Sinner (Priest, #2)

by Sierra Simone

To be fully human is to be fully sexual, and while that doesn’t mean having sex or even sexual desire, it does mean being fully in your body. It means recognizing that there’s nothing any less holy about your body than there is about your soul, that as long as your body is treated with consent and respect and affection—and that you treat the bodies of others in the same way—there’s nothing inherently sinful about your flesh.

There’s nothing inherently sinful about your flesh

No way is any holier than another because our bodies are holy no matter what, and our lives are holy no matter what.

“Well, I do feel like I should mention that I think virginity in general is an arbitrary construct designed by men as a system of control and fear. And it’s heteronormative. And limiting, because why do certain sexual acts preserve virginity and some destroy it? What if I fucked a dildo every night, but I hadn’t fucked a man? Why doesn’t anal sex count? And what if I was with someone and penetration wasn’t an option, for any number of biological or emotional or identity reasons—would that make our sex less somehow? I’d be a virgin forever?”

The virginity construct explained beautifully.

The most selfless people, the most driven people, they need permission to take care of themselves; they need someone who will put them first because they won’t do it for themselves.

..very very true.

“I can’t get angry. If I get angry, then I’m the Angry Black Woman. If I admit to having my feelings hurt, then I’m being too sensitive. If I ask for people to treat me thoughtfully, then I’m being aggressive. If I joke back, then I’m being impertinent or sassy. If I cry, then I’m hyperemotional. If I don’t react at all, I’m intimidating or cold. Do you see? There’s not a way I can react where I win. I can’t win.”

And as I’m both alight and aflame with loving her, these splashes of thought keep coming out of nowhere, like raindrops on a sunny day.

Belief is this. Praying when you don’t feel like it, when you don’t know who or what is listening; it’s doing the actions with the trust that something about it matters. That something about it makes you more human, a better human, a human able to love and trust and hope in a world where those things are hard. That is belief. That is the point of prayer. Not logging a wish list inside a cosmic ledger, not bartering for transactional services. You do it for the change it works on you and on those around you; the point of it is…itself. Nothing more and nothing less.