Quiz nights and Café Rouge

A few weeks ago Linda, Chloe and Chelle who come along to Surrey Swans went along to a quiz night organised by people at St. Mary's Church Ash Vale. They had a great time and were made to feel really welcome by people there. I had hoped to go, but wasn’t able to. Not so long ago Chloe, Rosemary and myself went along to a barn dance organised by the church.

I’ve often-times mentioned my own mixed-up views on religion and, more specifically, Christianity. But I have been greatly encouraged by the openness and acceptance shown by people in the Ash Vale area.

Last week I spent a lovely evening with Tina and Julia at Café Rouge in Windsor. There weren’t many other diners, but the food was excellent as was the service.  And here we are, Julia, Andrea and Tina:

Oak Hill College and religious experiences

A little while ago I shared a few thoughts about Oasis and the Evangelical Alliance.

Round about that time I also read a post entitled “Steve Chalke or the repentant Rosaria? Whose religious experience?” by Mike Ovey at Oak Hill College.

The blog post reads like this:

Who’s the most unlikely convert you have ever met? Of course, given the ravages of sin in our hearts and minds any convert is nothing short of a miracle, a new creation that only the original creator can bring about. All the same, there are some whose place in life seems to make it especially hard to hear the gospel, and when someone in that position does become a Christian, one stands amazed at the power of God’s grace in encountering them and bringing them home to himself. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield comes into this category. Engaged, as far as one can see, in a stable, long-term, same-sex relationship, and with a glittering academic career premised on a radically feminist approach to Women’s Studies, her life was turned around as she encountered the gospel explained patiently, and faithfully, over a comparatively long period. Her lifestyle, beliefs and relationships changed (and one can only guess at both the huge emotional and the professional cost here) and she came to a living faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which she recounts in her book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. Now why should that present Steve Chalke (hereafter ‘SC’) with any difficulty? I imagine in one sense it does not, because no doubt like any other Christian he rejoices at a sinner coming to repentance, as Christ enjoins in Luke 15. It does, though, present a very severe difficulty in view of his recent writings on the Bible. In fact, it indicates a fundamental incoherence. Let me explain why. The Bible, SC comments, is ‘written by fallible human beings whose work… bears the hallmarks of the limitations and preconceptions of the times and cultures they live in, but also of the transformational experience of their encounters with God.’ Quite consistently with this, SC does not have a closed canon of Scripture, because human beings outside the canonical authors have transformational experiences of God. The implication that SC draws is that the canonical Scriptures can be displaced in what they teach and say by the transformational experience of other human beings. Now consider that in the case of Rosaria. Changing the patterns of your sex life and your professional success is about as radical a transformation as you can manifest in Western culture. Does one think that Rosaria has had a transforming encounter with God? On this evidence, yes. And how has she been transformed? She has been transformed in terms of what she thinks about issues of gender and sexuality and how a human being may enjoy a saving relationship with God, through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ in which, among other things, he brings forgiveness through the cross and delivers us from God’s judgment. And here the problems start for SC. He has written in favour of same-sex relationships and has denied that Jesus bears the penalty for our sins as our substitute through the cross, reacting particularly strongly against the notion of God’s wrath towards sinners. Both of these positions – what SC accepts about same-sex and what he denies about penal substitution concerning God’s wrath – are of course extremely popular in modern Western culture. In submitting to the Bible over same-sex relationships, and over what it teaches on God’s wrath at our sin, Rosaria has accepted countercultural positions and lived them out. She has emerged from her cultural surrounds to embrace a countercultural position: this looks like transformation. Now clearly SC thinks she is wrong on these issues. In particular, on penal substitution, he thinks those who teach it and who believe it are saying the wrong thing about God by teaching about his anger, ‘telling the wrong story about God’, as he once put it. Naturally, this entails a negative evaluation of the transformational experience of someone like Rosaria. One possibility, naturally, is that SC thinks she has not had a transformational experience of God at all. Another possibility is that she has genuinely met God but simply got him disastrously wrong in her own encounter with him, so that she is ‘telling the wrong story about God’. Either way, the obvious question that springs to mind is, ‘How does SC know?’ How does he know either that she has not had any genuine encounter with God, or that she has vastly and tragically misunderstood her encounter with God? Now it is absolutely right that we should not take any claim that someone has had an encounter with God simply at face value. Apart from anything else, 1 John 4:1-3 tells us to test spiritual experience. The issue is on what basis one does that testing. The classic answer is that one tests these claims against the canonical Bible, on the basis that God does not contradict himself. But clearly, SC cannot use that benchmark because he thinks the Bible is contradictory and quite possibly that it is wrong in places. So how does he know that the transformational experience of Rosaria on these issues (who is not alone in being transformed to these positions) is wrong? Presumably SC thinks his own transformational experiences of God support his position on same sex relations and the wrath of God. But when SC’s argument is that believers like Rosaria are wrong on those issues, it does seem to require that his own transformational experience is better than theirs or that his personal understanding of God is better. It sounds very egalitarian to talk about people retelling their transformational experiences of encounter with God with no closed canon of Scripture. But rather like the animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, it seems that some people’s transformational experiences are more equal than others. But which ones? And how do you know?

I left the following comment:

Dear Mike,

I read your post with some interest, but I’m not at all convinced that you are being fair to SCs position.

It would have been helpful if you had included some links to the things that you say SC has written.

I believe that the argument that you attempting to present is based upon the experiences of people that have had experiences that agree with the beliefs that you have.

I get the feeling that you’re ignoring the experiences of almost everyone else in the world.

I believe that the vast majority of people that have ever lived have not experienced “a living faith in our Lord Jesus”. In fact I believe that they haven’t been given the opportunity to do so.

I’ve heard arguments that are used to explain this. But they haven’t convinced me.

I believe that almost everyone alive today would find it difficult to understand how anyone could believe that a book such as the Bible wasn’t written by fallible human beings. That it doesn’t contain inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

Since these vast numbers of people don’t have any influence upon how you view the Bible, I’m not so sure why the transformed lives of a small number of people (small when compared with the vastness of human history) should necessarily affect anyone else’s opinion.

I’m convinced that the way people look at the Bible and how they interpret it … the way that hermeneutics works when it comes to the Bible … depends overwhelmingly on what they choose to believe about God. Or is it what God choses to reveal about Himself to them?

Perhaps it’s all about faith.

I’m fairly certain it isn’t all about rationality, logic or science.

Everyone picks and chooses how they interpret the Bible.

I suspect that SC wouldn’t agree with a lot of the things that I believe. But I believe that he would likely listen to my thoughts and be willing to be swayed by them.

I’ve come across Christians who are not at all willing to listen to alternative viewpoints and be in any way influenced by them. They seem to have the answers and have closed their minds to alternative possibilities.

And, I’ve come across Christians who believe that almost every human being that has ever lived will end up spending eternity in hell. And some of these Christians seem to spend more time explaining why this is the truth than they do in attempting to rescue these millions of lost souls.

Ultimately, I think that for you to suggest that there is some kind of an error in SC’s thinking without accepting the possibility that your own thinking is equally likely to be errant is … well … unreasonable.

Of course, I may be misinterpreting what you are saying, in which case please let me know.

Regards,

Andrea Wright

And it said:

Thanks! Thank you for posting a comment on the Oak Hill blog. All comments are read and approved before they're posted, but that usually happens pretty quickly.

Since nothing has appeared there it looks like my comment was disapproved.

I left an email address but didn’t get any kind of message saying why it wasn’t approved.

Ah well …

The Shack … life changing or confusing

 

A little while ago a friend recommended The Shack to me.

 

 

It’s a book that was written a few years ago now.

I recently finished it and am thinking that I need to do some thinking.

So here are some thoughts.

First, if you get a chance to read it I wholeheartedly recommend it.

It’s a work of fiction.

The main characters are a man, Mack, his family, a few of his friends and God.

On a camping trip Mack’s daughter is abducted and murdered. Her blood is discovered at The Shack.

This event marks the beginning of Mack’s Great Sadness.

For him The Shack comes to embody a whole lot of bad stuff. Anger at himself. At God. At life. Almost all that is bad.

Then one day Mack receives a letter from God. It’s an invitation to meet up at The Shack

And so Mack spends a few days with God – Father (Papa), Son, (Jesus) and Holy Spirit (Sarayu) - at The Shack. The place of his Great Sadness.

And his life is changed forever.

Although The Shack is a work of fiction the words “spoken” by God are intended to reflect the person, character and intentions of God. So it’s intended to be more than fiction. It’s a sort of picture of the author’s view of the kind of Person that God is and the kind of relationship that God wants to have with people.

Many people have gone on record as saying that the book has changed their lives. Try using Google or Bing or the search engine of your choice and see for yourself.

I found the book to be very moving. Tears running down my cheeks type of moving.

Whilst reading it … and now having read it … I’m left wondering.

Is God really like that?

Is it true that people can be friends with God like that?

There was a time that I became a Christian. March 3^rd 1973 at 144, Forest Road, Loughborough in Leicestershire.

So, in some ways, The Shack didn’t say much to me that I hadn’t been aware of at some point in the past.

And yet there are new thoughts. New interpretations of things. An emphasis on relationships. On being rather than doing. Love rather than judgement.

It stirs inside me a kind of a longing. A wishing that it could be true.

Over the past few days I’ve been doing some thinking about that.

 

I wonder … if God is really like that, then how come so few people know? Why is it such a big secret?

The Shack did top the best sellers’ lists for a while. So in a way it isn’t a secret at all.

So I wonder why so few people believe that God is like that. And why it is that I struggle to believe that God is like that even though I wish the He were.

Here the beginning of some of the things that I have problems with.

At this very moment the main thing is about why does God  hide the truth about Himself from people the way that He seems to do. Why is it so difficult to know what the truth is?

There are Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses … the list goes on. And there are lots of different brands of Christianity, of Islam … and so it goes on and on and on.

And then taking Christianity as an example.

Many Christians believe in heaven and hell. That people who don’t give their lives to Jesus end up in hell. For ever. That hell is a place of eternal punishment and torment. Everyone deserves to go to hell. It’s divine justice. Yet it’s easy to avoid hell. Just believe in Jesus. Divine grace.

Oh but … you might also need to not be gay – or at least not practicing gay. Or transgendered. You might also need to be a Catholic. Or is that a protestant? Or to be baptised. You might need to read only a particular translation of the Bible. Or believe the apostle’s creed.

Or maybe you need to be a Muslim?

There’s a sense in which maybe a lot of the above might not matter. Maybe you do only need to believe in Jesus … although that should probably be … believe in, trust in and rely on.

But if that’s the case … why so much disinformation and confusion. Lots of apparently very sincere and well-meaning people seem to disagree over all of this.

If any of this stuff makes the difference between heaven for ever and hell for ever and it affects everyone, then why is it so difficult to work out what the actual truth is?

So, OK, why am I asking these questions? And honestly, there are a lot more to be asked.

I think it’s because I’d like to know the answers.

So if you know them … I’m listening.

There will likely be more questions to follow.

Marriage, Religion and Small Minds?

In the past I used to donate to an organisation called Care.

Every so often I still receive mailings.

A few days ago I received a letter, a poster and a petition.

The letter mentions the formation of The Coalition for Marriage.

The poster says:

MARRIAGE NEEDS YOU

SIGN THE PETITION

C4M.ORG.UK

“I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.”

The letter says:

… the Government has announced that there will be a consultation in England and Wales on redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships. We are strongly opposed to this …

We are deeply concerned about this matter, and believe that this proposal to alter the nature of marriage so radically marks a decisive moment in our nation’s history. We must do all we can to oppose it.

The C4M.ORG.UK web site asserts:

If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People's careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?

The petition provides a place for people to assert their support for the current definition of marriage and oppose any attempt to redefine it.

The British press has been carrying a lot of stories on the issue.

Church leaders have said a lot.

I think that once upon a time I might have signed this petition.

But now I’ve grown up, or as some might say I have back-slidden and returned to the mud and vomit.

It depends on the perspective that you view me from.

I have to admit that when I read this stuff I was angered by it. Sally has quietened me somewhat.

I had stared writing a bullet pointed list of why it bothers me. But mostly it’s the sense of duplicity that I feel.

I don’t believe that the Christian church or any other religion has the right to a monopoly on defining legal terms, even in cases where the original meaning of the word had some specifically religious roots. Christians have sometimes redefined non-Christian things in Christian terms. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for the opposite to happen once in a while.

So far as I can tell, no one is planning to force religious institutions to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies if they don’t want to.

The propaganda that is being promulgated seems to use arguments that are designed to appeal to religious people that  take a particularly literal view of a selection of religious texts and to secular people  with homophobic tendencies. It also seems to appeal to people’s fears and anxieties. Suggesting that changing the definition of marriage will ultimately result in all kinds of bad things happening.

I’m still not at all sure about the existence of God. But … if there is … then (s)he must surely be less small minded than all of this.

I oppose this small mindedness.

Weddings, Transvestites and Jesus

Last weekend was the occasion of the wedding of my niece … or one of them at any rate.

It was great to see family and friends … and the whole occasion was wonderful.

My rather long and shiny fingernails were commented upon.

During the evening Jan … a close friend of Sally’s sister and someone that we’ve known for many years … though not very closely said to me …

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure … go ahead.”

I’m not sure of the exact words that followed on from here. But Jan was interested in the state of my faith … relationship with Jesus.

We had first met Jan at church … and she and her husband are still actively involved in things … Jan’s husband is closely involved in a well known Christian organisation in the UK.

She was interested in how and why I had got to where I am.

I talked about my questions … my doubts. And Jan answered them in the way that I might have answered them a few years ago.

We sat hand in hand and talked and talked.

“Jan … I’m a transvestite.”

It was a simple statement.

We talked some more … about gender … marriage … sexuality.

Who do I think about having sex with? Am I gay?

Jan’s husband dropped by as well and we talked some more. Sitting hand in hand.

It’s still true that I don’t really understand transvestism. But I know that, for me at any rate, that it isn’t just a sexual thing. It’s an expression of who I am. Andrea isn’t just someone that I dress up as. Andrea is me.

Jan and her husband pointed me in the direction of Jesus. But they didn’t see Andrea as an abomination. They didn’t talk about being prayed over …. being healed … or being possessed.

I know though … from experience … that diplomatic Christians will sometimes say “talk to Jesus about it and see what He says” … as an encoded way of saying “read the Bible and you will find that it says you better change your ways or else!”.

I don’t know for sure if that is what they were saying. And it’s possible that they weren’t.

Just as I would have done in the past, though, they pointed towards Jesus rather than to the church. The church … just like people … is full of contradictions and flaws.

So … can Jesus accept Andrea? Is the question meaningful? If I decided that He can … how do I square that with the people that say He can’t because the Bible says that He couldn’t possibly.

I know that at the moment at least I couldn’t accept a Jesus … a God … a church … a religion that couldn’t accept Andrea. And even if I could it would make no difference because such a religion … church … God … Jesus would be incapable of accepting me.

You see, it’s not that Andrea is a fetish thing. When I talk with people about Andrea I’m talking about me. I think that’s why I was hand in hand with both Jan and her husband at times as we talked. It was personal.

I don’t know where the conversations and thoughts will lead.

But it’s good to be able to talk with other people … and to discover … again … that people cope surprisingly well with accepting me.

Being ourselves

Last night there was an item on the BBC 10:00 o’clock news that saddened me a lot at first. The more I think about it, though, the more it fills me with a sense of anger.

According to the story, the Ugandan government is considering introducing a death sentence for certain types of homosexual activity. Or maybe it will only be life imprisonment.

Of course … I know that the BBC is not always totally impartial. And I admit to having biases myself. So the story that I heard and the way that I interpreted it might not be the way that it actually is.

So … please read this as a comment on an attitude rather than an attack upon Uganda.

It was an update of the kind of information presented here.

The news item last night included extracts from an interview with a church man and scenes from a service that he seemed to be leading. I think it was the reporter John Simpson that said to the church leader that he had seldom experienced such hatred as was evident in the church service.

The badges that people wore expressed a vehement attitude against the act of sodomy.

A biblical perspective on this is given here. It’s not pleasant reading.

There is this whole thing about gay sexuality being “unnatural”.

I used to think that way myself.

These days I realise that people engage in many unnatural activities that some religious zealots are happy enough to engage in. To name a few:

• flying
• driving around in automobiles

Surely … if God had intended us to do these things we would be born with wings .. or wheels.

But if God had intended us not to do those things .,.. maybe we shouldn’t have brains either?

There was a time in my life when I had this belief that gay relationships must be about sexual depravity.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) helped me discover that gay and lesbian relationships … just like heterosexual relationships … can be about love.

In that discovery … fell away a whole lot of misconceptions and prejudices.

I know … some people would say that they have been replaced by a whole lot of other misconceptions and prejudices.

My daughter once shared with me that the thing that she finds hardest when talking with some lesbian friends is that way that some seem to think that every girl should be lesbian.

Of course … there seem to be plenty of heterosexual people that think that everyone should be heterosexual.

There are some Catholics that think everyone should be Catholic. Born again evangelicals that think everyone should be a born again evangelical. Muslims that think everyone should be Muslim.

Me … I’d be happy if everyone agreed with me.

Well no … not really. If everyone agreed with me I’d worry about it because I hate the idea of agreeing with everyone!

One day maybe we will learn to accept differences. I’m still learning and I know that I haven’t got there yet.

There is a French saying: Vive la difference! And I can happily say Amen to that.

Tonight, driving back from the office, I listened to a song by Julie Matthews. It’s called Take these Bones … there's some background info on the song here. It’s about the use of Comfort Women by the Japanese during the second World War.

For me it makes me wonder about the way that people have had a propensity to exploit each other.

There are some aspects of masculinity that are not at all nice things.

It’s strange how some people sometimes seem to be very anti twenty-first behaviour such as consensual homosexuality … pornography … prostitution … and yearn for the sublime past … days of legalised child labour … no votes for women … slaves.

I wonder if there is significance in the fact that it was a woman caught in the act of adultery that was brought before Jesus and not a man. It’s hard not to suspect that it’s because it was a society controlled by men that made sure it happened that way.

In a way I’m maybe a feminist … or at least a laissez-faire kind of feminist … and kinda glad that a part of me at least is a girl.

And yet … even more than that … within reason at any rate … I think it’s good to allow people to just be who they are and not force them to be who we want them to be.

Humour, obsession and charity

A few days ago I came across this story http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165892/Tory-councillors-gender-joke-led-dressing-police.html

According to the Daily Mail:

As the 50 members of the public at the police liaison meeting were handed their electronic handsets to take part in a survey, an official told them: 'Let's start with an easy question to get us going.

'Press A if you're male or B if you're female.'

But it seems nothing is ever that simple. Someone asked: 'What if you're transgendered?'

'You could press A and B together,' quipped Conservative councillor Jonathan Yardley.

…

A complaint was made  -  and as a result, he was spoken to by police for his ' homophobic' remark.

I have no way of knowing how complete a record of events this is.

My own reaction to Jonathan Yardley’s quip would have been to have smiled and pressed both buttons – though I suspect that the electronics wouldn’t have coped with it. I’m not at all sure how the remark could have been construed to be homophobic. But maybe the story is incomplete

I think that within the transgendered community there people who feel they are men trapped in women's bodies, women trapped in men's bodies and people who feel that they are somewhere in between.

Maybe most people are actually somewhere between?

Either way, maybe the options of button A, button B or button A + button B are adequate.

It seems a really strange kind of thing to have required police involvement.

 

I had a little think about the Sermon on the Mount … the bit that I quoted yesterday at least:

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed ADULTERY with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into HELL. 

What does it mean? I have the feeling that very few Christians take this at face value. Otherwise there’d be a lot more guys in churches with fewer than two eyes.

Is it meant to mean that anyone who looks at a girl and thinks … wow … she looks fit … has to make a choice between cutting out their right eye or going to hell? What about the left eye?

There are times, though, I can imagine, when a person can get very wrapped up in thoughts that are doing them no good at all. A kind of obsessiveness where the obsession is destructive. Obsessions are not usually good things.

In the end though I’m sure that thinking something is not the same as doing something. And i don’t think that was the idea that Jesus was trying to convey. Not at all.

 

There was a story on the news today that the government are planning to experiment in making grants to charities that involve themselves in political lobbying as part of what they do.

There was a guy defending the idea, and a lady that was saying how bad it was – that charities should be about providing aid to people in need and not involved in messing about with politics.

The guy convinced me – though I was maybe already convinced. If a charity is involved in helping people and it discovers some kind of injustice that is built into the way that society is structured – then surely the charity needs to get involved in trying to change the way that society works – and that probably involves politics. The people that are being helped by charities are often not in a position to be able to bring about the changes themselves.

The guy seemed ok with the concept that it is ok for the government to supply funding to organisations that actually challenge the government and press for change. I think that’s a nice thought.

But is it art ...

Recently on TV (unusually in this blog, TV in this context actually means Television) there was a show named How to have sex after marriage.


I'd seen it in listings before but never watched it. In fact, last night I missed the beginning and the end of it. But the part that I did see did provoke some thinking.


Amongst a series of other issues, the married couple that it featured had never spent time discussing sex. They hadn't talked about expectations, desires, fantasies. Almost nothing at all. They had just done it and, I guess, were at a place where they weren't enjoying it any more.


During the program the guy was taken into sex toy shops and featured as a sex expert on a spoof radio phone-in show. The girl was given a whole series of demonstrations of sexual positions by a couple of scantily clad models.



In a way I felt a sense of empathy. I don't remember talking about such things with my own wife for years and years. Sex always seemed to be a thing to do ... or not do. Not a thing to talk about.

As time passed it seems to have become less and less of a thing to do. And, though we have sometimes talked about it, we don't seem to any more. There's just a passive acceptance - perhaps more a passive resignation - to the way that things are.


So why? How did things get to be this way?


It's complex, I guess. And yet maybe it's also simple.


Either way ... here are some of the contributing factors.


When we got married, TV shows didn't discuss such issues. A lot of mainstream society seemed to think it wasn't important. Or maybe that whether important or not, sex wasn't really a thing to discuss.


As a young (late teens / early twenties) born-again Christian I learned that sex was a gift of God within marriage. It was about having children. It was about people demonstrating and sharing a love for each other. Maybe as well it was about satisfying needs. I remember one of the New Testament letters where Paul the Apostle says something about it being best for people not to get married. But - if they couldn't live without sex it was better to get married and do it rather than just to do it without getting married. OK ... this is it ... taken from I Corinthians:


It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband . . . I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am [i.e., celibate]. . . To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.


So there is kind of an acceptance that people seem to have a need for sex.


Actually, though, I never noticed before how strongly this piece of writing seems to suggest that people should only ever get married if they can't hold off from having sex with each other. It doesn't mention they should get married because they love each other. So, in a way, it's almost suggesting that all the Christian people that are married are the ones that couldn't live without sex. If they could have lived without sex then there was no reason to get married.


Anyways ... that's not really the point that I'm making here.


I think once in a while at meetings people would talk about the idea that sex should be fulfilling and satisfying. But no one that I knew of in Christian circles was teaching about the Kama Sutra. Also, there didn't seem to be much of a notion of fun. And no notion of fantasy. So there was no way to really talk about it as such. No experimentation.


And then there is pornography. There's a lot I could say about pornography. I can feel myself getting distracted from whatever point I was trying to make. So anyway. Here goes.


The first pornography I remember using was, I guess, stuff that my dad had cached away under the bed. At least if it wasn't his it was my brothers or my mums. Maybe a lot of people's first experience of pornography in those days was from unintentional parents. There were no videos, DVDs or Internet. No sex on TV to speak of. Just magazines.


The magazines were all "soft". But they added to the pleasure of masturbation. I've read and heard that men tend to enjoy the visual stimulation offered by porn in a way that doesn't so much appeal to many women.


A few years later as a student I remember realising one day ... hey ... I am 18 ... I can buy this stuff for myself. And so I did.


Soon after that I was Born Again. I remember praying about masturbation. Well ... what I really mean is praying and asking if masturbation was wrong. It would have been round about then that I discovered these words in Matthew 5:28,


But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.


That, as the saying goes, seemed to put the kibosh on masturbation and pornography in one fell swoop.


But it didn't really. It just marked the beginning of a struggle for me.


A feeling inside of me that it was wrong. And yet an inability to stop. Occasional masturbation. Occasional use of pornography. A sense of guilt. Of shame. Of sinfulness. A need to keep it secret. A fear of discovery.


Every so often I'd perform a purge. I borrowed this term from a t-girl that I chatted with once in Portsmouth. She asked if I'd been through a purge - feeling so bad about things that all things girlie go into the bin.


Well, at regular intervals all things pornographic were purged.


But only for a while.


I remember a time as a student. I was staying at a place where three of us shared a room. All strangers to each other.


I got back one night and discovered one of my magazines on the bed rather than under it.


I'd never really had a "holier than thou" kind of an attitude about Christianity. But people knew about my beliefs. That I went to church. If you've ever had the feeling of your stomach dropping through the floor, you know how I felt as I walked into that room.


My first response was to head for the landlady and ask her if she knew who's magazine it was. Inside I felt like I just wanted to disappear.


A few days later one of the guys asked me if I'd managed to find out who's magazine it was. I'd decided by then to just come clean. I told him it was mine. I don't remember what else I said.


I read stuff as that explained why from a Christian perspective all things pornographic are sinful and evil. It was about devaluing women. Lust. Abuse. The use of pornography was a sickness ... maybe even a manifestation of demons ... a thing to be healed from ... a thing to be cast out.


And yet ... I cared about people. I wanted to help other people. I loved other people. I just used porn and kept it a secret.


A part of me thought that marriage would be a cure me. But it didn't.


I'm not sure exactly when my wife found out.


In an ironic kind of way I think it was maybe when we first moved into a house together. The previous occupant had left some furniture and, stuck beneath one of the drawers was a magazine.


I think my wife was sure that it was mine. But we didn't talk about it. Just got rid of it.


In fact it wasn't mine - I was more careful about hiding places.


But a person can't hide something like that all of the time.


Sometimes she would find things and ask me about them. But I wouldn't talk about it.


I've spoken to t-girls that have been discovered dressing by unknowing partners. These girls have vowed to never do it again. And yet ... having purged for a while ... it comes back. I know people that have partners that have learned to accept this. And others that have separated.


I think it comes back because for many people being a t-girl isn't an illness. It's not something to cure. It's about how a person is. It's about who a person is. To purge it completely would be to lose a part of yourself.


So ... is pornography like that? I suspect not. But it fills a need somewhere. In my own case I think it's maybe associated with never really sharing fantasies. Not feeling comfortable about talking sex.


Other things that come to mind are conflicting levels of sexual need. My appetite for orgasm is daily. My wife's has never really been more than weekly. And she is comfortable with the concept of celibacy.


As a child my wife was the subject of sexual abuse. That has sometimes made the experience of sex uncomfortable. My use of pornography hasn't helped her. And we didn't talk about these things until many years into our marriage.


At times I justify myself to myself. The masturbation and the pornography fulfil a need that is a part of me. They provide a way of satisfying needs without making impositions. They provide a release of some kind.


God, though, there are times when I see a scene in a film that fill me with a sense of emptiness because I don't remember it happening for almost longer than I can remember. The scenes were a wife grabs a hold of her husband urgently and ... well ... I don't need to get too graphic really. I guess that it isn't just a fiction that happens in films. I know it has happened to me ... but it's one of those far off memories. Like something you remember from your childhood and you wonder ... do I really remember that or did someone tell me about it? To not have to make the first move. To feel as though it was something that she wanted. In a way I feel like I want to give such a lot more than I receive and yet mostly have only ever had the chance to take.


I remember one time a minister at church invited me to a service at a church a few miles away.


Afterwards he asked if I hadn't felt like going forward when there was an offer to pray for healing for people.


Of course, he hadn't had a divine word of knowledge. Just a chat with his wife, who had chatted with my wife.


After that there were prayers. A purge. I read a book that explained why pornography was so wrong. How it led to child abuse. Destroyed people. Ruined lives.


It remained purged for a while.

I talked things over with my wife.


In a sense though perhaps this marked the beginning of the end of my close association with the church. I couldn't go on forever keeping it secret. And really, deep down, I didn't really believe it to be a sickness that required healing. Not in the sense that Christians seemed to believe. And it wasn't an acceptable form of behaviour within a church. Just like Andrea ... a kind of an abomination.

Since that time my wife and I have talked more. We've faced up to some of it. Other things happened that caused a lot of pain. There were real struggles.

In a lot of ways my wife and I have a better understanding of and acceptance of each other than we have ever had before.

Sexually we are not so close as we were. But in almost every other respect we are closer. It's a better place to be. But ... I do miss the sex. A lot. More than a lot.

So ... where am I now? How do I see pornography? Transvestism? Christianity?


The Born Again evangelicalism is mostly a memory. I don't think I could ever go back there. Not just because of the fact that I use porn or that I am a t-girl. I also find it hard to believe.


I've embraced the fact that I am a transvestite. I'm not ashamed of it. It doesn't frighten me. At times it's a bit of a nuisance ... but so is the more masculine part of me.


The pornography isn't quite so easy.


The anti-pornography stuff that I've read seems to be composed of half truths, perhapses and sometimeses.


Pornography can, but doesn't inevitably, lead to abuse.


Users of pornography might, but do not inevitably, view women as objects. They do not inevitably view women as lesser beings. They do not inevitably just use women. Actually I suspect that an honest historical analysis might reveal that excessive religion was more likely to do this.


The pornography industry isn't exclusively about the degradation of women, nor is it totally made up of women that feel used and abused and preyed upon. Granted, that there are times and places where this is the case. But it is not inevitably so. No more than it is inevitable that every kitchen knife be used as a murder weapon.

I don't believe that people that use porn are just a small minority. The average newsagent seems to have a much better variety of porn magazines than magazines about TV, golf, computers, football, religion ... than almost anything. And there are an enormous number of web pages devoted to it.

I'd rather experience real sex than masturbate and use porn. But, having said that, both of these things help satisfy a need in me that I believe to be natural.

So, in the end I guess I have to say that I'm at a position with this where I don't feel guilt or shame about it. Like the the fact that I'm a t-girl, it's not something I'm planning on shouting out from the mountaintops. But neither will I hang my head in shame any more.

And ... is it art? Well ... maybe sometimes. Really ... it's what a person makes of it. But personally speaking I don't frame it and hang it on the wall.