Male Sexuality and Church-Chatter

Matt at Political Spaghetti writes,

Although I'm not gay, I think that one only has to be a man, gay or straight, to understand the pressures, strains and breakdowns associated with suppressed sexuality. While it must always be kept under control, there is something about the male animal that makes us prone to unhealthy venting when the standard outlets are unavailable.

I think there is truth to Matt’s statement speaking just of male sexuality. Our sexuality as males, gay or straight, has an explosive quality to it, and carries with it a certain frenzied energy, especially in youth—what St. Paul refers to as “burning”. Unharnessed or stamped down, this energy flares out and erupts in all manner of problematic tendencies and addictive cycles.

Male mentors who can be there for us to guide us toward loving options would be a great boon to youth, but such as these are rare. Rather we have those who go for either/or sensibilities that too often lead gay males into suppression and delayed adolescence (and the dangers of the closet) and straight males into hiding their expressions while maintaining veneers of righteous living.

The most integrated, frankly, in my experience tend to be non-religious, certainly non-Christian.

Indeed, psychological studies show that among gay men at any rate, strong Christian belief often lead to greatly reduced ability to function in society and often leaves one with more psychological difficulties (I can attest to this for myself). I wonder what the same might say for straight men? It is not faith or God that is the problem, I might add, but application of the letter rather than the spirit that seems incapable of discerning the principles at the heart of commands and asking “why?” and “what is the heart of this” when discrepancies, new insights, contradictions, arise. Imagination, doubt, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity are not options in rigidified Christianity (the seeming faith de jour among Americans), so that passing on the tradition is mere replication. And on the other hand, among we who promote a more open faith, the ability to affirm principles at all and offer rites of passage as confirmation of such response to Christ seem lacking, so that among gay men at any rate, we’re unable to inculturate what being a gay male Christian looks like within the community as presently constituted on the whole, so that passing on the tradition fails to occur or barely inches along. Much of it is left to our own working it out in such circumstances.

Remember “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife” is a command not to lust after another man’s property. Rather we now would tend to think of this in terms of respect others’ relationships, but that is not the command as given and we need to address how our being able to ask questions has deepened this command Christianly. It seems we’re becoming capable of reassessing whether women are property, surely we can do a more thorough questioning on matters of sex and relationships in the light of our relational faith in Christ?

The problem is, the entire framework is wrong from the get go, focused on what we’re doing or not doing with our penises, rather than how do we guide our relating to those we’re romantically involved with toward questions of non-exploitation, non-domination, mutual consent, mutual pleasure, upbuilding, character formation, and perhaps most importantly, mutual commitment within the framework of the community. In other words, asking ourselves, “Where is this going?” with regard to our sexual relationships (whether they have been consummated or not) and what type of person do I want to become? Focused on how do we learn from mistakes and yes sins against those we sleep with, be they female or male, examining the many ways we overlook getting our needs met at the expense of a sister or brother in Christ. And asking these same cultural and ethical questions of Scripture and our traditions, both ecclesial and local.

Our sexuality doesn’t repress and suppress well, nor should we expect that it should, given its importance as a central aspect of the way we make connection not simply by having sex with lovers, but with relating with friends, family, and God. This powerful instinct and passion needs direction that lust might become love, not extinction or suppression or repression. It needs our embrace rather than our hiding it away in secret as a filthy matter in shame or our all-out enthrallment gazing outward at its pleasures or others’ indiscretions while celebrating our own purity or hiding our own indulgence. Then whether we choose celibacy or union, if we’re working on this lifelong work of integration, which is a part of male conversion, of disciplining ourselves, our burning, our lust, our eros, can widen out into greater love through another to all or through many to all.

Integration is required and is a lifelong work or we end up with it “leaking” out in all sorts of unhealthy ways: addictions to pornography, prostitution, promiscuity, unquestioned fantasizing and masturbation without pause, solicitation of those over whom we have authority, solicitation of those underage (though those being solicited by Rep. Foley were of legal age of consent, 16, solicitation of those under 18 on the Net is illegal, and then there really is a matter of age difference with regard to maturity. Honestly, how can one have a mutual, with a 16 year old that isn’t exploitative, self-gratifying, ego-centric?)

While our churches continue to convulse over homosexuality, being very quick to divorce orientation and behavior in a way that natural law thinking does not allow if we accept that there is an orientation rather than simply behavior and in a way that ignores the psychological data that suggest homosexual males have the potential to flourish in same-sex relationships every bit as much as heterosexual males do in opposite-sex relationships. The character of the men in such relationships being quite similar all things being equal.

We are still unable to distinguish ethically and morally and faithfully between committed same-sex pairs/same-sex rape/same-sex gratification among those otherwise heterosexually oriented/same-sex exploration among heterosexual and questioning teens/same-sex exploration among homosexual and bisexual teens/same-sex pedophilia and ephebophilia, blathering on in church-chatter as Mark Jordan calls this empty repetitive non-engagement with deeper ethical principles, of how we engage with Love in our finitude, for the slick gloss of celibacy in singleness and chastity in marriage which is only between one man and one woman as divinely instituted (never mind that friendship, that category within which many same-sex pairs—and even opposite-sex pairs, place their relationships is the only type of relationship Jesus Christ specifically endorses and institutes among us), we don’t seem to be having conversations about healthy sexuality in terms of Christian practice of virtues or framing within the broader category of loving touch.

If we repeat the same tired line enough, it must simply be true no matter evidence to the contrary or complexity beyond this simple divide. We’d rather have orders of our creating than attend to the complexity of creation with the variety of gender outlaws and same-sex pairings, those creatures “counter, spare, original, strange” which even the Talmud makes more room for than most Christians, we’re finally able to face more honestly in the scientific world, having lowered the heterosexual lens to recognize variations, variations that some might argue are evolutionary dead ends (being non-reproductive), but then again our faith is not about reproducing—the perfect babe has been born,. We humans are not inseparable from that evolutionary stew. Intergendered realities and same-sex attractions are intertwined in our instincts and desires, and enforced heterosexuality regardless of this complexity fails basic principles of honesty, transparency, and truthfulness while being unable to find compassionate ways for these unusual among us to live healthy lives and faithful responses to Christ.

A lot has been said about being critical of or insisting upon conversion of or the taking up of crosses by homosexuals and homosexuality by bishops and archbishops of late, speaking at homosexuals within two Christian cultural frameworks that show a deep lack of awareness around how both of these terms (“conversion” and “cross”) have been used to insist upon enforced heterosexuality and celibacy and have done a great deal of damage to homosexual persons. In both cases, the underlying implication is that our conversion is predetermined—to heterosexuality, and our cross is clear—celibacy. And of course, it is interesting, that when one’s own person and community are not the one being oppressed, we can speak of those liberals and conservatives and oneself as the middle against those extremes. Then we speak of conversations; but when it was us, we protested, marched, called Presidents of the United States “evil” to their faces. Too often in the Church, heterosexuals have decided for us what our conversion is to be and the cross we take up is to look like--we're to hide, pretend to be heterosexuals, take up celibacy, hate ourselves. When heterosexuals use these terms in regard to persons like myself, I'm suspicious no matter how much goodwill they have as it shows a lack of having engaged with queer persons in terms of context and cultural baggage with relationship to Christendom.

But we need to be gravely critical of heterosexuals and heterosexuality with the same vim and vigour these folks put into their public statements about a very small minority. Easy assumptions equate heterosexual marriage with healthy sexuality in a way that masks the traditional domination of men by women in these relationships and idolizes cultural frameworks that often clash with the deepest virtues of the Christian faith. Until quite recently, churches were silent about abuse, rape, domination, exploitation, and many remain so, such that arguments around heterosexual marriage should remain highly suspect when coming from church authorities. They come across as self-justification and an inability to be self-critical using the Lord’s Name in vain to stem truly critical and mutual conversations about what it means to be Christian and sexual without partiality.

We don’t speak of what healthy relationships look like. We’re more concerned with how and where penises are placed or by whom handled, than contextual matters of relationship, of commitment, of mutual regard, respect, accountability/support/challenge in the wider parish community, gift to the community that a relationship carries the potential to be, of offering our lives in our relationships to Christ.

If our churches and church authorities cannot see past their myopia, their partiality, their hetero-cultural baggage at this time when this deep matter of the human person will not simply go away and is not some mere issue to be trumped by other issues but relates to our ability to relate, it might be better if they stopped their chatter for a while, because they’re looking foolish, and worse, too often reinforce hypocrisy (Church of England) and cover-up wickedness (Anglican Church of Canada, Roman Catholic Church).

Andrew Sullivan writes,

If the Foley incident is not about pedophilia, it is also not, it seems to me, about homosexuality. It's fundamentally about the closet. The closet is so psychologically destructive it often produces pathological behavior. When you compartmentalize your life, you sometimes act out in one compartment in ways that you would never condone in another one. Think Clinton-Lewinsky, in a heterosexual context. But closeted gay men are particularly vulnerable to this kind of thing. Your psyche is so split by decades of lies and deceptions and euphemisms that integrity and mental health suffer. No one should excuse Foley's creepy interactions; they are inexcusable, as is the alleged cover-up (although we shouldn't jump to conclusions yet about who knew what when). But there's a reason gay men in homophobic institutions behave in self-destructive ways.

Or think of it another way: what do the Vatican and the RNC have in common? Here's one potential list: entrenched homophobia, psychologically damaged closet cases, inappropriate behavior toward teens and minors ... and cover-ups designed entirely to retain power. The parallels are looking a little creepy. And the source is the same.

All of this failure to find a deeper principles and to make space for one another leads to disintegration, literally the failure to integrate and have integrity, and hypocrisy, as persons and as communities, and as Christians we can afford neither in an age when our Good News is already deeply suspect—perhaps rightly so.