Christians Suck at Consent, Part 1

We've all heard (and in my case, written) about how weird Christians can be about dating.

But I believe it goes much deeper than that.

A couple weeks ago, two different guys messaged me on Facebook after I posted about a project I've been working on.

One of these guys, we'll call him Chuck because I don't know anyone named Chuck, was someone I've had on my DO NOT ENGAGE radar for a long time, ever since I moved to LA five years ago.

You see, we kind of had a thing. Except that this thing was exclusively one-sided.

I had just moved to LA and didn't have very many friends, but somehow Chuck was always available to hang out. I can't really remember the first time he hit on me. He was the brother of a close friend, so I assumed he was safe.

I explained I just wanted to be friends and left it at that. Except, that wasn't enough for Chuck. It wasn't enough the first time. It wasn't enough the second time. Guess what, it wasn't enough the third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh time either.

You might wonder why I kept hanging out with this guy. I wonder the same thing. Was I leading him on even though I had explicitly stated that I didn't want any kind of romantic relationship with him?

One night he grabbed me suddenly and tried to dip me for a kiss (this after I had just given my semi-tri-annual "just friends" speech). I was shocked and taken aback. He explained that he was taking notes from the movie "Hitch" where the titular character explains that you go half way in for the kiss and then wait for the girl to go the rest of the way.

I'm not sure which was more disconcerting—that this guy was taking notes on dating and romance from a Will Smith/Kevin James comedy or that physical contact bordering on sexual assault was now somehow considered a move that you pull on someone who has just turned you down.

I stopped hanging out with him (finally). And yet still, he would call me, wanting to go to an event that I had posted on Facebook. Or he would text me, referencing a show that I liked and suggesting that we watch it together.

I felt threatened and alone—how could I explain to anyone else, especially my friends, that I felt harassed by the sweetest, gentlest guy in the world?

It took me a long time, but I eventually got angry. How dare he disregard my stated wishes and boundaries. How dare he GRAB ME AND TRY TO KISS ME.

Back to the present: he messaged me on Facebook asking about working on the project together—and I said, "No." He apologized for his immaturity. I said that I didn't think that not taking "No" for an answer was simply "immature." He apologized for not respecting my boundaries, and then...

HE HIT ON ME.

I kid you not—after I referred to his actions as "more scary than anything else"—he told me I was "beautiful," and wrote, "I never want to take myself out of the running for more." He ended with:

"I will always think of you as a friend, Mulan."

It was too perfect. It wrapped a huge, obnoxiously pink bow on everything.

It proved to me that I could say anything to him, ANYTHING: "F*** you. You disgust me. I hate you. I never want to see you again. I will never, ever date you" and it would not matter one bit. Why?

BECAUSE I DON'T MATTER. I don't even exist to this guy. I am a fantasy, not a real person. I might as well be a two-dimensional drawing from the Disney canon.

So often with Christian men, what I think or feel or desire or say just doesn't matter. All that matters is that he wants me. I'm less a "person" and more a face and a body that he can project his own needs and desires onto.

In the end, I feel strangely justified—because so often women are faulted for "leading him on" or "Obviously, you didn't say 'No' loudly enough or firmly enough for him to get the message."

NO. He violated my boundaries. And it was not my fault.

We whittle women down into finer and finer points—Don't wear that. Smile. But not at the wrong guy—that could get you killed. Don't walk there at that hour. Don't drink. If you must, make sure it's around people that you trust with your life. Don't encourage him. Stop breathing. Why are you breathing? If you would just stop breathing, then he would leave you alone. If you could just—not exist—for a minute. Thanks.

Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness / Pain, Part 4

I recently applied for a writing joh. When they asked for a writing sample, I realized all my writing exists at an intensity level of roughly +487,000,000.

Here at the blog, it's all pain and suffering, all the time.

So, instead of titling this "Pain, Part 4," I'm calling it "Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness." Let's dive headfirst into the shallow end, shall we?

Moo... Photo by bertknot

Forgiveness is hard, particularly when you can barely identify the source of the pain, particularly when you can't even bring yourself to write the words, "I'm hurt" or much, much worse, "I'm still hurt."

That's not how it's supposed to work, is it? I'm not supposed to still be hurt. Forgive and forget. Deal with it and move on. Positive mantra about moving confidently into the future. Hoorah.

This is the pain that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend...

I've found, unfortunately, that ignoring unresolved pain is a lot like ignoring all that C-4 you have buried in the backyard (analogy credit to labullets). It will explode in your face. You will wonder what happened. And then you'll be like, "Oh yeah, remember that time I buried all that C-4 in the backyard? Guess it wasn't as stable as I thought."

My buried pain usually turns into anger.

But why? Why am I so angry?

I'm standing outside the dorms on the second floor landing, watching his light blue pickup pull away from the office, and suddenly, I'm filled with uncontrollable rage. I kick at everything in sight, including a bright orange safety cone. Writing this, I still wonder if it is my fault. If I am a bomb waiting to explode.

I've written before about a traumatic experience that left with me with the kind of pain that doesn't get better. About how I blamed myself for hurting the person who had hurt me.

I actually apologized to him years later for using him as an emotional punching bag. At the time, it felt good to realize and acknowledge what I had done, to have a ready-made slot that I could comfortably slide the experience into, neat and snug.

I can see now how I reframed the experience, making him the victim, myself the perpetrator. I had blamed him unfairly for causing my pain. I projected my pain onto him. I hated him instead of hating my dad. I was angry at him without justification. I refused to forgive him—worse, I didn't want to.

I could label it, "That time I took all my worst inclinations out on an innocent person because I'm broken" and move on.

Telling the Truth

Except, that wasn't exactly the truth. But it made me feel better. I didn't have to alter any of my pre-existing ideas, particularly the one where there was something deeply and indelibly wrong with me.

I mean, what was the alternative? I needed someone or something to blame, and the only person available was me. Because the alternative was too dark to consider:

That what he had done to me was wrong.

That what he had done to me was wrong, though well-intentioned.

That what he had done to me was akin to spiritual, emotional "rape." 

That what he had done to me perpetuated for years the very shame that he sought to heal. 

And in the aftermath, I was left alone, emotionally shattered and unable to breathe.

This is what makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, now that years have passed. It's one thing to drag out someone's deepest shame by force—it's another to blame them for feeling wounded and angry after the fact.

You Need Witnesses

There's that famous passage in Matthew 18 about confronting someone who has sinned. About going back, again and again, trying to reason with the person, trying to get them to see your point of view.

This passage is often used to shame Christians who don't follow this exact procedure in every and any conflict with another believer, such as Christians who complain about Mark Driscoll on the internet, as if the correct thing to do were to show up on his doorstep tomorrow with a Bible and a stack of good intentions. 

But considering it now, I wonder about the part where you bring a friend or two with you as witness.

Because what if the other person refuses to see your point of view or denies that anything happened? ("No! I did not steal your oxen. These are my oxen. I've owned them for years, years I tell you!").

If this happens, you need other people who will stand with you in your truth, who will bear witness to your grievance: 

Yes, you were abused.

Yes, what happened was wrong. 

Yes, that is Buttercup and she is your cow.

Yes, I believe you. 

Yes, you are not imagining things. You are not crazy. 

You can't forgive someone for something that never happened—

I can't forgive him or anyone else if I don't acknowledge and accept the truth of what happened. And I need someone else to bear witness to that truth, someone else who can drown out the accusing voices that tell me that I'm crazy, I'm imagining things, I'm too sensitive, I'm making it all up to get attention, a unicorn gored me and I'm filing a formal complaint.

I've become convinced that forgiveness cannot happen without truth. Healing cannot happen without truth. You don't need the person who hurt you to say, "I was wrong. Please forgive me" but you do need someone in your life to say, "Yeah, I totally get it."

This happened for me last year. And in that moment, I could finally breathe.