Category Archives: Gender and Sexuality

Books, Gender and Sexuality, Religion

A weird boy, but definitely a boy: Freestyling it again for chapter 4 of “Changing Paths”

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This Friday, I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts from reading Chapte 4, “Religion and Gender” of Yvonne Aburrow’s1 book, Changing Paths. Once again, I’m totally ad-libbing this post, as none of Yvonne’s wonderful prompts and exercises for this chapter jumped out at me or seemed suited to my blogging purposes.2

It’s taken me a bit to figure out what I was going to say about this chapter. To be honest, my gender was not a huge issue during my Christian upbringing. Certain, my sexual orientation was a huge issue, but in terms of gender, I was a cis man, which evangelical and other authoritarian forms of Christianity tend to practically cater to. Certainly, there are gender expectations within such forms of Christianity that I could not meet as a gay man — namely the idea of becoming a faithful husband and father of the next generation of culture warriors.3 But as a cis male, I was not seen as someone destined to be in a subservient role or someone trying to go against God’s design (again, other than the whole being gay thing).

My church also did not get too explicit about the gender essentialism either, nor did they push strict gender roles. While my church certainly wasn’t a bastion of full egalitarianism. no one there would have dreamed of releasing an official church statement reaffirming that wives were to submit to their husbands, to give just one example.4

In some ways, ideas about gender is something I still had to deconstruct when I converted to witchcraft and Paganism. I found a lot of freedom in being able to embrace a female deity, though it took me a few months to a year to resolve the idea of Divinity being at least partly female.5

It’s been interesting for me as a man primarily dedicated to and working with Freyja. It seems in some Pagan and witchcraft circles that it’s typically thought that men will dedicate themselves to a god and women will dedicate themselves to a goddess. In Wiccan circles, the High Priestess typically invokes the Goddess or has Her drawn down into her. and her male working partner invokes the God or has HIm drawn down into him.6 So in some ways, I’m a bit of a oddity in at least some Pagan and witch circles.

Another thing that is always in the back of my mind is something that doesn’t have to do with religion directly is a conversation i once had with an online feminist friend. (I think it was the blogger who went by the name Fannie Wolfe, but don’t recall for sure.) She observed that it is often the case that what it means to be a man is defined in opposition to what it means to be a woman (and then presented as being superior to it). I often come back to that thought when I’m trying to figure out what it means for me to say that I’m a man. I have yet to come up with a good definition. though listening to people like D.E. Anderson7 has helped me gain a vague perspective.

I also think this is one of those areas where Paganism as a whole tends to muddy the waters from time to time. After all, there’s a tendency in some Pagan circles to classify everything as “masculine” or “feminine,” and those often fit our wider culture’s gender stereotype. For example, masculine energy is often described s that which is “active” and “aggressive” while feminine energy is seen as that which is “passive” and “receptive.” Those of us who work closely with a goddess like Freyja are left laughing and/or scratching our heads.8 Our own deities don’t fit well into the masculine/feminine divide!

Working with Freyja has also helped me to accept that fuzziness around what it means for me to be a man is just a part of life. In fact, I don’t think that what it means to be a man is that high a priority for me.9 I know that whatever it means for me and no matter how I perceive myself, my deities will accept me and honor who I am.

Footnotes

  1. It occurs to me that while I’ve linked to Yvonne’s Threads profile multiple times, I have yet to mention that they also have a blog or provide a link to it. Consider this footnote my initial effort to correct that. ↩︎
  2. I hope it’s clear that I’m not intending this as a criticism of Yvonne. I think their prompts and exercises are fantastic and can see why other people reading this book will likely find them helpful to being the point of a god-send. But I’m also probably not quite the best exemplar of their target audience for the book, either. I went through the majority of my faith change(s) over two decades ago. (If only Yvonne could go back in time and release this book back then.) ↩︎
  3. I’ll also note that the whole Joshua Generation movement didn’t get started until the early-to-mid 2000s, roughly half a decade after I left Christianity altogether as an adult. So while there was a general consensus that Christian parents should raise faithful Christian children when I was growing up, there wasn’t the explicit message about raising up a generation of Christian soldiers to take over the country, either. ↩︎
  4. I’ll also note that gender roles were not strictly held in my own home. For example, my father frequently did laundry on the weekends. This was because my father was a practical man who (1) realized the laundry still needed to be done on weekends when my mother was working at the hospital and (2) was often just looking things to do to keep busy. I have always admired my father’s practicality and like to think I’ve inherited a bit of that from him. ↩︎
  5. At the time, i said that I considered God to be “genderless” and therefore the idea of applying any gender to the Divine struck me as weird. In time, I’ve come to realize this was a bit of self-delusion on my part. God in my mind had been male because male was the default. Granted, I’ll also note that I tended to link gender with sex and anatomy at the time, which made it that much easier to convince myself that God was “genderless,” because what does God need with genitals? Needless to say, my understanding of gender has evolved since then and continues to expand, particularly as I learn more about/from my trans friends. ↩︎
  6. I want to stress that I’m talking about what I understand to be common or typical. There are exceptions. In fact, a cursory search of Yvonne’s blog (because I just knew they must’ve said something about this topic at least once) found a blog post talking about how roles in ritual are and can be assigned. In the comments section, they even come out in support of drawing down deities across genders. I’d invite Yvonne (or anyone else who, unlike me, is actually Wiccan) to offer further resources in the comments of this post as well as any necessary corrections to my statements on the topic. ↩︎
  7. Mx. Anderson uses their full first name when writing professionally due to the fact that their first two books were published before they came out as non-binary. However, in more social settings, they tend to go by their first and middle initials. As I tend to spend a good bit of time socializing with them online, I tend to go with their initials when speaking to/about them.. ↩︎
  8. I could spend a day coming up with adjectives for Freyja and “passive” would never come up or be met with hysterical laughter if it did. ↩︎
  9. I acknowledge that the ability to say that is a sign of cis privilege. After all, it’s easy to not worry about what it means to be a man when it’s rare for anyone to challenge whether I have any business calling myself a man and every fiber of my being agrees with my self-assessment that I am a man. ↩︎
Books, Gender and Sexuality, Paganism, Religion, Sexuality

Being gaily religious and religiously gay: Blogging freestyle for chapter 3 of “Changing Paths.”

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[Content Note: Frank sexual talk, including discussion of masturbation.]

This week, I want to blog about chapter three of Changing Paths by Yvonne Aburrow. This chapter is titled “Religion and Sexuailty.”

I’ve struggled a bit with figuring out how I want to handle this chapter. It’s the first chapter where none of the blog prompts really resonated with me in a way that made me think of a way to blog about them.1 So I’ve decided to “free-style” it and just share whatever thoughts on the topic came up while I was reading this chapter.

Of course, I’ve also struggled a bit with remembering what my thoughts and feelings were when reading this chapter. As of the time I’m writing this post, I’m ready to start chapter 11 in the book and will very likely have finished the entire book by the time it gets published. I guess that’s the one down side to establishing a posting schedule. But I shall do my best.

My relationship with my sexuality when I was an evangelical Christian was a complete mess, and not solely because I was gay. For those who may not be familiar with evangelical culture, purity culture is often a huge part of that, and my upbringing was no exception.

I will note that my experience with purity culture was not nearly as intense as some of my friends in the various deconstructing and former evangelical communities I’m involved with. While I got a few messages about how having sex before marriage makes you like a chewed up piece of gum or a tissue someone has already blown their nose into, I know many people who had those messages driven home to them far more frequently and emphatically than I ever did.

In some ways, I think I had it easier as a guy than many of my female friends did. There often seems to be a certain amount of “boys will be boys” mentality even among evangelicals when it comes to sex. This is not to say that boys get a free pass in purity culture, mind you. And there’s always that messaging that depicts men and boys as barely controlled monsters full of hormones and lust, so a lot of guys (and I wasn’t totally exempt from this myself) tend to have negative self-perceptions and internalize a lot of guilt and shame over perfectly normal urges.

That’s where it gets complicated for me. As a gay boy who is essentially a Kinsey 6. “Lusting”2 after girls and women was never really a problem. In fact, I remember trying to imagine kissing a female classmate when I was in high school and finding the idea weird and a little disturbing.

But when I eventually realized that I was attracted to male classmates, that became troubling. After all, the only thing worse (or so I thought) than lusting after a girl was lusting after a boy! I was devastated and spent years in denial, trying to convince myself that it was just a phase, then a few years trying to pray my way to deliverance from my “same sex attractions”3

As an aside, I was online acquaintances with Peterson Toscano and took part int he Beyond Ex-Gay website/movement, both of which got a mention in this chapter. That brought back pleasant memories.

In addition, like most teenage boys (and I suspect most teenagers in general), I greatly enjoyed pleasuring myself. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It feels good and offers some great health benefits. Granted, I didn’t know about the health benefits at the time. But it’s often difficult for a young person whose body is teaming with hormones to resist the urge. I did not resist them. Oh, I’d try, but I’d eventually give in and feel a mountain guilt over it.

In general, I’d say that purity culture tends to destroy young people’s connections to their bodies in addition to their sexuality in general. You’re taught to see your body as this great source of temptation and sinfulness, and that really messes you up. I know it certainly messed me up.

I think that’s one of the things that drew me to Freyja when I turned to Paganism. She is an unapologetically sexual goddess and owns her sexuality as something to be proud of. Furthermore, she embraces all expressions of sexuality, regardless of who you are attracted to or involved with.4 That’s something I needed, so I embraced her and learned to love myself, my body, and my sexuality.

It’s something I”m still working on in some ways, mind you. I do have certain body insecurities. But I know longer see my body or sexuality as a moral failing. And that’s a definite boon.

Footnotes

  1. I will note, however, that I absolutely loved the meditation Yvonne included at the end of this chapter. I have done similar exercises in my own witchcraft practice before, including an exercise that my mentor and would-be initiator had me do when I was exploring the possibility of becoming an initiate of the Minoan Brotherhood, which Yvonne mentioned in this chapter. ↩︎
  2. I will note that the way that purity culture turns all sexual desire — and especially sexual desire that’s not “purified” by romance and/or marriage — into something sinful and dirty totally grinds my gears. To the point that I once wrote something on the topic and titled it “Sacred Lust.” ↩︎
  3. I have complicated feelings about that phrase, given the way it’s used in ex-gay ministries and among conversion therapists. I am so thankful I can abandon it these days and just say I’m gay. But such organizations have long pushed the idea that even identifying as gay rather than just saying you “struggle with same-sex attractions” is bad. I’ve addressed that before. ↩︎
  4. If my readers will allow me to throw a but of unconfirmed personal gnosis out there, the only way I’ve seen to piss off Freyja when it comes to love and sexuality is if you weaponize them to abuse or otherwise intetionally harm another person. You do that, you better watch out. ↩︎
Gender and Sexuality, Religion, Sexuality

Thoughts about the first Content Warning Event

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Image from the event’s website.

This past weekend, I attended the 2024 Content Warning Event online. This was an event hosted and sponsored by the Thereafter and Go Home Bible You’re Drunk podcasts to discuss purity culture, the various ways it has harmed people, and ways to move beyond it. It was an excellent conference, consisting entirely of panel discussions and the panelists represented a diverse range of sexualities and racial backgrounds.

I loved the fact that the event consisted solely of panel discussions rather than including lectures or presentations given by solo speakers. It made it clear that the goal was dialogue rather than a one-way communication of ideas. Given who authoritarian purity culture and the larger Christian cultures that promote it tend to be, I thought that in itself was a nice act of resistance.

I also appreciated the diversity of topics and perspectives that the event tried to cover. This was not merely a conference about how purity culture demeans sex (which is a true statement) and creates guilt, but one that explored the white supremacy inherent in purity culture, the damage purity culture does to the way people understand their own gender, and how purity culture harms relationship — including non-romantic relationships. One of my favorite moments was when Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers gave her introduction during the first panel discussion and brought up how purity culture harms relationships between parents and children.

Some panel discussions interested me more than others. For example, I was not particularly engaged with the panel discussion about queer inclusion, since that focused primarily on queer inclusion within Christianity and I’m not interested in being included in Christianity. In fact, I appreciated Chrissy Stroop, who facilitated that particular panel discussion, for noting that she was happy to just avoid theology altogether. Chrissy and I differ in that I still enjoy theology, but we both have little use for Christian theology.

(I want to quickly note, that the above is a personal opinion. I understand that many queer folks are Christian and remain to be so. I’m sure they appreciated that particular panel discussion far more than I did. And not everything needs to be nor should be about me.)

While I’m talking about my own religious views, I will note that one thing I would love to see see more diversity of religious thought in the future. The panelists seemed to be mostly Christian, Christian adjacent, or non-religious. And while that probably reflects the demographics of most people who have escaped purity culture pretty well, a bit more representation of those of us who “are still religious, but not Christian anymore” would be nice. Plus I think that exploring the ways that other religions view sex and sexuality would be beneficial for everyone. For example, my own spiritual tradition has a lot to say about sex as sacred and even a religious rite.

Some of my favorite panels were the ones that looked beyond purity culture and talked about building new ways to see sexuality and even think about the morality of sex. These panels included discussions of sex work and porn consumption, non-monogamous relationships and sex, and decolonizing purity culture. I’d love to see more such panels in the future. I think “where do we go from here” is an important question to ask and there are plenty of ways to explore it.

I also appreciated that some panel discussions– most notably the one on decolonization — spoke to issues and ideas beyond purity culture. I think this is important because purity culture doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but is part of a much bigger system. I suspect that the whole system must be tackled and keeping that in mind even when discussing a particular sub-component or constituent part is important.

At the end of the event, they announced that the next event will be held next year over President’s Day weekend in Atlanta Georgia. It’s not clear to me if that one will also be focused on purity culture or if they might cover a (slightly) different topic. Either way, I look forward to it and hope it’s as delightful, uplifting, and educational as this one was.

Gender and Sexuality, Politics, Rants, Sexuality

Yes, men CAN control themselves. Men like me have been proving it for decades.

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[Content Warning: Rape culture, anti-LGBT violence]

Hello dear readers. I’m about to go on a rant. Strap in and enjoy, because there is a bit of bullshit that I am phenomenally tired of hearing and I need to go off.  What’s that bullshit? It can be summed up in a simple statement.

Men cannot control themselves.

It’s an underlying belief in our society that crops up everywhere. It’s a great it of rape apologia. Men can’t control themselves, that’s why they violate boundaries. How dare you shame them for it. You hear it in the modesty movement: Men can’t control their sexual thoughts and urges. That’s why women need to dress in a way that doesn’t cause them to have such thoughts in the first place.

And it is bullshit, dear reader. Men can control themselves. How do I know this? Because I’m a man and I control myself. In fact, the vast majority of LGBT men have spent our lives reeling in our sexual thoughts and urges whenever it was appropriate — and maybe even at times when we could have been more free with our thoughts and urges. We’ve done this not only because it’s the right thing to do, but for our own freaking survival.

Here’s the thing: If I stared at my male coworkers the way some men stare at their female coworkers, there’d be hell to pay. If I make an unwanted advance on a guy, it could get me into a lot of trouble — in some cases, it could result in violence. (And half our society would actually take the side of the other guy even if he hospitalized me!

Now, I’m not saying I should be allowed to do anything of the sort. I actually like being a decent guy. I don’t want to be some entitled asshole who gets away with preying on uninterested and unwilling guys. I think consent in sex is a huge part of what makes sex worth it and want everyone involved to be a willing, contributing participant who is also getting something they want out of it. But the fact that society expects me an men like me to respect other men’s boundaries and treat them like humans rather than slabs of meat is relevant here.

Because it means that everyone knows men really can control themselves. It proves any claim to the contrary and absolute lie. It demonstrates that what people who say “men can’t control themselves” really mean that they believe men shouldn’t have to control themselves around women.

But if they came right out and said that, they’d have to accept just how monstrous their point of view really is. And they should have to own that, so I’m calling them on it.

Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Memories, Religion, Sexuality

Growing up evangelical and my family’s approach to discussing sexuality: A personal reflection

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[Content Note: Sexuality, evangelical approaches to (not) teaching kids about sexuality, brief mention of exploring my own body as a young child]

Twitter user @TheVictoryTori tweeted a great question earlier today:

[tweet 1118517593839755266]

I offered my own experiences in a thread and got into a short conversation with Tori.  I want to rehash and expand upon those thoughts here, because this is an area I struggle with to really recall and understand just what I was taught and how.

My parents were not against sex education.  They didn’t really believe in abstinence-only education. Sure, they wanted and expected my siblings and I to remain celibate until we got married. But they didn’t think that keeping us from learning about how sex and condoms work was the way to ensure that happened.

My family — and my church, for that matter — were also not deeply into the purity culture. We didn’t get inundated with books about the importance of remaining celibate until marriage. I don’t recall hearing many lectures about how having sex  would make us used up tissues, previously chewed chewing gum, glasses of water that had been spit into, or any of the other harmful metaphors other evangelical kids have been stewed in while growing up. (One of my junior/senior high Sunday school teachers may have invoked one of those metaphors once upon a time, but that’s it.)

Instead, the messaging I received was more subtle and often even unspoken. It created a sense that sex and all things sexual simply were not talked about and a sense of discomfort was left over the entire topic.

To give a concrete example, I bring up a memory from…early elementary school age (I think? Maybe a little younger?) My parents, my sister, and I were all in the living room, watching television. I was sitting on the floor cross-legged with my hands in my lap. At one point (I don’t remember why I originally did it), I ran the edge of my thumb along the head of my penis through my pajama bottoms. It felt pleasant, so I did it again. I repeated this several times, enjoying the sensation each time. After a couple minutes, my mother noticed and said sternly, “Jarred.  Stop that.”

My sister, having no idea what was going on, asked what I had done?  My mother simply said, “Don’t worry about it.”  And that was the end of the conversation.  There was no follow-up conversation after the fact.

In hindsight, I suppose (and hope) the message my mother meant to get across was that touching myself there in the middle of the living room in front of everyone wasn’t appropriate, and I should really do that sort of thing in private. (Indeed, I’ve met many parents since who do a great job of affirming their children’s desire to explore their own bodies while gently reminding them that it’s a thing best done in private.”)  But to a young boy in the early-to-mid single digits, my take-away was more like “touching myself there is bad.”

I’ll also note that my parents never really talked about this part of my body.  Other than how to make sure I got it cleaned well. So my understanding of my own penis that I got from my parents could really be summarized as (1) it’s where my pee comes out, (2) I need to make sure it’s clean, and (3) I shouldn’t touch it (except to clean it, of course).  So I think this left me feeling like that part of my body was “dirty.”

Then in fifth grade, we watched a health video that talked about puberty and sexual reproduction. I learned about how men’s bodies produce sperm which fertilize the eggs that women produce, which then becomes a baby, which the woman then gives birth to nine months later. (I don’t think the film really got into fetal development or the various stages therein. But hey, it was just supposed to be a video to give us a basic understanding of how our own bodies work and reproduction.) When I went home, I mentioned to my mother (I think) that we had watched the video, and she nodded and said an off-handed remark that if I had any questions, I could ask her.  I never asked her anything. That was partly because I had no questions and partly because the way she said it made it seem like it would be an uncomfortable and awkward conversation that she really didn’t want to have anyway.

We ended up watching the same video in sixth grade as well.  This time, as I mentioned on Twitter, I noticed something I hadn’t the previous year. The video explained (and demonstrated with crude animated drawings) just how the sperm managed to get from the man’s body into the woman’s body. (My brain at the time: “He sticks his [penis] where?!?!”) I found the revelation shocking, disturbing, and maybe somewhat traumatizing (given my understanding of my own penis as I discussed above, who can blame me?). Of course, a number of classmates noticed my shock and discomfort, and they found it amusing and took a few (mercifully brief) seconds to tease me about it.

I  never did talk to anyone about my reaction or my feelings. Again, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my parents, given the general “we don’t talk about this” vibe I always got in the rare instances the topic had come up.

And that “we don’t talk about that” vibe and what I had internalized about my own genitals kept with me. It affected how I felt about myself when I discovered masturbation as a teen, given the intense sense of guilt that I was doing something wrong, but knowing it felt way too good to ever stop. It also meant that anything I learned about non penis-in-vagina sexual activity came from classmates rather than my family (and my school’s sex education department sure wasn’t going to cover it!).

So that’s what my own experiences growing up and learning about/discovering my sexuality. As I said, it wasn’t so much any explicit messaging that was a problem for me, but the unintended messages I took away combined with a lack of feeling like I could truly talk about these things.

In closing, I hope this post wasn’t too personal or explicit for anyone.


Gender and Sexuality, Personal News, Politics

personal update 2019/04/13

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[Content Note: Harassment, misogyny, war on agency]

Since I dropped a post on here about a week ago and have been getting a small but steady trickle of traffic, I decided to do a “personal update” post. Especially in case any of my long-time readers (all five of you) are still around.

I’ve actually been wanting to blog more but have been struggling. There are a number of reasons for that. (Have I mentioned that I have a growing and possibly obsessive love of lists lately?)

  1. I’m trying to figure out what my “voice” should be. That is what I want to communicate and share with people.
  2. I’ve struggled with that process because it’s leading me to wonder what I’m really qualified to talk about.
  3. I’ve also struggled with it because it’s leading me to question what i can say that hasn’t already been said better by others.
  4. I’m married now and I need to balance my blogging time with spending time with my Hubby.
  5. Most of what I feel I want to and am qualified to say fits in a tweet or a string of tweets, but would not really make a good blog post (in my opinion at least).

That last point is why I’ve been spending a lot of my time on Twitter and Ive been pretty active over there. In fact, here’s another list (told you I was obsessed with the silly things) I’ve been up to on Twitter.

  1. As I mentioned in my previous post, I made an effort to get Pete Buttigieg, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, to acknowledge how some of his “defenders” are harassing and attempting to silence his critics, particularly those who face oppression in ways Buttigieg does not (nor do I) and speak out against such harassment. At this point, I am declaring my attempt ineffective (other than hopefully making some of those who have been harassed feel seen). I’ve tweeted at him. I’ve emailed the only account I could find associated with his campaign. I just don’t see what more I can do.
  2. After watching people promote the anti-choice propaganda film, “Unplanned,” I started promoting counter-proposal and alternative to seeing the movie. [tweet 1115216412488892416 ]
  3. I’ve been getting much more involved with the exvangelical community and have enjoyed both hearing about other people’s experiences with evangelicalism and sharing in bringing people’s attention to the toxicity of evangelical culture.

On a more personal note — and because I realized I never actually blogged about it — I’ve been a happily married man since August 2016. Hubby (I have not asked his permission to use his name on this blog. He’s a fellow geek, a gamer, and a fellow witch. That last one is absolutely amazing to me, because he was only the second guy I’ve ever dated that was a Pagan (and the other relationship I had with a fellow witch lasted like a week). He’s also given me my first chance to actually play Dungeons and Dragons, and I love it.

So, that’s my life in a nutshell right now. What’s going on with all of you, dear readers?

Gender and Sexuality, Sexuality, Society

Musings on the Undeserving Bad Rap Lust Gets

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Recently, one of the Facebook groups I belong to has been having a discussion about the relationship between religion and homosexuality.  The person who started the discussion, a gay man, expressed his struggles with the fact that his own faith teaches very negative views of same-sex relationships and gay people in general. He wanted to know how others dealt with that struggle.

In the myriad of wonderful answers he received, one person pointed out that one of the reason certain religions see homosexuality as bad is because they assume it’s just all about lust. It’s an astute observation and one I’ve made elsewhere myself. Same-sex relationships often involve much more than just hopping in bed and slating our sexual needs and desires. There’s other forms of intimacy and mutual support that many of us find with our partners, and it’s insulting and harmful to erase that.

But at some point, we also need to acknowledge and defend the fact that lust itself ain’t so bad either. In fact it’s a natural and good thing.

As I gathered my thoughts to write this post, I decided to look online for a definition of the word lust. It seemed to me that the definitions were split almost evenly between defining lust as merely (possibly strong or intense) desire (often for sex) and defining lust as going beyond simple desire into the “excessive,” “overmastering,” and even “lecherous” or “illicit.”

What’s interesting to me is the one definition — which clearly falls into the first camp — is marked as “obsolete.”  I find that interesting when I look at the blurb about the origins of the word:

before 900; Middle English luste, Old English lust; cognate with Dutch, German lust pleasure, desire; akin to Old Norse lyst desire; see list4

Note that none of the earlier cognates mentions excessiveness, loss of control, or lechery. These two things together make it clear that the idea of lust being excessive or negative in some way was an association people made later.

The thing is, I get the impression a lot of people still use “lust” to really refer to all sexual desire while simultaneously holding onto that added negative connotation. As if there’s no such thing as good sexual desire.

Now, I can already hear people objecting to that in my mind. They’ll say that of course they believe there’s such a good thing as sexual desire. They’re not prudes, after all. They even have examples of what they consider good sexual desire.  Chances are, those examples involved married couples and/or other long-term relationships.  The message there? Sure sexual desire is good, but only when redeemed or moderated by romantic love.

I don’t buy that at all. I think it’s possible for some people to explore their feelings of sexual desire with other people in a healthy and responsible way without romantic love or a long-term relationship involved. It just takes mutual respect and a commitment to make sure that everyone involved has a positive, fulfilling experience.  That requires neither a romantic attachment nor a long term commitment.

I’m not sure we can ever reclaim the word “lust” as a positive thing. I’m not sure we should even try. However, I do think that we need to think about what we’re communicating — even subtly or unconsciously — to others and ourselves when we start talking about “lust.” Are we really just talking about the abusive and exploitative ways in which some people might satisfy their own desires? Or are we vilifying sexual desires in general and healthy ways others explore those desires that we don’t approve of?

I also have a book recommendation that I feel both covers this topic and related ones in an intelligent and insightful way. And in far more depth and detail than I managed here.

Gender and Sexuality, Religion

Let’s rewrite the dialogue!

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[Content Note: Transphobia]

Adam4d comic panel.
A panel from Adam For’ds web comic, “Hate Speech.”

Today, I thought it would be interesting to take Adam Ford’s most recent web comic and write some new dialogue for it.

Random Person: Do you accept the scientific research that strongly that brain chemistry, hormones, and other factors can cause a person experience themselves as a gender that differs from the biological sex they were assigned at birth?

Transphobic Christian:  Well no.  That doesn’t fit in with what I believe the Bible says, so I assume that it’s false.  I choose to believe instead that people just decide they want to be a different gender.

Random Person:  Interesting.  There is actually over two decades worth of peer reviewed scientific research that shows that such discrepancies occur and are a natural phenomenon.  How do you address them.

Transphobic Christian:  Well, here are some articles written by a handful of Christians I consider authorities on the subject, and I choose to believe their conclusions because they match what I’ve been taught the Bible says.

Random Person:  Interesting.  Have those articles been peer reviewed?

Transphobic Chistian:  Well, no.  [Alternative:  I don’t know.]

Random Person:  I’m actually familiar with this article and its author.  Are you aware of the huge methodological flaws other experts in this field found with this work?

Transphobic Christian:  No.  I’m not sure I believe you.  And even if you’re right, I’m still inclined to believe the article’s conclusions.

Random Person:  Because they confirm what you believe?

Transphobic Christian:  Well, yes…..But I think it’s important to remember that God says there are only two genders.  And I think it’s important we have a conversation about…

Random Person:  Conversation!  Okay.  There are hundreds of books, articles and blog posts written by transgender people.  Many of them have gone to great lengths to share their stories and their experiences and how they’ve felt.  How many of them have you read?

Transphobic Christian:   Well, none of them.

Random Person:  So let me get this straight.  You’ve failed to look into any of the many scientific studies that have been made on this topic.  You’ve failed to listen to transgender people’s own lived experiences and instead choose to reinterpret their lives to fit your predefined beliefs.  So it sounds to me like this important conversation has been happening for some time without you.

Transphobic Christian:  Well, when you put it that way….

Random Person:  So why do you expect anyone to listen to you in a conversation you’ve completely ignored up to this point?

Fin.

Well, that’s my take on it.  I welcome my readers — especially those who are are transgender or are far more knowledgeable about the issues involved than me — to write  their own dialogue.  Or point out where I got something wrong or wrote something troubling.

And now I will specifically address any transphobic (and yes, I get to decide whether that label applies to you on my blog, though I will listen carefully to the counsel of any trans person — except your “one transgender friend”) Christians who may want to respond:  Your best bet is to just not do it.  This is probably not the thread for you.  If you want to defend yourself or argue with me, be prepared to immediately demonstrate that you have done your homework and actually know the issues and not the usual straw men arguments. Failure to do so will get you shown the door faster than defecating on my living room couch.  So like I said, your best bet is to just keep silent and move on.  Or remain silent, listen, and learn something.

Around The Blogosphere, Gender and Sexuality, Society

Let’s talk about how “Good Men” should be responding.

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[Content Note: Sexual harassment and sexual assault.]

I’ve been a constant reader of Shakesville for some time.  I’ve come to learn a lot from Melissa and the other members of the community she has built up there.  I’ve also been following her recent posts about the numerous revelations about male celebrities sexually harassing and even sexually assaulting the people — mostly women — that they work with (or who work for them) as well as Matt Damon’s troubling and inexcusable comments about the whole things.  There’s something from a Damon quote she included in today’s post that I wanted to comment on.  Here’s the quote:

We’re in this watershed moment, and it’s great, but I think one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole shitload of guys — the preponderance of men I’ve worked with — who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected.

First, I will note that Melissa is right.  There’s absolutely no need to talk about the men who manage the most basic human dignity required to not sexually harass or sexually assault women or anyone else. This is basic human decency that is and should just be expected. Meeting it requires no comment, let alone praise.

Second, my face is completely squinched up over the idea that none of this affects men who don’t sexually harass or sexually harass women or anyone else. I don’t buy that at all. Sure, we are in no danger – contrary to alarmed rape apologists everywhere – of losing our jobs over some big misunderstanding. Nor are we impacted as directly or intensely as the victims of these predators. But for me to say I’m not affected at all would require me to not care that women and other people are actively being victimized.

So yeah, for Damon to say that men who aren’t sexual predators are not affected by this screams a monumental lack of empathy and compassion for those predators’ in my book. And I find that unthinkable.

We “good men” — as Damon might call us — need to do better than just not engage in sexual harassment or sexual harassment ourselves.  We need to be concerned about the women and other people hurt by those who harass and assault them.  We need to listen to those women, believe them, and support them.

We also need to be mindful of and fight back against the culture that lets other men harass and assault women. We need to fight back against the idea that men are ever entitled to women’s bodies, affections, attention, smiles, time, or anything else. Even when those ideas come from our own subconscious minds. We need to learn and respect women’s boundaries and call out guys when they’re violating a woman’s boundaries, no matter how small that boundary seems to us.

We should quit saying “I don’t do that,” and start asking, “How can we better respect women and their boundaries and fight against those who don’t.”