Blogaround

A golden retriever wearing a Santa hat. Image source.

1. Blessed Be (posted December 6) "As a horny evangelical teen, I knew sex had to wait until marriage. So I wrote soft-core erotica about my wedding night." Yessss I relate to SO MUCH of this.

2. I Want to Have Sex Like… Steve Rogers (in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) (posted 2015) Oooh this is a post theorizing that Steve Rogers is demisexual. I never thought about that before, because his lack of interest in dating/sex in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" felt completely normal and reasonable to me, so I didn't think anything of it. This blogger points out that's not how movie characters typically feel though. Nice.

3. Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S. (posted December 9) [content note: sexual assault]

4. Who Did Leta Say "I Love You" To? | Fantastic Beasts Theory (posted December 11) [content note: spoilers for "Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald"] "On top of all that, it would also give Dumbledore the opportunity to observe sacrificial protection some time in the past, so that in the future he can give Harry a really vague explanation of what happened that night."

5. Talking Back to Conservative Christians as They Attempt to Appropriate #ChurchToo. A Day of Action on Thursday, December 13 (posted December 10) "Is it any surprise, then, that many of us are skeptical that anything good can come from #ChurchToo being addressed by a group of conservative Christians who are deeply invested in holding on to demonstrably harmful evangelical teachings about sex, sexuality, and gender?"

Blogaround

Image text: "Do you want to help me?" "YES!" said Jeff. "YEOS!" said Geoff. Image source.

1. Josh Harris Makes Good (posted October 23) "He admits that he completely made up the concept of giving your heart away, with no basis in scripture or anywhere else."

2. Behind the viral fundraiser: meet the aid group reuniting families (posted October 15) "The not-for-profit group attracted little notice beyond Texas until this year, when almost overnight it became a national focal point for opposition to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, the subject of a major Guardian investigation this week."

3. When They Denied My Baptism: Erica Ferguson (posted October 26) "the reason I couldn’t get baptized was that I would want to tell my full story, of being gay and Christian, and Passion City Church couldn’t do that without taking a stand they weren’t willing to take."

4. 'You Are Safe Now': Matthew Shepard Laid To Rest At National Cathedral (posted October 26) [content note: murder] 

5. Bible Museum says five of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake (posted October 23)

6. ‘God’s point of view’ (posted October 9) "And God’s point of view, the Bible says, is that of a child ripped from its parents and caged behind barbed wire."

7. a second coming out of sorts (posted October 12) "For me, I generally need to spend extended periods of time getting to know someone before I even know if I might like that person or not."

8. Purity Culture and Performative Morality (posted October 29) "In the [evangelical] community, you’re judged according to other people’s perceptions of you. It’s not how you feel about yourself, whether you feel close to God, or whether you experience shame. It’s whether other people perceive you as being close to God, or think you should experience shame based on their observations of things like whether you throw your hands up the right moments, express anger too much, show too much skin, and so on."

9. President Wants to Use Executive Order to End Birthright Citizenship (posted October 30) Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wow hopefully this isn't something he can actually do... hopefully this is just talk... but wow this is bad.

Blogaround

A dog who has helpfully brought you a pillow. Image source.

1. Hi I’m Demisexual. Here’s What That Means (posted May 13) "Growing up, long before I had a word to explain why I felt the way I did, I felt isolated from other guys my age because our sexualities diverged so radically. Pornography never interested me because I felt no attachment to the people having sex on the screen in front of me. I told my best friend, 'Maybe if they made a pornography where the couple was shown to be in an intimate, loving relationship, it might interest me, but why would I want to watch two strangers having sex?'"

2. U.S. Directs Public Schools to Allow Transgender Access to Restrooms (posted May 12) "What you don’t do is go and tell a kid, ‘You know, there is something so freakishly different about you that you make other people uncomfortable, so we’re going to make you do something different’"

3. A Response to Russell Moore's article "The Real Meaning of Transgender Bathrooms" (posted May 13) "She actually spoke the very words I would hope trans people could hear from the church: 'But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.'" Amen.

(also: 7 trans Christian voices worth hearing)

4. What Delilah Deserves (posted May 10) "Seems to me that her options were: betray Samson, get filthy rich; or refuse to cooperate, and seal her and her family’s doom."

5. "How is Your Walk With God?" and Other Questions Jesus Never Asked (posted May 17) "It sounds like an open-ended question at first blush, but it feels to me heavy-laden with expectation. There is a right answer to this question."

6. Scalia’s Death Just Prevented Alabama From Executing A Man (posted May 13)

7. This cat slithering down the stairs