Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple" (2006)

Let's do an episode of #PerfectNumberWatchesVeggietales ! Today I'll be live-tweeting "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple" (2006) https://t.co/v40xg111bg

— Perfect Number (@pnumber628) 2019年4月14日

"How Far Is Too Far?" My Story, And What I Wish I'd Known

Hercules and Meg kiss. Image source.

Christian teenagers always want to know "How far is too far?" which means "I know I'm not allowed to have sex before marriage, but, like, what exactly am I allowed to do?" Typically, youth pastors are very vague about answering this- they like to say things like "you shouldn't be asking that question, you shouldn't want to know exactly where 'the line' is just so you can go right up to it. Instead you should be focused on honoring God in your relationships." And I hate that answer. It's not helpful at all. It meant I was constantly terrified whenever I was dating someone and just *had no idea* if holding hands with him was a huge sin that would ruin my life.

I now know that the REAL ANSWER to "How far is too far?" is that you need to be aware of how physical closeness affects you emotionally, and keep the emotional closeness at a level that's consistent with how committed you are to each other and how much you believe you can trust your partner. The connection between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy is going to be different for everyone, so it's important to know yourself and be honest about what you feel, and communicate with your partner- don't assume that they connect physical and emotional intimacy in the same way you do.

Or, to put it another way: If kissing is going to make you fall in love, then make sure you only kiss someone who's worth falling in love with. But of course initially, when you have no experience, you don't know if kissing will make you fall in love or not. It's fine to go ahead and try kissing, and if you realize that it pulls you in to emotions that are way too deep and therefore not fitting to your situation, then you back off. It might hurt, but you'll be okay. No long-term harm done.

See? THAT'S the answer. But I never heard ANYTHING like that from any Christian teaching about relationships. I figured it out my damn self.

So in this post I want to talk about my own experiences with the connection between physical and emotional closeness. To give concrete examples to this principle I've given as the answer to "how far is too far."

All right. Here we go.

So my first romantic relationship was when I was a freshman in college. We will refer to my boyfriend as BF 1. (I'm straight, all the romantic interests in my story are boys.) A bit of background about what brand of purity culture I was in back then: It was a confusing and badly-defined strand of purity culture, influenced by my parents, who believe in "premarital sex is a sin, but dating and kissing are fine, those are normal things that teenagers do", and Brio magazine, which promoted the I-Kissed-Dating-Goodbye, be-terrified-you-are-losing-your-emotional-purity-because-you-have-a-crush strand of purity culture. At the time, I did not realize that they didn't agree- I thought that all Christian role models in my life believed in "the biblical view" of dating [or rather, I thought there was actually such a thing as "the biblical view" of dating], and I was trying to figure out how to reconcile all these different pieces of advice into one consistent ideology. Poor little Perfect Number, she tried so hard, but she couldn't make the pieces fit. And so she was scared. She didn't know if dating was a sin or not. She didn't know if holding hands was a sin or not. She didn't know if kissing was a sin or not. And so she was scared when she did those things with BF 1.

I dated him even though I didn't really think it was a good idea. See, he wasn't a Christian, so I knew that meant we couldn't get married; I knew someday we would have to break up. (Ahem, spoiler: I am now married and my husband is not a Christian.) I dated BF 1 because I was boy-crazy and just FULL of romantic attraction and I needed an outlet for it.

The narrative I'd been given by purity teaching was that people do romantic and sexual things because they "can't control themselves" when under the influence of "temptation." So I thought it was perfectly normal that I was overwhelmed with romantic attraction and choosing to be in a probably-sinful relationship that I didn't really think I should be in. That's how it works, right? Just like how nobody *wants* to have premarital sex, it just kind of *happens* when a couple is alone at night and they "stumble" because of "temptation." What choice did I have? If I wasn't dating BF 1, then I would just be single and boy-crazy with nowhere for all those FEELINGS to go.

And I told him that too. I told him I'm not really sure that our relationship is a good thing, and that someday we'll have to break up because he's not a Christian.

Huh. I guess I didn't treat him right. But I didn't realize it at the time. Yes, of course I learned in church that we should be kind and empathetic towards other people, but apparently when it comes to dating relationships, the rules are totally different. Instead of loving my partner, I'm supposed to view him with suspicion and fight him when he tries to "take" my "purity." I didn't think about how the things I said might hurt him, because purity culture taught me that boys don't really have feelings, they just want to use girls for sex. Especially non-Christian boys.

Anyway, I eventually decided- after a lot of prayer and worrying- that I was going to kiss him. Because I really wanted to. I was very attracted to him. So anyway, then one night we spent a bunch of quality time kissing. He used the term "making out" to refer to what we were doing, and I was terrified. Because one time I read an article in Brio addressing the question "Making out isn't as bad as sex, right?" and it said that making out was bad. I didn't know what making out was though- I assumed it was something that would feel more sexual and sinful. So I was extremely worried when BF 1 informed me that we had been making out.

See? That's the kind of fear I was working with back then. It was all about uncertainty and vaguely-defined terms, so I never really knew if I was sinning or not.

Oh, and when we were kissing, I made sure not to open my mouth at all, so we couldn't poke our tongues at each other. Because years earlier, a good Christian adult told me that was bad. I remember I asked "besides the fact that that's gross, what is the reason that one shouldn't kiss with tongue?" and she said because it "gets him going" and then it would be hard for the boy to stop.

Thinking about it now, I guess she meant it could make the guy get an erection. Ugh, this bothers me so much- if you mean "erection" you should just say "erection", not these vague euphemisms that 13-year-old Perfect Number definitely doesn't understand. She didn't know what an erection was either, back then ... so follow it up with a definition and we're good.

The point is, I made sure our tongues were NOT involved in this kissing at all, because somebody said it was bad. I didn't really know why, but I just knew it was bad.

(Oh also: It wasn't until I started reading feminist blogs that I found out this stuff about "don't kiss with your tongue because then a guy might not be able to stop himself from having sex with you" is total BS. Guys can stop. It's called "consent" and "being a decent human being" and "not being a rapist." Purity culture said that was WAY too high a standard to hold a guy to. Eff that.)

Anyway. So. We were kissing, and it felt AMAZING.

I definitely felt emotionally closer to him because of the kissing. I asked him, "Does kissing make you like me more?" He said, "Well, it makes me like you more in a physical way, but I try to ignore that." I didn't understand what he meant, perhaps something along the lines of temptation to have sex, but I hardly dared to even hypothesize in that direction. Sex was a scary, life-destroying monster that lived far far away from the normal, mundane events of my life. It was unimaginable that something so awful might be in any way associated with my nice sweet relationship with BF 1.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if he meant his genitals were getting aroused. (Ha, we are talking about erections again.) Hmm. Who knows. I certainly never ever thought about his genitals.

On a related note, it turns out I'm asexual. Yeah, the question of whether I would be interested in having sex with BF 1 never crossed my mind. But I still feared it, feared that it would *just happen* if we were alone in his dorm room.

Anyway, he said kissing didn't make him "like me more" in an emotional way, and I chalked it up to boys being heartless. Because how can someone kiss like that and not feel their heart opening up, feel an overwhelming desire to just adore and cherish their partner?

I tried to explain to him about how hugging and cuddling with an attractive boy would make me like that boy more, and BF 1 was pretty much appalled and said "so if some random guy comes up and hugs you, you're suddenly going to be in love with him?" To him, it sounded like I was so shallow, to base such big important feelings on something as superficial as physical contact. To me, it sounded like he was so shallow, to be capable of experiencing physical affection- taking a girl's purity!- without being emotionally affected by it. I wondered what the heck was wrong with him.

I remember one time I told BF 1 about an advice column I read in Brio, where somebody wrote in to say "I was worried my boyfriend would break up with me, so I had sex with him, but he STILL broke up with me, can you believe it" and the answer from the Brio writer was "yeah see this is why you shouldn't have premarital sex, because boys can't be trusted to value it the way they're supposed to." BF 1 was baffled- I think he even laughed- why would this girl think that having sex would make her boyfriend not break up with her? Why would those things be connected at all? Again, I chalked it up to boys being heartless.

Because purity culture taught me that the correct way to connect sex and love is this: Sex means lifelong love and lifelong commitment- ie, marriage. That's what sex is. That's what sex means. And if anyone disagrees with that- like, for example, if they are fine with having sex with someone they don't intend to stay with forever- then they are a BAD PERSON.

But I now see it doesn't have to be that way. Sex can mean different things to different people. You can't assume anything about how it will make your partner feel or what it will mean to them, and that's why YOU HAVE TO COMMUNICATE. TALK. Nobody is a "bad person" because of the emotions their body does or doesn't produce during sex. (Or kissing, or cuddling, or whatever.) COMMUNICATE. Keep your emotions and expectations grounded in reality.

Anyway, back to my story about me and BF 1 and our kissing. So, the kissing felt so sweet and perfect to me, and it felt like we would be together forever. It really felt like that. But my mind said whoa whoa whoa whoa, this is not right, we can't be together forever because he's not a Christian.

So a few days after our first kiss, I put a stop to it. I knew it wasn't right. It made me feel things that weren't true.

And that was a good decision. See, this is what I mean about "the answer to 'how far is too far' is to keep your emotions matching the reality of the situation."

But let me tell you something. If it weren't for the "I can't marry a non-Christian" issue, I would have 100% believed that, because of the way we kissed, it meant we were going to get married.

Wow, how naive and ridiculous, right? Like, over here in reality, marriage is a HUGE BIG DEAL, a huge decision that will affect you for the entire rest of your life, and you have to spend time thinking about it rationally before you make that kind of decision. But in purity culture, marriage is always the next logical step after any romantic or sexual closeness. The alternative would be breaking up and losing part of your heart, and that's too scary to think about. So if it weren't for the "I can't marry a non-Christian" thing, it would have felt perfectly logical to me that kissing would so easily indicate that this is "the one", my "future husband."

So anyway, I told BF 1 we can't kiss anymore. So we didn't. A few weeks later (for unrelated reasons) he broke up with me. The relationship had lasted about 3 months.

So what do I wish I had known back then? I wish I knew how to handle my attractions better- surely there must have been something else I could have done besides getting into a relationship I didn't really think I should be in. I wish I knew that boys have feelings- I saw him as a leech trying to steal my "purity" and therefore I didn't care if I hurt him. Well, I did care, I am a human with empathy and if someone is right in front of me looking sad, my heart cares about them. But on an abstract, theoretical level, nope I definitely did NOT believe I should care about my boyfriend's feelings. (Or rather, I believed that complementarian nonsense about "men need respect, women need love" so I suppose I did care about "respecting" him. But that's all.)

I wish I wasn't so scared about everything. I wish I could have just tried those things- dating, holding hands, kissing- and evaluated my emotional reaction to decide if they were right for my situation or not. I wish I knew that it won't be the end of the world if I accidentally do something that's a bit more physically close than what I'm really ready for. If it's too much, I can just back off, no harm done.

I wish I knew that you can't communicate "we're going to be together forever" with only a makeout session. It has to be in actual words. I wish I knew it's okay if the two partners don't have the same emotional response to their physical intimacy.

I wish I'd had good enough sex-ed that I could have figured out I was asexual, but haha, I don't think that even exists. Well, we can dream.

But when I stopped kissing him because I knew my emotions didn't match reality- that was the right decision.

Moving along with the story. After that relationship ended, I re-dedicated my life to Jesus and went looking for answers about how dating is supposed to work. No more of this wishy-washy "I don't know if it's a sin or not so I'm just scared" stuff. I read purity-culture books and listened to Mark Driscoll sermons, oh god. And I was so happy because I got my answers. (Extremely conservative answers...) I built up a logically-sound purity-based ideology. It said I can't date until God says so. And if I'm dating, I need to show as little affection as possible, only the bare minimum required to gain enough information to decide if I can marry this person or not.

That's where I was for several years, but then thank Lady God for bloggers, I found some people on the internet saying "hey do you think maybe it's kind of harmful that we are teaching kids they are chewed-up gum if they have sex?" And I started to take small steps out of purity culture.

I started dating a guy we will call BF 2. I started dating him even though I did NOT get explicit approval from God. I decided I don't believe in that anymore. I decided that even though I don't have God giving me a guarantee that this guy is "my future husband", he was a good enough guy that it would be worth it to at least try it out. No longer was I letting baseless fears about "but what if we break up someday" stop me. Because yeah, I had realized my whole purity ideology was about fear.

And yes, I stand by that. It WAS a good decision to start dating him. Based on the information I had at the time, it totally was worth it to try it out.

I remember how much of a big deal it was to do tiny little affectionate things that brought me no closer to making a decision about marriage. I remember I used to text him every night to say goodnight, and he would text back to tell me how cute I was. It made me happy. I no longer thought of it in terms of "I am losing emotional purity" and "my purity is the currency I used to buy information on whether or not I should marry him." I just did sweet things for him just because I liked it.

But we didn't kiss. We never kissed. Because I was terrified- what if kissing is bad? What if purity culture was right about that? What if it ruins my life?

We never kissed. And I was so scared, so worried as I agonized over that choice. I wasn't overwhelmed by "temptation" or unable to "control myself"- so that meant we shouldn't kiss, right? Better safe than sorry? If we can avoid it, we should, right? Just in case it's bad.

When I moved to China, I was a little bit relieved that I no longer had the option of kissing him. I no longer had to think about maybe making a different choice.

So our relationship lasted about 1 year. At the beginning it was good, but at the end it wasn't. He didn't treat me right, but I didn't really have the tools to recognize that. I tried everything to fix the relationship. I tried to manipulate him into being a better partner. Occasionally he would kinda-sorta act like a good boyfriend, and it made me so happy, but it never lasted.

I didn't know that if one partner is no longer interested in being in the relationship, it's not really possible for the other partner to fix it. That's just not going to work in the long term. Maybe it was because of all that church teaching about how a wife can get her husband to change- submit more, pray for him, and so on, and he'll magically turn into a good husband. Or church teaching about how we should build friendships with people so we can "share the gospel." How we should pray for God to change other people so they give up their beliefs and agree with ours instead. Basically a lot of teaching about how to manipulate and pray for people so they start acting the way we think they should act. I didn't know about boundaries.

And I was taught in church that, when people divorce, there is sin on both sides. Which makes it sound like, if one side does the right thing, they can singlehandedly change it into a healthy marriage and stop the divorce.

Basically, BF 2 was acting like he didn't want to be in the relationship anymore, but he never actually said that out loud. I didn't *get* that a problem like this is not really fixable. Sure, maybe I can get him to at least act nice occasionally, but is that what I really want, in the long term?

I wish I knew more about breaking up, so I could recognize when it was the right time to do it. I wish I had some healthier teaching about breaking up. Not that purity-culture stuff about how it's the Worst Thing Ever and will Ruin Your Life. Or testimonies about "God is telling me I need to break up with my boyfriend" after a Christian conference. I want actual practical tips about how to tell if the relationship is not going to get better.

I didn't think of it in terms of "he's not treating me right." The only narrative I had about "not treating her right" was when "a boy is having sex with a girl but he doesn't love her." Our relationship was so pure though- we didn't even kiss! That meant it was a healthy relationship, right?

I also wish I had known that just because the beginning of a relationship was good, and your partner is really great and supportive during a hard time in your life, that doesn't mean it's right to stick with them FOREVER. It might be good for a while, but then at some point it's time to break up, and that's not a bad thing.

Towards the end of my relationship with BF 2, I was taking more and more steps out of purity culture, and embracing my desires. Sensual attraction, in this case. I was like, I like boys, I want to touch boys, I want to kiss boys- and for the first time in my life, I didn't repress it. I knew I couldn't, like, actually go kiss someone, because I was still in a long-distance relationship with BF 2. But in my own mind, I was honest about how I felt and what I wanted. And that felt good.

There was this guy, let's call him Creepy Guy. I was very attracted to him. He knew I had a boyfriend. He kissed me, without my consent, and oh god I wanted so much to kiss him back, wow I wanted it so much, but I told him no, because I had a boyfriend. We were alone in his apartment, but it never even crossed my mind to worry that he might rape me. Because he was hot, and I thought rapists were unattractive. FORTUNATELY, he was not a rapist. I told him to stop kissing me so he stopped. But then we sat around for a while and talked. And I think about that now, and I'm like, ugh he was so creepy, why didn't I just leave immediately... but when you're in the situation, it's hard to recognize what's happening.

That actually happened twice- two separate occasions, with two different guys, so we will call them Creepy Guy 1 and Creepy Guy 2. Forcing kisses on me, when they KNEW I had a boyfriend. And also when I texted with them, the way they talked to me was creepy too- as if I owed them something. Creepy Guy 1 kept asking me if I was having sex with any guys. I knew it was none of his business (no thanks to Christian accountability groups where it's completely normal to pry into people's sex lives...) but he just seemed so sad about it, so I told him the truth, which was that no, I was not having sex with any guys. I didn't tell him I had NEVER had sex. I didn't tell him I never even kissed BF 2.

But at the time I didn't really realize they were creepy because they were both SO HOT and I was really attracted to them, and I was having a lot of problems with BF 2 so I was kind of starved for attention, and also discovering my own desires and no longer bound by the rules of purity culture but not really sure how to construct an alternative. (Well, actually I had read a lot of feminist stuff about rape culture so I was able to see some of the signs of creepiness, but I had no idea what to do about it.) It was a confusing time.

Anyway. I'm including Creepy Guys 1 and 2 in this post about "how far is too far" because they did kiss me, and in purity-culture ideology, that's important. Over here in reality, it was non-consensual, so it's not my fault, it doesn't "damage" my "purity", it doesn't really have anything to do with me, it's just them making a decision to be creepy.

In both cases, I really wanted to kiss them back, but I made the right choice and said no, because I was loyal to BF 2. He didn't deserve my loyalty, but we were still technically in a relationship, so there ya go.

I guess what I want to say is, this is a post about my experiences with the connections between physical and emotional intimacy. The kisses did not deepen my romantic/emotional attractions toward Creepy Guys 1 or 2. I remember afterwards, both times, thinking about how I wished so hard I could have kissed him back, but I was sure I had made the right decision. Because I had a boyfriend. If I didn't have a boyfriend, I totally would have kissed whatever hot guy wanted to kiss me, because I was working my way out of purity culture and that's what I wanted.

I just wanted to kiss boys but not really be in a relationship. And I now believe that's a completely valid thing to want. We'll see in a minute that it wasn't really suitable for me personally, but it's totally fine if that's what someone wants and does.

So I finally sent BF 2 an email to say we were broken up. I knew he wasn't going to reply to it, because he hadn't replied to anything I'd sent him in a long time. And indeed, he didn't reply.

Looking back on it now, did it matter that I never kissed him? What if I had? Do I regret not kissing him? Well my first thought is "he didn't DESERVE my kisses" which is 100% true... but he didn't deserve a lot of the attention and affection and love I gave him. Kissing wouldn't have been different. Or, let me put it this way: Purity culture would see it in terms of things we did (holding hands, hugging on the couch in a sitting position, saying "I love you") and things we didn't do (kiss, do anything sexual) as if those two lists tell us everything we need to know about the relationship. As if moving "kiss" from Category B to Category A would be a HUGE CHANGE in the nature of the relationship. But it wasn't like that. There were other issues that were way more important.

So I really don't think it would have made a difference if I had kissed BF 2. I was already very emotionally attached to him, and kissing wouldn't have deepened that; it was already deep. And I don't regret not kissing him either, because, as I said, I now see that he didn't deserve it.

I wonder if it would have made a difference in my reaction and feelings about Creepy Guy 1 kissing me. When that happened, it had been 5 years since I'd kissed a boy. 5 years is a long time... Would it have been different, if I had kissed BF 2 fairly close to when that happened? Would it have made it easier or harder to say no?

Eh, it's been 5 years since I broke up with BF 2, and 10 years since BF 1. Whatever the status of my "purity" back then, how much of my "self" I "gave" to them, it just doesn't matter now. Purity ideology made me so terrified of all those "how far is too far" decisions- terrified because I really believed it was going to follow me for the rest of my life and it would mean I couldn't *fully* love my husband... I'm here to tell you that's a load of bullshit. I kissed BF 1 10 years ago. Who the hell cares? It doesn't affect my marriage at all. Why would it? It's ridiculous that I even have to say that.

Let's get back to the story. I told BF 2 we were broken up. The next day, another guy told me "I want to kiss you" and I let him.

We spent a bunch of quality time making out on my couch. (And used our tongues. Because we wanted to.) Then I went to work the next day and I missed him. And I was like, oh no, I wasn't supposed to miss him. I just wanted to make out with boys for fun. I didn't want to like, actually date any of these hot guys.

Ugh, I kissed him and I caught feelings from it.

He was SO into me. He SO wanted to be in a relationship. We had known each other for about 1-2 months. I definitely thought he was hot, but there were a lot of hot boys in my life. I wasn't really planning on getting into a relationship again, until after we made out and I suddenly, unexpectedly wanted to date him. I told him I would need some time to think about it.

So I spent maybe 1-2 weeks thinking about it. He was living in a different city, so we just talked online during that time and did NOT kiss or anything.

See? That was a good decision. It turns out I'm not able to just make out with a hot boy without developing romantic feelings for him. Some people are, and that's totally fine, but it turns out I am not. But it was fine to kiss him because I didn't yet know that about myself. It's fine to try it out and see what my emotional reaction would be. And then when my emotions were much different than I expected, I took a step back to think about "is this actually a person that's good enough for me to date?" Sure, I was sort of biased at that point, but I was still able think about it in a healthy way and make a good decision.

I decided, yes, he was good enough. So he became BF 3.

Or... maybe you know him as Hendrix. Reader, I married him. <3

So I told him yes we are now boyfriend and girlfriend. We immediately started sleeping together whenever he came to visit. By "sleeping together" I mean literally just sleeping together; I never use the term "sleep together" as a euphemism for sex because that's just ridiculous. Sleeping and having sex are such incredibly different things, it BOTHERS ME SO MUCH how people use language that implies they are the same. As an asexual, I have A BUNCH OF OPINIONS about this.

So right from the beginning of our relationship, whenever he visited me, we slept together. With clothes on and not doing anything sexual.

I chose to sleep with him because it was sweet and warm and comfortable. When I was in purity culture, of course I believed it was a sin to sleep with one's romantic partner- even with clothes on and not doing anything sexual. It was a sin because, as I was told, "don't be so naive, everyone who's sleeping together is having sex." Apparently, if you sleep in the same bed, the temptation will be too strong, so you'll definitely end up having sex, even if you don't intend to. Again, as an asexual I have Some Opinions about this.

I wanted to sleep with him, and it felt good, and he wanted it too, so we did. As simple as that. Just doing things because I want to do them, not overthinking it, not spending all my time and emotional energy trying to puzzle out "is this a sin or not?"

Well, I say "simple as that" but the reality was not simple. Intellectually, I believed [unmarried] penis-in-vagina sex was a sin but everything else was not a sin... but I still had so much shame and guilt because of all the internalized purity beliefs. We very gradually started doing more physical things- touching genitals through a layer of clothes, then seeing each other's genitals, then touching directly, then stimulating them, then stimulating enough to get an orgasm. But at every point along this progression, I felt so much shame. While I didn't count any of that as "sex" (I only counted penis-in-vagina as "sex", which is, uh, a bit silly) it was still definitely "impure" and "sinful" under the rules of purity culture. It was sexual even though it wasn't sex, and so for my entire life I had believed it was dirty and should only happen after one gets married.

So I would feel so bad, and I would tell Hendrix "no we can't do X anymore", where X was whatever new sort-of-sexual thing I was experiencing for the first time in my life, so we would stop doing X for a day or so. But I would feel like "okay, this is ridiculous, I no longer believe X is a sin. I like X, so why should I let this shame hold me back?" So then we would do X again.

We cycled through that a bunch of times, with different values of X. It was hard. I loved being with him and I loved everything we did together [though I now realize that I loved it for reasons that had nothing to do with sexual attraction], but the shame was overpowering. Those of you who are longtime readers of my blog know about how that shame caused me to have depression back then.

So coming back to our question of "how far is too far": Sometimes I would choose to stop, because of the shame, and sometimes I would choose to say yes, because it felt good. And all of those were good decisions. Even though I felt that logically I shouldn't feel shame because I don't believe any of this is sinful, that emotion was still real, and so it was worth taking into account when I made those decisions.

Basically, see how the physical intimacy affects you emotionally, and make changes if necessary.

As far as the connection between physical and emotional intimacy with one's partner, I don't remember any times in my relationship with Hendrix where I felt like "I feel very emotionally close to him and this might be a problem because the actual reality of our relationship isn't really at that level." Except, of course, right at the beginning when we kissed before we were dating and I caught feelings from it. I guess from the beginning of our relationship, we were very committed to each other, and it just kind of grew in a gradual and healthy way and everything worked out. (Or, I was just winging it and doing what felt good in the absence of any actual rules...?) There weren't any moments where I discovered some huge character flaw of his and thought "ohhh that's quite a red flag, am I sure I want to be so emotionally close with somebody like that?"

And then eventually I decided I no longer believe unmarried sex is a sin. But I was still terrified and decided we weren't going to do it, just in case purity culture was right and it would ruin my life. And then eventually I decided nope, I am done living terrified of this decision over whether to have sex, it's time to just face my fear and do it and prove that it doesn't ruin my life.

(Wow, what an asexual reason to have sex...)

So we finally did have sex- before we were married, before we were even engaged- and that ended the shame and fear once and for all. It didn't "ruin my life"; I didn't feel any different, except that I wasn't afraid anymore. Awesome!

Penis-in-vagina sex didn't make me feel closer to Hendrix. It felt just as intimate as the other stuff we had already been doing. It didn't change our relationship- it just changed my own emotional state by making me not afraid any more. That's all. I guess for other people, sex does make them feel more emotionally connected to their partner. But not for me. Which is fine, everyone is different. Actually in my view, it seems there are some necessary steps that you need to take before it's possible to have sex- like being naked or partially naked together- and it's those things that feel the most intimate to me. Not the actual having of the sex. I mean I could take it or leave it.

(And to be honest, I'm really curious about how other people feel about that- if you compare "being naked with a partner" vs "being naked with a partner AND ALSO having sex with them", which one is better, which is more intimate, etc. And also, having sex with some random hot person sounds good in theory but do you realize that would mean you have to show them your genitals? So like... surely one-night-stands don't actually exist in reality????? I mean I know that they do but like I just can't wrap my ace mind around it...)

What do I wish I had known, when I started dating Hendrix? Ha, well some basic sex ed would have gone a long way. I wish I had known what genitals I had. I wish I had used my hand to feel around "down there" and get a sense of the basic layout of things. But I was far too "pure" for that.

I felt so rebellious when I took a small mirror and looked "down there" for the first time. Was that before or after I showed it to Hendrix? I don't remember. I don't remember if Hendrix saw my vulva before my first time seeing it. Kids, don't do this. Don't be this pure. I wish I was familiar with my own body before I tried to share it with someone else. I regret that.

I wish I believed my body belonged to me. Not "my future husband."

I also felt quite rebellious the first time I bought condoms. I had absolutely no intention of using them for sexual purposes- I just bought them as a way to rebel against purity culture. Just to "be naughty." (Wow, what an asexual way to "be naughty." Buy condoms and then don't have sex. ~Wild~ ) Because I felt that the act of purchasing condoms was dirty and shameful, and I wanted to grab that feeling by the throat and face it head-on and defeat it. Maybe it helped that I was in China... news of my purchases at some random Chinese grocery store is never going to make it back to my nice Christian friends in the US. I wish I wasn't so scared of condoms, so horrified by their mere existence. Over here in reality, condoms are GOOD and IMPORTANT for HEALTH REASONS. I wish I had adult role models who told me that.

I wish I hadn't been so terrified of everything related to sex and genitals. I wish I had friends who just talked about sex like it was a normal part of their unmarried lives and not a big deal, and I wish I could have understood that- while at the same time I would also need to understand myself as asexual. I wish I had known that living with one's [unmarried] partner is totally fine and normal- and some of my friends even saw it as a big relationship milestone and congratulated me, can you believe that? When I felt so much shame and I didn't want to say it out loud.

I wish, when I first went to the doctor for help with depression, I could have just opened my mouth and said I live with my boyfriend and that's why I have depression. I couldn't say it. I couldn't bear to say it to anyone, because surely they would judge me and think I was dirty. Surely the doctor would say, well yeah, you're not supposed to live with your boyfriend, so of course you're feeling the emotional consequences of that *sin*. (Note: Ha. Nope. When I finally said it to my therapist, not only did he not think it was "dirty" at all, but he assumed that when I talked about starting to work my way out of purity culture several years before, he assumed that I started having sex back then, and didn't bat an eye at that. Well LOLOLOLOLOL nope when I told him all that, I was still firmly terrified of the very concept of me having sex.)

I wish that, when I was a child and good Christian adults told me that living together is a sin because every couple who's living together is having sex, and I said "well couldn't they just be living together but not having sex?" and they said "don't be so naive"... I wish somebody had challenged that. I wish that, when a Christian "friend" "confronted me about my sin" of living with Hendrix "and sleeping with him", I could have had some other thought spring to mind besides "I can't try denying that, she'll never believe me and I'll end up looking even more sinful- nobody would ever believe I could be living with my boyfriend and I've never had sex." Yeah, we lived together for a while without having sex. I was dealing with all that purity-culture shame and fear, and also it turns out I'm asexual. If you don't believe me then **** you.

I wish I had known more about my own desires and attractions. But in purity culture I couldn't explore that, couldn't think "so what kind of person do I find hot? and what do I mean by 'hot'- like what specific physical acts would I want to or not want to do with them?" That would be lust. I wish I could have explored that. I wish I wasn't trying to figure out a healthy way to deal with my attraction to boys who are not my husband DURING MY FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE- ugh, that should have been a skill I figured out a long time ago, but instead I just repressed it back then (and thought that marriage would magically make all those other attractions go away. Spoiler: it doesn't).

I wish... oof, I don't know if I wish this or not... I wish I had figured out I was asexual... or... do I wish I had known I was asexual before dating Hendrix? What if I thought it meant I wasn't good enough for him, or I wasn't going to enjoy doing sexual things with him? What if I thought it meant I shouldn't even try?

I'm blogging about all of this to show what I mean about the connection between physical intimacy and emotions in a dating context. That connection is going to be unique for each person, and they might even experience it differently at different times in their life or in different situations. So the important thing, the #1 thing, is to know yourself. Check in with your emotions and see how they are affected by the physical closeness with your partner. If your emotions end up in a place that it's not healthy to be in (for example, if you feel like you're totally in love and will definitely marry this person but actually you've only known them for a week) then remind yourself of what the actual reality is and adjust your acts of physical intimacy so they produce emotions that better match that reality.

Yes, I realize this is easier said than done... when you're infatuated with a specific person it's hard to truly convince yourself "no, this is not a healthy thing to do." But there's no alternative. Nobody else is qualified to run your love life. Sure, you need role models and general advice about what healthy relationships look like, but nobody can tell you what your desires are and what's important to you.

It's probably not possible to do this 100% perfectly. Perhaps you'll realize you've gone "too far", like I did when Hendrix and I first kissed and then I had *feelings* for him. But that's FINE. That's not something to fear, it's not something that will ruin your life or damage your "purity." (I don't believe purity exists anyway...) Just make the necessary changes, and it might hurt emotionally, but it's okay. How can you learn your own emotions and desires without some trial and error? Everyone is different, so you can't rely on other people to tell you what you feel.

There was something kinda-sorta like this in purity culture. They said "don't do X because it will make you feel Y" (for various values of X and Y). Yes, I agree that the key is in the way physical actions in a dating context affect one's emotions, BUT you can't tell other people how something is going to make them feel- you can't assume that. Everyone is different. Everyone needs to figure this out for themselves. And so I tell my story here in this blog post to show a concrete example of what it looks like to "figure this out." Perhaps some readers will feel the same way I did about some parts. Perhaps not.

I stand by this answer. This is THE ANSWER to "how far is too far?"

This post focused on just the physical part of those relationships, but I'd like to make it clear that that was DEFINITELY NOT the most important aspect. There were other issues and problems and emotions and happiness and growth going on with each of these relationships. Purity ideology talks as if the most important measure of a relationship is "how far you went" physically. That's ridiculous. That's nonsense. Yes, in my experience the physical part is an important component of the relationship (though that may not be true for everyone) but it's nowhere near being the most important thing.

Like... the idea that I could write you a few lists of all the physical things we did in each of these relationships, and that you could learn anything meaningful from that information alone... that's absurd. It's laughable. But that's the entire focus of purity culture. How far? How far? As if that's the only question that matters. Try to keep the physical aspect as low as you possibly can, and that's the #1 predictor of how good your future marriage will be. How on earth did I use to believe that? WTF?

I focused on all the wrong things, back then.

Any physical things that I did in a dating context in the past, they don't matter now. No, they don't affect my marriage. No, I don't think about BF 1 every time I kiss my husband. Like, WHAT ON EARTH, why would I even need to say that? OF COURSE I don't think about BF 1. Eww, why would I think about him? What an absurd thing to even talk about- but I am writing it out explicitly here because purity culture LITERALLY SAID THAT and purity culture was WRONG. Purity culture told me that if I have any physical/sexual experience with anyone before my husband, then I won't be able to love my husband fully and I'll always have those exes in the back of my mind, always comparing my husband to them. They'll always have a "piece of my heart." Wow, what a load of bullshit.

ALL RIGHT well this post has gotten super-long and I haven't even said all I wanted to say. (I might do a follow-up post, if any of you readers are interested in more on this topic?) Anyway, remember, the answer to "how far is too far" is different for everyone and is based on you knowing your own emotions and desires. You have the ability to make healthy decisions about this. Nobody else can decide "where the line is" for you.

-------------------------

Related:
I’m Really Really REALLY Glad I Had Sex Before Marriage
For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear
They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie.

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts.

The Hulk. Image source.

[content note: Christian anti-self ideology, conflating consensual and nonconsensual sex by calling it all "sexual sin"]

So for anyone who maybe didn't believe me when I said purity culture taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own desires- to be constantly paranoid about how "one thing leads to another" and I might commit the horrible crime of having sex before I could even realize what I'm doing- I got all your f***ing receipts right here: Be Afraid of Yourself: A Plea to Christian Leaders on Sexual Sin.

Behold, the blog post at that link. It's about how more and more Christian leaders have been exposed as having committed "sexual sin", and so no Christian man should EVER think he is anything but a sex-obsessed monster who can't be alone for one minute because WHO KNOWS what could happen.

You might think I'm exaggerating. I'm not:

Here’s my modest proposal: Men, it’s time to stop trusting ourselves. Stop trusting in your integrity and strength. Stop telling yourself that you would never surrender to temptation. Stop telling yourself you are better than the scores of Christian luminaries whose lives and families have disappeared in scandal. There is no moral chasm between them and you. You are not made of finer clay. Each of us is just one bad decision away from becoming the next stroke in the nauseating drumbeat of the church’s public failures.

Let me say this dramatically to get my message across: You should get to the point where you are afraid to be in a room alone with yourself. I’m not kidding. As Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry put it, we have met the enemy and he is us.
...
We are weak. We are usually no match for sexual temptation.
...
Christian men, it’s time we stopped trying to be heroes. It’s time we stopped going it alone. It’s time we recognized how muscular the monster of sexual sin really is. It’s time we had the courage to run.
...
Even your victories can turn to defeat. The battle may be going well. You may have defeated sexual temptation on your own, a few times. You may be reaping the blessings of obedience. You have the trust and admiration of those you love. They place you on a pedestal. They strive to imitate your integrity. You are a model Christian. Then you start pacing the parapets at night. A woman on her rooftop catches your eye. The next morning, it’s all over.
...
It means being able to see the beginnings of temptation, to catch its shadow coming around the corner, and run. It means recognizing that you cannot beat it. You cannot stand against it on your own. Look how many better men than you have fallen! It means fleeing to where you know there are reinforcements, where the hosts of Heaven are strongest. It means dialing up a trusted confidant in Christ the moment desire is born, before it even matures to lingering thoughts, much less into full temptation!
...
What I am proposing is something a little more radical than accountability partners. It is a fundamentally different attitude toward ourselves, one of everlasting mistrust and suspicion. Do not trust yourself. Do not believe in yourself. Do not even turn your back on yourself. Do not dare keep a secret.

This goes against everything our culture tells us, I know. And it goes against something still stronger than our culture: our pride, as men. We want to be seen as self-sufficient and strong. We want to be immovable rocks for God. But I am convinced that any man who thinks this way will become lunch-meat for the first sexual temptation that strikes him. You cannot stand on your own. You will not. None of us can, consistently, and reliably. That’s why God gave us the Church. That’s why He gave us each other.

Run, men. You are no match for yourselves.

Holy shit.

All right, I see a few problems with this ideology:

1. It treats all kinds of "sexual sin" as the same- from the things that are fine and don't hurt anyone (porn, lust, masturbation, consensual unmarried sex) to the things that are actually bad (having an affair, sexual harassment, rape, abuse, molesting children). Over here in reality land, it's perfectly fine and normal to have sexual desires ("lust"). But it is NOT fine and normal to sexually harass one's coworkers. That's not okay, and that's not something that "just happens"- it's a deliberate choice. But this writer seems to think that if a man watches porn once, he's basically the same as a man who lost his job over allegations of sexual abuse. Or at least, the only thing standing between them is one verrrrrrry slippery slope.
2. It teaches women that men just can't control themselves, so we shouldn't expect them to like, be able to respect us and not be terrible. If you're alone with a boy, well OBVIOUSLY he's going to sexually assault you, like what did you expect? If this is really what men are like, then women are required to police them. Eff all of that.
3. And it tells men they shouldn't try to be anything better. This could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Boys don't try to learn self-control because they're taught that it's not possible anyway.
4. It tells asexual men they don't exist, or something is wrong with them and they're not "real" men.

But mostly the reason I'm posting this is that I've written a lot about how terrified I was of my own body and my own desires, back when I believed in all that "sexual purity" stuff. (See my posts For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear and Asexual and "Impure".) I was scared to sit on my boyfriend's bed, back in college when I was dating my first boyfriend. It never crossed my mind that I would be interested in having sex with him- I thought about sex exclusively as a horrifying scary dangerous thing that I needed to put up barriers to protect myself from.

I was scared, I was so scared. Purity culture advocates told stories about how a good Christian couple was alone together and somehow "one thing led to another" and they had sex without meaning to. Don't kiss because it might lead to other things. Don't lay down. Don't be alone with your boyfriend at night.

And, by the way, none of these warnings were about protecting myself from rape. (Yeah there were other warnings about rape, but those were separate from the warnings about "temptation".) It was about a belief that sex could "just happen" without either partner actually choosing it. And both of them would be at fault, because they chose to put themselves into that situation in the first place.

All those years being scared of myself and my own desires, and then I finally tried to have sex with Hendrix (about 2 years before we got married) and we couldn't even ****ing figure out how to do it. (More details on that in this post, it's a bit explicit so I won't write it here.) Sex was never something I could have just done accidentally. And I'm f***ing angry.

And a while after that, I figured out I'm asexual. Yes all that "struggling with lust" I had back then, when I worked so hard to stomp down my thoughts related to attractive boys- none of it was actually sexual attraction. (It was romantic and sensual attraction, for those of you keeping score at home.) I'm asexual- I spent so much time afraid of my own desires, and now it turns out I don't even HAVE those desires, and having sex with my husband is confusing as hell. 

I'm asexual and I'm angry.

One more thing I want to say: Yeah, the "be afraid of yourself" article is very clearly directed toward men, not women. So you might be wondering why I'm saying this is also what I was taught, as a woman. Basically, I also was taught to be afraid of my sexual desire, but for sort of different reasons than men. Men were assumed to just want sex for the sake of sex, while women would want sex when they were in love with their male partner. (Oh, and did you notice in this ideology, queer people don't exist?)

It's awful to live afraid of yourself. I don't want anyone to live that way. Instead, we should teach that there's nothing wrong with having (or not having) sexual desire, and there's nothing wrong with exploring that desire in order to understand yourself better. We should teach people how to handle their desire in healthy ways.

For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear

Fear, from the movie "Inside Out", with the ace flag as the background. Image sources here and here.

They told us it would be a terrible, dirty sin which would ruin our future if we had sex before marriage. But they also told us that statistically, most people- even if they're Christians, even if they make a purity pledge- do end up having unmarried sex. Somehow, this horrible, ghastly fate is happening even to people who put great effort into avoiding it.

How? How does this happen? Well, they said, temptation. Sometimes you have this feeling like you want to do dirty sexy things, and it's so hard- maybe even impossible- to resist. No, you won't be able to resist, so your only hope is to never even come face-to-face with that kind of temptation.

But see, they said, here's how it goes: Don't kiss too much, and don't use your tongue, because if you do, then you might feel like you want to have sex, and you won't be able to resist the temptation. Also, probably shouldn't kiss at all, because then you might feel like you want to kiss with tongue, and you won't be able to resist that temptation. Also, better not be alone and cuddling with a romantic partner, because then you might want to kiss, and you won't be able to resist that temptation. Really better not hug a person of the opposite sex at all, because then you might want to cuddle with them. And probably you shouldn't hold hands, because then you might want to hug. And we can keep going, up the slippery slope, to more and more mundane and innocuous actions, which will, apparently, bring unsuspecting victims closer and closer to the horrible, life-destroying black hole that is premarital sex.

They told us stories about good, pure Christian couples who found themselves alone together and "one thing led to another" and they "stumbled" and "gave in to temptation" and sex somehow "just happened."

And there I was, asexual but I didn't know it yet, and completely unable to wrap my head around how sex could possibly "just happen." I thought, hey I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that in order to have sex, you have to take your clothes off first, and let another person see your naked body. And you have to touch their genitals, and let them touch yours. How on earth could those things "just happen"? How? Why? How? How on earth could there be any feeling or desire that would cause me to go against everything I believed in and take off my clothes in front of another person?

But, they said, don't go thinking it can't happen to you. Oh no, don't go thinking you're so pure, that you're not sinful and vulnerable to temptation. Pride comes before a fall, doncha know? And there have been Christian couples- role models in their purity and dedication to God- who were careful not to even kiss, careful to follow all the rules, and then one night they were alone and got carried away and it *happened*. Don't think it can't happen to you. Stay vigilant. Avoid any situation which could maybe lead to temptation. You never know what could happen. You never know what your body is capable of, what sinful desires lurk in your heart.

And so I did. When I was dating my first boyfriend, I made sure to never EVER lay down on his bed in his dorm room. Because what if one thing led to another, and, somehow, we had sex? When I went back to my parents' house for spring break, they said I could bring my boyfriend- and I was terrified. If we both spend the night in the same house, who knows what could happen? (He had no purity-culture background and he didn't understand what I was scared of. "Are you saying... you think I would... try something?"  No, I said, no I didn't think he would do it on purpose, I was scared that both of us would be, somehow, unable to control ourselves.) Another time, I was out really late at night and wondering if I should just sleep on the couch at this fraternity house where a lot of my friends lived, because it was too far to walk all the way back to my dorm. But no, I decided. Because some of the guys who lived there were attractive, and what if one of them showed up in the night and ... somehow, something happened? I wasn't thinking about rape; I was concerned that in the darkness I would be overcome with desire and unable to control myself. (Please note, though, how this ideology makes it impossible to understand the difference between rape and consensual sex. Apparently, if you choose to put yourself in a situation with "temptation", and then sex *happens*, it's your fault.)

In all of these examples, I made decisions based on my fear that sex could "just happen," while completely unable to understand by what mechanism it could possibly "just happen." Wouldn't that require taking off my clothes? Wouldn't that require letting someone touch my genitals? How? How could a slide into "temptation" cause that to happen? Seems like the only way I would take off my clothes is if I chose to take off my clothes, and why on earth would I choose to do that? What kind of "desire" could possibly entice me to "lose control" and do that?

Maybe for people who experience sexual attraction, the warnings about "lust" and "temptation" make more sense. Maybe they intuitively understand what it feels like to desire sex, and balancing that desire against their desire to be good, pure Christians. Maybe they get what's enticing about taking off one's clothes in another person's presence. Maybe they understand their own desires and they know which situations are harmless and which are dangerous "temptation."

For me, though, it was all about fear of the unknown. They told me I had these desires, evil, dirty, sinful desires, deep inside, and I can't ever let my guard down or else "you never know" what could happen. They warned me about things that were dangerous, things that would lead to "temptation," and I believed them even though I never understood how on earth those things could lead to accidentally having sex.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of desires that I had never even experienced, fear that those desires were dirtier than anything I could imagine.

Here's the thing, though: I am attracted to boys. I'm a straight asexual. I experience romantic and sensual attraction- that means I have a desire for a romantic relationship, I can have crushes, I can fall in love, I like hugging a romantic partner, I like kissing and touching and being warm and comfortable together. But as it turns out, I don't have sexual attraction at all.

But they said those desires were all just steps along the slippery slope to sex. They said sexual desire is the same thing as sensual desire, but more intense. If a desire for holding hands gets out of control, it would turn into a desire for sex. And so I believed that, since I had such strong romantic attraction, of course I also really really REALLY want sex- that if I gave up an inch of ground to my romantic desires, then I would start to feel sexual desire too. And we can't let that happen. "You never know" where it could lead.

Anyway, fast forward to me and Hendrix, doing sexy things while not being married. No, we weren't having sex- I still believed it was a sin- but we took off our clothes and touched each other's genitals and such. But none of it happened because of "temptation." I was astonished at how, the entire time, I was fully aware of what I was doing. Every action was a conscious decision that I made. I wasn't "carried away." I wasn't "out of control." I was there, in reality, in the same reality I'm always in. The same laws of physics, the same bed and walls and cold air from the open window. Nobody was being carried away by "temptation." Nothing "just happened." I chose it.

And then, many months after that, when we finally decided to have sex, we couldn't even do it the first time. (By "sex" I mean penis-in-vagina sex, because that's what purity culture counts as the most impure, dirty thing you can do, that is the thing at the very bottom of the slippery slope, you do that and you lose all your purity. Even though in real life there are many other forms of sex and they're not in a heirarchy.) Yes, the first time we tried, I was still not totally clear on what a vulva was, and I had no idea that my body needed to be aroused in order to get the vagina to open. So the first night we tried, we couldn't get the penis to go in, and we gave up.

(Don't worry, we eventually figured it out.)

I look back on all that fear and I'm just amazed at how there was no way it could have ever happened like I feared it would. All those years ago, I was so worried that sex was going to "just happen", that I would "lose control" of my body and somehow do terrible things I would regret for the rest of my life. And then when I finally did try to have sex, when I actually wanted to do it, made a clear-headed decision and applied my problem-solving brainpower, I couldn't even do it then. There's no way it could have ever happened "accidentally."

All that time, I was scared for nothing.

(Really, I think all this "it just happened" language is either 1) blaming a victim for their own rape or 2) making excuses for consensual sex so it sounds less "sinful." Even for people who aren't asexual, I don't think sex can "just happen" with neither party consenting.)

I remember before I decided to have sex, I no longer believed in anything purity culture said, and I no longer believed sex was a sin. But I was still too terrified to try it. Maybe I just shouldn't, I thought, just to stay on the safe side. Just in case they were right and it really does ruin my life.

And there I was, with a partner who loves me so much, so comfortable together, so committed to each other, but with this artificial divide between us, this belief that if his penis goes inside my body, that would be THE WORST THING EVER and it would RUIN MY LIFE. Why? Why would it ruin my life? Why would this one little arbitrarily-chosen action have such devastating effects? Why can't we just try it?

The fear was awful, because there was no answer to "why". There was no reason I could think of that it would be so life-ruiningly terrible to have sex with Hendrix. Just the thought, "what if they were right?" Just fear of the unknown.

And I'm so glad we finally did have sex. It didn't change me into a completely different person. It wasn't an amazing transcendant feeling that totally changed my life. It wasn't really a big deal at all- and so, the fear vanished. All this time, there was nothing to be scared of.

They told me that I had to be on guard against the "slippery slope" so I didn't get "carried away" and have sex somehow. And I believed them even though it made no sense to me- which is a recipe for fear. I was terrified of sex. But now, all these years later, I've discovered that even though I desire other "impure" things- like kissing and being in love- I never had any sexual attraction at all. I was so afraid, but now that I've found out what sex actually is, I see there was NO WAY I ever could have done that without actively choosing to do it. There was never any chance it could have "just happened."

One might think that purity culture is easy for asexuals. For me, it wasn't. I wish I had been allowed to actually explore my own desires and find their limits. Instead, I lived in fear of desires that didn't even exist.

Honest Lent: Introduction

Artwork showing someone getting ashes on their forehead. Image source.

Last December I did a series called Honest Advent, and I liked it so much that I'm going to do the same thing for Lent. The basic idea is that a few times per week, I'll read a bible passage and then blog about my opinions on it. No pressure to agree with it, no pressure to understand every part or answer all the questions that come up, no pressure to do it every single day.

For real, no pressure. Ash Wednesday was 3 days ago and I totally did not see it coming, not til I got home from work that evening and saw people talking about it on twitter. So the first 3 days of Lent I didn't do ANYTHING Lent-y, and guess what, I do not feel one bit bad about that. And for "Honest Lent," I'm [most likely] not going to read the bible every day. I'm going to do it only when I want to. I don't even see that as an ideal, as if it's obviously better to read the bible every day during Lent than to read the bible on some days. No, the ideal amount to read the bible is the amount I want to, however much I feel like doing it over the next month.

I'm making such a big deal about this "I'm not doing it every day and I don't feel bad about that" because in the evangelical culture I come from, everyone knew that the most godly Christians need to take time every day and read the bible. In college, I used to wake up early and spend 40 minutes to an hour every day reading the bible, praying, and journaling. And in that culture, people are required to act guilty if they don't live up to that standard; they "confess" that they "struggle" and aren't "making God a priority." They are socially required to talk about how they're such bad Christians for not reading the bible enough.

But I don't believe that anymore. Nowadays, I very rarely read the bible, and I don't feel one bit bad about that. (And maybe if you want me to feel bad, you need to ask yourself some hard questions about why you follow a religion which doesn't value mental health and would rather people have depression than not read the bible.) The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

ANYWAY. So. Here's the bible reading plan I chose (link is a pdf). So the first one is Luke 4:1-13. Go read it and we'll talk about it.

Here are the things I noticed:

1. Jesus ate nothing for 40 days? Really? Is that possible? All right, I googled and found some information about hunger strikes, and it seems like generally people can survive 30-40 days with no food, but not too much beyond that. And only if they're still drinking water. You really need water.

All right so it's possible, but is this a good idea? It's supposed to be super-spiritual, but ... why? This could have very bad long-term effects on a person's health.

And hey, can we talk about fasting a little bit? Growing up evangelical, I never heard about anyone I knew who was fasting. I guess there are some types of Christianity that are more into it? My church was not. Then when I was in a Christian group in college, I heard people talking about fasting- as in, an actual real-life thing that they did- and I did it a few times. (There were even times that a group of us decided to all fast on the same day.) But nobody ever taught me how exactly to do it. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to drink water or not. (After the first time fasting, I found out that people said you should still drink water- but how could I have known that? My body told me I needed to eat, and I was ignoring that need, so how could I have known that my body's need to drink water was a VERY IMPORTANT thing that could be medically dangerous to ignore?)

There was even one time when I was praying at night, and suddenly I knew that God was telling me to fast the next day. So I did. As I recall, nothing out of the ordinary happened that day- nothing to explain why "God" had "told me" to fast that particular day. But that's the relationship I had with God back then- I didn't have the right to make my own decisions, he could order me to do anything, and I would have to do it even if it made no sense. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not in that relationship anymore.

It's a really bizarre concept- denying a very real, urgent physical need because apparently that's what God wants you to do. A really dangerous concept, in my opinion.

(Readers: I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with fasting/ whether you were taught anything about fasting in church.)

[content note for the next paragraph: gun violence]

2. Satan says, "If you are the Son of God..." Now that's interesting because evangelicals like to tell a lot of stories where someone "stood up for God" by doing just what a bad person told them they should do if they are true followers of God. Probably the most common example of this trope is the shooter who asks his victims "Do you believe in God?" and presumably would choose not to kill them if they answered "no." The thing that has always bothered me about these stories that the bad guy defines what devotion to God looks like in that situation, and then the hero acts according to the bad guy's definition. Like, let's be real, if somebody's trying to kill you, you don't have to stand around and answer their questions honestly- you do whatever the hell you can to get out of there. (Even lying is okay.)

So when satan says, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread," shouldn't Jesus "stand up for God" by, you know, telling the stones to become bread? Otherwise, isn't he denying that he's the Son of God? NO. Because satan doesn't get to make the rules. Just because satan claims that the Son of God would do this or that doesn't mean it's true. He's just making it up. Don't play by his rules.

3. Every time Jesus answers, he quotes a bible verse. Now, when I learned about this story in Sunday school as a little kid, the teachers made a big deal about "this is why it's really really important to study the bible, so you'll know what to say when you face temptation." But I don't see it that way anymore. Because that's almost like "you have to have a bible verse backing you up when you refuse to do something- 'I don't want to' isn't a good enough reason." Which totally flies in the face of the entire concept of consent.

I believed that I didn't have the right to make my own choices based on my own desires. Instead, I had to figure out what was the "right" thing to do and what was the "wrong" thing to do. That's why we were supposed to study the bible so much- so that we would be really sure about the "right" things and the "wrong" things.

In this way of thinking, when satan tells Jesus "tell these stones to become bread," Jesus would have to then figure out if telling the stones to become bread was a sin or not, in some absolute sense. If it is a sin, he should refuse to do it. If he feels like it's a bad idea, he doesn't want to, he's not comfortable with it, but he can't pinpoint the exact reason why and back it up with a "logical"* argument, then it's much more difficult for him to refuse. He can try to give some polite excuses, but if satan keeps pushing, well, Jesus feels he doesn't actually have a "good reason" and he'll give in.

(*I put "logical" in scare quotes because I very much believe that "I am uncomfortable with this" IS a perfectly logical and valid reason, even though it is purely based in emotion. People often talk as if a thing can only be "logical" if it's completely unrelated to emotion, but I disagree with that.)

No. When you make personal decisions that don't harm anyone else, you're not required to present your reasons to a jury of your peers and wait for their approval. No. "I want to do this" and "I don't want to do this" are good enough reasons. Period.

Purity-culture girls and ex-purity-culture girls seem to have an especially hard time with this. They often feel that they need to say yes if a good Christian guy asks them on a date- they need to "give him a chance" even if they're not interested. They can only say no if they can frame their refusal as "God told me" rather than "I don't want to." And when we're no longer in purity culture, we don't know how to make decisions based on our own desires- we have no experience in that, nobody ever taught us how. For example, maybe your partner wants to come to your home, but you're not comfortable with that, but you can't really explain why. All you can think is "well I don't believe it's a sin anymore, so... I guess I have to say yes?" It's very difficult to make that transition from asking "Is this right or wrong?" to asking "What do I want?"

4. "The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world." Wait, really? "In an instant"? How have I never noticed that phrase? (I guess I generally read Matthew's version, which doesn't say "in an instant.") Wtf? Where are you going to go where you can see all the kingdoms of the world? Even if the writer thought the earth was flat (...did they?), how high would you even have to be to see them all? Did they believe there actually was a mountain that high? How long would it take Jesus and satan to hike up there? (Are they old buddies who go on mountain-climbing trips together?) And if your field of view was wide enough to include "all the kingdoms", wouldn't they be so far away that you couldn't really see any details? Like, they wouldn't look very tempting from that distance, right?

Or perhaps satan did a miracle and somehow showed Jesus "all the kingdoms" without any mountain-climbing involved? (Or maybe he showed a powerpoint? Or a flipchart? Flannelgraph? Or maybe this entire thing happened in a dream? A vision? Or Jesus was hallucinating because he was starving?)

I'm suddenly realizing this story isn't that realistic and maybe, maybe maybe maybe... should not be taken literally.

Hmm.

Well this gets into the question of what I believe about what the bible actually is, and honestly I don't have a good answer for that. I guess my position is that I think the stories about Jesus literally happened- but wow, the devil "showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world"? Really? I don't think so.

5. I just realized that throughout this entire blog post, I've been using the name "satan", but the passage itself only says "the devil." In the Christian culture I come from, there's an assumption that those are 100% interchangeable, but now I'm wondering if maybe the writers of the bible didn't understand them that way. Hmm. I should probably do more research on that.

6. The devil quotes Scripture too. People say that in church- "The devil quotes Scripture too." They meant it's not enough to read the bible- you have to know the "correct" interpretation too. There were frequent warnings about people who "twist Scripture." But now that all my beliefs have changed, I find that the things I believe now are the things that those supposed "false teachers" who "twist Scripture" believe. So the whole "twisting Scripture" thing is really a way to say "my interpretation is OBVIOUSLY the correct interpretation, and anyone who disagrees is automatically wrong."

Let me give you an example. I no longer believe it's a sin to have unmarried sex. So, good evangelicals are all like "the bible is clear, premarital sex is a sin"- but it's actually not "clear" at all. Over and over and over, the bible says that "sexual immorality" is a sin. But there's nothing immoral about consenting adults choosing to have sex and not hurting anybody. Yes, I believe "sexual immorality" is a sin (well, I believe any kind of immorality is a sin...) but it's totally possible to have unmarried sex without being immoral about it.

Clearly, I am "twisting Scripture."

At it's core, the "twisting Scripture" accusation is "well, you're wrong, because OBVIOUSLY that's not what they meant." That's literally all it is. Supposedly there's one "obvious", "clear" interpretation of the bible, and everyone knows it, but then some people try to "twist Scripture" to make it say things it OBVIOUSLY doesn't say.

So when Christians read this passage in Luke 4 with the mindset of "satan is twisting Scripture," ehhh no I don't like that. The reason Jesus shouldn't jump off the highest point of the temple is because THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA. Not because "that's not what the author of Psalm 91 really meant."

All right that's all I have to say about this passage. Readers, what are your thoughts? And are you doing anything special for Lent?

Covenants. Because Future-You May Need Punishment.

Signing a contract. Image source.

Captain Cassidy, from the blog Roll to Disbelieve, has been writing about "church discipline" and "church covenants." I recommend reading this post: Church Discipline: Covenants and Contracts. (update: original link is broken, updated link is here: Church Discipline: Covenants and Contracts.)

I want to talk about the reasoning behind "church covenants" and why they end up having such abusive results. I've never been in a church that used this type of "church covenant" or "church discipline," so I don't have any practical experience, but it IS 100% consistent with the Christianity I was taught. If leaders in the churches I've attended were asked "why doesn't our church do this 'church covenant' thing?" they would probably say it's "too extreme," but they wouldn't be able to give an actual reason consistent with all the other things they teach. Because, in reality, "church discipline" is bad and abusive because people have the right to make their own choices about their own lives, if they want advice from the church then that's fine, but otherwise it's none of the church's damn business. And that is VERY MUCH OPPOSITE to what I was taught in church.

(And I just laugh when people who used to tell me I should be "crazy for Jesus" say that "too extreme" is a reason that something is bad. Yeah. And even in other contexts, there is absolutely no reason that something that's "extreme" is intrinsically bad. But that's a rant for another time.)

Captain Cassidy's article is about "church covenants." Here is how she describes them:

In making a covenant, a church’s congregation signs over formal control of their lives to their pastor and ministry team (which can include small group leaders and other laypeople), who then consider themselves authorized to oversee the congregants’ private lives and to punish them when necessary. Many churches now require members to agree to these covenants as a condition of becoming full members of the church–and some even require members to re-up their agreement to their covenants every year.
...
A covenant is like a contract–except nowhere near as fair. The main difference is their one-sided nature; even if one side breaks their end of a covenant, the other side isn’t released from their own obligations. Covenants don’t expire and cannot be broken–usually and in theory at least.

She then shows a lot of examples of the vagueness of the "covenent" and how it allows church leaders to basically do whatever they want with essentially no limitations. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

Also relevant: "covenant marriages." I first heard about this in Sunday school class at the church I was going to in college. Somebody mentioned the concept, and said it means you're not allowed to divorce unless you go to counseling for a certain amount of time first, and some other requirements like that. He ended by saying, "I think all Christian marriages should be covenant marriages," and I nodded along because it was totally consistent with everything the church taught about marriage and divorce- how divorce is the Worst Thing Ever and people who decide to get a divorce don't really value marriage and they are making a bad decision and must be stopped (with maybe a few exceptions, if their spouse did something REALLY bad- but even then, if you can forgive and reconcile, that's still better).

But no, the concept of "covenant marriage" is pretty scary. Libby Anne gives some more details in her post here. The entire point is that you are getting into an agreement and purposely making it really hard for yourself to get out, if you ever decide you don't want to be married to this person. That's a good thing in evangelical-land; that's a selling point. In the real world, though, people aren't just getting divorces willy-nilly for no good reason because they "don't respect marriage." It's a very serious, life-changing decision; it's a situation that you hope you never find yourself in, but sometimes divorce really is the best option. And yes, I agree that people should try counseling before choosing to divorce, but if either party needs to be literally forced into counseling by a "covenant" they signed years earlier- if they're not willing to go just because they care about their marriage- then I think you're way past the point where you can still save the marriage. And if one partner is abusing the other, the "covenant" is a tool they can use to make it even harder for the abused person to get out.

In other words, I really don't think you can make a marriage good and healthy by forcing people to stay married when they don't want to. (I remember many years ago, reading Focus on the Family's bullshit propaganda about "the homosexual agenda," and every now and then they mentioned how "no-fault divorce" is ruining everything, and I really did not get it. Back in the day, you had to prove something like adultery or abuse in order to be allowed to divorce? Like how would that even work? I think I'm too young for that particular culture war to make any sense to me.)

(Side note: I'm getting married next year, and I strongly believe that means I have to think about what exactly my vows mean and under what circumstances I would choose to get a divorce. I'll write a post on that at some point.)

Both "covenant marriage" and "church covenants" have the same basic idea: In the future, I may do something really bad, and if I do, I want to be stopped and/or punished. Don't let me do it- I am saying right now that that's not the kind of person I want to be, even if Future Me wants to.

That's the whole point. It's all about people consenting to being required, in the future, to keep doing something they freely choose to do now- regardless of whether their future self would still freely choose it. If their future self doesn't want to do it, then they should be forced to do it.

But of course. Of course it's about potentially forcing people to do things they don't want to do. If they would choose to do it anyway without being forced, then there's no need for a "covenant."

This is 100% consistent with evangelical teaching on people's "sin nature." We're just so completely sinful, we can't trust ourselves to make good decisions, we need rules to keep us in line, we'll come up with all kinds of shady excuses for why we don't have to obey God's clear commands- so we can't even trust our own minds. We all have the potential to do horrifically evil things- if you feel like "no, I'm pretty confident I would never do that", well, pride comes before a fall. Just a little bit of temptation and you might end up doing something shocking and "out of character"- except, we know it's not truly "out of character" because you've always been a disgusting sinner on the inside.

In this view, things like divorce or breaking church rules are clearly bad decisions we might make while under the influence of temptation. If we ever go against what the church says, it's because we're too sinful to think clearly, and what we really need is punishment so we'll snap out of it and go back to being good Christians who follow the rules. There's no room for "Before, I could never have imagined that I would do XYZ, but now, because I have more life experience, I'm choosing to do this and I'm confident it's a good decision for me." Nope. The church already knows all the right answers and rules. If you get more life experience that helps you realize that your previous views were too simplistic and need to be changed- well, that's temptation. That's "being led astray by your emotions" instead of holding to God's "absolute truth." You have to be very very clear about all the rules and your total commitment to them before you ever get into a situation which might give you practical experience with those rules. Because of course you can't be trusted to make a good decision on your own, in the face of "temptation." You're way too sinful for that.

(This is pretty much the WHOLE ENTIRE PREMISE of purity culture- especially all those "where is the line" discussions. If we just emphasize MORE AND MORE AND MORE how sinful sex is, when kids are too young to even know what sex is or why anyone would do it, that's how you stop them from having sex. Note: This doesn't stop people from having sex, but it does make them feel a lot of shame.)

The whole entire point is that people can't be trusted to make their own decisions- they're not safe unless they have some kind of authority over them to punish them if they stray from the correct rules. And people internalize this- I know I did. I was so afraid of my "sinful nature"; I was totally sure that there existed certain sets of circumstances in which I would do unspeakably awful things (for example, have sex), where my behavior would shock everyone, including me. I believed I needed layers and layers of walls and protections, so that I couldn't get anywhere near "temptation", because who knows what could happen?

Scared of myself, scared of my own mind, my own heart, my own body. Of course I was- how could I not be, when I believed "sinful nature" was the correct label for what kind of person I was? Even though I've never been in a church environment that used "covenants," it makes perfect sense to me. It fits EXACTLY with all the teaching on "sin" I received as an evangelical for all those years.

Things like "covenant marriage" and "church covenants" are based on the idea that right now we know all the correct rules, and any changes we make to our beliefs are BAD. Don't be surprised when you see examples of churches using their "covenants" to trample people's rights and force them to obey rules. That's exactly what they're for.

We Need Rules Because We Can't Trust Ourselves [they said]

A goat climbs on rocks, behind a sign that says "Please do not climb on rocks." Nobody tells this goat what to do. Image source.

Samantha Field has been reviewing the book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," and you should totally read her posts. Really, you should always read Samantha Field- she has a lot of insightful things to say about fundamentalist and evangelical culture.

Here's a bit from one recent post on "I Kissed Dating Goodbye":

3. Establish Clear Guidelines

I found one bit of this entertaining. He tells us to “establish guidelines … that are based on the wisdom of God’s Word” (116). Apparently God’s Word (which means the Bible, not Jesus) can tell us “what constitutes a romantic setting” in 21st century America.

However, the actual problem with this section is that Joshua disguises what is blatantly legalism:

There are not hard and fast rules. These are issues of wisdom and will differ based on your age and spiritual maturity …

So I’ve created a policy about this issue: I will not go to a girl’s home if no one else is there … I don’t have to weigh the situation or pray about it–I already know that I won’t accept the invitation. (116-17)

I grew up among Christians who did this sort of thing all of the time. It’s not truly legalism if it only applies to you, personally. If you are personally convicted about a particular thing. We don’t make rules for everyone, just ourselves. Personally. And, anyway, the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.

However, Joshua does make it clear what’s so attractive about legalism in the first place: you don’t have to think. Making determinations about individual situations with all their complexities and nuance is difficult, so just make a rule for yourself and voilà problem solved! Except … this is not very useful. In fact, my experience demonstrates that it’s damaging. Life doesn’t work this way, and being a person means tailoring your responses to the situation at hand. If you’re not allowed to do that, ever, then your emotional growth is being stunted.

I know exactly what she's talking about. In purity culture, we have to fear our own desires. We are taught that, given the right combination of circumstances, temptation will overtake us and we won't be able to control ourselves. And therefore, we have to make clear rules beforehand. Then when we're actually in a situation with "temptation", we have to just obey the rules, even if they seem unreasonable- of course we'll have a lot of reasons why we won't want to obey, of course we'll feel like the rules shouldn't really apply to that case, but that's because our minds are so thoroughly sinful. We're just trying to make excuses for our sin. We're listening to the lies that "temptation" tells us.

As an example, let's use the one Joshua Harris gave in that section of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" quoted in Field's post: "I will not go to a girl’s home if no one else is there." Now, the reason for this rule is, if he is alone with a girl, who knows what might happen? What if temptation overcomes the two of them, and they accidentally do something horribly impure? Like kissing. Or having sex. See, purity culture teaches that we can't control ourselves. There are certain circumstances where the "temptation" is just too great, and it's almost impossible to not have sex. "Almost impossible" because of course it's still your fault, of course afterward, when you're trying to make sense of what happened, you will remember that there were parts where you could have and should have chosen differently. But really, it's your fault because you made the choice to be in that situation, which you knew could have strong temptation. If you go to the home of a boy you like, and then, somehow, you two end up having sex, it's not rape. It's just what happens when you're not careful with "temptation." You should have known better. It's your fault.

Which, oh dear god, what a horrible thing to believe and to teach. If that's not rape culture, I don't know what is. IN REALITY, people don't have sex "accidentally." If you had sex without choosing it, without your partner checking if you wanted it or not, and giving you the option to say no, then it's rape. It doesn't matter what kind of "temptation" situation you "put yourself in." It doesn't matter what you wear, or where you are, or if you've been drinking, or if it's someone that you're sexually attracted to- everybody has the ability to ask for consent and to not have sex with a non-consenting partner.

But in purity land, nope. We weren't taught about consent- we were taught that our bodies would just do it, and we wouldn't be able to stop them. I was actually shocked when I first started reading feminist blogs, and came across the idea that, even if a girl and boy are making out, the boy is perfectly capable of STOPPING and NOT HAVING SEX if the girl says she doesn't want to go farther. Yes. Feminists taught me that. Feminists taught me that men are NOT mindless, sex-driven animals. Purity culture taught me the opposite. The question of which of these ideologies "hates men" will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Let's get back to that rule about not going to a girl's house. I suppose we could extend it to say that you shouldn't go to the home of a member of the opposite sex, if it'll just be the two of you. (Because purity culture thinks that everyone is straight.) Now let's imagine how this rule would play out, in a practical sense.

Maybe I need to borrow something from someone my family knows from church, and I want to go pick it up on Saturday afternoon. However, at that time, the only person at their home will be a boy who's my age. Now, maybe I don't know him at all. Maybe I'm just going over to his home because my parents know his parents, and I'm going over to get whatever it is we're borrowing, to help out my parents. The rule says I can't go on Saturday afternoon, because it will just be me alone with a boy. What to do?

Well, I could think to myself, I don't know this boy at all. I'm definitely not attracted to him. He's just some random guy who has a set of lawn chairs that my parents need. Surely, one would think, I can drive over there and get the stuff without anything "impure" happening.

It seems like a case where I don't have to follow the rule. But how do I know I'm able to think clearly about this? Am I really correct in my estimation that there is no purity risk in this situation? Or is that just temptation, lying to me, and it seems right because I'm so sinful? Isn't it a little suspicious that I made this rule for myself, and I was so confident about it, and now suddenly when it's actually time to obey the rule, I'm making excuses for why it shouldn't apply? What's the point of having a rule in the first place if I'm just going to reason my way out of it like this?

See, purity culture teaches that we can't trust ourselves to make good decisions when it's actually time to make those decisions. We're so weak and easily swayed by temptation. Of course the sinful option is going to appear attractive. So, we have to make strict rules for ourselves beforehand. Then, when a situation arises, we have to stick to those rules no matter what. You can't deviate from them because common sense tells you to- that might just be your sinful heart! (And it's not just purity culture- this is true of EVERYTHING if you believe that people are "totally depraved.")

So it's surprising to me that Field says having so many rules and not allowing yourself to make a decision that takes into account your specific circumstances is a sign of emotional immaturity. Wow. She's absolutely right, but wow. I never thought of it that way before. Back then, I thought it was a sign of self-control and humility- see, I recognized that I couldn't be trusted while under the influence of "temptation", so I obediently stuck to the rules. Obeying even when it didn't make sense was the definition of faith. We were trusting that God knew what was best. Leaning not on our own understanding and all that.

But for real. We are capable of thinking for ourselves. We can trust ourselves. When we actually encounter a tricky situation, getting real information and using that to make a decision is not a sign that we are "biased" by "temptation."

I believe that people bear the image of God. Therefore, we are capable of thinking for ourselves, and we are supposed to think for ourselves. We have the capacity for wisdom and creativity to make good decisions, and that's how God intended it.