Browsing Tag

rape culture

Feminism

how I learned to stop worrying and love the Pill, part one

When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). To cut a very long, and a very awkward, story short, hormonal birth control (also known as “the Pill”) is the only known treatment for it. It’s not a cure, but it works to mitigate the suffering for a lot of women who suffer with PCOS. But it’s the only treatment [edit: occasionally, blood sugar problems can be a part of PCOS, but not always, in my case it is not], because of how it works and what it does, but I’ll get to that in a bit tomorrow.

I had to start taking it at fourteen– the doctor said that if I wanted any chance of ever having children, I would need to take the Pill. And even then, she warned me, I’d probably still need to have a full-blown hysterectomy before I was thirty. If I didn’t take the Pill, everything would get continually worse and I’d need to have multiple surgeries just to keep it under control.

So, I went on the Pill, and I took it faithfully for the next three years. It got my hemorrhagic cysts under control, even though it continued to cause persistent nausea and daily headaches that could blow up into migraines at a moment’s notice.

I also didn’t tell anyone, not even my best friend, that I was taking it.

When I started college, I was faced with a pretty significant dilemma: how was I going to hide taking the Pill everyday from roommates and suite mates? My solution was to put the pills into a regular prescription bottle, but that only worked for about a month, until I got my prescription in the mail. Then I had to figure out ways to get the Pills into the bottle and then hide the packaging– it had my name all over it, so I couldn’t just throw it away anywhere. I got pretty creative, coming up with means to hide what it was.

The fact that I was worried about people finding out about me taking the Pill every day should tell you something. What in the world was I expecting them to think?

Well, for one thing, I was absolutely positive that if someone who didn’t know me very well found out about it, they’d just assume that I was a slut. And secondly, if the administration found out about it (which was not outside possibility, they cared an awful lot about intimate details concerning their students), if something happened, my character would automatically be in question. They’d be suspicious about me.

Because I had PCOS, and was taking the Pill to treat it.

But, I knew that having a “legitimate” medical reason for taking the Pill wasn’t going to change the way anyone had already decided to perceive me. If they found out I was taking it, I knew they would label me a slut, and there would be nothing I could do about it. I was on the Pill– it would be all the proof they needed.

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

A whole bunch of years later, when I’d figured out that I didn’t give a damn about idiots who would judge me for taking the Pill, I was talking to a woman about some of the pain she’d been suffering. During the course of our conversation, I realized that she probably had PCOS, and when I asked her about it, she agreed– that’s what the doctor had diagnosed her with. For her, it had caused her to lose her job, and she’d been hospitalized several times because of cysts rupturing. The pain had caused her to miss church, to constrain her to her bed for days on end.

I asked her what the doctor had suggested for treatment, and her response was that he’d given her pain killers, but she was trying not to depend on them too much.

“You aren’t on any medication?”

“There’s not any real medication for this, though.”

“There’s the Pill,” I blurted out. “It can help.”

She stared at me, her eyes widening in horror. She leaned in close, and dropped her voice to a whisper, even though we were in my house and the only people around were friends. “You mean, the birth control pill?”

I nodded. “Yes. I’ve been on it for years.”

Again, silence, and her wild eyes boring into me. I watched her think about what I’d said, and I watched terror form. She was completely horrified by my suggestion. “Oh my goodness, no, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. That would just be so . . . wrong.”

It was my turn to be horrified.

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

I should make it clear that this wasn’t in my fundamentalist church-cult. This was from a woman who had grown up in “regular” Christianity. There was nothing extreme about the religion she’d been surrounded by. It was all pretty typical, run-of-the-mill Baptist stuff. And she was still so horrified at the very idea of taking the Pill that she refused to even consider it as an option, even though it is the only medical recourse for her condition.

This is One of the Many Reasons why I have a Serious Problem with the Pro-Life Movement.

Because, and not to put too fine a point on it, they lie to people, especially women. They have spread so many lies for so many years that when a woman could take the Pill to treat a medical condition, she won’t, because the only thing she knows about the Pill is poppycock and hogwash.

So, I present a Crash Course in What the Pill is, For Realsies.

First, the Pill is a really limited concept of birth control. There are so many different kinds of birth control, including Natural Family Planning (NFP), barrier methods (condoms, sponges, vaginal condoms, diaphragms), vasectomy, tubal litigation. For hormonal birth control, there’s oral contraception (the Pill), hormonal and copper IUDs (intrauterine device), Depo-Provera (the “shot”), OrthoEvra (the “patch”), and now things like the NuvaRing.

Some of these are long-term, like the shot or an IUD, lasting from a few months to a few years. The patch and the NuvaRing last for the month, usually. You leave it on or in, and take it off/out for a week to have your period. The Pill you have to take every day, which is a bit of a nuisance.

All of these methods work a little differently, but the one that the pro-life movement has spread the most lies about is hormonal birth control, so I’m going to focus on that tomorrow.

June 19, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

learning the words: consent

[trigger warning for rape, sexual assault, and victim blaming]

“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.

I uploaded the above picture to my facebook this time last year. I’d spotted it, I don’t remember where, thought it was one of the funniest things I’d read on the internet and decided I’d share it with my friends– many who were just going through detox from our IFB college (a place where all women were required to wear skirts).

The comments exploded. In a matter of what felt like minutes, there were huge debates raging between maybe six different sets of friends. I hadn’t exactly expected that.

What I especially didn’t expect was for almost all of my friends who commented– men and women I respect, love, and admire– to instantaneously leap into deep victim blaming territory. One of them cited the supposed popularity of mini skirts in Japan and the problems the country has with upskirt photos and sexual assault on their subways. Another quoted a political leader in the Philippines as blaming their rape epidemic on mini skirts.

At that point, I interjected. I denounced the victim blaming that was happening and made this statement:

A victim is never responsible for his or her rape.

It seems like a simple idea, but it’s not. It wasn’t even an idea I would have been capable of articulating even a few months prior to this– because of the simple fact that I blamed myself for my rape. Because of a whole host of ideas– ideas like it’s the woman’s responsibility to set up physical boundaries, and if a man ignores those boundaries, it’s the woman’s fault, because she didn’t set those boundaries up clearly enough. After all, “a man will only go as far as a woman will let him.”

A comment I got on a post I wrote on the link between the purity culture and abusive relationships made me cry. Because my story was almost exactly the same as the one left in that comment– I’ve been there. I’ve been terrified, and confused, and lost, and not able to really understand what had happened to me and how to deal with it.

The reason why I couldn’t understand what had happened, and why I blamed myself for my rape for so long, was because I didn’t understand what consent is. For me, personally, consent is the most important, most powerful word I have now.

First, let me make this brutally clear:

Rape is non-consensual sex.
Rape is having sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you.
Rape is having sex with someone who has not given you a clear and enthusiastic yes.
Rape is having sex with someone in a way that he or she does not want to.
Rape is continuing to have sex with someone when he or she has withdrawn his or her initial consent.

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

Consent is based on the idea that, as a person, I have the right to determine what happens to my body. It is my body, and it does not belong to anyone else. I get to decide what I do and who I do it with–always. No exceptions. Any time that any person does something to my body that I don’t want to happen, it is sexual harassment, sexual assault, or rape (and yes— this includes how someone else looks at my body. I get to decide how people look at me and what I find acceptable, and absolutely nothing I do, nothing I say, and nothing I wear changes that. Ever).

Consent means that I get to decide when I have sex, who I have sex with, and how that sex happens. If at any point during sex something happens that I don’t want, I have the right to say “stop.” If my sexual partner continues in the behavior, that is rape. Because it has moved from consensual sex to non-consensual sex, and non-consensual sex is rape. And let me make it plain so no one suffers any delusions: consent is not the absence of a “no.” Consent is saying “yes.” Consent can only be a “yes.”

When I am consenting to sex, I am only consenting to how I want to have sex. Consent is not a blanket that allows the sexual partner to do whatever the hell he or she wants without consulting the other.

It is also not exclusively my responsibility to make sure that I have communicated my consent clearly enough. It is primarily the responsibility of the initiating partner to ensure beyond all doubt that the other partner is interested– and continues to remain interested.

This means something really simple: ask. And guess what you have to ask? It’s really easy:

Do you want to have sex with me?
Is this ok?

If the answer to these questions is no, going past the “no” in any shape or form is sexual assault or rape.

Also, just to be clear– I say all of these things as a monogamous married woman. And everything I’ve said here still applies. Signing your name on your marriage license is not eternal, blanket consent to any time your husband or wife wants to have sex. Consent is an ongoing process- it happens before sex, and it needs to happen during sex, too. And just because I’ve agreed to sex before does not mean that I’m going to– or somehow obligated to– agree to sex again.

I’m not really concerned with the legal definition of rape, mostly because in many states that definition (hint: it usually includes the word “forcible”) is based on a myth. I’m also not concerned with the legal definition of consent. And no, I’m not saying that sexual partners have to ask for and gain a verbal consent every single time they have sex, especially after a relationship and trust is established. However, there are nights when I initiate sex with my husband, and if I sense anything that could remotely be a lack of desire, I ask. Usually he just looks at me like “are you kidding?!” and that’s enough for us.

However, this is where our definition of consent needs to begin.

Not in “well, she didn’t say no.”
Not in “but look at what she was wearing!”
Not in “her body language said she wanted it.”

And most definitely, it is not in “but she got wet” or “she got off on it.” Physical arousal has NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING to do with consent. At all. Period. End of story.

And for all those types who say “but stopping and asking will ruin the mood,” I say bullshit. Bullshit bullshit.

Do you know what does ruin the mood? Rape.

June 4, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

the bikini and the chocolate cake

[trigger warning for rape culture]

I’m going to take a break from the series, for today, because I feel that we need to sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and just chat about something. If you move in the same circles I do, you’ve probably heard about this post from Made in his Image. There’s a lot of good things being said about how destructive the modesty culture can be, so I’m not going to rehash a lot of that here. I wanted to shine some light on the biggest problem with this specific post.

I got sunburned on my ass a few weeks ago, when nothing else on me got sunburned at all. We were only at the beach for an hour, and I ended up having to spread aloe vera all over my butt for a week and sit down funny for a few days. Why did I only get sunburned on my bottom?

Because it’s the only part of me that’s never, ever, seen the light of day.

I grew up in Northwest Florida– the part of Florida known as the Emerald Coast. It is a stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful beach. We rarely ever went– only when family came to visit, usually, and those visits were sparse– because it was considered ungodly to go the beach. And if we went, I wore a t-shirt and culottes. My mother made swim-culotes out of a really light, swimsuit-type material.

Even in college, when I’d left a lot of those childhood beliefs behind, I couldn’t bring myself to wear a swimsuit to the beach. I bought an amazingly cute tankini– I still think it’s cute, even today– and it generously covered my badonk-adonk, but I still felt incredibly nervous wearing it. I ended up wearing cute-off shorts on top of it when I went to the beach with some friends, and faked being asleep when I overheard them making fun of me for that choice.

Yup. “Modesty” is a sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice I made for most of my life, and paid for my standards with humiliation and embarrassment.

But, when I went to the beach with my husband a few weeks ago, I wore a bikini for the first time. It wasn’t “skimpy,” not that it matters, and I was able to take off my cover-up without shame, without the sharp knife in my gut telling me that I was dressing as the “strange woman” from Proverbs. It was a victory for me– a small triumph over the shame and oppression I’d known for over half my life.

That’s the only thing the modesty culture does.

It hasn’t stopped a lot of men from ogling me– not even Christian men. I’ve gotten cat calls, jeers, shouts, obscene gestures, propositions, and whistles all while “modestly” dressed. I’m talking full-blown “modesty.” High-necked t-shirts, a-line and loose knee-length skirts. Sometimes I looked cute, sometimes I looked dumpy. It doesn’t matter. How I’ve been dressed has never made a difference whatsoever in how many men have treated me. I was raped while wearing a knee-length skirt and a long-sleeved, loose and flowing top that covered my collar bone. Modesty has never, in my experience, stopped a man from doing whatever he wanted to do with my body– whether it was physically manhandle it, goosing me or grabbing my vagina through my skirt in the middle of chapel, or simply objectify it.

Let me say it again: men who do not see women as human beings could not give a flying f*** how a woman is dressed. She’s a woman. She has boobs and a vagina, and that makes her public property in a world where I’ve been screamed at, cursed at, for refusing to even acknowledge a cat call from a car.

When I started dressing however I wanted, modesty be damned– when I started wearing shorts and tank tops, for example, none of that sort of behavior increased. It stayed exactly the same.

But, this article, like every other article I’ve read on modesty, emphasizes that it a woman’s obligation to help protect men from our bodies. It’s our duty to make sure that we make it possible for men to forget that we’re a woman– which is, frankly, impossible. I don’t care how loose your clothes are– if you have T&A, there’s no getting rid of it, there’s no hiding it.

So what happens?

We have articles where the author has to stubbornly insist that she’s not “insecure about her body,” and clarify that she is “independent in her swimwear choices.”

We have articles where the author compares women to an ooey-gooey chocolate cake.

And let’s look at that for a second. Rachel has this to say about her metaphor:

Now, let’s pretend that someone picked up that chocolate cake and followed us around all the time, 24/7. We can never get away from the chocolate, it’s always right there, tempting us and even smelling all ooey gooey and chocolate-y. Most of us, myself included, would find it easy to break down and eat the cake. And we would probably continue to break down and eat cake, because it would always be there. Our exercise goals would be long gone in no time.

I’m going to try to be fair here: Rachel was probably, in her head, only referencing masculine lust here. When she wrote out this dandy little metaphor, she was probably only thinking that “breaking down” didn’t mean anything besides a man thinking less-than-platonic thoughts about the woman in the bikini.

However, regardless of what I’m positive were the best of intentions, Rachel has just contributed to rape culture.

Because, in this metaphor where a woman is a chocolate cake, the woman has no choice. A woman, plain and simple, just is a chocolate cake, and the fact is that, as a woman, there’s nothing she can do to change that.* She doesn’t have a say in the matter. She’s a woman. She’s ooey-gooey and smells like heaven, and so she gets eaten. No one asks her if that would be ok. No one asks her if that’s what she wants.

Because she’s a cake.

She exists to be eaten.

*I would like to point out that gender and sexuality are a sliding scale– I’m not trying to exclude transgender people, just dealing with the essentialist and gender binary nature of the article.

*edit: I have changed some of my wording (9/6/13) based on reader response.

May 30, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

a fate worse than death

[trigger warning for sexual assault, rape, and rape culture]

I was raped.

There are many days when I have to stop and admit the truth of that sentence all over again. Days when all the voices come back and ask me what in the world it is that I think I’m doing– why are you talking about this? You know what you did. You know you’re responsible. You’re doing all of this, saying all these terrible things about an innocent man to get attention.

And, when I start thinking these things, sometimes I ask myself– why? Where do all these thoughts come from? And the answer echoes back– you wouldn’t have to deny these things so hard if you knew they were false. There’s a part of you that knows that it’s true. If you really were raped, you wouldn’t have a problem talking about it. Your conscience would be clear. You wouldn’t be second-guessing yourself, worrying about John* coming after you for making ‘false’ accusations. He could, you know– you’ve shared your blog on facebook. You still have mutual friends. You even have a page now. What’s to stop him from coming here?

This is The Lie.

It’s the biggest lie I know, and I believe it– sometimes. Because I grew up knowing about a fate worse than death.

We’re all familiar with this myth– it shows up in our books, our television shows, our comic books, and our movies. We read it in our histories, like Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, when Roman women were “exposed to injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself.” It’s used as suspense in pretty much any Damsel in Distress Trope that appears in video games and film. We see it in almost any movie or book that has a love interest that gets kidnapped. The hero must save her before she suffers a fate worse than death.

It’s a euphemism for rape.

It’s our society’s method of cloaking what it knows is a horrifying assault on the agency of a human being. Some could argue that it’s an apt euphemism– they could say it accurately describes the long-term consequences and damage that result from rape. That rape, especially the rape of children, can result in a harm to the soul that is so deep, some are never capable of a full recovery. They might suffer from PTSD, from depression, for the rest of their lives. Which is all hideously true. Rape can do all those things. Because, instead of killing a person, what rape does is tell a woman or man that what they want doesn’t matter, that they cannot control what happens to their own bodies. It’s a violation so deep, so profound, that I have a hard time communicating the extent of how awful it is to someone who’s never been there. That’s why this euphemism exists– and it exists, some could say, for good reason. It’s apropos.

I wish this euphemism, this phrase, would die a horrible, screaming death by fire and torment, because that’s the only thing it deserves. Because this phrase doesn’t really tell rape survivors that our society sympathizes with us. It doesn’t tell us that our culture has a deeply buried rhetoric that acknowledges the pain of rape and sexual assault. It doesn’t tell us that we have a culture that will stand with us and help us face the long-term fallout of what happened to us.

No, it tells us, especially women, that what happened was our fault.

I know that seems like a leap, but hopefully you can feel the intuitive, natural connection. Because rape is so horrible, so horrific, so violent, that if we walked away from it in once piece– well, it must not have been rape, then. It’s a fate worse than death, how in the world could a woman have survived it? Either the rape itself was horrible enough to cause visible, permanent, physical and lasting damage, or the woman fought back against her rapist and gained bullet wounds or knife slashes– or at least a bruise or a black eye. It’s worse than death— the rapist should have needed to subdue her (or him). It’s the fight or flight instinct, which clearly shows that if you’re only facing death, you fight back. If you’re facing something worse than death itself ? . . .

What this Lie does is tell those whose rape weren’t at gun point, under threat of death, after we’ve been beaten into submission–that we weren’t actually raped. I was already on the floor when he raped me. I had already supposedly “consented” (under coercion and threat of physical and emotional harm, although I was incapable of seeing it that way at the time) to other sexual activities, so when he raped me, even though I was whispering, terrified, begging him, please, no, I can’t, please stop, don’t do this, don’t make me and it was over so quickly it took me hours to even figure out what had happened, after he climbed off of me and called me a bitch and a whore, I couldn‘t see it as rape.

Rape only happens when it is worse than death. I survived. I picked myself off of the thirty-year-old blue shag carpet, dragged myself to the bathroom to clean myself, and then pulled myself to the living room to wait for his parents to get home. It wasn’t rape. Not really. He’d done something to me that I didn’t want to happen– but it wasn’t rape. Because, with the exception of a deep gouge in my knee, I wasn’t bloodied or beaten. I walked away, supposedly in “one piece.”

This, I believe, is one of the most damaging rape myths our culture tells us. This narrative exists, and it’s why we don’t believe that one quarter of the women in this country are raped. It’s why 97% of rapists will never go to prison. Because we know what “legitimate” rape is, and it’s worse than death itself.

May 21, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

black lace and thigh highs

I don’t remember which year it was in college, but I think it might have been my senior year, since I was sitting in the balcony for chapel, and I think that was the only year I was ever assigned a seat up there. But, it was before One of the Most Awesome Rule Changes Ever, because I was still wearing hosiery.

Before I go any further, I should probably explain that my undergrad college had a strict dress code– to “encourage professionalism,” as they explained it. Of the few dozen or so rules women had to follow, one of them was that we had to wear panty hose in the morning until chapel at 10a, then again at dinner, to church on Wednesday, and all day on Sunday or during Bible Conference. Most of the time, my skirts were long enough that I could get away with knee-highs, but, sometimes, I wanted to wear a knee-length skirt. I loathed high-waisted panty hose, so my compromise was thigh highs. It never occurred to me, however, to invest in a garter belt. Because, after all, garter belts are “lingerie” and therefore inappropriate for an unwed young woman.

On this particular morning, when I got up along with 4,500 other students to exit chapel, I realized that my thigh highs had given up the Holy Ghost and were slipping down. I did everything I could to keep them from slipping even further– I pinched my legs, wobbling up the stairs with my knees locked together. I tried to take incrementally tiny baby steps to the bathroom, horribly and powerfully and shamefully conscious of the two thousand men swarming around me– and I was on the balcony level, where the seminary classes were immediately following chapel. Men in dark suits started flocking toward me, and the closest bathroom was so far away I knew I wouldn’t make it before my stockings were visible.

When I was just a dozen steps away from a bathroom, a seminary student stopped me.

“Did you know we can all see your . . . your, uhm, underthings?”

In that moment, my embarrassment and humiliation flashed into rage. I wanted to scream, or hit him. Anything. “Yes.” I managed to grit out. I didn’t know if he was a floor-leader or not, and yelling at a floor leader could net me fifty demerits for “disrespect.”

“You need to take care of this right away. You know that by . . . well, by wearing things like those you’re encouraging men to lust after you, right?” His voice was so soft, and gentle– he was speaking the truth in love. Admonishing his sister in Christ, edifying her.

I almost sawed my tongue in half. I was so angry words just kept piling up in my throat and choking me. I merely pointed at the bathroom and kept the rage-fueled tears out of my eyes.

“Oh, oh . . . well, ok.” And he walked briskly away, confident and secure.

When I finally got to the bathroom, I didn’t even make it into a stall before I ripped the stockings off and shoved them into the trashcan. I spent the next hour, my lunch hour, sitting in that empty bathroom and crying.

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

During some point in graduate school, one of my friends got engaged– and the engagement pictures appeared on facebook. They’re an extraordinarily beautiful couple– seriously, his fiancé is one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever met. The pictures were all lovely, especially since he’d hired a photographer to take pictures of the proposal, and you could see the surprise and delight on her face when he got down on one knee.

One of the shots the photographer managed to get was her throwing herself into his arms after she’d said yes– and her arms lifted the bottom hem of her adorable dress up high enough that you could see the top of her lace-edged thigh highs.

My immediate, instantaneous, gut reaction was to frown in disapproval. Her dress was too short– if you can’t make simple gestures like hugging someone without showing off your sexy under garments to the world, you need to rethink that clothing choice.

But, there was a voice inside of me, a tiny, hushed voice I did my best to crush into silence. But it’s a beautiful picture. Intimate. And sexy. A sliver of myself I’d been taught to squash my entire life envied her and her ability to wear black-lace thigh highs. I wanted to wear something–anything–made out of black lace. And yes, I wanted to wear something with the Parisian flair she’d cultivated, and have pictures of me biting my rogue-painted lip and peeking out from under a fedora.

I clicked through to the next picture and did my best to forget all about it.

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

Me and my husband honeymooned in Chicago. It was only a five-hour train ride from Ann Arbor, where we were married, and it was a destination that fit our pace. We like museums, and pizza, and symphonies, and Chicago has plenty. Oh, and pancakes. If you’re ever in Chicago, you must visit Wildberry Café. I swear, best pancakes I’ve ever had in my life. And that’s saying something, since my mother and grandmothers make incredible pancakes.

For one of our evenings out, we went to the original Cheesecake Factory and then went to see Les Misérables. I wore a stunningly beautiful ruched black-and-white damask print dress, knee-high slouchy suede boots, and, yes, black lace-edged thigh highs. On our walk to the restaurant, the dress rode up a little bit, and you could see the top of my thigh-highs. I looked down at one point and noticed the lace peeking out–just barely, and I stopped in the middle of a crowded sidewalk.

Burning-hot pain knifed through me, and I had to fight not to gasp out loud.

I tugged my dress back down and kept walking, trying to keep the boiling red flush out of my face. But, my dress kept riding up, and I had to keep stopping to tug it back down. After the fifth time, Handsome stopped me. “What are you doing?”

“You can see my thigh-highs!” I whisper-yelled back at him.

“So?”

I stared at him, shocked, and the crazed and panicked busyness of my thoughts blanked out. “What?” I was baffled. What does he mean, “so”?

“What does it matter? No one cares. I don’t care. You’re gorgeous, and beautiful.” And he kissed me, right in the middle of the sidewalk. I was too stunned to really kiss him back.

And suddenly, just like that, I was laughing. Because he was right– none of it mattered the least bit.

May 1, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

on taking a break and being angry

I wanted to write my last post today, finally discussing Christian fundamentalism in modern times, and how the orthodox belief of inerrancy has been largely abused by fundamentalism, or at the very least harmfully misunderstood.

That’s going to have to wait, because of where I’m at today. I already wasn’t feeling well (rapid changes in weather always give me migraines, and we have lots of nasty weather moving in for the next week), and I encountered an issue that I think needs my attention today, but I wanted to let you know what was going on, because I feel that this is an important issue that needs a lot of light.

No Longer Quivering, which hosts the Spiritual Abuse Survivor Blogs Network, occasionally runs some of my posts there, when the content fits into the material they cover. I very much appreciate the work that NLQ and the SASBN does, and that my story might be able to help others.

Last week, she ran my story on how the purity culture taught me that my rape was my own fault, that my rape was some thing that I needed to repent of. The discussion that followed was productive, I think, for the participants. We commiserated and shared our stories of the “object lessons” we heard growing up.

And then David Cuff entered the discussion. David Cuff is a Calvary Chapel pastor– the same circle of churches that Alex Grenier and others blog about at Calvary Chapel Abuse. Another Calvary Chapel church pastor recent sued Mr. Grenier for “defamation” for talking about the rampant abuse present at Calvary Chapel Visalia. These churches were recently brought to national attention with the #whowouldJesussue awareness campaign.

That’s probably enough context. Here’s his original comment:

Samantha,
Thank you for the candid thoughts and illustrations regarding sexual purity and self-worth. I have been married for almost 29 years and have learned overtime the importance of love, oneness, and mutual respect. I believe we live in a fallen world that often is contrary to the three qualities I have mentioned. The Bible gives us many core principles for marriage and also leaves much to exploration and personal experience.

I am sorry for those whose personal experience has led them to doubt and challenge the Biblical principles for marriage. I am also sorry for those who have used vivid illustrations to warn of loosing your self-worth if those principles are violated. But…Jesus is our redeemer and the Bible is a message of redemption. While many of us have fallen from the Biblical standard for sexuality, if we repent and turn back to His guidance we can walk in the Light of His love for ourselves and our spouse.
Let me also say that if we look to Christ for our redemption and self-worth then who we are does not fade or fizzle through relationship or feelings…and will keep us looking for those who respect the dignity and Christ-worth that are ours because of what Jesus did for us at the Cross.

Thanks for allowing my two cents….
David Cuff

*emphasis added

A lot of people reacted to the statements I bolded, and I feel for good reason. I believed that Mr. Cuff was being careless and inattentive, which is the case I made in my response:

I think you are intending to be supportive, but I’m actually really confused as to what you’re trying to say.

If you’re truly speaking about what I’ve written here, I’m really puzzled as to what you mean by “doubting and challenging the biblical principles for marriage.” I don’t think any of what I wrote has anything to do with marriage– and I don’t think I’ve presented a “challenge” to biblical marriage whatsoever. Your phrasing causes me to wonder why you’re automatically connecting “rape” and “marriage.” Assuming these two are connected is, frankly, incredibly disturbing to me.

You also talk about the abuse of the object lessons I was taught as a young woman as being representative of the “biblical principles,” and I also find that troubling. The object lessons have nothing to do with “biblical principles.” They are about threats. They are about telling a woman that she is property. And unless you’re reverting back to OT Law when the only thing that mattered about a rape was how much she was financially worth to her father, this is… wrong.

Granted, you may be approaching this from the concept that “virginity” is a biblical principle, which is… debatable, at best. The only time the Bible actually refers to consensual pre-marital sex (Ex. 22:16-17) the only thing that happens is either a) they get married, or b) the dude pays the virgin bride-price. End of story. No stoning. No moral judgment. And one of the few times in the NT that anyone talks about sex the terms “fornication” is used… which is pretty much a catch-all, and in some contexts could mean nothing more than prostitution.

Basically, please don’t assume that the Bible is “super clear” about this issue, when it’s… just not.

And, considering the context of my article, where I was talking about sexual abuse, violence, and rape, the line where you talk about “falling” from biblical standards, and a “need to repent,” uhm…. wow. This is incredibly damaging language. I didn’t “fall.” I don’t need to “repent.” I was RAPED. Repeatedly. I was sexually abused nearly every day. This is not “falling.” And maybe you’re not speaking about my article, in which case, I wonder why you bothered commenting on this article at all.

Granted, I was a little bit peeved and “hetted up,” but I still feel that my response was reasonable, especially considering the content of the article, where I was speaking about how language and words like his were used to hurt me and almost drove me to suicide.

After he didn’t respond or return to clarify, I checked out his blog, where his most recent article (as of April 14) was a “rant against cyber-bullying.” So, I read it, and felt that this must be a man who respects those who have been hurt– even hurt be people who have been hurt like words like his, or even written by him. I left a comment, which he has chosen not to approve, where I asked him for an apology, that his comment had not been respectful to my writing, and that his carelessness in his words were hurtful. I asked him to come back and clarify his original point in order to clear up what he meant– at the time, I assumed that the connection between “rape” and “needing to repent” had merely been accidental on his part.

Nope.

Here’s what he wrote:

Wow….I have never offended so many people with what I thought was a short comment on Biblical Redemption. So, while not trying to justify myself or defend my new “bully” status I will try to address what I see as a misunderstanding.

First I never intended to offend any of you…especially Samantha the author. I simply wanted to point out a persons self-worth is not dependent upon prior abuse by others or their own failure (I did not suggest Samantha was a failure or had failed). I simply was emphasizing (I thought by way of encouragement) that The Bible Is A Book about redemption. And our lives can be redeemed from any abuse (ours upon others or others upon us).

I also wanted to reiterate what I believe is the standard of Biblical Sexuality (sexual purity with one man and one woman) doesn’t change from opinion and experience or even abuse. We live in a fallen world and there is much pain and abuse going on but Mutual respect, oneness and love are God’s design and I believe the N.T. gives plenty of guidance for Marriage relationships. I have personally abused and have been abused (yes even happens to men sometimes) prior to being redeemed by Jesus through my own repentance and trust in His finished work on the Cross for my sins.

If after ready my response you desire to send more negative comments my way…chill please! Sometimes you can disagree agreeably…

And here’s where I get angry.

Horribly, furiously, violently angry. Righteously angry.

Because he employed a tactic I’ve seen so many countless times from every single abusive pastor I’ve ever encountered.

The first paragraph of his response is complete and utter dismissal. He’s so shocked that we pointed out a potential wording of his that could hurt people. He just does not understand how his “short comment,” which was just so supportive, could have been perceived as hurtful.

This is called spiritual abuse.

Because he’s a pastor, talking about “biblical” concept, and he has the truth, which “doesn’t change from opinion and experience or even abuse.” My hurt, how his words hurt me, doesn’t matter at all. Because he’s right, and he has the Bible, and all he’s doing is telling me that I can be “redeemed.”

And then he pulls what he probably sees as a trump card: he’s been there, right there with me. He’s been abused– but guess what helped him overcome his abuse?

REPENTANCE and TRUSTING IN THE CROSS TO FORGIVE HIS SINS.

The connection I very naively assumed was an “accident’? Not an accident at all.

He really does think I need to repent and trust Jesus to forgive me for my rape.

April 15, 2013 by SamanthaField

Theology

the dangers of biblical counseling, part five

[this is part of a series. Here are parts one, two, three, and four]
[trigger warning for victim blaming and rape]

During all of my plodding toward a real understanding of myself, I went about life. I taught college writing, I flew down to Florida for a wedding– I even went on a couple of dates. Life was a strange split between normalcy and panic.

Part of what kept me together during all of this were the brief moments when I could let things go. There were times I could slip into a frame of mind where I could drop my burden and escape. Sometimes, these were the weekends when I could sit in a rocking chair on my front porch, look at the mountains, and watch hummingbirds flit around the azalea bushes. They were the times I fell asleep in a hammock with a good book in my hands.

One of these times was when I drove up to the Chesapeake Bay area to visit a good friend, who announced when I arrived that there was someone I should meet. The hell with it, I thought. Sure, why not? She took me over to her boyfriend’s place, where we were celebrating another friend’s triumphant trek up the Pacific Trail from Mexico to Canada. While Matt* demonstrated making camp food for us, he walked in.

Tall, red-headed, the swimmer’s physique. And he made quips. Snarky ones. He made me laugh a good dozen times in the first ten minutes. I liked him, almost instantly.

The best thing that happened that night was that it turned into one of those “times.” When I could just . . . let go. I seal-clapped. I threw my head back when I laughed. I jumped up and down when someone suggested we watched Independence Day. I made Star Wars jokes. I burst out with “The Hero of Canton” when Adam Baldwin showed up in Area 51. I speechified about linguistic nuances. I enthused over swing dancing.

About a week later, Handsome called me. He wanted to write me letters. The first one came with roses. Our first date was in D.C., for the cherry blossom festival. We went to the Air and Space Museum, where I lay down on the floor to look at the Saturn V rocket, just to get a better perspective, and he got down on the floor with me.

That was the moment when I fell in love.

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

But, I was still suffering from panic attacks. The depression was easing, but I was still going through so much– and I didn’t want to saddle him with that. I wanted to exorcise my demons. Coincidentally, I received a recommendation for a biblical counselor who specialized in sexual abuse, and I made an appointment to go and see her.

The following is . . . difficult, for me. Because the title of this series is not “why you should never seek biblical counseling.” It’s “the dangers of biblical counseling.” My intention is not to dismiss biblical counseling as an approach– that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Biblical counseling can be helpful, healthy, and productive.

It helped me.

And . . . it didn’t.

The woman I went to see was gentle and kind, tender and compassionate. The first time I went to see her, I had a panic attack in her office. I was as nervous as hell the entire time. She probed me, so very carefully, and asked to hear my story. I told it to her, in broken snatches. She asked me what had finally brought me to the point that I wanted help, and I told her about Handsome. I told her about how I wanted to avoid burdening him with my baggage. I told her about the guilt I carried. For the firs time, I told all of the truth to someone. I laid myself bare.

Here is where we run into problems, although I didn’t really see it this way at the time. I want you to understand that the woman I was speaking with was so very obviously loving. She had dedicated her life to helping women like me, because she had been through it. She sympathized– I hadn’t met anyone this empathetic in a long time. She was grounded, and real. She encouraged me to open up the dark silences in my head– to confront what had kept me trapped and confused. She told me that I couldn’t afford to stunt and ignore my emotions, but that I should allow them to enrich my life instead of stifling them in the name of “temperance.”

But.

But.

She also told me two things: the first was that my attempt to take part of the blame for what had happened to me was healthy and correct. That I was right to look for ways I might have been responsible. Everything she said were things I had heard before– that it was good that I was recognizing where I hadn’t been a victim, that I was choosing to shoulder my choices. This was good– it meant I could stop it from happening again, if I took the opportunity to learn from it.

This is also known as victim-blaming. Oh, it sounds completely sensible. When you’re listening to this, nothing stands out as wrong– it all just seems like practical advice. Who wouldn’t want to protect herself from further damage and harm? To stop it from happening, ever again, if it could be prevented? Especially when it’s something as straightforward as “learning from past mistakes.” But, its very sensibility is the problem. It makes sense because we live in a culture that endorses and encourages rape any time we tell someone that any part of what happened to her or him was partly their fault– that he or she could have done something to prevent it. These solutions are based on a series of false assumptions– most of which have nothing to do with the circumstances that led to my rape. But they are an integral part of our discussion about rape, and it came up here.

The second thing that she told me . . . it was a bucket of ice-cold water in my face. I was a “poisonous well,” and starting a relationship with Handsome would be to his detriment. If we were in a relationship, and I was still “ensnared by my past,” I would “pull him away” from following God, that I would damage our new relationship to the point where we couldn’t recover from it.

I cried myself to sleep that night.

These were familiar phrases, familiar ideas– most especially the poisonous well. For me, and for many people, this idea is linked to Proverbs 4:23, where the heart is the “well spring of life.” When we let impurity into our “wells,” we are essentially poisoning ourselves, and we’re at risk for poisoning others. “Put another way, an unguarded heart can lead to a poisoned spiritual wellspring, one that is tainted with bitterness or self-loathing.” If I was a poisoned well, it meant that I was bitter and unforgiving, that I was holding onto anger– and this would corrupt Handsome, and our relationship. Those with poisoned wells are “toxic” to the people around them, spiritually and emotionally.

In essence, this type of rhetoric is just another form of victim-blaming, although it focuses on after-the-fact elements. Not only was my rape partly my fault, but the after-effects of being raped were also my fault. I had to keep on acknowledging one to get rid of the other. I had to be open and repentant about my sin in order to fully recover.

I continued to see her for another few months, until the end of the school year and life got busy and complicated. I never felt comfortable talking about my blooming relationship with Handsome, because I was deeply terrified of being told I was a “poisonous well” again. And there is another danger of biblical counseling. When you seek biblical counseling, you are automatically creating a hierarchy, a power dynamic. Because you’re seeking biblical counseling. You are outright acknowledging that this person is superior to you spiritually, and that they have the authority to tell you how to fix yourself.

Granted, this power dynamic is not always at play in biblical counseling– and it can certainly be present in secular counseling and therapy, too. This is not a “Christian” problem, entirely– it’s a human one. We create power dynamics and hierarchies everywhere we go. But I think that this is an area that shows up in a unique way in biblical counseling, because looking to “higher spiritual authorities” is as natural to us as breathing. And I, so naturally I did not even notice, placed this earnest, God-loving, sacrificial woman as enough of my authority to make me feel guilty for falling in love.

I will be honest– there were many things I learned through this process that were helpful. She gave me tools to help me recover, and the panic attacks rarely ever happen anymore, and the depression I suffered for three years is mostly gone. She encouraged me in many ways, and I’m thankful for that.

There should always be a “but,” however. I’m not throwing the entire thing under the bus– it is just my honest desire to bring these elements to the light. I’m not the first one, and I can only tell my story– I can’t speak to any other experience but my own. But, for me, and many of my loved ones, biblical counseling has been a harrowing process that caused untold damage to their lives and relationships.

So, it is an area that should be approached with caution. Look for someone who has a degree, and is licensed and certified. Research where they got their certification– all the major certification bodies have enough information on their website to get a general feeling. Find out what they think about biological and neurochemical processes and medication. You have the right to interview a prospective counselor– ask them about their views on marriage, what their goals are for the counseling process, and try to figure out where they stand on “the sufficiency of Scripture” — are they willing to interact with modern psychological practices and engage with modern medical research?

Sometimes, we are afraid of asking these sorts of questions because we don’t want to be seen as confrontational. I think, in general, many of us are more inclined to trust than not– and it is difficult to walk that line between suspicion and caution, but it is important for us to keep awareness in this area.

I want to hear your stories– my story, in this area, is over, but I’m eager to know your thoughts. What do you think might be solutions for some of the problems I’ve talked about in this series? What do you think about making a clear distinction between pastor counseling, which might be better focused on discipleship, and professional counseling? One of the benefits is that biblical counselors are many times free, and it can be difficult to get the money together enter therapy. Do you think this outweighs the risks involved? What are your stories?

March 27, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

silence will let evil win, so I'm screaming

Fair warning: this is going to be long. But worth it, I hope.

Our recruitment period at the fundamentalist church-cult was over about three years after we had become members. I don’t remember anything before this point being bad– in fact, all I do remember was preferring our church to the other churches we had visited. I’d made friends, a few in particular.

So I was confused when Anna’s* family didn’t show up for church one Sunday morning when I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. They didn’t come to church Sunday night, either. Or Wednesday. They didn’t show up for “Visitation” on Thursday, either. I asked my best friend, the pastor’s daughter Christina*, what had happened. Were they ok? Did they go somewhere? I figured she would know– being the pastor’s daughter gave her an “in” with church gossip. I was worried about Anna– especially since the last time I’d seen her we’d gotten into a tiff and I hadn’t said some very nice things.

Christina told me that her family had been “sowing division in the church.”

“Sowing division? What does that mean?” I’d had a vague inclination about “sowing division” in the context of how people accused us KJV-only types that insisting on our translation was “sowing division,” and basically our response was to blow that accusation off. That didn’t really make sense, here.

“Her father has been holding private services outside of church, without Pastor’s approval, and trying to teach people heresies.”

That was pretty much the the extent of our talk, as words like “heresy” tend to be conversation-ending. I didn’t know what to do with this information, but it just… it just didn’t feel right. Luckily, Anna’s family lived in my neighborhood, as was within easy biking distance. I biked over to her house, all by my lonesome. Anna’s mother answered the door.

“Samantha– what are you doing here?” Her voice sounded surprised, shocked even.

That’s strange– I come here all the time. I knew why I had come– if Anna was never going to come back to church, I couldn’t let the last things I ever said to her be awful. “I have to talk to Anna.”

“I don’t know if that’s a very good idea right now.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to do– should I just turn around and leave? But Anna appeared behind her mother, and it was obvious that she had been crying. When I looked at her mom again, I realized that she had been crying, too. What was happening?

“It’s ok, mom, I want to talk to her,” Anna said, and we went to sit in the backyard on her swing set. We trailed our feet in the sand for a while without saying much of anything.

I finally had the courage to say something. “Anna, I just… wanted to say I’m sorry. For the things I said.”

Anna nodded. “It’s ok. It’s not a big deal, not anymore.”

I didn’t now if I could ask what was happening– how did someone ask “Hey, is your dad teaching heresy?”

“What did Christina say?” She asked suddenly.

I was floored. “Uhm . . . just . . . well, it didn’t really make sense.”

She waited.

“She, well, she said that your dad was sowing division,” I whispered.

Her laugh was so hard and bitter. “Figures.” Our feet made a scraping-swoosh sound as our flip-flops skidded over the sand. “Dad was just having a Bible study. We were having a few families over for dinner, and then we’d just all sit around and talk.”

That made sense. I could see Anna’s dad doing something like that– he always had interesting things to say whenever he taught Sunday school, and I knew he was smart. And a Bible study didn’t sound so bad. Sounded like a good idea, to me.

“But Pastor found out about it, and he got all mad, and… he said we’re not allowed to come back to church anymore.” And she started crying. I didn’t know what to do except cry with her. I stayed for a little bit longer, and we talked about other things. I even saw her dad before I left, and I remember him putting his hand on my shoulder and thanking me for coming to visit. There were tears in his eyes, too. I wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be ok, that it would all work out.

When I told Christina about my conversation with Anna, her reaction was almost violent. She was furious with me– how dare I go behind her back like that. How dare I go to the people who had “hurt her family” and “disgraced the church.” She made it very clear that associating with “those people” was choosing the wrong side. They were filled with nothing but lies. Anna was only going to try to make the church, and our Pastor, look bad. They were out to ruin our reputation.

I never went to see Anna again.

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

Five years later, during my freshman year at a fundamentalist college, my phone rang. That didn’t happen very often, so I was confused when I picked up the handset. It was Christina. She had been upset with me for choosing to attend college, and we hadn’t been on very good speaking terms since then, so I was relieved to hear her voice. I had been horribly afraid of losing her friendship, as she had been my only constant friend through all of the ups and downs at church.

She was not calling just to connect, though. She was sobbing. “The Stricklands* left the church, Sam.”

“What?” That was shocking. They had been there so long, had gone through so much with us. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” She wailed. “All daddy would say is that Mr. Strickland said that we were all demon-possessed!”

Demon-possessed? What in heaven’s name? “Are you sure he said that? That sounds . . . so crazy.” Mr. Strickland was probably one of the most down-to-earth, solid people I could think of.

“What do you mean if I’m sure? Of course I’m sure! Are you accusing my father of lying?”

I instantly back-pedaled. “Of course not. That just doesn’t sound like Mr. Strickland, is all I meant.” I thought of his wife, and his children, who I adored. They seemed like a normal, healthy family. They were an integral part of our tight-knit church. For them to suddenly leave . . .

“You are. You think daddy’s lying.” Her rant went on for the next few minutes, and I fell into my habit of listening without really listening. It was the only way to survive some of these conversations with her. “Well, all they’re doing is trying to drag our good name through the mud, but it won’t work. We may be persecuted, but God will make sure that we prevail. The truth always finds us out.”

After she hung up, I sat on my bed and tried to cry. I’d cried for so many families over the years. Families that just hadn’t understood all the good we were trying to do. Couldn’t they see all the people our church had brought to Christ? Didn’t they understand that other churches didn’t really have good intentions when they didn’t preach on sin? We were the only beacon of light in that town. The only people willing to preach the Gospel.

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

Looking back, now, I can so clearly see what was happening.

The abused were being silenced.

If the dozens of families who “abandoned” my church had been able to tell their story, to speak truth, then the evil would have been exposed for what it was. If we had been allowed to communicate with those who had realized that the church-cult and its leader were horribly abusive, then it would have ended.

But, for all of these families, the only option was silence. Be quiet, don’t rock the boat, keep your head down, and just get out of Dodge as quick as you can. Talking about the abuse they suffered would have been received as “sowing division.” Everyone still in the grips of the cult would have shunned them– just like we did with Anna’s family, when her father tried to tell people what was happening. He didn’t even go about it directly– he just started trying to counterbalance some of the horrible ideas the leader was spouting from the pulpit.

But no. These people were creating discord. These people were liars. Once a family had left our church, the leader would get up and give an explanation for why they had gone– and it was always their sin. Their disobedience. Their refusal to honor God’s word and the Shepherd he had put over them to guide them. We were not to associate with them, lest we be tainted, and bring their evil spirit into our church.

It’s been about seven years since my family left. When we left, we were immediately followed by a vitriolic rampage. My father was weak– he was being manipulated by his “woman.” My mother was a whore. She was bent on destroying her family– see, they even let their daughter go to college, and he lifted up a letter I’d written to Christina trying to explain, directly to her, why we had left– so she’d have something beside her father’s lies. See, he said– see how college only corrupts and perverts a woman’s weak mind.

It’s been seven years, and I am still hearing this. Not necessarily about that church in particular. No– speaking about abuse in fundamentalism, why, can’t you see that all you’re doing is giving us a bad name? All you’re doing is talking about how much you hate the church– and don’t you see how damaging that is? Don’t you understand that you’re just driving people away from other good IFB churches? You’re putting out a spark of hope, Samantha. You need to forgive. You shouldn’t be angry. We need to love. Pointing out all these wrongs is just hurting churches that are trying to do the right thing. You’re not being very edifying, Samantha. You’re a bully.

First off– I am trying to do my damn level best to give IFB churches a “bad name.” It is my sincerest hope that no one will ever attend an IFB church ever again and that the movement will die. Yes, there are IFB churches that aren’t horribly abusive like the church I grew up in– but fundamentalism is abusive. The doctrines that make up the core of fundamentalist theology will lead to abuse in some form, whether mild or severe. Legalism, inequality, dualism, sexism, rape threats, and docetism are inherent qualities of fundamentalism that cannot be escaped, no matter how much “good” these churches claim to be doing. All the soup kitchens in the world cannot overcome the rampant abusiveness in fundamentalist doctrine.

I do not hate the church. My beliefs concerning theology don’t really stray that far from your typical Protestant orthodox. I’m leaning progressive, have some ideas that some might call “universalist” and I just think of as “consistent,” though, just to be honest. My point being: I love the church. It is because I love the church that I am compelled to speak truth. The ideas I talk about, while I can only speak to how they appear in fundamentalism, are not limited to right-wring crazies. Many of these ideas are considered central and moderate, by some. They are everywhere, and they saturate conservative evangelical culture. Left unchecked, these ideas will continue to cause untold damage. I am heartbroken by the countless stories of abuse, and because of love I must speak out. I believe that the church can overcome this. I believe that Christ’s message of reaching out to the oppressed, the abused, the marginalized, can be the message we cling to. I believe that the current culture of shame, silencing, violence, abuse, victim-blaming and slut-shaming can change. That’s why I write.

Being told to just “forgive” and how “forgiveness” is somehow supposed to equal my silence— if I were really forgiving, I wouldn’t be talking about it– deserves its own post. Thankfully, there are many others who have written that post for me, for now– although I might get to it.

So yes. I’m angry, and I’m here, and I will be here, trying to use my story to make the world a better place.

March 11, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

caring for raiment and loving fashion

I don’t remember how old I was the first time I went shopping with my grandmother– I think I was about thirteen or fourteen, probably. It was around my birthday, and she decided that we needed to have a day, just the two of us. We went to the mall, and she wanted to buy me something I liked– her treat. I was ecstatic. At this point in my life, I couldn’t remember having something that wasn’t a hand-me-down from girls at church or purchased at a thrift store. To have something new was going to be amazing. And I would be shopping with my grandmother, who to this day is one of the cutest, most fashionable and stylish women I’ve ever known.

We were in one of the department stores, probably Penney’s or Sears, and in the shoe section. I remember staring at a display of juniors shoes– Mudd and the like. There was one shoe in particular–a black leather mary jane pump. And I wanted it. Oh, I wanted it bad.

But then the internal monologue started up. The thousand-and-one reasons why I couldn’t have it– shouldn’t even want it, in fact. The heel is too high– what are you trying to do? Add an inch to your stature? And why care you for raiment? It will make you vain. You’ll attract attention– a boy’s attention. You don’t deserve something that pretty. You’ll make it harder for boys not to stare at you. You’ll make the other girls mad.

My grandmother saw me staring and asked me if that shoe was what I wanted for my birthday.

Yes was trying to burst out of my mouth. I took in a deep breath and did the right thing. “No.”

She knew better than to believe me. “Why not? Don’t you think it’s cute?”

Yes! It’s the cutest shoe I’ve ever seen! It would go so perfectly with my plaid skirt! “It’s too worldly,” I said instead, trying to muster up some self-assurance. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on my grandmother’s face– she was surprised, and a teensy bit horrified.

The rest of the day did not go much better. She kept trying to steer me toward cute, age-appropriate clothing, and I kept heading straight for the drab, matronly, sack-like garments. She wanted something bright, colorful, something flattering and stylish. I was becoming a young woman, she said, and my clothes should reflect that. And I was miserable, because I was fighting with myself the entire day. All those gorgeous clothes, the adorable shoes, and I wanted it all. They were pretty— couldn’t I, just once, have something pretty? But no, there was a carousel spinning around my head, a carousel of guilt, shame, fear of being judged, fear of causing a boy to stumble and being an adulteress in my heart, fear, shame, guilt, fear, shame, fear.

We eventually left the mall– with a CD, I think. And I remember being in bed that night and my grandmother sharing her concerns with my parents. Couldn’t she see that I was trying to do the right thing? Why is it so hard?

The single time I ever gave in was when my mom bought me a knee-length aquamarine chiffon skirt and a sky-blue draped blouse with flutter sleeves. I will never forget the look of disappointment on the other girl’s faces, or the look of revulsion and pity on the pastor’s, or the pastor’s son telling me that being able to see my calves had caused him to stumble and fall, or my Sunday school teacher admonishing me to think about what clothes like that could make people think. I wanted to run home, tear my clothes off, and burn them.

I never wore it again.

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

Nothing changed in the next four years, and, suddenly, I was in college– a college where matronly, sack-like garments were the norm. Not only were they the norm, anything else was against the rules. Pencil skirts, chiffon blouses, empire waists– all of it was suspect and could land you in discipline committee facing a bear-ish woman asking you why you thought it was a good idea to dress like a whore. I remember a few girls– five, rather distinctly– who I judged severely any time I saw them. They were cute– they had co-ordinated outfits, they knew tons of styling tricks for their hair, they wore cowboy boots and chambray shirts, maxi dresses with lace cardigans, and I remember quite viciously loathing them.

I never stopped to think about why my feelings were so intense– I did not know these girls. I only ever spoke to one of them, and I had mentally categorized all of them as a “slut.” They cared about their appearance so much, it was obvious that the only thing they cared about was getting a guy’s attention. If they really had a pure heart, they wouldn’t put so much thought into the clothes they were wearing, or their make-up, or their hair. They were shallow, vain, empty-headed little girls.

Or so I thought. Looking back, they were probably the only brave women in the entire college.

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

My senior year, my best friend Rachel* and I had a bad case of senioritis. We escaped off-campus every single chance we could, picking up Sonic and heading for downtown, to a shabby-chic hipster bar with collapsing velveteen furniture and cavernous corduroy sofas in the basement of an abandoned hospital. We went on photography adventures, or we spent entire weekends down by the pier, letting the salt wind play with our hair. Sometimes we would sneak out in the middle of the night to go to the “emergency room” and explore the beach around an old lighthouse. When it was rainy, we hid in Barnes & Noble with chocolate cheesecake and tall mochas. She would get a stack of design rags, and I would pilfer the sci-fi section. We would settle in until the last minute until we had to make a mad dash back to campus before they locked us out.

On a dark and stormy night, there was nothing new in sci-fi, so I picked up one of Rachel’s magazines and flipped through it. It was Vogue, and it was their spring fashion show issue.

I was ensnared.

The moment I touched it, I was that fourteen year old staring a pair of mary jane pumps. I wanted to reverently touch every page, revel in Burberry and Prada and Gucci and McQueen and Betsy Johnson, and I wanted to throw it away from me for the wicked thing I knew it to be. Stop it, Samantha. All this can do is cause you to covet. Why care you for raiment?

I kept looking, loving, adoring, the lovely falls of lace and silk, leather and satin, art and beauty.

You shouldn’t be doing this. It will just hurt, because you’ll never be able to touch any of this. Look at all these poor women, parading their flesh for money. They’re just another kind of prostitute.

And I kept looking, ignoring the stinging sensation of guilt that was turning my stomach into knots. For a few more weeks I kept looking, knowing it was a guilty pleasure. I tried to convince myself, again and again, it was ok just to look. I wouldn’t actually start wearing any of that. Me and my sack-like clothing were just fine.

For a month I tried to tell myself that, and then I saw a crochet-lace floor-length skirt, and I could not help myself.

I bought it, even though it was $80, and I wore it nearly every single time I could possibly justify it, and even times when I knew I couldn’t, and people would judge me because I’d worn it for four days in a row, but I didn’t care. It was beautiful, and it was the first time I had ever felt pretty.

And I learned, slowly, that there is nothing wrong, or sinful, or shameful, about beauty.

There is nothing shameful about dressing my body in a way that I know makes me look attractive. I can buy a top that flatters my shape, and yes– makes my boobs look fantastic. Instead of buying jeans that disguise my rear and are so baggy I appear shapeless, I can buy a pair of jeans because they make my ass look positively bite-worthy. I will buy shorts that show off all the sun my skin has soaked up. I will buy v-neck t-shirts because they look the best on my sloped shoulders, and cleavage be damned. And yes, that t-shirt will have writing across my boobs, and I will not give a flying frack in hell if it stretches or clings. I will buy that knock-out teal lace dress with the wide belt that skims across my thighs. And yes, I will wear a layered chiffon spaghetti-strap tank over a dark wash trouser short to any place or event I damn well feel like.

And no– I will never again ask if an piece of clothing is modest. Clothing cannot even be modest or immodest. Modesty is humility. Modesty is accepting praise with grace and kindness. Modesty is avoiding arrogance and vain deceit.

And no– I will never again ask “would a man stumble if he saw me wearing this?” I REFUSE to mentally participate in a rape culture that removes any blame from the rapist, that assumes a woman’s clothes are her consent. Clothing and what a woman wears is not her “advertising what’s not for sale.”

I love fashion. I love clothes. I love going to a new boutique and running my hands over bouclé and chiffon, picking up jewelry and watching it flash in the light. I love wandering around a shoe store, slipping my feet into scraps of lace and turning my ankle and calf in front of a mirror to admire the sloping curve I’ve worked so hard to have. I love being able to wear a practical, down-to-earth form of art. Art you can touch and wrap yourself in– art you live your life in. That’s what clothes are to me, now– not another tool for oppression and shame, but my personal freedom and ability to express my personality and beauty.

March 8, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

guarding your heart and victim blaming

[trigger warning for abuse and rape]

Her.meneutics recently ran an article titled “Guard your Heart” doesn’t mean Christians can’t date. It was interesting, and I think worth reading. Didn’t say a whole lot that was particularly new to me, but it made me moderately happy to see thoughts like these running on a “mainstream” discussion outlet.

What really caught my attention was in the comments. The amazing Dianna Anderson pointed out a few statements in the article that had left me with a bad aftertaste I couldn’t identify, but tasted familiar. There are moments when I read something, and it just… feels off somehow, but I don’t know what it is. Dianna hit the nail on the head, beginning by quoting the statements that had just not felt right to me:

“‘A number of my female friends learned to guard their hearts from a parent after years of emotional abuse. Until they did so, they were wracked with shame and insecurity. Their wellsprings were not life giving, but toxic.‘ That’s pretty victim-blamey. So’s this: “Unwise dating relationships can have a similar effect. When a woman gives her heart too freely to men who might abuse it, she endangers the wellspring of her soul.” A woman being vulnerable is not the reason she gets hurt by other people. A woman gets hurt by other people BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE CHOOSE TO HURT HER. End of.”

Two thumbs up to Dianna. I couldn’t have said it better. But, then there was this response, from Sharon Miller, the author of the article:

“Dianna, I am curious about how and where you locate personal agency. “Victim” is not an identity we should ever use to label a person’s identity. Even when a person is totally victimized by another, they have agency in how they respond to the victimization. Labeling women as complete and utter victims, to my mind, is the most agency-robbing thing we can do. What’s more, it leaves no space for acknowledging personal folly or sin. While some women are victimized due to no fault of their own, being hurt by a man does not, by definition, make a woman a victim.” [emphasis added]

Oy vey.

My reaction to Sharon’s comment was visceral, and immediate. I could instantly feel myself recoiling, and even now, as I’m writing this, I’m having to fight back nausea. A headache is fluttering around the edges of my vision. I don’t want to write about this– I don’t want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, but I have to. Not just for me, but for every woman I’ve ever known who has been damaged by teachings like this one.

First, let me start out by acknowledging that there can be power, for some, in adopting a “victory over the victim mentality.” I know, because it helped my mother who experienced a lifetime of abuse. Throwing off the “victim label,” as she puts it, allowed her to begin the healing process. She refused to be defined by what had happened to her, or limited by it. She didn’t want to see herself as a victim, because, to her, that gave her abuser more power over her, even though he was gone. She was done with letting him control her thoughts and her actions, her emotions and her responses. She wanted no more of it. Claiming “victory” allowed her to do that.

But, for me, being instructed by pastors and teachers and professors and counselors that I needed to take responsibility for my “personal folly and sin” left me broken, damaged, lost, and confused for three long years after my abusive relationship ended. I desperately wanted– and “desperate” isn’t a strong enough word, here– to do the right thing. I wanted to be the kind of girl I had been taught to be. I needed to acknowledge responsibility for my own actions, repent for my own sin. Of course, John* had sinned against me, he had abused me–but that didn’t mean that I was a perfect person. There were still things that I could have done better, lessons that I could learn from my mistakes.

That mentality nearly destroyed me.

For the first month after John had broken our engagement, I was determined that I could change. I could make myself a better person– someone more worthy of him. He was right — I hadn’t been submissive enough. I’d been stubborn. I’d had the sheer arrogance to tell him what he could and couldn’t do (like he couldn’t call me a “God damn fucking bitch,” or like telling him it would be a bad idea for him to quit his job, my trust fund isn’t supposed to pay for his college education). I was determined to mold myself into the woman he needed me to be– to take responsibility for what I had done wrong, to own it.

After it became clear to me that getting back with him would be a horrendously bad idea, I still tried to take responsibility for what I had done wrong. To this day, thinking back to some of the situations that I “allowed” myself to be in, that I spent three years “taking responsibility for” make me sick. I have literally vomited when I thought back to some of the things “I had done.” I can’t speak about some of these incidents without bordering on hysteria and panic, the shame is so powerful and overwhelming. Some of them, I will never be able to talk about without anyone. I . . . can’t. Reliving some of those memories are painful enough that they leave me feeling violated and crippled all over again. The mental gymnastics I go through to never have to think about those moments can be exhausting.

Two memories, in particular, are so horrific to me that they created a deep phobia I’d never had before the abuse. They happened in two different bathrooms, so to this day I have a deep-seated need to have an utterly immaculate, bleached from top-to-bottom, scrubbed-within-an-inch-of-my-life bathroom. If it’s not clean, it’s like an itch, or a weight dragging me down. Not having a clean bathroom creates an insidious feeling inside of me that I’m the dirty one.

Eventually I began having mild to severe panic attacks, more and more things were triggering me, and it took me a long time to see it but I was depressed– nearly suicidal, at several points. I couldn’t tell which way was up, and “owning my mistakes” and “taking responsibility for my sin and folly” were tearing me apart.

It was my husband, then my boyfriend, that first helped me see the truth. It was the first time he had ever seen me triggered. I’d told him, very briefly, that my ex had been abusive and had raped me. But I didn’t tell him the things I was struggling with, so the first time I was triggered and ended up in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, I expected him to abandon me. I expected him to see me for the broken, damaged woman I saw myself as and run away screaming.

Instead, he held me, smoothed my hair, let me shake and cry and rock until the panic subsided, and he was quiet. He didn’t say anything, just touched me and comforted me. When the panic attack was over, I started trying to explain what had happened, and I was using the only words I knew how to communicate– the words of victim-shaming. The words that placed fifty percent of the blame solidly on my shoulders. The words that took responsibility for my sin, that tried to do what I’d been taught was the “Christian” thing.

He would have none of it. He stopped me in the middle of a sentence, made me look him square in the eye, and he said these words:

This was not your fault.

I protested. I denied it. I told him, well, of course, not everything was my fault, but there was still things that happened that I was to blame. He stopped me– again, gently taking my chin in his hand and wiping my tears away.

No. This is Not. Your. Fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

I couldn’t accept the truth in that. I couldn’t see it– I had been so completely blinded by the Christian rhetoric of victim-shaming that I was trapped into a mentality that told me it was sin, that I was a sinner and therefore culpable. But my husband took me into his arms and told me, simply, that I was not responsible for what had happened to me. That John had taken some of my strongest qualities– my loyalty, my stubbornness, my dedication, my commitment, my inability to surrender or give up– he had taken all of those things and used them against me.

John had sought to control, dominate, and abuse– and the abuse kept me living in fear. The choices I had made were not really choices at all– telling myself that I should have kept fighting, even after John had torn a gash in my knee with his watch and put his hand over my throat, that it was a choice to submit to him– ignored the very real threat I was under. He had me so mentally twisted and living in so much fear that doing something out of self-preservation was not a “choice” I made. It was not “folly.”

My healing began when I realized that I was a victim of abuse. That there was absolutely nothing that I needed to “take responsibility for.” That I, in fact, did NOT have the “agency in how I responded” to the abuse.

The abuse I suffered was not some perverted form of heavenly punishment for my sin. The shame and guilt were not the result of my conscience, or the “pricking of the Holy Spirit”– they were caused by damaging indoctrination I’d been put through that told me from ever single angle– from modesty and purity teachings down the line to complementarian rhetoric— that being a woman makes me responsible for any abuse directed toward me.

It was not my fault, and it’s not your fault either.

March 6, 2013 by SamanthaField

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