Archive for category religion
When I Stopped Begging God to Change Me
[cross-posted here]
The tension between sexuality and religion is not news.
As a person who considers herself sex-positive, and who associates with other sex-positive people on and offline, I’m well familiar with the often-justified assessments of religion as damaging when it comes to holistic health, especially as vehicles of guilt about bodies and sexuality. The criticisms, the examinations, the tirades – I often agree with them. But I’m also left with a nagging feeling, that such categorically dismissive views on religion end up alienating people who might otherwise be allies for a saner attitude toward sex and sexuality.
Am I fan of religion? I’m not. Have I been harmed by religious dogma and hurt by those who live for and through such dogma? Oh yes, I sure have. But do I think that blasting religion is going to convince anyone that they should give up religion? I don’t. Not at all.
Perhaps the real question is: do we want to have a conversation with people who think and feel differently, or do we want to preach to the non-religious choir? It seems unlikely that anybody who feels sympathetically toward religion is going to change their mind or heart by reading someone’s angry or patronizing views on why religion is ridiculous, harmful, or wrong.
What is the first question I hear when someone learns I grew up in Utah? I bet you can guess. “Are you Mormon?”
Relief & Release: Responding to a Mormon Virgin’s Visit to Planned Parenthood
Posted by Marisa Black in body, Mormonism, queerness, religion on March 6, 2011
[cross-posted here]
When I saw Nicole Hardy’s piece in the New York Times, “Single, Female, Mormon, Alone” [link], about the author’s visit to Planned Parenthood as a 35-year-old virgin, my chest expanded with recognition. Yes, I thought. Yes yes yes. As I read, my pulse quickened in a rush.
The recognition was cultural, rather than directly personal. She was not telling my story. My adulthood did not include many years of celibacy. I took a different road from a similar starting place. But reading this account brought unexpected comfort and insight.
Discussions about religion and sexuality that rely on hefty doses of contempt, if not outright vitriol, leave me weary and discouraged. The underlying message usually seems to be, “if only those foolish people would wake up and shuck off the chains of silly religion, they would be free!” I find such a view frustratingly narrow.
“Oh, honey, you make me so ashamed of you.”
Posted by Marisa Black in masturbation, media, religion on September 22, 2010
Brought to you courtesy of Yoism.org, described as:
Uniting Atheist, Skeptic, Agnostic, Buddhist, Pagan, Realist, Enlightenment, Humanist, Unitarian, Deist, Psychedelic, Transcendentalist, and Pantheist systems of belief to create the World’s First Open Source, Rational Religion, the advent of Yoism marks a turning point in the history of Homo sapiens, the next stage of human development: Childhood’s End.
Though I was unfamiliar with Yoism before this afternoon, I must admit I am fascinated by anything that announces on its homepage that it brings together some of my favorite things: psychedelics, Buddha, and pagans.
The tragic thwarted-masturbation video is an added plus. “You know better than that!”
The Laying On of Hands (My Evolving Sexstyles, Part Two)
Posted by Marisa Black in masturbation, Mormonism, orgasm, penetration, religion on June 9, 2010
(Cross-posted here.)
Rachel was solemn as her face hovered between my knees.
“I see it in there, really deep.”
“What should we do?” I asked, knitting my eyebrows together.
My worry was a charade. Though we clung to the pretense, there was definitely not a small insect burrowed deep in my vagina. Rachel was prodding my folds and depths out of necessity, we told ourselves gravely. She was saving me from an imaginary skin condition caused by a nonexistent bug that she eventually “found” nestled halfway to my cervix. We pretended we weren’t pretending. We were ten.
It Put Me to Sleep, Held in a Cradle of Pleasure (My Evolving Sexstyles, Part One)
Posted by Marisa Black in body, masturbation, Mormonism, orgasm, religion on June 2, 2010
(Cross-posted here.)
Her voice was shrill. “Dee! What are you doing?!”
My fingers, moving rhythmically under the bedspread, stilled at the sound of her voice.
“Show me your hands,” she ordered, sitting on my small bed. A Holly Hobby doll peered from behind an oversized bonnet.
I was in trouble.
On Proselytizing
Posted by Marisa Black in Mormonism, religion on April 30, 2010
I don’t feel like convincing people of one thing or another. Maybe it’s related to my upbringing. As most people know, Mormons are all about proselytizing, about sending missionaries out into the world and getting converts for their church. When I left that church, I promised myself that I would not go to the other extreme, being anti-Mormon, thereby continuing to define myself in relationship to an institution I found unpleasant. I am uncomfortable with proselytizing, whatever the cause. Whether for atheism or veganism or masturbation or politics or a particular spiritual belief, I am uninterested in converting anyone.
Education – now that’s something else. I’ll join a celebration of veganism or masturbation or fertility-sex rites. I’ll share the joy that I’ve experienced in my new sin-free state, but I won’t try to convince someone of anything. I won’t, for example, tell religious people that they are daft or gullible or naive. What would be the point? I can’t think of a time that I ever changed my mind about something because I was told I was stupid to believe what I did. And so goes my personal philosophy on proselytizing.
Sin & Forgiveness
Posted by Marisa Black in queerness, religion, sex on April 26, 2010
On Easter, I did something very unusual. I went to a Christian church. It’s been a long time since I attended a mainstream Christian service, as opposed to some DIY hippie-pagan let’s-celebrate-being-horny-in-the-springtime festivity that counted as “Easter” for me. Plus, I was raised Mormon, which is arguably Not Christian, although such theological discussions essentially bore me. So let’s move on, pausing long enough to acknowledge that a few weeks ago, at the invitation of our neighbors, I attended a Baptist Easter Service.
It ruined my whole day.
A couple grumpy hours after the service, I said to Taryn, “Sin-and-forgiveness is a paradigm that really bums me out. It’s like, even though I was raised to believe in sin, it’s so far away from how I experience the world now that it really rattled me, hearing all that stuff about being delivered from the pain of sin. I kept thinking, ‘What pain? I’m not feeling pain. Maybe I’m not a sinner.’” We laughed, and my mood lifted slightly.
Strung Along
Posted by Marisa Black in menstruation, Mormonism on April 8, 2010
(Cross-posted here.)
Do you want to know about my underwear? I’m Mormon. Or I used to be, anyway. The question of sacred panties seems to come up when I’m around.
When asked if I ever wore the Mormon garments that seem to elicit so much fascination, I usually laugh and say, “Oh, no, I left the LDS church long before I did the ceremony to get garments.” Then I usually change the subject, because even though I know Mormonism is seen as weird and is great fodder for jokes, they are still my people. It’s sort of like talking trash about your own family, but getting riled if someone else does.
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