Emerging Women

By Jessica Coblentz

I have a problem. I’m addicted to Sex— Sex and the City, that is.

A friend lent me a couple seasons on DVD recently. I had needed an episode for a program I facilitated at the women’s college where I work in campus ministry. The students and I gathered for popcorn, Oreos, and an episode of Sex and the City, followed by a thoughtful discussion about sex, dating and spirituality. Ideally, the show provides a point of reference for the discussion beyond one’s own sexual and dating experiences (or, sexless and dateless experiences).

The weekend following my program was chilly and wet. Cooped up in my apartment, I found myself utterly pathetic in any attempt to resist the sassy DVDs stacked on my desk. I would watch a couple episodes, eject the disk, and return to some writing, my “to do” list, or a phone call to a friend—only to cave in, again, to “just one more episode!”

What is it about this series that I love so much?! Why do I find it so utterly irresistible? Surely, I love the clothes, the shoes, and the posh New York restaurants. Ultimately, though, it’s the hip sitcom’s candid, witty talk about sex that keeps me glued to the screen. It’s so absolutely refreshing. Even when I disagree with the assertions they make about sex, I love the honest, bold, and fearless way they talk about the sexual decisions they make. They are confident in their sexualities. Not driven to silence or timidity by guilt or shame like so many of us.

In the discussion that followed the episode I watched with my students, I had asked them to characterize the conversations they’d had about sexuality in their religious communities. Most of them were Catholic like me, and all of them responded with, “NO. No, no, no, no, no, no! All we’ve heard is NO.” If they heard about sex in the church setting, it came across as “no,” and “Don’t do it, period. None of it.” There was no honest talk about the complexities of sexual decision-making. No hospitality that allowed them to feel they could ask genuine questions about the reality of sex in their relationships.

This got me thinking…what would a Catholic-type Sex and the City look like? Sex and the Vatican City, perhaps? Honestly, my first response was, “Well, it might look exactly the same as the regular Sex and the City!” Like most folks, we Catholics have pious speech about sex that we often fail to live up to. However, as I thought about it more it occurred to me that if there was a “Catholic” version of Sex and the City that embraced a conversation style akin to the show, yet ultimately continued to espouse the same “Catholic” positions on sexual ethics (anti-abortion, pro-NFP and anti-artificial birth control, no extra-heterosexual-marital sex, etc.), I might still love it. And my students might have a very different experience of Catholic sexual teaching.

I can see it now: The four ladies chatting over brunch. Charlotte is cheering about how happy she is that her natural family planning is not working and she’s pregnant again with her fifth child. Samantha is complaining about her latest boyfriend who just can’t understand why she won’t marry him: he’s been divorced and she is standing by the Church’s position that he cannot remarry. Miranda is still struggling to balance her work as a mother and as a lawyer—only now its in the context of Pope John Paul II’s teachings on “the genius of women” and women’s unquestioned responsibility to family life. Carrie writes a witty sex column for the National Catholic Reporter.

I can envision it now! And I would still like this “Catholic” version in many ways—even if I continued to wrestle with some of the ethical positions it endorsed. Perhaps this type of show will never happen for the Catholic Church, but I still hope that some version of this honest, hospitable conversation about sexuality will.

Jessica Coblentz, a graduate of Santa Clara University, works in Catholic young adult ministry. She will begin graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School this fall. This post originally appeared on her personal blog, www.jessicacoblentz.blogspot.com.

by Jessica Glaser

I’ve slowly begun to work my way through books written about the Emergent movement or reflecting theology, orthodoxy, and practices that many Emergent groups have come to embrace. Nearly all of them are written by men, which says something much larger than I’d like to discuss here. Nearly all of them gingerly step around the issues of abortion and “promiscuity” (whatever that means), seeing them as modern societal problems. I find this problematic, in that abortion and “promiscuity” are usually two words that are thrown about when seeking to impose restrictions on the lives and bodies of women (the other being “family values” in the unholy antifeminist trinity). I leave bigger discussions of these implications for future essays and debates, but when I hear these, I am forced to notice a deafening silence around much more pervasive issues affecting an enormous number of women in the United States and on the planet at large: sexual violence and violence against women.

Around 1 in 5 women in the United States has been raped or sexually assaulted. Only 37% of rapes are ever reported, according to the FBI, let alone prosecuted. Approximately three women are murdered each day. Nearly 5 million acts of domestic violence occur every year. These assaults and murders are usually performed by an intimate partner or someone the victims knows. Furthermore, somewhere around 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States every year.

On a global scale, approximately one in three women will be beaten or sexually assaulted during her lifetime.

I hope these statistics are enough to convince you that there is a major problem here. Numerous advocacy groups working since the beginning of the Second Wave Feminist movement have been able to help millions of survivors in their fight to be taken seriously and their struggle to find safety. Over 40 years, a societal shift has occurred (although not strongly enough) wherein it is no longer acceptable to hit or rape your wife, or any other woman, and that it is not the woman’s fault if such violence is perpetrated upon her. And yet, violence and rape of women are still happening on a massive scale.

Every election cycle, I hear numerous condemnations coming from Christian communities on the subjects of abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, and even occasionally pornography (without the requisite acknowledgment of the work of feminists such as Andrea Dworkin or Catherine MacKinnon). But I never, ever hear condemnations of domestic violence or rape, which hurts families on a grander scale than most (if any) of the issues listed above.

I don’t understand this silence. Is it because American Christians think that people know that they’re automatically against this kind of violence, and thus don’t need to address it? Is it because there is still a society wide (not just Christian) implied pervasive need to blame the victims and survivors of such violence, and residual from the time when women were chattel, less than human according to legal status and protections? Is it because the Christian community at large still values women less than it does men because of the strong patriarchal history and context of the church and its orthodoxy? I’d argue that it’s probably the intersection of all three of these reasons, and others I haven’t mentioned or am not aware of. And based on the way Jesus treated women and his teachings, I’m sure that the fact that this violence goes unmentioned or ignored, or is tacitly sanctioned by the Christian community, is utterly unacceptable.

So let’s have it, churches, theologians, evangelicals, mainliners. Let’s hear what you’re going to do about the abuse of 50% of your members, who you may not see as equals, but who have been equals in God since the beginning, with society just now learning to catch up. This violence inscribed on our bodies, minds, and souls needs to stop, and you need to be part of the solution.

Statistics taken from http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html and http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html, which in turn have been taken from the United Nations, the CIA, the FBI, and the US Department of Justice, among others.

Jessica Glaser is a recent graduate of the University of Denver, a former activist with the V-Day Campaign, a mainline United Methodist, an Emergent Lutheran, and an unapologetic feminist.

By Lisa Borden

Last night I explained to my 10 year-old-daughter the “bodily changes” that she can expect to be coming her way in the months and years ahead.

I’ve been a little nervous about this talk because, in my mind, so much hinged on it.

I’ve been a mom for 22 years but I’ve never been involved in the “puberty talk” before because my daughter’s older siblings are all brothers. Yes, I’ve answered questions and talked about sex with the boys. My most outstanding memory is of standing at the stove stirring spaghetti sauce when one of my sons (who was 13) came up behind me and asked, “What’s oral sex?” I remember giving a very calm and lucid answer as I stared into that nicely bubbling sauce.

So I have no experience at giving the “growing up” talk. I DO have experience at receiving a couple of talks on the matter. Now, I can’t say that my mom did a particularly bad job. She was clear, if a little formal. It wasn’t so much the talk that was the problem. It was more the whole vibe around bodies that existed in our home. Bodies were shameful some how. Asking for deodorant when I finally needed it would have been far too embarrassing. Asking for help with my first periods would have probably killed me.

Looking back on it, I think my mom probably would have been very helpful. But there was a vibe in the house that associated bodies to all those other things out there that had to be kept under strict control. I mean, if I needed a bra then I was probably about to run off with some boy and show it to him. That was the kind of strange, unspoken message that we girls were picking up. It’s hard to untangle where all that came from. All I know is that it’s not what I want my young woman growing up with.

Because of all this, I began to hatch a plan with my close friend, Tammy, who has a daughter one year older than my own.

“What if we had a FUN time together talking about boobs and bras and periods?” I asked.

“What if, instead of a kind of weirdo vibe around the issue, we made the talk a special dinner and over-night and girl time?”

“What if the whole thing felt like a celebration?”

My mind was popping with ideas. I did not want a clandestine meeting in hushed tones. I wanted a celebration and a night to remember. I wanted something that said clearly “You are wonderfully made!”

Well, the reality of schedules kept Tammy and I from getting to this for months and months. In the mean time, my 10 year old was beginning to show signs of development and I knew that the clock was racing ahead of us. We couldn’t wait for an over-night. We needed an evening out NOW.

So here’s what transpired…

Two girls dressed up in their finery and two moms whisked them off to a special dinner out. We went to a lovely new hotel in town and their eyes shone as we walked across the little bridge and over the stream with a fountain into the beautiful dining room. They had their Sprite in wine glasses and we had wine in ours. We toasted the joy of being a girl and ordered starters.

Before the main course, we told the girls that we were sure they some times wondered how their bodies were going to eventually become grown-up women’s bodies. We told them that they may have heard different things but that the grape vine isn’t the best place to get information, (though friends can be helpful!) We told them that we wanted them to hear right from their own moms what the straight scoop was and we wanted them to know that they could always ask us anything.

“That talk” that followed was punctuated with funny stories and laughter. We presented each of the girls with her own copy of American Girl’s wonderful book “The Care and Keeping of You.” This tasteful book is cute and clear and gives the girls relevant info on everything from taking care of hair and skin to how to insert a tampon. It doesn’t promote fashion or certain ridiculously emaciated body types. It’s just honest and well done. They were delighted!

But my favorite moment of all came just a few minutes later. After the girls had browsed the books for a while, we pulled out the second gift. We had wrapped up a set of 2 soft tank top style bras for each girl. I thought this gift might actually embarrass them but not so. They insisted on rushing off to the ladies room immediately and came back very proudly to the table, tucking their straps carefully under the sundresses.

The girls thanked us over and over while we, in turn, thanked God. Tammy and I had wanted to present our girls with honest information in such a way as to help them feel honored and celebrated. We wanted them to know that their bodies are fantastic and that being a woman is wonderful. And we wanted them to feel that this first conversation was only the beginning.

I believe they got it. On the way home, my girl with the new bra piped up and asked, “Is it normal for your straps to fall down the whole time?” And so we began the next conversation, “Adjusting Your Bra Straps.”

Lisa carries a US passport but has spent 31 of her 46 years outside of the States in England, Sweden, Kenya and Portugal. Today, Lisa and her family live in Tanzania, East Africa, where they engage issues of poverty and lack of hope through their work with Wild Hope International. You can find her at her personal blog http://letsputthekettleon.blogspot.com and the Wild Hope blog http://www.wildhopestories.blogspot.com/a>.

By Becky Knight

“Honey, if someone asked you what your mommy does at her job, what would you tell them?”

“That you’re a sex worker,” she said matter-of-factly, slurping another spoonful of cereal.

“Ahhhhh. Not exactly dear…”

Explaining what I do is awkward in most social situations, but explaining it to my third-grader presents its own challenge. While she knows more about sex than her elementary-aged peers, she can’t truly grasp the context of what I do and my passion for it. She is in the concrete thinking stage, and for her, sex is all about making babies.

My in-laws, on the other hand, tell people that I work for a marriage counselor. That’s true enough, and that’s what I say when I don’t know a person well enough to judge how they’ll react if I give a more thorough explanation. Still, after working in this field for a number of years and earning my Masters, it’s unfortunate that I still feel some sense of shame for what I do. It’s as if working for a marriage counselor is legitimate, but working with a sex therapist is not.

I’m not shy about saying that the only reason I know this particular sex therapist is because I am a previous client. When I talk to incoming therapy clients, if it’s appropriate, I will divulge this. It’s a way to break down the stigma of therapy in general, and sex therapy in particular.

About five years ago, I was on my way to church for a women’s Bible study and thinking to myself how happy I was to be in such a stable “no drama” marriage. For some reason, I remember that moment vividly — tapping my fingers on the steering wheel and feeling secure. Perhaps I remember it because a few weeks later everything changed. I was confronted with the truth that my marriage lacked true intimacy. Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Intimacy. We sought a sex therapist because at that point in time, after nine years of marriage, there were some things that finally needed to be said, and felt, and understood.

After therapy concluded, I stayed in touch with our therapist and eventually began volunteering at her office. I wanted to be a part, somehow, of helping other women explore and celebrate their sexuality. That passion has grown into a full-time position. I still do intakes of new therapy clients, but I also see my own clients for E-Coaching (“E” because it is educationally based and also because we do a lot of our work with clients using online tools). I have become specialized in helping women overcome dyspareunia (painful intercourse) and vulvodynia (pain in the vulva), and I lead our E-Sensual Woman program for women who want to learn to orgasm. Yep, you read me right, I teach women how to have an orgasm!

So, I guess I am a “sex worker” of sorts.

Helping people improve their physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy is meaningful and beautiful work. It constantly challenges and shapes my view of myself, others, and of life and love. This career path has led me to a place of appreciating and understanding people on a level that I never experienced before. I look forward to going to work every day, knowing that I will learn more about the amazing experience of being human.

What happens in this office on a daily basis – it is spiritual work. It is ministry. It is honest and transparent and true.

A few months ago, at our E-Sensual Woman class, one of our graduates told her story. She was raised in a conservative home and was very religious. She was a virgin when she got married, but found out on her wedding night that any attempt at sexual intercourse resulted in terrible pain. Her doctor told her there was nothing he could do, and so they lived in a sexless, childless marriage for over twenty years. Last year, she found her way to the right doctor who knew how to help her — an interdisciplinary approach that included sex therapy. When this client called our office, I could tell she was anxious about seeing a “sex doctor,” but once she and her husband began counseling and once she got involved in the women’s online program and class — she totally blossomed. It was amazing. That night, when she talked about the moment when her husband finally broke her hymen, after 20+ years of marriage, it brought tears to all of our eyes. Now, she says, they are “like kids in a candy store” — making up for lost time!

I tell this story because it reminds me, on the darker days, that sex is beautiful. It is healing. It’s worth fighting for. And it’s an honor for me to journey with people as they discover and embrace it for themselves.

Becky Knight, MPH is a Clinical Sexologist / Sexuality Educator / Sex Coach / Sexpert / and yes, “Sex Worker” who blogs at LivingSexuality.com. She works at Sensovi Institute in Charlotte NC as Director of Education and Programs.

By Jemila Kwon

“One, two three, say, “SEX!” Click. The photograph was snapped, semi-immortalizing me, along with the rest my coach-training cohort. The room, filled with women and one man from from places like Dubai, Greece, France, England, Germany and Jordan, as well as me, the token American student, reverberated with giggles, hardly distinguishable from the sound of twelve year-old girls. Some things are universal.

I love sex. It wasn’t always that way. Like when the first time I got married (I was a virgin) and it sucked. It was, well, degrading. In a legally tendered, pastor-sanctioned Christian marriage. It happens, more often than you’d think, that sex in marriage is unholy, in one way or another, yet the M word is like a tent that covers the sins of countless people against their own partners.

I love sex. I am divorced. I got married again to a wonderful man who had sex before marriage. He’s glad he did, only because he has absolutely no doubts that I am IT — the one and only one for him. The the occasional “ew” thoughts I have toward his previous partners pale in comparison with the incredible happiness I have in a partner totally sold out for yours truly. I would much rather a husband with experience who knows that what he wants is me than a husband without experience who secretly wonders, “What would it be like with someone else?”

I love sex. My husband and I assume that the partner who doesn’t feel up for doing has eternal veto. Let tell you, I want it a lot more than I would if I felt like it was my duty. In fact, I am the initiator over 50% of the time.

I love sex. I am not the only one making love when we do it. It’s a holy, intimate, loving, incredible, hot thing for him too.

Sexuality is a funny thing. It runs our culture and sometimes our lives like gasoline, and sometimes it lights up our sacred inner places…or even opens the way for a new soul to enter in.

As curious, spiritual beings, we wonder, “What’s love got to do with it?” What’s sex for?

Release, please? A song of creation? An intimate celebration?

For those of us who have had sex, or sex with love, or gotten pregnant (or gotten someone pregnant,) we understand all of these elements often present either as instigators or self-evident experiences during the sex-act. Pretty much everyone is okay with sex where all three elements occur each in balance with the others. — at least if you’ve gotten a legal license to fuck.

But what if you love your partner more than life itself and you offer each other your sacred vow to honor one another always…but you just don’t think your sex life is the government’s business? Now that’s a conservative Christian viewpoint that has been co-opted by the liberals, if you ask me.

Or what if you just want to get off and you couldn’t care less about intimacy or anything uniquely human about sex — the fact is, you’re up to your eyeballs with work and your horny and you think it’s your wife’s Christian duty is to let you spill your seed all over her on the grounds that it’ll help you keep your eyes on the prize — instead of on someone else’s prize, like take your secretary, for example?

Or what if you’ve dotted your legal “i”s and crossed your intimate “t”s and you lovingly bring each other orgasm in an act of complete, joyful surrender…but you don’t want to have kids. Ever. Like you’re not open to it.

On the other hand, what if you’re a teenager with an undeveloped frontal lobe, way too many hormones and cute, possibly charming boy or girlfriend and it happens, because unmarried sex has always happened,whether or not it’s condemned, accepted or ignored. I wonder what it means to protect our daughters at a time when there is something we can do to protect them from cervical cancer, even if we cannot always protect them from impulsive choices?

Or what if you weren’t scheming to ruin your Christian parents’ lives when you rode the rainbow down to earth and discovered early in life that you like people…like you.

Sex is a life force that catalyzes the start of a new person, invigorates us while you occupy this spinning planet and creates within us contradictory impulses that can either deepen our compassion and connection to all living beings, and especially our human brothers and sisters, or it can tear us apart, in our inner selves, in our families and perhaps most preventably, in our communities.

I think we appoint ourselves The Judge,when we see only two options: judging or condoning. In good faith, if find we cannot condone a sexual behavior, or a couple engaged in a non-condonable (from our viewpoint,) behavior — then we feel integrity-bound to judge. Which is ironic. Because we have only one judge. And he didn’t come to judge. Go figure that.

So what’s the alternative to condemning or condoning? A life-giving alternative is to employ different part of your brain and take “The Judge” off of payroll, or assign it a more suitable job, like separating out the rotten bananas from the regular ones in preparation for baking banana bread.

What I am saying is that by focusing on the people in front of us in the present tense, we can free ourselves from the compulsion to judge them. Let that be God’s job. Instead of imagining that we have to figure out which check box to click on Christ’s online survey of moral uprightness, give the whole checklist back to God, who has already ripped up the thing and put it out of his Mind, as far as the east is from the west. Instead of thinking about whether a couple is doing something wrong, help them with the lives in front of them. Get them water. Invite them over to play Cranium simply to be a friend. Let go of fixing them. God knows, it’s not in our power to fix people, nor has the task been assigned to us. Consider asking open-ended questions, by which I mean, open-ended questions to which the asker does not (think) she have the answer.

And whatever else you remember, do keep in the mind that the Master of the big bang holds you fully and loves you totally wherever, whenever, if ever and with whomever you have an orgasm.

Jemila Kwon is a life coach dedicated to helping leaders from all walks of life live at full potential. She lives, loves, laughs & learns with her husband and three kids. www.leapcoachinc.com

An interview with Kathryn Joyce, author of the new book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. “Quiverfull” refers to the notion that women should “receive children eagerly as blessings from God, eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization.” Essentially, a Quiverfull woman breeds and keeps breeding, knocking out babies until her uterus gives out or menopause kicks in.

This interview was originally posted by Hemant Mehta at the Friendly Atheist blog.

• What kind of education do Quiverfull children receive? Do a significant percentage of them go to college? Do females get the same opportunities for education as males?

  Almost all Quiverfull children are homeschooled, and while there’s no single curriculum to point to, a number of leaders within the movement have advocated tailoring boys’ and girls’ education to the future roles they will hold. In the case of daughters, homeschooling leader R.C. Sproul, Jr., a prominent face in Quiverfull circles, argues that their education should prepare them to be mothers and stay-at-home wives.

  In a particularly disturbing anecdote, he recounts the story of a 9-year old daughter of an acquaintance who couldn’t yet read, but was a very responsible and maternal older sister to her younger siblings: a situation that confirmed his view of the daughter as an “overachiever” well on her way to being a successful helpmeet and mother herself one day.

  As for college, it varies a bit. Many sons are allowed to attend, particularly if they’re taking distance courses. This path is open for some daughters, but Quiverfull leaders strongly argue against allowing daughters to attend college away from home, as the encounter with worldly outsiders could damage or destroy their faith. Instead, they suggest that daughters stay at home after they graduate from homeschool, and practice being a helpmeet to their father as they will one day help and serve their husbands.

• How many Quiverfull children marry and start their own families before the age of 25? Is this a movement that passes on from generation to generation?

  It’s hard to give real numbers for the movement, and particularly for where the younger generation is now. As Quiverfull began in earnest in the mid-80s, it’s only in the past few years that there has been a real wave of second generation Quiverfull children marrying and having children. The movement, which has a vibrant internet presence, makes a lot of these developments, celebrating the marriages and new children of young believers. The older generation also stresses the dire importance of passing on their beliefs to the next generation, and to this end are focusing massive attention on outreach to daughters as young as five, inculcating a sense of their destiny in embracing the Quiverfull lifestyle. And they certainly also encourage women and men to marry early. While a number of children will leave the movement when they come of age, the lifestyle is structured to make that difficult, often keeping children sheltered from too much outside influence that could turn them away from the conviction.

• Do female children in these families have much freedom regarding who they marry? Regarding anything, really?

  A qualified yes. When children of the movement marry, it’s not through arranged marriages, but it is often through a courtship process that has an unusual amount of paternal involvement. Courtship is promoted through homeschooling and conservative religious circles as a chaste alternative to dating, which with or without sex is disparaged as the casual “trying on” of different partners. Courtship, alternately, is explicitly marriage-minded, and only occurs after a young man proves himself to a woman’s father. Quite literally, the male suitor is actually courting the daughter’s father, long before she is supposed to know that someone is interested in her. This is discussed as a way to protect vulnerable girls’ hearts from becoming emotionally invested before there’s the safety of commitment.

  However, as advocates explicitly acknowledge, it’s also the best way of making sure that the daughter marries a man suitably in tune with the father’s ideology. For men concerned with keeping the movement going in the next generation, it’s important to make sure they marry their daughter to a man who will be similarly faithful to patriarchy and Quiverfull convictions.

• Are any of the members of this movement actually adopting, or are they simply reproducing?
  
  Yes, there is a good deal of adoption among Quiverfull families as well as in the broader conservative Christian community. Adoption usually supplements a biological family though, rather than replace the necessity of a woman leaving her fertility in God’s hands, so they may have six biological children and then adopt four more.
• You mentioned in your Salon article that the Quiverfull movement “… likely numbers in the tens of thousands but… is growing exponentially.” Are there numbers/studies to back that up?
  
  No. I don’t know of any real research on the Quiverfull movement yet. Hopefully there will be more in the future. My estimate is based on speaking with dozens of movement leaders, looking at the membership numbers for online communities, and considering that the conviction of having as many children as God gives you is considerably broader than the people who claim the Quiverfull name or participate in its forums.
• What toll do all these births have on the mother — Emotionally and physically? You mentioned in your article one mother suffered a partial uterine rupture. Has it ever been worse?
  
  Emotionally and physically, many women — particularly those who have left the movement — say the lifestyle is one of relentless work and exhaustion. Quiverfull mothers perform a staggering amount of labor in terms of pregnancy and childbearing, childcare, homeschooling, cooking and cleaning and being a submissive wife. There does seem to be a high incidence of reproductive problems among some mothers, though of course this could be due to the fact that the mothers are having far more children, and far later into life, than many other women.

  Nonetheless, many women have spoken of extremely difficult pregnancies — a number of whom are put on strict bed rest — and labors. Additionally, there is often a focus on natural and even unassisted home births among Quiverfull moms. This isn’t a requirement of the Quiverfull conviction, but like many related facets of the movement (such as home churching or other, agrarian-minded efforts towards family self-sufficiency), it’s an idea many women are exposed to through movement literature. In a very extreme case in Australia, a Quiverfull mother died following the teachings of one fringe home-birth advocate. Though that seems to have been an anomalous case, home births, and continuing conceptions despite poor health do make for some serious health risks for some mothers.

• What can we do for women who want to leave this movement? How can we ensure that the daughters and sons of these women and men get assistance out?
  
  That’s a hard question. There are not many vocal exited women, though Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff and Vyckie Garrison are notable exceptions. Exited women face substantial difficulties as single mothers to large families, often including a number of young children, often limited financial resources, and a lack of outside work experience. Additionally, they’re often without references from a community that they left and which will often shun them. Understanding and respect — particularly that they came to their convictions not through ignorance but through devout belief — would likely be a relief to these moms. For both mothers and children, there are serious and very substantial psychological, emotional, spiritual and financial barriers to leaving the movement. Still, Quiverfull is not a cult, but a conviction that many women do choose willingly — however constrained their choices later become.
• Are these people (women and children) on some sort of public assistance? If so, what’s being done about it?
  
  Generally speaking no, they’re not. Most Quiverfull believers tend to have very strong beliefs about living debt-free and not accepting government assistance. They believe that churches are the proper custodians of public charity and welfare. However, if they did need public assistance, helping families feed and clothe their children is what public assistance programs are in place to do, so I don’t believe anything would need to be done about the proper functioning of a social safety net.
• Are there allies within the religious congregations that perceive this movement as a threat? Or at least a bad idea?
  
  There is abundant and lively opposition to patriarchy and Quiverfull ideologies within more liberal and moderate churches. Much of the momentum of Quiverfull began — like fundamentalism itself — as a backlash against liberalized theology in Protestant denominations. In this case, it was a reaction against the influence of feminism in Christian churches. Though Quiverfull is at the vanguard of a much broader resurgence of complementarianism, or “biblical” gender roles, across conservative denominations, there are many other mainstream and liberal denominations that are passionate advocates for women’s and reproductive rights.
• What happens if it turns out that either one of the couple is infertile? If they are willing to accept 17 kids as “God’s plan” are they willing to accept zero, or do they go in for medical intervention? And what is their standing in the community if they can’t have kids?
  
  The philosophy of Quiverfull, of leaving fertility in God’s hands, is ideally supposed to mean that parents accept whatever God gives them: 17 children or none. And I have met a few infertile women who still called themselves Quiverfull — though they spoke of feeling stung by some in the movement who focused predominantly on the number of children one has as a measure of spirituality.

  Also, in some of the literature of the movement, Quiverfull mothers who had borne large families spoke of their sadness and loss of identity when they began menopause and began to lose their fertility. One even described herself as feeling dried out and withered when her childbearing years ended. This, significantly, is the same language that is used to describe the side-effects of using birth control, or even women who don’t have children. For me, it was a powerful illustration of what a no-win situation this ideology can be, even for women who followed the conviction diligently their entire reproductive lives.

By Adele Sakler

Remember how much of the world outside the U.S. laughed during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky debacle of the 1990’s? They weren’t laughing with us. At times, this Western, naval-gazing, self-centered American culture seems quite laughable. Add to that, a prudish sub-culture of Evangelical Christianity wholly obsessed with sex, sexuality, and purity codes (perhaps a stubborn remnant of our Puritan heritage). All this singular fixation, over and above so many more pressing social and ethical issues.

Why does the Evangelical community seem so preoccupied with pointing out what they perceive to be the sins of others? Why this commitment to the role of morality police, lambasting everyone with their narrow interpretations of Scripture? It seems their selective view of holiness is far more important than how we actually treat our fellow human beings. Maybe if we worked harder on our own lives, focused on how we are treating others, a more holistic holiness could finally exude from our lives.

Sadly, this is my thesis: Evangelicals are nothing less than sex-crazed.

To the neglect of most other vices, Evangelicals are hyper-concerned with pointing out how being queer is a sin, and that the Bible explicitly denounces homosexual acts. Trust me, I get it all firsthand. But I’m not buying the rhetoric. I disagree with what I have come to consider outmoded and out-of-context religious interpretations. Of course, I do believe they have the right to their views, as I do to my own. Yet, I do not go around talking about their sex lives all of the time. Call me prudish. I think that what happens in the bedroom is between the two consenting adults who are in that bedroom.

Look, I’m trying to be a healthy, holistic person. I don’t find my identity in any one thing. I hope your sex life doesn’t define you, either. Being queer does not make up the entirety of my being, any more than being a photographer, a traveler, a blogger, etc… Sex is a normal part of a relationship, but it’s NOT all there is to that relationship.

My wife and I have all the same ups and downs of everyday life. Just like the straight couple next door. We deal with paying bills, learning better communication skills, taking care of one-another when we’re sick or down. We do household chores, go grocery shopping, and ALL those other little relationship accoutrements nobody writes poetry about, or makes picket signs over. Sex is just one aspect of the many facets in our relationship.

Every day, I am learning how to love, cherish, appreciate and care for Katryna, as she does for me. Do we have days where we fail and screw up? Of course! As I’m certain other couples struggle, as well. We pray together and alone, for one-another and for others. We are like most couples, except that we are two women who happened to fall in love. We are not constantly focused on sex, nor are we dead or indifferent to it. Sex is simply a natural and integral component of our relationship, where we deepen our bonds of intimacy with one-another, and with the Divine Creator.

It really does not matter to me where people fall on the issue of homosexuality: sin or not sin. My belief is that the Scriptures have been carelessly ripped out of their cultural and historical contexts, but when properly understood, they are not so cut-and-dry. We are human beings. We use ten percent of our brain capacity. How can we claim certainty in knowing what G-D intended for all avenues of life? The Bible is not an encyclopedia. It is not a FAQ sheet. In my view, G-D’s two greatest commandments are to love G-D, and to love others as we love ourselves. I think those were Jesus’ favorites, too. But the fruit of these commands are seen very little on this earth. When people aren’t dealing with planks in their own eyes, and are pointing out the specks in the eyes of others, they aren’t really learning to love themselves because they don’t make time to nurture and nourish themselves. They are obsessively focused on policing the morality or purity of others. Without the love of self, we can’t begin to love G-D or each other. Maybe it’s time to change focus.

Adele Sakler currently resides in Richmond, Virginia and blogs as Existential Punk is the creator and site administrator of Queermergent. She is currently going through long-term treatment for Chronic Lyme Disease, other tick-borne diseases, and heavy metal toxicity.

Adele has been a Christ-follower for 20 years and an “out” queer woman for two and-a-half years. Her involvement with the emerging church and Emergent Village has filled the better part of 10 years.