An Obvious Answer to an Absurd Question
by tristero
The New York Times published an op-ed by someone whose church traumatized her when she was a child. Her ministers were obsessed with a sexual fetish, their particular kink being a hyper-Puritanical "purity" obsession:
One piece of youth-group folklore was a “game” in which a cup would be passed around a circle. At each turn, someone would spit in the cup, until the last person had a cup full of spit. “Would you want to drink this?” the youth pastor intoned. “No. And that’s how others will see you if you sleep around.”
And now, as an adult, she is plagued by doubts and worries about what she can and can't do when it comes to sex. She can't fully grasp what was done to her and how to let go/move on. The title of the op-ed succinctly summarizes her present confusion over physical intimacy:
How Should Christians Have Sex?
What an absurd question. How should Christians have sex? Any way Christians want to, as long as everyone's comfortable doing whatever it is they want to do.
Y'know, it's a free country, and people are entitled to worship (or not) however they see fit. But I'm finding it hard be tolerant of what was done to her and to so many other children. It's the American equivalent of female genital mutilation.
I hope she can continue to recover.