Hi Jaybird,
Believe it or not, I thought about and prayed over your posts all day at work, asking God to help me word what I want to say.
I want to reassure all of our great Christian guys out there that I am NOT trying to say that Christian women are completely unapproachable regarding sex as a topic. Of course, this will differ greatly from person to person, depending on their upbringing, personal beliefs, and comfort level.
However, please understand that my main point here is CONTEXT.
I've worked in retail nearly all my life, and I've worked all kinds of odd hours when the store isn't open or in the back where no one is around and people will talk about ALL kinds of things. Some of them are things I'd never talk with others about IN PUBLIC. I was at work one day and a few certain subjects came up--I was going to say list a few but feel that would be disrespectful to some members of our forum. I'm always known as the "the church girl" wherever I go, and a lot of guys like to shout the most crass things right at me just to see if they're going to get a reaction. I tend to shrug it off.
However, later on, one of the guys DID ask me, IN PRIVATE, what I thought about some of the topics that had been brought up. And I gave him my most honest answers. Why? Because of context. Was I going to state my most personal thoughts to a group of guys I don't know very well, even though I've worked with them a long time? No. Because they don't talk to or know me on a personal basis. All they care about is blurting out the most sexual things they can think about and seeing how women react to it.
The difference is that the guy who asked me did so IN PRIVATE, away from the crowd. He was an exception because we've worked together over a year and have finished many projects together. He works his butt off, has helped me many times, and we have a HISTORY of conversations about our lives and beliefs (including church backgrounds and our beliefs about God.) Our "context" is one of mutual trust and respect, which is MUCH different from the "context" of someone who doesn't even know you (and is not taking the time to get to know you, either.)
He wasn't trying to embarrass, shame, or hit on me. He was genuinely interested in my answer as a woman and throughout our time of knowing each other, he had also trusted me enough to share about his own life too. This is someone who has taken the time to invest in my life and who I am.
Therefore, I was more than willing to give him honest answers, because the context of his questions were completely different than the others.
It's the same thing here on CC. If a guy I don't even know writes me out of the blue with a personal question and persists even when I try to direct him to a fellow male member he could talk to, then yes, I'll most likely block him. But there are number of really, REALLY good guys here I've known or bantered with in the forums for a long time. If they sent me a PM saying, "Seoul, I have something I'd like to ask your opinion on but it's kind of personal, could we talk sometime outside of the site?" I would have no problem with that depending on who it was and how well or how long I'd known them here.
Gentlemen, please don't give up hope on Christian women. But please also know that what we may or may not talk about has everything to do with the context we share with you, or that you feel you have with us. Again, there will be differences due to different beliefs, personalities, etc. But my entire point is that I personally feel it's crucial to know, and take the time to build a proper context before such subjects are mentioned.
I hope that helps a little. I most certainly do NOT want to make good Christian men afraid of or intimidated by Christian women!! We women here really, really appreciate all the good Christian guys here who take the time to listen to us and are thoughtful enough to share their concerns with us. And, we hope that you will continue to do so.
And, I am certainly not saying I don't make mistakes. In fact, I hope that the at the very least, the mistakes I do make will help someone else to make a lot better decisions than me and spare them the heartache.
God bless, Jaybird, and thank you very much for posting your thoughts. I appreciate your honesty and the opportunity to clarify this a little more.
Sorry for all the typo's!!! I've been up since 2 AM, already worked my shift, and am running on 5 hours of sleep.