Fundie calls in to Dan Savage's podcast

[VodouDoll]

Does anyone else listen to the Savage Love podcast? A woman who was raised fundie (homeschool, no kissing before marriage) and became an atheist as an adult called in because now her marriage to her still-fundie husband is all screwed up in ways that seem almost entirely her own fault. Dan kind of ripped her a new one.

It's episode 260 and her question begins around minute 30. Someone called into the last 5 minutes of episode 263 with another take on it that was interesting. I could transcribe if you'd like.

[Alcyone]

I'd like to read it, if it is not too much trouble to transcribe. I am interested in the scenario though I don't know who Dan Savage is.

[polabear]

I heard the podcast back when it originally aired. Dan Savage is a sex advice column, and co-founded the "It Gets Better" project. He is a big proponent of "Monogomish", which is where some couples, rather than divorcing and breaking up the family when they get an "itch" or things get stale, might find themselves with other partners now and then. Of course, that would be with full agreement and knowledge of all parties.

What he's virulently against are "Lying Sacks of Shit", otherwise known as folks who cheat and cheat on their spouses for whatever reason, without being open and honest. Which is what the atheist woman was doing - mainly, saying "Oh, I can't stand my marriage but instead of trying to change anything, I'm just going to go out and cheat on my husband. And, its okay, because I was raised fundy and now I'm an atheist. But I don't want a divorce because I have three kids. Please tell me I'm a good person Dan."

[VodouDoll]

No prob, Alcyone. I'm transcribing now.

And yeah, polabear, my husband actually thinks her call might have been fake because there did seem to be a strong current of, "I'm cheating on my husband because of atheism!" running through it.

[BravaAmica]

What he's virulently against are "Lying Sacks of Shit", otherwise known as folks who cheat and cheat on their spouses for whatever reason, without being open and honest. Which is what the atheist woman was doing - mainly, saying "Oh, I can't stand my marriage but instead of trying to change anything, I'm just going to go out and cheat on my husband. And, its okay, because I was raised fundy and now I'm an atheist. But I don't want a divorce because I have three kids. Please tell me I'm a good person Dan."

Yeah, I can see him totally ripping her several new ones for that.

[sea_gale]

I could transcribe if you'd like.

Yes please!

I'm guessing his advice was along the lines of DTMFA?

[Jezebel]

Dan Savage is also the one who originated the term "[link=http://spreadingsantorum.com/]santorum[/link]" (Warning to the uninitiated: it's icky) named after the gay-hatin' senator of that name. He can really annoy me at times, but still I'll always love him for that.

[VodouDoll]

Pretty much DTMFA, but more along the lines of, "Your husband should dump you," rather than, "You should dump him."

Caller:

Hi Dan,

I’m a 27 year old married girl with three little children and a strong conservative Christian husband. I grew up homeschooled with conservative Christian parents and morals that would blow your socks off. I did not kiss until marriage, I did not hold hands until my husband and I were engaged, and of course, premarital sex was something that only evil people did.

My husband and I have a good marriage overall with similar goals. It’s boring, we don’t connect much, but it’s a good marriage I think. However, six months ago after reading a lot of books about science and discovering that my homeschooling upbringing had sheltered me, I became a full-fledged atheist. This is a shock to my husband and is still a secret to my family. My kids don’t even know yet.

I would be okay staying in the marriage, but there’s one problem. Ever since I let go of my beliefs, my desire for true sexual fulfillment has come raging up, as though it’s just been waiting for this opportunity to appear. For example, I’ve always had strong feelings for my childhood female best friend. She actually admitted the same about a year ago. After I stopped believing in God, and that He would burn me for any bad behavior, I let myself go and we had a little fun together. And it was totally amazing.

And then the same thing happened with another friend of mine. They asked me if I wanted to be part of a threesome and I decided to go ahead and do it without telling my husband because he would believe it was completely against God. And I did it, and it was wonderful. And ever since, I’ve never been so happy and my life is feeling more fulfilled and peaceful.

But here’s the thing. I kind of want to do it again, but I’m married, and my husband is a strong, strong Christian and would never be able to agree to it, even though we have a very low-key marriage and we know that we’re not really very good at connecting with each other. So I don’t know what I’m supposed to do since now that I’ve become an atheist I realize that I’ve become a different person than I thought I was. I don’t want to leave my husband because we have three kids, but I’m also going to go crazy if I just stay in the relationship the way it is.

So my question is, do I ask him if I can have an open relationship, or do I keep it a secret, or what am I supposed to do in order to stay a sane person?

Thanks so much.

Dan:

Should I ask him if I can have an open relationship? I think what you need to do at this point is tell him that you have an open relationship. Maybe he is in some sort of monogamous relationship himself, or he’s behaving monogamously, but you certainly aren’t, and that’s information that Conservative Christian, Lack of Connection Nutjob he may be, he’s entitled to. You are - I am sad to say even as an advocate of people getting what they want - you’re in “cheating piece of shit†territory here.

I get it. You have three small children. You married young. You were brainwashed by the system that didn’t lead to personal fulfillment and happiness. And sexual fulfillment is a big part of personal fulfillment, and people who lack it and don’t feel it and don’t experience it can go a little crazy and maybe that’s what you’ve done? You’ve gone a little overboard.

And, if I may say as an atheist speaking up for other atheists out there, there’s nothing about becoming an atheist or being an atheist or adopting atheism as your worldview that leads inexorably to “cheating piece of shit†status. The thing that stands between most people and cheating is not their imaginary sky-buddy Jesus Christ, but a moral code, a sense of right and wrong which is not just religion.

I’m not sure what to tell you to do. I would be afraid if I were you to go to my husband and disclose all of this, for fear of how he might react. You wouldn’t want him to react paternalistically, violently, sky-god-desert-religion-y about it. That said, you do need to get your relationship onto a much more honest footing.

Whatever sense of disconnect you feel, I’m sure your husband feels too. And you may be able to go to him and say, “Clearly we don’t have a strong emotional or sexual connection. We are good partners. We are good parents. I propose a companionate marriage, where you do your thing, I do my thing, we love each other as best we can, but we release each other from full disclosure or any sense of obligation outside of that marriage-slash-parent partnership that we do, and do well.†And see what he says. He’s probably going to say, “Fuck you.†It’ll probably be over.

And wherever you live with your three small children and you’re fucking around on your husband, odds are this is going to get back to him. And then it’s really going to get ugly and really going to explode. And you may be happier once your marriage is officially over, because from where I’m sitting, I see someone who married young, and who regrets it, who is slamming her hand down on the self-destruct button so fucking hard that when your marriage self-destructs, you’re going to realize that that’s ultimately what you wanted. That you did want out. Which is why you are engineering, consciously or subconsciously, you’re engineering the end of your marriage.

And that might be for the best. It might be for the best also if I had a time machine and we could jump in it and go back seven or eight years before you married and before you had children and I could knock the Bible out of your hand and hand you a stack of Richard Dawkins books. We could’ve jumped past all of this. But then your three beautiful children wouldn’t exist, and that would be a tragedy.

Good fucking luck.

Then a few episodes later a caller had this to say, which I thought was an interesting take:

Hey Dan, episode 260, the young woman who was raised fundie and then turned atheist and now she’s out fucking around.

I thought you were pretty harsh on her. Keep in mind, she was never taught right from wrong. All she was taught was, “You do this and God will punish you.†Now that that God is gone, so is that threat and she’s got nothing to fall back on. No moral framework at all. She was raised in a moral vacuum for the first 27 years of her life. Give her another 27 years to develop her own moral framework and then judge her actions.

[chiccy]

Thanks so much for transcribing. BTW, what did Dan say to the caller?

*the second caller.

[VodouDoll]

He didn't say anything to the second caller. He just played the message at the very end of the podcast.

[ChunkyBarbie]

Thanks V for typing that out. It did seem a bit like anti-atheist propaganda to me, but was entertaining, especially Dan's response. The second caller was very interesting, I would love to hear/ read a fundie's take on his view. I have long thought that a fear of punishment is not morality, thus an atheist's morals could be argued as more pure and true.

[VodouDoll]

Ray Comfort's blog often has crazy Christian commenters who can't wrap their minds around the fact that atheists have morals. They literally can not understand how it's possible and post things like, "But without fear of hell, what would stop us from raping and murdering everyone we meet?" Which freaks me out because, really, fear of hell is the only reason they're not mass murdererers? They're basically confessing they have no empathy or kindness or love for humankind. It's not that they don't want to hurt others, they totally think they would be rapists and murderers except they're scared of the punishment. That's terrifying.

The caller struck me that way a very little bit too. Even once the threat of punishment in hell went away, one would hope she'd still have empathy for her husband and want to treat him the way she'd want to be treated, with kindness and respect. These things transcend religion, and you'd hope fear of hell wasn't the only thing keeping her from treating her family like crap. But apparently it was? I don't know.

[Alcyone]

Wait...wasn't the original caller saying that she discovered she was a lesbian (or maybe bi)? Dan Savage didn't address that part of it at all and I would think that would make a difference!

I agree with the second caller. I think we humans, under normal conditions, develop a pretty sensitive conscience early in life. Being raised fundie evangelical Christian, though, could seriously interfere with typical moral development. After all, how many times can you hear that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9) before you begin to acquiesce to the voice of your "authorities" instead of your own voice?

[Angri-la]

Dan Savage is also the one who originated the term "[link=http://spreadingsantorum.com/]santorum[/link]" (Warning to the uninitiated: it's icky) named after the gay-hatin' senator of that name. He can really annoy me at times, but still I'll always love him for that.

This. My husband will never forgive me for enlightening him on this topic.

[Rosa]

Alcyon, I'm not sure her being a lesbian impacts whether she should be truthful with her husband, except that she seemed to see sleeping with a woman as not really impacting her marriage. If she hadn't topped that with a threesome, I'm sure Savage would have ripped her for that, too, because of the underlying homophobia.

[Alcyone]

Thanks Rosa. I think I will have to look up Dan Savage to understand this. So far, I get the idea that he is an atheist homophobe who is a proponent of open marriage and opposes divorce. Unless I am misunderstanding the whole thing... :?

[VodouDoll]

Far from a homophobe. As for the rest, I'm not really sure.

[BravaAmica]

Thanks Rosa. I think I will have to look up Dan Savage to understand this. So far, I get the idea that he is an atheist homophobe who is a proponent of open marriage and opposes divorce. Unless I am misunderstanding the whole thing... :?

Actually, Dan Savage is a gay man, in a long term relationship (Canada legally recognizes their marriage, the US, not so much) and the parent of a 15 year old boy (adopted). Dan's a proponent of open communication and respectful, gleeful, kick ass sex (however that is defined within the relationship- so long as you're honest and communicate and respect your partner).

Here's the archives for his weekly column: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Sava ... chives=all

[Rosa]

I meant he would have kicked her ass for appearing to homophobically believe sex with her girl friend doesn't count, except the rest of her behavior was so shitty.

[loratliff]

So far, I get the idea that he is an atheist homophobe who is a proponent of open marriage and opposes divorce. Unless I am misunderstanding the whole thing... :?

Dan? A homophobe?!

(What portion of his response gave you that idea?)

[Jezebel]

Dan? A homophobe?!

(What portion of his response gave you that idea?)

Maybe she's got Dan mixed up with Michael Savage, the right-wing radio talk show host (who happens to be a real gob of [link=http://spreadingsantorum.com/]santorum[/link])? If so, she's not the first to do it.

[portinari]

Thanks Rosa. I think I will have to look up Dan Savage to understand this. So far, I get the idea that he is an atheist homophobe who is a proponent of open marriage and opposes divorce. Unless I am misunderstanding the whole thing... :?

You're grossly misunderstanding. You need to definitely look up Dan and his opinions. To start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Savage ... ts_of_view

[contrary]

i think that for him, the bi/homosexuality angle is less of an issue here. sex outside of marriage is sex outside of marriage, without your partner's knowledge or consent.

the fact that it was sex with a woman is secondary. unless, of course, she's pretending like it doesn't count because it wasn't penetration by another man, or something (believe me, i've heard this one before).

i wonder what flavors were involved in the threesome...another m/f couple, or two women? oh! or two men!

[debrand]

I didn't think that his answer was harsh. She needed honesty. There is a big difference between having an open marriage and cheating. Although I understand why she might have had an affair, that doesn't make her actions right.

Dan was right to warn her against telling her husband. There is no telling how he would react. At best, he could ruin her reputation with her family or friends. He might even feel entitled to hurt her.

[ZTwist]

Dan Savage is also the one who originated the term "[link=http://spreadingsantorum.com/]santorum[/link]" (Warning to the uninitiated: it's icky) named after the gay-hatin' senator of that name. He can really annoy me at times, but still I'll always love him for that.

So he's who we have to thank!! Glad to know, I live in PA and good ole Ricky was our senator. I'm pretty sure it was one of his Kool Aid drinkers who keyed my car because of my "Outsource Santorum" bumper sticker. Still have that scratch on my car and it's a badge of pride!