Godless Perverts Social Club in SF Tues. Feb. 6. It’s 2018 — Now What?

image of protest

We’re having a Godless Perverts Social Club on Tuesday, February 6, at Wicked Grounds, 289 8th St. in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART), 7-9 pm. Our discussion topic for this evening: It’s 2018 — Now What?

We survived the disaster of 2017 (more or less). With mid-term elections coming this year, we have power to make make some real change. What can we do — as individuals, as a small local organization, as members of larger organizations? What are you, personally, planning to do? What would you like to do — and what support do you need to help you do it?

Note: Godless Perverts is a non-profit organization, and as such does not endorse any specific candidates for office. We do advocate for consensual sexual liberation, church-state separation, atheist rights, feminism, anti-racism, and other social justice concerns. We take political actions that we’re permitted to, and encourage our members to apply these principles on their own political decisions.

The Social Club is free, and all orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and amazing milkshakes: please support the cafe if you can, and please tip generously. If you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought you coffee or tea: just ask for your beverage to paid for “from the wall.”

Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. So please join us! Hang out with other nonbelievers and chat about sex, sexuality, gender, atheism, religion, science, social justice, pop culture, and more. Godless Perverts is now a non-profit organization, and donations are tax-deductible.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

If you want to be notified about all our Godless Perverts events, sign up for our email mailing list, follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts, or follow us on Facebook. You can also sign up for the Bay Area Atheists/ Agnostics/ Humanists/ Freethinkers/ Skeptics Meetup page, and be notified of all sorts of godless Bay Area events — including many Godless Perverts events. And of course, you can always visit our Website to find out what we’re up to, godlessperverts.com. Hope to see you soon!

Godless Perverts Social Club in SF Tues. Feb. 6. It’s 2018 — Now What?
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Godless Perverts Story Hour, Saturday April 15 — Our Fifth Anniversary!

Godless Perverts Story Hour banner April 15

The Godless Perverts Story Hour is returning to the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St. in San Francisco, 7pm on Saturday, April 15! The Story Hour is the performance/ entertainment/ literary reading branch of the Godless Perverts empire: we’ll be bringing you depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities, as well as critical, mocking, and blasphemous views of sex and religion. The evening’s entertainment will have a range of voices — sexy and serious, passionate and funny, and all of the above — talking about how our sexualities can not only exist, but even thrive, without the supernatural. We will have ASL interpretation: details below.

April 2017 is our fifth anniversary! We had our very first Godless Perverts event in April 2012, and since then we’ve grown from a one-shot panel discussion to a non-profit organization hosting social meetups, discussion groups, educational events, holiday parties, fundraisers for other organizations, political protests, and performances. We’ll have some special celebratory pleasures at the event, including individual cheesecakes for sale from Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes. And we’re very excited to be bringing in an out-of-town performer for this performance — Bridgett Crutchfield, President of Black Nonbelievers of Detroit!

Bridgett Crutchfield
Bridgett Crutchfield


Born and raised in Los Angeles, Bridgett (known as ‘Bria’) was raised, baptized and disfellowshipped from Jehovah’s Witness faith. She segued to Pentecostal Christianity and assumed leadership roles as Prophetess, Intercessory Prayer Warrior and Evangelist. After thoughtful reflection and finally being honest with herself, Bria realized she was an Atheist. In 2011, she Founded Minority Atheists of MI, and founded Detroit affiliate of Black Nonbelievers in 2013. In 2016, she spearheaded a gofundme campaign which raised $7,000 for water and baby wipes for Flint, MI residents. Bridgett has a heart for newly identified atheists, those who’ve been hurt within the secular community, and assisting those who are interested in forming alliances with the African American community.

Victor Harris
Victor Harris
statue-of-liberty
Liberty N. Justice
Juba Kalamka
Juba Kalamka
Maggie Mayhem
Maggie Mayhem
SImon Sheppard
SImon Sheppard

Our other readers and performers for the evening include Victor Harris, Donna Jay, Liberty N. Justice, Juba Kalamka, Maggie Mayhem, and Simon Sheppard, hosted by co-founders and co-organizers Greta Christina and Chris Hall. So please join us at the Center for Sex and Culture for an evening about how to have good sex without having any gods, goddesses, spirits, or their earthly representatives hanging over your shoulder and telling you that you’re doing it wrong.

Yes, we will have ASL interpretation for this event! We’re setting aside some seats near the front for people who need ASL interpretation: please arrive early if you can, and if you can, please contact us ahead of time to let us know you’ll be there, so we know how many seats to save. Many thanks to our anonymous donor who’s given us a matching grant to help cover the cost: if you want to help cover the rest of the costs, your donation will be doubled up to $400. Donations to Godless Perverts are now tax-deductible: any donations over the cost of the interpretation will go to fund other Godless Perverts events and expenses. Many thanks to Bay Area Communication Access (BACA) for providing ASL interpretation.

The Godless Perverts Story Hour is happening at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART), at 7:00 pm. Suggested donation is $10-20, with no-one turned away for lack of funds. We hope to see you there!

Godless Perverts Story Hour, Saturday April 15 — Our Fifth Anniversary!

Some Things from my Childhood

Revolver

I’ve committed to blogging every weekday in January, but today I’m struggling to find a topic. I have a zillion things I want to write about, but they all take more time and thought than I have tonight. So I’m compiling some lists of things from my childhood. (I’m defining “childhood” as “age 12 and under.”)

Note: These aren’t the top five anything. They’re just the first five in each category that popped into my head.

Five books I read:
The Annotated Alice
Winnie the Pooh
Striped Ice Cream
The Little Match Girl
Honey Bunch: Her First Little Mystery

Five foods I ate:
American Cheese slices, broken into small squares, each square placed on a single Chex
Braunschweiger sanwiches on white bread with potato chips
Carnation Breakfast Bars
Angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream
Tuna and noodles

Five songs I liked:
Rubber Ducky
Yellow Submarine
Octopus’s Garden
The Swingle Singers version of “Sleepers Wake” by J.S. Bach
Tomorrow Never Knows

Five games I played:
TV Tag
Hang On Harvey
Careers
Sorry
Hopscotch

Five record albums I listened to:
Revolver, The Beatles (note: I didn’t understand that the front cover was the front, I thought it was weird so I assumed it must be the back cover)
Julian Bream Plays Bach
Abbey Road, The Beatles
The Monkees, The Monkees
Think Ethnic, Smothers Brothers

Some Things from my Childhood

Random Favorite Things

I committed to blogging every weekday in January. Today (Thuraday) has been a travel day, I’ve been offline most of the day and am now tired. So I’m going to post a random selection of favorite things. (I am not going to set them to the tune of the song from The Sound of Music)

My favorite game to play on my phone is Threes. (I just got a new high score the other day, in fact! Broke 90,000 for the first time.)

My favorite tabletop/social game is Slash.

My favorite color is royal blue.

My favorite episode of Steven Universe is “Winter Forecast.”

My favorite episode of Parks and Recreation is “End of the World.”

My favorite character in the Terry Pratchett books is Moist Von Lipwig.

My favorite character in “Leverage” is Parker.

My favorite non-home airport is Portland.

My favorite thing to do in a strange city is to sit in a local, non-chain cafe.

Enough for now. I may return to this theme in the future. Good night.

Random Favorite Things

Frivolous Friday: Smokin’ Hot Funeral Sculpture

Content note: marble nipple.

I’ve been going through various free stock photo sites, looking for pictures to illustrate my memes. (I’ve been making a series of memes to promote my book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life.) I was looking for images of cemetery sculptures to illustrate the quotes about death, and came across this:

cemetery sculpture half naked woman reclining

Damn. DAY-um.

I guess I don’t know for sure that this is a funeral sculpture: I have only the stock photographer’s word for it. But damn. This almost makes me want to be buried in a conventional cemetery, so I can have a sculpture like this on my grave. And I love that she’s reclining on a stack of books. Reading is sexy.

Alas, I never did find a good quote from the book to illustrate with this. But it was just too good not to share anyway.

(Image description: cemetery sculpture of a reclining half naked woman, her bottom half draped in fabric, her elbows resting on a stack of books.)

UPDATE: I’m informed by commenters (thanks, Dauphni and anon) that this is, in fact, a funerary sculpture. The figure is Urania, the muse of astronomy, sculpted by Giovanni Duprè, from the tomb of Italian-Argentine physicist Ottaviano-Fabrizio Mossotti. That makes it even more awesome. Sexy science funerary sculpture FTW!

Frivolous Fridays are the Orbit bloggers’ excuse to post about fun things we care about that may not have serious implications for atheism or social justice. Any day is a good day to write about whatever the heck we’re interested in (hey, we put “culture” in our tagline for a reason), but we sometimes have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that. This is our way of encouraging each other to take a break from serious topics and have some fun. Check out what some of the other Orbiters are doing!

Frivolous Friday: Smokin’ Hot Funeral Sculpture

I Do Not Consent: The Murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

Content note: racist violence. Graphic violent images at some of the links.

Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police on July 5. The police pinned him to the ground and then shot him. I have not watched the video: it has been described as gruesomely brutal, even by police killing standards.

Philando Castile was shot and killed by Minnesota police on July 6 during a traffic stop.

Two black people, killed by police, in two days. And these are not isolated incidents.

There’s some good, important writing about Alton Sterling’s death. (Philando Castile’s death had just happened at the time I wrote this.) Here’s writing by Shaun King; by Lilly Workneh; by Breanna Edwards; by Kirsten West Savali. I don’t have much to add to this. I’ll just say some of what I said when the grand jury failed to Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s murder:

No.

This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that millions of people live in a police state, afraid for their safety and their lives on a daily basis, because their skin is black or brown.

I know there’s a limited amount I can do about this. But I can say this, as clearly as I can: I do not consent to this. No, no, no, no, no.

the word no

The comment policy on this post is the same as it was on my posts about Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin: I am not willing to host a debate about this on my blog. I am willing to host many debates on my blog, about many issues. I am often willing to make my blog into a place for people to express many ideas and opinions with which I passionately disagree. This is not one of those issues, and this is not one of those times. If you have anything at all to say about this that even remotely hints at implying that these murders were justified or that the police response has been reasonable and proportionate — do not comment in my blog. Now, or ever. Do not read my blog. Do not follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Do not attend my talks. Do not buy my books. Get the fuck out of my life, now. Thank you.

I Do Not Consent: The Murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

No, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Will Not Help My Depression

Acupuncture needles

Are you seriously going to tell a skeptic with depression that alternative medicine is an emotional cure-all?

In response to yesterday’s piece about meta-depression, I got this comment on Facebook:

“A long course of acupuncture from a licensed acupuncturist plus probably Chinese herbs is often going to help anyone with anything emotional.”

Sigh. Okay, fine. Let’s do this.

Dear Person:

First, I specifically asked people in this post to frame any suggestions as things that worked for them. I specifically said I did NOT want prescriptive advice, for me or anyone else. Are you always this careless about violating depressed people’s boundaries?

Second: Your advice is unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst. Even if these methods were effective, there is no single method of managing mental or emotional problems that works for everyone. Suggesting that there is one is dismissive at best, reckless at worst.

And there’s no reason to think these methods are effective. Continue reading “No, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Will Not Help My Depression”

No, Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Will Not Help My Depression

“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus, pushing that rock upward, passing wisdom and experience to the next generation of rock-pushers. There is peace in knowing that without our struggle, the rock would always be at the bottom, grinding people into the ground.

“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus, pushing that rock upward, passing wisdom and experience to the next generation of rock-pushers. There is peace in knowing that without our struggle, the rock would always be at the bottom, grinding people into the ground.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 27, “Permanent Struggle”)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed above image of mountains)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“There is peace in being one more descendant of Sisyphus”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

Orlando, and Listening to TBLG Ex-Muslims

TBLG rainbow flag

In the wake of the terrible violence in Orlando this morning, I understand the intent to not engage in anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred. I share it.

But I’m listening to my TBLG ex-Muslim friends. They’ve been subjected to queerphobic horror from their religion for years — and they’re sick of seeing it minimized. They’re asking people to stop contributing to that minimization.

TBLG ex-Muslims are saying that their former religion is a major contributing factor to the hateful queerphobia against them. Yes, other religions and cultures are hatefully queerphobic as well, and when they’re responsible for anti-queer violence, we should say so. But this time, it seems probable that Islamic queerphobia was part of what inspired this terrible act. My friends are tired of having this reality ignored or erased.

I’m boosting their signal.

We don’t have to pretend religious-inspired venom and violence doesn’t exist. We can speak out about it without being bigoted or hateful.

Orlando, and Listening to TBLG Ex-Muslims

“Engaged from the first page”: Bridgett Crutchfield on The Way of the Heathen

Way of the Heathen cover
Some people I like and respect greatly have said some really nice things about my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Here’s the blurb from Bridgett Crutchfield:

“Engaged from the first page. While The Way of The Heathen abounds with anecdotes and analogies, what I take away most is Greta Christina’s nuanced, down-to-earth, around the breakfast table with a cup of coffee manner of speech. As with her previous books, The Way of The Heathen speaks TO YOU, not at you — a gift not often bestowed upon readers by atheist authors. The book is dense with facts, but Greta Christina’s handling of scientific data and philosophical questioning doesn’t go over your head but instead moves you to question your current perspectives and beliefs in an abrupt but non-confrontational manner. It is an easy to read book that will challenge you in the most unexpected ways, whether you are a secularist, believer or somewhere in between.”
-Bridgett Crutchfield, President and Founder, Black Nonbelievers of Detroit

The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“Engaged from the first page”: Bridgett Crutchfield on The Way of the Heathen