Mormonism, disability, same-gender attraction

From Alma 34:

40 And now my beloved brethren, I would exhort you to have patience, and that ye bear with all manner of afflictions; that ye do not revile against those who do cast you out because of your exceeding poverty, lest ye become sinners like unto them;

41 But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions.

At one point, my mother was married to a disabled man. Even though my mother is LDS and I’m gay, we occasionally talk about sex. I was curious about my mother’s sex life at the time of her marriage to this man. When I asked her about it, she smiled and said that she looks forward to when her husband will have a “perfect body.” This statement really bothered me.

There is a way in which believing that a disabled body will be “repaired” in Heaven maintains ableist thinking. It reduces the disabled body to a position of being lesser than. Certainly, if one’s hearing or sight gets worse as one ages, it might be nice to think that in Heaven one will have perfect hearing and sight rather than have to wear a hearing aid or have contact lenses. But this is using the able body as a point of reference. As a teaching aid, one might ask a question of, “Are there eyeglasses in Heaven?” — which can help LDS children think about ableism in their culture — but adults should be more critical. Consider the person born deaf, who learns sign language as a child, is involved in deaf culture throughout her life, and has no desire to be hearing after death. Is it appropriate to assume this person will be hearing in Heaven? The answer: No, it is not.

In Mormonism, considerations of disability have carried over to the question of “same-gender attraction.” In the last decade or so, there has been a rise of church leaders comparing “same-gender attraction” to disability, as something that will be “repaired” in Heaven (before this, there was a focus on “cure.”) In the Church, disabled people are pitted against gays as a way to instill humility. For example, in a 2006 interview with Dalin Oaks, Lance Wickman spoke of his disabled daughter who

stand[s] at the window of my office which overlooks the Salt Lake Temple and look[s] at the brides and their new husbands as theyre having their pictures taken. . . . [S]hes at once captivated . . . and saddened.

Her image served as a call for humility among those whose “differences” do not place them beyond the realm of marriageability in this life. From Wickman’s perspective, his daughter won’t have to be saddened in the afterlife because there she will be “repaired” and will marry (and even have children). What I see happening here is ableism being put in the service of heterosexism. It’s pretty awful.

There is a way in which LGBT politics often intentionally divorces itself from disability politics, because of (1) ableism in the gay community, and (2) gays want to move as far away from the idea of “homosexuality as a disability” given a very hurtful history of attempted “curing” and being considered lesser than. But what Mormonism makes clear is that even if a culture largely ceases trying to “cure” homosexuality, it can still maintain “same-gender attraction” as lesser than, a “disabling” factor to be “repaired” later. LGBT and disability politics have to join forces to address this.

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168 Responses

  1. Alan,

    Are you saying that it is a problem when scientists say that certain people, because of their genetics or whatever, are more likely to be homosexual when they’re older because that somehow negates that’s person’s free will?

    First, the idea of free will is being eroded by neuroscience. It’s not certain that it will survive.

    Second, you seem to be criticizing the natural sciences from the perspective of a political scientist or philosopher and attaching values to facts. Facts are value neutral and they just are what they are. Whether or not you experience facts as empowering or as restricting your free will does not change the facts.

    I don’t think anyone is saying that homosexuality is less voluntary than heterosexuality. I’m saying that both are equally involuntary. At the very least, I experience my heterosexuality as involuntary (i.e. I never made a conscious choice and don’t believe I could choose to become homosexual), I have heard homosexual people express the same feeling coming from their orientation, and research seems to bear this out.

  2. Alan says:

    And if I invent an apparatus for casting out evil spirits, of course science is to blame for the runaway commercial success of my new Electric Exorcism.

    Chino, I’m sure you know that science is just as much about falsity and trial and error as it is about truth and accuracy. The problem with electroshock therapy today is that, from the perspective of a scientific consensus, it is useless. But notice I didn’t just say “science”; I also said “consensus.” When you become a scientist, you trust that what is out there, published, peer-reviewed, is accurate. If you don’t, and work outside given paradigms (particularly ones proven wrong or faulty), then you have to do extra work to justify why you’re bringing back something or veering off into questionable territory. Someone like Byrd tries to do this extra work by beginning with the premise that heterosexuality is the only natural orientation and that everything else is abnormal. This was a scientific position held by almost every scientist in America in 1920. They held that position, just as Byrd does today, because their beliefs beyond the scientific realm couldn’t entertain the notion of gay people as being anything but broken. Because if they weren’t broken, then there was no reason to be doing the science to begin with!

    In fact, if you look at the history of the categorization of homosexuals from heterosexuals, you’ll find that it began as a scientific enterprise. Science is largely to blame for the closet. This is a hard pill for people to swallow because of how much they lean on science now for gay-affirmative politics.

  3. Alan says:

    Jonathan — you experience your heterosexuality as involuntary as a point of comparison to the experience of homosexuals experiencing their sexuality as involuntary. But if homosexuality (and heterosexuality) were considered just plain “sexuality” — and people were making their choices accordingly, you could drop the “involuntariness” concept entirely. People would just be making choices.

    In terms of a lack of free will in the neurosciences — well, I’m Buddhist, so I have no problem with that. Choice in American society tends to be linked to rights-based discourse: liberty, whatnot, so I use the vernacular.

  4. Holly says:

    I want to live in a world where it’s a given that people can choose same-sex partners if they want to, for any reason they choose. that said, I have to respond to this:

    But if homosexuality (and heterosexuality) were considered just plain sexuality and people were making their choices accordingly, you could drop the involuntariness concept entirely. People would just be making choices.

    Perhaps…. but it does not follow that desire would be one of those choices, any more than hunger is a choice in a world that accepts both vegetarianism and omnivorinous.

    Leaving aside the issue of coercion, people do indeed make choices about who to date, sleep with, marry, but most of us find it hard to choose who we will desire or fall in love with.

    Many people have remarked that life would be much easier if we could choose who we’ll be attracted to and/or fall in love with, even within whatever orientation we got stuck with/chose/find most satisfying. The history of the world would be very different as well if we could choose who we’ll love, instead of finding ourselves surprised/delighted/horrified by what our libido selects for us, without our higher faculties having much say in the matter.

    Above all, I think we’d all be thrilled if we could UNchoose to love someone once things go south. Ain’t no one likes a broken heart. Imagine life without the horror/embarrassment/inconvenience of still being hung up on your ex.

    I don’t think it would be either accurate or useful to ‘drop the “involuntariness” concept entirely’ in the matter of desire. I think chanson is right when she writes,

    To say sexual orientation is generally not a choice may be neither philosophically satisfying nor politically convenient. However, it is useful in helping people understand homosexuality because it is accurate.

    except that I think that is philosophically satisfying, because it acknowledges something accurate about desire, period, no matter who feels it or who they feel it for.

  5. Alan says:

    Holly, I agree with you to an extent, as I can see something satisfying in the idea of being compelled by desire. Lisa Diamond’s research, for instance, on women whose sexual orientation fluctuates depending on who they desire demonstrates a kind of involuntariness about sexual attraction; she writes about these women fighting the identity they had given themselves (often lesbians or straight women who find themselves suddenly “straight” or “lesbian,” but for whom “bisexual” doesn’t quite fit either). But still, it becomes a question of what gets privileged: the desire, or the person desiring. Diamond has stated, based on her research, that queer politics shouldn’t be about people being unable to change their behaviors or attractions, but on people having the right to determine their own emotional/sexual lives. The fact that these women have to fight an identity they gave themselves says that there is something wrong with a system of identity that does not have room for fluidity.

  6. Holly says:

    I DON”T find anything satisfying about the idea of being compelled by desire; I do, however, acknowledge that whatever desire does or doesn’t compel us to do, we don’t have nearly as much control as we would like over what we desire.

    But still, it becomes a question of what gets privileged: the desire, or the person desiring.

    Given that, as I say, I don’t think desire necessarily compels us to do anything–we can, after all, choose not to act on it–I don’t think I am privileging desire over the person desiring. Still, I would ask: how does your framing of the situation manage to avoid privileging the choosing of sexuality over the one doing the choosing? Because it does seem that you are fetishizing choice, seeing it as this element that, once accepted, will make other thorny difficulties magically disappear.

  7. Alan says:

    I’m working from the realization that choice vs. determinism is a false dichotomy. The thorny difficulties come in when society says, “You should choose this person over who you might normally choose,” which has generally meant “choose the opposite gender over the same gender.” What other thorny difficulties are you referring to, Holly?

    If a person wants to choose someone of the opposite gender, but finds themselves attracted to the same gender, I consider this an issue of internalized homophobia — don’t you? Internalized homophobia means that a person is against the choice to “act on their same-sex attractions.”

    Look, the discussion has got to move in this direction if you’re going to see movement in conservative cultures like Mormonism. Right now Mormons define “homophobia” as being against those who are same-sex attracted, which allows them to maintain the idea of homosexuality as sinful and still think they’re treating people just fine. Take for example what you just said above — you have free will to not act on your attractions. That’s what Mormons say! I’m not demonizing what Mormons say, but I’m just saying that that kind of logic provides no movement. I would point you to the essay above that Chino posted by John-Charles Duffy that shows that no matter how much science of “innateness” you throw at the Church, they will come back with the position of “you can choose not to act on your [innate] attractions.” That’s why you have to make the right to act on one’s attractions a question of free will, regardless of the etiology or orientation of the attractions.

    I’m not fetishizing choice. I am just recognizing the way “choice” and “free will” is used in the debate to the effect of maintaining a status quo.

  8. Holly says:

    Thats why you have to make the right to act on ones attractions a question of free will, regardless of the etiology or orientation of the attractions.

    That I absolutely agree with–I said as much when I wrote

    I want to live in a world where its a given that people can choose same-sex partners if they want to, for any reason they choose.

    but that is a separate matter from saying that biologism has no place in the current conversation, which, if I understand you correctly, you are saying.

    As long as there are people for whom being gay does not feel like a choice, that perspective should be considered, because like chanson says, acknowledging that helps to provide an accurate view of reality.

  9. chanson says:

    The history of the world would be very different as well if we could choose who well love, instead of finding ourselves surprised/delighted/horrified by what our libido selects for us, without our higher faculties having much say in the matter.

    This made me lol because it’s so true! Holly, your point about heartbreak is also spot-on. For a few years my favorite song was Edie Brickell’s song “He Said” — about being abandoned by a lover. It ends repeating the last two lines:

    Ah, it’s hard to love,
    Ah, it’s hard not to love…

    In my case, when my older brother came out as gay, I spent a lot of time contemplating whether I could be gay too. One of my favorite comic series is Alison Bechdel’s “Dykes to watch out for” — I find the whole social network of just women to be tremendously appealing. But, analyzing my own desires, I found that I can’t deny that I am attracted to men (not all of them, mind you). There are so many women that I admire and love and want to spend time with, but there’s a particular spark I catch myself feeling towards certain people — not of my choosing, but always males. That is why I self-identify as straight. (How I choose to act on those feelings is a different question entirely.)

    Im working from the realization that choice vs. determinism is a false dichotomy.

    Good. Your use of this model is the point where I felt like I most disagreed with your perspective. “Free will” vs. “determinism” is a Theological framework that is designed to try to resolve the question of whether humans are responsible for sin or whether God is.

    I think a better model for human behavior is to say that humans are exceptionally flexible and adaptable. As Hellmut pointed out, cultural evolution is much, much faster than genetic evolution, allowing us to change our ideas and behavior to fit all manner of changing circumstances.

  10. TT says:

    I just want to say that this discussion has been great, and I’m sad that I haven’t been able to participate more in it. In many ways, I’ve been waiting for years in the LDS-related blogging world to have precisely this discussion, but alas the timing was such that I haven’t been able to get into it as much as I’d like.

    Just two very brief comments:

    1. For those who think that the “science” has somehow supported the idea of an inborn sexuality that corresponds to two (or possibly three) alternatives, while I am not a scientist, I am able to say confidently that the assumptions behind these scientific approaches are deeply philosophically flawed. For someone who is both a scientist and who is aware of the philosophical issues that have developed around gender and sexuality in the last century (which is what most scientists sorely lack in the way they frame their problems and questions, including, IMO, the guy at BYU), Anne Fausto-Sterling is an extremely useful resource. She is Professor of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University. Her book _Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality_ is a must-read.

    2. I think that this discussion has started to move in the direction of a more complex understanding of choice. It seems that the worry that some have with acknowledging “choice” is the prospect of “gay recovery” programs. I think that this is a really important conversation worth having, and coming up with ways of speaking responsibly about issues of sexuality that avoid coercive and guilt-inducing means of directing it is imperative. That said, it is also not the case that a claim to “inborn” sexuality is somehow free from its own set of exclusions. The case of bisexuals has been mentioned already. I pointed to transpeople as another example that doesn’t fit this idea of a hetero- or homo- orientation. The whole politics of queer identity is aimed at rejecting this binary. I think I pretty much agree with what Alan is saying here (it looks like we’ve been influenced by the same set of thinkers), with the possible exception of how far he is willing to take the question of choice, but thinking about the politics of choice is certainly an important endeavor, especially if it corresponds better to reality and is a more just way of speaking about sexual diversity. In this regard, I just wanted to point to a brief review of a book on gay politics I posted, called _Love the Sin_ http://www.faithpromotingrumor.com/2009/10/free-exercise-of-religion-and-sex/

  11. chanson says:

    TT — As I discussed in my comment #40, I think this whole dichotomy of “choice vs biology” is deeply flawed as a way to frame the question. There’s no either/or going on, and science isn’t claiming that your destiny is written in your genetic code. Humans are shaped by their physiology, but their culture, and by their particular experiences within that culture.

    For example, homosexual orientation is widely recognized in our culture today — yet self-identifying as such hardly existed in our culture a mere few centuries earlier. The underlying biology didn’t change. Genetic evolution doesn’t happen that fast, but cultural evolution does. In this case, our longer lifespans and widespread use of contraception has had a dramatic effect on our cultural assumptions about love, romance, and marriage.

    I don’t want to oversimplify here — there are tons of other factors — but those were two of the biggies in terms of changing our shared cultural picture of how love and sex work.

  12. Hellmut says:

    I agree with that, Chanson. The biology argument is essential in the struggle because it delegitimizes efforts of discrimination. The First Presidency has acknowledge that now when they supported anti-discrimination protections for gay and lesbian people in local ordinances in Salt Lake City and other Utah municipalities.

    Now, LDS leaders have had to retrench behind celibacy. Celibacy is not a Mormon principle. We have always emphasized chastity, which means no sex outside of marriage.

    In the English language, unfortunately, the concept of celibacy has been muddled but, actually, celibacy involves a marriage prohibition, most prominently known among monks, nuns, and Catholic priests who take a celibacy vow.

    Celibacy is not compatible with a theology of eternal families. The brethren have now created a contradiction, which is perhaps more compromising to their core values than homosexuality.

  13. TT says:

    chanson,
    I agree entirely that are our sexual taxonomies are shaped by our culture, not our biology. The point that I am making, and I think you’re making too, is that the contemporary turn to biology as an explanation for sexuality too has a history, is rooted in certain assumptions, and reflects cultural values more than some ahistorical “truth.” FWIW, the modern phenomenon of “homosexuality” as we know it today is often considered to be a modern phenomon. Halperin’s _One Hundred Years of Homosexuality_ begins with this presupposition of sorts. This is not to say that same-sex sex is modern, but that the particular way of categorizing it is, and that such a history is also likely to change.

  14. Alan says:

    chanson @61:

    For example, homosexual orientation is widely recognized in our culture today yet self-identifying as such hardly existed in our culture a mere few centuries earlier. The underlying biology didnt change.

    Chanson, this is not how it works. It is not a matter of there being a supervening model of biological innateness prior to the intervening model of a homo/hetero binary. The duality of choice versus innateness is written into the homo-hetero binary.

    For example, look at ancient Greece: you will find a lot more men engaged in homosexuality than the supposed 1%-5% that are supposedly “homosexually oriented,” by today’s standards. Why are these men doing this? Cultural? Biological? Are some “naturally” doing it, while others are only doing it because of the “culture”? These questions don’t make sense, because they move you away from what’s actually happening in order to make it fit into a framework of today.

    Perhaps if heterosexism is at its prime, the 1%-5% represents those who absolutely cannot fit in based on gender roles — feminine men and masculine women who also happen to be gay. Halperin, who TT mentions above, has written about how the homo/hetero binary created an identity that didn’t exist before: “the straight-acting gay man who can pass as straight.” This man’s gayness tends to get thrown into the pot of “Look, this guy is so straight-acting, which means that there must be a biological reason for gayness!” But really, what’s happening is a bunch of gender assumptions about who should be doing what and why, and why they aren’t doing what we assume they would be doing.

    To my knowledge, there are no Kinsey reports of other cultures, say, ones that don’t use the homo/hetero binary. You wouldn’t be able to ascertain who is “hetero” and who is “homo,” because you shouldn’t categorize people in ways they don’t categorize themselves. Now, if you go to most major cities today, you’ll find that the Western homo/hetero binary has been implemented in places like Bangkok, New Delhi, Taipei, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro. This is more a spread of ideas, a globalization of an identity structure, than it is people coming to terms with a biologism.

    You can say that same-sex attraction exists everywhere. But the biologism requires you to say “how much?” — a question that makes little sense out of its cultural context.

  15. But the biologism requires you to say how much? a question that makes little sense out of its cultural context.

    Porquoi? It makes perfect sense to me to ask questions like that under a hetero-homo model. And if a different model also helps us understand sexuality better, do research under model that as well. What’s wrong with that?

    I obviously don’t believe your assertion that we “shouldnt categorize people in ways they dont categorize themselves” stands on its own without further justification. We categorize rocks, plants, animals, etc. in ways that they don’t categorize themselves. Why should people be treated specially?

    Unless you’re studying the cultural model itself and how it affects perceptions, it can be useful to apply different models than what people apply to themselves.

  16. Alan says:

    Jonathan, first off, I’m saying it doesn’t make sense because the numbers don’t match up cross-culturally. In ancient Greece, men had sex with teenage boys as a matter of a masculine/feminine pairing regardless of genitalia. It’s not that all these men and boys were “gay” — because if they were, then I’m curious what happened to “biological evolution” that chanson mentions @61 given that homosexuality is now more limited in our culture.

    Secondly, people have studied the model and found that, in the long run, it does more damage than not. Again, I point you to the closet as an oppressive cultural mechanism. A closet that people have to come out of (or stay in) results from the classification system. It doesn’t just “naturally” exist.

    People have consistently been arguing on here (Chanson and Holly particularly) that if people believe they are born that way, then we should respect that — meaning, don’t categorize people beyond their own categorizations. However, since you all seem so science-minded on the issue, you should know the APA works from the premise that while some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed, across the human species it actually develops across people’s lifetimes. Humans become aware at different points in their lives that they are gay/straight/bi, and at other points, they feel differently. Psychologists who are more read in gender/queer theory recognize that what’s going on here is a problem with the paradigm, but they are restricted because of vernacular understanding, a culture that is so laden with the concept of “orientation.” Often what they’ll do is remind their readers that the definitional boundaries of orientation are fuzzy.

  17. Holly says:

    People have consistently been arguing on here (Chanson and Holly particularly) that if people believe they are born that way, then we should respect that meaning, dont categorize people beyond their own categorizations.

    There are plenty of ways in which I think we can and should categorize people beyond their own categorizations. For instance, I think we should categorize Brian David Mitchell as something entirely other than his own categorization of prophet.

    The fact that I respect people’s right to claim that they were born gay does not in any way, shape or form mean that I agree whole-heartedly with your assertion that we shouldnt categorize people in ways they dont categorize themselves.”

    If you can’t put more nuance in your own arguments and statements, at least don’t remove it from mine.

  18. Andrew S says:

    I don’t think this leads to a monumental overturning of the current model.

    Currently, we move away from the idea that people consciously choose their attractions. Where we fail, then, is in saying, “Attractions are not changeable,” when we ought to be saying, “Attractions are not consciously changeable.”

    However, there is a problem here. When you start saying, ‘Humans become aware at different points in their lives that they are gay/straight/bi, and at other points, they feel differently,” you open up the possibility for more people to believe that at one point, they may “feel differently” about their undesired sexuality. Regardless of how likely (or unlikely) such changes are, and even the very nature of the change.

  19. Alan says:

    Holly, I wasn’t aware that every response of mine requires optimal nuance while the people who respond and characterize my arguments, such as yourself, are not held to the same standard. Respecting that people are born that way is an example of letting people categorize themselves. I imagine that you could have read me as saying this, but instead chose to be hypocritically finicky.

    Andrew, you’re still missing a critical component. Attractions are not consciously changeable except for the people for whom they ARE consciously changeable.

    If a person has an undesired sexuality, that points to a problem with societal acceptance of a sexuality as is and not a problem with the sexuality itself. The fact that some people want to change but cannot should in no way delimit the fact that some people do change, consciously or spontaneously. Also, the fact that some people do change, consciously or spontaneously, should in no way determine that others be required to change. It’s pretty simple. Let people choose their own emotional and sexual lives without an overarching heterosexist framework.

  20. Andrew S says:

    “consciously *or* spontaneously.”

    What is the research that shows consciously chosen change (as opposed simply to spontaneous change)? I’m curious and ignorant.

  21. I would agree with the statement that sexual orientation (defined as sexual attraction of varying intensity to various subsets of the population) is a product of biological and cultural factors. Although sexual orientation may change over time, the choice of orientation is not generally a conscious decision and not subject to intentional change.

    Alan, nothing that you’ve said so far has seemed to me to be incompatible with my personal definition of sexual orientation. I’m still struggling to understand why you think (do you?) that studying sexual orientation and publishing the results are harmful.

    if you look at the history of the categorization of homosexuals from heterosexuals, youll find that it began as a scientific enterprise. Science is largely to blame for the closet.

    So before science took up the study of sexuality, you’re saying that people that were attracted to the same sex could freely express and act on their attractions? That’s obviously not true, but rather that science was initially subject to cultural prejudices. Now, science is becoming more accurate and actually leading cultural change. Yet you want to ignore scientific inquiry into sexual orientation?

  22. Alan says:

    What is the research that shows consciously chosen change

    Well, if you consider ancient Greece, the men stopped having sex with the teenage boys once they married their wives. It is very difficult to think of that as fitting with the mechanics of “spontaneous change.” Again, we’re looking at a problem with the way innateness and change are formulated as a duality.

    In any event, consider the following quotes:

    I personally don’t believe I was “born this way.” (In fact, when I’m feeling hostile, I’ve been known to tell right-wingers that I’m a successfully “cured” hetero.) Until I was in my early thirties, I fell in love with men, took pleasure in sleeping with them, and even married one. But like most women, I experienced most of my closest emotional relationships with female friends. The only thing that
    made me different was that at some point I got curious about lesbian feminist claims that it was possible to combine that intense female intimacy with good sex. The good sex part turned out to be vastly easier than I anticipated. Even so, there was no immediate biological reason to stop having sex with men or to start living as a lesbian. Coming out was, for me, a conscious decisionevery step of the way.
    Lindsy Van Gelder, “The ‘Born That Way’ Trap,” Ms., 1991

    I’m not going to spend a lot of time forgiving myself or forgiving anybody else because I started out straight, damn it. Okay? I say to people, “You’re going to have to take me as I am. I am converted, if you wish, okay? I used to be straight, now I’m gay. I’m sorry if it would make you happy that I was born this way, but I wasn’t.”
    a gay woman, quoted in Vera Whisman’s Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity, 1996

    A homosexual is someone who has chosen to let himself love a person of the same sex: and I made that decision myself. So the responsibility is all my own.
    Kenzaburo Oe, Kojinteki Na Taiken [A Personal Matter], 1964; translated from Japanese by John Nathan, 1968

    There are also the numerous claims of people who said they found God and then chose to be straight, and their stories were often used by conservatives in the 1990s to hold onto the possibility of change for the queers in their cultures and beyond. Nowadays, most conservative psychologists are actually on board with the level of variance in human sexuality; they’re just still under the arm of heterosexist theology so that even if people cannot change, they still can’t “act on their attractions.” This is why, and I’ve emphasized this probably a dozen times on this thread, “born that way” is not the political powerhouse people think it is.

    You might like this website: http://www.queerbychoice.com/.

  23. Andrew S says:

    if you consider ancient Greece, the men stopped having sex with the teenage boys once they married their wives.

    But if you consider ancient Greece, you also consider a society where orientation as we now formulate it didn’t even play a role. You can’t look at “men having sex with teenage boys and stopping when they married their wife” and then say, “They were attracted to teenage boys and adult women.” The former doesn’t say anything about their orientations.

    I feel that Lindsy’s quote doesn’t show anything about consciously chosen change either. When she says, “I fell in love with men,” she doesn’t say, “I consciously chose to fall in love with men.” When she says, “I experienced most of my closest emotional relationships with female friends,” she does NOT say, “I consciously chose to experience most of my closest emotional relationships with female friends.”

    Similarly, the quote of a gay woman says “I am converted,” but it doesn’t say, “I chose to be converted.”

    Only Kenzaburo Oe’s comment suggests the idea of choice…but it leaves me with a lot of questions — how does one “let” himself love a person of the same sex? This sounds more like someone who has been repressed “letting” himself not be repressed. Are all people repressed then? And is our orientation system the mechanism by which we are repressed?

    You say:

    There are also the numerous claims of people who said they found God and then chose to be straight, and their stories were often used by conservatives in the 1990s to hold onto the possibility of change for the queers in their cultures and beyond.

    but what is to disqualify the possibility that when they say they “chose to be straight,” what they mean is, “they choose not to act on homosexual desires/”same sex attractions”” and they choose to engage in heterosexual actions, whether or not they are sexually attracted to their partners of the opposite sex? Is THAT possibility so foreign? so strange?

    I guess I’ll have to check the queer by choice website.

  24. Alan says:

    Jonathan, you’re right to an extent…before the category system, people still could not have sex with the same gender. The reason was because of a belief that one should “not lie with a man as one would lie with a woman.” Sodomy was a sin because anything nonreproductive (regardless of the gender of the partners) was sinful and therefore deemed unhealthy, including masturbation. You have to realize that in the 1800s people basically thought that if semen was not expelled into a vagina, then you were in serious trouble; people believed the purpose of sex is to be “fruitful and multiply.” Mormonism held onto this belief until the advent of birth control. Still, in the 1800s, people could and often did act on their same-sex attractions to the exclusion of orgasm: sleeping together, kissing, emotional connection, etc.

    Science came in in the early 1900s and proved that nonreproductive sex is fine, but it also considered homosexuality to be a disease. Eventually scientists put two and two together and science has been on the side of gay politics ever since.

    Let me be clear. I am not anti-science. There are plenty of scientists that I cite. But science is bound up in paradigms and vocabulary that has a lot of difficulty being historically introspective. The scientific inquiry into sexual orientation today is still bound up in assumptions of the early 1900s that links genitalia to an inborn “orientation,” when clearly, if you look at this question across time, it’s more nuanced.

  25. Andrew S says:

    http://www.queerbychoice.com/feelings.html

    Regarding, for example, this page, I feel a basic disagreement. The person who is sad who chooses to smile and think positive thoughts does not choose to be happy. He is doing this “faking it till he makes it,” with the hope that eventually, faking it will make it.

    Maybe for some faking it will make it. But the person did not choose for this. In the same way, for someone who tries to fake it, to smile and think positive thoughts but who is still brought to the sadness, he also did not choose for the faking not to make it.

    I find it interesting that the site would juxtapose what it views as “normal” feeling control with clinical depression. I find the comparison a bit off.

  26. Alan says:

    but what is to disqualify the possibility that when they say they chose to be straight, what they mean is, they choose not to act on homosexual desires/same sex attractions and they choose to engage in heterosexual actions, whether or not they are sexually attracted to their partners of the opposite sex? Is THAT possibility so foreign? so strange

    Any number of people fit that scenario, Andrew. That is the result of the conservative idea of using the people who did consciously change as a paradigm for everyone. You get people who say they “changed,” but couldn’t and didn’t. But like I said, this played its course in the 1990s and early 2000s. Eventually, conservative clinicians who worked everyday in the field realized that not everyone can change (something the rest of the psychological community knew long ago), and so they changed their tune.

  27. I haven’t been that deep into the science of orientation but from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty nuanced and revealing even greater nuance. (And to be fair, genitalia is highly correlated with orientation, among other things.)

    The quotations that you give seem to be examples of people accepting or discovering their orientation, not changing it. Research has shown women to be generally more fluid in orientation. In other words, biological and cultural factors have predisposed them to have a broad orientation. This is in contrast to men who seem predisposed to have a narrower orientation.

    For example, even if I were told that sex with men was better than with women, I couldn’t allow myself to try. I don’t have the capacity to do what Lindsy did. My orientation isn’t capable of same-sex attraction. For Lindsy, women weren’t off the menu like men are off mine.

    BTW, an undesired desire isn’t necessarily a sign of cultural oppression. I don’t want to want to eat junk food. Many pedophiles don’t want to desire children. Second-order desires are part of the human condition.

  28. Andrew S says:

    Jonathan,

    You’re just being held back by fear and anxiety! I read it in an interview.

    QBC 101: people should not fuss over whether they are officially willing to call themselves “attracted” or not
    QBC 101: “attraction” is not some mysterious THING that people have to “discover” before they can allow themselves to have sex with someone. it is only a question of “do you choose to enjoy this moment being sexual with this person or not?”
    QBC 101: they should just relax and enjoy the moment and not WORRY about some mysterious THING called “attraction” or “non-attraction” or “gay” or “straight” because their mysterious THING that they believe in does not even matter. enjoyment is all that matters
    QBC 101: because until you get beyond all this fear and worry you will always be foreclosing your own choices by being too anxious and unable to trust in the existence of multiple options
    QBC 101: relaxing and enjoying the moment is what most people are so very BAD at doing.

    This website is absolutely surreal.

  29. Wow! I guess I should just relax then. 🙂

  30. Alan says:

    Jonathan, if you define “orientation” as “whatever is on your menu then, now or later,” then I have no problem with that. But would it really be meaningful to consider such a menu as something you’re “born with”? It seems like it make more sense to consider it as something that “manifests over the course of a life.”

    In terms of desire and cultural oppression, I did think of pedophilia when I wrote that, but that brings in the question of consent of one’s sexual partner. Junk food brings in the question of health. Not all desire is good desire.

  31. Alan says:

    Andrew, I hope you’re differentiating between what I’m saying and that site. The problem with that site is that they take their experiences and try to apply them to everyone. But if you notice, people who don’t feel they choose their orientations often try to apply their experiences to everyone, too. I actually rather like Jonathan’s phrasing of “narrow” versus “broad” orientation because it has room for fluidity that “homo” versus “hetero” does not. The only thing I’d say is that it still doesn’t make sense to say that a person is “born with” a broad orientation that they come to “discover,” because it would matter what happens to them in their life, and the choices they make, in terms of how the orientation would manifest. And really, which is more important? The orientation as it actually manifests in the person’s life, or some abstract potential manifestation?

  32. I think it makes sense to say sexual orientation is inborn inasmuch as the circumstances of birth predict the range of future sexual preferences even if it takes time for that sexuality to manifest fully. No one is born fully expressing their sexuality, but the roots of their future sexuality are there. An easy comparison is to secondary sexual characteristics that don’t appear until puberty but are largely predetermined genetically.

  33. Holly says:

    The problem with that site is that they take their experiences and try to apply them to everyone.

    How are you not doing that, Alan? Your basic approach to sexuality seems to me somewhat analogous to the church’s: you want everyone to define their sexuality–or rather, refrain from defining their sexuality–in very specific ways, or, you say, something dire will happen. Admittedly, your reasons for doing so are more respectable than the church’s, but you’re still insisting that people view their sexuality according to your paradigm of choice rather than orientation–because we must. You don’t just say this is how you view it; you say we must all come to view it this way too. You keep arguing for fluidity, but there’s little in how you would let individuals define their own sexuality, because you insist it has to be undefined.

    Why? As you’ve pointed out, the categories of homosexual and heterosexual are fairly recent; before that, sex was viewed as individual acts. Didn’t really help us have such a healthy approach to sexuality.

    And why can’t both approaches–as well as other approaches we have yet to discover–exist all at once? Why can’t some people define themselves as born gay, and others say, “I choose to have a same sex partner at this point; who knows what I’ll choose tomorrow” and others say “watch me invent a new way of framing my sexuality”? Why does there have to be only one way to skin this cat?

  34. Alan says:

    Jonathan @ 82:

    No one is born fully expressing their sexuality, but the roots of their future sexuality are there.

    The last thing I’d say, since I feel like we’re going in circles, is that psychologists have already moved in the direction of viewing sexuality as a life course phenomenon instead of a “born with” scenario. So you can fight it if you want, but that’s the paradigm now in the psychological sciences. If you have access to academic articles, you might check out this one:

    Bertram Cohler and Phillip L. Hammack, The Psychological World of the Gay Teenager: Social Change, Narrative, and Normality, Journal of Youth and Adolescence 36, no. 1 (2007): 4759.

    They pretty much lay out the history of sexuality studies for gay youth, and talk about how queer youth in places that don’t have a closet (where homosexuality is fine), don’t use their sexualities to define themselves the same way as before. The development of sexuality and the way they talk about themselves is different. Studies now require narrative input that does not take the single framework of “coming to terms with my inner gay,” since there is no “inner gay” in relation to an “outer hetero society.”

    Holly @83:

    Why does there have to be only one way to skin this cat?

    I don’t think there is only one way, but I do find ya’ll at least as stubborn as I am. I’m not arguing for everyone to be fluid, but just that there are phenomenological problems with the concept of orientation. I hope I’ve made at least some of the problems clear.

  35. Chino Blanco says:

    This is why, and Ive emphasized this probably a dozen times on this thread, born that way is not the political powerhouse people think it is.

    By my count, this is only the second time I’m dropping my fave Halperin link here.

    It really is germane to what y’all are talking about (or at least, I think it explains why the tension between theory and advocacy has been around for nearly two decades before this thread got started).

    As far as I’m concerned, too many of the prescriptions from both the academic left and right feel like Sunday School dj vu all over again. Both sides have retreated into arcane discussions about sex at a time when what’s needed is to make the case for fairness. Granted, “fairness” ain’t sexy. Q.E.D.

  36. Holly says:

    there are phenomenological problems with the concept of orientation.

    Well, yes. There are problems with most if not all human concepts. But it does not necessarily follow that the concept has outlived its usefulness and must be discarded NOW, as you advocate, or scrapped entirely at any point. At this time in the current debate, there are still people working toward the same goal you’re working toward who find it both useful and necessary.

    If it truly does become useless and entirely at odds with what else we know about sexuality, it WILL go away and we will cease to use it, in the same way we no longer discuss sexuality in terms of inverts and perverts (except a casual use of the latter).

  37. Alan says:

    Chino, as I said @24, talk shows and sitcoms have done more for “fairness” than science has. If people are going to rely on science for politics — which by the way, is an academic and rather exclusive enterprise — then, they should probably know what they’re talking about.

    In terms of Halperin saying Foucault supported gay marriage, what I take from that is that Foucault supported the idea of a society respecting the relationships of gays as on par with the relationships of heteros (which is currently a question of “marriage equality”), asserting that you don’t have a non-oppressive civilization otherwise. But on the question of the institution of marriage itself as tied problematically to the state, he is a lot more critical.

  38. Chino Blanco says:

    Alan, I was pointing to that Halperin interview again b/c he spends the bulk of it describing how academics and activists parted ways in the nineties. I wondered if it might not lead a thoughtful theorist to at least acknowledge here that the two sides have been talking past each other for a while now.

    As far as Foucault on gay marriage is concerned, I like to trot out that remark of his because its silliness appeals to me. It reminds me of the time I was enjoying schnitzel on a bun with Adorno in Washington Square Park and he told me there would be no civilization until the lipstick lesbians who lived in the apartment above his agreed to a mnage trois. I was appalled at the time, mostly because the way he said it wound up spraying flecks of mustard on my coat.

  39. Alan says:

    Sorry, Chino. Was on the defensive here for a while; tough to switch gears.

    What I’m noticing about MSP the longer I’m here is the crazy amount of diversity of thought. Writing here is almost like a trial run for public scholarship — by which I mean the kind of scholarship that is needed to bring the two sides together again. One thing Halperin doesn’t talk about when he warns cynical queer scholars that “gay marriage” actually has opened up the possibility for more radical conversations is how it has done this: the internet. I think what’s happening right now is that older professors who aren’t technologically inclined are being phased out, and younger ones are participating more online. We’ll see a more publicly engaged university in the coming years — partly as a matter of maintaining relevance in a bad economy, but also because it is clearly a necessity.

    Notice that I chose to publish in a Mormon journal instead of a university one. Sure, I had to do a lot more work to break down queer theory into the easiest morsels I could, but as Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it to a five year old and have them comprehend, then you probably don’t understand it yourself” (not that Mormons are five-year-olds, but you get what I mean). So it was good for me and I’m hoping it’s good for my audience.

    Halperin notes that the 1990s were plagued with the question of the “gay gene.” Queers were dealing with churches telling them homosexuality was a choice, and so they looked to gay science: LeVay and all them. Meanwhile queers in the academy were anti-essentialists because well, poststructuralism of the 1960s as well as feminists of color critiques of essentialized [white] feminist politics of the 1970s.

    But the 1990s has come and gone. What you have now is what that Duffy essay explains: churches that can tolerate gay essentialism, but still maintain homosexuality as a sin because “God says so.” You have Mormon gays who identify as “same-gender attracted” before they get married and still marry the opposite gender. So, gay essentialism obviously ain’t the solution.

    Now, the thing about gay marriage is that you’re right…it is about “fairness” — the public debate is not really about gays marrying because they can’t help who they love (essentialism), but because they love who they love (a more radical position). So, it’s not like the 1990s “gay gene” stuff carried over to the 2000s completely (although I’m a bit cynical about that after this thread). What I’ve been arguing here, however, isn’t about the 1990s/2000s. It’s about shaping the 2010s.

  40. chanson says:

    Alan — I nice if you’re backing down from being on the defensive. I think this topic would be far more interesting as a discussion than as a debate/duel.

    I’m sorry I was in transit (away from the Internet) for more than a day and missed the middle bit of this discussion. I think that you thoroughly misunderstood and/or misrepresented my point. Let me attempt to state it a little more clearly:

    Human biology/physiology has not changed dramatically within the last few centuries. (Yet the daily experience of people in the rich/developed world has changed very dramatically for various reasons.) People’s personal experiences are shaped by their culture. Your culture gives you a set of definitions and expectations to work with, and people use those definitions and expectations to interpret (and shape) their lives and experiences.

    Now which part of the above (if any) do you disagree with? Your “ancient Greece” example is a prime example to illustrate the point I was making. Though — since the whole homosexuality thing is currently a little loaded — I was going to instead use the example of the medieval conception of “courtly love” and how it might have influenced people’s experience/perception of being “in love” (even though the underlying biology of being in love didn’t change).

    Also, I made a point to follow up with a positive and upbeat discussion about feminism in the seventies and how it affected Mormon women. It is an incredibly interesting topic that I would love to discuss here more. Why poison the well by presuming to lecture me and Holly about it, as though you’re the expert and we’re just neophytes on the subject? I think we all have interesting insights to share, and we’d understand each other better if we didn’t try to turn the discussion into a sparring match.

  41. Holly says:

    Chanson @91

    Why poison the well by presuming to lecture me and Holly about it, as though youre the expert and were just neophytes on the subject?

    No kidding! Especially since your basic reason for disagreement in the first place was that a statement I made would wound your mother’s sensibilities if she heard it (!), and since you had to back down from your position eventually and admit you were wrong.

    Alan @90

    What Im noticing about MSP the longer Im here is the crazy amount of diversity of thought. Writing here is almost like a trial run for public scholarship

    Yes. There are a lot of well educated people here, with and without graduate degrees. You need to know your shit and be accountable for it. Lecturing people who’ve been studying and/or publishing in the field of gender theory and/or science and/or engaging in political activism for a decade or two (or even three) as if they don’t know the first thing about any of those topics isn’t really going to fly.

  42. So, gay essentialism obviously aint the solution.

    I don’t think it is the solution. From the beginning, I’ve said that it is part of a solution, a solution that I see working in the trenches. I confess that I’m not aware of the current fashions in academia on the subject, but neither are the people whose opinions are changing toward greater equity and inclusion.

  43. Alan says:

    Chanson, Holly — often what I say is not intended as lecture so much as monologue. The rest I would chalk up to the diversity of responses, the varying levels of insight. It is sometimes difficult to keep in mind who knows what without having embodied (*glares at Holly [edit: with disembodied eyes]*) experiences with any of you.

    But yes, I would admit that it gets harder to keep what other people know in your mind the more you monologue =p

  44. Andrew S says:

    (psst. Did alan just admit that he’s talking to himself? cloudcuckoolander alert)

    🙂

  45. Alan says:

    Hey, I know for a fact that everyone here monologues. =p I hardly ever write in my own blog (which is where most people get it out of their systems); I do most of my blogging on MSP.

  46. Andrew S says:

    no, i’m definitely lecturing to an unaware and unobservant public. :p

  47. Holly says:

    Chanson, Holly often what I say is not intended as lecture so much as monologue.

    Oh, come on, Alan. If it’s a monologue, why post it in a comment here? Why include something that is you talking to yourself in a forum that most people understand to be about conversation among many people, however well that does or doesn’t happen? How, in this forum, is a monologue especially superior to a lecture?

    Do you not realize what you’ve just communicated about your approach to audience?

  48. Alan says:

    Holly, I’m not sure why you’re pushing this. I’m not referring to monologue as “talking to myself” in a strict sense. What I’m referring to is when a person makes a bunch of points wound up in emotion that veer off into solipsism momentarily and then they steer themselves back into conversation. You’re no stranger to this approach, and it’s one approach of many.

  1. December 29, 2010

    […] thought this baseline would be a common ground for a discussion at MSP on Mormonism, disability, and same-gender […]

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