Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend,
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make ne new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

"... capture me
I surrender to Your sanctity
Then You capture me
I win the freedom of this slavery
Embracing all that you impart
Hear the crying in my heart
And capture me ..."

Any way, while I can't quite "get" your mindset CM about this topic, it's highlighted for ma something about how I think all Christians shape our faith.

I think we all actually have a two way street going where our faith affects our world view and behaviour - for instance in your decision not to particpate in certain sexual acts because you believe they are contrary to Christian teaching. At the same time our world view also affects and shapes our faith. I'm a feminist and a Christian, and mu practice of each shapes the other.

I do think that all Christians are like that, and that none of us sees life or does life in a way that is "purely" Christian. I'm afraid that in some of the evangelical circles I've moved in people think they're "only" Christian but they're a bit deluded.

We must get beyond the exterior to see that the heart is what's important.

It must begin with our own hearts. If we regard those who are "different" with fear or loathing, it will show in our faces and attitudes. To love them as Christ does is something few know how to do.

We are instructed to reach out to "the least of these, My brethren." Christ ate with tax-collectors, touched lepers, and talked with women as though they were worth taking the time to teach. May His legacy live on...

Christ died for the sake of love. God wrote this book we call the history of the earth and all its inhabitants. He could have written it differently. Why did He write it as He did? Why did He include this gift, a challenge almost beyond His ability, but one He faced and won?

As an Anabaptist (Mennonite) with a very 'low' view of authority - and a second generation Holocaust survivor who is very aware of how authority can go wrong - I disagree profoundly with your views on hierarchy. But I admit they're internally consistent.

quote:

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:
I admire you greatly for being able to integrate your sexuality and your faith without compromising the 'traditional' sexual morality you (and I) hold to.

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I admire the intellectual feat and I have no quarrel with you personally or with the choices you have made. But does your theology 'work'? Obviously it works for you - but it's very particular, isn't it? I find it too imprisoning to be applied universally - I personally would suffocate under its weight. But doesn't a successful theology of sexuality have to apply universally? Can you have one theology for one group of sexual preferences and another for another?

quote:

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Originally posted by Lovely Doggie:
I think we all actually have a two way street going where our faith affects our world view and behaviour . . . At the same time our world view also affects and shapes our faith. . . .
I do think that all Christians are like that, and that none of us sees life or does life in a way that is "purely" Christian. I'm afraid that in some of the evangelical circles I've moved in people think they're "only" Christian but they're a bit deluded.

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I believe in learning from all sources possible. I use Christian Tradition as my main guide (not so much the last few hundred years, but going all the way back, with special emphasis on the first 1500 years or so), but I also try to learn from Jewish, Pagan and other sources, where they do not contradict the heart of the faith.

I certainly think that, if our culture (Christian or otherwise) is leading to counter-Christian (or counter-"Christian-culture") movements, then we should take a good hard look at them -- not in the primarily confrontational role many people seem to, or adversarial role -- but ask "What is it that these people are getting from this which we are not giving them?" I think these things spring from need which is not being met, and if we can help to meet that need without heresy or sin, then we ought to. For example, time and again I have known Pagans, raised in the Christian faith, who have said to me that if their faith had shown them a more positive view of nature, they might still be Christians. We have St. Francis and others, and in times past we had more focus on harvest festivals than we do now. While I don't believe in worshipping deities other than the Christian God (happy Ostara, nonetheless, to my Wiccan friends), I think we have much more wiggle-room in approaching the wonderful Earth which He has made and in celebrating it, its times and its seasons, perhaps now more than ever in our non-agrarian, industrialised society. And we can explore this without changing our basic theology. (I believe we could even approach modern Pagan culture the same way we have approached -- at our best, not in a destructive way -- other Pagans at times, by allowing for the best in their culture to be "baptised" and approached in a Christian context. Technically, this is where many of our holidays' symbols and fun come from -- why do you think we have chocolate bunnies at Easter?)

I have seen material on Native American (Indian) Christian churches here in the US, in which their cultures' symbols and approaches have been incorporated into their approach to their Christian faith -- and I don't mean in a syncretic way in which the heart of the faith is changed, but more in the way that the early converts incorporated their own cultural leanings into their approach. For example, in poetry, we see in The Dream of the Roodthe way Jesus leaps up on the Cross, like a warrior doing battle, as the Anglo-Saxon converts were a warrior-focused culture; in art we certainly see quite a lot from various places the world over. In holidays we see many mixtures and incorporations. Yet when a subculture is in our own midst, rather than saying, "Hmm -- perhaps a Franciscan approach to nature, and allowing a place for that for those who feel drawn to it, would be appropriate here -- and bringing back the seasonal festivals (apart from just Harvest Festival in UK and Thanksgiving in the US) would help too," we often cry, "ugh! People different from us! Run away! Fight them! Eek!" or such.

Oops, digressing again. I should do something with the above in Small Fire, I know...

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Originally posted by brodavid:
I find it surreal that I have more agreement on sexual morality with a gay leatherman than I do with many of my fellow straights on the Ship.

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quote:

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I also liked what I read about reaching sub-cultures, such as the leather crowd, with the gospel.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Poet_of_Gold:
If we regard those who are "different" with fear or loathing, it will show in our faces and attitudes. To love them as Christ does is something few know how to do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:
What strikes me most forcibly is that all the community, re-parenting etc that the gay leather scene has given and gives you, is what the church ought to be giving you if it were doing its job properly

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quote:

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Originally posted by Esmeralda:
I can't help still regarding your leather thing (and maybe even the gayness, though I'll be unpopular for saying this) as to some extent a pathology, and ultimately a result of being in a fallen world.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Qlib:
But does your theology 'work'? Obviously it works for you - but it's very particular, isn't it?

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"Then we must go higher. We must go to him whose office it is to put down tyrants and give life to dying kingdoms. We must call on the Emperor."
"There is no Emperor."
"No Emperor . . ." began Merlin, and then his voice died away. He sat still for some minutes wrestling with a world which he had never envisaged. Presently he said, " . . . This is a cold age in which I have awaked. If all this West part of the world is apostate, might it not be lawful, in our great need, to look farther . . . beyond Christendom? . . . Sir, I believe it would be lawful to seek help even there. Beyond Byzantium. . . . "
--- C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
(Note: Bold ellipses are mine, others are in the text.)

Happy Easter to you too!
[fixing italics]

eek! I wouldn't want to be in your shoes!

We don't "talk back" to God unless we want Him to respond with allowing situations that can humble us. And it does sound rather insulting to refer to God as "it". I mean, I agree that a spirit is neither male nor female, but saying "it" seems less than human instead of more than human or even equal (which He is not).

While looking for links for another thread, I found this one on Mary as the "ultimate submissive":

"In short she submitted, freely and totally. No pre-negotiated scening among equal partners, no safe-words, no limits and no opt-out clause. Nothing but pure, unadulterated submission, based on faith alone.

Now it would be a mistake to read into this that Mary was the ultimate submissive in any BDSM interpretation of the term. She was not a kinky lady. But her example is worth noting nonetheless, in a community that prides itself of going farther, deeper and higher than "normal" people can. For all its lack of direct perv appeal, Mary's submission was far more genuine and total than what most of us in the lifestyle would consider adequate.

I started life as a Roman Catholic in a very politically active working class east end (London) family. I went on an Aldermaston march in my pram! Anti-apartied was our principle concern, but issues of equity and social justice were intimately tied to how I was taught Jesus' message.

When I was 15 in 1979, I knew I was gay, I also knew I wasn't prepared to lie about it or accept the my God who died for me could love me any the less because of it. Gay rights are part of social justice the same as anti racism and and anti sexism.

When I went to my Parish Priest he used Polonus’s line from Hamlet (not very Scriptural, but absolutely right in the circumstances) "Above all else unto thine own self be true" .

So at the tender age of 16 I found my way onto the gay leather scene, I found community. Very few long term gay male relationships are monogamous (see the project Sigma research, Prof. P. Coxon "Between the Sheets") but we do build our own families of choice and chance, my partner's ex-partners, ex is actually remarkably close, love is what binds us and love can't be wrong.

ChastMastr makes a distinction about penetration however it’s worth noting as Prof. Coxon, points out that only 1 in 5 sex acts between men involve penetration anyway.

By the way in my many years as a volunteer on a Lesbian & Gay phone line one of my favourite suggestions to the many heterosexual men who phoned wanting to know where they could get fucked was to buy their wife a strap on.

SM is a complex subject, I do tend to view it as a hobby 'recreational sex' being about sensation and mutual pleasure sometimes with my partner sometimes with others as well or separately, it’s for each of us to make our judgements for our own consciences. Much as liberal priests said after Humane Vita if you believed the right wing everyone using contraception will be burning in hell.

The leather is an emphasis of masculinity (although the old joke that the two acceptable subjects for conversation in leather bars are Opera and cooking remains true, I was in my local last week discussing the Bach St John Passion at the Coliseum, then the wonders of the Delia Online website) much the same reason as we have facial hair, it’s men we are into.

In the end sex, SM whatever, is actually a small part of who we are and God sees us in the whole. I’m happy that I will stand before my God and know I’ve never caused physical pain to anybody who didn’t want it.

That is probably quite enough for a first post.

PAX

Hugs all!

quote:

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Originally posted by Saint Sebastian:JLG,
You consider God your equal????

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Um, this seems backwards, don't you mean to be asking if I consider myself equal to God? But in a way, yes. I believe in Catholicism it is the heresy of Docetism.

quote:

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Originally posted by Poet_of_Gold:
jlg:

eek! I wouldn't want to be in your shoes!

We don't "talk back" to God unless we want Him to respond with allowing situations that can humble us. And it does sound rather insulting to refer to God as "it". I mean, I agree that a spirit is neither male nor female, but saying "it" seems less than human instead of more than human or even equal (which He is not).

"Hallowed be Thy name."

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I have found that the more I "talk back" to God, the more I am able to hear Him "talk" to me and the better my life gets. While He has sometimes shown a mischievous sense of humor at my expense, I haven't noticed any divine retribution. (Unless it was getting me to convert to Catholicism at age 50 after decades of calling myself a Buddhist?)

I realize that my use of 'it' in my earlier post was much clunkier than I intended it to be, but I also try very hard to not get into the habit of anthropomorphizing God. And I find that the usual Christian ways of referring to God seem to encourage picturing the benevolent Grandfather in the Sky. God is something way beyond what our human minds can comprehend, and also way beyond taking offense at what we use and whether it is capitalized.

I apologize!

quote:

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Originally posted by Joeinbow:

When I went to my Parish Priest he used Polonus’s line from Hamlet (not very Scriptural, but absolutely right in the circumstances) "Above all else unto thine own self be true" .

PAX

J.

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My foster Dad/Master had a web page someone else set up for him, which became a memorial page. Most of the images don't load anymore, so I think the page is on its last legs, but till then you can see its final remnants (nothing is sexually explicit) here, his picture (from 1998) and eulogy here, and -- I had forgotten this was there! -- a pic of me (in 1998 when I was fatter than I am now) here and up close here.

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
[QB(Abrupt memory of a children's TV show called The Letter People... "Come and meet the leather people...") [/QB]

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Come and meet the Letter People,
Come and meet the family,
Words are made of Letter People,
A,B,C,D--Follow Me!
http://www.methuen.k12.ma.us/mps/MHS/tv10/letter%20people.gif

Dave, I think I'm going to enjoy reading the posts here at SoF, thanks for inviting me. I just wanted to say that the more I read about your leather experience, which I stil know little about, I feel that there is a similar thing happening with me and the experience of being both Catholic and gay. I know that can open up little cans of gummy worms. Anyway, I am really interested in the 'bridging' concept here. I really love good Christian Gay sites like URL=http://www.angelfire.com/nc/yakkow/]Justin's World[/URL] and others which allow for differing viewpoints on this. As a Catholic who actually believes and attempts to follow the teachings of my Church, I find at times that this life is difficult. I am also a huge Andrew Sullivan fan since he articulates so well the way alot of gay Catholics feel. I like how you pulled alot of resources together to share about the leather community and the leather reality. I hope one day to have a good website which will pull together resources like this for the topic of homosexuality. Thanks for the vision.

1. because I'm lazy, and 2. because I haven't time, can somebody tell me if there's anywhere in this BB where heterosexual d/s in a christian context is being discussed?

What I mean by that is is there any discussion of mother/son type relationships within a christian marriage. For me, as a single young male, it is important that I have some kind of relationship like this, as I find I keep digging holes for myself unless I have somebody watching over my shoulder - and I would prefer that somebody to be my (future) wife. However, there seems to be much fewer resources available to help me deal with this than for the gay d/s community - because I'm not interested in most kinky stuff, it's the relationship that's important, not the clothes.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
(I'm already a member of the Yahoo!group BDSMchristians)

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Links, glorious links, we're dying to try them...

CADS (Christians and Domination/submission)

BDSM Christians, based in the UK
[/URL]

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I have spoken to some Christians who think a woman should never be in charge. But in the Old Testament, in the days when women were thought least highly of, there was a prophetess named Deborah who was married to a man named Lapidoth, and she was the one who gave orders for Israel, not her husband. She told Israel's commander, Barak, what to do. She spoke for the Lord, and her words came true in the prophecy that a woman would defeat Sisera.

I've pondered the notion in my own life -- perhaps as a Lenten discipline? -- of taking on a slave who would, as part of his obedience to me, flog me from time to time. Or of writing a short story about such things.

I was trying to make my profile pic work and poked around on the memorial website above, and found at least one pic of my foster Dad I did not have before!!

God bless Ship of Fools for being the indirect cause of my finding this pic!

The directory of his own pics is here and of the site's pics in general is here.

All the pics with the green leafy background were taken in Florida, and I was there!

I want to thank everyone here responsible for T & T for giving us a forum, and for me it's been difficult before this to know how to explain my own perspective on the whole thing; since leather and theology are pretty much connected for me, it meant being quite nervous about mentioning much about this on any of the other boards...

Hugs all! I have felt more accepted here than I knew possible, and it is a wonderful, wonderful thing!!

quote:

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
If it is not going to go to Dead Horses (or to the Archive?), then could someone tell me how I could archive it for my own home computer, so all my writing and links and stuff don't vanish? I think some of the resources I found would be good to have on hand, and digging them all up again from scratch via Google would drive me nuts...

Hugs all!

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Right-click in the frame, select "View frame source" and then save that as a text file with .html as extension.

Inevitably,

Which is NOT stone throwing, believe me.

Today would be Daddy's 64th birthday. Planning on celebrating it and his life with a friend at a steakhouse.

I am confused... more by my own background than what you've shared here... So here are a few questions. I want to premise my questions first, though, with the hope that my words do not come off sounding critical in any way, for that is not what I am feeling. I value what you are sharing.

Just to clarify... my upbringing was VERY sheltered (picture chubby little blond sitting in fundamentalist church 3+ times per week). I left that church after divorcing my abusive husband of ten years. I learned much about the world (World?) from that experience and in my training/practice as a clinical psychologist in San Francisco... but that's not helping me here, for those experiences are very different from what you're sharing.

I had a former patient that described herself as a leatherwoman... but her lifestyle and views were very different from yours. She was into pain. And pain inflicted by a dom was a sexual stimulant.
Here's my question... Is pain part of your process? How is that beneficial? Or (dare I say it?) Biblical?

I recognize I tend to lean too far toward the gentle loving God picture (more personal baggage here... need that gentle nurturing in my life right now)... And I appreciate your "bondslave" (doulos)analogy... God is not truly God unless S/He rules my life. So another question comes to mind... What about a balanced view of God? You seem to suggest an unusual (to my limited understanding) relationship with your master... more father/son than dominant/submissive. Is this true of any other folks in your tribe?

Another question: Is there any potential of this lifestyle being damaging to your influence over other young believers. You seemed to have gained from your relationship... but I guess I still am wondering how common this is in the leather community.

I am curious about your master. Do you feel you may have put him in the place of God in your life... I know there have been many times when I've wished there were a voice from heaven that would say, "Do this... Do it now." I wish even more that I had the ability to trust someone else (a human) enough to obey without question. How did your master/slave relationship develop? I'm very interested in the fact that your master wasn't a man of faith... Didn't this get in the way at all??? What did he think of your faith?

Thanks for tolerating my long post and all my questions...

quote:

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Originally posted by mysticlisa:
Blessings on you.

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quote:

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I had a former patient that described herself as a leatherwoman... but her lifestyle and views were very different from yours. She was into pain. And pain inflicted by a dom was a sexual stimulant.
Here's my question... Is pain part of your process? How is that beneficial? Or (dare I say it?) Biblical?

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quote:

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So another question comes to mind... What about a balanced view of God? You seem to suggest an unusual (to my limited understanding) relationship with your master... more father/son than dominant/submissive. Is this true of any other folks in your tribe?

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quote:

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Another question: Is there any potential of this lifestyle being damaging to your influence over other young believers. You seemed to have gained from your relationship... but I guess I still am wondering how common this is in the leather community.

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quote:

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I am curious about your master. Do you feel you may have put him in the place of God in your life...

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I wish even more that I had the ability to trust someone else (a human) enough to obey without question.

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quote:

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How did your master/slave relationship develop?

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I'm very interested in the fact that your master wasn't a man of faith... Didn't this get in the way at all??? What did he think of your faith?

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Thanks for tolerating my long post and all my questions...

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Hugs!

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Originally posted by Martin PC not:
So you freely give yourself to your husband then?

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Originally posted by Martin PC not:
So you want Christian sanction for your sin?

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[HOST HAT ON]

This is getting dangerously close to too personal for Purgatory (or TPFP). We debate issues here in Purgatory. Please stick to same or the thread will have to be closed, or moved to Hell.

[HOST HAT OFF]