Purity Culture Dropout Club

I Am Allergic to Happiness 🩵

“You don’t understand,” I tried again, “Last summer, I hiked across the Grand Canyon. Rim to rim. In a single day. And then six weeks later, I couldn’t get off the couch…

3 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Romance In Spite of It All

Christianity and LGBTQIA+ Folk (Part 4 of 6)

Phil P Shepherd — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:44:45 GMT

We continue with our exploration of the New Testament passages which appear to condemn homosexuality with a look at the first chapter of Romans. Again, this has all the appearance of being an ‘open and shut case’ - but appearances can be deceptive.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:24-27

It seems pretty straightforward at first glance. But actually, there’s a lot going on here, both in these particular verses and in their wider context. We won’t go into it in detail in this series, but in Greco-Roman culture ‘exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones’ does not mean what it is taken to mean nowadays - homosexual intercourse -but instead refers to women taking a dominant role in sexual intercourse, which was considered shameful, in the same way as a man assuming an inferior role. In Greco-Roman culture (which is the context this letter was aimed at) the gender of the participants is unimportant compared to their role in the ‘encounter’ - it is right and proper for men to be dominant and women to be submissive; dominant women and submissive men are seen as breaking the natural order.

Moving on, Romans is a letter which, in my opinion, spends a lot of time expanding on the notion that Jews are no longer subject to the law and gentiles never were, but instead all are ‘under grace’ - it even summarises itself in Romans 6:14 -

…you are not under the law, but under grace.

With that in mind, sections like verses 18-32 can seem quite ‘out of place’ in their condemnation. But that’s almost certainly because we’re taking this section out of context. If we read the verses on their own, it seems fairly clear that they are a condemnation of male homosexuality.

Here we come up against one of my ‘favourite’ bugbears - the system of chapters and verses which divide up our text and which mean that, all too often, we divorce a passage from its context and in doing so, misinterpret it. Here, the issue is particularly egregious. After reading Romans 1:18-32, ignore the chapter heading and read on immediately into Romans 2.

…You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

See - there’s a ‘therefore’ - in the dim and distant past we were always taught to ask ‘so what is it there for?’

That ‘therefore’ is linking all the verses describing sins (including the ‘clobber verses’) in chapter 1 to the admonition to not judge others contained in chapter 2. The intent of this passage, taken as a whole, is therefore not about condemning homosexuality specifically, but it is criticising every single one of us for judging others - because we are no better, and do at least some of the same things.

Jesus commands us not to judge:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1-2

What Paul is doing here is reinforcing Jesus’ message about not judging others - whatever heinous sin we may feel they’ve committed, and however justified we might feel in passing judgment on them and excluding them from our churches or, at least, restricting their access to the sacraments, or whatever other discriminatory practices our church has enacted to maintain its supposed ‘holiness’.

We have to remember that we are sinners too. Let us look at that list in verses 28-32 again and see if there are any there we’re guilty of. If there are, then we can’t judge the sin of others - or, if we do, we’re bringing judgment upon ourselves. We cannot single out sins (such as homosexual acts for instance) which we ourselves are not even tempted to commit and condemn those who do commit them, without at the same time condemning ourselves for the sins we do commit.

Summarising Romans 1:18 - 2:1 we see that Paul is saying:

All human beings are idolaters;

Most human beings are fornicators;

Some human beings indulge in homosexual acts;

But all human beings have depraved minds and do evil deeds;

Therefore, stop judging one another right now.

Paul goes on to expand on this theme through the rest of chapter 2, really socking it to his audience - if, at the beginning, they don’t really ‘get’ the not judging thing, by the end they can be in no doubt whatsoever. And then, in chapter 3, he begins to expound the solution to all of this sinfulness - Jesus Christ’s faithfulness, and God’s grace. There is hope - for all of humanity, because no-one is excluded from that hope.

So, in summary, if we use this passage to condemn homosexuality in others, we’re heaping judgment on ourselves.

There is no excuse, whatsoever, for judging others.

Even if homosexuality is wrong, we are not to judge those who are guilty of it, because we are at least as guilty; if not of homosexuality then almost certainly something like idolatry. That’s what it’s saying.

In using these verses to condemn homosexual behaviour, we are misusing them. Homosexual behaviour absolutely isn’t the point here; if its referring to it as a sin at all, it’s just one example of a sin, plucked out of a long list: judgment is the point here. Context is everything.

We are, perversely, judging others using a passage in which Paul is specifically teaching us not to judge.

Somehow to me, that says it all about how depraved our minds are - that we can take a piece of scripture which is perfectly clear in what it is saying, misuse it in this way, and then feel good about ourselves for ‘defending the faith’.

I'm Sorry I Thought You Were a Creep For Liking Sex. 🕊️✨

Romance In Spite of It All — Sat, 30 May 2026 19:59:51 GMT

When I was about 12 years old, I babysat for a family in the neighborhood that was a little, off. In today’s world, I think they’d find more community, and I hope they have. But in the yuppie suburbs of the late nineties, they did not fit the mold. The father was older, heavyset, with a gut that threatened the integrity of his pastel cotton polo shirts as they strained to keep everything tucked in. He wore those aviator shaped glasses that always had a yellow tinge, even though they weren’t actually tinted, and that clearly showcased every fleck of dandruff and dust collecting behind the lenses. His combover was outdated, but he had a good job in the early tech industry, and seemed to support his family well enough.

The mother was lovely in an aging, flower-child sort of way, with long wavy hair and a slender frame, but her pleasant eyes were obscured by coke bottle glasses. She was deaf, but with hearing aids and a lifetime of practice, she was able to get her point across when she left me instructions for watching her kids— a girl not much younger than me, isolated by the strangeness of her family, and her 8 year old brother, who was non-verbal and prone to meltdowns of the most feral variety.

The house was filthy, with food and garbage strewn chaotically across any available surface. I specifically recall remnants of Eggo waffles on the counter and floor, splashed with Hershey’s syrup that had traveled as far as the walls and pantry door.

None of this really bothered me. My own family was dysfunctional. My parents kept their home in a similar state. With five younger siblings, chaos didn’t phase me. And I felt sympathy toward the daughter, sharing a secret understanding of what it’s like when you don’t want to invite friends over, ever.

I didn’t hesitate to be kind and engage with these neighbors in any circumstance… until one day.

One day, I had occasion to be up in the parent’s bedroom. I don’t remember if the daughter showed me, or if I had been told to find something there, or if I was just snooping as many a pre-adolescent babysitter has been wont to do.

In their closet, I found a box with several Playboy magazines, along with several nude photos of the mother.

[Note: From here on out, I’ve used capitalization/italics to denote sarcasm or past beliefs. I no longer think anyone is bad for liking sex. I’m using certain terms to showcase old conditioning, not because I still believe them to be accurate!]

In a flash, I decided that this family was bad. This man was a creep. I instantly re-characterized their quirky but sympathetic marriage as a predatory arrangement, where he had taken advantage of a younger disabled woman and married her for the sex.

This poor woman, enslaved by her desperation for love, had taken this filthy partner and been subjected to his carnal whims, the cost she was willing to pay for shelter and protection. She was even cursed with the burden of bearing his children and raising them in this putrid circumstance.

And I never went back there again.

Because a man liked sex. And maybe his wife did too. And they had some perfectly legal magazines. And some sweet, classy photos OF HIS OWN WIFE. He didn’t show them to me. He didn’t leave them out somewhere. He didn’t ask to take some of me.

They were IN THEIR BEDROOM. IN THE CLOSET. IN A BOX.

But this is how we were trained to think. I learned that if a boy had a boner while we were swimming, he should run to the bathroom with a towel clutched over his private parts. I learned that anything that might make you think of sex was bad, evil, forbidden, and definitely belonged in the most heinous category of all: pornography.

The word that, with all the mythos of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, incited hushed tones and dramatic implications and the harshest of shutdowns at the slightest mention.

The word that almost ended my marriage when it was 6 months in. When we struggled to have a positive sexual experience, things went bad fast. (I’ve written more about this on my other personal publication, I’ll add the link at the end of this article.)

When my 26 year old husband “admitted” that he had a “pornography addiction”, I was all over it. THIS was the reason our marriage was struggling. THIS was the reason we couldn’t have good sex. THIS was the reason for all our problems and all his shortcomings and NO WONDER I couldn’t be a good wife, because he was a BAD HUSBAND. Because he was addicted to pornography.

When my husband first started using “pornography”, it was the black and white photo of a woman wearing a swimsuit inside a paperback edition of The Guinness Book of World Records.

He later escalated to saving magazine covers of Jessica Alba to a floppy disk, so nobody would find it on his hard drive.

And by the time I married him, he was way off the deep end: YouTube videos of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.

His church leaders told him to do his best to avoid temptation. See if you can go 7 days without masturbating. Then try for 14. And if he failed, he had to schedule a formal interview to go into their office and confess what he had done.

They literally, explicitly, constantly conditioned him to believe that HE SHOULD NEVER EJACULATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES unless it was during intercourse with his wife. Which is, you know, not physically possible, and so he lived in a constant cycle of shame and guilt and depression and anxiety and self-hatred. For decades.

When you see a dick, do you recoil? Are you comfortable with a love scene as long as the bodily fluids aren’t explicitly referenced? Do you appreciate the Purity Culture Dropout articles Phil and I have been writing, but flinch when our erotic content show up in your notes feed?

The more I’ve become aware of how ridiculous these cultural constructs are, the more attuned I have become to notice them in society at large. If you pay attention, mentions of penises, erections, cum, and arousal are routinely met with grimaces, snorts of disgust, or laughs of derision— in entertainment, in the locker room, by the drinking fountain, and in our homes.

It makes me sad, and it makes me angry. These men of ours hold the powers of the universe inside them. And we have told them they should be carried with shame, hidden away, masked and stifled at any cost.

First of all, they didn’t ask for it. And second of all, we should be begging for it.

If you aren’t ready to swallow your belly full of cum every morning noon and night yet, start smaller. Make a choice to be mindful. When you see or hear or watch something that makes you flinch, stop yourself from retreating. First, take a deep breath. Second, look for the good in what you see. And when you’re ready, get curious.

Think about naming your feelings in that moment of aversion. Think about when you learned to react this way. Get conscious about deciding if that thing is actually problematic, or if it might be something good and beautiful.

Your sexuality is a garden, and you get to choose what kind of flowers you grow there. But in order to grow flowers, you have to plant some seeds. And you might want to stop razing it with a blowtorch.

🕊️✨

For more about how we have navigated these things in my marriage, here are a couple of articles from my personal publication:

Part 1 of 2: I Gave My Husband 782 Blow Jobs 🩵

“Why don’t you just try having sex more often?” asked my well-intentioned therapist as he looked quizzically at us, a young couple in our first year of marriage, sitting on his couch trying to figure out why things were so hard…

4 months ago · 5 likes · Romance In Spite of It All

Did you know that there’s a reason people hug? I didn’t. But I do now…

My Lavender Haze 🩵

3 months ago · 5 likes · Romance In Spite of It All

Christianity and LGBTQIA+ Folk (Part 3 of 6)

Phil P Shepherd — Sat, 30 May 2026 18:37:37 GMT

In our examination of whether or not we can legitimately use scripture to condemn homosexual practices, we move on now to two laws found in Leviticus. We’ll deal with both together, because they are very similar. I am quoting here from the NIV, not because I think it’s a particularly good translation, but because it’s widely used and familiar to many.

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. Leviticus 18:22

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. Leviticus 20:13

The original verses were written, obviously, in Hebrew. I don’t know much Hebrew at all, so I’m relying on others for virtually anything and everything connected to the language used. What I do know is that translating from Hebrew to English is very difficult; it’s made even more so by the huge gulf between ancient Jewish culture and modern Western culture - many things we think are ‘obvious’ have no correspondence in ancient Jewish culture, and vice versa. So some concepts don’t translate well, if at all.

If the Hebrew words of Leviticus 18:22 are translated literally into English, the scholar Renato Lings notes (in his ‘Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible’) that the Hebrew text becomes “so arcane that the entire verse becomes almost untranslatable.” He suggests this as a fairly literal translation:

“And with a male you shall not lie down the lyings of a woman.”

The Hebrew scholar Jan Joosten has an even more literal translation (in his ‘A New Interpretation of Lev 18:22 (par. Lev 20:13) and its Ethical Implications’):

“And-with a male not you-will-lie ‘lyings-of’ a woman.”

As one translator said in his commentary on a translation: “If this English translation is less than lucid, then it faithfully transmits the clarity of the Hebrew original.” Modern scholarship does not possess the intellectual ‘tools’ necessary to translate this passage, period.

The Septuagint (2nd-3rd century BC Greek translation of the Old Testament) doesn’t seem to shed much light; and English translations of the Septuagint seem to translate the Greek into English in a manner consistent with ‘conservative evangelical’ theology, which may not be accurate, but does guarantee higher sales!

It’s very, very, hard to make any sense of these verses. There are some authors who maintain that ‘lyings-of’ has sexual connotations, and others who say it doesn’t; still others say that it depends on context.

If we look at the context though, most of the commandments around these two verses concern sexual morality: who it’s okay to have sex with and, more particularly, who it isn’t - which is mostly those to whom one is related. So it may well be that this series of commandments are as much about ensuring that people live well together in community as anything else! Therefore, it is possible that it means what we’ve been taught that it means - but equally it may not - as far as I can tell, the phrase translated above as ‘lyings-of’ occurs in this form only in these two verses, and nowhere else, so it’s very hard to establish what it means.

One commentator, Susan Pigott, professor of Hebrew at Hardin-Simmons University, suggests this translation of 18:22 :

“And with a male you will not lay (on) the couches/beds of a woman.”

She comments that: “Neither verse actually says ‘Do not lie with a male as with a woman. Instead, both say you should not lay with a male on the couches or beds of a woman.” So it’s even possible to interpret this verse as saying that it’s okay for a man to have sex with a man, so long as he doesn’t do it in a woman’s bed!!

In contrast to all our assertions that these verses are condemning homosexual sex, Jewish scholars seem to have interpreted them as being a prohibition on married women being penetrated anally by men.

I feel I should also note here that nothing is said, anywhere at all in the Old Testament, about lesbianism - arguably, that’s true of the New Testament too, depending how you interpret Romans 1:27 (which we’ll come to in a later post).

I’m not going to come to any conclusions here, other than to say that these verses are very, very, confusing - it’s extremely difficult to work out what they mean; and that therefore, in my opinion, to use one translation amongst many possibilities to condemn outright a whole section of the population, and say that they aren’t welcome in our churches on that basis, is unjust - there simply isn’t enough certainty about what is said to justify such a draconian act.

Next time we’ll move onto the New Testament.

I Lost My Virginity Three Times 🕊️✨

Romance In Spite of It All — Fri, 15 May 2026 03:11:38 GMT

My brain has its own ideas about what I get to remember. I don’t know if this is an experience that other people share, because I think if they do share it, they either don’t know it or don’t talk about it.

In this specific instance, the thing I am talking about [not] remembering is sex. For reasons of its own, my brain decided sex was on the blackout list.

Whenever I heard that there were people spreading rumors that I wasn’t really a virgin, I would respond in feigned horror, but secret satisfaction— If those guys were willing to lie about having sex with me, it must mean I was hot shit, right?

It wasn’t until quite recently, over a decade later, that I started to put the pieces together. The memories still aren’t clear, but I can come in around the edges and reconstruct a peripheral awareness of the situations and I started to realize:

They weren’t lying.

I’ve been hesitant to write about this for the Purity Culture Dropout Club, because I think a great contributing factor to my blackouts was my early sexual abuse, and I don’t know that it is really the result of religious programming. So I’m not sure exactly why my trauma induced blackouts would have a place here.

However, I’ve also felt hesitant about creating this publication, sharing it, reaching out to other contributors, and pretty much every single word I’ve written thus far— yet along the way, each of these elements has found better reception than I would have hoped.

The whole point of the PC⚡️DC is that I believe I’m being guided by a higher power, and I trust that He knows better than I do. I also know that the process of writing here has been helping me in remarkable ways, so, whatever your reason is for reading, I want to thank you for the privilege of being here with you.

Now, getting back on track. I proudly claimed to possess the infamous V-Card all the way up until I was married. In retrospect, I am aware of at least three specific occasions on which I gave it away before my wedding night.

Whenever I write, I try to think of the lesson, the wisdom, the insight that exists in the story I’m trying to share, and how it relates to the task at hand.

This one might be going out on a limb, but let’s try it:

I believed I was a virgin.

I was proud of it.

I bragged about it, wore it like a badge of honor, used it as an excuse to play the tease in every encounter.

As it turns out, I was not a virgin.

I suppose I got lucky in not contracting an illness or unwanted pregnancy. But you know what else I didn’t contract? Guilt, shame, or damnation. I didn’t become a social pariah. I didn’t become irrevocably bonded to those sexual partners. I didn’t lose my ability to bond with my husband.

[To be fair, my ability to bond with my husband was utterly crippled in other ways, which I speak about extensively in my personal essays here, but it wasn’t because I had sex with some other boys before my wedding]

My daughter is spectacular. She is like a cross between Pippi Longstocking, Pollyanna, Scout Finch and the little sister from Chronicles of Narnia. One of my favorite things about her is that she doesn’t know what it is to be self-conscious.

Ever since she was little, she has dressed herself in mixed patterns and whatever big-hat-flowing-scarf-rainbow-pants-tu-tu-and-leopard-print-boots combination makes her happy. If she’s hot, she wants her hair out of her face. If she’s cold, she squawks about it until the situation improves.

Last summer, she asked me to help her find jumpsuits that were one piece but had room to move and were made of tough material so she could hang upside down from tree branches without worrying about her clothes— and she has worn them almost every day for a year, until they are delightfully ragged, because she has adventured all of the adventure that she could possibly get out of her little adventure suits.

She speaks with gusto, because nobody has ever told her that she shouldn’t. It has literally never crossed her mind that someone would judge her or dislike her based on her appearance or her choices. She does what feels good, and she thinks thoughts that make sense to her, and she asks questions without reservation.

She’s comfortable in her own skin, safe in her reality, because nobody has ever told her that she shouldn’t be.

I really believed I was a virgin. I believed I had nothing to be ashamed of, and so I was not ashamed. I didn’t know that I could be damaged goods, so I wasn’t worried that I might be.

If you are a person who has ever felt shame about your sexual activity, have you ever known someone making the same choices who looked like they were not suffering the same internal conflict as you?

Have you told yourself [or has someone told you] that they are probably screwed up under the surface, that they probably feel their own versions of shame and guilt and regret, but that they’re just better at hiding it?

What if that’s not true?

What if they look like they’re okay embracing their sexuality… because they really are just okay?

How much of our experiences, both internal and external, are actually just defined by what we believe, or what we’ve been told to believe?

Honest to God, I think it’s all of them.

🕊️✨

Christianity and LGBTQIA+ Folk (Part 2 of 6)

Phil P Shepherd — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:14:13 GMT

[In case you need the link to Part 1 of this series: Click Here]

Having talked a bit about tolerance and fairness in the previous post, let us go on and dig into some scripture, to see whether the views of those christians who lambast homosexuality as an abomination have any scriptural grounds for doing so. We’ll begin with some brief notes about the languages used in writing the books comprising the Bible, and discuss briefly the difficulties of translating them into modern English before going on to discuss specifics.

In English bibles the homosexuality issue seems pretty clear. But the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, which was later (circa 300-200BCE) translated into Greek, giving us the version known as the Septuagint (because the translation work was performed by seventy scholars). Most English Old Testaments are translated, instead, from the rather later (circa 600-1100CE) Hebrew Masoretic text. Some scholars argue that the Masoretic Text was partly re-written (particularly in key passages, such as Isaiah 53) in order to make it seem less likely that Jesus was the Messiah (though Christians seem to have ‘accepted’ those changes readily, despite them appearing to set God the Father in opposition to the Messiah); it’s not that simple though, because the Masoretic text seems to follow some fragments of the (1st century CE) scrolls found at Qumran pretty closely.

The New Testament was written mostly in a fairly colloquial form of Greek known as Κοινή (Koiné), or common, Greek. Actually, the New Testament’s language is slightly more complicated than that, because for many of the writers, Greek seems not to have been their first language, so you are apt to find things written in ways which owe a lot, stylistically, to the writers’ first language - so you might almost say that it’s written in Judeo-Koiné Greek.

Translation of either Hebrew or Greek into English is notoriously difficult. The linguistic difficulty is compounded by the cultural differences between ‘them then’ and ‘us now’. Many concepts which we take for granted now, had never even been dreamt of back then; conversely, many things which they thought of as ‘obvious’ are totally alien to us. I ‘get’ the idea that the writings are inspired by God. But it seems to me that they were inspired then and written for and to people alive then. If they are applicable to us now, then it is almost entirely coincidental - those writing can have had no inkling that we would be reading their words, two or three thousand years later (but yes, God knew, and so there is an argument to be made around the ‘universal applicability’ of the ideas).

However, we must be careful to try to not read them with our 21st century understanding - because by so doing we are apt to make terrible mistakes. Worse still is deliberately to do what some evangelicals call ‘plain reading’ - which supposedly removes any interpretive biases, but which instead virtually guarantees that we interpret the writings according to today’s culture, thought patterns, societal norms, etc. That is virtually certain to do grave injury to the writer’s intent.

Bearing all that in mind, we are going to be logical and take each one of the so-called ‘clobber passages’ in turn, to try to work out what they might have meant when they were written… As well as what they probably didn’t, indeed couldn’t, have meant to their writers and contemporary readers. I hope that this will show that there is sufficient doubt about their meaning that it is, quite simply, unjust of us to use them to exclude practicing homosexuals from fully belonging to the Church. That’s going to take quite a lot of words, so we shall take as many posts as we need to explore each in sufficient detail (which, for some, won’t necessitate saying much at all, because several essentially duplicate each other).

We shall begin near the beginning of the bible, appropriately enough, in the book of Genesis, with the sad story of Sodom in chapter 19, which has been used to condemn homosexual behaviour - indeed, one sexual act apparently common to male homosexuals (anal intercourse) is often referred to as sodomy on the basis of the traditional interpretation of the passage. Without further ado:

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.

“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

And so it goes on. It ends up with Lot and his family fleeing the city, the city being utterly destroyed, and Lot’s wife being famously turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back on the city (which seems particularly harsh to me!). This is, it has to be said, a particularly awful story - there’s almost no ‘up-side’ to it, and nobody really looks good at the end of it.

I’m really not sure what, if anything, it has to say about homosexuality.

What we actually have here is the attempted gang rape of two individuals (men or angels?); the attempted violation of ancient laws of hospitality; and Lot, despicably and desperately, offering the would-be rapists his virgin daughters as substitutes for the men to whom he has given hospitality… The latter may be taken to emphasise to us how seriously the ancient hospitality laws were taken!

I suggest that this scenario has virtually nothing to do with consensual homosexual sex; but that it has a whole lot to say about the violation of rules around hospitality, and the laws against rape - homosexual or otherwise.

We see in the Genesis 18 story of the ‘Hospitality of Abraham’, how strangers were supposed to be treated. This is backed up by laws found, for instance, in Leviticus 19:33-34:

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

And Exodus 23:9:

Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

These are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ - laws and customs regarding hospitality seem to have been universal in the ancient (and much more modern!) Middle East. These laws also seem to have been considered sacrosanct and inviolable; hence the seriousness of the consequences for Sodom here. I suggest, therefore, that to use the Genesis 19 ‘Sodom’ passage as condemning consensual homosexual sex, is to alter its meaning so much that it no longer makes the sense its author intended.

At this point it’s worth saying that, in another context, God had some quite forthright things to say to Jerusalem - which includes the following:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49

It would appear that the ‘sin of Sodom’ is not helping those less fortunate than ourselves, rather than having anything whatsoever to do with what someone does with their genitalia.

There is a very similar story to the story of Sodom in Judges 19:16-30, and my conclusions about that are very similar to those here, so we won’t look at it specifically.

Next time we’ll look at the two other Old Testament passages supposedly condemning homosexuality: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.

🕊️✨

PC⚡️DC Newsletter No. 2

Romance In Spite of It All — Fri, 08 May 2026 03:50:42 GMT

A free publication for learning to embrace the beauty of sexuality and spirituality without flipping a switch🕊️✨

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, this newsletter is as much for me as it is for you.

and I felt drawn to creating this space so we could share the conversations we’ve been having and find others on similar journeys, but I have been so humbled to discover how much there is to learn.

I’m going to be real candid now: There is probably an article or two here that you won’t like. Some are more sensual and ethereal, some are more analytical, and some are as personal as it gets.

We’ve done that intentionally, bringing in a variety of perspectives to cover the spectrum and help each of us find what we’re looking for!

It’s not as easy as you might think to find the right mix of authors and content to support the actual goal here, so be sure to save this collection as a simple guide to your next round of enlightenment…

BDSM Started in the Bible by [Click for Article]

When I worked as a professional dominatrix, I would get several different kinds of reactions after I told women about my kinky profession. First— I would usually see her eyes light up like a Christmas tree. Practically blazing in bright lights above her head an invisible billboard would say: I’M DYING TO FEEL MY SEXUAL POWER.
Then I would get a myriad of different responses… The conversation would wind through various twisty paths, but generally I would uncover the same thing; which was…
I HAVE A BURNING DESIRE TO FEEL MY SEXUAL POWER AND DOMINANCE TOO.

I Want to Meet My Vulva by [Click for Article]

She was forty-six, married for twenty-two years, with two kids and a successful career. And she had never, not once in her life, looked at her own vulva. From my experience working with so many women, a lot of women haven’t looked at their own vulva.
She’s never looked at her vulva in a mirror, with her hands, or out of pure curiosity, not with tenderness, not even with clinical detachment. Forty-six years of living in a body she had never fully met by knowing, seeing, touching, or listening to her vulva. If that’s you, too, you’re in the right place.

Shaped by Shame by [Click for Article]

…this toxic framework is embedded into daily life from the earliest years. Little girls are sexualized before they can tie their own shoes. If they strip down because they are hot while playing outside or just innocent, they are told to “cover up.” If they run, jump, or climb, they are taught to monitor their own bodies. Modesty is not presented as a personal choice or cultural expression. It is presented as a moral emergency.

The Epidemic of Purity Culture by [Click for Article]

We both wrote books, hers about growing up in the Church of Christ and following the path of faith through college and relationships, and mine as an evangelical kid, a homeschooler, long hair and the whole bit. I’d written books about what I called “rural narratives”—young girls growing up in isolated small towns where the church shaped their every move. Hers, while fiction, is a little more autobiographical; but I always claimed my characters weren’t based on me. I’d made them up, simple as that. But on the third or fourth edit you suddenly feel the twinge--I think this is me I’m writing about. Maybe not as drastic. Maybe not as tragic. But this kid is certainly built on a world that I know well.
“It’s purity culture,” she told me. I had no idea what that meant.

Spirituality That Isn’t Afraid to Be Sexy by [Click for Article]

For centuries, our Judeo-Christian inheritance has taught us to distrust the body, as if our carnal desires distanced us from the divine. But it wasn’t always this way. Many ancient traditions fused the sacred and the erotic without apology. Tantric lineages understand pleasure as a portal to liberation. Dionysian rites treated sexual ecstasy as a legitimate way to meet the divine. The body was understood as a vessel for spirit, not an obstacle to it.
Between the rise of early Christian asceticism and the moral tightening of Victorian culture, the sacred got sanitized. With this came a deep, nervous suspicion of our own appetites. The body became a liability.

A Curious Examination of Incest by Cordelia Kennecot [Click for Article]

When we are taught, explicitly and implicitly, that sexual urges are at best, something to be controlled and restrained, or at worst, something bad and dirty, yet we are hardwired with them as a literal instinct for the survival of our species, it’s no wonder that those feelings would get tangled and mangled and twisted and warped through whatever cracks they could find to escape.
What can you do when your brain is conditioned to believe your life is over if you act on your sexual desires, and the very same brain came hardwired to believe you will die if you don’t?

Christianity and LGBTQIA+ Folk (Part 1 of 6) by [Click for Article]

Some time ago, being upset and angered by the church’s bigoted attitude towards anyone who isn’t ‘straight’ and cis-gender, I engaged my brain, my knowledge of the Bible, biblical and ancient history, and ancient languages, and made a detailed study of why the church maintains this position. Since ‘moving into this neighbourhood’, I have frequently wanted to ‘rework’ the articles I wrote summarising the results of my research for my LGBTQIA+ friends here too. So, here goes with the first. In this one, I’m mostly concerned with ethics and justice - in later articles, I shall set out specific arguments as to why I believe that the Bible passages ‘christians’ use to justify their bigotry have been misused.

We hope you’ve found something uplifting and enlightening with what we’ve shared so far, and we look forward to seeing you next time as we continue to unfold these things that have enriched the lives of so many:

A Curious Examination of Incest

Romance In Spite of It All — Thu, 07 May 2026 22:00:53 GMT

I was sexually abused by four adult men in my family, ongoing, when I was between the ages of 3-9 years old. From what I can tell, they didn’t even know the others were doing it. These four men were born in different decades (1920s, 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s). They were from different US states; one was from another continent. Two were blood related, the others were not.

They were not all raised in the same religion, but they were all raised with some form of repressive Christianity, and so were the women who brought them together into my life.

[A Critical Note: I am not writing to condone incest.

This essay really has two intended points:

1. Shame and repression culture can cause toxic and abusive behaviors when natural desires are stifled.

2. If you have ever participated in any form of incest, or felt desire for it, you do not need to feel ashamed of your body’s natural urges. You DO need to take responsibility for your actions, and you MAY want to explore why these things turn you on.

But saying you don’t need to be ashamed of natural desires, is not the same thing as offering permission to act on them.]

And now, on with the show…

Of the Top 250 Most Read Stories of All Time on Literotica, the vast majority are incest stories. The top ten of those have over 100 Million views.

‘Well, sure,’ you might argue, ‘Most platforms won’t allow it, so everybody goes there to get their fix’. While this may be true, it doesn’t change the fact that tens of millions of humans are actively reading and writing and turned on by stories with these themes.

Now. We are all about the celebration of sexuality here. But I do believe sex can be used for darkness as well as light.

In my personal experience, sex in the context of incest has caused more darkness and pain than anything else I have encountered. It fractured my psyche, it tortured my body, it stifled my spirit, and caused me to live in fear and isolation for decades after the events had passed. Not to mention the ripple effects into the lives of others.

At this point, you might expect me to say, “Incest is bad”, or “You don’t need to be ashamed of your desires, unless you have a thing for incest”

But that would go against the foundation we’re working from here: That God loves us all, unequivocally, and sexuality is a gift from Him that actually enables us to experience His love more fully.

That compass heading would lead me, in my imperfect understanding, to a conclusion more like this:

Sexual urges are natural things and there is no need to be ashamed of them, ever.

However, some sexual behaviors are not healthy, uplifting, or enlightening.

Feeling sexual attraction for a member of your family actually makes sense, because we are biologically programmed to feel aroused by certain traits in the humans around us. Your reproductive system doesn’t know about marriage certificates or family trees.

Arguably, the darkness caused by incest could be attributed to social construct: We believe it’s not right to sleep with your sister, so that leads us to label it as dirty and bad, which then causes some to feel shame/guilt/self-hatred for these urges, which may then result in toxic experiences.

To further that theoretical, what if we lived in a society where this behavior was embraced? Would it still be so harmful?

I believe it would, for reasons that would bear more discussion another time— the ages of participants, the ability for informed consent, commitment and transparency issues, psychological conditioning and biological programming caused by sexual and emotional interaction— Given these factors and others, at least in the world as I understand it, I don’t know of any way that incest could be practiced in a manner that was healthy and enlightening for all parties involved.

So, then, what are we talking about here?

Why do so many people find incest to be arousing?

Why does it cause so much harm, when sex is a natural thing?

When we are taught, explicitly and implicitly, that sexual urges are at best, something to be controlled and restrained, or at worst, something bad and dirty, yet we are hardwired with them as a literal instinct for the survival of our species, it’s no wonder that those feelings would get tangled and mangled and twisted and warped through whatever cracks they could find to escape.

What can you do when your brain is conditioned to believe your life is over if you act on your sexual desires, and the very same brain came hardwired to believe you will die if you don’t?

Well, we could make a list, but the examples are all around us— sexual energy being expended in ways that are physically satisfying, but are not spiritually enlightening.

One of the most impactful things I have ever learned about sex, came from Emily Nagoski in her book, Come as You Are:

“Imagine that the brain and the genitals are a couple of friends on vacation together, wandering down the street deciding where to have dinner.

[For some people], it goes like this: The genitals notice any restaurant they pass, whether it's Thai food or pub grub, fast food or gourmet (while ignoring all the museums and shops), and say, "This is a restaurant. We could eat here."
They have no strong opinion, they’re just good at spotting restaurants. Meanwhile, the brain is assessing all the contextual factors [...] to decide whether they want to try a place. "This place isn't delicious smelling enough," or "This place isn't clean enough," or "I'm not in the mood for pizza." The genitals might even notice a pet store and say, "There's pet food in here, I guess..." and the brain rolls their eyes and keeps walking.

[...] Now, [for other people], it goes like this: The genitals notice only specific restaurants -- diners, say -- and don't notice any restaurants that aren't diners.
Once they find a diner, the brain says, "A diner! I love diners," and the genitals agree, "This is a restaurant, we could eat here," unless there's some pretty compelling reason not to, like a bunch of drunks brawling outside.”

― Emily Nagoski, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

It was so mind blowing to learn that my body is programmed to recognize restaurants wherever they exist. Whether that’s boobs on a billboard, or my hot high school English teacher, or something random during tennis practice.

I can recognize restaurants everywhere, my body will naturally respond to them, and then I get to choose where I want to go inside and partake.

This framing device unlocked so many barricaded corners of my mind where I had locked away those sexual urges under titles of “bad”, “dirty”, “forbidden”, and of course, “sinful”.

It didn’t mean that I needed to run around acting on all those urges— it just meant that they didn’t need to be forcefully imprisoned under lock and key.

That I could see a restaurant, feel turned on by it, not feel ashamed for being turned on, and not shut it down, but instead learn to embrace my body’s feelings of arousal— and then make conscious choices about when and where I would act on those feelings, was a level of freedom I didn’t know was possible.

What? EVERYthing that my body feels is okay? Yes.

Everybody gets turned on by different things, and that’s okay.

Now… back to the idea of incest. Why am I talking about incest?

Because if there is any human on Earth who is qualified to say this, it’s me:

You. Do. Not. Need. To. Feel. Ashamed. Of. Your. Desires.

Everybody needs to feel loved. Everybody yearns for connection. Everybody has these parts of themselves that need to be satiated, in all their many forms and manifestations.

But if we perpetuate a culture where so much is forbidden, where we are afraid to even talk about our feelings and experiences, where we are crippled in our ability to make healthy choices because we don’t even know what the options are—

THAT is when sex becomes darkness.

When we make it that way.

I will never know exactly why those men abused me in the ways that they did. But I have analyzed their tortured existences from afar, and I think these ideas might have helped them. And I think sharing them might help others like them.

So, if you have feelings of shame for any of your sexual desires, try this:

Notice when your body has identified a restaurant.

Is that a restaurant where you want to eat?

Is it good for you? Is it good for others involved?

If not, why?

Is it just a bad time?

Or is it something that doesn’t serve you, something that doesn’t nourish and enlighten you? If that’s the case, get curious. Don’t shove it down.

Pay attention to your feelings. Ask yourself questions. Open your eyes and see what you can learn from this desire.

If you repeatedly feel drawn to a restaurant that you don’t want in your life, please seek the help of a professional, which I am not.

I’m just an amateur foodie, trying new things and testing out my palette as I discover that there is a whole world full of exotic new tastes and sensations, alongside some things that aren’t my favorite. But the choice is mine to make.

That choice has been taken away from many of us for too long, and we are here to reclaim it together.

🕊️✨

10 Ways to Reduce Repression Without Forfeiting Faith 🩵

I grew up in an almost-cult-level religious household. I later learned that my religion wasn’t so bad, it’s just that the way it was taught to me was really, really bad…

4 months ago · 3 likes · Romance In Spite of It All

Christianity and LGBTQIA+ Folk (Part 1 of 6)

Phil P Shepherd — Thu, 07 May 2026 21:44:35 GMT

Since I started writing smut on Substack, I have gained quite a number of followers and subscribers, at least some of whom, I have been delighted to learn, are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and other assorted ‘types’ who don’t fit what traditional ‘christians’ define as ‘acceptable’ to God. This is in addition to my real-life LGBTQIA+ friends and relations, who are very dear to me.

Some time ago, being upset and angered by the church’s bigoted attitude towards anyone who isn’t ‘straight’ and cis-gender, I engaged my brain, my knowledge of the Bible, biblical and ancient history, and ancient languages, and made a detailed study of why the church maintains this position. Since ‘moving into this neighbourhood’, I have frequently wanted to ‘rework’ the articles I wrote summarising the results of my research for my LGBTQIA+ friends here too. So, here goes with the first. In this one, I’m mostly concerned with ethics and justice - in later articles, I shall set out specific arguments as to why I believe that the Bible passages ‘christians’ use to justify their bigotry have been misused.

This so-called ‘traditional’ view (which actually isn’t very traditional at all, but there we go - memories can be conveniently short sometimes) is based on six or seven verses from the bible, which some would argue condemn homosexuality the (so-called ‘clobber verses’), and although there have been recent attempts to reinterpret them, some would still argue that actually the only way to read them is to read them literally in English.

You may not be surprised to learn that I don’t agree. Yes, the English translations of those verses are very clear, and make it all too plain that the translators are almost universally of one mind on the matter: that homosexuality is a sinful life choice. That’s probably not surprising - not least because they’re working for ‘christian’ publishing houses, whose aim is to sell bibles. The work of translating bibles isn’t cheap, and you don’t want an expensive ‘flop’ on your hands, so you’re going to go with what sells… In this case a ‘traditional’, quite conservative, interpretation.

I, on the other hand, am not selling anything. But I am concerned with people being given a fair summary of the ‘facts’ and the chance to make up their own minds. As such I’m not interested in giving simplistic, ‘black and white’, answers to questions - unless the answer to said question actually is simple - but in that case, I’m unlikely to be writing about it anyway!

Christians are deeply divided over the issue of whether or not to accept and include LGBTQI+ people in the church. The debate is usually framed as a dichotomy between believing and following the bible on one hand and compassion and social justice on the other.

But I don’t think God expects us to choose between the two. I don’t think those two are in opposition at all.

Why not?

I believe that the cornerstone of Christian ethics is compassion for others - whoever they are. That is what Jesus modelled for us during his incarnation; he went out of his way to include those whom the religious authorities went out of their way to exclude. He wasn’t concerned with drawing lines to exclude people from the kingdom of God, but with erasing the lines which others drew.

Reconciling what we read in the Bible with acceptance and equality for LGBTQIA+ folk does not necessitate ignoring or denying anything the Bible says. What it takes is the willingness to re-examine with an open mind those passages of the Bible in which homosexuality seems to be mentioned, with the same care that we should lavish upon any passage of the book.

In the absence of an explicit directive from God to exclude and condemn homosexuals (which, in my opinion, the ‘clobber passages’ do not provide) the Christian community’s treatment of gay folks clearly violates what Jesus and the New Testament writers pointedly identified as the second half of God’s most important commandment:

‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Matthew 22:39

Many in the gay community have, sadly, pretty much given up on expecting equitable treatment from Christians - who actually have a biblical mandate to act justly:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8 amongst other passages)

Where ‘act justly’ does not mean seeking vengeance on sinners on God’s behalf, as so many people’s warped theology seems to infer, but it does mean demanding equitable treatment - at minimum.

The suffering meted out upon gay folk by some ‘christians’ is so severe that I believe in order to justify it, the biblical mandate for it would have to be absolutely clear, and completely unequivocal.

It definitely isn’t clear, and it’s certainly not unequivocal.

And therefore, I believe, such iniquitous maltreatment is morally indefensible and must cease forthwith.

Moving forward a little.

Christians are being ‘unbiblical’, not to mention hypocritical, in using the ‘clobber passages’ to justify applying absolute standards of morality towards homosexual ‘sins’ which they themselves are (mostly) not the least bit tempted to commit.

Furthermore, they heap judgement upon themselves by accepting for themselves lesser standards of morality for those sins listed in the ‘clobber passages’ which they themselves routinely commit.

I’m not a fan of the New International Version of the Bible (it’s a popular, but deeply flawed, translation - one somewhat acerbic commentator (in?)famously called it ‘a tissue of lies’), particularly here, because of the way it translates some words (which I shall explain in a later post), but it’s popular so I shall quote it to drive home the point:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Do you ever overeat or tell lies? Or gossip about other people? If you do, and you apply a different moral standard to yourself from that which you apply to gay folks, then you are, quite frankly, a hypocrite… You deserve exactly the same treatment as you mete out to gay folk - you should be cast out of the church, and ostracised.

Unfair?

You bet it’s unfair.

It’s at least as unfair as excluding homosexuals on equivalent grounds.

Remember that Jesus said:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1-2

This is exactly the kind of circumstance he was referring to when he said it.

Homosexual behaviour may be referred to, briefly, in only six or seven verses in the bible. There are over thirty thousand other verses which do not mention it at all. It was clearly not that important to the writers of the bible!

Whilst the bible is virtually silent on homosexuality, it has a great deal to say about how Christians should behave. The four gospels spend a lot of their words describing Jesus’ interaction with, and acceptance of, those whom the ‘religious leaders’ ostracised… And he rarely had a harsh word for anyone - except for those who sought to exclude others from God’s grace because they were ‘sinners’. For them he reserved his harshest words… Hoping, I feel sure, to shock them into examining their motives and actions, so that they might change their minds and their attitudes.

Jesus spends a lot of time insisting upon fairness, equity, and love. He rejects, utterly and repeatedly, any notion that legalism should ever triumph over compassion. We Christians are called to follow Jesus, in all that we are, all that we do, and all that we say. So we too should be seeking fairness, equity, and love for those marginalised either by society or by the church.

There is much more that I could say, particularly regarding why I think it is unjust for homosexual Christians to be denied the sacrament of marriage, but I think this is plenty to grapple with for now.

Beginning straight after this post, I am going to attempt to work through the ‘clobber passages’, trying to wrestle with what they say - taking particular note of the original languages and culture where possible, to try to gain a nuanced understanding of what the original authors may have been saying.

I’m not claiming here that I have any ‘special knowledge’ which anyone else isn’t party to - I’m just concerned with showing that there is debate, sometimes heated, and a great deal of uncertainty around the interpretation of these passages. There are virtually no ‘right answers’ here.

We should note, first of all, that we are under grace rather than under law.

…for you are not under Law, but rather under grace. Romans 6:14

And we should also note that:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say - but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” - but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23

So we have the freedom to do anything at all, but it may not turn out to be good for us! Under the New Covenant, we are not obliged to obey the Old Covenant laws. Anyone who says that we are, is first of all denying that Christ’s death was sufficient for salvation, and secondly, they want to enslave us and make us feel afraid and unsure of our salvation. Jesus said:

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36.

And the Apostle John, in his first letter, wrote:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 1 John 4:18

Anyway, bearing those caveats in mind, let us nevertheless go on, in the next post, to examine the first ‘clobber passages’ briefly and see whether we can learn anything of value about God’s attitude to homosexuality.

PC⚡️DC Newsletter No.1

Romance In Spite of It All — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:59:25 GMT

Hey Gang,

Welcome to the first official meeting of the Purity Culture Dropout Club!

We have gathered here today under the following premise: What if sexuality is not only a gift from God, but is possibly the most potent tool we have for accessing His power, and by seeking the understanding and application of this principle, our spiritual life could be enhanced and in fact, Sanctified— Made more holy for the use of this enlightening catalyst?

Our thesis is this: God loves you, full stop. No qualifications, no exceptions, no take-backs.

We hope you can find something here to add to your light, no matter your race, gender, ethnicity, religion, country, or creed. We believe God loves us all, and we believe God loves sex, and if you’d like to find more supporting evidence of this theory, read on!

The Forking Flame by at The Semicolon Affair [Click for Poem]

If you have ever contained your desire, this poem will touch you in the deepest places:

He waits. He waits. He has always waited.
In every soul half-consecrated,
in every yes withheld in fear,
He grows more silent. Disappears.
The child runs barefoot into grass
and does not ask what dangers pass,
but you, who’ve learned to calculate,
stand at the door and hesitate,
weighing the cost of every kiss,
as though the heart were made for this.

How I Started Writing Erotica and Blew Up My Marriage by [Click for Article]

Have you seen Sloane’s new publication, Sloane’s Sex Ed yet? Our resident Smutstress has been opening up and letting us see what she’s gone through behind the scenes, starting with her marriage to a man who was raised in a purity culture environment:

I met the man who would become my husband, Kent. He was safe and kind and cute and funny—but in a dad-joke kind of way. He’s truly a great guy. But he’d be the first to tell you that he is not passionate.
He was determined to save himself for marriage and I didn’t think anything of it. He was (still is) a man with integrity. Nothing I’d tried so far relationship-wise had worked, so why not try something new? And of course, our wedding night would be wonderful, right? What man wouldn’t be thrilled to marry a woman who loved sex and blow jobs and wanted to do both all the time?
Turns out: my husband.

10 Ways To Step Into Your Feminine Sexual Confidence by [Click for Article]

Katharine is a former professional dominatrix, Huffington Post writer, rock singer & feminist who loves God, giving you the permission to love your sexuality and love God too. This week, she’s sharing a piece with us that is way deeper than you might expect on the surface:

I realized that feminine sexual confidence can actually be quite holy (there’s nothing bad or sinful about owning your unique sexy!).
If we let the Holy Spirit guide us with it, it can transform you into that powerful woman you crave with every fiber of your being.
And a woman who can remember her sexual confidence in a holy way will transform into a holy leader.
Time to take back your God-given sexual confidence from the patriarchy and become the leader God want’s you to be. Let’s do this. Holy Spirit come rain down on us.

What Makes PC⚡️DC Different From Most Religion+Sex Resources? by Cordelia Kennecot [Click for Article]

Most sources teaching about this topic lean one way or the other: You can embrace sexuality IF you back off from traditional religion and go with the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law, OR you can be a religiously active sexual person IF you learn to bridle your passions.
What if God and Sex were never meant to be separate camps?
What if sexuality is not only a gift from God, but is possibly the most potent tool we have for accessing His power, and by seeking the understanding and application of this principle, our spiritual life could be enhanced and in fact, Sanctified— Made more holy for the use of this enlightening catalyst?

Innocence Restored by [Click for Article]

A tiny little girl, who can’t have been much more than 18 months old, was splashing determinedly through a very long puddle, all bouncing blonde ringlets and peels of giggles. She was dressed in tee-shirt, trousers, socks and trainers, and was soaking wet! As I went past she turned for another go. Her mother was there, simply beaming at her child. It was, all told, a beautiful sight.
And it made me think of God, and the delight They take in us, Their children - I imagine a similarly delighted indulgence at our childish antics, and a similar complete lack of concern about us getting wet and mucky, metaphorically speaking…
As I walked on, I thought about my own childhood - if I’d had wellies on, I might have got away with one passage of the puddle, but if I’d been in shoes and socks, there would have been anger and shouting. And I think that, all too often, we think of God like that - in fact, that’s what most churches teach us: that God is disapproving of our childish silliness and disobedience. I can no longer believe that: the God I worship is like that mother - delighting in the child as it’s being a child, paying no mind to the mess, which is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
I think of that mother with the tiny child, indulging its sense of fun, regardless of the consequences, simply delighting in the child’s delight. And God is like that with us. God delights in our innocent delight.

We’ll end with sharing this interview between Taylor Clark Johnson of Integrated Sexual Health for Men, and Dr. of Truth in Seeking.

We haven’t connected with them personally yet, so we’d like to note that we are sharing this in the spirit of “everything we post is meant to be shared”, but we do not have a specific endorsement from either of them at this time.

This is a pretty long interview, but both of these teachers have remarkable bodies of work that go deeply into the topics we explore here, so even if watching an hour long interview isn’t your thing, we would highly encourage you to check them out!

What Makes PC⚡️DC Different From Most Religion+Sex Resources?

Romance In Spite of It All — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:12:39 GMT

Most sources teaching about this topic lean one way or the other: You can embrace sexuality IF you back off from traditional religion and go with the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law, OR you can be a religiously active sexual person IF you learn to bridle your passions.

What if God and Sex were never meant to be separate camps?

What if sexuality is not only a gift from God, but is possibly the most potent tool we have for accessing His power, and by seeking the understanding and application of this principle, our spiritual life could be enhanced and in fact, Sanctified— Made more holy for the use of this enlightening catalyst?

Our thesis is this: God loves you, full stop. No qualifications, no exceptions, no take-backs.

We even bristle at the idea that He loves us in our imperfection, in spite of our weakness, or that He loves us even when we make mistakes, because the connotation is that imperfections/weaknesses/mistakes are bad to have.

But.

What if we are meant to make mistakes? What if we were sent here to learn through our mortal experiences, and making progress is the whole point?

A Kindergartener who doesn’t know how to read is not lacking. A new swimmer who still kind of dog paddles isn’t considered a bad swimmer. A mathematician who has only learned addition is not inferior to one who knows calculus like the back of their hand.

These individuals are a work in progress, who may be at a different level of mastery than others who are ahead of (or behind) them on the path.

But. They. Are. Not. Deficient.

You are not deficient.

There are a few places in the scriptures where Christ says, “Be perfect”. But the Greek translation of that word for ‘perfect’ is complete, whole, mature, having accomplished your purpose.

What if you are perfect, for today?

A Kindergartener can complete their expected work for a day or a month or a year, even though there is still more ahead for them to learn.

Do we have more to learn about spirituality?

Yes.

Do we have more to learn about sexuality?

Yes.

Do we have more to learn about how these two sources of power can be used cooperatively?

Absolutely.

It’s true that most church members would not be comfortable with this idea on the surface, and it’s also true that we haven’t exactly figured out how to teach it over the pulpit yet.

We will be sharing, and seeking, useful information that supports these ideas.

Some of it is based in scripture, some of it is based in historical context, some is based in linguistic clarification, and some is based in theological analysis.

A lot of it, however, is grounded in personal experience.

At the end of the day, there isn’t much ‘proof’ in spiritual learning. The proof is a personal reality, something experienced internally, that can only be received by one who chooses to be receptive.

A teacher cannot provide proof, but you can receive proof.

By sharing the knowledge we have wrestled with and the experiences we have fought for, we hope to offer you the opportunity to be more receptive, and see what you discover that applies to your internal world.

We use a mostly Christian framework, because these are the resources that have shaped our beliefs. Part of what it has shaped for us, though, is a deep conviction that there is a higher power, that they are invested in your personal journey, and it really, really, really does not matter what the building looks like or what vocabulary you use or where you find inspiration from, as long as it leads you to this outcome:

Be receptive. See what you find. Cultivate your own proof from the seeds we offer, combined with those you find elsewhere, and let the results blossom in the unique way that can only be true for you.

Innocence Restored

Phil P Shepherd — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:50:05 GMT

I think christians are, metaphorically speaking, still wearing fig-leaves and hiding in the undergrowth.

Why?

I think it may be because we don’t really believe God loves us. Or, even if we have realised that God loves us, we still think that we are going to be judged by God - on whether we believe the right things, or act in the right way, or whatever. And we’re afraid.

We’re afraid because we ‘know’ God is going to judge us, and those around us. And we ourselves act the way we imagine God does - ‘separating the sheep from the goats’:

‘Oh, so-and-so isn’t a Christian. Yes, they go to church, but they don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.’

And that sort of thing. It isn’t abundant life. It isn’t the life Jesus promised His followers. And so we imagine that that abundant life is still to come - it’s part of the ‘not yet’ of ‘now and not yet’ - it’s part of ‘pie in the sky when you die’ instead of joyful life in the here and now. Judaism is, and always was, a religion of the ‘here and now’: certainly, in Jesus’ day, the idea of an ‘afterlife’ was an alien concept for many, or even most, Jews. So when Jesus talked about people enjoying an abundant life, He wasn’t referring to the future - He was referring to now!

And so, getting back to our main point after that little aside.

God is love. (1 John 4:16)

I believe God is in the business of restoring us to the ‘pre-fall’, Garden of Eden, state - the state of not knowing that we are naked…

Or of not caring whether or not we’re naked - which might be more to the point.

Jesus’ mission in the world is the restoration of all. Of everything, and everybody, to a state where all believe that God is love; in fact, that God is nothing but love. The cross is the ultimate expression, and demonstration, of that love…

It is intended to haul all of humanity back into relationship with God - a relationship which God was desperate enough to die to restore.

And yet we use (or abuse?) that death to divide humanity into those who are in ‘a state of grace’ and those who aren’t. All churches do it - all have some criterion or other by which they judge who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out’.

I think Jesus is concerned with restoring us to the state in which we either don’t know, or don’t care, whether we’re naked, because we are secure in the knowledge that God is love, and that therefore They always love us. I want to tell you a little story, to try to illustrate what I mean.

We had a very wet day recently (which is by no means unusual here!); fortunately, the weather improved, and the sun came out by early evening when I was due to walk into town for a meeting.

On my way there, there were some big puddles to avoid, but it was really warm and sunny - a lovely evening to be out in fact. On my usual route, I have to walk under a railway bridge on a very quiet bit of road which just leads to half a dozen houses. Coming out from under the bridge, I was met by a delightful sight.

A tiny little girl, who can’t have been much more than 18 months old, was splashing determinedly through a very long puddle, all bouncing blonde ringlets and peels of giggles. She was dressed in tee-shirt, trousers, socks and trainers, and was soaking wet! As I went past she turned for another go. Her mother was there, simply beaming at her child. It was, all told, a beautiful sight.

And it made me think of God, and the delight They take in us, Their children - I imagine a similarly delighted indulgence at our childish antics, and a similar complete lack of concern about us getting wet and mucky, metaphorically speaking…

As I walked on, I thought about my own childhood - if I’d had wellies on, I might have got away with one passage of the puddle, but if I’d been in shoes and socks, there would have been anger and shouting. And I think that, all too often, we think of God like that - in fact, that’s what most churches teach us: that God is disapproving of our childish silliness and disobedience. I can no longer believe that: the God I worship is like that mother - delighting in the child as it’s being a child, paying no mind to the mess, which is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

I think of that mother with the tiny child, indulging its sense of fun, regardless of the consequences, simply delighting in the child’s delight. And God is like that with us. God delights in our innocent delight.

When we realise that God actually does love us; that God loves everything about us (and everybody else); when we take off the fig leaf, come out of the undergrowth and dance through the puddles, not caring that God sees our nakedness - not caring that we are naked, perhaps not even knowing that we are naked…

That is when we are restored. When we know that God loves and delights in us, and everyone else, regardless.

It may be that something ‘wrong’ is only wrong when we know it is wrong… Or when we think that God thinks it’s wrong.

That’s a subtle one; that may be the nub of what matters, and it’s really hard to grasp.

Jesus said (in Matthew 7:1) ‘Do not judge.’

But I begin to think that He might as well have said ‘You will not judge.’

Once we truly stop judging, cast aside that way of thinking, and stop believing that God also has that mindset, and start to believe that God delights in everything about us and the entirety of creation; that’s when perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18)…

We are then secure in God’s love; we know that God delights in us, and we are free. Free to be; free to live.

Thinking back again to the mother and child and the puddle. We might think that, objectively speaking, splashing through the puddle is wrong: the child gets wet and mucky, and that makes work for the mother. And yet, in the moment, neither is concerned by this. The child has not yet, metaphorically speaking, ‘eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ - it doesn’t know that what it’s doing is wrong. The mother is acting as if it isn’t wrong either. And so, in a sense, at that moment the child’s actions aren’t wrong - because nobody has passed any judgement as to whether it is or isn’t wrong. Innocence reigns and all is well in the garden.

And that begs a question: is ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ happens to be) wrong if we don’t know it’s wrong, or if nobody has told us it is wrong? Would it have been wrong for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit before God told them it was wrong?

Lastly, I want to leave you to ponder a little on judgment and forgiveness…

The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, John 5:22

When we’re thinking about that, we need to remember Jesus’ words as he hung dying on the cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

Whether that ‘judgment’ was aimed purely at those within His gaze at that moment, or was intended for the whole of humanity, who had, in effect, driven God to offer Themself as a sacrifice (or allow Themself to be sacrificed), matters not it seems to me - it is a powerful illustration of God’s Grace-filled attitude towards all of humanity, and what His judgment entails - Grace, mercy, and forgiveness all the way.

🕊️✨

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Sin Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

Romance In Spite of It All — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:02:31 GMT

Sin and Repentance often feel like dirty words, or at least words that incite shame, guilt, and despair. But what if they weren’t about blame, shame, and failure— and they were just about love?

In the simplest terms, I have come to understand the word ‘Sin’ to mean, anything that makes it harder for us to connect with God. And ‘Repentance’ to mean a process God provided to help us connect with Him.

I believe we are all born with a light in us. Some people call this our Higher Self, or the Ka, or our spirit. The thing that animates our mortal body. The part of us that is able to connect with God, and importantly, able to connect with each other.

Over the course of our life, we have many difficult experiences that cloud our ability to feel this part of ourselves, and dim our light, and make it harder to connect with God and connect with others.

Sometimes, these darkening experiences come at the hands of others.

Sometimes, we feel darkness because of the way we feel about our experiences: Anxiety, depression, guilt, fear, shame, and so on.

And sometimes, the darkness comes from things that are just part of life.

If we believe we should be ashamed of something, I think that this has a great impact on whether it is a ‘Sin’ or not. I think that a Christian having sex inside of a monogamous marriage can feel shame and disappointment and fear, and experience just as much loss of Light as someone engaging in sexual experiences outside of the box.

I also think that someone exploring their sexuality in ways that aren’t endorsed in church can find all the Light there is, if they believe they are using those gifts to tap into the higher powers of the universe.

It’s not quite as simple as that, but it’s also not nearly as complicated as most people make it!

What if Repentance doesn’t mean “apologizing and groveling and acknowledging our pathetic weakness and begging for forgiveness we don’t deserve”?

What if Repentance means tapping into the gift God gave us: Access to His power, through connection with His Spirit (Light), made possible by the Atonement (more on that later), and available to us by the simple means of asking for it?

Dear God,
Please take away my pain. Please let me feel your Light. Please heal my sadness and despair and exhaustion and strife. Please show me how You love me.
Amen

I promise you, it is a lot closer to this, than what most of us have been taught. And we are here to show you why we believe it to be true.

And if you don’t believe me, how about the apostle Peter?

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”

In the Bible, "quickened" means to be made alive, revived, or given spiritual life by God. And this gift is available to us Every. Single. Day.

Christ died for us so we would have a way to be connected to God. He went through that suffering for all of us, so we wouldn’t have to suffer, if only we would Repent— And what if Repentance just means, to ask for help?

10 Ways to Reduce Repression Without Forfeiting Faith 🩵

I grew up in an almost-cult-level religious household. I later learned that my religion wasn’t so bad, it’s just that the way it was taught to me was really, really bad…

4 months ago · 1 like · Romance In Spite of It All

Allies

Phil P Shepherd — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:22:38 GMT

{This post might be considered NSFW; it is also entirely unsuitable material if you’re underage in your locality; only read on if you’re an adult.}

The observant among you will have noticed that my ‘profile picture’ is a version of the Pride flag. There are a number of reasons for choosing it, and I thought that looking at those reasons might, actually, give you some insights into me and what makes me ‘tick’.

First of all, and in some ways perhaps least important, is anonymity. I’m a survivor. I survived some pretty awful abuse as a child - some of it perpetrated by my own mother - and I don’t trust people naturally. I’m also an escapee from a very controlling, manipulative, and frankly abusive (in the emotional and spiritual sense) evangelical church - and I don’t want any of ‘them’ finding me online. There are only two people on Smutstack who have seen my face (you know who you are!), and that’s how I need it to be for my own wellbeing - if I put my face ‘out there’, I worry that it would help those who might come looking for me to abuse me further. In addition to that, for the same reasons, I don’t use my real name, nor any of my real email addresses.

Second, and probably most important, is solidarity. There’s a poem by the German pastor Martin Niemöller:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

I’m autistic - a member of a usually misunderstood, frequently bullied and abused, minority. So I identify, strongly, with members of other abused minorities - and high on that list is the LGBTQIA+ community. We minorities need to stick together - or what Niemöller’s poem spells out may well come to pass, especially in today’s climate, with the fresh rise of far-right extremism across the world.

Thirdly, because of the nature of some of the smut I write, I have quite a few LGBTQIA+ followers and subscribers - and I want them to know, explicitly, that they’re welcome on my page, and that I am determined that it should be a ‘safe space’. There are also family and friends who aren’t on Smutstack, but who are LGBTQIA+, and so, in a sense, it’s for them too, even though they may never see it, nor, even if they do, realise that the writer is their relative or their friend.

Fourthly, whilst I am happy to be considered male, and cis-gendered, I am aware that I’m ‘untypical’ in the way that plays out. I’m not masculine in a ‘macho’ sense - I have quite a lot of traits which aren’t common amongst men. I don’t ‘do’ typical male conversation - largely because I’m bored rigid by watching sports; I don’t pay much attention to cars (absolutely not a ‘petrolhead’); and so the typical blokish ‘pub chat’ sends me to sleep. Most of my close friends are women - I seem to communicate much more easily with women. I also adore babies - and to one particular group of women I was known as ‘the baby whisperer’ - somehow I ‘get’ babies, and can usually calm the most fractious within a short time.

Linked to that, as well as finding women attractive, I am frequently envious of some of the outward signs of their femininity. I have, since I was a very small person, envied women and girls their hair and hairstyles. Yes, I find long and glossy, wavy or curly, hair sexy - but there’s a feeling of wanting to be them so I can have hair like theirs… Not to mention their boobs and bums! Many of my fantasies revolve around lesbian sex - and I generally imagine myself ‘taking part’, not as a man who proves irresistible and ‘converts’ those lesbians to heterosexuality but as one of the female participants. So my own ‘gender identity’ contains quite a few ‘question marks’.

That’s a few random(ish) things about me, all based on the image I chose for my ‘profile picture’.

Anyway… Some of my next writing for Purity Culture Dropout Club is going to be a series of posts examining the so-called ‘Clobber Passages’ (the six or seven passages of the Bible which many so-called theologically conservative christians use to condemn homosexuality), to see whether they’re right to do so.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Spoiler Alert: 
I believe they’re dead wrong! 
/Spoiler Alert

[A note from Cordelia: I would like to add my support and encouragement of the inclusion Phil expresses in this piece. Whoever you are, I believe that God loves you, without reservation, and you are welcome here— in every way, shape, and form💛✨]

All The Reasons We Hate Church 🕊️✨

Romance In Spite of It All — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:36:44 GMT

I know that God knows what I know, and for this reason, we keep coming back. And every time we come back to Him, we find answers about our concerns, and it is what keeps us from going off into the woods and making the mountains our tabernacle.

This is not a pitch for you to go to church. It’s a way for me to share some of the very real hangups that have kept me and Mr. K awake at night. Obstacles that might sound familiar to you, and here are the points I hope you take away.

Most of the problems we have with church, stem directly from the fallible mortals involved there, not the doctrine itself.
Having a problem with church is not the same thing as a problem with God. And if you have a problem with God, you probably will not solve it at church.
Everything I share here in the PC⚡️DC (yes, we are making that happen🤘🏻) has one goal: To encourage you to take one step closer to Christ, until you are ready to connect with Him yourself. I started off with an article explaining how I reach Him personally, because when you feel ready, this direct line is the only thing that will convince you of our thesis here— God. Loves. You.

In the meantime, I am here to welcome you and share my experiences and explain what makes sense to me. Since the beginning of time, the testimony of humans has been the vehicle by which God teaches His children.

Adam taught his people, Noah taught his family, and eventually God sent His actual Son to share the most direct (half)mortal testimony we have ever been given— And Christ wasn’t finished until He was sure He was leaving behind some who knew.

Once we know, we pass it on.

Mr. K and I have experienced profound connection with God using sexuality and erotica as a tool for accessing His power. Without our ability to talk with Him directly, receiving personal instructions to guide us in our unique path, we never would have gotten there.

I am eager to share many of the sex-specific things we have learned, and I have shared some of our experiences in my essays over on my personal publication. But the reason I have started this space with is because all the therapy and open-mindedness in the world would not have helped me without the key ingredient of inspiration!

It has felt almost duplicitous to talk so much about my healing over there, without acknowledging that we only got there from this starting point.

And now, without further ado…

↠All The Reasons We Hate Church

[and why we still go anyway]

↠We hate socializing with whatever randos show up each week. We hate having to engage in conversation with people who don’t have anything in common with us besides our faith. We hate having to tolerate and patronize people who are dramatic and close minded and dysfunctional.

[But in Matthew 18, Christ says, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

So, if we know Him [we do] if we trust Him [we do] and if we want to be with Him [we do] and if He says participating in church is one of the tools He has given us to get closer to Him [He does], then we might want to give it a try [we do].

We continue seeking Him directly and working to understand, because of the if/then logic. If Christ made church, and if He asks us to go, then there must be a reason why it’s good for us. Even if it’s hard to see.]

↠We have both been immersed in toxic teachings that have taken our whole adult lives to reprogram.

[Everything toxic we have ever experienced in regard to religion has been taught or imposed upon us by imperfect humans. When we go straight to the source— scriptures and prayer— we find healing and understanding to overcome the foolish teachings of humans.]

↠We have been abused by people who claim to follow God. We have been tortured by some who are the most vigilant in their adherence to the laws and commandments of organized religion. Their pious practices did not make them good (although arguably, it might have made them better than they could have been otherwise). And such participation didn’t protect us from their behavior.

[Read a line: Paul teaches, in Galatians 3:23-26, that before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

Write a line: Without faith, meaning our own personal belief and connection to God, we are held prisoner by the letter of the law, held captive by following the temporal steps until they lead us to the power of personal conviction that can be unlocked by following the prescribed path.

Read a line: Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Write a line: The reason we have simple commandments that require physical actions— like going to church and reading scriptures and baptism— is because these steps unlock something in us that leads us to faith, and then in hindsight, we can see how those actions led us to a place of light and truth.

I spent many, many years going through the motions until all those little seeds I planted started to sprout, and bloom, and bear fruit. Here a little and there a little, it all adds up.

Now that they have, all those asinine instructions are justified… the real ones, not the ones people taught us in error. Stick. To. The. Source.

Read a line: But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Write a line: By following the steps Christ gave us, He provided the tools for us to reach Him ourselves, literally with the goal of freeing us from all these imperfect teachers. He taught us the way to freedom, but so many people get caught up in the limitations of the schoolmasters, that they stop there and miss the point.

Read a line: For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

Write a line: We are all God’s children. All of us. He loves us. No matter what. But it is BY our connection to Him that can only be developed through our actions of faith that we will feel and know and cultivate a personal relationship with Him in the way He hopes we will. It’s His only goal— to show us the way back to Him, and to help us find it, and encourage us to follow those steps until it works.]

↠We hate listening to Wilma Vandermeyer spout off about how her grandchildren should be more grateful and her kids are going to hell and how she’s such a martyr for all the sinners she puts up with…

[If we don’t go, who will respond to this drivel with truth and light?! If we know better, and we stay away, what happens to the other 47 people in the room who think Wilma Vandermeyer is teaching what church is? Obviously they are going to decide that the church is inane and ignorant, because what she is saying IS inane and ignorant! I believe Christ teaches us to go there so those of us who CAN hear Him will speak His words so others can hear, until they can hear Him for themselves.]

In summation, here is your message for today, from Psalm 12:

Read a line: Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.

Write a line: We need God’s help, because there are not enough people on Earth who can help us connect with Him, and because of that, those who are trying to find faith are falling away when they find teachers without power.

Read a line: They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

Write a line: Vain = Useless. There are many who teach useless things for the sake of manipulating others, with the ulterior motive of making themselves look good and feel good.

Read a line: The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:

Write a line: But if we can find the actual words of Christ, we will be able to recognize that useless drivel and it will stop poisoning our understanding of the nature of God and His Son.

Read a line: Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?

Write a line: These insipid teachers are prideful in their own interpretations. It would be easy for me to spout off my own opinions. It would be more popular and more digestible in today’s world. But if I don’t lead you here, to His actual words, I would be as vain as the rest of them.

Read a line: For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

Write a line: They teach to control. They teach for sensationalism, to spark fear and anxiety and shame and guilt to force the behavior of their followers into patterns that suit their needs.

But if we can make our way through the muck and reach God Himself, the power of His Spirit will be with us and we will stand in confidence, being inoculated against all those who are full of hot air.

Read a line: The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Write a line: God constantly invites us to test Him. To try it out for ourselves and see what results we find. He almost goads us, dares us, to prove Him wrong. At least, that’s how my rebellious little spirit interprets it sometimes… but I took the dare. And just like He said, again and again and again those actions have produced proven, irrefutable results in my life. I’ll continue sharing examples and details. But that’s what He’s saying here: The proof is in the pudding.

Read a line: Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Write a line: This one kind of speaks for itself. The world is burning all around us. We can walk through fire unscathed, once we get to Him. I know, because I do.

Read a line: The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

Write a line: Wicked really just means someone who is disconnected from God. It’s a word that’s been weighted with so much societal connotation. A mortal walking around without their spirit switched on might as well be a zombie. They go through the motions, they speak and act and shout into the void, but where is the light? Look around.

There are millions of people providing evidence that a body is just a body and a brain is just a brain and sex is just sex and the words in the scriptures are just words, until we infuse them with the literal powers of the universe.

I am not the source of the Light, but I have a higher dose than many, because I have learned how to turn on the faucet. If you keep coming, I will help you quench your thirst with everything I’ve got, until you make your way to the spigot.

Personal essays about my journey as a trauma survivor cultivating my life through subconscious work, embracing intimacy as an instrument for healing, and writing an epically erotic romance novel along the way…

About the Author • Index

4 months ago · 2 likes · Romance In Spite of It All

Sexual Sin?

Phil P Shepherd — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 05:40:54 GMT

This post is ‘different’ - and it may not interest everybody. If you’ve suffered religious trauma, it’s possible that this might be triggering. It isn’t sexually explicit at all.

The christian church is obsessed with sex. I have always thought this odd, given how little it is actually mentioned in the Bible - and how many things they de-emphasise or straight up ignore - even things which were fundamental to Jesus’ message - for instance loving our neighbours and welcoming those who are strangers (or different, or ‘other’ in any way).

I am, in some ways, a clergyman’s nightmare. Clergy, it seems to me, are taught what to think in their seminaries, rather than how to think. By contrast, my education was largely in how to think, as well as a lot of other stuff. I’m also autistic, which means being ‘direct’ - if I don’t understand something, or think something is illogical or doesn’t make sense, I will say so! I also spent eight years learning classical Greek. Classical Greek isn’t the same as the ‘Koiné’ Greek in which the New Testament was mostly written - but they’re closely related, in a similar way to the relationship between the writings of Austen or Dickens and the WhatsApp messages of an average member of society. So, as I say, I’m a clergyman’s nightmare. If there’s a difficult question, I am going to ask it; and I’m not going to stop asking it until I get a satisfactory answer.

Churches bang on about lust. What they mostly don’t realise is that, in Greek, the word for ‘lust’ is one and the same as the word for ‘covet’. And the word translated as ‘woman’ is the exact same word as the word for wife. So the passages which the church uses to berate people (men particularly) about their lust for attractive girls, can just as easily (and probably more plausibly) be interpreted as being far more about women (= wives) being property and the supposed ‘lust’ is about wanting to ‘own’ another man’s property - in exactly the same manner as the commandment not to ‘covet your neighbour’s ox’. So the rules are probably far more connected to property than being a condemnation of lust/natural urges - urges which, if suppressed as the church demands, would result, ultimately, in our species’ extinction. If God created people, he created them to find each other attractive, so that they would breed; he also invented the orgasm (try telling that to a christian ‘priest’ and watch his reaction!!).

The commandments and laws are there, almost entirely, to enable people to live together in community with as little friction as possible - they were written for a ‘nation’ of nomadic pastoralists. When you think through them properly, they’re also a means of ‘modelling’ love for one’s fellow humans (= neighbours) - they promote harmony and ask us to avoid sources of conflict (stealing our neighbour’s cow - or wife for that matter - doesn’t do much to improve community relations). They’re a reminder, as much as anything, to think about our actions and their consequences - the impact of what we do on those around us. ‘Knocking up’ our neighbour’s daughter is probably going to cause a whole host of problems… And in the time the laws were written down, knowledge of how reproduction happened wasn’t just ‘sketchy’; it was, in fact, entirely erroneous! Times have changed. So we know how not to get our neighbour’s daughter pregnant… And expecting a set of texts which were written between 3,500 and 2,000 years ago to ‘rule’ over our lives in this day and age, is expecting a bit much of it, to be perfectly frank!

The Bible, and the rules therein, is a good source of ‘basic ideas’, but to force modern humans to treat it as authoritative in all areas of life is, not to put too fine a point on it, risible. Especially when those translating it do not seem to know or understand the various contexts in which they were devised and recorded, and how those are different from modern life. We can’t ’wind back the clock’ and live as if we’re Bronze or Iron Age people!

While we’re talking about sin, and the Bible, something to remember is that most of the laws which the church tries to make everyone feel guilty about, are from what is called the ‘Old Testament’ or the ‘Old Covenant’… That is, they are from an agreement, or a contract, between God and humanity - but not all of humanity; it’s an agreement between God and the Jewish people - the ancient nation of Israel (and only them!). And it has been superseded by a new covenant - which is established between God and the entire human race. That covenant is dead simple, and has far fewer laws. In essence, it has just two, and Jesus sums them up succinctly:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39

Its terms are simple, and Jesus, as both God and human, has fulfilled both sides of the agreement… Which actually means we don’t have to!! We are entirely free. Jesus said two other things, which matter hugely and which the church, in its desire for power over people, and its need to control them, tries to ignore. They are:

…if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

and

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

The churches don’t want us to know this, because it robs them of all their power to control - but under the new covenant, we are free to do whatever we damned well please! However, we must bear in mind that not everything we could do is necessarily good for us, or for those around us. We must be mindful of the command to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Other than that, have at it! God isn’t going to be angry (we might talk about God’s supposed anger another time).

God bless you!

How I Know That God Loves Sex 🕊️

Romance In Spite of It All — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 21:41:03 GMT

There’s a being I call God, and I don’t think He cares what you call Him. I think there is a higher power and they want to hear from you in whatever way you are willing to try. So if you would like to sub in different vocabulary here, I hope you will!

And likewise, I’m going to use the language and source materials that make sense to me. Because I do believe that the one ingredient that is most critical to this conversation above all else, is wholehearted authenticity. And in that, I got you babe.

I talk to God. A lot, actually. And I’m so excited to share some of the things I’ve learned with you! [Spoiler alert: He thinks sex is really cool and that we should do more of it]

But as I’ve been thinking about where to start on this journey together, the very most important thing I can do is give you God’s phone number.

Teach a man to fish, right?

It’s a simple process that I use every day, and that I have now taught to a fair number of people, and the ones who really try it, have learned to catch their own fish pretty quickly.

And since many of us are writers here, you may appreciate that when I say I talk to God, what I actually mean, is that I write to Him. And He answers me, sometimes more efficiently than others.

I’m going to teach you the formula in a second, but first I want to show you that I have really, really practiced this myself:

So, using whatever source material and vocabulary you prefer, here’s the system:

Pray. Something as simple as, ‘Dear God, I’m here, and I’m trying to learn, Amen’ is a real and meaningful place to start. You don’t even have to say it out loud.
Write down your thoughts and questions, things like: ‘Here’s what I’m struggling with, here are my plans for the day, I’m really frustrated with someone, and I need help with something, and what can I do to solve this problem?’
Open your source material. If you don’t have one, here’s a link to a free bible and the other scriptures I use.
Read a verse, and jot down what comes to mind. It might be related to what the verse really says, but it might not, because you just picked up the phone, and now it’s your job to listen. So: Read a line, write a line. Read a line, write a line. Read a line… get the idea? This is a two way street.
After a few minutes, read back over the conversation and see what’s there.
If you feel peaceful, and especially if you learned something, thank Him! Something like, ‘Dear God, Thank You for this, Amen’ is perfectly fine.

And then, do it again tomorrow. And if you miss a few days, or you miss a week, or even a year: Still go back.

God is a little like a dog sometimes. He’s man’s best friend, He’s great for emotional support, He’ll always come when you call, and He has no concept of time as we know it.

In Isaiah 28, here’s your message for today:

Read a line: ¶ Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

Write a line: God wants to teach knowledge to even the simplest of us, and He wants to teach us whether we feel ready or not.

Read a line: For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

Write a line: The only way to learn this stuff is a little at a time. It adds up, but it’s kind of like panning for gold… except you will always, always find more gold.

Read a line: For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

Write a line: It’s okay if I am an imperfect teacher, and you are an imperfect student, because imperfect people is all He has ever had to work with.

Read a line: To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

Write a line: Learning imperfectly, a little at a time, is where we will find rest from the weary world around us. If we are willing to listen, we will be refreshed, and we can come back to the well as often as we choose.

And, since we’re told it’s best to do things here a little and there a little, I’ll leave it there until next time— but I do hope you’ll come back to the well!

10 Ways to Reduce Repression Without Forfeiting Faith 🩵

I grew up in an almost-cult-level religious household. I later learned that my religion wasn’t so bad, it’s just that the way it was taught to me was really, really bad…

4 months ago · 1 like · Romance In Spite of It All

Phil’s Erotic Endeavours

Sunday - Sinful or Soulful?

I first arrived on Substack in early August ‘25 (gosh, is it really more than eight months ago?). Since then I have, I hope, established my credentials in this community as a writer of, for want of a better word, smut. I am, as I have said before, hugely grateful for the welcome and the acceptance I have received, and for the friendships I’ve made here…

2 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Phil P Shepherd

✏️ Deconstruction Under Construction 🚧

Romance In Spite of It All — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:36:03 GMT

Deconstructing religious shame from diverse perspectives • Learning to embrace spirituality and sexuality without flipping a switch • Culture vs. Doctrine • Discovering ways that sex and the spirit can be reciprocal catalysts 🔥✨

If you have an interest in the cross section between faith and sex, particularly breaking down shame and guilt imposed by prevailing religious culture, good news… Phil P Shepherd and I [both writers of erotica, both followers of a divine entity] have something new in the works!

Sunday - Sinful or Soulful?

A platform for us to share how we have learned to connect with a higher power AND embrace sexuality 💛✨

This conversation has been coming up across the DMs, and it’s time to bring it into the light!

Phil and I are feeling like there are voices who may not want their whole page to have these insights intermixed with their greater content, so we’re making a place where disinterested parties may pass by in peace, and for anyone interested in the discussion, creating a space for healing and understanding.

For a deeper introduction, you can check out this article Phil wrote as we’ve been brainstorming the idea:

Phil’s Erotic Endeavours

2 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Phil P Shepherd

There’s also this article I’ve written about some of my personal background on the matter:

10 Ways to Reduce Repression Without Forfeiting Faith 🩵

I grew up in an almost-cult-level religious household. I later learned that my religion wasn’t so bad, it’s just that the way it was taught to me was really, really bad…

4 months ago · 1 like · Romance In Spite of It All

And beyond that, stay tuned!