Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible

A parent and baby reading a book together. Image source.

This post is part of the Taking My Kid To Church series, about how I plan to introduce my son to Christianity/ religion/ church

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I saw this article on Christianity Today's website: Authors and Parents Are Rethinking Ways to Foster Kids’ Love for Scripture, and I was immediately interested because I love the bible and want to introduce it to my son, but I very much disagree with a lot of the ways that Christians present the bible to kids.

So let's take a look at this article, shall we? The writer is Corrie Cutrer. I found it a very useful article because the points where I disagree help me to get a sense of how my expectations for children's bible materials are very much not aligned with other Christians'. And also, it's not like I disagree with everything; I think some of these books she links to are worth checking out, maybe.

Well first of all, I love this unintentionally-revealing bit right in the first paragraph: "Adults may recall how, in their formative years, they were taught to recite the books of the Bible, learn characters and plotlines of important stories, or memorize key verses, with an emphasis on the godly thinking and behaviors that develop as a result."

I totally laughed when I read that, because it's basically admitting that no, Christians don't know and love the whole bible. There are certain parts of the bible, "important" and "key" parts, and those are all that ever gets talked about. And yeah of course when I was a little kid I learned a song that lists all the books of the bible, but that was the only time I ever heard anything about Haggai and Zephaniah and whatever. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say the majority of the bible is not taught in children's Sunday school at all. Only the "important" and "key" parts.

But as a child, I was taught that of course we love the whole bible, and of course the whole bible is valuable and worth reading. So I believed that, and I would actually read it. Entire books of the bible, not just the bits they pull out for Sunday school lessons.

So yes, I remember the "important" and "key" verses and the "godly thinking" and all that. But I also remember reading about "proof of her virginity" in Deuteronomy 22, and spending so much of my time, at age 11 or so, wondering what "proof of her virginity" could possibly mean. Apparently it was some sort of cloth??? (I am now pretty sure it means the sheets from their wedding night, where supposedly the woman would bleed if it was her first time having sex. Which is actually not true! I didn't bleed the first time I had penetrative sex. I guess some people do? But definitely not everyone with a vagina, so it's very not cool to make laws about testing women's virginity this way and punishing them. If this is TMI, well, the book of Deuteronomy is TMI.)

I remember reading about the man who was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath, in Numbers 15. God told Moses to kill this poor guy. So they killed him. And little Perfect Number- gosh how old was I then? Elementary school?- little Perfect Number had to force herself to believe that guy deserved to die.

I remember reading the book of Job, and how it just went on and on and on, Job's friends giving long speeches, hammering on the same points over and over. I kind of just skimmed the last few chapters and was like "okay finally done reading this" and totally missed the ending, where God shows up all "WHERE WERE YOU when I laid the foundations of the earth" and "y'all don't know shit about Job" (slight paraphrase). And then God gave Job more kids, because God had allowed all Job's kids to die at the beginning of the story. Yeah, little Perfect Number just skimmed over that part and didn't have to consider whether her God thought children were replaceable. (Of course, I came back to the book of Job again after that, and then read that part. Of course I read the entire bible multiple times.)

So yes, of course I read and loved those "key" passages about "God is love" and all those good things, but I also read about a God who believes a woman's body is a man's property, and a God who believes people deserve to literally die for any tiny minor sin, and a God who lets satan kill your children to prove a point. I was taught that, you know, all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, etc, and so I fully believed those things and held them as just as true and important as the "important" and "key" passages.

So when Christians talk about "we want to teach our children to love the bible" as if that's a simple and obvious thing, no, I don't really agree with that. I am a Christian and I love the bible, but I don't believe it's inerrant; I think the writers got A LOT of things wrong (but it's useful for us to read because it gives insight into human nature and culture and how they viewed God), and I believe most of it is not appropriate for children.

I want to introduce my son to the bible, but not in the way I was. 

So, let's continue with this Christianity Today article and see what their suggestions are.

The next section talks about the importance of parents discussing the bible with their children, like it's a normal part of life, not just something you learn in church. Yes, I agree! I am always up for talking about the bible (okay but I have boundaries with Christians who want to tell me I'm not a real Christian). And then this bit:

For example, just about every morning, the boys come downstairs to witness their dad reading the Bible over a cup of coffee. When it’s time for him to tackle lackluster passages from books such as Lamentations, he may comment that he’s ready for something more exciting, Simons says. But ultimately this demonstrates his belief that every word from God has the ability to change him, so he’s willing to stick with studying all of Scripture.

Yeah, like I said, Christians claim that the whole bible is valuable and life-changing, but most Christians very much do not behave like they actually believe that. And the ones that do, like in the above paragraph, find themselves having to convince themselves that yeah this "lackluster" passage totally is worth reading in their daily devotions.

On that note, let's talk about "daily devotions." This is a Christianese term that means the habit of taking time every day to sit quietly by yourself and read the bible and pray. (The CT article doesn't use the term "daily devotions" but I am using it here because that's a very common term in evangelical culture.) And I was taught that yes of course Christians are supposed to be doing that every day. Of course! That's like, one of the main parts of being a Christian! (I guess only a few rich people could be Christians before the invention of the printing press in the 1400s.) So of course I did it every day, every single day for years, back when I had a personal relationship with God.

But the more I'm out of evangelical culture, the more I feel like the habit of reading the bible every day is really frickin' weird. You've got this ancient book, written thousands of years ago in the Middle East, in other languages that were then translated into English- but some bits were hard to translate because we really don't know what those words meant exactly, so the translators just did their best, but none of that uncertainty is reflected in the copy of the bible you hold, where everything is in grammatically-correct English sentences and English words that you understand. It was written by a whole diverse group of authors, who each had their own biases (like thinking slavery was normal and women weren't really full people), their own political reasons for writing what they did, and who very much did not believe in the Christianity that you were taught in church- you know, the Christianity that is supposedly simply "what the bible says." 

And you've got a bunch of different genres- Hebrew poetry, parables, apocalyptic literature, history (but not as fixated on getting the facts right as modern people think historians should be).

You take all that, and you sit down for 10 minutes every morning and read a bit of it while enjoying your coffee, and you expect to get some kind of nice inspirational message that you can ponder as you go about your day. You expect you're going to read a few bible verses and feel God's nice comforting presence and then close the book and on to the next thing. 

Uh, really? Isn't it more likely you'd be like "wtf did I just read" and wow it's already been 10 minutes and you feel like you haven't gotten anywhere near a "nice inspirational message" from God... you feel like you better go to the library and check out some books on ancient Hebrew culture before you can even begin to understand...

Actually... I'll be honest with you- back when I had a personal relationship with God, I did experience those "daily quiet times" as helpful and uplifting and feeling God's presence. I read the bible, all of it, all the wtf parts, and I had so much faith, I really 100% believed that all those extremely-shady-sounding things that God commanded were just fine. Surely God had a reason, and it's all good. I really believed that. And yes, the daily bible reading did strengthen my devotion to God, relationship with God, obedience to God, and love for the bible.

But after I started to question, the whole concept of "daily devotions" became impossible for me. I would read just a few verses and get so stuck on how wrong they felt, and I'd end up so confused, and feel so bad about my inability to do this very basic Christian thing, to sit down and read the bible with the correct blinders on so that it would simply be an uplifting experience that strengthened my relationship with God.

(And yes, I'm aware that there are certain sections of the bible that much more easily come across as "nice and inspirational and teaching you nice lessons about God"- like the epistles, some of the psalms, most of the passages in the gospels. But I don't think I'm wrong if I say the majority of the bible is ... weird.)

(And ughhh, yeah I know that some good evangelical is going to read this and take issue with my word choice when I say "nice and inspirational"- they are gonna say "well her approach to the bible was all wrong! The bible is not just supposed to be nice and inspirational- it also convicts us of our sin and teaches us hard truths that we might not want to hear, but we need to obey." Yeah, I know, and I'm not sure what words to use instead... I'm not talking about "I wanted to read the bible and feel good about myself, but instead it told me I'm a sinner"; I'm talking about "I wanted to read the bible and learn things about God, but instead I found a God who does a lot of really really bizarre things that make no sense, like making laws about 'proof of her virginity', and ordering an execution when someone was gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and giving Job more kids to replace his kids- and hundreds more examples. Also why is there so much written here about foreskins.")

Anyway. So. Coming back to the topic I'm actually trying to write about- how to introduce the bible to my son. I would like him to read it, but the "have a quiet time every day" thing is weird. It makes more sense to me to read the bible on one's own terms, and when one has enough time to be looking up information on ancient Israel in parallel. And maybe don't just read the bible- also read books by modern biblical scholars from a variety of different viewpoints. Yeah I even want him to read stuff I don't agree with, because he has to learn how to judge someone's argument and decide whether it makes sense or not. When I was a kid, I assumed that all the books written by Christians were 100% true. And there were some books on some topics that we weren't allowed to read, because we would be "led astray." I don't think that's a healthy approach now. I think you can read whatever, no need to be afraid of "being led astray", and the important thing is that you personally have the critical thinking skills to know when you should reject an idea.

But Square Root is a toddler, so all of that is many years away from us.

Oh but fortunately, that Christianity Today article has recommendations related to toddlers and little kids! Let's take a look:

Teaching kids to study Scripture—not just read it—can begin at a young age. Quina Aragon, a spoken word artist and author of the children’s Bible story picture book Love Made, takes a simple, age-appropriate approach with her four-year-old daughter. Aragon says she’ll often begin a brief time of Bible study by asking her little girl to repeat a few phrases she learned from Bible Study Fellowship’s children’s program. “I’ll say, ‘The Bible is … ’ and then my daughter will shout, ‘God’s Word!’ Then I’ll say, ‘And all God’s words are … ’ and she’ll shout, ‘True!’ And then I’ll say, “And the whole Bible is about … ’ and she’ll shout, ‘Jesus!’ ”

Oh. Uh. Yeah I am not a fan of this. 

Like, cringe.

This mom has taken a very big, multifaceted, abstract concept, and condensed it down to 3 simple sentences, and presented it to her child as if they're just simple indisputable facts. Yes, if the mom believes "The Bible is God's Word" etc then I don't have a problem with that- and as an adult, she is capable of realizing that "is God's Word" can mean a lot of different things to different people, that it's the kind of thing where one might ask "what do you mean by that" and have an hours-long discussion about it. And 5 different people might all say "The Bible is God's Word" but mean 5 different things by it. And many perfectly good people who love this little 4-year-old girl do not believe that "the Bible is God's Word."

To teach a child something like "the whole Bible is about Jesus" in the same way you teach them that the sky is blue and 1+1=2... this is not good. Yes, I understand that the parents believe those things are all literally equally true- but the parents also understand that people have different opinions about religion, and we don't have absolute proof about it, and people are free to believe what they want and you shouldn't be mean to anyone about it- and none of that is getting communicated to the child.

Moving along:

Aragon focuses on just a little bit of Scripture at a time. “Lately we’ve been discussing a few verses from the book of Mark,” Aragon said. “I’ll open my Bible and point to the letter M because my daughter has begun learning the alphabet. I’ll say, ‘M is for Mark.’ Then I explain how the numbers represent chapters and verses. We’ll read three or four verses, and I’ll share one concept or point from the passage that she can repeat back to me. Then I’ll pray and give her a chance to pray.”

Aww this is nice. Yeah the gospels are some of the more child-friendly parts of the bible (until you get to the whole "torturing Jesus to death" bit, yeah that is not appropriate for children) and I like the mom and daughter reading it together and the mom talking about how she interprets it. I like the idea of letting the child experience it, but not telling the child they have to believe it or anything like that.

Mitchell suggests another idea for studying Scripture with children of multiple ages: Create a visual prompt using a large poster with the question “What is God like?” written on it. “Every time you read a story in the Bible that tells you something about God’s character, write or draw it on the paper,” Mitchell said. “You’ll see how he’s good, loving, merciful, and what his grace looks like. It will build and build.” This is one way for children to learn about the attributes of God and begin processing life experiences through the lens of knowing and trusting his character, Mitchell explained.

Uh, this only really works if you severely limit which passages you look at. Otherwise you have to write "thinks virginity is a real thing, believes the myth about bleeding the first time having penetrative sex, thinks women who have unmarried sex deserve to die" and many other extremely questionable things we see God saying or doing in the bible. Do you really want your 4-year-old reading that?

Okay, yeah, since we're talking about "severely limiting" which parts of the bible we show to children, I'll say this: There is a lot of good stuff in the bible. There are a lot of very good and beautiful truths about God. There are a lot of stories that are great for kids to read. BUT. Most of the bible is not that. So yes, I want to show my child the good parts, but I don't want to misrepresent the bible and have him think that the bible is all about exciting stories, and teaching morality and godliness, and learning good things about God. No, the bible is very much about foreskins, and genocide, and God sending war and disasters as punishment, and laws that had zero understanding of human rights.

And I believe in evangelical culture, the bible is very much misrepresented in this way. People say they believe the whole bible is inspired by God, is worth reading, can change our lives- but there are so many passages that you never hear about in church. The really weird ones. And kids like Little Perfect Number (ie me as a child), taking them at their word and actually reading right through, all the good and bad and ugly, not the version of the bible that's been carefully curated to present in Sunday School class... Little Perfect Number sitting in church wondering what "proof of her virginity" means, when she'd never even heard of a hymen, when she didn't even know that the kind of sex that makes babies involves penetration... It's not right. (And if you're like, why does this blog post keep talking about this virginity stuff so much, it's WEIRD- well you should ask Moses the same question.)

So what do I do, read Square Root a bible story and then tell him "that's from the bible, but actually most of the bible is INCREDIBLY WEIRD, it's not nice stories like this"? That seems... like an odd thing to say to a toddler? So I don't really know how to handle this. 

Right now I read him board books about the Christmas story in the bible, that's all. He loves to point out the star and donkey and sheep. It's adorable. I have not sat him down for the "the bible is INCREDIBLY WEIRD" talk yet, lol.

But hey, let's get back to the CT article:

Beyond teaching information, Borgo suggests that parents focus on their child’s spiritual formation when imparting Bible knowledge. She encourages parents to view Scripture as a conversational partner or as an opportunity to help their kids encounter God in the stories of the biblical characters who’ve experienced God throughout the ages. When reading a Bible passage, Borgo recommends parents pose a few key exploratory questions. “They can ask, ‘What is it that you wonder about this story? What is it you wish would have happened or not have happened?’ ” she said.

I love this! "view Scripture as a conversational partner or as an opportunity to help their kids encounter God." Love it! I see the bible as sort of something to bounce ideas off of, not something that you have to believe because it's inerrant and if it seems wrong to you then better change yourself because you're the problem. Also I love the part about "What is it you wish would have happened or not have happened?" Omg, let's write fan fiction! Let's play with it! Let's explore. I love it.

And the bit about "biblical characters who've experienced God throughout the ages", yes, that's totally how I view the bible. The writers were writing from their own perspectives, their own experiences and their own views of God, and it's so interesting and useful to read those different perspectives. Of course there were lots of things they got wrong, but also lots of things that can serve as good models for us. Use your own brain to figure out which is which.

Back to the Christianity Today article. It has some book recommendations! Let's take a look:

Danielle Hitchen has published a series of Christian board books for babies. For example, there's Let There Be Light: An Opposites Primer [affiliate link], featuring pairs like "wet/dry", "day/night", etc, with a bible verse and nice artwork for each one.

This looks pretty good! I feel like some of the board books in this series get a little too abstract, like "2 natures of Jesus: fully man, fully God" in the counting book, but hey, it's okay to have some more abstract stuff in baby's library. Probably won't be the kid's favorite, though, because it's so abstract it's hard for them to relate to it. Also, uh... nobody is gonna have a problem with "day and night are opposites" but you tell a baby "Jesus was fully man and fully God" and you've glossed over centuries of debate and kicking people out of the church for heresy. So, umm, not super thrilled about all of the stuff in these books. Also I wonder how much they get into the "you are a sinner and you deserve to die and go to hell" ideology- which I don't believe, but most evangelicals do. I don't want my kid exposed to that. My child is the most precious thing to ever grace the earth with his presence. Ain't nobody gonna tell him God thinks he deserves to go to hell. Not on my watch.

But yeah, I definitely think it would be good to get little Square Root one of these Christian board books. And if it has a few pages I don't agree with, well we can teach him that adults don't agree about everything. I guess. Well, I'd want to read the whole book myself first to make sure there's nothing about "you deserve to go to hell."

Looking at some of the other links in the CT article, these ones look like they could be good:

Love Made: A Story of God’s Overflowing, Creative Heart. Oooh it's about God's love, the story of creation, and really nice pictures of cute animals. And I like how it's a story, so the child can view it just like any of the stories in his other books- like it's nice to read but that doesn't mean it literally happened. I mean, yeah sure when he grows up he can believe this literally happened, or there is literally a bunny being patted by Paul and Judy, or whatever.

Jesus and the Lions' Den (Tales That Tell the Truth). Ooooh what an interesting concept- it's about finding similarities between the story of Daniel in the lions' den and the story of Jesus. Wow this is skirting dangerously close to "the gospel writers embellished the story with stuff they found meaningful from the Old Testament." Love it. I'd have to actually read it myself to see how they present it, I'm guessing it's more of a "the whole bible points us to Jesus" vibe actually.

So. In summary. I am excited about the idea of introducing my child to the bible. I'm a Christian and I love the bible. There's a lot of great stuff in there. But then I look at Christian materials for children and there are always things that make me cringe or say "that's not appropriate for children", or that completely misrepresent the bible by presenting it like it's NOT a book full of weird stuff. (Foreskins, genocide, etc.) In this Christianity Today article, there were things I loved and things I very much will NOT be teaching my kid. There were a few book recommendations that are worth checking out. It's going to be a process, teaching him about the bible, and I don't have a clear answer yet about how to do it. But it'll be fine.

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Disclosure: I use Amazon affiliate links, which means if people click the link and buy the thing I earn money

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Related:

Taking My Kid To Church: God Loves My Son

Why on Earth Did I Ever Expect the Bible to be Anything Other Than Incredibly Weird? 

The Bible is a Model, So Use Your Brain

Honest Lent: Unclear Passages 

2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids

For all the posts in the "Taking My Kid To Church" series: Taking My Kid To Church (Blog Series)

Blogaround

1. Animation: Gender Eyeshadow (posted April 30) "God knows how many days in the Enchanted Woods (not to mention several swims in the ocean) and Elsa and Anna are still rocking their eyeshadow game."

2. Twitter thread from Rachael Denhollander about the newest situation with Josh Duggar (posted May 7)

3. Why I say “I don’t experience split attraction” not “I don’t have a romantic orientation” (posted April 17) "When I first starting pushing back against the concept of split attraction, the only way I could think of to describe my experience was to say “but to me ace and aro are conflated” but I’ve become increasingly opposed to using the word conflated (which was used on Tumblr to imply that my experience was inherently wrong) to describe myself."

4. The False Hope of a Mature Creation (posted April 5) "Did all these events happen in just the past 6000 years? There is no remotely plausible scenario which can compress all of this history into such a short time frame."

(And on the same site, this satire piece from 2017 is FANTASTIC: Answers from Genesis: Reclaiming the Biblical Authority of Joseph’s Global Famine)

Sinopharm vaccine, 1st dose

Aww yeah, I got my first dose of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine!

In China, there are 2 different vaccines being given to the general public- one developed by Sinopharm and one developed by Sinovac. Seems like some locations here are giving one and some locations are giving the other, and you get whatever you get. Both of them use the inactivated virus, and both of them require 2 doses.

In late March, Shanghai started encouraging the general public to get vaccinated. Here's what I wrote about it in my April 3 blogaround:

Good news- here in Shanghai, starting around March 29 there's been a big push for people to get the COVID vaccine. I saw a bunch of articles on social media (WeChat) about how to register, there was a flyer posted on the 1st floor of our apartment building, somebody came door-to-door with the flyers too, and HR at work sent an email. (There is a separate system for foreign passport holders to register, because the main system requires a Chinese ID number.) I have an appointment in a few weeks for the first dose! Woo I love vaccines!

They are saying everyone who is age 18 to 75 and healthy should get vaccinated. Right now everyone in that range can go ahead and make an appointment, it's not broken down into different risk categories or anything like in the US. (People who are higher risk because they come into contact with international travelers etc have already been vaccinated.)

Only some of the vaccine locations have been designated as accepting foreigners. I assume it's so they can make sure they have someone who speaks English there, and a place where you can pay for the vaccine if you're not on Chinese social insurance, and whatever other weird edge cases they might have to deal with to accommodate international people.

Ah, so about that Chinese social insurance: It's kind of like how in the US, you get money deducted from your salary to pay for social security and whatever else. If you are paying into the system (which I am), then you get benefits related to health care, maternity leave, unemployment insurance, pension, etc. (When I was on maternity leave I got paid 100% of my salary for the whole 4 months I was off work.) And, if you are in the system, you get your COVID vaccine for free. If you're not in the system, it's 100 rmb, which is about $15.

Oh, another fun fact: I am still breastfeeding my little toddler son. There was a lot of talk in the mom groups (on WeChat/ social media) about "should I get the vaccine if I am breastfeeding?" Some moms did, some moms didn't, some moms went to the vaccine site and were told they weren't allowed to get the vaccine because they were breastfeeding. The latest recommendation in China is that pregnant and breastfeeding people can totally get the vaccine, but this is the kind of thing China is super-cautious about (in my opinion, way too cautious), so sometimes the staff at the vaccine site still don't allow it. I am all about that natural immunity being passed on to the baby through the milk though. :)

Anywayyyyyyy I took pictures for you, blog readers, so here they are:

You have to show your green QR code (to prove that you haven't travelled to any medium-risk or high-risk places in the past 14 days), and this security guard is taking everyone's temperature.

新冠疫苗接种人员入口 = COVID-19 vaccination entrance

Taking temperature on the wrist

Yeah he's taking everyone's temperature, but like not very accurately.

(The above image is a sign that says: 疫苗接种 Vaccination 预检登记处 Pre inspection registry)

Then you have to go to the registration desk and show them your passport, then on to the next window where you fill out the consent form. It asks questions about if you are allergic to any vaccines, etc.

This is the page you have to sign to confirm that they gave you the consent form.

Turns out the vaccine site I went to is a vaccine clinic that normally sees children. They had very cute animals on the walls, and charts about what vaccines babies need to get. But that afternoon they had the place set up to only do the COVID vaccine.

After the vaccine, you have to sit in the "observation area" for 30 minutes in case you have a reaction. This is standard in China- every time I take my son for a vaccine, or if I have a flu shot, or whatever, have to wait around for 30 minutes.

The vaccine I got was the Sinopharm one. Here's an image I found online that shows what the box looked like:

Box for the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. Image source.

The box says:

新型冠状病毒灭活疫苗（Vero细胞） 

SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine(Vero Cell), Inactivated

The small print at the bottom says the vaccine was made by CNBG/ Beijing Institute of Biological Products (China National Biotec Group, which is owned by Sinopharm).

After the vaccine, my arm was sore for about 1-2 days, but I didn't have any other side effects.

They said the next dose should be 3-8 weeks later. Really looking forward to being fully vaccinated!

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And the follow-up post from March 2022: Sinopharm Booster

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Good news~ My Patreon account reached its goal of $20/month! I said I would publish posts about my life in China when that happened, so here is the first one! Many thanks to my Patreon supporters and to all my readers. <3

Next China post is here: Taking the Subway in Shanghai, China

Blogaround

1. The TRUTH About Polyjuice Potion | Harry Potter Theory (posted April 14) "Let's say you're an adult, and you have the hair of another adult from when they were a child. In that case, would you transform into the adult version of them, or the child version of them?"

2. Birth Control vs J&J Vaccine (posted April 15) A video from an actual gynecologist, here to tell us that all the people on twitter going on about "they stopped the J&J vaccine because of a 1 in a million chance of blood clots, but birth control has a higher risk and nobody cares about that" don't know what they're talking about.

It is so important to do the actual work of checking sources and understanding what specific things are being measured in each statistic. But usually people just retweet things that line up with stuff they already agree with, without doing any of that work, and it spreads misinformation. And I have definitely done this too, retweeting things without actually thinking "is that true?" :/

3. Sapphira is a model of "complementarian biblical womanhood" (posted April 15) "Peter gives her a chance to come clean - to do the right thing by not going along with her husband's plan, by refusing to uncritically obey his spiritual guidance - but instead she opts to be a good 'complementarian,' demonstrating her unwavering commitment to submissive 'biblical womanhood,' and the same young men who buried her husband carry her to her grave as well."

(The follow-up post, 'Biblical families,' an index, is very good too.)

4. The Universal Never-Nude Art Museum Tour Map. (posted 2016) Lololol!

5. The coronavirus is ravaging India. Here's how you can help (posted April 29)

Blogaround

1. ‘Millions of Souls’: the Manipulation Tactic Christian Predators Love (posted February 14) [content note: sexual abuse coverup] "Keep quiet, or else people will go to Hell and it will be your fault for revealing the truth about me."

2. DoorDash Drivers Game Algorithm to Increase Pay (posted April 6) "They urge members to reject any delivery that doesn’t pay at least $7, more than double the current floor of $3."

3. Marvel Studios' Loki | Official Trailer | Disney+ (posted April 5) Very excited for this!

Blogaround

1. Afterlife: How Captain Cassidy Let Go of a False Belief [archive link] (posted January 22) [and follow-up posts here [archive link] and here [archive link]] Captain Cassidy wrote a few posts about no longer believing in any kind of "afterlife", and I wonder if she's right. One of my big things is "I believe in resurrection" but what she is saying makes sense.

2. The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness (posted February 25) "It’s not about my loans, or your loans, or your lack thereof. It’s not about your personal stories or anyone else’s. It’s about restoring the path from education to financial stability and wealth building — and, this time, actually maintaining it, no matter who decides to start the journey."

3. Well, yes:

Software that sends your porn viewing history to an accountability partner is just such a fucked up concept and I don’t trust that anyone who endorses it understands healthy boundaries

— ready for spring already (@mxreese1701) March 20, 2021

4. Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary dies at 104 (posted March 26)

5. Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) (Official Video) (posted March 26) This is extremely satanic and gay. I love it. It's like I said about Katy Perry in 2015: "Make a video that's as satanic as possible, and it's okay! Nothing can separate us from the love of God."

Lil Nas X has this to say:

i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay. so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 27, 2021

He knows EXACTLY what he's doing. PREACH.

6. Good news- here in Shanghai, starting around March 29 there's been a big push for people to get the COVID vaccine. I saw a bunch of articles on social media (WeChat) about how to register, there was a flyer posted on the 1st floor of our apartment building, somebody came door-to-door with the flyers too, and HR at work sent an email. (There is a separate system for foreign passport holders to register, because the main system requires a Chinese ID number.) I have an appointment in a few weeks for the first dose! Woo I love vaccines!

They are saying everyone who is age 18 to 75 and healthy should get vaccinated. Right now everyone in that range can go ahead and make an appointment, it's not broken down into different risk categories or anything like in the US. (People who are higher risk because they come into contact with international travelers etc have already been vaccinated.)

7. Is China Really Ready for Black Stories? (posted March 29) "Black-themed films can succeed in China — as long as their Blackness remains in the background."

8. Sentenced to death, but innocent: These are stories of justice gone wrong. (posted February 18) "Bloodsworth bore little resemblance to the suspect in the police sketch. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. He had no prior criminal record."

How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus)

 

A diagram showing the baby inside the pregnant person's body, at about 9 months pregnant. Image source.

[content note: it's about my genitals, sex, and giving birth]

I recently announced the birth of my perfect son, Square Root. I want to write about how, umm, my sex life has changed due to pregnancy/ giving birth/ taking care of a baby.

Basically, it is WAY EASIER to have vaginal sex now than it used to be, and also I want sex more than before.

And why is that? Well I think there are several factors, and the most important one is vaginismus-related, so I mainly want to talk about that. But there are a few other smaller factors I'll just touch on real quick here:

1. Hormones. Wowww oh my goodness, pregnancy hormones. There were times during the pregnancy when I really wanted to have sex- in a way that I hadn't felt before. Pregnancy hormones, breastfeeding hormones, all the hormones.
   As an aside: I did my research and the experts say it's fine to have sex during pregnancy unless you have a high-risk pregnancy- BUT if it's painful, that's a sign that maybe something's wrong and you should stop. And ... well isn't it effed-up that I never thought my own pain was a valid reason to completely refuse sex, but now that we add a vague "but what if it hurts the baby", suddenly I feel like I'm allowed to say no. (And no, fortunately it's not my husband who's treating me that way- it's what I learned in church.)
2. Due to the fact that we have a baby, we barely ever have time to have sex. So let's say before I got pregnant, I felt like "I have a responsibility to have sex with my husband at frequency x" (because I very much internalized this teaching from purity culture/ complementarianism- "men need it" blah blah blah) but perhaps I actually would have preferred frequency y, where y is less frequent than x. And now that we have a baby who always needs something, we only have time to have sex at frequency z, and z is less than y, so I feel like it's not enough. 

So I'm mentioning those things real quick, but they are not the point. Really I want to talk about vaginismus.

Healthline.com defines vaginismus thusly:

For some women, the vaginal muscles involuntarily or persistently contract when they attempt vaginal penetration. This is called vaginismus. The contractions can prevent sexual intercourse or make it very painful.

In the past, when I happened to come across blog posts about vaginismus, I was very excited because finally someone was talking about sex in a way that felt realistic to me. 

Still, I thought to myself, no, I don't have vaginismus. Because some of the details in other people's accounts didn't match my experience. Yes, it was the most relatable thing I had ever read about sex, a hundred times more relatable than any sex ed material or erotica or anything else I had ever encountered (with one exception- I once found an asexual sex ed guide which was very helpful and relatable for me)- but I still thought "no, I don't have vaginismus."

However, my thinking is different now- instead of getting stuck on the details that didn't match, I think it's more useful to say that yes, I have some kind of something that is like vaginismus, but maybe not vaginismus exactly, who knows, I'm not a doctor. See, that is a way more helpful description than just ... like... always being confused about why sex doesn't work.

Or basically, I probably have vaginismus but I don't feel like I can really diagnose myself? Something along those lines.

Anyway, let's switch gears now and I'll give you a basic overview of the story:

Gynecologist appointments: Always hurt like hell, and now I'm mad at how purity culture didn't allow me to know my own body and understand what was going on. I'm mad about how I just trusted doctors, and they hurt me and didn't really seem to realize there was a problem, that there was something very very unusual in how I was reacting and how painful it was, and I needed help. I'm mad about how I believed all of that was normal- surely it was normal, surely my body was perfect because I had never had sex and that meant I was pure and would have absolutely no sex-related problems. I'm mad because it was ... let me see ... I think maybe 8 years after my first gynecologist appointment, I read on Planned Parenthood's website that the pelvic exam is not supposed to hurt- and I cried. I had no idea.

My sex life: So I've only ever had sex with 1 person- Hendrix, who is now my husband (but I am VERY PROUD to tell you we had sex BEFORE MARRIAGE). The first time we tried to have PIV (penis-in-vagina) sex, we tried and tried and couldn't figure out how to get the penis to go in, so we gave up. Had to try again a different day; we were successful the second time. At that time, I was very happy that we had finally had sex, because it disproved all those warnings from purity culture about how sex was totally going to ruin my life and turn me into a completely different person, worthless and unable to ever have a happy marriage. Hooray, I had lived in fear of sex for so long, but all of that wasn't true! Sex was way less of a big deal than I thought. It's just, like, doing stuff with your genitals. Not completely changing your whole identity.

So yes, happy about that, but physically it was painful. There was a lot that felt good- the cuddling, kissing, being with him, making him feel good- but the actual penetration part was physically painful. Nothing but pain. PIV sex was like a whole huge task that I needed to steel myself to endure. And I'd been taught in church that that was normal. I had read the Christian marriage books about how if sex is painful for women, well that's not an excuse, you need to have sex with your husband anyway. I knew I didn't 100% believe that- in recent years I had started reading feminist stuff about how sex should feel good for women too and it shouldn't be all about the man. (Also, OBVIOUSLY queer people exist- you can have sex without any men at all actually.) But mostly, the "you have a duty to your husband" stuff is how I conceptualized it in my mind.

And when I went to my gynecologist appointments, I told them sex was painful and asked what I should do. And they were totally useless. I talked to at least 2 different gynecologists about this (and also mentioned it to the psychologist I was seeing back then) and they were all totally useless. They all said "just relax" and gave other bits of advice which I now see had absolutely nothing to do with my situation. I now see that they didn't understand the problem at all. I now see that my experience is very much NOT normal, but I didn't know that back then, and so I wasn't able to communicate it to the doctors. I assumed they would know what I was talking about. And also they were awkward and seemed to not want to talk explicitly about sex- the most direct and explicit it ever got was "is the pain on the outside, or deep inside?" We completely failed at communicating. Useless.

And then I found the asexual community.

Finally, finally, finally people are talking about "sex doesn't make any sense, why would you want to do that?" Finally! 

I researched and wondered for a while, and eventually concluded, yes, I am asexual.

And that was so good, because it was my starting point for learning about my body, learning about masturbating, learning about how to have sex with my husband. Before, I had always been so confused and disoriented by the idea that this is supposed to be natural, this is supposed to be easy, but when I accepted that no it's not natural or easy for me because I just don't have sexual attraction, then I could actually start doing the work of learning it. I accepted that it was something I would need to learn. (Maybe "need" isn't the right word here- certainly if you're asexual then it's totally fine to just not have sex; you do NOT "need to learn" it. But for me personally, I was very interested in learning about how to have sex in a way that feels good, and learning about my body.)

So I did the work. Bought sex toys. Lube. Masturbated. Communicated with my husband about what feels good and what doesn't. Tried different positions. All of that. I made FANTASTIC progress. I figured out ways to get my vagina to open, and I always always always put my fingers in to check the openness before attempting PIV. And every time we had sex, it took time, it was a process, but yes, I was able to do it in a way that physically felt good for me, despite the PIV. Most of the time. A difficult and delicate dance that was (most of the time) successful in avoiding (most of) the pain.

And then I got pregnant.

Fast forward 9 months, and I pushed a whole entire human out of my vagina.

And then gradually in the months after, we started having sex again. Not very often, because with a newborn baby, nobody has time for that. 

Gradually.

And then, months later, I realized, wait, this isn't hard any more.

It's NOT hard to do PIV any more. I don't have to go through a whole multi-step process to get my vagina to open. It just ... works.

Wait. 

Wait. Is this what sex is like for other people normally?

Wait. Wait. 

Like, if you want to put your consenting partner's penis in your vagina, you can just GO AHEAD and put your consenting partner's penis in your vagina? WHATTTTTT? That easy?

And- get this- sometimes the consenting partner can even be the one to put it in. 

WHATTTTTTTTTT

BUT LITERALLY THAT'S HOW IT IS NOW FOR ME. It's easy! It just goes in! Like sometimes we need a little lube, but like, there is a known solution to the "we need lube" issue, which is "buy lube." Not like how it was before, when I had a whole bag of tricks for trying to get PIV to work without pain, and could never be sure if I would be successful.

And- get this- now PIV can actually physically feel good for me. Before, I felt good in sort of a symbolic way, related to the society-defined meaning of sex in the context of a long-term relationship, etc. Feeling like, I'm good enough, I'm able to do what I'm supposed to do for my husband. But there was nothing inherently good in the physical act itself- it was either painful or not painful and that was it. (Oh hmm, actually there were a *few* rare occasions PIV did feel good physically.)

So I convinced myself it felt good, but now I see that was kind of a "if you really squint you can sort of make yourself believe it feels good." But now it REALLY DOES feel good, no question. Now it's like "wow that was nice, do it again" and I actually look forward to having sex. Look forward to it because it feels good physically, not like before when I looked forward to it because I wanted to get away from the guilt because the church told me I'm a bad wife if I don't have sex with my husband often enough.

Well this is just WILD. This is ... WOWWWW. Is this how sex is for y'all?

This is just mind-blowing. Like all along, when I've tried to talk to people about sex, we've actually been talking about ENTIRELY DIFFERNT THINGS. And in writing this blog post, I have emphasized the pain part, whereas before I wouldn't really focus so much on that when describing my perspective on sex, because I thought that was obvious and didn't need to be said. 

Like, of course it's very important to do penetration at EXACTLY the right angle, because if you get it wrong then it hurts so bad that you're better off just giving up on sex and trying again another day.

Right?

Is that ... not normal?

I really thought that it was this way for everyone with a vagina- that as you go about your normal life, you are not physically aroused, and therefore your vagina is shut like a steel trap and penetration is basically impossible. But then when you want to have sex, you do foreplay or whatever, and that gets your body aroused and your vagina open. And I concluded that my issue was I'm asexual and therefore my being attracted to my partner has no intrinsic connection to my body getting physically aroused. So I have to very deliberately stimulate the outer parts (clit, etc) physically in order to get my vagina to open, whereas for other people it would naturally open just because they are sexually attracted to their partner.

But, uh, turns out not. Turns out the "shut like a steel trap" thing just ... is not at all what most people experience.

And I'm sure I wasn't even consciously aware that I wasn't properly communicating how painful it was. That's all I had known. That was my entire experience of PIV sex- of course I didn't have any kind of reference point to show me that my pain was not normal. That's why it's so important to me to write this blog post now- having experienced this from both sides, so to say.

And wow. Wow. I just CANNOT BELIEVE how easy it is to have PIV sex now. (I guess after you push a whole big-headed baby out of your vagina, you no longer have any problems with some small thing like a penis.)

And we can do missionary position now! [TMI?] Before, we very very very rarely tried it, because the pain made it basically impossible. But now missionary position feels good. This is so different, it's unbelievable.

All right. Now we need to talk about my asexuality. Because this kind of calls my asexuality into question, doesn't it?

One interpretation is that I wasn't "really" asexual, that it was "actually" vaginismus. That I was wrong to claim to be asexual. It wasn't an issue about sexual attraction and sexual orientation; it was an actual physical problem with my body. And I should have gone to more doctors until I found one who could give me the correct treatment for vaginismus.

I don't believe that.

That would mean I shouldn't have had access to all the benefits that asexuality has brought me. I should have just continued to "try to be normal", paying money to more and more doctors and letting them hurt my vagina, in hopes of finding an authority figure who can tell me what I need to do to "be normal."

Let's be real, the only place a "you weren't actually asexual" argument can come from is the idea that asexual just isn't a valid thing to be at all. So no. I don't buy that.

Also, let's say, hypothetically, that I'm heterosexual, but vaginismus makes sex with men nearly impossible, and there is no practical way for me to even figure out what the problem is or get treatment- isn't that functionally the same thing as being asexual?

So... maybe it's like this: One possible explanation is that I do have that feeling that people call "sexual attraction." And yes, it's true that before I had ever attempted anything sexual at all, I was sure I would find sex really great. But then, I tried PIV and it wasn't anything like I'd expected. It felt all wrong and painful. So I concluded, "oh, if this is what sex is, then no I don't have a desire for that, so that means I'm asexual."

Then the issue would be the definition of "sex." "Asexual" means I don't have sexual attraction, and "sexual attraction" means I am attracted to someone in such a way that I have a desire for sex with them. And no, I am not attracted to anyone in such a way that I want to painfully stab my vagina with them. So have we been talking about different things all along? There is some other experience that people call "sex", which I had never had before I gave birth, and it is pleasurable for me and I do have an attraction for it?

Like... yes, I know PIV is not the be-all-end-all of sex. There is sex that is not PIV. I have been aware of that for a long time, for years, but maybe subconsciously I do still think "sex" means "penis in vagina." And when I decided to identify as asexual, I know I did consider if I have attraction for other sex that's not PIV, and I still concluded that I don't. But it's hard to untangle all of this... coming from that patriarchal purity-culture you-have-a-duty-to-your-husband background, was there even a possibility that I could have said "yes I enjoy sex, just not PIV, I hate PIV, but yes sex is great!" And knowing what I know now about how IT REALLY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THAT PAINFUL, it makes me think I need to untangle it differently than I did in the past. 

So maybe. Maybe now that PIV is going so well, I will discover that I do have sexual attraction, and then I will conclude I'm not asexual. But even if that happens, I still believe I was right to identify as asexual up til now, and I am very grateful for my time as an asexual. It allowed me the freedom to explore and know myself, and accept that whatever desires I did or did not have were all okay and normal.

At the same time, though, I think about how even before I ever attempted anything sexual at all, I just ... didn't really have sexual desire at all? I never masturbated, never even considered if I might be interested in masturbating. The boys I dated before Hendrix, I never ever EVER considered the question "would it feel good to have sex with him?" The idea that one would have sex with one's boyfriend was just nowhere on my radar at all, except in the warnings I got from purity-culture Christians about "CAN YOU BELIEVE how gross and sinful THE WORLD is- some people think it's normal to *GASP* have sex with your boyfriend OH NO THE HORROR." (I've blogged before about times I was completely clueless about the reality that other people actually do experience sexual attraction- and that was all before I had attempted PIV, so vaginismus was not a factor.)

But maybe I was just repressed, and if my first PIV experience had gone better, then things would have gone way differently. Maybe. Who knows.

Imagine that, though, imagine how different that would be. What if I had tried PIV and it worked? Or at least, I was able to do it in a way that's satisfactory to my male partner. Then I would have had no reason to learn about my body the way I did. I would have just continued having mediocre sex, and thinking it was good because a man liked it. Also, I would have felt like it was normal if the man has an orgasm and the woman doesn't. 

And I would have just gone on like that and felt like it was fine. Hey... it just occurred to me that maybe a lot of women do that, and that explains the baffling advice I read recently in a book about how having a baby changes the relationship between the husband and wife. In this book, it was talking about how sex is all different and confusing since the baby was born, and so you have to communicate and do this and that, etc... And I'm like, so confused, because for me sex was confusing FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, and I worked hard to figure it out, and what I read in this book was just incomprehensible- like some couples are having sex and it's going along fine but they haven't done the work of knowing their bodies and communicating and all that, and then having the baby forces them to do that work in order to have any kind of sex life at all. Hmm.

(Yeah does anyone's sex life get better right after having a baby? Just me? Okay then.)

So yeah, in a way I'm grateful for vaginismus, because without it, I would never have taken control of my own sex life. I would still have thought everything I do sexually has to be focused on my husband. I would still have thought masturbating was basically cheating. I would still have thought there was something a little wrong about looking at and being familiar with my own body. And I would still not be having orgasms.

Because I was taught that a wife has sex as a duty to her husband. And I found I couldn't fulfill that duty. I needed to masturbate and learn about my body in order to be able to fulfill that duty, so that's what I did. I still think it's a little messed-up that this whole thing begins and ends with a man, but at least in the middle I learned that my body is mine, I am in charge, I belong to me.

The idea that I "wasn't really" asexual, and it was "actually just" vaginismus... I think about what would have happened if it had gone that way. What if I did find a doctor who knew what vaginismus was, instead of finding the asexual community? Then no, I wouldn't have been able to take charge of my own body and sex life. I would have viewed the doctor as an authority figure telling me what standards I am supposed to meet, and what I had to do to be good enough to meet those standards. I still wouldn't be able to actually learn about my body.

I wouldn't have asked myself, what do I want? It would have been only about getting my body good enough for a man to enjoy.

Yes, certainly it is possible for a doctor to help with vaginismus in a way that keeps the patient informed about what their situation is and allows them to set the goals. Yes. But I wouldn't have been able to do that, because I always viewed doctors as if they know everything and get to tell me what I'm supposed to be. Now I see it differently- now I see doctors as a very good resource I should use to further my own personal health/body-related goals. I'm responsible for my own health. I rely on the doctors for their knowledge and advice, but I belong to me.

But back then, when I was letting gynecologists hurt me because I had no idea what my own anatomy was? Nope, no way a doctor could have helped me.

(I guess I should throw a disclaimer in here: doctors are great, there are totally good gynecologists out there. I am very thankful to all the doctors and midwives and nurses who helped with the birth of my son. Especially the anesthesiologist who did the epidural. He listened to all my concerns about it, answered my questions, let me make my own decision about if I wanted to do it or not. And also then all the pain from the contractions went away.)

Asexuals, though. Asexuals said whatever desires I have or don't have are fine. Whatever amount of sex I want to have or don't want to have is fine. Asexuals told me I can know myself, and that nobody else can override that.

So none of this nonsense about "I wasn't really asexual." I firmly believe that if identifying as asexual helps you personally, then it's right for you to identify as asexual. I still don't know what sexual attraction is- now that I've found out I can just go ahead and do PIV and it's easy, I might have to completely rewrite my understanding of what sexual attraction is. Maybe it will turn out that I actually do have sexual attraction. But yes, it was right for me to identify as asexual. It has helped me so much.

And I don't want someone to read this and think "we need to have more awareness about vaginismus, so that people don't mis-identify as asexual and then get themselves all messed up." Yes, I definitely wish I had known about vaginismus earlier, but at the same time maybe it's good that wasn't the lens I viewed my "I don't understand sex" problem through. Instead of "I have vaginismus and I need a cure so I can be normal," I believed "I am asexual, and I accept myself as I am, and I set my own goals about what kind of sex I want to have." Which turned out way better.

So where am I now, then? Sure, it was right to identify as asexual in the past, and I keep saying that maybe in the future I won't be, but what about right now?

Well I'm definitely straight, so, am I heterosexual? Lolllll lol can you imagine being heterosexual? Like, that would mean that sex actually makes sense to me. Like, I would have to understand what people are talking about when they mention sex. Ha, no.

Well how about demisexual? Because I only want to have sex with my husband- that sounds sort of demisexual, right? Well, no I don't think I'm demisexual. The reason I only want to have sex with my husband isn't because I'm not attracted to other people, it's because sex is just SO WEIRD that I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that like, any random man on the street could theoretically do it. Like it feels like a weird inside joke that's just between me and him.

How about graysexual? No... I kind of always felt like "graysexual" was for asexuals who thought "but how can I be sure I've never experienced sexual attraction, if I don't even know what it is? I don't think I'm allowed to ID as asexual, I'd better say graysexual just to be safe." And, hey, no, there is no asexual police, you are allowed to ID as asexual even if you can't prove that you have never experienced sexual attraction. Yes, I bet that for some people it is very good and helpful to identify as graysexual. But not me.

(Edit: Ah, I think I am misrepresenting was graysexual means... Here's a post with a better description: Many ways to be between.)

So what's left then? Asexual? Well, yeah that fits, that feels right. Okay then.

So. In conclusion. Big changes. Ever since I pushed an entire baby out of my vagina, PIV sex is no longer the whole ordeal it used to be, where I needed to use all sorts of techniques to get my vagina to open or else the whole thing was unbearably painful. Like wow, it's night and day; it's just astonishing how easy it is now, and it made me realize that all that pain I had before was not normal and most likely was vaginismus (even though I don't feel I can actually diagnose myself). So I am having more sex now and it's very exciting. And all of this has me reconsidering my asexuality. Yes, I firmly believe I was right to identify as asexual, though maybe the context of it was sort of different than what I thought back then. Maybe in the future I won't be asexual any more. But I am grateful for all the benefits asexuality brought me. It allowed me to accept myself and be in charge of my own sexuality, instead of trying to fit society's / some man's / a doctor's idea of what "normal" is.

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

Appendix:

So it turns out that every time I've blogged about sex in explicit terms, it was coming from a perspective where PIV is very painful for me and I had NO IDEA that that wasn't the case for everyone with a vagina.

I wrote the advice I wish I had had. But now I feel like... for most people, this has nothing to do with their situation at all. And for the people that do need this advice, how do I even find them to tell them? What keywords to use- I guess "vaginismus" is the only one? And how do I write it in a way that they would be able to tell their unusual situation is the same as mine?

Anyway, here's an example, an old post with my maybe-actually-not-useful advice on how to have sex:

3 Reasons I Need To Identify As Ace

Anyway, I ended up talking to 3 different doctors about this problem. (Why does it hurt? Why do I basically just like it because I'm in love with Hendrix and any activity I do with him makes me happy, but I don't feel pleasure specifically from the act of sex itself?) None of them were that helpful. They all told me "just relax" and other equally vague and useless bits of advice.

But when I found information about asexuality online, it all made sense. That's the answer, that's why sex is so difficult for me. It's because most people have this thing called sexual attraction, and I don't. And I love Hendrix and I want to have sex with him- if I didn't know these facts about my own orientation, it would be so much more confusing and difficult.

And this paragraph is going to be explicit [NSFW], but I'm going to write it because this is the secret I've discovered that has improved our sex life SO MUCH. Like, I'm just going to go ahead and say this explicitly because NOBODY EVER SAID IT TO ME EXPLICITLY AND THAT'S WHY I'VE HAD SO MUCH TROUBLE: So if you want to do penis-in-vagina sex, the important thing is that first the vagina has to open. Like, in regular life, it's not very open and so it would be incredibly painful to try to push something in. As it turns out, when people use the term "arousal", they are referring to when the vagina becomes more wet and open (or, if you have a penis, "arousal" means getting an erection). (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong on the vocabulary. As I said, I'm kind of clueless.) Furthermore, when people talk about "foreplay", what they mean is doing things to get the body aroused. See, before, I assumed "foreplay" meant "kissing and touching each other in pleasurable ways before you have sex." But it turns out it's more than that- if you're going to do penis-in-vagina sex, the foreplay NEEDS TO accomplish the task of getting the vagina to open. I had NO IDEA. Really. I thought foreplay was just about feeling good and maybe making yourself *want* sex (in an emotional sense)- I had absolutely no idea it was also supposed to include tangible genital-related bodily reactions. And that if it doesn't, then penis-in-vagina sex will be painful or maybe even impossible. LIKE THIS IS A BIG HUGE DEAL, NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN JUST SKIP or be like "eh I guess we've done enough of that, what comes next?" Like seriously, before you try to put a penis in, use your fingers and check if the vagina is open or not. Because usually it's NOT. It's only open if you're aroused enough. Sooooo anyway I figured out that if I use a sexy toy and stimulate the clit before we start actually having sex, and get an orgasm that way, it will make the vagina open and wet. And then we can put a penis in way easier. I don't know if that falls under the category of "foreplay" or not, because it's pretty much just me doing it, not my partner, but WOWWWWW that has helped our sex life SO MUCH. (Also: Use lots of lube.)

And currently my advice on PIV sex is this: Don't let anyone put their penis in if you've never put 2 of your own fingers in. Ugh, even as I write that, I question myself, like people are going to say "eww no", people are going to say it's normal to have ANOTHER PERSON put their penis in your vagina, but it's dirty and shameful to put YOUR OWN fingers in. WHY? WHY? 

Yeah I know in church they said my husband owns my sexuality and I do not, but that's wrong, that's so wrong.

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

Related:

My Husband Is Not The Entire Focus Of My Sex Life 

Doctors (part 3 of Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves)

They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie.

I Wanna Preach the Good News of Masturbation

When the Teacher Says, "Don't Look at Your Report Card"

And also a big thank-you to all the bloggers who came before me and wrote about vaginismus. Here are a few of the posts that had a big impact on me:

TMI: Vaginismus, Me, and Why We Need to Talk Abut Female Sexual Dysfunction

The Kind of Sex I Thought I Wanted

The Other Side

Top 15 posts from 2020

A computer with the word "BLOG" displayed on the screen. Image source.

Hi readers! Here's a roundup of my most read/ favorite posts from 2020. This year 2 of the big themes on the blog were COVID-19 and the birth of my little son. 

I am in China (have been in China for the entire pandemic), so I experienced all the lockdowns and panicking about a month earlier than most of my readers. Then after 2-3 months we were more or less "back to normal", except we have to wear masks, and can't travel. (It's been a very different story in the US...) 

And I announced the birth of my son! He is amazing and perfect. So I've had a lot to say on the blog about pregnancy and babies and being a mom.

Anyway here are the top 6 posts with the most page views:

1. The Babylon Bee Completely Misunderstands Boundaries. I Am Shocked. (note: not actually shocked) "The Babylon Bee is trash."

2. An Invisible Virus and an Omniscient God "In particular, why aren't Christians in the United States using 'discernment' to make up for the lack of COVID-19 testing? Surely in the US there exist some Christians who are close enough to God that they're that good at 'discernment'... right?"

3. What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice "Now I know how hard pregnancy is, and I understand the importance of 'my body, my choice' in a way I never did before."

4. Bathsheba's Son "Bathsheba spent 9 months nurturing and loving the child that grew inside her body. David spent 9 months covering up a rape and a murder."

5. Dance, Those Who Dance Upon Injustice "Someday we will tell our children about how people danced in the streets after the 2020 election."

6. Welcome Baby Square Root! 

And here are some other good posts I wrote:

1. What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding "Because I now see that there are lots of good reasons [to give formula]. But 'the mom is right here and wants to breastfeed the baby, but her husband's family is telling her 'no, you can't, you don't have enough milk'' is NOT one of them. That's effed-up."

2. I'm SO HAPPY I Won't Be Praying During Childbirth "What if something went wrong, and I thought it was my fault because I didn't pray the right way?"

3. Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter) "In this ideology, the idea of 'helping the victims' makes no sense- the so-called victims are sinners too and deserve to go to hell just as much as those who hurt them."

4. Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body "It's interesting to me that, from a cis man's perspective, language about eating another person's body and shedding blood is about violence and murder and death. Not the case for me. I have a uterus; I use my body to create a new life. I bled for him. I nurse him from my own breasts."

5. An Update on Whether or Not "Marriage is Hard" Now That We Have a Child "Having a newborn child (and my mother-in-law living with us) brought a lot of stress and conflict into our relationship for about 3 months, but that's a completely different thing than saying 'marriage is hard.'"

6. China Bans Foreigners (Like Me) From Entering the Country "This isn't like the travel bans in other countries, affecting tourists and business travelers. This affects long-term residents who uprooted their whole lives a month ago because of the virus, and were prepared to spend 14 days in quarantine in order to come back."

7. When the Teacher Says, "Don't Look at Your Report Card" "I thought there were things about myself that I shouldn't know, but that other people- people more qualified than me- should know. That's bullshit."

8. Homesick "The short version is, I'm ready to be done living in China, right when the US is ... how shall I put this ... not livable."

9. Taking My Kid To Church (Blog Series) "In other words, I don't want to approach this from the negative side, 'warning' him about religion. I want to teach him positive things about morality."

Thanks again to all my readers! I really love writing the blog and I love when people write to me to say they can relate to it and my posts are helpful for them. <3

Also I have a Patreon! A big thank-you to my Patreon supporters- it really does make a big difference. If you enjoy the blog, maybe consider supporting me on Patreon sometime in the next year.

So, what are my plans for the blog in 2021? Well, in general I have been posting way less than I want to, because of my high-maintenance child (okay, I guess all toddlers are high-maintenance) and my mother-in-law who is always here judging me. There are so many things I want to blog about. Lots of draft posts and partial ideas. It will all get posted eventually.

There will be a big post on asexuality sometime in the next few weeks. :) I've got it almost 100% finished, so I feel confident about promising it to you all. Stay tuned.

Anyway, thanks so much, and looking forward to lots more blogging in the future~

Blogaround

1. And the world will be a better place (posted February 17) "Ebenezer Scrooge eventually chose one path. Rush Limbaugh consistently chose the other."

2. Ministry leaders’ rush to empathize with Ravi Zacharias is beyond alarming (posted February 19) "Connecting the refrain 'it could’ve been me' with the abuser rather than with the victim is a massive red flag to the vulnerable and is a profoundly unhealthy outlook on the part of those with power." PREACH. This is what happens when you teach that "we are all sinners" and that the reason sin is a problem is it "separates you from God", not that it hurts people. 

3. I’m All For Letting the Free Market Decide Things Unless It Decides to Stop Publishing Racist Children's Books (posted March 3) "I’ll go full-on socialist if it means protecting what really matters — that my six-year-old can still find illustrations mocking Chinese people in their local Barnes & Noble."

Blogaround

1. Britney Spears Was Never in Control (posted February 23) "I have spoken with an affirming and disheartening number of people who described experiences of predators who, to borrow phrasing from my friend Suzy Exposito, 'weaponized sex positivity.'"

2. A Blogger's Farewell (posted February 28) From Libby Anne.