Conservative legislator Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act that, in part, would ban pornography in the United States. As conservatives push more restrictions, we have to question: Who actually benefits from a culture that punishes pleasure?
Maybe it is just that the confines of a life without pleasure keeps us easily controlled.
“There is no hate like Christian love.” Teachings within Christianity taught us the world is a place of impurities. Through Christianity, we were told we had an obligation to make sure those around us adhere to the same standards we were called to.
Victoria Bermudez
In truth, this only encouraged me to be disapproving of people’s lives and pretend it was simply a deep desire for those we love to be better. To be free.
Beyond the hate-filled facade of “Christian love” is a message interwoven with stories masquerading as that of reverence and devotion. That message? Self-hatred. Christianity uses this self-hatred as a tool of control, teaching that our desires, bodies and identities are threats when in reality, they are the very paths to our liberation.
Having grown up in church, memorizing Bible verses was essential. One of the earliest ones I learned is in Romans, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
“Before I had my parents’ phone numbers memorized, I had memorized this verse.”
Before I had my parents’ phone numbers memorized, I had memorized this verse and the message that I am not enough and that the only way for me to be offered grace was through a higher power. This message is not just one that I and those at my church believed.
A 2020 book published by Allie Beth Stuckey You’re Not Enough (and That’s Okay) became a New York Times bestseller. There is one quote in particular that encapsulates the message that served as a throughline for two formative decades of my life: “Alone, we are not good enough, smart enough or beautiful enough. We’re not enough — period. And that’s OK, because God is. The answer to our insufficiency and insecurity isn’t self-love, but God’s love.”
The belief that we are not individuals, but mere vessels to a higher power, created an environment where we were primed to neglect our thoughts, fears, desires and needs. Discontent became the measurement of success.
The message of self-hatred was not the only one passed down like a family heirloom to be worn with pride. A culture of purity and shame also was woven into the fabric of our identities. We were called to lives of modesty. If we weren’t modest, we would cause other people to stumble in their walks with God and would be solely responsible.
Sex was discussed once within the home between the child and the parent (usually of the same sex). When discussed outside the home, sermons on sex were held without children present or within youth groups as something to abstain from until marriage.
I remember having “the talk” with my mother in the car on the way to school. I was a curious fourth grader with an older sibling who had just learned the same lesson I was about to. I left with two takeaways: Don’t have sex until marriage, and sex is meant for reproduction.
As I got older and witnessed the dynamics of those around me, I learned quickly there was a third takeaway about sex: Sex is an obligation to your spouse, one you cannot say no to. Pleasure never was a part of the conversation. How could it be when religion needed us to believe our misery led to contentment? How could it be when our bodies were not only vessels needing to please a higher power, but now our spouse? Pleasure was about autonomy, and that was something preached against.
Exploring sexuality felt, and can still feel, shameful. We were trained to detest pleasure because it is a threat. If we somehow learned that pleasure could come from anywhere other than God, let alone ourselves, the narrative of us needing a higher power would crumble.
“The expectation of purity did not stop me from having sex; it only held me back from seeking help when I was being exploited due to shame.”
Sure, maybe some small part of purity culture was an attempt at keeping us emotionally, mentally and physically safe, but it failed tremendously. The expectation of purity did not stop me from having sex; it only held me back from seeking help when I was being exploited due to shame. With the understanding that I was created to be a vessel for someone else, I found myself in a relationship where sexual abuse was normal.
In my adulthood, not only have I had to heal from the abuse perpetrated by religion, but I also had to relearn all I knew about pleasure. Pleasure never was shameful. Being an unwilling vessel for someone else’s pleasure is. When I started embracing pleasure, I started reconnecting with myself.
This expanded well beyond sex. I stopped letting myself feel guilty for being happy or for being my priority. I became more aware of the people I was allowing to take up space in my life. The community I started building embraced the things I was taught to disapprove of. I found beauty in what was once talked about as impurities. Pleasure became something I deserved, not something I had to justify.
Through the discovery of pleasure, I began to embrace my queerness. Since then, I’ve rejected the idea of the heteronormative and restrictive partnership I heard of in church and found a community that cherishes the very things I once was taught to disapprove of. In that search, I realized there is a love far greater than the one higher power promised me.
For so long, I believed I needed a higher power to be enough, and that led to a life of misery. If that is what holiness requires, maybe it isn’t holiness we’re meant to be chasing. Maybe it is liberation in autonomy.
Victoria Bermudez serves as the Virginia advocacy manager at Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and is a Public Voices fellow of the OpEd Project, The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and the Every Page Foundation.
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