They're only cuddling to protect each other from the Devil Women.

Hey-o, my fellow Christian bro-mies, what are YOU doing? Just staying abstinent until marriage, because you're pretty sure Jesus says no getting your dick wet until you're with whatever lady-wife you pick out at age 19, like a common meth-eyed Duggar husband, at which point you will be SO NATURALLY GOOD at sex, you'll be able to finish so much faster than any of your other friends? CRAZY! Us too! Well, bad news. According to science, you are probably going to suck at sex.

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Over at the IFLScience website ("IFL" stands for swears!), researcher Sarah Diefendorf science-splains that she's been studying the "No Fucking Club, For Christian Bros Who Don't Fuck," guys who pledge their penises to Jesus (which is different from when the ladies pledge their lady-penises to their dads and also Jesus) and the results are grim:

I’ve been researching men who pledge sexual abstinence since 2008, work that comes out of a larger scholarly interest in masculinities, religion and sex education.

While men make this commitment with the good intentions for a fulfilling marriage and sex life, my research indicates that the beliefs about sexuality and gender that come hand in hand with these pledges of abstinence do not necessarily make for an easy transition to a married sexual life.

Diefendorf describes a bros-before-hos support network called The River (OF SIN-JIZZ THAT ALWAYS FLOWS FREELY IN THEIR MEETINGS), which brings guys together before they're married, so they can protect each other's dicks from the darkness of lady sin. They get together and check each other's search history on Internets to make sure they're not porning, and they call their bros when they're alone with their ladyfriends, just to make sure there's no illicit Penis-In-Hoonanny action going on. You know, guy stuff. Diefendorf doesn't report whether they hold on to each other's penises for safekeeping, just to make sure they don't get hard, but we're going to irresponsibly assume that's the case.

[T]he men of The River approach sex as something sacred, a gift from God meant to be enjoyed in the confines of the marriage bed. At the same time, these men struggle with what they describe as the “beastly elements” – or temptations – of sexuality. And it is precisely because of these so-called beastly elements that these men find each other in the same space every week.

Real fuckin' healthy, guys. Sexual desire -- a completely normal part of our humanity -- is "beastly." Unless you're having a threesome with your wife and Jesus (is that you poking into my back, Jesus, or did somebody just call "RIGHT HAND BLUE"?), in which case it's "sacred."

However, when these guys get married, Diefendorf reports that their special sexxxy support group, where they get that kind of special "guy time" that only happens when you get a bunch of sexually frustrated young men in the same room, falls away, leaving them alone with their fucked up beliefs about sex, which they are bad at, and they should feel bad:

Respondents reported that they still struggled with the beastly elements of sexuality. They also had the added concern of extramarital affairs. Furthermore – and perhaps most importantly – men no longer had the support to work through these temptations. [...]

First, respondents had been told, since they were young, that women were nonsexual. At the same time, these men had also been taught that their wives would be available for their pleasure.

It’s a double standard that’s in line with longstanding cultural ideals of the relationship between femininity and purity. But it’s a contradiction that leaves men unwilling to open up to the very women they’re having sex with.

And they can't call their bros about how bad they are at sex, or even get tips on how to give good lady-head, because that fucks up their whole myth that they're in the big leagues now, doing big league hot man sex to their God-given women.

And the gay part? Oh, we were just saying a zinger in the headline when we wrote "probably gay." The science article doesn't actually say that, but here's a fun story: When yr Wonkette was a young, evangelical Christian closeted Homo McGaywad, fapping it on the regular thinking about [REDACTED THING ABOUT DICKS], we made our then-girlfriend sign one of those fucking things. She thought we were CRAZY. We're pretty sure we subconsciously thought it would get us out of having to do THAT with a GIRL.

So that is why we will irresponsibly speculate that some of these guys are, at heart and also in their pants, cock-hungry nut-gobblers. Beastly, indeed.

[IFLScience]