Abbysmal Advice II

In my opinion, having Abigail Van Buren of "Dear Abby" give moral advice is a little like asking Bill Gates to coach a professional football team. He's a bright guy in a certain area, but that area ain't sports.

Likewise, I think that Abby gives some pretty good advice on social issues sometimes, but when she dips into morality, it comes off about as well as one might expect if the founder of Microsoft had planned a tight fourth-and-nine running play.

I've written about such "moral" advice from her before (here).

This week, Abby printed a letter by a woman who writes, "I am a 28-year-old woman and have been dating a 26-year-old man I'll call 'Chris' for four months. We have become good friends. On our last date, the topic of sex came up, and Chris told me that he was a virgin and that it was very important for him to find a girl who had 'never been with anyone' either."

You can read the entire article here, but the long-story-short is that this reader has been with someone before. Her boyfriend seemed bothered when she told him this and needed to think about things. She also feels he is a bit of a hypocrite as he wants to marry a virgin but "sings 'Amazing Grace' in church."

In her Abbysmal Advice, Abby shows her usual disdain for tradition Christian values and for anyone who would hold them. As much as she writes about tolerance, she regularly demonstrates that she has none for those who have a different sexual ethic than she. Now let's be clear, I think it is awesome that, though the reader made some mistakes in her past, she has changed her lifestyle in order to live by the teachings of Christ. So my post here isn't to downplay that, but rather to look at how Abby treats anyone who doesn't belong in her brave new world. Her response is worth reading in full (see link above), but I want to look one-by-one at her insulting remarks.

Abby writes that the boyfriend "may be self-conscious about his lack of experience."

Sure, that could be. It could also be that the boyfriend is concerned about the damage that is done by premarital sex to a person's ability to hold a life-long relationship. It could be that he believes that our sexual encounters form a permanent bond with that person (no matter how much we have moved on), and he wants a wife who is entering into the relationship without such emotional damage.

But no, the possibility that he is "self-conscious" is the only conclusion that Abby seems to have reached.

Abby refers to his "old-fashioned values."

It is fairly common to find that Abby considers anyone who believes differently than she does on moral issues to be "old-fashioned". I guess I would agree. The boyfriend's beliefs do, after all, date back to the teachings of Christ (and arguably before that). Some of us, however, believe that our values should be based on something more rock-solid than the trend of the time. In Abby's opinion, I suspect, moral codes should be determined by democracy. The trouble with such democratic decisions, however, can be figured out if you imagine a vote between three snakes and a field mouse as to what should be served for supper.

Abby considers the boyfriend's desire for a virgin bride to be "the old double standard" and she qualifies this by referring to "some men who have sown acres of wild oats [and] feel this way."

Yes, for those men, such a view would be a double-standard. But the reader clearly establishes that her boyfriend has not "sown acres of wild oats". So ... I'm curious how Abby feels he is applying a double-standard. See my article on logical fallacies to learn about the straw man approach, which is what is going on here.

According to Abby, "most men today have more sophisticated thinking about sex."

American Heritage definition of sophisticated: Having acquired worldly knowledge or refinement.

Abby's definition of sophisticated: Disagreeing with Abby's moral compass. She seems to forget that the "worldly knowledge" must be accompanied by refinement, and the proliferation of STD's, abortions, and failed relationships that have come from premarital sex hardly seems like refinement to me. Incidentally, if one desires to know the source of this "worldly knowledge", it can be found here.

She also feels that the boyfriend has every right to a "sweet, old-fashioned girl", but adds a snide, "provided he can find one."

I found one. I know others of you did, as well. In Abby's sophisticated world, however, we might as well give up the search. Sure, the statistics show that most women and men have had premarital sex, but I get the feeling that those who haven't don't even figure into dear Abby's count.

The reader may feel that the boyfriend is a hypocrite for singing "Amazing Grace" but not extending that same grace to her despite her regret. This seems to be the common consensus in our society today that our regret for our past actions means that we should not have long-lasting consequences for them.

A man may regret sexually assaulting a woman, but the permanent consequence is that he will never be hired to work around children.

A woman may regret getting a tattoo of an Iguana across her face, but she'll have to live with the fact that she'll never be hired as a bank teller.

The reader may regret that she made mistakes in the past, but neither she nor Abby should fault the boyfriend for desiring someone who has preserved her purity, as he has. There is a trend within our society to ignore the possibility of long-standing consequences for one's actions. Our children are watching, though. And they are absorbing. And some of them are learning to follow dear Abby's idea of sophistication.

For those of us who have a different moral compass, such as the boyfriend and (after her repentance) the woman who wrote in, it is imperative that we take accountability for our actions and always carry ourselves in the model of Christ, no matter how old-fashioned Abby may consider us.