#that my battle with religion and my personal relationship with god was sexy or desirable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nedflix-n-chill · 2 years

Photo

Killer Nun Getting my body ready to fight God is only half the battle. I also need to prepare my mind. Know thy enemy and all that jazz. So first i will get to know his friends I guess, nuns are like the brides of Christ or sumshit right? Idk, I'm a lapsed Roman Catholic, like the living embodiment of that Mark Twain quote about how the best cure for Christianity is reading the bible. As a kid I didn't question any of it til I went to a Catholic highschool and had to take religion classes. Studying that shit up close really drove home the point that it made no sense. So I became an athiest (well, at least until I saw Nightmare Weekend which not only convinced me there is a God but he hates me personally so now I must kill him). Killer Nun is about a nun (believe it or not) who gets addicted to morphine after surgery for a brain tumor and her constant high chasing leads her on a downward spiral of drugs, sex, and MURDER! Its like a sexy Dopesick with forbidden carnal desires fostered by the clergy's repressed sexuality. Though while they do tease a lesbian relationship between nuns we don't get any sleazy hot lesbian nun action (you'll just have to watch Benedetta for that). I know you're thinking "ew, Ned, that so male gaze-y", yeah well I'm a male and I happen to fucking love my gaze. I won't get into spoilers but one of the cool things about this movie is that while everything seems pretty obvious on the surface, the kills are set up with classic giallo flair. It delivers an air of mystery and leaves you questioning exactly whats going on, this drug addicted nun isn't exactly the most trustworthy person. Its wild but still probably a more accessible entry into the nunsploitation genre. Its giallo influence will certainly welcome more horror fans than subgenre's usual association with erotica. Also the titular killer nun totally gets horny for a dead body in some kinda weird ass surreal flashback so it's got that going for it. https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca-iUTLOODm/?utm_medium=tumblr

0 notes

nothingman · 7 years

Link

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Adam and Eve, created by Albrecht Dürer, 1471-1528. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

On May 4, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allows churches and religious leaders to explicitly endorse or oppose a political candidate without penalty to their nonprofit, tax-exempt status. Responses from white conservative evangelicals showed that this wasn’t what they were looking for. What they wanted, it seems, was legal protection for religious institutions and business owners to deny services to same-sex couples and transgender persons.

I am a sociologist studying contemporary evangelicalism and sexuality, and my research shows that the political beliefs of white evangelicals have deftly shifted from the bully pulpits of the Moral Majority in the 1980s to cultural messages that appear hip and modern. In particular, Christian sex advice caught my attention because it showcases how evangelicals can hold beliefs that are simultaneously pro- and anti-sex.

Sex advice websites

In my book “Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet,” I conducted a virtual ethnography of online Christian websites – blogs and message boards that discuss sex from a Christian perspective and online stores that sell sex toys and intimacy products.

In total, I studied 36 websites and conducted 44 interviews with users of two of the most active sites as well as six interviews with creators of different sites over two years – between 2010 and 2012. I collected survey responses from nearly 800 users of seven different sites. Collectively, these sites have attracted thousands of users who believe that God wants married, heterosexual couples to have great sex.

Though in my work, I use pseudonyms to describe the names of websites and their users, these sites are easy to find for anyone who is searching for “Christian sex advice.”

Christian sexual websites present evangelism as sexy for couples. Gill Poole, CC BY-NC

The problem that these websites try to solve is that many Christian couples don’t know how to achieve the great sex that God made possible, having grown up hearing a constant refrain of negative messages about sexuality. The content of these sites is a curious mix of secular and religious language that resembles both the liberal sex advice column “Savage Love” and the religious fiction novel series “Left Behind” – aimed at reminding believers that all of their actions are a part of a larger spiritual battle between good and evil.

On these websites, messages abound about self-improvement and being a good, giving and game sexual partner, as well the power of Jesus, the influence of Satan and the importance of being born-again.

Women make up the majority of bloggers and sex toy store owners I studied. They describe using vibrators and achieving orgasms; men talk about open communication with their wives about their deepest sexual desires.

It is a relatively recent historical phenomenon for Christians to claim sexual pleasure as part of their religious framework. As historian of religion Mark Jordan notes, sexual sins have included virtually every erotic action other than sex intended for conceiving children.

Christian sexuality websites, however, present evangelicalism as a sexy and modern representation of a religious tradition that is stereotypically the opposite.

Conservative beliefs

In the years I spent studying these sites, I never saw a single post endorsing or opposing a political candidate. Nonetheless, political beliefs were reflected in the implicit and explicit rules that were required of website users regarding their beliefs related to gender, sexuality and marriage.

On one website, for example, a message board where users post hundreds of comments every day, the moderators allow for “minor theological disagreements” among members, but require that “Members must be married (one man, one woman), and followers of Jesus Christ and His Word. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the only way to salvation, and the Bible is the ultimate authority.” Off limits is “any defense of the practice of homosexuality, so-called ‘gay marriage,’ or the like.”

The beliefs on these websites are far from representative of American Christianity. Most Christians today believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society. A majority of LGBT Americans have some religious affiliation and there are LGBT-affirming groups in many Christian denominations (Matthew Vine’s The Reformation Project is one evangelical example).

Yet on these websites supporting gay sex (or gay marriage), sex outside of heterosexual marriage or any relationship that is nonmonogamous is fundamentally heresy.

In other words, the websites present a sexual logic that combines both limits and freedoms: Christian sexuality, all of these websites adamantly claim, is one full of choice and autonomy so long as Christians follow God’s demands for who is allowed to have sex.

As one blogger told me in an interview, “I think a couple has tremendous freedom” so long as sex is consensual and between husband and wife. In my book, I refer to this as the “logic of Godly sex:” a logic that makes sexual pleasure possible for straight, married Christians but forecloses it for everyone else.

Advancing conservative politics

In other words, I would argue, the sexual freedom that these websites claim to offer is illusory. This illusion is also central to the arguments that proponents present in favor of religious freedom legislation.

These state-enacted bills provide a practical route by which individuals can use the courts to make free exercise violation claims against the state.

The Christian sexuality websites do not accept homosexuality. Nathan Rupert, CC BY-NC-ND

For instance, Mississippi HB 1523 (passed in April 2016 but later blocked by a federal judge) protects persons who have “the sincerely held religious belief” that marriage “should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman” to decide whether or not to provide services, including housing and employment, to LGBT people.

It defines “a man” and “a woman,” according to law: “an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at the time of birth.” Laws like HB 1523 offer a strategy for religious conservatives to use their religious freedom to advance an anti-gay, anti-transgender, and anti-abortion political agenda.

In my opinion, emphasizing freedom and choice alongside conservative ideas about gender, sexuality and marriage is how conservative Christians can adapt to a changing world while maintaining their religious distinction.

After researching Christian sexuality websites, I am convinced that they do as much or more to advance conservative politics as does a preacher telling his congregation to vote for a particular candidate.

Kelsy Burke, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

via The Society Pages

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

1 note · View note