Flash Memoir: Confession Night

 (c) 3/20/2022)

One confession night in October, Jimmy confessed to masturbating.

Gathered from across the states we were a community of forty young Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and some like me, non-denominational. Our community leaders were married and the rest of us had taken vows of poverty and celibacy. Of course, Jimmy masturbated.

Jimmy felt the need to confess details. He did it whenever his roommate left for the quad bathroom. Instead of eating dinner. Or breakfast. During solitude hour, usually reserved for prayer and meditation. He described his grip,  moving his hands like God moving heavenly hands over the water in the silent dark, bringing forth teeming creatures from the depths.

 As an activity that amounts to self and group denigration, confession provides criticism to promote mortification, to forge new identity and new norms based on the power of the group, to reduce individual separateness. Instead, Jimmy’s confession disrupted everything.

Fifteen minutes into a confession that would seemingly never end Jimmy started to cry. “I can’t stop. I know Satan controls  my penis. Everywhere I turn is temptation.”

“Stop already!” I thought, utterly transfixed. All the girls continued to look on  wide-eyed.

Sure, sure there’s the sin of Onanism. By Jewish law, Onan had to marry his brother Er’s widow Tamar and help her bear a son that would carry forward Er’s line. Instead of impregnating her Onan spilt his seeds on the ground and so God smite Onan. It wasn’t spilling seeds that was the sin but Onan’s refusal to invest in raising up his brother’s son.

How cruel that his parents, and his church taught him this shame. Masturbating was probably the only activity most of us could take to remain born-again virgins.

Jimmy wasn’t one of the boys any of us speculated about marrying. He didn’t play guitar. He’d never lead a Youth Group. He hadn’t spoken much before tonight and wasn’t a powerful orator. The chances of his becoming a pastor were slim. Even in the secular world he would likely have problems finding a Friday night date. Without Satan, where would Jimmy shift blame for his transgressions? Shame radiates outward. How would Jimmy relieve that pain? Upon whom?

Finally, Bill broke in. “I see you girls looking with disgust at Jimmy. But masturbating is a totally normal thing for guys to do.”

“Yeah, sure thing Bill,” I thought. It is normal. We women though, held captive to a near-pornographic call for our comfort and understanding was not.