Medusa Freezes Men With her Face for a Reason

Sometimes I click on a link knowing it will enrage me--I do it anyway, because, hey, mad happens. So when confronted with a Rawstory title that says "Christian website: Don’t look at your wife’s face during sex to enjoy it even when she resists" I read and wonder. The upshot of the story is that a Christian website encourages women to always accept their spouse's sexual entreaties, and that men should press on, and not look at the woman's afflicted face so they can finish the job because her sorrow at being raped by her life-partner is her own damn sin:

“I know you love your wife, most men love their wives. But sin is ugly,” the writer remarked. “Your beautiful bride’s face becomes ugly during this sinful time that she is grudgingly giving you sex as she grimaces wanting you to ‘just hurry up and get it over with’.”

“So like the men who could not look at Medusa’s face otherwise they would be killed, realize that if you look on your wife’s face when she is displaying a sinful attitude toward sex it will kill your sexual pleasure and may actually make it much more difficult for you to achieve the physical connection and release that you need,” he concluded. “Sometimes we have to work around the sinful behavior of our wives and this will be one of those times.”

Maybe this sort of Christian should seriously consider asking their wives to wear a burqa to bed. Better yet, instead of a woman, they should fuck an empty burqa, since they don't consider women to be human beings with feelings they have any need to respect. (By the way, Donald, if you never wanted to have a bad hair day--the Burqa awaits you, too.)

But this isn't an unusual far-right opinion--Phyllis Schlafly certainly has never considered marital rape to be a problem that exists in the real world. She is ready to surrender it all for the D, I see, 'kay? And Michelle Dugger gives the extra-spicy advice to "always be available."

When you're flu-ridden sick--always be available, even if you might spew. When every muscle aches, always be available, even if you will be less-capable the next day. Even if you are mad at him for reasons you know damn well are legitimate--gambling debts, credit cards, coming home late like he doesn't want to see you --be available. Spread'em. Even if he has two Ashley Madison accounts and diddled his baby sisters and may not actually be employable in the world leaving you with little babies you aren't sure how you are caring for. Go for it. He owns your ass. You ain't shit but his property. He can lean on your hair, take you raw, hurt your body with his weight, but you don't piss off Pappy. Make Pappy happy.

Fuck Pappy.

Ovid came awfully close in understanding why Athena would make Medusa, raped by Poseidon in her own temple, into a gorgon, writhing with snaky curls and capable of turning men to stone. It's not so much to punish Medusa, who didn't ask for it, but to give her protection so as to never face being brutalized again. Her face is her weapon. She turns men to stone because why the hell does she want their company after being violated by a god?  She has heroic resting bitch-face.

Consider the power of the feminine gaze for a minute. We see things too, and communicate with our eyes and facial expressions. I have always presumed the niqab or burqa to be an erasure of our faces so as to make our personhood invisible. This Christianist sexual folderol also erases the reality of our faces and the feeling they convey. It invites a husband not to see his own wife as a person with rights and feelings he needs to respect. It dehumanizes her. It's disgraceful. The writer should be turned to stone.