When I was 16 I converted to christianity with a dramatic experience of joy and freedom. I was then told that masturbation was a sin, and since back then in those days I believed that what christian leaders said was true, I spent the next 8 years (I married at 24) battling and struggling and weeping and confessing and repenting against my own sexuality. Looking back I see now what a misguided and un-necessary waste of my energy and time! I am still angry at the church for having robbed me of so much of the joy of my teenage years because of this simple but stupid lie. The christian religion has done more to twist, contort and generally ruin the beauty of human sexuality than all of “Satan’s demons” put together.
Jon's New Age Wanderings
The ruminations and cogitations of a wide-eyed "Conversations with God" neophyte.
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Recent Comments
September 4, 2007 at 12:24 pm |
My first reaction is FOR FUCKS SAKE do they have to screw up everything??? Then I just felt sad. I am sorry and sad that so much joy was stripped from your life. It’s funny, you know, Pete and I were just talking the other day about the things we want for our children. Guilt-free, joyous love was one of them. I want my daughter to have a passionate love affair with an Italian Cassanova (if SHE wants to!!). Really I just want for them to be unfettered by Other People’s Rules. They are loving, thinking individuals with a strong awareness of the need to care for the emotions and wellbeing both of others and themselves. What more do they need to guide them through Love?
September 5, 2007 at 3:45 am |
I’ll push back on part of your statement. I don’t believe the Christian religion has done more to twist, contort and generally ruin the beauty of human sexuality.
I believe that Christians have done more to twist, contort and generally ruin the beauty of human sexuality.
There’s a big difference……
September 5, 2007 at 9:29 am |
Doug,
Thanks for your comment.
You say “I believe that Christians have done more to twist, contort and generally ruin the beauty of human sexuality.” And yet you still want to known as a christian?
This is the usual “the only thing wrong with christianity is the christians” response. You say there is a big difference and yet the church tells christians that “you are god’s representatives here on earth, you are his body, his hands, his feet, his voice, etc.” Doug, the difference is not as big as that. If I can’t see and hear God by looking and listening to christians, there where on earth can I? If you say “look to Jesus” then you admit that christians, while holding to an ideal that in fact none of them attain. And so this forces you into the ludicrous position of having to say “Jon, my religion upholds the beauty of human sexuality” but “please don’t listen or learn from any of the adherents of my religion, because although it’s a really great religion actually none of them put it into practise”
One of the main points of Jesus’ life on earth was to show us what the father was like (since we cannot see him). When we see Jesus, we see the father. When we see christians, what do we see? No noticable difference from everyone else, that’s what, and your answer above acknowledges this fact. So where to now? Some people just keep trudging on like the proverbial donkey walking after the carrot, and others realise that christianity, no matter how good or otherwise it looks on paper, doesn’t work in practice and we have 2000 years of church history to show it.
Sorry Doug, but this answer does not wash with me at all.
September 5, 2007 at 11:17 am |
I believe that some of the most objectionable facets of the world’s religions do not derive from the teachings of their founders but from the screwed up ideas their adherents have about sex. For instance is it really god who requires women to cover up the bodies which he himself has created or jealous controlling males?
As for ‘original sin’, I am very taken with the theory that this is all a big misunderstanding: that ‘knowledge of good and evil’ has nothing to do with sex at all but is all about being judgmental. How can you be in paradise if you declare some things to be ‘bad’? If, however, you can learn to simply accept what is, secure in the knowledge of your true nature, then perhaps you have found the way back into Eden.
I have you read CWG Book 2 yet, by the way? It looks like you might like it.
September 5, 2007 at 2:52 pm |
Jon, you’re missing my point. I agree with everything you’re saying about Christians. I’m not going to debate Christianity with you any longer, per your earlier request. I am however, when appropriate, going to share my own experience and my own desires as someone who seeks to follow Christ’s model.
Christianity to me is no longer a religion, it’s an adjective. Being a Christian is most often times a dirty word, wouldn’t you agree? I not longer want to be known as a christian but as a Christ-follower. That is a term of action. That is the path I’m currently on. Christ said to seek and save the lost. Seek and save are both verbs, words of action. Come follow me. Follow again, a word of action.
It’s my contention that there are too many Christians sitting in their pews looking to be “fed”, when I say pick up your fork and eat. Model what you talk about. Worry about your own log and not the speck for everyone else.
I get angry reading your blog, but not at you. I get angry at the Christians who have mis-represented everything that Christ was about, to the point that you’ve abandoned something that I find so valuable.
I pray that in your journey, you’ll still consider my posts not from the Christian point of view, but as someone who is trying to follow Christ. As someone who tries to love unconditionally, no matter what their own journey looks like. Also with the understanding that I’m going to make mistakes, and probable screw something up in the process.
I also give you permission to call me out when I make mistakes, or certainly if I’m ever hypocritical on my path.
As far as history, I can only repent of the mistakes of my last 40 years, and look to live the rest of my life as Christ would have me to live it. I’m responsible for me and my family, and any others that fall under my leadership. No more, no less.
Someone else will answer for the Christian “wrongs” of the last 2000 years.
September 5, 2007 at 4:23 pm |
Jon,
yes, I agree with you. My self-righteous, almost fearful attitude to anything to “wrong” sex, ( ie. anything that teenagers or un-married people or gays got up to,) tainted my attitude to so many other things that I must have been quite weird to be around when I was young (er.) I think now I missed out on so much. I don’t mean I wish I had had sex with more people, but I’m thinking of all the fringe things like dancing that my church discouraged, all the movies and songs I felt I had to disapprove of, and all the fun I shied away from in case it “led to other things.” It’s a bit sad really.
September 6, 2007 at 6:12 am |
Greetings!
I was lucky. I was Blessed.
I was one of the childen molested by Catholic Priests. If I had one wish for others like me, it would be to realize our Blessings. For in that realization, comes the healing of our wounds.
Wounds I say, which were only experienced as wounds, simply due to misguided understandings.
The first Blessing came in the form of realizing that liars were not good authorities to ask concerning Truth. I caught on to that real quick.
The second BLessing was the realization was that ‘everybody was doing it’. And that revealed the Truth of the situation, behind appearances.
The third Blessing came in the form of Creativity. For procreative and creative are the same ‘energy’ the same essence, simply directed along different lines. In the fact that I was ‘awakened’ to these essences before others of my age group, meant I had not one else to share my curiousity with. So I learned to direct this essence along the lines of creative endeavors.
I say without shame that even at the age of 2, I found orgasms enjoyable.
In our ignorance throughout the ages we imagined our bodies as the source of sin. Now, we can look at the idea and realize bodies can’t sin.
Ignorance, we are steeped in it. So how shall we respond to it? How shall we deal with it?
I deal with it by wearing a dunce cap and being comfortable with it on.
Blessings of Love & Light
September 6, 2007 at 9:39 pm |
Doug,
I deeply appreciate your comments, and you have earned the right to say whatever you want on my blog – I promise (well, almost) that I won’t beat you up again. I was discussing my “transition” away from christianity with my wife a few nights ago, and during the course of the conversation the topic of this post came up. This is something that, to be frank, I am fucking pissed off about with the church. I wanted to love God and please Him and not sin against Him as a teenager, and they told me, a young teenage guy, masturbation was a sin! How can I not be angry Doug? For Wendy it might be “a bit sad really”, but for me it was years and years of completely unecessary anguish which has deeply affected my attitudes about sexuality and my own body right up until today (I’m now 40), when I should have simply enjoyed my developing sexuality. All I have been feeling for the past few days is “fuck the church.” Now don’t you dare say that somehow “God will restore the years the locusts have eaten” or that “what man intended for bad God intended for good” or “He works all things together for good for those who love Him” or any of the other bullshit answers I have heard way too many times. The simple fact is the church simply told me a lie, an un-truth, a silly man-made rule that I was stupid enough to believe. Never again! No more “Other People’s Rules” for me – let them keep them themselves!
September 6, 2007 at 9:47 pm |
Sue,
It is beautiful to see that you have journey’d through the christian church machine, been deeply wronged in the process, and come through shining like a star! I’m nowhere near there yet!
Jon
PS: I assume you had a small typo in your comment and that you found orgasms enjoyable at the age of 12, not 2!
September 6, 2007 at 9:50 pm |
Wendy,
Indeed. So much for “freedom” and “life in all it’s adundance”. More like a set of silly unspoken rules to remain a club member.
September 6, 2007 at 10:22 pm |
[...] I have been feeling quite down (read “very to fucking angry”) these past few days. My last post has stirred up (yet again) deep feelings of anger that I still carry from my teenage years against [...]
September 7, 2007 at 4:28 am |
rofl….no typo Jon….that’s 2. T W O
That’s what I meant about nobody being around to play with….
September 7, 2007 at 4:46 am |
Jon, {{hug}} Notice I said I was Blessed, not wronged. That is the key to our healing. So Long as I held onto the perspective of ‘wrongness’, the perspective itself fueled and created by judgments upon sexuality and sensuality, I was going to suffer. For no matter the experience, it was what helped make ‘me’, the ‘me’ I am today. To reject the experience is to reject a part of myself….a dis-membering.
That part is going to feel hurt, wounded. That part is going to feel rejected and abandoned. And that part is going to brood and most like feel angry about being excluded from my acceptance. While this is happening, an experience of feeling like a Whole person, was forever beoynd my reach.
I simply call it ‘making love to myself’ and trash the ‘mastubation’ label. I don’t have to wait for someone else to come along to love me, I can love me, as often as I please.
September 7, 2007 at 11:29 am |
p.s. ‘christian’ actually means ‘Christ -like’ according to linguistics. Perhaps it would be more clarifying to say ‘hypo-christians’, instead, due to all the hypocrisy.
October 2, 2007 at 5:06 pm |
[...] church, church leadership, hell, jesus, life, prayer, sexuality. trackback Following an earlier post, here is a sample of what I get in the search text almost every day that people have typed in to [...]
March 19, 2008 at 10:10 pm |
If you had trouble with sexuality that means that you did`t have the gift of being single and you married at 24 and so many people still today struggle with masturbation in christianity. The bible tells us that we should abstain from sexual immorality and that if we cannot control ourselves we should marry. If you can`t abstain from masturbation that you means that sexuality controls you and has master over your life, I know I am. I have struggle with it, even today, im almost 28 and im still not married so yes I do understand the unpatience and frustration that comes with it because when we are in the world, we are the boss and this indicates that we cannot submit ourselves to commands or orders such as to asbtain.
The church is simply reapeating what the word of God says: nothing more and nothing less. I struggle with the same thing and I admit I am mastered by it but I will continue to repent and keep trying until I get it right and until God appoints that person into my life, we are not made to have sex with ourselves, having sex with yourself is boring, having sex with your husband and wife is how God created it, not to have sex with many many people. Sex outside of God is not a blessing, it never will be.
March 25, 2008 at 5:01 pm |
Jeanette,
Let me get this straight. If you have “trouble with sexuality” before you are married it’s because God has not given you the “gift of being single”. So God decides who will and won’t get married by dispensing this “gift of being single” as He sees fit? Really? I thought we had free will? Guess not. And what about all the teenage boys that have “trouble with sexuality”. Are you suggesting that the reason they are struggling is because they don’t have the “gift of being single?” Since you obviously don’t believe most teenage boys should marry just after puberty at the ripe old age of 13 or so (when all the trouble with sexuality starts) but that most of them will marry later in life, does your God just decide to “turn on” the “gift of being single” temporarily to get them through their teen years? Er – I don’t think so.
You then say that “the bible tells us to abstain from sexual immorality” This is true, but where does it say that masturbation is in any way at all a sexual sin? Nowhere. Nowhere at all. The church is NOT repeating what the “word of God” (as you call the bible) says, but another message not found anywhere in its pages.
Jeanette, if you want to go through life struggling and battling against what is a natural part of your being because you think that somehow that will make God a little happier then go ahead, knock yourself out. As for me, I am exceedingly glad that this sort of nonsense has no further place in my life and I feel great pity for you and all like you who have believed the grotesque twisted lies of the christian religion.
Jon
March 25, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
Go Jon!! I’m really happy that you figured this all out before your kids hit their teens. You’ll be a better father for it. I shocked Ali’s best friend the other day by saying that I hoped Ali would have wonderful love affairs with handsome Italian boys! Her mother wants her to be a nun. Good gravy.
March 26, 2008 at 8:21 pm |
“The Bible says” and “the church says”…
too lazy to think maybe…
or unable…
but definitely not Honoring the Presence in one’s own Heart.
December 19, 2008 at 10:20 am |
nobody can remember what happened when they were 2! come on!
May 1, 2009 at 10:34 pm |
Making someone feel guilty over a normal body function gives the church power over that person. The “sinner” will do anything to be relieved of that guilt – 10% of income for starters. No guilt means no power and no stipend for the preacher.
In business it would be known as a protection racket.