May 10, 2022 - Straight White American Jesus
03:59
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Axis Mundi | |
| Axis Mundi | |
| I converted to evangelicalism at the end of my 8th grade year. | |
| If you remember being 14, it's that sweet spot where youthful ignorance meets raging hormones. | |
| The land of bad first kisses and awkward public displays of affection. | |
| Despite the best efforts of my father to give me the talk in the winter of that year, it was past the time for education on what sex is, how it works, and how to do it safely. | |
| My friends and I had already crowdsourced that information, based on a mix of lessons from older siblings, rumors told at lunchtime, and limited first-hand experience. | |
| When I converted to evangelicalism, my youth leaders quickly convinced me that Matthew 5.27 should be the foundation for my approach to love and sex. | |
| This is where Jesus explains that anyone who lusts after someone who is not their spouse commits adultery in their heart. | |
| That means, my youth ministers explained, no making out in the movie theater, no sneaky hookups at inspiration point. | |
| It even meant doing away with anything that might cause me to lust after another person. | |
| Avoiding most movies, ripping out the pictures of bikini-clad surfers in my magazines, and doing everything possible to avoid the sin of masturbation. | |
| Unfortunately, prohibition is where my religious sex education stopped. | |
| The directive to avoid lust at all costs until marriage wasn't accompanied by any further information. | |
| The motto was to stay pure until my wedding night and then somehow magically figure out what sex is and how to have a meaningful sexual relationship from scratch on your wedding night after years of thinking sex, your own body, and the body of anyone else is the most sinister source of temptation in the whole world. | |
| It's one thing to learn this model at church, where I had willingly devoted myself to Christ and his teachings. | |
| It's another thing altogether to learn it in the public school system, the place where strict theologies of sexuality seemingly have no place in the curriculum. | |
| But that's the reality for millions of American teenagers. | |
| We are the only developed nation, a large portion of whose children learn that the best way to approach sex is to avoid it completely and never talk about it. | |
| The results have been disastrous. | |
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