Sexual Territory and Jesus
Sometimes I get oh so tired of putting up posts for No Longer Quivering. I'm in one of those times now. Right now it seems the worst of the worst Quiverfull Evangelical bloggers are posting scads of posts justifying abusing women or, worst of all there are women (I'm looking at you, Lori Alexander!) ordering you to put up with any sort of domestic violence in the name of Jesus, saying you cannot ever divorce.
I was thinking about this a great deal this afternoon in the pool, particularly after the last few weeks of watching the dragonfly that thinks our pool is his own personal babe magnet cum love shack.
Oh yes, lately I've been treated to the violent spectacle that is dragonfly sex. A little reading told me that dragonfly males will find a body of water, or a special tree or other natural feature and 'claim' it with their constant presence. Our guy has certainly done that. He is constantly either sitting on the edge of the pool or buzzing around right above it.
When a female dragonfly appears things get crazy, with both of them flying in a tight circular motion. If I am in the pool when this happens it's around my head. Which is how I discovered what dragonflies merrily screwing look like. This guy does it mid-air.
Now after reading about it, with the researcher saying it involves the violence of the male biting the female a few times, seeing the acrobatic hijinks and reading that sperm gets everywhere I'm no longer so thrilled to see Mr. Dragonfly lounging around waiting for a booty call. He treats the pool area like so many of those guys from LSU treated the place I waited tables in college.
Which lead me to start thinking. I wonder how many women have been pulled into horrible cult churches from sheer lust, or a crush? Maybe not actually bitten on the head or neck, but starting out with a crush on someone, finding themselves trapped in very bad abusive marriages merely because they followed the attraction into a Christian male's sexual territory.
Makes me remember my first hardcore crush, and how stupid I acted, all the relentless attention seeking behavior I kept flinging at my crush. Back when I was 13 or so I ended up one weekend at the LSU assembly center with my best friend Frances. I thought we were going to a rock concert, but it turned out to be some early version of Christian outreach, like what Teen Mania used to do. Music, speakers in hip clothing and buzzwords before a gigantic altar call. Somehow I ended up raising my hand to the alter call because all my friends were doing it. Being raised Catholic I'd not encountered this type of Jesus freakery before.
Once we were in the backstage area I found myself being led through that Sinners Prayer, giving a One Way Bible and meeting the young man who led the studies in my very own neighborhood. Instant crush!
His name was Doug, he was Bobby Sherman handsome and lived two blocks over from my house. I engaged in a nearly two year struggle to gain Doug's attention and heart to no avail. Every meeting, every church service, ever outreach I was there, but Telfon-coated in my mind. While I attended every study and parrotted every word I didn't really about it very seriously. It was all about my pursuit of Doug. When someone else was droning on, reading the Bible aloud or praying, I would be in my own secret sexual territory wondering what it would be like to kiss Doug.
My parents didn't much like me attending Bible study and the like with non-Catholics, but they were both so busy with attempting to keep a dead marriage together that neither tried to stop me. Now I wish that they had. Or at least helped me critically process what was going on so that I didn't fall for the love bombing and end up drinking the koolaid of my old church years later.
Even if I was insincere and had lustul motives to attend those One Way meeting I still took in and believed a lot of what they peddled. My sexual territory eventually turned into my first illogical leap headfirst into some rather toxic beliefs that I carried around until about fives years.
I never did get Doug's personal attention or affections and I was kicked out when my parents caused a neighborhood scandal by divorcing. Yeah, kicked out because my parents marriage was dead. Real nice, huh?
I was thinking about this a great deal this afternoon in the pool, particularly after the last few weeks of watching the dragonfly that thinks our pool is his own personal babe magnet cum love shack.
Oh yes, lately I've been treated to the violent spectacle that is dragonfly sex. A little reading told me that dragonfly males will find a body of water, or a special tree or other natural feature and 'claim' it with their constant presence. Our guy has certainly done that. He is constantly either sitting on the edge of the pool or buzzing around right above it.
When a female dragonfly appears things get crazy, with both of them flying in a tight circular motion. If I am in the pool when this happens it's around my head. Which is how I discovered what dragonflies merrily screwing look like. This guy does it mid-air.
Now after reading about it, with the researcher saying it involves the violence of the male biting the female a few times, seeing the acrobatic hijinks and reading that sperm gets everywhere I'm no longer so thrilled to see Mr. Dragonfly lounging around waiting for a booty call. He treats the pool area like so many of those guys from LSU treated the place I waited tables in college.
Which lead me to start thinking. I wonder how many women have been pulled into horrible cult churches from sheer lust, or a crush? Maybe not actually bitten on the head or neck, but starting out with a crush on someone, finding themselves trapped in very bad abusive marriages merely because they followed the attraction into a Christian male's sexual territory.
Makes me remember my first hardcore crush, and how stupid I acted, all the relentless attention seeking behavior I kept flinging at my crush. Back when I was 13 or so I ended up one weekend at the LSU assembly center with my best friend Frances. I thought we were going to a rock concert, but it turned out to be some early version of Christian outreach, like what Teen Mania used to do. Music, speakers in hip clothing and buzzwords before a gigantic altar call. Somehow I ended up raising my hand to the alter call because all my friends were doing it. Being raised Catholic I'd not encountered this type of Jesus freakery before.
Once we were in the backstage area I found myself being led through that Sinners Prayer, giving a One Way Bible and meeting the young man who led the studies in my very own neighborhood. Instant crush!
His name was Doug, he was Bobby Sherman handsome and lived two blocks over from my house. I engaged in a nearly two year struggle to gain Doug's attention and heart to no avail. Every meeting, every church service, ever outreach I was there, but Telfon-coated in my mind. While I attended every study and parrotted every word I didn't really about it very seriously. It was all about my pursuit of Doug. When someone else was droning on, reading the Bible aloud or praying, I would be in my own secret sexual territory wondering what it would be like to kiss Doug.
My parents didn't much like me attending Bible study and the like with non-Catholics, but they were both so busy with attempting to keep a dead marriage together that neither tried to stop me. Now I wish that they had. Or at least helped me critically process what was going on so that I didn't fall for the love bombing and end up drinking the koolaid of my old church years later.
Even if I was insincere and had lustul motives to attend those One Way meeting I still took in and believed a lot of what they peddled. My sexual territory eventually turned into my first illogical leap headfirst into some rather toxic beliefs that I carried around until about fives years.
I never did get Doug's personal attention or affections and I was kicked out when my parents caused a neighborhood scandal by divorcing. Yeah, kicked out because my parents marriage was dead. Real nice, huh?
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