Godless Perverts

Sex, Atheism, and Other Heresies

Godless Perverts Social Club, Thursday July 16: After Marriage Equality, What’s Next?

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We’re having a Godless Perverts Social Club on Thursday, July 16! We’re picking a discussion topic ahead of time — and this time, the topic is After Marriage Equality, What’s Next?

Marriage equality is now legal across the U.S. So what’s next for sexual and gender politics? In the fight for secular sexual liberation and against the religious right, what issues should be our priority? Should we be focusing on transgender rights, employment and housing discrimination, homelessness among LGBT teens? Should polyamorous marriage be on the table? How shall queer communities face the problems of racism and classism? And how can atheists and skeptics support the fight for secular, evidence-based policies about gender and sex?

The Godless Perverts Social Club meets on the first Tuesday and the third Thursday of every month. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. So please join us at Wicked Grounds, 289 8th Street at Folsom in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART). 7-9 pm. Admission is free, but we ask that you buy food and/or drink at the cafe if you can: they have beverages, light snacks, full meals, and milkshakes made of literal awesome sauce.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

If you want to be notified about all our Godless Perverts events, sign up for our email mailing list, or follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts. You can also sign up for the Bay Area Atheists/ Agnostics/ Humanists/ Freethinkers/ Skeptics Meetup page, and be notified of all sorts of godless Bay Area events — including the Godless Perverts. And of course, you can always visit our Website to find out what we’re up to, godlessperverts.com. Hope to see you soon!

Juba Kalamka Reads “Jubilee Showcase (for Aaron Muhammad)”

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Juba Kalamka

Juba Kalamka

Next in the lineup from the February, 2014 Godless Perverts Story Hour is bisexual artist and activist Juba Kalamka, best known for his work with the homohop group, Deep Dickollective. For our show, Juba performed his poem “Jubilee Showcase (For Aaron Muhammed), which is dedicated to the memory of a young man who was a member of the Nation of Islam, along with Juba in the late 1980s. In his introduction, Juba talks about how Aaron killed himself in 1992. “He was a sweet, sweet wonderful young man who died of shame, essentially,” Juba says. “Aaron’s smile is all through this.”

We wish that Aaron’s story was less common than it is, but very honored that Juba decided to read this poem for the first time at Godless Perverts.

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Godless Perverts Story Hour: Virgie Tovar Reads “Brother David”

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This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series FTBCon2: Godless Perverts Story Hour

Virgie TovarOur second reader at the February Godless Perverts Story Hour was Virgie Tovar, reading a wickedly blasphemous piece called “Brother David.” It really has to be heard to believed. Virgie describes herself as “a babely multi-racial femme and uppity apostate,” which really says it all. To see more of her work, check out her website and her anthology Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion, available from Seal Press.

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Godless Perverts Story Hour: Greta Christina, “To Give Itself Pleasure”

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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series FTBCon2: Godless Perverts Story Hour

On February 1, we had our first Godless Perverts Story Hour of 2014, and it was really a great way to start out the new year.

Greta Christina Headshot

Greta Christina

There is not even the slightest ambiguity about that. A little over a week later, all three of us are still a little bit exhausted, a little bit glowing, and maybe even a little bit bewildered that we managed to pull it off at all, but there is no doubt that it was a great experience, and we’re all a little more optimistic about what we can do with Godless Perverts.

What was so great about it? Not only did we have an exceptional lineup of readers, but for the first time ever, we broadcast it live over the Internet, as part of the online atheist conference FTBCon2, which was pretty remarkable in itself. I think I can speak for my colleagues in Godless Perverts, Greta Christina and Dave Fitzgerald, when I say that it was a real honor to be part of it.

FTBCon 2 Banner

For those of you who couldn’t join us either in person or virtually, or who just want to relive the glory of that evening, we’re going to be posting video of the performers doing their reading over the next week and a half. That’s seven readers, plus a Q&A at the very end. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us out in this. [Read more…]

Chris Hall

About Chris Hall

A somewhat nerdy pervert who looks (mostly) normal on the outside, Chris Hall is fascinated by the politics, culture, and art of sex. He has written for The Atlantic, Alternet, SF Weekly, Slixa, numerous anthologies, and a dog blog that will go discreetly unnamed here.

Guest Post: Transphobia at the Godless Perverts Story Hour

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Last month, we received this email concerning the August, 2013 Godless Perverts Story Hour, which was held at the Center for Sex and Culture. After discussing the issues among ourselves, and asking the permission of the author, we’ve decided to publish it here on the blog, so that the issues can be addressed publicly.

transgender-logoThe tl;dr version is this; the author saw parts of M. Christian’s performance as transphobic, especially one line that mockingly speculated that Ann Coulter has a penis. This isn’t a new idea, and it’s been criticized by queer communities before, such as in this piece from last year, at The Advocate. (Caution: You have to watch a few seconds of video to get to the article.) There’s also this article, from Jezebel, which gives a lot of things that Coulter should be ashamed of. Whether she’s cis or trans isn’t one of them.

We’d like to thank Jessica for writing us about this. We welcome criticism and commentary on our events, especially if you think that we’ve gotten things wrong. The whole point of Godless Perverts is that atheist communities have often built spaces that are closed or hostile to all but a narrow spectrum of genders and sexualities. Godless Perverts exists to build spaces that are much more open. We apologize for failing to do that here. We know that building such spaces is a lot easier said than done, and we hope that people will continue to give us feedback.

We offered M. Christian the opportunity to respond to Jessica’s comments, but he declined. 

Dear Godless Perverts,

Let me start out by saying, I absolutely love the Godless Perverts Story Hour. Also, I apologize that the issue I want to address is in regards to something that happened quite a while ago. However, I still feel that it is an important thing to address if you are interested in creating a welcoming and inclusive space for queer and trans individuals.

At the Story Hour that happened last September, I was surprised by a transphobic humor piece read by M. Christian (the Jesus’s penis story). First, he equates having a penis and being a man, which I can understand is just a reflection of the cissexist society that we live in (though perhaps a queer writer should have known better). Then, he make a joke about Ann Coulter having a penis, which I can’t think of any other interpretation to, except Ann Coulter is a transwoman, and is therefor gross. I didn’t understand the joke, and saw a number of people, including transwomen in the audience, cringe. My partner and I strongly considered leaving at that point, and I overheard another group talking about leaving (they didn’t return after intermission). I assume it made many people in the audience (both cis and trans) feel unsafe and excluded.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I would really appreciate it if at the next Story Hour, you would address the idea that everyone is welcome in the space and call out transphobia in the future. I am sorry that I didn’t address this when it first came up.

Jessica

Saturday Night’s Story Hour Kicked Ass!

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The consensus here at Godless Perverts is that we’re feeling pretty damn proud of ourselves for Saturday night’s Story Hour.

At the Center for Sex and Culture. From left: Jen Cross, David Fitzgerald, Virgie Tovar, Greta Christina, Chris Hall

At the Center for Sex and Culture. From left: Jen Cross, David Fitzgerald, Virgie Tovar, Greta Christina, Chris Hall

At first, we were a little bit anxious about how things would turn out. We were expecting a low turnout because of it being Labor Day weekend, which means that half of the Bay Area has fled out to the Playa to do the Burning Man thing. In addition, the Bay Bridge is closed until early Tuesday morning. If riding BART is a pain in the ass under normal circumstances, it’s even worse when half the train is marvelling at this strange new experience of using public transit. So, we showed up at the Center for Sex and Culture a little pessimistic about how many people would show.

Boy, were we wrong. Not only did we have a large and enthusiastic audience, but the reading was one of the best we’ve ever done. We all went home glowing with satisfaction. Not only were all the pieces hot, moving, thoughtful, and honest, but they covered a really broad span of genres and voices. More than anything, we were pleased at how well-balanced the topics were, from critical essays to poetry to shameless smut. If you couldn’t make it to this one, we really hope you’ll make it to the next one. And tonight, you’re invited to hang out with us at Wicked Grounds Café for the Godless Perverts Social Club, an evening of informal socializing and snacking.

Here’s a quick summary of what our performers read on Saturday:

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Heina Tells Godless Perverts About Islam’s Heavenly Sex-Bots

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HeinaAt our April 16 Story Hour in San Francisco, Heina did a great reading called “The Heavenly Sex-Bots” about the sexualized nature of paradise in Islam. In particular, she talked about how very different the rewards (or more realistically, the duties) are for women. For instance, while a man goes to heaven based on his earthly deeds, a wife’s rewards are wholly dependent on her husband calling her to heaven to be by his side (along with his virgins). As Heina says, in part: [Read more…]