Any Pandagoners want to make a quick $5000?  Me and you can sign up for this contest, get married, collect our money, and get our marriage annulled all in the same day, I figure.  Let me know if interested.

Nothing wrong with separate bedrooms.  Cohabitating, but definitely not married, grolby and I have separate bedrooms.  We visit on weekends and such.  It’s good to have your own space. 

That said, I catch your drift.  Just picking nits.

I think I like sex more than $10,000, but this ship sailed quite a while ago for me.

I think they’re about 30 years too late for this. Maybe a generation ago, more women waited until they were engaged to give up the goods, so the offer of a gift, as crass as it is, might have been an incentive to hold out just a little longer. Nowadays, well, as Sara said, that ship sailed quite a while ago. The only people left who would qualify are people who would do it anyway. (Or not do it anyway, if you get my drift.)

According to another article, she REMOVED the “no sex” stipulation. Now you just have to “admit that it was wrong” to bump uglies. And also, no booze at the wedding.

I’d say something about the relative popularity of chastity but honestly even if you didn’t want to fuck before your wedding, would you really want to jump through whatever hoops these jokers expect to prove that you didn’t fuck before your wedding?

she REMOVED the “no sex” stipulation. Now you just have to “admit that it was wrong” to bump uglies. And also, no booze at the wedding.

So, if my partner and I were to announce that it’s wrong for two unmarried guys to have sex, we’d get $10,000 for a nice little wedding trip to San Francisco?

Might have been nice if they had set aside $750.00 for the “too broke to date and too tired to screw.”  That would get the applicants in.

And also, no booze at the wedding.

Deal breaker.

It’s one thing for a couple to choose something for themselves (though why they’d want to make a public spectacle of it is beyond me), but it’s quite another thing to simply be a bad host to your guests at a wedding reception by refusing to serve alcohol.

And also, no booze at the wedding.

But we can still have the ceremony in Vegas, right?

I have to admit I’m a little curious as to exactly how they planned on verifying the couple’s virginity!

Also, I’d have loved to see a couple take up and successfully complete this challenge only to consummate the marriage in front of the public as soon as the deal was sealed.

OK we have a mission! FIND AN ABSTEMIOUS GAY COUPLE AND COMPEL HER TO ACCEPT THEIR ENTRY!

It’s one thing for a couple to choose something for themselves (though why they’d want to make a public spectacle of it is beyond me), but it’s quite another thing to simply be a bad host to your guests at a wedding reception by refusing to serve alcohol.

Well, in fairness, some people have a lot of recovering (and even not recovering) alcoholics in their families. That’s not what this is about, obviously, but there are legitimate reasons for a dry wedding.

Unrelated, but in case you haven’t heard:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081027/ap_on_el_pr/skinhead_plot

Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, “shooting at him from the windows,” the court documents show.

Isn’t it pretty standard Catholic doctrine to oppose marital sex except for procreation?

These people talk like this just because it makes their sex dirtier and more fun, right?

$10,000 isn’t nearly enough enticement for me to wait to see my guy’s goods. I’m totally down for the “they come in all shapes and sizes” attitude but I’ve seen enough to know that every once in a while there’s truly some shock involved. The last thing you want to deal with on your wedding night: “Oh! Well…gosh…no, no it’s okay…I’m sure I’ll learn to love it…has it always been like that?...I see…feel like a round of Scrabble?”

No matter how much you love someone there are some things that take a little time to get used to. Best that time not include your wedding night.

I was gonna say “it worked for Rob & Laura Petrick”, but then I remembered it was just separate BEDS.

Even as a kid I thought that was odd….......

There is also a good article in this week’s New Yorker on abstinence education and the class split on pre-marital sex.  That Red Staters are pushing abstinence before marriage, but ending up with lousy marriages, divorces and poor outcomes for children.  The Blue State/middle class folks are non-judgmental about sex, but taking marriage and child rearing very seriously.  It is basically asking who the family values crowd really is.

Let me get this straight.  A person by the name of Phillippia Faust was trying to tempt engaged couples not to have sex before marriage by paying for wedding invitations and flowers.  Rescinded the offer and instead just wants the couples not to have booze at their reception.

Did I wake up in the mirror universe today?

Mikey:  Actually, these days the Catholic doctrine is just that sex has to be “open to the possibility” of procreation—not that it has to be for the purpose thereof.  In fact, JPII issued an encyclical that specifically said marital sex for the purpose of pleasure and bonding of the spouses was OK.  At the time, I knew some Catholics who were shocked and horrified by the idea that the Pope would say such a thing.  (And also by the fact that our Catholic reading group was discussing this statement!  In a gender-mixed discussion group!)

“It’s one thing for a couple to choose something for themselves (though why they’d want to make a public spectacle of it is beyond me), but it’s quite another thing to simply be a bad host to your guests at a wedding reception by refusing to serve alcohol. “

Why is that wrong?  Some people don’t serve meat, some people don’t serve alcohol.  People can entertain as they see fit; there is no “obligation” to serve alcohol if you don’t care to any more than there is an “obligation” to serve Buffalo wings, lattes or a juicy steak.

OK we have a mission! FIND AN ABSTEMIOUS GAY COUPLE AND COMPEL HER TO ACCEPT THEIR ENTRY!

And it’s Erl for the win!!!!

Did I wake up in the mirror universe today?

Obviously not, because as seen in the intro, the mirror universe was much, much more interesting.

Thanks, empress

Obviously not, because as seen in the intro, the mirror universe was much, much more interesting.

Holy shit, they even managed to work fear of a muslim planet into THAT youtube comment thread.

I’m impressed that nobody has gone for the easy joke here—i.e. geez, wonder if anyone is willing to pay me $10,000 to abstain from sex after marriage, ‘cuz I think I could make a mint…

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

I’ve always thought it was interesting. The Official Right-Wing standard is that nobody has sex until they’ve married the One True Love and then they ONLY have sex with that person, until s/he dies, whereupon sex is given up entirely unless and until you marry again.

And nobody can do it!  The right wing establishes a position that 99% of the population ignore, and then they complain about people having sex! Heck, if 99% of the population isn’t doing it the way you want, the problem is not that they’re doing it wrong. It’s the standard that is wrong.

ivyfree:

you’re mistaken about the purpose of the standard—it’s not something to meet, but something to fall short of, so that the people in authority will always have something to beat you up about. It’s like the parent with intolerably high standards who is always disappointed in the kids, but oh so magnanimously forgives them for falling short.

Faust has orchestrated mock weddings and other pro-marriage activities through her Marriage Appreciation Training Uplifting Relationship Education program, a nonprofit that isn’t church-affiliated.

How much time did she spend complimenting herself when she finally got an ESL-style program name to wrap around that acronym?

How long before they start telling people that the key to good marriages is separate bedrooms?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/09/12/lw.sleep.alone.when.married/index.html?iref=newssearch
Some are already doing it, although this article seems to focus on the non-sexual reasons for separate bedrooms. (Whatever floats your boat, yeah?)

I’m having trouble with the “no alcohol” policy - doesn’t the marriage at Canna tend to argue that doesn’t make the baby Jesus cry?

The more offensive part is that this appears to be part of what they’re doing with the $450K a year they’re getting from the federal government. What are the odds that they’re not underperforming the reality-based approaches?

Did I wake up in the mirror universe today?

Does everybody you know suddenly have a goatee?

Holy shit, they even managed to work fear of a muslim planet into THAT youtube comment thread.

That’s totally my favorite Public Enemy album.  Sadly, only one person I know has different facial hair and that’s a full beard not a goatee.