So, we were out of town on Sunday, down in the States for a week, visiting my family. And then we heard the news about Pulse.
The first news I heard didn't mention that it was a gay club. The next news I heard, about the rising death toll, also didn't mention that. I don't think I realized it until I managed to read something that mentioned that little fact on Monday.
We were down in central-eastern Oregon, out in a rural area, with no cell phone coverage and while there was wi-fi where we stayed, we spent a lot of time hiking and so didn't exactly have 24/7 news constantly available.
It didn't really seem real at first, and like a lot of things for me, it took a few days for the emotional reaction to really hit. And then it did, a couple days ago.
I've never been a club person, but I know how important they are to the LGBTQ community. They're a sanctuary, and that sanctuary has been violated. These are my people, for all that I don't really get much of a chance to spend time with the local community at the moment, for all I wonder how welcome I'd be sometimes, given I'm bisexual and married to a man. But I don't really care right now, about bi erasure and all that.
What I care about now is the horrific loss that we've just experienced. I hate guns, and I hate violence, and I hate the facets of this culture that have helped create an environment in which events like this happen. I hate that so much of the religious right is expressing sympathy now for people in death when they've been doing so much to dehumanize us (and it's seemed so vocal, their hate, in the last year).
I don't like hate. It's one of those negative emotions I tend to shy away from, but it has its place. Anger has its place. And it should be part of the reaction to this. I'm angry, and I'm sad, and I hate that this happened.
And that's where I am now. Perhaps I'll have something more useful in a couple days.
18 June 2016
30 May 2016
music education
Recently, I decided to try to get E. listening to more music, in an effort to help her improve her speech. So I pulled up some children's music on YouTube and tried listening to it with her. After a few songs, I went back to the computer and switched to a channel of Broadway songs. Much better. But it got me thinking.
I was a 90's kid, but I know next to nothing about the music of 80's and 90's. My family listened to NPR and to a collection of records, tapes, and CDs that, while diverse, skewed heavily towards classical, folk, and Broadway music. I could blame my lack of knowledge about pop music on my parents (Mom always said she needed to give me something to talk to my therapist about), but that's not really fair. They love music and listen to a lot of different things, but they also have well-formed opinions about what they want to listen to, and well, a lot of pop stuff isn't really on that list. We did listen to a number of Christian artists, but all of them were more musically interesting than a lot of the popular worship songs today seem to be (at least as far as I remember; I've been in the Anglican world of hymns for the last couple years and completely out of touch with what's in with the rest of the North American church right now).
I was content to listen to what we had available at home for a long time and didn't start seeking other genres out until I was nearly out of high school, and even then I limited myself mostly to Christian pop music because that's what a lot of my friends listened to and I wanted to know what they were talking about. And it seemed safer; like I was exploring something that was off-limits but wouldn't actually get me in trouble. My teenage rebellion was very reserved in that way (my really big rebellion was going to a play audition without permission and then I felt horrible about it and cried for hours).
These days I'm thinking about how I knew most of the words to all the songs in The Secret Garden and Les Miserables but had only the faintest idea of who Madonna was. Angsty teenage me wasn't listening to Ani diFranco but to Simon and Garfunkel. I was busy memorizing lyrics to traditional British folk songs while some kids I went to school with were starting a metal band. Picking up a few CDs of Christian rock music when I was about sixteen seemed edgy in a weird way. It wasn't what my family listened to, and Avalon and the Newsboys were out of place in my collection that included the cast recordings of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Wicked and the second CD by Nickel Creek. I was still the geeky teenager blasting PDQ Bach's "1712 Overture" out the windows as I drove to community college. But I listened to my new music religiously (hah) and sang along when I was alone in the car and then when I went off to university, I got another music education from my peers.
My roommate introduced me to a few other Christian bands whose music I still actually enjoy sometimes and my boyfriend made me listen to The Arrogant Worms. I listened to more Celtic music and cemented my love of it and then borrowed my brother's Celtic CDs whenever I was home from school. I got more daring in the music I listened to - I learned that I really did enjoy rock music and sometimes found it excellent for studying. Another friend was playing Regina Spektor once and I found myself hunting through the CD section at the store for one of her albums.
Later my knowledge of music broadened as I listened to podcasts and then more as I watched the first seasons of Glee and got my first real exposure to pop music. I swear, I don't think I'd ever really heard any of Brittany Spear's music until the episode featuring her songs. I admittedly don't like all pop music but I do enjoy some of what's out there. I sometimes pick up other songs that I like from music used on television shows that I enjoy. I found a couple of artists I really enjoyed from watching Castle, for example.
These days, our go-to car music is CBC Radio 2. E. is growing up listening to the variety of music they have on offer there, paired with whatever my current obsession is. Last winter it was most of the songs in Rent. Right now it's a mix of folk and indie music, and occasionally Broadway songs and a lot of Great Big Sea. I'm sprinkling in some children's music, too, just so she has stuff with vocabulary that she can follow more easily. There was a mix of children's music I picked up at the library recently that's performed by a variety of different artists and I liked most of that.
The appreciation of music I gained from my parents' choices in music has made me want to impart that to my own child. My parents didn't censor our music - I learned about prostitution and suicide from Les Mis and adultery from Into the Woods, and realized after a while that one of the really lovely songs from Once on This Island was basically about the main characters having sex with each other (also learned quite a bit about racism from that musical). Our family typically didn't listen to things with profanity in them (other than Paul Simon's The Capeman but my mom usually skipped the songs with swear words or very explicit lyrics in them when we kids were in the room), but otherwise didn't fuss so much about the content of the songs. I don't object to the occasional swear word, so there are a few songs that I will listen to around my child that other parents would probably skip over (though there are some that I still object to, like Book of Mormon's "Hasa Diga Eebawai" because holy profanity, Batman! That one goes way too far for me - there's judicious, thoughtful use of profanity and then there's that).
I'm still searching out more children's music that we can all enjoy. I can listen to Raffi and Fred Penner without the songs driving me nuts, but there's a lot of really mediocre children's music out there. To be fair, there's just a lot of mediocre music out there in general. If that means we're listening to Candide instead of whatever's in for E.'s generation, well, she can always catch up later, like I did. And then she can complain about how we deprived her of the music her peers liked to her therapist when she grows up.
13 April 2016
Adulthood, one bowl of pasta at a time
While making spaghetti sauce this evening (Bolognese-ish style), I suddenly found myself remembering one of those days when it had hit me that I was turning into an adult. I don't ever feel entirely like an adult, but I have moments where I have the sudden realization that I am not a child. Oh, I know that, all the time, and go about my day, but it's the sort of knowledge that resides in the back of my mind.
The day I remembered was an afternoon in late autumn when I was in my third year of undergrad. I was hanging out and doing homework in the common area of my boyfriend's dorm. At that time, he lived in a dorm with a big shared kitchen, and it was always fun to camp out and watch the guys he lived with figuring out how to cook edible food. While it wasn't a new skill for many of them, some of them got more than a little creative in their efforts. We kept wondering if the guy who literally lived on meat and potatoes, no salt, would develop a vitamin deficiency. J.'s roommate seemed to mostly subsist on instant kimchi noodles. And J. himself was a big fan of orange juice smoothies. Made mostly with a can of orange juice concentrate and very little else.
Anyway, that day, J. was still in class and I was doing homework, and one of our mutual friends was making spaghetti. He could definitely cook, and cook well, but he preferred non-Western food. This was his first time making a spaghetti (Bolognese) sauce. He called me over to taste it. He felt like something was missing but didn't know what. "Needs more oregano," I said, almost without thought, after tasting the sauce. So he added more oregano and went on with his dinner preparation.
I remember the moment because I then noticed I had become someone who could figure out what a sauce was missing, a skill I had mostly attributed to adults. And all of sudden, I was one of them.
Adulthood, in my experience, is something that comes in small experiences which add up to a large whole. It doesn't happen instantly, overnight. It's a process. It doesn't mean I have to act like the token grownup 24/7, but it does mean that those responsibilities of adulthood, of being the grownup, become more familiar every day. Sometimes it means that I floss my teeth every day, whether I want to or not, as an example to my daughter and to avoid massive dental bills in the future, and sometimes I means I can tell when a sauce needs another spoonful of oregano.
The day I remembered was an afternoon in late autumn when I was in my third year of undergrad. I was hanging out and doing homework in the common area of my boyfriend's dorm. At that time, he lived in a dorm with a big shared kitchen, and it was always fun to camp out and watch the guys he lived with figuring out how to cook edible food. While it wasn't a new skill for many of them, some of them got more than a little creative in their efforts. We kept wondering if the guy who literally lived on meat and potatoes, no salt, would develop a vitamin deficiency. J.'s roommate seemed to mostly subsist on instant kimchi noodles. And J. himself was a big fan of orange juice smoothies. Made mostly with a can of orange juice concentrate and very little else.
Anyway, that day, J. was still in class and I was doing homework, and one of our mutual friends was making spaghetti. He could definitely cook, and cook well, but he preferred non-Western food. This was his first time making a spaghetti (Bolognese) sauce. He called me over to taste it. He felt like something was missing but didn't know what. "Needs more oregano," I said, almost without thought, after tasting the sauce. So he added more oregano and went on with his dinner preparation.
I remember the moment because I then noticed I had become someone who could figure out what a sauce was missing, a skill I had mostly attributed to adults. And all of sudden, I was one of them.
 |
| My current version of spaghetti, which includes carrots, cheese, and pork. |
07 April 2016
assorted things I read and write
It feels like most of my recent posts have been on the heavy emotional side. Well, that's where I was when I wrote them, so it's fine, but I'm having a good day, so I figured I'd write something less serious. Earlier this week I had a couple of bad days which reminded me to appreciate the good days when I have them (oh, the joys of depression).
My recent reading has been a tad bit eclectic. I skimmed through The Selection by Kiera Cass after picking it up on a whim at the library. Hints of fairy tale plus the Book of Esther plus a dash of dystopia with a side of teenager. Enjoyable but not particularly remarkable. Typical for a lot of the romance dystopia teen books that seem to be popular right now.
I'm working my way through Kate Bowler's Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. I've never completely understood the full-blown prosperity gospel, though I do get some of its milder forms. My parents have never been excited about it. I remember my brother once saying, "God is not a vending machine." At any rate, this text is certainly informing me about where on earth this all came from. I'm still in the section on the late 1950s/early 1960s. I hadn't ever noticed the connection to the Pentecostal movement but that actually makes a great deal of sense. I might write a little more about it once I've finished the book.
And, as usual, I've been reading fanfiction here and there because I am hopeless geek. It's my friend Sarah James Elliot's fault. Years ago she got me into Harry Potter fanfiction, which eventually led me to Sherlock fanfiction, and it sort of went from there. I've been reading a lot of Avengers stuff lately. It's addictive, I swear. Plus, in the universe of fanfiction, Tony Stark does things like invent sentient toasters. (This, among other reasons, is why I haven't finished Ley Lines yet).
I tried reading a chapter book to E. recently. She was really into it until the last few chapters and then she got bored. She's only 2 1/2 so it's a tad early. My Father's Dragon seemed like a good start (she likes dragons, she likes animals, there are pictures) but she prefers Where the Wild Things Are most nights. I have that and a few other picture books just about memorized.
I've hit pause on my NCIS watching for the moment. I did seven seasons, one after the other, as I got them from the library (have I ever mentioned just how freaking awesome the library is?), and I think I need to take a break. Otherwise I'll end up dreaming about a body turning up at Rock Creek Park (is there no other park nearby for the show's killers to dump bodies?). I have a book to finish, a couple submissions to tweak and send out, and a handful of knitting projects to complete.
I worked on Ley Lines this week. Really. But then I got lost in a side story about a character from what will be a companion series to Comrades. After Ley Lines, and the third book, Sword Song, we're scooting back in time to check out some of Peterkin's predecessors and their adventures. I have a couple other plans in mind for different books that are unrelated to the Comrades universe, so I don't know if we'll be getting the Greatmagi series going right after Sword Song or if I'll tackle something different first to take a break from that world.
And with that, we'll call this update complete. Time to do something besides typing for a little while.
My recent reading has been a tad bit eclectic. I skimmed through The Selection by Kiera Cass after picking it up on a whim at the library. Hints of fairy tale plus the Book of Esther plus a dash of dystopia with a side of teenager. Enjoyable but not particularly remarkable. Typical for a lot of the romance dystopia teen books that seem to be popular right now.
I'm working my way through Kate Bowler's Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. I've never completely understood the full-blown prosperity gospel, though I do get some of its milder forms. My parents have never been excited about it. I remember my brother once saying, "God is not a vending machine." At any rate, this text is certainly informing me about where on earth this all came from. I'm still in the section on the late 1950s/early 1960s. I hadn't ever noticed the connection to the Pentecostal movement but that actually makes a great deal of sense. I might write a little more about it once I've finished the book.
And, as usual, I've been reading fanfiction here and there because I am hopeless geek. It's my friend Sarah James Elliot's fault. Years ago she got me into Harry Potter fanfiction, which eventually led me to Sherlock fanfiction, and it sort of went from there. I've been reading a lot of Avengers stuff lately. It's addictive, I swear. Plus, in the universe of fanfiction, Tony Stark does things like invent sentient toasters. (This, among other reasons, is why I haven't finished Ley Lines yet).
I tried reading a chapter book to E. recently. She was really into it until the last few chapters and then she got bored. She's only 2 1/2 so it's a tad early. My Father's Dragon seemed like a good start (she likes dragons, she likes animals, there are pictures) but she prefers Where the Wild Things Are most nights. I have that and a few other picture books just about memorized.
I've hit pause on my NCIS watching for the moment. I did seven seasons, one after the other, as I got them from the library (have I ever mentioned just how freaking awesome the library is?), and I think I need to take a break. Otherwise I'll end up dreaming about a body turning up at Rock Creek Park (is there no other park nearby for the show's killers to dump bodies?). I have a book to finish, a couple submissions to tweak and send out, and a handful of knitting projects to complete.
I worked on Ley Lines this week. Really. But then I got lost in a side story about a character from what will be a companion series to Comrades. After Ley Lines, and the third book, Sword Song, we're scooting back in time to check out some of Peterkin's predecessors and their adventures. I have a couple other plans in mind for different books that are unrelated to the Comrades universe, so I don't know if we'll be getting the Greatmagi series going right after Sword Song or if I'll tackle something different first to take a break from that world.
And with that, we'll call this update complete. Time to do something besides typing for a little while.
15 March 2016
adventures in jewelry making
My experience has been that learning new crafts takes time and often what I make starts out looking pretty messy until I've had some practice. This has been true for sewing (still is, sometimes), for knitting, and definitely for crochet. Oh, and ceramics. I spent three terms in ceramics class, loved it, and was only just starting to get out of the clunky Paleolithic stage by the end of the year. I'd still love to do ceramics, but I'd need a few hundred dollars going spare (which isn't really the hardest part) and someone to look after the tiny one a couple afternoons a week so I could take classes at one of the local art centres.
As I've been experimenting with jewelry, I've learned a few things. Wireworking, the kind that looks absolutely amazing, takes practice. Manipulating wire isn't a skill that comes without effort. To that end, I've been getting books out of the library and looking at online tutorials, and tinkering. Yesterday I pulled out my kitchen torch to see if it was high-powered enough for me to do some basic metal-working. I learned that no, it really isn't, but it will definitely get copper wire hot enough to burn. My fingers didn't really thank me for that lesson.
One of the books I've looked at is Handcrafted Metal Findings, edited by Denise Peck and Jane Dickerson. I don't have the tools to do most of the projects in there (see above paragraph about my kitchen torch), but there are a couple that are on the more basic side. Like the one below.
I thought those links and clasps looked like a great idea. I had wire, I had pliers, I had a hammer. That's all I needed, right? The first one might look a little wonky, but it'd be fine once I practiced tinkering with the wire and twisting it for the centre bit. I measured and cut my wire and I was off.
Yes, well, good ideas and best laid plans and all that. As you can see, my first forays into this particular piece were not precisely how the book intended them to be. The tight centre spiral is harder to produce that I thought it would be. Next time I'm double-checking to make sure the label on the wire says "dead soft." I need all the help I can get. And the leaf shaping on each side will take some more practice to get it looking the way I'd like. I don't need them to be exactly like the picture (as that's rather boring), but it would be nice if my version wasn't quite so, ah, messy, in appearance.
I'm going to give another go at some point. I'm trying something a little simpler from a different book by the same authors right now instead. Coiled links, using a crochet hook as my mandrel. So far, much better.
As I've been experimenting with jewelry, I've learned a few things. Wireworking, the kind that looks absolutely amazing, takes practice. Manipulating wire isn't a skill that comes without effort. To that end, I've been getting books out of the library and looking at online tutorials, and tinkering. Yesterday I pulled out my kitchen torch to see if it was high-powered enough for me to do some basic metal-working. I learned that no, it really isn't, but it will definitely get copper wire hot enough to burn. My fingers didn't really thank me for that lesson.
One of the books I've looked at is Handcrafted Metal Findings, edited by Denise Peck and Jane Dickerson. I don't have the tools to do most of the projects in there (see above paragraph about my kitchen torch), but there are a couple that are on the more basic side. Like the one below.
 | |
| From "Handcrafted Metal Findings" edited by Denise Peck and Jane Dickerson |
I thought those links and clasps looked like a great idea. I had wire, I had pliers, I had a hammer. That's all I needed, right? The first one might look a little wonky, but it'd be fine once I practiced tinkering with the wire and twisting it for the centre bit. I measured and cut my wire and I was off.
Yes, well, good ideas and best laid plans and all that. As you can see, my first forays into this particular piece were not precisely how the book intended them to be. The tight centre spiral is harder to produce that I thought it would be. Next time I'm double-checking to make sure the label on the wire says "dead soft." I need all the help I can get. And the leaf shaping on each side will take some more practice to get it looking the way I'd like. I don't need them to be exactly like the picture (as that's rather boring), but it would be nice if my version wasn't quite so, ah, messy, in appearance.
I'm going to give another go at some point. I'm trying something a little simpler from a different book by the same authors right now instead. Coiled links, using a crochet hook as my mandrel. So far, much better.
29 February 2016
current crafting: jewelry
As you can see, I've been tinkering with jewelry this month. The earrings above are off a pattern in 101 Wire Earrings. Naturally, they look different than the picture because I had different beads and chose a different type of wire, but hey, what's the point in making it look exactly like the picture?
I have plans to practice making Byzantine chain, but haven't gotten to it yet. I didn't exactly want to take my jewelry-making tools with me to Mexico, and the crafting area I have in the corner of the bedroom was more than a bit disorganized. So, in lieu of Byzantine chain, I went with Moebius knot earrings instead.
And finally, I made this bracelet during an episode of NCIS (I'm into season 6 now) and it was fun, though it did convince me that the next thing on my tools list should be a collapsible eye needle. The beading needles I have now (from a packet of crafting needles I bought years ago) don't have eyes big enough for the silk thread I used to string these beads on. I got enough of it through to make it work, but not enough to let me keep it on the needle to make knotting between the beads an easy option. So I skipped knotting after every bead just to make my life easier.
And that's that for now. I've made a few other pieces here and there, but I just pulled these ones out to show off for the moment. I have some plans for more earrings and some more bracelets and anklets, and probably a few necklaces.
04 February 2016
crush time
So, I just watched this video from Sexplanations:
I love this channel; she has so many good things to say and share, and it's interesting and she's so excited and yeah...maybe I have a tiny crush on Lindsay.
Anyway, I felt like writing a bit of a response to this video because, well, my experience with crushes hasn't always been fun. It is now, but for a while, crushes were a source of shame and anger directed towards myself.
My family is Christian, and while we weren't exactly evangelical (being Lutheran and all), we did intersect with evangelical Christian culture in a number of ways. We homeschooled (not for religious reasons, though we did use some religious textbooks), so that meant we had quite a bit of interaction with more conservative evangelical families. I spent a couple of years at a private Christian high school, and that's where I learned about Christian pop culture. I worked a couple summers at a Christian retreat centre, and that's where I got exposed to heavy-duty purity culture.
I'd run across purity culture in various forms before. My parents did the promise ring thing with me when I turned thirteen, but unlike other iterations of that tradition, it was not public and I signed no contracts. I got to pick a cool ring from the jewelry store (I selected one that looked like it wouldn't be out of place in the Lord of the Rings and I still wear it, albeit on my middle finger), and we talked about the consequences of sex and why my parents felt it was important to wait to have sex until marriage. I was uncomfortable with the thought of sex, so I was happy to promise abstinence. We prayed about it, I got to wear my cool ring, and that was about it.
At fourteen, I started high school and found myself with a painful crush on a boy. The really painful kind - blushing, stammering, freaking out, completely obsessed with him kind of crush that makes you embarrass yourself and your friends and family. My parents sort of sighed and went with it, letting me rant about my feelings and never telling me they were inappropriate. My mom told me to enjoy him as a person and not to worry, though I mostly ignored that advice. For all my interest in this particular boy, I didn't really want to have sex with him. Just the thought of kissing him kind of made me want to explode; sex was absolutely unthinkable.
It took a couple years for my feelings for that boy to run their course. By the end of it, I felt horribly embarrassed about how I'd behaved, ashamed that I'd let my feelings run away with me, and determined to not make a fool of myself again. Some of this was related to the reactions I'd gotten from people. It was perfectly acceptable to them that the boy I liked was trying to pursue a girl who'd made it clear that she wasn't interested in him, but not acceptable for me to pursue him (yes, the double standard is alive and well, more's the pity). Some of my anger at myself came from bits and pieces I'd picked up from purity culture. And then I developed another serious crush.
This crush was on a boy who was really into purity culture. Like seriously into it. I found myself reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye (the book that projected Joshua Harris' issues and opinions about dating and sex onto an entire generation of North American Christian youth) and checking myself in the mirror before I left in the morning to make sure my shirt wasn't too low-cut. The irony of trying to attract a boy that way is not lost on me. Again, my parents tolerated my latest fad, but weren't particularly enthused by it (I remember a conversation with my mom regarding her opinions on parent-directed courtship - she did not approve. I thought it sounded safe, which, of course, is the attraction - it promises a perfect relationship if only you follow these specific rules).
Crushes, in hard-core purity culture, are a failing. They're a sign that you're not focused enough on God, and that you're letting bits of your heart be captured by others, never to return, and therefore depriving your Future Spouse of your entire heart (total BS, yes, but convincing when you know you still have some fuzzy feelings for that guy you used to like. Love isn't a finite resource, which the fundies are happy to tell you when encouraging you to skip on birth control, but they conveniently ignore that when it comes to romance). Experiencing attraction to others is cast as lust, which is bad. That might lead to pornography use, or kissing, or even premarital sex. Or just fantasizing about people. Or masturbating. Though that last one was mostly for boys, since girls totally don't care about sex, they care about romance, which is why romance novels are bad. (And yes, it just keeps getting more ridiculous). And of course, all this is focused exclusively on heterosexual relationships and sexuality.
Eventually, one of what felt like way too many crushes (which weren't really all that many) led to a boyfriend, and kissing and marriage and sex and the realization that crushes aren't bad, and they aren't going to go away just because I'm in a committed monogamous relationship. The crushes that I acknowledged as a teen and a young adult on boys weren't wrong. They just were. The crushes on girls that I ignored, that I tried to rationalize as something else, they weren't wrong either. I wasn't ready to see them for what they were, but there was nothing wrong with me or with my feelings.
It took me a while to be comfortable with crushes, and even longer to learn to enjoy them, but I'm finally there. Crushes are fun now. I can have celebrity crushes, or crushes on fictional characters, or on people I know and admire, and it's not a bad thing. I let myself have crushes now, and I enjoy them. I don't try to ignore them or stuff them down. I don't try to rationalize my crushes on women as something else because I was finally ready to come out to myself and then to others. I can talk to J. about them and he can talk to me about the crushes he experiences, and it doesn't detract from what we have together. It adds to the intimacy we have with each other because of what we can share.
So the advice my mom gave me, years ago, when I was a teenager with my first difficult crush, is the advice that I have finally taken to heart: Enjoy it. And enjoy the person you have a crush on. Don't worry about it.
I love this channel; she has so many good things to say and share, and it's interesting and she's so excited and yeah...maybe I have a tiny crush on Lindsay.
Anyway, I felt like writing a bit of a response to this video because, well, my experience with crushes hasn't always been fun. It is now, but for a while, crushes were a source of shame and anger directed towards myself.
My family is Christian, and while we weren't exactly evangelical (being Lutheran and all), we did intersect with evangelical Christian culture in a number of ways. We homeschooled (not for religious reasons, though we did use some religious textbooks), so that meant we had quite a bit of interaction with more conservative evangelical families. I spent a couple of years at a private Christian high school, and that's where I learned about Christian pop culture. I worked a couple summers at a Christian retreat centre, and that's where I got exposed to heavy-duty purity culture.
I'd run across purity culture in various forms before. My parents did the promise ring thing with me when I turned thirteen, but unlike other iterations of that tradition, it was not public and I signed no contracts. I got to pick a cool ring from the jewelry store (I selected one that looked like it wouldn't be out of place in the Lord of the Rings and I still wear it, albeit on my middle finger), and we talked about the consequences of sex and why my parents felt it was important to wait to have sex until marriage. I was uncomfortable with the thought of sex, so I was happy to promise abstinence. We prayed about it, I got to wear my cool ring, and that was about it.
At fourteen, I started high school and found myself with a painful crush on a boy. The really painful kind - blushing, stammering, freaking out, completely obsessed with him kind of crush that makes you embarrass yourself and your friends and family. My parents sort of sighed and went with it, letting me rant about my feelings and never telling me they were inappropriate. My mom told me to enjoy him as a person and not to worry, though I mostly ignored that advice. For all my interest in this particular boy, I didn't really want to have sex with him. Just the thought of kissing him kind of made me want to explode; sex was absolutely unthinkable.
It took a couple years for my feelings for that boy to run their course. By the end of it, I felt horribly embarrassed about how I'd behaved, ashamed that I'd let my feelings run away with me, and determined to not make a fool of myself again. Some of this was related to the reactions I'd gotten from people. It was perfectly acceptable to them that the boy I liked was trying to pursue a girl who'd made it clear that she wasn't interested in him, but not acceptable for me to pursue him (yes, the double standard is alive and well, more's the pity). Some of my anger at myself came from bits and pieces I'd picked up from purity culture. And then I developed another serious crush.
This crush was on a boy who was really into purity culture. Like seriously into it. I found myself reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye (the book that projected Joshua Harris' issues and opinions about dating and sex onto an entire generation of North American Christian youth) and checking myself in the mirror before I left in the morning to make sure my shirt wasn't too low-cut. The irony of trying to attract a boy that way is not lost on me. Again, my parents tolerated my latest fad, but weren't particularly enthused by it (I remember a conversation with my mom regarding her opinions on parent-directed courtship - she did not approve. I thought it sounded safe, which, of course, is the attraction - it promises a perfect relationship if only you follow these specific rules).
Crushes, in hard-core purity culture, are a failing. They're a sign that you're not focused enough on God, and that you're letting bits of your heart be captured by others, never to return, and therefore depriving your Future Spouse of your entire heart (total BS, yes, but convincing when you know you still have some fuzzy feelings for that guy you used to like. Love isn't a finite resource, which the fundies are happy to tell you when encouraging you to skip on birth control, but they conveniently ignore that when it comes to romance). Experiencing attraction to others is cast as lust, which is bad. That might lead to pornography use, or kissing, or even premarital sex. Or just fantasizing about people. Or masturbating. Though that last one was mostly for boys, since girls totally don't care about sex, they care about romance, which is why romance novels are bad. (And yes, it just keeps getting more ridiculous). And of course, all this is focused exclusively on heterosexual relationships and sexuality.
Eventually, one of what felt like way too many crushes (which weren't really all that many) led to a boyfriend, and kissing and marriage and sex and the realization that crushes aren't bad, and they aren't going to go away just because I'm in a committed monogamous relationship. The crushes that I acknowledged as a teen and a young adult on boys weren't wrong. They just were. The crushes on girls that I ignored, that I tried to rationalize as something else, they weren't wrong either. I wasn't ready to see them for what they were, but there was nothing wrong with me or with my feelings.
It took me a while to be comfortable with crushes, and even longer to learn to enjoy them, but I'm finally there. Crushes are fun now. I can have celebrity crushes, or crushes on fictional characters, or on people I know and admire, and it's not a bad thing. I let myself have crushes now, and I enjoy them. I don't try to ignore them or stuff them down. I don't try to rationalize my crushes on women as something else because I was finally ready to come out to myself and then to others. I can talk to J. about them and he can talk to me about the crushes he experiences, and it doesn't detract from what we have together. It adds to the intimacy we have with each other because of what we can share.
So the advice my mom gave me, years ago, when I was a teenager with my first difficult crush, is the advice that I have finally taken to heart: Enjoy it. And enjoy the person you have a crush on. Don't worry about it.
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