Well, yes. It seems fairly obvious to me that, for whatever reason, people react to women choosing to be active rather than passive much more violently than they do child abuse et al. It happens with every aspect of it; I haven't yet found a case where a woman talks about fighting rape and fighting rapists and wasn't insulted and threatened. I've even seen men speak on being pro-choice - they're lauded, admired, occasionally worshipped. When women do it, it goes sort of quiet, like no one really knows what to think. Men are allowed to have selves, and sanctified in fighting and killing to protect it. Women are not. Even now.

I admire you, sympathize with you and envy you. I wish my own mother would go to therapy - she thinks there's nothing wrong with her, though; that I'm the crazy and manipulative one, and she's merely a strong person. Ultimately, that's going to break any chance of a relationship between us.

Holy crap, that's insane. I believe it, but that doesn't mean it's not insane.

However, I want to put out there that the artificial is not necessarily the most, or only, effective solution sometimes. Many of the diseases we have, like tuberculosis and syphilis, originated from civilization based around animal products (dairy, in that case). It's something I had to come to terms to when I started learning about, rather than simply listening to experts about, evolution: eventually, something severely detrimental to a species will either be cut out of the genome, or it will destroy the species as a whole. A lingering death, starvation, and stress are unnatural not because they're unpleasant, but because they inhibit and can cripple the ability of you and the others around you to survive, contra evolution.

I read an article some time ago about you, but it's only now that I was directed to your blog from the-f-word.org. A lot of what you say hits home for me, because my best friend/partner/roommate was severely sexually abused until the age of 15 or so (from the age of four), and I don't think people realize just how absolutely normal it is to have horrible sexual, physical and emotional abuse as a constant presence in religion. It's like the milder, everyday abuse in our society is distilled and crammed into a much smaller space.

Anyway, good health and good luck.