November 25, 2021

"All holidays are sins, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ strict doctrine. Each one is a different tactic of the devil attempting to distract and tempt..."

"... faithful servants of Jehovah. Thanksgiving, Witnesses explain, is rooted in a harvest festival to pagan gods, and those pagan gods corrupt even the contemporary celebration. The holiday revels in gluttony and excess.... ​ When I was 20, I was excommunicated and completely cut off from my family.... The part of me that was broken when my family of origin rejected me gets a little closer to being whole each time I celebrate holidays with my chosen family.... The value of our polyam family isn’t in its stability, but rather that we choose each other even when we change, relationships change, feelings change. The power is in the choosing. There’s no obligation. I can only offer invitation and acceptance.... My husband’s girlfriend may prioritize another partner or her family... For me, the beauty is in making space for us to gather and also making space for each person to make their own choices.... We open ourselves, share love, swim in pleasure, sometimes get hurt.... Now, my community reminds me that the scarcity mind-set that tells us we can only have one love, that we must compete for our lover’s attention, is a lie."

48 comments:

narciso said...

ah romans 1, is not supposed to be a how to manual,

Fernandinande said...

From one weird family to another.

pious agnostic said...

Clearly, the only good Thanksgiving is a queer, polyamorous Thanksgiving.

Menahem Globus said...

Based on the headline it seems the Witnesses were right on the money.

Loren W Laurent said...

In my younger years I experimented in a social scene much like the author describes.

Unfortunately it fell apart because I was beautiful.

No, really.

Because when you can go where your desires lead you, those desires rarely bring one to the homely and unhygienic people.

So, being beautiful, you are having sex with your homely girlfriend's object of desire, and she is in the communal kitchen washing the communal dishes and nursing toxic emotions.

I do not find myself innocent, of course: I tried to make time for the community's losers, but people can tell when it is a Mercy Fuck, even if it's only a conversation and not even sex.

I realized I had to leave for the community to have a chance to sustain itself, but in my absence the bitterness did not leave them: there is always someone who is more beautiful than the rest to fill the vacuum, and to paraphrase Jesus, the homely will always be amongst us.

Just something I was thinking about as a sometime lesbian.

--Loren

M said...

Barf. I know lots of polys because a family member became one when she hit her forties and couldn’t get any guys to commit to a real relationship anymore. So she threw herself into the poly lifestyle. It is a cult for fat, ugly mentally ill people. Just like guys think lesbians are what they see in porn but in reality most are 300 pound angry women with green hair, so goes polyamory.

rhhardin said...

NORA
You're a wonderful man. Two
o'clock is a good time. Here's
the key in case he's asleep. Open
the curtains for him, so he sees
God's beautiful work and knows
that even things like this happen
for the best.

MELVIN
Where'd they teach you to talk
like this -- some Panama City
"Sailor want to hump-hump bar"?
Or was today getaway day and your
last shot at his whiskey. Sell
crazy some place else -- we're all
stocked up here.

Loren W Laurent said...

(I realize it can be uncouth to refer to oneself as beautiful, but sometimes you must dismiss false modesty: I had the Young Delicate Jewish Girl Look that made grown men lust after an underage Natalie Portman. It was the whole point of the film "Beautiful Girls", after all.)

-Loren

Joe Smith said...

What a freak...the media celebrates freaks.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

AS long as you don't steal my bike to buy meth or fentanyl - I don't care what you do.

Mr Wibble said...

She went from one nutjob cult to another. You know the saying, "the common denominator in all your bad relationships is you?"

Iman said...

Get down with yo bad self!

Narayanan said...

I have always wanted to ask a JW : when they get finger cuts etc do they suck on the wound?

saliva is supposed to help clotting.

Krumhorn said...

Loren, you rockslo!!!

- Krumhorn Spatula

MikeR said...

Funny how that works. I know cases of very loving functional religious families, and kids who left them and joined sick dysfunctional groups of antireligious bigoted idiots. Maybe I should write an article.

Jupiter said...

So, you're the wife, and she's the girlfriend? Seems kind of inequitous.

JMR said...

The message from the Post: traditional holidays are bad, unless you use them to subvert other traditions.

I hope they continue to publish in this vein so that the public can discover them for the anti-social deviants that they are.

Pianoman said...

JWs are humorless scolds. They should be renamed to Karen's Witnesses.

Skippy Tisdale said...

"Now, I revel in hosting my queer, polyamorous family/After a childhood spent learning to deny pleasure, I’m relishing life’s abundant pleasures with my chosen family"

Beyond writing this comment, I don't give a fuck.

rehajm said...

For me, the beauty is in making space for us to gather and also making space for each person to make their own choices...

…so long as they are the same choices I would make.

narciso said...




unsurprising

https://www.writing.ucsb.edu/people/patricia-fancher

tim maguire said...

It’s not surprising that a person with a damaged childhood went on to have a damaged adulthood. If this is where she needs to be, then she’s lucky it’s here for her. But hopefully when she’s ready to grow some more, take another step on the road to healthy adulthood, she’ll have the courage to follow through.

Gerda Sprinchorn said...

And another blood line dies out.

Loren W Laurent said...

I once dated a woman who had been a Jehovah's Witness. She was gentle, but no more gentle than when her face was between my thighs. Her tongue tentatively flickered like she was licking a very weak magnet, and I was still not confident enough in my lesbianism to simply grab her ears and get her down to business.

What is funny is that I briefly had an Amish girlfriend, and she had licked away like a goat eating fresh ice cream from a tin can.

For me, the humor was always that I was the shy one, but that JV girl: she could go down on you and you'd never taste anything other than her uncle's last kiss.

That wasn't an incest joke, by the way: she just has a very kissy uncle.

Or maybe I didn't think about it enough.

-Loren

Blair said...

I rented a room from a JayDub once. He was actually pretty cool, but he would have boyfriends half his age to stay over. I never figured out how those two things worked together, but we're all sinners. I was just surprised because normally when one thinks of these sects they attract people who are more morally devout than mainstream religious people.

One thing I found interesting too was that all the JayDubs would gather on Christmas and have a party as consolation for not celebrating the birth of Jesus. They just weren't allowed to call it what it was.

As other commenters have pointed out, it's easy to go from one extreme of morality to another. In one case the person is enslaved by legalism, in the other, licentiousness. The trick is not to be enslaved one way or the other, which is something that genuine Orthodox Christianity offers.

Sebastian said...

"My husband’s girlfriend may prioritize another partner or her family... we must compete for our lover’s attention, is a lie."

Seems like there's a lot of competing for attention going on. By contrast with actual, you know, love, the point of which is to know at all times what you and s/he "prioritize."

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

If you have time anyone/all - look up Jim Jordan ceding his time to Candace Owens.

OUCH!

BG said...

Blogger Narayanan said...
I have always wanted to ask a JW : when they get finger cuts etc do they suck on the wound?


We used to have JW neighbors. They butchered a beef and asked if we wanted the bones for our dog. But we could have them only if we promised to boil the bones first. I declined.
(Side note: they eventually moved away after the family came apart at the seams, so to speak.)

Lucien said...

Fret not Loren, because the 'couth will join in the incantation that "All women are beautiful in their own way", which is why we're afflicted with plus-sized models, etc. It's a fiction we are "asked" to regurgitate, as John McWhorter might say.

farmgirl said...

I have an old(89!) yr old couple that have been knocking on our door for over 20 yrs. I love them. We used to discuss religion & I’m blessed to know scripture pretty well for a Catholic. Now we catch up on family and give e/other encouragement. Since Covid hit I haven’t seen them, but the call or send a letter or 2. I miss them

farmgirl said...

I also wanted to say: she went from gluttony to lust. Go figure.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I am 68 and am just tired of seeing these every year. They are a liturgy of their own for the new Evangelical cults of the Left, which breathlessly regards them as brilliant insights every Tuesday. I hold no brief for the JW's, who I think are deeply wrong on many things. Our family was always holiday intense, and we thought it an important part of our children's upbringing. But really. I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see! Liberalism forever!

Rollo said...

Lady, your kids, if you have any, are going to grow up hating your queer, polyamourous Thanksgivings, and you will end up having to spend the holidays alone -- or worse, with Molly Jong-Fast.

Zev said...

From crazy to crazier.
Or maybe the reverse.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Is Loren the latest iteration of Laslo? Am I being dense for even asking?

Mark said...

Worst roommate I ever had was a JW in college. Stole a dozen albums when he moved out, came home the day after his 21st birthday and puked all over everything (couldn't celebrate on birthday, so drank hard liquor all next day).

So glad he was kicked out of the private Catholic college I attended after a semester.

Tom T. said...

Basically, she's been trained to accept it when people tell her, "this is normal, really."

Mr Wibble said...

it's easy to go from one extreme of morality to another. In one case the person is enslaved by legalism, in the other, licentiousness.

The two aren't actually that far apart. Licentiousness seems to often rely on a form of legalism in order to justify all behaviors.

madAsHell said...

my queer, polyamorous family

Alex, can I have "Shit the never happened" for a $1000.

Gospace said...

Maybe this explains why my dishwasher failures have all occurred on Thanksgiving. Today's failure was caused by a blockage right at the elbow where it connects to the pump so the dishwasher wouldn't drain. PITA, but didn't need new parts, which is a relief.

Maynard said...

Is Loren the latest iteration of Laslo? Am I being dense for even asking?

My guess is Titus.

Tomcc said...

I make every effort not to judge people. When I read things like this: "For me, the beauty is in making space for us to gather and also making space for each person to make their own choices...", it sets off my craydar.

gadfly said...

Tomcc said...
I make every effort not to judge people. When I read things like this: "For me, the beauty is in making space for us to gather and also making space for each person to make their own choices...", it sets off my craydar.

Tom stopped just short of noting "polyam" expectations:
"Polyam family is like any family. We get our hearts broken. We have petty fights and legitimate conflicts."

"Polyamory family" would go to the top of the new oxymoron list if common folk knew what "polyamory" means or how it might be used.

tim maguire said...

All holidays are sins

God wants us to be miserable and bored. Glory be to God.

tim maguire said...

BG said...We used to have JW neighbors. They butchered a beef and asked if we wanted the bones for our dog. But we could have them only if we promised to boil the bones first.

Well done your placement of “only.” Hardly anyone would have gotten that right.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The part of me that was broken when my family of origin rejected me gets a little closer to being whole each time I celebrate holidays with my chosen family

Who really rejected whom?
One could argue that the essence of family is that you do not choose your family, either biologically or culturally. Whatever group of people you choose to surround yourself with, it is not a family. They are friends, maybe, twisted into a simulation of a family. You could say that being part of a family means that you find yourself loving, willy-nilly, people you would not choose to love.
I would guess that being stuck with this group of people called "family" is a necessary part of becoming an adult. We don't always, or even often, get to choose the things that are the most important to us.
If this "Patricia Fancher" is a prof at UC Santa Barbara, her break-all-the-molds lifestyle is cover for a conformist academic, bourgeois lifestyle. Surround yourself with a quewe "family"? Yes. Vote for Trump? Never.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Also I am with madAsHell: "Shit that never happened."
Mostly or wholly a fantasy.

Critter said...

Now there’s a stable person!