My name is Jude & I'm a Hellenic polytheist *echoes* hi Jude

Trigger warning: discussion of spiritual and sexual abuse, religious homophobia and transphobia, and internalized ableism. also pretty nsfw in general, as I'm an Aphrodite devotee and my worship tends to be pretty sexual, so you might want to avoid this if you're under eighteen.

I'm aneczyk, a username I got about five minutes ago from a username generator. My actual name is Ari, but I often go by my middle name, Jude. I can also be found at thisistheateam.blogspot.com, where I and (currently) three other moderators write about feminism, sociology, religion, race, gender, politics, music, social media, and sexuality, among other things.

I was raised Roman Catholic, but at age eight I realized that I really had no proof that anything I had been told about religion was true. So I became an agnostic atheist until I was eleven, though I didn't have the words for it back then.

At eleven, after having been interested in magic most of my life, I began practicing witchcraft and became an agnostic/pantheist/Unitarian Christian.

At twelve, I got my first exposure to polytheism, specifically the Theoi (Greek gods), through the Percy Jackson novels. Cringe all you want, but at least it gave me a basic 101 of Greek mythology in an easy-to-understand context that, for a twelve-year-old, was interesting.

At fourteen, I got really into Christianity and became hardcore Roman Catholic, though I never really stopped being a witch.

At sixteen, I came to the conclusion that I no longer believed in the devil and began identifying as a Christian Spiritualist - until I came to the conclusion that most of the Bible just falls apart when you no longer have any incentive for punishment if you don't believe in the antagonist, and that I really didn't have any of the requirements for being Christian.

I realized I was bi around that birthday, and while I knew that the Lord had nothing against my sexuality, I discovered quickly that for many Christians, that hate could run deep. So besides not believing in the devil, I just felt unwelcome in my religion. Add in being a rape survivor, woman-aligned nonbinary, and hypersexual (a trauma-related mental illness that causes the brain to fixate on sex and for the afflicted to need sexual validation for their mental health), and it wasn't that surprising, that I eventually became a Hellenic polytheist. Of course, there's a lot of problems in my current religion too. But without a clergy, it's harder for the haters to get organized and gain as much of a platform as some homophobic Christians have.

At seventeen, I began identifying as eclectic pagan. This, for me, looked something like a mix of Unitarian Universalism, agnosticism, pantheism, Wicca, generally New Age religion, a bit of Christianity, and a little bit of Irish and Greek paganism. I'd been accidentally doing magic most of my life, but at this point wasn't really identifying as a witch.

At eighteen, I practiced witchcraft on and off (mainly cottage witchcraft), and actually committed myself to it around May or June of 2016. I run an online grimoir, techmagic-and-tea.tumblr.com, and a pagan blog, paganyouthculture.tumblr.com. The former was created for me to organize my knowledge on witchcraft and use as a reference guide. The latter was created because I missed the youth-friendly culture I'd had as a Christian, i.e. youth conferences, service trips, retreats, youth groups, music, etc., and wanted this as a pagan.

Now I'm nineteen.

I'd felt close to the Theoi from pretty much the moment I learned about them, but had shied away from Aphrodite. After all, I don't exactly have the greatest history with sex, in fact I've never had consensual sex and am somewhat sex-averse. And I also have terrible self-esteem, thanks not only to my history with sexual trauma and spiritual abuse but also grief, mental illness, and body issues. And she has such a feminine vibe to me, and I don't fit within that.

But I've felt called to her lately, and here I am: an Aphrodite devotee, sometimes covering my hair (switching between masculine, feminine, and androgynous veiling styles) for religious reasons.

I'm in a college jewelry-making class, currently making a layered copper amulet in devotion to Her. The background has a green, antique-style patina (a coating to protect the metal), with the Greek word pandemos stamped into it (as in Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite of everyone). The foreground is enameled copper carved in the shape of a rabbit, which I've read is one of Aphrodite's sacred animals and was also relatively easy to make. And I know it's weird, but I can sort of feel sexual vibes coming off it.

Besides veiling and jewelry making, my religious practices include:

• devotional baths
• knitting my own hats in colors that I associate with Aphrodite and use for veiling
• masturbation
• trying to embrace my hypersexuality rather than hating it
• promoting sex positivity and sexual liberation for vulnerable people, especially LGBT people and women
• trying to love myself
• making a worship playlist on Spotify, filled with songs about sex, romance, friendship, beauty, family, and self-love
• trying to embrace my sexuality and gender
• experimenting with my gender expression
• making a photography series for sociology class about the six different forms of love in Ancient Greece and what they mean for our culture today

Outside of religion? I'm artistic in general, and have painted, made holiday ornaments, knitted, made jewelry, and written short stories, novels, spells, and poetry. My favorite TV shows are Speechless and Sweet/Vicious, and my taste in books runs toward speculative fiction, especially written by Rick Riordan (yes, I'm still a fan - his books may be inaccurate at times, but they're still good), Zac Brewer, MaryJanice Davidson, and James Patterson. I'm also, for whatever reason, fascinated by dragon shape shifters. My favorite musicians are Hayley Kiyoko, Dodie Clark, and Mary Lambert. I swim, bike, and do yoga for exercise.

Nice to meet you.