The Lives of the Saints

I swear, I went years without really thinking about Catholicism until I started this whole over-analytical "Why am I kinky?" quest. But now I think about Catholicism all the time. Catholicism is HOT.

People say stuff about Catholic school and kink kind of a lot - it's a cliche, the naughty Catholic schoolgirl getting disciplined. But in all honesty, I grew up in the 90s. The nuns didn't hit me - that would be abusive and illegal. Catholicism influence my kinky self on a purely mental level.

Have you ever looked at the Lives of the Saints? My mom was really into saints when I was growing up, and I read a lot of the entries in her Lives of the Saints book when I was choosing a confirmation name. And the saints are all about suffering. When you do a search for the word "suffering" on the site I linked to, you get 124 matches. There's St. Alice, who suffered greatly (though leprosy isn't very sexy) and was known for visions and ecstacies. St. Rita, who prayed to suffer like Jesus and spent her days praying, fasting, and doing penance. The whole concept behind stigmata is that of ecstatic suffering as a show of devotion to God, and there are countless other saints and martyrs who were tortured and murdered for their faith, proving their unwavering devotion.

This idea of ecstatic suffering definitely got into my head and rattled around. As a kid, I had a coloring book biography of Blessed Kateri Tekawitha which detailed her fasting and painful penances (I want to say she did some self-flagellation, but I can't find a link supporting this). And there was that movie about St. Bernadette of Lourdes (Song of Bernadette, I think it was) where Bernadette is sweet and pure and devoted and has visions and becomes a nun, and at every turn people (often people within the church) look down on her and think she's crazy. I just remember the scene where the mean old nun who never believed in Bernadette says to her "What do you know of suffering?" and it turns out that Bernadette had horribly painful cancer the whole time and never said a word about the pain, instead just smiled serenely and worked and prayed. That's devotion. And Catholic imagery definitely influenced my concept of devotion.

A girl I was sort of friends with in high school once said to me "I wish I were ignorant, so I could be Catholic, because they have such beautiful ceremonies," and because I was a teenage goth girl at a Catholic high school who'd been dragged to mass every Sunday since age 8, I think I rolled my eyes. But now I kinda know what she was talking about (though without the weird, condescending part about ignorance). I went to church with my family on Christmas, and before communion, when everyone said "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed," it struck a chord with my submissive little self. I thought "That's beautiful." And the idea of redemption through suffering, an idea I learned in church and Religion and Theology classes, is kind of an idea that I took with me into relationships.

I lost my faith, and I don't really believe in God anymore. However, I feel like suffering to prove love and devotion is a huge part of who I am. If I'm bad, if I misbehave, if I sin, I want to do penance and be forgiven, and to prove how really and truly sorry I am, I want that penance to hurt. And when it's over, and I've suffered enough, I want to be redeemed.