abuse | Amplifying the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women

2015-02-062015-04-10 Iris Vander Pluym Iris Vander Pluym's Blog, salon

PSA for Christian d00ds: DO NOT MARRY US. PLEASE.

[TRIGGER WARNING: domestic violence and abuse. Please note: although this post focuses on abuse perpetrated by men against women within the context of heterosexual relationships, “red flags” for abuse can apply to relationships comprising partners of any gender or orientation. Resources for a diverse range of abuse and sexual assault victims appear at the end of this post.]

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Some doucheweasel of the pastor species who dwells in New York City of all places—as if we don’t have enough problems here already with the entitled banksters, murderous cops, Rupert Murdoch’s legions and other assorted pimples on the ass of humanity—has helpfully assembled a list for his fellow brothers-in-Christ entitled 10 WOMEN CHRISTIAN MEN SHOULD NOT MARRY. One might imagine such a list would look something like this:

Rebecca Watson.
Sikivu Hutchison.
Malala Yousafzai.
Annie Laurie Gaylor.
Susan Jacoby.
Lindsay Lohan.
…etc.

Okay, maybe Ms. Lohan is Christian wife material—I have no idea. But this kind of practical, specific advice is NOT, in fact, what is on offer from pastor Stephen Kim of Mustard Seed Church in New York City. No. Instead, we get ten characteristics that, should a Christian man detect in his potential mate, ought to send him running for the hills screaming “I WILL NEVER, EVER MARRY YOU!”

Loyal Readers™ will be unsurprised to learn that yours truly pegs at least nine out of ten of these features—and, depending on the age of my would-be Christian suitor, all ten. But frankly I am worried sick about ladies who might not be as fortunate as I am, and could find themselves accidentally married to a Christian d00d. Because let me tell you, at least according to the pastor, Christian men are terrible: judgmental, controlling, immature, closed-minded, comically insecure—and, less amusingly, display more than a few of the classic red flags of abusers. So I sincerely commend pastor Kim for providing this valuable public service in highlighting ten qualities women urgently need to cultivate in themselves, in order to guard against the dismal fate that is Christian wifehood.

1. The Unbeliever.

The pastor is clear that a Christian d00d marrying a non-Christian woman is strictly forbidden. The key concern here is ostensibly “idolatry,” i.e. the couple and their children turning away from the Christian god to worship other, presumably more fun and interesting gods. But if idolatry were really the concern, atheist women should still be marriageable: as a rule, we do not worship any gods. (Well, except for Lord Shiva, of course. I thought that went without saying.) The fact is, we are never going to skip off into the woods with our little Gaia and Thor in tow for a Wiccan mass and drunken orgy, unless of course the wine being served is a particularly good vintage of Provence rosé. So idolatry cannot be the real reason to warn Christian men away from unbelievers. No, it’s because these d00ds are so painfully insecure that they cower in abject terror at the very thought of an honest conversation about their beliefs. Because of their extreme emotional fragility, they strive to remain at all times inside a tight, self-referential echo chamber: unchallenged, willfully ignorant, incurious and intellectually bankrupt. You know: like a Fox News viewer.

Ladies, just get thyself some pentagram jewelry, and be troubled no more.

Amulet pendant, $7.50

Pathological narcissism: “A narcissist cannot tolerate criticism. This does not just mean that a narcissist will reject or dislike criticism, but that he will escalate and lash out in the face of it.”

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2. The Divorcee.

According to pastor Kim, a second marriage is “invalid and adulterous. A divorced woman, therefore, is off limits for a Christian man–unrepentant adultery being a sin that prevents one from obtaining eternal life (1 Cor 6:9).”

Whew! Good thing I am an unrepentant adulterer! But for you unfortunate ladies who are not unrepentant adulterers, fret not. There is a fix: marry a kind, hot foreign d00d who needs a US work visa. (Preferably a wealthy one: apparently these sham marriages can be quite lucrative!) When he gets his green card you divorce him and voilà: you are officially off limits to Christian d00ds.

But really, this objection rings hollow. It sounds an awful lot like the toxic purity culture right wing Christians want to enforce on all of us.

Also: “eternal life?” Why would anyone want that? And even if you did want that, wouldn’t you much rather be a vampire? I know I sure would. Vampires are hot.

Alex Skarsgard, people. Alex Skarsgard.

Jealousy: “Jealous behavior is one of the surest signs that abuse is down the road.”

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3. The Older Woman.

Whether you can claim this exemption or not depends on the relative age of the Christian d00d in question. At first I didn’t get what could possibly be the problem here, but then the pastor helpfully ‘splained:

I want to remind you that God intentionally (with good reason!) created Adam before Eve in the First Marriage. Scripture informs us that God created man first chronologically for the sake of authority! Listen: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:12-13).

Sure, that sounds totally legit.

Attracted to vulnerability: “abusive men are attracted to women much younger and/or at different developmental and maturity levels than them…He is attracted to the power imbalance in this type of relationship.”

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4. The Feminist.

Feminism is the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Are you instead committed to the political, economic, and social inequality of the sexes? Then ask your doctor whether Christian Marriage® is right for you!

The pastor has some, um, interesting things to say about feminism:

Any woman who tries to usurp her husband’s authority or even claims to be a co-leader with her man is gravely dishonoring the God who created her to be subject and obedient to her husband (Eph 5:22, Col 3:18, 1 Pet 3:1).

It seems to me if this god designed men (though not women) so inadequately that they each require a permanent personal slave, then he should be the one providing those services for the helpless creatures himself. There’s a fantastic shop on Christopher Street that sells the perfect outfits and accoutrements for that sort of thing, FYI.

Sexist attitude: “Abusers tend to enforce rigid gender roles or believe in the traditional male ‘head of the household’ role.” Also: “gender inequalities increase the risk of violence by men against women and inhibit the ability of those affected to seek protection.” Plus: “Does your partner have strong ideas about the place and position of women vs. men?” Because RUN.

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5. The Sexy-Dresser.

Why yes, thank you, I will indeed show some leg and/or cleavage when I feel like it. Probably not at the grocery store or a funeral, but if it makes me feel happy and confident to wear Those Shoes or That Lipstick I’ma do it. For me. Sadly, our pastor friend does not approve:

The way that a woman is willing to expose herself says much about her heart: “And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart” (Proverbs 7:10). The text in Proverbs explains that a woman will dress in a certain way to catch a certain type of man. Don’t be that man.

What type of man pray tell is our harlot attempting to “catch”? The “type” who finds her devastatingly attractive and would dearly love to fuck her? Because clearly these are NOT qualities any woman would want in a long term partner, amirite? (!!!)

Note also the Evil Temptress vs. poor unwitting prey framing. Seems pastor Kim believes men are constitutionally incapable of finding someone sexually attractive and not acting on it. Yet in my experience, men are indeed capable of behaving better than feral dogs. Christian men? I guess not so much. So sex it up, ladies! Wear whatever makes you feel happy and confident! Just be extra careful not to unwittingly snare yourself a Christian d00d—apparently they are THE WORST.

Jealous accusations: “Has your partner jokingly or seriously complained that you were trying to attract other men/women by the way you walk, dress, or behave?” If so, STFU & Go Away® might be right for him!

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6. The Loud-Mouth.

HAHAHAHA! When someone spews harmful bullshit, I speak up (if it’s safe to do so). I consider it the moral duty of a decent human being. As a woman of course, I have been cut off, interrupted, ignored and spoken over by d00ds, in professional and personal contexts, more times than I could even begin to count. Men do these things to establish status and dominance, presumably among other males, since most women think these moves are sure signs of insecure and disrespectful blowhards. Tellingly, even when women are purposefully allotted equal time to speak, the perception is that they’re actually getting far more time than an equal share. Dale Spender, Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill explain this phenomenon:

The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.

In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts.

Men like…pastor Kim, whom you may recall favorably citing 1 Timothy 2 above: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Let me put it this way: the more people like pastor Kim keep talking, the louder I will get. Who knew it was so easy to repel Christian men just by speaking up? Get yourself a bullhorn, ladies, and don’t be afraid to use it.

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7. The Child-Hater.

Do not marry a woman who is not willing to have children of her own. In the Christian worldview, there is absolutely no room for two married, biologically capable, human beings to remain intentionally child-less.

You know, occasionally a friend will remark on my apparent dislike for children. This observation is not accurate: I dislike assholes, and I do not discriminate based on age. If there happens to be a lot of overlap between the two—and in my neighborhood there definitely is—that is not my problem to solve. I am intentionally childless for many reasons I won’t go into here, except to say that as an unrepentant adulterer, I am absolutely overjoyed every single fucking day that I never did spawn with my abusive ex. But the pastor, he no likee:

If you are adverse towards having children, then there’s a simple remedy for that: single-hood.

By which he means celibacy, of course. Hahaha nope. He may not be aware of this, but there’s actually another simple remedy for that: it’s called birth control. So if you suspect your fiancé may be a Christian d00d, tell him you hate kids and are having your tubes tied. That should get rid of your problem.

Reproductive coercion: “coercion by male partners to become pregnant and to control the outcome of a pregnancy — has been associated with a history of both intimate partner physical and sexual violence.”

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8. The Wander-Luster.

There is something very wrong with a girl who regularly needs to be “out of the home.”

Well, yes. A girl needs a safe and supportive home environment—what with being a minor and all.

The constant desire for new experiences, new places, new faces, and new forms of entertainment only serves to clearly manifest the fact that the woman has not found her rest in God. Believe it or not, Scripture speaks repeatedly about such women: “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home” (Proverbs 7:11).

Translation: a woman’s entire world should be narrowed to her home. Otherwise, Jeezus haz a sad.

Just remember ladies: LOUD & WAYWARD FTW.

Isolation: “An abuser will attempt to isolate the victim by severing the victim’s ties to outside support and resources. The batterer will accuse the victim’s friends and family of being ‘trouble makers.’”

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9. The Career Woman.

Modern American society might hate to hear this, but God made men to be the providers and women to be the nurturers of the home (in most instances). It’s okay for a woman to be a doctor, attorney, or any other professional. However, if her career is coming at the expense of her home, then something is wrong.

Ugh, here we go again with the home. The home! The home! I get it: meaningful and fulfilling work is not what a Christian d00d wants for his partner, nor does he want to be a nurturing partner at home. Ew.

The woman ought to be willing (and even desirous–to some extent) to give up her job for the sake of raising her kids in the Lord. “So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander” (1 Tim 5:14).

There’s your solution right there: just don’t give a flying fuck what your enemies—for example, Southern Baptists—say about you.

Economic abuse: “a form of abuse when one intimate partner has control over the other partner’s access to economic resources, which diminishes the victim’s capacity to support him/herself and forces him/her to depend on the perpetrator financially… Economic abuse in a domestic situation may involve: preventing a spouse from resource acquisition, such as restricting their ability to find employment, maintain or advance their careers, and acquire assets…and when victims are asked why they stay in abusive relationships, ‘lack of income’ is a common response.”

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10. The Devotion-less Woman.

Is the woman having a regular, daily devotional time with her God? If she doesn’t love the Lord now, chances are, she won’t love the Lord after marriage.

OMG I loooove Lord Shiva! And I worship him with all my…er, heart! Heart.

You want to marry a girl who has an intimate relationship with Jesus.

Wait, with who now? No, I definitely don’t see myself in a compatible relationship—intimate or otherwise—with a d00d who is a petty little shit to his mom and brothers, and also to fig trees, and who calls a desperate woman and her sick child “dogs”. I mean, I FUCKING LOVE FIGS.

Jesus (not you) has to be the first man in her life.

Okay, that is not going to work out with one of these narcissists for a partner. Trust me on this.

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So what have we learned? Christian men are to be studiously avoided, and there are plenty of easy and inexpensive ways to repel them. Also: apparently I am at least ten women in one.

Finally, remember kids: it’s feminists who have little regard for men.

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RESOURCES FOR ABUSE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS

Resources for a diverse range of abuse and sexual assault victims – See more at: http://www.secularwoman.org/PSA_for_Christian_d00ds_DO_NOT_MARRY_US_PLEASE.#sthash.Kw9p8VsC.dpuf

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: Computer use can be monitored and is impossible to completely clear. If you are afraid your internet or computer usage might be monitored, please use a safer computer or phone.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RESOURCES:

US: National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)/TTY 1−800−787−3224
UK: Women’s Aid: 0808 2000 247.
Australia: 1800RESPECT at 1800 737 732.
Worldwide: International Directory of Domestic Violence Agencies, a global list of helplines and crisis centers.

FOR MALE VICTIMS OF ABUSE:
U.S. & Canada: The Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men & Women
UK: ManKind Initiative
Australia: One in Three Campaign

RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT RESOURCES:

U.S: National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE); National Sexual Assault Online Hotline.
International: See here.

RESOURCES FOR MALE VICTIMS OF RAPE & SEXUAL ASSAULT:

MaleSurvivor. (“provides critical resources to male survivors of sexual trauma and all their partners in recovery by building communities of Hope, Healing, & Support.”)
One in 6. (“Our mission is to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives.”)

RESOURCES FOR TRANS* VICTIMS (staffed exclusively by trans volunteers):
Trans Lifeline http://www.translifeline.org/
US: (877) 565-8860
Canada: (877) 330-6366
See also LGBT: stop-homophobia.com

2014-11-142015-04-17 Iris Vander Pluym Iris Vander Pluym's Blog, salon

Andrew Sullivan: FREE SPEECH™ of straight white d00ds dooooomed by evil feminists.

Portrait of Andrew Sullivan

by Iris Vander Pluym
oil on canvas, 30 ft. x 50 ft.
$10 million

[TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of sexist, racist and other problematic language.]

Friends, I am sorry to report that FREE SPEECH™ is, for all intents and purposes, dead. And not just in Dawkinsland either, where Richard and his fellow…what's the word?… "rationalists" I believe they call themselves, are at this very moment cowering in abject fear of no exaggeration witch hunts, actual Inquisitions and literal Orwellian Thought Police. As I'm sure we can all imagine, that is exactly what it is like being rebuked for saying factually wrong or long-debunked shit on Twitter—or worse, being informed that you've just said something harmful to people who are not you. Can you even imagine? Thankfully, Dawkins & Co. keep on bravely fighting the good fight for FREE SPEECH™ for all of us, by brilliantly deploying the tried-and-true tactic of repeating rape culture tropes that have plagued sexual assault victims for millennia. THOUGHT EXPERIMENTIN'! BREAKIN' TABOOS! PHILOSOPHIZIN'! 'SPLAININ' LOGIC! If that doesn't make feminists shut the fuck up, surely nothing will. I mean, what is the point of even having FREE SPEECH™ if other people are going to actually criticize things you say?

But this terrifying campaign of violent censorship has now gone far beyond even that. Andrew Sullivan, "conservative-libertarian" columnist, reports with alarm that "The SJWs Now Get To Police Speech On Twitter." For the uninitiated, "SJW" stands for Social Justice Warrior, i.e., a person who advocates for equality and against bigotry and oppression with respect to race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. (Believe it or not, SJW is actually meant as derogatory slur.) So what exactly are these jack-booted thugs doing to end FREE SPEECH™ on Twitter?

Well, a group called WAM! (Women, Action & the Media) has just entered into a pilot program in collaboration with Twitter intended to address the epidemic of gender-based harassment and abuse plaguing the platform. The purpose is to "learn about what kind of gendered harassment is happening on Twitter, how that harassment intersects with other kinds of harassment (racist, transphobic, etc.), and which kinds of cases Twitter is prepared (and less prepared) to respond to." WAM! will work with Twitter to track the data and improve their responses. The way it works is pretty straightforward: if you're being harassed on Twitter, you fill out this form on the WAM! site. Once they verify your information, they escalate it a.s.a.p. directly to Twitter, and try to get you a quick resolution. WAM! makes clear right on the form that they can only advocate: they have neither the authority nor the ability to make decisions or take any action on behalf of Twitter.

Just to be clear: we are not talking here about hurt fee-fees because somebody tweeted something mean at me and now I haz a sad. We are talking about relentless threats of violent rape and gruesome death, some credible enough that recently at least three women have been driven from their own homes. We are talking about violations of federal law under 18 U.S. Code § 875(c), which provides that "Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." In New York State, we are talking about a class A misdemeanor under § 120.50(3), or depending on the circumstances, possibly a class E or D felony. In a case like Zerlina Maxwell's, we are also talking about a hate crime subject to enhanced sentencing. And more to the point, we are talking about violations of Twitter's own terms of service, which Twitter itself has proven unable to enforce.

This is the FREE SPEECH™ hill that Andrew Sullivan is prepared to die on.

If you think about it, it's actually kind of shitty that a nonprofit like WAM! has to step in and do this work for Twitter (to say nothing of local, state and federal law enforcement). But to Twitter's credit, this certainly represents a step in the right direction, and one with the potential to lead to in-house reforms.

But not for Andrew Sullivan. Oh, no. He is filled with the foreboding sense that this unholy alliance between WAM! and Twitter portends the end of FREE SPEECH™ as we know it. In his mind, "Twitter has empowered leftist feminists to have a censorship field day." And Sullivan does not like these lefty-feminists one bit, no siree! So much so that he imagines—naturally based on no evidence whatsoever—that WAM!s actual Sooper Seekrit Agenda™ is ultimately enforcing "gender quotas for all media businesses, equal representation for women in, say, video-games, gender parity in employment in journalism and in the stories themselves." Gender quotas! LOL! Also: simply stating the demonstrable fact that straight, white males have overwhelmingly dominated public discourse is disparaging straight white males as a group. And sure, WAM! may say their mission is to advocate for the inclusion of more diverse and historically marginalized voices in media, but Andrew Sullivan ain't buying it: "WAM can get to advance their broader ideas about policing the speech of white straight males by this legitimizing alliance with Twitter." WAM!'s real goal, he knows, "is to police and punish others for their alleged sexism." Never mind that, again, WAM! cannot censor anything, anywhere (except their own web site). Twitter is "handing over the censorship tools to a radical activist group bent on social transformation."

Obviously, if these terrible lefty feminist censors are not stopped pronto, next thing you know straight white men will be the ones fleeing their homes in fear for their lives. Just like Richard Dawkins.

Seriously, though, the whole rant is wildly entertaining. "Instead of seeing the web as opening up vast vistas for all sorts of voices to be heard," he writes with comical cluelessness, "they seem to believe it is rigged against female voices." D00d. In case the fourth paragraph of this very blog post did not adequately demonstrate for you that the web is quite clearly "rigged against female voices," a recent Pew research study found that (a) women overall are disproportionately targeted by the most severe forms of online abuse, (b) 25 percent of young women have been sexually harassed online, and (c) 26 percent have experienced stalking.

And guess what else? Queer women, women of color, trans women and women with other marginalized identities are especially targeted and abused. Sullivan quotes WAM!'s Jaclyn Friedman:

“I see this as a free speech issue,” Friedman said. She said she knew some would see the work WAM does as “censorship,” but that a completely open and unmoderated platform imposes its own form of censorship. It effectively prevents women, especially queer women and women of color, from getting to speak on the service.

Behold, his insightful retort:

How exactly? Does Twitter prevent women of color from using the service? Or is it simply that WAM believes that women cannot possibly handle the rough-and-tumble of uninhibited online speech?

Yes, that must be it: it's feminists who believe women are delicate flowers who cannot possibly handle the "rough-and-tumble of uninhibited online speech." Like routine rape and death threats, doxxing (releasing private information such as home addresses, phone numbers, employer, etc. in order to get people to harass women offline, too), libel, hate speech, revenge porn and all sorts of other "rough-and-tumble," "uninhibited online speech" Sullivan is apparently so invested in protecting. FREE SPEECH™, y'all.

Then he says:

I can find no reason to oppose a stronger effort by Twitter to prevent individual users from stalking or harassing others –

Okay! That's fantastic. We're all on board, then.

but

Uh-oh…

if merely saying nasty things about someone can be seen as harassment,

It can't. Because that's not actually what the word "harassment" means.

then where on earth does this well-intentioned censorship end? Is it designed to censor only misogyny and not racism?

No, dear. It's designed to curtail harassment and abuse. And it's starting with misogynist harassment and abuse, albeit with an intersectional focus (racism, transphobia, etc.). FYI, the group is called Women, Action & Media.

What about blasphemy?

Let's see. I just tweeted this:

"Jeezus fookin' Christ.
That is all."
-@irisvanderpluym

I await the terrifying Feminazi Stormtroopers who will be smashing in my door any minute, and dragging me away to be burned at the stake with all the "rationalists."

Of course no one wants to prevent Andrew Sullivan or anyone else from embarrassing themselves on Twitter. I mean, what would we do around here all day without conservatives providing a steady stream of hilarious blog fodder? Unfortunately, how these nefarious evildoers at WAM! will accomplish all of their evildoing by forwarding misogynist harassment complaints to some people at Twitter is left unstated by Sullivan. But I'll definitely be bringing it up at next week's regular meeting of the White-Straight-Man-Hating Social Justice Warriors For Censorship and World Domination™.

[cross-posted at perry street palace.]

2014-08-282015-04-10 Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson's Blog, salon

Your Children Are the Enemy

The text from my mother read: “You should control her right from the beginning. Kids respect you that way.”

I froze in shock as I read this, the most naked statement I’d ever heard my mother make about her parenting philosophy. We were discussing the upcoming birth of my daughter and how excited I am to meet her, to learn her personality, much as I would a new friend.

My mother’s statement especially shocked me for another reason – the simple fact that she’d raised my siblings and me in a singularly laissez faire manner for the first half of our childhood. Toward the end, we didn’t even live in the same house as my parents. We lived next door in a completely separate house where we made our own meals, did our own chores, and generally lived unsupervised except for occasional, unexpected, and confusing crack downs. Periodically, my parents threatened to and sometimes did install devices, sensors, etc. to monitor our movements. I particularly remember when my stepfather installed a front door sensor, which was intended to send a signal to their house whenever we entered or exited. We used to have fun deliberately tripping it, over and over again until my mother would call us to yell angrily. There was also a sensor for the driveway. A car driving over it would set off yet another signal in my parents’ house, letting them know what time we were arriving home or alerting them that we were trying to sneak our car out the drive. I think, though, that the signals must have become annoying to them as they were eventually disabled.

Despite what these strange and draconian tactics seemed to imply, my parents were generally not involved in our lives. They neither knew our teachers nor our favorite TV shows. My mother had no idea that I loved to read until I was 16. They played no active role and my friends always said that it was funny they had never met my parents. So, one can see why I was somewhat taken aback by my mother’s text. Her peculiar mix of obsessive control and lack of involvement didn’t seem to match up with her stated belief that kids should be controlled from birth so that they learn to fear their parents.

It took me awhile to look back and see it, but I think I now know why she wrote that text. Before my stepfather arrived, I grew up in a pretty secular household. We went to church exactly three times in my early childhood. In fact, I’m not even sure what inspired these attempts at religiosity; none of us actually believed. But when I was 13, my mother married a nice, soft-spoken Catholic man who attended mass every week. She decided that we should all join him, so that we’d be a nice family. It was all very strange, new, and boring for us, but we went. Soon thereafter, she began to crack down on us in new ways, such as the sensors, redoubling her efforts to mold us into that nice family. But it was too late for us. We hadn’t grown up that way and the change was extremely confusing. Naturally, we rebelled.

About then, with my stepfather, my mother also began listening to talk radio. My mother’s favorite show was Dr. James Dobson’s call-in parenting and family advice show. Dobson is the founder of Focus on the Family, an evangelical non-profit association that is the vehicle for his conservative, fundamentalist views on social policy and family life. Dobson is also a psychologist and spends much of his time pontificating on parenting. He has authored several books on the subject and is considered an authority amongst his flock. His views on parenting can basically be summed up as training a child to be fearful of and responsive to authority.

I was too busy being a teenager at the time to notice, but it seems that my mother was quietly buying into the teachings of Dobson and other advocates of authoritarian parenting, such as Michael and Debi Pearl, who advocate abusing infants in the name of a godly family life. Luckily for us, my siblings and I were all of, or approaching, an age at which the physical discipline central to these teachings would be ineffective. The only option remaining is what I call psychological warfare.

I don’t use this term lightly. Dobson’s and the Pearls’ teachings are based on the idea that your children are, quite literally, the enemy, that they are born in original sin, and that their spirit must be crushed in the name of god. They reduce family life to a power struggle, a microcosm of that greater struggle between good and evil that evangelicals quite literally believe in. If you are unfamiliar with these teachings, check out Libby Anne’s blog, Love, Joy, Feminism, where she, as survivor of such abuse, recounts her story, the stories of others, and even critiques the Pearls’ seminal works, passage by passage. You can find other survivors’ stories at No Longer Quivering and Homeschoolers Anonymous. You will quickly see that families that adhere to these teachings are not only families in which children are the enemy, but they are also families where the abuse can be so severe that children are murdered by their parents.

Again, I was very lucky. I did not endure the kinds of physical abuse that many suffered because I was too old by the time my mother became interested and she was only ever a peripheral devotee, nor was I homeschooled and therefore isolated. But I did suffer knowing that my mother never accepted me for who I was. She regarded me merely as a naturally disobedient child who couldn’t even be kept in check, or fundamentally changed, by years of emotional turmoil and unconscionable surveillance. It took me quite some time to recover from the feeling of never being okay as I am. Even today, I find myself surprised that children around me are granted a basic level of privacy that I could never imagine as a kid. Their parents don’t periodically upend their bedrooms in military-like searches for I-never-figured-out-what, don’t listen in on their phone calls, and don’t threatened them with surveillance cameras.

It now seems like this happened to a different Autumn. I have no idea where it came from, but I had always been a pretty “rebellious” spirit with some seriously feminist leanings. I am grateful for that because I think it’s the only reason I, a very troubled and emotional child, didn’t crumble. It will be the only reason why I can commit to letting my daughter tell me who she is as a person, while providing healthy boundaries with plenty of space for her to explore.

***

After sitting for a moment with the phone in my hand, contemplating that text, I wrote back, “I don’t see the connection. I know that I never felt respect for any adult who tried to control me.”

2014-06-142015-06-26 Elsa Roberts Elsa Roberts' Blog, salon

The Devil Made Me Do It: How Christianity Enables Sexual Abusers

By Elsa Roberts, Follow her on Twitter

An article that was recently published by Christianity Today has rightfully infuriated many people, Christians and atheists alike. Since publication, Christianity Today has been getting significant pushback (see hashtag #TakeDownThatPost) for publishing the piece, and late Friday night, as I was putting the finishing touches on this article, they took it down and posted an apology. However, that does not negate the fact that they published this piece in the first place and, as an ex-fundamentalist Christian, I find their initial choice to publish it utterly unsurprising and completely in line with common Christian doctrine surrounding sin and sex.

The article in question is by an anonymous felon who is in prison for sexually assaulting (and having a coercive sexual relationship with) a minor under his charge while he was a youth minister. However, from the tenor of the article it is impossible to tell that this is the case. It is framed by the site and the author as a consensual extramarital affair, where the wrongdoing is located in adultery, with the explicit implication that anyone can be lead into this “sin”. Except that is not what this is at all – there never was a consensual sexual relationship; the crime and morally reprehensible act is not cheating but sexually coercing and assaulting a child/young adult.

According to common Christian doctrine, the girl who was victimized and the pastor are both guilty of sexual sin because the girl “tempted” the pastor and “allowed” this so-called relationship to take place. Because she wasn’t physically forced (at least not by the perpetrator’s account), she is equally or at least partially culpable. Additionally, instead of casting this man as a predator who manipulates and abuses, Christianity* conveniently plays along with this manipulative tale of how anyone can “fall into sexual sin”, thus absolving the perpetrator of any real responsibility for his behavior or acknowledgement of what his actions truly constitute.

Growing up in fundamentalist Christianity I witnessed this attitude continually. Sin was something anyone could fall into or commit, and all sins were equal in the eyes of God – therefore, sexual abuse was just one more sin and victims were closely scrutinized to see if their actions had led someone to sin. As long as the sinner asked for forgiveness, all was well again and it was the victim’s responsibility to forgive their abuser or else they were sinning as well (along with the not infrequent insinuation that the victim was also somehow at fault for tempting the perpetrator). There was no difference in their eyes between two teenagers “falling into sin” by having a consensual sexual relationship and one person sexually assaulting another – both were simply sexual sin.

In many circles there was an additional assumption that the victim must have done something for God to “allow” this to happen: the victim was, perhaps, not under the “umbrella of protection”, or was behaving or dressing “immodestly”. The concept of enthusiastic consent and that a victim never invites assault was not only rejected, but conflicted with common interpretations of the Bible and the many passages that place the onus on the girl/woman to avoid rape by being virtuous. To illustrate, a pastor at a church I attended as a child counselled a man who was sexually abusing his daughters, but no one saw any reason to report him because he was seeking counseling through the pastor and asked for forgiveness for his sin (which he, of course, kept repeating). And in another story, a woman I know was frequently sexually assaulted by her father and at times molested in front of her mother – her mother’s response was to accuse her of being a temptress and to ignore the abuse. In fundamentalist Christianity there is always an easy cause for sin: Satan, who is often seen as acting through the victim and leading the sinner astray.

Christian outlets will continue to publish the missives of manipulators like this because their philosophy and doctrine support it – changing that narrative within the church requires a complete reinterpretation (and I would argue, rewriting) of the Bible around the concept of sin and forgiveness, among other things.

I prefer to construct a secular ethical and moral code that doesn’t require rewriting a mythos that has no value to me – especially because I personally find religion to have harmful consequences, ultimately, because it relies on a refusal to examine and discard beliefs for which there is no evidence. The fact remains, though, that religion is a powerful force, and no amount of evidence will convince most people to abandon it. Working from within to change narratives that support and foster abuse is necessary, and a task I hope progressive Christians continue with, though it is not work I can participate in.

Although Christianity Today has removed their article, I believe they should do much, much more. Ask Christianity Today to publish a series on sexual abuse in the church from the perspective of victims. You can contact them by filling out their contact form.

*Note: I am speaking of Christianity generally here, I recognize that not all Christians or Christian sects believe this or act this way.

2013-04-182015-07-22 Elsa Roberts Article

Monsters

Sixth article in Secular Woman’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month series

by Elsa Roberts, follow her on twitter

Rapists are monsters, evil. Child rapists are the king of that monster pack.

They never tell you that those monsters are good friends, a nice neighbor, someone with a good sense of humor, a person who will help a stranger fix a flat. Nobody tells you that.

They don’t tell you that they’re the person you fell in love with, your uncle, your brother, your father. Nobody tells you that.

These rapists, these monsters are someone else, not these people.

That child molester is someone else, not my father.

But he is my father. My father, who told me my feet smelled like roses; my father, who his nieces loved; my father, who taught me how swimming is like floating on air; my father, who bullied my brother; who shouted at my mother; my father, who raped my sister.

My father wasn’t a monster; flawed, yes, but not a monster.

But my father is that monster. Nobody tells you that.

Nobody told me, and now it’s too late.