezebel
College is not really a place of same-sex experimentation - New York Times
Raymond Clark III pleads guilty to murder of Yale student - Huffington Post

Carnival Around the World

Colleen Barrett — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:00:32 PST

Happy Mardi Gras! Get some beads and commit a sin - but not a relationship sin. Although today is the day of excess and indulgence, the world has been counting down all week with costumes, parties, and parades. From South America to Europe, see the celebrations in pictures.

Iraqi Mannequins Send a Moral Message of What Not to Wear

Annie Scudder — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:10:37 PST

Our fashion choices convey messages about who we are. In Iraq, more conservative forces are not always happy with what they see. Since Saddam Hussein's demise, the New York Times explains, religious values have penetrated the previously secular society. That's brought calls for segregated universities, the closure of liquor stores, and pressure for women to dress in clothes that "will not inflame men's imaginations." The religious police have become the fashion police.

A new fashion exhibit, if that's what you can call it, is using mannequins surrounded by paper flames to show women what is not acceptable. The display reads: "Men who look at women in such dress become voracious monsters; women who wear it burn through eternity."

What type of clothing will beget monstrous men and melting women? The mannequins don long sleeves and hems, as well as high necklines, but apparently the blond wigs and colored scarves are enough to inflame imaginations, and thus cause condemnation. One Iraqi man summed up the situation as such: "I do look at women when I see them dressed up with tight jeans. That is one of the problems. It means the devil is doing a good job."

Ted Haggard Chooses to Be the "Masturbation Guy" Over the Gay Guy

Colleen Barrett — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:25:03 PST

It's like the ultimate, awkward family photo, except this one has an agenda. It's to show just how not gay Ted Haggard, the defrocked evangelical minister of the New Life Church whose double life was exposed in 2006, is.

Despite paying a masseuse for a massage, crystal meth (to enhance masturbation), and sex (but not sex, sex), reformed Ted told GQ he didn't do this because he was gay, he did it because he liked to masturbate. "And that's one of the reasons why I haven't been real clear," he said. "I don't want to stand up publicly and say, 'Hey, I'm a masturbation guy!'"

But now he is standing up and saying it - I suppose he finds it better than standing up and saying, "Hey, I'm the gay guy." So here we are with this creepy picture of him locking lips with his wife in a hot tub and their four kids, who don't know where to fix their gaze. That's not straight; it's just awkward.

Picture It: Night Swimming

Colleen Barrett — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:50:47 PST

A woman exits a frigid baptismal pool to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, which marks the end of the Christmas holiday for Orthodox Christians. Carved out of an ice-covered pond in Minsk, Belarus, hundreds of people took the plunge in below-freezing temperatures - now that's faith!

View 5 Photos ›