by: Jordan Magill
On the last day of June 2018, I celebrated Pride month by coming out to the world as bisexual via social media post, and the aftermath of that decision has shaped the last year of my life, for better and for worse. Indeed, it's been a year full of encouragement, hope, trauma, pain and confusion, often all at the same time. Almost everyone in my life has been so tender with me, so affirming and lovely. But not quite everyone. In certain circumstances, certain circles, I met resistance. Fear. Shame. And it’s really messed with me.
In fact, a question has plagued me in the time since I’ve come out, sparked by hard conversations and suddenly-strained relationships: is God’s love still for me? Am I still included in His family?
To quote gay Christian writer Jeff Chu: "Does Jesus really love me?"
My gut says yes. The first idea I ever learned about God was that He loved me, that I was unconditionally, radically, holistically embraced by the Source of all love and light in the universe.
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by Rachael Ward
Collectively, I’ve spent my twenties brushing off abuse from family dynamics and religious institutions which formed my upbringing. Through these words, thoughts and actions of such abuse, I have carefully crafted a narrative to aim at my own being.
It is self-hatred. It is shame and it is deadly.
I am tired of living into the narrative someone else programmed me to believe into and asked of me to lift for my own. I am exhausted with living disconnected from my mind and body out of continued internalized homophobia and regret of my existence.
Who wouldn’t be tired of such a subconscious and conscious assault upon your person?
This is where my mind lives these days. Battling between the illuminated truth and the false narrative of disparage of who I am as a human.
But, there is a new shift here for me in this struggle. I have found the on switch to my body, the on switch to the origin and the on switch to being able to call this treatment abuse.
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by Nathanial Green
I’ve been intending to write about my sex-positive beliefs for some time, and this post has been precipitated and sponsored by STDcheck.com, an organization dedicated to safe and healthy sexuality by providing private, affordable tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Their work is important! Furthermore, anything I write here is a personal position and recollection of my experiences–not a reflection of my employer(s).
Sex.
It’s wonderful, gross, beautiful, entirely underwhelming, and pretty fucking great.
Up until a certain point in my adolescent development, I prided myself on my relative “purity” to that of my classmates. This, of course, was complicated by my confusing thoughts and feelings directed at male peers, late-night internet searches, and varied experiences throughout my pubescent years–still, I’d never slept with a girl nor provided myself any opportunity to.
My virginity was in tact, whatever that meant.
When my awareness of my queerness expanded in college through the painful introduction of that nebulous concept we call love, I realized things were pretty dang complicated for me. And after I began dating the boy who would become my husband, the hard truth made itself known:
I spent my whole life guarding myself from experiences I would never have nor want.
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