Victor Harris reading poetry about dragons and desire at the Godless Perverts Story Hour.
The Godless Perverts Story Hour on Saturday went off without a hitch, and we’re still feeling a little euphoric from it. If you were there, thanks so much for your support, and we hope you had as much fun as we did. If not, we really hope that you’ll join us next time around. Tomorrow will a good opportunity to come and meet up with us, if you feel so inclined: we’re having the first Godless Perverts Munch at Wicked Grounds Café. It’s a pretty laid-back event, where everyone just drops by to hang out, but we do think that it’s hugely important in its way. Part of what we’re trying to do is build community so that atheists with alternative sexualities and genders have a place to land, instead of just feeling like they’re the only one in the room.
Not only did we have great readings from everyone, but we gave away blasphemous sex toys (courtesy of our friends at Divine Interventions) and Greta showed off a pair of stunning (and somewhat lethal-looking) steampunk-themed stilettos. We’re really proud that we got so many great writers and performers together for one evening, who had so many different things to say. That says a lot about the potential of this project and where we can go with it.
- Liberty N. Justice read an erotica story about a woman having an affair via text message with a pastor who had stopped believing in god. The contrast between her experience with desire and his hesitation to indulge made for some very enticing tension.
- Chris Hall read a personal essay called “Why Sex is Not Spiritual” that he originally published in the SF Weekly last year. For those of you who with some experience in alt-sex communities, the idea that sex has to somehow be sacred is probably a familiar one. (@LiteratePervert)
- Greta Christina read a selection from her latest collection of erotica, Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More. The story was about a very real phenomenon: Christian Domestic Discipline, which is kind of a way of making consensual BDSM acceptable according to “Biblical” standards. Greta’s book is now available via Kindle and Nook, and if you want to learn more about it, the introduction has been posted on her blog. (@GretaChristina)
- Victor Harris read two poems: one about believing in an invisible dragon who coughed up the universe and the solar system (and then learning not to believe in the dragon), and one about taking a vacation on a lover’s body, exploring each body part as if it were an entirely new place.
- David Fitzgerald read a very interesting piece of biblical scholarship
from his book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All.(Correction: the reading actually came from David’s unpublished work, The Ten Thousand Christs and the Evaporating Jesus. You should still read Nailed.) It dealt with the apostle Paul’s homophobia and misogyny, and how his own writings might indicate that he was actually a self-loathing gay man. (@DGCFitzgerald) - Kate Sirls shared her memories of traveling as a Mormon missionary and being seduced by a woman she was trying to share the Word with. As a result, she found that the idea that sometimes God was not watching her was not so frightening at all.
- Heina explored the role of women in Islam, especially the sexual implications of paradise. While men ascend to paradise and have their pleasures attended to by the virgins, women must wait to be called to paradise by their husbands. (@futilityfiles)
Again, it was a great evening, and thank you to everyone who performed and who came to see the show.
