Looking Back on This Is My Body

A few months ago my pierogi (a term of endearment for one of my polyamourous partners) Caitlin, came to Jess and I with an idea. The progressive church, Open Way, where they are co-pastor curates a community building, educational offering each year, focused on a different matter of collective liberation. This year, they proposed, members of the church were ready to explore sexual ethics, or something of that nature, and what if the two of us could craft something to speak to their congregants from our specific experience on the church girl → sex educator pipeline. It felt like a coming full circle for both of us, and also felt like an especially special chance to work together across branches of our polycule. This is the story of how it unfolded. 

We had so many insights, skills and practices to share, but began the process of refinement to fit into 3 workshops that would each be 90 min long. We decided to use a liturgical structure to loosely inform how we would explore the 3 sessions. Each session followed a framework of 

• establishing our container
• a thematic invocation reading
• embodied inquiry 
• a “sermon” (lecture)
• passing of the peace (practical application, chance to connect) 
• benediction (a wish) 
• introduction to devotional (further exploration) practices & worksheets
• closing

Our key focuses within the 3 weeks were 

• Sexual Ethics:
  • Understanding the contextual impacts of the patriarchal Christian church on self sovereignty
  • Moving past shame
• Self Sovereignty and Interconnectedness
  • Learning to feel 
  • Communicating Boundaries
  • Hearing no
• Embodied Pleasure
  • Cultivating self pleasure
  • Navigating discrepancies in desire/capacity in relationship

Diving into this content was juicy for us all, and since we knew that it had the potential to hit a nerve, we set things up in ways that could feel optimally comfortable for both introvert, neurodivergent attendees, but also left lots of space for people to participate in ways that could be non-attributed and protect the anonymity of folks who might not want to talk about their intimate details with their church community in a way that could feel overwhelming or overly vulnerable. The group of attendees were not exclusively members or attendees of Open Way Church, but many of the 28 registered attendees were in some way affiliated with the church. This had multiple edges to it of course, one being the advantage of being able to get a large number of signups through coordinated direct marketing, a flip side being that folks may have felt more vulnerable about exploring intimate details within their church, and a third related side being that when the church community is exploring these things together it sets an active tone on the grounds of being radically affirming of it’s largely (but not exclusively) queer and trans membership. As facilitators it meant we were able to be confident that we would be supported financially in the development of the course, that we could reach folks we might not have otherwise had connections to and got to face the internal mind-fucks of once again being under the employ (if only a short contract) of a church after a combined 35 years since leaving the church and cutting ties. 

Based on a combination of our observations and feedback from participants, we are preparing to bring the series back for another round with some changes.

• We will be extending the series from 3 x 90 min evening sessions to 4 x 120 min weekend afternoon sessions. We hope that this will
  • Make the offering more accessible to folks in other time zones
  • Make more time to explore content we couldn’t get to 
  • Provide more time for discussion & break out group practices
• This cohort won’t be embedded within the support of any specific church community. We hope this will feel welcoming
  • To folks who are not directly or currently affiliated with a church community
  • To folks who are embedded in church communities that would not be prepared to host this type of series
  • To folks who do wish to attend with a group from their church community and are able to do that in mixed company with folks they may not know 
• Because this cohort won’t be directly supported with the economic justice initiative support of a radical church, we will need more support from our less formally structured spiritual and professional communities:
  • Promotion will rely on marketing and network support, please share about this across your communities
  • Sliding scale entry will still be available, but not as subsidized, please consider supporting our work financially 

We really believe in the transformative power of this work; it unsettles injustice and religious trauma within our relationships to our own bodies in ways that are pivotal to collective liberation. When we create spaces like this for folks to do the work together of unravelling toxic mythologies and conditioning, it creates the foundation for complete paradigm shifts. 

We are so excited to dive into this powerful work again starting on February 9th 2025. 4 Sessions will take place on Sunday afternoons (1-3 in the Pacific time zone). If you are interested you can get on the waitlist.