Month: August 2011
Puritan Pundits Should Chill Out — Here Are 5 Reasons I'm Happy I've Had Lots of Casual Sex
Mark Regnerus, Slate: “If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we’d be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on.”
Rachel Simmons, relationship advice columnist for Teen Vogue: “These letters worry me. They signify a growing trend in girls’ sexual lives where they are giving themselves to guys on guys’ terms. They hook up first and ask later.”
Bill O’Reilly: “Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex.”
Susan Walsh, Hooking Up Smart: “They cannot see that as she [self-proclaimed proud- and- happy slut Jaclyn Friedman] proclaims her detachment from sex, she gets emotionally wounded every single time. They take heart from her proclamation that sluthood is a healing thing. Ms. Friedman is a hot mess. Craiglist Casual Encounters was not a miracle, it was a disaster that broke her heart again. I hope she does find Love, the whole enchilada.”
Laura Sessions Stepp, author of Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both… oh, just look at the title.
Then there’s the piece that got me staying up until four in the morning writing about this in the first place: Christian author Don Miller, who recently asked his female readers (and his male ones, in a separate post) if they’ve ever had casual sex… and if so, why. Miller doesn’t ask this in a neutral way, a way that expresses a genuine desire for an honest answer. He’s asking in a way that makes it obvious what he thinks the answer will be — whatever the reason is, it must be bad, bad, bad. In fact, he’s asking in a way that totally slants the answers he’s likely to get. He’s asking “why some girls give up sex easily” (as if sex for women is always a surrender), and “do you use sex for some kind of social power or to make yourself feel good?”
It’s like a push-poll — a political poll designed to elicit a particular response, so you can shape people’s opinions and make your position seem more popular than it really is.
So I thought I’d try to explain it.
I’ve had a lot of experience with casual sex. It’s been a while, and I’m not particularly interested in it anymore. But for many years, pretty much all the sex I had fell somewhere on the “casual” spectrum. Personal ad hookups; occasional sex with friends; sex clubs and sex parties; ongoing sexual friendships… that’s what my sex life looked like for a long time.
And needless to say — but I’m going to say it anyway — a lot of this casual sex was a good idea. A wonderful idea, in fact. A lot of it was done for excellent, healthy reasons. And the effect it’s had on my sex life and my love life has been overwhelmingly positive.
You want to know why I had it? Here’s why.
*
Thus begins my latest piece on AlterNet, Puritan Pundits Should Chill Out — Here Are 5 Reasons I’m Happy I’ve Had Lots of Casual Sex. To find out the reasons I had casual sex for so many years — and the reasons I feel overwhelmingly positive about it now — read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!
The Switch to Freethought Blogs – Some Questions Answered
As regular readers already know, this blog is going to be migrating. I’m going to be part of the new Freethought Blogs network, started by Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars and PZ Myers at Pharyngula. That transition is happening soon — September 1, to be precise.
Many people have been asking questions about the transition. So I thought I’d answer the most commonly- asked ones now.
Is the old blog still going to be here?
Yes. There are way too many links to this blog out in the internet. I don’t want all those links to be broken. I’ll keep this blog around for archival purposes, and I’ll probably do so for as close to forever as I can.
But I’ll also be moving my archives over to my FTB blog. And I’d hugely appreciate it if y’all could link to the FTB archives as much as is humanly possible. I’ll be getting paid by the hit count, and if all those links to (oh, say, just to give on example completely at random) “Atheists and Anger” were to get directed to my FTB blog instead of here, it would make a big, big difference. I’m just sayin’, is all.
Will comments stay open on the old blog?
For the moment. I may close them eventually, though. I really want people to move to the new blog. And I don’t want to have to do moderation/ spam control on two blogs forever.
Will my FeedBlitz notifications/ RSS feed still work?
I’ll see if I can get FeedBlitz to update to the new blog. If not, we’ll have to start again. RSS will definitely not work. You’ll have to re-subscribe to the new blog.
What about your non-atheist blogging? What about your writing about sex/ politics/ feminism/ cat photos/ etc.? Where are you going to do that?
Don’t worry! I’m going to do all of that blogging on Freethought Blogs! Freethought Blogs is exactly that — free thought. The focus is on atheism and other forms of godlessness, obviously… but the other FTB bloggers are blogging about plenty of other topics, and I plan to do so as well.
I’m sure the blog will evolve with time, and I’m sure that this evolution will be affected by being in the network and by the kind of traffic I get from it. But I don’t expect the basic vision to change very dramatically.
And yes, I’ve been assured that I can keep writing explicitly about sex. If anything, I’ll probably wind up blogging about sex more than I have been lately. I currently don’t have any regular paid gigs as a sex writer, and that has seriously limited how much time I can spend doing it. But Freethought Blogs is itself a paying gig. So that whole “I have to prioritize writing that actually brings in some income” equation I’ve been doing for so long is about to take a dramatic shift… in the direction of focusing more on the blog, and writing more original content for it, and blogging more about whatever the fuck happens to be on my mind. I really like doing sex writing, and I’m excited and happy that I’ll now be able to bring in some money for doing it.
If you have any other questions about my transition to Freethought Blogs, ask them here. I’ll see you at the new network in about a week!
Grief Beyond Belief — How Atheists Are Dealing With Death
This piece was originally published on AlterNet.
How do you deal with death — your own, or that of people you love — when you don’t believe in God or an afterlife?
Especially when our culture so commonly handles grief with religion… in ways that are so deeply ingrained, people often aren’t aware of it?
A new online faith-free grief support group, Grief Beyond Belief, is grappling with that very question. And the launch of the group — along with its rapid growth — presents another compelling question: Why do so many atheists need and want a separate godless sub-culture… for grief support, or anything else?
Grief Beyond Belief was launched by Rebecca Hensler after the death of her three-month-old son. Shortly after Jude’s death, she discovered Compassionate Friends, an online network of parents grieving the deaths of their children. But even though Compassionate Friends is not a religious organization, she says, “I often felt alienated by assurances from other members that my son was in heaven or by offers to pray for me, comforts that were kindly meant but that I do not believe and cannot accept.” And she knew there were others who felt the same way. (Conflict of interest alert: Hensler and I are friends, and I actively encouraged and supported her in launching this group.)
So about a year later, she started a Facebook page, Grief Beyond Belief. And the group grew and flourished far beyond her expectations. Once the atheist blogosphere heard about the group, news about it spread like wildfire, and membership in the group grew rapidly, rising to over a thousand in just the first couple of weeks. The group is open to atheists, agnostics, humanists, and anyone without belief in a higher power or an afterlife, to share memories, photos, thoughts, feelings or questions, and to give others support, perspective, empathy, or simply a non-judgmental ear. And it’s also open to believers who are questioning, struggling with, or letting go of their beliefs. As long as you don’t offer prayers, proselytize for your religious beliefs, or tell other members that their dead loved ones are in a better place with the angels, you’re welcome to join.
So why do atheists need this?
Salt in the Wound
But for many non-believers, these comforts are actively upsetting. They are the antithesis of comforting. They rub salt in the wound.
For many grieving non-believers, the “comforts” of religion and religious views of death present a terrible choice: Either pretend to agree with ideas they reject and in many cases actively oppose… or open up about their non-belief, and start a potentially divisive argument at a time when they most need connection and comfort. As GBB member William Farlin Cain said, “I was still very much in the atheist closet at the time [my mom] passed away, and I was surrounded by believers saying all the things believers say, and I had to say them too just to keep the peace. It was hard.”
Religious ideas about death can also make atheists feel alienated: hyper-aware of their marginalized status, and of the ways that atheists in our culture are invisible at best. As I’ve told believers who were pressing their religious “comforts” on me even though I’d explicitly said I didn’t want that: If you wouldn’t tell a Jewish person that their dead loved one is in the arms of Jesus Christ, why would you think it’s appropriate to tell a non-believer that their dead loved one is in Heaven? And yet many believers do think this is appropriate… to the point where they not only offer nonbelievers the “comfort” of their opinion that death is not final, but persist in doing so even when specifically asked not to. They’re so steeped in the idea of religion as a comfort, they seem unable to think of any other way to comfort those in need. And they seem unable to see that their beliefs aren’t universally shared by everyone.
But the reality is that spiritual beliefs permeate grief support — so much so that it’s invisible to believers, who often perpetuate it without even thinking. As GBB founder Hensler pointed out, even in the non-religious Compassionate Friends group, “so many of their members are religious or spiritual that there is no real way to participate without being constantly exposed to comments about god, angels and signs. And when I posted about my son and my grief on the page, commenters frequently projected those beliefs onto me, with offers to pray or reassurances that Jude is in heaven. Half the time I felt understood and supported, and half the time I felt like screaming.” GBB member Kevin Millham echoes this sentiment. “The hospice in which my wife died has a wonderful bereavement program, and I now belong to a grief support there. Everyone tries to be supportive and not proselytize, but the other members are Christians without exception, and we often hear in group meetings how their faith is helping them get through (though I notice they’re having every bit as hard a time as I am…). What helps them does not help me, however, and I find that talk of an afterlife I do not believe in is a way of minimizing my attempts to deal with the finality of my wife’s death, however well-intentioned the ‘better place’ comments may be.”
Even supposedly secular memorials often get infused with religious or spiritual content. And this tendency is so deeply ingrained, the people planning these events aren’t even aware that the content is religious, and might be unwelcome to non-believers. Hensler tells the story of a memorial held for a number of children, including her son — a memorial that was explicitly described as non-religious. “A book was read to all the children in attendance,” she says, “who were mostly grieving siblings. The book was written from the point of view of a dead child, describing ‘where I am now’ in vague, stars-and-rainbows sorts of terms. It disturbed me, particularly because my late son was one of the children honored at the ceremony. How can they say an event will be non-religious and then teach the children who attend about a version of afterlife?” And before you ask… this didn’t happen in a small town in the Midwest, or the deeply religious South. It happened in San Francisco — one of the most secular, least traditionally religious, most diversity-supportive cities in the country. As Hensler noted, “A whole lot of people seem to think that as long as you aren’t talking about Jesus, any support you provide is universally welcome.
But even if none of this were the case — even if grieving atheists were never confronted with religious ideas about death in upsetting or alienating ways, or even if no atheists were upset or alienated by these ideas — the need for non- faith- based grief support would still be powerful.
Because in a time of grief, the need for others who understand, others with a similar outlook on life and death, is powerful.
So for many grieving non-believers, the comfort offered by religious believers is, at best, not particularly comforting. Even if it isn’t actively upsetting, it simply doesn’t connect. And so the comfort, perspective, practical guidance, support, and simple “I’ve been there and know what you’re going through” offered by the Grief Beyond Belief network has been intensely welcomed. As Hensler says, “One of the hardest parts about the first few days of Grief Beyond Belief was the number of people who said, “I wish this had existed when…”
Even people who currently aren’t grieving are finding Grief Beyond Belief valuable — because it helps them support the bereaved non-believers in their lives. GBB member Julie Downing Wirtz says, “As a trained Funeral Celebrant, and Life Tribute Specialist, serving only non-religious families, I find the posts at GBB help me to serve my clients with a better understanding of the various thoughts that go through people’s minds when they are grieving, many of which are very different from my own experiences.” And GBB member Christine M. Pedro-Panuyas concurs. ” I haven’t lost anyone close to me, but what Grief Beyond Belief has really done for me is it helped me know what to say to those who have lost someone. It helped me learn the words to say that are comforting and are comforting in a powerful way because they are true.”
When The Trump Card Fails
Many atheists reject this assumption passionately. We point out that many religious beliefs about death are far from comforting — Hell being the most obvious — and that many former believers welcome atheism as a profound relief. We point out that religious beliefs about death are only comforting when you don’t think about them very carefully. We point out that a philosophy that accepts reality is inherently more comforting than a philosophy based on wishful thinking… since it doesn’t involve cognitive dissonance and the unease of self-deception. And we point out that there are many godless philosophies of death that offer comfort, meaning, and hope — with complete acceptance of the permanence of death, and without any belief in any sort of afterlife.
But it’s one thing to face the general idea of death with a godless philosophy. It’s another thing entirely when someone you love dies, and you’re dealing with the immediate and painful reality of grief.
That’s what the burgeoning atheist community is about.
So if you ever wonder why atheists need our own space — our own meetup groups, our own student groups, our own online forums, our own organizations, our own support networks — remember that.
And if you need it yourself — please know that it’s here.
You can join Grief Beyond Belief by going to the Facebook group and clicking the “like” button.
I Need a Banner For My Freethought Blog!
I’m going to be moving my blog to the Freethought Blogs network soon, and I need a banner! Any designers out there want to help? I’ll send you copies of all four of my books if I use your design!
Specs:
The banner needs to be 728×120 pixels.
It needs to have the title of the blog, “Greta Christina’s Blog,” in pretty big letters.
It needs to have the tagline of the blog, “Atheism, sex, politics, dreams, and whatever. Thinking out loud since 2005.” in smaller letters.
It doesn’t have to incorporate my portrait pic, since that will be on the blog elsewhere. But it can incorporate it if you can make it work.
I’m not a designer, and don’t know what else to say in terms of specs or vision or what I’m looking for generally. But if you ask me questions, I’ll answer them as best I can. You can check out see what the other Freethought Blogs bloggers are using for banners, if that helps.
And my books are:
Best Erotic Comics 2008
Best Erotic Comics 2009
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers For Their Clients (now out of print, except on Kindle)
Three Kinds of Asking For It: Erotic Novellas by Jill Soloway, Greta Christina, and Eric Albert
I’m very much looking forward to this transition — and I think a good banner could definitely help draw and keep traffic. Holler if you want to help out!
The Karaoke Pledge Has Been Completed!
And here it is, as promised — video of me singing karaoke.
Jesus fictional Christ.
And I offered to sing karaoke, and post video of it online.
As you may remember, Team Awesome won. We raised a total of $15,418.79: PZ Myers raised a paltry total of $14,656.01. So the two teams combined raised $30,074.80 for the wonderful, inspiring, eminently worthy cause of Camp Quest.
Which was great.
No, really. I’m very, very happy about this.
Sigh.
So. Okay. The last three of these pledges — mine, Jen’s, and JT’s — were carried out at the recent Secular Student Alliance conference. Video footage was taken, and has been compiled, and has now been posted to the Internet.
I’m only on for a few seconds in the video. Which is fine with me. But if you feel a compelling need to hear more of what my singing voice sounds like through a shitty microphone in a noisy bar at the tail end of a weekend-long conference when my voice is shot… take it up with videographer Ashley Paramore, aka healthyaddict, who put the montage together. My pledge has now been fulfilled, and honor has been upheld, and I can attempt to put this episode in the back of my mind.
Until next year’s contest.
Hm. What should I pledge next time around?
(Video below the jump, since putting it above the jump mucks up my archives.)
We Are Atheism – Greta's Video
Y’all know about the It Gets Better project, right? Where people make YouTube videos telling gay teenagers that life gets better after high school, and that living as a gay person can be okay… and indeed, much better than okay?
A similar project has just started for atheists: We Are Atheism. It’s not specifically targeted at atheist teenagers (although “What would you say to your teenage self?” is a common thread in many of the videos). It was created to provide an outlet for all atheists, of any age, to come out of the closet; to help people find other atheists in their area; to empower people to start their own atheist organizations in areas that don’t currently have one; and to let other people — atheists and otherwise — simply see the faces of atheism, and to see that atheists can be good people with happy, meaningful lives.
I’ve done a video for the project myself, if you want to check it out! Six minutes and eight seconds of pure Greta awesomeness! (Video below the jump, since putting it above the jump mucks up my archives.)
And you can make your own “We Are Atheism” video! This isn’t about a handful of semi- high- profile atheists: this is about all of us, our entire community. We want to make this project as big as possible, and give as wide a variety of faces to atheism as we can. So take part. Come out, come out, wherever you are!
Greta Interviewed on "Ask an Atheist" Podcast!
Are you a podcast fan? If so, check out my latest interview! I was recently interviewed for the “Ask an Atheist” radio show, and the program is now available in podcast form. The main topic of conversation is anti- atheist bigotry — especially among progressive and moderate believers — but the conversation wanders into many other interesting and fun godless topics. Enjoy!
Memo to Religious People: Many Atheists Don't Want to Hear That Their Loved Ones "Are in Heaven" — New Group for Non-Believers Helps Atheists Grieve
How do you deal with death — your own, or that of people you love — when you don’t believe in God or an afterlife?
Especially when our culture so commonly handles grief with religion… in ways that are so deeply ingrained, people often aren’t aware of it?
A new online faith-free grief support group, Grief Beyond Belief, is grappling with that very question. And the launch of the group — along with its rapid growth — presents another compelling question: Why do so many atheists need and want a separate godless sub-culture… for grief support, or anything else?
Grief Beyond Belief was launched by Rebecca Hensler after the death of her three-month-old son. Shortly after Jude’s death, she discovered Compassionate Friends, an online network of parents grieving the deaths of their children. But even though Compassionate Friends is not a religious organization, she says, “I often felt alienated by assurances from other members that my son was in heaven or by offers to pray for me, comforts that were kindly meant but that I do not believe and cannot accept.” And she knew there were others who felt the same way. (Conflict of interest alert: Hensler and I are friends, and I actively encouraged and supported her in launching this group.)
So about a year later, she started a Facebook page, Grief Beyond Belief. And the group grew and flourished far beyond her expectations. Once the atheist blogosphere heard about the group, news about it spread like wildfire, and membership in the group grew rapidly, rising to over a thousand in just the first couple of weeks. The group is open to atheists, agnostics, humanists, and anyone without belief in a higher power or an afterlife, to share memories, photos, thoughts, feelings or questions, and to give others support, perspective, empathy, or simply a non-judgmental ear. And it’s also open to believers who are questioning, struggling with, or letting go of their beliefs. As long as you don’t offer prayers, proselytize for your religious beliefs, or tell other members that their dead loved ones are in a better place with the angels, you’re welcome to join.
So why do atheists need this?
*
Thus begins my latest piece for AlterNet: Memo to Religious People: Many Atheists Don’t Want to Hear That Their Loved Ones “Are in Heaven” — New Group for Non-Believers Helps Atheists Grieve. To find out more about this grief support group for atheists — including why we need it — read the rest of the piece.
The Best Things About the Midwest Humanist and Freethought Conference
So here, in no particular order, are The Best Things About the Midwest Humanist and Freethought Conference.
(And can I just say: This is one of the best pictures of me that has ever been taken. I am seriously tempted to make it my author pic for my next book. If I were a rock star, I would totally make it my next album cover. [Tangent within a tangent: Has any rock star or rock band ever done an album cover photo behind a pillow fort? And if not, why not?])
I want to eat every possible meal there.
And the company there was exquisite. Languid, meandering, post- conference- Jello- brain conversations about travel, and chocolate, and relocating the Large Hadron Collider to Columbus (ideally next to Jeni’s Ice Cream), and atheist politics, and life in the military, and whether kittens or puppies are cuter and why. I felt suspended in time, and entirely happy to be exactly where I was.
But I’ve been to a lot of conferences now… and these conversations among old friends and new are almost always the best thing. You never know when the good ones are going to happen: it could be at the merch table, or at the Steak ‘n’ Shake, or over grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the post-bar-hop sobering-up efforts at the late-night coffeeshop. But whenever and wherever they happen, they are worth it. This movement is becoming a real community; this community is becoming an extended family. It makes me happier than I can say.