Blogaround

1. The CIA Spread Anti-Vaxx COVID Disinformation (June 22) "In the Spring of 2020, when COVID-19 was killing tens of thousands of people every day, the US military launched an anti-vaccine propaganda campaign in Southeast Asia in order to undermine worldwide trust in China." I posted a link about this last time, but here is another article about it because it's just so bad.

2. That UK Report On Healthcare For Trans Kids Just Gets Eviler And Eviler (June 24) [content note: transmisia, suicide] "While the Cass Report would like you to believe that there are no risks associated with denying GIDS [Gender Identity Development Services] to teens and tweens, as wait times grew, suicides shot up dramatically."

3. Tzlofchad's Daughters and the Master's Tools (June 24, via) "Marginalized people working in oppressive systems do this all the time. It's a survival technique. A strategy."

4. How China Conquered the Dark Side of the Moon (June 25) "China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe has made history by returning to Earth with the first samples collected from the far side of the Moon — a groundbreaking feat that marks a new step forward for the country’s space program."

5. A Sudoku Celebration For Pride Month! (June 26) 31-minute sudoku solve video. It's a sudoku colored like the rainbow flag. Love it~ happy Pride!

6. Former Uvalde school police chief, officer indicted in 1st-ever criminal charges over failed response to 2022 mass shooting (June 28) [content note: school shooting]

7. Supreme Court allows Idaho to offer emergency medical abortions (June 27) "The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 6-3 opinion, temporarily allowed abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho."

8. Biden pardons potentially thousands of ex-service members convicted under now-repealed gay sex ban (June 27) "Biden’s action grants a pardon to service members who were convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125, which criminalized sodomy. The law, which has been on the books since 1951, was rewritten in 2013 to prohibit only forcible acts."

The Great Sex Rescue: Vulnerability

A chef making a chocolate sculpture. Image source.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

---

Let's look at chapter 12 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]. This chapter is called "From Having Intercourse to Making Love" and it's about how to have sex which is passionate- not just doing the steps that fit the definition of having sex, but having it be amazing and intimate and all that.

This chapter talks about how things like shame and lack of trust can hold people back from experiencing that kind of passion during sex. There are anecdotes about women who felt weird about being naked with their husbands. Or felt guilty about things they did and then confessed them to God the next day. Feeling shame about your body, or about your desires and enjoyment of sex. Feeling pressure to do everything the "right" way, instead of just being yourself.

The book says that in order to have "passionate" sex, you have to be able to fully trust your spouse, and you have to be vulnerable and honest with them.

So... What do I want to say about this? First of all, full disclosure, yes, this is exactly what I want sex to be too. It's a concept I definitely got from purity culture, but I still 100% buy into this. This is what I see as the ideal for sex, in my own life- to do it with a partner that you are totally committed to (which means married, or pretty sure you will get married), whom you can totally trust and be totally honest with, and you don't feel any need to put on an act for them, or hide how you feel or who you are.

I'm finding it tricky to write about this, because purity culture says this is what sex IS, this is what it HAS TO BE, and if anyone takes a more casual approach to sex, well that's BAD and WRONG. I don't agree with that. I think people can have casual sex, with someone they're not committed to long-term, and they don't have to be super emotionally intimate, they don't have to tell each other what it means to them and what they're getting out of it, etc. People can have casual sex and that can be a healthy thing for them. Not for *me*; I am very sure I do not want that. But sure, for some people, that can be good and healthy.

(And there are other levels of commitment and trust besides casual sex and "committed for life" sex. I'm not sure about what the right terminology is, but basically yeah you can figure out what you want or don't want.)

And a second aspect of this, where I disagree with purity culture: Purity culture says sex *is* emotionally intimate, it's giving your *self* to another person, the deepest form of connection, etc. That when you get together with another person and do stuff with your genitals, you will necessarily be emotionally intimate with them in a way that will stay with you for the rest of your life. No, I don't agree with this. Sex is not intrinsically, automatically emotionally intimate. To put it a different way, if you feel like "I love my spouse and I want to be more connected with them" and so you have sex, that's not guaranteed to work. Sex isn't a shortcut to intimacy. I've found it *can* be emotionally intimate, but only if you do the work.

What do I mean by "do the work"? I mean things like this: 

1. Unlearning the purity-culture nonsense I internalized about how much men "need" sex and how it would be just so horrible if a man "feels rejected" by his wife, and therefore I can't say no to sex, and I can't speak up during sex if there's something I don't like. In purity ideology, the wife has to make sex a perfect experience for the husband. She must make sure he believes that he's really good at it. She must not bother him by interrupting his amazing experience to request that he care about something she wants. The whole "wifely duty" is about being fake, putting on an act to make sure sex is amazing for the husband. This is the opposite of intimacy. 
2. Giving honest feedback to each other. "I liked when you did [whatever] because it made me feel [whatever]." Yeah super awkward and vulnerable to say that so explicitly. But I want my marriage to be a relationship where we trust and love each other enough to be that honest. (And also, if your partner knows very specifically what you like, they will do it.)

It was really hard for me to "do the work" that I'm talking about here. It really took a long time, because of how much I had internalized the idea that the woman's role is to make sure the man has an amazing experience during sex- if she tries to spend time caring about what feels good for her, or she tells him not to do something because it hurts her, what if that ruins his mood? The sex-ed resources I read emphasized how important communication is, how your partner doesn't really know what feels good for you unless you tell them, and I knew from a scientific perspective that there's no way to improve without making use of detailed, accurate feedback- but wow I always had this feeling telling me it was wrong to say something. It was so hard to get past that. Even though purity culture told me that sex is about being totally intimate and honest with each other, about knowing each other completely, they also very much taught that I need to hide how I feel if it's something negative that might cause the man to enjoy sex less. 

So to sum up, I do have a view of sex where I think it should be about trust, vulnerability, accepting each other, not feeling like you need to hide anything- and I got that from purity culture. But I disagree with purity culture when it says casual sex is always bad and will destroy your life, and I disagree with purity culture when it says that having sex with your spouse [or anyone] is by its very nature emotionally intimate, the highest level of emotionally intimacy you can have.

(Actually, it has been very helpful to me to read sexy fanfiction, where some characters have experience with casual sex, and it can serve as an example of the different ways that people can view sex, and the different feelings people can have about it. It's really good for me to see that it's totally possible to conceptualize sex in ways different from the purity-culture "it's so emotionally intimate, it has to be only in marriage or else the fallout from that level of intimacy will RUIN YOUR LIFE.")

So where does "The Great Sex Rescue" fit into this? Well basically this chapter seems to have the same view I do- that sex in marriage should be about trust and vulnerability (and that's what makes it "passionate"), and that this doesn't happen automatically, but you first have to get rid of shame and the idea that there's something wrong with enjoying sex, and you have to have a partner who totally accepts you. This chapter doesn't say anything about whether or not less-intimate sex can be okay for unmarried people- so, it's not teaching purity culture. It's only talking about sex in marriage. And I do think it's logical to say that a marriage, if it's healthy, should be the sort of relationship where you can trust each other and be totally honest with each other.

All this is to say, I basically agree with what "The Great Sex Rescue" says in this chapter, but also I believe it's fine if people view sex differently than how it's presented here.

---

Okay so those are my thoughts overall on this chapter. But I also want to talk about this quote from page 219:

Three years ago, at a women's small group, Julie's perspective shifted. "One woman led a Bible study where, for the first time, I was told that God wants me to have amazing, mind-blowing sex-- and there was nothing shameful about that!" Over the next few months, Julie combed through Scripture and had an epiphany: "I finally understood that sex was a God-sanctioned way to experience a complete, ecstatic loss of control mixed with intense, overwhelming pleasure. And it completely blew my mind." She took time to process everything she learned, but when it all clicked, Julie announced to [her husband] Greg, "Look, I've never fully given you my whole body. But let's do this-- let's be naked, and let's have some fun."

My first thought reading this was, "uh I've read the bible, and I'm not sure where she's getting that from." Like, you study the bible very carefully, and you discover that it says God wants you to have mind-blowing sex? That just seems very odd to me.

But then I realized, *I* believe that God wants people to life full amazing lives and experience pleasure. This is a really important belief for me, which I wrote about in my post I Deserve God's Love. I had to fight my way out of evangelicalism to get there- this belief is very much opposite everything I was taught about "the gospel"- I was taught that everyone deserves to die and go to hell and suffer forever. (Which is why I'm skeptical that Julie could get there just by very carefully studying the bible- this is an extremely evangelical thing to do.) But now I just marvel at how amazing humans are, how God has created us with the capacity for love and happiness, the ability to create, the ability to experience pleasure- and it's such a beautiful thing when that happens.

So, I realized, maybe Julie also came to the conclusion I did- like Jesus says in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." It's just, I'm asexual, so when I think about living a life full of pleasure and happiness, sex is not one of the things that comes to mind. Maybe for most people, sex is one of the main things they associate with pleasure? Just feels like someone said "I studied the bible, and I realized God wants me to experience the mind-blowing pleasure of making incredibly detailed sculptures out of chocolate." Like, uh, okay if you want to do that, I guess that's cool, but I have no idea where you think it says that in the bible. But maybe it makes sense if it's saying God wants you to have a fulfilling, abundant life, and for most people, sex would need to be a part of that.

---

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue" 

Related:

If A Wife Is Required To Have Sex, That's Not "Intimacy" 

My Husband Is Not The Entire Focus Of My Sex Life

Blogaround

1. Voyager 1 Is Back! NASA Spacecraft Safely Resumes All Science Observations (June 14, via) "After more than six months of long-distance troubleshooting—Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from Earth, and any signal takes more than 22.5 hours to travel from our planet to the spacecraft—mission personnel have finally coaxed Voyager 1 to gather and send home data with all its remaining science instruments, according to a NASA statement." This is so cool!

2. Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic (June 14, via) What the actual ****?! 

If you followed my blog during zero-covid, you know I was really unhappy with how western news organizations were covering the situation in China. (See: WTF, CNN? and Wow, the Anti-China Bias in Western News Media.) This article is about a disinformation campaign that the US created in the Philippines, because China exported vaccines to the Philippines and other Asian countries. So, a different thing than what I was mad about, but it makes me wonder if the biased news reporting on China was more deliberate than I thought.

3. Environmental impact of LLMs (June 16) "This comparison is unimpressive on its face, because a bottle of water is very obviously not that much?"

Also from Siggy: Journal Club: Mental health bias on asexuality, non-monogamy, and BDSM (June 20) "This article summarizes prior research on mental health provider bias for three groups–aces, consensual non-monogamy (CNM) practitioners, and BDSM practitioners–and suggests avenues for future research."

4. US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions (June 17, via) "The government says Adobe pushed consumers toward the 'annual paid monthly' subscription without informing them that canceling the plan in the first year would cost hundreds of dollars."

5. Thailand passes historic bill recognising marriage equality (June 18) Awesome!

6. China to include Australia in visa waiver programme, Premier Li Qiang says (June 18) Good news if you're Australian and want to visit China.

7. Gilead’s twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV succeeds in late-stage trial (June 20, via) "None of the roughly 2,000 women in the trial who received the lenacapavir shot contracted HIV." Great!

8. Maybe They Should Post The 10 Commandments In Mega-Churches? (June 20) [content note: child sexual abuse] "I’m not sure what even the slickest or sleaziest 'crisis management' firm can accomplish here."

9. Hey What If We Let People's Undocumented Husbands And Wives Stay In America? — Joe Biden (June 18) Support all immigrants!

10. Hundreds of Muslim pilgrims died in heat-stricken Hajj (June 21)

11. Pascal's Wager Triangle (June 17) "In contrast to Pascal's Wager Triangle, Pascal's Triangle Wager argues that maybe God wants you to draw a triangle of numbers where each one is the sum of the two numbers above it, so you probably should, just in case."

"Women shouldn't preach" MUST mean "women can't preach"

[content note: Christian misogyny]

So there's this tweet:

Screenshot:

Link: https://twitter.com/haymes_joshua/status/1801036705434128801 

Text:

[tweet by @haymes_joshua, June 13, 2024]

It's not that Women "shouldn't" preach... 

It's that Women "can't" preach. 

To try and have a woman preach is to both misunderstand the nature of women, as well as the nature of preaching. 

Women are not forbidden from a task that they are actually well suited for. 

It's not that they could preach on the Lord's Day if it weren't for those pesky Bibiclal commands which clearly forbid it. 

No. 

It is not in their nature to preach. 

Preaching is not simply a TED talk on a Sunday morning. 

Preaching is quite literally representing Christ, as an under-shepherd to his people, and then preparing the troops for a week of battle. 

It's not that women shouldn't lead men into battle, it's that they can't. 

It's like having a lady come in the locker room and try to get the football team riled up and amped for the second half... That is just simply not their place. And if they were to try, it would just be embarrassing and uncomfortable for everyone. 

Women are different. 

They were made for a peculiarly feminine glory. 

The fact that this is even controversial tells us how captured The Church is by feminism. 

It should not upset women that they cannot do what they were not made to do in the same way that it should not upset men that they cannot give birth to and feed a baby with their body. 

Women often make great orators, teachers, and communicators. There are many powerful examples of this throughout history... BUT preaching is more than teaching, and it requires a masculine gravitas that women simply do not have. 

They have other wonderful glories. 

And those glories are found in submitting to the Biblical vision for womanhood laid out in the pages of scripture.

Okay a few things to say about this:

First of all, this is some guy on twitter with bad opinions. Let's not bother with arguing with him or responding to his "logic." 

Second, the thing I want to talk about in this blog post is this: The way he says this, the way he presents his complementarian viewpoint, this really gets at the core of it in a way that's transparent and honest and I haven't heard before. It's disgusting and misogynistic, obviously, but this is the only way that complementarianism can make any logical sense. If you believe in complementarianism, you have to believe in something this disgusting. (Or you believe in a god who just says women can't be pastors, for literally no reason at all.)

Complementarians always try to spin it in a nice way, like "God made men and women equal, but for different roles!" (By the way, let me give a definition of "complementarianism"- it's the belief that God made men and women different, and therefore men can be leaders in a way that women can't. In a marriage, the husband has to be the "spiritual leader." [Apparently queer people don't exist.] In the church, there are restrictions on what kinds of leadership positions women can have- different complementarians have different ideas about what exactly these restrictions should be.) But no matter what, this ugly sexist crap is the belief behind it. If you believe women can't teach men in the church, that only makes sense if you believe that when a woman stands up in front of the church and says "Christ is risen," that there's something wrong about that. That her femaleness makes it wrong, contaminates it.

I read Haymes's post about how "It's not that Women 'shouldn't' preach... It's that Women 'can't' preach", and it's so disgusting and sexist- but at the same time, this is the logic. What other logic could there possibly be behind complementarianism? A woman can't be a pastor because... because why? What bad thing would happen if a woman were a pastor? It only makes sense if women are just incapable of doing a good job of it. If every single one of the billions of women on earth would do such bad job that in every case it's better to have some kinda-sorta-maybe-qualified man instead.

(But actually, since I just said "billions of women on earth" that reminds me of how many complementarian churches allow women to be missionaries- to be pastors in other countries, but not in their own church. So, uh. What's the logic there? Pretty much just racism... women can't teach *white* men.)

It reminds me of when I was younger, and I believed in complementarianism, because I thought that Christians *have to* believe in it... and I tried so hard to make it make sense. And no one ever gave explicit clear rules- it was just "men are the leaders" but they didn't teach me what exactly that meant- what specific actions women are or aren't allowed to do. Just this very vague "God made men to be the leaders." (Some complementarians do give explicit rules. My church did not.) I wanted answers- what does that mean, that God made me to be led by men? And why? And this whole thing sounds really sexist- someone explain to me how it's not sexist!

And the way Haymes says it is so vile and offensive- but this is the only way complementarianism makes sense. I've never met anyone who said this in such a sexist and disgusting way, but this has to be the belief behind it. Otherwise, God says women can't be leaders because... because why?

---

Related:

Men have no idea what it's like for women in complementarian churches

"Desiring God" says God wants women to be scared of men

"America: A Patriotic Primer" (Kids' Book Review)

Book cover for "America: A Patriotic Primer." Illustration shows kids raising the US flag like they're at Iwo Jima. 

I bought this book for my son, America : A Patriotic Primer [affiliate link] by Lynne Cheney (wife of Dick Cheney). I was at an English-language used-book sale in Shanghai and I saw it and snatched it up. We live in China; where else am I going to find a book for him about what it means to be American?

This is structured as an alphabet book- each page has a letter, like "A is for America." I like that- my kid is in preschool and I'm really working hard on getting him to recognize the letters of the alphabet. ("What letter is this?" "I don't want to say it." "Oh, you don't know it?" "I know it but I don't want to say it. I just want you to read the book!")

---

It's not a preschool-level book but actually I like that

Each page has a very detailed illustration- you could spend a lot of time looking at all the things in these drawings. Also, the amount of text on each page is a bit much for my preschool-level kid. He doesn't have the attention span for that. Usually I just read the first line- like "B is for the Birthday of this nation of ours" and not the rest- "On America's birthday there ought to be 'pomp and parade,' John Adams, our second president, wrote to his wife, Abagail, and 'illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.'" My kid doesn't have any interest in sitting and listening to that. But I like how for now I can just read the first line of each page, and then maybe when he's older, or if he's particularly interested in a certain page, I can read more to him.

Some of the letters are big abstract concepts, like "E is for Equality" and "V is for the Valor shown by those who've kept us free." I don't think my son understands those. 

And some are about historical figures- "J is for Jefferson", "M is for Madison." Important for Americans to learn about, but really boring for a preschool kid.

So basically, *I* like the content of this book, and I want my kid to learn these things, but he's not interested.

The part he was most interested in was a page that shows a map of the US, with various icons all over it, to show what different regions are known for, and there were several cow or buffalo icons in various places. He was SO HERE for those cows. He likes cows.

---

The content

I like the content of this book! It's a good mix of important American concepts, historical figures, and depictions of the diversity of modern Americans. From a feminist/ social-justice/ woke perspective, let me tell you that this book has "K is for King [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.]", "N is for Native Americans, who came here first", and "S is for Suffrage." I'm glad to see that this book includes the idea that being American is about fighting for rights for groups that have been discriminated against. Taking those abstract concepts about freedom and pushing this country to actually live up to them.

I had strong disagreements with 2 letters in the book:

• "G is for God in whom we trust." Oh COME ON. I told my son, this is ridiculous, the book shouldn't say that. I told him, Americans don't have to believe in God. Ugh. The text on that page continues with, "Freedom to worship as they chose brought people to America. Freedom to worship as we choose sustains our country today." So I can see that maybe they're trying to spin it as "freedom of religion is an important concept for Americans" but if that's the goal, it's been worded very badly.
• "Y is for You and all you will be in this greatest of countries, the land of the free." I told my son, LOLLL, the US is NOT the "greatest country." I told him, there isn't really a "greatest country"; everyone has different criteria they use to determine whether one country is better than another. (And honestly, for most people, "this is where I grew up, and all my friends and family live here" is the most important criteria. Which is fine!) I really don't like when people say "The US is the greatest country in the world," because it's always stated like it's just tautologically true. If people said it like "I thought through which criteria are most important to me, and I did research on many different countries, and my conclusion is that the US is the best one," and showed their work, I would be fine with that. But typically when I hear people say "The US is the greatest country in the world" they mean it like "We already know our country is the best, so we're not going to learn from other countries. We're not able to comprehend the reality that there are some problems that we have which other countries don't have. We're not even able to consider the idea that we could make our country better if we followed policies that other countries have."

But maybe this is good for him- it's good for him to see that just because a book says something, doesn't mean it's right. I don't want to carefully censor all his books and only let him read ones that I 100% agree with- that's just a bad strategy. Kids have to learn how to think critically and recognize that sometimes, something is not true.

---

Don't know where to put this in the review, but this book doesn't fit on my son's bookshelf

I need to warn you that this book is unusually wide, it's a big square 10.75 x 10.75 inches. It sticks out if I try to put it on my son's bookshelf. So I keep it on my big bookshelf instead.

---

Conclusion

I'm glad I bought this book; I really like it. My son is a US citizen who doesn't live in the US- how do I teach him what it means to be American? (If you have any book recommendations, let me know! Ah, I just realized that the keyword I should search is "third culture kids.") 

I'm sure my son thinks it's super-boring, though. A lot of the content has no connection to his life- it's really abstract ideas, or historical figures he doesn't care about. Basically, it's the things *I* want him to learn about being American, but he doesn't really care right now. So I'm also looking for books about being American which are more interesting from a preschool-kid perspective.

Blogaround

Hi readers, so recently I thought to myself "hmm is it strange that nobody has left any comments on my blog recently?" and I JUST REALIZED that actually people ARE commenting on my blog, but the email notifications have all been going to spam, oh my goodness. So sorry that I haven't read and replied to y'all's comments. I really do appreciate getting comments. I am working on going through and reading all the ones I missed.

---

1. Antichrist Clarification Hotline (June 2, via) "Do I think my governor and both my United States Senators and my representative in my House of Representatives have succumbed to a spirit of antichrist when they tweet calls to prayer and Bible verses and hop on their official government social media accounts to target brave jurors in New York City? I do. I really do."

2. Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery (2022) 1-hour-31-minute youtube video. This is incredible. It's a deep dive into the branding of Disney Channel in the early 2000s. I watched a lot of Disney Channel back then- this is nostalgic and also it's a fascinating look at how history is preserved.

3. "Seldom Typical of Anything": An Ace Reading of Stefan Uccello's Blood Bond with Mercy Thompson (June 10) "Vampire bites resonate with ace experiences through their simultaneous intimacy and asymmetry. In its most classical form, a vampire bite is one-sided: the vampire desires and bites a living person who does not innately reciprocate those desires. This parallels the relationship that some aces have to sex."

4. What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment? (June 11, via) It's good that people are researching the environmental impact of generative AI and writing articles about it, but also, I don't really have any sense of how significant these things are. 

The article says, "She and her colleagues calculated that the large language model BLOOM emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to 19 kilograms of CO₂ per day of use, or the amount generated by driving 49 miles in an average gas-powered car. They also found that generating two images with AI could use as much energy as the average smartphone charge. Others have estimated in research posted on the preprint server arXiv.org that every 10 to 50 responses from ChatGPT running GPT-3 evaporate the equivalent of a bottle of water to cool the AI’s servers." So... is that bad? 19 kg of CO₂, is that a lot? I get that having more and more CO₂ in the atmosphere is bad because it causes climate change, but is 19 kg a big deal or not?

Same thing with the water for cooling the servers- how much of a big deal is that?

5. What Happens to a Dream Deferred? (June 6) "When did standing up for DACA stop being 'the right thing to do'?" Very concerned about this. I support all immigrants.

6. Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion pill accessibility (June 13, via) "By a unanimous vote, the court said the anti-abortion doctors who brought the challenge had failed to show they had been harmed, as they do not prescribe the medication, and thus, essentially, had no skin in the game." Good news~

Welcome Baby Wavelength!

Baby onesie that says "New in town." Image source.

Hi readers, I am excited to announce the birth of my little baby girl! For the purposes of the blog, we will say her name is Wavelength.

She is a really amazing baby! I have 2 kids now; it's so great having 2 kids.

If you are like "wait, did I miss something? I didn't know Perfect Number was pregnant," don't worry, you didn't miss anything- I was pregnant but didn't mention it on my blog. But now baby is here! Ta da! Very excited!

Here's the song "Good Morning Beautiful." She makes me feel like this~

---

Related:

Welcome Baby Square Root!

Take the 2024 Ace Community Survey

Image for the 2024 Ace Community Survey, which has the link for the survey. 

Heyyyyy the Ace Community Survey is open!

The 2024 Ace Community Survey is now open

The Ace Community Survey is run by the Ace Community Survey Team in collaboration with Northwestern University.  It collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities.

Click here to take the 2024 Ace Community Survey: 

https://redcap.nubic.northwestern.edu/redcap/surveys/?s=8HDXK4337TPJ8JHP or https://tinyurl.com/AceSurvey2024

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or still questioning. As long as you are 15 years of age or older, we want to hear from you! 

You will be able to view any published results from the survey at https://acecommunitysurvey.org. If you would like to receive an automatic email update when new results or announcements are posted, you can subscribe here.

And happy Pride, everyone~

"Desperate for God"

Image text: "Chorus: And I / I'm desperate for you / And I / I'm lost without out (x2)" Image source.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

- Matthew 11:28-30

---

Here's a recent post from Sheila Wray Gregoire, Valentine's Day: What If Marriage Isn't Supposed To Be That Hard?, which raises the idea that maybe the women who write books about marriage do so specifically because they are in bad marriages and they're trying to cope. (The post also argues against the "marriage is hard" concept. I totally agree with Gregoire here- very not cool how people always say "marriage is hard." Then if you're in an abusive marriage, you will think that's normal because "marriage is hard." My marriage is not hard!)

Here's a quote from the post:

When a woman in a destructive marriage who is a good writer and has communication skills needs to process what she’s going through, and speaking opportunities are open for her, and then soon book deals, it’s natural that these women will write about relationship advice. And so it shouldn’t be surprising if our marriage advice is disproproportionately written/given by women in destructive marriages.

...

I’m not saying that writers write deliberately to process their situations. I’m saying that when you’re in the midst of an untenable situation, and you’re desperate to make sense of it, you tell yourself fervently a lot of stuff about God. And teaching it becomes another way to prove to yourself that everything is actually okay and you’re fine. 

Wow, this is a really fascinating hypothesis. What if, in Christian culture, the writers who are seen as authorities on "how to have a godly marriage" disproportionately have unhealthy marriages? What if the women in unhealthy marriages are doing a lot of very hard work to convince themselves that everything's okay, and to keep obeying "God's" commands about submitting to their husbands, and because they are doing so much work, and they're so dedicated to it, they are the ones who end up being seen as "experts" on marriage. 

Whereas, the people in normal healthy marriages just kind of spend their time being normal people, and there's not really much to say about how they "make their marriage work" because it just works. So they don't write books about it.

I wanted to blog about this because it reminded me of myself, back when I was in college and I was "desperate for God" and believed that was a good thing that made me a good Christian role model. My "personal relationship with God" was, how shall I put this, unhealthy, and that's why everyone saw me as such a good and dedicated Christian. (Similar to how women in bad marriages end up being seen as the experts on marriage.)

We were always talking about how we "need" God. We need God more than anything- more than food, air, anything. Yeah it may not feel that way, but that's the reality, we said. And I felt like... it's quite hard to actually believe such a statement- "I need God more than anything else"- and the people who were the very very best Christians truly believed and internalized it, whereas the not-so-good Christians just lived like... not feeling a constant need and desperation.

I believed that this was the reality, even though it doesn't feel true at all. And that being a good Christian was about working myself into a state where I truly felt like I needed God more than anything. Constantly feeling like I'm barely holding on, I need to pray more, I need God, I need to feel that God is with me. I'm a sinner and if I ever feel like I'm fine, rather than feeling desperate and panicked over the status of my relationship with God, well, that would be bad.

(I should point out here that "we need God" doesn't logically have to lead to "we should constantly feel panicked about our need for God." What if we need God, but we always have God, there's no risk that God will disappear- "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." What if we need God, but that need is met all the time, regardless of what we believe or feel or do? "In him we live and move and have our being." This is what I believe now. But evangelical Christianity very much teaches that it's not okay to just not be aware of God/ not believe in God. And it's not okay to take it for granted that God is there. You have to always walk a very fine line of being perfect and not sinning, always thinking about God and how unworthy you are, always dedicating all of your energy to the impossible task of truly knowing God.)

I remember hearing a sermon once, on John 21. This is after Jesus' death, when his disciples went out fishing, and they didn't catch any fish, and then the resurrected Jesus showed up and told them to throw their net on the other side of the boat, and then they miraculously caught a LOT of fish. The pastor who was preaching this sermon emphasized how the disciples couldn't do anything without Jesus. The disciples were fishermen, and they went fishing, and they caught NOTHING. Because they thought they could do it themselves. They didn't know that they could not do anything at all, without Jesus. And the lesson for us was, we may think that we're good at something, we may be confident in our abilities, but we shouldn't be, because actually we can't do anything at all. Without God, we can't even do the most basic things- fishermen can't even catch a single fish- and we should never lose sight of that.

That sermon really stuck with me- and I think that's because I'm just generally more prone to having anxiety issues. Maybe other Christians wouldn't take it this way... but I took it to mean that being closer to God (which is what I should be striving for) meant being in a constant state of anxiety. Like everything is a crisis which could have eternal significance. At any moment I might sin- like, for example, having a selfish thought- and that would be an infinite offense against a holy God, and I should feel terrible, and Jesus died because of me, etc. At any moment, God might give me a chance to "share the gospel" with someone- someone who's in extreme danger of going to hell- and I needed to always be watching for those chances.

And if you ever feel confident, like "yeah I know what I'm doing, I'm good at this" and you're not thinking about how you can do NOTHING without God, well, God is going to sabotage your efforts, to teach you a lesson.

It wasn't just that one sermon, of course. I always heard evangelicals talk about how we "need God." There are SO MANY worship songs we sang in church that had that theme: "And I / I'm desperate for you / And I / I'm lost without you." "I'm falling on my knees / Offering all of me / Jesus you're all this heart is living for." "I need Thee / oh I need Thee / Every hour I need Thee." And like I said, maybe I interpreted them in this way because of my own mental health/ anxiety issues. Maybe other Christians didn't take them to mean the ideal is to be in a constant state of desperation. But my obsession, my ever-present desire to be "closer to God", that's what my faith was about, and I do think people viewed me as a good devoted Christian role model because of that.

I didn't know anything at all about mental health back then. I definitely had no awareness of the concept of "maybe if something is stressing you out all the time, it's bad." Heaven and hell were at stake, I couldn't waste time thinking about my emotional state. It's logical to be stressed out all the time, because there are always people in danger of going to hell, and I need to help as many as I can.

One thing I did a lot of in college was start bible study groups with non-Christians. I was really good at it, actually. Thinking back on it now, I'm like "wait, how did I convince my non-Christian friends to read the bible with me?" but yeah I really did. But oh my goodness it stressed me out SO MUCH. And I worked so hard, trying to do all these things that "God" wanted me to do, trying to trust that God was working and my efforts made a difference... dealing with all the emotions that came from this and laundering them into lessons about what God was "teaching me" and how it helped me be closer to God.

For example:

I started a bible study group at a fraternity house. Please note, I am a girl, I was not in this fraternity, I was just friends with a lot of the brothers. I enlisted 2 of the brothers who were Christians to help me promote it. At the first meeting of the bible study group, 1 of the 2 didn't come. And I was mad about that- I felt like, "he doesn't understand how hard it is to start a bible study- he should be here to support me on the first night." But then after thinking about it more, and praying about it, I decided I shouldn't be mad at him- he is free to help me or not. He didn't do anything wrong. And chalked it up to God teaching me to trust Him more, or something.

The reality of it was- and if I were more aware of my emotions, I would have been able to realize this- I felt so self-conscious and embarrassed, trying to invite people to my bible study. I felt so worried about whether anyone would actually come or not. But in evangelicalism, there was no way for me to process those emotions. All I had was the framework that "I'm doing what God wants me to do, so I have to stay strong."

As I continued doing this fraternity house bible study, I sometimes felt unhappy because not many people came. So I prayed about that, and came to the conclusion that my role is to offer this bible study, to the people who want it, and if they don't want it, that's okay. I'm at least doing my part, I'm doing a good thing, and if I resented the fraternity brothers who didn't attend, then that wouldn't be a good thing. And I felt that was a meaningful thing that God was teaching me.

Looking back at it now, I feel like... it would have been much better for my mental and emotional health if I weren't always doing evangelism and trying to start bible studies. It was so stressful for me all the time- but at the time, I would have said "it's hard but it's worth it." (Just like all the Christian leaders who will tell you that marriage is so hard but it's worth it.) Because I loved the feeling that I was working for God and doing important things. Life was an exciting adventure. There was always a crisis, and it was so exciting to feel like I was clinging to God to get through it. That's what a "personal relationship with God" is supposed to be, right?

Our campus Christian group had "evangelism training" sessions where we were very explicitly told to NOT care about these mental health concerns (though obviously they didn't use the term "mental health"). They said if you don't want to do evangelism because you feel awkward / because you're worried about alienating your friends / because you don't know what to say- well you should just repress all those feelings because PEOPLE ARE GOING TO HELL and isn't that more important than your fears of being awkward?

I believed that the best Christians were the ones who not only claimed to believe in the talking points about how everyone who's not "saved" is in incredible danger of going to hell, but who truly deeply believed that, so much so that they could constantly feel the danger, feel it as real and palpable, all around them, threatening their friends all the time. They would be constantly driven to do evangelism and push people toward "getting saved" as much as they could.

(In other words, being close to God causes you to have an anxiety disorder, and that's the ideal you should be striving for.)

And I remember one time, one of my friends told me that she was going to be doing a bible study with a friend of hers who was not a Christian. And I was very happy for her, and gave her some advice. And one of the things I said was, you're going to learn more about God by doing this. I was thinking of my own struggles, trying to handle my feelings surrounding how my bible study wasn't going as well as I wanted, and the way I clung to God through it and believed that God was teaching me. 

And that's what I thought of when I read Gregoire's blog post. The idea that I had useful advice to give someone, because I had been pushing myself to do things I didn't want to do, which weren't really healthy for me. And other Christians who had better mental health wouldn't have been seen as role models with good advice.

So... So where am I now? Well now my faith is completely different. I'm ex-evangelical, and I don't believe in hell. It's just indescribable, how good it feels to stop believing in hell. I don't have to constantly worry about the eternal fate of every random person I meet. I can just interact like a normal person. 

I'm still a Christian- and I'm really happy about being a Christian. I don't have a "personal relationship with God" and I don't want to ever again- it was just way too much stress. Evangelicals always say the word "gospel" means "good news"- well now I believe in a Christianity which actually is good news.

I'm not "desperate for God" now. I no longer believe being a Christian is about maintaining a constant state of anxiety.

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Related:

This is what a "personal relationship with God" looks like. Be very afraid. 

With God, Everything is a Battle and You Can't Just Leave 

My Identity was in Christ 

The things I've never let myself say about evangelism 

"Marriage Is Hard" 

Used By God

God of Bad Snaps

What Feminism Taught Me About Saving the World

Blogaround

1. Esther Hamori, God’s Monsters (April 30, via) "It may make you uncomfortable, but that is because the portrait of God and God’s army of henchmen has been so sanitized and domesticated that hearing someone speak about it so honestly and clearly is at times shocking." This is a review of the book "God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible." Wow I really want to read this!

2. China's Chang'e 6 spacecraft lands on far side of the moon to collect samples (June 2) Cool!

3. California evangelical seminary ponders changes that would make it more welcoming to LGBTQ students (May 27, see also the Slacktivist's comments about it here) Fuller Theological Seminary is considering possibly maybe changing their policies and *not* expelling any students found to be in a same-sex relationship. I mean, it's a step in the right direction, I guess, but it just shows how behind evangelicals are. Like why is this even an issue? 

4. Biden's new immigration order restricts asylum claims along the border. Here's how it works. (June 4, via) "President Biden on Tuesday unveiled new executive action authorizing U.S. immigration officials to deport large numbers of migrants without processing their asylum claims, announcing what is arguably the most restrictive border policy by a Democratic president in recent history." Wow, not cool.

Womanist Midrash

Book cover for "Womanist Midrash." Image source.

I started reading the book Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne [affiliate link], by Wilda C. Gafney, and I LOVE IT. This is how I want to read the bible. This is so good.

Let me explain what "womanist midrash" means:

• Womanism is basically feminism from a black perspective. It prioritizes black women's experiences.
• Midrash is the historical Jewish tradition of writing fanfic about the bible. You may know that I also write fanfic about the bible and it makes me so happy. Turns out this is a tradition with a very long history.

The book goes through the stories of women in the bible- laying out the whole story of what the bible says about them (not leaving out the ****ed-up parts like we do in church), discussing ancient Hebrew words and how they should be translated, and asking questions about how the characters felt, and about other aspects which were ignored by the biblical authors.

I am so here for this! This is SO how I read the bible- except Gafney is an actual biblical scholar who has studied Hebrew, so she has a lot of in-depth knowledge about the language and how English translations don't quite capture the meaning. 

Right out of the gate, the book starts with talking about Genesis 1, when God created the world, and it says in Hebrew, the word "God" is masculine but "spirit of God" is feminine. YESSSSSSS I love this. (And Gafney doesn't use pronouns for God in this book.)

Then there is a section for each woman character. Some of them are well-known, like Eve, and some of them are obscure characters that no one talks about in church. I love this! Let's talk about the obscure ones! A lot of WEIRD stuff in the bible, but in church we streamline these stories down into simple lessons about morality. Gafney's book doesn't do that. She talks about every aspect of these characters' stories, even the really weird stuff, and the focus is on understanding what they experienced and how they felt, and aspects of their lives which are similar to things that happen in our world now (with a particular emphasis on black women).

For example, there's the section on Adah and Zillah. You may be saying, "who?" We find these 2 women in Genesis 4, which is about the descendants of Adam and Eve. The bible says that Adah and Zillah were the 2 wives of Lamech. This is the first example of polygamy in the bible.

Now, when I've seen Christians talk about this story before [if they ever mention it at all], mainly they say something like this: "God made Adam and Eve, and that was the ideal for marriage- 1 man and 1 woman. But look, we're here in Genesis 4 and already people are straying from God's plan. Lamech had 2 wives, and that is BAD." Like it's just a simple morality lesson for us about "monogamy is good, polygamy is bad." And that's it. And nobody cares about how Adah and Zillah felt.

Well, Gafney cares about how Adah and Zillah felt. Yes! 

And, Gafney asks questions about how to think about relationships in the bible which English translations typically call "marriage." Actually, she says, the bible doesn't use the words husband/wife/marriage when talking about Adam and Eve. She is very very careful with her translations. And check out this part:

Should unions that encompass polygamy and permit sexual access to abducted women, slaves, sex-workers, non-Israelite women, and widows without sanction be called "marriage," as the term has come to be used? Should they be called something else?

How did Adah and Tzillah feel about this new social structure Lamech invents? Was their participation voluntary? What did God think about this new development? Why is God silent on this development in the text? Since neither God nor the text critiques the practice, is it permissible? Is it simply a matter of human volition? Does this text mean marriage, coupling, or partnering, by whatever name, is ultimately just a human, social construction?

Yes! These are all questions we should be asking! Not simply taking our modern understanding of what marriage is, and assuming that's what it meant for Adam and Eve, and that's what it should mean for everyone, and that's what it means when the bible says "marriage."

I remember when I was a kid, reading the bible, reading about how Sarah wanted her husband Abraham to impregnate her slave Hagar- and I was thinking about how that's wrong because sex is only supposed to be in marriage. But then I read in the bible, "Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife." And I was like "... to be his wife? So... so... so then Hagar and Abraham are married, so that makes it okay. ...?" And thinking about how I had been taught that sex is only for marriage, and if you have sex outside of marriage then that's bad, because you form a lifelong emotional connection to someone when you have sex, but since you're not married then you end up breaking up and you're sad forever, and you're "impure" in your next relationship... But if Hagar was Abraham's "wife" then you wouldn't have to be concerned about those things, so... that means it's okay? 

It's about the definition of "marriage", and the weird belief that if you call something "marriage" then it's a good and healthy relationship. What it actually was, though, is Sarah and Abraham mistreating Hagar, using her body for their own purposes. There was no consent; nobody cared what Hagar thought. Doesn't matter if you call it "marriage"- it's still wrong. (And "Womanist Midrash" has some really interesting stuff to say about intersectionality and privilege and how Sarah used Hagar, rather than women standing together and supporting each other.)

As I was reading this book and enjoying it, I thought to myself, this is a book specifically about the women in the bible, and normally I don't like that kind of thing. You know, church women's groups are always like "let's study the story of Esther" and I roll my eyes at that so much. Oh, we're women so we should read the bible stories about women. I always felt like, uh I want to read the whole bible, why should we limit ourselves to Esther and Ruth? (Because honestly, when they talk about studying the women in the bible, it's basically just Esther and Ruth. Oh and Proverbs 31.) And also, shouldn't Christian men read about Esther and Ruth too? I'm really not into this "the women's group is gonna read about the women" stuff. So what's different about Gafney's book?

The difference is, "Womanist Midrash" is examining these women's experiences from a feminist perspective, paying special attention to issues that specifically applied to women- like sexual violence, not having a choice in whom to marry, having your worth tied to your fertility, etc. It's not like those church study groups which talk about "Esther was a role model who had courage, and therefore we should have courage"- parsing the story into some lesson that we should apply to our lives, and that's it. I mean, if we want to talk about Esther from a feminist perspective, we could talk about how she came from an immigrant family, how she didn't have a choice in marrying the king, what it would be like to be in the huge harem of women who had sex with the king 1 time and then he may or may not ever be interested in them again (and maybe we need some F/F fanfic about this), how all these young women were brought in and whichever one sexually pleased the king most would be the new queen, what would it be like to know that was your objective during sex, and how would you prepare for it, and then after she became queen, she wasn't even allowed to talk to the king unless he called for her, and can you even call that a marriage, etc etc etc. (These are my own ideas, I don't know if the book "Womanist Midrash" talks about Esther or not. I'm still in the beginning chapters.)

Also, when I say midrash is fanfic, I'm not exaggerating. It's fanfic. And for some of these bible characters, Gafney even writes her own midrash. Here's one from the section on Rachel:

Rachel and Leah were ordinary sisters. They had largely separate lives. Leah preferred indoor life, and Rachel preferred outdoor life. Neither was much interested in marriage. Following the rules of the household established by Milcah, their great-grandmother, whose name their grandfather Bethuel ben Milcah bore, they were asked if they would marry each time a suitor came forward, as their aunt Rivqah [Rebekah] had been asked. And each time they said no. They said no to their brothers and cousins. They said no to intrafamily unions. They said no to the neighbors and to strangers. They said no to unions outside of their family.

Then one day their cousin Ya'aqov [Jacob] came to town looking for a woman from their family, his family. Their father said one of them would have to marry him. Auntie Rivqah would not take no for an answer. Ya'aqov asked for Rachel and offered seven years of his labor in exchange for her. She spent the seven years getting to know him, but she never came to love him. He turned to Leah to help him win her over. The more he pursued her, the less interested she became. The more time he spent with Leah, the more she came to love him.

When the time for the wedding feast and consummation came, Leah and Rachel agreed to switch places and told their father what they had decided. They waited until deepest night and put out all the lamps in the wedding tent. Leah hoped that Ya'aqov would realize that [it] was she whom he truly loved. Ya'aqov was angry and disappointed. He demanded Rachel. Lavan [Laban] tried to dissuade him. Rachel hoped he would give up, but he stayed another seven years. Ya'aqov's pursuit of Rachel broke Leah's heart. The love she held for him and for her sister soured. When Rachel finally consented to marry Ya'aqov, she was at the end of her childbearing years. He did not care. He wanted her, and finally he had her. That Rachel still did not want him and that he never wanted Leah wounded Leah deeply. Leah carried that hurt to her grave. She held on to and acted out of her deep hurt. She was never reconciled to her sister.

Wow, interesting! Some of that is in the bible; a lot of it is not. Very cool how occasionally in this book, we get midrash written by Gafney. Also I'm fascinated by the fan theory that Rachel didn't love Jacob.

(Also I love how this book makes no attempt to cover up all the incest going on in the book of Genesis.)

Another awesome thing about this book is that Gafney uses Muslim sources. Yes, many of these bible characters, like Abraham, are also important for Muslims, and there have been Muslim scholars writing about these characters (and writing fanfic on them) for hundreds of years. I love how "Womanist Midrash" brings in ideas about these bible characters from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, and treats them all as useful. This is really astounding to me- wow, other people exist besides Christians, and they have ideas worth listening to! You normally don't see that in Christian books.

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far on this book. I'm very excited about it, and wanted to share this on my blog, though I don't really think I can do it justice because it's so good. This is EXACTLY how I want to read the bible.

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Posts about the book "Womanist Midrash" by Wilda C. Gafney:

Womanist Midrash 
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus 
The Second-Worst Bible Story

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Related:

No One Can Take The Bible From Me 

Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible 

The Worst Bible Story 

Bathsheba's Son 

Reading US History Inerrantly (first post in my blog series on James Cone's book, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree")

Some of my bible fanfics:

Mary's Choice

Strange Fire 

Love Wins (an Ezra fanfic) 

Noah's Evangelism

34 Counts (tweet roundup)

Image text: "Trump is a convicted felon" stylized like it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Image source.

Heyyyy big news, Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts!

I saw a few fun tweets about it so I want to post them here:

‘Home Alone 2: Lost In New York’ star Donald Trump has been found guilty of 34 felony counts. pic.twitter.com/9PuYnLAaNb

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 30, 2024

Let’s do this. As I’ve said in the past, nothing makes a statement on important news close to the newspaper front page. Across America, almost every editor went with the simple fact, “Guilty.”
Let’s start with the biggest circulation. /1 pic.twitter.com/7i2Ab6daW4

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) May 31, 2024

pic.twitter.com/KnytbeLFlY

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) May 30, 2024

New Yorkers 🌊 pic.twitter.com/WiZfEsf6hY

— Meidas_Charise Lee (@charise_lee) May 31, 2024

you just can't falsify multiple business documents anymore due to woke

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) May 30, 2024

COUNT WITH ME!
AH 1
AH 2
AH 3
AH4
AH 5
6
7
8
9
10 YES 10
11
AH AH AH AHHHH
12
13
14
15
AH 16
AH 17
COUNT 18 YES 18
19
20
21
22
23 AH AH AH AHHHHH
24
25
26
27 COUNT 27 ALMOST THERE
28
29
30 *thunder rumble*
31
32
33
34 THAT'S RIGHT 34 AH AH AH AHHHHHHH https://t.co/t8wq39c0kz pic.twitter.com/RjsYOEMFtn

— Sassington, M.C. (@MissSassbox) May 30, 2024

Outside of Donald Trump’s building in NYC right now pic.twitter.com/L7HKeRCMDD

— Global Press (@GlobalPressCorp) May 30, 2024

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Related:

Dance, Those Who Dance Upon Injustice (dancing in the streets after the 2020 election)