Godless Perverts Story Hour Giving Blasphemous Sex Toys as Door Prizes!

ZOMLOG, this is so exciting! The Godless Perverts Story has received a donation of three — count ’em, three — blasphemous sex toys, to be given away as door prizes at our April 13 San Francisco event! (Event details below.) The toys come from Divine Interventions, fine manufacturers of high-quality silicone sex toys both secular and sacreligious. The company has given us:

Jackhammer Jesus dildo
a Jackhammer Jesus dildo;
Baby Jesus buttplug
a Baby Jesus Buttplug;
Bible Thumper
Bible Thumper base
and a Bible Thumper. (The notch in the Bible Thumper fits a standard bullet vibrator, which is not included CORRECTION: The Bible Thumpers sold on the Divine Interventions website are sold separately from the vibrators, but the company has provided us with a vibrator to go with the one we’re giving away.) Each toy will come with its own small bottle of Holy Water Lube. We’ll be giving them away as door prizes at the San Francisco event.
If we weren’t going to hell before this, we sure are now.

Co-hosted by David Fitzgerald, Chris Hall, and me, the Godless Perverts Story Hour is an evening about how to have good sex without having any gods, goddesses, spirits, or their earthly representatives hanging over your shoulder and telling you that you’re doing it wrong. We’ll be bringing you depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities, as well as critical, mocking, and blasphemous views of sex and religion. The evening’s entertainment will have a range of voices — sexy and serious, passionate and funny, and all of the above — talking about how our sexualities can not only exist, but even thrive, without the supernatural. The Godless Perverts Story Hour has a performance event scheduled in San Francisco on April 13. We have a munch/ social gathering on April 17, at Wicked Grounds, San Francisco’s famous kink-themed coffee house. And for the first time, we’re taking the show on the road, and are doing a Godless Perverts Story Hour event at the free ReasonFest conference in Kansas, on April 21. Mark your calendars now!

San Francisco:

Center for Sex and Culture icon
On Saturday, April 13, 7pm: Take a break from filing your taxes to join us again at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St, San Francisco, CA (near Civic Center BART) for another Godless Perverts Story Hour. The last one was a great success, and we’ve got some new names performing, as well as some favorites from our first event. Maggie Mayhem, alas, has had to drop out of this event — but we still have an awesome lineup of readers and performers, including Greta Christina, David Fitzgerald, Chris Hall, Heina, Victor Harris, Liberty N. Justice, Anthony O’Con, and Kate Sirls. Plus, at this event only, blasphemous sex toys to be given away as door prizes!

Wicked Grounds icon
On Tuesday, April 16, 7pm: Okay, so the tax thing is over and you can start to relax a bit. Join us for coffee and conversation at the Godless Perverts Munch. For those not familiar with the term, a “munch” is a term developed by BDSM communities for an informal get-together of people at a restaurant or café. We’ll be gathering at Wicked Grounds, San Francisco’s famous kink-themed coffee house. Godless Perverts isn’t just about holding readings; a big part of it is building community so that people can talk openly about sexuality and atheism. This is the first time that we’ve held a munch, and if it goes off well, we hope to have lots more.

Reasonfest; Lawrence, KA:

ReasonFest icon
And on Sunday, April 21, 6pm: For the first time, we’re going to be venturing out of the Bay Area. The folks at Reasonfest have agreed to have us host a Godless Perverts Story Hour at the conference, so if you’re attending, please join us. And if you’re not attending — now you have extra incentive! In addition to GPSH co-founders and co-hosts Greta Christina and David Fitzgerald, Amanda Brown, Bridget Gaudette, and Keith Lowell Jensen are going to share their insights on religion, godlessness, and fucking. There’s no admission price — Reasonfest is a completely free conference, happening April 20-21, and we’re winding up the event on Sunday evening — so if you’re in the area, or have any way of getting there, be sure to check it out.

So mark your calendars now! You don’t want to miss this. And if you want to stay in the loop about these and other Godless Perverts events, follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts, or sign up for our email newsletter. Hope to see you soon!

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Godless Perverts Story Hour Giving Blasphemous Sex Toys as Door Prizes!
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18 thoughts on “Godless Perverts Story Hour Giving Blasphemous Sex Toys as Door Prizes!

  1. 2

    You know when I was still feeling more like a theist, I could appreciate some of your famous (much commented) blogs. I remember them as moderate and good thinking – the Comforting thoughts about Death blog and other ones – being written for believers and unbelievers alike. Today I’m essentially atheist (I prefer non-theist) but blogs like these make me vomit. This whole exclusivism, this trying so hard to stand out as radically unrespectful towards religious people (as if they are all just idiots and madmen) seems so utterly childish in its appearance, but, more importantly, hooked on separation from those Oh-So-Scary believers – who really all deserve to be ridiculed until nothing is left to respect, except – of course – the atheist mind alone. Well, this is not how it works for me.

    No hard feelings – but this sort of blogs breaks my heart. I have atheist friends that I respect and I have many Christian friends too that I respect. They often don’t literally believe in Jesus as god, but they respect Jesus, like they respect a great guru – in this case someone who had a great compassion for people.

    None of these christians I know would shoot at someone for selling Jesus dildo’s and buttplugs. I regret that atheists often still indulges in this whole ‘new atheist’ kind of fist-in-the-face attitude, where nothing deserves respect as long as it doesn’t comply with this particular version of atheism, which is completely conflict-oriented and, frankly, quite arrogant. Not arrogant as a personal attitude (I’m not other people’s judge) but arrogant in its way of presenting the world as if it belongs to atheism.

    Fortunately, this is not something every atheist would support.

  2. 3

    I’m afraid I have to agree with jcmmanuel on this one. I’m always eager to point out the difference between bashing ideas and bashing people. That was my initial gut reaction to jcmmanuel’s comment: we’re not making fun of Christians, we’re making fun of Christian ideas.

    But in this case I think the distinction is, at best, muddied. “Your belief is ridiculous and here’s why” is qualitatively different from “Your belief is ridiculous so I will now stick it up my butt”. If I compare these to something like Myers’ crackers, they’re both intended to be offensive, but if you ask “Why?” about the crackers there’s a solid and specific answer. Where’s the message here?

    As a celebration of kinkiness these toys are great, but as a statement of godlessness, they’re too blunt for me to get behind.

  3. 4

    I realise it’s due to my own very personal experience with paedophilia, but I find the image of the baby butt plug deeply disturbing. Just writing that phrase brought me out in a cold sweat. It’s not that it’s the ‘baby Jesus’ – the depiction of any baby or child on a sex toy would have the same effect.

    Have you considered the potential triggering nature of these for anyone who receives one?

  4. 5

    Except for how much damage Christianity has done to the healthy sex lives of so many people, I might have some sympathy for jcmmanuel ad davidsimon’s perspectives.

    Except for the huge risks taken by people in my corner of the kink community, risks entirely due to the heavy hand of religion in our culture, I might even agree.

    But Christianity has spent centuries paying for all this ridicule on a layaway plan. It’s only fair to let them finally have what they so richly deserve.

  5. 6

    Thank you David Simon (and the others) for the support. When you (D.S.) are suggesting that “Your belief is ridiculous and here’s why” is qualitatively different from “Your belief is ridiculous so I will now stick it up my butt” you make a very reasonable, even rational distinction. On the other hand I think the very idea of ridiculing someone’s believes is never really the way towards progress. Okay it’s fun for those who always tend to have fun with these sort of things as long as the people being addressed indirectly are at the far end of our pointing fingers – but in real fun I always expect a sense of self-criticism or at least self-relativism. Jokes about atheists are at their best when an atheist tells them – and likewise when a theist tells jokes about theism. And when the public is a live audience which is a mix of believers and non-believers, it will work fine too no matter who is telling the joke – as long as the audience is breathing this shared awareness of having a good laugh with ourselves. But in debates and in blogs, these things tend to be harsh, attacking, humiliating.

    Depending on formulation and context, if the fun part isn’t clearly sharable across our (superficial) intra-humanitarian boundaries, the ‘things’ we ridicule will dehumanize the person who holds on to these things for personal, good reasons. We don’t always think of this mostly because we do not understand why something is important to someone else. Maybe this is laziness on our part. Or maybe it has its origin in frustration (about the excesses in religion) – but empathic understanding is something we need to learn just as everyone else. If we treat all believers like people who destroy sexuality, just because Catholic priests have a bad reputation, we are ignoring the problem of celibacy which affect this particular category.

    If we would dig into this hole more profoundly, we would also have to ask why 99,9 percent of those two children being sold in the sex trade every minute (in our Enlightened Western world) are not being sold to priests but, frankly, simply to irresponsible human beings who live mostly secular lives in a secular world. Does this make it worth ridiculing the secular world? Shall we start selling Jackhammer Obama dildo’s (and do this for every leader in Western countries) simply because Obama and the others are secular and these things happen in our secular world? Clearly it’s a bad thing for the good life that sex can contribute to, if it involves so much abuse – so let’s ridicule the whole secular world. But of course, this is not how things work in reality. We need to be reasonable, not always come out as fighters for just the atheist mindset.

  6. 8

    We tend to “interpret” things in line with what we love and don’t love. This is normal and to be expected. I’m just saying it isn’t an argument for doing it – it’s more like a behavioral observation.

  7. 9

    jcmmanuel: “… the ‘things’ we ridicule will dehumanize the person who holds on to these things for personal, good reasons.”

    You think there are good reasons for holding onto a crucifix, a belief in human sacrifice, and undead gods? Please share some.

    Also, there’s a straightforward way to tell the difference between, say, the Roman Catholic Church (and its popes and priests) from, say, a Western Government (like the United States) and its leaders (say, Obama). The religious leaders claim to speak (infallibly, no less) for the creator of the universe. Democratic leaders are merely ordinary human beings voted into office.

    (Also: nobody will claim that the Creator of the Universe is displeased at the production, sale, and use of an Obama Jackhammer Dildo. That kind of over-sensitive reaction is reserved for the religious, who humbly undertake to defend their omnipotent god who stays, oddly, silent.)

  8. 10

    As one of Greta’s co-conspirators in this ventures, I’d like to respond to the criticisms of the sex toys, especially those from JCMManuel:

    I can see how, on first glance, the Divine Interventions toys could seem to be an immature, reflexive backlash against religion. But I think that they’re more important than that. Their appeal comes not from a sense of superiority towards believers, or a desire to hurt believers, but from the fact that for most of us, our sexualities and our religious upbringing are wired together at a fundamental level. For many, that association was not only negative, but abusive. Religion universally claims to have special authority over sex: who to fuck, how to fuck, when to fuck, where to fuck. And for anyone whose sexuality or gender is even a little bit out of the mainstream, that authority teaches them to remain silent and ashamed about their personal eroticism.

    For people who grew up trying to reconcile their sexualities with what the religious authorities told them, using something like the Jackhammer Jesus is less about making a petty insult to the religious beliefs of others than it is healing themselves. For some, the cross or the bible might be a comforting sign of God’s love. But for others, they inspire fear. They are reminders that what’s in their head or crotch might make them unworthy of that love.

    Using a crucifix or a bible in your sex play is a first step away from those fears. It can be an important lesson that our bodies belong to ourselves, and that our desires belong to us, not to the priests, or the nuns, or an invisible man who is always looking over our shoulder. A lot of my childhood was spent with him watching me. It was not reassuring in the way that the religious types claim. After only one year in Catholic school, I felt extremely self-conscious when approaching a cross or a picture of Jesus. It felt like I had personally insulted god if I didn’t cross myself when approaching one of those, or if I didn’t say grace before a meal. I could feel hell just waiting for me whenever my mind strayed into sinful, or even irreverent territory.

    We can respect religious people as our friends, comrades, neighbors, and even lovers. But that doesn’t mean that we have to live by their rules. And they have to realize that in order to silence the voices that shame us for what we are or what we want, we will sometimes do things they find distasteful.

  9. 11

    What Chris said @ #10. I would just like to add this, on the topic of whether mockery and ridicule are ever useful forms of social commentary: Is It Okay to Mock Religion?

    A couple of excerpts for the tl;dr crowd:

    “From Aristophanes to Jon Stewart, from Mark Twain to Molly Ivins, from Jonathan Swift to Monty Python, from Chaucer to The Onion, satire is a powerful, time-honored form of social and political criticism. Humor and mockery can be used to point out the pretentions and deceptions of the greedy, the pompous, the self- important, the hypocritical, the corrupt, the willfully ignorant… often far more effectively than any other device. Humor shakes you out of your usual way of looking at things and gives a different perspective on it — and when you’re subverting the dominant paradigm or whatnot, that’s absolutely crucial. When the emperor has no clothes, sometimes the only appropriate response is to point and laugh.”

    and this:

    “I think mockery of religion isn’t just acceptable. It can be a positive good. It can be a way of saying, ‘We decline to treat religion with kid gloves anymore. We see religion as just another idea about the world… and when it’s a silly idea, we’re going to make fun of it, just like we would with any other silly idea.’ The expectation that religion should be treated with extra respect is one of the main ways that religion protects itself from legitimate criticism… and mocking religion can be an important part of stripping that protection from it and making it defend itself just like any other idea.”

    I think this is especially true given the huge power imbalance between religion and atheism. It is absurd to ask a marginalized group not to mock the people who are marginalizing them. It’s one of the few tools we have. It’s one of the ways we correct that power imbalance — and it’s one of the ways we cheer each other on.

    Which brings me to my final point for now: Not all atheist communication is aimed at religious believers. Some of it — much of it — is aimed at other atheists. A message that says, “Wow, isn’t that religion stuff ridiculous? Let’s all laugh at it together” can have tremendous healing power — especially for people who have been seriously terrorized or otherwise damaged by religion.

  10. 12

    Chris, Greta: That’s a good point that I hadn’t considered, the message as being directed from atheists to other atheists.

    Jcmmanuel: Can I ask, what are your feelings on Draw Mohammed Day?

  11. 14

    Jesus Christ, it’s just a couple of sex toys. If you don’t like them, don’t get one. Besides, chances are that people who show up to a Godless Perverts event have very little overlap with people who will be offended by this, so that’s not even an issue.

  12. 16

    Pain Strumpet wrote: “nobody will claim that the Creator of the Universe is displeased at the production, sale, and use of an Obama Jackhammer Dildo. That kind of over-sensitive reaction is reserved for the religious, who humbly undertake to defend their omnipotent god who stays, oddly, silent”

    This is beside the point. If a so-called believer calls atheists idiots or post Dawkins Jackhammer Dildo’s, maybe only a minority of atheist would feel offended (you might call them the weak ones – which doesn’t mean we can ignore the fact they are hurt by the way) and others may not give a shit – but they will still realize there’s a group out there who has no stomach for being respectful towards atheists. The fact that you may not give a shit about it is incidental and does not nullify the fact that others do care more about the possibility of more mutual understanding between rational people in general. Or, to put it in a different way – perhaps more telling for you – I’m not so much talking about “what atheists shouldn’t do”, I’m talking about the possibilities they have to do things differently – even while you personally may not give a damn whatsoever.

    Over-sensitive? Hardly. Rather sensitive to how to act to the best of our possibilities, rather than doing what legions of atheist seem to be preoccupied with these days.

    To Chris Hall:
    the one thing where you may have a point (as far as I see) is when you say ” For some, the cross or the bible might be a comforting sign of God’s love. But for others, they inspire fear. They are reminders that what’s in their head or crotch might make them unworthy of that love.”

    But from this observation it does not follow that hurt (and frustrated) atheists have no responsibility for their actions except self-complaint and indulging in shooting at everything that may be dear to other people (even while WE may not exactly understand why bible is “a comforting sign of God’s love” to them, or why a crucifix is a comforting sign of empathy to them – PS. It’s certainly not because the Jews betrayed Jesus or the Romans crucified him – in essence it’s still the story of a man who was a great people-lover who was never judgmental about society’s outcasts back then). So what’s a Jackhammer Jesus Dildo good for? I don’t know. We often do things just “because we can” – and I think it’s a reasonable question to ask, if this is really what we want people to remember about “the atheist community”.

    To LykeX, who wrote: “Jesus Christ, it’s just a couple of sex toys” — this is always easier to assess if you’re not at the receiving end of thee things. I know all too well – from my Christian friends – that some of them don’t care much, while others feel dehumanized and feel like atheists really only have fun when they can ridicule believers. But yes, in essence they are “just a couple of sex toys”. Or, more correctly: they are a couple of sex toys on an atheist blog showing disdain for religious symbols.

    About the usefulness of mockery, in general: When the emperor has no clothes, sometimes the only appropriate response is to point and laugh – but it may also turn out that we are so used to see people without clothes, that we can’t tell the fairy tale from the reality anymore. Religion isn’t always used as a “cover” anyway – many of us just happen to believe that because they have been told by famous atheists that religion is essential meaningless. The problem here is that too many atheists have read Richard Dawkins but not Stuart A.Kauffmann (Reinventing the Sacred), they heard Hitchens but not Alain de Botton (Religion for Atheists), they have read Dennett but not Thomas Nagel (all aforementioned people are atheists) – and there are many more – for instance top-neuroscientists like Andres Newberg who said Dawkins’ conclusions – and he meant all ‘new atheists’ – were not conform to scientific observations in neurology. When we are so used to think of religion as completely meaningless and useless, the problem may not always be at the far end of our pointing finger. Sometimes it’s very useful to really check our own parameters.

    I have no belief in an interventionist god, but I see great value in things like: self-criticism, making no cheap excuses for our frustrations, getting over our own Self, making a useful difference between fun and ridicule – and also between making a good joke and having a habit of treating other people as if they are a joke. Most people don’t like to BE the joke.

    I have just been sharing my opinion. It’s informative. What other atheists do is their own responsibility of course.

  13. 17

    Oh, and just to josephstricklin, who wrote: “Jcmmanuel smells like an apologist, poe-ing his position and lying about being an atheist. I am not going to take anything he says seriously.” — I know the feeling. Within the atheist communities, there seem to be many people who will consider a troll any non-theist who does not follow a certain standard (essentially anti-theistic rather than a-theistic). I can live with that. The same phenomenon exists within Christianity and other religions – e.g. evangelicals who will will consider a liar (or worse) anyone who does not fit within the specific ‘evangelical expectation’. There is no reason why this would not happen within the atheist communities too. I say ‘communities’ because there is no such thing like a uniform atheist community – although it seems like there is an overwhelming majority who feels like reli-bashing is part of what it means to be atheist. Indeed, atheism in this regard can be a culture rather than just an indication of non-belief in a god or gods.

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