Blogaround

A dog wearing a vest that says "搜爆犬 EXPLOSIVE DOG." Image source.

1. How Hillary Clinton can get that ‘presidential look’ (posted September 7) "To Get This Look: Someone just to the left of the portrait painter has just told you disturbing news, but you cannot do anything about it until the painter finishes. Also, you have just been mildly electrocuted. Accessorize with your best curtain."

2. The Church told me my body was a temple – made for a man (posted August 9) "It wasn’t ever instilled in me to love my body, since it rightfully belonged to someone else."

3. The Party of Family Values, My Foot! (posted September 6) "He has never been accused of infidelity. He has never been on the cover of Playboy. He has never left a wife for another woman. He speaks of Michelle with respect, honor, and admiration. Pictures of him with his daughters are a sight to behold. And yet, evangelicals accused this family man of being the antichrist, and worse."

4. The Making of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Greatest Episode, 'The Inner Light' (posted September 8)

5. Things Bones McCoy Is Not, Ranked (posted September 8) "He also famous for explaining, angrily, that he is a doctor and literally nothing else."

6. Simone Giertz is Queen of Crappy Robots (posted September 3)



7. Get angry about Brock Turner’s crime. But don’t use it as a reason to pass bad laws. (posted September 9) It's a problem that can't be fixed by passing a new law, because that new law will exist in a system that discriminates against women and people of color, enforced by people who are [overtly or subconsciously] biased against women and people of color. BUT we shouldn't take that to mean that passing laws won't do any good at all. We should use real-world data to figure out what kind of law would be helpful, and what kind of law tends to bring about very shady unintended consequences.

8. How Donald Trump retooled his charity to spend other people’s money (posted September 10)

And happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone! 中秋节快乐！

Used By God

An inspirational-looking image with the text "How to be used by God in great ways" and some trees. I found this image on a Christian devotional site that, without a trace of irony, gives us advice on how to be used by God.

I used to believe that I belonged to God. I lived my life that way- striving to put God first, working toward what [I believed] God wanted without thinking about what I wanted, praying and worshiping with an obsessive love.

In this post, I will explain why "I belong to God" is an incredibly harmful ideology. First I'll talk about it in a general sense, and then as it relates to sex and purity.

What does it mean if "I belong to God"? It means I am a tool that God can use to do God's work in the world. It's very common for Christians to say "I want God to use me!" My own goals and desires are not important. All that matters is what God can do with me to advance God's purposes.

In church I learned "Jesus first, others second, yourself third." I believed that my own happiness wasn't important in and of itself; instead, my happiness would be a byproduct of doing what was truly important: serving God and serving people. It would be wrong for me to put a lot of energy into pursuing something solely because I wanted it and it benefitted me. No, I had to do what God wanted instead. (But Christians assured me that the only way to truly be happy is to be in complete submission to God. If I pursued my own goals, it wouldn't make me happy anyway.)

Sometimes I heard Christians teach that we need to rest and have fun, we shouldn't wear ourselves out working so hard for God. But here's the thing: this resting and fun was seen as a means to an end, as a way to maintain the tools God used so that they could function efficiently in doing God's work. We didn't tell each other to spend time relaxing because we believed relaxing was a good thing by itself; no, we need to rest sometimes so that we can serve God better.

I prayed about big decisions. Of course I did; how can I make a big, life-changing decision by myself? I belong to God, I need to do what God wants. Decisions about jobs, dating, whether or not to move to China- of course I prayed about those things, trying to figure out what "God's will" was for me. I believed that "God has a plan" and that if I couldn't hear God and make the decision that I was supposed to, then I would be off of the plan and totally screwed. I worried about it. I wished that God could just take over my brain and control me; then I wouldn't have to worry about doing something wrong.

"I belong to God" means that I can't do what I want- I have to do what God wants. Combine that with evangelical teaching about how I'm inherently sinful, so disgustingly sinful, with a mind that's warped and perverted, and the result is the idea that I'm not capable of making my own decisions. I have to obey God, even when God's command seems like a bad idea. The bible "clearly" tells us that certain things are sinful and certain things are mandatory, and I must obey. I can't look at the real-world consequences of various actions and use that to evaluate whether those actions are good or bad- not if it's about something the bible commanded. Even if obeying God looks like a bad idea, God knows best and I have to trust that. I'm so sinful anyway, I'm not capable of honestly assessing things and making good choices.

And because I'm so sinful in my natural state, "I belong to God" means that God is changing me. God loves me too much to let me just be the way I am. It's that "hate the sin, love the sinner" kind of love, the love that says "you suck, but I will help you to not suck." In church, you hear people making metaphors about how we have to "get out of the way and let people just see Jesus" or how "we are a mirror that reflects God"- in other words, a Christian's goal is to be as invisible as possible, so that people only see Jesus when they look at me. My own identity is something that should be conquered and consumed by God. (But, they assured me, we're not giving up who we are; no, when we submit to God, God makes us even better versions of ourselves.)

"I belong to God." It means my own feelings don't matter. My goals and plans don't matter. I must do everything I can to advance God's goals. God is the potter, I am the clay. God is so big and powerful, God overtakes me and steamrolls my individuality, my desires, my choices, and replaces them with what God wants.

And for some of my readers, it's obvious why this belief system is so unhealthy. But for evangelical Christians, it's not. I really used to explicitly say things like "I want God to use me" and how I was submitting every part of my life to God, "not my will but yours be done", etc, and Christians would just nod along or tell me what a great example of faith I was- it was so normal to hear that kind of language.

Okay, so, why is it harmful to believe "I belong to God"? Because it causes so much psychological damage when you internalize the message that your own emotions and desires don't matter, that you're not allowed to be an independent person, you're too sinful to make your own choices. Mental health is a real thing. Our emotions matter.

And I believed that by myself, I was worthless, that I only had value because "I belong to God"- God gives me value. So when I started to realize that version of God was abusive, and started distancing myself from him, of course I believed I was crap. I no longer obeyed God, I no longer submitted to him, and so I was back in my natural state, apart from God... which meant I was just worthless trash. You think I'm exaggerating? Go to any evangelical church and you will hear people sing worship songs about how we are so broken and empty without God. Literally, explicitly stating that we are nothing without God. I'm serious. "Broken." "Empty." "Nothing." Those words exactly.

And here's another problem: When you spend so much time stomping down your emotions because you believe they're just a distraction from following God, you end up out of touch with your own desires. You don't even know what you want. Trying to make a decision, stuck on "what's the right answer?" when really there are many valid options and your preference should be the determining factor.

Also, when you're taught that you don't know what's best for you and you always have to "obey God" instead of figuring out for yourself what to do in a given situation, it's really easy for people to take advantage of you. You buy into whatever your pastor says- you have to, you're too sinful to try to figure it out on your own. (Christians tell you that women aren't as able to be leaders as men are- of course it makes no sense, but we have to obey it anyway, because God said. That's what faith is, right?) And you're not supposed to care about your own emotions, so you're not even aware of the red flags, of people manipulating you. Yeah, maybe it doesn't feel right, but who cares, you're too sinful to know what's right anyway. You're not supposed to stand up for yourself- remember, "Jesus first, others second, yourself third." When you believe you're only a tool to be used by God, it's easy to become a tool used by manipulative people.

And when you add in the ideology about "sexual purity," it gets even worse.

So the idea here is that my body belongs to God- I do not belong to me- and therefore I shouldn't have sex if I'm not married. Uhh... wait, why not? Oh, you see, because my body is so valuable, and therfore I shouldn't have sex. Wait, what? How does that follow? God thinks your body is valuable, and therefore you shouldn't have sex? There's no logical connection between those two things. It's like saying "this food I bought is really expensive, therefore I won't eat it" or "your car is expensive, therefore you shouldn't drive it." Yes, if something is valuable, then it makes sense to take extra steps to protect it from being damaged. But banning all unmarried sex doesn't really do that. Consensual sex, where people respect each other, and use proper protection, doesn't damage anyone. It doesn't make anyone's body less valuable.

Oh, wait. I figured it out. It's not your body that God values. It's your virginity. It's your lack of experience. When people say "don't have sex because your body is so valuable" that's bullshit. What they mean is "don't have sex because your body is so valuable if you are a virgin, and your body is worthless if you have had sex." Or rather, when they bring "you belong to God" into it, they mean "God thinks you are really valuable and worth protecting if you are a virgin, and God thinks you are worth much less if you have had sex."

Yeah, that's not a God who's worthy of worship.

Really, though, if we belong to God, then God doesn't need to give us a good reason for the rules God puts on us. Think about it this way: if you own something, then you can do whatever you want to it. You don't have to explain why or get anyone's permission- it's your choice. So in the same way, if God owns a person, then God can impose whatever arbitrary rules God wants. Christians always say God loves us and therefore God's rules are what's best for us- and remember, we're so sinful, we are completely incapable of making decisions for ourselves. We just have to trust that God's rules are good, even if they don't seem good. (Note: actually, when I say "God's rules" what I actually mean is "the rules that the church told me are 'God's rules.'")

In other words, I believed I belonged to God, and God wanted me to not have sex, or any romantic experience at all, really, and this was really really important to God, and I didn't have the right to do even the tiniest things- like daydream about a guy I liked- because God forbids it. Even though I thought daydreaming was fun and harmless, it wasn't my decision to make. God takes it very seriously. It's not the kind of thing where I can weigh the risks and the benefits and decide if I think it's a good idea- nope. As I said, I believed I'm not qualified to make decisions, and I don't even have the right to make them. I don't belong to me.

And it gets worse.

[content note: we're going to talk about rape now]

According to the ideology of "I belong to God," my body is most valuable if I have no sexual experience. I don't have the right to make choices about this. If my body did experience sexual acts, that would damage God's property. It would be a crime against God.

It doesn't matter if the sex was consensual or not. God didn't consent to it.

In this ideology, rape is when God's property is damaged (by sex outside of marriage) but the inhabitant of that body didn't have a choice- they were unable to stop it, so they are not at fault. Still damaged, of course, but they're not at fault. Consensual sex is when the inhabitant of the body conspires with another person to damage God's property. In a way, having consensual sex is worse than being raped, because if you're raped, at least it's not your fault. (Yeah, apparently consensual sex damages people, but "I want God to use me" is totally healthy. Right.)

In other words, rape and consensual sex both damage God's property. The only difference is whether or not the property was in on it.

In this ideology, it totally makes sense to interrogate rape victims. By reporting a rape, a person is saying two things: 1) something belonging to God has been horribly damaged, and 2) but they didn't do it. Sounds a little suspicious, right? It's really not their fault at all? They had the responsibility to protect something belonging to God, and they failed. Perhaps they chose to go to some place that was unsafe, or be with people who were unsafe, or maybe they drank alcohol, or maybe someone pressured them over and over until they finally said yes. Hmm. Sounds like they were really reckless with God's valuable property.

It's not a crime against the victim. It's a crime against God, and the victim is only innocent if there was literally nothing they could have done to stop it, no precaution they could have taken to avoid it.

Feminists define rape in a completely different way. We say "person A raped person B" if person A did sexual things to person B without getting confirmation from person B that person B wanted it. In this view, all the of the focus is on person A's actions. It doesn't make sense to ask "could person B have stopped it?" because it's not about that at all. It's about "did person A get B's consent? did person A coerce them? did person A know they didn't want it but kept badgering them until they said yes?" But this definition only makes sense if rape is seen as primarily a crime against person B, and if it would have been perfectly fine for person B to have consensual sex if they wanted. This is incompatible with "you belong to God."

If rape is seen as a crime against a person, we respond by giving them whatever help and support they need. If rape is seen as a crime against God, we respond by asking the victim why they didn't protect God's property better.

If rape is bad because "you belong to God", then God doesn't have compassion for rape victims. Instead, God's very very disappointed in them. They failed to protect the valuable property God entrusted to them. They failed God.

This is what "you belong to God" is all about. You can't make your own choices. You can't care about your own emotions, your own needs, your own desires. Always put God first. God gives you rules, maybe those rules make sense, maybe not. Too bad, you have to obey them all anyway, you don't have a choice. Also, God only values unmarried people if they are virgins. If sex happened to you somehow, you better be able to prove every single part of it and every single action leading up to it was totally non-consensual, or else you're in trouble for damaging God's property.

I've heard so many Christians say "I want to be used by God." And now I see, yes, we were used by God.

Boundaries in Dating: Set Limits Early

Pocahontas jumps up into a tree to get away from John Smith. Image source.

This week, we're talking about chapter 16 of Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships, which is called "Nip It in the Bud." It's about the importance of setting boundaries early in the relationship, and making it very clear that you will not tolerate it if your partner treats you badly.

This is a very short chapter, only 5 pages long. It begins with the story of Mary and Todd. Todd was very upset when Mary suddenly ended their relationship. He had no idea she was unhappy. Mary, on the other hand, saw things differently. She said, "I got to a place where I just couldn't stand it anymore." She hated how he would cancel plans or just not show up when he said he would. In my opinion, the problem was that they didn't communicate well enough about it. She felt like he didn't care about her, and he didn't realize there was a problem.

The writers of "Boundaries in Dating" talk in terms of having limits and enforcing them, right from the start of the relationship, but I see it more as a communication issue. If something is a really big deal and really bothers one partner, but they don't communicate just how important it is in a way that the other partner can understand, then they're definitely going to have problems.

I think this is very very important advice. Deal with problems early. Communicate clearly about your needs and expectations for the relationship. Talk about how you feel, don't just tolerate problems that keep getting worse and worse. And, the writers emphasize, there need to be consequences when your boundaries are not respected. Don't just complain- tell them you won't tolerate that behavior and you're not going to see them for a week, or something like that.

It's good advice, but I'm uncomfortable with some of the language used in this chapter because it comes across as victim-blame-y. The writers say, "In relationships, you get what you tolerate." If you don't speak up about how you feel when your partner disrespects you, you will attract the kind of people who treat you that way, and you're teaching them that their behavior is okay. Ugh... I mean, you could frame it from that perspective, but ... seriously, DON'T. "You get what you tolerate" basically means "if people treat you badly, it's your fault because previously you made them think that it's okay to treat you that way."

This victim-blaming language is so unnecessary. Why can't they just make the exact same point by talking about how communication is important, how people might not realize their actions are having such a huge negative effect on their partner, how in practical terms it's easier to solve a problem if you confront it right away instead of letting it get worse? Why the hell do they have to say "you get what you tolerate" as if there's nothing wrong with people being hurt or mistreated, as if it's Just The Way The World Works- as long as they're people who didn't stand up for themselves properly in the past? Ugh. Eff that.

This chapter also says that you shouldn't confront every single problem- it's good to let some things go if they're not a big deal. I'm glad they said that; it wouldn't be good to go to the extreme and have a huge long talk every time there's a minor problem. Some things really aren't a big deal. But if they are, then you totally need to communicate about them.

Yeah, that's the whole chapter. Like I said, it's super-short. In general, it's really good advice, but geez, why did they have to throw in that victim-blaming crap? They could have totally make their point without it.

The next chapter is called "Set Appropriate Physical Limits" and I'm really looking forward to it. As an ex-purity-culture girl, I'm very very curious about where they say "the line" is. And as a Christian who doesn't believe there's anything inherently sinful about sex outside of marriage, I'd like to see how they justify their belief that it's a sin. Woo. Stay tuned next week. ^_^

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A blog series reviewing the book Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships (introduction post is here)

Previous post: Disrespect

Next post: #stillpurityculture

Taking the Lord's Name in Vain

A scared kitty saying "OMG!" Image source.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Exodus 20:7

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Dear Christian Magazine Advice Columnist, my friend told me she thinks Christians are "narrow-minded" for saying Jesus is the only way. What should I tell her?

Answer: A lot of people criticize Christians for supposedly being "narrow-minded" or "intolerant." But the truth is, this isn't our idea. We're just following what God says.

I've heard that line of reasoning a million times. You find it in any apologetics book which addresses the question of Christians being "exclusive" or "intolerant." First, they blame it on God. (Then they go on to give reasons why it's totally fine for God to be like that.)

Same thing goes for other beliefs which society (rightly) sees as horrible. Christians say "don't call us bigots, it's not our fault, we're just following the bible." Sometimes this is honest- they really do wish they didn't have to believe those nasty things, but they feel like they have no choice. [Note: You DO have a choice. There are plenty of non-terrible gods out there to choose from. Many of which are named "Jesus" and based on the bible. If you're into that.] But occasionally you see a Christian who seems happy to have an excuse for their hate- they love the idea that they can be super bigoted against certain demographics of people and haha, no one can get mad at them for it, they're just following the bible.

(Isn't it interesting that they never take it a step further and say, if God is really like that, then God is not worthy of worship, and the only moral thing I can do is to oppose this God? The idea that "it's not my fault, I'm just following what God said" fails because YOU CHOSE TO OBEY THAT GOD. And that IS your fault.)

Claiming God agrees with their nasty, dehumanizing beliefs is just one way that Christians take the Lord's name in vain.

Or, here's another example: Two Christians are debating about something they disagree about. Then one says, "well, you can believe that if you want, but I'm going to side with God's word on this." Oh god that makes me angry, that is triggering as hell. In other words, "God agrees with me, so it doesn't matter what you say, you're automatically wrong. I'm not going to listen to any of your reasons." They take the Lord's name in vain.

And then there's all the Christian leaders that are teaching "this is God's way to do xyz" or "this is the biblical way." Here's God's way to raise children. Here are God's rules for dating. Here is God's definition of marriage. Here is God's plan for your life. Here is God's design for sexuality. Here are God's rules for managing your money.

When people teach "here is God's way," they take the Lord's name in vain. What they really mean is "based on my interpretation of the bible and my understanding of who God is, I have come up with these rules and guidlines." Or, if I'm being more cynical, "here is my opinion about topic xyz, I will attach the word 'God' to the front of it so it sells better to a Christian audience."

It's not "God's way." It's people's opinions. And yes, sometimes those opinons are worth listening to- they are based on evidence, research, logic, and common sense. But they are not infallible. They are not "God's." And anyone who claims they have "God's way," anyone who equates their own opinion with God's opinion, anyone who uses God as an excuse to spread bigoted lies about other people ... well, the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses that name.

Blogaround

A cute little doggy on a skateboard. Image source.

1. The Clinton Foundation Is Not a Scandal. It’s a Phenomenal, Life-Saving Success. (posted August 25) "The Clintons’ AIDS relief work is humanity at its best. And the smear campaign against their charity is politics at its absolute worst."

2. The Anthem’s Racist Lyrics: “No Refuge Could Save The Hireling And The Slave” (posted August 30) "Stop the tape. Stop the tape. STOP THE GODDAMN TAPE."

3. The problem with how men perceive rape (posted August 27) This is a really important point. And you can talk all you want about enthusiastic consent, but women are less privileged in general and there's no way to truly isolate that inequality from sexual situations.

4. White evangelicals’ ‘new chapter’ on race (cont’d.) (posted September 1) "It echoes the self-important religious leaders who felt their authority as arbiters of legitimacy was being undermined by John’s baptisms and Jesus’ preaching of good news to the poor."

5. Seventeen year-old Chloe Cross absolutely slayed her yearbook quote (posted September 6) LOLOLOLOL. It's about modesty culture and it's GREAT.

The One Thing You Can't Surrender To Jesus

Twelve different artistic representations of Jesus. Image source.

Surrendering one's entire life to Jesus is impossible. The very concept of "I surrender all" just doesn't make sense. There will always be one thing you cannot surrender to Jesus, one thing that is your choice alone.

What is that one thing? It's your understanding of the definition of "surrender to Jesus."

Back when I was a good evangelical, I worked hard every day to surrender my life, 100%, to Jesus. But as it turns out, I wasn't actually surrendering to Jesus, but to one particular version of Jesus. This was a Jesus who was very concerned about my friends going to hell, so he wanted me to go out and do evangelism, start conversations and try to "lead them to Christ." It was a Jesus who believed in purity culture- he had a plan for my life, and it definitely meant I should have as little sexual/romantic experience as possible before being married to the guy that Jesus picked for me. It was a Jesus who loved me with a fierce, possessive love, who monitored my every thought and was jealous and angry whenever I was selfish, proud, or otherwise sinful. It was a Jesus who believed that my very nature was sinful, who was helping me become less of me and more of him.

I surrendered to him by waking up early every day to read my bible and pray. I surrendered to him by praying and praying and praying for my "unsaved" friends- that God would "open their eyes" and that they would "see their need for him." I took risks in evangelism. I asked people awkward personal questions about religion. I started bible study groups and invited my friends. And I prayed and prayed and prayed so much for their salvation.

I surrendered to him by worshiping, by singing and raising my arms and not caring what people thought. I surrendered to him by praying in desperation whenever I had a crush. I needed a "yes" from God before I would be allowed to "act on" my feelings. I surrendered by shutting down those feelings, viewing them as temptation. No, I wouldn't give in to the temptation. I would trust God and obey the rules, and he would bring me the future husband he destined for me. And when that happened, I would surrender to Jesus by submitting to my husband. The Jesus I followed believed that the husband is the spiritual leader.

I surrendered by wearing modest clothes. The Jesus I followed believed my body was dangerous and that I needed to protect men from it.

I surrendered by believing that my needs didn't matter, that I had to always "consider others better than myself", always put others first, or else I'm selfish. If I wanted something and felt sad when I couldn't have it, that meant I wasn't "content in God", and that was a sin. I surrendered by telling myself it was wrong to have those kinds of emotions. God is always with me, and God is all I need.

At the time, it was obvious to me that all of the above were what "surrender to Jesus" meant. I was only aware of one version of Jesus- the one I met in the white American evangelical church. Yes, I knew there were other so-called Christians who believed other things about Jesus, but those were "liberals" who "watered down the gospel" because they cared too much about "the world." Obviously their version of Jesus was not the real Jesus.

But then I started reading what other Christians had to say. I found that they weren't "led astray by the world", that they loved the bible just like I did and were doing their best to follow God. But they believed in a different Jesus. A Jesus who didn't think men were meant to be leaders and women were not. A Jesus who wasn't going to automatically send non-Christians to hell. A Jesus who never claimed that following the purity rules was "God's way of dating", never told people they should "wait for God's best" instead of asking someone out. A Jesus who believes that our emotions matter, that mental health is a real thing and it's bad to force ourselves not to have emotions. A Jesus who wants us to stand up for ourselves instead of "submitting" when people treat us badly. A Jesus who gave his blessing to same-sex marriages. A Jesus who believes that racism is a real problem in the US. A Jesus who cares more about helping people than about the exact words of the bible.

I found that, across cultures and across time, Christians have had different interpretations of who Jesus is and what Jesus wants us to do- in other words, different definitions of "surrender to Jesus." And I had to investigate their ideas and decide which one I agreed with. Did you catch that? I had to investigate. I had to decide.

I needed to choose which Jesus I believed in before I could "surrender to Jesus." And that's a choice that, by definition, Jesus cannot help me with. It's a choice that I have to make for myself. Or, actually, I could let another person make it for me; I could choose a pastor and do whatever they say. I'm sure I could find a pastor who would tell me that by obeying them (and sending them money), I'm actually obeying God. Still, I would be the one choosing to use their definition of Jesus. It's still not Jesus making that choice for me.

Back when I was a good evangelical, it was so obvious what "surrender to Jesus" meant. It was so obvious what I was supposed to do if I loved God and wanted to follow God. But now I see that it's not obvious at all. So many Christians have so many different interpretations, and I have to choose which one I believe. It's not possible to submit 100% to Jesus, because Jesus can't help me make the decision of which Jesus I follow.

And even after I choose which Jesus I believe in, I know there will be some parts I'm wrong about. We're not perfect- all Christians have some misconceptions in their understanding of who God is. So even when I choose which version of Jesus I follow, I still shouldn't submit 100% to them. I still need to leave myself a little room to disagree with that Jesus, because they're not the real Jesus, and if they want me to do something that seems really wrong, I have to be able to say no. I hope the version of Jesus I believe in is a close enough approximation of the real Jesus, but who can say? If I find this Jesus is horribly wrong about something, I need the freedom to switch allegiance to a better approximation of the real Jesus. I can't submit 100%.

So if you want to surrender your life to Jesus, first ask yourself, who is Jesus? There are many different possible answers to that question, and surrender looks very different depending on which one you believe in. And that will always be a decision you have to make for yourself. Jesus can't make it for you.

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Related:
Cut Out the Middleman (or, why I am the master and commander of my own life)

Boundaries in Dating: Disrespect

A man and woman arguing in a car. Image source.

Chapter 15 of Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships is called "Say No to Disrespect." It starts off with the story of Cindy and Craig. The writers tell us that Craig often "flirted" with other women while he was on dates with Cindy, and Cindy was really upset by it. They call it "flirting" but... I think it's worse than that. Look at this example:

[Craig takes Cindy out to a fancy restaurant]
Then the cocktail waitress, a striking blonde, appeared, and asked if they wanted drinks or appetizers. Craig's face took on a seductive look, and he said, "No thanks, unless you're on the menu." The waitress smiled awkwardly and left. Cindy was shocked and hurt. "You really humiliated me with that comment!" she told Craig. He held up his hands and said, "What are you talking about? I was just making a joke. Stop overreacting."

Yeah, that's not "flirting." That's harassment. The waitress is just doing her job, and she's not really in a position where she can stand up to him and say "no, it's not okay to talk to me like that" because she needs customers to be happy with her and tip well.

It sounds to me like Craig's problem isn't "flirting" but just generally being a creep. And I'm kind of uncomfortable with the fact that the writers of "Boundaries in Dating" don't seem to see it that way- they talk in terms of how Craig's behavior upset Cindy, and Craig should have cared about Cindy's feelings, but he didn't, he disrespected her. (Seriously. When they talk about Craig's disrespectful behavior, they mean how he is disrespectful to Cindy. No mention at all of his disrespect to the women he "flirts" with.) So then, if Craig were single, would it be totally fine for him to harass waitresses? Ugh.

But this bit is REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT:

The worst part of it all was Craig's disregard for her discomfort with his flirting [sic]. He did not seem to care or understand how difficult it was for her, even if it were true that it was one hundred percent her reaction. Had he shown some concern for her feelings, she would have been less bothered by the flirting [sic] itself. And, as she kept observing, Craig's disregard for her feelings did not limit itself to the flirting issue. Over time, he became more and more insistent on his way and opinions, and less caring about hers. Whenever she would bring up the disregard, Craig's answer was always to minimize her viewpoint and protest his innocence.

And this, later in the chapter:

People in dating situations need to know that their feelings, needs, and freedom are respected. When someone is uncomfortable in a sexual situation, or is hurt by a sarcastic remark, or becomes angry with a broken promise, that is a signal that something is going on. The other person needs to take those feelings seriously. The couple needs to talk about what triggered this, and solve the problem.

It's not about whether some objective, absolute rule says your behavior is right or wrong. If other people are hurt by it, that matters and you need to care about them.

I've had problems with this. Maybe because of Asperger's, maybe because of evangelicalism's insistence that "absolute truth" is all that matters and emotions shouldn't sway us. There have been times when I believed I had a better way of doing something, and I tried to force other people to do it my way, and I really believed I was right, I had the truth, I had logical reasons why clearly my way was better. But I was wrong to treat people that way- they have the right to make their own choices, and if they like their way better, however nonsensical it seems to me, well that's all that really matters. They like it better. Their feelings matter. Even if I can present a logical argument that "no no no, you shouldn't feel that way, you shouldn't like that better", they still DO feel that way, and that matters. (I'm talking about things that aren't actually objective moral issues- like what order to do a project in, or what name to call something. Things where other people have a right to be involved in the decision-making, despite the fact that they are wrong. Yeah so... maybe it's Asperger's.)

Or, here's another example. There was this guy I had a crush on, long ago. But he would sometimes post on Facebook about how he wanted beer or how he liked drinking and getting "tipsy", and it made me uncomfortable. My parents don't drink so I never really had any experience with it or understanding of what's a normal, healthy amount and what's too much. But I didn't believe it was a sin, in small amounts. So I would hear this guy talk about how he liked drinking, and I didn't like that but I thought, well it's not a sin, it's okay to drink sometimes, so I have to learn to be okay with it and he is still a potential boyfriend.

I was still in purity culture so I was doing all that "praying about whether he's my God-ordained future husband" stuff. And then I realized- or God told me, though I don't know if I believe in that anymore- that the fact that I was uncomfortable with it mattered. That was reason enough to decide he wasn't "God's best" for me. If he's not technically sinning, okay, fine, but that doesn't mean I have to force myself to be okay with it.

It's kind of surprising to me that I came to that epiphany- that my emotions mattered even if he wasn't breaking any of "God's laws"- while I was still a good evangelical and good purity culture girl. Well, it was more along the lines of "God wouldn't want me to be this uncomfortable with a guy's character, therefore God must have a better plan for my future husband" rather than "my own desires and emotions are intrinsically important" but hey, I'll take it.

Anyway, the point is, if you don't like something, that's a good enough reason to justify your choice to not do it. You don't have to explain why you don't like it and then allow other people to judge whether your reasons are logical or not. When it's a decision about your own personal life, your boundaries, your body, etc, your emotions and opinions matter more than anything else. (This idea definitely has a lot of applications in the area of dating. If your boyfriend wants to come to your house, and you say no, and he asks why- well, it's fine to ask why, people want to understand the reasons and get to know each other. But if you tell him why and then he explains to you why that's not a good enough reason to justify your decision, wow, that's a red flag. It's not up for debate. You're not required to present an argument that a jury of your peers would judge to be reasonable- no, it's your home, your body, your life. Your choice. If somebody doesn't agree, TOO BAD, it's not their decision.)

Or, in the specific case of Cindy and Craig, Cindy was really upset by Craig's, uh, "flirting" [being creepy to other women, right in front of her], and Craig told her she was overreacting and he was just joking. Ugh. I hate when people say that. Really he's saying her feelings are wrong and her feelings don't matter. He doesn't care about her, he only cares about presenting reasons why his behavior should or shouldn't be interpreted in a certain way. He only cares about proving that he wasn't trying to do anything bad. That's not okay. Your romantic partner should care about how you feel.

So what happened with Cindy and Craig?

Cindy began not only confronting Craig's inappropriateness, but she also began taking action. When he would flirt in her presence, she would quietly pick up her purse and go home, leaving him to explain why she had left. She told him, "I won't be there to experience your immaturity and my humiliation, even if you don't think that is what's going on." This finally broke them up. Cindy was heartbroken, as she really liked Craig. But she couldn't see being married to someone who was great when they agreed, but ran over her feelings when they didn't.

Good for you, Cindy! And because this isn't a purity-culture book, it doesn't say one word about how Cindy lost purity by dating him or how the failed relationship decreased her future potential to find love. Nope. Nothing like that here.

Next, there's a section where the authors talk about the importance of respect and empathy in a romantic relationship:

Respect is a necessary element for any couple to grow in love. Each person needs to feel that they are respected by the person they are getting to know. This involves having esteem or regard for all aspects of the other. Respect is different from empathy, though any relationship needs both to be hand-in-hand. Empathy is the ability to feel another's experience, especially painful ones. Respect is the ability to value another's experience.

Notice anything weird about that excerpt? Specifically, when a Christian dating book talks about the importance of respect and love in the relationship, usually they talk about something else that's suspiciously missing from "Boundaries in Dating"...

Any guesses?

I'm sure some of you know what it is...

What is it? GENDER ROLES!!! Typically, the "Christian" advice I've heard on respect and love in a dating or marriage relationship is "men need respect, women need love." The man has to be the leader and his wife respects him and obeys his decisions- although this "obeying" was never very clearly-defined for me when I believed in complementarianism. And the woman, oh you know, she's more weak and emotional, she needs to know her husband loves her. Men need respect more than anything, women need love more than anything.

Of course, that's total BS. Both partners need both respect and love. So I'm really glad to see "Boundaries in Dating" doesn't say anything about gender when they talk about respect and empathy in a relationship. Actually, there hasn't been any advice in this entire book which is gendered. Not a single sentence about "if you're a woman, you should do this, which is different from what a man should do in that situation." So I'm really happy about that. (Unfortunately, "Boundaries in Dating" assumes that everyone is straight. Grr.)

So they had that really good bit about respect and love, but then why they tried to give an example, it didn't go so well...

For example, a guy may restrain himself from pushing his girlfriend sexually for either reason. He may feel deep compassion for the dilemma he is putting her in. Or he may restrain himself because he respects her right to make her own moral decisions.

Umm.

Uhh, yes, a guy should have both empathy and respect for his girlfriend. And if he has those things, then he won't pressure her into doing sexual stuff she doesn't want. But... you don't really need impressive amounts of respect and empathy, you just need to NOT BE A RAPIST. This is bare-minimum-of-human-decency level stuff. This is a really really weird example to give if you want to illustrate how to respect and care about each other in a relationship. As if it's normal and expected for guys to try to pressure their girlfriends into sex, but the ones who are great role models of respect won't do that. Oh come on. We're talking bare-minimum-of-human-decency here.

(Ai yo, this book. It alternates between "wow this is really really good advice that goes against everything I learned in church and I'm so glad someone is saying it" and "wait, I have a huge problem with what they're saying in this bit.")

Next, the book gives examples of how disrespect can manifest in a relationship. But I'm a little confused- the examples they give aren't all uniform in terms of one party being in the right or in the wrong. (Is it reasonable or not for one partner to expect the other to do certain things? Maybe there's no "absolute truth" on this, the two partners need to talk to each other and decide what their expectations are?) And are these examples consistent with their other advice about boundaries? Here's one:

For example, a woman might want to go out with the girls on a night that her boyfriend wants to be with her. While he doesn't complain, he also doesn't call or talk to her for a while. He is showing her that he doesn't respect her freedom.

How is this "disrespectful" behavior different from the advice, elsewhere in "Boundaries in Dating", that if your partner doesn't treat you right, you "set a boundary" and don't see them for a while? I guess the most important difference is that if it's a "boundary", you communicate about it. You tell them clearly "I don't let people treat me this way, therefore I'm not willing to see you for 2 weeks." Whereas in the "disrespect" case, it's more about emotions and trying to "punish" the other person and make them feel bad.

But are the two situations different because in the "boundaries" case, the bad thing they did was definitely bad, but in the "disrespect" case, the girlfriend didn't do anything bad by going out with her friends? Ehhh, I'm not necessarily sure we can say that. People have different ideas about what's "normal" in a dating relationship- for example, how much time the partners should spend together- and there's not really a "right answer" about it. Certainly we can think of extreme examples which would definitely be NOT OKAY- like if one partner didn't want the other to ever talk to any other friends- but within the space of all healthy relationships, there is a huge range in how much time they spend together vs with other friends. Still, that doesn't mean that just because one point in the range may be good for one couple, it's by definition healthy/doable for all couples. What I'm saying is, if one partner has a certain expectation about how much time they should spend together, and it doesn't match the other's expectation, it's not the case that one person is being reasonable and the other is just wrong. They just need to communicate about it and compromise.

Are boundaries just for cases when someone is treating you in a way that's objectively immoral, or are they also for preferences? Can you set a boundary about something that's a perfectly fine component in other people's healthy relationships, but you personally don't like?

And another thing about preferences and compromising- yes, people need to compromise when they're in relationships. Both parties give and take, but no, that doesn't make everything equal. Both partners are coming into the relationship with certain ideas about what's "normal", which are, more than anything else, based on their own culture and backgrounds. They have certain assumptions about what's reasonable to ask of the other person and what kind of compromise they can negotiate to.

For example, Samantha Field has written about how, when she was in purity culture, she was very worried about "the wedding night", where she would be expected to have sex for the first time. What if it hurt? What if her body wasn't ready to go from 0 to vaginal penetration in one night? She hoped she would be able to talk about it with her hypothetical husband- her ideal situation would be for them to not have sex on the wedding night, to go slow instead- but purity culture says you have to have sex on the wedding night, that the wife owes it to the husband. So she doubted whether it would even be possible to find a man who would "compromise" on that. Her cultural background (also shared by the hypothetical husband) shaped her ideas of what's "reasonable" in marriage, and had her believe that she would be the one asking for something abnormal, by asking her husband if it would be possible to not have sex so soon.

Similarly, I've heard people say that it's totally not okay, in a dating relationship, for one partner to try to coerce the other into having sex- but that at the same time, one partner might see sex as really important, and they are well within their rights to end the relationship and go find someone who is willing to have sex. And honestly, back when I was in purity culture, this idea terrified me. I wanted people to say "no, it's wrong to expect to find a girlfriend who will have sex with you, that's just not reasonable"- I wanted that to be what society sees as "normal." Otherwise, there would be no guarantee that I could find a guy who would be willing to wait til marriage.

ANYWAY I've gotten way off-topic, but my point is, each person has their own ideas about the following three topics:

1. What's normal in a dating relationship
2. Their own preferences/ their idea of an ideal relationship
3. How far they can reasonably expect a partner to compromise away from "normal" and toward their own personal preferences

and all three of these are so so so completely rooted in and influenced by culture.

Yeah. This only vaguely relates to "Boundaries in Dating." (Oh dear.) Basically what I want to say is, in many of their examples of one person feeling wronged by the other and responding with disrespect, it's not clear-cut whether the first "wrong" was actually, objectively wrong. People have different ideas of what a relationship is supposed to look like, and they need to communicate about that. Instead of disrespecting each other.

Okay, moving on. I really like this part, so I'll type it up for y'all to read:

Respecting someone doesn't mean that you agree with them. Nor does it mean that you will comply with what they want. It means that their feelings matter because those emotions belong to a person who matters. Listen to, understand, and try to help the situation.

Wow. Amen to all of that. "their feelings matter because those emotions belong to a person who matters."

Later in the chapter, there's a list of "things that will not cure a pattern of disrespect." One of them is compliance:

For example, suppose you are dating someone who has a hot temper. When he gets angry, he gets mean and critical with you, disrespecting your need for safety and security. You may comply with his rages, calming him down and taking responsibility for his anger. This may soothe him temporarily, but it will not cure the character problem with which he is struggling: "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again" (Proverbs 19:19). A good source for more information on compliance with disrespect is our book Boundaries.

Well, this is much much better than what I read last week about how if a woman's husband has "rage" problems, "the only way it will resolve is for her to figure out what she needs to change" [that is an exact quote from page 209] which sounded a lot like blaming an abuse victim, in my opinion. In this chapter, however, the advice seems to totally contradict that. The writers say compliance won't help anything. You have to stand up for yourself and let the other person know it's not okay to treat you that way.

Also, they say "complaining without consequences" will not help the problem, and this is a really important point. If you don't set limits and enforce them, the other person might just keep being awful and feeling like they can totally get away with it.

The next section is "what does cure disrespect." Basically, it's about confronting the problem early, communicating clearly about how it's not okay when your partner doesn't respect your feelings, standing up for yourself, and getting support from friends. Here's one part that I found very VERY interesting:

Get to Know Your Date in the Context of Other Relationships

Sometimes you may wonder if you are overreacting and being too sensitive. For example, your girlfriend may be inconsistent in when she says she will be somewhere, and you find yourself waiting around forever for her. Yet she may say you're being picky and controlling. This may be true. So get around her and her friends and family. Find out what those who know her say about her habits. They may say she's never been flaky. Then again, they may say she has no concept of time, and it drives them crazy too. This isn't spying. It is how people get to know someone. Dating should not be done in a vacuum.

First of all, this goes back to what I said earlier about culture and how people all have certain assumptions about what's "normal" and acceptable in a dating relationship. I'd like to point out that, even if her family and friends say there's nothing wrong with her behavior and you're overreacting, that doesn't mean they're right and you're wrong. It could be the case that you and your girlfriend are coming from different cultural backgrounds, with different ideas of what it means when you say you will be somewhere at a certain time. Neither of you are "right" or "wrong", but you need to communicate and understand each other or else you'll have problems. (Source: I'm getting married to a Chinese guy.)

But really, what I want to talk about is the concept of "get to know your date in the context of other relationships" as it relates to purity culture. Purity culture loves "group dates." Purity culture says dating one-on-one is bad, because it's an artificial environment, the person is on their best behavior, you can't see what they're really like in a real-life situation, the way a guy treats his mother is the way he's gonna treat you in the future, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, TEMPTATION. If we never let couples go off alone, then there's no opportunity for them to passionately be all over each other and lose their purity.

In other words, purity culture teaches that "group dates" are superior to regular one-on-one dates. In the most extreme forms of purity culture, the couple always has to have a "chaperone" and they're not allowed to ever be alone together until after the wedding. To anybody not in purity culture, the problems with this approach are BLATANTLY OBVIOUS. There's no privacy- how can you ever open up to someone and really get to know them if you always have a "chaperone" listening in? But purity culture advocates are so terrified of the possibility of someone becoming "impure" that that idea of marrying someone you barely know seems like a much smaller risk.

(To be clear, the purity culture I was in didn't actually enforce "group dating"- I heard people talk about how it's more healthy to do it that way, but at the same time, it was very normal to see Christian friends go on dates one-on-one. I did not believe in "let's have the parents control everything and then everybody's emotional and physical purity is completely untouched up until the wedding." My brand of purity culture was more like "in order to get the information I need for the marriage decision, I'm going to have to get close to the guy and therefore lose some of my purity. Emotional and physical purity is the currency I use to buy information. Every single transaction must be carefully calculated and prayed about and the risks must be weighed.")

In contrast, "Boundaries in Dating" starts from the assumption that going on regular, one-on-one dates like a normal person is totally fine. But, they say, it's good to supplement that by also spending time with your partner's friends and family. So healthy, I love it.

And then there's this part...

[content note: victim-blaming]

Own Your Own Part

Remember that you might be making disrespect easier, and take the plank out of your own eye before removing your date's speck (Matthew 7:3-5). Your part may be several things:

• Not saying anything, which can imply consent
• Treating it lightly or as something cute or funny in your date
• Vacillating between doing nothing and having rage fits about it, which conveys a confusing message
• Making it all your fault and problem instead of your date's

Take ownership of the issue. Change what you need to change. But require that your date treat you respectfully. In our experience, when you do this, one of two things tends to happen: you get more respect from those who have it to give; and you get left by those who don't have it. Both results are good ones.

Uhh, yeah this sounds like victim-blaming. So as a feminist, I'm a little uneasy about that. But... I guess there could be some cases where one person really didn't know their behavior bothered the other; it was behavior that is totally fine in other settings and there was no way for them to know it would hurt this person. In that case, it's not their fault, so the hurt partner does have a resonsibility to explain what's wrong, if they want the relationsthip to continue. (They're also well within their rights to decide they don't want to be in the relationship.)

And in a practical sense, there may be things you can do to address the problems in the relationship, even though the problems aren't your fault. In a practical sense, people should know about these things so they can protect themselves and not end up in unhealthy relationships. But how do we make sure we're saying "here is healthy advice that people should be educated about" rather than "well there were things they could have done to avoid this problem, therefore they're not really a victim and no injustice has been committed here"?

Or maybe, we're just talking about disrespect here, nothing as serious as abuse, so maybe it's not the kind of thing where we label one person as "the victim" and aren't allowed to ask what they could have done differently? It's a pretty run-of-the-mill problem that comes up often in dating relationships and you should know how to respond and how to solve it, even though it's not your fault. Yes, but... Seems like an abuser might first test the waters by seeing how much disrespect they can get away with. When they move on to more evil things from there, you don't want people saying "well why didn't the victim confront and deal with the disrespect when it first started?"

Victim-blaming is a tricky thing. Society would be much better off if people were educated about what's healthy and what's not healthy in a relationship- then abusers would be much less able to get away with it. But in advocating for better awarness and education about relationships, we don't want to say the victim "should have known better" and should have gotten out earlier... In my opinion, the real reason behind this paradox is the fact that, in a strict, logical sense, it is true that there are things an abuse victim could have done to avoid/ get out of the situation. (But, sometimes that means the abuser just would have chosen a different victim. Which doesn't really help anything.) But when people talk about what the victim "could have" done, in the context of laws and police reports and justice, it implies that the abuser's actions weren't that bad, that no real crime has been committed, that the victim is mostly to blame, that they don't deserve any help. And that implication is NOT OKAY.

(Maybe the key question is, what is the goal? Are you trying to educate people so they know how to reduce their risk, repair a relationship, or advocate for justice for victims? Each of these goals requires completely different approaches.)

Yeah, but like I said, this section of "Boundaries in Dating" isn't about abuse. So maybe I'm wrong to be talking about it here. Still, though, I'm very bothered by the victim-blaming in that excerpt.

But I really really like that last line: "Both results are good ones." When you stand up to the person who disrespects you, in most cases they will either start respecting you, or break up with you. It is very very important to teach people that breaking up can be a very good thing. Purity culture, however, teaches that it's The Worst Thing Ever. That keeps peple in unhealthy relationships. That teaching is evil.

All right that's the end of the chapter. In general, I agree that to have a healthy relationship, it's very important that you know that you deserve to be treated with respect, and you deserve a partner who believes that your feelings matter. I cannot state enough how important that is, and how it's not something that I was explicitly taught by Christians when I was growing up. But at the same time, this chapter had a few exmples that seemed kind of rape-culture-y and victim-blame-y, so I'm a little creeped out by that.

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A blog series reviewing the book Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships (introduction post is here)

Previous post: Blame

Next post: Set Limits Early

Blogaround

A doggie in a bathtub with foamy bubbles on its head. Image source.

1. University Of Texas Students Start School Year With ‘Cocks Not Glocks’ Anti-Gun Protest (posted August 25) "On Wednesday, protests organizers shouting slogans like: “If you are packing heat, we are packing meat,” handed out hundreds of sex toys, many donated by area stores. They also handed out plastic zip ties so that protesters could strap the sex toys on to their backpacks in a sign of defiance against campus carry."

2. Pokemon Go on xkcd. I lolled so much.

3. Franchesca Ramsey explains why these “excuses for slavery” need to stop (posted August 26) "If aliens abducted your brother, sister, and favorite uncle, and stuck a feeding tube down their throats while forcing them to build their emperor's house, would you think 'well at least the aliens fed my family'?"

4. This Star Wars trailer, which uses scenes from all 7 movies, is pretty cool.


5. The Burkini-Bikini False Equivalence and Your Disproportionate Outrage (posted August 24) "When a woman’s community acceptance, respect, dignity, employability, marriagiability, physical safety, enfranchisement, social mobility, access to social institutions, freedom, and autonomy hinge upon her daily, unwavering, public adherence to the bikini, then we can make this comparison."

6. How It Feels To Conquer Your Shame (posted August 16) [content note: descriptions of sexual assault] "I tell them I’ve been in “ex-gay” therapy my whole life, that I’m still there today."

7. Pro-Life Science and Abortion (posted August 7) "'Scientifically' life does not begin, it is transmitted. There is no non-living link in human reproduction. The scientific answer to 'When does life begin?' is 'Three billion years ago.'"

8. How Hair Style Could Be Linked to Weight in Teen Girls (posted August 25) "Are black adolescent girls engaging in sports less often because of concerns about their hair?"

9. Complaint: Citing Catholic Rules, Doctor Turns Away Bleeding Woman With Dislodged IUD (posted August 23) "Not only could she not help her, the doctor said, but no one in Jones’ health insurance network could remove the IUD, because all of them followed similar restrictions."

10. By the Skin on My Teeth (posted August 29) "I survived the battle, yes, but the battle did happen, and it fucking hurt."

11. Someone Made a Sign for Religious People Outside a Memorial Service (posted August 28) Good.

12. Pixar Theory: Toy Story's True Villain (posted August 25) Oooh. Lots of evidence for this fan theory.

13. How the Trigger Warning Debate Exposes Our F*cked Up Views on Mental Illness (posted August 29) "It’s interesting how our society has such a stigma against going to therapy, but bring up trigger warnings, and suddenly everyone’s a tireless advocate for 'exposure therapy.'"

14. Data Raps. Any Star Trek fans? This is fantastic.

15. Here’s How an Off-the-Grid Homeschooled Christian Girl Escaped Her Parents and Became a Legal Human (posted August 31)

"The Science Isn't Settled", While True, is a Very Shady Thing to Say

Stock photo of two scientists. Image source.

So here's a very misleading post on ADF's website: New Report Shows that Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims Not Supported by Scientific Evidence. ADF (the Alliance Defending Freedom) is a Christian legal group that fights against LGBT rights and spreads lies that demonize LGBT people, you know, like Jesus would do. (They also advocate for other conservative Christian political positions, like "religious freedom" and "the sanctity of life.")

The post at that link is about a scientific study which, supposedly, tells us that claims made by LGBT advocates "are not actually supported by scientific evidence." Then there's a video introducing this new scientific report, where one of the authors says, "Science is never settled", which raises a huge red flag for me.

See, this is how Christian apologetics works. You take that openness to questioning and doubting- a necessary part of the scientific method- and use it to claim that, hey, maybe those mainstream scientists are wrong about EVERYTHING and we're right instead. ADF's audience is going to read "the science isn't settled" and think it means "hey, it's totally possible we can 'cure' gay people by praying for them enough! and being transgender isn't a real thing! and all the other ignorant claims we made in our efforts to deny LGBT people equal rights have a good chance of being true!"

I read the report. It says no such thing. Let me tell you what it really says.

Here's the link to the report. It's published in The New Atlantis, which, according to Wikipedia, is "a quarterly journal about the social, ethical, political, and policy dimensions of modern science and technology" published by "the social conservative advocacy group the Ethics and Public Policy Center." Okay, so it's got a conservative slant to it, but I read the report and I think it's very good. It summarizes a lot of studies about LGBT people, focusing on what exactly has been shown scientifically and what hasn't. It talks about areas where further research is needed, and flaws that some of the studies had.

And no, it does not say anything like what ADF's audience will think when they hear "the science is not settled." Let's take a look.

Part One is about sexual orientation. First the report talks about how the concept of sexual orientation is very difficult to define in a scientific sense. For science, you need a very very clear definition so you know exactly what you're talking about. Some studies on LGB people define sexual orientation in terms of people's attractions and fantasies. Some define it in terms of behavior- have you had any same-sex sexual partners in the past year? Some define it by self-identification- participants say whether they identify as gay, bisexual, heterosexual with occasional same-sex attractions, etc. When you compare the results of different studies, you have to make sure you know what definitions they were using.

Yes, I totally agree. Sexual orientation is difficult to define. When you listen to people telling the story of "how I figured out I was bisexual", for example, you'll find that each story is unique, and people often take a long time to figure out what label fits. There's no objective set of criteria everybody can easily measure themselves against. Terms like "gay", "bisexual", etc do have meanings, but in a scientific sense it's impossible to define them in a clear enough way that you can say exactly who is in and who is out.

I found this part in particular very interesting:

We can imagine, for example, a sixteen-year-old boy who becomes infatuated with a young man in his twenties, developing fantasies centered around the other’s body and build, or perhaps on some of his character traits or strengths. Perhaps one night at a party the two engage in physical intimacy, catalyzed by alcohol and by the general mood of the party. This young man then begins an anguished process of introspection and self-exploration aimed at finding the answer to the enigmatic question, “Does this mean I’m gay?”

Current research from the biological, psychological, and social sciences suggests that this question, at least as it is framed, makes little sense. As far as science can tell us, there is nothing “there” for this young man to discover — no fact of nature to uncover or to find buried within himself. What his fantasies, or his one-time liaison, “really mean” is subject to any number of interpretations: that he finds the male figure beautiful, that he was lonely and feeling rejected the night of the party and responded to his peer’s attentions and affections, that he was intoxicated and influenced by the loud music and strobe lights, that he does have a deep-seated sexual or romantic attraction to other men, and so on.

Asking the question "Does this mean I'm gay?" assumes that one's sexual orientation is an objective reality inside them that they must discover. I don't necessarily think that's true (and the writers of that report also question that assumption). The words we use- "gay", "bisexual", "asexual", etc- are an attempt to conceptualize the complex spectrum of sexuality in a way that we can easily classify and discuss. These words are the ones that our culture finds most useful at the present time, but they're not the only way to describe sexuality. When Matthew Vines talks about Romans 1, he says, "In the ancient world, homosexuality was widely considered, not to be a different sexual orientation or something inherent in a small minority of people, but to be an excess of lust or passion that anyone could be prone to if they let themselves go too much." Today, we see sexual orientation as a key part of a person's identity, but it's possible to use a different framework that sees it in a different way, and neither is necessarily right or wrong.

BUT the important thing is, in modern US culture right now, sexual orientation is seen as a key part of a person's identity. That's the way it is in our culture, and it doesn't help anything when Christian groups like ADF come along and try to explain to LGB people why it's wrong to identify that way. This is who we are, this is the culture we live in, you can't change that. And in the context of this culture, it is literally violent to tell LGB people that it's wrong for them to see sexual orientation as part of their identity.

Here's my opinion on the definitions and labels: When you're trying to determine your own sexual orientation, it's helpful to think of it as an objective reality inside you that you can discover, or perhaps as a search for which label feels the best. In this situation, clear definitions like "gay means you are attracted exclusively to the same gender" are essential. But when it's somebody else's sexuality, you just have to accept the label they've chosen for themselves. In other words, "gay means a person who says they are gay"- though you might think they don't fit the objective "dictionary definition." It's their life, they've thought about it way more than you have.

The weakness of my point of view is you can imagine a hypothetical situation where somebody says "I'm a woman, I've only ever been attracted to men, I've only dated men, I only want to date men, I've never been attracted to women. And I'm gay." And then you're like, no, this person is not gay. But are you allowed to say someone is wrong about their own sexual orientation? If you say this person is wrong, then that means some policing of labels is okay- but where do you draw the line? Personally, I would say the chances of this hypothetical occurring are small enough that I'm willing to let such a person claim whatever label they want. Appointing ourselves as judges of others' labels is too tricky and morally questionable. (Readers, what do you think?)

But yeah, definitely not clear enough for scientific research purposes. Totally agree with the writers there. Even if we define "gay" as "people who claim they are gay" (a very clear-cut definition), people's understanding of terms like "gay" varies across cultures and time periods. It would be impossible to compare the results of different studies, or look for trends over time. You'd be unable to account for the variable of "in what circumstances do people choose to identify as gay?"

For science, the definitions aren't clear enough. But in terms of culture and social interactions, these words do have certain meanings and they are very important and useful.

The next part of the report talks about problems with the "born this way" theory. They cite a bunch of studies of identical twins where one or both was gay, bisexual, etc. This is pretty interesting stuff which, yes, we should definitely be researching. Their conclusion is that there is some evidence for a genetic cause behind same-sex attraction, but it can't account for everything, and there are other factors too. For example, there is correlation between child sexual abuse and identifying as LGB.

First of all, I'll say I'm not a fan of the whole "born this way" thing. The idea behind arguing that gay people are "born this way" seems to be "obviously being straight is better than being gay, but you have to let us be gay because we didn't have a choice, we were born this way, there's nothing we can do about it." This sort of argument can be helpful for conservative Christians who are just starting down the path to LGB acceptance- I mean real acceptance, not "hate the sin, love the sinner"- but it is absolutely not okay to stay there.

In my opinon, pro-gay advocates who insist on "born this way" are missing the point. When we talk about rights and equality and society-wide policies, it doesn't matter how people "become" gay or the reasons they want to pursue same-sex relationships. They should have the right to do that. "Born this way" and "it's not a choice" ideology is particularly bad for bisexual people. Bisexual people are able to experience attraction to people of an opposite gender; they do have a choice about which gender to pursue relationships with. Does that mean that, since it's possible for them to choose an opposite-gender partner, they have to? Are people only allowed to be in same-sex relationships if it's completely impossible for them to be attracted to an opposite gender? Only if "they don't have a choice"?

(Okay, I'm aware that I'm sort of conflating sexual orientation with behavior here. Sexual orientation is not a choice, behavior is. Still, I really don't think "it's not a choice, I was born this way" is a hill worth dying on, because it implies that if you did have a choice, it wouldn't be okay to choose certain orientations; they are inferior or morally questionable. Which is a belief rooted in LGB-hate.)

All right, back to that report from The New Atlantis. So it talks about studies with twins and studies about prenatal hormones (which test the "born this way" theory), and says there is evidence that sexual orientation is influenced by genes and prenatal hormones, but that can't account for all of it. Science doesn't support the idea that sexual orientation is already determined at birth.

Then there's the part about childhood abuse. There is a correlation between abuse and identifying as LGB (several studies are cited that show this correlation). The writers tell us there are (at least) 3 possible explanations for this correlation:

1. Abuse might contribute to the development of non-heterosexual orientation.

2. Children with (signs of future) non-heterosexual tendencies might attract abusers, placing them at elevated risk.

3. Certain factors might contribute to both childhood sexual abuse and non-heterosexual tendencies (for instance, a dysfunctional family or an alcoholic parent).

All right, as an ex-evangelical, I'm very very suspicious of arguments linking LGB identity to past trauma. But we have to talk about it- getting more facts can help us better understand and support LGB people. But we have to separate out the politics from the scientific facts.

Here's the problem. In their attempts to argue that same-sex attraction is a problem that can be cured with prayer and therapy, evangelicals really like the theory that says people become gay because they were sexually abused or didn't receive the correct amount of affection from their mother or father. This is how we get reparative therapy- which is abusive and doesn't work. This is how we get good parents blaming themselves for ruining their kid by not loving them the correct amount. And really, when Christians make the argument that non-heterosexual orientations are the result of abuse, what they're really saying is "see, it's a problem that should be fixed- not a normal part of someone's identity, not a minority demographic that deserves full equal rights." It's not an attempt to actually understand LGB people better, to learn what their needs are and how best to help them- no, it's an excuse to argue against their rights.

And when you have this kind of situation, where people are debating about reparative therapy and whether gay people can become straight, it's easy to see why the pro-gay side would latch on to "born this way, can't change it, it's not a choice" and the anti-gay side would take "it's caused by abuse, it's not normal or healthy, they need therapy to cure them." But let's try to get away from that. Let's first establish that it's NOT OKAY to tell someone that their sexual orientation- their identity- is wrong and they need to change. That is abusive and violent, and it's not possible to force someone to change, or for people to change their own attractions by "praying hard" or whatever other method you try.

If we start with "your sexual orientation is valid and no one's going to force you to change", then we can honestly research the causes without fearing the political implications that may result. Like I said, in terms of the law and equal rights, it doesn't matter why people are gay or bi or whatever orientation. They all deserve 100% equal rights. No question about that. Maybe it is true that childhood abuse can be a factor that sometimes contributes to developing a non-heterosexual orientation. We don't have to be afraid of that truth. (And keep in mind, even if there is a correlation, it's definitely NOT true that all LGB people experienced abuse. In the studies cited, the percentages are all over the place, but most of them reported that under 50% of LGB people experienced abuse. Still higher than the rate among heterosexuals, but nothing like the idea, common in reparative therapy, that there MUST HAVE BEEN some traumatic event that CAUSED someone to become LGB.)

Next, Part Two of the report. It's about health issues for LGBT people. They are at a much much higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicide, and related mental health issues (with trans people at an even higher risk than LGB people). There are even some studies that showed a higher risk of drug abuse, physical health problems, and intimate partner violence for LGBT people. The writers of the report say it's very very important to understand the causes of these problems because they're really serious. Especially the research on suicide.

The report says the most commonly accepted explanation is the "social stress model." "This model posits that discrimination, stigmatization, and other similar stresses contribute to poor mental health outcomes among sexual minorities. An implication of the social stress model is that reducing these stresses would ameliorate the mental health problems experienced by sexual minorities." They talk about studies on hate crimes, discrimination in the workplace which results in lower salaries for gay men (though non-heterosexual women have higher average salaries than heterosexual women, maybe because they are less likely to interrupt their careers to have children?), and the stress that comes from hiding an aspect of one's identity.

There are studies that show stress, anxiety, trauma, and other mental health effects of these problems. But the question is, is there evidence that societal prejudice is the main reason for poor mental health in the LGBT community? In my opinion, it's impossible to test this. You would need some kind of control group which consisted of LGBT people who lived in a society with absolutely no anti-LGBT discrimination or stigma. Ha. Yeah, that society doesn't exist.

But the report did mention a few studies on LGBT people in states that passed laws banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and laws that defined marriage as one-man-one-woman. There was some correlation between LGBT mental health and the passing of such laws- but it was only a few studies, and one used convenience sampling which probably biased the results by selecting LGBT people who had strong feelings about politics. Not enough evidence yet to really say that "social stress" is the main reason for mental health problems. (And in my opinion, passing laws is important, but there are other factors that have a far bigger effect. Experiencing rejection from family/friends/random strangers is much more likely to cause trauma/stress/depression than abstract laws which may or may not actually affect your life.)

In other words, there haven't been any scientific studies that show societal stigma and discrimination account for most of the mental health risks that LGBT people face. (As I said, I don't see how you really could create a study to show that.) I think it's probably true though. (Anecdotally, you can find a lot of stories from LGBT people about how their lives got so much better when they found people who truly accepted them.) I also think the writers' own biases come out in the way they keep emphasizing how there's not enough research to make a good case for the social stress model. Everything they say is true, but to a conservative Christian audience, the implications are very shady. It's too easy to take their statements and spin them as "science hasn't proven the social stress model, but our evil, godless society keeps talking like it has, don't believe them and their claims about how we need to be more accepting and have equal rights. Probably we should do what anti-LGBT politicians say instead."

Then Part Three is about gender identity. First, definitions. Biological sex is clearly defined by what type of reproductive organs you have (except in the case of intersex people- we'll talk about them in a minute). But what is gender? It's much more difficult to define. The report describes several cases where a certain gender identity was forced on a child. First, David Reimer, who was biologically male but raised as a girl after a botched circumcision. Yeah, gender doesn't work that way- "he self-identified as a boy, and eventually, at the age of 14, his psychiatrist recommended to his parents that they tell him the truth. David then began the difficult process of reversing the hormonal and surgical interventions that had been performed to feminize his body. But he continued to be tormented by his childhood ordeal, and took his own life in 2004, at the age of 38." They also mention intersex children and children with deformed genitals being assigned male or female (usually female), and how sometimes the child identifies as a different gender than what was assigned. In other words, gender is something internal- you can't just take a biological male and tell them they're a girl and expect everything to go just fine. Gender identity isn't something that can be completely controlled by socialization and environment.

Next, they talk about gender dysphoria. "According to the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), gender dysphoria is marked by 'incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender,' as well as 'clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.'" They say there are still many questions about dysphoria that require researching. I agree, let's research them.

Sometimes being transgender is described as "a boy mind in a girl body" but studies of the brains of trans people haven't really shown that that's the case. Some studies have found similarities between trans people's brain structure and the brains of cis people of the gender they identify with, but the report tells us that most of these studies were too small, or that it's not clear if the brain structure caused the gender identity or vice versa, or the correlation isn't strong enough to actual make useful predictions.

In other words, gender identity is hard to define in a scientific sense, and there is no biological indicator that's been found that can tell us if a person is transgender or not. We don't know what causes it. (But I'm sure some very shady Christians will spin this and pretend it means there's no evidence that trans people exist, or something ridiculous like that.)

Next they talk about treatment for people who identify as transgender. They discuss studies that looked at children and at adults. Some have shown there is improvement in quality of life after transitioning. Several studies compared trans people who had gone through sex reassignment surgery to a control group of cis people, and found that the trans subjects had a lower quality of life and more mental health problems- including a scary high risk of suicide. The weakness of these studies is that they didn't have a control group of trans people who wanted surgery but didn't get it. (Ideally, as far as science is concerned, you would assign surgery randomly among your trans test subjects.) So based on the results, it's impossible to say whether they would have been better off with or without the surgery. The studies weren't designed to measure that.

Their conclusion is that not enough studies have been done to show that transitioning is a good way to treat gender dysphoria. Again, I think that, while it might be technically true, this is a very shady thing to say. You have conservative Christians who, no matter what the evidence says, no matter how many people are hurt by their bigoted theology, will insist that "the bible says" trans people don't exist [note: the bible doesn't say that]. They're so sure that transitioning is always a bad idea that goes against "God's design" or some crap like that. They would be happy to read this report and declare "see? the science isn't settled! this means we're totally right to fight against trans people's rights and spread dehumanizing lies about them!" (To be clear: the report says gender dysphoria definitely does exist. The question is whether there is enough scientific research on how best to treat it.)

(Zinnia Jones, a trans woman, has talked about scientific studies that show transitioning improves trans people's lives. Yeah go read her post, she knows way more than I do about this.)

I agree that we need information on gender identity and how to know if transition is a good idea. For children who identify as a gender opposite their assigned sex, is it typically a "phase" they "grow out of"? Is it helpful for them to take medications that delay puberty? How often do people regret their decision after they transition? BUT. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is we have to ask these questions from a position of "we need to give people good information so they can make the choice that's right for them." NOT "God says that being trans is a sin, let's try to find evidence that it's bad so we can convince people not to transition."

In the conclusion to their report, the writers say it's "especially troubling" when children are advised to transition. Is it true that doctors and scientists are advising this so recklessly? To me, it feels like an example of the writers' bias coming through. I really hope no one's being pressured into identifying as transgender. At the same time, no one should think that it's "erring on the side of caution" to not let children transition until they reach adulthood. Going through puberty for the wrong gender is horrible, from what I hear.

This report cited a ton of studies and made good points about how sexual orientation is very hard to define in a scientific sense, and how the "born this way" theory can't fully account for sexual orientation or gender identity. They also talk about the alarming rate of mental health problems among LGBT people, and about how the causes need to be better understood in order to help them, but their claim that there's not enough evidence for the social stress model can very easily be used as a weapon by people who definitely do NOT want to help LGBT people. They also had insightful things to say about how gender identity is hard to define yet it definitely is a real thing separate from biological sex, but again, it is way too easy for their conservative Christian audience to use this report to claim transition doesn't work and being trans isn't even a real thing. The report itself says no such thing, but I am very alarmed at the way ADF summarized it by saying "the science isn't settled" and that claims about sexual orientation and gender identity "are not actually supported by scientific evidence."

Oh, come on. Nothing in this report suggests that the work ADF does fighting against LGBT equality is in any way helpful. There are questions that science does not have answers to, but we know enough to say "oppose LGBT rights" is definitely not the answer.