The bifurcation of sexuality and self.

November 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

One of the worst aspects of internalized homophobia is that we tend to break up our lives and keep parts of them in separate boxes. This is especially true of our sex lives. For years (for generations, I suppose), we could actually live respectable lives, and be admired and integrated into our communities, as long as what we did in private remained private. At some deeply buried level of our minds (perhaps hidden even to ourselves) we believed that it doesn’t matter what you do for recreational sex as long as you’re back in your own bed, alone, when the sun comes up. We could do anything as long as we didn’t blab it to the neighbors, etc.

And the reverse reasoning went something like this: if society hates us for being gay – no matter how decently we try to live– and society thinks that any and all variations on gay love are equally horrible, from lifelong committed relationships to one-night stands— then why bother to have high standards? Or any standards?  Do whatever feels good.

I have seen this operating within the gay community even between gay friends. Men who slipped deeper and deeper into promiscuous, risky or kinky sexual practices started keeping their sexual habits secret even from long-time gay friends. They cut off a part of their life, and eventually cut off their entire life from the view of others, because they sensed that their particular recreational preferences or addictions would not be received well by other friends.

I would welcome broader discussion of this from a Christian perspective, because I already understand it is difficult to discuss within the gay male community. To say, out loud, that gay men should have higher ethical standards is almost to speak some kind of “sexual heresy” against our liberation movement. Unfortunately, the endless pursuit of sexual variety through the channel of riskier and crazier sexual practices enslaves our community and cancels the gains we have made both in sexual liberation and civil rights.

And the advent of the crystal meth epidemic in the gay community has simply amplified the deep division between daily life and nightly pleasure.  Patrick Moore’s honest piece in the Village Voice a few years ago, “We are Not OK,” needs to be read over and over until we let his confession/self-examination sink in and become our own.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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