#yeah of course dating and marriage is basically the same amount of commitment in her mind

[rxttenfish]

"why did aaravi and miranda end up engaged after only two months of dating?" easy.

1. theyre uhaul lesbians.

2. look at these idiots and tell me either of them wouldnt get into a relationship knowing exactly what it is and where its going. aaravi would NOT date around on a whim, and miranda is already so focused on finding the perfect someone who is her true love. the second both of them think they've found someone for the long haul they're not changing their mind.

3. it took so long for them to realize they even had a crush on each other while it was so blatantly obvious that they basically were dating already.

4. also plot reasons but don't worry about them it comes up next chapter.

[siriusmydeer]

breakup with your girlfriend, i’m bored.

james potter x fem!reader, platonic!remus lupin x reader, james potter x lily evans

summary: james’ journey onto finding love; just not with you.

word count: 1.9k

warnings: unrequited love, angst, swearing, crying, mentions of food, self doubt/insecurity, pining, mentions of murder, mentions of marriage and kids

— 0:00

‘You got me some type of way

Ain't used to feelin' this way

I do not know what to say

“so, mates, i think m’finally getting somewhere with lils!” the tone of excitement thickly lacing the bespectacled boys words. “m’sure of it.” he continued, a bit of confusion in his words but still the same amount of excitement as before.

his brows were furrowed and he picked at the skin of his fingernails trying to relieve himself, further wringing his hands a few times before looking at his friends for their input.

“m’so— m’so happy for you, prongs. really, that’s great.” your voice faltering as you continued to speak, trying to scoundrel up a tone of excitement that would’ve played off well enough. instead all you were feeling stone cold truth of dejection.

But I know I shouldn't think about it

Took one fuckin' look at your face

Now I wanna know how you taste

Usually don't give it away

But you know I'm out here thinkin' 'bout it’

a fake smile plastered your face, trying to push back the tears that wanted to desperately prick at your eyes. you tried to further block them from escaping your waterline as you hear the boy jabber close to every single day about the red head he had been continuously fawning over.

the day went subsequently normal; potions, transfiguration, break period, plan pranks and dinner. but unfortunately for you, you didn’t have the privilege to share a messy dormitory with the four other boys leaving their conversations and discussions open about you and more your feelings.

“d’you think y/n was a bit off today?” peter asked abruptly from the place he sat on the oak wood floor, catching the attention of the three other boys who were seated on their separate twin beds. furthering to retain all memories of you from that day attempting to identify where you might’ve seemed ‘off.’

‘Then I realize she's right there

And I'm at home like, "Damn, this ain't fair"

Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored

“maybe a lunch a bit, she looked a little melancholy, i guess.” sirius answered this time, recalling the memory of you speaking in a very disconsolate tone. “y’think it’s anything major, or just stress?” he questioned again, beginning to worry about his close friend.

“dunno, i don’t think so.” the lycanthrope added to the conversation. he recalled james’ new confession about the red headed girl, and your extremely unhappy expressions following; of course noticing a bit at the time when it was occurring but just assuming you had a bad day with evan rosier pestering you for a date.

maybe... maybe she— but they’re best friends? his thoughts were extremely close to scrambled, remus was an observer, he was clever and sharp-witted; but this, he couldn’t figure out.

You could hit it in the mornin'

Yeah, yeah, like it's yours

I know it ain't right

“oi, y/n!” a deep voice called in the distance, putting your light jog to a stop in the middle of the courtyard leaving you to stand in the grass. swiftly turning around you were met with the taller fawn-haired boy, who looked tremendously determined.

“i’ve, uh, ‘ve got to ask you something, and it may seem foolish, but i think i just still ask you.” his voice hurried like his panting breaths from running across the school to find you, asking around the library and your dorm mates.

“yeah, moons, sure, anything.” affirming the boy who looked a bit confused, and worried but you didn’t know if it was for his sake or yours.

he grabbed your wrist in his palm pulling you on the prickly grass over to someone more private like to speak with you. “d’you— d’you like prongs? more than friendly...” the boy sputtered, further acknowledging your blown eyes like someone had just committed murder in-front of you.

But I don't care

Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored’

“i— uhm, well, that’s a bit— why d’you think— remus, what the fuck!” your words taking a halt every few seconds with a recurrent sputter trying to figure out where the question had even came from, or how he even knew.

“i saw— i saw the way you acted at lunch the other day. i jus’ wanted to know if it’s true.” he asserted, no present lingering touches of judgement in his tone.

remus knew what it was like to be judged, so whenever you had the urge to jabber out all of your problems he was the boy you had always ran too first. knowingly, or not. but he felt particularly disappointed in himself that you hadn’t trusted him with this potential secret.

‘This shit always happen to me (Yeah)

Why can't we just play for keeps?

Practically on my knees

“yeah— i do.” you admitted with a breath, guilt taking a pang at your heart. and anger taking a swig at your brain; how could you be so fucking stupid.

“remus, but you can’t— you can’t tell him, or anything.” your tone was hushed, and only meant for remus’ ears. feeling a tinge of embarrassment warm onto your cheeks, knowing someone you loved clearly didn’t reciprocate those feelings.

“i swear, i won’t. but m’here for you, i don’t want you feeling like you can’t tell me anything.” his words soft, and his tone genuine. why couldn’t you have fallen for someone like him? but instead, you crush on someone who was in love with someone else.

But I know I shouldn't think about it

You know what you're doin' to me

You're singin' my songs in the streets, yeah, yeah

Actin' all innocent, please

“c’mon, y/n.” he beckoned you to follow him, resting his arm on the curvature of your shoulder feeling his side press against your smaller one and guiding you to transfiguration with him.

why? why did you have to be so damn foolish? because it was her, with her beautiful red locks, her perfect maroon lipstick, her exceedingly amazing grades, her ability to be silly for a moment and loosen up. why couldn’t you be her? why couldn’t you have what she has.

it’s because it’s simple; you weren’t lily evans and you were never going to be.

When I know you out here thinkin' 'bout it

Then you realize she's right there

And you're at home like, "Damn, she can't compare"’

“guys! guys! she said yes!” james announced whilst scuttling across the mahogany floor of the common room. his actions at a halt flopping his body over the scarlet-red couch and a grin on his lips.

“who said what?” sirius muttered, glancing up from the map for a moment before looking back down in ascertainment.

“lily-pad! i asked her on a date and she was like, ‘yeah, fine, potter. but if you’re late i’ll kill you.’ just like that!” he pretended to play out the conversation for a moment, his thrilled movements and inflection almost animated from how happy he felt.

‘Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored

You could hit it in the mornin'

Yeah, yeah, like it's yours

I know it ain't right’

remus briefly glanced at you, concern swirling in his hazel irises, meanwhile, your eyes widened for a moment. you plastered yet another fake grin onto your lips, about to congratulate your crush on winning a date with his all time infatuation.

“prongs! oh my merlin, that’s amazing, i’m so happy for you!” putting on the best impression of exhilaration for your best friend, the act only remus could piece together and break apart.

“no way! prongs, mate, i knew you could do it!” sirius spoke, his tone fein for his best friend who had been in a pinning coma for the last few years.

‘But I don't care

Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored

With your girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend’

the boys continued to congratulate the boy, remus only giving him a nod and a smile. the marauders paying no mind to it and instead james merrily talking about the red head; his red head.

you weren’t his, and you never would be.

yet another realization struck you, the urge and need to move on present in your nervous system almost begging you to find someone else and to hide away from all the pain that could swallow you whole.

‘With your girlfriend

With your girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend

You could say I'm hatin' if you want to

But I only hate on her 'cause I want you’

you were now sat on the smooth ivory bedding that perfectly hugged your bed, remus’ body right beside yours. except you weren’t comfortable, you wanted to cry a valley of tears that could’ve lasted a life time.

“why is it her? why couldn’t he want me, am i not enough?” you spoke through broken sobs, feeling remus’ agile hands rub up and down the column of your back.

“you’re enough, y/n/n. he’s a bloody git for not seeing that.” remus spoke, sponging a kiss on your hairline. he felt the wet tears graze his shoulder, slightly contracting at the cold feeling but paying no mind to them as he comforted you.

‘Say I'm trippin' if you feel like

But you without me ain't right

You could call me crazy 'cause I want you

And I never even ever fuckin' met you

Say I'm trippin' and it ain't right

But you without me ain't nice’

“m’the bloody git! i fell in love with m’best friend who’s in love with someone else! next thing you know i’m accidentally setting dumbledores beard on fire, and accidentally spawning voldemort for christ’s sake!” your words mumbled and obstruct from the tears that had over come you.

you whipped your face free from tears for a moment, basically scrubbing the black colour of your mascara down your cheeks. “you’re not alone, you know? m’right here.” his tone, yet again, sincere.

you felt undeserving of his coddling, that your messy puppy love was so little compared to his issues. “i can tell your belittling your problems right now, you’re aloud to be upset.” he whispered, trying to assure you all he could, whilst disrupting you from your senile thoughts.

‘Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored

You could hit it in the mornin'

Yeah, yeah, like it's yours

I know it ain't right

But I don't care’

“merlin, she’s fantastic.” the brunette finished his third speech of the day on how ‘amazing’ lily is. yeah as if him pining after her wasnt enough, then what the hell was this?

the devil poking at you for cheating on your herbology test in first year, the time you accidentally tripped peter when rushing to potions, maybe it was the time you put belching power in sirius’ drink everyday for a week because he said you had a flat arse?

what the hell did you do to deserve this incessant torture that had been inflicted upon you. we’re you being dramatic? probably. but the boy you were quite literally in love with could not stop talking about how he wanted to ask another female to be with him, companionship, life, marriage, children. he wanted everything with her.

‘Break up with your girlfriend

Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm bored

With your girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, baby, girlfriend

With your girlfriend’

but then again it was also extremely simple.

he just simply didn’t want you.

he wanted lily fucking evans.

‘With your girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend

With your girlfriend’

taglist: @fathermarty @kittykylax @terr0rizer @aspiringsloth20 @maddoxsmythologicalmind @amourtentiaa @dear-luna @famdomhideout @hufflepogue

if your username is crossed out that means you gave me the wrong username or your settings for public display tags are off!

[help-im-a-gay-fish]

Okay, tell me more about Cream twins partners. How each couple met? How they end up together? Any fun cute facts? SPAM ME WITH INFORMATION! 🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸

Ooo! Yay! @kotikaleo this is a good ask.

Before I begin I want to make sure to clarify that both Crayon and Cindy were created by the wonderful @thebluescreen so credit for the characters go to them. (we share 3 ship kids universes)

And once again I wanna say : Disclaimer, This Celest and Luna are the children of Cross and Dream. NOT Cross and Shattered Dream. They are a alternate universe version of the Dark cream twins. They should not be confused as being the same.

I'm gonna start with Celest and her husband Crayon.

These two first met when Celest was 11 and Crayon was 12. For them it was basicly love at first sight. Celest and Luna both grew up travelling around the multiverse and that's how the met.

Crayon is a half human half monster who originally came from a dust tale time line. But more about him will come from @thebluescreen

It was an awkward, inconvenient first encounter. Luna had just broken her leg trying to do a back flip off a table (she was a dumb kid) and Celest (who had been learning first aid from a book) attempted to set it. And she made it a whole lot worse. (cross and dream weren't there at the time, they had left them alone for 10 minutes)

Crayon and his friend went over to help luna. The stress of the situation caused celest to throw up a large amount of gloop and then loose her strength in her legs and fall over. Crayon was close enough to her to catch her as she fell and gently lowered her to the ground. They locked eyes and well, they had basically been crushing on eachother since then.

It took Luna locking them in a room together and refusing to let them out till they confessed to do the trick.

They got together when Celest was 15 and Crayon was 16.

The two were very much in love. The slightly over the top, sugary sweet, child hood sweethearts. Used a bunch of cheesey names.

"I love you my sugar sweet snuggle muffin"

"not as much as I love you my cookie cream cuddle bear"

And luna is just the awkward 3rd wheel.

OK so Luna was in a relationship with this monster called Daisy from the age of 16 to 20. Daisy was a bitch, but more on that below.

It was all good till Celest turned 18, she started to get soul pain. Up until this point her sickness had been bothersome, but not to serious.

But after seeing a soul doctor, she was informed that the curruption was starting to attack her soul, and there was a possibility that it would kill her. Of course her and her family were heart broken, crayon included.

Celest went through a stage of being unhappy. The idea that she could die terrorised her. She had nightmares and got stressed to the point of alot of puking fits.

Her main conforts where her sister and boyfriend.

"I just can't help thinking of everything I'll miss out on. Marriage, children...... Travelling the multiverse...... But at least I have you right?"

So crayon responded with.

"then let's get married"

Of course Celest was shocked and was sure she'd misheard him. But then he said.

"you said that you were afraid of missing out on it, but this way we won't! I want to marry you, if you'll have me."

Celest said.

"but we are both so young, you shouldn't have to carry my burden. You have a life to live"

He said

"I want to spend it with you"

And she said yes.

Yay.

They were married just under a year later and where very happy. Cross was alittle sad to see his princess grow up so fast. But in the end they were all happy.

Crayon is truly Celest's rock. He's very sweet and good to her. To him, she is the bright light in his life, with her kindness and smarts.

They normally spend there time curled up watching movies. Or taking trips to aus like outertale to look at stars. Its all very lovey dovey.

For Luna, love was never all that easy. As I said above her first girlfriend Daisy was a bitch.

Daisy was a emotionally horrible person to Luna. Constantly telling her things like, how she needs to summon ecto or she looks like a man. Or how bones just aren't that attractive. How that fact that she was so close to her sister was creepy. In the end it was revealed that she'd been cheating on Luna while Luna had been helping her sister in the hospital. Luna finally dumbed her.

Years passed and Luna would tell people that she was ok and over it. But in truth it left huge emotional scars. She started avoiding committed relationships like the plague.

Over the years she has had a few casual girlfriends, flings and hook ups. But she told people that long term wasn't her thing, Celest knew that wasn't true, but she couldn't force her sister to date someone. It all changed when she ment Cindy.

She meets Cindy when she's 27. Basically, she met Cindy through Crayon. Since Cindy was the best friend of Crayon's sister's boyfriend.

Cinder is a underlust Sansby child and is a girl who knows what she's got and flaunts it slightly. When Luna first saw her, she went into 'oh no she's hot' mode.

Infact this was there first interaction.

Cindy "hi, I'm Cinder. It's nice to meet you"

Luna *gay panic*

Luna "wanna see me do a back flip?"

Cindy "wa-

Luna trys to back flip and falls on her face.

Cindys "you ok there?" *offers hand to help her up*

Luna *takes her hand and is helped to her feet*

Luna *more 'omg she's touching me!' gay panic *

Luna "wanna see me do a back flip?"

So yeah, Luna is very gay.

The attraction was physical to start with. Luna was smitten to the strong, confident, sexy fire girl. Que Luna repeatedly doing stupid things to try and impress her.

The best way to sum it up would be.

Pfff OK XD

Luckily for Luna though, Cindy starts to fall for the goofy cluts. Not only is Luna just a loveable idiot, but she is also quite attractive.

Cindy comes in one day while she's training and watches her spar with Cross and do a back flip successfully. She's a skilled fighter and is just as Good At Yoga as her dad is. So yeah, Luna is quite attractive to Cinder in her own right.

Cindy starts using alot of pet names for her, calling her Moony and Princess. This embarrasses Luna to no end.

So what happens? Well.

After Luna has once again fallen to the ground while trying inpress Cindy and is kind of laying there defeated. The following conversation happens.

Cindy "you need some help there Moony?"

Luna *blushes* "you know I'm gonna come up with an embarrassing nickname to call you, you know!"

Cindy "really Princess?"

Luna "yes! Uhhhhh Cinderella! Ha!"

Cindy "Cinderella? You think I've not been called that before"

Luna "dam it uh... I've got it! Toffee"

Cindy "Toffee"

Luna "yes, like Cinder toffee, and because you really like sweet foods and-

Cindy "and you could totally eat me?" *smirks*

Luna *without thinking* "yes absolutely"

Silence.

And my friend if you don't get the joke.... Its probably to mature for you. This basically causes Cinder to turn up the flirt on Luna, who is very embarrassed about saying that. To Cindy it has basically been confirmed that Luna wants her, and she's into that.

Luna freaks out *thank you gay panic* and yells "I'M STRAIGHT!" and runs away.

Luna then spends the next two days being consoled by her sister. Meanwhile Cindy asks around to find out if Luna is really straight. It is very quickly confirmed to her that Luna is very much gay and very much into her.

She conforts Luna about this and after Luna attmits that she is gay and is about to confess her crush, Cindy pins her to the wall and kisses her.

Long story short Luna gets to eat her and they go to bed together. And after that they become 'causal' girlfriends. It doesn't take to long for there feelings for eachother to evolve from a physical attraction into real love. But they would never confront their feelings.

Texting eachother till the early hours of the morning? just causal.

Inviting Cindy to family Christmas? just causal.

Laying in eachothers arms in bed, not wanting to get up. Just causal.

Who knows if they will ever confront how they really feel? Maybe some unfortunate life events will force them to.

Fun facts about the couples.

Cindy has a whole bunch of pet names for Luna, after they start dating she most commonly calls her Starlight. But has a whole list more

Crayon loves to buy his wife flowers. He's quite a soft man and I like to think he takes great care in picking out a bunch of flowers. He'll most commonly buy her roses. He also likes to prepare picnics so that they can go out to aus together.

Cindy has a huge sweet tooth. Luna has often tried to bake for her. Lu Lu isn't a very skilled Baker though. But if she presents Cindy with a plate of slightly burnt cupcakes splattered with icing, it will make Cinder's heart melt.

Crayon often has to help Celest get dressed in the mornings. Since the marks commonly appear on her arms and legs. Crayon has taken a very long time to practice how to help her dress without causing pain.

Some mornings, especially after they've had a busy night, Cinder will often steal Luna's shirt. She will wear it around the house. "but babe... That's my shirt"........... "I've got no idea what you're talking about Moony".

Celestial star would be the type to call her husband at work out of nowhere just to remind him that she loves him.

The first time they kissed, Celest got so nervous and excited that she threw up gloop all over him.

Cindy loves to roller skate and would attempt to teach Luna how to. After a long time of Luna falling over into many comprising positions, Cinder simply wraps her arms around her waist and they skate together.

Crayon is a half human-half monster, so he can practice some magic. One thing he likes to do is make little figures of butterflys fly around his wife's hospital room when she has to stay at the hospital. It always makes her day.

[kat-tamin]

Kat Tamin SFW Alphabet

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Her love language is quality time and acts of service. She wants to spend time with people doing fun things that love her. She loves those nights where you just sit on the couch and talk for hours about anything and everything. She shows her love by doing things for you, making you coffee or tea, helping you move, picking up groceries for you. She’s the one who will change the lightbulb in your apartment that’s been out since you moved in.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Kat’s an amazing best friend to have, fiercely loyal and kind. She’s the type to come over in the middle of the night if you need her. She’s also super fun to be around, always with a good energy that seems to last forever. She’s good with a girl’s night in or a night out. She can be friends with the boys, talk sports and beer. She’s the type of person who just has an aura of coolness that draws people in like a magnet.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Actual cuddling, like arms around each other, faces pressed together for endless amounts of time isn’t her favourite. Small, short hugs are better. Her version of cuddling is sitting on the couch with your feet in her lap, her hand on your knee. Small touches are infinitely better than full on cuddling.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

She wants to settle down eventually, but she still has time, so she’s in no rush.

Cooking is a no, unless it is very, very simple. She makes a deal with you as soon as you meet that if you do all the cooking, she will do all the dishes. That’s the only thing she’s good at, because the rest of her apartment is a mess. It’s not dirty, just seems full of things that aren’t in the right place.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

In her younger days, it would have been just a text. If you’re in a casual relationship, it still might be just a text. She doesn’t like to see people sad or disappointed. In longer term relationships, she has to make herself see you in person, she knows she owes you at least that. She absolutely hates it if you cry afterwards, because she feels so awkward and doesn’t know what to do.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Marriage is not a must for Kat, but a commitment is. She really doesn’t see the point of just getting a piece of paper to say you will be together forever. If a wedding is something you really want, she can compromise on a courthouse ceremony and then a small reception at a bar or restaurant, with just a few close friends and family members. 

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Kat can be very soft when she needs to be. She uses techniques that she’s learned from work in emotional situations. In other situations, she might be more of a tough-love, especially to her friends who she thinks needs to hear it. Physically, again she can be. She drops kisses onto your forehead, or a hand brushing against your back as she passes by, but she also doesn’t like prolonged physical touch. 

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

She loves giving hugs to anyone who needs one. She’ll give you a hug when she’s introduced to you. Her favourite hugs are bear hugs, when she sweeps you off your feet, holding you so tight you can’t breathe and you have to laugh. She likes it when you wrap her in your arms, your head in the crook of her shoulder.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Right out of the gate she’ll say things like “God I love you” when you bring her tea or cook her dinner. But when it comes to the big “I love you”, she waits a bit, until you’re in a committed relationship and she actually feels it. You’ll probably end up saying it first, and she’ll get a big smile and say it back, her heart so full.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

She’s not really a jealous person, she trusts you completely. If a random person is hitting on you, she’s more concerned about your feelings of discomfort in the situation. She’ll step in to make you feel more safe, and send them packing.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Kat’s kisses are great of course. Soft, sweet kisses that leave you weak in the knees or hard, messy kisses that take your breath away. Her favourite place to kiss you is the top of your head or forehead. It makes her feel connected to you on an emotional level. She likes kisses on her neck or shoulder, even her ear. A smile is instantly on her face, even if it does tickle and make her squirm.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

She’s the eldest child of four, so she does have experience with kids. She’s comfortable with them, and enjoys spending time with younger children. However, she’s more than happy to send them back to their parents at the end of the night. She’s definitely child-free, no interest in being pregnant. Maybe once she’s higher in the ranks, she’ll take in a couple of teenagers having a rough time, but babies are an absolute no.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Kat sets her alarm ridiculously early, even on her days off. She likes to go to the boxing gym before work and get in a workout, or a jog around the park. She loves it when you join her, but understands when you just want to sleep in. Those days, she leaves the coffee pot or kettle on along with a note saying she loves you.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Weeknights after work are all about relaxation. Take out or you cooking dinner and some good old Netflix and chill. Weekends are when Kat goes out, usually dragging you to a new bar or club with her friends. She just wants to be out with people, having as much fun as she can before she has to go to work, where it’s the opposite of fun.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Kat’s a bit of an open book. She tells you straight up what she wants in a relationship so she doesn’t waste time on someone who doesn’t want the same thing. She always tells dates that she’s bi during the first few minutes after meeting, so can weed out the ones who hate it and the creeps who love it.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

She doesn’t really get angry, not at you. When she’s at work, with perps, yes she can get angry quickly. She’s protective over victims, so her feelings are always out in the open. If she does get angry at you, it’s probably not because of you, you just happen to be in the room. She can take out her frustration over cases on you if she’s not careful. She realizes quickly that she crossed a line and says how sorry she is, and what happened that day to make her angry.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

She’s a detective, so of course she remembers a lot about you. You can talk about a random Aunt and she’ll be like, “the one who lives in Florida with her younger boyfriend you don’t like?”. You don’t even remember you saying half the things she mentions about your life.

R = Remember (What is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

The day she told you she wants to be your girlfriend. It had been a decision that she’s been mulling over, wondering if she was ready to be with you and only you. But the minute she says it, and you get so happy, she knows she made the right decision. You kiss her and she’s never been happier.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

She works at a job where she sees the worst of the worst, so yeah she’s protective of you. She knows what happens to young people in New York City who aren’t careful. She buys you your first can of mace and shows you basic self-defence skills. She always makes sure to sit between you and randoms on the subway, not afraid to flash her badge if creeps get too close.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

She comes from a home with the motto: It’s the thought that counts. She didn’t grow up with money so she’s uncomfortable with spending huge amounts, especially on things like dates. She’s all about the experience of things, would rather give you concert tickets than jewelry. When it comes to anniversaries, she’ll just take you to your favourite places and give you handmade gifts that remind you of your relationship.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

She’s incredibly stubborn, and doesn’t like to admit when she says or does something wrong. This causes issues, but if you explain carefully about how she hurt you, she’ll apologize sincerely. 

Less seriously, her messy apartment drives you bonkers.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

She likes to look good, but isn’t super vain. She’s careful picking out her wardrobe, wanting to project confidence and a certain image so people can’t judge her. Her makeup and hair are always kept simple, unless it’s a special occasion. She’s most comfortable in her sweats and old t-shirts.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Kat wouldn’t feel incomplete without anyone. She is fiercely independent, a whole woman with her own interests and ambitions. In fact, if you said you felt incomplete without her, she would probably be turned off and end up dumping you.

X = Xtra (A random head canon for them.)

Kat has a mental calendar of every cheap or free event in the city. If you say you’re bored, she has a list of things you could do in that moment. Off-off-off Broadway plays that are terrible, cultural festivals in the park, free art shows at a local college. She reads the flyers that are stuck to light poles and bulletin boards. She’s the only one you know who takes pamphlets that are passed out on the street, advertising something new you could do together.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

She hates neediness. She’s very ambitious, and will always put her job first. If you can’t deal with her ever-changing schedule, you're not the one. If you text her too much, or complain about her not responding, she’s instantly turned off. 

In general, she thinks racists, homophobes, misogynists, TERFs, and Republicans are scum.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

She grew up sharing a bed with her sister, so she always sleeps on her side, curled up small, leaving you lots of room. She’s always cold, so she steals all the blankets. You end up getting your own separate quilt for yourself so you can sleep in peace.

[kabane52]

The War Within

This is an old article from Christianity Today from 1982

Driving through Wisconsin on vacation this summer, a Leadership staff member passed a huge sign in the middle of the bucolic countryside. "Naughty Things for Nice People," it proclaimed, and as if to prove it, a gigantic cuddly bear peered out from beside the words "Adult Novelties."

"What's that mean, Dad?" came the question from the ten-year-old boy in the back of the van. "Yeah," piped up the siblings, "what's that all about, Dad?"

Such questions abound these days, as media penetrate our homes and vehicles with not just sleazy sex but carefully packaged titillations. One report has it that a recent convention of youth pastors created the highest rental of X-rated movies in the hotel's history. More than 80 percent of all customers signing up for cable TV opt for the erotic films. The availability—the near-ubiquity of so much sexual enticement, the constant barrage of innuendoes, and the nonstop polemic for indulgence inevitably attracts.

Many rationales tempt the mind of the Christian leader: "I have to know what's going on. … Voyeurism is better than adultery. … I need moderation—total deprivation isn't necessary."

Admittedly, there are no easy answers. We cannot shut off either our brains or our glands. But consider the following article by a man in full-time ministry. The article is blunt. But we felt it important to be just this honest and realistic. Sexual temptations in many forms have always lured Christians, but today's opportunities and climate make this article especially relevant to all of us.

* * *

"Lust is the ape that gibbers in our loins. Tame him as we will by day, he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we're safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks, and there's no river in the world flows cold and strong enough to strike him down. Almighty God, why dost thou deck men out with such a loathsome toy?" Frederick Buechner Godric I am writing this article anonymously because I am embarrassed. Embarrassed for my wife and children, yes, but embarrassed most for myself. I will tell of my personal battle with lust, and if I believed I were the only one who fought in that war, I would not waste emotional energy dredging up stained and painful memories. But I believe my experience is not uncommon, is perhaps even typical of pastors, writers, and conference speakers. No one talks about it. No one writes about it. But it's there, like an unacknowledged cancer that metastasizes best when no one goes for x-rays or feels for lumps.

I know I am not alone, because the few times I have opened up and shared my struggles with Christian friends, they have replied with Doppelganger stories of exactly the same stages of awakening, obsession, possession. Years from now, when socio-historians sift through the documents describing our times, they will undoubtedly come up with elegant explanations of why men who grew up in church homes are oversexed and vulnerable to attacks of lust and obsession, and why women who grew up in those same environments emerged uptight and somewhat disinterested in sex. But I leave that to the future analysts.

I remember vividly the night I first experienced lust. Real lust—not the high school and college variety. Of course as an adolescent I had drooled through Playboy, sneaked off to my uncle's room for a heart-thumping first look at hard-core pornography, and done my share of grappling and fumbling with my fiancee's clothes. I date my lust awakening, though, to the adult onslaught of mature, willful commitment to lust.

It hit on one of my first trips away from home. My job required me to travel at that time, and as I sat in a dingy motel room near the airport and flipped through the city guide of what to do in Rochester, New York, I kept coming back to one haunting photo of an exotic dancer, a former Miss Peach Bowl winner, the ad said. She looked fresh and inviting: the enchanting kind of Southern girl you see on TV commercials for fried chicken—only this one had no clothes on.

Somehow, I had survived the sixties sheltered from strippers and Woodstock-type nudity. And when I first saw the ad, I instinctively ruled her show out of bounds for me. But as I settled down to watch an inane TV show, her body kept looming before my mind with the simple question, "Why not?"

I began to think. Indeed, why not? To be an effective Christian, I had to experience all of life, right? Didn't Jesus himself hang around with prostitutes and sinners? I could go simply as an observer, in the world but not of the world. Rationalizations leaped up like flying buttresses to support my desires, and within ten minutes I was bundled in the back seat of a taxi headed toward the seamy side of Rochester.

I got the driver to let me off a few blocks away, just for safety's sake, and I kept glancing over my shoulder expecting to see someone I knew. Or perhaps God would step in, efface my desires, and change my mind about the wisdom of the act. I even asked him about that, meekly. No answer.

I walked into the bar between acts and was then faced with the new experience of ordering a drink. My forehead sweating, I scanned my memory of Westerns for an appropriate drink to order. Finally I decided on whiskey. I tried to make it sound casual, but the waitress flummoxed me by asking another question.

"How do you want it?"

How do I want it? What did she mean? What could I say? It seemed everyone in the bar was staring at me.

"A double," I stammered.

Sensing my naiveté, she rolled her eyes slightly and asked, "Is on the rocks OK?"

Bolstered by my first fiery sips of whiskey, which I tried to stretch out so as not to have to order another, I sat with my eyes glued to the stage.

Miss Peach Bowl was everything the ad had promised. With a figure worthy of a Wonder Woman costume, she danced superbly and was something of an acrobat. She started fully clothed and teased us with slow removals of each sequined article of clothing. Toward the end, when she wore only a G— string, whooping men near the stage bade her lean over and stuffed folded bills under the tiny swatch of cloth. She grinned invitingly. I stared in disbelief. In one final strobe-lit routine she cartwheeled nude across the stage.

The flush of excitement created by my first whiskey, drunk too fast in spite of myself, the eyepopping spectacle of this gorgeous woman baring all and jiggling it in front of me, and the boisterous spirit of the all-male audience combined to overpower me. I walked out of the bar two hours later feeling strangely warmed, intensely excited, and surprised that nothing had actually happened to me. I suppose it's the same feeling that washes in after a big event like marriage, or graduation, or first intercourse for that matter. In just a few hours, you realize that although in one sense everything has changed, in another sense nothing has changed. You are the same person.

Lust shares with sins like envy and pride the distinction of being invisible, slippery, hard to pin down. Was what happened that night a sin? I denied it to myself on the way home. To really rate as lust, I told myself, you must look on a woman so as to desire sexual intercourse with her. Isn't that what Jesus said? Whatever happened that night, I certainly couldn't recall desiring intercourse with Miss Peach Bowl. It was more private and distant than that. What happened, happened quickly, was gone, and left no scars. Or so I thought at the time.

Ten years have passed since that awakening in wintry Rochester, ten years spent never far from the presence of lust. The guilt caught up with me, and back in my motel room that very evening, I was already praying slobbery prayers for forgiveness. For a while that guilt kept me out of live shows and limited my voyeurism to magazines and movies, but only for a while. For ten years I have fought unremitting guerrilla warfare.

Being the reflective sort, I have often pondered the phenomenon of lust. It is unlike anything else in my experience. Most thrills—scary roller coasters, trips in airplanes, visits to waterfalls—lose a certain edge of excitement once I have experienced them and figured them out. I enjoy them and will duplicate the experiences if given the chance, but after a few tries, they no longer hold such a powerful gravitational attraction.

Sex is utterly different. There is only so much to "figure out." Every person who endures high school biology, let alone a sniggering sex education class, knows the basic shapes, colors, and sizes of the sexual organs. Anyone who has been to an art museum knows about women's breasts. Anyone who has hauled down a gynecology book in a public library knows about genitalia. Somehow, no amount of knowledge reduces the appeal—the forces may, in fact, work concordantly. What strange power is it that allows a male gynecologist to clinically examine female sexual organs all day long—there is nothing left for him to "learn"—and yet return home and find himself quickly aroused by his wifely peekaboo blouse?

"An ape that gibbers in my loins," wrote novelist Frederick Buechner about lust, and no experience comes with such a feral force. And yet, maybe by labeling it an "animal drive" we have missed the main point of lust. No animal I have heard of spends its life fixating on sex. Females in most species invite attention only a few times a year or less; the rest of the time males obediently plod through the mundane routine of phylogeny, apparently never giving sex another thought.

Humans are different. We have the freedom to center our lives inordinately in this one drive, without the harmony enforced by nature. Our females are biologically receptive the vast majority of the time, and no instinct inhibits us from focusing all our thoughts, behavior, and energy on sex.

I have tried to analyze lust, to fractionate it down into its particulars. I take a Playboy centerfold and study it with a magnifying glass. It consists only of dots—dots of four primary colors laid down by a printing press in a certain order. There is no magic on that page, only stipples of ink, which under magnification, show flaws and blurs. But there is magic on that page. I can stare at it, burn the image in my mind, fondle it mentally for hours, even days. Blood steams up when I gaze on it.

Early Marxists, heady with revolution, added sex to their list of human foibles needing alteration. Lenin pronounced his famous Glass of Water Theory, legislating that the sexual act was of no more consequence than the quenching of thirst by a glass of water. Surely bourgeois morality would topple along with bourgeois banks and industries and religions. But in a few years, Lenin had to abjure the Glass of Water Theory. By all reductionist logic, sex was like a glass of water, but sex proved immune to reductionist logic. It resisted being made of no consequence. Lenin, a historian, should have known better. Kings had renounced their thrones, saints their God, and spouses their lifetime partners because of this strange demon of lust. Dialectical materialism hardly stood a chance.

Books often question God's wisdom or goodness in allowing so much pain and sorrow in the world, and yet I have read none that question his goodness and wisdom in allowing so much sex and lust in the world. But I think the two may be parallel questions. Whether through creation or marred creation or whatever (we can't get into that here), we ended up with sex drives that virtually impel us to break rules God laid down. Males reach their sexual peak at age eighteen, scientists tell us. In our culture, you can't even legally marry before then, so when a male marries, if he has remained chaste, he has already forfeited his time of greatest sexual prowess. Mark Twain railed against God for parceling out to each human a source of universal joy and pleasure, at its peak in teenage years, then forbidding it until marriage and restricting it to one partner. He has a point.

Couldn't our hormones or chromosomes have been arranged so that mates would more easily find sexual satisfaction with just one partner? Why weren't we made more like the animals, who, except for specified periods, go through their daily routine (nude to a beast) with hardly a thought of sex. I could handle lust better if I knew it would only strike me in October or May. It's the not knowing, the ceaseless vulnerability, that drives me crazy.

Lust, I read somewhere, is the craving for salt by a man who is dying of thirst. There's a touch of perversion there, isn't there? Why were we not made with merely a craving for water, thus removing the salt from every newsstand, television show, and movie?

I know what you are thinking, you readers of Leadership. You are protesting that God never makes me lust, that I choose it, that he probably allows it as an opportunity for me to exercise my virtue. Yes, yes, I understand all that. But some of you know firsthand, as I do, that those pious platitudes, albeit perfectly correct, have almost no relevance to what happens biologically inside me when I visit a local beach or pick up any of a hundred magazines.

Some of you know what it is like to walk with your eyes at breast level, to flip eagerly through every new issue of Time searching for a rare sexy picture, to yearn for chains on the outside of your motel room to keep you in—unless it comes with that most perverse of all modern inventions, the in-room porno movie. And you also know what it is like to wallow in the guilt of that obsession, and to cry and pray with whatever faith you can muster, to plead with God to release you, to mutate you, to castrate you like Origen—whatever it takes to deliver you. And even as you pray, luscious, bewitching images crowd into your mind.

You also know what it is like to preach on Sunday, in a strange city, to preach even on a topic like grace or obedience or the will of God, or the decline of our civilization, with the awful and wonderful memories of last night's lust still more real to you at that moment than the sea of expectant faces spread out before you. You know the self-hatred that comes with that intolerable dissonance. And you muddle through the sermon swearing never to let it get to you like that again, until after the service a shapely woman comes beaming and squeezes your hand and whispers praise to you, and all resolve melts, and as she explains how blessed she was by your message, you are mentally undressing her.

The night in Rochester was my first experience with adult lust, but by no means my last. Strip joints are too handy these days. The drug store down the street sells Hustler, High Society, Jugs, anything you want. I have been to maybe fifteen truly pornographic movies, including the few classics like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door. They scare me, perhaps because it seems so deliberate and volitional to stand in line (always glancing around furtively), to pay out money and to sit in the dark for an hour or two. The crowd is unlike any other crowd I mix with—they remind me I don't belong. And the movies, technically, aesthetically, and even erotically, are vapid and boring. But still, when a local paper advertises one more Emmanuelle sequel, I drool.

I learned quickly that lust, like physical sex, points in only one direction. You cannot go back to a lower level and stay satisfied. Always you want more. A magazine excites, a movie thrills, a live show really makes the blood run. I never got as far as body tattooing, personal photograph sessions, and massages, let alone outright prostitution, but I've experienced enough of the unquenchable nature of sex to frighten me for good. Lust does not satisfy; it stirs up. I no longer wonder how deviants can get into child molesting, masochism, and other abnormalities. Although such acts are incomprehensible to me, I remember well that where I ended up was also incomprehensible to me when I started.

A cousin of mine subscribes to at least fifteen of the raunchiest magazines I have ever seen. Books I have peeked at for just a few seconds in airport newsstands litter his house. He has told me that, even surrounded by vivid depictions of every sex act, every size and shape of woman he can imagine, he still wants more. He still devours the new issues. He and his wife are experimenting with orgies now, and numerous other variations I won't mention. It is not enough. The thrill will fade before long, and he will want more.

Psychologists use the term obsession to label what I have been describing, and they may say that I have more innate obsession than the average male. They would trace its genesis back to my repressive upbringing, and they are undoubtedly right. That is why I am writing to others of you in the Christian world. If you have not fought such obsession yourself, every Sunday when you step to the pulpit you speak to many who have, although you could hardly read it in their blank, freshly scrubbed faces. Lust is indeed an invisible sin.

At times the obsession has felt to me more like possession. I remember one time especially that scared me. I was in Washington, D.C., one of the places in the United States where any kind of lust is easily attainable. At three o'clock in the afternoon, after touring the cherry blossoms, I sauntered into a dark bar that advertised nude dancing. I fended off the girls who came to my table and asked for drinks, and instead directed my attention to the dancers. There were only two, and maybe five customers at most. One black girl with an unspectacular figure weaved over to the part of the stage nearest my table.

This was somewhat different than the other strip shows I had seen. There was no teasing or "visual foreplay." She was already naked, unashamedly so, and she wiggled maybe a foot from my head. She stared right into my eyes. This was so close, so intimate, that it seemed for a terrifying moment to be nearer a relationship than a performance. What I felt could only be called possession.

I found myself—it seemed as though I had not made the decision, that someone else's hands inside mine were doing it—fumbling in my pocket, pulling out bills and stuffing them in a garter belt high up on her thigh. In appreciation she maneuvered herself to grant an even better view. She had no secrets.

I staggered out of that bar. I felt I had crossed a line and could never return to innocence. That weekend I had important business engagements, but throughout them indelible images of that anonymous girl filled my mind. I yearned to flee and go home to my wife, to demonstrate to her my fear so that she could shelter me and mother me and keep me from following where all this was leading.

Just a few years before, I had sat with a distant, reproachful view and watched men lose control and act like country-fair churls as they stuffed bills down the G-string of Miss Peach Bowl. I would never stoop to that—I was smugly confident in Rochester. After all, I was intelligent, happily married, sophisticated—a committed Christian known by friends for my self-control. It would never happen. But it did.

When I went home, I did not tell my wife. How could I? The story was too long, and she, who had hardly ever known lust and had never been unfaithful to me, would not comprehend it. It would likely rupture my marriage, and then I would be cast loose on a sea I could not navigate.

I made a vow then—one more in a series. I vowed I would only look at Playboy and other "respectable" erotic magazines. No more raunchiness. I had certain rationalizations about lust, and pained realism about my inability to stay pure. I simply needed some safe boundaries, I decided. Here are some of my rationalizations that supported my conclusion to contain, not destroy, my lust:

Nudity is art. Go to any art museum in the world, and you will see nudity openly displayed. The human form is beautiful, and it would be puritanical to cut off appreciation for it. Playboy is photographed well, with an aesthetic, not prurient tone. Playboy and its kin have great articles. There's the Jimmy Carter interview, for example, and Penthouse's conversation with Jerry Falwell. I must keep up with such material. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. Some stimulation will help my sex life. I have a problem approaching my wife and communicating my desire for sex to her. I need a sort of boost, a stimulant to push me to declare my intentions. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. Other people do far worse. I know many Christian leaders who still do all the things I toyed with, and worse. For that matter, look at Bible characters—as randy a bunch as you'll ever meet. There's probably no such thing as a pure person anyway; everybody has some outlet. An aesthetic, not prurient tone. What is lust anyhow, I kept asking myself. Is fantasizing wrong in itself? If so, then erotic dreams would count as sin, and how could I be responsible for my dreams? I reminded myself of the definition of lust I had started with long before: desiring intercourse with a specific sexual partner. I experienced a general sexual heightening, a raising of the voltage, not a specific desire for the act of intercourse. Some, perhaps all, of these rationalizations contain some truth. (Do they sound familiar?) I used them as an overlay of reason and common sense to help calm the cognitive dissonance that tormented me. Yet I knew inside that the lust I experienced was not subject to reason and common sense. To my dismay, on several occasions I had already felt it burst out of containment and take on a sinister power. At other times, I could analyze lust and put it in perspective, but at the moment when it was occurring I knew I would not stop and analyze. I would let it take its course. Secretly, I began to wonder what that course would be.

Don't let me give the wrong impression. My entire life did not revolve around lust. I would go days without fixating on sex, and sometimes a month or two without seeking out a pornographic magazine or movie. And many, many times I would cry out to God, imploring him to take away the desire. Why were my prayers not answered? Why did God continue to curse me with freedom, even when that freedom led me away from him?

I read numerous articles and books on temptation but found little help. If you boiled down all the verbiage and the ten-point lists of practical advice for coping with temptation, basically all they said was "Just stop doing it." That was easy to say. I knew some of those authors, and knew that they too struggled and failed, as I did. In fact, I too had preached many a sermon on handling temptation, but look at me. Practical "how-to" articles proved hopelessly inadequate, as if they said "Stop being hungry" to a starving man. Intellectually I might agree with their theology and their advice, but my glands would still secrete. What insight can change glands?

"Jesus was tempted in all points as you are," some of the articles and books would say, as if that would cheer me up. It did not help. In the first place, none of the authors could conceivably describe how Jesus experienced sexual temptation, because he never talked about it, and no one else has ever been perfect and lived to tell about it. Such well-meaning comments reminded me of telling a ghetto dweller in East Bronx, "Oh, President Reagan used to be poor too. He knows how you feel." Try telling that to a poor person, and prepare to duck.

I felt a similar reaction when I read accounts of people who had overcome lust. Usually, they wrote or talked in a condescending, unctuous tone. Or, like Jesus, they seemed too far removed from my own spiritual quagmire to comfort me. Augustine described his condition twelve years after conversion from his lusty state. In that advanced spiritual place he prayed to overcome these besetting sins: the temptation to enjoy his food instead of taking it as a necessary medicine "until the day when Thou wilt destroy both the belly and the meat"; the attraction of sweet scents; the pleasure of the ear provided by church music lest he be "more moved by the singing than by the thing that is sung"; the lure of the eye to "diverse forms of beauty, of brilliant and pleasing colors"; and last, the temptation of "knowing for knowing's sake." Sorry, Augustine, I respect you, but prayers like that led to the climate of repression and body-hatred that I have been vainly trying to escape all my life.

I got a perverse pleasure out of knowing that this same Augustine a few years earlier had prayed, "Give me chastity, but not yet." He delayed purity for a while also, to sample more delights than I would likely get around to. Why is it that I scoffed at accounts of saints who overcame temptation but loved hearing about those who gave in? There must be a name for that sin, too.

Most of this time I hated sex. I could not imagine it existing in any sort of balance in my life. Of course I knew its pleasure—that was the gravitational attraction—but those short bursts of pleasure were horribly counterbalanced by days of guilt and anguish. I could not reconcile my technicolor fantasy life with my more mundane experience of sex in marriage. I began to view sex as another of God's mistakes, like tornadoes and earthquakes. In the final analysis, it only caused misery. Without it, I could conceive of becoming pure and godly and all those other things the Bible exhorted me toward. With sex, any spiritual development seemed hopelessly unattainable. Maybe Origen had the right idea after all.

It is true there is difficulty in entering into godliness. But this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but only from the irreligion which is still there. If our senses were not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful to us. We suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us resists supernatural grace. Our heart feels torn asunder between these opposed efforts. But it would be very unfair to impute this violence to God, who is drawing us on, instead of to the world, which is holding us back. It is as a child, which a mother tears from the arms of robbers, in the pain it suffers, should love the loving and legitimate violence of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the impetuous and tyrannical violence of those who detain it unjustly. The most cruel war which God can make with men in this life is to leave them without that war which He came to bring. "I came to send war," He says, "and to teach them of this ware I came to bring fire and the sword." Before Him the world lived in this false peace. Blaise Pascal Pensees This article is divided into two parts. The first part, which you have just read, recounts the downward spiral of temptation, yielding, self-hatred, and despair. If I had read this article several years ago, I would have gleefully affirmed every thing. Then, when I got to the second part, which describes a process of healing, I would have turned cynical and sour, rejecting what follows. Such is the nature of self-deception.

I have described my slide in some detail not to feed any prurient interests in the reader (after all, how many racy articles have you read in Leadership?) and certainly not to nourish your own despair if you too are floundering—God forbid. I tell my struggles because they are real, but also to demonstrate that hope exists, that God is alive, and his grace can interrupt the terrible cycle of lust and despair. My primary message is one of hope, although until healing did occur, I had no faith that it ever would.

Scores, maybe hundreds of times I had prayed for deliverance, with no response. The theologians would find some fault in my prayers, or in the faith with which I prayed them. But can any person assume the awful right to judge the prayers of another who writhes in mental torment and an agony of helpless unspirituality? I would certainly never assume the right, not after a decade—long war against lust.

I have not mentioned the effect of lust on my marriage. It did not destroy my marriage, did not push me out to find more sexual excitation in an adulterous affair, or with prostitutes, did not even impel me to place unrealistic demands on my wife's sexual performance. The effect was far more subtle. Mainly, I think, it cumulatively caused me to devalue my wife as a sexual being. The great lie promulgated by Playboy, television commercials, and racy movies is that the physical ideal of beauty is attainable and oh, so close. I stare at a Playboy centerfold. Miss October has such a warm, inviting smile. She is with me alone, in my living room. She removes her clothes, just for me, and lets me see all of her. She tells me about her favorite books and what she likes in a man. Cheryl Tiegs, in the famous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, sweetly walks toward the camera, letting the coral blush of her breasts shine out boldly from underneath a net bikini. She lets me see them—she has no inhibitions, no pudency.

The truth is, of course, that if I sat next to either Cheryl Tiegs or Miss October on an airplane, she would not give me the time of day, let alone take off her clothes for me. If I tried to strike up a conversation, she would brush me off. And yet, because I have stared at Cheryl's breasts and gone over every inch of Miss October as well as the throng of beauties that Madison Avenue and Hollywood recruit to tantalize the masses, I start to view my own wife in that light. I expect her to have Farrah's smile, Cheryl's voluptuousness, Angie's legs, Miss October's flaming red hair and sparkling eyes. Envy and greed join hands with lust. I begin to focus on my wife's minor flaws. I lose sight of the fact that she is a charming, warm, attractive woman and that I am fortunate to have found her.

Beyond that, lust affected my marriage in an even more subtle and pernicious way. Over time, I began to view sex schizophrenically. Sex in marriage was one thing. We performed OK, though not as often as I liked, and accompanied by typical misunderstandings. But passion, ah, that was something different. Passion I never felt in my marriage.

If anything, sex within marriage served as an overflow valve, an outlet for the passion that mounted inside me, fed by sources kept hidden from my wife. We never talked about this, yet I am sure she sensed it. I think she began to view herself as a sex object—not in the feminist sense of being the object of a husband's selfish greed, but in the deprived sense of being only the object of my physical necessity and not of romance and passion.

Yet the sexual schizophrenia pales in comparison to the schizophrenia of my spiritual life. Can you imagine the inner rupture when I would lead a spiritual retreat for a weekend, winning sighs of admiration and tears of commitment from my devoted listeners, only to return to my room and pore over the latest copy of Oui? I could never reconcile it, but somehow I could not avoid it. If you pinned me down on what degree my succumbing to temptation was a conscious choice, I would probably search for an enigmatic response such as the one a Faulkner character gave when asked about original sin. "Well, it's like this," he said. "I ain't got to but I can't help it."

Paradoxically, I seemed most vulnerable to temptation when speaking or otherwise performing some spiritual service. Those who see Satan as personally manipulating all such temptation to sin would not be surprised by that observation.

Lust became the one corner of my life that God could not enter. I welcomed him into the area of personal finance, which he revolutionized as I awakened to world needs. He cleaned up many of my personal relationships. He gave stirrings of life to the devotional area and my sense of personal communion with him. But lust was sealed off, a forbidden room. How can I reconcile that statement with my earlier protestations that I often cried out for deliverance? I do not know. I felt both sensations: an overwhelming desire to be cleansed and an overwhelming desire to cling to the exotic pleasures of lust. A magnet is attracted equally to two opposite forces. No matter how small you cut a magnet or rearrange it, the two ends will still be attracted to opposite forces. One force never cancels out the other one. This must be what Paul meant in some of those strange statements in Romans 7 (a passage that gave me some comfort). But where was Romans 8 in my life?

Even when I had lust under control, when I successfully limited it to brief, orderly perusals through Playboy at the local newsstand, I still felt this sense of retaining a secret corner God could not enter. Often I would get bogged down in sermon preparation. For motivation to keep going, I would promise myself a trip to the newsstand if I could finish the sermon in an hour and a half. Can you sense the schizophrenia?

Just as I can remember graphically the precise incident in Rochester when adult lust moved in, I can remember the first flutterings of a commitment to healing. They also came on a trip out of town, when I was speaking at a spiritual life conference. The conference was scheduled for a resort hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, near my favorite part of the country. Nothing affects me like the long drive up the rocky coastline of Maine. It is an invigorating, almost religious experience. Some people find deserts affect them like that, some wheat fields, and some mountains. For me, the magnificence of creation unwinds with each curve on the road up Maine's coast. I made plans to fly into Boston, rent a car, and spend three days cruising the coast just to refresh myself before the conference.

My mistake was spending the first night in Boston. I was then practicing a fairly rigid regimen of "controlled lust." I hadn't given in to any scary splurges like my Washington, D.C., encounter in some time. But sure enough, that night I found myself stalking the streets of the seedy areas looking for lust. I did not have to look far. Like many cities, Boston offers strip shows, porno movies—a veritable menu of lust. I usually avoided porno movies because they had proved so unsatisfying. But, Boston also features live nude girls on a revolving platform that you can watch for twenty-five cents. I went in one of those booths.

The mechanics are simple. Twenty curtained booths encircle a revolving platform. Each booth has a glass window covered by a piece of plywood. When you insert a quarter, a mechanical arm somewhat like a toll gate lowers the piece of plywood and lets you see the nude girls revolving on the platform. Then, about three minutes later the toll gate goes up, and you have to drop in another quarter to continue. This is lust at its most unadorned.

The girls employed by such places are not beautiful. Imagine for yourself what kind of women would willingly settle for such employment. You lie under bright lights, revolving like a piece of roast beef at a buffet table, masturbating occasionally to keep the quarters clinking. Around you, leering, furtive stares of men appear for three minutes, then disappear, then appear again, their glasses reflecting your pale shape, none of them looking at your face.

Maybe such booths do serve a redeeming purpose for society—by exposing lust in its basest demythologized form. There is no art or beauty, no acrobatic dancing. The woman is obviously a sex object and nothing else. The men are isolated, caged voyeurs. There is no relationship, no teasing.

The girls are bored stiff: over the whir of the timing mechanism you can hear them trading talk about grocery prices or car repairs. They masturbate as a routine for the customers, like an ape at the zoo who learns to make faces because the onlookers then laugh and point. This is what the richest, freest society in history spends its wealth and freedom on?

And yet, there I was, a respected member of that society, three days away from leading a spiritual-life retreat, dropping in quarters like a frantic long-distance caller at a pay phone.

For fifty cents you could go to a private booth, and one of the girls would entertain you personally. A glass wall still separated you from the girl, but you could, if you wished, pick up the receiver and talk to the girl. Maybe you could talk her into doing something special for you. I went into the booth, but something restrained me from picking up the telephone. I could not make that human an act—it would expose me for what I was. I merely stood, silent, and stared.

Guilt and shame washed over me in waves that night, as usual. Again I had a stark picture of how low I was groveling. Did this animal lust have any relation to the romance that had inspired the Symphonie Fantastique, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets, and the Song of Solomon? Certainly each of those works contained traces of glandular desire, but this that I had experienced was devoid of all beauty. It was too naked, and shameful.

I had felt all that remorse before. What shocked me more was my trip up the coast the next two days. I followed my usual practice of staying in homey inns with big fireplaces, and of eating by the waterfront and watching the sailboats bob in the shimmering sea, of taking long solitary walks on the rocky promontories where huge waves crashed with thunder, of closing my eyes and letting salt spray splash across my face, of stopping at roadside stands for fresh lobster and crab. There was a difference this time: I felt no pleasure. None. My emotional reaction was the same as if I had been at home, yawning, reading the newspaper. All romance had drained out, desiccated.

The realization disturbed me profoundly. By all counts, those wonderful, sensuous experiences rated far higher than the cheap thrill of watching a fat, pock—marked body rotate on plywood. And yet, to my utter disbelief my mind kept roaming back to that grimy booth in Boston. Was I going crazy? Would I lose every worthwhile sensation in life? Was my soul leaking away? Was I becoming possessed?

I limped through the conference, and everyone warmly applauded each talk. They were all blessed. Alone in my room at night, I did not pore over pornography. I pored over what had been happening inside me for ten years. I did not like it.

Exactly three days later, I spent the night with a very dear friend, a pastor of one of the largest churches in the South. I had never shared intimate details of my lust life with anyone before, but the schizophrenia was building to such a point I felt I must. He listened quietly, with compassion and great sensitivity as I recounted a few incidents, skipping over those that showed me in the worst light, and described some of my fears to him.

He sat for a long time with sad eyes after I had finished speaking. We both watched our freshly refilled cups of coffee steam, then stop steaming, then grow cold. I waited for his words of advice or comfort or healing or something. I needed a priest at that moment, someone to say, "Your sins are forgiven."

But my friend was no priest. He did something I never expected. His lip quivered at first, the skin on his face began twitching, and finally he started sobbing—great, huge, wretched sobs such as I had seen only at funerals.

In a few moments, when he had recovered some semblance of self-control, I learned the truth. My friend was not sobbing for me; he was sobbing for himself. He began to tell me of his own expedition into lust. He had been where I was—five years before. Since that time, he had taken lust to its logical consequences. I will not dwell on sordid details, but my friend had tried it all: bondage, prostitution, bisexualism, orgies. He reached inside his vest pocket and pulled out a pad of paper showing the prescriptions he took to fight the venereal disease and anal infections he had picked up along the way. He carries the pad with him on trips, he explained, to buy the drugs in cities where he is anonymous.

I saw my friend dozens of times after that and learned every horrific detail of his hellish life. I worried about cognitive dissonance; he brooded on suicide. I read about deviance; he performed it. I winced at subtle fissures in my marriage; he was in divorce litigation.

I could not sit in judgment of this man, because he had simply ended up where my own obsession would likely take me. Jesus brought together lust and adultery, hatred and murder, in the Sermon on the Mount, not to devalue adultery and murder but rather to point to the awesome truth about hatred and lust. There is a connection.

If I had learned about my friend's journey to debauchery in an article like this one, I doubtless would have clucked my tongue, questioned Leadership's judgment in printing it, and rejected the author as an insincere poseur in the faith. But I knew this man, I thought, as well as I knew anyone. His insights, compassion, and love were all more mature than mine. My sermons were like freshman practice runs compared to his. He was a godly man if I had ever met one, but underneath all that … my inner fear jumped uncontrollably. I sensed the power of evil.

For some weeks I lived under a cloud that combined the feelings of doom and terror. Had I crossed some invisible line so that my soul was stained forever? Would I too, like my trusted friend, march inexorably toward the systematic destruction of my body and my soul? He had cried for forgiveness, and deliverance, and every other prayer he had learned in church, and yet now he had fallen into an abyss. Already lawyers were dividing up his house and possessions and his children. Was there no escape for him—for me?

My wife could sense the inner tension, but in fifteen years of marriage she had learned not to force a premature explanation. I had not learned to share tension while it was occurring, only afterward, when it fit into a logical sequence, with some sort of resolution. This time, I wondered whether this particular problem would ever have such a resolution.

A month after my conversation with my friend, I began reading a brief and simple book of memoirs, What I Believe, by Francois Mauriac. In it, he sums up why he clung to the Roman Catholic church and the Christian faith in a country (France) and an age when few of his contemporaries seriously considered orthodoxy. I had read only one novel by the Nobel prizewinning author, Viper's Tangle, but that novel clearly showed that Mauriac fully understood the lust I had experienced, and more. A great artist, he had captured the depths of human depravity. I would not get pious answers from him.

Mauriac's book includes one chapter on purity. He describes the power of sexuality—"the sexual act has no resemblance to any other act: its demands are frenzied and participate in infinity. It is a tidal wave"—and his struggles with it throughout a strict Catholic upbringing. He also discounts common evangelical perspectives on lust and sex. The experience of lust and immorality, he admits, is fully pleasurable and desirable; it is no good trying to pretend that sin contains distasteful seeds that inevitably grow into repulsion. Sin has its own compelling rewards. Even marriage, Christian marriage, he claims, does not remedy lust. If anything, marriage complicates the problem by introducing a new set of difficulties. Lust continues to seek the attraction of unknown creatures and the taste for adventure and chance meetings.

After brazenly denying the most common reasons I have heard against succumbing to a life filled with lust, Mauriac concludes that there is only one reason to seek purity. It is the reason Christ proposed in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Purity, says Mauriac, is the condition for a higher love—for a possession superior to all possessions: God himself.

Mauriac goes on to describe how most of our arguments for purity are negative arguments: Be pure, or you will feel guilty, or your marriage will fail, or you will be punished. But the Beatitudes clearly indicate a positive argument that fits neatly with the Bible's pattern in describing sins. Sins are not a list of petty irritations drawn up for the sake of a jealous God. They are, rather, a description of the impediments to spiritual growth. We are the ones who suffer if we sin, by forfeiting the development of character and Christlikeness that would have resulted if we had not sinned.

The thought hit me like a bell rung in a dark, silent hall. So far, none of the scary, negative arguments against lust had succeeded in keeping me from it. Fear and guilt simply did not give me resolve; they added self-hatred to my problems. But here was a description of what I was missing by continuing to harbor lust: I was limiting my own intimacy with God. The love he offers is so transcendent and possessing that it requires our faculties to be purified and cleansed before we can possibly contain it. Could he, in fact, substitute another thirst and another hunger for the one I had never filled? Would Living Water somehow quench lust? That was the gamble of faith. Perhaps Mauriac's point seems obvious and predictable to people who respond to anguished problems with spiritual-sounding cliches. But I knew Mauriac and his life well enough to know that his observation was the culmination of a lifetime of struggle. He had come to that conclusion as the only possible justification for abstemiousness. Perhaps, just perhaps, the discipline and commitment involved in somehow allowing God to purge out the impurities formed the sine qua non, the essential first step toward a relationship with God I had never known.

The combination of grave fear struck in me by my pastor friend's grievous story and the glimmer of hope that a quest for purity could somehow transform the hunger I had lived with unabated for a decade prepared me to try once again to approach God in confession and in faith. I knew pain would come. Could God this time give me assurance that, in Pascal's words, pain was the "loving and legitimate violence" necessary to procure my liberty?

I cannot tell you why a prayer that has been prayed for ten years is answered on the 1,000th request when God has met the first 999 with silence. I cannot tell you why I had to endure ten years of near—possession before being ready for deliverance. And, most sadly of all, I cannot tell you why my pastor friend has, since our conversation after New Hampshire, gone into an unbelievable skid toward destruction. His marriage is now destroyed. He may go insane or commit suicide before this article is published. Why? I do not know.

But what I can tell you, especially those of you who have hung on every turn of my own pilgrimage because it so closely corresponds to yours, is that God did come through for me. The phrase may sound heretical, but to me, after so many years of failure, it felt as if he had suddenly decided to be there after a long absence. I prayed, hiding nothing (hide from God?), and he heard me.

There was one painful but necessary step of repentance. Repentance, says C. S. Lewis, "is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like." Going back for me had to include a very long talk with my wife, who had suffered in silence and often in nescience for a decade. It was she I had wronged and sinned against, as well as God. Perhaps my impurity had kept our own love from growing in the same way it had blocked the love I could experience with God. We lay side by side on our bed one steamy summer evening. I talked about nothing, in a nervous, halting voice, for an hour or so, trying to break the barrier that held me back, and finally about midnight I began.

I told her nearly everything, knowing I was laying on her a burden she might not be able to carry. I have wondered why God let me struggle for a decade before deliverance: maybe I will one day find out my wife required just that much time to mature and prepare for the one talk we had that night. Far smaller things had fractured our marriage for months. Somehow, she incarnated the grace of God for me.

I hurt her—only she could tell how much I hurt her. It was not adultery—there was no other woman for her to beam her resentment toward, but perhaps that made it even harder for her. For ten years she had watched an invisible fog steal inside me, make me act strange, pull me away from her. Now she heard what she had often suspected, and to her it must have sounded like rejection: You were not enough for me sexually, I had to go elsewhere.

But still, in spite of that pain and the vortex of emotions that must have swirled around inside her, she gave to me forgiveness and love. She took on my enemy as her enemy too. She took on my thirst for purity as her thirst too. She loved me, and as I type this even now, tears streak my face because that love, that awesome love is so incomprehensible to me, and so undeserved. But it was there.

How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! … For I am God and not man, The Holy One in your midst. Hosea 11:8-9 Saint Augustine, who wrote so eloquently of his own war within, describes our condition here on earth as a simultaneous citizenship in two cities, the city of man and the City of God. The lure of the city of man often drowns out the call of the City of God. Man's city is visible, substantial, real; as such, it is far more alluring. God's city is ephemeral, invisible, cloaked in doubt, far away. It may not even exist— no one knows for sure.

Cheryl Tiegs coming toward me out of the page, her teeth flashing, her eyes sparkling, her body glistening, is that city of man. She, and what she represents, fits well with my body and the hormones that surge inside it and the complexes that grew in my repressed childhood and whatever else contributed to my obsession with lust. The pure in heart shall see God. Set against luscious Cheryl, sometimes that promise does not seem like much. But that is the lie of the Deceiver, and the dyslexia of reality we are asked to overcome. The City of God is the real, the substantial, the whole. What I become as I strengthen my citizenship in that kingdom is far more worthy than anything I could become if all my fantasies were somehow fulfilled.

A year has passed since the late-night talk with my wife. During that time, a miracle has occurred. The war within me has fallen away. Only a few snipers remain. Once I failed, just a month later, when I was walking the streets of San Francisco. I felt myself pulled—it felt exactly like that—into another of the twenty-five cent peep shows to watch an undulating girl on a revolving table for three minutes. Not ten seconds had passed when I felt a sense of horror. My head was pounding. Evil was taking over. I had to get out of there, immediately.

I ran, literally ran, as fast as I could out of the North Beach district. I felt safe only when I got out of there. It struck me then how much had changed: previously I had felt safe when I had given in to lust, because the war inside died down for a moment, but now I felt safe away from the temptation. I prayed for strength and walked away.

Other than that encounter, I have been free of the compulsion. Of course, I notice girls in short dresses and halter tops—why else would they wear them?—but the terror is gone. The gravitational force has disappeared when I pass in front of newsstands. For twelve months I have walked by them and not picked up a magazine. I have not entered a porno theater.

I feel a sense of loss, yes. I enjoyed the beautiful women, both the art and the lust of it. It was pleasurable; I cannot deny that. But now I have gained a kind of inner gyroscope that is balanced correctly and alerts me when I am straying off course. After ten years I finally have a reservoir of strength to draw on as well as a conscience. I have found it necessary to keep open and honest communication with God and my wife on every little temptation toward lust.

The war within still exists. Now it is a war against the notion that biology is destiny. Looking at humanity as a species, scientists conclude that the fittest must survive, that qualities such as beauty, intelligence, strength, and skill are worthy factors by which to judge the usefulness of people, that lust is an innate adaptation to assure the propagation of the species Charity, compassion, love, and restraint fly in the face of that kind of materialist philosophy. Sometimes they defy even our own bodies. The City of God can seem like a mirage; my battle is to allow God to convince me of its reality.

Two totally new experiences have happened to me that, I must admit, offset by far my sense of loss at the experiences of lust I miss.

First, I have learned that Mauriac was right. God has kept his part of the bargain. In a way I had never known before, I have come to see God. At times (not so often, maybe once every couple of months), I have had an experience with God that has stunned me with its depth and intimacy, an experience of an order I did not even know existed before. Some of these moments have come during prayer and Bible reading, some during deep conversations with other people, and one, the most memorable of all because of my occupation, while I was speaking at a Christian conference. At such moments I have felt possessed, but this time joyfully so (demonic possession is a poor parody of the filling of the Spirit). They have left me shaken and humbled, renewed and cleansed. I had not known that level of mystical experience, had not, in fact, even sought it except in the general way of seeking purity. God has revealed himself to me. The City of God is taking on bricks and mortar.

And another thing has happened, again something I did not even ask God for. The passion is coming back into my marriage. My wife is again becoming an object of romance. Her body, no one else's, is gradually gaining the gravitational pull that used to be scattered in the universe of sexes. The act of sex, as often a source of irritation and trauma for me as an experience of pleasure, is beginning to take on the form of mystery and transcendence and inexpressible delight that its original design must have called for.

These two events occurring in such short sequence have shown me why the mystics, including biblical writers, tend to employ the experience of sexual intimacy as a metaphor of spiritual ecstasy. Sometimes, lingering remnants of grace in the city of man bear a striking resemblance to what awaits us in the City of God.

* * *

[musingsofaperpetualdaydreamer]

I really related to a part of a post where @quilavastudy half jokingly said she couldn’t wait to turn 24 to get the yearly ‘you’re past your sell-by date!’comment and it got me thinking. The fact that people feel able to make comments like that about young women and as unpleasant and ridiculous as it is, for it to not be unexpected really says a lot. I recently turned 23 and one of my relatives was basically like it’s really past time they or I found myself a husband and settled down because I was ‘expiring’, ‘losing my value’ and my biological clock was fast ticking away and people would start to question what was wrong with me and soon guys wouldn’t want to marry me anymore and all the ‘good ones’ would be all gone and not only would I be more or less forever doomed if I wasn’t married by 25 but it also would be shameful in a way and apparently I’m actively damaging the prospects of my younger siblings as time goes on lalala. It’s something I’ve been increasingly hearing these past few years from more and more people I know and not just from those I’d sort of expect it from. 

A part of me has just sort of laughed off the whole becoming a spinster thing and felt that it was just all rather ridiculous and sexist; my male cousins that are around my age don’t get given that sort of speech and the message they get is that they’re young lads, that have so much left to learn and explore about life and they’re encouraged to focus on getting their careers because there’s plenty of time to for marriage yet. But now a small part of me worries what if they aren’t being so ridiculous? 

People my age are married and/or have kids and run their own households on top of everything, so it’s no longer a case of I’m too young for all of that. Being single doesn’t really bother me in a way, it gives me more time to work on myself and put more of my focus into other areas of my life and I have friends and things to do that keep me busy, so it hasn’t felt like there was this massive hole in my life. It isn’t that I don’t want to be in a relationship, if I met the right person then cool beans but it’s just something i’ve never really actively pursued. I like being independent and free to do my own thing, not that you can’t do that in a relationship or still balance you career and other relationships in your life, but I’ve always told myself that everyone’s complete just as they are and that being with someone should be them being a positive addition to your life not a means of ‘feeling complete’. Admittedly sometimes I overthink things a lot sometimes and I have my own reservations and fears about being in a serious relationship so I guess also partly I have sort of avoided the whole concept a little and been like I need more time to get myself and my life together and I’m more comfortable and feel more ready that’s when I’ll start figuring that all out. But I worry now am I being too cautious about it all and I’m leaving it too late. Should I be more proactive? I mean putting yourself out there can be a really scary thing to do. What if I blink and I’m suddenly like 60 and have like 10 cats and I’m alone and bitter, miserable and full of regret that I hadn’t tried hard enough when I was still had a ‘teeny window of opportunity’. What if I try and it never works out for me? *here’s where I usually descend into the paranoid cycle of what ifs. 

For the most part I think nah this is all silly and of course it’s ridiculous but it makes me so mad that that teeny bit of doubt that once was seemingly insignificant has been growing and getting to me a little. It just feels so unfair that women get subjected to all these pressures and sexist comments and it’s just portrayed as a normal thing that we’re just meant to accept and deal with. A woman’s so called ‘value’ shouldn’t be based on whether guys find them attractive or if they conform to the societal beauty standard and perfectly fit a mould of how and what they should be or their reproductive ability. Not all women are the same and we might want different things and that’s okay, or at least it should be. 

When I said that they guys in my family are encouraged to focus on building their careers, it isn’t it to say that the girls aren’t encouraged get a good education and get a good job or that guys have no issues to face whatsoever, I just think it’s done a little differently and in the end it’s not valued the same way. I don’t think it’s something that just happens in my family either.

If you’re a woman with a successful career that you’ve worked really hard for and that you’re passionate about, but you’re not married and don’t have kids by a certain age, then you’re pitied and your achievements become overshadowed by that or you’re perceived to be this evil cold hearted defective miserable person that’s only motivated by money and power. Never mind if you were happy as you were or you didn’t want to have kids or you’re actually a nice kind person, if you don’t fit the mould then you become painted as a monster. 

But say a woman did want to have kids and she had a successful career, from a young age it’s drilled in that the woman is expected to be the one to put her career aside or make the relevant sacrifices and be responsible for raising that child and men are free to chase whatever career they want because everything at home will be automatically taken care of for them. When people say that certain job fields are male dominated and that’s just because women choose not to go into them, it ignores many of the complex interacting factors that play into that. There’s girls that I’ve known that have said that they really want to be a surgeon for example, but they’re worried or don’t think they can do that, not because they wouldn’t have the qualifications for it or have the drive and commitment for it, but because they have to prioritise that one day they’d like to become mothers. And it isn’t just in the STEM field, it’s many different job fields, when women choose a career to pursue they also have to think if I want children I need a job with certain hours or that would allow me to take a certain amount of time off, so they’re discouraged from making certain choices, and just settle feeling that it’s them that’s going to make the compromise in the end. Why would it be unfair or wrong to ask the guy to make that choice or compromise instead? This is what I meant about your aspirations and careers not being valued the same. 

But it gets better. Trying to navigate finding a work/family balance is hard enough as it is but it seems as though there isn’t really a way to win. If you return to work ‘too soon’ perhaps  because you felt ready to return or maybe you couldn’t afford the childcare, you’re made to feel guilty for somehow being a bad mother and not caring about your child. Even if you are able afford childcare or have an arrangement in place, again you’re made to feel guilty and selfish for having someone else look after and help raise your child and that you’ve neglected them. Men aren’t made to feel like that, so long as they’re there for the big things and are around for a few hours a day and the weekends perhaps, they’re dandy. I’m not saying every father is the same, some are a lot more hands on and nurturing than others, it’s they just don’t seem to be held under the same expectations or to the same standards. Instead of finding ways to encourage women and support them and help make things like childcare be more accessible the people still focus on finding fault in every little thing they do and attacking them. 

Why is it that jobs some jobs that are dominated by women are diminished and get branded as soft easy jobs as if they don’t require hard work? Even when women sacrifice their career in order to stay at home and put in all the effort of raising their child and looking after everything at home, it’s like meh big deal that’s your job, it’s what you’re meant to do, it’s so easy. I don’t have any kids but if you’ve ever babysat a small child or a baby and even if it’s only for a few hours you realise it’s way harder than it looks. Yeah there are also stay at home dad’s but look how that goes, they’re either made to feel emasculated for looking after their own child and that somehow what they’re doing is wrong. But in general the bar of what men have to do in order to be a good parent is so much lower than that of women do and they can get so much praise and made out like dad of the year for doing something that is a pretty basic part of their role as parent that the mother wouldn’t ever get the same level of appreciation for. 

People also take the view that a lot of the time women are paid less because they simply don’t negotiate or ask for a raise. First and foremost the way girls and boys are raised, even in a modern westernised society is still different. Girls are taught to stop being outspoken and to be polite and not to be so pushy about what they want because then they’re being bossy, rude, or not ladylike and or a diva. They’re bombarded by language that portrays them as inferior and they grow up hearing things like you __________ like a girl or that they’re pretty good at something for a girl. People are a lot harsher on correcting girls and their behaviour and they’re forced to grow up a lot faster. On the other hand, boys are afforded a lot of excuses and things get brushed aside and girls learn to accept that they don’t have the same privileges when it comes to certain things because ‘boys will be boys’ it’s how they are and they’re allegedly just wired to do or be better at somethings and you just have to figure out a way to work around that. Girls learn to compromise from an early age and boys learn they will be compromised for. The confidence of little girl’s gets chipped away over time while the egos of boys are allowed to flourish and grow. Even when you grow up, the same mindsets and patterns of behaviour that have become engrained over time continue and it isn’t that women don’t think they deserve to be paid more, or they don’t want to ask for it, they have voices and opinions or that they’re any less able to speak up, they’ve just been taught to believe that either they won’t be listened to or they fear they’ll be branded as being too demanding and so they do the thing that they’ve learned is ‘safe’ over the years and they compromise and settle. Nature plays it’s part in who we grow up to be, but how we’re raised and the environment that we grow up in also has a significant impact.

This turned out super long and rambly and there’s so much more to all of this that you could get into and so many other factors that are work but sadly the patriarchy is still alive and well. Yes we’ve come a long way and yes in countries like the UK women have more rights than those in the other countries but that isn’t to say that we still don’t have some ways to go and that change still isn’t needed. It won’t be overnight and won’t be easy but it can be done if we work together for it.

[metamorpheus-blog1]

c h a r a c t e r + q u e s t i o n n a i r e

[ tw for: drug/alcohol use, death, mental illness ] 

Holy shit, why the fuck is this so long

BASICS

Full name: Marcus Christopher Russo

Any nicknames?: Morpheus, Mark, Marky, Russ, plus a slew of unflattering nicknames from old Army buddies that belong solely to that group of people. 

Age: 35 

Birthday/Zodiac sign: May 9th, 1982 // Taurus. Marcus has a majority of the typical Taurus traits: practical, dependable, down to earth. Regardless of his line of work, this isn’t a guy with a hair-trigger temper or the type to get his rocks off on on the violence in what he does, though he does have a very grim self awareness of just what kind of person he has to be to excel without apology at this job. That sense of strong commitment that keeps him nailed down to assignments with single-minded dedication tends to be a double-edged sword in the way it can overwhelm pretty much everything else and push it to the side in favor of finishing the task at hand. He’s the type that really needs and values internal stability in himself and others, which is BIG when it comes to why his lack of it is so self destructive. 

Height: 5′10. Taller guys, don’t talk shit.

Any tattoos, piercings?: 15 y/o Marcus had a bathroom + sewing needle variety of piercing in his left ear that has long since closed up and been forgotten. Cocky young recruit Marcus got the ‘onward to victory’ printed in neat stacked black script on his ribcage, right side, that he shares with three other recruits from his hometown (this phrase picked from several equally dramatic Big Damn Hero quotes they threw around, all freshly eighteen and very full of aspirations of being badasses), and under that, in ascending levels of freshness, are the month/year arrival and return dates for his three deployments. Deployment #1 has one small dot beside it, #3 has two, tallying those in his squadron ‘fallen in line of duty’, as much as he hates that term. There’s no ‘falling’ involved in an IED on the side of the road blasting you straight to hell but - ! Marcus’ bitterness internalized again, we move on to, of course, this classic number on his left forearm. 

FAVORITES

Sound: He likes NYC’s urban flavor of white noise. Anything repetitive without harshness to it: wind chimes, a clock ticking, steady rain. Back when he used to live on the coast in South Carolina, Marcus went in for all those soothing beach sounds, but the bustle on the city streets has its own charm against waves and seagulls. 

Color: Marcus lives in washed out colors, closer to neutrals, with a side of beige and olive green. Even his black is a little less harsh, like a t shirt that’s still being worn years after it’s faded and started collecting holes. His mind is all vibrant orange though, that Mad Max sandstorm orange, Norah’s orange when he thinks of her every time he peels a tangerine, that kind of desert orange that’s still stuck on him after all these years -- even if in the scope of his service, six years in the real world isn’t very long at all. 

Person: He won’t forgive himself if he says Artemis. That’s too much responsibility to put on her shoulders. So maybe not favorite, but most important? That’s pretty hefty too. Whatever it is, Sunny’s calming influence on this guy can’t be overstated. 

Memory: BCT, or basic training. Now listen, a lot of basic is really really shitty. Shitty food, shitty schedule, shitty exercise, the same shitty drills over and over and over every day. You get tear gassed in basic training. You sweat harder than you’ve ever sweat in your life and you go to bed at night absolutely exhausted. But BCT was the first time Marcus actually saw his future falling into place in a way he could be proud of, when he started to figure out his strengths and advance, and where he found people he could relate to and build friendships with. Really, with that in mind, he’d happily take the shitty food again. 

Place: Lmfao his apartment, messy as he and it are on the inside. Always good to have a good secure place to come back to. Weirdly enough though, he is also pretty comfortable with/fond of the Westside Dock, just because of the sheer amount of time he spends camped out there supervising deals from a distance just in case anything goes wrong. Zeus would’ve kept him parked plenty busy on his main trade, but Hades spreads Marcus over more varied tasks, which is what’s led to his familiarity with every boat, rooftop, and shipping container in that yard. He used to frequent the Warehouse with weekly regularity for the good live music, but understandably some work disagreements have rendered that a no-go zone.

Vice: He’s got the holy trio of Drugs, Booze, and Cigarettes going on, but in light of Madi’s favorite vice mini-meme I’m going to go with his complete lack of any sort of positive coping mechanisms or drive to start trying to develop them. Marcus’ constant self-reassurance is ‘it could be so much worse stop being a whiny bitch’, even the very middle of a panic attack, so shout out to that toxic suck-it-up type of masculinity the Army cultivates along with an unhealthy dose of ‘mental illness isn’t that extreme’ mentality. Keep tellin yourself that, bud.

HAVE THEY EVER…

Been in love?: Yes, in both the high school puppy variety and his one experience in slow-burning, real n’ deep adult love. 

Done drugs?: Oh yeah, and a pretty big variety. Marcus’ hard limit is anything requiring a needle, he knows just how easy it is to fall headlong into addiction with something that potent. Most of his heaviest various drug use was high school and right after his discharge, but he’s settled into a routine of pot whenever the opportunity shows itself and the rare bump of cocaine when he really really needs it. The latter tends to allow him to get what he needs done done, but it understandably sends his mental state straight to shit in the fallout, not to mention it’s an expensive for a picker-upper.  Cocaine is down as something that happens a handful of times a year, maybe. Doing a line is, in his mind, a lot less extreme than shooting something up straight to your veins. Marky’s pretty willfully blind to the fact that something you snort can be just as addictive as something you inject. 

Killed someone?: 

Marcus isn’t really keeping track of that number anymore. There’s a lot of the emotional part of his psyche that gets turned off for this process -- it’s not a person, it’s not murder, it’s a mission, you get it done clean and fast and you get out. Never think of a mark as an individual, complex human being. You’re screwed the second you do.

Betrayed someone’s trust?: Not on the scale of large deceptions. Eurydice might just count, positive and unsuspecting enough as their interactions were before Cronus’ order came down and Marcus had a hit to carry out. But, he reasons, it is the mob. Their definition of trust stands on shaky ground. And thinking that, it’s hard for him to resist the urge to just laugh at how malformed his morality has gotten these past few years.

Had their heart broken?: I mean, yeah, but he did it his damn self and he still thinks it was the right thing. Ending the engagement would never hurt as much as going through with it and waking up twenty years down the road, miserably unhappy. Norah is the closest he’s ever gotten to feeling truly understood but shackling her to his troubled ass would only bog her down and foster a resent towards him he could honestly never hypothetically blame her for feeling. We’ll call it heart break in the name of the greater good. 

Lost someone?: Everyone in the combat zone has a story about losing someone, but Marcus never felt his squad buddies were so close to him he had that kind of ownership over their lives to say they were someone he’d ‘lost’. No close family members dead either, Norah might be something closer to loss if their split hadn’t been his choice. So no, there’s no one he’s mourning, just some still strangely vacant spaces in his mental roster and more than enough persistent ghosts left in his memories.

DO THEY…

Have any pets?: Nope, though he is very firmly a dog person.

Have a family they still talk to?: Yes, but he’s not overly fond of doing it, #1 Son of the Year. Maria and Randy are still firmly parked in Newburgh and it’s honestly just depressing to him to call home and visualize them sitting in the same shitty house on the same shitty couch living the same aimless repetitive lives. 

Have a best friend?: It’s tempting to say Artemis again, real tempting in the kneejerk way, but he’s got way too much insecurity around their relationship and how much pressure his problems can put on a person once they’re close enough to know about them to weigh her down with best friend, if that’s even the phrase for what their relationship is. He’s not about to try and compete with the likes of Apollo and Dionysus either, not when he knows how much they both mean to her. 

Want to get married and/or have kids?: Oh boy. Well, there’s a difference between wanting it and actually pursuing it. Marcus is of the give-your-kids-a-better-life-than-you mentality and he doesn’t think he could do that now that he’s pretty deep in an illegal lifestyle. As for marriage, we all know about his track record with that. 

Want to leave?: He might, if he had any idea of where else he could go without immediately falling into the mental Pit of Despair. NYC has pretty much everything keeping him somewhat together. 

THIS OR THAT?

CALL OR TEXT; texting is convenient but there’s too much in tone and word choice left up for interpretation and it can turn into a liability when he’s got time-sensitive information he needs to know. Marcus almost always calls, especially if it’s about a job; texting is for sharing contact information or an address, or more casual ‘off-duty’ plans.

WEALTH OR LOYALTY; loyalty wins out, but just barely. Wealth is mighty tempting to someone who’s never had it, but at the same time, he’s never had it. When it comes down to choosing one or the other, wealth is the one he’s most capable of living without (no matter how sweet it would be to have). There’s the added fact that genuine excessive wealth makes him almost uncomfortable?? There’s the conspicuous feeling off a sign taped to his back that tells more bougie people ‘this man considers Kraft the superior kind of cheese’ and that’s not gonna change if he suddenly pulls the winning lotto ticket at the minimart below his apartment. 

LOVE OR LUST; not that Marcus is some heartbroken cynic cruising bars every night, but lust is easy and manageable and the occasional one night stand gets lost in the big city without any of those pesky loose ends; it’s been six years and the soreness of parting ways with Norah isn’t so fresh he feels her absence like he did first time he went home with a girl in NYC. He’s not about to entertain any fantasies of romance. The pool of people with shared life experience, or at least similar enough experiences to understand, is... small, to say the least. Why rope some poor unsuspecting soul into his personal whirlpool of bullshit? 

5 FRIENDS OR 100 ACQUAINTANCES; that’s a lot closer to his situation now, Marcus doesn’t tend to accumulate close friends, or at least semi-purposefully he doesn’t. He’s good at that kind of (surprisingly) pleasant, simple interaction that tends to fix a version of himself in people’s minds that doesn’t invite further speculation or questions (though if you ask, he’ll nine times out of ten be an open book). What you see with Mark is what you get, unless you stumble into or purposefully try for something deeper. 

SUMMER OR WINTER; you’d think summer, considering Marcus’ open air approach to his apartment (though that’s more of a claustrophobia thing than anything else), but he finds winter a lot more manageable and he’s had more than enough time in the Middle East to properly enjoy heat, even though going outside when it’s warm and he isn’t wearing 60 pounds of gear is a little treasure in itself. People are easier to track during winter too, their patterns are more predictable, there’s less roaming outside when it’s fuckin cold. 

OTHERS:

Wanted plots/connections: will be linked soon!

[violetemerald]

For the shipping one, 30, 26, and 10. :)

Lol this is some reverse order kinda thing... I see what you’re doing...

OK. http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/157356117182/40-questions-meme-for-shippers

30. Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships. 

Well then we have to define “fandom” and “having a ship” so I can know just how to answer. Southland is a show I adored and had no ships in, from what I can remember, but while I watched it loyally and adored it I didn’t feel like it was a fandom I was engaging with. White Collar is a show where I support multiple canon romances somewhat but don’t feel major shipping feelings? Some people would say if you like Elizabeth/Peter’s marriage you ship them but idk if everyone would. I did support Neal/Alex probably the most of his canon romances and could rank each of Neal’s romances, and I felt a lot of feelings about Neal&Peter and vidded them in a platonic way and read “Gen” fics about them and stuff but like, to me that’s not shipping, when it’s not rooting for them to be anything other than the platonic loving bond that is basically already canon... I also don’t ship but really love the idea of Mozzie&Neal actually being the real committed queerplatonic partners throughout the show’s run... I could talk on that some more.

Ok fandoms in which I have no ships... thinking harder... A Series of Unfortunate Events, Heroes probably could count in this category, Criminal Minds when you squint right? Because ultimately I support all the ships in a platonic way? I don’t think BBC Sherlock counts here, because I do basically feel like I ship Johnlock even though it’s queerplatonic in my mind. I don’t know. But I don’t ship anyone in any romantic way on Sherlock either. Oh The Fosters is a huge one for me in this category, I really try to like the ships more sometimes so I can be more in the fandom but its hard, I adore the show and the characters and the family relationships and yet I have like no shipping feelings. I might’ve shipped Wyatt/Callie fairly hard but it was probably in large part because they’re just better than the main alternative ship who I consider a rare NOTP... like idk I can rank some ships as better than others but I don’t really have ships when it comes to The Fosters. Breaking Bad I have no ships. And then there are shows like Arrow or DC’s Legends of Tomorrow or The 100 where I mainly have completely AU ships and/or my only ship was killed off, so for long stretches I kinda feel like I don’t really ship on those shows.

Harry Potter is definitely a fandom where I have no ships, so I lean toward canon ones.

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to? 

I’ve noticed a few patterns I think. My ships don’t all just follow the same single pattern, I have too many varied ships for that, but yeah I’ve thought about these things.

First of all there’s the cerebral/friendship leads to romance/it’s not explicitly about sexual attraction or aesthetic attraction at all ships, the kind of really chaste, slow burn, easy to fall for ships that you can explain why they are good together in terms of like, detailed explanations of which ways they complement each other, how they both are good for each other, etc. Ships that have been appealing to me as an asexual person since long before I even knew I was ace or that asexuality itself was an option. Maybe the guy clearly finds the girl beautiful but he doesn’t actually talk about wanting to date her or kiss her, doesn’t claim he’s in love until after he knows her well, he just wants to talk to her at first or something, and usually in these ships the girl is oblivious that dating could be on the horizon, or she’s completely focused on something else like an important mission, she’s in another relationship, that kind of thing while all this slow development of a friendship and slowly falling in love happens.

I’ve noticed for the vast majority of my favorite ships, I care deeply about both characters, both are main characters or you get to know a lot about both of them, you see them on their own outside of the ship, it makes the ship easier to root for and fuller and I fall harder faster if I’ve become completely invested in both characters in and of themselves.

There’s, on television and film fandoms, some degree of chemistry or how they act around each other that MATTERS. If whenever they kiss or have a sexual scene they pause for breath with enormous, uncontrollable grins on their faces, that can go a long way. If they are cute with shy smirks and they touch each other in ways that seem intimate and probably not platonic, if the way eye contact happens or something just makes me believe they really want to be together, that goes such a long way. I don’t think ships have to have eye contact, I’ve shipped blind characters like Auggie/Annie on Covert Affairs and it’s just, everything in the way Auggie expresses emotion does it just as well of course... But like... idk there can be a big component of do I believe that the characters feel truly happier in each other’s presence, etc. And usually the difference between like shipping levels of happier in each other’s presence vs platonic they’re better as friends level of happier is about the like, kind of happiness, is it too giddy or is it steady and safe? Is it connected to anything sexual or close to kissing or is it mostly connected to things that could be platonic?

There’s not a clear formula really but I think all of this is part of it, for me.

10. Do you ship any characters that have never met?

Tommy & Sara on Arrow, maybe, not super hard but I like the idea of what their interaction might be? I certainly ship Tommy with her sister Laurel, but Sara and Laurel have had the same taste in men before... (*cough*Oliver*cough*) and with Sara “dying” (or so he thought) before season 1, and then Tommy dying in the season 1 finale, and then Sara returning in season 2, we never got a chance to see what it could’ve been like. I’d like to see how Tommy handled Sara being bisexual. I assume Tommy has met her in my headcanon, before the gambit, and they have potential to still meet because of Sara being on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and traveling through time on a regular basis. But this is one ship I’ve thought a fair amount about and kind of “ship” despite them never having met. To be fair my main motivation for this particular shipping combination is just that Tommy was my favorite character and they killed him off. And then Sara entered the show and became my new favorite character. I like it when my favorite characters interact? XD

Kara (Supergirl) and Iris from The Flash have now met but barely, and I started shipping them when they hadn’t. This femslash ship is a pretty huge one for me on my mind for the past like, over a year... I really like the idea of them for a lot of reasons, especially since Iris is a reporter and so is James (albeit a photojournalist in this case), and Kara was canonically hugely crushing on James, meanwhile Iris canonically was captivated and supporting The Flash before she knew he was Barry, and eventually does love Barry, and Kara is also a superhero with a similar personality to Barry? And idk I just really love the idea of exploring them as a femslash ship.

Chloe (Smallville)/Peter (Heroes) was a ship that a few people besides me actually had. They got better and better as more seasons of each show aired. Total crazy crossover, characters never met, but Chloe loves the Superman/Clark Kent personality that Peter Petrelli in so many ways has, and Peter is an empath and would be so caring to the emotional Chloe, and the actors had good chemistry together in the show canceled after 8 episodes back in the year 2000, Opposite Sex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzjFTLGCJMs

So like I’ve actually made 2 Peter/Chloe fanvideos... let me know if anyone wants to see them lol.

In Harry Potter I kinda ship some weird combinations if I think on the hard enough, with so many characters and even generations there are some characters who have never met that might be fun to ship but no, I don’t really ship them hard or anything.

I think that’s probably it? I don’t really ship too many characters who have never met...