Sunday, June 13, 2010

Growing Up a Sexpot Christian

Lately I've been fondly reminiscing about my time served as a Christian. Not really. Actually, I've had sour memories dredged up from interacting with insensitive dickheads with their heads up their asses, who remind me of people from my past who were insensitive dickheads with their heads up their asses.

When I was a Christian, I dove head-first into it---I was a "spirit filled" Christian, a Jesus Creepy. A lot of people who didn't know me then are usually shocked to hear that, but hey, I was young, and more importantly, outnumbered. In that environment, you're very insulated from the scary real world: I went to a Christian school which was also my church, and we went to church 2 times a week. Thus I was in the same building, around the same people, who all believed the same things, pretty much every single day.

I believed with my whole heart that the crazy things I was told were true: that god was real, that Jesus died for our sins, that they were really the same person and he/they were going to come back and all this crazy fucked up shit would happen, and if I wasn't aligned with his/their plan and what he/they wanted me to do with my life, then...shit would be bad. I did everything I could to be a "godly young woman." I "studied" the bible and meditated on it. Physically, I quickly figured out that there was a standard: be exceptionally hot, in manner and in dress, but don't actually act on any of the flirty sexual insinuations.

I always had a problem with that apparently. I thought I did covert sexiness pretty well, but no. I also couldn't help it that supposedly this same god that my mom petitioned to protect my chastity also gave me a pretty smoking body, at the very inappropriate age of 12.  I didn't understand why if I looked like the ladies in the pictures, I couldn't wear the outfits. My exasperated mother would just wring her hands.The thing is, I've always been a very sexual person, even as a child (people never like to hear that). I just am; and not just very sexual, I'm freaky too. I know, it's not going to be provocative or interesting at all when I'm a wrinkly old woman. Which is why I work that shit while I've got it.

So I certainly had a lot of complex issues going on, but I also genuinely loved god and wanted to be a good woman. But when you're a Christian, being pretty is an awful big part of being a good woman. I could write pages and pages about this, and in fact I may in the future. Still, I've always cared about my brain too, and though that was the most ignored muscle in my body throughout my entire religious experience, I did want to be smart, or at least Christian smart, i.e. knowledgeable about the bible and god's mysterious ways and such.

But I always felt that my true colors, my natural instincts, who I really am, was constantly stifled in that setting. Not just stifled, suffocated: I think people picked up on my inherently sexual and deviant nature, and were freaked out by it. I think that's why I was always just outside the circle of being accepted.
 
I tried to do the only thing I could think to remedy the situation: find a godly, hot Christian dude that I loved, and get married, and then it would be ok for me to be the voracious sexpot that I already felt I was.

But the Christian dudes weren't having it. I could never understand what I was doing wrong. I devoted myself to Jesus, I took care of my appearance and tried to be pleasing, and one after another the dudes I was interested in would pair off with some other girl.

Looking back, it's a great thing I wasn't successful---in fact it's funny to say that I wasn't successful in describing not marrying a moron. I came out on top here, but it took me a long time to see that. For years I thought that there was something about me that men intensely disliked, and I couldn't figure it out to save my life.

I came to the slow realization that it was because I had a brain, and opinions, and a strong sense of sex,  and apparently that was really scary to contemporary conservative Christian men. Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck the idea that I have to deny the feelings that I have and keep myself chaste.

It's nice now to not be judged for the basic pieces of personality that make me who I am. That's why it irritates me so much when people insist that I should just try to be a Christian, and I'd love it. Been there, done that---didn't work, god ignored me, and most of the people were assholes. And, they insisted on beating out of me every shred of individuality that I had. My teenage years are filled with memories of adults giving me grim disapproving faces and sharply correcting me, not for being rude or causing trouble, but for asking serious questions, giving my opinion, or expressing creativity. It's indescribable how good it feels to not to be in such an oppressive environment anymore.

7 comments:

  1. I have always wondered why sex was such a bad thing for religious people. People still have sex, but they are just made to feel shameful and guilty afterward, that is if they aren't married.

    This is the apex of mental abuse, taking something that is a normal drive and function and telling people they are bad if they do it.

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  2. For me, it was really stressful. Plus the fact that I had feelings for girls, which I was told was REALLY bad and made god hate me, plus hormones and normal teenage angst--I think you get the idea.

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  3. Hannah, Well spoken! I know your pain... I was a 'sexpot' at age 4.

    God DID give us those quite pleasurable sensations (and the smokin' hot bod) AND He has a word for safe sex: Marriage.

    If, like me, your passions were awakened wrongly and too early, you did feel a sense of both power and shame.

    But, unlike you, I looked around at church and could see the fakery of Churchianity, and instead sought out the true and living God. He is real! and He is perfect! and He is creative! Yes, even sexually speaking! and most importantly, He saw our pain, became a man, and dwelt among us and HE Loves You. Just as You are.

    May you first find HIM (and you know how to do that (Heb 11:6)), then find him - who, too, will love you just as you are. <3

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  4. Anonymous: My passions were awakened wrongly and early? Pray tell, by what? Surely you must know, since you're so enlightened in this area!

    You know one thing that I've always really been into---even though I wasn't exposed to it at a young age, and didn't know what it was---is two dudes fucking. I LOVE gay sex. It gets me off so hard in such a visceral way, it's one of my favorite fantasies to masturbate to. How does god feel about that exactly? Why did he make me a woman and then give me these desires? It's not like I was molested by a gay man (or a straight one!) or anything...

    Also been with me from the beginning: I like being locked in cages and tied up. When I was 3 I would collect objects from around the house and block myself into a corner, telling my parents I was building my own cage. Why is that? What's god's purpose for that?

    If Jesus loves us as we are, then why do we have to recite some bullshit about "accepting him into our heart" and then CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOR? That's not loving us how we are. How do you people say these things over and over and not see the irony?

    Sorry Anonymous, but apparently you didn't read the part where I said I USED TO BE A CHRISTIAN. OBVIOUSLY IT DID NOT WORK. GOD IS NOT REAL.

    It's so obnoxious to pour your heart out and say, "This was my life," and then some jerk come along and say "Hey! Great post! You're a big fat liar though! JEEBUS LOVES YOU AND YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!!!" It's always amazed me that when I talk to Christians and tell them the things I think, they refuse to believe me---but then they expect me to believe THEM when they talk about their belief in god.

    OH and I've said it before and I'll say it again: that bible verse? Faith is one of the most idiotic, useless things in this world, and it's embarrassing to all humans that people are proud of themselves for having "faith." I am a smart, logical person who uses her brain, not one who believes in things for which she has no evidence.

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  5. Also: You must have missed the part where I said I'm bisexual. Is Jesus ok with that?

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  6. Here's another issue supported by Chrisitanity. Marriage.... Nothing keeps people in line like being married. I finally admitted to myself at around my 40 that I was agnostic and now at 51 I more identify with atheism. I have been married now going on 31 years and for the life of me I can't figure out why. I love my husband, but it has nothing to do with being married to him. There are many kinds of love, too. There have been other people I would have liked to share love with. I have spent more time in this marriage not being "in love" but being "in like" You get caught up in other things to keep you from facing that reality. Then you wake up one day and realize that the one sure thing you know is this is the one life you have to live. Looking back I think if I could do it all over again I wouldn't get married. Everything I have and have accomplished has nothing to do with being married. As far as your interest in your sexuality. You will still be who you are and like what you like at this ancient old age ;) It is good for you that you're not spending years trying to feel something you don't.

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  7. Tina, I'm glad you've had a happy marriage, even if you have some small reservations about what you should have done. I think I know what you mean---and actually, after I threw off my religious blinders, I never intended to get married, really, and certainly not so young. If I had everything my way, I would not be monogamous; if I could have done things differently knowing I would end up married young & monogamous, I would have had more sex before I got married.

    I feel that especially in this culture (which is always changing, but still), we're programmed towards monogamy, but I don't think monogamy is natural. I think wanting stability, wanting to have someone who will be there when you are sick, through thick and thin, is very understandable. However, I don't think that very rational desire for safety is enough to snuff out our very natural desires to fuck the other people we come across that we find attractive. I don't think it KILLS us to suppress those desires in order to be monogamous, and it is possible to stay faithful, but I don't think it's as much fun. Less complicated surely, but probably not as fun.

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