(If you subscribe to my blog for disability stuff, you may want to cover your eyes and continue on or unfollow the blog.  My woo may be more than you can handle, and I’m okay with that.)

I started to write a whole essay on the sexuality and respectability policing that happens in others’ publicly stated views about godspouses and the sexual component that some have (either much like the sexual nature of other religion’s mystics’ written experiences or actual sexual acts), but in the end I just keep thinking Meh about justifying my personal experiences that I willingly share with others. So I’ve shortened it to a few statements…

1. If you don’t believe that the Gods exist as individuals, that’s really all you have to say. In fact, please, leave it at that. We’re talking about 2 very different belief systems, so you don’t need to carry on to explain that you don’t believe in godspouses… Because, let me be really clear here, whether you believe in my religious, spiritual, and magical practices or not doesn’t invalidate that I exist and self-identify as a godspouse, nor does it invalidate my religious and spiritual path of 20+ years.  People tend to go on to attack the people and not the practice, because let’s be honest, they don’t actually know anything about the practice.
2. Commentary on godspouses being mentally ill needs to stop. You are being ableist, and while I, myself, have a few mental illnesses lurking in my shadows, it has very little to do with my personal relationship with the Gods. In fact, the God who I’m married to has been an integral part of the path towards mental equilibrium. Belief in the Gods and their ability to be in your life isn’t a sign of mental illness. It’s a sign of religiosity, or, at the very least, faith in the Gods to be an active, participating part of the cosmos. Unless you are a licensed professional and have studied mystical experiences heavily, I’m going to say you have absolutely no right to deem what is and isn’t mental illness in another person when it comes to religious experience.
3. Commentary on godspouses being lonely (typically women) or lacking something in their lives needs to stop. I have a mortal spouse. I have a child. I have family. I have friends. The only thing I’m lacking is the peace of existing in a world where people on the internet don’t give their opinions of things they aren’t educated on… Which is 99.9% of the time godspousery, and 80% of the time psychology that isn’t of the pop variety or 101 levels.
4. Since rarely are male godspouses ever attacked on the internet and usually it involves sex toys being invoked, I’m going to calmly assume that those bringing it up have some Puritanical mores looming around that they may not be aware of at best and at worst may be misogynists who are offended by the idea of people having sex without a mortal penis involved. If godspouses are masturbating and invoking the Spirits and Gods, then so the fuck what? For a group of people who regularly deal with fertility cults, phallus worship, and myths that talk about all kinds of sex (including but not limited to bestiality and incest), Pagans seem to really get caught up in the worry that we’re all masturbating with or without a God present.
5. The most impious thing I can think of is a mortal trying to tell me what the Gods do and do not want from me, sex included. Stop railing against the perceived threat of godspouses wanting authority over your experiences by announcing that you are the authority of all things Gods-related. Not only is it impious, but it’s hypocritical.

Sex happens. Sex with Gods sometimes happens for those that believe that the Gods are real and not just archetypes* and sometimes even for those that don’t. Whether that aligns with your personal beliefs is neither here nor there, and as offensive as you may find it to be, I assure you that my private personal practice has absolutely nothing to do with you.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it has no effect on you as well.

*Oh my Gods, I never thought I’d actually say that, and I’m so annoyed that I am having to say it. But there it is. My Polytheism is getting hard just thinking about it.  You’re welcome for that mental image.