Why Won't Horny Babes Just Leave These Pastors Alone?

In purity culture, women only have two uses: damsel in distress or slutty Jezebel.

There’s this now infamous James Dobson story that Mike Cosper unearthed in his Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast. As Dobson tells it, he was taking a drive to clear his head after a fight with his wife — a classic case of a cowboy longing for the freedom of the open range when the toils of domesticity start to weigh him down. 

During this drive a woman pulled up next to him in her own car and smiled at him before pulling down a side street. This, Dobson says, was a clear attempt at seduction — an offer for him to follow her(?) to her home(??) and have sex with her(???). Fortunately, summoning the moral fortitude to which only our most faithful Christian men are privy, our hero was able to focus on his family instead of stalking this innocent commuter and propositioning her once she parked her car.

It’s a nakedly absurd story but what makes it doubly strange is how common this sermon illustration is. In that same podcast episode, Cosper unearthed not one but two similar stories from the same Mark Driscoll sermon. In one instance, Driscoll says he’s had multiple women in his Mars Hill congregation slip a note into his pocket that said “Pastor Mark, you look very stressed out, why don’t you come over for dinner, here’s my number, I’ll take really good care of you, it’ll be just between you and me.” In the other, he’s propositioned by a woman in the middle of an airport. Okay, Mark! Guess some guys can just get it!

If you’ve spent much time in church, you’ve heard these stories from the pulpit before or read about them in books. The latest viral iteration comes from Dallas Pastor JP Pokluda, who has an incredible story of his own wanton temptress. This woman offers to buy Pokluda a drink and ignores his protestations that he’s married. “Is she here?” the harlot sneers. “Because I don’t care!” Mmhmm. 

Christian Nightmares @ChristnNitemare

Raise your hand if you don’t think this really happened ✋Also, what a bizarre and disturbing reaction he had…

Look, it’s the 2020s. Women hit on men. Allegedly, anyway. Can’t say I’ve had a lot of first-hand experience there but I know it happens. I’ve seen what some of you girls post on main! 

So I’m not saying every pastor who says he was propositioned by a woman is lying. But you don’t have to be Charlie Cale to call bullshit on a lot of these stories. In the podcast, Cosper offers a slightly more generous read, which is that these guys are just terrible at reading women, and a salacious interpretation says a lot more about the pastors than it does about the women. That’s plausible enough. After all, in Pokluda’s story, all that really happened is a girl got confused when a guy told her he was married after she offered to buy a round. 

But setting aside the veracity of these stories for a moment, what I’m really interested in here is the descriptions of these women.