A fundamentalist closeted lesbian worried about her porn addiction

Dear John,

I am a lesbian in a very fundamentalist church. No one knows that I am gay in the congregation and I often join in the damnation whilst I save the tears for bed time. I can’t explain to them the truth and I can’t find a way out. I go to church and confess and repent and beg for forgiveness, yet I don’t get the forgiveness I crave, instead, I get a push on my heart telling me that everything will be okay but I can’t believe it.

I watch a lot of pornography as at first I thought it was a good outlet for my sexuality to begin with. I thought it was better than getting involved with another woman. I thought it would hurt less. But now I find myself watching porn a lot, reading it a lot, thinking about it a lot. I’m starting to watch it every day. I attend a church that teaches purity and bombards us with chastity, yet I am making a mockery of those teachings and internalizing my guilt whilst outwardly lying to the people who care about me.

I feel like my sexuality is being warped. I’m fantasizing about things that I didn’t even know existed before I watched my first porn film. It’s like I’m producing the bad fruit that Christ talked about, eating it and letting the sin swell in my gut.

I stumbled across your blog the other day and I saw the advice you’ve to others. So, I thought I would have a go at penning a letter to someone who has very different views to my pastor.

Heartbreaking. Let me do that thing where I run the letter again, this time with my comments/reactions to it inserted in bracketed blue.

I am a lesbian in a very fundamentalist church. [Yikes. Not good.] No one knows that I am gay in the congregation and I often join in the damnation whilst I save the tears for bed time. [How painful. I don’t know why you’re in it—and this isn’t by any means advice I give lightly—but you need to leave your church ASAP. You belong in that church like a cat belongs at a dog show.]

I can’t explain to them the truth and I can’t find a way out. [If you mean “I can’t find a way out of my church,” I say go out the same way you came in, and never look back. (If you’re a dependent young person in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church, or some other insane Christian cult where you almost literally can’t get out of your church, and want help with that, write me at mrjohnshore@gmail.com .) If you mean “I can’t find my way out of being a lesbian,” you’re right. You can’t. And there’s no reason why you should want to. Homosexuality is not a sin.]

I go to church and confess and repent and beg for forgiveness, yet I don’t get the forgiveness I crave, instead, I get a push on my heart telling me that everything will be okay but I can’t believe it.  [That push on your heart telling you everything will be okay is God responding to your prayer. That you’re not feeling any forgiveness from God is God’s way of telling you that you don’t have anything that needs forgiving. Being gay is no more sinful than being blue-eyed or left-handed. (Tweet that.)]

I watch a lot of pornography as at first I thought it was a good outlet for my sexuality to begin with. I thought it was better than getting involved with another woman. [Ah. So you’ve been Wounded by Love. That’s … never fun. Sorry you had to go through that. Though, as the poet Tennyson wrote: better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.] I thought it would hurt less. [Yes: porno does hurt less than love. But it’s also hard to go out to dinner with porno, and then come home with it afterwards and snuggle up with it on the couch to watch a movie. So, you know. Not really comparable.]

But now I find myself watching porn a lot, reading it a lot, thinking about it a lot. I’m starting to watch it every day. I attend a church that teaches purity and bombards us with chastity, yet I am making a mockery of those teachings and internalizing my guilt whilst outwardly lying to the people who care about me. [Everybody who pretends they don’t routinely … grind their gopher is lying like Donald Trump talking about his full head of hair. If by chaste and pure you mean mean never … sleeping with Hands Solo, then no human being has ever been even slightly chaste or pure. Feeling guilty about … killing Mr. Tingley is like feeling guilty for breathing. Don’t. It’s part of being alive.]

I feel like my sexuality is being warped. [Well, it may be a little. Porn is … well, I recently wrote a piece called Pornography and Who We Really Are, which you might want to read.] I’m fantasizing about things that I didn’t even know existed before I watched my first porn film. It’s like I’m producing the bad fruit that Christ talked about, eating it and letting the sin swell in my gut. [That’s too extreme. First, read my porn piece. Also, don’t sweat your sexual fantasies. They’re fantasies, not reality. Everybody sexually fantasizes about all kinds of stuff they don’t really want to actually happen in real life. That’s what sexual fantasies are: the freedom to be sexually insane. The human imagination is, or can be, one tweaked puppy. It runs around like a werewolf on steroids. So what? Let it. You can’t stop it anyway. And there’s no reason that you should. If whatever sexual fantasy you have (young people, close your eyes now) gets you off, then let it. No harm: no foul.

Now, all that said, if your sexual fantasies do involve bodily harm to yourself or another—if you’ve in any way sexualized true violence of the sort that breaks bones or results in blood—then that really is unhealthy, and you’ll want to get help with that. If that’s what’s happening with you, write to me, and let’s see if we can find you a good counselor to help you unbuckle your sexuality from dynamics it shouldbe hooked into. But outside of that, don’t sweat your fantasies. They’re private; they’re allowed; they’re fine.]

I stumbled across your blog the other day and I saw the advice you’ve to others. So, I thought I would have a go at penning a letter to someone who has very different views to my pastor. [Yeah, if your pastor is a Christian fundamentalist it’s safe to say that he and I have radically different ideas about … well, pretty much everything. His God is a petty, vindictive, egomaniacal maniac. Mine incarnated as human by way of doing everything he/she could to prove to us that he/she loves us absolutely, and that the best thing we can do is love ourselves and others as he/she did us.]