a voice in the night
What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations? (Nehemiah 5:9)
I had a phone call last night at 2am from a number I didn't recognise. The guy on the other end of the phone said that his name was Ben and did I want to come suck his cock.
I hung up and I turned the phone off. Then I turned over and felt afraid. Who was this guy? Why did he have my number? And was my past behaviour entirely to blame for this call? I found myself trying to remember any Bens I had met, or friends of guys I knew who were called Ben. Nothing. Still I felt scared, as though somewhere there were people sitting around who had suggested I'd be a good target for such abuse. Or worse still, that I would be someone interested in taking up the offer.
I turned the phone back on, wondering if this mysterious 'Ben' might have sent a text, a clue as to who he was; naively I imagined he might send an apology. Neither came.
Is there anything I can do about this? In the short term I may turn my phone off before falling asleep at night. In the long term I do nothing.
One of the reasons I am eager to move away from where I'm living now is the knowledge that I can find new friends, with this new understanding of who I am and how I should relate to people. But is this a coward's way out? By not doing the things I used to, I am not sending an obvious and direct message to the people around me that I have changed (and therefore paved the way for some transformative evangelism). If I had been fucking strangers every night the difference would be clear, but this is a simple and understated change. People would still remember that I had slept with Rob the year before. This is information that lives on, because in communities people are the sum of the gossip they have created. The fact I had not slept with anyone since would be irrelevant. I am no longer a virgin, therefore I have nothing pure to offer in the way of sexual evangelism. I am suddenly more aware than ever of the power of reputation to affect the present.
I hope Ben doesn't call again, or anyone else. I hope it was a prank and nothing more serious. I hope a lot of things, but can't articulate them. I suppose most of all I wish, yet again, that I hadn't been this way for the last few years. I wish someone could have taken me aside and showed me how to find confidence and affirmation in other places. I wish they could do that now.
I had a phone call last night at 2am from a number I didn't recognise. The guy on the other end of the phone said that his name was Ben and did I want to come suck his cock.
I hung up and I turned the phone off. Then I turned over and felt afraid. Who was this guy? Why did he have my number? And was my past behaviour entirely to blame for this call? I found myself trying to remember any Bens I had met, or friends of guys I knew who were called Ben. Nothing. Still I felt scared, as though somewhere there were people sitting around who had suggested I'd be a good target for such abuse. Or worse still, that I would be someone interested in taking up the offer.
I turned the phone back on, wondering if this mysterious 'Ben' might have sent a text, a clue as to who he was; naively I imagined he might send an apology. Neither came.
Is there anything I can do about this? In the short term I may turn my phone off before falling asleep at night. In the long term I do nothing.
One of the reasons I am eager to move away from where I'm living now is the knowledge that I can find new friends, with this new understanding of who I am and how I should relate to people. But is this a coward's way out? By not doing the things I used to, I am not sending an obvious and direct message to the people around me that I have changed (and therefore paved the way for some transformative evangelism). If I had been fucking strangers every night the difference would be clear, but this is a simple and understated change. People would still remember that I had slept with Rob the year before. This is information that lives on, because in communities people are the sum of the gossip they have created. The fact I had not slept with anyone since would be irrelevant. I am no longer a virgin, therefore I have nothing pure to offer in the way of sexual evangelism. I am suddenly more aware than ever of the power of reputation to affect the present.
I hope Ben doesn't call again, or anyone else. I hope it was a prank and nothing more serious. I hope a lot of things, but can't articulate them. I suppose most of all I wish, yet again, that I hadn't been this way for the last few years. I wish someone could have taken me aside and showed me how to find confidence and affirmation in other places. I wish they could do that now.
posted by from sychar to eternity at 17:16
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