Queer Identity, Part II: Mirror, Mirror

(Mirror, Mirror is also the title of an album by the arresting band The Irrepressibles. But I digress, and haven't even begun.)

This is my only exception to my normal anti-clown rule (the normal rule being "Kill it! Kill it!").

Percipient readers will notice that my use of the word identity, in this post and forward, doesn't correspond to the strict use I employed in Queer Identity, Part I. I am somewhat disappointed about the inconsistency; but it seemed impossible to maintain the accessible tone I'm aiming for here, while at the same time being academically strict about the word identity, among others. Here and elsewhere, I use identity in the more colloquial sense, where it corresponds to what I described in the above post as a person's sense of self. I recognize and uphold the intellectual (and, indeed, theological) distinction between the two things, and ask those readers who, like me, are afflicted with a pedantic and appropriate desire for exactness of language to work with me. Language, when defied, has a tendency to avenge itself; and provided the ideas remain the same, I feel that linguistic imperfection is behovely, but all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Now then.

I wrote in my last about the theory that being gay means being metaphysically different from straight people, and why I don't accept that theory. Gay men, straight men, and everybody in between are all fundamentally men, with different qualities attached to them, and some of those different qualities include sexuality. The same, naturally, would apply to lesbians and heterosexual women.

In that case, though, why bother to speak of a queer identity at all? Even as a loose way of speaking about sense of self, or as an analogy or whatever. As a commenter pointed out, your nose is part of you too, but measuring and describing everything about yourself in terms of your nose would be weird. And even if we consider more serious aspects of a person like, say, political convictions or religious beliefs -- well, we've all met people whose devotion to some party or devotion or other pet cause has kind of taken over their psyche, and they aren't an attractive bunch as human beings.

Or, if they are, it isn't really cause for comfort.

And of course we've all met people whose sexuality has dominated every other aspect of them: I've run into it more frequently in the LGBT world -- which I put down to that particular sort of defiance characteristic of minorities of various sorts, carried to an extreme, as not infrequently happens among people who are or feel bullied and rejected -- but I think you see it in the womanizing machismaniac or the oversexed party girl in the same degree.* Anyone, not just evil queens, can look into a mirror with no concern except who wants their body the most, and most of us have, now and again.

But I do think that sexuality has a right to a place, and may even have a prominent place, in our sense of self. That is, not only our sex and gender, but our sexual orientation, have a claim on our self-concept.

What precise role sexual orientation should take, relative to other aspects of our sense of self -- vocation, ethnicity, religious tradition, chocolate preference** -- I don't propose to define strictly. This is partly because I'm not at all sure, and partly, too, because I expect that every person's own hierarchy of aspects will rightly differ. Not that they'll differ unlimitedly (I don't think it would be right, for instance, to place your national identity in such a relationship to your religious identity that you could conscientiously declare the head of state to be the rightful head of the Church). But there will be legitimate variation; and I am specially concerned not to insist that everybody who experiences exclusive or predominant homosexual attraction has some sort of obligation to identify as gay. That, in my view, is as inappropriately dogmatic as the insistence that nobody should.

What case, then, within the principles of the Catholic faith, can be made for thinking and speaking of yourself as lesbian or gay or whatever? What case can be made for treating it as being that important? I think the key can be found in the Catechism, paragraphs 2331-2332:

"God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image ..., God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion." ... Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

Now, in its context, this is part of a larger discourse on the Sixth Commandment,*** and primarily refers to the bond of love between husband and wife. But the specific mention of the affections and the general aptitude for human fellowship as being mediated by sexuality suggests, I think, that sexual orientation -- being an element of sexuality, and one that influences the kinds of relationships we form (both friendships and romances) pretty strongly -- is correspondingly an important part of us. That which has a say in how we relate to people, has a say in how we think of ourselves; for human beings are by nature social creatures, that is, creatures that relate to one another, voluntarily and involuntarily (none of us chose to be born, and maternity and paternity are pretty formative relationships).

Of course there is more to us than our sexual orientation. More; but not less. I don't find it helpful or life-giving to have my sexuality, one of the primary elements in how I relate to others, reduced to the status of a condition, to be hidden and managed and shamefacedly apologized for. That doesn't mean I approve of every element of my sexuality -- I don't, by a long shot. But that would be true if I were straight, too. There hasn't been an unfallen experience of sexuality on the planet earth since the Mother of God was assumed, still in her virginity; and I tend to doubt that that sort of thing can be expected to recur.

Of course, the Blessed Virgin never was one to do things the normal way.

So under what conditions do I espouse gayness as part of my sense of self -- or, to use the briefer and more popular way of putting it, in what sense do I identify as gay? It's a part of me; a part, not the sum and substance; it's part of how I relate to people; but I'm a whole man, not a sex drive with a human face attached. Just as a mirror reflects the body but not the soul, not because mirrors are bad,**** but because that's all they're made for -- in the same way, the statement "I'm gay" provides an incomplete picture because it was never intended to provide a complete picture. It shouldn't have to; no one should expect it to.

*I'd add the caution that, when it comes to getting a clear picture of the LGBT world from its spokesmen, this can be somewhat challenging -- not because of dishonesty, but because by nature advocacy has to talk about the thing that it advocates for, repeatedly and thoroughly. Since there isn't really such a thing as heterosexual advocacy, there is no straight equivalent; and therefore, the concern with sexuality and identity displayed by LGBT advocates does wind up looking extremely disproportional, relative to the concern with sexuality and identity in the heterosexual community. My own hunch is that the difference is, not entirely, yet mostly illusory -- a product of the discourse rather than of any quality intrinsic to queer people.

**Dark chocolate -- 60% cocoa or higher -- is the best. But this is a free society, and other people have the legal right to be in error about this subject.

***For those of you who gleefully caught The Mask of Zorro misnumbering the commandments in the confessional scene, Catholics number the Ten Commandments differently: the standard Protestant first and second are treated as one, and the commandment not to covet is split into not coveting thy neighbor's wife and not coveting thy neighbor's possessions. Hence, the Sixth Commandment in our numbering is Thou shalt not commit adultery. This is treated by Catholic moralists as referring not solely to violations of the marriage bed's exclusiveness, but of the universal call to chastity, in every state and stage of life.

****But no one tell Tertullian or he'll get upset and start lecturing you about the evils of promiscuity and warfare and dyeing wool.

Queer Identity, Part I: To Be, Or To Be?

In the wake of the column of mine published in Crisis recently, and of the comments -- and also of this piece by Brandon Ambrosino at New Republic, which has inspired a rather unpleasant and, in my opinion, unfair backlash; and this very nice and sensible piece by Elizabeth Scalia on First Things, also in response to the Ruse controversy -- I thought I'd do a series on gay identity. Discussions of LGBT rights in the civil sphere, our role in the Church, what language to use, &c., do seem to come back and back to this. Hitherto I haven't talked much about it, except as it was related to other subjects, but it has reasserted itself with such remorseless persistence that there doesn't seem to be anything to do but tackle the matter direct.

Leech Seed probably wouldn't work in this situation anyway, and only fools use Growl. 

The statement "I'm gay" gets a multitude of responses from Christians in my experience (Catholics particularly). "I know" was the most unexpected reply, and rather anticlimactic for me, since I'd spent a couple of days psyching myself up to have the conversation with that person in the first place. "Are you sure you're not just confused?" struck me as the stupidest, though in fairness my reply then was even stupider. "Congratulations" was fairly confusing -- I mean, even without my beliefs, it's never easy to be a member of a minority, sexual or otherwise. "First of all, you're not gay," delivered once in the confessional, was the most exasperating, though I understand the motivation behind it a good deal better now than I did. My favorite was the friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) who said "No you're not," and began arguing with me that I was clearly straight; my second favorite was probably another friend who took a couple of steps away from me and then started making gay jokes within five minutes. Suave, that one.

It's tempting to begin with the terminology, not least because it's the most obviously labyrinthine aspect of the movement (except for the people who are into polyamory). However, I take that to be a false start. There's only so much good to be had out of knowing what to call something if you don't know what the something is -- the only catch being, of course, that you have to call it something in the meantime.

However. I think we can circumvent that for my purposes here. What I'm discussing is, in substance, but in a less formal style, the same thing that Ron Belgau has already written about here on Spiritual Friendship, and a perennial theme of the gay Christian movement: does the word "gay" imply a particular understanding of gayness -- or rather, and more particularly, is gayness inborn, immutable, and part of who someone is so intimately that we are a different kind of thing from straight people? In other words, is the difference between a gay man and a straight man as essential and inseparable from their personhood as the difference between a straight man and a straight woman?

Hopefully with this many symbols we can make it through however many orientations there are.

I don't believe that it is, and I don't really see a case to do so. Here's why.

1. The Catholic Church teaches otherwise. The only essential difference that the Church recognizes among human beings is that between men and women. So far as I know, this teaching has not been given the stamp of infallibility, and it'd surprise me a little if it had -- I mean, the question was chiefly raised within the last several decades; the Church rarely defines anything so rapidly. But I digress. So far as I know, the teaching that sex proper -- i.e., male and female -- is the only part of sexuality that actually constitutes part of a person's intrinsic identity, has not been declared with the Church's full authority. But that doesn't mean we should casually ignore it. Indeed, looking at the matter with detachment, we could just as easily ask whether such a recently coined concept as sexual orientation deserves the place that postmodern Western culture (and it alone) is inclined to bestow upon it. Of course, not all Christians, let alone everyone everywhere, accepts that the Catholic Church is infallible in the first instance; but whatever weight the Church's voice does have falls squarely on the side of regarding gayness as solely an attribute of a person, not as their essence.

2. Sexuality, like many things, can be fluid. Not only do people engage in sexual activity with people not of their preferred gender, and pretty regularly (think of straight men engaging in homosexual sex in prison or, once upon a time, at sea), but there are also people who experience shifts in which gender they prefer, sexually and emotionally. This does not happen to everyone, nor does it necessarily happen for similar reasons in every case; and it is not useful evidence to support the idea that therapeutic or medical techniques can change orientation, because the fact that change can happen doesn't mean it can be compelled -- it doesn't even mean it can be deliberately encouraged. But it does sometimes happen, in one way or another, to one degree or another; and if the idea of gayness being intrinsic were true, it seems as though it ought to be impossible.*

3. It isn't necessary. Ockham's Razor states that "It is vain to do with many entities what can be done with fewer"; or, in a more modern rephrasing, "The simplest explanation is probably the correct one"; or, in my father's rephrasing, "Don't make shit up." The idea that gay people are a different kind of thing from straight people simply isn't needed to explain the facts. All that's needed is a difference in dispositions and sexual interests, and God knows we have no shortage of those. I mean, we're on the internet here.

Where this happens.**

However, being an attribute rather than an essence doesn't mean that something is unimportant. It doesn't even mean that that attribute isn't an authentic expression of your personality, or that it doesn't have a right to be part of your sense of self. Now, sense of self is a little bit different from identity -- it's something more like our picture of ourselves, or the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, where identity is the bedrock reality that we're trying to depict or talk about when we come up with such pictures and stories. There's more (and less) to our sense of self than our identity, because our sense of self is our perspective on who we are, grounded in an identity that we know imperfectly, and bound up with all of the decisions and relationships and external events that make up our own history. Relationships especially. For human beings always exist in relationship to other people. I believe it was Pope Benedict who said that the doctrine of the Trinity is precisely a doctrine that God exists in relationship, and indeed, as relationship.

So I think we can say "I'm gay" as Christians, insofar as we mean, "This is one aspect of my sense of self; this is one of the things that dictates how I relate to people; this is a part of my experience as a human being." The word gay isn't central to such an affirmation, which everyone would have to put in language that was relevant and rational from their own perspective, naturally; I don't care if someone prefers anything from same-sex attracted to androphile.*** I'll deal with that in more detail in my next. 

What is central is dealing honestly with one's experience as a human being. For every other virtue, deprived of honesty, will ultimately fail. Without a commitment to truthfully and authentically facing the facts, the mind and the spirit have nothing to rest on.

*There are probably varieties of "essentialism" (a term I use for lack of knowing a better one) that are willing to make room for these fluctuations in orientation, perhaps by expanding the category of bisexuality, or by appealing to the potential for repression and denial. However, the APA accepts the reality of sexual fluidity even as it actively discourages reparative therapy; and the fluidity of sexual orientation was a commonplace to prominent sexologists of the twentieth century, such as Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey.

**xkcd 262. "Hey, at least I ran out of staples."

***Actually I find the word androphile quite euphonious, and it's more correct linguistically than homosexual, which is compounded of Greek and Latin roots. But of course the suffix makes it a sadly unattractive term.

Music: Florence + the Machine, and Some Other Stuff

I've been getting traffic from some new places since Crisis published my column, so if you're new to Mudblood Catholic, welcome! To get an idea of the place, I recommend any or all of these posts (or you can root through the Warning Labels to your right):

Raw Tact, Part V: Shrieking the Truth in Love, about the problems with some of the ways we as Christians habitually talk to gay-identified people.

An Appendix to Raw Tact, my most-read post, discussing a Catholic view of what homophobia is (and whether it exists in the first place).

Why Not Ex-Gay?, Part II and Part III, discussing the reasons I've taken a gay Catholic approach rather than seeking reparative therapy through NARTH or some such.

And Mudblood Catholic, Mark II, the point at which I kind of reinvented the blog, and in doing so summarized what I chiefly want to do here.

Finally, though it has nothing to do with the above, this song is amazing (and it always makes me think of God):

My Column at Crisis

I don't know if this counts as a reblog, but a week or two ago I wrote a column in the wake of Ruse's first two pieces at Crisis, and the magazine has now published it. I was puzzled and disappointed by the alterations they made to the first paragraph, which ruined a simile and destroyed one of the Scriptural allusions I made; but the substance is unaltered, and that's the important thing. And -- hey, for the first time ever, I am a published author and can convincingly pretend to be a grown-up.

The New Homophiles: An Incomplete Apologia

Triple Reblog Score!

I have read a little brace of blog posts recently that I found quite excellent and should like to share with you all.

First, there is 10 Things We Wish Our Church Family Knew, from the recently minted blog A Queer Calling, by a celibate couple of my acquaintance. Side B relationships, as they have been nicknamed by the Gay Christian Network, are same-sex partnerships that don't include sex. If that idea breaks your brain, fascinates you, or whatever, read their blog!

Second, I have long been embarrassed by my more or less total ignorance of transgender issues. I don't know what to think, I don't know what the Church thinks, or whether she thinks anything specific as yet -- no formal definitive statements have been made on the subject (though it has been touched on, and naturally the soldiers of the kulturkampf have expressed their views in the strongest possible terms, because the internet). However, Aaron Taylor, a contributor to Spiritual Friendship and Ethika Politika, recently put up this blog post by a transgendered Catholic, discussing exactly the subject of what the Church thinks on this subject. Admittedly the answer is "We're not sure yet," but she puts it way better than that and deals intelligently with objections to that answer -- and, in a rare move for a blogger, cites her sources. Dang.

Third (one of these things is not like the others), there is this delightful rant from Cole Webb Harter, author of The Andalusian Peafowl. (No, I have no idea why it's called that.) He touches on a lot of my own pet peeves about contemporary Christian art, those pet peeves mostly being about how shitty it usually is, in pretty much every medium. When art has to be clean and nice, have a happy ending, have a respectable moral, &c., to be considered Christian, saccharine sentimentalism is more or less bound to trump not only honesty but even good craftsmanship.