Around The Blogosphere, Gender and Sexuality, Society

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

Leave a comment

[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.”

 

Religion, Spiritual Development

Prayer to Tyr for Justice

Leave a comment

Having recently run across a couple of posts where I wrote various Pagan prayers, I decided to bring back the practice.  As today is Tuesday and I’m very much interested in social justice, I decided a prayer to Tyr was an appropriate thing to write.

Great Tyr, I call out to you on this day, which is named after you. Guide me and teach me to be an instrument of justice. Help me to be mindful of the ways, both large and small, that those less fortunate are wronged and harmed. Instill in me the obligation and help me to find the courage to speak out against those who would injure and exploit others.

You who gave your own hand in order to bind the Wolf of Destruction, remind me that justice comes with a price. Help me become more aware of the luxuries and comforts that I will have to give up so that those less fortunate may enjoy more freedom. Urge me to develop the compassion that I might make those sacrifices and count it both my duty and honor.

By your guidance and my will. So mote it be.

 

Family, Love, Memories

Then and Now: Weddings

Leave a comment

Occasionally, I read through all blog posts just to see what I wrote (and if applicable, what people had to say in reply). During my most recently perusal, I rediscovered a post where considered what I might want to do for my wedding. Seeing as I just recently (16 months ago this coming Wednesday!) got married, I thought it would be good to take another look at that post and compared it to what actually happened.

It turns out that after dating many (mostly non-devout) Christian or non-theistic men, I found Hubby, who is a Witch like me.  So we ended up getting a handfasting like I wanted. Also, while members of my family became much more open to my relationships and might have come to a wedding, we decided to keep the whole thing private.  We asked the members of our coven to perform the handfasting and be the sole attendees of it as well.  Out of the six coven members (including Hubby and myself) at the time, five of us were able to make it for the big day.  We all met at one coven member’s cabin in the woods and performed the rite at one of the outdoor altars that had been constructed in the woods.  We wrote our own vows.  I don’t think I remember any of mine and very few of Hubby’s.  I will say that Hubby was creative and crafted vows that were both sweet and funny.

After the rite itself, we built a nice bonfire in the “front yard” and set our vows on fire as an offering to the gods.  Then we celebrated with food we all cooked together and some fireworks.

It also turned out that we had enough people that we were able to treat the handfasting as our marriage ceremony.  The person who presided over the rite signed the marriage license and the other two acted as witnesses.  So we didn’t have to do a civil ceremony afterward.

Overall, it turned out almost exactly as I wanted, but even better.

 

Gender and Sexuality, Religion

Side A, Side B, Moralizing, and Heterosexual Silliness

2 Comments

In Christians circles, especially among those associated with the Gay Christian Network (GCN), there’s much talk about Side A and Side B. They’re shorthand for what an individual believes about same sex relationships and how gay people should choose to live their lives. A person who is Side A believes that gay people should be allowed to enter into same sex romantic and sexual relationships — though possibly with some caveats, such as only with a long-term partner with whom one is committed to lifelong monogamy. A person who is Side B believes that gay people should seek to maintain a life of celibacy.

As I understand it — though I can’t find the sources that led me to this understanding to confirm it — the concepts of Side A and Side B originally started among gay Christians themselves and indicated a personal choice of how the individual felt it best to respond to their sexual orientation in their own life. This is reflected in that GCN welcomes both people who are Side A and people who are Side B.

At some point, heterosexual people who started joining the conversation about gay people in the church also began to adopt the labels Side A and Side B for themselves. The thing is, heterosexual people are not gay, so the original understanding of the concept that which “side” they belonged to no longer represented how they chose to respond to their own sexual orientation. Instead, for heterosexual people, their Side A or Side B status mostly began to represent how other people — namely people who actually are gay — should choose to live their lives1.

This has apparently caused some problems for at least one person.  Yesterday, Misty Irons blogged about the misunderstandings that tend to be formed when she identifies as Side B:

A recent article written by Stephen Parelli, who was present at the conference, called “Celibacy at Gay Christian Network: What’s that all about?” characterizes me as advocating celibacy for all gay Christians.

She spends a good deal of time in her post making it clear that she does not advocate celibacy for all gay Christians. She makes it clear that she believes that Side A Christians — even Side A gay Christians — are saved. She states that she believes Christians should follow their own conscience in this matter.

I would argue then, that calling herself Side B is pointless, meaningless, or both. She’s not telling other people what they should believe or how they should live. She’s not making a choice about how to live her own life since — to the best of my knowledge — she’s heterosexual and she doesn’t even have to answer the underlying question for herself.

So why pick a “side” at all? Why not simply say “I believe those who are in a position where they need to make that choice need to pray and follow their own conscience” and leave it at that?

If a heterosexual is not prepared to moralize — that is, tell others how they should live their lives or even look down on those who choose to live their lives differently — then declaring oneself Side A or Side B serves no real purpose. Other than possibly to promote the silly notion that their opinion on the matter is actually important. And who has time for that silly notion and the privilege it represents?

1I suspect at least some gay Christians also feel that other gay Christians should be making the same Side A or Side B choice they are and would like input on how other people are living their lives as well. Moralizing is not the sole domain of the heterosexuals after all. However, at least with gay Christians, there’s still the sense that being Side A or Side B is (hopefully) about a personal choice in their own lives first.

Spiritual Development, Witchcraft

Spirituality Corner: On Teaching and Traditions

Leave a comment

Over the past five or so years, I’ve found myself in the position to help various people on their spiritual journeys. Most particularly, I’ve found myself helping people to learn to communicate with spirit, be it spirit guides, individuals who have passed from this life, or even deity. My most recent experience has been helping someone make a connection to and contact with a particular deity he felt drawn to.

This last experience has been most interesting and even a bit challenging to me, as I have no real knowledge of or connection with this deity myself. If someone were ask me how to connect with and contact Freyja – or even one of the other Norse gods and possibly even a few of the Irish ones – I’d have a plethora of experience and knowledge to draw on. I’d be able to recommend stories to become intimately familiar with, suggestions on offerings to give, and recommendations on how to craft an invocation for calling out to that particular deity.

In this case, I simply had to show the other person how to figure out much of that information himself and explaining to him how he needed to enter a meditative state, set up a sacred space where he could meet the deity, and how to call out to said deity in his own words.

The good news is that it worked beautifully. Contact with the deity was almost immediate and awe-inspiring, which I credit to said deity’s own deep interest in working with and teaching this person. I am pleased that I was able to help make this happen, but I have no delusions that I was anything other than a helpful middle-man helping two individuals meet sooner than if they had to arrange said meeting by themselves.

Back to the struggle to help someone contact a deity I personally have no knowledge of or connection to, though, the experience has given me yet another appreciation for what it must be like to work with a more narrowly defined tradition. I imagine that those covens that focus on working with a specific deity or small group of deities must have a great advantage when it comes to teaching new members and interested people. I imagine they have a great deal of lore and very specific techniques (such as detailed visualizations and invocations) they can employ and teach those seeking to make that same connection. I imagine that said tools have been developed as a result of the tradition and learning what works best for that specific tradition and working with that specific deity or groups of deity.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan on leaving my eclectic coven to join or form a tradition with a narrower focus. Nor do I plan on trying to change my current coven into something other than what it currently is. I love my coven and its members exactly for who they are. They are my family and I wouldn’t change or leave them for the world.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t form an appreciation for the way others have come to do things.

Religion

Going to Church and Attending Sporting Events are not Comparable

1 Comment

Yesterday,  Hemant Mehta wrote a post about about meme where some pastor mocks excuses people use for not going to church by turning them into excuses people use for not attending sporting goods. He also posts a video response from someone that is absolutely wonderful. However, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the things that make this meme ridiculous right from the beginning.

A sad meme comparing apples (going to church) to bicycles (going to sporting events).
A sad meme comparing apples (going to church) to bicycles (going to sporting events).

The most obvious is that church attendance is often seen — at least by many Christians — as an absolute and even universal obligation. I’m not aware of anyone who views attending sporting events — either occasionally or regularly — as an obligation. Certainly not a universal obligation. No one has ever questioned my moral character for not attending sporting events. No one — not even exuberant sports fans — have treated me condescendingly for not attending sporting events. No one is trying to convince me that I will be condemned to eternal torment if I don’t attend the Amerks games and believe that their players are the best hockey players ever.

Instead, attending sporting events is entirely optional with little to no pressure on me to do so. I can simply choose not to attend any sporting events. The only “excuse” I need for not attending one is “I didn’t feel like going.” In fact, I’d be hard pressed to think of even five instances in my forty-one years of life where anyone even inquired — let alone demanded to know — as to why I didn’t attend some sporting event.

I have had people ask why I don’t go to church. Several times. And each time, there was a clear implication that the person asking felt I needed a good reason — good enough as determined by them — why i didn’t go. This is why people make all kinds of excuses for not going to church, and seldom make any excuse for going to sporting events. No excuse is needed for the latter.

The excuses in themselves are equally problematic. For example, the first excuse makes no sense because there’s no expectation that a coach at sporting event will come visit me1. That’s not the case for a pastor of a church. There is an implicit — if not explicit — understanding that a pastor is there to provide spiritual care and guidance for the people in his church and even the rest of the community.  When a person says that they quit coming to church because the pastor hasn’t come to see them, this means that the pastor and the church as a whole has failed to live up to their obligations. (John Pavlovitz put it perfectly on Tuesday when he wrote, “If you have no scalable system of pastoral care other than telling people to get into a small group, you have a lousy pastoral care system….
Pastor, if all you want to do is preach from the stage or the pulpit, stop calling yourself a pastor and admit that you’re a preacher or a religious celebrity.“) So it strikes me that it is perfectly reasonable for a person to leave a church that is failing to meet its obligations to that person.

There are similar issues with the meme-creator’s other “excuses” when you consider the fundamental differences between the nature of church attendance and going to sporting events. Sadly, this is just another case of a Christian leader thinking he’s being clever when he’s really just demonstrating that he hasn’t really thought any of these issues through. This also leads me to conclude that he’s not really trying to convince people who offer these excuses to come to church so much as he’s sharing a moment of smug self-righteousness with those who already agree with him. Frankly, I find that sort of thing ugly when displayed by an alleged spiritual leader.

1Naturally, I’m assuming that I’m a spectator rather than a player. If the latter were the case, then I see that this could be a legitimate reason for not only not attending those sporting events, but quitting that team.

Emotions, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Personal Development

what do if you have a homophobia brother and your gay

2 Comments

[Content Note: Homophobia]

The title of today’s blog post is based on a search term that someone used to find my site the other week. Strangely, I had a friend who was offering guidance to a young lesbian facing a similar situation ask me for any advice I might offer her several months ago. As such, I thought it would be good to talk about this subject.

First, I have a great deal of sympathy and empathy for anyone in such a situation. One should not have to deal with homophobia – no matter how minor or subtle – from one’s closest families. It can instill a real sense of betrayal and that you don’t belong. So to anyone who is reading this and is facing anything less than perfect acceptance from their immediately family, know that I would totally give you a hug right now if I were able to and you were comfortable with it.

To address the question, we first have to understand what we can do and what is our responsibility to do. For example, many of us – myself included at times – often think that what we need to do is convince our loved one to stop being homophobic. And in a perfect world, our loved ones would end their homophobia. (Well, in a perfect world, they never would’ve been homophobic in the first place, but hey.) But here’s the thing: we can’t make people change their mind or their behavior. It just doesn’t work that way. And trying to do it will only leave us even more frustrated and possibly (more) depressed and a lot of other things. In the end, we have to give our loved ones the freedom to address (or not) their own prejudices and their own actions in their own time.

So instead, we need to look at what we can do. And the thing I think we most need to focus on is the same thing we really should be focusing on anyway. We can and should focus on doing what it is that we need to do in order to feel good about ourselves. We can and should focus on making sure we like ourselves.

Liking ourselves and finding the good in ourselves can be difficult, especially when we have people saying or implying negative things about us. Doubly so when some of those people happen to be close and dear loved ones who are supposed to embrace, accept, and encourage us. In those cases, we have to struggle even harder to remind ourselves that we’re amazing people. (And if you don’t believe you’re an amazing person, please find someone safe to talk with about that fact as soon as you can!) Look at the things you enjoy and the things you are good at. Do you like to write? Write your heart out and cherish what you write. Treat yourself like you’re the next literary genius in training. Do you like to draw? Draw your heart out and treat your drawings like they’ll be hanging in the Louvre some day. Think of all the great qualities you offer the people in your life and the parts of yourself that you have to share with them. The sting of homophobia will never fully go away – especially when it comes from a loved one – but being able to confidently see yourself as a valuable and wonderful person does help.

Another thing that you can do is find the love, support, and encouragement you need. After all, that’s one of the really sucky parts about homophobic loved ones. Loving, supporting, and encouraging you is supposed to be THEIR job, and they’re failing at it in at least some ways. So it’s time to find people – and there are a lot of them out there – who would be happy to take on at least part of that job. Find and focus on other family members who are more supportive. Be honest with them and let them know that you need their support. Focus on friends – and make new ones if you need to – that will give you the support you need. When I came out nearly twenty years ago, I built an entirely new circle of friends. Oh sure, I kept in touch with some of my older friends and even have the occasional contact with some of them to this day. But my new friends were the ones who were both able and willing to walk with me through the process of self-discovery and self-acceptance. They were also the ones who felt safe to go through that process with. Those are the kinds of friends you need.

So if you don’t have them, find them. If you’re in school, see if your school has a GSA. See if there’s an LGBT community center or LGBT social groups in your area. See if there’s an active PFLAG chapter in your area.

Don’t rule out online friendships, either. For the first ten years after I came out, a lot of my friendships were online. Even the close and supportive friends I knew in person were people I mostly stayed in touch with via the Internet. An online friend may not be able to give you hug, but they can listen to you and tell you that you’re okay and that what you’re feeling is okay too. That’s extremely valuable.

You’ll notice that I talked about finding support after talking about learning to love yourself. There’s a couple reasons for that. The first is that while support is important and good, other people ultimately can’t make you feel good about yourself. That’s a gift you give yourself and you need to give it to yourself.

The other reason is because knowing what you like about yourself also helps you think about what you have to offer friends and possibly how to find them. If you’ve figured out you love to write, then finding friends that accept you for who you are and share that love of writing is an excellent plus. Maybe you can find a writing group locally or join a writing site online. The same is true of drawing or any other talent or interest you have. And the bonus is that they’ll encourage you and remind you that your talent or interest is awesome and valuable. Hey, other people can’t make you like yourself, but they sure can remind you of what there is to like about yourself!

The last thing to consider about finding love, encouragement, and support is to consider whether you want to and would benefit from talking to a trained mental health professional. If you have someone who is frequently – or even only slightly frequently – saying and doing things, that can really take a toll on you. It may be helpful to have someone in your corner who is trained to help you sort through that.

The final thing that you can do to take care of yourself in such a situation is try to limit your interactions with said loved one as much as possible. This can be tricky, depending on your circumstances. At 41 living on my own, I can get away and stay away from any homophobic relatives I may have as much as I want. If you’re a younger person who’s still living at home, you may be stuck living with a homophobic parent or sibling. If that’s your situation, you again have my sympathy. That totally sucks. It especially sucks if there’s more than one homophobic person in the house with you, or even if others in the household doesn’t see what the big deal is with the homophobic person’s behavior. Maybe they think you’re overreacting. They’re wrong.

In that situation, you can only do the best that you can do. If you can stay in your bedroom – and the rest of your family will leave you alone rather than barge into your room and try to force conversation on you – that may be what you need to do. You may need to find ways to keep yourself busy. (Again, this is where having those loving and supportive friends may be helpful – as you can go spend time with them whenever possible and get away from the homophobia.)

You may also want to consider calling out the homophobic person’s behavior when they’re being hurtful and disengage. “I feel what you just said or did was hurtful to me and I would like you to leave me alone now.” Then walk away if you can. Be aware that this can be a difficult thing to do. The other person is likely to get offended. They’re likely to try to get you to tell them exactly why you found what they said or did was hurtful – most likely so they can tell you that you were wrong to feel that way. If you decide to go this route, don’t let yourself be drawn into an explanation or an argument over it. Simply say, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I need time to be alone.” Stick to your guns. Go talk to one of your supportive friends or loved ones, someone who will totally understand why you’re hurt and will tell you that it’s okay to feel that way.

At any rate, that’s the best advice I can offer to help anyone going through such a situation. My readers are welcome to offer their own insights in the comments. Maybe some of you found something that helped you. Please feel free and encouraged to share.

Moderation Note: All comments complaining about how “easily” the word homophobia gets thrown around will be deleted. Any commenter trying to open a debate about what does and does not constitute homophobia will be banned. This is not the space to get defensive over how your words and actions are properly labeled. This is a space for you to listen and carefully consider how your words and actions impact the LGBT people in your life. If you try to do the former rather than the latter, than you’re part of the problem, and likely a bigger part than you want to admit.

 

Meta-Blogging

And we’re back!

Leave a comment

Some of my regular readers (I have a few of those, right?) may have notice my site has been down for the last couple of days. That’s because my hosting provider detected that my WP installation had been infected with malware and shut my site down until I could get it fixed. So I spent a little time waiting for them to provide a list of files that were infected, dutifully replaced or removed (most of them weren’t even needed by WP, which was weird) them, then waited for them to verify that everything was clean so they could bring my site back online. Unfortunately, that translated into two days because…well, you know what it’s like communicating with customer service. Don’t misunderstand me, my hosting provider’s customer service agents are friendly and extremely helpful. But the response times can be a bit slow.

I’m not sure why my site got infected with malware. Was it just a random occurrence? Is someone out there gunning for me in particular? Maybe I pissed off some hacker with a huge crush on Grindr who took issue with my last blog post. Who can say? But the important thing is that everything should all be better now. As a bonus, I also added a monitoring plan to the site. Now the monitoring software should detect and remove malware automatically, rather than leaving it to the hosting provider to discover and lock everything down. Here’s to hoping!

Gender and Sexuality, Online Life

Personal: A different way to have fun on Grindr

2 Comments

Like a lot of gay guys, I have an account on Grindr. I have what I think is a pretty nice profile picture up. The about me section has been pretty boring. I mean, Grindr only gives you 255 characters to work with, and it’s hard to be funny, seductive, and witty with only a couple dozen words — and that’s only if you stick to monosyllabic words! So this has been my profile recently:

Just a pretty dull profile on Grindr.
Just a pretty dull profile on Grindr.

I don’t get a lot of messages or responses on Grindr. Unless you count the spambots I get anywhere from one to five times a day.

Well recently, I ended up creating a second Grindr account.  This one is completely blank. No picture. No information. Not even my age. I won’t post a picture of what that looks like. If you want to know, just download the app. I can almost guarantee that there will be at least five guys near you who have no picture and/or no personal information entered.

So I had this other account, and I soon discovered that guys were contacting me through it. Yeah, that’s right. Guys will apparently line up to contact a completely empty profile while passing by guys who are trying to present who they are and have something to say. But that’s enough bitterness on my part.

Of course, most guys that contacted that profile opened with asking for a picture. (Those that didn’t usually asked in their second message.) I simply told them that I didn’t have a picture to send, figuring they’d go away.  Strangely, not all of them did.  In fact, most of them persisted. So I decided to have a little fun with it.

Sadly, I don’t have a capture of the conversation that really brought out my mischievous side. Because that guy gave me a chuckle, I decided to send him a picture after all and got rewarded with an instant block. But basically, when I told him I didn’t have a picture to send, he asked if I was Casper or something.  (My reply: “Casper? What makes you think I’m friendly?”) So that gave me the idea of giving whimsical responses to requests for pictures. The best one — fortunately I was able to do the screen captures before this one eventually blocked me — is the following:

"Not much. Just doing my part to corrupt everything that's good and evil."
“Not much. Just doing my part to corrupt everything that’s good and evil.”

It amazes me how much some of these guys can really push despite being told no. Granted not all of my exchanges have been as witty. Some I just turned down normally. Even those have been entertaining, though. After all, the butthurt can be something else. Take this fine example:

Not sending pictures on Grindr means you're not really gay, apparently.
Not sending pictures on Grindr means you’re not really gay, apparently.

I haven’t had anyone announce that I must be fat. I suspect it’s a matter of time. To be honest, I’m looking forward to that moment, because I already have my response planned: “Took you long enough to figure it out, dipshit.”

I’m not sure, but I think this guy was hoping that I’d offer him money:

Yes, that's a dick pic he sent as his first message.
Yes, that’s a dick pic he sent as his first message.

He didn’t respond after that, so I’m guessing he doesn’t have a thing for guys with a terrific sense of humor, after all. Le sigh.

I suspect I’ll be having this kind of fun for a while. If I have any more really awesome exchanges (be it butthurt on their part or particularly clever responses on mine), I’ll be sure to send them.

Also, one other good thing came out of this thought experiment. I now have a less boring profile for my other account:

You didn't know The Corruptor of all that is good and holy had a thing for tie-dye, did you?
You didn’t know The Corruptor of all that is good and holy had a thing for tie-dye, did you?

The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.