When I was about 7 years old I was molested by a family friend. I had no words to describe what happened nor did I know what to do about it. It felt wrong and it made me afraid and confused. I never told anyone at all about it. I put the incident somewhere in the back of a seven year old mind and kept on living. This was long before the days when parents had talks about good touch and bad touch There was no forum for a discussion so I lived with what happened in my own mind. I knew what happened to me made me different in a bad way, therefore I was different in a bad way. A little while later an older boy led me to the back of the house next door and again I was assaulted. I didn't want to go outside and play again until that boy moved away.
I loved music and spent many hours alone in my room listening to my portable record player as they played the cast off 45's my mother gave me. I also loved to read, and smell the empty Avon sachet jars that my mother and grandmother emptied. I collected them until the pretty fragrance was gone. I played outside with my cousins and the few and select friends I had but nothing compared to my books and my music. I loved Sunday School and the choir at my home church. I lived for the musical programs the church sponsored. There I could hear music that was alive, exciting and sung with great passion. It was like heaven to me. I longed to sing and be like them. In school, I took exdtra music classes and voice lessons., As a teen I started a gospel group and sang in several community choirs, The All City Chorus, church choirs and the regional choir for the church denomination.
In junior high school the lines are clearly drawn for what boys do and what girls do. I did not excel at sports, I did not want to play basketball, or football or take a shop class either but that was mandatory. So, I took woodworking one year, printing the next and then finally sheet metal class, ALL of which I tolerated. I could not wait for the three days we had music and the glee club rehearsals (yes, glee club). While there, I was in my element, singing, learning the parts, experiencing new music. It was in those classes I was exposed to classical music, folk songs, negro spirituals and pop songs. The majority of the other boys in class acted like they hated being in the classes; sitting bored, agitating the teacher and refusing to sing as Mrs. Hunter, the music teacher, cajoled and complimented them into compliance. None of that was needed for me. James was in front, eagerly absorbing the lyrics, the notes and the melody This did not go unnoticed by my male peers who observing my eager participation said: "Look at that faggot up there with them girls, that faggot!" My ears burned with shame. I pretended I didn't hear them. My eyes fixed on the teacher as my ears felt hot and my face flushed. The rejection I felt was almost crippling. I avoided eye contact with those boys and tried to ignore their taunts;"Sing you little faggot!" or "Look at James up there with the girls singing, little faggot." Because I didn't know what to say in retort or how to make them stop. I endured the verbal abuse which was often observed by teachers but never directly addressed. Eventually, the verbal abuse and bullying turned into physical abuse. I was pushed, threatened, put in headlocks, and had things taken from me; everything from lunch to money was fair game for my tormentors. I was chased home from school repeatedly. By 7th grade some of the girls joined in: "James wears mascara, James wears mascara!", they'd say as I passed them in my homeroom. Of course, I never wore mascara, I had those eyelashes.... To stop the teasing about them I took a pair of scissors and cut them off right to my eyelids. I carried on despite a sense of inferiority and daily embarrassment. I came to believe these kids knew what happened to me when I was 7. Why else would they be so mean and call me such a horrible name? They knew I was different. They could see it. I lived in fear of exposure and public shame.
One day I decided no one was going to take another thing from me or put me in a headlock again. This kid named Joseph decided he and his cousins were going to beat me up after school. There was no conflict between us; just another opportunity to beat up that faggot, James . That day, the faggot chasers got a big surprise! I whipped Joseph's behind. When his cousins intervened I ran and got a large board with some rusty nails it and started swinging it at anyone who came near. Eventually, a teacher leaving the building dispersed the crowd and I went home. The constant name calling ended somewhat but the damage from that word was deeply ingrained in my psyche.
I had no close healthy male role models. My father was absent; I saw him on average once a year and we never had a substantive conversation until I was a grown man with children. My two stepfathers were unsavory and nefarious men who epitomized abusive and insensitive masculinity. The sensitive and creative side of my nature was treated as suspect and was not understood by those men and one of them called my brother and I faggots. More pain and more damage. I was a deeply wounded boy who retreated even more into my world of music and books. My distrust of males (especially adults) increased when several adult males attempted to seduce and or touch me. One of which was a teacher, the other was a minister who wanted to record my voice. I thought my dreams had come true until the minister began to ask questions of me that seemed entirely inappropriate for a musical relationship.
The church became a safe place for me. In church my musical inclinations were appreciated and encouraged. I was given the opportunity to be creative and expressive musically. One day, I heard a man in the church whom I admired, call a man who was not present a faggot. Those who heard him laughed as he posed in an effeminate way and "broke his wrist" and batted his eyes. This increased the laughter. What this brother didn't know was my experience with that word. I had just begun to think about revealing my sexual abuse history to the church people with the hopes that they could help me deal with the emotional pain I was in. I had internalized that word and wondered if I may have been homosexual because of what happened. I always had girlfriends but lived in fear of my secret being exposed. I decided to keep my secret and keep my mouth closed. I lived my life full of pain from my rejections: real and practical rejection by my biological father, rejection by both stepfathers one of which used the word faggot to degrade my brother and I. Rejection by my peers in middle school was also accompanied by that word. Now I see and hear this church brother also using a word that caused me a great deal of fear, pain and isolation. It was many years later that I finally experienced the healing and the freedom to share my testimony and help others find their way to wholeness from abuse and rejection. That's another story for another day, or blog.
I share this part of myself and my experience to make several points. You never know the impact of your words on those who hear you. The old adage; "Sticks and stones may bruise my bones but names will never hurt me", was likely coined by someone who had not lived with the awful legacy of name calling. Names hurt. The pain of them lasts much longer than a bruise acquired by a stick or stone. When someone who is supposed to care for you is the source of the name calling, it deeply compunds the pain. When those people are ministers, or the people who purport to represent the church of GOD the fallout can be immeasurable.
Faggot is a word rooted in hate. Its use is derived from the practice of burning alive of witches (also assumed to be homosexual) at the stake. The fire was started by using a bundle of sticks or twigs. In fact, a slang word for a cigarette in Great Britain is a fag. In Great Britain, the word faggot has several meanings: 1. A meddlesome confused old woman. 2. A faggot is a younger boy who is made to be a servant of an older boy. Despite the origin of the use of the word, it's meaning in The United States is clear. It's used to attack, denegrate and harm.
The use of the word Faggot whether as an actual epithet directed at a homosexual or to humiliate a heterosexual man is not in keeping with the biblical admonition regarding our behavior toward people outside of the church. "Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer each one.", Colossians 4:5-6. No one who claims to be a Christian should use a word so filled with invective and hate. I have seen men and women in ministry use the word faggot from the pulpit. It's use does not represent Jesus nor the attitude with which he dealt with people who were caught in sexual sin. It limits your ability to preach the gospel rather than enhance it. You will wound those whom you are trying to heal and shut up the doors to the kingdom for those whom Christ died. The word faggot and all of it's cousins; punk, sissy, dyke, lesbo, bull dagger, and many more should be eradicated from the lexicons of Christians.
Today I am free from the wounds of my past. I no longer live with the tyranny of the word faggot. The sensitive nature that was mine at birth is of value to GOD and His people in the ministry. The difficult experiences I had in my childhood and adolescence have been redeemed. The LORD has given me a great compassion for those with sexual brokenness. I try to ensure that the climate of the church I pastor is a hate speech free zone. I never use the pulpit to abuse or bully those who are in sexual sin of any kind. We must also be careful not to judge others based on the limited and superficial stereotypes of what is masculine or feminine as it relates to hobbies, interests, occupations, and preferences.
In closing: "Now all things are of GOD who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that GOD was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses (sins) to them and has committed to us the word (message) of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though GOD were pleading through us we implore you on Christ's behalf, be Reconciled to GOD........ We give no offense in anything that our ministry may not be blamed." 2 Corinthians 5: 18-20; 2 Corinthians 6:3a.
P.S. I finally learned to appreciate my eyelashes. They helped to draw my wife to me. She loves them! Oh, and the passion for the Avon sachet jars? I now make scents fro men and women and make money doing it. I thank GOD for how he made me.
