Depressionanddeconstruction - Unlearning And Relearning

how do you feel about sex before marriage? where do you draw the line? i'm struggling myself in a new relationship. I don't know what's ok before marriage and what isn't for me. what are your opinions.

Okay, so…given my lifestyle in 2014, it would be hypocritical and counterproductive for me to tell you, “you can’t do anything! nothing at all! hands off! this is a kissing-only zone!”. Not only because that is not representative of all of my experiences, but also because it doesn’t really help you arrive at any kind of real conclusion for yourself. If you are a Christian like me and believe the Bible, you would agree that God is pretty clear about the “no sex before marriage” thing. What sometimes gets debated depending on people’s interpretation of the Bible is what actually, *teeeeeeechnically* constitutes sex. Mainly I think that this is because we tend to look for loopholes so that we can do the stuff we want to do without having to feel guilty about it because it’s “not technically sinning”. So you’ll see different definitions from different people. Some would say that “real sex” is only the insertional kind, that is, the kind when the penis enters the vagina. So not only is that super heteronormative and binarist, it’s also a very conveniently technical definition, which ignores how very nuanced the situation is. Some would tell you that the only thing you’re allowed to do before marriage is kissing. Some would say it’s not even that. One of my friends has a definition of sex that dictates that all parties involved must have an orgasm for it to be sex, which essentially disqualifies a lot of heterosexual encounters. I have a broader definition. I personally think that anything involving the genitals qualifies as sex. Whether it’s hands or mouth down there, or even if there’s layers of fabric in between, I think it still counts. This definition has not been formed based on theoretical morals or a sense of superiority. It reflects my personal experiences. And based on this definition, I’m not really uptight about wandering hands, as long as they avoid the crotch. That right there is a stance that’s quite a bit more liberal than some people. 

Now, all that being said, my personally-held belief is that God tells us not to have sex before marriage to protect us, and to preserve the sacred bond of matrimony. Lots of people use sex as an easy high (like I used to) but its real purpose (besides reproduction) is to strengthen interpersonal bonds. Sex causes the release of the hormone oxytocin, colloquially dubbed “the cuddle hormone” which gives you all the warm and fuzzy feelings and makes you feel attached to the person you had sex with. That’s why casual sex has the potential to be really emotionally and psychologically damaging if someone doesn’t know what to do with those feelings. But sex has been God-ordained to build intimacy between you and the person you choose to spend the rest of your life with. 

So the first question you really need to ask yourself is “when do my actions cross the line from fun, playful and affirming, into intimacy-building territory?” And you will know. That oxytocin is powerful stuff, man. The level of trust and vulnerability you need to be intimate with another human is no trifling thing and you will know when you feel like you’re building bonds with this person that might need to be saved for a later time and a more cemented relationship. You will also know when you’ve achieved a level of intimacy with someone that you weren’t ready for. My hope for you is that you never experience that, because it kinda sucks. So you need to figure out where your own line is for you. I’ve told you what my definition is. That being said, have I always and do I always adhere strictly to my own boundaries? No. Because once you’ve crossed the line, you become desensitized, and it’s hard to go back. So the best piece of advice I can give you is to be proactive and figure out where your line is before you cross it by accident, cause it’s a lot harder to cross back to the other side of the line. In saying that, I must caution you that the line is in different places for different people, and you may be less desensitized that I am, so just be careful to figure out where your line really is. And your line might be different from your person’s line, and then it comes down to not causing other people to stumble. So it’s important to know where your line is and where your partner’s is, so that you both can feel safe and comfortable and at peace with the physical aspect of your relationship. 

The second question you need to ask yourself is “how close do I want to get to the line?” That translates to, “where are wandering hands allowed to go?”, or “in what situations will we allow ourselves to experience that closeness?” (hint: in bed in an empty house is a bad idea if you’re not so great in the self control area) and “are clothes coming off or staying on?” It can be a really slippery slope, and the more “breathing room” you give yourself, the happier it will be. If you go aaaaall the way right up to the line the very first time, you’ve put yourself in a very precarious position because one little slip up could be disastrous. If you start off far away from the line, a little slip up is like “oh okay, still not a big deal because we still haven’t totally crossed the line.” 

I do not want you to experience the guilt and shame that I experienced, the stuff that comes with moving too fast and not caring enough. So like, go you for asking this question and for giving it some thought. I know it can be really tricky. I encourage you to think long and hard about it so that you can be proactive and so that you know what choice you’re making. I am not a huge believer in like “oh it just happened! it was an accident!” I think you need to know what you’re doing and you need to own it. 

Finally, be gracious with yourself. I know you’re gonna work really hard at this, but we are not perfect people, and if human nature is any indication, you’re probably going to make mistakes. You are not damaged goods. You are not ruined. A friend of mine once told me that grace is not a once had, once lost kind of thing, and neither is purity. Yeah, sexual sin is given a fair amount of screen time in the Bible, and I believe that is because of the repercussions that sexual promiscuity can have for us in this lifetime. But all sin is equal in the sight of God, which means that yes all sin is equally transgressive but also all sin is equally forgivable. Do not permanently condemn yourself for anything, because God doesn’t do that and neither should we. 

And of course, the best advice is to keep God at the centre of your relationship and pray about your relationship. If your ultimate goal is to foster a God-honouring relationship, it’s a lot harder to disobey him in that relationship. 

Good luck! If you know me in real life you’re more than welcome to contact me through any medium to chat more. If not, you can always ask me more questions here. 

Peace and love! 

- Katherine

filthy leftist, you going to hell.

This is objectively hilarious 🤣

If you could ask God one question what would it be?

ONE question? Haha ahhh I have so many. They pass in and out of my head several times a week, and for some reason, I never think to write them down. Okay so here’s how I picture it: Right now, I’m a human, and I’m young human at that. Which means I have a mortal, finite view of space and time, which is by definition extremely limited. On top of that, as my mom says to me, “you can be as smart as you want, but until you have lived as long as I have, you will know nothing.” And it’s true, I’ve lived 19 years in a cute, white-picket-fence, sheltered, caucasion, north-american, privileged life. I know nothing!  So I picture me getting to heaven and it’s like my soul, that right now can only kind of taste the infinite, is completely freed of my brain and my emotions and my body and now I’m infinite, I’m free-floating, outside of space and time and none of the restrictions that bind me here on earth exist anymore. I’m part of infinity, I’m living in infinity and I can see everything. All of space and all of time, and I picture it as one huge “OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" moment. Suddenly you can see a gazillion and one connections between seemingly randomly events in your life, and you can see how a butterfly flapping their wings affects the death of a star on the other side of the universe, and you can see how a trivial choice someone made on the other side of the world generations before you affects your life. And you see, woven through everything, is God’s overriding, all-consuming, overwhelming love and grace. You can literally see his fingerprints in the planets and everything just clicks and you’re like “how did I never see this before?” And then I won’t have any of the questions I have now because I won’t be missing the pieces of information that my poor, human head is currently incapable of containing and comprehending. So it’s not like I’m waiting to see God so that I can ask him to explain this one mystery that’s been bugging me my whole life. However, I will share with you the latest mind-bender I was contemplating, just this morning. So there’s a theory that the curse of original sin is passed on through the father. Because Jesus had a human mother, but was conceived through the Holy Spirit. So He didn’t have a human father, and He was perfect and sinless so obviously, He wasn’t affected by the original sin curse like all other humans. And yet He was fully human and fully God. So I’m sitting there musing about this interesting idea and then I’m like, where did the other 23 chromosomes come from??  Like yeah, the immaculate conception was a miracle, but God uses science and nature as His tools, and Jesus was obviously a fully functional human, so He had to have 46 chromosomes…right? So what were they and where did they come from? Hmmmm. And I said to myself, I really will have to get God to explain that to me when I see Him. So there you go! :) Peace and love! -Katherine 

Personification

thank

On the nature of love.

You know how people say that love is powerful? I'm not sure if this is gonna sound really hippy-ish but I wanna talk about love. Love is absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most powerful force in existence. This is real love I'm talking about now. Love that *chooses* to be committed to someone despite circumstances, despite emotions, despite personal desires, and despite any mistakes that someone might have made, and any flaws that someone might have. Love that means putting someone else before yourself. I saw the movie Frozen, and *spoiler alert*, the central conflict was thawing Anna's frozen heart, a feat which only true love can accomplish. I greatly appreciated the fact that Anna's heart was thawed not by "true love's kiss" but by her own self sacrifice to save her sister's life. THAT, my friends, is an accurate portrayal of true love. Love is the force that conquers hate and conquers fear and conquers apathy. It is the force that connects and binds all of humankind to one another. It is the force that heals the broken and saves the lost. Love offers truth even when it's hard and grace even when it's harder. Love will never ever ever ever ever ever give up. Love is divine. Love is the closest that humans can get to Godliness. Because God Himself is Love. His essence is entirely love. All love is from Him and is of Him. Any person who has the ability to love someone else can only do so by the power of God and the spirit and soul that God has placed within us. Your love is a piece of God in your life. As long as you know love, you know God. God is great and mighty and all-powerful and vast and crazy amazing and the human mind cannot possible fathom Him, BUT the closest you will ever get to understanding Him is simply to love. Therefore, love is NOT simply warm fuzzy feelings and cute romcoms and sad country music. It's not even an emotion or a relationship. It is a supernatural force. It is the essence of God! Never underestimate the power of God's love for you. It is fierce and it is all-consuming and it is all-encompassing and it conquers every single other thing in all of existence. Never forget that. Never underestimate the power of your love for the people around you. The best thing you can do for this world is to love yourself and to love others, because when we each begin to do that, then this world will know true peace and true joy.

Evolution.

I'm supposed to be studying this Evolution course for my exam tomorrow morning, but the textbook made me so angry that I had to write about it. 

That absolute gem of a quote is from a section called "Evidence for Evolution". In fact, a fairly substantial number of the pages in this book are devoted to this evidence. The writers devote quite a bit of time and energy trying to tell me why I should believe this theory. 

NEWSFLASH: I'm doing a biology degree. I'm taking this stupid course. I believe that evolution is a valid theory. I know that genetic mutations cause changes in the phenotype and some of these changes allow organisms to adapt better to their environment and therefore these traits are passed on the successive generations. Blah blah blah. Yes, Darwin, your theory makes sense. A+! Gold star for you! I KNOW this. You don't need to convince me. You don't need to convince anybody. I'm religious. I'm not stupid. 

And that leads me to my next point. Judging from my flurry of angry tweets, few things in life push my buttons like someone simultaneously insulting my beliefs AND my intelligence. 

I don't understand why the writer felt the need to insert this snarky comment. Do they assume that because I believe in a supernatural being that I am not smart enough to be doing a biology degree? Do they assume that religious people will never read this book? Or do they not realize that what they're saying is offensive? Do they not care because anyone who might be offended is of lesser intelligence and therefore not worth concern? These are the only plausible explanations coming to mind. 

I mean, if they are trying to convert me to their way of thinking, they're being COLOSSAL hypocrites about it. Cause the way to change my mind is to mock me, patronize me and insult me. Yep, keep it up. That'll work. This pushy, self-righteous "evangelical" style is the exact type of thing Christians get ridiculed for. (another thing we get ridiculed for). 

Okay, here's what REALLY gets me: the sheer ARROGANCE of it all. So the author employs suspension of disbelief and hypothetically suggests that this supernatural might be "credited with arbitrariness, whimsy, or a devious intent to to make organisms look as if they have evolved." 

FIRST OF ALL you are talking about the supernatural, divine, all-powerful creator of the whole entire universe and you're assuming He tries to fit Himself into your patterns? You, who would not be breathing if not by His grace which gives you breath. You, whose puny mind cannot possibly fathom the vastness of His being. You, who were not even a thought when He wove the fabric of the cosmos. You, who are but a vapour, a speck of dust, when compared to Him. Yep, waaaayyyy back at the freaking beginning of time itself, when creating the animals, God thought, "better make them fit this evolution theory those scientists dudes are gonna come up with in the 1800s". That is EXACTLY what happened. Of course you're the centre of the universe, you clever, clever boy! The sun actually does revolve around the earth! HOLY SHIT GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS. 

SECOND OF ALL God is a God of order. Nah, scratch that. God is order. Absence of God is chaos. So yeah, absolutely, God's amazing animal kingdom follows a pattern. Yes, life itself has a hierarchal organization to it. But what you fail to realize is that this pattern that you can see is like looking through a microscope. It is a minute part of a pattern that spans the entire universe. It is possibly the tiniest part of an enormous machine that God designed, with working parts on the scale of galaxies. The "tree of life" is the equivalent of a screw in the machine of all of space and time. Scientists discover patterns in nature all the time. And they're surprised. Like it's this big discovery that the world follows mathematics. Because if the universe has no cause or purpose there is absolutely no reason for it to have order. But is does because the intelligent creator designed it as such. 

So no, He didn't try to make it look like they evolved. The pattern is Him, and you're just seeing a little piece of it. 

I think that a lot of people make this mistake: when they imagine God, they imagine Him as less intelligent than them. 

any trans person reading this I love you

any woman reading this I love you

any poc minority reading this I love you

any queer person reading this I love you

edit:

no matter how many trolls or trumpies come in my comments and spew their nonsense I will keep saying it over and over and over again no matter how many times to show them I will not change. I will never choose violence or hate ever.

any disabled person reading this I love you

any person out of country that wished they could desperately help I love you

Any parents of a queer child who did everything they deemed “right” to protect their child and still feel as though they failed I love you

any person on the spectrum I love you

Any SA survivors I love you

Any person that needs life threatening healthcare and can’t afford it I love you

Any diabetic person I love you

I don’t know you. But I love you. I will always choose love that’s not a bad thing nor will I ever feel bad about choosing it

Do you think that God or Jesus will get mad if I have sex before I get married or engaged?

Here :)