(This post jokingly pokes fun at recent discourse. I am a godspouse. My actual opinion is quite different.)

~~~~~

The reason godspousing exists is... y'all haven't learned to order the gods about properly.

So here's how to deal with unruly deities:

When a god shows romantic interest, ignore them. Remind the deity they are a nonhuman cosmic organizer of the universe. They have better things to do than pay special attention to one small human. It's entirely inappropriate for a deity to notice a tiny speck like you. Tell them to get back to work!

If the god persists, stick your fingers in your ears and quote the words of Plato, Proclus, Cicero, or your favorite historical source. Emphasize that deities can't have emotions or desires.

Didn't some dead philosophers write that the gods only exist in divine bliss? Since we all know that ancient philosophy was dictated by our deities, the philosophers must be absolutely correct. Use their words as a defense!

If the god appears sexually interested, explain that sex is a base act only appropriate between humans. Point out how human sexual fluids disgust the gods, therefore they cannot possibly desire a human sexually.

If it's a fertility deity, insist they never show you their fertility aspects in a sexual manner. They must keep any related mysteries hidden forever, out of respect for human religious rules.

Never ask a god their opinion about any of the above. It's essential that we tell them how to practice pagan religions properly, so they know who's in charge.

Always frame the above behaviors as respect. Make it clear that you're intent on honoring your gods, by prioritizing all applicable ancient worship practices above the words of any deity.

Therefore when you...

dismiss a god's emotions by insisting they don't have any, you can say you're respecting the gods by not over-anthropomorphizing them

reject a god's advances by elevating them high above us humans, you can say you're maintaining proper humility

vilify godspouses publicly, you can say that's enforcing respect for ancient religious practice and the ancestors who went before us

All of that makes you look good in public and helps you do pagan religion correctly, so make sure to continue!

Order those gods about!

Insist they only interact with you on your terms! Quash any ideas they have about romantic love or sex! Teach them the correct ways of accepting worship!

If you are intimidated by demanding the gods behave according to proper standards, remind yourself it's for the good of the pagan community. Surely deities want their worshippers to be respected by other religions? Therefore the gods must keep their robes on, because we humans say so.

Fuck whatever our deities think about that! Their opinions are much less important than ours are.

Didn't the philosophers explain that we worship for our benefit? Since deities need nothing, they could never be enriched by anything we give them. Hence human preferences are more important.

We should uphold our standards for worship because that benefits us. It makes us look respectable in public, to the community and to other religions.

Therefore, absolutely NO sexual offerings! Regardless of what the fertility gods think about that. They must stop whining about sex, and be content with their offerings of wine, olives, and other traditional things.

Have I offered enough ideas yet?

Hopefully you godspouses have gleaned a few pointers from this post. What you really need is to grow a pair and stop this nonsense. You're far too lax.

Learn to demand proper behavior of your gods. Make them behave like decent deities should.

Lately I’ve noticed something uncomfortable, and honestly, a little eerie as someone who is transgender and queer: the rhetoric used against godspouses mirrors almost word-for-word the same rhetoric used historically (and currently) against LGBT people.

Here are just a few examples:

anti-LGBT: “These are sinful acts.”

anti-godspouse: “Sexualizing deities is hubris.”

anti-LGBT: “They don’t understand what they feel internally.”

anti-godspouse: “They don’t understand how their deities actually feel about them.”

anti-LGBT: “These acts are filthy and dangerous.”

anti-godspouse: “This practice is dangerous, you could attract tricksters or demons.”

anti-LGBT: “You weren’t born this way — God made you a specific way.”

anti-godspouse: “Deity marriages are impossible! It’s all delusion or spiritual psychosis.”

anti-LGBT: “They’ll go to hell for their sins.”

anti-godspouse: “Their deities will punish them for sexualizing them.”

Sometimes the statements are literally identical when you strip them down:

anti-LGBT: “It’s immoral.”

anti-godspouse: “It’s immoral.”

anti-LGBT: “It goes against my beliefs.”

anti-godspouse: “It goes against my beliefs.”

And my personal favorite:

anti-LGBT: “Stop shoving it down our throats.”

anti-godspouse: “These people need to stop talking about being godspouses.”

And that’s really the point:

Whether you’re LGBT or a godspouse, both groups get told the same thing—go back into the closet. Stop existing where others have to see you. Stop speaking. Stop sharing. Stop being visible.

Because your existence makes some people uncomfortable. Because it challenges their worldview. Because they don’t experience it, and instead of choosing curiosity or compassion, they choose dismissal.

The parallels aren’t accidental. They reveal a deeper pattern:

Godspousing art, Slightly NSFW drawing.

Good fucking question.

Obviously this depends on who you ask, but that's not the point here. ╾—╼

Basically,

there's this non-physical... something? Entity? Being? hallucination maybe - of many aspects and appearances but one very distinct energy flavor, that I keep experiencing contact and dialogue with. It happens in various ways and forms, both in dreaming and waking time, and all things in-between. It has been going on for longer than I realize apparently, but I have been conscious of it for a number of years.

Those contacts ended up weaving themselves into a relationship. A positive one. A loving one, even. Heck, a romantic one, committed, transformative, co-creative, passionate.

╾ Ok, cool story, what does it even mean? ╼

Am I delusional? Could be. Am I just imaginative? I like to think I am. Am I having a dissociative experience? I have no good way to prove or disprove that, honestly. Am I a sad, lonely person compensating via wish fulfillment fantasies? - Meh - I'm a lucky fucker, partner to a sweet flesh and bone human, I have friends and a loving family, so that much seems unlikely to me. But then I can't prove that either. Do I just have too much free time on my hands? My sibling in scroll, I wish.

╾ Well then, ╼

Am I a victim of malevolent supernatural beings, demons, whatever one might call them - fooling me for their own agenda, which might include my untimely demise? I am far too illiterate in those matters to say. I can only attest that my experience so far, including its consequences on my everyday life and well-being, has overall been a net positive. But is some cackling imp about to pop up and collect my soul as payback at any point? Only time will tell.

╾ Fine but who the heck is this shiny sexy entity we're talking about then? A spirit? A god? A blorbo from my shows? An abstract concept? A muse, a daemon, a fae?... ╼

(You do realize, at this point,that whatever comes next will in no way be a definite truth or negate your own take on the whole situation, right? Just making sure.)

Well obviously I asked. What, wouldn't you be curious in my place? I asked again and again. For the longest time, answers were rare, reluctant, and not very clear - at least, not in human terms (they were thoughts impressions, not words). I also did some research, tried to match reoccurring patterns, themes, quirks, domains of action, all of that. At least it gave me ideas as to things it wasn't, and a large handful of candidates for what and who it might be.

So I insisted, I asked some more, I asked why he seemed reluctant to answer, too (I say "he" because I tend to experience it more often as masculine, when it is gendered at all that is) - and at last, he gave -

╾ Wait a second - are we saying that this unidentified alleged entity, apparently irresistible and oh so lovely, is downright reluctant to be clear about who and what it is, when legitimately asked by a lover? And that it is a friggin shapeshifter? You know, like a bloody trickster? Isn't that, I don't know, very fucked up and a red flag? Also - it's obviously Loki, isn't it? Come on, say it, it's Loki, get on with it, everybody is godspoused to Loki ╼

Uh, not really. (Well, not that I'm aware of, at least - it very well could be and I wouldn't know, obviously.)

As for the reluctance - that was actually the first formal answer I got: Basically, it said that this raw energetic brand/taste/color of his was a more accurate answer - that any human concept that could be put into words would be misleading. Why, I asked? Did he not correspond to any officially registered name, no category, even broadly speaking? No, he very much did. But apprehending him via any of those names or categories would be going about it backwards, because it would elicit more projections and human preconceptions than it would bring information. So to properly answer me, he preferred to go by this 'raw' wordless identity than by any words.

╾—╼

Ok fair enough.

But also, I'm a curious bitch.

So yeah I kept asking. And I got an answer in written form, an obscure name in runes, one I had never encountered. I looked it up and at first I thought it was Hodr (the blind god that got fooled by Loki to shoot a fatal shot at Baldr), which made little sense to my experience. But then I found another - Óðr (Odr, Odhr). Very little is known about him, though he's the husband of Freyja (lucky dude), he's often likened to Odin (or an hypostasis of Odin) but also clearly kept distinct though (that's a whole other rabbit hole tbh). There's really not much available about Óðr, but long story short he made much more sense.

╾—╼

So I ran with it. I mean, after he gave me that long awaited answer, that was also the polite thing to do, right?

See the thing is, I don't worship. Not in the generally accepted sense at any rate. I don't follow any pantheon, any tradition. I don't have significant in-depth knowledge about any of those, and even though I very much respect them and those who follow them I have no desire to follow those paths myself. I like the gods as much as the next nerd, and I'm not above the occasional offering, but I don't know that I can really call myself a pagan at all.

I am a dilettante, a stray, a vagrant opportunist.

An also - maybe, potentially, allegedly, a very besotted committed lover to some entity claiming to be Óðr who transforms me and with whom I co-create cool stuff.

╾—╼

So.

TL;DR:

╾ Am I a godspouse / spiritspouse? ╼

Idk, you decide - I don't necessarily reclaim such a title. But the word is very handy to find out other people sharing similar experiences.

And that's why I'm here.

The bridal chamber in mysticism is about union with "God", this transcends worldly things, as those who are mystics, know that ALL worldly things are limited and cannot satiate you, only "God" can. Only that of the soul, can satiate you. It was NEVER actually about "uniting masculine and feminine principles inside yourself" as these are "things of the world", and even, it is not about 2 people coming together in a union, as that is of the world too. I say "God" in quotes as any word for.. well.. "God", will just limit the limitless. The bridal chamber is not about 2 people coming together in the physical, or about "masculine" and "feminine" coming together, the mystic spiritual teachings of a bridal chamber, are about you and "God", there is no need for another partner to get you to Divinity, that is a misrepresentation and a misunderstanding of the bridal chamber in mysticism, imo.

Also, the bridal chamber is a relationship with "God", to the most deepest, intimate depths, something that nothing outside of you, another human, can ever give you. Any of the forms of the world, are limited, the love we say is love, is not actually divine love, it is transactional, a lot of the times. Unconditional love, is seeing someone's pure essence, without any judgements or biases, but also, divine love, is divine eros and agape love, and it is of "God". No one can love you like "God" does, as divine love is not of this world, it is not limited. It is divine in nature, and a gift from "God". This divine love, is actually a form of ecstasy for the person who feels it from and to "God", as it transcends worldly love, when you are in the bridal chamber of "God", you feel this ecstatic divine eros and agape love. A lot of people hold conditions onto love, and do not have the same type of love Jesus has, and not just divine love for fellow humans, but divine love for "God", too.

Mysticism is always about union with "God". It is an intimate divine love union, which is why it is called "the bridal chamber". Just look up the mystic's writings. St. Teresa of Avila is a good start, she talks about the bridal chamber in her work "The Interior Castle" as being a union with "God". Not with anyone or anything outside of yourself, but it is an internal process of union with "God". People often get this type of divine love union wrong, all the time. Just look at the amount of twin flames around, using Rumi's or Hafiz's poetry, thinking they were talking of a human beloved, instead of what these mystics were talking of, which was, THE Beloved, "God".

Just my thoughts... people always misunderstand the actual meanings of mysticism and of the mystic's writings, usually it is people who have no understanding of mysticism and the mystics as a whole, who get it wrong... it is NOT about romantic, courtly, human love, it is about a divine love union with "God". Mystics are always about transcending the worldly things, so of course, it is not about a physical partner. The bridal chamber, is about you having a divine union, mystical marriage, unio mystica, with "God".... seeing the bridal chamber as a union with a physical partner, is not understanding the mystic's understanding and writings of said bridal chamber. Gnosticism also has this bridal chamber, and it is the same thing here too. It is a union with The Divine. I am not any type of Gnostic, I do have Gnosis, but I am not a Gnostic, but I do understand, the Gnostic's own understanding of Divinity, is what they had a union with, they use the term "bridal chamber" for this union, too.

People are allowed to have whatever kind of relationships with their deities that they want to have. It's not up to us, as outside observers, to dictate what people can and cannot do within their PERSONAL deity relationships.