This morning I fell down a dark rabbit hole . . . with clenched gut and shallow breath . . . I felt a familiar rage rise like bile in my being . . . as memory trotted out a pivotal scene from my childhood.
I was eight.
Dad sent my sister and me outside to play so he could “properly punish” our mother. I dug in the dirt and gravel with a stick while I heard his rageful hands connect with my mother’s bare bottom. Her muted whimpers bore into my being carrying the submissive shame of a woman who had resigned herself to the cruel whims of her husband.
I felt my mother’s emotional agony and physical distress. But mostly I felt betrayed.
Dad had recently informed me that he would no longer spank me. He said I was old enough to understand his corrections without corporeal punishment. At the time, my heart swelled with pride. I was grown up and would never have to bend over a man’s knee feeling small, voiceless and humiliated again.
However, this day I was learning that while dads might stop spanking their daughters, husbands could and would spank their wives whenever their wives displeased them. There was no escaping this after all. Apparently, I would never be old enough to enjoy the rights and the dignity of an emancipated adult. I would never have a voice and a choice. I would forever be controlled by a series of men. First my dad. And someday, my husband.
I felt trapped in this female identity. Was there no way out?
Born into a Christian cult that demanded we follow Old Testament law unless explicitly and specifically “done away with” by Jesus Christ, my short time on this earth had been a series of “Thou shalts” and Thou shall nots.”
Obviously, I was meant to learn something about being a good and godly wife from my parents’ latest marital drama. What were the rules that would please the man in charge of me? What would keep me safe?
I struggled to comprehend my mother’s great sin. But try as I might, I just couldn’t understand what my mother did that deserved this treatment.
According to my dad, she committed the sin of disobedience when she walked to the corner store to buy milk and butter.
Her mother had egged her on. “Come on Elaine,” my grandmother urged. “The girls need milk and the store is just up the street. Surely Jim couldn’t find fault with that.”
How wrong Grandmother was.
When Dad got home from work, the first thing he noticed was the milk and butter in the refrigerator. “Where did these come from?” he demanded. Fear gripped my mother as she stuttered “We were out of both, and the store is just up the street. I didn’t think you would mind.”
But he did mind. And she hadn’t minded him. Now she would be dealt with in the only way “disobedient wives” could comprehend – with physical pain.
And it was worse than that.
Little did my mother know that in that instant, my dad had decided to demote her. He would subsequently announce that she was no longer to be trusted as the adult in charge while he was at work. According to him, she obviously lacked any “common sense” and would now be relegated to a role that resembled that of a voiceless slave. Someone who did all the cooking and cleaning but never initiated any independent thought. From now on, she would obey or she would pay.
After that, we never did walk to the corner store. We never walked anywhere. Our imprisonment was complete. That was what my dad wanted. Imprisoned, docile, obedient females trained to cater to his every whim and mood swing.
And it was all in the name of God and His Righteousness.
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”
Ephesians 5, verses 22-24
Four years later at the age of twelve, I read the Bible from cover to cover. Every single verse including the long litany of “begets.” I wanted to have a spiritual awakening. I wanted to be close to God. I was willing to follow “His law” anywhere it led. If I could feel His Spirit in me, I knew I’d be able to sacrifice my desires for independence and autonomy.
But a year later, as I read the last passages from Revelations, my gut wretched and I literally felt like vomiting. What was wrong with me, I wondered? I must be “listening to Satan” just as my mother had warned whenever I asked the “wrong” question or showed any resistance to the religious rules that defined our daily life.
I didn’t know it then, but my nausea was the first crack in a wall of cult dogma that had defined my every thought and action since birth. It was a crack that would eventually provide me with a way out of this patriarchal nightmare.
For decades I have believed that sort of insanity is in the past. It certainly is in the past for me. But not so for an increasing number of women in the United States.
Much to my horror, a variety of Christian movements and groups now preach the same contempt for women that I was taught in the 1960’s.
It has been rebranded under various titles including Trad Wife, Complementarianism, and Christian Domestic Discipline.
The so-called Trad Wife movement promises women they will be cared for if only they give up their adult autonomy and submit to their husbands. Tia Levings writes about her harrowing years as a Trad Wife in her bestselling “A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.” One of the saddest aspects of Tia’s descent into the hell of Trad Wife reality is how an early sexual assault convinced her that she would find safety in the container of Christian purity. Instead, her devout Christian husband repeatedly raped her on their wedding night. Tia was told that she had to submit to anything her husband wanted from her and that anything he did to her was God’s will. That routinely included physical assault, rape, torture and commanding her to address him as “my lord.”
Some have attempted to dismiss the marital rape and torture that occurs in Christian Domestic Discipline as a form of Christian BDSM.
There ARE Christians who practice consensual BDSM. This is not that.
As a former pro-domme, I can tell you with confidence, that the sort of church condoned beatings, rape and torture Tia Levings writes about in her memoir are NOT BDSM.
When religion teaches that some humans are born to have fewer rights than others, consent becomes impossible. This really should not be an issue in our modern world. But thanks to a plethora of conservative religious factions that have been rising into prominence and power, it’s something that needs to concern all of us.
Our current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth is aligned with pastor Doug Wilson. Not only are women forbidden to vote in Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, (CREC), Wilson also preaches that slavery can be accomplished in a righteous God approved manner.
For most of us, this seems so out there, we don’t believe it could ever become the law. But Christian Nationalism doesn’t believe in separation of church and state, and its proponents believe they are waging a “holy war” to save the soul of our nation by imposing their beliefs and practices on the rest of us without our consent.
See a theme here?
Consent isn’t a concept for these Christians.
As you might assume, none of this stretches the limits of my imagination. I lived it for the first eighteen years of my life, and it was every bit the hell you might imagine. Systems that assume power over others and treat them like property, inflict emotional wounds that are difficult to heal.
But thanks to years of therapy, I have been blessed with a mostly empowered adult life. I graduated from college over my dad’s objections. I delayed marriage until my early thirties. And I have been and am financially independent.
I understand that some young women want to be “taken care of.” Some young women are fed up with men who expect sex but offer nothing that would support them to raise a family. Christian Patriarchy promises these women they will be protected and provided for. God has a special role for them if they are willing to stop the struggle and simply surrender.
That can sound rather inviting to someone who is exhausted, frustrated and disillusioned with dating, on the job sexual harassment . . . maybe even traumatized by unwanted sexual touch or date rape.
Add that all too common ticking biological clock to the equation and it’s understandable why some young women would fall for the promise that they can enjoy a better life if they let their husband lead.
However, it’s a trap and once ensnared, other forces come to bear that can keep a woman stuck in a downward spiral indefinitely.
The psychological realities of intimate partner violence don’t disappear just because the abuse is labeled Christian Domestic Discipline or Complementarianism.
Repeatedly subjecting another person to verbal and emotional abuse can lead to chronic anxiety, severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and physical health issues due to stress. When you add physical abuse to that cocktail, the negative impacts are horrific.
As a champion of diversity and choice in and out of the bedroom, I have no desire to police or criticize the things consenting adults choose to do. Adults have the right to choose the relationships and the sex that best suits them.
IF there is consent.
For that reason, I want women to be forewarned that choosing to permanently surrender your right to say no, your right to share in any decision making, your right to change your mind, your right to leave, your right to express pain or displeasure . . . once you surrender those rights, you may never get them back. And chances are you are going to want to reclaim some of those rights once you realize the reality of your “choice” is very different than the fantasy you were sold.
My mother had to learn that the hard way. It took her decades of heartache, bruises, scratches, black eyes, and turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of her own daughters before she finally woke up to the nightmare she had been living. Her entry into the Christian cult she joined was predicated on her desire to please God. But NO man is God and living to please another human at the expense of one’s own emotional and physical well-being will always lead to ruination.
I’m deeply grateful that after 45 years of the insanity and violence that my dad descended into over the decades, my mother finally divorced him and remarried a gentle and loving man. I only wish she had done so sooner.
It’s painful for me to witness women being misled into oppressive cults that strip them of their rights, their dignity and their well-being. What I hope Is that these same women don’t take 45 years to wake up and reject the misogyny parading as piety.