the sex issue

At the Easter dinner I attended at the Brooklyn basement apartment of my friend Vince, a group of his age-inappropriate guests began playing the drinking game "I never", in which the fun of the game involves forcing people to admit some sort of scandalous behavior.  The admitting is done by taking a drink, so the more things one admits, the more one feels comfortable to admit.

I had had a number of glasses of that which I had denied myself during Lent, but I suffer from an annoying form of an in vino veritas problem whereby I sometimes get more judgmental and prudish the more I've drunk.  This doesn't always happen, as many, many persons can attest, but I think I was feeling a bit peevish -- in spite of the resurrection -- that I was now in the terminal demographic profile for one of Vince's dinners (those profiles are: 17-21, 22-25, 26-29, 30-34, 35-38, 39-99).

One of Vince's young chorus-boy friends (a perfectly sweet person, with an impressive high kick) began his turn with "I've never...cheated on a boyfriend."  Several persons started to lift their glasses, but then began a bit of a dispute over the exact definition of cheating.  So, I said, "Jesus said that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell."

Then there was some uncomfortable laughter.

I was thinking about how many non-heterosexuals think it is ridiculous to be involved in any major religion since religions pretty much all uniformly condemn homosexuality.  I routinely hear non-heterosexual Christians compared to Jewish Nazis.  I'm not sure the analogy is quite accurate (unless you think that the primary purpose of Christianity is to eliminate homosexuality, which I suppose some people do), but it's perfectly understandable that someone comfortable in his or her non-heterosexuality would not have any interest in affiliating him- or herself with anything that condemns it, regardless of any of the other absurdities of any given religion, like prohibitions on drinking alcohol or eating beef or walking around bareheaded or whatever number of impossible things one is asked to believe before breakfast.

And even in the liberal variants of the major religions, there is always a bit of awkwardness about the sex issue.  The usual answer is that the people who wrote the sacred books of whatever tradition in question didn't have an accurate understanding of homosexuality, which makes sense, since many homophobic persons continue to think that homosexuality is some sort of decadent lifestyle choice, like selvage denim, instead of being a core aspect of a person's identity.  So, as the liberal religious argument goes, the homosexuality condemned in the Bible or whatever really isn't homosexuality as we know it, but instead something that remains distasteful, like rape or incest or pedophilia or a shocking lack of hospitality. 

Some anti-homosexuals, however, do understand that homosexuality isn't just a decadent lifestyle choice, like Pilates, and say that even if it is a core aspect of a person's identity, that's just tough.  It is something to be struggled against -- we all have our crosses to bear -- like a sexual attraction towards babies or kleptomania or alcoholism or compulsive shopping, like that depicted in several episodes of the television show "Big Love", a program that makes polygamy look kind of fun.  Kind of.

I am still unconvinced that homophobia comes from religion, exactly, even though that seems like a pretty ridiculous position, given that the main opponents of homosexuality these days are religious and usually use religion in their arguments.  (When I recently saw the dumber Baldwin brother on CNN say, "God wrote the Bible, and the Bible says that if a man lies with another man, it is a sin," I felt ready to send a check to Richard Dawkins.)  But there are so many other things taught by religions -- things that are much more key aspects of belief -- that no one really seems to care about in terms of public policy, or even private morality.  Only a few of the Ten Commandments are actually laws, and no fundamentalist Christians are trying to make blasphemy against the Holy Spirit a capital crime (that I know of), or to pass ballot initiatives requiring Americans to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  I have a feeling that religious opponents of homosexuality would prefer to live next-door to Richard Dawkins and his third wife (who played the second Romanadvoratrelundar on "Doctor Who") than a pair of monogamous homosexuals aflame with the power of the Spirit.

My hunch -- which could be wrong -- is that revulsion towards homosexuality is similar to revulsion towards (get ready for the comparison!) pedophilia, bestiality and incest.  Or, to take less inflammatory examples, the revulsion many non-smokers feel when they detect cigarette smoke or when a vegetarian is told that they have just eaten something containing chicken stock.  Or if I told you I had just served you fried dog to eat.  These feelings are not entirely rational, even though we can construct quasi-rational arguments for them.  But the visceral revulsion is considerably out of proportion to any rational argument (and often resistant to any rational argument), and yet, for many of these, the revulsion can be switched off.

I don't know of any society where people have sex with infants, but the current American belief that sex with a 17-year-old is pedophilia worthy of a prime time television expose while sex with an 18-year-old is fine (depending on the state) is not really consistent with world history.  Incest is pretty much universally condemned (except in early parts of the Book of Genesis, and brothers and sisters have occasionally married throughout history, usually in weird royal settings, like in Pharaonic Egypt), but cousin marriage is quite normal in the Arab world, and in some Gilbert & Sullivan light operas.  There are several cultures where people eat dogs.  And not too long ago, people put up with smoking pretty much everywhere  -- certainly the idea of non-smoking floors in hotels or non-smoking outdoor parks has little to do with health, and more to do with the idea that smoking is somehow icky.

Many find homosexuality icky, to say the least.

I think our minds want to see order and purpose in the world, and homosexuality, especially for the non-homosexual, doesn't seem natural, although natural isn't really the right word, since even things that exist in nature can seem somehow wrong, like how Mallard ducks are into gang rape.  It has become popular to blame all of the world's homophobia on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but even Plato wrote that homosexual acts were "utterly unholy" and "the ugliest of ugly things".  And didn't the Greeks invent those acts?  Greek active?  Greek passive?

I read some article by the -- atheist -- professor of psychology at Yale Paul Bloom who thinks that we are hard-wired for creationism -- meaning that it is very hard for us not to see purpose in the world, and this is something that children do without any prompting by adults.  As a non-heterosexual, I may see a very different purpose in a man's back and front than a non-homosexual, but we are in the minority.  Of course there are still some religious leaders who preach against heterosexual promiscuity and adultery, but it never reaches the same level of visceral disgust that these people have for homosexuality.  And heterosexual male promiscuity -- despite Jesus' words quoted above -- is often casually laughed off -- or celebrated -- even by the devout.

Since homosexual sex has no other obvious purpose than pleasure, it is hard to fit into some other grand scheme for the world, and this is why, I think, it it generally condemned by most religious traditions, who usually try to claim that there is a way to live in harmony with God, and it doesn't include a man lying with a man.  Liberal religious will try to make the argument that all mutually respectful and affirming love between two adults is good, and will often try to create a homosexual equivalent to Holy Matrimony, by saying that long-term, monogamous homosexual relationships are just as good as what passes for marriage these days.  I agree, of course, but I also have a low opinion of what passes for marriage these days, and I was also the recent beneficiary of the lack of same-sex marriage rights in New York State.  My enthusiasm for same-sex marriage rights is mostly intellectual.

In his Easter sermon this year, The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote: "The present financial crisis has dealt a heavy blow to the idea that human fulfilment can be thought about just in terms of material growth and possession.  Accepting voluntary limitation to your acquisitiveness, your sexual appetite, your freedom of choice doesn't look so absurd after all as a path to some sort of stability and mutual care."  (Those are my italics.)  Although he is required by his job description to be relatively disapproving of homosexuality, it is more likely that he is referring to the hypersexualized culture of today's Britain and America, from the hooking-up of the kids these days to the never-ending stream of sex scandals coming from elected officials.  Or any officials.  He was also putting in a pitch for monasticism, a way of life that has always seemed appealing to me, in theory only.

But, let's forget the God delusion for now. I think we're all a bit weary.

Is there any place for a sexual morality these days, among the urban non-heterosexual?  Do we really think that monogamous long-term relationships are the ideal, and are better than other relationships?  How are we to conduct our sex lives?  Do we just apply the Golden Rule to sex?  It doesn't quite work if someone is interested in being bound and dominated.  And romantic love causes people to act in ways that are less governed by reason than almost anything else, even more than the love of parent for child.  Think of when Medea got dumped by Jason.  Marry the maid if thou wilt; perchance full soon thou mayst rue thy nuptials.  Then she killed his, and her own, children.

They used to say that all was fair in love and war, but that was before the Geneva Conventions.

A while back I read an open thread on an online diary that asked: would you pursue someone who a close friend of yours was interested in?  Would you pursue an ex-boyfriend of a friend?  The responses ranged from "no!" to "Hell no!"  I remember feeling very dirty and ashamed when I read these responses, since I had done both of those.  More than once.  More than twice.  More than...

Promiscuity is simultaneously celebrated and condemned.  Calling another guy a "whore" is both insult and praise.  If a heterosexual male is condemned for having too many sexual partners, it is usually related to how he is treating the women involved.  This wouldn't be the issue for a guy sleeping with tons of other guys -- there remains something shameful about it, even though a majority of guys I know stopped counting after their 100th partner.  Many, if not most, in our grandparents' generation only had one sexual partner in their lives.  Were they less happy?

I feel like we are somewhat adrift.  Previous generations of activists argued that sex itself was a tool of liberation, and that we shouldn't conform to heterosexual norms.  Now we are fighting for equal marriage rights, even as the serial-monogamy marriage model, where relationships are abandoned when they fail to meet our lifestyle needs, seems empty and absurd, especially as one can now witness the break-up of relationships via social networking websites and online diaries.

Many spend hours and hours shopping for new sexual partners online.  My self-esteem could never take being turned around at someone's door: sorry, you're not what I thought I had ordered.  I would throw myself off a cliff, but not before mailing the rejector a poisoned robe, like Medea did.  

In Larry Kramer's infamous speech in 2004, he said:

Most gay people I see appear to me to act as if they’re bored to death. Too much time on your hands, my mother would say. Hell, if you have time to get hooked on crystal and do your endless rounds of sex-seeking, you have too much time on your hands.

I have no answers.  I only have questions.  Why is it wrong to cheat on someone, but fine to break up with them, when the latter causes even more pain?  (This seems to come from contract law.  I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you, and that's that.)  Is there any value in limiting your sexual appetite, or are you just missing out on what makes life worth living? (I remember someone once saying to me, during the act: "we won't be able to do this when we're 70.")   Is sex between men different than sex between men and women?  Should it be taken less seriously?  (A friend of mine compares sex between men to a handshake.)  Are open relationships the only realistic model?  (Among the non-heterosexuals, it looks like open relationships last longest.  And guys in open relationships often seem to be a bit calmer and more secure than others.  But maybe they just like each other less?  Or are open relationships just another symptom of non-heterosexual immaturity?)  Should we be trying to create a model of stability and mutual care?  I know we will never find a perfect balance between desire, infatuation, jealousy, devotion, adoration, security, and heartbreak.  Any rules that have been created in the past always had to favor one over the other: the eternal conflict of freedom versus security.

Should we just keep making it up as we go along? 

I guess there's no other choice at this point, really.

Comments

[Matt G]

"Since homosexual sex has no other obvious purpose than pleasure, it is hard to fit into some other grand scheme for the world"...couldn't the same be said of many activities that we consider to be 'the most' human? (i.e., the most useless? non-functional art, most obviously, but really any kind of entertainment/leisure activity.) While I understand the question, I think the distinction between non-hetero sex and many other 'exalted' forms of human pleasure is probably arbitrary and conditioned, and not as intuitive as you make it out to be. (Let me add: that's me being a lawyer, and wtf do I know?)

[R J Keefe]

As always, there's a great deal to chew on, but what I was chewing on anyway was my puzzlement with a friend who has yet to love a man of whom she can be really proud. I put it that way to show up my own vanity, but in fact I have never felt the faintest desire to be with someone whom I did not admire. To be with over a cup of tea, much less in bed.

Matt's point about pleasure ought to go without saying; Eric, your Lutheran is showing. Nobody's sex (one hopes) is primarily utile.

Never before in the history of civilization anywhere have there been men bold (and persuasive) enough to proclaim homosexual love to be an unexceptionally good thing. It's early days yet.

[Michel]

Look at you tonight, full of all these Carrie Bradshaw questions with no real answers. (I'm sure you'll hate the comparison.)

[Jérôme]

Eric, it was a really interesting post and, of course, as well written as usual... There is no other choice but that's what makes the relationship so challenging. The plot is more or less the same for every one (for the heterosexuals as for the non-one) but each couple try to have its own answer. There is no rule to find the balance between security and freedom. Each partner has to discuss about it, how they feel and should manage to find a balance which should suit both of them (do I sound Father Tony enough?)...
I disagree with you about our grand-parents: they had also their amount of sexual fantasies, betrayal and adultery.
And we are not that different from heterosexual, I think it's just our sexuality has such an importance to describe also who we are that makes these questions so "sensitives".
My partner thinks the heterosexual are going to become more and more free about their sexual life (at least in Europe) and accept as possibilities three or four ways or sex clubs (of course it exists already)... who knows...
By the way, is your post a general reflexion or a way to find your own (and your boyfriend's/ parner's) answers?
But solving the conflict (if there is one) between freedom and security is worth the challenge for everyone.

[Aaron]

The revulsion about homosexuality is a cultural angst related to fears about your own loss of status. To the heterosexual male, being considered "gay" means a complete loss of privilege. Just contemplating such a loss makes these fragile egos start to go into a meltdown.

It is learned behavior, linked to the way societies reward status to people on the basis of whether or not they potentially or actually create the kind of babies that society wants.

The goal of such organizations as the HRC is to boost gay status by making possible reproduction (or at least a reproduction of straight marriages). And, thereby, reduce homophobia and homophobic reactions to us.

I'd personally rather be "queering the culture" as they used to say in the early Nineties at Midwestern Liberal Arts College.

But apparently it's been decided that that won't work.

[TED]

I agree that homophobia stems from a visceral, rather than a religious impulse, but there is a visceral reaction to almost any form of sexual activity: it's just that at some point lust overpowers the repulsion. A lot of heterosexuals are also skeeved out when they see other heterosexuals going at it.

It's clear to me from many examples that when straights get to know gays, they become comfortable with us personally, and they just don't think about what we do sexually, the way they don't think about what their straight friends do sexually. It doesn't really matter that religion isn't responsible for the homophobic impulse: it's responsible for nurturing the homophobia and for suppressing the natural tendency for people to get to know each other and to become comfortable with what was once alien.

Also, while you may have a point about the irrationality of people in love, I don't believe that you can demonstrate that point via Medea, who was a mythological character. It reminds me of some of my classmates in high school who tried to prove their points by reference to episodes of Star Trek.

[Boomer462]

Nicely done. You have a true talent for bringing a wide array of topics into a single theme. From drinking games and Bible passages to the Geneva Convention, Larry Kramer and Madea this post covers a lot of ground. A few things...

1) I don't know that I've ever run across anyone that can get away with throwing out "Jesus said that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell." at a party and carry it off. Praise be to God that you have any social life at all...but I kid.

2) I also find the way polygamy is presented on Big love intriguing though in the end I am sure that the increase in drama would outway any advantage in the increase in sex.

[Boomer]

Yeah...sorry that would be out weigh...carry on.

[graham]

Definitely I agree that homosexuality can elicit an almost visceral feeling of disgust, but I don't agree that such a response is the same as that most people experience in relation to paedophilia, incest or bestiality. Most humans are hard wired to not find those closest to them during a critical period of development (childhood) sexually attractive. Such an adaptation is useful in that it helps to prevent inbreeding, which genetically speaking, is really not a good idea.
Beastiality and paedophilia are repulsive to most because they involve sex with persons/animals that we as humans are not programed to find sexually attractive.
It has been argued that these responses are all hard wired, i.e. that they are not learned but that there exists systems in the brain to ensure that one does not engage (normally at least) in those activities.
The revulsion experienced by some in relation to homosexual sex however has been argued to be acquired, based on perceived social norms. The example you give about the reaction of many non-smokers today to the smell of cigarette smoke is a great example of how one can acquire the same kind of visceral response to something (those non-smokers are just as emotionally affected by the cigarette smoke as you or I would be by paedophilic acts...this has been demonstrated with fMRI studies).

[Paul Erdrich]

Most of your friends have slept with more than 100 men? Good Friday, that's a sign that you need to get out of New York, if ever there were a sign.

[Patrick]

Its privelage, eh? That's fascinating Aaron.

[Aaron]

I liked to spell it "privilege," but, yes.

[Andrea]

I miss you, Eric.

I think you're over-thinking some stuff and under-thinking some other stuff, here.

Whether or not someone's homophobia or any other kind of phobia or aversion is a visceral response has nothing to do with whether or not the source for the bias is religious or otherwise cultural or legal or whatever. I think the distinction you're drawing is specious. Some people internalize taboos to the point where they don't bear any scrutiny, while others retain enough detachment to be able to analyze the taboos' content with some rationality -- and I think the difference between the one and the other set of people has something to do with education and class, but it's probably pretty complex.

Religion is just one of many tools for cultural and ideological transmission and indoctrination. And traditional patriarchy is threatened by the loss of hetero male privilege, whether the threat is homosexuality or women's control over their own bodies and economic and social self-sufficiency.

Also I think you're edging towards conflating marriage and long-term monogamy (or what is it for guys, mono-andry?), and I really don't think the two have anything to do with each other. A marriage is a legal contract that enables partners to bear certain kinds of responsibility for each other in the eyes of the law (whether civil or religious?), and it's not fair to make any general assumptions about the nature of the private relationship between married partners. Whether they're together for love or money or sex or family ties or whatever is purely a matter for speculation; the law only cares that they've signed a contract to bear responsibility for certain stuff (common property, children, religious law, whatever). A long-term committed relationship is a cast of trust between two people who depend on each other, whether or not they also have any expectation of social privilege under the law as a married couple.

So: I'd say to at least a certain extent the difference between cheating on and divorcing someone has to do with honesty and trust. If it hurts less to be betrayed than it does to be abandoned... that's about honesty, isn't it? Some people want to be lied to, maybe. But imo that's a pretty low price to ask for your self-esteem.

[S]

Paul: Mary, please! Between the bars, the baths, and the gym, the number edges up quickly. Throw in a business trip or two and an Atlantis cruise, and before you know it you've hit the century mark.

[TED]

I'm afraid that I find the notion that homophobia is primarily about privilege ludicrous. There may certainly be a secondary fear of loss of status, but knowledge of status is something that takes a long time to acquire. Sexuality is a much more fundamental part of who someone is. Anything that calls into question or challenges something that fundamental to a person is going to be frightening. Like many other fears, it's ultimately irrational, and it's not particularly difficult to get past, but the straight guy who shudders the first time he sees two men kissing isn't initially worried about losing his place in society. He's reacting to how he thinks it would feel to be touched that way.

[Aaron]

As hackneyed as it sounds, I actually do believe that it is all about The Patriarchy. Sorry to go there on your blog, Eric.

[Patrick]

If Georgia O'Keefe were born in 1969, Gary Goldschnieder would write this about her destiny:
"If they can rise to the higher challenges of the Way of Devotion, and summon the courage and dedicationnecessary to pursue seemingly impossible dreams, the resilient and resourceful individuals born in the Week of Charm are apt to realize considerable success. Getting into their deeper motivations, passions, and feelings may, however, prove more difficult. It will therefor be especially important for these individuals to cultivate greater self-knowledge and avoid their tendency to denial, self-deception, or the need to keep up appearances. Yet tthey are highly discriminating, truly tasteful, and often quite charismatic. If they do not employ their charms soley in attempts to control others, they can discover strength, conviction, and new worlds of meaning on this most fascinating life journey.
Their Challenge: Grappling with their more manipulative tendencies
Their Fulfillment: Finding something to believe in.

This guy is a Yale Med School dropout...I typed the whole thing in for ya, I hope it doesn't make you wanna punch me, ouch.

[Joe Clark]

Can you go back to your regular kind of posts? Let’s just call this your experimental phase and put it behind us.

[eurostar88]

I agree with Joe, this blog has become a big yawn, a place for under-sexed church ladies...May be you should become a priest and be done with it, at least every party you would write about would be a black party...

[Bob]

S, I agree with you. I don't where this Paul Erdrich lives (West Virginia?) or what his scene is, but he's obviously never been to the baths in New York. A hundred guys in a lifetime? Well, imagine you're at the baths on a Tuesday night. Right away you see a hot number, with a body like Burt Reynolds and a face like Robert Redford -- "Barefoot in the Park"-era Redford, I don't make it with middle-aged guys yet -- so you get it on with him but you don't come yet because the night is still young. So you find a blond number with a great ass and make it with him for a while. You get the idea. That's two guys, and it's not even 11 o'clock yet on a weekday night. Some guys go to the baths three, four, five, six times a week. Do the math: you'd get to a hundred before the summer was over. So a hundred is nothing here, Paul.

As for the other part of your post, leaving New York, I'm with you on that (not for sexual reasons though). The city is really going downhill, as I'm sure you've heard. I've got these friends up in Vermont who want me to come up there, but I'm not really into the live-off-the-land, Gay Liberation scene. Too much lentil loaf and brewer's yeast, you know? I am looking for a new place to live though. Three hundred twenty-nine bucks for a walk-up on West 24th Street? That's what I pay, man. To live here among the garbage, rats, muggings, and broken subways.

[Paul Erdrich]

Bathhouse?

You do realize that the ball dropped in Times Square and it's not 1982 anymore, right?

[Solar Plexus]

It's amusing to me -- and predictable -- that your thoughts (which although you prefer not to call them that yourself, are simply musings, thinking out loud)would themselves generate such visceral reactions. And then the fangs get bared. You raise worthwhile points and furnish good food for thought. I appreciate that and your ability to just put out there what's on your mind, without regard for what others THINK you should have on your mind -- or HOW it should be on your mind. Thanks!