Women Get Something Out of Shacking Up, Fornication

This is something I wrote several years ago. It is as relevant as ever.


I have not been secretive about agreeing with Dr. Laura almost all of the time, and appreciating her program. But sometimes I disagree or note something that I think is a little off. This is one of those times.

Dr. Laura frequently (and rightfully) chastises women who call her show if they are fornicating. She encourages them to stop seeing the men with whom they are fornicating. She points out to them the risks and downsides of what they are doing, and often the lack of interest the man has shown in committing to them.

It isn't hard for these women to see Dr. Laura’s point when they have been sitting on a hold for a long time and are now talking to stern, matronly voice on the phone, on national radio.

The problem is that these women have not structured their lives on facts, logic, and good reasoning, at least not in their dealings with men. And they are going to hang up the phone and be on their own again. The moment they are alone again with their fornication partner, and he says what she wants to hear, and he looks appealing, and he starts to touch her and her hormones come into play, she's likely to take the short-term path to orgasm. It is easy to agree with Dr. Laura when you are alone and on the phone with her. Placing that agreement into action when in the heat of passion is another thing. These women are getting something for their situation – they are getting sexual gratification and they are playing at a fantasy that the relationship is more than it is.

I have never been quite comfortable with Dr. Laura calling women who fornicate, especially if they shack up, "unpaid whores". I suppose it might be effective in getting her point across to the caller, with whom she has a short amount of time. But it would be easy for one to infer from that phrase that women should be paid for sex. I’m well aware of the history of prostitution, but why should women be paid for something that is supposed to be mutually consented to and mutually enjoyable? Also, most of these women are being compensated. More often than not, the guy is paying the bills or the greater amount, paying for meals, and paying for entertainment. She just isn’t getting a guarantee to half of his earnings should the relationship end. And she is, like the man, getting sexual gratification. So when she says that these women have wasted their time while the man has gotten something, it implies that women don’t value sexual gratification or having their bills paid.

Now, I know that Dr. Laura teaches women (and men... but that is another blog entry) to be chaste outside of marriage, and enthusiastic about making love once married, so I doubt she really means to imply that women should be paid whores when she uses the phrase "unpaid whore". But that might be a little hard to discern when she says things like "and some girls don’t even make guys buy them dinner" – as if it is all somehow less egregious as long as he spent a lot of money on her before they fornicated.

She is right when she points these women out to be delusional. You know the type – they have been "seeing" or shacking up for several years with a guy, esepcially if he is ten or more years older than they are, and he's never shown any interest in getting married without her bringing the subject up. These women think he's going to marry her and stay married to her.

To be sure, these women have used their time unwisely if they do want marriage. But let’s be honest here. It wasn’t just the guy who was having a good time. Yes, fornication can be fun. But Dr. Laura is right to encourage these women to look at the bigger picture – she just shouldn’t make them look like victims of men when they chose to engage in a mutually satisfying arrangement. That these women no longer find these arrangements satisfying is evident by their call. However, they consented to those arrangements and now they are free to leave them.

None of this absolves guys of their responsibilities to God and themselves and others. But it does take two.