As an evangelical Christian (who voted AGAINST Bush both times) I do believe that marriage is the best place for fully relational and mutuality-based sex. But I'm not upset by the advice offered by Cary regarding how to treat one's insistent parents. Except...

What's with the advice that she shouldn't tell her mother what her father already knows, and apparently aided and abetted in -- her abuse sexually at the hands of another older man? I must say on that score, as a wannabe Jesus follower, that such hypocrisy has nothing to do with Christianity as Christ taught it. And for their sake, I believe she needs to confront her parents about this. Exactly how that should be done is beyond my ability to suggest. Doing it while visiting at home may be a bad idea. But having a sit-down with both of them re this abuse seems central to me.

Evangelical Christianity has been used cynically by a government hell-bent on repaying evil with evil (and inept even at that!). Just as I react intensely to that evil masquerading as "God's Will" -- each will be rewarded according to their fruits -- I also react to the violence against this woman encouraged (by silence) via the acts of her father. Waking people up to the make-believe nature of their alleged "faith" -- whatever lable they place upon it, be that Christian, Muslim, or Atheist -- is a good thing. A very good, if terribly painful, thing.

Jon Trott / Chicago

Stay at a hotel near your parents.

Better water pressure, no one minding where you sleep,

no one wondering what you are doing in there right under their roof, no one feeling like they are shirking their moral responsibility to keep you in line as your parents, and a candy on your pillow, as if to say, "yay, only one bed to remake each day you are here!".

And you two will have a respite from the festivities each and every night you are there. You can stay in their house as long as you like, even sleep over and let your non-family lover go back to the room and get some peace and read a book.

Get a room. Like an adult. Take the expense as you and your lover's gift to each other for the holiday. Get a nice room.

Get married. Get the honeymoon suite. Pretend you got married and get the suite anyway. Tell your parents you got the honeymoon suite, but don't get married and let the merriment begin!

Bottom line, where and who you sleep with is only your business as long as you are providing your own bed. Otherwise, you go by the rules of hte house you are in.

Cary gave you all kinds of advice, but he left the straight dope on the issue out all together.

Good luck with all that other stuff, but just get a room.

Because that's either what the so-called "holy books" say, or it's what the so-called "holy men" say, and they either mean what they say or they don't. It's all nonsense, of course.

I'd suggest studying evolutionary psychology, ancient religions, linguistics, aramaic, hebrew, physics, and Tielhard de Chardin. Then you can start to make such sweeping generalizations.

Hmm, some say this uneasiness about a daughter's "purity" is hardwired not by religion but by evolutionary psychology and that religions just codified it. I'm not sure but scratch the surface of a lot of people who might seem all modern about it and I think beneath the surface you get some of the same concerns that religious people voice, about whether the woman is getting "used" or diminishing her "value" if she's let herself be "used" by someone who doesn't socially validate her position by marriage.

I got that from evolutionary psychology and from my experience with people's behaviors, no matter how modern they think they are.

Good luck changing the way people really think with their animal brains (religion or not.) I say it will take another few million years. I think there's a reason people get very, very nervous about their daughter having casual sex (it may not be casual, but a wedding makes a lot of people's animal brain breathe a sigh of relief.

Some people think religion was used to codify these animal brain impulses thousands of years after people already wanted to kill whoever diddled their daughter and decreased the family's status by diminishing her mate value.

Heathen may have heard from her parents about the Ten Commandments. One forbids adultery; a subset of this commandment is fornication. Now, lots of Christians these days engage in fornication, brushing off any category like sin to describe their relationships. But sin it is if you are a serious Christian. Heathen's parents retain some semblance of belief in Christian doctrine. As such, they are treating their offspring as an adult. They may go so far as to believe that Heathen's immortal soul may be in danger, since she is obstructing the golden procreative beauty of intercourse within marriage. Instead, happy-go-lucky Heathen and cohab worship at the altar of that modern idol, the pharmaceutical juju. Sort of like propitiating the god of plastic. After all, it is the god of prophylaxis that can keep Heathen out of the abortionist's hands.

Oh, yes. Christians believe in the power of prayer. I do pray that Heathen and cohab will one day rethink the tenor of their lives. You both are still young.

Francis Lawrence

I see your point - making the visit as short as possible and giving Boyfriend a reprieve is not a bad option. The control issues would be easier to handle. On the other hand, if he's there he might be able to give her much needed support.

Personally, having thought about it more, I like the option of not going at all. My family becomes verbally and emotionally abusive each and every Christmas, like clockwork. (They actually practice a touch of "Festivus" - the part where you harangue each other about how they have wronged and disappointed you). Each year I would eventually be sucked into the madness - until the year I refused to go and instead spent the day alone (well, with the dog) at my house. Giving myself a break from the stress, anger and other crazy emotions was heavenly. Being in control of my own environment - not getting pushed around by other people's crazy, unmanaged crap - felt like a blessing. Staying home didn't change them, but it changed me - more than ever I understood that I was responsible for not putting myself in situations that would only make me unhappy.

LW, have a nice holiday on your own terms. It sounds like your parents are just going to make you feel angry and sad. You don't have to let them do it - so don't.