BITE me.

Information Control and (gasp!) Spiritual Pornography

When I was nine, I figured out what sexual intercourse was from a ratty paperback novel hidden behind “The Song of Bernadette” in my mother’s bookcase.

Mom hadn’t yet explained the birds and the bees to me. I don’t know why, the woman was certainly not shy, frequently running around naked as the proverbial jaybird. Maybe she thought that nine was too young. (Side note: I told my own daughter the whole spiel when she was nine to avoid the type of incident I’m about to share with you. After I finished, she said with utmost sincerity, “Ohhhh, my poor vagina.” Not only apt, but a solid step up from my childhood terminology, “pee place”.)

In any case, I decided to educate myself. I can’t remember why I thought to stick my hand behind “The Song of Bernadette” and root around, just a sneaky feeling that the well-worn book with a pious girl on the cover would be a perfect fake-out front for any possible licentious material my mom might be hiding. And… score!

My first clue that I was onto something was that the front cover of this book not only lacked a teenager in a wimple, it didn’t exist at all; the cover had been torn off, leaving only the “Chapter One” page. Yep, they didn’t waste any money on copyright or table of contents paper. I still don’t know what the title of the book was. Or if they’d even bothered with one.

I found myself immersed in some kind of island ritual story, a guy with a puka bead necklace and girl in a grass skirt circling each other, licking their lips. They moved towards each other to the beat of a drum and then the book mentioned this dude’s “member”, an unfamiliar term, but using context clues I surmised it did not mean dude was part of an exclusive club.

And suddenly, the big reveal:

“As the drums pounded, the man and woman became one.”

Wait… what?

“Became one”?

What did that mean?

I was absolutely mystified.

Did he swallow her? Synthesis (or my kid-brain version, blended like a milk shake)? Dancing so close in the island heat that they melted into one puddle? Kissing with tongues so deep in each other’s mouths that it now qualified as “French” (didn’t really understand this label) and they were trapped inside each other’s bodies? Was this actually a horror novel? How do two people become one person??

Wait.

Wait.

“Member”…

Pee place…

“Member” + pee place?

“Member” IN pee place??!

And with that stunning and fairly appalling mental image, I knew I’d crossed a Rubicon; I would never be able to unsee what I’d just seen in my mind’s eye. And I was right, the imagined scene from that trashy book remains in my head to this day, next to the mental movie I created when we heard that Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial ate Pop Rocks with soda and his stomach exploded.

The whole experience taught me that if you desire and pursue knowledge, you’d better be able to deal with the consequences of knowing.

Just ask Eve.

**

Soon after I was baptized in early 1991, I heard the phrase “spiritual pornography” for the first time. It sounded alarming, but I was told it actually meant that we were not to read anything that had been written criticizing the International Churches of Christ because it was akin to subjecting ourselves to porn. An explanation that should have been even more alarming, obviously, but tracked with the information control we were subjected to.

In his book, Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan talks about the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional Control. All of these were exercised to a greater or lesser extent in the ICOC, but let’s start with Information Control.

Besides spiritual smut, we were discouraged from reading anything other than books written by our church’s writers. Even though I’d been scolded for thinking C.S. Lewis was a real Christian, I snuck his books into my apartment, hiding them like they were as trashy as what was behind ol’ Bernadette. I also read Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and got in trouble for saying I liked it better than the Bible. I got into trouble a lot in my first few months.

There were so many things that bothered me, deep in my gut, about the church from the very beginning and I often wonder if I’d had access to the resources we can currently pull up with a simple Google search, if I’d have succumbed to its influence. It’s entirely possible that I would have, because I desperately needed stability and certainty and I really did love that sweet guy who healed lepers. But, man, I was a real pain in the ass with my questions and doubts and drove a lot of other “disciples” to the brink of madness.

Thus, I am infinitely grateful for the two new characters that I’m introducing today, The Comic, and Sexy Dancer. Unlike Elfin Dervish and the original band of Godly Girls who were practiced in deep sighs and church-approved answers in our studies, The Comic and Sexy Dancer were weird chicks like me. They were funny, smart, and let the occasional curse word slide. They saved my sanity in so many ways and are still friends to this day.

I had gotten a job as a nighttime receptionist at a video production company, which gave me many quiet hours to rage helplessly as I read my Bible while answering the occasional business phone call. The Comic would visit me there and listen patiently to my endless objections and “This is f’ing ridiculous” assessments of certain scriptural passages. Like when I got snagged on the whole “Women are the reason humanity sucks” sentiment:

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”
1 Timothy 2:13-14

I ranted and raved about how frustrating and misogynistic this sounded, but what I really meant was “I don’t believe God thinks this, I think men think this. I think men wrote the Bible, not God.” Imagine what a relief it would have been to know that many other people, and yes, even theologians felt the same way.

The Comic would talk me off the ledge and most importantly, was the first person in the church that I ever heard say, “I don’t know.” She didn’t try to convince me of anything, just listened and then mused out loud about possible answers to my questions. She was never dogmatic or arrogant. And she was funny as hell.

Sexy Dancer was also funny, and besides being sexy, had the energy of twenty toddlers in a ball pit. When I would cry about not being able to perform in the racy works of my favorite comedic playwright, Christopher Durang, she would crow, “Don’t worry about it! You’re gonna write your own stuff!” Sexy Dancer was the first person who made me believe that God was on my side and wanted me to succeed. She was genuine, and genuinely quirky, just the way I like ‘em.

As miserable as I was, soon the cognitive dissonance was too strong and I stopped fighting; the information control took hold in my heart and mind. But deep, deep in my soul, there was always that curious 9-year old, reaching behind the “good” book to see if there was something else back there, something real she needed to know, even if it was strange and uncomfortable and took her somewhere she wasn’t quite sure she was ready for.

That’s the reason we’re here, my friends. The only reason Coffee, Cults & Comedy exists is because I’m still the kid who wants to know, whether it’s about the mysteries of the universe, if the Bible or The Prophet would win in a cage fight, or who else found out about intercourse with the “member” + “pee place” equation.

Before you go, a recommendation!

I’m really enjoying the work of Maria Cassano and The Good Girl Recovery Guide. Her article Why Religion Attracts Narcissists absolutely nailed it, particularly the section about Judeo-Christian tradition’s rigid power hierarchies.

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