Sexuality Project: Life Outside the Bubble, Q. 1

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Life Outside the Bubble

1. What is your relationship with your family and/or fundamentalist friends like now?

Sexuality Project: Questioning, Qs. 4 and 5

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Questioning

4. (If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender) Have you “come out” to your family? How did they respond? How long have you been “out,” and has anyone you knew changed their mind about sexuality after talking with you? 

5. (If you are straight) Have you discussed sexuality with your family or friends since leaving fundamentalism? (If you told them about changed beliefs) How did they respond? Have any of your family members/friends changed their minds since you left?

Sexuality Project: Questioning, Q. 3

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Questioning

3. What media (if any) did you read or watch that made you rethink your assumptions about sexuality?

Sexuality Project: Questioning, Q. 2

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Questioning

2. How did your friends, family or church respond to your questioning? Did you talk to people or keep your doubts secret?

Sexuality Project: Questioning, Q. 1

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Questioning

1. When did you start to question what you were told about sexuality? What prompted you to rethink your beliefs? 

Sexuality Project: Romantic Relationships, Q. 3

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Romantic Relationships

3. How did your fundamentalist upbringing or training impact your own sexual identity and/or experience of sex? (See, for example, Libby Anne’s post about her beliefs about sexual compatibility changing after marriage.)

Sexuality Project: Romantic Relationships, Q. 2

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Romantic Relationships

2. Did your beliefs about sexuality change after marriage or beginning a relationship? If applicable, did break-ups and/or divorce impact your beliefs?

Sexuality Project: Romantic Relationships, Q. 1

This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.

Romantic Relationships

1. What were you taught to expect in a romantic relationship and/or marriage? How have you found reality to match or differ from your expectations?

Christian Fundamentalist Homophobia, Part Three: Finding Unconditional Love Outside the Church

Trigger warning: The following post contains frank descriptions of the hate speech against LGBTQ people that my church used to inculcate fear and contempt in its youth. I have decided to write about homophobia for two reasons: first, to demonstrate the falsity of fundamentalist rhetoric about “hating the sin and loving the sinner,” and, second, to shed light on the tools fundamentalists use to instill fear of LGBTQ people in their children.

This is the third and final part of a series called Homophobia: It Really Is About Fear. See the introduction here. Related posts are Fundamentalist Aesthetics and the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project, which is still accepting participants (until June 23).

In Part One, I described the way fundamentalist Christians construct an image of what LGBTQ people look like and how they taught their children to be afraid of that image. I imagine that an LGBTQ child growing up would find this kind of socialization very confusing, considering sexual orientation is not equal to a glitter-and-chains fetish. If you’re a boy with a crush on another boy, how do you interpret your feelings in the light of all this? As a straight woman, I can only speculate that it must be alienating, threatening, and confusing. In Part Two, I pointed out that subtle rhetorical tactics and body language were more powerful than the “logic” of anti-gay sermons in communicating to children that LGBTQ identities were not legitimate. Now, I’m going to talk about the realization that kept me from becoming another “hate the sin, love the sinner” fundamentalist.

Christian Fundamentalist Homophobia, Part Two: The Argument is in the Eyebrows

Trigger warning: The following post contains frank descriptions of the hate speech against LGBTQ people that my church used to inculcate fear and contempt in its youth. It’s probably not something you want to read if you’re already having a bad day. I have decided to write about homophobia for two reasons: first, to demonstrate the falsity of fundamentalist rhetoric about “hating the sin and loving the sinner,” and, second, to shed light on the tools fundamentalists use to instill fear of LGBTQ people in their children.