Sexual Politics of Esther: Harem

'He’s the king, of course he has a sleepless night. He’s got a lot of responsibility, hundreds of women that he’s married.'

I'm not entirely sure why the thousands of women should give him sleepless night's he has clearly no concern for them. Similarly his responsibilities didn't prevent him from having a six month party.

Harems are a sickening manifestation of women as property. Xerxes may well have worried about any number of people making political moves or assassination attempts, but somehow I can't imagine he ever worried about rebellion from the women he had locked away - they were far too powerless.

Anyway that's not the point of this post. 

For a brief moment I'm going to agree with MD. He made a very good point that we must not be too quick to judge Xerxes. As we are all capable of and do act in similarly indulgent and oppressive ways. The only difference is the level of power he exerts. 

I have always had a problem with the phrase 'power corrupts' - it lets people off too easily and there are demonstrable people through history with significant power who used it for good. But people with great power if they choose to, inflict more harm on a greater number of people. 

MD also made the excellent point that there are many people with harems today only they keep them on their hard drive. You can find my rants about porn here. People, we need to stop seeing porn as primarily an issue of personal purity and start seeing it as a justice issue and an issue of sexist, degrading, dehumanising abuse.

But there's another kind of harem that occurs in churches. You know the classic male leader, female church members running around doing everything. In his book 'The Resignation of Eve' Jim Henderson imagines what it would be like if all the women in church went on strike one weekend. It's a question worth contemplating.

And in many complementarian churches the language used about women in the congregation implies a level of ownership, certainly their behavior is constantly policed. Joining together repeatedly the word's women and children, calling women Ladies, constantly talking about single women as not yet married. All of these repeated little words and phrases adding together to create a situation where a large group of women jump when the male leader says to. 

We are all capable of and guilty of treating others as property. Using people for our own ends, without acknowledging their equality and common humanity. We develop instead transactional relationships that are often fairly one sided. We all do it on a daily basis even if its just not bothering to smile back at the cashier last time you got your groceries. People can become functions to serve us. Christs example is that we become a servant of all and if we were all trying to pursue this, harem would become impossible.

Reflections of a ex porn addict

I'm 32, a father of three and a reasonable husband.

At the age of around 12 I was introduced to the idea of masturbation in the changing rooms at school. In that boys-only world it was discussed and normalised, and then came the porn, a page 3 smuggled in, a magazine, it was the early 90's we hadn't dreamed of the net yet.

The quest of the boys was sexual experience, getting a girl to let you... Or do something to you. Love and romance was kind of involved, but basically it was about experience that made you cool, a man etc.

Also the experience had to be with an attractive girl, it didn't count as much if she was ugly. We hear worries about children being indoctrinated by religion or atheism or politics, but no one seems to care how views on sexuality are indoctrinated.

At 16 I became a disciple of Jesus, I chose to follow him, and whilst I wasn't truly discipled until a fair while later I learnt that sex was a bad thing before marriage, so as a typical Christian teen I drew a line. I put intercourse out of bounds and did everything but. Teen experimentation of alcohol, sex etc. purely harmless..? I was out for what I could get, females were a commodity to be exploited. But also there was an idealism; if I could get that one perfect girl to love me, to want to be with me, then that would make me complete.

So women in two categories, to be used or idolised.

I was growing up, so was the world, but I left the developed world and did a year out in Swaziland and whilst there I managed to find someone who would let me be physical with her, but for the first time it felt abusive, I was convicted that this wasn't good. This was also the first time I ever spent time without being subjected to TV, advertising and media, this may be a coincidence. I stopped masturbating that year.

From Swaziland to bible college, or bridal college, this rarified Christian world, full of judgements and rules (and where I was taught and lead and discipled and dealt with a lot of crap and fell in love with God again). A world where one aim was marriage, and fast, because we needed sex now! After two years I was one of three single guys in my year and the youngest by a decade. I did two things, found Internet porn and grabbed the nearest single girl I could find.

Back into the destructive cycle. I nearly married a girl who I didn't love and didn't respect or treat well, because I had to get married. I was in an accountability group, 3 guys who were like brothers to each other, but who response to masturbation was "don't do it!" Those guys did save me from a horribly bad marriage, and only then did I start a road to freedom.

In that moment of clarity where I ended the relationship and walked away I was given 20:20 vision. I saw the desperation for marriage for what it was, I saw that everyone chasing this was lacking a true sense of self and real relationship with a loving God. I relaxed, I walked away from the porn and the destructive need for a relationship and stopped looking at girls to complete me and answer my questions.

I didn't want sex or a relationship, no longer objectifying women, I thought I was free. But I'd only escaped the symptoms, not diagnosed the cause.

I went 6 months without looking at a girl as anything other than a sister or a friend. And then she walked in, a woman walked in and I couldn't stop my heart beating faster. I was gutted, my celibate, free life was undermined. I was so angry with her, how could she do this to me! I avoided her for 48 hours until I joined a common room conversation and we fell into a deep discussion, at 4am the conversation ended and I was in love. It took a couple of months before she felt the same way, but here I was. Free happy, on my way to marriage and freedom, sorted.

But whilst this was the second best thing that ever happened to me, I was still a mess. Now being stuck at a desk with a PC in a private room, with a sex life opened up and a wonderful wife who couldn't and shouldn't be the answer to all my questions of self I was through the looking glass and scared.

Big questions faced me, what could I achieve? could I provide? would I succeed? Life loomed large as I was ordained as a curate and started work, took on responsibility, had a father diagnosed with cancer and became a dad.

Porn was a constant backdrop, use, repentance, abstinence became a cycle. Telling virtually no one. Once opening up to my wife, being forgiven and then not being able to tell again when I fell back into the cycle.

Then I met a mentor, a great man, who was able to publicly name himself a porn-addict and who lived in a world of accountability. A spiritual father who I opened up to and had some answers. Who pointed me in the direction of answers to my brokenness, in a God who wanted to be my father, a God who was good and a healing that could really work. I applied accountability to my life, if I fell I would be caught.

But the Internet space race meant I found ways round it all. A huge personal disappointment meant I lost the freedom i had found and then plunged back in, I went deeper and worse, nearly lost my marriage.

I moved to become vicar of a new parish, with a baby son and bit off way more than I could chew. I became radical about my faith, lived it rather than talking it. In the course of this we fasted all physical pleasures for a month. I mean everything, we ate the plainest food, watched no screens, read no books, no sex, no games, no nothing. Just God to find pleasure in and verbal intercourse. It was amazing, God was so real, but an exhausting volcano was building towards eruption in my soul, all the inner sickness that lead to me need for and use of porn was on the rack and it needed to be killed or set free.

I arrived at a Christian conference in a different nation. And God undid me, I lay on the floor of a church for hours on end as he healed me. I had been working through issues with my father, walking some very hard yards with a dad who was slowly dying, and then I allowed my heavenly father in, to do heart surgery, to undo the hurts of my adolescence, to free me from the tyranny of the lies that I had been taught:

That women were a commodity,
That I needed to be sexually experienced to have self worth
That the amount my wife made love to me and the variety of it made me a man.
That I needed to succeed for God to like me.
That I God was in a bad mood with me and I needed to hide things from Him.
And many more.

I was free and full of bliss, with accountability and the weaponry to pull apart the bastion of lies that invade a man in our culture, I was free.

My marriage was pure bliss, I was living in heaven.

Then my father died.
This man I loved didn't make it, he let me down, God let me down and suddenly I was the
messed up little boy again, and again The addict went back to his cycle.

I now knew that brain needs an addict to get a bigger hit, so either you need to find a way into harder stuff or to live in a cycle of indulgence and denial. Abstinence makes the brain grow fonder, the serotonin hit more pleasurable, the downer more worth it. The cycle now included openness and repentance, my wife involved. But the cycle was back.

But now two years after my Dad died, I'm free.

One thing didn't do it, a combination did.
1. Women, I embraced female friendship. Sexless brotherly friendships.
2. I read and sought help, went through forgiveness and retrained my eyes not to look at a women in objectification. (Illusions of intimacy by Bodishbaugh)
3. I read an article, Article written by a porn "star", on the horrific abuse that was her daily existence, the tearing of her insides, both physically and emotionally and I couldn't stand to look at abused women as sex objects any more.
4. The lies of the porn industry were exposed by the Holy Spirit, I saw abuse as abuse, rape as rape, objectification as objectification, suddenly this was a justice issue.
5. I got free of guilt, Jesus had taken all my guilt, so I had none. Repentance became about identifying lies and overcoming, there was contrition, but not guilt, the addictscycle was broken.
6. Most importantly I realised I couldn't overcome my addiction, it was Impossible by human effort. I'd just replace one addiction with another. That the gospel of Jesus was not about anything but His work in me. That I could do all things in His strength if I stayed plugged into Him, if I surrendered to His work on my behalf, in Jesus on the cross, in Holy Spirit within and a Dad God who would welcome me to work my crap out on His knee.
7. Also I started to free myself of accountability software, this had helped with the physical addiction, but perpetuated the mental one. Accountability to true friends with no holds barred, who call out the greatness in me and know that Jesus Christ in me is the hope of glory has released me.

How do I know I'm free?
I've walked through, pain, disappointment, tiredness and distance from God and not fallen into my addiction. I've laughed at the idea and been revolted by the exploitation.

And I am free of the weight on my soul.
But I do have a burden, I have two small boys and a tiny daughter and I will fight and die to protect them from having to walk the road their father did.

Dave Hammond is a vicar in Nottingham and can be found on twitter at @DaveSavious

Masturbation; not a 'guy problem'

I am very grateful to the person who wrote this guest blog for me. I would be very interested to know people's reactions. Anyone ever heard a discussion about women masturbating in a Christian context? How do we feel about the regular connection made between Porn and masturbation? How can the church do a better job of acknowledging women's sexualities?

Now over to my guest blogger:

(I make a principle of not editing guest blogs so this is the pure thing)

I remember being at a Christian event once in which people had begun praying out and there was a real sense that God wanted to challenge and free lots of people gathered in that room (two things which very often come hand in hand.) One of the event leaders stood up and began to speak into the microphone, starting 'I really think God wants to speak to a lot of people here about masturbation and pornography'; his next sentence was one that I have never forgotten and one that left a bigger impression on me than most things I have ever heard. 'I'm speaking to you men in the room.' in those eight words this leader had told me that this struggle was gender specific and that as a female, I was both excluded from that struggle, and the solutions he was about to offer.

As a female and someone who has been through, and to an extent is still going through this struggle, I felt in that moment like the only girl in the world who had ever had this issue. It also began a dangerous pattern of secrecy in my struggle; well, if this was a guy-only problem then what the hell was wrong with me? And what would people think of me if they knew?

Since that day I have learnt that that leader's utterance was born out of a very cleverly constructed lie imprinted by the devil in the hearts of as many as will listen. Not only does it make girls who are dealing with issues around porn and masturbation feel ashamed and alone; but it completely normalises the issue for guys.  

When hot pants first appeared on our catwalks and then our high streets, the church was in uproar, but since they have begun to appear on females of every age and every place; we think far less about how to change the nations mind about the importance of modesty and far more about where we can get a pair.

Tenuous link, but the same applies, if men are constantly bombarded with advertisements, programmes and sermons that tell them that, as a man they will masturbate and watch porn, not doing so somehow makes them feel abnormal.

How refreshing would it be to hear a sermon which challenges the very core of this struggle, which tells us that as new creations in Christ, we have been freed from the manipulative grip of lust on our hearts and challenges us to step up and claim that freedom.  

Porn 2: Why men should be mad

So I wanted to call this post Feminists: a man's best friend, but someone pointed out to me that it could well be read to infer women are dog's which wouldn't be great!. But I just wanted to share with you a couple of things that were said at this amazing conference I was at that have got me thinking.

"Men, feminists are your best friends. We're the ones who don't think your born rapists, we're the ones who don't think you're born murderers. We're the ones who think your fully human."

I know a lot of men who don't feel like this, they feel that feminists hate them, are man eaters, want to castrate them and lock them up. Feminism is a broad group but from my experience this could not be further from the truth, we are talking about a group of people actively opposing violence and de-humanisation it would be a little hypocritical to want to do that to men. The problem lies I think in the fact that mostly there is little conversation between men in general and feminist discourse and what does happen is mediated by the press so that what people fear when they hear 'feminist' (and I have huge numbers of female friends who run from that label) is not feminism but a phantom created by the powers that be because actually they don't want men to realise what feminism is actually saying.

Why? because Patriarchy though it privileges all men all of the time it benefits some men some of the time and harms most men most of the time. Patriarchy is just hierarchy where only men get to be at the top, and only one type of man at that.

The second thing that was said that I wanted to share was this:

"Feminists are the ones who don't think your a life support machine for your penis"

That's what the porn industry thinks of you, it thinks you are a life support machine for your penis and your wallet, and it capitalises on that dark side of all of us that is capable and able to oppress.

It's time to get mad at how the porn industry manipulates and de-humanises you whatever your gender. This is the other thing you should know feminists don't want men to feel rubbish about being a man, we want you to feel good about it, we want you to get mad with us, mad at the dehumanising forces that squeeze us all into little boxes, so that,  in our current context, they can squeeze money out of us.

Men if your mad here's a couple of place you can go:  http://www.antipornmen.org/
http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/

Porn

You know when you're in a room listening to someone speak and the atmosphere is electric, pregnant with  energy, passion, a sense of collectivism and the possibility for change, well that's what my last two days have been filled with.

I was at an absolutely fantastic conference (http://www.ncofca.org.uk/). It felt subversive, radical, powerful and true. During the morning of the second day when we had the privilege of listening to Gail Dines I found myself praying urgently for her under my breath, as I watched a woman in front of me tutting and shacking her head. It felt intensely spiritual and had it bean a Christian event I'd have been tempted to say the woman in front was manifesting because the pure truth Gail was speaking was transformational. I don't know if Gail will appreciate my prayers but I will continue to pray for her; what she is doing is confronting some of the darkest places on this planet.

As I listened to her expose the lies of the porn industry, and as she kept reminding us; it is an industry, I just couldn't stop thinking that the church really really needs to rise up on this one. First of all we need a paradigm shift, we need to stop seeing this as an issue of personal purity, but as a major injustice and satanic oppression of human beings, but that's a blog for a latter date.

The last session was lead by Julia Long, discussing activism in the UK, it was a good note to finish on and made me very excited about what we can achieve. During the discussion someone made the point that there are many anti-porn feminists and pro-feminists, who tirelessly write and blog about these issues and you know what they face? Abusive responses, threats of violence, threats of rape, threats to rape their children. I sat there thinking 'and Christians think they're persecuted because very sensible health and safety laws mean they are not alowed to wear necklaces' (That is what the cross wearing is about by the way the woman at BA was told she could where a cross lapel badge).

As I watched a video of Feminist Friday's activists covering up lads bags with paper bags with feminist slogans on and then do an exuberant and joyful conga around Tesco's in their pyjama's. I thought that's the sort of subversive protest Jesus was talking about when he said 'go the extra mile'.

If Christian's want to understand what persecution is and what radical subversive protest is they could learn a lot of lessons from the feminist movement. I want to preach like Gail Dines and I want church to feel more like a feminist rally.

During the discussion at the end Gail referenced the civil rights movement in the states and that it had worked  because it had mobilised the church and she asked what is our 'church' today. No guesses that the answer wasn't the church, people suggested PTA's, unison, it saddened me.

So the action I tock away was to think about how we can rally the church to respond, appropriately, any ideas? (I am aware that there was a Christian conference called 'Porn Scares' on the same day - was sad not to be able to be at both and interested about what came out of that.) Come on church lets get mad.