Before the poem, I wanted to say a little word about coming-out, since this Tuesday, October 11th is National Coming Out Day. I don’t think anyone has to “come out” as LGBTQ+, whether in an interpersonal interaction or a public announcement on social media. If it is unsafe to come out in those ways, or if you just want to live your queer life without making big announcements about it, that is totally okay. For those to whom coming out publicly or even in minor ways is unsafe, you can still find spaces where you can bring your full self, even if that is just online. But I do think there is one person you owe coming out to: yourself (and in fact whenever you are thinking of coming out, in small or big ways, a great thing to ask is whether you are doing this for yourself, for the sense of freedom and release it will give you, or if you are doing it for someone else or something else). Coming to terms with queer identity and being comfortable in my own body and sexuality has been so amazing, and I hope that whether you are as loud about being queer as I am or not, that you get to experience something like what I describe in this poem. Content FYI: I talk about purity culture1 language. The poem doesn’t get too sexual—it’s about making out, but like, it gets intense, and I do, you know, mention boobs a bit, because I am such a lesbian dork.
I was taught (by my church) that this— our bodies tangled together, her perfume soaking into my senses, her lips soft and sweetly embracing mine— would lead to sex. A sin. This icy fear used to grip me in its hands, spreading frostbite across skin where there should’ve been warmth. “Kissing is a rhythm,” she tells me. Open, close, open, close. My squirming lips aren’t used to the sensation of another’s against mine, slipping against thick chapstick. There are muscles in my lips I haven’t even noticed before, I don’t know what to do— “Relax,” she says, pressing our knees together. “Are you nervous?” she asks. I tell her no, excited is the better word. As we cuddle on my bed, a warm current runs through my veins like metro line 13 in Paris, all jolting and fast. Our lips come together, open, close, open, close. She asks “Are you doing okay?” and I say yes. She asks “Can I kiss your neck?” and I say yes, smiling as sweet shivers dance along my spine. I am not ashamed. As I’m lying here with her, letting my hands explore her body, her legs, her breasts, I know what I want. And I know I don’t have to go further than I am comfortable. “Can I put my hands under your shirt?” she asks, “you’re setting the comfort level here.” I say yes, respecting what my body, mind and spirit wisdom-whisper: I am safe. It feels so good to know, now, for sure, that my church was wrong. I’m not dirty, not impure, not broken, and not damaged goods. She puts her hands under my shirt—my heart leaps. She asks, “Do you want me to take off my shirt?” I say yes, blushing but giddy. I gaze at her, in awe of the curves of her body and her light green eyes. We lie with our bodies curved into each other like flower petals, my fingers stroking her hair. They were wrong, and I know that now. I can fall into the rhythm, open, close, open, close. That doctrine of forced purity can never again put its cold, writhing fingers on my body.
A couple days after this makeout session happened (which was, let’s say, the “furthest” I have ever gone with a girl or anyone), I had a realization: if I was still stuck in purity culture and disconnected from my body and unsure of what my boundaries and wants were because sex was just a big No in my mind, then it is quite possible that I would have gone farther than I actually wanted to. But because I was in tune with my body, and the girl, a fellow college student, was so good at asking for consent (which is not even a factor in purity culture, which makes it easily become rape culture) and making sure I was safe and having fun, I ended up having no regrets. I don’t even regret that I kissed this passionately with a girl I only went on two dates with (this was the second), because again, purity culture is bullshit, I didn’t lose anything by seeing her cleavage or letting her touch me.
Even a couple years well into my faith deconstruction, I still hadn’t really grappled with purity culture. I was of the Matthew Vines mindset that gays could be good Christians too so long as they entered into monogamous lifelong marriages without having premarital sex. But then on Twitter the #ChurchToo movement was born from the #MeToo movement, and I followed Emily Joy Allison2, and through following her and others discovered the horrible implications of that theology. When you internalize that sexual shame, you can't suddenly turn it off when you get married. Just read stories about women/AFAB people with vaginismus (when the muscles of a vagina squeeze or spasm when something is entering it, like a tampon or a penis) and the various other stories of how evangelical purity doctrine has ruined people's lives3. I am so glad that I am free of that and can be allowed to be my full self in my body and not repress and compartmentalize. I can experience embodied joy.
After deciding that evangelical sexual ethics were wrong, it still took me some time to figure out what my sexual ethic actually was (and I mean mine—I am not trying to impose a sexual ethic on anyone else). After a lot of thought and prayer and learning from the journeys of friends and folks in the deconstruction space, I’ve decided I am “waiting” to have sex, not for marriage but for a person that I deeply trust and love and who feels the same; it might take until engagement or marriage to build that kind of trust, but it also might not. And more importantly than “when” to have sex, I now know that in intimacy I value consent, communication, and mutual care. When it’s the right time and the right person, I’ll know. And regardless of whether I have a ring on my finger, the experience will be holy.
When did you realize that purity culture was wrong (since you’re reading this newsletter, I’m assuming you’ve reached that conclusion)? Was it through experience, research, a little bit of both? How have you reconstructed your sexual ethic and reconnected to your body?
Seminary life update: Still feeling very overwhelmed by my coursework—my neurodivergent brain is like, if you’re assigning so much reading that we literally don’t have time to read it all, why not assign less reading so we can take in content more deeply instead of drinking from a fire hose? I don’t really skim, not even sure if I can and still retain information from a book. Plus, skimming is not enjoyable to me, especially if I find a book or article interesting it’s like, I have to read it all!!
In less stressful news, I met Jennifer Knapp this week at a private performance that I was invited to through church connections (thanks to my church’s pastor, Jeremy, who may be reading this). She’s an iconic gay Christian and musician. She is so vibrant and passionate when she sings and it was so fun talking to her afterwards about my program, my dreams, and my podcast (which she will probably be on next year??? What??).
I define purity culture in my memoir as this, though Emily Joy Allison probably has a better one: a theology and praxis that makes any form of sexuality taboo outside of heterosexual monogamous marriage.
I have not read her #ChurchToo book yet but it is on my list, and she is a great Twitter follow.
I list a few examples and do deeper analysis about how purity culture affects the mind and body in the first five pages of my memoir, which I posted an excerpt of in August:
Forgot to say: I wrote the poem for the Writer-in-Residence course I took my last semester at Hollins University. I got to learn from the incredible Patricia Spears Jones!