Sardonic Sistah Says

Okay, so last week I was tripping on Shigeo Tokuda making sex tapes for the over 65 set.  Maybe it’s because I didn’t realize how bad it was over in Japan.

I don’t know how legit this news is, but according to Weird Asia news men are preferring their own hands to sex with women.

Japan is well known as a hub for some strange sexual products, but it seems that these products may do more than simply help a man achieve his sexual desires with women – they may be replacing women altogether.

Scientists believe that the availability of these products which includes fetish pornography, unusual sex toys, lotions, creams, sex clubs, online relationships and “sex aids” are causing sexual dysfunction in Japanese men, including – but not limited to – failure to ejaculate or premature ejaculation.

These brothers need help.  And if you come at any woman with the toy below its no wonder why they are dancing with themselves.

Oh hellz naw!

For nearly a year now my husband and I have been attending a mega church located in the heart of the city.   No one is more surprised about it than me; I’ve often attended small, African American churches where everyone tried to know your business and put it out there for dissection and entertainment.  After a weekly Q&A session where the pastor opens up the question box where members insert their questions about bible scripture, church policy and Christian Life and instead pulls out a question someone had about his infidelity with another parishioner I decided the church wasn’t for me.  I was without a church home for years.

I like my new church a lot but it took me a while to get through the doors.  I have had friends invite me for years, first when it was in a school auditorium but I declined because praising God in a public school (even in the off school time) didn’t seem right to me.  When they moved to a revamped hardware store I would pass by the church and notice how well they utilized the large store sign, incorporating graphics with words to convey their message for the week.  The size of the church made me wonder what else they did in there.  Did they have a gym?  A dance hall?  Why did they need a space so big and what were the services like?

Two things kept me out: it was really big and really white.

Yeah, I know, the white part is so stupid, especially since I’m always harping on racial reconciliation and reaching out to those who don’t look like you so you can learn something.  But I have been to white churches before (baptised at a “white” church in fact) and I wasn’t really down with them.  Where black services were long and drawn out they were also fun and lively.  With the white churches they were short and quick they sometimes felt long because they weren’t as entertaining.  And even if it did incorporate some fun aspects, I worried that in attending the church I wouldn’t be represented.  Historically, the bible and religion have been used as a reason to deny Blacks their humanity as well as their freedom, so to my white readers who are reading this and are thinking why is she bringing up that old stuff, you need to realize that old stuff has remnants in today’s society.

So yeah, I racially spiritually segregated myself.

I’m not alone. A recent CNN article reports that similarly to white, a lot of blacks prefer churches that are monoracial.  Wanting to build refuges where they don’t have to deal with white racists, some black Christians have sought to keep white Christians out.

Rev. Paul Earl Sheppard is pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Mountain View, California and spoke of how his black congregants came to him complaining about the increasing number of whites in attendance.  They worried about the whites pushing the black out because “members of their race were inherently aggressive”.

“One man asked me if I was prepared for a hostile takeover,” Sheppard said to CNN.

Only 5% of the nation’s churches are racially integrated but even half of that small percent is leaning towards being all-white or all-black.  One reason is power.  A white pastor has an easier time leading a racially mixed congregation but when the pastor is black the congregation may soon become black too.  Black pastors of interracial churches often find they have to temper their sermons because what might be seen as passionate preaching in black churches could be misinterpreted as being an angry black man.

The second is sex.  Many progressives are fine with an interracial church until their children grow into teens and want to date people of other races.

“As kids began to date, some things get revealed,” said Rev. Rodney Woo, senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. “They didn’t want their kids involved in interracial dating — and that’s not just whites.”

The current message series the church is studying is how to make all Christians one.  That’s a large task itself; when I discovered what the series would be about I instantly thought of the Cheers episode when Woody Boyd and Kelly nearly ended their engagement when it was discovered that she was an Evangelical Lutheran whereas he was of the Missouri Synod sect.  It was funny but very on point about where a lot of Christians stand on big issues where other Christians are concerned: was someone dunked or sprinkled?  Do they drink actual wine during communion or grape juice?  What is the preaching style?  Do they speak in tongues? Basically people want to be able to tell you that you are going to hell and the reasons why.

Add race to he mix and you are just fanning the flames.

But so far so good.  In a large church I’ve met my old friends and even made some new ones.  From attending almost every service time I’ve gathered church diversity is small but growing.  (In my estimations about 1-2% Asian, 20% Black and the rest white –even white people have commented its really white.) 

I ran into Grace’s brother and asked him what he thought about the church.  He said although he’s been attending for a while he still hasn’t made up his mind.  He wonders if they are really as racially open as they purport to be and mentioned that he himself has offered his talents with audio-visual but hasn’t received a reply.

“I’m just waiting to see what happens,” he told me.  “So far I like the place, but I have to wait and see.”