Loving you for who you are, on FeelGood Friday
I was all set to tell you about the gains against female genital mutilation (didn’t see that one coming, did you?) but paused (which sounds so much loftier than ‘procrastinated’) on my way over here to watch the LoveHasNoLabels.com video that’s making the rounds right now. I knew what it was from the thumbnail, but the urge to…’pause’…is hard to resist. I’m glad I watched it.
See, a couple weeks ago, I read a friend’s words that she is apparently…um…no longer gay? That she no longer dates women, but gets from god “whatever I was trying to get via sex with women.”
I devoutly respect everyone’s authority over their own sexuality and choices, but the prospect, the fear, all in my perspective, of someone who is naturally (by a divine being or not) homosexual, choosing to just….not do that…anymore? It breaks my heart.
For a long time I hid from the parts of myself that I didn’t like, and the things that scared me at a deep level. Even that much internal discord was tearing me apart. I can’t describe the waves of relief that come in the moments when I can love all of myself. I can’t imagine what it would be like for a person to…move away…from the way they are fundamentally designed to find love.
My immediate response was to tell her that if her god says she’s wrong to love women, wrong for feeling love for whomever she feels it, then she needs to get a new god. But it’s not my place to tell someone else what to worship. It’s not my place to say she’s wrong, or that she should do anything differently. But the fear that she’s been pressured to move away from her access to love because the sex is “infertile”? I alternate between rage and sorrow.
It’s weighed on me for the last two weeks. But in the 3:20 of that video, I felt that weight easing. I am still concerned for my friend, a woman of great intellectual, spiritual, and emotional intelligence, but seeing these other people loving who they love without guilt or fear or shame…
I FeelGood. I hope you do too.
To all the people who accept who they are, I thank you, love you, and salute you.
Why is it taboo to tell her how you feel about her decision just because religion is involved?
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Well, if we were closer friends, and/or spoke more often, I would be more inclined to give her my view, but as it is, I feel I’d be barging into her life with my judgment. To be honest, I don’t really understand the grip that religion has on a lot of people, and therefore have a certain caution around it. But I don’t have to understand it to appreciate how vital and powerful it is for people, and I firmly respect everyone’s right to follow their own sexuality, even if in this case, it looks to me like something else is impinging on that right.
As you can tell from my rambling reply, it’s a complicated subject!
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Here, here. Love who you love. Period.
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