Lavender Mafia

This Memorial Day weekend, Jack and his fiancé August are traveling to meet Jack’s very conservative family(!), so Lavender Mafia is taking it easy with our first mini-sode! Follow us on Instagram & Twitter at @lavmafia, and visit patreon.com/lavmafia to help us keep making good queer Christian content and for rewards for backers.

This week Jess & Jack are joined by our friend Azariah Southworth, host of the queer Christian podcast “Yass, Jesus!” He talks about being a Christian TV personality before becoming “a big ho.” We talk about the holiness of throwing away sexual shame and the differences in poly, open, and casual group sex. We also talk about how group sex can extinguish purity culture jealousy and can be parti...

This week, Jack & Jess have a conversation about the doctrine of the Incarnation. What does it mean to us as Christians that God became a human? What does it mean to us as queer people? We also talk about God taking on the experience of economic insecurity in the person of Jesus, and how his ministry was bankrolled by women and (probably) sex workers. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @lav...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about voyeurism & exhibitionism. We talk about the scenes we've gotten into (or want to) and the ways that indulging in both voyeurism/exhibitionism have boosted our queer confidence. We also talk about the ways our experiences as queer Christians might have influenced the kinds of voyeuristic and exhibitionistic fantasies we're drawn to, and how t...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about queering the person of Jesus. We consider the possibility that he was literally queer—non-binary or pansexual or under the ace umbrella. We talk about how queer people being invisible minorities means that it makes it difficult to prove the queerness of many historical figures but also nearly impossible to prove someone wasn’t one of us. We talk...

This week Jess & Jack talk about group sex: our experiences with it, how to set up and have a good group encounter, and how to love your neighbors as yourself when you’re in an orgy together. We talk about the difference between casual group sex and committed poly group sex, how group play can be a real confidence-booster, how most three-way sex is bad, and how a lot of anti-group-sex sentimen...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about creation: how it started (according to the Genesis accounts), how it’s going (the Fall, etc.), and what it means for queer people—especially trans youth—that God pronounced creation “very good.” Jack links “Left Behind” theology to a lack of environmental concern among evangelicals; Jess talks about “Jurassic Park,” her wife’s favorite movie; and...

This week we announce some changes to the format of the podcast and talk about some new directions we’re excited about, including bonus episodes with questions and stories from our listeners, as well as exclusive content for Patreon subscribers. Stay tuned for our main episode on Thursday! Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @lavmafia, and visit patreon.com/lavmafia to help us keep making good q...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about friends with benefits: our experiences, pros and cons, and why they seem so rare in queer Christian circles. Friends with benefits are very queer, blurring distinctions between platonic and romantic/sexual relationships. Queerness imagines a world where boundaries we treat as absolute become blurry (or erased), and so both more accurately depicts...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about power: how Christian leaders use and abuse power, how queer Christians have power and don’t, and how we get power back by giving it away. Jack talks about the power and powerlessness he experiences as a disabled person; Jess talks about desiring the power to take away suffering, and Jack talks about whether he’s compensating for something. Follow...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about flirting and seduction: how to hit home runs on the dating apps, how to use all the senses to flirt, and how being queer changes the way we think about flirting. We talk about flirting with our friends, their partners, and each other. Jess talks about flirting while being married and poly, and Jack talks about the pick-up lines he found popular w...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about the names and pronouns we use for God. We talk about the ways American Christians speak about God like a human man, how calling God “Father” can be particularly difficult for queer people, and how the historic Christian tradition is surprisingly progressive on these points. We explore the ways policing God language has been used to dehumanize (wh...

This week Jess & Jack have another conversation about BDSM, covering some of the topics we missed the first time around, including pain play—from biting and scratching to flogging and recreational electrocution—and breath play and aftercare. We talk about using BDSM toys can be helpful when one or more partners is disabled, suggest some choking techniques, and Jack shares how to save big on fl...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about creeds or religious statements of faith: what they are, how they’re weaponized against queer people, and whether we should use them today. We talk about who counts as a “Christian,” compare notes on creeds or statements of faith from our pasts and presents, Jess talks about the life-changing magic of making your own statement of faith, and Jack t...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about role play: what we like and why we like it, including Jack’s Steel Magnolias fantasy and Jess’s interest in Catholic schoolgirl outfits. Jack opens up about a relationship with an abuser and explores using role play as exposure therapy to heal. We end by asking the question, “Is any role play off-limits?” and suggest some boundaries for ethical r...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about shame: what it is, how it differs from guilt, and what we used to be ashamed of. Jack talks about being ashamed of growing up in a small town when he moved to LA, and Jess talks about the shame queer Christians feel in both Christian and queer circles. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @lavmafia, and visit patreon.com/lavmafia to help us keep...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about foreplay: what we like to do—and like to have done to us—leading up to sex, how long it takes us to get going, and what counts as foreplay when we queer the boundary between sexual and non-sexual. We talk about how to send and interpret non-verbal cues  that it’s time (or not time) to turn it around while the lights are down, and how forepla...

This week Jess & Jack talk about interfaith relationships: Jess talks about being married to a witch, and Jack talks about his relationship with his agnostic fiancé. We talk about how we grew up thinking you had to date and marry another Christian to avoid being “unequally yoked” and how we came to understand interfaith relationships have the potential to deepen and strengthen our faith rather...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about porn: how our attitudes toward it have changed over the years, the difference between lust and sexual desire, and the need for more diversity among performers. We talk a bit about our favorite genres and what draws us to them, and we relate the story of when Jess unknowingly tried to match-make Jack with one of his favorite adult entertainers. Fo...

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about queer confidence: how coming out and living into our queerness gave us a confidence we hadn’t thought possible. We talk about the Christian tendency to conflate confidence with pride and arrogance, and how humility and queer confidence aren’t opposed but go hand-in-hand. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @lavmafia!

This week Jess & Jack have a conversation about pre-marital (and non- and post-marital) sex and how we came to believe it won’t send us to hell. Jess talks about her experiences of sexual experimentation in the context of deepening relationships, and Jack talks about his “slut phase” and how having a diverse sexual history can enrich a relationship. We look at the (few!) biblical passages that...

This week Jess & Jack talk about gender expression, or the ways we manifest our gender(s) through our appearance and behavior. Jess discusses butching it up, and Jack reminisces about embracing his inner poof. We talk about the fear that can come with expressing a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth, and the strength that comes when the very real danger of physical harm makes...

In “these uncertain times,” Jess & Jack have a conversation about that pleasurable and pandemic-friendly activity: masturbation. Because if you can’t live yourself, how in the hell you gonna love someone else, can I get an amen? We talk about our experiences discovering what we could do to our bodies, how our churches taught us to be ashamed and how we got over it, how our techniques have chan...

This week Jess & Jack talk about the tendency both inside and outside the LGBTQ community, there’s a tendency to group queer people into “good gays” and “bad gays,” whether it’s because of your gender, your race, disability status, or whether you conform to gender or sexual norms. We talk about the temptation to want to be in the “good gays” categories, we have a spirited disagreement about ho...

This week Jess & Jack kiss dating goodbye and court the subject of purity culture. We talk modesty, sexual shame, fear of penises, and how purity culture made each of us gayer and kinkier. We also entertain the possibility that purity culture contributed to the rise of the alt-right and talk about how the Billy Graham Rule isn’t a problem when you mostly want to be alone with people of the sam...