tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post299498122709042648..comments2024-01-20T00:00:10.459-08:00Comments on Mudblood Catholic: Why Not Ex-Gay?, Part II: Trojan SecurityGabriel Blanchardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-19429643245682325752014-02-11T11:11:24.475-08:002014-02-11T11:11:24.475-08:00There is nothing in the Catechism that I propose t...There is nothing in the Catechism that I propose to contradict. (There are mysteries it addresses that I don't understand, certainly, or only understand imperfectly, but I'm willing to take the Church's word for it.) But the theories set forth by the ex-gay movement, even when it is Catholics who agree with the ex-gay movement setting these theories forth, aren't Catholic teaching. They are admittedly compatible with Catholicism; I mean, no one is heretical for believing ex-gay theories. But there is nothing in the Church's doctrine that compels us to accept these theories, and I don't think they are true; at the very least, I don't think they apply consistently enough to be of much use.<br /><br />I'm slightly puzzled by your reference to paragraph 2333 here. Certainly I accept the complementarity of the sexes. But that paragraph doesn't state that sexual orientation can be changed by therapeutic methods -- in fact, it doesn't say anything about sexual attraction just as such at all (which is what the language of sexual orientation primarily deals with, whereas the Church's language about complementarity is concerned with the essential nature of mankind, irrespective of accidental properties like attractions). Nor do any of the other paragraphs on sexuality in the Catechism insist, or even suggest, that sexual orientation can be altered through therapy. Indeed, when it comes to homosexuality specifically, the Church goes out of her way to point out that "its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained." It is the ex-gay theory of change by therapy, specifically, that I am here concerned to reject, and not the theory of complementarity (ex-gay theory is not needed to believe in complementarity); and that rejection of the likelihood of therapeutic change is wholly compatible with strict Catholic orthodoxy.<br /><br />Nor do I wish to deny that God could change my sexual disposition (or anybody else's), by miracle for example, if He felt so inclined. But it does seem clear that God does not often exercise His miraculous power -- miracles are by nature exceptional; even that special class of miraculous events we call the sacraments are not normal exactly, even though they occur every day -- and it would certainly be presumptuous to suppose that we could count on a miracle to change someone from homosexual to heterosexual, no matter our grounds for thinking so. I would make it analogous to certain disabilities: it isn't that curing these things is beyond God's power, but that He does not in fact cure them as a matter of course, and such cures cannot be demanded of Him -- so that learning to live with these things is, as a rule, a much more profitable course of action than trying to figure out some way of escaping them. This doesn't mean a person may not pray for a miracle; only that they cannot insist that one will inevitably be granted.Gabriel Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-29326861047579435672014-02-10T23:30:07.580-08:002014-02-10T23:30:07.580-08:00Is there anything in the catechism that you disagr...Is there anything in the catechism that you disagree with or do not quite understand the point of? I think all of us can think of something, right? An example for me would be the teaching on the death penalty. I used to have trouble with it. Well, what is your rule of thumb when that occurs? We are supposed to be silent about our disagreements with Catholic teaching, study up on it, and pray to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to see what the Church is saying to us. I did that, with the death penalty issue and I get it now. The truth and grace transform us. If we do not believe that, we are not really Catholic but in a social club. I recommend you try this method with CCC 2333. Denying that God can change you is a very serious denial indeed.Lisa Graashttp://www.lisagraas.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-73643717513663279642013-07-04T00:43:24.934-07:002013-07-04T00:43:24.934-07:00I think, then, one of the problems with ex-gay nar...I think, then, one of the problems with ex-gay narratives are that (at least once they leave their reprogramming camps), the men are put out back in the world where they have to construct their identity in a "reactionary" way against the gays. Whatever social support networks Christian fundamentalists may have, they aren't the Amish or a monastery or some closed cult, and so they are still exposed to the "currents of desire" structuring larger society (and those aren't always explicit; homosexuality was already emerging even in repressed 1950's America and the Victorian times, of course...such things can be implicit in the economic relations/"base" even before they manifest in the "superstructure")<br /><br />As such, I guess part of the problem is that ex-gay simply hasn't shown itself a powerful enough narrative to "symbolically overcome" mainstream society, or even to have a "fighting chance," epistemologically. In a small closed community, it might really be able to restructure desire through it's narrative. But in our society, it seems like Creationism versus Darwinism, like a narrative that requires willful ignorance and delusion to believe, and which thus rings "inauthentic" to people because of how much cognitive dissonance is clearly there. There comes a point where one can insist "I don't want that! I don't like that!" and one realizes that this narrative is really being dragged away by a very strong current in the other direction, socially, and that eventually the effort to sustain such a construct in the face of dominant social constructs...is too exhausting or futile. Too many contrary experiences pull towards a "better fit" path-of-least-resistance unless very high barriers (barriers probably too high for people living in the world to put up) buffer the flimsier narrative or symbolic system from the waves. A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-52844625284723317522013-07-04T00:43:08.812-07:002013-07-04T00:43:08.812-07:00I guess my point regarding ex-gay is that while I ...I guess my point regarding ex-gay is that while I do believe that orientation and attraction and desire are all basically social constructs, the internalization of narratives and categories that only make sense socially...the fact is that there is something like "authenticity," there is a sense in which an attempt to actively "resist" a known "path of less resistance" (like Creationism does against Darwinism) is a different creature than believing in Creationism when it WAS the best fit a society had to offer at the time. There is a sense that people who choose to deny gay in a world where that is the "lower vacuum energy" require an active exertion of psychological effort that is "fortress mentality" in the manner of a cult.<br /><br />The same is true not just for identity narratives, but even for the attraction or desire itself. I have no doubt that desire in humans, not being mere animal instinct but rather a future-projecting narrative about what one wants and what the significance of various experiences is for ones notion of happiness...can be very malleable according to social circumstances. There is no particular reason why even something involuntary like an erection or the pull to look repeatedly at an attractive member of the same sex has to be projected forward to the act of getting-off with them, except because of the mediation of all sorts of social narratives and symbols and images which make that script the "best fit," the most "credible" script, for putting those experiences into a matrix of meaning.<br /><br />However, you look at something like prison homosexuality. Clearly, in a very controlled and "closed" social environment, desire and identity and all that can take on a very different significance. "Social engineering" on that scale really can create and change desire itself. One wonders if the same dynamic is not at play in monasteries and "cults," the sort of closed social environment and shared narratives and images changing the very mode of subjectivity. I wouldn't find it that hard to imagine that in a little commune totally sheltered from exposure to the outside world (and hostile to it), gay men really could not only enter a "forced" mixed-orientation marriage, but "truly" (in the context of that symbolic world) become attracted to women, etc. In reality, it would be "forced" in some sense, inasmuch as the social "ecology of desire" would be an artificially isolated and bubbled-off system that was perhaps not "self-sustaining" but rather parasitic on the larger society. But still, since such differences are relative, to the people INside the "bubble," it would not be felt.A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-38691177516929617142013-07-04T00:39:30.711-07:002013-07-04T00:39:30.711-07:00But I was thinking tonight, another difference mig...But I was thinking tonight, another difference might be how ex-gay's narrative has been, as it were, unable to "overpower" mainstream narratives. That is to say, I operate under the assumption that "desire" is largely a social construct. "Attraction," "sexual orientation"...I'm no essentialist. I believe these things are largely social constructs, not some sort of "objective" reality that you can test empirically, exactly because so much of them does rely on a narrative of identification. Yes, there may be "raw facts" physiologically, but the leap from those to something like "I'm gay" requires interpreting the pattern and giving it a certain significance both socially and personally. Certainly, I don't think it is crazy to imagine that there have been societies where the idea of being a homosexual or of wanting that...has simply been a literally unthinkable thought for sane people. It simply wasn't then available as a model or lens for fitting their experiences into.<br /><br />However, it seems like there is a sort of "Occam's Razor" effect that goes on when it comes to models, epistemologically. A sort of "local minima" or "lowest vacuum energy" effect whereby the model that explains the MOST details with the least "effort" or need to explain-away...becomes "the truth" in a given context. <br /><br />We can look at Creationism and Darwinism. To be fair to creationists, there is nothing empirical science can ever say to "prove" that "Last-Thursday-ism" isn't true, that all the "evidence" of evolution and a long-timespan for the universe doesn't have some other cause or explanation. However, there does seem to be a "simplest" explanation, an explanation that explains the evidence most "elegantly" and without raising extraneous questions, without multiplying the "whys" and in some sense this is how people seem to define truth; the explanation which offers the path of least resistance or something something like that.<br /><br />Relating to the question of sexual orientation, I think is why people find the "SSA" or "ex-gay" narratives problematic and hard to swallow. The construct of "gay" may be a construct, but it's a construct which DOES exist socially, and which furthermore seems to be the current "best fit" or "path of least resistance" model for making sense of experience for most people. Is it a perfect fit?? Not at all; again I'm not an essentialist, and I don't thing any model for something so subjective and psychological and sociological is going to be able to explain ALL the pieces as if there is every going to be a perfect correspondence with some Ideal Form. All of us have feelings and experiences which are "outliers" and which we just sort of have to ignore (without denying) in order to adopt a coherent identity model. I'm "gay" not because it is some essence which perfectly conforms to my experience, but because it is the "line of best fit" to my series of plotted points. But then again, in other societies, before complex functions were invented, there may have been only other sorts of lines of best fit available. And in the future we may find lines of even better fit.A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-10666676874244223622013-07-04T00:36:59.413-07:002013-07-04T00:36:59.413-07:00I've been thinking to myself recently about a ...I've been thinking to myself recently about a line of thought I pursued earlier regarding the ex-gay narrative. <br /><br />Specifically, I was a bit disturbed by how people are quick to condemn the ex-gay "narrative of salvation" for lack of "results" or "success"; indeed, I even saw a petition on whitehouse.gov to illegalize reparative therapy (even for consenting adults!) As if a particular narrative framework, a way of explaining and making meaning out of internal phenomena...could be made illegal! That's a very scary trend, though I suppose they're "asking for it" a bit by portraying reparative therapy as "medicine" rather than a spiritual method. But "talk therapy"-type psychology (not psychiatry) is always in that grey area, it's subjective.<br /><br />I worried that the same critique might be lobbed at Christianity as a whole; it promises to make one holy, a Saint, a "New Man," virtuous (and thus, at least in some abstract sense, happy)...and yet many people find that they don't really change at all. You yourself discussed this re: concessionism, etc. <br /><br />Yet the ex-gay narrative is really, in the end, a particular system of salvation (albeit it tries to work within a broader Christian narrative); it defines something about desire or the inner-life of the passions as problematic or sinful, and then creates a specific symbolic narrative (in this case, a vaguely Freudian one) in which people are supposed to find salvation from the problematized desire. In reality...well, it isn't so straightforward. But neither is the Christian salvation from sin, is it? Both would probably say, "Well, really it's more like an asymptote you approach or an ideal you strive towards but never fully reach."<br /><br />So I've been thinking about "What's the difference?" because in spite of the possibility of being able to make this sort of comparison (which, at the very least, gives me a desire to protect the free-speech and toleration of the ex-gay narrative as a "religion" even if it's one I think is false)...I also do feel in my gut like there IS a crucial difference between the ex-gay "narrative of salvation," the spiritual answers it offers, and those of more established traditional religions. Something about ex-gay feels like snake-oil, which is different than just saying it isn't true. I wouldn't accuse Tibetan Buddhism of being snake-oil even if I do not believe it.<br /><br />Perhaps it's like the difference between an established healthy religion and a "cult," and perhaps sociological examination of the difference could shed some light or bring some clarity to a distinction there. Certainly, people go through all sorts of abnegations and abstinences and restructurings of identity and desire and self-narrative and narratives about desire and about the world and happiness in BOTH cases, that of cults and "regular" religions (at least the more devout adherents).A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-21020805874540304192013-07-01T14:39:40.972-07:002013-07-01T14:39:40.972-07:00I don't deny that some people force themselves...I don't deny that some people force themselves into heterosexual marriages for terrible reasons, sometimes even failing to tell the other party their true orientation. In saying that mixed orientation marriages occur, and that they sometimes work, I don't at all mean that such marriages are always good or that they are 'the' solution (there isn't one) to the challenge of life as a gay Christian. But I certainly see no reason to assume the worst of Josh Weed; judging from his own testimony and that of his wife, they are not only in love, but have an unusually healthy and happy relationship. The fact that he was frank with her about his orientation before they even began dating, and that he does not claim to be ex-gay now, are both extremely strong indicators (to my mind) that their relationship is a solid one.Gabriel Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17607504369762849930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5766538007498037282.post-78187944701473353612013-07-01T09:02:38.178-07:002013-07-01T09:02:38.178-07:00I have to disagree with the assertion that people ...I have to disagree with the assertion that people like Weed are genuinely entering into a marriage because they are in natural LOVE with the other person. They are entering into it to not be gay, to have kids, to fulfill a heterophilia like idolization of heterosexual relationships, or literally to make sure they can't *be* gay by tying themselves down with responsibility.<br /><br />Do natural spontaneous relationships happen, where a straight person has a gay relationship, a gay person a straight one, etc.? Yes, absolutely. But the difference is that they are NATURAL relationships, they happen naturally.<br /><br />I can't let that distinction go. People in mixed-orientation "marriages" are not the same thing as a natural heterosexual, or homosexual couple- the motivations are inherently different. It's an intentional family unit where you force yourself to engage each other intimately and romantically, not naturally, but by force.<br /><br />Huge difference. Massive difference.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com