Crossdressers-Haven.com

okay I wasn't crossdressed when I participated in this. But since it seemed to be a womans event, sort of, I wanted to share it here.

My wife is a very good singer. She does a lot of different styles but when she sings the gospel the folks down the street know the Lord has been praised......

So anyway she was asked to participate in this interchurch gospel choir which among other things sang at a revival last week. It was held indoors, in a church where they had tamborines along with the Bibles and hymnals in the little rack on the back of the pews. Some of you need to read no further, but I'll give the highlights for the rest of you.

It was a pretty good service. It started out with everyone giving a big hand to the Lord for making everything possible. Then a local church choir got up and sang a couple of songs which took half an hour. By this time everyone was definitely having church. Then came a series of prayers,the offering, then a reading, a very inspiring message, and my wifes choir sang a number of times. After the message the band played while people went up to the pulpit and danced. Almost like at a club except that it progressed to falling down in fits, speaking in tounges and so on while people nearby kept them from banging their heads on the pews and that sort of thing. Then there was a calmer prayer while the folks who had had fits lay on the floor or the pews. Finally people helped them up, woke them and etc and the service was over. It was all fairly short, only about 2 1/2 hours. A good time was had by all, although no crocodiles or snakes were seen leaving the bodies of the people having fits. They didn't even leave the doors open for the critters to escape!

So why am I posting this here? Because the church was full, and it was full of mostly women. For the most part women my age (mid 50's) or older. A few older men, a couple of younger men with their wives, and some children. But the vast majority of the participants were middle aged or elderly women.

We read and sometimes write about how the feminine side is more emotional, more giving, more attuned to a variety of things. And it struck me, why was this event mostly women? Is it because they feel they have fewer options than men? Because they enjoy the camaradery of the other women? Because the men are just not participating? A mystical quality of being feminine? Was I getting in touch with my inner woman by being there?

Does this sort of thing come to mind when we think of being more feminine?

Of course most of the ministers were men. But lets not be cynical.


Absaroka

No answer to your major question, but wanted to say that

when she sings the gospel. the folks down the street know the Lord has been praised......

is one of the very nicest compliments I've ever seen written... Hope you told *her* that.

Although I have participated in charismatic revivals in the past, I've never noticed a disproportionate number of women to men. Nor have I particularly noticed any particular gender preference for lively services vs. the more staid ones. Could just be a fluke for that particular evening at that particular revival.

As far as whether women tend to be more active church members than men because they enjoy being around a group of women, I do think that it used to be true that women did most of the volunteering and committee work as a chance to get out of the house and enjoy company while serving the Lord. But this was back when my mother was the head of a bunch of committees. I haven't been involved with committee work at a church in eons, so I have no idea how much the impact of women working outside the home has on this - I would suspect that has severely impacted the number of women available for that sort of thing, but revivals? I dunno. It's been a long time since I went to a revival.

-georgia (so)

Well, cynical I am.

I do think more women go to church to find what may seem like unconditional love, something not often found coming from a man or children.

Perhaps there was a football game or some other distracting event to occupy the men's attention?

Actually, the drama of the fits and speaking in tongues you describe is a little creepy to me (sorry). Perhaps the loss of control expected (?) is unpalatable for most men.

Terri(SO) wrote: Perhaps there was a football game or some other distracting event to occupy the men's attention?.

I was going to say that!

Well the S.F. response would be: "Church? What's a church? Oh, those big buildings that are now Art Institute locations?" (this has a point eventually, trust me) And, in fact, that is true. The standard statistical measurement is to take the population of the city and divide it by the combined number of seats in all places of worship, and SF comes in last in the United States. However, using the same formula, we do have more bar seats than any other city, per capita, enough that if we got rid of all the tourists and the commuters, and the bridge and tunnel types, there is enough bar seating for the entire adult population to go out at the same time and have a drink. Now, the other factor - the KEY factor - here is this... SF is a very male city (its the gay thing). The most male city (and the least amount of children) of any other city in the US.

Most churches are mostly women, 'twas ever thus. Its been pretty much a given in Western Culture, that the spiritual training of the children, and the spiritual foundation of the home and community was a woman's job. The menfolk have always had the out of having to do man chores, or something (anything) else, and don't participate at near the level of women (at least in Western Christianity). It also has to do with community, and being a part of something beyond the home, which most men have, and thus, less need for.



And, for the record, if I was forced to pick a church and go, I would go Quaker first, because they just sit in peace and quiet most of the time and they are dedicated to pacifism - which if you are following the Prince of Peace, is the least you could be. But second, I would go to an African-American Full Gospel church, because its always struck me that they at least seem to be doing something more than just making a social call for the purposes of keeping up appearances like the Presbyterians do. They are making a joyful noise unto the Lord and all that. It is on the occasions where I've gone to an African American church that it has at least occured to me that there might be a reason for some of this.

A couple of things I hadn't thought about which made sense. The unconditional love could be a big part of it. The church is among other things both a source of love and an agent of socialization, and men and boys tend to have a harder time with the socialization process. And also women might be more comfortable with the loss of control. (Terri the first time I ever saw someone fall on the floor and roll around speaking in tongues it scared the daylights out of me. Its still not something that I am overly fond of, maybe because it's too much like drunkenness for my tastes)

Women aren't watching the game (hows all that sports enthusiasm for loss of control- somehow it's okay for the coach to even cry at times) or drinking at the bar. At least not women of this age and with this sense of propriety. It might also be that the large number of women renders this a womans thing and thus leaves men feeling less comfortable there.

As far as working is concerned I would think most of the women there were employed except for the ones who are now retired. I wonder how much of this had to do with what do you do after the children and grandchildren have grown.

My wife has commented that a lot of gospel music lends itself to the female voice and that she thinks this has to do with the lack of male voices in a lot of gospel choirs.

Tekla brought up something interesting about Black full gospel churches. This was a mostly Black congregation by the way. This is New England and the White folks tend to be more subdued even in the more fundamentalist churches. I am sometimes left with the feeling that Black churches are the places where worship is actually meant to be fun. And after all if it isn't fun at some level how joyfull is it really?

Next to shopping it often seems like one of a crossdressers favorite things to do is to go out dancing en femme. Which I think may have to do with women seeming to have so much more freedom in dancing than men do. And the climax of this whole service was people getting up, dancing, and then progressing to being possessed by the spirit. I think there is a common thread here, which leaves me still intrigued by the whole idea of revivals as a gender bending experience. Ideally at something like this we become spiritually naked. And being naked has some sort of relationship to crossdressing although that would have but be another thread....But after all God sees who we really are and is beyond such petty labels as male and female even if the whole gender thing was His (Her) idea in the first place.

Enough rambling.

Absaroka

It might be the games (though there are only 16+4 weeks of pro football, what's keeping them out of church the rest of the year?), and I doubt its the bars. I work weird hours, and there are times that I've got off work and gone off and had a few with my workmates, and it turns out that its Sunday morning and the bars are empty, if they are open at all. Lots of bars open late on Sundays, even in SF. So you could go to church and still make first call in a lot of places, so I don't think that's it.

I think if you look historically you might find that church is the one time of the week that a woman could get out of the house. Dress nice and all. I think that for a lot of women its their only change to do that. They are not the women who would dress up and go out to the bars, and these churches tend to be poorer, so they also not likely to dress up and go to the opera or ballet. So church it is.

It also might be that woman are more open to spiritual experiences then men are. I do Tazie prayer once in a while with a friend of mine, and I'm usually the only guy there.

But I also think, that in particularly for the African-American experience, the church is far more central to the community than it is in white suburbia. So that group goes to church as much for community reasons as religious ones.

I've gone a few times to the Full Gospel Tabernacle on Hale Road in Memphis, which is run by the Reverend Al Green, and its a pretty moving experience. First they have about as good a choir as I've ever heard, second, Al does a pretty good sermon in the Martin Luther King / Jessie Jackson Southern Baptist style. I wear a good suit - when in Rome... - and have always been greeted with friendship and respect. Even when I was the only white guy there.

As for the gender deal, well its seems to me that god would care more about what's in your heart than what's on your back. The congregation might be a different deal however. I've gone to church (Roman Catholic, Dominican Order in SF) dressed in neat presentable fem clothing like a DKNY pantsuit and no one batted an eye, I'm not sure I'd try that at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg.

Hi Absaroka--
My middle brother went through a period where he was participating in church services/revivals like the one you described. Now he's part of a Unity church, which is much more New Age oriented.

My extended family is all over the map on religion, but my immediate family of brothers/sisters are either new age or atheist. (I'm painting with a broad brush when I say new age, and I don't like that term, but that's close enough for what I have to say.)

My sisters, my brother, and my nephew observed just the opposite--that Unity churches were mostly middle-aged women, but the more traditional churches that were also charismatic had a better balance of both younger people and couples. There's an excitement about charismatic services, and it attracts both genders. With the music and the dancing, it's more like a concert experience. When I attended a service at my brother's former church, which was somewhat charismatic, there were lots of young couples there. This was a congregation of maybe 400 people. It was Ohio, and not New England--maybe that makes a difference.

The Unity churches I know of, both here and Ohio, sponser Course in Miracles groups. I attend one in San Jose every month or so, and I attend as a gal. There are five to six born-women, and one TG woman. The TG woman is in her 40s--the rest are in their 60s and 70s. So my experience matches what my family is saying; the Unity church pulls in older women.

My generalization from all this would be the opposite of yours: if men still go to church at all, they tend to be in greater numbers in the more active style churches like the charismatic ones.

Sounds like you had a very interesting experience with the Pentocostal Church! Truly, they "feel the Lord" in every bone of their bodies when they worship. It's inspiring, but always seemed a bit disingenuous to me. But that's just me.....

Since I live on the east coast, in a fairly rural area, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, I can't say I've noticed more women than men at church functions. People here go to church as a family, then come home and eat a ridiculously huge meal as a family, then sit around and watch football for the rest of the day as a family. LOL!

But I would imagine that in the larger context of American Christianity, women are more active than men in church. I think there are alot of reasons for this.... The primary one being that in MOST American families, women are still responsible for the majority of the child rearing. Since churches often provide a great place for kids to have fellowship together (and breaks for mom), many mothers make finding a church home for their kids at a young age a priority in their lives, which of course means finding a church home for themselves as well.

Also, I think the church is one of the last "frontiers" in the Women's equality movement. It's one of the few institutions in the United States that is not required by law to extend full rights to women (Baptists, Catholics, and some other denominations do not allow female clergy). Many women see this as a "mission".... to show their undying faith and devotion to their God..... to prove themselves "worthy" of the church. This is unhealthy and scary in my opinion, because a church that says I can't preach the Word because I have a vagina instead of a penis should be proving it's "worth" to ME, not the other way around.... But for many women, it's all they know to do.

Another factor is that women do not typically participate in social and charitable organizations like the Elks, the Lions, etc..... Those are basically "boys clubs".... So for women to get together and do charitable work or have a social gathering, it's easier to do within the confines of an organized group, like a church group.

Still, I'm glad you had a good experience at church with your wife, and I hope SHE had a great time using her gift.

Tiffany

When my SO and I go to church on Sundays, I feel the femme in me. Mostly women attend, I guess they get more spiritual satifaction than men there.

Ah Virginia, honey, a day late and a dollar short, I guess! Don't even have the slightest idea how I missed this topic.

Anyway, when Absaroka told what was going on, my initial reaction was she was dreaming - she lives in New England - that kinda of religious ferver does not happen in New England, then it was later clarified that it was a "black" church which explained a lot.

Back in the hidden recesses of Scott County, Tennessee, north of Knoxville, Tn near the Ky border at "as they say the end of the paved road" you take a logging road to a crek, that's creek for you'ens in the big city, drive across the crek to Paint Rock Baptist Church and as was described, every thing but the serpent handling. Speaking in tongues, rolling in the floor, "fits," weeping, screaming, crying. Now not much shocks me or scares me but when the 90 year old man began bounding over the pews like a deer, ran up to me and threw his arms around me yelling, "I got a new body, I got a new body!" Yes, I was a bit taken back!!!! "Good for you!" is all I could muster, and off he went to spread his joy, ladies, literally bounding from pew back to pew back 9 pews, I watched cause I knew he was gonna slip and splatter his brains all over God and everyone else that was there - he did not!!!!

The thing I came away with was, these people believe, they believe in something, they don't understand it, they can't see it, taste it, smell it feel, well they definitely feel something, but they have an insurmountable belief, like nothing I had or probably ever will see again in my lifetime!

No CJ, Virginia was not even a glint in my eye at that time.

I think most everyone should experience that - that experience at least once in their lifetime.

Love,

Virginia