This is part III of a series introduced in this post.
The last post dealt with the consequences when I fell for the lie that because the church opposes gay marriage, both it and the God it serves rejected me as a gay person and offered no positive direction for my life.
This post will treat the consequences when I fell for an opposite collection of lies.
God loves me no matter what–so I can do whatever I feel is right. Being celibate is unrealistic. Sex is not that big a deal–I’m not walking funny or growing hair on my palms. The Church’s teachings about sex are idealistic, but in the real world it’s more complicated. I’m evolved enough to separate casual sex from love and family.
It’s a pretty typical story I think. It’s summertime, friends of friends come together for parties and long weekend trips, a lot of alcohol is consumed, signals are sent, sleeping arrangements are subtly manipulated, and the slippery slope of sexual experience is primed. As anyone who knows anything about such situations will tell you, lines get blurry in those situations, and I woke up after one such evening a little bit satisfied after a pleasurable experience and a little bit unsettled at losing my virginity. So much of my early adolescence had built up that hypothetical moment as the end-of-the-world moral sin that would ruin my life. Continue reading
O happy fall... 