Witches Aren't Real (But Try Telling My Parents That)

So when I was about eight or nine I watched The Wizard of Oz at my grandparents' house. My family didn't have a television at the time so it was always exciting to go over to grandma and grandpa's and watch a movie. In fact I distinctly remember going over there (they only live five or so miles down the road from my parents) to watch TV on 9/11.

Anyway, my parents were not pleased that I had been exposed to The Wizard Of Oz. To be honest I didn't really like the movie then and I still don't really like it now, but I wasn't about to admit that and lose my chance at some real honest to god rebellion by liking a movie with witches in it.

I got a talking to, not about how I should not have watched the movie, but about witches. Witches. My parents sat me down and told me that witches were not actually good like Glinda, and that The Wizard Of Oz was not a good movie because it showed witches as good and beautiful.

Throughout this entire talk (which was very kind and well intentioned, my parents weren't angry at me at all) I kept thinking to myself "but, movies aren't real..." Now, I was (and still am) a total geek. I love fantasy, I adore mythology and folklore, and I read an old book on necromancy for fun (apparently alder wands are the best for raising the dead) but even at eight I knew The Wizard of Oz wasn't real. Yet here I was getting a lecture about evil witches as if I might meet one on the street and be.... I don't even know, turned into a toad?

But this odd obsession with fantastical things is the very reason my home school co-op demonized Harry Potter (good witches! And kids might try those magic spells!) and Pokémon (mumble mumble demons or something) and in some cases even more Christianish books like The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings (those were usually okay because Christians wrote them).

There are two problems with the actions my parents and their community took, one, questionable material usually got a free pass if the parents enjoyed it when they were kids (so I got to see Star Wars despite the Eastern paganism befouling it). And two... It's rather unnerving when an eight-year-old has a better grasp on reality than full grown adults. But then again these are the people who tell their children to pray if they feel like there are demons in their bedrooms. Nothing like telling a kid the monsters under their bed are entirely real and out to possess them. But hey, you've got the sword of the spirit and the power of prayer on your side! Go get 'em champ, and sleep well.

I'm Running Away and I'm Taking my Baggage with Me!

I never seriously contemplated running away as a child. I occasionally thought through escape plans and how to care for my siblings in the wilds if one day CPS came to take us and split us up or if my dad ever killed my mom, but I never really thought of running away for my own sake.

I did a lot of running away though. I left friends who couldn't love me the way I loved them, I remained silent when I should have spoken up, I was the good little church girl when all I wanted to be was a rebel, I prayed instead of going to the doctor, and I hid under my blankets when the shouting began.

Sometimes, though, you have to run away. There are things I probably could have done, spoken up when I disagreed with someone, done what I wanted with my hair, told one of my friends how I really felt about her, try to explain to my mother that she was being abused. Maybe I should have maybe I shouldn't have but it doesn't matter now.

I'm still struggling with running away. When to run, when to stand. It's hard to tell sometimes. My family is a near constant source of anxiety to me, while I'm lucky in that they didn't kick me out or get me committed that doesn't make their disapproval any easier to deal with, especially for a child who was trained to accept approval as the ultimate source of affirmation, and disapproval as a punishment. I wonder how much I owe them, how much staying in contact is even worth, or if they'll every really truly accept me for who I am not who they want me to be.

Something is unraveling inside me, years of pent up emotion and scarred over memories. Since I've moved out my parent's house (and it's only been two weeks) I have less fear of repercussions for expressing my opinions or feelings. With the freedom comes a deluge of buried feelings, bitterness and hurt and confusion. I'm only now realizing the depth of the impact fundamentalist Christianity and homeschooling within an abusive framework had on me, not to mention my genetic disposition for mental illness. Some days I feel irrevocably broken, like I'm walking around with fissures running the length of my being. Some days I feel fine. Sometimes I can't tell if its depression or old trauma or some toxic combination of the two. Sometimes I have great days and I eat Chow Mein from the grocery store for dinner and get recognized for my knowledge of Platonic Philosophy in class. Mostly I just live, because I'm allowed to to that now, without the terror or ecstasy of an afterlife overshadowing my mortal existence.

And I'm thankful. Thankful for myself, and for my school, and for Plato even if he's sort of a jerk and doesn't really understand life, and I'm thankful for my community because without those connections and those precious people I'd be lost. And I'm thankful for you, whoever you are, because if you're reading this you're a part of my journey too (I hope you don't mind) and you've helped me far more than you know.

So, thanks.

People

I ride mass transit for part of my commute to school. It's really cool, besides running for the train and looking like a total dork, I also get to meet people I would never had a chance to meet before. Like today this older woman in an electric wheelchair came zipping onto the train. She then leaned back in her chair, gasped and said "whoop! I had it set on fast!"

So I said "you're a speed demon!"

She laughed and laughed, and I laughed. It was a short uplifting interaction that I would never have experienced if I hadn't recognized and responded to the human next to me.

I'm kind of a shy person, but I'm getting more and more outgoing since my deconversion and coming out. I think part of it is the layers of shame and fear I was taught, not just as a Christian but also as a middle to upper class white person,  are dissolving. I'm living on my own now (yep, my move was successful and my new place is great!), I'm working and going to school at the same time so my financial status has changed (I'm still really well off compared to most people), I'm openly queer, I am one of the people I was taught to be afraid of. So, the old fears fade as I realize their bigoted origins. Also, my "enemy" (for lack of a better term) is now the people who taught me I should be afraid, not those they taught me to fear. I am far more threatened walking into a church then onto a bus.

I don't really know where this post was going, I guess I'm just happy I can recognize the people around me as people, and engage them as equals, rather than living in a world of potential threats.

The Middle East, an Ex-Fundamentalist's Perspective

I'm in the process of prepping for a move and the beginning of fall quarter, so things have been a bit quiet here lately. Sorry 'bout that!

I had a very strange realization the other day, as I was listening to NPR. Yes, I listen to NPR on my commute. Syria has been in the news a lot lately, and I don't really even want to broach that subject because I'm not qualified to talk about it. What I do want to consider, however, is how my attitudes toward the middle east have changed since my deconversion, and how I'm only just realizing that I know very little about the nuance and complexity of that storied and incredible part of the world.

To start with, here is what I previously thought about the middle east. The middle east is characterized by hundreds or thousands of years of struggle between God's chosen people and the heathen. This struggle continues to this day, with the descendants of Ishmael (Muslims, or people of general Arabic descent, or ancient Mesopotamian/Egyptian/Babylonian/Persian peoples, it wasn't often made clear or historically accurate) battling the descendants of Isaac (Hebrews/Jews/modern Israelis). This righteous conflict will continue until the second coming of Christ when Israel (or America or something) will defeat Palestine (or Muslims, or Arabs, or something) and rebuild the temple. The right people will go to heaven, the wrong people will go to hell, the end. Good conquers evil.

There are a lot of issues with that world view, and that's an understatement. To start with, it's not even historically accurate. The middle east is the cradle of civilization, it has been populated by peoples of varied ethnicity, culture and religion over thousands and thousands of years. Also of note, the Hebrew nations were never really major players in the region. To cast this mosaic of human history into such dull black and white tones is a crime against the vibrant cacophony of voices making up the story of the middle east.

This view is also starkly Islamaphobic. It turns an entire religion and people group into an enemy which God has given another religion and people group authority to fight against. Now I understand it's not as if anyone is trying to restart the crusades, but, the crusades did happen (I'm just pointing that out, not at all suggesting they're going to happen again. People get tetchy when you bring up the crusades).

But the thing I realized, the thing I had never understood before, was that the conservative Christian view of the middle east completely erases the effects of colonialism. Poof, gone. Wait the west may have screwed over the middle east with imperialistic colonial practices? But the west  (or America, or something) is God's chosen people, they can do no wrong. And they certainly couldn't do any wrong back in the good ol' days!

As I was listening to NPR the other day (like an old person) I was considering Syria and wondering what underlying factors could have contributed to its current situation. The problem with my old worldview is that it was a worldview that knew what it wanted to see and fit the evidence into the story it assumed lay underneath. Narratives are not hard to construct. The problem with that worldview is that it leaves out the actual reasons contributing to unrest in the middle east while simultaneously promoting a historically inaccurate and racist understanding of the world. You can't get to the bottom of a situation, and you certainly can't do any measurable good, if you're working off such a skewed foundation.

P.S.

I've been to parts of the middle east, and it was my interactions with the incredible people who live there that changed a lot of my worldview. My thoughts are with anyone in Syria, Egypt, or anywhere else that is experiencing unrest or suffering. 

Koko and Me

I guess  this post will be a bit different from what I usually post here (which is completely subject to my whims anyways, so I don't know why I'm bothering with a disclaimer). I was recently reminded (via TED talk) of Koko the gorilla. Koko is a 42 year old gorilla with a vocabulary of 1000 words in ASL, you can find out more about her here, her story is pretty cool!

It was years ago that I first learned about Koko, I think it was in a National Geographic magazine. I remember, distinctly, reading about Koko pointing out a red piece of lint on a towel, signing "red" over and over to the confusion of her human companions until they realized she was pointing to the lint. Maybe she was pulling their scrawny homo sapien legs.

Reading about Koko was one of the first times I truly experienced doubt. Now, on my journey from Evangelicism to Atheism was almost subconscious. Maybe most people don't wake up one day and think "hmmm, I guess I a gay atheist now" but to be honest, that was pretty close to my experience. A lot of it had to do with the incredibly narrow culture I grew up in, I just had to grow out of my childhood indoctrination. I'm digressing though, the point of this is that Koko caused me to experience profound doubt. Or, in less loaded terms, she caused me to reevaluate the way I saw the world and non-human animals. The reevaluation raised huge questions about Christianity's treatment of the environment and non-human animals (particularly mainstream American Christianity as it is linked to conservative denial of human impact on the planet).

And Koko scared me Because if what I saw here was true, if the so called "lower animals" were capable of human emotion, and even acquisition of language, what did that say about god? What did that say about creation? I had the profound feeling that I was no longer alone, that maybe humans aren't as special as we like to think we are.

Today I read about great apes and other self-aware highly intelligent non-human animals with voracious curiosity. Koko doesn't scare me at all (when I saw a picture of her on her 42nd birthday I felt incredibly happy for her). When exploring the world of animal cognition and the several long term studies that have been done, I feel more connected to the world. One of the major parts of my life that has changed since letting go of my old ideas is an intense connection to the world and everything in it. Many religions have a focus on the afterlife, and as a child, I spent so much time focused on what would happen after my death that I couldn't live in the present. Now I experience every moment as it happens (at least, I try to). And with that awareness and ability to be present come empathy and desire for understanding. I want to understand and respect all living things, human or otherwise.

Here is some more cool stuff because I'm a geek for animals:
A Quick Video About Alex The Parrot
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh Talks About Her Work With Bonobos
A Super Cool Study Finds That Very Young Human Infants Respond to Lemur Calls

No One Dies A Virgin, Life Fucks Us All

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna talk about sex, so yanno, be prepared.

I don't believe in virginity, I don't believe in it as a concept. I think there are a lot of really interesting and misogynistic ideals wrapped up in the whole virginity thing, and I'm just going to start at the top and unpack. But to start with, here's my ultimate favorite quote on virginity (aside from the one I used as the title, which is by the inestimable Kurt Cobain):

“I think the concept of virginity was created by men who thought their penises were so important it changes who a woman is.”
(I found this lovely quote on tumblr, here, where the page background is a bunch of vulvas, which is cool ^-^)

So, virginity. What is it? Lets get specific for a minute, Merriam Webster considers virginity to be "the quality or state of being virgin; especially maidenhood". What's maidenhood you ask? Back to Merriam Webster we go, " the quality, state, or time of being a maiden". Maidenhood is also an old euphemism for the hymen (along with maidenhead), but we'll discuss anatomy in a moment.

So, essentially, a virgin is a woman who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. Wait, what, men can be virgins too? But the word is almost exclusively used on women and is feminine in origin*. Virginity is a lady thing, I'm going to explain why.

Here's where we return to the hymen, in ye olde days (and today) an intact hymen was considered the proof of virginity. A woman could be (and still can be) examined by a doctor and presented with a certificate of virginity. Vaginal bleeding on the wedding night is also considered proof of maidenhood. This actually still happens among some intensely patriarchal cultures, and hymenoplasty (reconstruction of the hymen) is more common that you would expect. And it doesn't only happen way off in wherever you think patriarchy still happens, because, yanno, patriarchy still happens everywhere.

So, if the hymen is how we tell who is and isn't a virgin, people with penises are incapable of being virgins, and people with vaginas who engage in penetrative anal sex are still virgins. Obviously there's the whole "letter of the law vs. spirit of the law" but that's the problem, we don't even know what "sex" constitutes. If a girl masturbates, is she still a virgin? If she gives a guy a blowjob, has she lost her virginity? What if she has sex with another girl?

The point is, virginity is meaningless. It is a socially constructed ideal that upholds women's sexuality as a commodity for men. That is what certificates of virginity are all about, proving that a woman is unsullied, not damaged goods. The entire concept of virginity is based in women being objectified.

*the word virgin is descended from the Latin word for "young woman". The constellation Virgo, for instance, is "the young woman". Not "the virgin" as English would use the word now. She's been linked to fertility  goddesses, so not a virgin. Also, consider how virgin is a compliment and an expectation when applied to an unmarried woman, but an insult when applied to a man. Now keep considering it. Go on, think hard. And while you're at it, think about what that says about our culture.

The Great End of Summer Man-Off

It's that time of year again, my brothers are going back to college. I'll miss them, as misogynistic and annoying as they can be, I'll certainly miss them.

Wednesday night involved cupcakes, the friends of my siblings, and a viewing of The Italian Job. After the movie I got to chatting with one of my younger brothers, and his friend. For some reason, we started talking about self defense (probably because my younger brother and his friend are oddly obsessed with legal violence). I chimed in, since I work at a warehouse and am occasionally there alone and therefore actually have a reason to think about self defense (although, granted, not much of a reason). The conversation escalated until we were hypothetically choosing weapons to fend of hypothetical attackers. Something about it galled me, but I wasn't sure what.

Then, from across the room a friend of my sister (T.) broke in "do you guys have to keep talking about violence?"

He was genuinely disturbed by our conversation. Then I realized why I was so unnerved, while the conversation had disturbed me as well I felt that somehow I could not back out of it. I was having a man-off with these two dudes, and you don't back down from a man-off. I had to defend my manhood (womanhood? Whatever) or else admit to dishonor. I held on for a few more minutes, then decided that defending whatever the hell I was defending by not being the first one to leave the conversation wasn't really worth my time. I went across the room and talked to T. about musicals. It was much more edifying.

Manhood and manliness are weird. For some reason my younger brother has always treated me more or less like "one of the guys" perhaps because of my intense disgust with "girly things". In fact, we talked about what actresses we found most attractive way back before I even considered coming out. He's given me a glance into the world of manliness, and I don't really like what I see. The whole thing seems overly complicated and constricting. Gender roles are confusing, I think I'll stay queer.