Religious Oppression
This all started several years ago, when I was still living at home. I was around 15 or 16 years old at the time. I was like most guys, really. I kept myself busy with a healthy dose of cable TV, violent video games, and of course, my secret collection of porn. Most was on my computer, of course, hidden in a directory I knew no one would ever find. Well, as it turns out, someone did find it. My mom of all people.
Most moms would be upset. Maybe embarrassed, angry, worried, whatever. Some moms might say something, some maybe not. But not my mom. She isn’t like most people you meet.
She’s a saint. Well, at least, that’s what she’d have you believe—and most of our church did. She was the woman who always prayed, who was always available for spiritual advice, who never missed a Sunday at church. She volunteered at the church. She baked food to help raise money for the church. She even wrote “get well soon” cards when people didn’t show up every week. She assumed they were sick. Why else would they miss church service?
I love my mom. Always did, always will. But you see, the thing with my mom is, she’s nuts. Really. She’s a religious nut. A religious zealot, you might even say. Her entire world was wrapped around her church and religious community. And when it came to conservative beliefs and attitudes, she was the epitome of it.
For example, I wasn’t allowed to watch MTV—ever. But the list of banned television didn’t stop there. You know that show “Mad About You” with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser? Couldn’t watch that. They talked about sex too much. And “Friends”? Forget it.
Or take “The Simpsons” for example. My mom didn’t like how Bart talked back to his parents, and was afraid he’d be a bad influence on me. So that was banned.
As was “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Why? It was too “occultic” as my mom would say. It worshiped and glorified the devil, she claimed.
This, of course, also eliminated shows like “The X-Files” and “Beavis and Butthead” (although I don’t think I missed much with the latter).
Pretty much the only thing I could watch were shows like “Family Matters” and “Full House” and (naturally) “Touched By An Angel.”
Pretty sad, huh?
It gets worse.
Certain music was banned from the house, too. Well, pretty much all music, unless it was religious.
You get the picture. Life sucked growing up. I never fit in. I could never keep up with popular culture. My classmates made fun of me. I was always one step behind everybody else. I couldn’t keep up. I hated it.
To make matters worse, my parents were both cheapskates too. (I know, this is getting hard to believe. But, sadly, this is all true.) So my clothes were always out of fashion, and usually bought from Target or Wal-Mart. Not that those aren’t cool stores. But once in a while I’d like to “fit in” and wear the brand name clothes everybody else was wearing.
As you might’ve guessed, my family was pretty controlling. Usually religion was used as the source of power. For instance, if I didn’t do what they said, then I was disrespecting their God-given place of authority over me. Which meant, of course, I was disrespecting God. Which meant, of course, I might go to Hell.
Growing up, you never question your parents’ beliefs. You just sort of accept them as absolute truth. But somewhere in your teen years, you start to think for yourself. At least, that’s what happened to me…
I started asking a lot of questions. Questions like, “why do we believe what we believe?” and “how do we know it’s true?”
These were not questions my mom wanted to hear.
To my first question, she answered, “Because it’s true.” To my second question, she said, “Because my experience proves it.”
Ah yes, I said. But that’s what every other person in every other religion says and believes. What made our religion so special?
She couldn’t answer it. She instead got angry with me. Accused me of having a demon of “anti-church.” This was not a fun time in my life.
And this was the same time in my life when she discovered my secret digital porn stash.
I may have been greatly sheltered, but once I had a computer in my room, suddenly a whole new world of opportunity opened for me. Finally, at last, I could see what else was out there besides “holy, reverend” music. Finally I could see the actual naked female body in all its beauty—and save it for later viewing whenever I wanted.
There’s a problem with repression. It only makes things worse. Some people will EXPLODE if they’ve been repressed for too long. Considering the circumstances, I think I did pretty well for only downloading a few pirated songs and saving a couple megabytes of naked pictures.
My mom didn’t see it that way. She thought I had been seduced by the devil and that my immortal soul had been eternally corrupted. Immediately she took me to our church’s priest and forced me to tell him the “horrible sin” I had committed. I was to beg for forgiveness, hoping God would wipe my soul clean.
Admittedly, the priest guy was actually pretty cool. He said that pornography and lust was a sin, but just about everybody did it now and then. He said it was normal for a boy my age to be interested in sex and the female body. He said it was normal for me to be masturbating too (another sin my mom somehow found out about and forced me to reveal). He told me not to be too hard on myself. Know that God still loves me. And that if I’m sorry for my sins, God will indeed forgive me and “wipe my soul clean.”
My mom picked me up from church a while later. She asked how it went and if God was going to forgive me.
Had I been smart, I would have said something like, “I pleaded for forgiveness, begging God to cleanse my soul. I promised to never, ever do it again, and the priest said that if I did, God might forgive me.” That would’ve been what she wanted to hear. That I was truly sorry (more like, feeling guilty) and would never do it again.
Instead I told her the truth. What the priest told me. That it was normal and okay, as long as I didn’t become obsessive about it.
Well, that didn’t go over too well with her. She lectured me the whole car ride back. I thought it would never end.
We always ate dinner as a family, although my dad never said much. That night was especially quiet at dinner.
Less than a week later, my mom came bursting into my room without knocking. I was on the computer, but fortunately I was actually doing homework at the moment.
Then she told me that she had done a lot of praying about it, and she heard God tell her what to do about the situation.
What situation? I had already forgotten about the whole thing by then.
She hadn’t.
She felt that God told her to send me to a special religious boarding school. I had heard of this school before. They were ultra-conservative and ultra-strict in adhering to their religious doctrines. Mom had donated money to them in the past.
She had already called the school and arranged for me to enter in the next term. I was to finish up school here. Starting next semester, I’d be shipped 1200 miles away and spend the rest of my high school career at this religious institution.
It was already March at the time. That meant I only had a couple months left of “the real world,” attending a public school where free speech and independent thinking were at least tolerated.
Sadder still, I almost got a girlfriend at the end of that school year. She was very pretty as I recall. Cute smile and all. But I’d be moving later that summer…so nothing ever happened between the two of us.
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