When I started blogging, it was a way for me to explore my identity. Specifically, my religion and upbringing as a Christian and how it conflicted with my newfound identity as a kinky (eventually bisexual) submissive man.
And now…
And now, I’m not a Christian.
That’s hard to write. It’s hard to think, but it’s been true for years now.
I matured into the person I always thought I would be in what I thought of as the “Christian Left.” I attended churches that focused on community service, I was a part of congregations that valued critically examining dogma, I communed with good, caring, moral people.
By my late teens, my convictions began to waver to some extent, as I felt the need to compartmentalize my sexuality from my faith. I was horny all the time, but I wasn’t “supposed” to have lustful thoughts or “act” on them. I also disengaged from a ministry I had been an active part of for years because I disagreed with the way it was being run – not ethically, just because of a disagreement about long-term goals.
By the time I started blogging, I wasn’t attending church regularly, and often felt the loss of community. When I moved to Seattle I was separated from most of my Christian friends, and I tried to find a new church, but never connected the way I had when I was younger and my world was simpler.
Nevertheless, I held onto “Christian” as a core part of my identity for years. Even though a lot of the time, it was because I had/have a real kink for being “corrupted.” It’s hot to be a “good Christian boy,” tempted into all the things I’d always longed to do.
I’ve known for a while that I wasn’t going back to the church. Even when I was still considering it, I felt that it would be impossible to find any church that was lenient enough for me to attend without feeling judged and condemned – while paradoxically, having an orthodoxy that was scripturally based enough to not feel meaningless. I’m not sure that I’ve seen anyone else write about that struggle, but I can’t be alone in it. (I think Disheveled Domina would understand, but I don’t know where she went.)
So I gave up on that, and I got too busy to find a replacement community, I just sort of held onto my membership in my mind until November 2016.
I had always been sure that the loving, accepting, liberal Christians I knew were going to lead to a revival. I had always believed that “most” Christians were moral people, excepting those with the wrong priorities. I was certain that American Christians would do the right thing in the 2016 election. Something died inside of me when I heard the statistics: 81% of (white) evangelicals voted for a blatantly immoral, deceitful, uncharitable, racist, womanizing, authoritarian, criminal, plutocrat. I could not believe it. I could not, can not, countenance it. And I couldn’t be a part of it anymore. I stopped believing that “the church” was a force for good, and I guess that’s when I stopped believing in an active god.
It’s left a void in me, in my sense of self, that I still have not filled.
I’m not sure what that makes me at this point. Agnostic doesn’t seem to fit the bill, but neither does theist or atheist. I might aspire to be a hedonist, but I feel more like a nihilist–in reality I’m probably just an absurdist and a masochist.
Kinky-Christian-Malesub was a niche I think I had cornered when I started, and a third of that is gone. I hope that without it I still have useful and unique things to say. Honestly, I haven’t been reading kink blogs anymore than I’ve been writing, but I want to get back into it. I also feel like I am going to have to revisit some of my old posts, old “advice” that I should probably update.
In some ways – getting to this point has been very freeing. I don’t have to compartmentalize “my beliefs” and my lifestyle, my sexuality, or my desires. It makes me hopeful that there is exciting growth and exploration in my future, even as I feel the loss of this vanished facet of myself.
