repression, the t-shirt

take a look at this.

the shirts are also mentioned on gawker, but your loving proprietress isn't too fond of the tone over there. try feministing for a better take.

so here's what initially comes to mind:

what happens when you choose to not teach your kids about sex/sexuality in a comprehensive way and they go around saddlebacking instead?

if god is love and god loves us and wants us to love ourselves, what's wrong with enjoying pleasurable feelings on one's own in the absence of marriage and/or a committed partner?

the spiritual nitpicking around what is acceptable and what isn't, which parts of scripture to uphold and which to ignore becomes more telling by the hour.*

on that note, hell, what's wrong with feeling good, period? there are far more pros to masturbation and orgasm--both scientifically and spiritually speaking--than cons.

the sexual force is what spurs creativity, life, and all forms of loving. even a mother's love begins with the sexual act she performed in order to conceive her child.

...don't cringe. it's true. obviously none of us feels the need to envision our parents in that position {and you don't have to!} but one cannot, on the most basic of levels, separate the two. doing so forces a sort of schizophrenia that produces, well, shirts like this.

it is worrisome when a culture or religion relegates masturbation to furtive petting in front of a computer during a late night porn binge. there are volumes of literature from the corners of the world outlining how sexual energy can be used for healing, instruction and enlightenment, making threats of hairy palms and blindness all the more ludicrous.

we're sure that you beloveds will continue your scheduled pleasure sessions without a second thought, but we weep for the children who are being told to keep their hands to--or is it away from?--themselves.



*that link further proves the problems inherent in trying to use a plagiarized, politically edited and deliberately incomplete text as the infallible word of the divine. also problematic is the absence in said text of an initiation system or other specific means of working with said divinity--within or without oneself--beyond the bare minimums of prayer and unexplained endless rules and regulations. but that's another post.