"Give Me Sex Jesus"

I watched Give Me Sex Jesus, a documentary about the Christian evangelical purity movement, for the first time last night.

That title though.

The film is streaming for free on Vimeo. 

Background: I've had my eye on this documentary ever since the Kickstarter campaign in 2012 when the title was "Jesus, Don't Let Me Die Before I've Had Sex." I attended the same church as Matt Barber (the director) for a few years, and I know some of the people interviewed. 

No, I never signed an abstinence pledge (though memories of doing so are notoriously tenuous) or wore a purity ring--though I might as well have. 

Purity culture raised me, and I fully embraced its principles. 

So, watching this documentary, I had quite a few thoughts and emotions--

I laughed. I cringed. Many of the interviews were some combination of funny, poignant, and heartbreaking. In the end, I wanted more.

I wanted to know how it all turned out--how the gay son of a prominent Christian family worked out his faith and his sexuality, if his dad ever spoke to him again or invited him to family dinners.

I wanted to know what happens when getting married doesn't give you the amazing sex life you were promised, how purity culture affects Christian dating culture, and how the filmmakers came to make the film that they made. 

Truthfully, it is the story behind the story that intrigues me the most. And it's a quite a story: 

Matt Barber left his faith and his marriage during the making of this film, as he details in this Life After God podcast. He is currently in a relationship with producer and co-filmmaker Brittany Machado.

Machado tells a similar story about leaving Christianity. She writes about having sex for the first time in college after a youth spent embracing purity culture:

"If my faith were a Jenga tower, then this brick of sexual truth was pulled from the bottom of the stack. From there everything started wobbling a bit."

This. This is the story that I'm interested in. Matt and Brittany's stories make plain what I have long suspected: That if you give up on the sex part, then you might as well give up on the Christian part too--

Richard Beck at his blog "Experimental Theology" writes about how purity is a metaphor, and not a good one, for sexual morality. Unfortunately, the purity metaphor seems to hold true in another way: 

Essentially, just as there is ONE way to have sex (in heterosexual marriage), there is also only ONE way to think and feel and talk about sex. Anything I might think or say or feel about sexuality that contradicts this doctrinal purity throws my entire faith into question. 

It feels like heresy--which is probably why I find stories about leaving Christianity so fascinating.

Watching this documentary, I realized that for me, sexual morality and what I do with my body are so intertwined with my identity as a Christian, that I can't even begin to untangle them. 

It's hard to imagine other aspects of my identity in the same way:

For example, if being a feminist or a writer or a college graduate or heterosexual or writing about racism seemed to be incompatible with Christian faith, would I have left long ago?

Maybe this happens to us all. We hit a wall--something that seems irreconcilable--whether it's our sexuality, our beliefs about the nature of men and women, racism, evolution and the study of science, "Christian" political beliefs, etc. 

In the end, I don't think it's about sex (YES IT IS! EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SEX!), but about purity--about a certain kind of certainty that I can no longer embrace.

It's about asking the kinds of questions that I want to ask, having the kinds of conversations that feel taboo, writing about what I want to write about.

Wanting these things and pursuing them doesn't feel like leaving Christianity, but it does feel like leaving behind being a certain kind of Christian, if that makes any sense.

Even if I didn't have to give up faith itself, I would have to take a leaving of a different sort--leaving behind evangelical Christianity and the community that has felt the most like home here in Los Angeles.

More conversation:

Watch the film HERE
Life After God podcast
Hot Buttered Shame on the Dana Gould podcast
How Christians Have Sex - Personal response to watching "Give Me Sex Jesus" from a lapsed Christian (?) slash LA comedian

If you've watched the film and want to talk about it, or you haven't the watched the film and want to talk about it, I'm here. Let's talk.

What About Grace?

These three words have stuck with me.

I had just set clear-cut boundaries in a relationship. Someone I had been close to hurt me--intentionally or not, I have no idea. I set boundaries in order to protect myself, not punish him. And he responded with anger:

"What about grace?"

I remember how much he seemed to hate me, even as he uttered these words.

What I was doing was the opposite of grace: Not-Grace--condemnation, judgment, bitterness, unforgiveness (a sin for Christians).

By setting boundaries in a relationship, I was refusing to extend "grace." How often is grace invoked when a public Christian figure has an affair, sexually abuses children, uses shame and ostracism to control church members. How often is grace invoked by Christians in an--as far as I can tell--ungracious tone of voice.

Here, let me lecture you about what grace is, right before I bash you over the head with it, you sinner.

Grace as artillery. Forgiveness as a weapon.

What is grace, anyway?

I picture something beautiful. Something quiet, yet unrelenting.

In that moment, I didn't feel grace. I felt anger, hatred, and blame--if he hated me, if he abused me, it was my fault for not being graceful, or full of grace.

In this lopsided arrangement, grace is always for the perpetrator, never for the victim. It shames you for not being more forgiving. It reminds you that you too are an imperfect person in need of grace. It urges you to forgive, well before you are ready. It puts the burden on you to restore the perpetrator to wholeness.

So, what about grace?

Reflecting from a distance, Grace was setting boundaries. Grace was asking for help when those boundaries were violated. Grace was having the courage and the freedom to leave. Grace was feeling safe again. Grace was and is refusing to blame myself for the actions of another person.

Grace is not intimidation or threats. Grace is not a tool of manipulation or coercion. Grace is not an angry, 6'4'' man cursing at you, getting in your face, and demanding that you forgive him.

I crave the grace of small, tiny moments when I am allowed to grieve. When it is okay to be not okay. Where my reactions are not judged or rejected.

Grace. What about it.

Why I Kept Quiet About Being Sexually Harassed

Recently, women in the Los Angeles improv community did the unthinkable: They named names--on facebook, no less.

One man in particular was credited with so many stories of sexual harassment that I'm tempted to think his daily schedule goes something like:

8:00AM: Wake up
8:30AM-8:30PM: Sexually harass women
8:30PM: Tinder date
12:00AM Go to sleep

[Personal connection: I was matched with this gentleman on an online dating platform. We never actually communicated.]

I kid you not. This crap has been going on for years. And women are finally speaking up. It's incredible to watch--equal parts inspiring and horrifying--inspiring, to see the support that these women are receiving from the community--horrifying, that this guy got away with sexually harassing so many women for so long.

It made me think about my own stories--about why I didn't speak up about being harassed. I've written before about the burden of secrecy: How women are so often burdened with keeping things quiet--don't cause trouble, don't make a scene, don't smear someone's reputation, don't accuse someone (particularly a powerful, talented, or likable someone) of misconduct.

There are so many valid reasons for keeping silent. And until the culture changes to one that prioritizes victims over perpetrators, it will always be extremely difficult to come forward.

[Ironically, even as I write this, I'm running through in my mind all the possible ways that the men I write about could be identified by readers.]

Story #1:

When I was in college, I wrote a blog for the school's marketing department about my experiences in the honors program.

I was connected to a staff member at the college who would post the blogs that I wrote every week. He was a man in his 40s (we'll call him RC)

At first, it was great. I loved blogging. Loved it. Because writing is fun.

Then, things started getting weird. From the beginning, RC and I had bantered back and forth via email. He was eccentric, borderline unprofessional and didn't act his age, but I didn't think too much about it. I knew he was in a relationship, and that made me feel safe, as if he couldn't be flirting with me (plus, I was a student).

Things took an odd turn when he created a facebook profile in the name of my college and started leaving weird comments on other people's pages and messaging me nonsensical things, to the point that I blocked him on facebook.

Then, he started harassing me about not sending him new blogs to post every week, repeatedly sending me pushy, sarcastic and vaguely threatening emails.

Something about the emails made me deeply uncomfortable and fearful. I asked him to stop. I used the word "Please." He didn't stop. I asked him again. I felt like no matter what I said, he wouldn't stop sending me harassing emails.

Conclusion: I stopped writing. I concluded that my blog made him feel as if he "knew me" or had some kind of personal connection to me. The only way to stay safe was to stop writing.

Blogging was something that brought joy and meaning to my life, but I stopped doing it--all because of this one guy.

Now that I think about it, this guy was on the clock when he sent me those emails--so he was basically being PAID to harass me. That just feels wrong on so many levels.

So, why didn't I say something to someone? Here are the reasons I came up with:

1. I was afraid that my bantering emails with him would be considered "encouragement"--that I had brought this on myself by not being completely professional. In other words: it was my fault that I led him on.

2. I had enjoyed the (seemingly harmless) attention from him. (My fault, again.)

3. I perceived those at the college I could have gone to for help as either distant or ineffectual. I couldn't imagine them helping me in any real way.

4. What about his reputation? Would I be putting his job in jeopardy?

5. Although our online interactions felt inappropriate and unsafe, he never said or did anything overtly sexual. So although I felt like he was both hitting on me AND engaging in some kind of weird power play, I really had no "proof."

Reading the accounts from women in the improv community, I'm struck by how many stopped doing what they loved because they felt unsafe. That makes me f***ing furious.

Story #2:

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked on a low-budget feature film for no pay.

At our very first crew meeting, I started talking to the editor, asking him about what system he used, etc. (I was interested in editing at the time). Later, he visited the set. We talked more, and he offered to let me help cut the film once it entered post-production. He had worked on several films by a director that I greatly admired, so I thought this was pretty cool.

Later that same night, I had to drive an actor home. When he offered to accompany me and I didn't immediately jump on the opportunity, but instead asked other people, he started acting like a petulant five year-old. I swear, this man in his early 40s started pouting and crossed his arms over his chest like a small child. He was angry with me and would barely talk to me. I had no idea what was going on, but something didn't feel right.

Then, early the next morning, I got the email, and my heart started pounding faster.

He explained that he had fallen in love with me from the very first night we met, felt a deep connection to me that was not just sexual (e.g., I'm not just interested in sex!), explained he had been angry because he thought I didn't want to be alone with him, something something something, hoped we could still work together.

I responded that I was not interested, but hoped we could still work together as colleagues. I didn't tell anyone about this email, even though it stressed me out. I thought I could handle it on my own and save him any embarrassment.

That same day, the producer called me over and said that I had to go pick up the editor from the train station the next day (the producer had no idea about the email). I was then forced to go pick this guy up and spend at least an hour alone with him. I can remember how he casually put his arm up around and on my headrest in the car as if we were at a movie and he was about to make a move. Under the circumstances, it made me uncomfortable. I tried to pretend like nothing had happened.

Later, other members of the crew told me how he was in love with me and ranting angrily about how much time I was spending with another guy onset, "I'm gonna f***ing kill him," he was saying about this guy, repeatedly.

One guy half-jokingly suggested that I get a restraining order.

I noticed that he had a camcorder and seemed to be filming me, but I wasn't sure. Later, after we wrapped, he sent me an email with pictures (screenshots from video?) that he had taken of me unawares. I never responded.

A week or so after shooting finished, I went into the production office to reconcile expenses, and the producer mentioned that the editor had said he wanted me to help out with editing.

I said, "I don't think I can do that." The producer was like, "Okay, cool." But then I tried to explain why.

"Oh, he has a crush on you?"

It was a little more than that. I told him I would forward him the email. That the email was funny.

"I don't think it's funny."

So, why didn't I (initially) say anything?

1. I felt like it was my problem to handle and that I could handle it.

2. I thought that after I responded to his confession of love with a professionally worded "let's just be colleagues" that he would leave me alone and respect my boundaries.

3. I thought he would be embarrassed and shamed if I told someone, and I didn't want him to be embarrassed or shamed (I put myself in his shoes).

4. I used humor to minimize how unsafe it made me feel.

Sadly, practically every single woman has a story like this--not these exact details, no, but the same dynamic.

Writing it all out like this feels clinical and distant--but it's helped me see that men who sexually harass women are not playing by the rules--

We ascribe shame to them (normal, healthy shame that you should feel for violating someone else's boundaries) when nothing of the sort actually exists.

We mentally and emotionally put ourselves into the shoes of the harasser--"Wow, I would feel awful if dozens of women accused me of sexually harassing them"--without realizing that they exist in a world where their actions are perfectly acceptable, understandable, normal, justifiable.

[Exhibit A, the same guy above who has dozens of sexual harassment incidents to his name is still by all reports setting up dates with women in the improv community via apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. I'm sure he feels just "Terrible, terrible!" about all the pain he has caused. 'Cause those are the actions of a man overwhelmed with shame. Right. I just feel so bad for him and all the humiliation he must be going through. My heart goes out to him.]

This plays out in the way that women respond to harassment. I assume, "If I say no, stop, I'm not interested, he will stop"--sometimes realizing too late that when I said "No," all he heard was static.

In this case, if there is no support from other people, and particularly from those in authority, then my best option is to disappear, because then at least he doesn't have access to me.

Think about it. Women are disappearing because that is their best option. It can be a kind of personal, professional, spiritual or creative death.

After cutting ties with an abuser, I have not only had to heal from the relationship itself, but also from the ways in which people responded (or didn't) to my story.

One person that I reached out to immediately after a traumatic incident was adamant about remaining neutral and hearing "his side of the story."

I get it. I feel like I get it. But to remain neutral is to side with the abuser. Every time. And I know that this is just one more layer to this wound that I'm going to have to deal with.

Intellectually, I totally get it. But emotionally, it's devastating.

Day by Day: The Quantified Self: Future Me

The premise is simple: Write a letter to your Future Self.

At futureme.org, you can write a letter and send it far, far into the future. What would it be like to get a letter right now from the You of one year ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

What would you want to read about your Past Self?

I've found that Future Me can be a powerful tool for both imagining the future and reimagining the past. There's nothing quite like getting an email in your inbox from your Past Self. It's trippy, in the best possible way.

The layout is quite simple:

Dear Future Me, How are you?

You can choose to make your letter public or private. You can also choose to add a picture--perhaps you wish to attach a picture of yourself on the date you write the letter, so that your Future Self has a visual reference.

Tips & tricks for writing to your future self:

1. Be specific

There's nothing quite like getting a vague, angsty email from your Past Self. What is this, Past Self, middle school? Save the vagueness for your facebook status updates and be specific:

What are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Why do you think you feel that way?
What do you want to happen?
What do you think will happen?
What challenges are you currently facing?
How are you coping or not coping with those challenges?

The awesome thing about writing to your Future Self is that you get to connect the dots later. "Oh, right, I had a huge crush on Matt from the beginning" or "I was unhappy with my job but didn't want to admit that to myself."

The dirt is in the details, so try to be specific. You might know exactly what you are talking about, but chances are, Future You will need some supporting data.

Reading letters from your Past Self will help you see how far you've come (or alternatively, how much things stay the same!).

2. Use writing to your Future Self to visualize who you want to be today.

Talk to Future You about your goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future. If you have no goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future, brainstorm about these with Future You. Write about who you are, and who you hope to be.

Perhaps you will feel a twinge of what could be. Hope. Write about that. Perhaps it will prove prophetic.

3. Try writing to yourself at 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 years old.

It's hard to think about growing old--but eventually, if we don't die first, it happens to us all. Instead of only sending letters to next year, write to yourself at various ages, especially milestone years. Think about how much your 80 year-old self would appreciate getting letters from you!

I've been working on writing to my 40 year-old self. It's weird to think about being 40. But it helps me to realize that my time is finite. There are things that I want to accomplish, and if I don't start on them now, I may never accomplish them. It's a sobering feeling.

4. Put writing to your Future Self on your calendar to remind you.

Writing to your Future Self once a month seems like a good goal.

5. Write to your Past Self...

But send it to your Future Self.

It sounds convoluted, but I recently wrote a letter from my 80 year-old Self to my Present Self (an exercise from the "Artist's Way") and sent it to my 40 year-old Self.

Write a letter to your 10 year-old Self, but send it to your 50 year-old Self.
Write a letter to your 20 year-old Self, but send it to your 33 year-old Self.
Etc.

Writing to your Past Self tends to open up a well of understanding and self-compassion, because you are able to see yourself from a distance. And sometimes the things that we wish our Past Self knew are things we could benefit from, even now.

So, write a letter. Future You will thank you.

Day Sketch 6/30/15

6/30/15

Day Sketch 6/24/15

6/24/15

Prodigal, Nomad, Exile: On Leaving the Church

I've written before about growing up evangelical.

When I first read an article entitled Three Spiritual Journeys of Millenials/Snake People, I thought, that's me! Or more accurately, that's me and my two siblings.

That's because of the three groups they identified--prodigals, nomads, and exiles, each of us fit into a different category:

My sister was the prodigal. 

My brother was the nomad.

I was the exile.

David Kinnaman of the Barna Group defines each category as follows:

Prodigal: "Prodigals are 18-29 year olds who have a Christian background but have lost their faith, describing themselves as 'no longer Christian.'"

Nomad: "Nomads are 18-29 year olds with a Christian background who have walked away from church engagement yet still consider themselves Christians."

Exile: "Exiles are 18-29 year olds who have a Christian background and are still invested in their Christian faith but feel stuck (or lost) between culture and the church." 

My brother, sister, and I are all very close in age--only two years between us.

We have a lot in common. We have the same parents. We were all raised within the same Christian family in the same Christian evangelical culture. We are all third culture kids. We are all children of divorce.

All of us professed the Christian faith as kids and into our teenage years. At the time I read this article my sister no longer went to church or considered herself a Christian. My brother had once been involved in his church but no longer attended and participated. And I was a hanger-on, never able to kick the church habit completely, attending sporadically during college and then immediately finding my church when I moved to Los Angeles.

Now, several years later, our roles have shifted yet again: My sister is still the prodigal. My brother attends church and small group regularly. I stopped going to church in the summer of last year and have yet to go back. 

So now it would be: 

Sister = Prodigal

Brother = Transcending the three categories

Me = Nomad

As I mentioned, there have been gaps in my church involvement before--but this time feels different.

The break from what had been my church wasn't even fully intentional--it was more an accident of circumstance than anything else.

But a profound fatigue seemed to set in every time I thought about looking for another church home. 

I know that at heart, I am not a nomad, but an exile. I cannot get away from church, any more than I can get away from the longing in my own heart to belong somewhere, anywhere. 

I've joked about simply skipping this entire "leaving evangelicalism" journey and going instant-Lutheran, à la Rachel Held Evans (I was wrong--she attends an Episcopal church). But in my heart I know that it is not that simple.

I have to first untangle myself from all the flotsam and jetsam of my evangelical upbringing--to, as my dad says, "Take the meat and leave the bones."

In order to come home, I must first leave home.

And as I'm realizing now, it took me a very long time to actually leave--I would rather stay as an exile than leave home and start the journey.

I lingered for too long. I stuck around, even when it hurt. I complained and fretted and criticized and contradicted and sniped. And I bled, oh how I bled, denying my own pain. But I didn't leave.

And there were reasons to leave. There are always reasons:

• Sexism (not that all Christians are sexist, but that I always feel like I'm having to fight this battle within what should be a safe space)
• The gap between what evangelical Christianity believes and my own shifting sociopolitical beliefs.
• My former church never talked about systematic racism or inequality. 
• The excruciating nature of church dating

But now, due to extenuating circumstances, I finally left. I think everyone was a bit relieved, including myself.

It's no coincidence that I am currently reading Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Return of the Prodigal Son -  by Rembrandt  Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

I'm sure there are some people who don't have to leave in order to return. I'm not sure if I'm one of them. I wish I'd left sooner, partially because everything in my life seems to take a really, really long time. I'm like the reverse-energizer-bunny, the sloth of spiritual and emotional growth:

That will be me in 50 years, trudging home, finally ready to return.

In the meantime, I have all kinds of questions and very few answers:

Am I leaving the evangelical world or merely reinventing and redefining my own faith?
How long is this going to take?
Will I ever feel at home at church?
Will I ever get over my past experiences with church?
Will I ever stop getting sucked into the Christian music nostalgia vortex on youtube?
How did I ever think Carman was cool?

I don't know what coming home will look like. I only know that I won't be the same.

More on the journey:

On Sincerity and Being Raised Evangelical
Why is Church Cliquey?
Why is Church Cliquey, Part 2
Why is Church Cliquey? Part 3
Why is Church Cliquey? Part 4