JESUS NATION SEX REBEL, mini-chapter 43

43. EVE AND ESTHER TALK

“You’ve survived as a leader, haven’t you?” said Eve.

“Yes, I have. Unlike you, I was an adult when things were very different. I belonged to NOW, one of the many organizations banned by the Men of the Gospel. A leading evangelist at the time, Pat Robertson, whom you might only know because of the controversy about his missing penis, said then about women like me: ‘The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.’ At that time, I did not think that his views would prevail. He also said, ‘I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period.’ That, too, became the orthodoxy. I have fought to be where I am today, I can assure you.”

“Indeed.” Eve was breathless. Everything Esther said was a Non-Sanctioned Notion. How freeing to talk like that. Eve’s admiration for Esther increased. This woman was more than a survivor; she was some kind of rebel.

“Do you want to be a leader?” asked Esther.

“Indeed.”

“It won’t be easy. What do you do now?”

“I direct a program regarding the curing of homosexuals.”

“Your program is lucky to have survived. You have far to go.”

“I hope to make my mark by revolutionizing my little field.”

“That’s interesting. I didn’t know there was much going on in your field. There was a time when many thought it was a fruitless pursuit, that we should either keep homosexuals in jail or surgically alter them for their own good.”

Eve remembered that debate. Along with the emasculation of pedophiles, there was a movement to have the sexual organs of homosexuals removed.

“I focus on something that nobody else does. A small rebellion. I subject myself to the same treatment I subject them to.”

“How do you mean?”

“To be precise, I give them shock treatment to make them averse to their deepest sexual fantasies. While I’m doing this, I administer the same shock treatment to myself, albeit a little less severe.”

“That seems rather odd. Are you trying to teach yourself to be averse to the same images?”

“I immerse myself in their cure. It makes me a more empathetic therapist. Sharpens my focus. Helps us bond. Helps the cure come faster, I believe. I can prove it. I’ve run tests on patients with and without it.”

Dear God, I’ve just made an error, please save me from its consequences. What have I done? I don’t even know the woman, and here I am blurting out my research to her -- research that I’ve kept a secret from everybody at the clinic. My adolescent way of trying to win approval from Esther, just because I unstintingly admire her for being where I want to be. I’m letting the first powerful woman I meet in on my secret, spilling the beans in an attempt at an immediate intimacy. How could that help me? How would this woman know how important it is to keep this information secret until I can launch it on the field and make my mark?