One thing you need to know about me is that I used to go to church. As in several times a week. At one point in high school, I was leading worship for one church, two youth groups, and about three student bible studies.
It’s a wonder I graduated at all.
It’s not like it’s some shameful secret that I’ve been trying to hide, but I do look back on that time with a bit of embarrassment. Never mind that I’ve changed my mind about much of how the world seems to work, and never mind that I’ve just moved 500 miles to move in with my girlfriend – and we’re not even engaged yet -Â I am embarrassed not for what I believed or for who I was, but for how I acted.
I tried not to be a jerk; I honestly believed it wasn’t my place to tell people what to believe. If you disagreed with me and could hold your ground in a friendly debate, I left you alone. But I felt very strongly that I could not disappoint God.
I was mortified to do it. I never drank in high school, let alone do drugs. I didn’t lose my virginity in high school – I didn’t even kiss a girl until I was solidly 18. And I had been dating her for a year.
So uh, the commandment about adultery is one that I took pretty seriously. I was kind of afraid of it actually. I know exactly where David Dickerson is coming from in the “Ten Commandments” episode of “This American Life.”
The dude stressed out so completely over trying to not even think a lustful thought about a woman that he ceased to function. Dickerson crumbled spectacularly under the pressure; thank God I didn’t.
The main lesson learned is summed up by one of his friends, when he says something along the lines of “you spend so much time straining on this one area that you miss the whole rest of the journey.”
That, and that “Playboy” is apparently something of a miracle.
 Photo: “Hugh Hefner” from Life Cinematic’s Flickr.
4 Comments
I’ll grant you the Playboy taken in context of the fifties is indeed something of a miracle. However, I find that the continuing idol-worship of Hefner to be sadly laughable. In truth he was simply the first publisher to properly get away with showing men boobies in a magazine. These days when someone want to sell us something (yacht-wax, energy drinks, a sports- car)the ad geniuses put a nice rack next to it.Now, this makes me want to by an Audi A4 as much as the next penis-having bloke, but does anyone think that’s a stroke (pun TOTALLY intended) of genius? nope. But good ol Hef’ still gets credit for showing me tits..The argument here is that Hef was a visionary. That Hef’s insight into the male mind changed the landscape of American culture for the 2nd half of the 20th century. and to that I say-If Hef’s such a visionary why is it that the only idea he ever came with is putting pictures of sweater kittens next to reviews of the hifi and then….nothing.
I appreciate that this has little to nothing to do with your post in general.I hope you’ve gotten over your Jesus spell. If not, I’ll give you my sister’s number. She’s an episcopalian minister…and a single mom…and a lesbian. If that doesn’t make you want to “make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” and start praying to it in the backyard. I dunno what does.
I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten over a “Jesus spell.” I would say I’ve gotten over evangelicalism at the expense of humanism/humanity.
The roots of my personal morality, and my love of reason, come dually from the bible and from, well, the Easter Beer Hunt.
The problem with the Jesus Years is that I got so caught up in my own “spiritual growth” that I slacked off on the Beer Hunt’s twin principles of Sharing and Fellowship. Or figured out what “spiritual growth” is actually supposed to mean.
I don’t think Hef is a genius. I think he’s a rather pathetic old man who, for the sake of self-esteem, needs to be surrounded by a bevy of women who fall more consistently into the uncanny valley than an army of fembots.
It’s Larry Flynt, honestly, that I admire. Not his lifestyle, not his personal achievements, but the fervor with which he will protect his speech, so as to protect ours.
I’m gonna go ahead and be the anti-porn feminist turd in the punchbowl here and say that if anything is to be admired, it is the way in which two enterprising young men managed to mask their lusty desire to take sexploitation mainstream as the fight for free speech. Now THAT’s real talent right there.
Everyone loves a turd in the punchbowl. I thought the Hefner references were clearly tongue in cheek.
I really don’t admire anyone in porn for their work. I do admire their work to preserve their right to do their work, because that also protects James Joyce, Allen Ginsberg, D.H. Lawrence, Stanley Kubrick, and too many other people with valid work that might otherwise fall prey to well-meaning people whose desire to sanitize society stretches further than necessary.
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