You and Me Together…
Today in the USA is “The Day of Truth“. You’ll see the little advert on the right-hand side of the page. Essentially, the idea of the Day of Truth is to follow the “Day of Silence” (a day when students in US schools go around saying nothing as a protest against homophobia – quite valid a thing to do in some places I think) with a day where “the truth” is shared. The truth of course in this case being the “real” truth behind homosexuality, that it’s not a fixed thing, that people can change their orientation and move from gay to straight.
I’m broadly in agreement with that viewpoint. I do think that sexual orientation isn’t a fixed thing, that one’s sexual and emotional life isn’t dictated by genes, chromosomes or biology or even one’s current affections. But the canny amongst you will have noticed that unlike Exodus and it’s ilk I describe myself as post-gay and not ex-gay. Why is that?
I think the main problem with ex-gay is that it is an ontological statement. It presents, intentionally or not, the one who calls himself as ex-gay as one who’s sexual orientation has changed from gay to straight. He/she is claiming to have gone from one state of being (gay) to another (straight). And while that is the case for many who are ex-gay, for others it isn’t so clear. For some their sexual desires move more towards those of the opposite sex but not to a point where they are exclusively heterosexual in their attractions. That then raises more questions of an ontological nature – are they really “bisexual” (though one wants to ask where the bisexual/heterosexual continuum switches – 95% hetero, 96%, 98.64738%?) and not gay? Are they therefore lying?
I think “ex-gay” also presents a pastoral issue for some who undertake that journey. If the ex-gay ministries promise change to heterosexuality and that change doesn’t occur, does that mean that the ex-gay model is fallacious? While there is a pretty impressive “success rate” for those who go through ex-gay ministries, there is also an equally large number of people who drop-out or reject it. While some of that drop-out is embittered and angered other parts of it are intelligent and articulate and raise a number of important issues that need to addressed.
So this is my problem with “ex-gay”. It seems to suggest a bi-polar, ontological model of sexual attraction – gay to straight. In doing so it unfortunately sets itself up for a fall with those for whose experience that bi-polar model doesn’t seem to fit. So what is the alternative model for those of us who want to affirm the redemption of same-sex attraction and broken sexuality?
The alternative is “post-gay”. Post-gay isn’t an ontological statement, it’s a vectorial statement. For those uninitiated in the deeper arcane magicks of mathematics, a vector is simply a description of a direction and magnitude. It describes a movement, not a position (which is ontology). Post-gay then is less about being straight or gay and rather about a choice of a journey.
Perhaps a personal example to clarify. I’m post-gay because I chose to leave “gay” behind. I chose to no longer accept “gay” as an explanation of who I was and instead to begin a journey away from it. I chose to do so because I was convinced from the Scriptures that “gay” wasn’t a suitable way to describe myself, that it wasn’t a valid way for a Christian to establish identity. I was compelled not just by reading the normal passages on the subject but also from the story in John 8:1-11 of the woman caught in adultery. In particular Jesus’ last words to her are “Go now and leave your life of sin”.
He doesn’t magically transform the women from a harlot to a saint (and contrary to common belief, there’s nothing to associate this woman with Mary Magdalene) but rather simply gives her an instruction of direction – leave this place you’re at (adultery) and move on from it. His command is vectorial, not ontological. It is the call of discipleship – it says “follow me to wherever I take you – I don’t promise you riches or immediate perfection, but I do promise you hope”.
This is why post-gay is a far better description for those who have left homosexuality behind. It describes a journey away from a false identity constructed around one’s emotions and a true one constructed in following Jesus. For some of us that journey involves changes in our sexual orientation, perhaps marriage and kids. For others they see no change in their sexual attractions, but they have left behind the place of false-identity, of seeing themselves as “gay” and that as a defining a unchangeable aspect of their being.
Some aspects of that journey have been clearly marked for us. A dispassionate reading of the Scriptures shows very clearly that God didn’t intend for us to have sex outside of the marriage of male and female. So I could see very clearly that that life option (same-sex activity) and those things that celebrated it (“gay”) were not the direction God wanted me to take. But other parts of the journey only become apparent as we set out to walk the road God has called us onto.
What’s interesting in my case is that I only walked the first of those two possibilities above (change and celibacy) after having reconciled myself to the second. I remember on my post-gay journey reaching a point where I was seeing no change in my attractions and was getting angry with God about it. Wasn’t this ex-gay choice meant to work? Shouldn’t God be doing something about it? God challenged me over the course of a few days with a clear message – “If I want you to stay like this for my purposes, why can’t I do that? Will you follow me wherever I take you, not just only to the places you want to go?” That night I surrendered my sexuality and future to God, reconciled to a life of celibacy but not a life of “gay”. It was only in the surrender to God’s path for me that I then later saw him taking me on the journey to where I am now happily married.
Now the one challenge you might still make to me from an ontological perspective is whether I still have same-sex attraction. Am I 100% heterosexual or not? But as if that matters on the journey. The idea of gay/bisexual/straight is an attempt to ontologically categorise men and women and normally continues into trying to define morality as dependent on ontology. It sees “homosexual” as a statement of one’s being and therefore prescriptive of the “normative” behaviour that derives from that being. Post-gay rejects that way of thinking about sexuality.
A friend of mine is an alcoholic. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in over 20 years, he runs a successful rehab centre, but he would still freely call himself an alcoholic when each week he attends his 12 steps meeting. Why? He knows that he could always return to drinking alcohol to solve emotional and relational issues in his life – it worked in the past and it could work again. In the same way, I’m happy to be described as a homosexual. I know that when I’m down or tired or feeling inadequate I could seek catharsis in the embrace of somebody of the same sex in an attempt to shore my own masculinity. But I’ve also, like my friend who realises that he’s an alcoholic, discovered that that behaviour is counter-productive in the long run because it is simply catharsis and not actually redemptive.
So post-gay is quite happy to admit to a myriad of sexual attractions, but it refuses to be defined by them, not least because the Bible never refers to men and women as homosexual or heterosexual. Rather it is defined by a direction, a journey, a path towards God and his will for our lives.
On the way back from a wedding on Saturday evening I was listening with my wife to Judge Jules on Radio One and a fantastic remix of a Jimmy Somerville / Bronski Beat track was played – You and Me by Blue Ray. Absolutely loved it and the words are still as powerful as they were over 20 years ago. “You and me together, fighting for our love”. While that might in the past have been a call for gay pride, now for me it’s a rallying cry for my post-gay journey and the journey of others. We want to love in the way, reading Scripture and listening to Him, we understand God made us to. We’ll step out on the journey away from polar definitions of sexual identity, whether gay or straight, and instead we’ll simply go where God calls us, trusting for now what’s he already given as sign-posts and waiting upon him for the rest. Our mark of success will not be defined by reaching a certain goal (“straight” or whatever) but rather by still being on the right road, despite whatever comes at us before Glory.
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Peter –
this post is the most helpful, lucid, scriptural etc. etc. (I’ll try not to go TOO overboard!!) thing that I have read about this whole subject in a very, very long time (and I read a lot of stuff about sexuality). I’m not saying that I can now rest easy with the whole subject – but after reading this post, I am a whole lot closer to it.
Thanks for this – and for your honesty!
Love and blessings from Northern Ireland
Simon
This is “food for thought”, however, I think that’s ALL it is. Too many people go around saying things like “You TOO can be an ex-gay!” So here we have a new term, post gay. What is that!? It looks to me like a gay person who has chosen to be celibate. Does that make one “straight” or “okay with God”? Not hardly. being gay or straight is not defined by our actions or whatever road we choose to drag it down. We do not possess the ability to change the very nature of ourselves, no matter what label we choose to put on it or what mask we try to cover it with. I am gay, but I am also a Christian. I don’t think it matters who one is, but what they do with it. After all, God is a God of the heart anyway, not the flesh. However, that’s not an excuse for blatant sin.
I have known (and do know) many people who have spent years and literally thousands to become an “ex-gay” to no end but misery, loneliness and frustration. I also know many gay people who are celibate, but still count themselves as gay. And guess what, they too are lonely and miserable, for the most part. Because they have been told by people like you that this is what it takes to get to heaven. No one possesses the ability to make that judgement, especially, and like I said before, since God is a God of the heart, not the orientation, sex, nationality, color, etc. Someone needs to get a clue.
Ric,
When you say “It looks to me like a gay person who has chosen to be celibate” you are assuming again this static bi-polar model of sexuality, that “gay” is fixed and innate. What I’m saying to you is that that basis for thinking about the subject is flawed because some people DO see their sexual attractions change remarkably.
I was happily celibate/chaste for a number of years before I met my wife. To get to that point I first had to die to the fantasy that marriage / sexual union would make me a happier person. That process of purgation was painful but in the long run placed me in a much better place. That’s goes for plenty of people I know who are celibate by choice – one could hardly think of them as lonely or miserable.
It all comes down to whether you think that being in a relationship is somehow a human right, or whether you believe that God is sovereign over your life and that he will do all things for the best of those whom he loves? Once you realise that you have no right to a relationship and that God can and will bless you in singleness that is actively chosen, your perspective changes. By embracing singleness, yes I felt lonely at times, but I never felt that God was being unfair or that I would never have a life of love. Heavenly perspectives realise that the marriage/ sexual relationships of this world will pass and that one’s relationship with God is the most important thing in the world.
And then, when I met my wife and fell in love, I was not entering marriage out of a cathartic need to love and be loved. Up until my wedding day I could have walked away from my wife and still been happy (if not a little heart-broken). Indeed, before we got engaged I seriously wrestled with God as to whether I would be more useful for him single. He said “no”.
I believe your “post-gay” self-identifying label and description of those who do experience a meaning and purpose of life orientation change from one rivetedly focused on their sexual affections, to a much more broader, even transcendent point of reference, can be much more helpful and appreciated by those today not only leaving a gay lifestyle, but also those who do experience same sex attractions but never have expressed them via embracing one! The “ex-gay” self-identifying label appeared to work the best decades ago, although with much remaining dissatisfaction, even among those in Exodus who readily used the term, apparently because the term “gay” did not connote the broader meaning that it has today, that of predominant sexual inclinations as well. At that time, to be “gay” meant one had chosen, and most likely publically so, to be actively involved in a lifestyle centered around their homoerotic conduct. Those who did not choose such a lifestyle but experienced predominant homoerotic inclinations for the most part self-identified as, and were called, “homosexual”, and/or the popular old NARTH term “non-gay homosexual”. It appears that these terms are becoming, if not already are, to this generation anachronistic in nature. Therefore, the “post-gay” self-identifying label does indeed make more sense.
Thanks Thomas. Glad some others are on the same wave-length!!!
Oh, by the way, Peter, I believe that this self-identifying label “post-gay” may be less construed today by others as one claiming to being a follower and product of “poof” theology, as the term “ex-gay” seems to; although not completely, as in the case of brother Ric who posted in just before me.
Peter,
I realize I may sound as if I’m being argumentative just for the sake of it, and I also realize I have hardly arrived at the perfect knowledge. But I have gone over and over with this kind of thing in my head and heart for the past 25 years, being practically born in church. I have also gone to Bible school and was actually in the ministry with creditials before my church ousted me, even after giving up the gay “lifestyle”. I’m not going to give excuses for gay relationships or gay marriage or whatever, but I have often wondered just who it is I am supposed to be. I have had wonderful personal experiences with God, which would take a book to write here, yet I remain gay.
After many years of prayer, soul searching and contemplation, I can only come to the conclusion that what matters to God more than anything, is the conditon of one’s heart and personal relationship with our Lord God. My “saving” scripture for that is Galatians 3:28. After all, whether right or wrong, we do what we know to do and live under the grace of Jesus Christ and His shed blood. I don’t know just how or what you believe nor can I hardly judge your heart. But I am hardly a rainbow flag waving, street marching, limp wristed, promiscuious wierdo (not that anyone has called me that).
With all that said, I just find it strange that people actually have to name or label an act, state of mind or emotion, in order to prove something to the rest of the world or turn it into a physiological thing of sorts. I just don’t think God cares what we call ourselves. I may be what the world can call “gay”, but in my heart, I’m a new creation in Christ- and I honestly believe that’s ALL He sees. I believe that’s what the Bible calls being IN the world, but not OF it.
Many people believe they were born gay, while others think they acquired it through upbringing (nature vs. nurture). Personally, I really don’t care why I’m “gay” or how it came to be, or even if the world calls me that- as long as I know the real deal in my own heart and relationship with God. Does that make sense? It may be true that many people have been “healed” or “cured” or whatever you want to call it, from homosexuality. But it makes me wonder if any or all of these people were ever really homosexual to begin with. Or maybe it just wasn’t “rooted” all that deep- who really knows? But I do know that I begged, pleaded and cried until my lungs hurt to be healed of it myself, to no avail. So I have to ask myself, why would God give me so many blessings and wonderful experiences, yet not “take away” this homosexuality? Maybe it’s just a thorn or my cross to bear. One thing I know, I have a relationship with God above and beyond man, woman or child, and whatever I am on the outside with whatever the world wants to call me, I know who lives in my heart.
Ric,
I think you make some useful points. In all honesty though, I have to say that for myself, thinking of myself as “gay” was a bar to moving forward. Only when I started deliberately describing myself a “male” and refusing to label myself “gay” (and that of course didn’t mean that I didn’t still have same-sex attractions) did my self-identity begin to move. I refused to let me feelings dictate how I would identify and be identified.
Curiously, having seen considerable change in my sexual attractions since then, I’m actually more comfortable now when people accuse me of still being gay and faking it. Before, if someone would have called me gay then it would have brought up all kinds of shame and negative emotions as it reinforced the negative image of myself. These days “gay” isn’t vaguely an adequate description of my feelings and identity, though I’m much more willing to admit occasional desires in all kinds of sexual directions. The crucial thing though is that I don’t let me identity be in any sense shaped by them.
So post-gay is far more then just being “no longer gay”. Rather it’s a statement of simply not letting “gay” be part of the identifier of my life. I’m beyond that and it has no (or at least very, very little) social or emotional power over me. It does not stir anything inside me any more to see gay things on TV or the film screen. I’m past that. I’m post gay.
I congratulate you on achieving something which was/is obviously very important to you, and I wish you and your wife well and happy. I do not, however, believe that your path is accessible to all (nor do you, I realize). The difference is that I do not believe God asks this of us. We may ask it of ourselves because of the ingrained guilt from misguided authorities in our upbringing, and if we can successfully achieve it (probably more often than not because the individual falls more to the center of the homo-bi-hetero continuum), there is certainly nothing wrong with it.
The problem is the hideous damage wreaked upon those who suffer years and decades of despair, loneliness, isolation, rejection, all for no good purpose, simply to appease religious authorities who tell them they are not acceptable to God as the sexual beings God created them to be. The other problem is the hideous damage wreaked upon unsuspecting or naive spouses married by those who believe themselves “cured” of their homosexuality or who believe that having a heterosexual relationship is part of that “cure,” not to mention the hideous damage wreaked upon the children who spring from this ill-thought-out unions only to find themselves the victims of their parents’ inevitable divorces.
God asks that we be responsible with our sexuality, that we love others as God loves us, that we commit ourselves to the bond we form with the one God sends to us. Jesus was far more concerned about the faithfulness of one spouse to the other than about the respective genders of those spouses.
Lorian,
Nail right on the head there:
The difference is that I do not believe God asks this of us
That’s the core of it. I think reading the Scriptures he very clearly does and that it’s crucially important that we hear and obey.
If you are happy with the path that you have taken, then I’m very happy for you. I don’t accept your right to say that God demands it of anyone else.
William,
Thanks for your comment.
You need to address the issue as to whether what God did for me he is capable of doing for others? If so, why do you not think he wants it for others? If not, what makes me special?
It’s not for me to decide what God is capable of doing; no doubt he can do anything he wants that is not intrinsically self-contradictory. Nor is it for me to know what he wants for you or what makes you special. By the same token, you can’t say what he wants for me or for others. I see no more reason to believe that God wants homosexuals in general to become either heterosexuals or “post-gays” than to believe that he wants tenors to become basses or “post-tenors”.
Just another couple of things.
With regard to the question of whether being in a realtionship is or isn’t a human right, I would say that at any rate a gay relationship certainly isn’t any less of a human right, for those who are gay, than a heterosexual relationship is for others.
You say: “… I started deliberately describing myself a ‘male’ and refusing to label myself ‘gay’…” Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you, and if I am then I apologise, but it sounds as though you are making an antithesis here between “male” and “gay”. If so, then the antithesis is a false one. If anyone does wish to apply labels to himself, and I would defend anyone’s right to do so, then “male” and “gay” are every bit as compatible as “male” and “straight” – and indeed, I would say, nicely complementary; I’m more than happy with both labels for myself. Two of the things – among many others – for which I regularly thank God are making me male and making me gay.
William,
If you read my piece again you’ll see that I reject the static bi-polar model of sexuality that so many in our western culture seem to embrace. That had a profound effect upon me.
When you say you thank God for making you gay, do you mean by natural or nurturing processes? What evidence do you have to back up that claim?
Peter,
I believe that God made me gay by natural processes. I can’t prove that, any more than I can prove the contrary, but I experience my sexual orientation as a blessing, and, as a Christian, I attribute all blessings to God.
By the way, it strikes me that the word “label” is increasingly being used as an emotionally-toned synonym for “description”. I can think of all sorts of “labels” – if you like to call them that – that I can apply to myself, but they are merely descriptions; they are not definitions of who I am.
We are who we are and owe no apology or explanation to anyone who would seek to impose their view of human sexuality on people of whose personal circumstances they know absolutely nothing. Speak only for yourself, Peter Ould, but do not presume to speak or prescribe for me. If you want to lead your life by the readings of an ancient book, that’s up to you but it has no consequence for anyone else nor should it.
Tell me Tom – is homosexuality caused by nature or nurture? The reason I ask is that the moment you make a pronouncement on the subject you immediately make a claim to affect someone else’s life. By telling me to not press the issue you are avoiding the discussion.
Let me give an example using your words changed slightly:
We are who we are and owe no apology or explanation to anyone who would seek to impose their view of alcoholism on people of whose personal circumstances they know absolutely nothing.
Now, if you went to any health professional and said that you’d probably get a response that you were in denial and avoiding the issues. The response to you would be “let’s talk about the personal circumstances”.
As for me trying to prescribe for you, well you need to get use to that if you’re going to live within any form of society. We are surrounded every day by people prescribing for us – politicians, advertisers, health professionals, educators etc. Why does one man’s blog on the subject of sexuality raise so much antipathy from you when these other sources of prescription don’t?
Peter, it is the same question as whether heterosexuality is caused by nurture of by nature. The truth is probably somewhere between for both conditions, an interplay of genetic, hormonal and environmental factors. The problem with any kind of study of the aetiology of sexual attraction is that it is beset by opinions and agendas – on both sides and not all very scientific, as I am sure you would be the first to recognise.
Your choice of alcoholism as a comparison with homosexual orientation is an interesting one. Even if I were to grant you for one moment (I don’t) that the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the vast number of professional bodies in the US and in UK and Europe that subsequently followed suit in de-listing homosexuality as an illness got it wrong, it is when an alcoholic at last owns that he has the condition and ‘comes out’ and faces the issue that he is on the road to recovery. Similarly with gay people who begin to own the sexuality that nature (and maybe to some extent nurture) dealt them and ‘come out’, they are also on the road to recovery from internalised homophobia and low self-opinion. It is the royal road to health, quite unlike the ‘cures’ that Mr Nicolosi and NARTH offer to unfortunate people who are so unhappy with the hand that nature dealt them that, in their desperation, will turn to anything. In that respect they are not unlike the unfortunate people who feel so strongly that they were born the wrong sex and have to undergo sex change. Who are we to say they shouldn’t? In either case if someone is very unhappy that the only hope is to try a NARTH cure who am I to say he shouldn’t? But the evidence is that it is only partially successful in very few cases. The vast majority aren’t. The damage a failure might cause a vulnerable person could be incalculable. To offer it as a universal cure-all to every person who is disgruntled with his lot (when his unhappiness is being blamed too easily on his sexuality) is disingenuous and dangerous. Unfortunately because Christian folk think they find it written in their Bible that God doesn’t like homosexuals, they are too ready to jump on a bandwagon and I wonder if they advocate Exodus’s activities to make the homosexual or themselves feel better because they find, taken at face value, the Bible’s apparent condemnation of same sex love a cruel paradox if God made us all in his image. This is where the Vatican’s statement that a gay child has “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder” is actually an unforgivable attack on innocent people, responsible for much religiously inspired homophobia – and not so religious gay-bashing.
Very good Peter. You are 100% right. I am not married (I hope to be–although not as madly as many ex-gays who feel marriage is a COMMANDMENT for ALL MEN).
I will attest to the fact that one must surrender and resolve to obey Jesus no matter what–come celibacy (cue: Jaws music) or high water.
I prefer to be descriptive (e.g. “I have same-sex attractions. I do not feel attracted to women”); but I have no problem with labels.
I find that most people who have a problem with labels (eg. who feel the need to call themselves “no longer gay” in contradiction to the dictionary) are often mentally unable to grasp moderately difficult subjects.
God will lead me where he leads me. Hopefully I can marry (I want plenty children).
He will give me the strength to obey.
By the way, thank you for saying that a relationship is NOT a human right. It is not.
Sorry, but I think you’ve just been brainwashed by the Religious Right. It’s pretty obvious you’ve been sucked into guilt and chain theology. Even your tastes in art and literature seem to reflect this.
The last guy I knew in to this kind of rubbish theology and who I had thought of so highly, and who held me and many others in awe of his ‘Godliness’ and ‘Holiness’ turned out to be a repressed homosexual who used a very sexual flagellation on his own penitents and caused some serious psychological damage.
I think you have nothing very useful to add to the debate other than ..well, yes, of course it is possible for gays to be married to members of the opposite sex. It just isn’t very honest or desirable.
Carla,
I think your refusal to accept that people can see a change in their orientation is revealing in itself. How many people would it take to stand up and share their stories of change before you accept that it does happen?
Peter,
It may be true that many, many truly gay people, such as your self, act against their natural orientation, in a perhaps sincere effort to do as they believe God wants of them. I am only using your own admission that you are still gay but have chosen to live a ‘post-gay’ life. It’s rather confusing, isn’t it? You have said yourself that your orientation has not changed in various other parts of your writing. The rest seems very much to obsfucate that, which is why I don’t believe that this is a very real nor honest path you have chosen. And even if you, it has been…or for those many, many gays, (ex, post or otherwise), it does not automatically follow that this is a path which all gays should choose for themselves. IOW, it is neither her nor there for me that some gays denounce being gay as a sign that you are ‘right’ above those who do not denounce being gay and loving contentedly and happily as gay.
I will retract what I said about having being brainwashed by the religious right. But you do seem to come very much from the same arguments used by such. And it is terribly tiresome.
While it is quite possible for a gay person to find a meaningful and loving relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and ok, if you have found that, bravo. But I get the feeling you use this as a kind of tool, a weapon even, against those gays who are simply not interested in doing as you have chosen to do.
I just think it’s pretty offensive. And destructive to decide that anything that falls outside of man + woman =God ordained and permissable love as hateful to God. And I can not stand the way this is pushed and pushed and pushed to the point where those who are also tired of it are demonised when they fight back.
Choose what is right for yourself and leave them alone. Or pray for them. But stop hounding them. And while you’re at, stop hounding people in the church who simply disagree with you. We are entitled to our own conscience and our own working through what is wrong and what is right with God.
I am fiesty about this. Yes. That’s all that is ‘revealed’ to you.
I know and love people in the church who are openly gay and quite effectively used by God as part of his redeeming love in the world. And I am not going to deny the truth of that for the sake of appeasing a whole lot of people who just can not accept this can be so.
Best.
Carla,
If you are categorising me as “still gay but choosing to live a ‘post-gay’ lifestyle” then it’s very obvious you haven’t really read what I’ve written in the post above.