A long-winded apology

"NaturallyAspirated" (NaturallyAspirated) 10/02/2014 at 21:52 • Filed to: apology

17

11

In light of recent posts by Yamahog and others, a number of trains of thought collided in my head and I felt compelled to put them to writing. Trigger warnings for religious abuse, misogyny, and homophobia.

I'm a white cisgendered asexual male, in my early 30s. When I was very young, my devoutly religious parents decided to homeschool my sister and I. My dad in particular was taken with the teachings of one Bill Gothard. Yes, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I was homeschooled from age 5 all the way through my senior year of high school, using a combination of religious textbooks from Bill Gothard's ATI program, Bob Jones University religious textbooks, and at my mother's insistence, actual real scientifically accurate public school textbooks.

If you're curious about the things I was indoctrinated with from the age of 12, hop on over to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Short version, Christian Fundamentalism and misogyny out the wazoo.

After I graduated high school, I volunteered at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for about 2 years before attending college at Bob Jones University. Yes, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Here I got my A&P certificate, an unaccredited degree worth less than the paper it's printed on, and a continuation of the indoctrination I'd experienced growing up...

...right up until my junior year, in which I got into major trouble for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that I hadn't actually broken. It was a huge shock to me that, despite my earnest attempts at butt kissing and line toeing, I could get in trouble with no more evidence against me than the word of another student. Looking back, this was the beginning of the end for me. I began to notice other cracks in the facade of religious fundamentalism.

I had people accuse me of being gay (I say "accuse" because being non-straight is the worst thing you can be to a Christian Fundamentalist - it's !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) because I didn't have a girlfriend. As you might imagine given my background, I'd never even heard of asexuality before, so I assumed I just wasn't trying hard enough in the girlfriend department. I ended up making solid friendships with a number of blue-collar women, but nothing romantic.

After graduation, I spent a couple of years as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The isolation from my past was good for me; I got to stew in my own juices as it were. I kept finding more and more things that I had been taught that seemed like they might not be true.

Finally, I ended up moving to Southern California and got a job with a CAD/CAM company. In the meantime, things kept getting worse for my worldview. I eventually found out that one of my good friends at the office was openly gay (it had never really come up), and he was nothing like what I'd been told gay men were like.

I determined to researched this contradiction. To my utter astonishment, I found that bible scholars can't actually agree on whether or not the bible forbids homosexuality at all, and an increasing number of scholars are !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . With that information, I found that I could no longer in good conscience consider homosexuality to be wrong or "sinful." I felt like a complete idiot. I'd been manipulated into following a political agenda by those claiming they knew what God wanted me to do. And I had willingly believed what I was told, without doing even basic fact checking.

With this concrete fact in my mind - "I was lied to about LGBT+ folks" - everything collapsed. What else had I been lied to about? I questioned everything, literally everything, that I had been taught growing up. With the Internet's wealth of information at my disposal, belief after belief crumbled before actual evidence.

I soon found myself in an odd position. I had spent nearly 30 years of my life being absolutely certain that I knew all the right answers, and in the space of less than a year I transitioned into not being certain about much at all. I am still a theist. I still believe in the Christian bible, but I believe that Christianity in America has gone completely off the rails by dishonestly twisting the bible to mean whatever they want them to mean.

Going through my long-held beliefs, of course patriarchy and the comparative worth of the genders came up. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! who say "Well of course patriarchy and misogyny is wrong, but really it's OK if you're only a little bit of a misogynist." Most prefer to call it by other names that sound less objectionable, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! being one of the most popular terms. It's pretty easy to justify this position with a strong dose of " !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ."

My research utterly convinced me that all people are equal, full stop.

Helping me along my journey were strong women like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Sadly, in a much darker way, also helping me were women like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who were deeply hurt by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Men who looked a lot like me, if I was totally honest with myself.

Unfortunately, from my white male privilege perspective, I didn't want to believe that feminists were right. The thought that I hadn't achieved my own relatively minor success by "pulling myself up by my own bootstraps" was profoundly uncomfortable to me. The thought that, despite claims to the contrary, women really do have a harder time of it than men in American society, took longer than it probably should have to get through my thick skull. But the more I read, the more convinced I became: Given that all people are equal, the current system does not reflect that reality.

So yeah, I'm a feminist.

I can't claim to be a good feminist. I'm well aware that 30 years of wrong thinking has made certain ways of thought habitual for me, and I struggle every day to identify these and correct myself.

Please, if you see in my writing anything that you find offensive, alert me to it. I very likely said what I did in ignorance, or without thinking it through. I will do everything I can to graciously receive such correction.

Please, continue to post pro-feminist articles. I find them to be valuable guideposts to help correct my own thinking.

Please, if you yourself side with the MRA crowd, stop and take a step back. Re-evaluate your thinking. This type of thinking will ultimately lead you to a very dark place. I say this with authority, because I've been there.

Please, women, accept my heartfelt apology for my own 30+ years of misogyny. I can offer no excuses; this article was intended only as an explanation.

Please, LGBT+ people, accept my heartfelt apology for 30+ years of active homophobia. I have hurt you through my actions and attitudes, and I wish I could make it up to you somehow.

Slave2anMG > NaturallyAspirated 10/02/2014 at 21:59

7

The only thing I find offensive here is that more people who had educations and backgrounds similar to yours haven't had that light go on that went on for you...it takes a TON of courage to look at your beliefs and question them. The bastardization of Christianity in this country has revolted me; the basic and essential message of Jesus has been subsumed in greed and hatred; two things that are the complete polar opposite of His message. I want my Christianity back from those people.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > NaturallyAspirated 10/02/2014 at 22:18

2

I'm all for gender equality, so this shit would stop happening:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat…

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/jus…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Br…

Equality is a two way street. Every group has their batshit people who skew the answers to ways that it "Works for them." Just like Feminists have the pigs that believe all men are rapists, men's rights activists have shitbags who think women are objects. Like how Christians have Westboro, and Atheists have the majority of the their vocal community.

NaturallyAspirated > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies 10/02/2014 at 22:31

6

You've sort of disproved your own point there. Those three occurrences were big news because they are outliers . That sort of thing happens so rarely that of course it's big news when it occurs, and the fact that you could only list three very strongly suggests that it's not something that occurs on a regular basis.

If I wanted to post examples of women being discriminated against, you can bet that I wouldn't have to resort to Wikipedia to find examples.

Xyl0c41n3 > NaturallyAspirated 10/02/2014 at 22:31

3

You have nothing to apologize for. But thank you very much for telling your story.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > NaturallyAspirated 10/02/2014 at 22:33

0

The thing is, it has been proven that men are less likely to report their own rape or domestic abuse by a large margin. It happens more often than people want to believe. Also, just because they are outliers doesn't mean a thing. These would have never happened had the roles been reversed.

Racescort666 > Slave2anMG 10/02/2014 at 23:11

1

I was going to make a joke about the Church of Satan but given the mood, that's probably a bad idea.

yamahog > NaturallyAspirated 10/02/2014 at 23:12

6

Not to mention that by and large, feminists definitely support an end to sexual violence against everyone, men and women. Just look at GT the other night where a bunch of women were expressing outrage at people who joke about the statutory rape of a male minor by his teachers. It is colossally fucked up that both male and female victims are told that "they deserved it," and many of the recent laws written to help victims have been written with gender-neutral language to help make it easier for mens' attackers to receive the same sentencing as womens'.

But why believe us when we talk about how patriarchy hurts men too when it's way easier to just blame the feminists? And that's the whole concept behind Emma Watson's HeForShe campaign, the very thing being whined about last night. Ugh.

PS: Thank you very much for sharing your story, BTW.

Pixel > NaturallyAspirated 10/03/2014 at 09:33

0

Good on you for being willing to question what you were taught.

Good on you for trying to be a better person.

JEM > NaturallyAspirated 10/03/2014 at 10:57

0

As someone who was raised Catholic and went through Catholic K-12 school, and was already seeing the cracks in it by the end of high school (despite solidly participating in bible based youth groups), I can't even imagine your situation. I sincerely applaud you for what you've accomplished, and really commend you for writing this all out and posting it.

Also, I know the "share this on Jezebel" joke thing around here but I can't think of a better place to share it. Maybe there is, just dunno.

IDROVEAPICKUPTRUCK > NaturallyAspirated 10/04/2014 at 00:26

0

This is the best thing I've read all day. Congratulations on having the courage to challenge your upbringing.

RallyWrench > NaturallyAspirated 10/08/2014 at 14:31

0