Oh God, I Masturbated Again
Father Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned
I rang the doorbell at the rectory of Saint Barbara’s Roman Catholic Church, in Brooklyn.
Office hours were from 9–5.
I look down at my flip phone to check the time, it’s already 7 pm.
Damn.
I cross my fingers as I plead internally to the heavens,
Please let there be someone here!
Please let there be a priest here!
No one opens the door.
Damn.
I realized how gloomy it was as it started to rain.
I covered my head with my purse as I walked around to the front of the church.
I pull on the gate. Back and forth, back and forth.
Fuck! They’re closed.
I was too late.
Could it be that it was too late for me to confess before I die?
I need to confess.
I need a confession.
I text the priest, I got his number from a friend.
Father please are you available for a quick confession?
Can you please open the door?
Father father, I need to confess.
I masturbated again.
Father, I’m going to hell.
Father, I know I was just here yesterday, but I’m afraid I did it again.
Father, I could not stop myself.
Father, please grant me absolution.
Can we do it over the phone?
Father, please!
Please open the door!
Please hear my confession, I don’t want to go hell!
I stand in the rain as I was imploding.
Waiting and hoping that he’ll open the door.
The block that I was standing on always felt weird.
It’s always felt suspicious to me.
Sometimes there would be AA meetings at the church at that time.
I would go in search of a priest, they went in search of something else apparently. Although looking at it now, we were all in search of the same exact thing.
They all looked so scary to me at the time. All a reflection of me and how I viewed the sin inside of me.
Scruffy, large, angry faced, scary.
I wondered if I came to the right place?
Is this a church?
I need to confess that I touched my pussy again!
What are all these people doing here anyway and where is the fucking priest!
I guess I’ll walk back home.
There’s no one available here.
I go home and go online to research St Francis in the city, a church that has confession available every single day throughout the day. It’s a beautiful service offered to the public.
I would always feel like I could die right after confessing because it would mean I could go to heaven.
On the way there, however, I would be so nervous.
Don’t die, Emily, don’t die!
Not yet.
If you die now you will go to hell.
Once I got in the church, waited in line, had my confession, attended mass, partaken in the holy eucharist, in which I could now since I just confessed.
For sure, I could die after that, but not 15 min before that.
I was still too impure because the pleasure of my body was too irresistible.
I thought for sure I would be saved after that.
What a relief!
Sweet momentary relief.
I got this. I can do this. I can abstain.
I would say to myself.
I go back home.
Time passes until the moment of temptation arises again.
… I take a shower.
Fuck, why did my dad install this perfectly pressured shower head?
The temptation arises as I soap my body.
As I lather the foamy soap all over my skin.
As she flowers open to meet the steamy bathroom air.
As my hand scrubs my skin with only a layer of soap in between.
As the water drips all over my body.
I simply could-not-resist.
My body felt so good- lit-er-al-ly.
I’m going to just lay here and thoroughly wash with this perfectly pressured water.
Oh, I think I need to squat down and really let the water get in there.
I’ll just stay here a little longer, make sure she’s really cleaned.
Wait just a little longer.
I’m just washing, nothing else.
I would say to myself as my body convulses from receiving a dose of absolute pleasure from my own body’s climactic orgasm.
What have I done?!
I would think as I would scrub the thin scummy layer on my back from laying on the bottom of my tub.
I couldn't scrub the scummy layer hard enough even if I wanted to.
My body would feel amazing, but my mind would be plagued.
I did it again.
And again.
Confessed it a thousand times, except as the years went by, my confessions kept getting worse and worse.
It was worse only because I was using the wrong book, the wrong manual.
As my teacher would say, “I was trying to find my way around Chicago while using an NYC map. “
Father forgive me, I had sex again.
Father forgive me, I seduced a man.
Father forgive me, I dressed provocatively.
I did not cover my ass enough. I did not cover my curves enough.
I remember this one Monsignor who personally did not like me at all but would tolerate me.
I was in a relationship with a young man who he cared deeply about.
He hated my influence over him and boy did I-have-it.
Judging from what I now know I have access to, I understand his dislike towards me.
I wore sex on my body naturally and with grace. My body had deep access to wisdom, more than I even knew at the time. This is something that is most definitely demonized by the Catholic Church.
The wisdom that comes from The Divine Feminine.
The Dark.
A wisdom that comes from the shadow realm that’s been condemned as demonic for centuries.
I’m sure he even blamed me for how his ‘poor’ spiritual son would constantly fall into sin because of me.
I remember being in a constant cycle of having sex, feeling guilty, going to confession, have sex again. Hoping that our dying day would not land on the time between confessions.
I’ll admit, I was the seductress in this scenario 95% of the time. #noshame
There was a day that I was parked outside of his house in Flatbush, inside my two-door Toyota Yaris, and I told him,
I don’t know what it is, but every time I have sex I feel more in tuned with nature and with God.
His response was always along the lines of,
“Are you kidding me! That is demonic. That is so not of God outside of holy marriage. I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. No don’t say that again”
I mean, an inquisitive response would have sufficed, but apparently, deep pleasurable guilt-less sex was not allowed in this relationship, not even in theory.
What is hell again?
Anyway, I kept doing the same thing again and again.
I thought there was something really wrong with me for a long time.
This imprinted in my psyche as a child and well into my early adulthood.
It all started with masturbation.
The wisdom that comes from the shadow realm which honestly shouldn’t even be in the shadow.
It is a natural human impulse and experience.
The church had it that it was a mortal sin, right along with murder and rape.
The irony of this whole story is that now my relationship with God is deepened with every stroke of my clitoris.
Opening up my legs to being penetrated in the fullness of my desire and consent, touching myself, or even getting curious with my fingers and how it makes my body feel.
All of it brings me closer to God.
This was natural and normal for me until I wanted to deepen my relationship with God. It was then that I found out it was a mortal fucking sin.
If I’m honest, I’ve spent years dismantling these false teachings. The beginning of this process was not easy. It was a complete mindfuck to experience God through my genitals.
So many lessons learned along the way in order to be here now.
There is both wisdom in the church and there is falsehood. Both.
It's the furthest thing from the truth that I was going to go to hell for masturbating.
You will not go to hell because you touch yourself.
It is the source of all life.
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Sin is when you do something that is out of alignment with your deepest truth. And even then, God is not waiting to punish you, unless you’re into that. #kink
You deem yourself to punishment when you decide that these are the rules.
You make the rules.
It is safe to admit that you like punishment. You don’t have to punish yourself. #choice
Your body IS the monstrance that holds the body of Christ and all parts are worthy and holy.
Even your dirty mind.
Even your lust.
Your wrath and anger.
Your jealousy and envy.
Pride, gluttony, and sloth.
Even your greed.
Your body IS the monstrance that holds the body of Christ and all parts are worthy and holy.
It’s time we stop shunning our shadows and sins and turn towards them instead.
We do not need to be afraid.
“He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12)
Greater works shall we all do if we are willing.
What great works do you want to do?
What is your greatest desire?
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