Please don't tip the activists - a service charge is included in the bill

I generally respect Penny Red's writing, although I don't always agree with her. however, her latest effort, "Tips for activists", leaves me feeling somewhat disappointed.

I like point 1, "Your enemy is never, not ever, the group along from you who happen to disagree with you on one small point of policy, however important you believe that policy is." Point 2 starts off quite well, too: "We do not all have to get along, hold hands in a circle and think about rainbows in order to work together. That's not what successful politics is about". It just goes a little bit pear-shaped at the end with: "Just because someone across the table from you doesn't agree with your economic analysis/position on sex work/ does not make them your enemy. Not when you have a common enemy to contend with."

I think that using sex work in there and treating it as just an academic thing on a par with an "economic analysis" is a mistake to start with. But then there's the very real issue that some activists' positions on sex work have very real consequences for the real, actual lives of other activists - namely, the ones who happen to be sex workers! And that point gets extended to a whole lot of other things, particularly surrounding sexuality. I can't speak properly on behalf of sex workers, but several whose blogs I read regularly have made the point hat when your policy or position says they shouldn't exist, that they should submit themselves to someone else's idea of what is "proper" - that is, if they should sacrifice themselves for YOUR revolution - then they don't want to be a part of that revolution, and no, there is no way you can work together when you say they shouldn't exist. As I say, I can't say for sure that I agree with that as a sex worker, because I'm not a sex worker. but I am a kinky and transgressive person by the very naure of my sexuality, and when people's theories, policies and positions on sadomasochism, bondage, Dominant/submissive kink and whatever else, say that I should not exist - say that I must sacrifice myself for the good of the Revolution, then no - we cannot work together. And yes, actually, that does make that person my enemy, on exactly the same level as the "common" enemy that we supposedly share.

That's why kinky folks, and sex worker folks, simply cannot work with radical feminists who deny them their autonomy, even though they do share some goals (like eliminating trafficking, child abuse, etc).

Which seques neatly into the problem with point 3: "It ain't about you. No, really. The chances are that if you have the time, energy and personal empowerment to join a political or activist group, that's great, but it means that it isn't about you any more. The people on whose behalf you are planning action and getting organised, those people come first, and their needs and wants come before your personal political qualia." As the above passage shows, there's a lot of people who are in some area or another, actually a part of the group on whose behalf they are getting active! Not just kinky, sex worker, trans*, LGB but in more economic circles as well, not everyone in activism is taking on a role of gallant knight at last bringing his skills honed in the tourneys to the rescue of a fair maid; some people actually are fair maids doing it for themselves!

Penny Red saves point 3 by concluding it with "as soon as you let personal ideological quibbles counteract the progress of positive action, you're doing it wrong." It just seems to me that there's a huge gulf between ideological quibbles and stuff that's actually real and happening to people like me (proverbial "me" - a sex worker caring about shit actually happening to sex workers, a kinky person caring about kinkphobic laws/attitudes, trans person caring about actual stuff that affects the lives of trans folks, etc). I think point 3 is trying to address this, but in the muddle of 2 and 3 and more, that gets rather lost.

Point 4 looks good, certainly the bit about kicking out any racist/sexist/homophobe ideologues ("anyone advocating intolerance" I suppose is supposed to cover transphobic, kinkphobic, etc too). But I'm not so sure about "advocating violence". penny groups this in with "intimidation and bullying", which sounds like it's talking about violence aimed at one's own side, which is indeed absolutely not going to work. But I can't help feeling that ultimately, very few human rights advances have ever been won without at least the credible threat of violence being deployed by someone. Yes, there's usually a pacifist/non-violence-ist movement as well (the acceptable face that can negotiate the victory) but people forget that Nelson Mandela (for example) was officially head of a terrorist organisation that the ANC started (he says so in his autobiography); that Martin Luther King was not the only leader in the civil rights movement in the USA, but there were groups like the Black Panthers around as well; that Gandhi may have been a pacifist, but the British left India after large-scale riots there. So "advocating violence", at least on a theoretical level, as a means to achieving real change, shouldn't exclude folks from the movement altogether.

Point 5 is perfect: "If your strategy for achieving social justice won't work until every single mechanism of capitalist society is dismantled from the ground up, then it's time to start work on a back-up plan. Plan A (world socialist revolution) is absolutely fantastic, as long as there's also a Plan B in play for the meantime."

Points 6 and 7, about listening and recruiting, sound good, but I feel like there is more potential there than actual substance to what Penny wrote. Again, I look back to my issues with points 2 and 3. Forming bridges, talking to people, listening, etc - it only works if they're willing to do the same in return. It also depends upon the other side being willing to concede what we need. I realise that's supposed to be covered by point 4, but then we've got to ask where we go to find the wonderful people who won't be nasty.

Point 8 - hey, I live outside of London!

Point 9 - "...watch it again, and remember that it was made in the 1970s, and ask yourself how long it's going to be until we pull our bloody socks up." Exaclty what I thought when I saw it for the first time!

Catching up with an old friend

My oldest and closest friend was back in town this week, and as usual his family here had him completely booked up with appointments to see them all. But we always make a slot to meet up one evening for a pint of beer at my local pub (a pint is all either of us need to get roaring drunk - we are such lightweights, it makes for a VERY cheap night out!) and good old chinwag covering everything from the extremely ridiculous to the slightly sensible.

Fortunately, this time around there wee a couple of hours spare before they were heading home today, so I went around with my ukulele, recorder and an inflatable hammer to meet his daughter (who is nearly 3 years old) and entertain - or be entertained. I have some incredibly cute photos of Little Dizzy, with her Mummy, but I don't have their permission to share them (they probably wouldn't mind, but I think it's not fair to post them without asking Mummy and Daddy first).

For reasons lost in the mists of time, Daddy and Mummy are known to me as Grim and Squeeze (and the lil'un has now become Little Dizzy, see above!), so those are their names for any future references on my blog.

Little Dizzy is wonderfully active - wonderful if you happen not to be her parents, that is! Grim and Squeeze are experiencing the exhaustion of parenthood, and I hear about it frequently. When I played my musical instruments for her, Diz wanted to have a go herself. She played hide-and-seek with Mummy, although her conception of the game seems to be rather different from the usual form (calling out "here I am!" and "No, I'm not over there!" aren't usually a part of hide-and-seek! Also, she seems to think seeking, rather than finding, is the object of the game...) She definitely took to the inflatable hammer, and used it to bop Daddy and Mummy (especially Mummy!) with great glee.

For all her energy and exuberance, though, Dizzy is quite shy and also pretty polite (she's still at the stage of announcing "I want to..." rather than asking "please may I...?" - but she also asks "What can I do now?" and she doesn't just grab at things) Altogether it was a very relaxing and fun time spent in the company of friends with no pressure and lots of engagement. If only engaging with grown-ups could be as easy as I find little kids!

Oh yes - and "Little Dizzy" - because she announced more than once "I'm dizzy!" after doing a rather gymnastic flip from her Daddy's shoulders (Daddy, of course, providing plenty of support and protection against any bumps or falls).

Grim and Squeeze strike me as being wonderful parents and I am so glad to know them both. I've known Grim for a quarter of a century (not always as a friend, but once we became friends, it was permanent!) and Squeeze since they first started dating close to a decade ago now; I've known Little Dizzy only on occasion, but I saw her when she was still only a few weeks old, and I have had chances to visit every now and then since as well. I consider myself very lucky indeed to know them all.

I feel refreshed and much more happy after today's visit. People who can do that are far too rare.

Multi-track mind

This design is going on a t-shirt ASAP!


I'm really excited about the fact that I managed to get the design out of my brain and onto the page, because too many projects and ideas I have get nowhere. I knew going in to the process of transferring it that I would not be able to do a great job, because when it comes to artwork I have never got past the stage I was at when I was about 10. And, of course, it fell a long way short of being perfect.

On the other hand, it also came down a long way far of being poor, too. In fact, it was around about "pretty good!" and that feels really, really good because (as mentioned above) my assessment of my talent with a pen or paintbrush or anything else, is not high.

Next I'm going to think up several double-entendres to cover various different subjects, like "Geology: did the earth move for you?" and so on. (Yes, I know that's really seismology, but I couldn't think of a more general one for geology) These can then go on the back of the shirt!

The gender of trans

This is quite an uncomfortable post to write, because it runs somewhat against my natural inclinations, but at the same time I feel that if I ignore the issues that I'm going to cover, then it will ultimately be to the detriment of open and honest debate, and will not help matters.

Trans folks often complain about being "third-gendered" - when the term is "transwoman" as opposed to "trans woman", then the implication is that "transwoman" is a separate gender from "woman" - whereas in "trans woman", "trans" qualifies (in much the same way as "old woman", "blonde woman", "tall woman" etc), as a prefix it defines. I have always been opposed to the othering, the "third-gendering", that people do, and always welcomed a person as their presented gender without questioning its truth.

However, I found some difficult challenges to this mindset when I read Raven Kaldera's piece Feminist On Testosterone: The View From An Intersexual FTM (found via Trinity's post Interesting!).

A lot of the problems come from the passage entitled, "What did testosterone do to you? Did it make you want to attack and rape women?"

Raven Kaldera writes:

I wish I could say, "It gave me a deep voice, facial and body hair and a receding hairline, muscles, redistributed my body fat, thickened my neck, increased my blood pressure, and cured my depression, and that was all." But I can't. First of all, it's not true; the boy-juice did affect my mind, my emotions, my behavior. It started affecting them within twelve hours of my first shot, and I notice the fluctuation at the end of each two-week shot period, and if I miss a few days or a week.

...

I also learned something chilling about my new sexuality - it was far, far more programmable than it used to be. Before T, my sexual interests were fairly static and increased slowly, one new thing at a time. If I didn't like something, I just didn't like it. After T, I discovered that if I could think about something heretofore not sexually interesting during approximately six masturbation-to-orgasm sessions, that item would become a turn-on in and of itself....no matter what it was. I could literally program myself in a Pavlovian manner to be aroused by whatever I wanted. I found this out by accident, after I inadvertently added a few new dishes to my arousal buffet without meaning to. When I realized this, I sort of sat in shock for a while, and then I said to myself, "Boy, you're going to have to be very, very careful from now on."

So in one fell swoop I learned the reasons for all those guys compulsively collecting porn on the Internet. It's not that women don't do it - I've met some who do - it's just that it seems almost par for the course with testosterone, a constant issue that doesn't go away, that you just learn to live with like you learn to live with daily sexual thoughts.

I just can't connect any of this to my own experience of masculinity, and I don't know that anyone I know could report anything similar. Admittedly, RK writes, "I think most female researchers wouldn't get that concept because they probably don't have it very often (if at all), and most male researchers wouldn't get it because it's too familiar, the air they breathe and the water they swim in." There's a lot of weight to the argument that what we find "normal" we often find invisible, but equally I feel like I should be able to see it if it's there once it's pointed out; after all, I have probably done more "examining" than many men to try to work out where my sexuality comes from!

But I go back to that opening part about noticing the changes, and I remember something from a trans woman of my acquaintance who complained of permanently feeling like a teenager due to the hormones that she takes, and then I look at this passage:

It wasn't psychological; it was just that as each bit of T was slowly absorbed into my bloodstream, it affected the spinal ganglia attached to my dick, and made it get hard. It was terribly random, and had no connection to what I was doing at the time - taking out the garbage, riding the bus. Having fairly constant context-irrelevant sexual stimuli going on all the time is not something that women can generally understand or relate to, and I had to find ways to cope with it.

Now, that's something I can relate to - from my memories of being a male teenager! Indeed, it's a subject that was covered in sex education lessons around age 14-15 when I was at school, because it's so common for teenage boys to get erections from little or no stimulation. And the reason is probably very similar: a huge surge of testosterone to encourage our bodies to develop into adult male bodies. How many more of the differences that I found could also be explained by comparing a teenager with an adult?

I started with jerking off. I'd never had any shame about masturbation (luckily), but before T it had been something I did once in a while in order to make myself feel good. Now it was something I did two, three, or four times a day to relieve an itch, so to speak. I had to learn to treat it like urinating; when you need to relieve yourself, you don't wait around and hope it'll go away; you go off and deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible, and go back to what you were doing. I had to learn that having a hard-on was not an excuse for having sex, because there were just too darn many of them. I had to learn ways to think through them and ignore them if jerking off wasn't appropriate; I learned that violent physical activity can relieve them.

I think a lot of this does reflect teenage experiences, except that teenagers don't always have the maturity to figure out all of the coping mechanisms that RK did. I think this is also a good point to mention that women also need to recognise that an erection is not always an excuse to have sex (that is, just because a penis-bearer has an erection, that doesn't actually mean he wants sex).

The passage about programmable sexuality that I quoted above, and said didn't bear any resemblance to my experience, needs revisiting because as adult men we are told that to delay orgasm and thus maintain erection long enough to please our partners, we should think unsexy or boring thoughts. I don't know how effective this is in general, but I think that a lot of advice given even by good "sexperts" seems to suggest that for most men the "programmable" thesis doesn't hold true. Does it hold true for teenagers, though? And if it does, what does that mean for the Religious Right's assertion that gay folks are made, not born?

I don't have a lot to go on to answer that question, but I am going to come down on the side that it is not true for teenagers. My reasoning is that many teenagers experiment sexually with different sexual concepts and they find what works for them, rather than finding themselves programmed in any particular way. I will accept that the world is more complex than a simpe "yes or no" answer on this question, and that undoubtedly some influence of the "programming" nature may well take place during our formative years, but I am not willing to accept that it is anywhere as clear-cut as RK's self-analysis seems. As I remarked above, my own self-analysis also seems to be that it is not true for me in the development of my kinkiness.

So in one fell swoop I learned the reasons for all those guys compulsively collecting porn on the Internet. It's not that women don't do it - I've met some who do - it's just that it seems almost par for the course with testosterone, a constant issue that doesn't go away, that you just learn to live with like you learn to live with daily sexual thoughts.

With this, my immediate thought was "all those guys?" While I would accept a statement that the majority of men probably have some internet porn stashed away somewhere (I am not willing to make such a statement myself, however, without some evidence!) I think that the men who are compulsively seeking out internet porn are probably relatively few in number - but we have to ask ourselves what is "compulsive" here? We also have to ask ourselves whether there is, in fact, any correlation between testosterone levels and porn usage. I am disinclined to believe that there is, because in general testosterone levels fall gradually as age increases, and yet I would hazard that many of those who collect porn compulsively are middle-aged or even older.

I can't help but come back from RK's piece and think that his experience of maleness, at least as much as that is involved in testosterone, doesn't sound a great deal like mine, or like what I understand of other men's. This brings me backto the disturbing question, "What if this means that the anti-trans folks have a point? Does this mean that trans folks actually are a different sex/gender from the rest of us?" I looked again at what I know from first-hand accounts by trans women and I looked at RK's piece, and I looked at the rather sketchier data/anecdotes I have of othe trans men, and I had to think hard about this.

I struggled with this thought, and I didn't want to accept it. But having cheered when others criticised online radical feminists for ignoring the reality of trans issues, I could not in good conscience do the same myself. This was a question I needed to understand and answer.

But then I remembered that a trans person is not doing any of this for fun. They're treating a medical condition that has left them with a mashed-up brain and body that don't match - or some such thing, anyway. Plenty of people take pretty powerful medication that affects them in all sorts of ways, for all manner of medical conditions; RK's testosterone, my trans woman friend's hormone treatments that render her permanently teenage-brained, etc - thes eare just the same sort of thing.

I want to be absolutely clear here that I am not likening transsexuality to a disease or illness in any way, nor to a disability. But the difference between a trans woman and a cis woman is only the same degree (but not the same type) as the difference between a woman with a medical condition or disability that requires ongoing treatment, and a woman who does not need such treatment. Likewise a trans man to a cis man.

So it still isn't justifiable to third-gender trans folks on the grounds of their different experience of gender.

Physical Imagination and Video Games

I love playing video games, and lately I've been playing through a series of games on Madden '08 (the most recent of the Madden series that I have) on the "NFL Superstar" mode, which puts you in an over-the-shoulder camera view that is as close to a 1st-person game that I can think of in sports sims (not including driving sims and variants thereon, like snowboarding, skateboarding, etc). It allows the player to adopt the role of a character whom you then guide through a career in the NFL.

I have come to realise that I love most playing the positions, or styles, that involve hard hitting: my first (and to date most successful) "Superstar" was a defensive lineman with the same weight and height as yours truly, but rather more strength. My current character is a running back who again resembles me in height (is somewhat lighter than me, but has a huge arse - not sure why I thought that was a good idea, but it seemed fun at the time I created the character!) This running back does not do agility. When I see a defender coming at me, I ram heavily into him and more often than not the defender ends up on his backside (the next guy usually takes me down, but hey!) In short, it's all about hitting people hard, with my body.

At which point we note the language use mutating from third-person "My current character is..." into the first-person "...I ram heavily..." And that's what this post is about.

I have a very powerful imagination. Every hit I make on the Madden 08 video game, I feel physically, even though it only happens in the electronic calculations made by my PlayStation 2, and is represented as a slight trembling of the controller, sounds from the speakers, and a bunch of pixels on my telly. My brain uses these cues and constructs for me a full simulation of the sensations as it happens. My chest and legs, my arms, experience the slamming pain as the fictional, virtual, bodies collide. I don't experience psychosomatic bruising or anything like that, but I experience being winded, the thudding and stinging, the sharpness of the pain, all of it is conjured, and in my mind I am in that situation. If my virtual team mates don't block for me (when I'm the running back - if they didn't cover properly when I was the DL) I experience the emotions as well, as the great wash of anger amplified by the stimulation of pain, overtakes me, and I have been known to yell at the television as though I was on that field and yelling at a team mate whom I felt had not played their part. And as we line up for the next snap, I feel the determination and aggression as I anticipate further contact with the opposing players. When I smash through a tackle and break free to gain a few extra hard-won yards (especially if it moves the chains or, joy of joys, scores a touchdown!), I feel a fiery celebration and triumph - again, I'll snarl at the telly "Come on!", "Fuckin' 'ave that!" or similar declarations of triumph and challenge rolled into one (yes, I know that "Fuckin' 'ave that!" is more of a UK colloquialism, but I'm not channelling a USAian sportsman, I'm just entering into that virtual world with my personality and background intact!)

In short, my imagination is very physical. Even reading can have this effect on me, as I imagine the sensation of each character as they are centred in turn. It isn't quite as direct or visceral as a video game, because it takes a little more time to process a whole sentence than it does to process a picture and sound combination.

Listening to "Creep" by Radiohead, I experience a physical jolt every time when I hear the guitar stabs that build up to the chorus. Listening to metal in general, my body can imagine what it would feel like to be in front of the speakers, being blown away by the pressure waves of the sound. Music is physical for me, but even when I can't have the full physicality of it, my brain offers me some phantom of those sensations anyway.

Then, of course, there are "cyber-scenes" on instant messenger services or IRC; It can be quite scary to get so deeply involved in things that aren't really happening but are only in the imaginations of two people communicating via the internet, but my imagination makes it seem surprisingly real and physical.

Oddly enough, television generally doesn't do any of this for me - it remains resolutely a 3rd-person experience for me, even when the narrator is supposedly one of the characters in the story. I don't know why this is, but I would hazard a guess that it is a combination of two things (possibly more): firstly, there is no interaction with television, so it isn't like a video game, and it isn't like music either (which can be experienced live); secondly, television isn't a purely fictional medium - as well as stories, we also see the news, documentaries, cookery shows, interior decorating shows, etc. These are all about things that happen to real people who aren't me, and that don't involve make-believe, so I guess they train me not to see television the same way as I do video games. Thus, I can empathise with those other people, but not cast myself as them in the way I do my video game characters.

Going back to that sports sim thing with which I started this piece: I wish I could go back 10 or 12 years and tell my younger self how good the pain of contest feels, and tell myself to go out and get involved in some physical sport for real!

Optimal Warp Drive?

The advert for Toyota's new "Optimal Drive" range of cars has me a little bit freaked out. This may just because I have been a fan of science fiction since I first learned to talk, and therefore have a tendency to imagine things a bit more vividly and weirdly than some, but here it is:



Mum uncovers the car by pulling off a silk or satin covering. Mum, Dad and three little children get into the car.

Guy in soccer gear arrives with three of his friends and unveils a new car by pulling off a covering that was the first car!

The soccer guys clamber into the car just in time for a new man to arrive and lift off the covering that was the second car!

This guy is with his (woman, natch) partner and her pet dog, and they all climb into the third car, just in time for a man who's dressed up for a fancy date or possibly a wedding, to run up and sweep away the third car that has become just another covering for a fourth car, into which our late-for-his-date chap hurriedly jumps, and finally drives away.

Now, I get what they're trying to say (I think) with this advert - namely, that the new range is all the same underneath, but it's also very versatile and has a model for every type of person.

But what I got from it is that it makes people disappear into some kind of alternative dimension. Which I find really freaky and scary.

I mean - what happened to that happy family of 5? What happened to the three soccer players and their referee? What happened to the couple and their pet dog? That's 11 people and a dog who have been simply folded and thrown away as each new person came and discarded the previous group! Do they still exist? Could they re-emerge if the fourth car was brought back and the covering was put back over it, or have they completely ceased to exist forever (which would mean that each subsequent group of people effectively murdered the ones before!)? Are they aware of what's happened to them or do they stop being aware the moment they become transformed into the covering that removed them? What is the state of the first group, the family of 5, by the time we get to the fourth car being revealed?

None of them seemed to give any thought to the fate of the last, but none of them seemed aware of what was about to happen either, and it leaves me spooked. It's like the idea that maybe an illusionist isn't really an illusionist, and actually does make a person disappear and kidnaps her (because it's always a her in these stories, somehow!) into a parallel universe or alien world.

I'm never getting into a Toyota ever again, just in case it happens to me!

On being not quite but almost a man

This is a repost here of my comment at TrinityVA's LJ post about gender identity and not fitting in, which I'm posting here mainly as an excuse to put the link to what is turning out to be a very interesting discussion about the fundamental problems with binary genders.

Being in a group of women always made me feel disjointed and off, though I couldn't put my finger on why. People thought I didn't like women; really, I didn't like feeling alone among them, cold and confused, while they laughed and talked and nodded, sharing secret wisdoms.

For me, this was the part that resonated most strongly. If you replace "women" with "men" in the above, then you have a situation that is so familiar to me it hurts. In social situations, I have always felt that I have been "faking it" as a "man", despite my apparent innate qualifications for the role - I am just not "properly" gendered in the social sense as male.

Further down in comments, Trinity writes this fantastic passage:

And that's not right. I have a gender. It's not woman, but it's not man, and it sits between the two, but it isn't some bewildering halfway point. I'm not Something Else, a new element: I'm a synthesis of my body, my mind, the things I've grown up around.

As I observed in my piece on Lady Rosenthyme (and Sucha): "Sucha, Lady R and myself are clearly three different genders/gender identities" - gender can't be clearly defined just by two terms "man", "woman". But so far the only other gender term we have is effectively, "other". Which is a problem. The best way I have to talk about my variegated genders is by the names I have for the personas - Lady Rosenthyme, Sucha etc. - because none of them fit properly "man" or "woman". As Trinity expresses it:

I'm definitely more of "woman-I-guess" than "WTF," but the thing is that... the "I guess" isn't really "yeah, it doesn't matter," it's "yeah, until there's a word for... erm... thingy... yeah... wow, I don't like that 'woman' word much but it's the best of the options..."

My pithy conclusion to all this:

Gender - it's not nearly as easy as it looks!

More Poetry Month: BDSM lyrics without tunes (yet)

These are composed by yours truly, and when I find the time and energy I will be recording them as songs. But I haven't yet even found time and energy to write music for them, so for the moment they look like poems.

The first two were written as responses to some of the radfem or even mainstream society criticisms of my sexuality. The first one is more about D/s, the second one more about SM.

This one is about the importance of informed consent within D/s relationships, and why a genuine Dominant will not Dominate just anyone:

Your True Submission

You couldn't be my servant or my slave
If you're not already free
Unless you own yourself,
You can't belong to me
But if you know your soul and
Your heart's true vision
I will accept your true Submission

1/.

As a girl you came and knelt before me,
I turned you away
You did not know what you gave
What it meant to obey
You thought it was a woman's place and
Didn't make your choice
The mouth that said "take me"
didn't use your voice...

2/.

As a woman you returned
I brought you in
On your knees in front of me
Neither innocence nor sin
With no restraints to hold you back
Nothing to force you on
The choice was yours alone
Free within your bonds


An angel in your pain,
A soul displayed:
You fall and rise again,
A goddess and my slave!

This one, about being a sadist, is very much from my own experience of life as a loving and sadistic person, and the costs it has had for me:

A Sadist's Plea

If I could tell you the times my heart's been broken,
If I could show you the scars I've been left
You couldn't doubt
That I'm capable of love, feeling and trust.
If I could open your eyes to see the world through mine,
If you could walk a mile in my kink
Maybe you'd understand
Why your words grind me to dust.

I get off on giving pain,
My joy is in her screams,
She gives me her desires,
Her nightmares are my dreams;
Evil stalks within the shadows,
But we play with light and fire:
I give her all my passion,
She gives me her desires.

I have walked in dreary sorrow,
I've suffered for my sins;
I've opened up my heart to others
Been victim of their stings.
No one ever stops to question
That I must be hard as stone;
You call me cold and heartless,
Because I stand alone.

All that I am,
I pour upon her,
All that she is
She feeds to me:
No room for greed or hunger
Bound tightly, she is free.

Finally, this one doesn't have any particular feminist impact one way or another, but it is just a celebration of bondage and BDSM slavehood. I guess I should emphasise the significance of the penultimate line, signifying a willing and joyful surrender, as a piece of feminist analysis of this story, but beyond that this is just a poem about what makes me hot and turned on!

Straitened

Binding her tight and true
With no escape, she's never been so free
With my mind on her,
And hers completely on me.
Every inch of skin exposed,
Her every nerve is mine to use,
When she gives up
Her right to refuse…

That's all I've written of that one so far, and reading it back now, I think it's all that needs to be written, so it probably won't become a song, but can stand as a poem as it is.

More Poetry Month: The Rolling English Road

Another of my favourite poems by someone else, this one is the work of G.K. Chesterton. I like it because it is, to me, a hymn of praise for both the British landscape and the easy happiness that is often ignored as a defining feature of Englishness (too often, the character of the wealthy man is used - when talking about invading other people's lands - or else people remember the violence of hooligans). I also like it because Beachy Head and Brighton Pier are landmarks on the coast not far from where I live.

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Answering Conversational Atheist on atonement, sacrifice and knowledge of right & wrong

The Conversational Atheist site has a couple of pieces asking why Jesus had to die, and why didn't he die according to the proper procedures set out in Leviticus?

CA quotes from Leviticus 3:1-5 and 16:29-34 to show that Jesus' death does not match the way in which the atonement sacrifice is supposed to be performed. However, there is one fundamental flaw with that particular choice: because Leviticus 3 describes how a fellowship offering is to be made. The offerings demanded for the day of atonement are burnt offerings (a ram) and a sin offering (a goat) But there is more to the Atonement Day procedure than the slaughter of a goat.

The part of the sacrifice that Jesus' death and resurrection represent is in fact the "scapegoat":

Leviticus 16:20-22

"When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites - all their sins - and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed to the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert."

Jesus' death was his taking the sin into a "solitary place", the most solitary place there is, in fact. According to the Apostles' Creed, that solitary place is in fact Hell.

CA's objection that it was not a priest who did all this still appears at first sight to be valid: indeed, we see no priest lay hands on Jesus' head after John the Baptist (who is a priest according to the laws of the Old Testamant - Luke 1:5-20) performs Jesus' baptism (Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, John 1:29-34). However, in John's version of the baptism of Christ, John the Baptist explicitly states Jesus' purpose:

John 1:29

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

So Jesus has the priestly anointing as the scapegoat for humanity. Even if Jesus had not had that anointing, then he himself by his divine nature would have been sufficient to conduct a form of the ceremony. His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane seem to me to be ample acceptance of this burden before God.

No doubt CA would then argue, "Where was the actual sacrifice? The ram and the goat?" I would not be happy personally with the observation that Jesus was not the only person crucified that day (since two criminals could scarcely be considered to be "without blemish", and the same objections that the procedure was not followed). However, Jesus died at the feast of Passover, when a lamb would be sacrificed by every Jewish family anyway (admittedly, the Passover sacrifice was not the same as a sin offering, but it was a recognised form of sacrifice). Thus, we can see that the key elements of the sacrifice were in fact met.

In both articles linked above, CA asks why a new way of paying for sins was needed when Leviticus says in most emphatic terms that, "this is a lasting ordinance". He quotes Jeremiah (the only book in the Old Testament that refers to the new covenant that Christ brings):

Jeremiah 31:31-34

"The time is coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with heir forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the Lord.

"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

The argument that CA makes is this:

So, what did God mean when He said that this would be an everlasting covenant? He said, three times, that this is the way it would happen forever. A Christian would have to argue that He meant, this will be our agreement unless you violate these terms x, y, z (unstated). When I come across this kind of explanation, I always ask the Christian, “Would you be willing to correct the Word of God as written in Leviticus to reflect what God actually meant to say? You can use my pen if you want to go ahead and update it.”

Fortunately, there is no need to make any such changes, because God was actually pretty clear about what He meant:

Leviticus 4:2

"Say to the Israelites: 'When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lords commands-'"

...

5:15 "When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the Lord's holy things, he is to bring to the Lord as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel. It is a guilt offering."

So, the atonement sacrifices (which are sin offerings) only work if the sins are unintentional, and that there is repentance (ooh, a common theme in the forgiveness of sins through Christ - what a coincidence!)

CA continues:

Also, the entire point of the covenant was to give a way for people who make mistakes to atone for those mistakes. To say that this mistake fixer becomes invalid because mistakes were made seems to get it wrong in another way.

Another point: it reeks of backward rationalization. The story goes: God will provide protection forever, and if mistakes get made there is a system in place to atone for those mistakes. Several hundred years go by. The Jews have a rough time — Jeremiah realizes that God doesn’t provide His promised protection. Several options are available to explain this. Among others: 1. God isn’t real. 2. God is real, but he’s called off the everlasting covenant. Option 1 sucks, but option 2 might be all right if a new covenant will come along. Since the author(s) of Leviticus had no idea that this everlasting covenant would expire or be negated, it has to be someone writing hundreds of years later figuring out why it doesn’t appear to be that God exists.

Which misses the point again, that the failure of the old covenant wasn't because of mistakes being made.

Practically the entire Prophets and the books of Judges, Kings and Chronicles are all about the ways in which Israel and Judah came to view the sin offerings, guilt offerings and burnt offerings not as acts showing repentance, but rather as indulgences that allowed them to go and sin again. In the same way that Roman Catholic priests in the Middle Ages were selling "indulgences" to wealthy parishioners who wanted a licence to sin, which led to Martin Luther's famous stand and the forming of the Protestant churches, so the nations of Israel and Judah were treating their sacrifices as a licence to go out and commit sin. Amos, my favourite of the Old Testament prophets, put it like this:

Amos 5:7, 10-12 and 21-24

You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground ... you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth.

You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. For I know how many are your offences and how great your sins.

...

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!"

[NB burnt offerings, grain offerings and fellowship offerings, as outlined in Leviticus, were voluntary offerings of praise to the Lord, although burnt offerings could also be voluntary offerings of atonement as well]

Amos was primarily concerned with the social justice to which the Lord calls his followers.

Jeremiah had more to say about being faithful to God's will:

Jeremiah 5:23, 25-28

"But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away.

...

Your wrongdoings have kept these away; your sins have deprived you of good. Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch men. like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor"

7:9-11

"Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe" - safe to do these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching!" declares the Lord.

7:21-24, 27-28

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward."

...

"When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. therefore say to them, 'This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips'"

So a new sacrifice, a new covenant, was needed so that the people could no longer think to themselves when committing sin, "Ah, I'll just make a sacrifice tomorrow and it will be alright." A burnt offering, as explained in Leviticus, was one where normally, the entire carcass would be burnt - cremated, effectively. When the Lord says, "go ahead, eat the meat yourselves", he is saying that the atonement quality of a burnt offering is meaningless without the repentance behind it.

So, when CA asks, "What did Jesus’ sacrifice achieve if not exactly what was achieved by what was accomplished in the Leviticus verses that already atoned for sin and made the Israelites clean before the Lord?" the answer is that Jesus provides forgiveness for all sins, not just unintentional ones, and consequently that Jesus makes explicit that repentance is necessary, and that going through the motions is not enough. CA argues that, "The book of Leviticus is fairly self-consistent, but perhaps you’ll be confronted with a person who points out some other verse from a different book written by a different author of the Old Testament that contradicts this section of Leviticus." Fortunately, I've demonstrated that Leviticus is also consistent with the requirement of Christ's sacrifice, thus making the whole question moot.

Now, as one last shot, CA returns to Jeremiah 31:33-34 (see above), which he summarises thus:

1. The Law is written on the minds and hearts of everyone. This means that people no longer need to teach anyone around them about God. Why? Because “they will ALL know me”.
2. This explicitly says that “faith” will no longer be needed in the New Covenant. It is replaced by pure knowledge of God.
3. God will forgive and forget.

First up, in item 2 I think CA is using a different definition of "explicitly" than the one with which I am familiar. It looks to me to be an implicit inference that CA has made himself (I'm assuming male, because in the introduction to the website, CA defaults to the male pronoun when defining what a conversational atheist is).

CA's Item 1 is a very literally-minded interpretation of the passage, but to the Christian reader it is a clear reference to the Holy Spirit guiding us. That gives a slightly different significance to the rest of the passage. Specifically, it becomes clear that the covenant is no longer with an entire nation, but with each individual who embraces God. Although the passage refers to a new covenant "with the house of Israel and the house of Judah", this is not incompatible with an interpretation that it is a new covenant with each member of the houses individually.

Again, this interpetation is backed up by the Protestant revolution against the Roman Catholic orthodoxy that required that only the Pope was the true source of knowledge of God's will, and through the Pope, the cardinals and priests of the RC Church.

All of which goes to answer what CA thinks is a telling point: "Why doesn’t God just make His will known to every person by innate knowledge that can be verified, consistently by anyone and everyone, via trivial self-reflection?" It is quite clear that God cannot force us to believe and know him, but that we must approach Him willingly - but when we do so, with open hearts and welcome the Holy Spirit, then we truly become aware of God's will for us. There's another debate about how to distinguish that from our own desires, but I shall leave that for another day (or else leave it entirely!)

It is false to say from Jeremiah 31:33 that the law will be written on everyone's hearts and minds, which is what CA claims, but only that it will be on the hearts and minds of God's people. As the NT reveals, those are directly, whoever accepts Christ/the Holy Spirit into their hearts.

And that is why acceptance of and belief in Christ's sacrifice is such an important part of Christian faith.

More Poetry Month: Adrian Plass

Adrian Plass is a Christian writer who is somewhat evangelical in his outlook, but has written some great poems about the human condition (albeit from a religious stance, and as it relates to God).

My parents for my birthday (possibly my 18th? It seems that long ago, anyway) bought me his Learning To Fly collection, and some of my favourite poems are to be found in it.

My favouritest is "Undistinguished Corners", but there's a lot of that one and it's hard to type it all in - it's a kind of Taoist theme to it, which is why I like it. But I am going to present a few other pieces from the book, starting with what some might see as an anti-Christian or anti-religion poem. But I thnk any choice to stick to an ethical code must raise some form of question like those raised here, and I think that we would not be true to ourselves or to God if we did not occasionally question, and thereby come to understand, what service means. I think, given the topics I frequently raise on this blog, it is very appropriate here as well:

Wild Affairs

Should I have had more wild affairs
In old cathedral towns
Before I got redeemed by God
And had to settle down?

Should I have touched more shining hair
And kissed more pretty eyes
Told through soft and silky nights
More soft and silky lies?

Should I have crossed the muffled close
And known as evening fell
Through orange light on virgin snow
That all things could be well?

Should I have spent more glowing hours
Behind the leaded panes
Among the overcoats and scarves
The innocent refrains?

Should I have seen with clearer eyes
How tragedies begin
The darkness wrapped in cellophane
The warmth of joy and sin?

Should I have lingered in the streets
To say more morning prayers
As all the world went greyly past
Should I have echoed theirs?

Should I have learned to love the world
Before I let it go
The shadowed marks of many feet
Criss-crossing in the snow?

Should I have taken time to hear
More distant church bells ring
And marvelled at the kingdom
Long before I met the king?

(On the next page, a little verse of wit:

"That which you have never had
You never want or miss,"
Especially when referring to
The twit who first said this.)

A passage from the introduction to a different poem expresses exactly how I feel about the Christian doctrines of salvation, and it's one reason why I go against orthodox doctrine (thus becoming a heretic):

Then there's salvation. I used to know exactly who was saved and who wasn't. It was easy. You just measured any individual's claim against a list of statutory evangelical requirements. Ghandi, for instance, was certainly out. I, on the other hand, was definitely in. Nowadays, I imagine the scene at the entrance to Heaven like this. As Ghandi and I walk up to the gates together, I, in my youthful evangelical zeal, point to my companion and call out in a high-pitched voice to God:

"Err, you are aware that he hasn't made a personal commitment, aren't you, God? Whereas I - well, err, I have."

God nods thoughtfully, then he says, "That's absolutely right. You made the commitment, but he -" indicating the slight figure in the loincloth, "he kept it."

Finally, I'm going to present "I Cannot Make You Love Me". In the introduction to this poem, Plass makes a really powerful point about God's relationship to humanity:

...this single scrap of understanding turned out to be a very significant one.

God can be hurt.

...

How can you love someone, I asked myself, without being vulnerable to rejection or attack by the object of your passion? If this is not the case with God's care for men and women, then his feelings for us are as far away from love, as we understand it, that the term is meaningless.

God can indeed be hurt, and a primary cause of such hurt is our failure to respond when he reaches out to us. The grief of God rolls across the face of creation like a deep, sad sea. omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent he may be, but he will never force anyone to love him.

Such a profound thought, and very telling. I found the poem itself posted online at a forum called "The Puritan Board".

I Cannot Make You Love Me

If I wanted I could take the light
One shining sheet of paper
Crush it in my fist
And then - it would be night
If I was so inclined
I could destroy the day with fire
Warm my hands at all your charred tomorrows
With the smallest movement of my arm
One flicker of my will
Sweep you and all your darkness from the land
But I cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
I cannot make you, will not make you, cannot make you love me



If I wanted I could lift the sea
As if it were a turquoise tablecloth
Uncover lost forgotten things
Unwritten history
It would be easy to revive the bones
Of men who never thought to see their homes again
I have revived one shipwrecked man in such a way
The story of that rescuing, that coming home
Might prove I care for you
But though I can inscribe I LOVE YOU in the sky and on the sea
I cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
I cannot make you, will not make you, cannot make you love me



I can be Father, Brother, Shepherd, Friend
The Rock, the Door, the Light, Creator, Son of Man
Emmanuel, Redeemer, Spirit, First and Last, the Lion or the Lamb
I can be Master, Lord, the Way, the Truth, the Wine
Bread or Bridegroom, Son of God, I am, Jehovah
Saviour, Judge, the Cornerstone, the Vine
I can be King of Kings, Deliverer, the Morning Star
Alpha and Omega, Jesus, Rabbi, Carpenter or Morning Dew
Servant, Teacher, Sacrifice, the Rose of Sharon
I can be - I have been - crucified for you
But I cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
Cannot make you love me
I cannot make you, will not make you, cannot make you love me.

Answering "Conversational Atheist" on Slavery

This is a response to the cherry-picked Biblical passages that the Conversational Atheist site says proves the Bible advocates slavery.

First, I acknowledge that the Bible treats slavery as a significant feature of the society tat was current at the time of its writing. This is true of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it should not be surprising that this social structure was dealt with by both OT and NT writers.

In terms of the OT, we observe that the Conversational Atheist site looks mainly to Exodus, (quoting "When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt") but also quotes from Leviticus. Firstly, I'm going to quote Leviticus myself concerning Hebrew slaves, to demonstrate that "slavery" was actually structured differently, then I'll address the apparently more troubling issue from Leviticus:

Leviticus 25:39-40

"If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you" (i.e. a wage-slave or servant in the sense of hired staff)

25:42

"Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves"

The significance of this will become apparent soon.

Now, this passage immediately precedes the passage from Leviticus that the CA article crows about, which reads:

Leviticus 25:44-46

"As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness."

Note again the repeated injunction against owning fellow Israelites, whom God identifies as "my servants".

But the significance of that point is that in New Testament theology, everyone who believes is a servant of God, not just the Israelites! And furthermore, God cares about non-believers just as much as He cares about believers. That means that the Leviticus passages demonstrate that it is now, under New Testament theology, it is not permitted to sell anyone as a slave; they must all be treated as hired workers.

Bearing that in mind, we can look at the passages that are cherry-picked from the various Epistles.

Perhaps the most significant of these is Galatians 3:28, which the CA article explains thus:

This verse supports the argument that I’m making. It merely attempts to pacify Christian slaves saying, “God doesn’t care whether you are a slave or not — you can get to heaven either way.”

However, if we quote Galatians 3:26-29 and get the full context of the passage, we can see it means something quite different when taken in connection with the Leviticus passages I quoted above - it proves the point I made about the NT theology!

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise"

Now, this obviously poses a contradiction with the passage, 1 Timothy 6:1-5 that is quoted by CA:

Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are members of the church; rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

Unfortunately for our atheist friends here, this is only one interpretation and translation. In the NIV, which I have, the passage appears rather differently:

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect to them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, since those who benefit by their service are believers and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.

3If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to Godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

So the suggestion that St Paul is saying that people opposing slavery are corrupt, conceited and understanding nothing is revealed to be utterly misleading! No, it is people opposing the teachings of Christ that have those qualities.

However, it does still suggest that Christians were being permitted to own slaves, in contradiction to the brotherhood of Christ and the instruction from Leviticus that servants of God were not to be sold as slaves - however, we can see that the ownership in 1 Timothy might in fact be of the type described in Leviticus (i.e. not slavery but hired labour). From the text, this actually seems unlikely, but we can't say it is impossible.

Let us look at the other passages that CA quotes, which come from Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, Titus 2 and 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter is written by St Peter, the rest are written by St Paul.

The passages quoted from St Paul all have a common theme: "Those of you who are slaves, obey your masters, because service is Christ's calling, and so that no bad word may be said about us." This is directly analogous to Christ's instruction, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". Paul is saying two things - firstly, set a good example of what Christian faith means (because as Christians, we are called to serve one another anyway - see Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, about not begrudging even what is forced from us), and secondly, don't pick a fight that you can't win. The instructions that Paul gives to owners of slaves are also in accordance with God's love for all His people (but also, I suspect, hedged about in much the same way as the original US Constitution was, and for much the same reasons - so as not to alienate slave-owning people who might make powerful allies!): "And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven". there is one other instruction wrapped up in St Paul's messages: which is to do well because then you can take pride in your performance, however demeaning it may appear.

CA then examines Peter's 1st Letter, Chapter 2 Verses 13-25.

1 Peter 2:13-14 reads, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to the governers who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right."

CA writes of this:

When God says “accept the authority of every human institution” what did he mean?

This verse cuts down the “slavery was different back then…” response that is ALSO so prevalent.

If you really want to argue that slavery was different back in the day, 1 Peter 2:13 says to accept the authority of every human institution.

So, it doesn’t matter if slavery is different later than Biblical times, it’s a human institution, the authority of which you should accept.

I understand that the opening question was intended as rhetorical, but it deserves a proper answer. In fact, I have already given that answer: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's". It was the major reason for the Romans' persecution of Christians that they would not obey the laws of Rome or anyone else, where those laws were at odds with their faith. So 1 Peter 2:13 means something rather different from what CA would like to claim. Consequently, it was possible for Christians to find in the Bible justification for ending the slave trade.

Of 1 Peter 2:18-20, which reads, "Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval." CA has this to say:

Slaves who are suffering under unjust masters, the Bible says you should accept your punishment and the authority of your masters, because God credits those who suffer unjustly.

Remember: you have God’s approval.

To which I say again, "Slaves, don't pick fights you can't win, but pride yourself on your ability to endure in the face of cruelty."

Finally, 1 Peter 2:21-25 describes the example of Christ's submission to the cruelty of his persecutors in the Passion as an example for those who are forced to suffer unjustly.

To which CA says:

Religion. Opiate of the masses.

As the Bible says, “Don’t rise up against your oppressors, you have the perfect example for you, remember: Jesus didn’t fight back at all.”

To which I reply, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The paradox of Christ's calling is this: that we are not to fight on our own behalf, but instead to fight for the freedom and rights of others. Thus, a slave should be meek and accept his or her lot, but a free man should do what he can to win the freedom not just of one slave, but of all slaves. Christ's calling is most assuredly NOT an opiate, but a stimulant, a clarion call!

In a final effort, CA hauls out the example of Luke 7:1-10. This is one of my favourite passages, because I believe it shows how BDSM Master/slave relationships are understood by God. it also talks about how God has authority over the Universe even as the centurion in the story has authority over his soldiers or his servants (which word is translated as slaves in the version CA used). CA uses the story with only one purpose, though: "I cannot think of a better time to respond critically to a person who owns slaves. Jesus, however, does not respond with “let him go free!” — Jesus publicly praises this slave owner for having faith — He even heals the guy’s slave for him!" Of course Jesus praises the man's faith, for the centurion had shown that he understood Christ's authority in the world, and this story is deemed worthy of retelling precisely because of that point being made. What's more, would it have been kinder to say "free him", but not heal the slave!? Finally, when a slave would have no realistic livelihood when he is "set free", what is the benefit of that command? Jesus announced clearly, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed" (Luke 4:18). There is a clear distinction drawn between the state of being a slave, and the state of being oppressed. In both the OT and NT passages that we have examined here, Jews and Christians alike are exorted to treat slaves fairly and with compassion, and not to oppress them - to treat them as hired labour and not as property. The text of Luke 7:1-10 suggests that the servant or slave whom Jesus healed was treated well (being valued highly) and was unlikely to be oppressed. Again, from the OT passages particularly, we see that slavery was seen by the Jewish community as a way of paying off one's debts or otherwise getting out of financial difficulty; it was not necessarily a bad thing. (Yes, I know that a Roman centurian's slave might not have been in the same class as those Jewish servants!)

All-in-all, CA has failed quite sectacularly to prove the the Bible advocates slavery as we understand it today, and even the form of slavery permitted by the Bible is not actually promoted: instead, it is quite clear from the passages in Leviticus that a community should work hard to prevent any member from being forced into that unhappy state; and Christ's proclamation of freedom, I believe, should be read as saying that slavery is not a desirable institution..

Atheist nonsense: "The Abusive Boyfriend" myth

This is the first in a series of pieces I'm going to write in answer to some articles on a site called Conversational Atheist. (Found via Amber Rhea) I am writing these pieces because it feels like it might be a lot of fun for me to do so, not out of any particular "need" to do so. The fun comes from the fact that they are, in fact, intellectually stimulating arguments 9for the most part). This one, however, I think is just silly...

God: The Abusive Boyfriend

The atheist argument looks like this:

Ways the Christian God is like the most extreme version of an abusive (and possibly psychotic) boyfriend:

• Needs constant praise and makes you feel guilty for just being human.
• Has severe jealousy issues.
• He lets painful experiences happen to you that he could easily prevent, just to test your devotion to Him.
• Claims credit for everything good in your life; claims nothing bad in your life comes from Him.
• Threatens you with eternal torture if you ever leave Him.
• He is constantly swearing that He loves you and you need Him.

Ways to tell if you are in danger of being taken advantage of in a relationship with this abusive God:

• You are highly defensive of Him from even the slightest criticism of His flaws.
• You talk to Him every night, and He never responds yet still expects unwavering devotion.

I'll take this one point at a time, and where possible try to explain where the myth comes from.

"Needs constant praise and makes you feel guilty for just being human."

Two parts in this one. I don't know where "constant praise" comes from, unless it's talking about monastic communities? As far as I know, the only specific instruction is the 3rd Commandment, "Keep the Sabbath Day holy" - one day in 7 doesn't sound "constant" to me! As for "guilty for just being human", this is presumably referring to the doctrine of Original Sin, and the inherent fallibility of humans. If you have never done anything for which you have felt guilty, then maybe you don't understand this concept, but if you ever have done something for which you reasonably felt guilty, then you don't have a leg to stand on. The standard of perfection is impossible for anyone to achieve (not even Jesus himself, embodied as a man, was able to maintain perfection, and accepted rebukes from others occasionally!) Therefore, the message of the Christian God is actually, "As long as you understand your mistakes, you do not need to feel guilty about them".

Just don't tell that to the Catholics!

"Has severe jealousy issues."

Okay, you got a point on this one - if you're talking about the Jewish God. It is in the Ten Commandments, after all, that God says, "I am a jealous God". But the developed theology of the New Testament is somewhat different from this tribal view, and if you want a better analogy here, then it might be that YHWH is offended that people accredit to others the benefits that He(She/It/They - standard notation using male pronoun will be used hereafter) has achieved for them - rather like if you work like a dog to organise a party, and then your partner, who did nothing except set the table for dinner, gets given all the credit!

"He lets painful experiences happen to you that he could easily prevent, just to test your devotion to Him."

This appears to refer to the book of Job, in which the title character is tested by various torments because the Devil believes he can make Job renounce God. The book of Job is known to be allegorical, because the text is clearly written in two different hands, one much later than the other, with the later hand providing the opening and conclusion (source: NIV Study Bible accompanying notes). The book of Job is a very early theological study of the problem of the existence of evil in the world. Its treatment is far from complete or conclusive, but one interesting idea from the opening passage is that if bad things don't happen to good people, then all that means is that people can be bribed, which is not a good basis for a loving relationship!

Finally, the message of Job is simple: "We cannot know the workings of the mind of God; we must trust that what seems harmful is in fact for the best." And if you think that still sounds like an article of faith from an abusive relationship, then I would ask you to consider whetehr you would describe a surgeon as "abusive"? Or indeed, any person in a position of qualified or informed authority.

"Claims credit for everything good in your life; claims nothing bad in your life comes from Him."

This is a false claim about God, although it is a claim that some Christians will make about him. Both Job and Ecclesiastes speak of both the good and the bad that God sends; in a transverse version of this same point, Jesus Christ says He makes the sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. In at least one of the Gospels, he admits that God causes the suffering of some of those whom he heals by miracles. This, in turn, resolves to another part of the Problem of Evil, which is mentioned above.

"Threatens you with eternal torture if you ever leave Him."

This notion is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of sin and of God. If you choose to stop eating, then eventually you will die of hunger. This is not a punishment for your decision, nor is it a "threat". it's just the way the world works. Similarly, if you put your hand into a flame, you will get burned. That's just the way the world works. In the same way, if you turn away from God and His love, then it is an unavoidable consequence due to the nature of reality that your soul will suffer. God's love is identified at times as being "food for the soul", and Jesus uses food analogies for the joys of Heaven on several occasions; the analogy between food for the body and food for the soul is clear. Cut yourself off from either, and suffering happens because of the nature of the body or the soul.

"He is constantly swearing that He loves you and you need Him."

On the other hand, those things could, y'know, actually be true? And that's why He says them?

"You are highly defensive of Him from even the slightest criticism of His flaws."

LOL

Erm, don't you know that the definition of God is that He has no flaws?

"You talk to Him every night, and He never responds yet still expects unwavering devotion."

That's me off the hook, then, because God has responded to me. Not to mention the saying "God answers all our prayers - but sometimes the answer is no". It is also not true that God expects unwavering devotion; in fact, scepticism and doubt are expected, because without them faith means nothing in the end.

::Here endeth the lesson::

Smirkworthy search terms

Whoever entered the following search term into Google found my December 2008 archive page, which included posts on:

Opposing the New Labour crackdown on prostitutes;

Violence against sex workers in general;

Depression;

My naked body (in particular, my man boobs);

Why it's not okay to use "gay" as a derogatory term;

Trans* issues;

Opposing internet censorship;

Comparing Armedinejad and the Pope based on their Christmas speeches.

I suspect that whoever entered the search string was not expecting that collection of topics!

roman catholic church stories of jesus for children to watch on the internety

My suspicion is that it was Mrs Bigotry seeking to indoctrinate her children, so in some ways I am rather proud that my anti-bigotry posts may have crossed her radar (albeit only briefly).

This isn't just political protest...

...It's rightwing US nutjob political protest!

Seriously, there cannot possibly be another nation in the world that could produce this collection of placards on a march.

Thank you, rightwing USAian nutjobs, for proving that you do have a purpose - and that purpose is to make everyone else laugh at you!

Introducing Lady Felicity Rosenthyme

I'm writing this because Renegade Evolution in her call for submissions for the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy set one of the themes as "Body modification, clothing, and paint as a form of self expression." Now, I don't have a lot of anything to say about body modification or body paint, but clothing as a form of self-expression ties very strongly into my experience of Lady Rosenthyme. I assumed that I would find somewhere in my last 2 years or so of blogging that I would have written in detail about her already, and I could just submit that post to the carnival. It turns out that I haven't, so this looks like a great opportunity to correct that oversight.

This is how Lady Rosenthyme describes herself on the bondage.com profile that I created for her:

I am a stern and strict governess with a main interest in teaching young ladies the elements of proper decorum and comportment, along with sundry academic pursuits should they be interested in making such studies. Refined behaviour and courtesy are a credit to anyone, and I shall seek to promote such qualities in any student who submits herself to my tutelage.

Potential students can email me at ladyrosenthyme@dsl.pipex.com

CD students will be welcome since the virtues of a lady may be learned by anyone.

Please note that I find abbreviation of my name or title to be extremely rude!

Essay Questions

Briefly describe your personality -- what makes you tick? What should people know about you?

I am precise and well-mannered, and I hold myself to the same high standards as I shall expect of any student of mine. I am a determined lady, and will have no truck with silliness or misbehaviour, but am happy when students do well or show understanding of what is required and when. There is a time to every purpose, and that includes carefree fun as well: but the time and the place is everything!

Lady Felicity Rosenthyme has opinions on many things, all of them correct!

What's your ambition? What do you hope to achieve in your life?

To teach just one girl to be a perfect lady in public life...

...and my perfect slut in private

Describe your sexiest outfit, and/or how you look when dressed up in general.

I have a regular costume for my lessons, which comprises a long black dress, high-heeled knee-length boots and a claret-coloured corset

What does a collar signify for you? How many times have you given/received a collar?

A collar is a symbol of ownership; I, as a governess, do not seek to own my students except in as much as while they are in my presence, they are to be completely at my command. But I need no such symbolic adornments to demonstrate my control.

What are your pet peeves? What really ticks you off? And how do you react when you're angry?

Disrespect for others, for oneself, or for me! When angry, I ensure that just retribution will be meted out at some point but once that has been done, forgiveness is swift. I am rarely roused to great anger, but can be fearsome to behold when I am. Nothing is forgotten, but nothing is above forgiveness.

What are your 'deal breakers'? (turn offs etc - e.g. smoking, blue hair, braces, leprosy)

I would say smoking, but I would expect any potential student who smokes to be willing to give up that habit while she is under my supervision anyway, and preferably at all other times as well. I find smoking to be inelegant and disrespectful of oneself and others, and certainly not a fitting habit or indulgence of any young lady who wishes to impress.

Here's a picture, from when I was first developing Lady Rosenthyme's real life expression, and had nothing else in her wardrobe:


Lady Rosenthyme was the way in which I came to terms with my trans leanings and felt okay with exploring crossdressing in the first place. (The observant will notice that I identify my female side as "Sucha" now - Lady Rosenthyme still exists for me, but is now only one aspect of my female side.) For a long time she existed only as a very deeply hidden and secret side of my personality, because I couldn't think of a way to express her safely, and because I was heavily affected by male-on-male gender enforcement. The most gender-nonconforming expression for a long time (indeed, since long before Lady Rosenthyme came into being in my mind, let alone in real life) had been growing my hair long. But ultimately I have always wanted to be female as well as male.

Lady R (I feel happy to abbreviate her, because I'm the one person she can't get cross at for doing so!) began as just plain Felicity Rosenthyme, but when I realised that she was Domme through-and-through, she acquired her aristocratic title. (Because of the role that suits her best, that title is intended to be read as an aristocratic title, and not simply a BDSM honorific - therefore, unless you are her servant, her title is expressed as "your/her Ladyship"). This was back in 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 that I actually felt confident enough with my feminine identity to try to develop some expression of her. I started by buying the dress in the picture above from a stall at a crafts fair, which was sufficiently anonymous that I felt I could. Then by mail order, I bought her boots and corset. After that I had to buy the lipstick, which I did at Boots Chemists, and that was incredibly nerve-wracking, even though I'm sure that people were assuming I was buying it for a girlfriend. But at last, I could let her Ladyship take her first steps in real life.

Her personality is essentially the same as mine, but is seen through a very different lens. Sometimes I regard the different personas I have as being like looking at a transparent crystal from different angles, because in each one you can see the elements of all the others, but those elements appear differently and with different emphasis. Lady Rosenthyme has as her strongest elements my confidence, my pedantry and love of accuracy and correctness, and my fierceness. Despite her intense strictness, she is also wild and uncontrolled, and some of the darkest elements of my personality and past find their expression most freely in her as well. To my mind, she is genuinely scary, but she also wins respect when people get to know her. In some ways, I sometimes think that her Ladyship, despite being in my mind very feminine, also seems to possess many of the traits in me that are most masculine-identified in modern culture!

To bring this back to the topic of clothing as self-expression, dressing as Lady R is obviously a form of self-expression in that I am expressing myself as her Ladyship and displaying that (although I have never yet dressed in public, and likely never will - you can see from the picture above how well I don't pass!) However, she is also a way of my channelling the attributes that she possesses most strongly.

I strongly, deeply, wish that I could attend job interviews dressed as her Ladyship - even wearing the corset under my regular smart clothes would be good (but a claret corset under a white cotton shirt would probably show through, and that would be... um... awkward!) Her Ladyship's confidence is something of which I am deeply envious in any such situation, and while that confidence has to be a part of me for her Ladyship to possess it, yet I find it so much harder to access when I am me as opposed to when I am Lady R.

While I can access Lady R without dressing as her (for example, whenever I am buying women's clothing or accessories, I always access Lady R's confidence and femininity to help me present as confident of my right to be in the shops selling those things), I find that she is much easier to find when I am dressed, which seems strange to me but there is the association. The corset in particular helps me feel her power, confidence and forcefulness in a way I just don't without it, however hard I try. The number of times when I wished I could have that confidence in visits to the Jobcentre, for example, and yet couldn't summon it from within myself - but the one time when I wore that corset under my t-shirt (so it was invisible to the outside world), my attitude was somehow very different and I did have that sense of confidence. I would wear it more often, but it's really difficult to put it on by myself!

As I noted above, I nowadays more often identify as Sucha than as her Ladyship when expressing my female side, and Sucha is a much more cheerful persona in general. While the concept of Lady R was an important step for me in breaking through gender-normative conditioning, eventually it became clear to me that she really only expressed one side of my feminine self, and because she was this alternative persona, as I mentioned above, a lot of stuff that I'd buried from the past found its way into the open again through her. That also was quite an important healing process in many ways, but it did mean that Lady R wasn't going to be as free as I needed to be. Sucha shares many character traits with Lady R (as explained above, strictly speaking she shares all those character traits, because they are both "me", seen from different angles) but she is much more about the carefree inner child, that Lady R would never ever allow into the light of day! As a result, Sucha maybe has more of the traditional "feminine" traits than does Lady R, and can be quite a "girly" persona. For this reason, it troubles me a little as a feminist that Sucha is the most obviously "switchy" persona I have and is the most free in expressing my submissive side (she is also quite the sadistic Domme too, though!) and I worry about what that says about how deeply inculcated patriarchal norms are in my psyche.

Sometimes my head feels a little bit crowded with all these different personas camped out in there, but at the same time I am very pleased with the way that I have been able to break free and express myself, both through the mental states that Sucha and her Ladyship represent, and through the physical expression of dressing as her.

One other note to make: Sucha, Lady R and myself are clearly three different genders/gender identities, under the "social construct" model of gender to which I subscribe. Does the term "polygendered" exist to describe this state of existence, I wonder?