Ameen Posted May 25, 2009 Share Posted May 25, 2009 So... He told me that a personal relationship with Jesus is more satisfying than gay sex. Wow! Jesus must be great in bed!!! Let me start from the beginning... I was posting on a board where most people are gay males, and I had uploaded some kinky pictures in the fetish section. (They weren't anything about pain, penetration or humiliation, but they were hardly vanilla and did include sexy bare butts.) Elsewhere on the board, in a thread on overcoming personal difficulties, I had written a bit about homophobia in my former church and having OCD. So... I got a long private message from a guy who started by saying how much he loved the all male fetish pictures I posted. He then wrote about twenty paragraphs on how I would only find peace by embracing the very thing I had fled from: Jesus and the true church. Obviously, he said, I had encountered only false Christians, but I could leave "the lifestyle" (being gay) the way "so many" others had "successfully" since Jesus is so much better than mere sex blah blah blah. He then said God would cure me of OCD. And he said that he and his fellow true Christians would love me more than gay people did. Hooooooo-boy! I waited two days to calm down and then sent the following response. Even though I have issues with gaychristian.net, I had to suggest something. The other group, soulforce, is something Justin of gaychristian.net mentioned in our correspondence. Let me know what you think. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear _______________, I understand and admire your desire to reach out and help another person, but I don't think it fair of you to proselytize when that is not what I asked for. As a former Christian, I understand why you did it, and for that reason I am not angry. I ask that you not do it again, however. It is also very strange for you to take a stand against homosexuality when you have expressed appreciation for the artwork I, a gay male, posted on a largely gay board because I considered it homoerotic. As you may be aware, there are gay and heterosexual Christians who see no conflict in their beliefs and homosexuality just as there are others who think the two cannot go together. Since this is a controversial issue, you are not in a position to say that your way is the only right way. If you don't know much about the pro-gay Christian position, I suggest a board like soulforce.org (liberal) or gaychristian.net (conservative)--or an article by a minister like the following. Simply click on the link and select "Read the letter": http://godmademegay.com/ I will not debate you on Christianity. I refuse. I will, however, talk to you about things other than religion if you are in any sort of conflict or want any information--or are just looking for a friend who shares your interests. I have Christian friends as well as atheist friends, and I can respect someone else's beliefs. However, I have a zero toleration policy regarding proselytizing and will not respond again if you proselityze. (I have cut people off for proselityzing since I was abused by Christians in ways you cannot imagine and also had ex-gay nonsense forced on me.) Besides, I don't, for example, push atheism on anyone, but I will talk about it if you or someone else asks or wants to know more about it. Otherwise, it need not be part of our conversations. Further, as I mentioned in my post, I do volunteer work with younger folks with OCD, something I have been trained to do and am quite good at. This is volunteer work I have carried out in addition to my paid job as a university professor since 2004. God does not take away OCD; I believe the Christians I work with say that God helps those who help themselves or OCD is the cross they have to bear. Further, the behavior therapist with whom I do my volunteer work is a conservative Christian, and she will also tell you that OCD cannot be prayed away. Again, if this is an issue you need more information about, or if you are just curious about OCD, I am not shy and I am happy to provide information and links. While I take a secular approach to OCD, there are Christian therapists who treat it within a Christian framework--and believe it needs treatment and not just prayer. Just do a Google search for OCD and Christian. Also, please don't claim to "truly love me." Love exists when it is both given and received, and I cannot claim to love a stranger on the Internet. I wish you no harm, mind you, and I give a lot of myself to strangers with OCD and to the students I teach, but that should not be confused with the type of love you are talking about. I need to know someone for a long time just to be a friend instead of merely being friendly, for example. Finally, be careful of sending messages like yours through our board. I have no intention of reporting you, so don't worry. But if someone did, you would find yourself banned. We have had problems with preaching members in the past, and you don't want to have the moderators think you are a troublemaker. If you want to talk to me, you know the groundrules. No response is required, but you are welcome to write if you WISH to. Take care, Ameen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ Fuego ♦ Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 That guy expressed a strange combination of thoughts. But it does remind me a lot of when I was a believer and was torn between really enjoying porn and feeling compelled to resist to the point of tears. There is a strange dichotomy that forms within when we try to deny nature. Perhaps his writing was a way of him absolving himself of his guilt ("I'm really here to witness... yeah, that's it.") On a similar note, Christians tend to see those on the outside as desperate and addicted. I recently visited Chrissy Moran's Myspace page and read about her conversion and why she left the porn industry. She linked up with Harmony Dust, another that left the industry and has a ministry to strippers. For those that really do feel abused by the system, church can actually provide a more healthy social environment. But the verbiage on her page again comes from the Christian viewpoint that all who are in the industry are there against their will as a result of being from a broken home or a lifetime of codependent behavior, and that those that view the product are by definition addicted. She basically went from one extreme to another, and now feels compelled to minister to those "trapped" by the industry. Katie Morgan is just the opposite, she was raised in a very strict Christian group, but learned in her teens that she loved sex. She started working in porn and never looked back. Anyway, I hope I didn't get too far off track there. I was just trying to point out the strong polarity of Christians when it comes to sex, often with the individual believer being split between nature and the religious ideal, and the ensuing struggle to reconcile the split and how they involve others in that struggle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 Ameen, You were much more generous with your time and your teaching and in sharing your perspective than I could have been. This guy is coo-coo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creepy Doll Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 Gah! Out of guilt and total wishful thinking I tried blending xianity with being queer. Didn't work. I went on that gaychristian.net site and found those douchebags to be the same old judgmental daydreamers as every other stripe of fundamentalist xian I have ever met. Same with the pagans. I call them daydreamers because the way they sit and discuss every nuance of the bible and try to interpret it and how it might affect their life is just mind boggling. It's like they sit and dream up new weird things they can pull out of their ass to either judge others with or free themselves of judgment with. I just read some of that shit and think to myself "This is NUTS! WTF is the POINT of all this?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 Gah! Out of guilt and total wishful thinking I tried blending xianity with being queer. Didn't work. I went on that gaychristian.net site and found those douchebags to be the same old judgmental daydreamers as every other stripe of fundamentalist xian I have ever met. Same with the pagans. I call them daydreamers because the way they sit and discuss every nuance of the bible and try to interpret it and how it might affect their life is just mind boggling. It's like they sit and dream up new weird things they can pull out of their ass to either judge others with or free themselves of judgment with. I just read some of that shit and think to myself "This is NUTS! WTF is the POINT of all this?" There was one member at the GCN forums who claimed that 1st Timothy prophesied God would accept gays and that gay marriage would be banned as a sign of the end times. I simply posted that Paul didn't write 1 Timothy and yet my post got deleted for some reason when I didn't say anything insulting about Christians nor was I trying to deconvert Christians to atheism. All I was doing was posting that I thought this guy's argument was flawed. I could make a better argument for Christianity and I'm not even a Christian. And doesn't it sound homoerotic when Christians talk about how you'll have a better relationship with Jesus than any other man? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 God can't heal you. He's not a vending machine. Isn't that what they always say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueGiant Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 To answer your first point, well I could see some interesting applications of the holes in the hands. I once had a guy dressed as Jesus on a fetish night at a club say to me: "You do one cross and everyone thinks you're a sub." As for your second point, wow you're much more cool-headed about that than I am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Broke Free Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Also, please don't claim to "truly love me." Love exists when it is both given and received, and I cannot claim to love a stranger on the Internet. I wish you no harm, mind you, and I give a lot of myself to strangers with OCD and to the students I teach, but that should not be confused with the type of love you are talking about. I need to know someone for a long time just to be a friend instead of merely being friendly, for example. I’ve had Christians say that to me too. It’s just plain weird. I don’t even know you, how could you love me? If your definition of love covers strangers on the internet, then I would think anyone you really care about would be offended. I would. And by the way, “Jesus Loves You, he’s just not In Love With You.” Ameen, I really admire all the work you do with OCD community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creepy Doll Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 Yes, I get that too. Funny how they "love" us and condemn us all in one breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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