News From The Vestry - 21-01-25

Prometheans!

Today, I’m trying something new with News from The Vestry. It’s scripted!

With my new tech-gizmos I can create an auto-scrolling script. I thought I’d give it a go and see if it helps cut down on the ums and ahs.

I’ll break the rules of course. You know me. I may go off-piste at any moment. But hopefully the script will help maintain a little structure. And also stop me going on for 20 minutes. I really want News from The Vestry to be under ten minutes.

The agenda for today is a note of thanks, middle-class angst, record breaking gangbangs and the power of big numbers. Behind the paywall I’ll be revealing the first Pilgrimage video, reviewing our social media comments, and talking about some behind-the-scenes stuff.

So…. item one.

A Note of Thanks
Thanks and welcome to a new paid subscriber! And to The Vestry’s first ever annual renewal. Graham and Michelle, your support is deeply appreciated. And thanks to everyone who is helping to keep our Church alive.

Middle Class Angst
I guess this was always bound to be a recurring theme for Church of Burn. Everytime we do a burn, someone will pop-up - with the best of intentions, of course - to suggest that there might be a way of doing what we do without burning money.

At the Solstice Burn the suggestion was to burn something of sentimental value and then donate the money to charity instead.

It’s all such silly nonsense.

It seems to be the middle-classes in particular who want to be able to disavow money without actually disavowing it. Their internal submission to Capital is so complete that they cannot allow any external, material act to contradict it. For them every action must affirm the value of money. In other words, the symbol is inviolable. Money is sacrosanct.

They don’t seem to understand that their refusal to even countenance a real renunciation, their perversion of the ideal of sacrifice, their hand-wringing reaction are all precisely what must be split asunder.

As I noted before, I find this attitude - this mismatch between interior and exterior worlds - pervasive on this platform in particular.

In the week just gone it’s been evident in the various pieces published along the lines of ‘Why I Quit Social Media’ - published, of course - it barely needs saying - on a social media platform. So much of what’s written on Substack makes me want to bang my head into a bloody pulp on my computer screen. It all seems to spiral inwardly and endlessly toward the self.

I’m 59. I opened my Twitter account in November 2007. I’m of the generation that has perhaps most fully experienced the change between the pre and post internet worlds.

And of course I was making mischief on the internet with Naturalsex before Facebook was a twinkle in Zuck’s eye.

The point is that social media isn’t going away. There’s nothing wrong with disengaging from it. It pisses me off sometimes too. I understand it has an impact on our mental health.

BUT it has become part of the fabric of the exterior world. We should be wary of using it as an excuse to justify a retreat into our interior worlds.

At this point in the story of humankind, retreat will only seal our fate.

Record-breaking Gangbangs
I’d be surprised if Bonnie Blue and/or Lily Phillips have not appeared in your social media feeds at some point in the last few months. They are both OnlyFans stars and rivals (or at least this is the way the story is presented to us). Lily had sex with 100 men in a day a month or so back. And last week Bonnie had sex with 1000 men in 12 hours.

There is an insightful piece on Substack about Lily Phillips and the history of ‘world record sex attempts’ by

ashley ray

called Gangbangs, OnlyFans, Feminism and Lily Phillips.

There has been a lot of reaction - mostly negative - about Lily and Bonnie. The Mail Online seems especially obsessed with them. I would avoid reading the comments on the various pieces. People seem to have taken the extreme nature of the event as permission to say the most awful things. Things that people have said about promiscuous women and sex workers for millennia.

I’m not immune to feeling a measure of discomfort about Bonnie and Lily’s activities. But perspective is important. I hate those extreme parkour videos where people run along the tops of buildings risking death. But they don’t garner anywhere near the same level of public reaction and scrutiny as record-breaking gangbangs despite being infinitely more risky.

Alongside my discomfort I also feel some admiration for Bonnie and Lily.

For me, pornstars are the unsung heroes (well, heroines mostly) of the sexual revolution. I say ‘pornstars’. I really just mean people who willingly allow their sexual lives to be exposed to the public gaze. There is something in every performance that works to deconstruct the repressive structures that we’ve built to contain our sexuality. People might complain that some particular sexual drives MUST be contained. Yes! Of course. But we need to know they exist in order to properly contain them. Any others might complain that sex becomes de-mystified through its public performance. To that I’d say, have more faith in the power of sex.

Anyway… to bring this all back to money burning… like words, numbers matter. Bonnie’s focus on 1000 is central to her notoriety. Joe Lycett’s figure of £10,000 was central to the success of his money stunt. And if you’ve seen any of Mr Beast’s content you’ll know that his content relies on these magical ‘big’ figures.

Millionaire and now billionaire are words ladened beyond their simple capacity to measure quantity. Bonnie’s 1000 men are a symbol of absolute excess in the same way that a billion dollars is.

All of which means Church of Burn must take a leaf out of Bonnie’s book this year. We need to tout a £10,000 burn, - to take place both in mass rituals and individually. I’m thinking August 23rd or October 23rd as the likely dates. Start saving your favourite banknotes!

Okay. Time for the paywall to come down as I want to share the first of our Pilgrimage videos which features a burn at Ely Cathedral. Please do think about taking out a paid subscription and supporting Church of Burn if you’re able. If you can’t afford it, but can contribute in other ways, do get in touch. It ain’t about the money. Oh wait. No. :-)