God needs lipgloss

I loved last Easter weekend!  In part because after a white-out snowstorm, we had some nice weather and the kidlets could have an Easter egg hunt outside!  In part because we had some nice visits with people in the secular community, shared good food, conversation, and fun games!  Also in part because we were not at my old church’s family camp.  

A friend who heard the sermons at church informed me of the usual gender-policing, homophobia and general sex-negativity that was preached.  This was a little different because of the way the girls reacted.

I grew up hearing the modesty talks, which were interspersed with gender policing.  The message was generally: don’t be too attractive, but put in an effort to be attractive in a very specific way.  God apparently wants women to have long hair, skirts, and wear pink.  This year the supposed omniscient creator of the universe added to his list make-up and lip gloss.  For girls to be godly women and pleasing to the old men, er, god, they NEED lip gloss.

  

I mean, how omniscient can the guy be if he needs make-up and lip gloss so he can tell the differences between the sexes?  I wonder if this god is aware that most make-up and lip stuff has toxic heavy metals, or if he just doesn’t care. 

Back at the girls’ dorm, there were tears and panicking.  Many of the girls, especially the 11 and 12 year olds, don’t wear make-up.  They thought god was angry at them for not being ‘feminine’ enough and calling them out on their “bad behaviour”.  

Fortunately, some of the girls actually questioned the sermon.  Here are some excerpts of a letter they sent to the elders.
[The first part was a list of things they agreed with like needing a spiritual authority, this is part of what they disagreed with]

“1. Lipgloss and excitement over clothes does not make a woman a woman. Neither does vanity. And we don’t think that God will bless us for either. (Girls were crying because they were worried they hadn’t worried about appearances as much as they should have.)

2. The way he brought up sex outside of marriage. That is between a person and God. The message felt condemning. And there are those who have come out of the world into our church and talking about it all over again may make them feel like it’s something they can’t let go of. Even though God has put that sin behind them.

3. The way he brought up homosexuality and used Leviticus. We don’t follow many of the laws in Leviticus. And Jesus said in John that it’s not our place to judge. Jesus taught love and the old ways were done away with. And we feel that if there were any homosexual people in the church that heard that they would no longer continue coming to church and they wouldn’t want to confide in their elders. …”

You go girls!  (Except for the part about sex that isn’t between a cismale and cisfemale with a legal document being sin.)

 

The Talk

Lil’T asked me what sex was.

First she asked what the difference was between sexy and pretty.  From the way the neighbour girl used the word, Lil’T thought they were the same thing.

Caught off guard, I said that they both mean you feel attractive but pretty was how you want to look for your mom and sexy was how you want to look for the person you have a crush on.   She paused.  My self-talk then asked if the focus on how you look vs how you feel was detrimental, especially if you are being an object for someone else to look at, but this thought was interrupted.

LilT then asked what sex was.

The book with pictures I got when pregnant with C-minor was hiding.  My prepared talks vanished with the ingrained fears that I’d burden her with (bad?) knowledge.   I considered pulling up a youtube video of dogs mating.

“Sex is when two adults touch each other’s bodies so they feel good.  Usually it involves the genitals.  That is a word for vulva or penis.”

I waited for more questions.  I had decided I would answer her questions and let her decide when she wanted to learn.  No more questions came.  She was off building a zoo for the toy animals.

Explaining sex is a lot more complicated than I thought.  It isn’t just putting a penis in a vagina.  That’s easy.  I realized I don’t actually have a clear definition of sex.   How do you explain the difference between a mother cuddling her child or two friends giving each other shoulder rubs – which are also two people touching each other because it feels good- and sex?  If two kids are playing doctor and it feels good, is that sex?  Was saying that adults do it potentially harmful?

I’m sure the talk will be continued.

Mr. P and Auntie Sweetie

There is no conclusive evidence that prostate massage reduces the risk of prostate cancer.  However, as Pascal’s reasoning suggests, even the unproved possibility of preventing something bad may sometimes be worth the effort. Hence the welcoming of purple Mr. P into our home. As we are certain of the existence of both the prostate and cancer, Mr. P is not named after Pascal.

Our Auntie Sweetie is named after her sweet nature. She is so sweet that she dropped by this week so I could do errands without the kids. She is so sweet that she cannot watch The Little Mermaid without blushing. Or look at my breast-feeding painting at all. She is so sweet that she decided to clean my kitchen while she waited.

“I washed the dishes that weren’t in the dishwasher and started to clean the counter, but I didn’t know where everything went, so I just left some things,” she explained in her sweet sparrow voice used when children are around. I noticed that while she was talking, she was looking at her feet and twisting her long piano fingers.

I wanted to ease her obvious discomfort and thanked her for not putting anything away that I might not be able to find later. Still not looking at me, she went back to playing with my delightful children.

After she left, I went to the kitchen to put away the bowl she had washed. The crumbs around the toaster had been cleaned. I remembered something. You saw it coming?

Yes, it was he. Mr P had been introduced to Auntie Sweetie. There he was behind the cutting board, drying himself in the nude after his disinfecting bath the night before.

Ahh! Why did it have to be her? Why not someone who would make a joke about how leaving the church leads to sexual depravity instead of someone who might actually think it?

At least I hadn’t put out our Asherah pole to charge (via USB port) like I was planning.  Bwahaha!  

(For those of you who may care: the kids are too short to see anything on the counter.)

 

The Slippery Slope of Purity

I have a few major school projects due in the next few weeks.  So of course, I’m procrastinating from the 35 and 25 page papers by focusing on a 5 minute part in a small group presentation.

We are to analyze how a particular discourse talks about the topic by choosing a few representative texts and uncovering assumptions from them.  We need to say what messages are being conveyed and what attitudes and beliefs are allowed to be expressed about the topic as a result.  Then we end with some conclusions about the effects of such messages on those who hear them and on those who are most affected by such beliefs and attitudes.

I was placed late into the group analyzing discourses around the Purity Movement.  The other group members are looking at: legal discourses, pop-culture representations of the movement and journalistic representations of the movement.  One person is looking at Purity Balls as a discourse in itself and trying to be neutral about it.

No one is looking at any discourse from the actual Purity Movement.

I have 5 minutes.  At first I was going to talk about church sermons or the Purity talks given to teens.  Then I wanted to look at the literature given to young teen girls.  I was astounded at the fairy-tale imagery used.  It makes sense, though.  Our culture views captive princesses, dragons and prince Charmings as much more romantic than pubescent bronze-age girls sold into polygamous marriages and murdered if she has sex with someone who didn’t pay for it.  We are supposed to be like Mary, but no one wants to be an impoverished teen age mother and no one wants to share their rich prince with 700 other women.

Even the names of the books invoke our mythology of the mythology of the Dark Ages.

Before You Meet Your Prince Charming (about locking yourself up in a tower to preserve your heart and your hymen)

Happily Ever After (be Cinderella, because being abused will be rewarded by magic)

Awakening From a Deep Sleep (yes, Sleeping Beauties, allow Jesus to awaken you, not some dirty boy’s kisses, sigh)

and my favourite

The Princess and the Kiss, (aptly referred to as The Princess and the Hymen)  aimed at toddlers,  who kiss everyone they love especially dogs, to make them feel bad about being affectionate in the hopes that they will grow to be unaffectionate teens.

But then, I wondered if the online ‘accountability’ groups wouldn’t be more fun.

I read Kristina’s blog post http://kristinaskeeps.blogspot.ca/2009/02/engagement-pictures.html about her engagement, which took place at Arby’s with parents there as chaperones.  In fact, her own father puts the engagement ring on her as rings represent a transfer of authority.  The last comment was too much.:

“fyi, there is no way your knees are 6 inches apart sitting at that table.”

Bwahahaha!

When I told the story of my engagement, no one chastised me for being less than a foot apart.  They wanted to know if we kissed.

I did take part in accountability groups, and yes, the main focus was on not having sex and reading your bible.  Kissing was discouraged and we were to revere those ‘strong’ couples who were keeping their kisses until marriage.  But, we all knew what really went on:

In fact, even those who engaged in dry-humping- which is grinding with clothes on until one of the couple gets an orgasm or someone walks in on them- were sometimes those who were saving their kisses for the altar.  One of those couples actually did kiss before marriage and it still bugs them, 3 kids later.

My roomie’s boyfriend was a self-proclaimed virgin who pressured my roomie to let him have anal sex with her so he could keep his virgin status.  While disrespecting her boundaries and at times physically hurting her, this #$%# looked down on my roomie because she knew what sex was.

James Dobson came out with his 12 Steps to Intimacy.  Step 3 is actually talking to the person.  Who knew that everytime I talk to someone I’m 25% of the way to ‘real’ sex.  For couples wanting to get married, Dobson discouraged any physical intimacy past step 8, which is putting your hand on someone’s head.  Otherwise, people who weren’t in romantic relationships were to stop at step 7 – being face to face.  Yes, as in looking at someone face to face.   Some forms of kissing are allowed here, but only for family members.

However, these rules weren’t enough to guarantee purity and new rules were formed!  Now, instead of saying no hymen breaking, the new precaution is no romance!

Rule 1- No emotional promiscuity.  After all, everytime you care for someone, you give away a part of your heart you can never get back meaning there is less love for the next person.

Rule 2 – Never apply this logic to being able to love your children.

Rule 3- Do not even think about sex except to confess your sinful desires, hold someone accountable, or to reassure you and your friends that by not having sex now, sex later will be the best ever!

Some of the peer accountability messages on online forums dedicated to young girls were hilarious.  Most broke my heart.

I cheered at reading comments written by a sister of a lesbian who was trying to convince the others that love is beautiful and homosexuals are people with great value.

I laughed at the reply which was [paraphrased] ‘ but homosexuality is a sin!  God hates it and we were all born sinful, we just don’t have to act on it.  Hope this has encouraged someone.  In Christ’s love ___’

http://www.liesyoungwomenbelieve.com/index.php?id=866

I cried when I read the desperation of a girl who enjoys porn and masturbation on the same site:

Okay, so this is embarrassing but I’ve been struggling with porn and masturbation for years now. I’m gonna say…6-ish years. I know that I can still stop this if I try, but is it too late? Like will God even care if I quit now? Or has it been long enough to say that I’m basically not a virgin on my wedding day?

Reply:

No, it is not too late. God certainly wants us to repent of our sin, especially when that sin has had a hold on our lives for a very long time. 

There is real danger in making the choice to continue sinning ... There are many places in the Bible where it mentions God giving people over to their own sinful desires or hardening their hearts toward sin. You do not want to get to the point where you’ve chosen to sin so often that you no longer care if it’s wrong. 

————————————————————————————————–

Now the definition of virgin has grown from hymen unpoked by a male  (which they realized wasn’t strict enough to stop homosexuality) to no kissing, to no falling in love, to no thinking about sex.   Homeschooling and restricted internet is a big part of this movement.  I wonder if illiteracy will be next?

No wonder the picture of a princess locked in a tower is popular.

No wonder I’m having trouble deciding what to talk about in my 5 minutes.

Common Ground for Hoes and Prudes

It just occurred to me that I am very similar to the people I was supposed to look down on ‘in love’.

(snipped from http://alanagkelly.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html)

A person who stays a virgin or does not engage in sexual activity can have way more in common with a person who is promiscuous.

Both of them could be motivated by a feeling of not owning their own body or not having enough self-worth to decide what they really want or need.

A person in an evangelical Christian community may refrain from sex for terrible reasons.  I had the feeling that I did not own my own body.  God owned it, and I was his property.  The reason he didn’t want me to do anything sexual was because it was assumed my body would then become property of another man- a husband, who presumably wouldn’t want his wife to have any experience in knowing her own body or anyone else’s.

I was so afraid of disappointing the invisible them, that I didn’t really like my body, but was ashamed of it.  Many evangelical leaders delight in that self-disgust and are glad that shame keeps people from doing certain things.  I don’t know how many times I was told what a priceless gift virginity was and that I would be stealing from God and my future husband if I ‘messed around’.

Stealing.  from.  THEM.

Because they owned me.

How different is this from someone who does fool around because they have no self-worth?  Someone who doesn’t say no because they don’t feel they have the right to.  A girl in Zambia talked about how she always gave sex to the older men in her village when they asked because they were older men.

They had the right to her own body that she didn’t have.

(When she learned she could say no, and that boys her own age would support her, the whole village went into uproar. )

Conversely, a person who does not have sex because they don’t want it or are waiting for a healthy relationship has a lot more in common with someone who is ethically promiscuous.  Both of them are motivated by a sense of ownership and self-respect.

Nothing is going to happen if they aren’t enthusiastically consenting to it.  Because they own their bodies, they don’t feel shame in exercising them.

There is a world of difference between a girl I used to hang out with who was promiscuous because she hated herself and another friend who is non-monogamous but has huge respect for herself and her partners.

I used to have more in common with the first young woman.  We felt ashamed of ourselves.  Our behaviours were very different, but shame and fear were strong motivators.

Funny, I thought if the first young woman would just get more fear and a stronger feeling of being god’s property instead of her own person, her behaviour would change.  It didn’t work.  Finding a healthy community of people who respected her did.

Now I have more in common with the second woman.  My behaviour hasn’t changed but my values have.  For the better.

Can you lose what you don’t have?

Virginity is not a thing.  It describes the absence of something.  Like dark describes the absence of light.

The phrase “stole her/his virginity” bothers me.  As if virginity existed.  As if it were a jewel hidden and snatched away.  That is what we were taught.  But, it doesn’t make sense.  I don’t steal silence by singing, or ignorance by teaching.

No one says that the sun came and stole the darkness unless they are trying to be poetic.  Most people prefer sun.  In fact, there would be no life without it.

When a child (or anyone) is abused, I think it is cruel to say they lost their virginity.

Yes, I’m sure they have lost trust in those around them or in the safety or fairness of the world.  They may have lost feeling in control of their own body.  Security and autonomy are not the same as virginity.  The former are two very positive and necessary things that are a loss to be mourned.    Steps should be taken to restore them.

The latter describes a physical ignorance, but phrasing it this way adds yet another ‘loss’.  I’ve talked to people who felt extra worthless because in their eyes, an unwanted experience had taken away the status of virgin.  Mourn the abuse, yes!  As a society we need to take that more seriously than we do.  But don’t add another burden by fetishizing ignorance.

Why is this ignorance so valued in certain circles?  In the circle I grew up in, this ignorance was supposed to make one superior.  In other groups, it can be looked down on.

Sexually ignorant people are not superior or inferior.  They are just lacking a physical and emotional experience.  Sometimes for good reasons, like being too young, waiting for the right relationship, or being asexual.  Sometimes for not-so-good reasons, like fear or loathing of their bodies.

And then there is the tricky business of defining what levels of ignorance can still qualify for the title ‘virgin’.  This is complicated because we don’t really understand what ‘sex’ is.

One of my roomie’s boyfriends was a fervent Calvinist (when it suited him).  He looked down on my roomie because she had some knowledge of her reproductive system learned with her previous boyfriend.  He was constantly trying to pressure her into unwanted anal sex because he felt he could still retain his superior status of ‘virgin’.  She was not impressed, especially when he tried the ‘but you’re not a virgin, therefore you’re a slut and I’m entitled to treat you like a sex toy’ argument.

There are a lot of religious people who think that avoiding penile-vaginal penetration gives them the right to look down on others, while convinced they are being humble.  Respect and giving to others is not their measuring stick of right and wrong, but a checklist like filling out a tax form.  That atmosphere changed sexual encounters from mere expressions of intimacy by adding the competition of how far you could go or what you could get without being a bad example to the youth group.  It made sexuality some sort of idol.  (Yes, I speak from experience.)

Even though not explicitly stated, I thought that virginity was good and therefore sexuality was bad, or at least dangerous and dirty.  Realizing that virginity is not a thing, but an absence of a thing, and not good or bad of itself has been good for me.

I no longer regret premarital make-out sessions.  I do regret all the hours of anguish and self-loathing that followed such occasions.  We had been told that any kiss longer than 5 seconds (or more than 5 one-second kisses) could not be pure.  It was hard to sit in church and take communion knowing that feeling guilty and dirty was not enough to stop it from happening again.

I didn’t lose my virginity.  I found more of myself and my lover.  Poetically speaking.

Newlyweds

Tonight was the night!

Yosef’s hands trembled with anticipation, whole body aching.  No more lying awake in bed watching her.  No more ‘fertilizing’ the back garden in the night.

Miriam’s time of impurity was over.  Yosef was grateful that the baby was a boy and he didn’t have to wait longer.

As she bent to pour him more water, he ran his calloused fingers up her arm.

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

Thy neck is like a tower.  Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.” He looked up, shyly.

She was laughing! “Where did you learn that?  It sounds very …  old.”  Her cheeks bloomed pink and she looked away.

He blushed too, suddenly unsure.  “It is from the scripture.  I thought it sounded romantic?”

“The holy scriptures?  You shouldn’t be sharing that with a woman, remember what the rabbi said!”  Her voice was quiet and worried.

“Ha!” snorted Yosef, romantic mood forgotten at the thought of the snake-eyed self-important mouth of the synagogue.   “He said that Adam and Eve sinned because the woman twisted the holy words of our master.  If the rabbi had bothered reading the scriptures he would know that Eve sinned because she wasn’t actually taught our Lord’s words.  Ignorance was the real sin, not woman, and our rabbi should remember that!”

The man’s wife looked up, wide-eyed.  She liked what he said, but was still afraid.  “We can’t speak of the great rabbi like that!”  It was more of a question, her whisper unsure.

The man snorted again.  “I call no man ‘great’ who is afraid of a little girl”.

The baby began to fuss.  Yosef walked over and held up the little child.  Once again he was overcome with awe of the delicate perfection in his hands.

To think that his ‘friends’ had advised the death of these two beautiful people.   Yosef was not a fan of punishing the innocent to protect the guilty.  After his aunt had been sent away when the rabbi’s son raped her he vowed never to take part in punishing the so called ‘adulteresses’.

Yosef vowed again to protect those truly in need and to teach his son the same.  His son.  Yes, this was his son.  No matter who was responsible for his birth, he was responsible for his life.

The baby, now clean and dry, cooed and fell back asleep.  The man looked up.  The woman was done cleaning the pot, and staring at him.  Her eyes were tender and hungry.  Hungry for him.

Instantly he was at her side.  First stroking her hair, her cheeks, her lips.  She moaned and grabbed his hard torso.

He forgot the gentle touch that seconds ago put a baby to sleep.  A year of waiting and watching exploded into an anguished blaze as he grabbed her.

“No!  Don’t hurt me!”  His panting, inviting wife changed into a ball of frozen fear.  Arms which seconds ago grabbed frantically at him now clutched her quivering body.

Yosef swore.

He slowly lowered himself onto their sleeping mat.

“I will not hurt you.  I never want to remind you of that soldier… ” he cursed the Roman under his breath.

“Look at me, Miriam.”  His voice was quiet.  “You are in charge.  I’ll lie here.  You can do anything you want – sleep even.  I can wait.  I’ll only touch you how and where you tell me.”

He paused and then whispered, “I love you.”

At his voice she opened her eyes again, taking in her surroundings as if for the first time.

“I’m sorry,” she began.

“Shhh.”  He smiled and held out his hands.

She smiled.

Then she reached out and laid her hand on his chest.

“Your chest, my love, is like a whole flock of woolly sheep, not yet sheared, coming down the mountain to graze on the coarse dessert grasses.”

She grabbed his hands and pulled them towards her.

“What did you say my neck was?”

Life without Virgin/Whore

After reading this post http://veronicamonet.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/powerful-women/

I was thinking about how our personalities are shaped more by how we relate to others and their perceived expectations than what we really like or not.

My mom told me that some study proved that girls liked pink and that was why pink was a universal girl colour.  Since I’ve spent time in rural India where men wore pink and women wore red, I knew that was a ridiculous statement.

I have also observed my own daughter who preferred orange up to age 2.  Then she switched over to pink, purple, Barbies and princesses.  Just at the time when pop culture began to infiltrate her consciousness.  Nothing wrong with liking pink, but don’t try and say it is biologically inherent and exclusive to a double X chromosome (so one can justify telling you that you need to buy your little girl a new bike and not let her use her brother’s old one).

Instead of finding out that more females like pink, what that study found is that the majority of females will try to meet expectations.  People conform.  We are social animals and it builds group cohesion.  One major expectation that most women try to meet or react to is which type of femininity they will pursue: the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’.

Veronica brilliantly discusses this divide in types of femininity that our society allows.  We have the a-sexual virgin infantilized “nice” lady and the sex hungry bitchy “bad” woman.  Interestingly, we have told ourselves that nice ladies make the best mothers, not the sirens.  Penelope wasn’t sexually satisfied when Odysseus was away and that was supposed to make her a better mom. B.S.

When I’m not sexually active, I am cranky.  Cranky women are not the best mothers. I haven’t seen any studies, but I think this may be the case for more people than myself.

If our society changed our script of femininities, how would that change what most women look like?  If I had grown up in a society that assumed sexually confident women were the best wives, mothers, and citizens – would more women (and men) be encouraging sex instead of treating it like the great evil?

Perhaps a friend who cannot even say the word “stimulate” (no joke, I was talking about about external stimuli and she turned red and admitted that she couldn’t say that word) would be able to talk about sex.

Perhaps the best mother’s day gift wouldn’t be a new vacuum but a new vibrator.

Perhaps all those people who really are asexual or have low libidos wouldn’t be sought after as idealized marriage material.  Maybe they could be more free to not have sex on a regular basis.

Could it be that if the one who could give and receive good sex was the moral one, that slut-shaming would disappear?  That a new morality based on ethics and principles instead of fear based regulation would be mainstream?

In religious circles, all those women who are shamed at their sexual desires could be proud of them.  And the men wouldn’t have mixed messages about what it is to love a woman either!  Our boys were told that if they loved a girl they would not be sexually active or think about wanting to and anything more was lust and bad.  No wonder some early Christian men castrated themselves.

Could there be classes in high school about exploring your sexuality- sexual ethics?  Not graded of course, but a home study module where the kids could learn so many things.   On their own.  Can anyone really learn the art of a good blow job from standard porn?

How would this effect rape culture if sexually active women weren’t punished or told they ‘asked for it’ but were instead viewed as valued citizens?

Would prostitutes be seen as priestesses again?  Or be seen as fully human?

Paradise lost or paradise found?

Growing up, our church environment made its attitude towards virginity very clear.

Virginity was a fragile gem that could only be lost, tarnished, or destroyed.  For females, that is.  If males had virginity, it wasn’t as important or as clearly defined.

Sex was bad.  It was a monster that wanted to devour morality and leave a person broken and dirty.

I’d imagine this makes the switch from NO to YES after marriage a little rocky for many people. 

At first, I thought that it was because I had a ring on my finger that the sexual experiences I shared with my husband were so… innocent.

It was like regaining that purity of childhood.  Suprising.  Healing.  

But it wasn’t because we have metal bands on our fingers that the potential destruction had turned into a paradise.  It is because we love and respect each other.

I heard a woman talking about a sexual encounter she had (with another woman).  Again, it wasn’t a dirty loss or shameful devaluation.  She reclaimed childhood freedom. 

Refreshing.  Strengthening.  Restoring.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

As she finished speaking, I felt unexpectedly cleansed. 

Now, I won’t deny that sexual activity can and has been used to destroy.  But my church was wrong- sex outside marriage isn’t always hellish.  It can be innocent.  It can save.

It isn’t what you do, but how you are that makes the difference.

Masturbation ‘n Church

As a female, I was never taught directly about masturbation.

When the guys and gals would be separated for our gender appropriate lectures, I got to hear about modesty and how to be a ‘good’ wife.  (Chaste, modest, quiet, submissive… not anything about communication or being a whole person without a husband, sigh.)

The boys got to hear about leadership and occasionally, about masturbation.  I’m not sure what they said about it, but I remember the gloomy faces slinking out of the boys lecture room one of the days they spoke about it. 

However, our church policy was not entirely draconian.

Once my uncle told me as a teen he ran across a mentally disabled boy jacking off in the boys dorm.  He was so disturbed he told the elders.  They informed him that in this circumstance it was fine since they didn’t want the boy channelling his sexual urges towards any of the girls.

I have no idea why my uncle thought this story was important to tell me.  I was horrified because he felt he had to tell the elders about this behaviour, but I think he assumed my reaction was about the masturbation since he kept talking.

Whatever the official stance on it was, the attitude about it was clear. 

Bad.  Dirty.  Only for desperate circumstances.  Not to be talked about.  A male issue only.

A friend of mine told me that her mother had been praying for my friend’s sons since they were little.  About their “sinful hands”.  The assumption was that all boys would, you know.  And that it was sin.

Well, first of all, not all boys do.  I have actually dated a few who didn’t know what it was.  One was enlightened after a radio interviewee was giving instructions on how to clean smegma.  Which the guy didn’t know about.  If it didn’t change his life, it did change his shower routine.

Secondly, and more importantly, it is not sin!

I was told through written Christian sources that masturbation was selfish, ‘stealing’ from your future/present partner, and would lead to sexual frustration.  Ha, the irony.

Churches should talk about it, but from a more informed position.  Apparently,  the consequential speed of action and shame association that comes from guilt leads to sexual dysfunction in a partnered relationship.  The action itself is neutral.

And what is more selfish: demanding sexual release from a tired/sick/___ partner or getting it yourself?  Or, not getting release and inflicting your hormonally driven rage on your family? 

The only time the Christian literature I read to allowed masturbation was for married women.  They were encouraged find out what felt good so that they could tell their naive husbands what to do.  Enjoyment of self-pleasure was not part of the equation, it was purely educational and needed be done only once, maybe twice.

I wish I had been taught:

– what it was (and that you don’t need a penis to do it)

– that it is normal and healthy

– that it will not ruin a relationship

– that it helps you sleep and can ease menstrual cramps

Perhaps it wouldn’t have changed my life but I probably would have been a little less grumpy.