I will preface my message with a statement saying that I left any kind of organised religion after I couldn’t suffer any more ‘religious guilt’. I used to be a member of the LDS church , when I was 16/17, where masturbation and sexual activity is forbidden. I HATED this rule — it was one I couldn’t abide by and I found myself every week in Sacrament like... ‘hey God, me again, yeah I did touch myself so are we good? Good.’ And this would go on for weeks and then months until I decided I’d had enough. I didn’t mind this, but I found the process disingenuous, and kind of shit all over what the LDS stand for. I confided in my missionaries about it and asked how they coped and they were not helpful because they just ‘did it’. I also confided in older members and they said that sometimes we slip up but so long as we repent it was fine. But the whole process of repentance was to never do it again - so you’ve learnt from the experience. I would finish masturbating or doing some sort of sexual activity and instantly feel shame, like I was being judged — this feeling of embarrassment and loneliness (because I felt like the only one who struggled with celibacy) left me feeling so bad that I stopped going to church because I felt like a fraud. That and I wasn’t even sure if god existed anyway. Has anyone else experienced religious guilt?
Religeous guilt is false guilt. Yes, i have felt it and i have learned the truth of it. Any and all guilt is false as soon as you have sought forgiveness it is done. It is also very noteworthy to state that many"Christians" don't understand sin or god. True christianity has no guilt or shame.
I think anybody who's been raised in an atmosphere that places shame and guilt on our sexuality has felt this. I think it is a cultural thing that has been handed down through generations and is a false guilt. We have nothing to be ashamed of, imo. Our sexuality is part of what we are as human beings, therefore it is also part of God's plan for us (if there is such a thing as a plan). I think it all stems back to the notion of "original sin" and Eve in the garden tasting the forbidden fruit. I truly believe is a false narrative made up by religious clerics back in Moses' time to shame women and keep them subservient to their male counterparts. They believed that women were merely here to procreate and serve men and that, to me, is a crock of shit. Sadly, I still see some of these assholes standing at the pulpit preaching this nonsense even though we are in the 21st century. Like the song says," If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad." It's a long road to get all that stuff they teach us out of our heads but it's part of self awareness and growing as an individual. Hopefully, some day, these feelings of guilt and shame will be forgotten completely and you no longer hear the words of other people who don't understand a thing about you.
A lot of us have gone through this. The existence of these rules is to curb promiscuity and unwanted pregnancies. It is easier to instill fear in people than to hope for them being rational. We all know that. Look at smoking ads - now they attempt to scare smokers with realistic pics of intubated smokers who have had cancer. Because just telling people that "smoking is bad for their health" doesn't work. I see this religious talk from that perspective of instilling fear to have results that serve the majority / society. If we were not to touch ourselves and merely be vessels of procreation, then why be given genitalia that's capable of such pleasure. For animals, sex is instinctual. They don't really need it to be pleasurable. Same with us. If it were just to make babies, then we didn't need to have been given a clitoris or a cock that experiences pleasure when it cums. Your body is yours to rule over. Not anybody else's. Definitely not the church's. It sounds so ridiculous to me, that other entities think they have a right to dictate what I do with my mind and body. I am not religious. I gave up religion a long long time ago. I was tired of this incessant vacillation between shame and repentance. How to get over this immediate shame you have every time you masturbate? 1) be ready to give up the guilt and shame 2) don't pay mind to those who seek to guilt trip you. You can listen to what they say, hold a conversation, but not let it get to you. 3) masturbate a whole lot more, and rewire your mental circuitry, so that at the end of it, when the shame starts to kick in, you go... "hell no! That was awesome." Good luck kiddo.
I can get with all the rest that you wrote, except the lyrics of that song. I disagree strongly with that. Just because something gives us a feeling of happiness, does not mean it "can't be that bad". Feelings should not always dictate our actions. Rules do matter, as does morality, and common sense. I don't want assholes on the subway touching me coz it makes them happy. If so, I am vehemently kneeing them in the balls, and that's gonna make me so happy too, lol.
Yeah, you're right. After I wrote that, I was thinking to myself, "within reason and common decency" of course. I guess really I should have said between two consenting adults. And yeah, uninvited stranger groping and touching is definitely "ball kneeing" worthy.
