I Know This Might Be Controversial, But Enough Is Enough.

i know this might be controversial, but enough is enough.

as someone who grew up in the rigidity—and, at times, oppressive nature—of roman catholicism, i am so tired of the religious!reader trope where they’re portrayed as so innocent they’re practically a child. we were not innocent. we knew the names of our bodies, the weight of shame, and the crushing complexity of guilt. i knew that my vagina was a vagina.

the sheer amount of extremely innocent!religious!reader fics is unsettling. they turn the reader into this caricature—wide-eyed, naive, almost infantilized, complete with pigtails and an oversized cross necklace perfect for a porn video thumbnail.

for me—and for a lot of other lesbians i’ve bonded with over religious trauma—it was never about innocence. it was about guilt. guilt over pleasure, guilt over sin, and all the ways we punished ourselves for being human.

we weren’t these overgrown children teetering around in purity. we were messy, complicated, and burdened by shame in ways that were far more nuanced than these portrayals ever capture. enough, please.