Reading Time: 5 minutes Writing about sex is hard. Heh. And it’s not just because the innuendos keep coming again and again whether you want them to or not. What makes it so…um…difficult…is that people cannot stop telling you what you should do, how you should think, and how you should talk about your own sexuality. It’s not just […]
shame
Posted inLGBTQ News, Religion, Sex & Gender
Lies the Church Told Us About Sex
Reading Time: 16 minutes Growing up in church, you hear an awful lot of things about sex that just aren’t true. Of course, the same can be said about growing up anywhere. Surely there are no purveyors of misinformation more prolific than a gaggle of middle school boys. But the church has a vested interest in controlling the narratives […]
Posted inLeaving Religion
I let my husband rape me, and here’s why
Reading Time: 17 minutes I have spent the last few weeks wondering if I should own this story or if I’ve said too much, but I think it’s time we have a very open and honest discussion about domestic violence and rape. The repercussions of shame and silence are far too great not to speak up. When we hear […]
Posted inReligion, Sex & Gender
Bearing False Witness…Against Yourself
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you grew up in the Christian church, you probably have heard people speak of “testifying about” what God has done in their lives. Other times they speak of “sharing their testimony” or “sharing their story” of how Jesus changed or healed them. Most of us are probably at least somewhat familiar with the general template for […]
Posted inReligion, Sex & Gender
Sexual Purity: What They Said vs. What We Learned
Reading Time: 10 minutes I had a very eye-opening conversation with my mom recently. We were talking about my marriage to my ex, and she asked me if her hunch was correct that I’d have married him anyway if my parents hadn’t given us the go-ahead. (You see, in our iteration of purity culture, even as a 22-year-old adult, […]
Posted inSex & Gender
Escaping A Culture of Repentance
Reading Time: 6 minutes I was fourteen years old when an older boy showed up on my street. I often walked my dog in the evenings, and he would drive up and down the street, slowing down to offer me every sex act he knew about (and a few I’m sure he knew nothing about at all). He tried to get me into […]
Posted inUncategorized
Breasts Are Sinful, Little Girl
Reading Time: 7 minutes My religious upbringing included a message about breasts that can be summed up like this:
Dear men, “Let her breasts satisfy you at all times.” (Proverbs 5:19)
Dear women, “Your body [is] not your own.” 1 Corinthians 6:19
Posted inUncategorized
The Twins of Shame: Self-Esteem and Being Told To Cover Up
Reading Time: 3 minutes Imagine young girls and the women they are supposed to look up to as educators, mentors, and even guardians yelling “Slut!” and “Whore!” at a projected image of a young woman in a crop top as a speaker nods encouragingly and smiles. You might think that this is some past event. Surely we do not […]
Posted inSex & Gender
5 Harmful Religious Ideas I Had to Unlearn about Sex
Reading Time: 6 minutes My Pentecostal background was not as extreme as Kim Davis’s, but I did grow up with a number of harmful ideas about sex that made my life less worth living. Here are five.
Posted inSex & Gender
Why Sex May Be the Greatest Threat to Christianity
Reading Time: 9 minutes I recently tweeted something of an epiphany and I’d like to take a minute to unpack what I meant when I said it: Some days I wonder if an honest look at human sexuality isn’t the strongest counterapologetic to the Christian faith anywhere. — Neil Carter (@godlessindixie) January 27, 2016 That statement reflects a growing conviction […]