That Whole God Thing

I was raised Catholic, but not in the usual way. We went to a very alternative Catholic church in Massachusetts called Community of God’s Love when I was little. We didn’t use gendered pronouns in referring to God. (“God,” for instance, was “Creator.”) Women sometimes gave the sermons or even led the mass, we had a lot of queer congregation members, and the politics of the church were extremely liberal in general.

When we moved to California we found a slightly less radical church where I served as an altar girl and started studying for my Confirmation. When we got a new, more conservative priest who decided that girls could no longer serve at the altar, it was the last straw for my mother. She already felt that the Catholic church unfairly excluded women. If this church wasn’t going to welcome her daughters as full participants, then she wanted no more to do with it.

My whole family left the church when I was 11, and my mom now says she’s an atheist.

I know that at some point in my life I was enthusiastic about the idea of religion. I did, after all, hold up that Bible every week at Mass and carry the crucifix around the church for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

Since we stopped going to church, though, and through my upbringing in secular coastal cities, I’ve grown very uncomfortable with the idea of the divine.

I don’t regret at all not being Catholic; I think it’s in many ways a screwed up political institution.* My grandfather has been giving me optimistic crucifixes for birthdays and Christmases for years, and I have no compunction in never wearing them. I do miss the presence of some spiritual community, though.

I feel very self conscious about spirituality. I’m drawn to it, particularly to the kinds that embrace women and sex, but I’m also very awkward about the idea of being too New Age or woo-woo or superstitious or whatever. Perhaps I’ve spent a lot of time around people who judged others for believing in much of anything that couldn’t be proven.

I’ve nonetheless had some very powerful experiences which make me believe in some kind of energetic connection that underlies everything and which we as beings can access. I want to write about those in more depth in future entries, but suffice it to say for now that I feel called to explore.

I’m not necessarily excited about the idea of deities, except as metaphors for particular kinds of divine energy, but there’s a lot I can learn. I’d like to consider this post a resolution to give myself permission to go there. I want to not be shy about the pull I feel towards the divine. So I’m coming out as a (novice) spiritual seeker. Here I am, and I’m going somewhere in that direction.

*The Church does a lot of good charitable things, but also a lot of messed up gender and politics things.

Dan Savage on The Colbert Report

Alright, I have mixed feelings about Dan Savage. In case you don't know, he's an openly gay and partnered sex columnist for Seattle paper The Stranger.

On the one hand, he is hilarious as fuck. I've read his column frequently and he's really funny. He's great on some issues, like gay marriage and being understanding of people's kinks. He even gives some good advice sometimes.

On the other hand, I think he often strong arms issues that need a more sensitive treatment. I don't want to be a mushy female feminist (sigh, stupid stereotypes), but in his quest to always be funny, he sometimes becomes a bit misogynistic. He makes no secret of his distaste for women. I mean, "he's gay so whatever," but I think it does affect the quality of his advice.

That said, I absolutely LOVE his recent appearance on The Colbert Report. He is delightfully funny and I think he even made Colbert a little speechless. If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that he says something similar to what I did about the old folks who voted for Prop 8. (He's not as nice.) Makes me feel kind of vindicated.



Go you, Dan Savage.

Blow Jobs, Annihilation, and Growth

When I was younger, I was a blow job queen.

My first real boyfriend told me that I sucked his cock on our second date. I don't remember this, but I believe him. I can't actually remember when I started seeing or playing with his dick. I've played with it and other cocks so many times since then that the first time has blended in with the other memories.

He was uncircumcised. I remember that; I could tell. Often he wasn't completely hard by the time I started playing with him, so there would be some extra skin when I first put my mouth on him. I didn't know what I was doing at first, but I'd looked up on the internet what to do. I knew to avoid teeth, to use my lips, hands, and tongue. I learned to respond to his movements. I made him come in my mouth.

After we broke up, I didn't stay celibate for long. I had a good girlfriend who I lusted after but didn't think I could be with. She was too Christian and I was too timid.

So I blew her ex-boyfriend. It didn't occur to me then, but I know now that the only reason I had any chemistry with T was that I'd hung out with him and my friend together. We'd all cuddled on my bed, and my sexual tension with her had leaked into my interactions with him.

T kissed like a dead fish, all lips and no tongue. By the time we fooled around, I didn't especially like him, but I was bored and considered him a challenge. He was selfish in bed, wouldn't do anything at all for me except fumble in the general area of my clit with thick fingers. He said he'd go down on me if I got him off, which I found out a few weeks ago has still never happened for him with another person. He was also even more Christian than my friend, hated his own and others' sexuality, and was very politically conservative.

Every time he'd leave my house or drive me home, I'd feel like a whore. I might as well have been paid for what I did. There was very little physical gratification for me, just the vague eroticism of serving someone, the humiliation of feeling hated because I was giving away physical pleasure. It was masochistic.

I had a few similar flings during the next few years, between more serious relationships. Boys who'd call me when they wanted to get off, or who I'd call when I was alone at night. I'd feel this intense need to be touching someone, to be giving something, and I didn't know any other way to satisfy it than by finding a boy to blow. Some of my motivation was simple loneliness.

Mostly, though, it came from a need to feel annihilated. When I was feeling empty or in pain, I could hurt myself by finding someone who'd think less of me for having sex with him. I could stop feeling anything by being with a person who did not see or understand that I was a human with emotions. I was reduced to body parts, objectified, fucked. It was everything those old feminists talked about.

One day, after a few months of therapy and a decision that I didn't want to do it to myself anymore, I finally said no. A boy I'd blown was leading me back drunk from a fraternity party, and as we started to pass my dorm I said "Wait, I don't think I should do this. My shrink says I shouldn't have sex for a while."

He gave me a funny look and said goodnight, which is what I'd wanted. I wanted him to think I was crazy so it wouldn't hurt his feelings. It had worked. I ran off, almost giggling, to my room. Awkward though it was, I'd finally drawn the line and walked away when I wasn't actually into the guy or the sex.

I haven't had that kind of sex since then, the kind where I give up my humanity to have a physical connection with someone. I have casual sex, yes, but I do everything I can to make sure it's with someone who will see and value my humanity even while we're fucking. I can't always tell ahead of time whether this will be the case, but I can get a pretty good idea.

I'm glad I had the experience of objectified sex. It gave me something to contrast with what I wanted, to grow from. It allowed me to understand what it is that I don't want. I'm just as glad, though, to have moved past it into fulfilling sex with people I like. It's just so much more fun.

My Long Lost Brother: The Note to Ann Landers

When I was eleven, I found out I had a long lost brother.

I was playing Riven. I don't remember what I was stuck on; it was probably the little balls in the puzzle on top of the globe. No matter how many times I went back to the place with the puzzle's clue and how many times I thought I had it right, it just wasn't working. I was close to tears.

My mom, who'd played the game before, wasn't home and she wouldn't answer her cell phone. It was off. I thought I might be able to find her Riven notes in her filing cabinet, where she keeps her personal papers. When I noticed a file titled "Adoption," I was curious.

You can guess where this is going, right?

I found a note she'd written to Ann Landers. The advice columnist had told a birth child not to search for his birth mother, that the mother had given him up for a reason and probably wanted nothing to do with him. My mother wrote back and told Ann Landers how she'd had a baby in college and given him up for adoption. She considered it his right to decide whether or not to meet her. She had given him up, given him the decision, but she would be devastated if she never got to see him again.

His name, when she left him at the hospital, was Michael Patrick.

I stared at that piece of paper. I didn't know when my mom was getting home. She was probably at the grocery store, or paying bills at the bank. I put it quickly back in the filing cabinet and brought the phone into my room, where I had an unused jack for it. My parents didn't think I needed my own phone.

I called my best friend, and cried because my mother hadn't told me. Cried because I wasn't supposed to know; I'd found out clandestinely. I'd been intruding.

Bette Midler had a song called "Lullaby in Blue" about adoption. After that summer, whenever my mom would skip it on the album, I'd calmly ask her why. I asked to see her yearbook photos, since I'd figured out that she must have given birth during her senior year at Notre Dame. I didn't know all the details.

Every once in a while, I'd go back to look at the letter again. I'd wait until she was gone, for sure, for a while, and go back to the filing cabinet, slamming it closed if I thought I heard my sister coming up the stairs. I did this every few months until Mom sat the family down for a macaroni and cheese dinner three years later.

**Update** I was going to continue this story, but I decided I don't actually want to, at least not in this style. The short story is that Michael Patrick was coincidentally named Patrick by his adoptive parents and found my mom and our family about a year after she finally told my sister and me about him. He's a Catholic youth minister and just had a baby girl, I, with his wife, C. They got married as soon as she graduated college. I won't use his full first name after this, but it's a pretty cool coincidence.

I'm Watching Jesus Camp For the First Time

Jesus Camp

Now, that link will get you to the whole film. If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should. I prefer to financially support films, books, and music that I like instead of getting them on the internet, but you can make that decision for yourself. If I were you, I'd go rent it, because I'm sure it's better with nicer film quality.

I am so speechless about most of this film. Part of me wants to give the kids a hug, I just feel so bad for them. The emotional blackmail, the guilt that they're put through.

But on the other hand, they are not stupid. Clearly. They speak very articulately and passionately and are so obviously trying really hard to live well. With the information they're given, they are making the best decisions they can. They wouldn't want my hugs. I just can't imagine what it's like to go through life with that kind of guilt, repressing yourself so much.

To grow up like Ted Haggert, who's got a little cameo in the film, and despise yourself, live a double life, oppress people who are like you because you think that you are evil. What that must be like, emotionally. How much pain there must be.

That doesn't mean I like Ted. On one level, I really despise people like Ted, people who press others down. Part of me whats that to be all I feel, as an activist, a humanist. They are mean people, hypocrites, etc.

But I also feel empathy for them. I can't help it; they're living in a hell. Of course, they're trying to force that same hell on other people. For that, I'll always fight them. But I'll feel sorry for them, too.

It starts when they're children, just like the ones in this video. If we feel sorry for the children (who are perfectly capable of thought, simply more open to new ideas and brainwashing because they have less previous knowledge) it makes sense to feel sorry for their adult manifestations.

(P. S. I know it's stereotyping, but after watching good ol' Ted speak for about a minute, I'm wondering HOW nobody ever guessed that he was kinda gay... Just saying.)