Admittedly I’m an atheist, but this seems to intimate that being tempted is a sin.

My position, presently, is very much driven by what I believe the NT to be saying; we can both agree that the stance on several other issues was different in the OT.

I’m in need of prayers as much as anyone I know, so thanks for the prayer support.

Greg R

You now know as much as we do as far as the explicit intersection of Jesus and homosexuality.

…In-ed me?

Sarah, I’m currently working on a straight Christian privilege checklist. Even though the idea of the privilege checklist is done to death, I haven’t been able to find a single one that looked uniquely at what it means to be straight in a Christian world. Maybe I’m subconsciously not looking hard enough, because I want to be the first…

First I owe you an apology for a lot of the edge in my comments and the whole “defensive Catholic” thing. When I feel I’m getting talked past I immediately assume some hang up on the other party’s part, whether or not there’s a whole lot of evidence. It’s a stupid and childish defense strategy.

To put it all in context, I had just come back from another old thread about authentic/inauthentic Marian devotion. I had put up what I hope is some good apologetics there, a couple Protestants were making sharp points and asking tough and fair questions, it was rad. In the mean time a totally asinine evangelical guy had shown up to comment at least once on each of my posts, give me the Party Line, and fail at argument. An equally asinine Catholic woman had shown up to helpfully berate a young person I was in discussion with. Commentary over there has been disabled, no doubt because of Fred and Ethel and their 100% likelihood of engaging in a million useless side arguments. *sigh* I was ticked. It was like coming home from vacation and discovering that your house has been overrun by wild raccoons.

I’d love to keep talking without burdening iMonk- if you’d like to continue the conversation, you can reach me at bethany.e.k AT gmail

But again, tomayto / tomahto. I’ve got a feeling we’re at the point we could have an fascinating discussion if only it weren’t so wildly off-topic.

But whatever. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. Peace in Christ. Jesus loves you.

I really don’t see what “sexuality” has to do with your anecdote, unless you’re saying that you’re not comfortable referring to female nipples publicly on Facebook. Which, yeah, that would be inappropriate. But that’s anatomy, not sexuality. If you’re going for the idea that parts of the body are sacred or special or private and so shouldn’t be referred to in certain ways or in certain venues, that’s a different issue. That could be construed as part of some peoples’ sexuality, BUT I still don’t see that it implies shame and guilt. If I want to keep something private and intimate, and I do that, there’s no shame and guilt. Keeping something private doesn’t imply that I’m ashamed of it. If I violate somebody else’s standards of intimacy and privacy, then I would feel badly, but such feelings aren’t an inevitable part of that element of sexuality.

Frankly, I’m a bit confused as to how you can so sharply separate “sexuality” from “sexual acts.” If one associates deep guilt and shame with one’s sexuality, one’s existence as a sexual being and interacting with others who are sexual beings (at least that’s how I define sexuality– if you do so differently, please let me know- I don’t want this to be us talking past one another due to different definitions!), I can’t see how one could derive real, genuine, heartfelt pleasure from sexual acts.

I can think of virtually no sexual acts that I’ve associated with “deep guilt and shame” or whatever I said, at least at the time. Stop the knee-jerk New-Ageism for a second and let me explain what I mean.

So I have this cousin-through-marriage and she’s breastfeeding and her baby won’t take the bottle when it’s necessary. She says something to this effect on her Facebook status. I don’t want this to turn into an “STFU, Parents” nightmare so I bring in some levity. I say, “Dust the nipple with cocaine.”

WELL, Bethany, a couple of her friends couldn’t put two and two together and figure out that I was referring to the nipple of the bottle. The comment was, “highly inappropriate.” And had I understood things the way they did I’d say the same thing.

I felt ashamed. I felt extremely embarrassed. Deleted the comment, apologized in the comments, e-mailed my beloved cousin-through-marriage and explained myself.

This had nothing to with sexual acts and had everything to do with sexuality.

I can sense your prejudice so let me say that this is all coming from a Freudian rather than a Catholic.