This Saturday marks the starts of my “This Week in Sexuality” weekly feature. Every Saturday I will spotlight the “sexuality” stories I came across in the previous seven days.

• Deny Burk has lengthy review here.
• Tim Challies has a short review here.
• Doug Wilson did a mutli-parter: pt. 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.

“Were he alive today, he would be working to secure peace and justice for those in the womb and healing for a nation that is still pained by over 53 million missing lives.”

“Abortion is as American as apple pie.” [Merle] Hoffman made that statement in a recent interview about her book. She laments that abortion is the cause of shame in some women and that shame attaches itself to abortion in the larger culture, even now. In her view, if women would start talking more honestly and directly about their abortions, the shame would be removed and women would discuss their abortions like they speak of “a bikini wax.”

The Reformers spoke up for the unborn. Will you?

“The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a most monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light” John Calvin, Commentarius in Exodum, 21,2

“Rather than freedom the disintegration of the household through “sexual liberation” has produced a novel form of bondage. The new overlords, Mr. Berry says, are the sexual specialists–sex clinicians and pornographers–”[b]oth of whom subsist on the increasing possibility of sex between people who neither know or care about each other” and who also “subsist on our failure to see any purpose or virtue in sexual discipline.”

Allan Carlson. “Not Safe, Nor Private, Nor Free: Wendell Berry on Sexual Love and Procreation.” The Family in America. Sept-Oct 2007.

I tend to believe that there are genetic factors at play with most people who have same-sex attraction. However, this belief doesn’t yield the conclusion that gay activist desire. Homosexuality can involve genetic factors and still be a sin. Anyone that wants to read a relatively short article on why this is so should read John Frame’s, “But God Made Me This Way!” Here is a short passage to get you interested:

“Would a genetic basis for homosexuality eliminate the element of “choice?” Certainly not. A person with a genetic propensity for alcoholism still makes a choice when he decides to take a drink, and then another, and then another. Same with an xyy male who decides to punch somebody in the nose. If we assume the existence of a genetic propensity for homosexuality, it is true as we said that those with that makeup face greater temptation in this area than others. But those who succumb to the temptation do choose to do so, as do all of us when we succumb to our own besetting temptations. Homosexuals certainly choose not to remain celibate, and they choose to have sexual relations. They are not forced to do this by their genes or by anything contrary to their own desires.”

What Is Father Hunger? from Desiring God on Vimeo.

First, the father was often absent due to working long hours to provide for his family. It should be noted that the father appeared to be godly in all examples I observed. He just was gone a lot and was exhausted when he was home.

Second, the mother tended to be overbearing in her management of her home. Her home was well kept. Her lesson plans well-executed. She was queen of every aspect of her home.

Third, not all the sons in these homes came across as effeminate. Some of the boys were very masculine. They were covered in bruises and cuts from building a tree house or playing soccer. However, I noticed the sons that did demonstrate these prehomosexual tendencies were usually homebodies. They tended to be very timid, artistic*, and clung to mother while his brothers explored the world outside.

So, in summary, a distant father, overbearing/protective mother, and timid child were a concoction that tended to produce effeminacy and potential homosexuality. This was disturbing to me because all three are common in home-schooling households. In this sense, home-schooling can be a very dangerous environment for young men to mature in.

What is a parent to do? Should we reject homeschooling? Should we force our artistic boys to build tree houses? Not necessarily. There is another way to come at this and it starts with the parents.

Consider this passage from Joseph Nicolosi’s A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality:

“For variety of reasons, some mothers also have a tendency to prolong their son’s dependence. A mother’s intimacy with her son is primal, complete, exclusive, and this powerful bond can easily deepen into what psychiatrist Robert Stoller calls a ‘blissful symbiosis.” But the mother may be inclined to hold on to her son in what becomes an unhealthy mutual dependency, especially if she does not have a satisfying, intimate relationship with the boy’s father. In such cases she can put too much energy into the boy, using him to fulfill her needs for love and companionship in a way that is not good for him.

A “salient” (that is, strong and benevolent) father will interrupt the mother-son “bliss symbiosis,” which he instinctively senses is unhealthy. If a father has to be a model, demonstrating that it is possible for his son to maintain a loving relationship with this woman, his mom, while still maintaining his own independence. In this sense, the father should function as a healthy buffer between mother and son.

Sometimes Mom might work against the father-son bond by keeping her husband away from the boy (“It’s too cold out for him,” “That might hurt him,” ” He’s busy doing things with me today” ) in order to satisfy her own needs for male intimacy. Her son is a “safe” male with whom she can have an intimate emotional relationship without the conflicts she may have to confront in her with her husband. She might be too quick to “rescue” her son from Dad.  She may cuddle and console the boy when his father disciplines or ignores him. Her excessive sympathy can discourage the little boy from making the all-important maternal separation.

Furthermore, exaggerated maternal sympathy fosters self-pity–a feature that is often observed in both prehomosexual boys homosexual men. Such exaggerated sympathy from the mother may encourage the boys to stay isolated from his male peers when he is hurt by their teasing or their excluding him.” pg. 27

Thus, home-schooling is only dangerous when the father isn’t deeply involved. Fathers, you must pursue his boys–especially when you aren’t naturally drawn to the temperament of one them. J. W. Alexander said it well:

“There is no member of a household whose individual piety is of such importance to all the rest as the father or head. And there is no one whose soul is so directly influenced by the exercise of domestic worship. Where the head of a family is lukewarm or worldly, he will send the chill through the whole house.”

Mothers, you must be careful not to coddle your boys into passivity. Let you husband do his job of raising masculine boys. A healthy (i.e. biblical) relationship with both a mother and father is needed for a boy to grow into a man.

*A friend asked if I was implying that an artistic son is a bad thing. Not at all. I was a very artistic son and so is one of my boys.  I was just noting an observation.  It  may be that a lot of fathers struggle with a boy that isn’t “macho” and as a result leaves him to his art. This distance is often filled by a caring mother and the son doesn’t form a healthy relationship with his father.