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the Handmaid’s Tale isn’t a straw man, and here’s proof

Quick update: I took a month off after seminary classes ended, and then I had to play catch-up with some of the volunteer work I’ve been doing since the election. That is finally starting to become a manageable about of work, so hopefully starting next week we can get back to regular blog updates!

This was a post I wrote for Relevant a while ago, but they have decided not to publish it (incidentally, the post they did publish was written by a man I dated at Liberty. It’s … insipid, unsurprisingly). The below only covers the first four episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale, since those were the only ones available when I wrote it. So, spoilers for those episodes, and for some of the book.

***

The first time I read The Handmaid’s Tale I was at Liberty University, taking a utopian/dystopian literature class for an English master’s degree. I practically inhaled it, and it was my favorite of all the assigned readings that semester. In her introduction to the work, our professor noted that Atwood had limited her narrative to things that have already taken place. In Atwood’s words, “I made it a rule … that I would not put anything into it that human societies have not already done.”

When I arrived in class to discuss it, I was surprised by several of my classmate’s reactions. I did not expect everyone to love the book, but I didn’t think that some would react as negatively as they did. Much of the discussion that day was devoted to arguing whether Atwood had written nothing more than a straw man. Several claimed that she simply hated Christianity and wanted to give our religion a bad name—that the whole premise of the book was preposterous and stretched the suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. Unlike the other dystopias we’d read, The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t criticizing anything that did or could exist. Christians just could not do this, they said.

I struggled with their reaction because I knew from firsthand experience they were wrong. In the years since then, and especially since Hulu’s release of their screen adaptation, I’ve thought often about the irony that my fellow students made their arguments in Liberty’s DeMoss building, and Nancy Leigh DeMoss wrote in her evangelical bestseller Lies Women Believe that the Civil Rights and Suffrage movements had been deceived by Satan’s lie that “I have rights,” and that pursuing those rights made them like sinful Jonah, “estranged from God” (74-76). The largest academic building on Liberty’s campus shares the name of a woman who thought the Civil Rights movement was sinful, and she wasn’t just critiquing the form of the activism, either, but arguing that it is a sinful lie for us to believe that we—specifically women and people of color—have rights.

As I re-read the book and watched the first four episodes of the show, I’ve also struggled with how to put the feelings I have into words. My response is visceral, but I know I’m not reacting to the events of the plot. I don’t live in a country reeling from a plague of infertility and governed by martial law. However, we do live in a world where many Christians proclaim the same ideas as the Aunts and Commanders, and we must admit that The Handmaid’s Tale is no straw man.

During one flashback to the time before handmaids exist, June (Offred) and Moira encounter a woman while jogging whose face contorts into disgust because of the typical workout clothes they’re wearing. My heart clenched in my chest because I have both given and received that expression. Growing up, I looked at women who dressed “immodestly” with disdain; as an adult, I wore a dress to a concert on a conservative Christian college campus that showed a hint of cleavage and my husband remarked he was surprised that several women didn’t actually spit on me, their faces showed that much revulsion. Later in the same scene, a barista uses degrading terms for June and Moira—again because of their workout clothes—and I couldn’t help but think of the countless articles on how yoga pants are “immodest.” Those articles may not use the same degrading language, but the ideas are the same: only women who want sexual attention from men dress that way.

One of the more heartbreaking scenes is in the first episode, when Jeanine is “Testifying” about being sexually assaulted and blames herself for what happened. The other women agree, chanting “her fault, her fault.” That scene saddens and horrifies me in the same way I’m saddened and horrified when I encounter it in Christian books. In Stasi Eldredege’s Captivating, she talks about how she “put [her]self in a dangerous position” because she’d been drinking and accepted a ride back to her hotel—the same rationale Jeanine uses to blame herself for being assaulted (79). In Real Marriage, Grace Driscoll talks about her own assault in similar terms: her assault is “her own sin” (128), she was “condemned by her sin” (132), and she repeatedly emphasizes the need for her to “repent” for being assaulted (127, 129, 130). This idea is ubiquitous in Christian culture, and I’ve experienced the pain of being blamed—and told to repent—for my rapes more than once.

However, one of the strongest themes woven throughout The Handmaid’s Tale is the teaching that women, and particularly handmaids, are a “precious resource” that must be protected. Aunt Lydia teaches the handmaids at the Red Center that this protection is a sign of just how much their culture privileges women—the handmaids are lucky, so extraordinarily blessed, to be so honored. This lesson is emphasized in one of the more harrowing scenes from the show. During a “Salvaging,” the handmaids are told that the man standing before them is a convicted rapist and they are given permission to do anything they want to him. This action is intended to demonstrate that their country actually does value them, and desires to protect them. If they only obey the system, they will be protected; in the rare occurrence when they are not, they will see true justice—but only if they follow the rules. Stray outside the rules and they are “putting themselves in a dangerous position.”

Christian culture is replete with this teaching, and it can take many forms. In popular books and programs, women are given the rules: do not have close friendships with boys, do not be alone with boys, dress modestly, keep yourself pure, don’t allow “heavy petting,” date with intention, seek your parent’s guidance… In exchange for following all these rules, girls and women are promised the protection of God, their fathers, and their communities. In the churches I grew up in, this principle was called the “umbrella of protection.” As long as we stayed under the umbrella of the men in our lives—God, fathers, pastors—we were insulated from the evils of the world.

As we grow into adulthood, however, the rules shift focus. As long as you submit to your husband, remain unemployed at home, do not usurp the authority of men, and find your purpose “only in Christ,” then we can be happy and blessed. Sexual violence and physical abuse are held up as the specters that keep us in line—you will be happy if you do what we say, but if you don’t, then you will not be protected. Nancy Leigh DeMoss is quite explicit about this in Lies Women Believe, speaking of cases of physical abuse:

A woman can—and must—maintain an attitude of reverence for husband’s position; her goal is not to belittle or resist him as her husband … if she provokes or worsens [the physical abuse] through her attitudes, words, or behavior, she will interfere with what God wants to do in her husband’s life and will not be free to claim God’s protection and intervention on her behalf. (149)

According to DeMoss, we must “reverence” an abusive husband and must not “resist” him: if we don’t, God will not protect us. That the handmaids of the Tale are told exactly this—that they must “reverence” the oppressive system and not “resist” it—should be an opportunity for self-reflection and communal repentance for the ways Christians continue to subjugate women.

There were so many more moments in the show that caused me to flinch, or to relive the times I’ve experienced what was being depicted. So often, though, it wasn’t about the explicit, but the implicit. For my own mental health I watched the show with a friend, and there were many instances when I would pause and read a section from Lies Women Believe or Captivating or True Woman 101 and exclaim “doesn’t it sound exactly the same as what Aunt Lydia just said?” There’s an ineffable quality to the indoctrination the handmaids are subjected to that is more than just familiar to me. It frightens me how recognizable it was, and it should frighten you.

June 14, 2017 by
Theology

Christian kindness as gaslighting

I think that at this point it’s pretty obvious I’m a “liberal” or “progressive” Christian. I’m still not entirely sure what those terms might mean (does anybody?), but I’m excluded from a variety of Christian spaces because of my beliefs. Sometimes I think that’s weird, considering I still affirm the ancient creeds of the Christian faith so I feel that when it comes down to the brass tacks of it all there’s more we can agree on than stuff we’ve can’t, but I’m learning not to let it bother me.

I want to be a part of Christian community. I meet with other Christians every week to talk about living our faith and that meets an important spiritual need for me, but I also want to be involved in the wider religious context. As much as I find Christian culture alienating and as often as I criticize it, I’m not of the mind to abandon it– not entirely.

Because of that, I’ve spent the last few years interacting with Christians that … well, we tend not to agree. In the conversations I’ve been having for the past three years, I’ve noticed a few patterns. Almost all of these interactions happen online, so of course that’s a dynamic all its own, and means that my experiences might be less nuanced than in-person encounters would allow.

Conversation Type #1: Hostile

It’s not always obvious from the beginning of the conversation that it’s going to rapidly deteriorate into verbal abuse, but it frequently starts out argumentative. The people who want to argue come to me with many assumptions about my positions, or have clearly already decided what they think about my any argument I could make. I’m not treated as a reasonable person with a credible thought process from the outset, so there’s usually no point in engaging with this type of person. If I respond at all, it’s to point them in the direction of what I think is a good post on the subject and then block them if need be.

Example: a few weeks ago I had this interaction on my blog’s Facebook wall:

Jeff Fink: Can someone provide “FACTS” to go along with the accusations?
Me: There are plenty of sources cited in the article itself.
Jeff: Child rape? Death threat? Do you have police reports, court documents, something of that nature? Thanks for checking.
Me: Like I said, there are sources cited in the article.
Jeff: So Samantha are you a true benevolent Nortic creature of peace and truth? Or are you a reptilian of the forbidden fruit?

A reptilian of the forbidden fruit? I had a good laugh and moved on.

Conversation Type #2: Open

These are my absolute favorite, and I’ve had two good experiences with this type even just this week. Today, even. A friend of mine made a remark about finding Martin Freeman attractive, and someone she knows asked for clarification on sexual objectification and the difference between commenting on a man’s appearance vs. a woman’s. The conversation went well and everyone stayed civil and kind. I’ve gotten a few comments recently on this post that I think are wonderful– here and here.

I like questions that are genuinely asking for my thoughts. We may not come out on the other side agreeing, but I think it’s important that we do our best to understand each other. I try to have compassion and charity in my heart when I approach my comment section, although that’s not always possible for reasons that might not have anything to do with the comments themselves.

Conversation Type #3: “Nice”

This is the type that prompted this whole post. This type I am done having, and while Christians aren’t the only ones who do this sort of thing in general, it takes on a whole new color when it’s a Christian doing it. Last week, Katelyn Beaty, managing editor of Christianity Today, said something incredibly dismissive, and a few of us called her on it. She responded to us, and I and Emily and Elizabeth took some time to try to explain to her why what she said was wrong. I even wrote an entire post.

But all of her responses had something in them that I’ve seen hundreds of times over the past few years:

A “teachable spirit.”

Humility.

Graciousness.

All of it false.

***

In the aftermath of that conversation, a few of us who’d participated in it or watched it happen came to a realization: we were being triggered by it. It was deeply upsetting us even though Katelyn stayed perfectly cordial for the entire discussion. Conversations with someone who isn’t being ridiculous and awful don’t usually make you want to smash everything, but that one did.

That’s when we figured it out: this type of “Nice” conversation is a form of gaslighting. In that conversation, Katelyn was attempting to subvert our observations of the interaction. Her initial comment was awful, and given all our history, obviously demonstrates that she has not listened to people like me or Elizabeth when we’ve talked to her about it in the past. She took what we had to say and tossed it right out the window … but then had the audacity to claim that she “had no idea” that there was a connection between purity culture and rape culture, that she was “sorry if she was dismissive,” that she’d “love to hear more.”

She was responding specifically to #IKDGstories and #stillpurityculture– she had already heard “more,” she just didn’t give a flying fart in space.

That’s what makes this gaslighting. She was trying to pretend that what we knew as true– that she’d seen all of us sharing how I Kissed Dating Goodbye kept us in abusive relationships and all the rest– never happened, even though her own damn tweet showed she was well aware. But, instead of getting aggressive and angry like my rapist used to, she did it all with sugar and sweetness and using our first names like she was our friend. She expected us to treat her like she meant it, like she was being honest, even though we had all the proof in the world that she couldn’t care less.

I’m merely using Katelyn because she’s a conveniently recent example, but I’ve seen this same conversation style play out over and over again, and I’m so bloody tired of it happening.

I think things like being humble, patient, and engaged are considered virtues to most Christians– it’s part of how we’re supposed to “reach the lost” and all that. But instead of being humble, being teachable, they just put on a big show and slap some syrupy niceness on it. As long as they look justifiably “nice” to the people on their side of the fence, as long as they leave plenty of wiggle room in what they could have meant, it’s acceptable. When people like me say no, this is not ok, she– and those watching– get to act like our justified anger is an overreaction.

Photo by Nicola
August 31, 2016 by
Theology

panic at the dentist: on moral neutrality

“I have a lot of hangups” would be a most profound understatement.

I was thinking that again on my way to the dentist this morning. To explain why dentist = hangup, you’ll need some context. My family never misses seeing the dentist, and I mean never. Dental hygiene was a monumental deal– one of the most memorable spankings I received was the one night I tried to lie about brushing my teeth (the spanking was mostly for lying, but also a little bit for not brushing my teeth). Hygiene in general was important, but somehow I got the message that having clean teeth equated with being a morally good and responsible person.

So, you can imagine how incredibly proud I was of the fact that I’d never had a cavity. Every time the dentist would joke “if everyone had teeth like yours I’d be out of business!” and I’d say something about drinking three glasses of milk every day. That record lasted until a) not seeing a dentist for two years in graduate school, b) while I was drinking buckets of coffee every day, c) had an diagnosed vitamin-D deficiency and d) was not regularly flossing. The first time I saw a dentist after I got married, I had ten cavities. Ten. Flash forward two years later and one of them needed a crown.

Needless to say, I now dread going to the dentist.

This morning’s appointment was the first one I’d had in a while since I’d had to cancel my last appointment unexpectedly (as in: I was standing in the waiting room obviously about to throw up and they sent me home because they are nice, considerate, lovely people and I was being a little silly). All week I have had nightmares because I was utterly convinced that they were going to find cavities in all my teeth and I was going to need at least six root canals. At least. I was actually up until 3 am Wednesday night because I couldn’t stop feeling anxious about my dentist appointment that wasn’t for another two whole bloody days. I also kept having intrusive thoughts about the hygienist somehow picking all my fillings out (it’s happened before, with a filling that didn’t set properly).

Turns out I was freaking out for literally no reason (something I already sort of knew, but this is how JerkBrain works). The cleaning went fine, none of my fillings fell out, and they didn’t find any new cavities. I was in an out in twenty minutes, and I even got a compliment for having practically no tartar buildup.

***

I’m obviously having trouble deconstructing the idea that developing a cavity is a moral failing. If I were a good person, I’d floss twice a day and use mouthwash every night. Instead, I rarely use mouthwash and I floss maybe once or twice a week, which means that I’m a bad person. Bad people let all their teeth rot of their head, which is clearly what I’m doing when I don’t floss every single day.

However, this isn’t just about dental hygiene. Growing up, there was absolutely nothing that didn’t have a weighty, moral significance. Everything we did, saw, ate, read, or went all had eternal import. I heard a few verses tossed around to support this concept, notably one from Philippians:

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel …

That word “conversation” is politeuomai, and it basically means “living as a citizen.” In the context of this verse, our entire lives, all of our affairs, our conduct, were supposed to be lived as a citizen under “the gospel of Christ”– and in such a way that you’d have a reputation for living that way. There wasn’t a single aspect of our lives that wasn’t evaluated for whether or not it was a “Christian” thing to do or be or think or say.

Including, apparently, brushing your teeth.

I was talking to a friend recently and, in trying to be encouraging, I stumbled into something that I think could be helpful for a lot of us:

Not everything is meant to be received as a comment on your character.

Some things just … are. They just exist. You do them or not, you say them or not, you read them or not, you eat them or not, and none of it says anything about who you are as a person. A doughnut is just a doughnut, regardless of how your body is perceived by our culture. Curse words are just curse words, and saying them doesn’t actually mean you have a shallow vocabulary. Cavities … are just cavities, no matter how much your dentist might tsk at you about flossing.

Last night my small group met, and we got to this passage in our Bible study:

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable … “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:14-23)

Aside from the hilarity of hearing Jesus say (roughly) “you eat then you shit,” this passage has a place in my heart because it’s the exact opposite of what Christian culture generally communicates. Don’t watch R-rated movies. Don’t drink alcohol. Don’t listen to “bad” music. The implicit idea is these things are capable of defiling you … except Jesus says they can’t, that it’s only defiling actions that matter, and he lists some pretty obvious ones.

I especially loved this passage last night, the night before my dentist appointment, because Jesus is responding to the Pharisees freaking out about him not washing his hands. Jesus is saying “look, y’all, whether or not I wash my hands has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a good person. The only thing that matters is whether or not I do good, loving things.”

Whether or not I have a cavity can’t say anything about my character. Whether or not you exercise, or clean, or diet, or whatever,  doesn’t say anything about yours.

April 22, 2016 by
Theology

I am crucified: chronic illness in Christian culture

[content note: menstruation]

I’ve talked about being diagnosed with PCOS and dealing with that on top of other chronic illnesses like fibromyalgia, and if you’ve been reading for a while and are the sort to notice patterns, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I tend to disappear for a few days every month. I used to feel guilty about that, but, over time, I figured out that I didn’t have to. I realized that you, lovely readers, are some pretty amazing people who aren’t sitting behind your computers clicking refresh every MWF. If I put a post up, great– if not, well, you get that I’m a person and sometimes Life is a Real Thing that Happens.

What has taken me a lot longer to realize is that it’s ok to take care of myself.

Technically, my periods only feel like I’m going to die. Chances are pretty good that no matter how much pain I’m in, and how much moving around makes me want to scream, I’m not really doing anything to hurt myself if try to stand up and walk around. For years I muscled through the pain: I showed up to work, I went to class, I fed myself.

For the past few years, though, I haven’t had those sorts of obligations. I work from home. I can cook food ahead for the week and Handsome warms it up and brings it to me (usually a fantastic recipe I have for sweet potato and roasted pepper bisque). If I don’t have to get out of bed and move around … I don’t. In some ways, this has been a little more of a struggle mentally than dragging my heavily-medicated self into work. During that time, I often feel weak, useless- a waste. I joke sometimes that I feel like “an oozing amorphous blob that cries.”

But I made a sort of a breakthrough this last period. Going to the bathroom on my period is always … an adventure. I grit my teeth and scream through it, and then have to face the Mt. Everest of getting back into bed. Up until last week, even if Handsome were home I would force myself to walk to the bed, shouting something like “Never give up! Never surrender!” in my head.

never give up

I had linked my ability to “muscle through the pain” with some sort of moral quality. If I could force myself to deal with the agony, then that somehow made me a good person who wasn’t “giving up” or “giving into the flesh.” But, last week, I went to the bathroom, and then I did what, in retrospect, is only logical: I crawled back to bed on my hands and knees. If Handsome was home, I waited for him to come help me walk doubled-over, leaning on him so I didn’t have to use my abs. I’ve let him do that for me in the past, but this time, when we got to the bed, I let him lift me into the bed– another thing that hurts a lot, but another one of those things I felt that I had to do in order not to be “giving in.”

Accepting help, accepting my limitations, is something I haven’t been able to do very well, and it’s an ongoing thing. In many ways American culture reinforces this message with all its talk about “no pain, no gain” and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” but Christian culture adds another layer. We call it “dying to self” or “crucifying our flesh,” and it forces a nightmare onto people with chronic illness.

I’ve had a few conversations about this topic recently, and it affects a lot of people. When I was teaching classes at Liberty, I would receive a notification about the students in my class who had some form of learning accommodations. Very often, these students would later approach me to let me know that they “didn’t need to use them.” The first few times this happened, I let them not use the accommodations. Over time, though, I realized that these students really did need them, but felt like a failure of a student if they did. I started not giving them an option. If they showed up in my class on test days, I sent them to the testing center where their test was so they could be free to take their test in a distraction-free, no-time-restraints environment.

Another friend is going through a lot of health problems at the moment, and she was worried about calling into work sick, even though she had an incredibly legitimate reason. She was afraid that her boss would see her as flaky– and while that absolutely can happen to people with chronic illness, I’ve experienced it first hand– I knew her boss has seen her show up to work during times when many other people would have taken sick leave. In encouraging her, I mentioned that “most regular people don’t think that crucifying yourself is an ideal.”

That’s really been the crux of it, for me: I was taught that I was to crucify myself, and they weren’t being entirely metaphorical. Self-martyrdom is considered one of the best virtues out there in Christian culture. I should “count my chronic illness all joy” and be thankful that God had given me a thorn in the flesh. If I could push through the pain, then I was doing something bordering on holy.

It’s amazing how many different ways Christian culture teaches self-flagellation. It’s sad that I’ve had to take so many years unlearning it. Slowly, it’s getting easier for me to not see my limitations as a weakness, but as a neutral trait. Having pain does not make me a bad person. Needing help does not make me morally weak.

[update on the hacking: I finally figured out what was going on: Someone hijacked my domain name for illegal BitTorrent download spots. The e-mail and RSS feed problem was a side-effect of that, as they are automatically sent out when “new content” is added, regardless of whether or not that content is authored by an authorized admin. I’m keeping a very watchful eye and working very closely with Flywheel to get this resolved as soon as possible. I’m so sorry you all are being affected by this.]

Photo by Eliezer Borges
September 23, 2015 by
Social Issues

despising our youth: ageism in fundamentalist culture

In the fundamentalist cult I spent the bulk of my childhood in, encouraging the young people toward being an active part of the church community was one of the supposedly important goals. At one point, we moved toward a more “family integrated” model, and the “pastor” eliminated any separate activity for the teenagers. We no longer had our own Sunday school, and “youth group”-type events were basically outlawed. The idea was that too many teenagers were disconnecting from church once they reached adulthood, that they expected “youth group” to continue all their life. Welp, that wasn’t going to happen in our church, no sirrey.

At around the same time we started having “Youth Night” one Sunday evening a month. For that service, the kids and teenagers would do everything– lead the music, make the music, usher, pray, and preach. In theory I still think it was a solid idea. If only the adults in our church treated the teenagers with anything approaching respect.

I’ve talked about my experience as a teenager in fundamentalism before, about how I was given the nickname “sub-adult” after a game of cards. That label was humiliating, especially since it was used by the various adults at church to humiliate me. They used it against me any time I did something to make my presence known– like have an opinion, or assert my own wants or needs, or make a suggestion.

A little while ago I was having a conversation with my mother about that “sub-adult” moniker, and she said “well, you were doing something immature,” and what came erupting out of me shocked me with the truth of it:

“Yeah, maybe I was being immature. But so was she. Calling someone names isn’t exactly a mark of maturity. I was a teenager– some immaturity is normal, and should be a teaching moment, but no one ever called her on the fact that she was being cruel and petty. No, she was the ‘adult,’ so whatever she did I had to accept.”

That’s when it struck me that as much as being tortured with a humiliating nickname hurt me growing up, I’d never really questioned the authority of the adults to do that. All that time, while I inwardly seethed, it was mostly internal: I was largely angry with myself for failing to be the flawless young person they demanded. It never really occurred to me to that I question their behavior, or call it what it was: they were worse than bullies– adults using playground tactics to attack a child.

It never occurred to me because it would never in a million years have occurred to them that they could be wrong about how they treated their children and teenagers. Being the adult was what made them right. I’d been forced to accepted ageism as just a fact of life.

The worst thing is that this attitude hasn’t even remotely changed, regardless of how old I become. In interactions I have with older fundamentalists (and, frequently, more moderate Christians), the fact that I’m twenty-eight, married, with multiple degrees and plenty of life experience in things they’ll never understand (like being an abuse victim and queer) … none of it matters. They were an adult when I was a child and that’s it for them.

Recently, Slate published an article by Jessica Huseman on the ways the Homeschool Legal Defense Association has made it almost impossible to protect homeschool children from abuse. When Huseman questioned Farris (the founder of HSLDA) about people like me who are advocating for more oversight and protection for homeschool children, this is what he had to say:

He dismissed both organizations outright, calling them “a group of bitter young people” who are “fighting against home schooling … to work out their own issues with their parents.”

He’s talking about HARO and CRHE, organizations that were both founded by fully-grown adults, men and women in their 30s, who are married, who have children. For comparison, Michael Farris was 32 when he founded HSLDA. And yet we’re the “bitter young people.”

I was told all my life to “let no man despise thy youth,” but if there’s been something made perfectly clear to me over the last few years is that there are always limits to what “The Adults” are willing to tolerate. They think we’re fantastic when we’re bashing each other, writing think pieces on just how entitled millennials are. Write a post on how young people these days are just so willing to abandon orthodoxy and they will share the shit out of that.

But disagree? State a strong opinion? Assert that your views and experience matter and … nope. End of all civil discourse with them. The second we’re not bobbleheads, we’re “bitter young people.”

It took me a long time to realize that I can look at the words, actions, and beliefs of other adults and interact with them as another adult. No, I don’t have 50-60 years of being alive on this planet, but I do have experiences with something many adults will never have. I was raised in a cult. I grew up as a bisexual woman in Christian culture. I experienced a modern incarnation of purity culture that they didn’t have to live through. I came of age in a completely different economic reality. I’ve been through the process of completely re-evaluating every single last thing I believe.

I am the authority on my life, and I am a person, and that makes me equal. It means that my point of view and perspective matters just as much as anyone else.

Photo by Ciokka
September 18, 2015 by
Feminism

wives: you have the right to say "no"

husband and wife
[content note: marital rape]

A few days ago, a reader sent me a link to the piece “Six Things to Know about Sexual Refusal” (DoNotLink) written by a woman who goes by “Chris” or “The Forgiven Wife.” I’ve poked around her website a bit, and it seems as though it’s dedicated to the concept.

I went back and forth over whether or not I should say something about her post, but I’ve read it a few times over the last few days, and I think responding to what she’s written is a good opportunity to address the reality that Christian culture frequently endorses marital rape, since the post does exactly that.

While not every Christian would be as direct as Phyllis Schlafly (“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”), I believe that is a common attitude among Christians– that signing your marriage license is giving cart blanche consent to sex for the entirety of your marriage. Christians are certainly not alone in this, as American culture has long confused prior consent with current consent, and simply being in a relationship with your rapist can make investigating officers dubious about your claims, since, after all, you wouldn’t be in a relationship with someone if you weren’t at least interested in having sex with them, right?

The reason why I’ve chosen to respond to Chris’ article in particular is that the reasons that she lays out are very common ones when Christians are defending marital rape, and she’s organized them into six points.

Her first point is that “sexuality is inherent to a man’s sense of self,” which I think is a true statement as long as it’s coupled with the understanding that sexuality is inherent to a woman’s sense of self, as well. My orientation, my desire, my sexual needs are integral to my understanding of myself as a person. My sexuality is only one part of “me,” but it is a significant part. However, that statement isn’t even the focus of this point:

A man who has to accomplish tasks (whether those are household chores or giving his wife a foot rub in order to get her relaxed enough to even think about sex) in order to have sex is being told he isn’t good enough.

This comes from the “how can he expect me to do laundry/cooking/dishes/diapers all day, without any attention or help, and then expect me to leap into bed with him?!” sentiment, which I understand. I’ve only been married for a year and nine months now, but on the days when my partner has spent the evening not exactly ignoring me but has been wrapped up in his own thing (which is fine in our relationship, we are adults with separate interests), I’m not exactly in the mood to jump him. However, if he gives me a foot rub and helps with the dishes (both very common things in our house), then yeah. I’m way more interested in sex.

What Chris is implying here is that it is more important for the woman to have sex with her husband when she’s not all that interested because oh noes the REJECTION it’s AWFUL than it is for a woman to pay attention to her own needs and her desire to be treated with respect and care.

Her second point sort of made me laugh, and then I was sad.

Men are designed to want sex frequently, and they are designed to seek adventure … God made your husband this way. It is not wrong. It is not perverted. Your husband’s sexuality is godly.

Translation: men are kinkier than women. If your husband is kinkier than you are, you need to be willing to perform sexual acts you are uncomfortable with (or, possibly, might even find “perverted”) because “God made him that way.” This is an idea that people like Mark Driscoll have popularized, and I can attest to the harm its done in my own marriage– because I’m way more kinky than my partner is. We’ve had to have very serious, very long conversations about this because what I think of as “a little more edge” and what my partner thinks of as “edgy” are not the same thing. We’ve agreed to compromise, because it is extremely important to me that he not feel uncomfortable during sex. I want him to be enjoying it, and not having to push himself to do things that make him nervous.

However, what Chris is saying is that women, you do not deserve to feel comfortable during sex. Whatever your husband wants, no matter how uncomfortable you are with it, you do it. Period. Because God said so. Personally, I can’t imagine asking my partner to do something like that– it would make me feel awful. Hopefully the vast majority of husbands are taking their wives’ comfort levels into account, but articles like this (plus the “smoking hot wife” narrative that’s becoming more common in Christian circles) are encouraging men to ignore their wives’ feelings.

Her third point is where the trouble really starts:

Men best receive love through sex … NOTHING matches sex. You can love your husband in every other way possible … You can do everything else he wants or needs … Sexual love trumps everything else combined.

Aish.

Just … no.

Honestly, this just defies common sense. If all I ever did have sex with my partner, but I never talked to him, never wanted to spend time with him that wasn’t sex, never shared my interests with him, never listened to him about his frustrations or accomplishments, never helped him with anything, never wanted to go anywhere with him, I’m pretty damn sure he’d start feeling pretty damn unloved pretty damn fast.

And this is where rape culture becomes obvious in this post, because the premise of this point is that men are simplistic, men only want one thing, men are pigs, men are animals. That belief is why “she was asking for it” works— because our culture has accepted that sexual violence by men is the only crime where the “overwhelming” temptation to commit it makes committing it excusable, perhaps even justifiable.

This is also the point where Chris begins dismissing the reality of marital rape, because what she is telling women is that the only possible way you can have intimacy and a loving relationship with your husband is if you have sex whenever he wants it. This argument is a Christian-culture-wide form of coercion: you cannot say no, saying no means you do not love your husband. When you remove the ability for consent to be meaningful– for “no” to be a possible answer, it’s sexual coercion.

Point number four is where I got angry:

Depriving him of your sexual pleasure can be as damaging as depriving him of sex altogether.

Just … sputter. No. All the no.

Pleasure during sex is a mutual thing. And, honestly, what women is consciously staving off an orgasm in order to “deprive” her husband of pleasure? If she’s not having an orgasm, there’s a reason– probably a lot of reasons all at once, and it’s impossible for a woman to resolve a lot of those reasons on her own. If her partner is not listening to her about her sexual needs and comforts — like requiring her to engage in sex acts she finds degrading — not
having an orgasm is not her fault. There have been moments when my head hasn’t been fully engaged in having sex with my partner and that’s made arousal and orgasm more difficult, but there have also been plenty of times where my partner is experimenting and it just doesn’t work for me. When that happens, I tell him, and he moves on to something else.

Points five and six are essentially the same thing:

The pattern of rejection is there, all the time. Each specific instance of rejection is a reminder of his lack of worth to you.

Whether your pattern tends toward refusing (outright “no” or other ways of avoiding sex) or gate-keeping (restricting the time, location, and nature of sexual activity), it is likely the worst thing in your husband’s life. It is the worst thing in his life.

This is specifically addressed to women who say “no” more often than not, and it made me want to cry, because I know a lot of women who say no frequently, and this argument has done more damage to them, personally, than anything else. I know women who can be easily triggered by sex because of PTSD caused by sexual violence (which Chris makes it clear in the comments is an audience she is addressing), or who have vaginisimus, or endometriosis, or a plethora of other reasons why having sex might be extremely difficult. But what a woman might be experiencing, why sex might be difficult for her is not important because of her husband’s fee fees. I’m sorry, if your husband isn’t willing to work with you because you’re having a panic attack during sex or you are in so much pain you have to stop, your husband is an asshole.

And Chris, by arguing for women to ignore their own bodies, hearts, souls, and minds, is telling women you do not matter. What you want does not matter. Your pain and suffering do not matter.

Unfortunately, Chris is far from alone in American Christian culture.

September 10, 2014 by
Social Issues

learning the words: even the ugly ones

woman cursingToday’s guest post is from Dani Kelley, who writes about feminism, abuse, and recovery at Crooked Neighbor, Crooked Heart. Also, I’ve been so freaking excited about this post for a while, and I’m thrilled I get to share it with you.
“Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

The past few years, I have been on an intentional journey into freedom from the panic, rage, and fear that has been the constant undercurrent of my young life. A big part of that journey has included the freedom to look at the horrible things in life and to say with confidence and conviction, “Fuck. This. Shit.”

Profanity was not allowed when I was growing up (and at the time words like “heck,” “gosh,” “darn,” and “shut up” were included). There were always lots of reasons given, mostly in the form of Bible verses about letting no profane word come out of your mouth or letting your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt. One that always stuck out and appealed to me was that people only swear because they lack the intelligence and vocabulary to otherwise express themselves.

I call bullshit.

Another that I heard a lot (and continue to hear) is that profanity just isn’t appropriate. It isn’t very nice. It’s especially not something that good girls use when speaking.

I say, fuck that.

On some level, I’ve always understood the power of words. I remember as a young child, when a terrifying rage I couldn’t understand would boil up inside me, I would brokenly tell God that I didn’t know what the heck to do. (In my more honest moments, I would actually say hell. I’ll give you a moment to gasp and clutch your pearls.)

As a teenager and young adult, I waffled back and forth on my stance on language. Many times I would cling to my moderately impressive vocabulary and spout the “I’m too smart to swear” defense, hiding behind my classism and ableism like a child hides behind his mother’s skirts. Other times, the pain of a dozen betrayals, great and small, would overwhelm me until I swore quietly to myself (or violently to trusted friends) as a release valve.

Then there were the other times, the more dangerous times, when I used the strength of cursing to inflict pain on myself, to condemn myself for my perceived Biblically-declared depravity, filth, and worthlessness. It seemed to me that the Bible’s strongest language was reserved for sinners, to describe the depth of our evil. And so I internalized that message and adopted such language most harshly for myself, because I was convinced that I was unworthy and unclean.

(Allow me a moment to again say, FUCK. THAT. NOISE.)

Ahem.

Without profanity, I never had the words to deal with the horrible situations in my life and in the lives of others — the betrayals, the abuses, the heartbreaks and horrors, the ever-growing doubt about whether God was good or a monster. There simply were not Christian words strong enough to do these things justice. Instead, I made myself as numb as I could to pain, and I kept it carefully bottled inside, shared only with a few trusted friends, and only then what was acceptable to share. I hid my panic, I hid my rage, I hid my doubts, I hid the depth of the wounds that were so deep I couldn’t hide them even though I wanted to. I hid them all with my exemplary vocabulary, Christian platitudes, acceptable euphemisms, and cheap imitation curses.

But after years and years of hiding and self-destructing, it has gotten too damn hard, and I am done.

I’m not hiding the pain anymore. I’m not hiding the doubt, fear, or rage. I am describing them with the most colorful language I can muster, to paint the clearest picture I can. I am living openly and honestly and looking you straight in the eye when I do so instead of ducking my head and muttering, “His ways are higher than our ways,” or “Just trust in the Lord and everything will work out for His glory!” I am grabbing your hand and saying with confidence, “This shit is fucked, and I am so sorry, and I love you and we will get through this.”

And in all of this, the dark places are being exposed, and I can see a little more clearly, breathe a little more freely. I’m finding a smidgen of peace through this seemingly tiny thing of finally allowing the ugly words to describe the ugly things in life.

October 2, 2013 by
Social Issues

iron sharpeneth iron, part one

irons

“I’m really worried about her.”

I was laying in my bed, staring up at my ceiling, envisioning all the different situations one of my dearest friends could find herself in, now that she was living in the downtown of a big city, far away from people she knew and the community she’d grown up in. Handsome was on the phone, listening to my concerns.

“Why? She’s a grown-ass woman. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Well… I’m just worried that she’s away, and so busy, and the only relationships she’s forming are with people that she works with.”

“So?”

That question made me pause. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by so? This was a straightforward concept, at least to me, and he didn’t seem to understand my concerns at all. Which puzzled me, and I wasn’t sure how I could explain what was, to me, a foundational idea about relationships. I was running into conversations like this one with Handsome more and more often– concepts I’d lived with all my life, that I had accepted as normal, seemed completely foreign to him.

“I… well, I mean, hanging out with non-Christians is fine, but it seems like it’s more difficult. You need Christian friends, too. So they can help you.”

“I don’t understand, Sam. None of my friends growing up were Christians, and I think I turned out just fine.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Really?”

“Yeah. All my friends were Muslim or Sikh or non-religious. I knew a few people who were Orthodox, but yeah, all my close friends weren’t Christians.”

This was a complete about-face from anything I’d previously been given about the nature of friendship. I fell silent as I struggled to process what Handsome had just handed me– it felt like a deluge, like being thrown into a river and I couldn’t quite tell which way was up.

“Anyway, I don’t think you have anything to be worried about. She’ll be fine.”

We talked for a few minutes longer, but when we hung up, I didn’t move. I continued staring up at the ceiling, recalling past relationships, past friendships I’d had. I realized that I had always assumed that being a Christian made you a better friend, and even through all of my struggles with God and religion and faith, even when I’d lost my faith completely, it was such a deeply held belief that I never even bothered re-thinking it. But, suddenly, I could almost taste how ridiculous the idea was. Nothing about being a Christian makes anything about me intrinsically better than any other human being on the planet. But that was what I’d believed– I’d believed that having Christian friends was better. To an extent, I’d believed that having “non-Christian” friends was almost a waste of time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was nervous. More nervous than I’d been on my first day of class– more nervous than during my freshman piano audition, even. Philip* had approached me during choir practice and asked if we could go to dinner together after church– just the two of us. I was confused by this, especially since Philip earnestly believed in never being alone with a girl, so whatever it was he was thinking, it was serious. I had accepted, and here I was, sitting at the cafeteria table, waiting for him to get through the line and join me. I arranged the potato chips on my plate, fiddled with  my silverware, wiped the condensation off my glass.

I jumped when he appeared, and my heart started beating harder as he took his seat. He said grace, and he dug in while I picked at my tuna sandwich. Eventually, after a horrendously long attempt at small talk, he brought up why he’d asked me to dinner.

“I’m worried about you.”

I didn’t say anything, knowing he’d explain without prompting. I couldn’t even look at him.

“Why have you abandoned all of us?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. Being honest– if he even believed me, it would not be well-received. “I’m just not comfortable hanging out with you guys any more.” I could feel my promise to myself wavering. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to get pulled back into the politics of it all. The backstabbing, the gossip, the lies and manipulation. I was done. I was leaving.

“Why not?” He was careful to keep his voice calm, soothing.

“I just don’t get along with . . . people.”

“Sarah*.” The one word was an accusation. I expected him to know; the problems between me and Sarah had long become obvious to pretty much everyone.

“You’re both being utterly ridiculous.”

That made me look up, look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”

“You two. You’re both squabbling over something that isn’t even your decision to make. It’s mine.”

I cringed. He’d caught on to that. Finally. “I’m not squabbling with her over you, Philip. I could care less.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, honestly. I don’t care. I’m your friend, and that’s it. I don’t want anything more than that. I’m not interested in anything more than that.”

He leaned back his chair, crossing his arms. It was a gesture I knew well. “Then why have you been constantly fighting with her over me?”

I sighed, exasperated. “I don’t like you. But she does, and I think she thinks that I do, too, and so… well, I’m a threat. And she’s been manipulating all of us, and I’m sick of it. I’m not interested in participating anymore. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but it did no good. So I’m done. It’s pointless, and stupid, and it sucks.”

“I think you should stay.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s your obligation to. We’re friends, and that means that we’re supposed to help each other. Iron sharpeneth iron. You can’t just abandon your friends when you don’t like what they’re doing. You have to help them grow.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, you think I could try on your scarf? It’s so fluffy!”

I turned from the pool table, grateful for a momentary distraction. I was terrible at pool. I was losing, embarrassingly, to Michael*, who had already imbibed six bears, half a bottle of rum, and a few shots of . . . something that smelled a bit like gasoline. When I saw who had just asked me that, I laughed. “Sure. Absolutely.”

A few minutes later, after Michael had completely stomped all over my terrible billiard-playing abilities, I walked over to introduce myself, and we ended up chatting for a few minutes.

“Hey, you want to catch a smoke?”

“A– what?”

“Do you smoke?”

“Uhm . . . no.”

“Cool. Mind if we go outside while I smoke?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

We stepped out onto the rickety porch and joined a few others who had stepped out of the crowded entryway and living room to get some air or to smoke. Someone I didn’t know launched in to what seemed to be a familiar speech, describing all the benefits of “whole leaf” cigarettes. I got handed one, and in lieu of lighting it on fire and sticking it in my mouth, I sniffed it. “It smells like tea!” my surprised outburst interrupted the flow of conversation. Initially, I was embarrassed. I never knew how to handle myself when I’d inadvertently grabbed attention.

But everyone just laughed. “Of course it does. Awesome, isn’t it?”

And they moved on.

No admonishments about not interrupting people.

No gentle reminders to let everyone take their turn in the conversation.

Nothing.

I looked around at the group of people I’d found myself in– I wasn’t entirely sure how I had ended up here, at this party. But it was the first place I’d ever been where I felt like I could belong. A stranger, someone hardly anyone here had even met before. The shy, nervous little girl who didn’t know how to play pool, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t talk– and when I did talk, it was random outbursts that didn’t fit. The woman standing in the corner nervously fidgeting, obviously desperate to fit in, to be cool. They could see right through it– but they didn’t care.

It didn’t matter where I’d come from, who I was, where I’d been, what I believed, where I went to church, if I went to church. None of it. I was a person. And that was enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I lay on my bed that day, my conversation with Handsome over, staring up at my ceiling, I realized something.

By and large, my relationships with regular church-attending evangelicals (with a few notable exceptions, my best friends among them) have been extremely toxic and unhealthy.  It took me having friendships with men and woman who had never been Christians, who had grown up Christian but were now agnostic, who were still Christian but would be described as “nominal” or “backslidden” by anyone I’d grown up with, to experience friendship. Real, honest, loving, friendship.

I don’t think Christian culture really knows the meaning of the word.

August 20, 2013 by