The Naked Journal
Thoughts, musings, and meanings behind NakedPastor Art.
The Naked Journal
Love, Desire, and Consent: Rethinking Purity Culture Narratives
You Can Never Say No I hope this isn’t too triggering for some of you. But I bet it might be because this theology is so prevalent in the church. It is in society too where men just think it is their right to take a woman’s body. Religion and purity culture takes this patriarchal, male-dominant idea to a whole new level by weaponizing scripture, theology, and spiritual authority to govern and afflict women. (Download a digital copy of this cartoon by clicking on the image or HERE.) This man is in for an important lesson. And it is this: This woman has autonomy over her body, she knows it, and she won’t surrender it. I’ll be honest with you guys. I grew up with this theology that our bodies are not our own. But the thing is, I never saw this… ever… in all my decades in the church and in the ministry… I never saw this used against men. It was always used against women. Basically, it is used to pressure and even force wives to have sex when they didn’t want to. And we all know what sex without consent is. I learned this lesson very early in our marriage. But the lesson wasn’t I had to resentfully wait until Lisa wanted it. It’s deeper and more important than that. What I learned was there is context that we both need to work on. Context like trust, vulnerability, health, mood, communication, connection, intimacy, flirting and wooing, knowledge, practice, experimenting, learning, discovering. All that and more! Sure, there were plenty of what we called quickies. But they too happened against the backdrop of love and all the context I mentioned above. Never a demand. Never a requirement.Never nonconsensual. Drawn together by love and desire is where it’s at. This takes work.My observation: Too many men aren’t willing to do the work. But like most good work, it bears good fruit, and fruit that will last. I know!
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Why Purity Culture's Number One Tool is Fear
How many of you have heard this one? I call this purity culture cartoon, The Spirits of Past Relationships. Purity culture's number one tool is fear. Purity Culture wants you to be afraid to think, feel, or do anything to spoil your virginity for your wedding night. It is claimed, and I believe it, that this is especially targeted to women. Purity culture is a patriarchal endeavor to produce and provide virgins for its men. I was told, when I was young, that if you masturbated, hair would grow on the palms of your hands. Stupid. But it made me afraid because I didn't want hair on my palms, but mostly I wouldn't want others to see it and know what was going on. How many fear tactics were used on you to maintain your "Purity"? Were you told you were like ABC gum (Already Been Chewed) if you were physical with anyone before you were married? Were you told that every time you were physical with someone, it took a little more out of your "account" so that on your wedding night you wouldn't be able to operate at full capacity? Were you told that every time you were physical before marriage it let a little more demons in? Or, like this cartoon, were you told that every single person you were ever physical with, you carried their spirit with you for the rest of your life, even into the bedroom? That is a fear tactic meant to control you. Plain and simple. Before you can can start to heal from purity culture is to identify the messages you were told and how they continue to impact you Related Purity Culture Resources 5 Ways Puriture Culture Can Affect Your Sex LifeHow Purity Culture Creates A Fear Of Sex
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Can You Love Each Other More Than God?
Lisa and I met at a Pentecostal Bible College. We fell madly in love. I was 20 and she was 18. Within a couple of weeks we knew we’d get married. (Click on image or HERE for a digital download!) We found our soul mate. I don’t know if there is such a thing or if it’s necessary. My ideas of romantic relationships and marriage has opened up a lot. So I want to tell you this is my story. Our story. We fell hard for each other. It was magical. Is magical. And the love is very deep and very strong. I believe romantic love is a part of the big “true love”. Not something separate. But I also believe romantic love is a fascinating and complex mix of this true love, but also psychology, projection, fantasy, desire, lust, eroticism, sexuality, intimacy, passion, friendship and polarity, and so much more. I believe that when I found Lisa, I had found the perfect embodiment of my deepest desire, my anima… my female aspect… in real life. And the opposite is true for Lisa with me. How often does this happen? Not very, I don’t think. But how did the Purity Culture we found ourselves in react to it? Yes, I received warnings that I shouldn’t love her more than I loved God. That God is a jealous God and will not be displaced by anyone! I needed to be careful not to allow my love for Lisa dissuade or distract me from my love for Jesus. I needed to make sure I spent at least as much time with the Lord as I did with Lisa. I need to beg God to help me tame my passion and carnality around Lisa. We needed to repent because we love each other too hard. And so on. I didn’t obey. Because, somehow, our passionate love for each other felt a part of the whole of love. It didn’t feel separate or wrong, but part and parcel of the union of all things. We felt that we were, and still are, participating in the bigger picture of universal love, or, as some call it, divine love. Because with love there is no competition or domination. All belongs.
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Are You Ashamed of Your Body and Sex?
There are many ways purity culture can affect your sex life, and one of the most damaging is how it ingrains shame around our bodies and sexuality. 1. The first story in the Bible teaches us that being naked is shameful. When Adam and Eve sinned, they became aware of their nakedness and were ashamed. I was always taught that being naked was a source of embarrassment. How many of us have had dreams where we are naked in a room of people? It’s humiliating. At this point, it isn’t even necessarily about our bodies, but just that we are naked, because just being naked is bad.2. This is further complicated by our culture’s obsession with the shape of our bodies. We are blasted with images of our culture’s idea of a perfect body. If my body doesn’t conform to my culture’s ideal of what a perfect body is, then I’m going to feel embarrassed by it. This dynamic has an enormous impact on our confidence when it comes to getting naked with the one we love and are having sex with. Even in the presence of someone who loves us and who wants to be sexually intimate with us, we are embarrassed that our bodies don’t fit with what we think they desire. We hide ourselves and our bodies from the gaze of our lovers so as not to disappoint them and embarrass ourselves even further.3. Purity Culture has also taught us that sex is dirty, that it is a sinful manifestation of our carnal nature. I was taught that sex didn’t begin until after the Fall, meaning that it was inevitably an expression of our fallenness. We learn that to lose ourselves in sexual passion is an unholy fleshly act. It is a demonstration of our body’s sinful urges, an indication of lust, and a lesser aspect of being human. Holiness and sex can’t be imagined together. Sex is an aberration. It’s something that we do to procreate, not something we do for pleasure, intimacy, and connection alone.Doing it from under the covers and in the light would be a brazen flaunting of lasciviousness and a brazen rejection of our spiritual nature.When in fact it is an embracing of our humanness and our healthy desire to connect with another in a most intimate and vulnerable way.
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