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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Sept 1, 2010 8:18:54 GMT -5
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phatchick
Junior Member
Medicated for Your Protection
Posts: 80
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Post by phatchick on Sept 1, 2010 9:20:21 GMT -5
I have read some awful things on this blog but what you went through just sickens me. I am so glad you got away from that waste of oxygen! {{{{{DR}}}}}
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Post by apprentice on Sept 1, 2010 9:21:41 GMT -5
At least the one good thing about these stories is that you know that the writer finally got out of it.
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Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 11:41:28 GMT -5
Oh, this post scares the cr** out of me! My last two nieces weddings were SO similar! I thought the first one was scary, with all of her emphasis on submitting to her new husband as if he were the embodiment of the Lord. The idolatry was blatant. But then my next niece outdid her, using the word submit at least a dozen times in her vows, and the word love only once. I remember thinking that maybe she would still be okay, since her husband seemed to love her exceedingly, fawning over her and crying during his vows in which he did pledge to love her over and over again. Then this: and this: I don't feel so well.
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Post by rizerfall on Sept 1, 2010 12:38:32 GMT -5
No one knows some of the horrors that Christian women go through and yet encouraged to smile and pray through it to be a good Christian wife. I am glad you can tell this story because that means you realized it was not you who was flawed. This is what we should praise God for; surviving our religious husbands.
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Post by tapati on Sept 1, 2010 18:08:39 GMT -5
So well told! I'm sure we all feel like we are right there. The Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde comparison is a natural one, and it's one I used as well in one of my first attempts to write about my experience. www.labyris.com/jerk.htmlSomething was saying “weird” to me on my honeymoon. There were forecasts of bizarre on the horizon, but a 23-year-old virgin wouldn’t know from bizarre, now would she? How familiar! And what a good argument for a sufficient dating history to recognize an unhealthy relationship! I had the very same problem. It was my stupid uterus that hiccuped and couldn’t hold onto Nate’s child. Nate was worried. Had he married a malfunctioning woman who could not give him children?This is not the most common cause of miscarriages! In half of miscarriages, fetal tissue shows chromosome anomalies that affected their viability. Not to mention that domestic violence can be one cause of miscarriage! This guy is giving me the creeps and I've never met him (thank Goddess!) And Thank the Goddess (or Deity of your choice and/or your own courage) you got away! {{{hugs}}}
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Post by krwordgazer on Sept 1, 2010 19:01:56 GMT -5
I lost my first pregnancy to miscarriage too. I was fortunate in that the only one irrationally blaming me, was myself. What an amazing story. Your prose just pulls the reader in, Defendant Rising.
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Post by nikita on Sept 1, 2010 19:05:05 GMT -5
The idolatry is really striking to me. I find it astonishing that it doesn't flash red warning signs to these patriarchalists once they see something like this in action, even if it sounded good on paper. They seem to really believe that men stand in the place of God for women and children and don't see the obvious trap that really is. It is said that Satan is the father of all lies, and that one right there is a doozy and they've fallen for it hook line and sinker. I love your writing style and your story is both terrible and so so familiar. In my cult we were allowed to choose our own mates but the final approval came from our leader. We thought God talked specially to him and that he could see into our hearts and minds. If he said 'no' then we couldn't marry. If we married anyway, then we were looked upon as out of the will of God and nothing in our lives could prosper or go right for the rest of our lives. The few who defied and got married anyway always had that cloud over their heads, of people watching them, seeing how they got along, how well their lives went, if their kids got sick, etc. It was a heartless and self-righteous system but we really really believed he knew because God told him. You couldn't hide from him and you rebelled to your own misery. So horrible. But some of those people were truly in love and other 'approved' couples were just so wrong for each other it was obvious once they actually married. I was one of the latter. The minute I married the entire game changed with my husband. It was like he'd never met me before and was astonished to find out he'd married me and not some cardboard cut out 'woman'. Men are so weird. I looked up your church and I was really surprised. It was created I guess to monitor and counter the excesses and falsity of the prosperity/TBN/faith healing crowd but then it fell deeply into the opposite fallacy. That's fascinating to me, and I could totally see how someone could honestly end up in that church system as a counter to that other excessive religiosity. Again, I am so sorry you wound up there and with that man in particular. It sounds like he had problems well and above any doctrinal system he might have espoused. Your church is said to have been part of or very similar to the shepherding movement, did you find that so? Do you think your husband was shepherded in such a way that he was finally using your marriage as his opportunity to exercise excessive control over someone else for a change? I often wonder about that in shepherding churches. Anyway, thanks again for sharing with us. Your story is very gripping. Like someone else said, the thing that makes it easier to read is knowing you got out.
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Post by defendantrising on Sept 1, 2010 20:32:58 GMT -5
Yep, our Great Commission group wanted to get "back to the Bible" on church structure and make a church just like existed in the New Testament, with first Jim McCotter and then Tom Short as our Apostle Paul. It was sort of a reaction to Pentecostalism. Churches met in people's homes, not in huge arenas and leadership was supposed to be more personal. It got very, very personal indeed, and turned very abusive in a lot of cases with a lot of harsh "church discipline" meted out to try to keep the group pure. Women, too, were supposed to mimic the imagined roles and demeanor of the ideal woman Paul wanted in his churches. I never heard anything about "shepherding." I did hear a lot about "discipleship" and "submission" though. Jim McCotter was very much a cohort of Vision Forum, Gary North and the dominionists, and all of those rich patriarchs and was in the super-creepy Council for National Policy. undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2009/06/significance-of-mccotters-great.html
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Post by cindy on Sept 1, 2010 21:27:12 GMT -5
Defendant Rising, I'm so glad that you got out of the Great Commission. The truth is that most people do walk away from the group in time because it is so demanding, particularly those who get very involved. For those who don't have time to read the above link, Geoffrey Botkin, father to the Visionary Daughters, and his wife were Norman, Oklahoma recruits into the Great Commission during the '70s. When Botkin parted ways with McCotter in 2002 after following him to New Zealand and previously following McCotter to Washington DC in the '80s, he soon reappeared in the ranks at Vision Forum. Note that several former members of the Great Commission left in the '70s, got training, and opened the first fully accredited inpatient facility for recovery from cults -- Wellspring in Albany, OH. During the '80s, my own exit counselor made visits to inpatient psychiatric facilities because the group was so rigid and controlling in those days. Many young people recruited at Univ of MD and Towson State ended up hospitalized. (This was back in the days when Botkin was listed in local Maryland newspapers as the Great Commission's "administrative assistant," but Botkin refers to this as his heading up a Washington think tank. He did participate with the cult's lobbying group, too.) My point about Botkin and Vision Forum: None of this stuff is new. Not one thing that Vision Forum or groups like them is original or unique but is borrowed from other sources. All of Botkin's material is from the Great Commission Cult. It's just rehashed old stuff out of the cults in the '70s. But they don't want you to know that, because they have to keep you off balance with new twists and spins on the old junk. It also generates income for them. What they didn't lift out of the Confederate writings and the Cult of Domesticity, they adapted from the Shepherding Discipleship Movement of that day. This is the same era that produced Bill Gothard who promotes the same ideology. It was a list of rules and standards of conduct to keep the church from getting "too experiential" after the Charismatic Renewal (when all sorts of Christians in all sorts of denominations started speaking in tongues spontaneously). It is also said to be a reaction to the social unrest of the '60s as well as two poor outcomes from our police action wars (Vietnam & Korea, wars that were not "won" which confused Americans). Here's another little synopsis I posted fairly recently, a little shorter than the previous one mentioned on Under Much Grace: botkinsyndrome.blogspot.com/p/origins.htmlAnd they get worked up when people use the "c" word? That is their history. Funny that they're not proud of it.
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Post by cindy on Sept 2, 2010 22:10:02 GMT -5
Defendant Rising,
I went to sleep thinking of what you endured, praying to finally birth your baby boy.
The majority of my peers in churches are tough on me or hold me at arms length, assuming that we refused God by refusing to have children. I know the torture of feeling like my womb "hiccoughed" bringing on a miscarriage and second guessing what I may have done wrong. And I still often feel like to be accepted by other women my age that I might fare better if I wore my medical history around my neck for their review.
My parents and peers in church have always been my greatest critics, and I am grateful that my husband has always been my greatest support and source of the best encouragement. I thought today about how I grateful I am for that when I thought about what you've gone through. I wish you had never known that pain.
I'm glad that you've been able to create that safe place from the world for yourself, I hope through many friends and loving family.
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Post by defendantrising on Sept 3, 2010 11:14:03 GMT -5
Cindy, the pressure to reproduce in many right-wing evangelical churches can indeed be crushing. You are considered worldly, greedy, and worse if you don't have children. You have to go back several thousand years of history to find anything comparable in terms of enslaving women and making us walking wombs. As far as your blog goes, very, VERY interesting.
I wouldn't say our Great Commission elder went so far as to directly set up courtships and marriages, but he may have subtly encouraged some matches while discouraging others. Dating was out of the question. The name of my elder, as well as the college campus, time frame, city, and other details, I shall keep to myself, but here are some facts:
Our elder has nine children.
The group produced six marriages, all (except me) right-wing political activists, all home schoolers (only I've quit)--and 34 children. This only counts inter-fellowship marriages; it does not count members who went and recruited spouses for Quiverfull somewhere else.
If our sole tiny campus fellowship has produced 34 children (and counting), I think the estimates of the total number of Quiverfullers (300,000) is way off. I think there are probably 300,000 Quiverfull adherents and children that spawned from Great Commission ALONE. The Great Commission Churches have not only survived, but have positively thrived.
The first time I ever saw "To Train Up a Child," that horrific child abuse manual written by the Pearls, it was in the hand of my Great Commission elder, who was handing it to me for my elucidation when I expressed surprise/concern that his baby was on a blanket getting a "loving" whack whenever he crawled off it.
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Post by arietty on Sept 3, 2010 20:04:04 GMT -5
Cindy, the pressure to reproduce in many right-wing evangelical churches can indeed be crushing. You are considered worldly, greedy, and worse if you don't have children. I was aware of that in my mainstream but fundy oriented church, women who were married but chose to pursue careers past the acceptable 2-3 years you were allowed to enjoy newly married life sans children were suspect. The longer you put off having children the more of a feminist you must be, and I do remember that these women were viewed VERY negatively by many men. We were praying for one woman who was infertile for 10 years and there were always snide comments about "should we pray for X too" because everyone knew X and her husband were, gasp, simply not choosing to have children even though they had been married for a long time! And then of course if you had more than four children (still an acceptable number here) you were under judgment for having too many. You were now under pressure to get control of yourself and all the jokes and comments went in that direction. This is what I don't miss about church at all, constantly being under some judgment for not doing or being what the majority deemed the good way to be. It's very overbearing (though subtle at times) when it is a group that you belong to that views you this way.
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Post by cindy on Sept 4, 2010 14:24:26 GMT -5
After the late '80s when the Great Commission plot to take over Washington DC (or Silver Spring, anyway), the Great Commission folks did mellow out a little. They pretty much had to do so.
The heavy duty stuff that went on during and after the Blitz, the habits in the '70s regarding courtship, did not last with the same intensity over time. I think that you can only run those groups so long under so much pressure. They lived in communal houses, and worried about causing "factions" which was like the nearly almost unpardonable sin. I think that the campuses that were directly attended by McCotter in those days were tighter and more rigid, too.
During the '80s in the DC area, though young people were driven into psych wards (from the recruits of the U of MD and Towson State). I do know that they did practice stringent and very aggressive discipline of children, "breaking" them with corporal punishment. Families would be seen with 6 month old babies that never cried, toddlers who sat like stone statues, and little girls (8 to 10) who performed like little pet mommies as if they were some kind of machines.
Reading Alice Miller's old stuff, the hard discipline of children dates back to the Victorian period, rules that they call "The Pedagogy." It sounds much like Pearl, and I wonder if he "tapped into this wisdom" for information? I suspect that the Great Commission was following this child training and breaking of the spirit long before Pearl. But the pedagogues did before any of them. With the fascination for the 'old paths" and such, I wonder if they just "borrowed' material. Disturbing stuff.
Alice Miller called it the "poisonous pedagogy."
Sigh.
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Post by cindy on Sept 4, 2010 14:36:42 GMT -5
I failed to mention that in '91-'92, the Great Commission was essentially forced to mellow out a bit after McCotter FORMALLY left his post at the top of the organization. They were forced to deal with the many reports from all over Iowa, DC and Ohio concerning the kids admitted for psychiatric care and the marriages that suffered. I am sometimes asked about the apologies that the Great Commission made: gcxweb.org/Articles/CultOb-1992.aspxFrankly, they would need to go to ICSA and counter-cult apologetics groups to show themselves accountable for me to trust that they really changed anything, making things right with everyone. Pat Robertson supposedly confronted the leaders in Christian Growth International Ministries, the group that I got tangled up with. They supposedly disbanded in the late '70s and repented of their errors, but when we attended one of their churches in the early '90s, they were still quite cultic and destructive. People still ran around listening to Watchman Nee, Bob Mumford and Derek Prince. and they were still preaching the same messages. They just didn't require that you formally have a shepherd that approved every single thing. But they still approved the big stuff. So I don't think that unless a group shows itself accountable, like in the manner of the Worldwide Church of God after Armstrong died, I don't really believe that these groups changed. Talk is cheap.
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Sept 5, 2010 13:20:22 GMT -5
This Nate you speak of is not fit to take care of a dog, other animal or plant, much less a wife and children. He is a total abuser who was propped up by some sort of equally abusive, misogynistic church.
I honestly for the life of me do not understand why some women allow themselves to be so fully and totally brainwashed into believing that they must give up every shred of self-dignity for someone else. Don't be mad at me for saying it, it's just how I feel. I've read explanations of why this happens, but still, I find it hard to believe that there isn't a voice in each of us that's screaming, "this is wrong, don't do it, this is wrong." Apparently, the brainwashing that's perpetrated on the victim does an effective job of silencing that voice.
I did some reading on this Great Commission and it appears that it's classified as a cult and that many people who were brainwashed had to have de-programmers work with them. Sounds like something to steer clear of. Sounds like they're abusers of the highest order who legitimize themselves by claiming to live by using "biblical principles". Sorry, but any biblical principles that involve me being beat up, demeaned, treated like cr*p by my husband would be going out the door pretty darn quick. And you say that Nate didn't like your little honey-moon get-up? He didn't like "that sort of lingerie". What does he like? A granny style flannel night gown? Or a dominatrix black leather suit complete with stiletto heels and whip? Since you said that liked internet porn (at some point in your marriage), he doesn't sound exactly like an innocent choir boy. And he didn't like sex in the dark? Sounds like he has some sort of sexual problems.
All in all, reading about the abuse that Nate inflicted on you sounds strikingly similiar to your normal every day secular abuser. Same games, same drills; the only thing that makes this different is that it's sanctioned by this crazy church. I'm sorry for the pain and suffering you went though, but the hope is that other naive and gullible young women read this blog and do not make the same mistake(s) as others prior to them have made. This kind of abuse that you describe is truly sickening and infuriating to read. Nate is an a*s - period. Nothing more needs to be said.
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Post by Sierra on Sept 5, 2010 16:32:34 GMT -5
I find it hard to believe that there isn't a voice in each of us that's screaming, "this is wrong, don't do it, this is wrong." Apparently, the brainwashing that's perpetrated on the victim does an effective job of silencing that voice. In my case, as a daughter, I was taught that my mind was a battleground between Jesus and the devil. I was not allowed to believe in my own mental voice - I was taught that it did not exist. Thoughts could never be neutral: Satan was the one who planted such self-preserving thoughts in my head, and I was to bring such urges into captivity to Christ when they conflicted with the word of God. Excellent writing, again, Tess - and I really felt for you as a young bride getting shot down on her honeymoon. I will be married in a few years and I imagine the emotional high of the wedding and being in love paves the way for such determination to make things work. Let alone, perhaps, the fear of failing to support oneself if the marriage didn't work. I believe I'd walk away now, having experienced abuse already, if my very non-abusive boyfriend were to do a total 180 on the wedding night. But it would still be scary, upsetting, and disarming - after all, I've been loving him for years.
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Post by nikita on Sept 5, 2010 19:48:55 GMT -5
Okay, I strained my shoulder so I don't want to type much so I'll make this short.
I don't think you can understand the social and religious pressure put on women and girls regarding marriage success and failure unless you've really been in that position. It is very extreme. If the marriage fails guess whose fault that is going to be?
I knew almost immediately that my marriage was going wrong but the idea of leaving was more horrifying than staying. I mean, if he had beat me up the first week then that would be one thing, but just some emotional abuse and arguments and disappointments - that was something that could get better, right? It was always told to us that the first year of marriage is the toughest anyway, so this is what that means, right? And marriage is forever, divorce is a sin, right? And if you do leave him, everyone will judge you and you probably will never get to marry anyone else ever again, you'll be considered suspect and damaged goods, right?
These things are real concerns that tormented me in the first year of my marriage. The only reason my marriage lasted is because I was too ashamed to leave him, knowing that I, as the less 'spiritual' person in the union by everyone's estimation, would be considered at fault and there would be a lot of behind my back 'I told you so's'. I mean, even staying married people came up to my husband and asked him if he was 'still married to her' only a few months after the wedding.
Leave in the face of less than major abuse? No frickin' way. It would be social suicide as well as sin, and I could not face that. So I stayed. And the rest of it is a much longer story that I won't go into here and now. But please don't just assume that those who stay are somehow stupid or weak or that you'd know better and never let that happen. I was pretty sure I wouldn't let it happen either, until it happened to me and I did.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Sept 6, 2010 16:15:21 GMT -5
I'm currently re-reading an excellent book called "Men are Just Dessert" by Sonia Friedman. She makes the point that culture in general, not just Christian culture, puts a lot of pressure on women to make sure marriage works and that she is there for the man. The subtle messages given are that if you don't have a man, you are nothing. And your job is to make your man something. Christian religion (as opposed to true Christian faith) only emphasizes this with moral obligation as a reinforcement.
It has everything to do with conditioning. I still struggle mightily with not rolling over on my back with paws in the air in submission figuratively speaking, when dealing with a male that I perceive to be my authority in some way. I'm thinking in particular about my mentor/teacher in my profession. It still takes a huge emotional toll on me to be able to disagree with him or to find myself at odds with him on anything. I can stand my ground in some areas, but you better believe that a lot of tears and agony goes into it.
It also has nothing to do with how intelligent you are or that only stupid women could get caught in this. I am by no means considered stupid, and defendant rising is easily one of the smartest women I know.
As far as weakness goes, I used to think I endured abuse in my marriage and church because I was so terribly weak. The truth is that it requires a GREAT DEAL of strength to live through it and come out of it. I have 12 resilient children as a result of that marriage and church. If I had been weak, maybe one or two of the kids would be resilient as a function of their personalities, but all 12? They got that from somewhere and it wasn't their father!
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Sept 6, 2010 17:10:05 GMT -5
Sierra, I hear you about the whole devil/Satan thing. Yeah, I grew up with that too, except I went to public school where I was allowed to be around normal people. I left home at age 19 and am now 47 years old. It's taken a LONG time to get past my upbringing. I know of friends who ended up in a mental institution due to this type upbringing. My own aunt ended up in a mental institution needing electro-shock therapy.
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Post by Sierra on Sept 6, 2010 17:46:57 GMT -5
Sierra, I hear you about the whole devil/Satan thing. Yeah, I grew up with that too, except I went to public school where I was allowed to be around normal people. I left home at age 19 and am now 47 years old. It's taken a LONG time to get past my upbringing. I know of friends who ended up in a mental institution due to this type upbringing. My own aunt ended up in a mental institution needing electro-shock therapy. I'm glad you had a moderating influence growing up this way. I'm also very grateful for my own. That outlet seems to be necessary for having the perspective to walk away later. I can really sympathize with the people who have ended up with deep psychological trauma, like your aunt. My own emotional state can only be described as "trying to keep my head above water." And at the same time, I feel the most irrational pressure to "be a good witness" for leaving! As though denying my feelings weren't what I'd run away from in the first place! So I am seeking all the help I can enlist, decompressing by telling my story, and other times just spending whole days napping away the lingering feelings of dread and hopelessness. I am trying to keep my life moving forward with graduate school, plans to marry, and a new home to furnish, but sometimes the PTSD strikes so hard I don't even want to wake up. Or I wake up thinking I'm right back there again, ready to go to church and be told again that I'm nothing but a cow.* *Cow reference to be explained in my next installment here
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Post by ladygrace on Sept 8, 2010 1:42:15 GMT -5
Doug Phillips headed up a wedding of a couple perseveroblog.com/?p=2574 with a brief summary including some words that make it sound a lot like she's being kept down. Because she is. Melissa's pretty much fallen off the face of the planet.
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Post by jillrhudybarrett on Sept 8, 2010 12:16:50 GMT -5
Been following this discussion, and did you see that menu bar on the right of this website on the slave sale wedding conducted by Doug Phillips? Practically a "who's who" of patriarchalist web sites.
The coat analogy by the father of the bride is so telling. According to the evangelical hard right, a woman is born wearing a "coat" of dependency and inferiority, just by virtue of being female. Do hermaphrodites and women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome have God-given "coats" which constrict them sexually and put them under their fathers' authority, or do you have to be a full genetic female? But I digress. These people do not believe women should wear burkhas like the radical Muslims but that they are straightjacketed already, by virtue of not having a Y chromosome. Note that the bride is praised by her father in a long speech for being pure and not "stretching her coat" despite the world's temptations.
"My child was born female, inferior by nature. I kept this woman well wrapped up, since she was my daughter and my property. Now I am handing her over, still wrapped up, to her husband. May she continue to prove by her joy at being tightly swaddled for life--a restricted second class citizen in every respect--that she is a godly woman." The hope that this female body, this transferred piece of property, would become functional by producing many children was also expressed at the wedding.
How many centuries has it been since fathers stood up at weddings and effectively announced, "My daughter is a virgin. The groom is getting undefiled goods from me in this transaction." And they do not think there is anything humiliating, or scandalous, or degrading, or demeaning about it. They think they're the most beautiful thing in the world, these Dark Ages ceremonies.
ladygrace, are you acquainted with this blushing bride?
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Post by kisekileia on Sept 8, 2010 12:39:56 GMT -5
uot; of dependency and inferiority, just by virtue of being female. Do hermaphrodites and women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome have God-given "coats" which constrict them sexually and put them under their fathers' authority, or do you have to be a full genetic female? Jill, I know you meant well, but the accepted term these days is "intersex".
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