November
2006
Let’s Talk About Sex
This is DEFINITELY going to increase the spam quotient of our blogsite, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And what we need to do is talk, yet again, about the religious and moral aspects of that most basic and most complex of human realities.
Some reports from the front line:
- Reverend Ted Haggard is now the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals and the former head of the megachurch he founded in Colorado, because he gave in to the “darkness” of his desires for a same sex relationship by three years of soliciting a male prostitute for drug enhanced sex.
- Despite popular myths about sexuality in this modern world, the first world-wide epidemiological study on sexual behavior, published in British medical journal The Lancet, shows that average worldwide age of loss of virginity has remained steady (between 15 and 19), that rates of sexual promiscuity are not tied to rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and that married people have more regular sex than singles. In fact, some two-thirds of African unmarried men and women — despite the raging epidemic of AIDS on that continent — are sexually inactive, supporting the case that the highest risk group for infection in Africa is young married women.
- Statistics from the World Health Organization show that over half a million women each year die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and that some 120 million couples cannot get the contraceptives they would like to be using; yet support for family planning is very low on the agenda of governmental agencies.
- The United Nations has released a new study on the global epidemic of violence against women, much of it sexual — a pandemic of rape, murder by intimate partners, sexual slavery, and genital mutilation, which we barely notice anymore because it’s simply the way things are.
- The Vatican is considering a relaxation of its rules on condom use in certain circumstances in order to save married women from AIDS infection via their husbands. (LA Times)
- Measures to add state constitutional amendments which define marriage as between a man and a woman are on the ballot in eight states, and are expected to pass — but narrowly. (New York Times)
- The worldwide Anglican communion continues to be split by divisions over gay and lesbian inclusion in the church. In a strange-bedfellows moment, the movement against gay and lesbian Christians is vocally fronted by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and other church leaders largely in Africa, and funded and directed by superwealthy conservative Americans, such as Howard Ahmanson. (The Observer)
So: Gays and their evil desires are at the root of all the problems of marriage and religion, while women the world over can simply fend for themselves. Money and resources should be directed to keeping gays and women powerless. This will make everything in the world better and, furthermore, is God’s will.
Hmm.
The parishioners at New Life Church remain convinced that Pastor Ted’s downfall is due to sin — something we all have to struggle against — and that homosexual activity remains a great wrong. They’re actually quite relieved, as far as I can tell from LA Times reporting, that Pastor Ted has not challenged their own (or his own) ideas at all on this, continuing to describe same-sex attraction as “dirt” and “repulsive darkness.” The fact that a good man with a genuine desire to please God and to love others is suffering through a life of lies and self-loathing is chalked up to the evils of gayness.
Might there not be another explanation, another way? What might Pastor Ted’s life had been like had he been able to follow his calling as a minister and engage in open and loving relationships as his sexuality directed him? What might his wife’s life have been like? What is it likely to become now, as his own self-hatred is ever more deeply entrenched, and those he has struggled to lead and inspire cheer him on in mutilating his God-given ability to love and be loved?
Politicians, bowing to popular discomfort with frank discussion of sex (and the desire of their own supporters to appear “moral,” that is, sexually pure), refuse to consider the physical, emotional, and economic wellbeing of women and children by supporting and funding genuine options in contraception and family planning. Abstinence alone is the cure for sexually transmitted disease or unwanted pregnancy — in a world where the vast majority of women, child-bearers and child-rearers, have little or no control over how their bodies are used sexually.
And the dangerous possibility of women’s sexual activity being directed by women is apparently all we really care about. Despite worldwide consensus on a legal framework for women’s rights, few or no international donors put the rights of women to defend themselves and be defended from rape, murder, sexual slavery, and genital mutilation anywhere near the top of national aid priorities — although defending the rights of women, who are the economic and educational foundation for the next generation, is the bedrock of a society that can rise from poverty. Is this really “morality,” or is it a level of indifference to suffering that surely must draw the attention of God, who hears the cries of the poor and powerless?
I am not one of those people who bemoans attention to sexuality in policy debate — in fact, I think it doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. Yes, we need to defend human rights, we need to aim to get people out of poverty, we need to work against diseases — but sexuality and gender are at the very foundation of trying to solve these problems. Ignoring them to remain in a comfortable ground of “God likes things the way they are” leads to gross abuses.
And just as it is at the core of a decent society, a healthy attitude towards sexuality is at the core of a fully alive and relational human being. As embodied souls, our sexuality does not define us, but pervades all of our ability to relate to others. Human beings who are sexually abused as children or as adults must battle for years to become able to engage in healthy friendships and intimate relationships. Individuals who cannot come to terms with their own sexual orientations find themselves living a lie in all their relationships. Our ability to live out intimate relationships in any sphere depends on truthful attention to sexuality; and surely, our most intimate relationships are of great concern to God.
I do not believe that our sexuality — our bodies and our ability to relate to one another through them — is meant by God to be a curse to us. God does not find our sexuality embarrassing, dirty, “repulsive” or full of “darkness.” God is intimately familiar with the stuff of which we are made, and with our most basic needs. God does not desire our suffering, nor is God pleased when we impose suffering upon others, or ignore the suffering of others. If the Bible teaches us anything, this simple lesson would be it. We learn that God desires truth from us and within us — that the truth will set us free.
At least one such truth is that we need to take sexuality seriously, as a source of joy and suffering and meaning and relationship for human beings — not as the arena of exclusion, oppression, and power politics which it has become, particularly in religious circles. If our most basic direction from God is to love God and to love each other, it is incumbent upon us to protect those who are vulnerable to hatred, oppression, and violence through their sexuality, particularly women and gay people. And the fact that global Christianity remains in the forefront of blocking such efforts can only remind us of the difficulty and necessity of that task.