How non-affirming theologies re-traumatized me - a sexual assault survivor - when I came out as queer and polyamorous to my family: I was raised in a protestant church. I was sexually abused multiple times by multiple Christian men when I was 13 to 15 years old. I did not understand that I was being abused, and I absolutely blamed myself for what was happening to me. When I talked to my mom about just a portion of it, while it was ongoing, I asked her what we were going to do about it. She said, "We're going to pretend it never happened." For half my life, I lived by that. I did my best to pretend it never happened. I did this, partly, for the comfort of my family members. I did not want my parents to know about everything that had happened to me, because I did not want them to blame themselves for not protecting me. I did not want to tell any of my family members, because I did not want them to be hurt or upset or have strained relationships with people in the church.
I was never good at monogamy. I cheated on almost every boy I dated in high school, and I dated a lot of boys in high school. It wasn't just for cheap thrills, either. I would legitimately develop crushes or sometimes fall in love with multiple people at the same time. There's a cultural myth that you can't actually love two people at the same time. You really truly only love one of them. This is a guiding principle behind so many romantic comedies and a major plot point in both Gone With the Wind and The Once and Future King, which were big influences on me growing up. So when I was young and struggling to be monogamous, I fluctuated between distrusting my own feelings (because it's impossible to actually love multiple people!) and believing myself to be broken (because actually loving multiple people isn't normal/acceptable). I was regularly called a slut, and I carried a great deal of self-hate. At age 16, when I fell in love with my current husband, Rob,