#Jehovah witness sunday rules how to
#Jehovah witness sunday rules professional

“I’m looking forward to the singing,” said Steve Helzer, who is part of one of three congregations at the McMinnville Kingdom Hall at 2010 E. If I make a difference to the world, I shall hope it is for good.Īriel Anderssen is a BDSM model and author of Playing to Lose – How a Jehovah’s Witness Became a Submissive BDSM Modelĭo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.Tweet Jehovah’s Witnesses meet again in personĪfter two years of meeting online because of the pandemic, Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations in Yamhill County and around the world are returning to in-person gatherings April 1. I hope that people will stumble over my work the way I did when I visited the gallery, and that it will tell them they are not alone, that their desires are valid. I do a socially unacceptable job in the hopes of changing our ideas about what an acceptable lifestyle looks like. Now, I continue to produce BDSM-themed content, in the belief that the more evidence of sexual variety is available, the less isolated and guilty people like the teenager I once was will feel.

#Jehovah witness sunday rules professional

It also gave me a professional community and introduced me to my husband (a BDSM photographer). Pornography gave me the self-acceptance I’d been unable to find elsewhere, least of all in religion. After all, the artists who were prepared to be brave enough, and honest enough, to represent their sexuality publicly through their work may well have saved my life. Representing my sexuality as it really is, regardless of other people’s reactions, is to me a feminist act. In the age of #MeToo, producing images that represent male dominance could be mistaken for a sexist worldview.īut having grown up in a religion that stifled its members’ opportunities, especially those of women, I can no longer tolerate having my self-expression limited by others’ judgment. And as a submissive woman, the work I like to produce sometimes uncomfortably echoes the misogyny of past and present. Plenty of people see any kind of pornography as harmful to society, or at least without value. My job is socially unacceptable to many, and creators in my field face discrimination from banks, PayPal, Airbnb, employers and educational establishments. I found a job that fulfils my need for honesty.īut what of “do no harm”? This career makes me an adult actor of sorts. Twenty years later, I’m still a BDSM model I found a way to express my sexuality truthfully through art instead of keeping it secret, and I never want to stop. An artist asked me to pose for him and the following week I modelled for my first BDSM photoshoot. Then, nine years later at an art gallery, I stumbled upon evidence of a thriving BDSM community enjoying bondage, discipline, dominance and submission right under my nose. Devastated by the idea that perhaps I might be harmful to society after all my hopes of doing good, I contemplated taking my own life, and tried to suppress my interests. At 16, I realised with horror that this was my emerging sexual identity, and thought I was alone in the world with my unnatural proclivities. I’d gravitated towards games where somebody got tied up, or punished, or captured. I wondered – what was I capable of achieving? Could I find a job that would involve honesty, and making a positive difference to the world?Īll this time, I had a secret. I’d not expected to reach adulthood, given the JW promises of imminent Armageddon.

I held on to these principles, and I grew up. And: “If you make a difference to the world, let it be for good.” That one, I made up. When I read about the Hippocratic oath, I collected that rule, too.

#Jehovah witness sunday rules how to

If the JWs had been wrong, how could I trust anyone to tell me how to live? I sensed I should make my own mind up, but I’d had no practice JWs weren’t offered any autonomy in decision-making.

Skateboarding on Sunday mornings, my first pair of jeans, trying out swearing like my school friends. I dreaded an eternity of worshipping a God who’d never tire of being praised, but I didn’t know how to escape on my own.Įternity was snatched away from me when I was 13, when my family left the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) and my new world spun with giddy freedoms. My future stretched ahead of me, into eternity, hemmed in on all sides by rules.

Men were the heads of our households, and women weren’t allowed to pray out loud, address the congregation, or even handle the microphones we used at our meetings.Īt nine years old, I knew that oral sex, gay sex and extramarital sex were all just as sinful as blood transfusions. I learned that masturbation was wrong many years before I found out what it actually was. From inside, we knew that was only the beginning of the rules. These characteristics were easily spotted by outside observers.