homeschool – Page 48 – Homeschoolers Anonymous

Like Voldemort To Wizards: R.L. Stollar’s Story

February 21, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team4 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

HA note: This piece was originally written for Secular Woman’s “Sex Ed Conversations” series. It was published on their website on October 20, 2013 and is reprinted here with permission.

*****

I learned about sex because of a Boy Scout merit badge.

My older brother and I were on the way to a Boy Scouts meeting. My dad was nervous the whole time, seeming to stall until the last moment. I am not sure if this conversation would have ever happened naturally. But it did happen, if it only happened because it had to.

My brother and I were working to get our Family Life merit badge in Boy Scouts. Part of earning that badge was learning about sex. Someone had to give us “The Talk,” and — since our Boy Scout troop was a primarily Christian homeschool troop — that responsibility fell on our father. To learn about sex from anyone other than one’s parents was a cardinal sin in my Christian homeschool culture.

Most of the drive was awkward, because we knew we were about to get The Talk. I do not think The Talk necessarily has to be awkward, but it was for our dad. You could feel it in the air. As a result, The Talk really materialized on the 15-minute drive. Never, that is, until we pulled into the parking lot of the rundown Baptist church where our troop met. Then it was do or die time, and my dad gave us a quick summary of lovemarriagepenisvaginababy. Boom.

That was the extent of my Christian homeschool sex education growing up. It lasted less than five minutes.

I grew up in an almost alternate universe, where courtship methods of the Victorian era were popular and no one spoke of sex except in hushed or negative tones. Sex to Christian homeschoolers was like Voldemort to wizards — That Which Shall Not Be Named. I attended “purity” seminars at which homeschool celebrities like Josh Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, urged audiences of horny teenagers to focus on God and flee that nebulous human demon called Lust.

In that universe, “abstinence only” was not an abstract concept but a concrete reality. I never learned about condoms, or how to use them. I never learned about STDs. As a male, I never learned about menstruation. That was a taboo topic; my parents referred to it as “that time of month” and all I knew was that it was something embarrassing and icky that only women talk about and men just need to know to avoid women during that time.

When I hear people arguing for abstinence-only education these days I cringe. I want to shout at the top of my lungs, “You don’t really want that!” I know what that education looks like because that is the education I received. It was a sham to even call it “education.” It was rather an absence of education. The so-called “abstinence” was an abstinence of knowledge about biology and empowerment about consent.

It did not help me in even a single way.

It did not discourage me from eventually having premarital sex. All it did was make me utterly ignorant of the reality of sex. It did not keep me from so-called sexual immorality. It made me incapable of acknowledging and processing my own experience of sexual abuse as a child.

As I have grown older, and both shared my story as well as heard other stories of former homeschool kids, there are so many similarities between our experiences. Sex felt like something dirty and secretive and repressed up until one’s wedding day, and then magically it was supposed transform into something holy and beautiful and celebrated. Sex was something only men wanted, that was given by women in exchange for love. (I am aware now, too, that this harmful stereotype transcends Christianity and homeschooling.) Men were incapable of controlling their physical desires, always on the brink of the sexual sin of lust. So much so, that women had to carefully don the most modest of clothing to avoid causing men to “stumble.” Men were also only attracted to women and women to men, thereby precluding any conversation about the existence of LGBT* individuals.

And foremost of all: sex education, that insidious tool of the evil secularists and humanists, was a weapon of Satan. It was described in classic misogynistic terms: a “temptress,” a “whore of Babylon,” hired by the Prince of Darkness to lead public schoolers astray. Us homeschoolers, God bless us, we were spared that temptation, as our parents took it upon themselves to raise us righteously, without sex education and its spurious ways.

But dreams run red lights and crash into the curbs of reality awfully hard.

As I hear more and more from former homeschoolers, I hear the same things I myself experienced: that what we were “spared from,” what we were “blessed” to avoid, could have really helped us. No matter how hard our parents tried to keep us unstained from “the world,” the world happened. We grew up. We made mistakes, got drunk, did drugs, made out, had sex; some of us were sexually abused and raped — all the things that happen outside of Christian homeschooling, too. The only difference is we had zero tools to process those things.

It is because of my very experience as a Christian homeschool kid that I am an advocate for comprehensive sex education.

I believe in comprehensive sex education because all people have the right to be empowered. I believe in comprehensive sex education because it is vitally important to know your body, respect your body and other people’s bodies, and understand how to stand up against those people who both want you ignorant of your body and aim to disrespect your body.

Depriving children of that knowledge, for whatever ridiculous religious reasons, is nothing less than educational abuse. It is not pleasing to God or god or anything that is allegedly holy. Ignorance is a unholy prison. Forced ignorance is one of the most soul-crushing experiences one can have.

Children need to be educated about their bodies because that is how children learn how to respect and love them and each other’s.

Children need to be educated about sexuality because sexuality is a fundamentally important part of being human.

Children need to be educated about consent because rape and sexual abuse happen in every community and every culture and you are living in a daydream if you think it will not happen in yours.

The more I learn about the universality of body-shaming, rape culture, and abuse, and the more I hear about how these things happen every day in Christian churches and conservative homeschooling communities, the more I see why sex ed is an absolute must. When we are afraid of sexuality, when we are afraid to talk bluntly and honestly and openly about our bodies and our emotions, we are giving power to those who want to take advantage of our ignorance and our silence. When we are blinded by our ideologies and unwilling to see every human being as worthy of respect and safety, we are giving power to those people advancing shame and bigotry. When we are afraid to name That Which Shall Not Be Named and speak about it plainly, we are only adding to the power of those in our communities — homeschooling, Christian, secular, and otherwise — who will abuse it.

I wish I knew about sex from something other than abuse. But my parents and my homeschooling community could not have changed that, no matter how much they wish they could.

Yet I also wish I knew how to talk about sex from something other than a Boy Scout merit badge. And that is something that my parents and my community could have done differently.

I have spent the last decade catching up on what I missed, on the lessons I never learned. It can be an awfully embarrassing process, but it is a necessary one.

The Invisible B: Faith Beauchemin’s Story

February 20, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Faith Beauchemin’s blog Roses and Revolutionaries. It was originally published on February 2, 2014.

*****

Being bisexual is freedom, and it is invisibility.

I flip-flop between calling myself bisexual and pansexual. Bi is the word everyone knows. Pansexual doesn’t leave anyone out. And you see, I don’t care what your gender or lack thereof is. I’m attracted to people, not genders or genitals.

That doesn’t mean I’m attracted to every single person. It doesn’t mean I have crushes on everyone I hang out with. It doesn’t mean I’ll go home with just anyone. All it means is that I could potentially be with a person who lies anywhere on or off the gender spectrum.

To be quite honest, I didn’t know pansexuality even existed up until very recently. When I was a fundamentalist, the “being gay is a choice” narrative sort of made sense to me. I mean, everyone had the ability to be attracted to everyone, right? I read a Christian modesty book which claimed that everyone is “drawn to the female form” because it is just objectively beautiful. So I figured I must be straight because I knew I was in fact attracted to men, and any pleasure I found in female beauty was artistic, it had nothing at all to do with sexuality. Besides, all the Christian dating books had a tiny appendix tucked in the back that warned of the dangers of predatory college lesbians. So, I knew lesbianism existed but all of my associations were totally negative.

Even when I was less naïve, even when I started thinking people were born homosexual and that most gays and lesbians (like most straight people) were not predators, I still didn’t realize that bisexuality actually existed. “Bicurious” was a term I was aware of, but I thought it was a descriptor of an in-between phase, a transition between heterosexuality and homosexuality. So therefore, since I was definitely attracted to men, I couldn’t possibly be a lesbian. Simple as that. There was no other option. Monosexism was all I knew.

And that is what I mean when I say bisexuality is invisibility.

We get erased a lot. The biggest problem is what I term “Schrodinger’s bisexual” which is that a person is perceived as either straight or gay depending on who they’re in a relationship with. I’m dating a man right now, therefore everybody assumes I’m straight. You can’t typically determine bisexuality by just one interaction with a person, by one specific point in time. It doesn’t help that a lot of people talk about bisexuals as though they are “switching” between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Of course as a woman especially I am sometimes permitted the total opposite of erasure, and that is performance. Men like the idea of a bisexual woman because their first thought is often of having a threeway. One night in a bar, a girl kissed me, and immediately a man walked up from across the room and said, “Mind if I join in?” Visions of a porn-worthy fuckfest dancing in his head, no doubt. Later, I tried to say something to a friend about how frustrating it is that no one thinks you’re bi unless you’ve actually had a homosexual experience, and he just jokingly spun a scenario where I and another woman would have sex and he would film it.

This goes back to the overarching issue of female sexuality being owned by men. If we are not having sex with them, we must at least be performing for their gaze. That’s why most threesome porn is FFM. That’s why a lot of men think that bisexual women exist to have threesomes with them, and that lesbian women could be “cured” by their magical dicks. And that is all such bullshit. My sexuality, whatever it is, is mine.

But the seemingly fluid pansexual approach is in fact deemed everybody’s property. More than anyone else’s, my sort of sexuality is approached with doubt. Everyone makes assumptions and gets to speculate about the causes and motivations behind my sexuality (no, I am not just “greedy” and I am not going to try to fuck you. No I am not disease-ridden or commitment-phobic. No I’m not going to cheat on my partner).

It’s a reminder to everyone of how truly queer-phobic our society still is.

We’ll (grudgingly, gradually) accept gay people as long as they want to be just like straight people. We might potentially on a good day accept one or two trans people, as long as they have had whatever surgery we deem “necessary” for them to pass as cis. But anyone who is genderqueer, agender, or pansexual is met with flat-out denial of their self-identification. “You’re lying.” “You’re confused.” “You just want attention.”

Do I though? No more than anyone else. I hate the fact that being honest about myself means I’ll get extra attention. But we haven’t reached a truly all-point-on-the-spectrum accepting utopia yet. In fact we’re pretty far from it.

So what’s it like being pansexual?

I’m not exactly sure. I’ve never been anything else. What’s sexuality like for all of you out there who are monosexual?

It was truly liberating, though, admitting it to myself. It was truly liberating learning that pansexuality exists. I used to fight my attraction to women, not so much because I thought it was “sinful” (because yes the story of my sexuality is also concurrent, though not especially related, to my deconversion) as because I thought if I gave in to it I would have to get rid of my attraction to men.

When I understood that it is possible, acceptable, and even (for me) normal to be attracted to all types of people, it came as a great relief.

For the first time, I was no longer trying to fit my sexuality into any mold that society had built for it. I could like what and who I liked, without feeling guilty or needing to repress anything.

Due to circumstances and the timing of me finally coming out to myself, I have never had sex with anyone but men. It’s not really a point of bitterness for me, I don’t have to experience sex with all types of people to know my orientation (much like virgins often know their own orientations before ever having sex of any kind). Right now I’m happily in a relationship and I don’t see that changing any time soon. If I die never having had sex with anyone but men, I won’t feel like I was robbed, and I will still be pansexual.

Of course there is a lot of work to be done, to make this world a better and more accepting place for those who are not heterosexual or cisgender. But “they” are right: coming out is the first step. Coming out to yourself, to embrace freedom, and coming out to everyone else, to combat invisibility.

This is me taking that first step.

*****

Faith has an open call for stories on Roses and Revolutionaries for individuals that do not fit in the gay/straight binary. If you are interested in participating in that series, read more here.

The Styrofoam Cup: Sam Neely’s Story

February 20, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Author note: Sam Neely blogs at Yes We Sam!

*****

It was just a Styrofoam cup. But the man said to examine it, so I did.

I was fifteen years old, and was sitting in a classroom at the church building where my homeschool umbrella met. I passed the cup to the next guy in the line. I don’t remember who it was, but we had been segregated, boys and girls, so I know it was a guy.

I don’t remember who this teacher was either. He was an older gentleman, bearded, husky. He wasn’t the parent of one of my friends, like most of my teachers were… he was a guest.

The Styrofoam cup had made its way down the line, and the instructor held it up to us again.

“It looks normal, right?” he asked. We agreed, yes it did. Then he poured water from a pitcher into the cup. The water leaked out the bottoms and sides of the cup.

“Just because something appears sturdy,” he said, “doesn’t mean that it is.”

The message was clear: condoms have holes in them. Never mind that the difference in material between Styrofoam and latex makes the analogy useless. Never mind that the only reason the cup he used in his example only had holes because he put them there and intentionally made them undetectable. No, the point of the illustration was that protection doesn’t exist.

Another illustration used by this lecturer involved a gun. He brought a printout of a handgun as an illustration of “A good thing that can sometimes be used for bad”. Like sex, he said.

But why did his illustration have to be a gun? This was less than a month after the shootings at Columbine High School. (I remember this, because he said that was why he only brought a picture of a gun, instead of the real thing).

After his presentation, we traded places with the girls, and they presumably sat through the same collection of demonstrations. We had another lecturer, I believe she was a former nurse, show us a slide show of graphic STD photographs.

The message was clear: Don’t have sex.

So why does this bother me? I got this message all the time — at home, at church, even in a series of public service announcements on television. Why did it bother me here?

Because this was science class.

The biology class at my homeschool co-op divided the A Beka textbook into the systems of the human body, focusing on one at a time, but the course did not cover the chapter on the reproductive system. Instead, we had an optional (parental permission required) course called “Crossroads” where we were supposed to learn about sex. I signed up for it, assuming it would be the science that was left out of the curriculum.

But it wasn’t…

It was just the “don’t do it” lectures, with scare tactics and manipulation.

*****

I’ve spent the last five days trying to expand this story into a deeper post. I’ve tried to tell stories of my sexual history, and how it was painted by certain experiences, how many of them come from purity culture, and how many simply come from my own bad luck, but the thoughts are too jumbled, and everything is too complicated. Instead, I’m left only with this anecdote.

It says nothing, and it says everything.

It is one of the funniest stories I tell.

It is also one of the saddest.

Owning My Sexuality: Sherah’s Story

February 19, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Sherah” is a pseudonym.

*****

When I was 26, I learned something that changed my life.

I am a sexual being.

I have sexual energy available to me to help me grow up. There is hope right inside me that I won’t always feel like a mere child, that I will be able to grow up and be an adult. I learned that every culture has ways of communicating about sexuality and that I can use the choices I make about dress, makeup, hairstyle, jewelry and accessories to communicate about where I am in my growing up process and who I see myself to be.

This may sound really basic and you might wonder how on earth I had missed these ideas. To give you some background, I am the second oldest of twelve children, homeschooled K-12, and I never had any sex education. This is not to say that my parents hid the facts about reproduction from me. With ten younger siblings, my experience of family life was constantly shaped by pregnancy and birth. Plus, I got the facts about things at the cellular level from my biology textbook.

But what I just didn’t get was the distinction between sexuality and sexual behavior.

Because I was taught that sex was for married people only, and because I was trying so hard to be a good little Christian and perfectly follow all the rules, I thought I had to be a non-sexual person. It never occurred to me that I was trying to be something that doesn’t exist. It never occurred to me that I had to split off a part of myself and numb it into oblivion to achieve my unrealistic goal. I’m not at all sorry that I failed in this endeavor. What scares me to this day is how much I succeeded in suppressing my normal impulses to explore and learn and grow and express myself and how much I succeeded in freezing up my own energy until I literally felt dead inside and wondered if I would ever feel alive again.

Knock, knock, is there anybody home in my own body?

Back when I thought I had to reject and separate myself from everything sexual, I carried a lot of tension in my body, flattening my chest, holding in my tummy and keeping my legs together because I didn’t think it was okay for me to grow up and be a woman and have all the parts and feelings that other women have. I used to feel that sex was some kind of monster that would attack me if I ever left the house with my hair down. I used to be paranoid about avoiding any expression of sexuality by anyone around me for fear of contamination.

Now that I own my own sexuality, I know that I have the right to set my own boundaries and make my own choices about what to do with my body and my energy. I can dress, and fix my hair and even carry my body in ways that express who I am and how I see myself as a woman. I can breathe deeply without worrying that my tummy will stick out and I will look like a pregnant lady.

Owning my sexuality doesn’t mean that I have to engage in any sexual behavior. I actually feel much stronger now about my right to make my own choices and say no to anything I don’t want.

But I don’t have to control or avoid anyone else’s sexuality.

It is okay for other people to dress in ways that express who they are or want to be. I don’t have to judge others’ decisions to engage in sexual behavior if they want to do that. Because I have my own boundaries, it doesn’t have to affect me. Plus, I feel more reverence and respect for everyone’s sexuality, including my own, and I feel more hopeful about the possibilities of using my sexuality as a creative, life-giving and life-enhancing force, whether I choose to be in a relationship, to have children and/or to put my energy into some project to improve the world for future generations.

P.S. Now that I’ve undertaken the task of giving myself a real sex education and getting all of my questions answered, I’m realizing the multiple ways that a simplistic rule such as ‘just wait until you’re married to deal with the whole category of sex’, can be damaging. First, it can cause a person to disown their sexuality, leave their personality drastically underdeveloped and repress their instincts and desire to become an adult. But secondly, sexual behavior includes such a broad range of behaviors that for two people to commit to a lifelong sexual relationship with each other without taking the time to find out something about each other’s unique and individual sexual preferences seems very imprudent to me.

Would I commit to a career as a pilot if I had never flown in an aircraft? Certainly not!

So why should I be expected to commit to a lifelong sexual relationship with someone without first trying at least a few sexual behaviors such as kissing and making out.

I take marriage seriously, which is why I want to know what I’m getting into.

Here There Be Dragons: St. George’s Story

February 19, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team9 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “St. George” is a pseudonym.

*****

My youth pastor once told me the story of how his parents gave him “The Talk”. You know the one I mean. Apparently, his mother walked into the room and said, out of the blue and with no prologue, “Gary, soon you’re going to have certain feelings about girls. Just make sure you don’t get it in her.” She then exited the room, leaving Gary hopelessly confused.

Sometimes, I envy him. He received better instruction than I did.

You see, my parents didn’t talk to me about sex at all. I mean I suppose it was a more open subject in our family than in some. But I never received anything even remotely resembling “The Talk”.

Instead, we got the internet. I don’t know if the two were related in my parents’ minds or not. Probably not.

So there I was. Little guy, totally lost in the woods of human sexuality, not a clue how the trees grow in that forest, but absolutely sure that there must be an explanation.

For a long time, I thought that the phrase “sleeping together” was to be taken literally. I had cunningly deduced that pregnancy occurred when a man and a woman slept in the same bed at the same time. This explained why those people on TV always seemed to be acting so enthusiastic and yet secretive about what I assumed were romantic activities — after all, it must be difficult to find time to fall asleep together for several hours and not get woken up.

I remember a family vacation from around that time in my life. The entire family was sharing one hotel room to save money, and it was determined that I would share a bed with my two sisters. I was terrified, and after I was sure my parents were asleep, I slipped out of bed and slept on the floor that night. I couldn’t imagine what kind of sick bastards my parents must be for thinking I was ready to be a father, and with my own sisters no less.

Eventually, as no further sign of my parents’ mental illness emerged, I reasoned that I must not have figured out all the details on this “sex” thing everyone seemed so keen on.

The game was afoot once more.

By this time, my powers of deduction had begun to emerge. I had heard it rumored that men and women were “different”. This much seemed obvious; obviously, women had longer hair. As I thought more about this, however, I realized that my aunt had very short hair. There must be more, I thought.

If I hadn’t noticed any other significant difference, then the difference must be on a part of the body that was hidden. From there, I made the necessary deductions rather quickly. It’s all a matter of engineering, and I’d played that peg game at Cracker Barrel before. Of course, now I understand that these deductions were guided by instinct as well, but it certainly felt as though I were performing some sort of arcane conjecture, a modern alchemist speculating on the very meaning and nature of life itself.

But how to confirm my theories? This was what troubled me. Then, I remembered: the internet. That tool for finding animated Pokemon cursors, for downloading favorite sound clips from Star Wars and M*A*S*H? Perhaps it could help me in this matter.

And that is how I came to Ask Jeeves: “sex?”

It wasn’t a real question, but it was enough to point Jeeves in the right direction. As he retrieved resources to educate me, my heart started to beat faster. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but suddenly I realized that I was probably doing something that would displease my parents.

Ever have quests for knowledge been so opposed by those in authority. Like any true scientist, I remained resolute in curiosity and jumpy in disposition, listening for the sound of my mother returning from…actually, I have no idea where she was.

But she stayed there, as Jeeves began to educate me. It wasn’t enough, he was using big words. I needed something more instructive. Like a video.

Jeeves! “sex video?”

Now, Jeeves was asking me lots of strange questions. “Asians”? Why, does it work different in Asia? I want to know how it works in America first, we can start cross-cultural studies later, Jeeves. Something about pictures of money. I wasn’t interested in that; I knew what money looked like. “Amateurs”? No, I wanted an expert to teach me about this stuff.

Eventually, God only knows how, I actually got to a video. On a dial-up connection. Yeah. You can be impressed at my tenacity now. I’ll wait.

I honestly don’t remember what sort of video it was. With what I know now, it’s a miracle I didn’t pick up some very strange ideas about sexuality that day.

Regardless, my suspicions were confirmed. I knew How It Worked now. My afternoon then proceeded much as usual, with Pokemon and the Legend of Zelda. Somehow, I had the presence of mind and tech savvy to clear the browsing history. As far as I know, my parents never discovered what had happened. They certainly never mentioned it to me. It certainly no longer mattered to me — the mystery had been solved, it was time to move on.

Unfortunately, I developed into a very insecure person, for reasons that had nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with…well, with me. I’m just that way.

The point is that even today, because I was never “formally educated” in matters of sexuality, there persists a lingering doubt in the back of my mind. That is, I doubt my knowledge of sexuality and sexual behavior. Like, what if there are dragons involved? There could be dragons involved.

I don’t think there are dragons involved.

But then again, nobody experienced in such things has ever explicitly told me that there are never any dragons involved. What if I’m, like, with my wife someday and we’re all like happy times but then a dragon bursts through the wall all like RAWR!!! and my wife is all kill it using the ancient secret method and I’m like fuck fuck fuck what the fuck is the ancient secret method how do I even?

(These aren’t rational fears. I get that.)

When I’m able to take a step back from my anxieties, to examine my thoughts rationally, I’m actually not worried about dragons or anything so fanciful. But I don’t like to approach anything serious without what I feel is an adequate explanation of what to expect. I get the same sort of fears about paying my taxes, or taking a required drug test, or applying for a job.

My point is, talk to your kids about sex. Also, talk to your kids about dragons. But mainly the sex thing.

Please.

Growing up is a process fraught with insecurities and fears already, without worrying about things like whether it’s possible to accidentally commit incest.

Maybe you can’t talk to your kids about sex. Maybe you just don’t know how to have that conversation, or perhaps (like me!) you’re too insecure in your own perception of sexuality and sexual issues to address your child’s questions in a helpful and reassuring way. In that case, consider trusting someone else with the responsibility – a family member, perhaps. Someone trustworthy.

Just get it done.

That way, when your kid grows up and hears he needs to “bring protection”, he’ll grab some condoms instead of a sword and shield.

Dear Michael Farris, Sexual Abuse Isn’t a “Basic Strength” That “Can Get Out of Control”

February 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team22 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

*****

“You have planted wickedness and harvested a thriving crop of sins. You have eaten the fruit of lies — trusting in your own way, believing that your great armies could make your nation safe.”
~ Hosea 10:13

*****

On Sunday, HSLDA’s Michael Farris made his first public statement on the recent controversies surrounding Doug Phillips’s clergy sexual abuse and Bill Gothard’s sexual child abuse.

Take a look:

I continue to hear distressing news about the moral conduct of Christian leaders and speakers some of whom were/are popular in the homeschooling movement. Of course, anyone can sin–including me. But I cannot be so gracious about protracted patterns of sin that reveal a deep hypocrisy.

From my own observation there is a central problem that often accompanies these kinds of failures. All leaders have to have a certain amount of ego strength to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of the naysayers who attack anyone who attempts to lead. But, that basic strength can get out of control. Consider it a danger sign when the leader never shares the spotlight with other leaders in the organization. Consider it another danger sign when the leader does not have anyone in his organization with both the power and the character to tell him “no” at times.

Mike Smith has been at my side at HSLDA from the beginning and he now leads the organization day to day. Chris Klicka was a significant part of our leadership team for many years as well. And I guarantee you that both Mike Smith and the HSLDA board tell me “no” on semi-regular occasions.

I am also reminded of the statement of Dick Armey when he was asked what his wife would say if he was caught in an affair like Bill Clinton. He said, “She would say ‘how do I reload this thing?’ as I lay there in a pool of blood.”

Having a wife who is a good shot is also a great asset.

(Farris’s statement is archived on HA as a PDF here and a PNG here.)

Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s review what exactly the “distressing news” is concerning individuals who “were/are popular in the homeschooling movement”:

While in a position of hegemonic spiritual leadership, Doug Phillips pursued a sexual relationship with a young woman who worked for him and was under his authority. This is clergy sexual abuse.

Bill Gothard has sexually harassed and molested over 30 young woman, including children, for decades. He personally admitted “defrauding” young women decades ago. This is child sexual abuse.

Taking advantage of, harassing, and/or molesting children and young adult women isn’t simply “sin” or “hypocrisy” which “anyone” can fall into. Taking advantage of, harassing, and/or molesting children and young adult women is criminal behavior. It is sexual abuse, plain and simply. This isn’t a question of people’s fallibility; it isn’t a question of “ego strength,” unless you somehow believe leaders are innately abusers.

And it sure as hell isn’t a question of “basic strengths.” Sexual abuse isn’t a “basic strength” that “can get out of control.” It’s not something that comes from “too much of a good thing.” Michael Farris’s attempts to spin these situations away from criminal activity and into the realm of “we’ve all fallen short” is self-serving, inexcusable, and horrifying. It is yet another example that he is in denial about abuse within the movement he himself helped to build.

Making this statement of his even more ironic and tragic is that a mere day later after Farris praised himself for accountability and looked down on other leaders for not taking “protected patterns of sin” seriously — just one day later — the New Republic released a devastating look at how Patrick Henry College has handled sexual assault cases on its campus, entitled “Sexual Assault at Patrick Henry College, God’s Harvard.”

The basic premise?

Patrick Henry College, which Michael Farris founded and is currently the Chancellor of, does not take protracted patterns of sexual assault seriously.

Patrick Henry College has ignored, minimized, and threatened abuse survivors and people standing up for them. Just like Doug Phillips and Vision Forum. Just like Bill Gothard and IBLP.

And yet Farris still has the gall to praise himself for treating “protracted patterns” differently.

The hypocrisy did not go unnoticed. Homeschool alumni took to Farris’s page to call him out for making such a statement about Phillips and Gothard right when the story about PHC was coming out. Farris’s response was predictable, considering it was completely deja vu from HSLDA’s handling of the #HSLDAMustCampaign: he quickly deleted the evidence of his original statement (which, again, HA archived as a PDF here and a PNG here), deleted comment after comment after comment after comment by homeschool alumni, and blocked homeschool alumni from his public page.

Honestly, Michael Farris has run out of time to play these games.

He has spent decades ignoring the growing, obvious, and publicly verified problems — and what did he do? He remained silent. He has never publicly condemned the abusive teachings of Doug Phillips. He has never publicly condemned the soul-crushing system of Bill Gothard’s ATI. (In fact, he himself brought Inge ATI’s Inge Cannon to HSLDA and HSLDA continues to feature Gothard’s homeschool curriculum on its website.) He has refused to this day to acknowledge the concerns of homeschool alumni and parents that homeschool communities need to take abuse more seriously specifically because of reasons like this.

And when when he finally breaks his silence, it is with this? Yet another attempt to sweep everything under the rug by saying these abusers were just “too strong” for their own good, that praise God he has two (?) people at HSLDA who stand up to him (but one is deceased?), and then he closes with a joke about domestic homicide?

Not once, not even once, does he say, “What these men did was abuse, and it was wrong, and we as a community need to take abuse seriously.”

Not. Once.

Not once does he say, “I am sorry that I gave platforms to and partnered with these individuals that have caused so much pain for so many people.” Instead it’s “basic strengths” that “got out of control” and basically people should be more like him or lol their wives will shoot them.

Even with this short-lived statement, Michael Farris still refused to call these men out by name. He was still afraid to directly criticize Bill Gothard. He is still hiding.

Homeschooled children deserve better from you, Michael.

If you continue to refuse to call abuse abuse, you’re contributing to the exact same culture of silence from which Phillips and Gothard fed — the exact same culture of silence that you intimately built and continue to defend.

The Secrets of the Birds and Bees: Iris Rosenthal’s Story

February 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Iris Rosenthal” is a pseudonym. Iris Rosenthal blogs at The Spiritual Llama. This story is reprinted with her permission. Also by Iris on HA: “Confessions of a Homeschooler,” Part One and Part Two.

*****

When I was ten years old I saw blood in the toilet after I finished using the bathroom. Freaked out and thinking that I was dying, I ran and told my mom that there was blood in the toilet when I went pee.

She asked me if I was sure and said that it might be from her and she forgot to flush the toilet. I was then told to take a clean piece of toilet paper and check to see which hole the blood was coming from, if any. Then she proceeded to tell me that if the blood was coming from my poop hole I would need to go to the hospital, if it was coming from my vagina then she would need to have a talk with me, and if there wasn’t any blood then she just forgot to flush the toilet.

So I went to the bathroom to check and discovered that I wasn’t bleeding at all. Relieved that I didn’t have to go to the hospital and that I wasn’t going to die but still very curious what the talk would be about, I decided to fake my period. I picked a scab on my leg to make it bleed on the toilet paper and told my mom that it was coming from my vagina.

She then sent my siblings out of the room, turned the lights down and sat me down on the couch with her.

At this point I thought I was in deep, deep trouble (and so did my siblings, because there was no sign of them lurking about).

Then my mom started explaining the bleeding. She told me that what I had experienced was my first period, I would get them every month for seven days, and that meant that I could have babies now.

At that point I was wondering what my deception had gotten me into, and decided that I didn’t ever want to get old if bleeding every month was considered normal.

The next day she gave me a book called Preparing for Adolescence by Dr. James Dobson. She told me to mark down on notebook paper how long I was reading and what chapters, so it would count as my Health subject.

The only thing I remember from that book (besides it being boring) was that I finally learned what masturbation was. That thing I did where I would touch myself finally had a name.

I would fake a period every month so that I wouldn’t get in trouble.

I didn’t get my first real period until I was 13. Even then I wasn’t any more ready for it than I was when I was ten. There was so much blood, I always felt angry all the time and my stomach would hurt.

I would get in trouble with my mom for “being in a bad mood” even if I tried to tell her that I was on my period. Apparently that was no excuse and since I was a Christian I had to always be in a good mood. “A crabby Christian is an oxymoron.” She would say.

One day I started my period at homeschool co-op, I didn’t have any pads with me but there was a basket of tampons on the back of the toilet. It took a few tampons for me to figure out how it worked, but I was finally successful… Or so I thought.

After co-op I went to my riding lesson, and an hour later I was very sore. I almost couldn’t get the tampon out and started freaking out thinking that it was stuck. Thankfully I was finally able to get it out and wadded up some toilet tissue so that I wouldn’t bleed all over the place.

I was never really told how sex worked, so I had to figure it out on my own. Living on a farm I watched the animals and from there was able to get a better idea. But it wasn’t until I read a book on Native American folklore that I got a clear picture of how sex worked for humans.

When I moved out I did a ton of internet searches and then I had information overload.

After all, you can only learn so much from watching a goat.

Like Acid on Skin: Myra’s Story

February 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Myra” is a pseudonym.

Trigger warnings: the following story contains descriptions of physical and sexual abuse of a child.

*****

Perhaps this is just for me, for me to finally put into words the terrible pain in my heart, which seems to slowly eat away at life like acid on skin. Sexual education.

I received none as a child, absolutely none.

The following story might be confusing in places because I have recently been told I suffer from PTSD and DID, or dissociative identity disorder. Large portions of my childhood are missing, confused, or simply changed. Only recently has the truth been resurfacing in my mind.

I was homeschooled my entire life growing up, and my family was the homeschooling family to be in our area.

My mother kept a computer in the house that was password protected and we were never allowed to use it unless we were typing. I found her password book one day tucked under her mattress when I was cleaning the house. When I was a teenager I snuck out of my room in the middle of the night and I searched sex, rape, and pornography on the World Wide Web. They were all terms I had heard before, mostly associated with evil and the world going to the devil at church.

Needless to say I got a first-hand pseudo sex education from the porn industry. And I was hooked. I spent every night on that computer watching pornography in a trance. I realized, eventually, that I had been masturbating since before I could remember as a self-soothing mechanism when I was spanked. I also realized that my father touched me after beating me (it was called spanking but I was always left with bruises from the middle of my back to my knees) to make me stop crying.

I had my first orgasm as a small child with my father.

Frankly, the experience was beyond confusing. The actual experience with him was pleasurable not painful at all, but it forever associated being beaten with sex for me. And obviously, I was being molested even thought I did not know it. I honestly thought it was how people were supposed to comfort their children. The intense shame and regret I felt as a teenager immediately caused me to dissociate the memory and place it in my mind in a place that was carefully guarded.

I do not know how long this abuse continued or when it started. There are other elements of the abuse that I have recently remembered but are too fresh, raw, and frankly too explicit to detail.

My mother spanked me between the legs whenever she caught me masturbating. When I was almost a teenager I was raped by a family friend.

Today I am left with a confusing mixture of sexual issues. I have a hard time not associating sex with punishment. I have a hard time not seeing sex as something used to make someone feel better, basically, used as a commodity, I have a hard time associating intimacy with sexual action.

Having any sort of sexual education might have helped me see that I was being taken advantage of by the people who were supposed to care for me. Perhaps it would not have, I honestly do not know. I do know that it could have saved me from a life long struggle with pornography addiction.

I hear others talking about how wonderful, intimate and generally fireworkery, sex is.

I wish that had not been taken from me.

I wish I had not been so isolated. I wish I had been told more about sex.

My Changing Body, My Changing Mind: Abishai’s Story

February 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Abishai” is a pseudonym.

*****

“No way, they don’t get naked! A baby is made when a Mom and Dad pray for it.”

In spite of the neighborhood kids’ efforts, I tried so hard to defend what I’d been taught. Their version of making babies by getting naked would mean three things:

1. My parents had lied to me.

2. The public school kids had been taught correctly.

3. The jumper-wearing moms in our homeschool group were doing things (naked things!) with the stern dads.

I think I somehow made it to about ten or eleven years old when my mom finally had to sit down and have her version of “the talk” with me.

It wasn’t really informative though, at least not in the way I needed it to be. She had purchased a typical Your Changing Body book through one of the homeschool book catalogs. I learned about periods and that my hips would get wider and that I should be glad I’m not a boy because they have something called wet dreams. Then came the sex part – the extent of which was that a married couple would get naked, move around, and it would be emotionally fulfilling for the wife and sexually fulfilling for the husband. She would become pregnant. The end.

As I grew older and heard more things, the info from my Mom was pretty… uninformative. Birth control and condoms were things that irresponsible people used when they were sleeping around. Those methods always failed, and because the type of people who have sex before marriage are selfish, they will inevitably have an abortion once they get knocked up… if they don’t die of an STD first. Sometimes people are confused and dress like the opposite sex – we should pity them for being so conflicted. Gay people? They choose to be that way and they have an agenda!! Oh the agenda!! Seduce the kids and make everyone gay. They will also all get AIDS. Men look lustfully at women, and as a woman I should dress in such a way so that I don’t lead them astray. God-forbid they should be in control of themselves and their thoughts.

Girls at church wearing low tops or short skirts were always referred to as sluts.

It’s hard, twenty years later, to look back at all of this and laugh about it as a coping mechanism. I can’t, it’s still too painful. I can also see now that I was very interested in sex from a really young age. Yet I was taught to feel ashamed of those feelings.

I knew that the craziest things would give me that “funny feeling down there” and I was pretty sure that in addition to liking boys… I also liked girls. Yet, I knew that not only was I suppose to not be boy-crazy (though I should pray for my future husband!) but any feelings for females meant that I was confused, and was as bad as those “dykes” who were the butt of many of my Mom’s jokes.

Oddly enough, it was those early days of AOL, it’s Instant Messenger and the chat rooms that came with it that were my sanity and my education. When I was about 16 I finally had found a place to find answers to my questions. I was able to engage in a really colorful online life where I could be myself but not have to take any risks – which was especially important given how very naive I was. It was a perfect way for someone like me to finally figure out who I was.

Now, at 30, I harbor a lot of resentment for the limited information I was given. I’m now in year seven of a happy, monogamous, kinky relationship. To my parent’s dismay, we live in sin. To my dismay, nearly all of my friends who quickly got married out of high school like they were supposed to, are now divorced or separated.

A few of my younger siblings are now married; each got married very young, to their first loves. Their speedy relationships were grounded in purity and of course won my parents’ approval. Meanwhile, I’m still told that this cow is giving her milk away for free.

Some things will never change…

None Dare Call It Education: Anna’s Story

February 17, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team9 Comments

Series disclaimer: HA’s “Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed)” series contains frank, honest, and uncensored conversations about sexuality and sex education. It is intended for mature audiences.

*****

Hello, my name is Anna.

Like many who write stories for Homeschoolers Anonymous I grew up in a legalistic, controlling, and abusive homeschooling Christian household. When I saw that Homeschoolers Anonymous would be posting a series on sex education I knew I had to write something. My story may be appalling to some, but to others I know it will sound all too familiar. I hope that my story will give you insight and encouragement, and I thank you for taking the time to read it.

My sexual education was completely nonexistent.

I remember that there was a book on one of the living-room bookshelves entitled “Preparing For Adolescence.” I don’t know if the book was intended to prepare parents or children, but neither my parents nor I ever read that book. At 11 and 12 years of age I had long since learned to be ashamed and scared of my body; the lectures on modesty and roles of women had made sure of that.

When my body started changing I didn’t know what was going on, but I stayed silent. My parents were not people I could go to with my fears and questions. My period started without me ever having heard the word before. I had no clue what was happening, and it was probably the most horrifying experience of my life. Again, freaked out as I was, I didn’t tell a soul. My mom noticed the blood when doing laundry weeks later, and she had the only “talk” she ever had with me. Her little discourse included only what do about the “problem” and nothing else.

I got the message: another female attribute to be hidden and feared.

Because my mom seemed oblivious to my needs, my older sister gave me her old bra and bought me my first razor and deodorant, and even these items I felt the need to hide. I was always too scared and shy to ask my mom to buy me anything of an intimate nature. I would use the same razor and wear the same bra for years at a time. My fears were somewhat justified; I remember the time that my mom found a receipt for tampons in my purse and asked me severely if I had bought some. I panicked, lied, and said that I had accidentally picked up someone else’s receipt.

Mom let me know that tampons were strictly off limits.

Throughout my teenage years I gained knowledge about sex years by various covert means. I looked up words in dictionaries and read the books about pregnancy that I found on our bookshelves. I found some answers on the internet when I was able to use it without my mom monitoring me, but I always felt like I was doing something wrong. It wasn’t until I was 18 years old that I went on a research binge and learned the complete picture, including things I should have known much earlier, like the names for my own anatomy.

Though my parents never talked about sex directly, I picked up on their attitudes and beliefs, and sexual thoughts and questions were always accompanied by fear and shame. We were told to save our first our first kiss for our wedding day, that women should never make men “stumble” (I never even knew what that meant, hell, I still don’t know what it means), that dating was giving your heart away to strangers, that to Your Future Husband the most valuable thing about you was your virginity and your pure heart. A fear that consumed my life for years was how I would explain to My Future Husband that I masturbated (at the time I didn’t know the word). I knew he wouldn’t want me, and that it would always be my biggest secret.

I felt I wasn’t a virgin, I was sullied.

I was strange, surely no one else did this. Above all, I was letting God down. I began to lose my faith, because I knew I couldn’t think these thoughts and feel these feelings and still be a Christian. Almost the entirety of my teenage years was spent severely depressed and suicidal, and the overwhelming shame attached to my sexuality certainly contributed.

My mom once told me that when a woman looks at a person, she first looks at their face, but when a man looks at a person, he first looks at their crotch.

Hence, the need for women to wear skirts, (can’t let those men “stumble”). This lovely piece of wisdom made me feel even dirtier, because I began to realize how much I was noticing other people’s bodies. When I saw a person, my eyes would travel up and down their body and linger on their butt and (if a girl) her boobs.

I was clearly some sort of freak, only men were supposed to be this way.

Good grief, was I “stumbling?” I hated the girls I saw walking down the sidewalk in tight jeans. How could they flaunt themselves this way? And how could I help but stare? Deep down though, I envied them. When I was around 15 or 16 I was noticing women’s bodies more and more, and women began to enter my fantasies. In a year or two I was thinking about women in a sexual context just as much as I was thinking about men.

I now had another secret to keep, and this one was absolutely damning.

I heard the sermons and speeches; I read the blogs and articles; I listened to the conversations happening around me. Christians hated gay people. God hated gay people. I knew I could never admit my attraction to women and still be accepted by literally anyone I knew. It hurt me every time someone would talk about gay people as if they were evil beings bent on destroying everything good in America. They were a problem that needed to be fixed, and they were certainly not welcome in a church. I felt better because I knew I wasn’t completely gay; I was still attracted to boys. But then what was I? Where did I fit? Would I always be an outcast?

Today as I have left homeschooling physically as well as mentally, I finally have the freedom to discover and embrace the person that I am.

For the first time I am perfectly happy and confident in my sexuality. I am attracted to the entire range of sexes and gender expressions; masculine men and feminine men, femme women and butch women, androgynous and genderqueer men and women, and everything in between. Would I take a magic pill that could make me be attracted to only masculine men, one color in a whole rainbow? Fuck no! I love my orientation.

I don’t know if I believe in God, but if there is a God who made me, he made me the way I am and he doesn’t have a problem with it.

I have yet to tell my parents or anyone in my old homeschool circles about my more fluid sexuality. It’s really none of their business. But I feel the desire to throw it in their faces. I want to say, “Look at me! A real live non-straight person. Tell me to my face that I’m going to hell. Tell me that I am destroying the moral fabric of America. Fight to keep me from having the right to marry a woman if I wish. Shove a Bible in my face and lecture me about the morality of who I am. Give me pat answers and tell me to pray more. I’m a person, right in front of you, not an ideology or an obscure Bible verse. Do you want to cut all ties to me and keep me away from your children? Am I any different now than you always thought I was?”

But I know I can’t look back; I have to look forward. I can’t worry about how my old acquaintances might view me; I have to focus on making new friends. Vibrant, fun-loving, intelligent, creative, accepting and open people, like me.

As for what I wish to say to my mother, the cause of my thoroughly shitty childhood, “You told me what it meant to be a woman. You were dead wrong. You told me what my future would be. You were wrong. You told me what was right and how to please God. You were wrong. You told me who I had to be. You were wrong. You were wrong to deny me an education; never giving me basic information about my body and sex caused me a lot of pain for many years. You created an absolute hell and kept me prisoner there, but I have come out beautiful and strong. I am now one of those “femi-nazis’ that you spoke about with such derision. I will forever be exactly who I want to be and love who I want to love.

“I no longer follow any of your rules or subscribe to any of your ideologies, and I have never been happier.”

My sister has also written about her sexual education experience; the link to her story is here.