Life style? The 23% we're not supposed to talk about

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

> One of the great IFS of history - in spite of all that has been said here
> in this space for house of  Bishops and deputies - if we could only say 
> "This - homosexuality - is not  a life style issue" Because
> we cannot - thousands of people all over the world are threatened with
> death and imprisonment - and I am sure - torture as well.
> 
> I am ashamed. Truth and gospel are tarnished severely by our behavior.

+******, Alfred Kinsey's samples indicated in 1948, before the "sexual
revolution", that one-third of all males had experienced same-sex orgasm,
while only ten percent went on to behave homosexually over most of their
lives.

33-10=23.   Understandably many of  the 23% with homosexual experience who
go on to behave heterosexually most of their lives balk at the notion that
they had no choice in the matter.

I have great sympathy with heterosexuals who have dabbled and discovered
that they do not have a gay orientation.   Given the huge stigmas, I can
well understand why almost never are they willing to speak publicly about
that experience.  What is damaging, however, is the idolatry by which some
of them suppose that their experience and their choice should be required of
all others.

It is equally damaging and idolatrous of lgbts to suppose that our
experience and our choice should be required of the 23%.

Anyone may choose sexual behavior on a particular occasion.   Sexual
orientation is much more intrinsic than sexual behavior.  Sexual orientation
is resistant to change over a long period of time even if the behavior does
not match the orientation.

Anyone who insists that "gay" is not a "real" identity may in fact be right,
but no more right than someone who insists that "straight" is not a "real"
identity.     What is meant by "real"?  What is meant by "identity"?  What
does it take for an orientation to become identity?

Unlike the 10% who are gay and 23% who have dabbled, 67% of the male
population perceive their straight identity as given, not negotiated.   Most
lgbt persons perceive our identity as initially given, yet many societies
have required us to negotiate it into something else.   That's what Uganda
is doing, writ large, but Uganda did not invent the process.

The late Canon Clinton Jones  was a sex therapist well ahead of his time.
When  people came to him confused about whether they were gay or straight,
he pointed to the doors of two closets in his office at Christ Cathedral in
Hartford.   "Imagine that behind that door is the most gorgeous female in
the world, and behind the other door is the handsomest man in the world."

"Louie," he told me, "no one has ever said to me, 'I don't know which door I
want to open.'  And only once in a rare while has someone said, 'I know
which one I want to open second.'"

Erotic dreams and other involuntary fantasies reveal overwhelming
preferences long before we are prepared to acknowledge them or to act on
them, especially if the preference brings with it huge stigma and ostracism.

Few heterosexual young men stand on the street corner watching all the girls
go by thinking, "Please turn me on.  Please turn me on.  Please turn me on
so that I can be straight."

Few young gay males would be turned on by the girls going by.  They might
want to know where to get a pretty scarf or sweater like those the girls
wear.

People will argue about the etiology of sexual orientations long after this
generation is dead and gone.   No researchers suggest that sexual
orientation is as easily chosen as life styles are chosen.    Sexual
orientation seems to be established very early and quite fully long before
puberty, long before the person knows it is coming.

Wanting to avoid stigma and ostracism, many homosexual persons learn to
adapt to heterosexual norms.  Many marry and honor their commitments for
life.

Wanting the best for a son or daughter, would a parent encourage a
heterosexual to marry a 'healed' homosexual?    Even if the healed
homosexual is a millionaire?

Marriage takes lots of hard work even in the most committed relationships.
Sexuality is but one of many conditions that draw two together or separate
them, but would one want to begin less than fully attracted?

This is an adult conversation.   When I met with a diocesan task force back
in the 1970s,  one member was the mother of two of my former students a
decade earlier in a prep school.  She made the wine for communion at the
parish where I was confirmed.  "Louie," she counseled me at a coffee break,
"they are not hearing a thing you are saying.   You are scaring some to
death.  They fear that they might have to be as honest as you are.  H--- is
not about to tell you that her husband is impotent.  M--- is not about to
tell you that she would much rather read a book.   Fr. ____ is an alcoholic
and has not been able to for years......"

"But I have not once said anything about my own sexual behavior," I replied.
"You don't have to," she explained, "they're filling in the blanks with
lurid imagination!"

Candor is hard to come by. So is holiness.   So is integrity.

"Holy" and "whole" derive from the same word in Old English:  halig. They're
still the same thing.    An "integer" is a "whole number."   That's what
Integrity is about.

Louie, L1 Newark


Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018 973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary

    We make his love too narrow
    By false limits of our own
    And we magnify his strictness
    With zeal he will not own.

         -- Frederick William Faber