TW: suicidal ideation.

At the darkest days of the abuse I was being subjected to I decided to attend a conference for women in Los Angeles. I convinced my mother in law to pay for it because I couldn’t afford it. @ChristineCaine was preaching. I was desperate...
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I am going to say something very uncomfortable. Read before you react please.

Purity culture encourages pedophilia, a thread:

Purity culture encourages pedophilia.

Some of the standards of purity culture are innocence (pretty much ignorance about sex), submission (for women), virginity as the ultimate standard, and “modesty” (for women that is wearing clothes that don’t reveal their adult curves)*
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Purity culture makes the desirable standard a child. It makes child likeness desirable in regards to sexuality. It makes virginity, and innocence, and submission; what the male brain should want most in a partner. And your brain doesn’t rewire just because you get married.
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This doesn’t mean every man raised in purity culture is a pedophile, that’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is that purity culture wires the brain of men to desire child likeness, which encourages pedophilia. After all desire and objectification happen in our brain.

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Now if you are a pedophile who wants to act on those desires, purity culture does a lot of the grooming for you. Purity culture discourages comprehensive sex education leaving children without the ability to know what’s appropriate and what’s not.

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When I say that so long as nobody is being harmed people’s decisions, choices, and actions are always acceptable and should be respected; conservative Christians often ask me: but who decides what harm is?

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They do this to invalidate ‘harm,’ because if we can obscure the notion of harm, and they can decide that people going to hell is really the harm we should be worried about; then they are justified in crossing every possible boundary to keep people from hell.

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They are “helping,” “saving,” not really harming.

That’s one of the main ways in which the concept of sin is weaponized against people; because they decide what sin is, which is what will send us to hell (except not because all we have to do is repent and then we are safe).

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It doesn’t matter how we define harm, how much logic we apply to explaining that when people say they are being harmed we should believe them; or how much evidence we have of harm caused. It doesn’t matter that people are literally and metaphorically bleeding. It’s not harm.

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I mean they justified the genocide of Native people, the forceful taking of our land, the abduction of children with sayings like “kill the Indian, save the man.” By their logic they haven’t caused harm, they have “saved” us. There is no evidence of this, but they say so 🙃.

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“Don’t leave the church because of the people who hurt you. Nobody is perfect, only God”

I’ll explain why this comment is not only not helpful at all, but also very harmful.

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The comment assumes we can’t tell the difference between people and toxic theology, it assumes our issues are with a few people who are outliers and misrepresented God, and we just seem to think that’s the totality of divinity. Which makes us appear unintelligent and petty.

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But, that’s not the case at all. I didn’t leave because a few people hurt me in the name of God, in fact I stayed long enough to get hurt again, and again, and again, and again. Because it’s not a few bad apples hurting people in the name of God what we are dealing with.

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Instead we are talking about systemic abuse due to toxic theology that is taught as righteousness.

Go to any white evangelical church today and conduct all the tests you must to ensure only those who are “good Christians,” remain. I guarantee you people will be harmed there.
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Not because people just hurt people, not because Christians have good intentions but sometimes make mistakes; instead because the harm is caused due to indoctrination into toxic theology and a belief that their social and theological framework is not only good,

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We live in a society that misunderstands boundaries and consent. Most people think the former is about just saying no, and the latter is about sex. And while that’s a part of it, they are about agency, autonomy, respect and interpersonal relationships.

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Unsolicited advice without consent is crossing a person’s boundaries. Even if the advice is good advice, even if the person giving the advice is a pastor or a parent, even if the advice is important. Most people aren’t talking about their life so that we may solve it.

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It is an honor to be trusted with someone’s life story*, with their thoughts and their challenges, with their struggles and their musings. But it is not an open invitation to try and solve their problems, control their behavior, tell them what to do.

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For a group of people that speak often of free will and claim to follow Jesus, Christians are some of the worst at boundaries and consent in general, and advice giving in particular. Think about how many sermons are not sharing spiritual truths, but just giving advice.

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Think about how much pastoral counseling is just advice giving. Think about the many books that tell you how to parent, how to be a good wife, how to be a good Christian, how to... and how much of it is general advice as though our lives were interchangeable?

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Christianity has been a weapon used by systems of oppression to call that which is harmful and abusive; good and God’s will. It has been a weapon to normalize hegemonic power, and keep people from questioning it or challenging it because “it comes from God.”

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Gender “norms,” harmful ideas about sexuality, social hierarchy, the construct of race, notions of nuclear family, toxic ideologies of work, bodies, finances, government, relationships, parenting, or criminal justice; are all rooted in Christianity and...

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backed up by verses of the Christian Bible taken out of context, to assert that this isn’t just normal, but what God desires. And who dares challenge God?

Christianity has allowed for people w/power to use the idea of god, and *his* “word,” to pass their ideas as God ideas.
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This is one of the reasons why people react so violently when we say the Bible is not the word of God, they can’t accept that everything they’ve been given as normal, good, ideal, God’s will... may just not be so.

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Their nervous systems tells them it is better to maintain the certainty of what is in their hands; even though it causes harm; than to give into the uncertainty of imagining a different world where equity is possible.

And then their ego gets involved, and admitting they’ve

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8 rules the top play by that those at the bottom should adopt.

— Thread
(requested by followers)

1. Leverage

Most poor people don't leverage. Trying to get everything done yourself will limit you to only how much you can do.

Get more hands working for you, and find a way to pay or show them what's in it for them.

2. Trust

When doing business, poor people would require collateral from strangers, but excuse those close to them because they *trust* them.

That's how you get scammed.

The unspoken rule is to know your safety net whenever you're not taking collateral.

Never need to trust.

3. Morality

Never seen a very successful businessman say "This is not a good thing, it's evil."

It's either good for business or bad for business. Its either effective or ineffective.

Morality will only limit you.

4. Reciprocity

Expecting someone to help you because you helped them in the past is ludicrous.

If you're no longer useful to them, people have no reason to help you.

"Whenever you see water flowing upstream it means someone it repaying a kindness."

— 48 Laws Of Power

Too much intellect without a sense of self can inflate your ego.

This is why a lot of high IQ people lack social intelligence.

They talk to humans like robots & are baffled when they are resented for it.

This is why the charismatic person who knows less often rises up quicker

'What you smoking bro?? My IQ will be the biggest factor of my success!'

Incorrect.

That's a limiting belief.

I'm gonna shake up your paradigm real quick 👇

You have been conditioned your entire life to believe that IQ score alone will dictate success.

And like most people, we were like 'yea, sure!'

But there's few incorrect thought patterns here

1. Success is subjective.

2. IQ exam insinuates intellect is fixed.

3. Your high IQ won't make others give a fuck, your communication will.

Let's go thru each one

1. Success is subjective

What I consider success may not be success for you.

Success it's a mirror image of where you are & where you want to be.

Aka sense of self.

So measuring success starts from looking within, not an exam.

Just because.

Here's an interesting story about a man you've almost certainly heard of, think you know stuff about, but probably weren't taught any of the good, funny, ludicrous stuff that makes it really interesting.

It's long. You might hate it. I'll take that chance...

In 1588, Spain launched a huge fleet with the aim of overthrowing Elizabeth I and conquering England (sorry Britain, I'm taking about the "it's still just England" era).

At least in part, they did this to stop our pirates from being such a monumental pain in their arse...

As the 130 Spanish ships approached our coast, the English packed our most ancient and decrepit boats with junk, set them on fire, and shoved them into the Spanish lines.

The Armada scattered, and the weather took care of the rest, driving them towards the Dutch coast...

Thus, the great military achievement of the Elizabethan era was settled by a combination of a typical English summer, and an aquatic bin fire.

But somebody had to come out of it a hero, and that somebody was Sir Francis Drake...

The things you know about Drake are practically all false: he didn’t finish his game of bowls before being bothered to defeat the Spanish – that story didn’t appear until some 40 years after the events, and bad weather kept in in Plymouth: not fannying around with ball games...

Women sleep with Men who are Emotionally Stable.

Here are 7 Ways to Master your Emotions:-

// Thread //

1) Your Environment

Emotions are nothing but Energy in MOTION.

Surround yourself with Beauty, Positive Energy, and High Value people.

The environmental effect is Incredible.

2) Understand that Emotions are just feedback.

If you find yourself wanting to escape, or avoid going deep into a particular emotion, ask yourself this:

Can the emotion actually do any harm, or is it just a bad feeling?

Exactly. It's all just a story in your head.

3) State Control:

This one is so underrated.

Practice Physical and Mental anchors that put you into a badass state

-Meditate
-Music that amps you the fuck up.
-Power Poses; take up space
-Mental Pictures of you dominating.
-Hand Movements that let you know its game time.

4) Stop trying to get rid of them.

You're feeling good? Experience it fully.

You're feeling terrible? Feel it all over your body.

You will realize that they go away when you don't try to stop them.