One woman handed me a fistful of tissues and helped me to my feet. An enthusiastic man patted me on the back and said, “Well, tonight was a powerful night for you. I’m sure you’ll never forget the evening when you left those sinful feelings behind at the foot of our Savior’s cross.”
The woman with the box of tissues added, “You’re set free now, by the power of Jesus, so go and live your new life. I hope I’ll meet you someday in future with a husband and children of your own—you’ll be a testimony to God’s healing grace.”
I began walking away, but one man called out with a final thought: “You know, the Bible says some demons only come out ‘by prayer and fasting,’ so if those sinful feelings come back, try fasting, as that is a powerful way to be set free by the power of Jesus.”
“You mean not eating?” I replied, sounding worried.
“Yes,” he said. “You know Jesus fasted for forty days, like the Gospels tell us. It’s a proven way to get free from demons that won’t go any other way. If you want God’s freedom enough that you’re willing to fast from food, you’ll see your feelings change for sure.”
I walked away, clutching the tissues. The auditorium was empty; they had prayed with me long after the meeting had ended. The band had stopped playing, and all the other youth had left the venue. I walked through the huge empty building, weaving my way through the rows of chairs and out into the night.
Rather than finding freedom, healing, and pastoral support from those adults, I came away feeling more ashamed and broken. Previously, I’d thought of my feeling for girls as emotional, biological, and psychological. But now panic set in: apparently I was not creating these desires myself—it was the sinister work of demons. This information, new to me, was extremely alarming.
I thought about the man’s encouragement to fast too. I decided that, yes, I would go to any lengths to get free from my sinful desires, even if it meant starving myself. Food, body image, and self-worth are tricky for any young adult, and this set in motion a preference for punishing my body rather than caring for it.
My mind felt full to the brim. The hope I’d felt surging through me that evening as I’d listened to the red-haired girl and her testimony had fallen flat. That night, I fell asleep under the canvas of my tent, scared stiff that I was inhabited by dark powers that would never let me go.
I took what my Christian leaders had taught me at face value, and I didn’t feel equipped to question it. I was an intelligent person, near the top of my class in most school subjects, but when it came to spirituality, I wasn’t used to thinking for myself. There were no LGBTQ+ people in my life, so I didn’t have role models to tell me that same-sex feelings were, in fact, not the work of demons or that being gay and Christian was possible.
I’d summoned all my teenage courage that night and spoken out about my same-sex feelings, asking for help. Having had it go so badly, I couldn’t imagine telling another soul about my secret ever again. As the writer Ian McEwan strikingly expresses in his novel Atonement: “A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.” After that night at summer camp, I would not be easily mended.
“This,” he said, gesturing soberly, “is what happens when you have … sex.” Looking at us with an intense gaze, the man at the front of the Christian youth event held up two pieces of white paper. He took a stick of glue and spread it liberally over both sheets. Then he pressed the sheets together, so they stuck firmly.
“Sex means you are literally gluing your soul to the other person; it’s sacred. Something significant happens when two people become ‘one flesh,’ as the Bible describes it. It’s not just about flesh and bone; part of you joins with that other person. It’s a spiritual union that cannot be broken.” He held the two pieces of paper in the air, showing us they were completely glued together.
“Now, see what happens if you have sex with someone casually—who you’re not married to—and then you break up.” His brow furrowed as he took the two pieces of paper and, starting at the top, tried to pull them apart. Of course, the glue had done its work, and this proved a difficult thing to attempt. Finally, he managed to separate them but was left with a mess: part of one piece of paper was left attached to the other and vice versa. In his hands the two sheets—once perfect—were now ripped to shreds and full of holes.
“This,” he said, “is what sex outside of marriage does to your body and soul. You leave a part of yourself with that other person. You are both damaged by it. And you can never be whole again.” All of us in that summer camp seminar were around the age of sixteen, and we exchanged worried glances.
“Save sex for marriage,” he said, bringing his illustration to a close. “Wait for the partner God has chosen for you, the perfect husband or wife, who you’ll be married to for life. If you don’t wait, the consequences are very serious in God’s eyes.”
At the end of the seminar on sex and relationships, we all shuffled out of the venue looking shell-shocked. I knew a couple of my friends had already had sex, and I hated to think what emotions they were trying to process after seeing those ripped-up pieces of paper.
One friend who I knew had been sexually active whispered to me, “What am I going to do now? If I’m damaged, just like that piece of paper, who is ever going to want me?” Tears began trickling out of the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away, smudging her makeup. “God must be so angry with me …” she added as she walked away in need of some privacy to cry.
Sex had become a regular topic at the Christian events I attended, as soon as my friends and I had hit sixteen. Some of the seminars did better than others at handling this sensitive topic, although even the best ones made it clear sex was only allowed within a heterosexual marriage to another Christian. It was an important evangelical teaching, an unmovable line in the sand. It was the only godly option—everything else was serious sin.
Many times in those talks, I heard St. Paul quoted: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body” (1 Cor. 6:18, NIV). We were taught that this placed sexual sin above others; it was the most grievous offense against God and against yourself. It frightened our teenage minds, which I think was part of the aim—to scare our hormones into obedience.
At one Christian camp, a visiting American speaker used a different illustration. She held up an apple and, taking a bite out of it, said, “This is an example of what happens when you have sex.” She handed the apple to a person in the front row, instructing, “Take a bite.” The teenager awkwardly chomped into the fruit. “Now hand it to the person next to you,” the leader instructed. Once five people had bitten chunks out of the apple, there was little left but the core. “Hand it back to me,” the leader said, holding out her hand.
“Now,” she said, looking at us, “this is what happens when you give yourself away sexually to multiple people. All you’re left with is this ugly core.” She held what was left of the apple in the air. “Who’s going to want you if you are left like this? What godly man or woman will want to give their life to you then? Stick to God’s way for sex: save it for marriage.”
This area of life was treated with severity in evangelical and Pentecostal churches. I’d heard of several married pastors in the UK who’d lost their job as a result of having an affair. A male youth leader in another city had been fired for sleeping with his girlfriend before they were married. Punishment was seen as helping the sinner get back on track.
Our youth meetings also brought up the topic of masturbation. We were told it was sinful and not something Christians should ever do. Sex and the feelings that went with it were for marriage, not for selfish pleasure.