At this stage in the presidential election process, I cannot see a single Republican candidate for whom I am even remotely likely to vote. My endorsement of John Edwards for the Democratic nomination stands.
But I’ve changed my voter registration to Republican, Continue reading ‘Why Hugo is a registered Republican these days’
So, one more post on BDSM. I can’t promise this will be the last, but I will try to move on to another subject eventually.
In the two previous posts, I made the case that the incorporation of bondage and domination/submission strategies into a couple’s sexual life was not inherently anti-feminist. The debate continues in the comment threads below each.
But what about the Christian perspective on BDSM? Let’s imagine a heterosexual, married Christian couple (I’ll call them Edgar and Edna). Edgar and Edna are faithful to each other and devoted members of their local church, actively involved in the work of the Great Commission. And on Thursday nights after they get home from the building committee meeting, they take turns dominating each other. They incorporate restraints, quirts, and hot wax. It’s not uncommon for one of them to be sore and bruised the next day. Their marriage is a model of Christian egalitarianism. Not only do they fulfill the scriptural commandment to mutually submit to each other as spouses, they choose to take a very literal interpretation of Ephesians 5:21 with them into the bedroom (which they playfully call the “dungeon”.)
I’m making Edgar and Edna up, of course. But I’ve known at least one devoutly Christian married couple who did incorporate some elements of dominant/submissive play into their sexual life. They talked about it openly within a trusted small group at a church to which I no longer belong (no, it’s not All Saints or Pasadena Mennonite). My friends’ admission was a bit too much for even their small group family, and their revelation (which was really an invitation for some discussion about the ethics of married sex) did not result in further dialogue.
Too often, discussions of Christian sexual ethics focus on pre-marital, extra-marital, and homosexual sex. That doesn’t mean those aren’t important topics. Faithful Christians can, with integrity and in good conscience, vigorously disagree about whether all genital sexual activity ought to be restricted to heterosexual married couples. But we talk less about sex within marriage than sex outside of it.
The great debate about marriage in contemporary Christian circles is between “complementarians” and “egalitarians.” The former group argues that God intended men to “lead” their wives as “heads” of the family. Men and women have different roles, each complementing the other. The latter group (to which I belong) argues that God intended spouses for mutual submission, each in radical equality with the other. An army, after all, needs a general — but the military model doesn’t apply to marriage, or so we egalitarians argue.
For those of us who are egalitarians, then, isn’t BDSM — even within monogamous marriage — problematic? Regardless of who is assuming the dominant role, BDSM celebrates the erotics of asymmetrical power. Even if that asymmetry only applies in the bedroom (and not, say, in the divvying up of household chores), isn’t it at odds with the egalitarian worldview? If God intended spouses to practice “radical domestic democracy” (which is how I like to describe the egalitarian outlook), shouldn’t how we make love be congruent with how we live out every other aspect of our marriage? If we are committed to equality in decision-making and chore-sharing, shouldn’t our physical delight in each other also be egalitarian rather than hierarchical? If an egalitarian Christian couple delights in domination and submission (particularly, say, if one partner always assumes the same role), isn’t there some disconnect between their theological principles and their sexuality?
These are all excellent questions, the sort that I think my old friends in the small group were trying to work through. It’s also what Ann’s comment below my previous post on BDSM is getting at, I think.
Christians have to be concerned not only with issues of consent and enthusiasm but also with justice. We live in a world where men and women are taught to delight in the abuse of power. We live in a world where rape and abuse are so common that they have affected how many of us think about sexuality. We know that what “turns people on” is a consequence of both biological and cultural influence; too often, the culture sends out a message that tells both men and women to eroticize domination, degradation, abuse. So even if a couple practicing BDSM is doing so with great care, even if each partner in the relationship feels valued and loved, if they delight in radical inequality in their sexual life they may be bringing the brokenness of the outside world into their intimate private sphere. For married Christian egalitarians in particular, that’s a troubling thought.
I wrote in the previous posts of the potential for BDSM to offer healing and liberation. Those weren’t empty phrases; though I’ve never had any interest in delving into that world myself, I’ve known too many good people who did find growth and freedom within that “lifestyle” to condemn BDSM as inherently incompatible with Christian sexual ethics. At the same time, I cannot help but feel that for most, the delight that is taken in BDSM is rooted less in biological impulse and more in a sexist and exploitative culture. And so I’m torn.
I honor the fact that so many of those who did practice BDSM have such evident care for each other and for each other’s boundaries. I am struck by how many people in that “scene” speak of how they have found recovery and fulfillment through ritualized acts of domination and submission. Their positive experiences are genuine and real. But if they had not already been so wounded by a corrupted, violently misogynistic culture, would they need to find healing in this way? Is BDSM only appealing because it is a response to darkness, or, in a perfectly egalitarian world where we all were raised with healthy sexual messages, would some people still be drawn to it? As a Christian feminist, I have to ask these questions and ask both my fellow feminists and fellow Christians to ask the same.
I’ve gone on and on here, and I’m still ambivalent. Because neither my wife nor I have any real interest in any aspect of BDSM, this is a moot point in our marriage. Still, I’m interested in the discussion because I think it’s important for us (feminists, Christians, honest, thinking people) to reflect on what we think really good sex is. I do believe we are called to match our language and our life (a phrase I use too often, perhaps); we’re called to match what we do in private with what we do in public. That doesn’t mean we ought to have public sex, but it does mean that if we are egalitarians in the outside world we ought to be wary of finding particular pleasure in dominating another human being behind closed doors.
At the same time, we ought also to be wary of insisting that all good sex “looks” egalitarian. Taken to its logical extreme, that would mean that the missionary position would be seen as evidence of too much comfort with male domination. Egalitarians would always have to have sex while spooning, so neither was on top! Proscribing certain positions because of their anti-feminist, complementarian implications would be manifestly silly. But if it’s okay, say, for both partners to prefer sex with the woman on top, isn’t it just a very small leap to saying it ought also be okay to incorporate handcuffs and a ball gag?
I don’t know the answer to all these questions. But I think that Christians need to be fearless and forthright in wrestling with them.
I like to mix it up a bit here on the blog. Having offered yesterday a vigorous defense of the possibility for sado-masochistic sexuality to be redemptive in the lives of its practitioners, let me begin today with words of praise for Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw. At his blog, Mouw has a great piece up on “evangelical manners”. A lenthy excerpt with my own commentary is below the fold. Continue reading ‘“The subaltern should be truth”: some thoughts on Richard Mouw and Christian civility’
Folks, this is an R-rated post.
Some interesting exchanges in the comments section below Friday’s post on feminism and BDSM prompt me to follow-up.
In the thread, the basic positions (sorry, can’t help it!) are sketched out: one camp argues that BDSM is only a turn-on because of patriarchal conditioning. According to this view, when consenting adults mutually delight in bondage/discipline/submission/domination, they’re still replicating in the bedroom the brokenness of the culture. If we lived in a world without toxically oppressive sex roles, the thinking goes, no one would be turned on by bondage or pain or domination. If we want to end public oppression, we need to make sure our private erotic lives do not replicate (symbolically or substantively) that oppression.
The other camp usually stipulates that the turn-on of BDSM is culturally conditioned. I don’t encounter a lot of folks who say that a delight in BDSM is genetic! But the fact that we live in a culture that eroticizes often unhealthy power imbalances doesn’t mean that every such exchange in the bedroom is automatically an unhealthy replication of a warped society. In this view, BDSM can be both healthy and redemptive. I’ve heard from too many women and men who, though sexually disenfranchised and victimized through childhood or adolescent abuse, have found liberation and authentic erotic empowerment through BDSM. (Someone mentioned the terrific Secretary, which while a perhaps problematic film from a feminist standpoint, came closer to “getting” that aspect of submission and domination than anything I’ve seen in the mainstream.) I’m not going to pathologize these folks or question their feminist credentials, particularly when so many of them (like Dev) are willing to wrestle with the feminist implications of their sexual lives.
Pisaquari writes:
Believe it or not, what people do in their bedroom does NOT stay there. It perpetuates how they treat other people, what they do to the next lover, interactions with the sex industry, etc…
At least in part, that’s right. While like any good liberal I believe in a right to privacy (whether or not it is enshrined in the Constitution), I also acknowledge (as most folks do) that most of us don’t do a great job of building a wall between our public and our private lives. If my sexual life with my wife were characterized by degradation and mistrust, that would invariably carry over into my teaching. If I were to go back to using pornography, as I did many years ago, it would sooner or later affect the way I view the women in my life. If we’re taking sex seriously, we put a lot of ourselves into it! And the reverse is true — if we’re taking sex seriously, how we have it will invariably help shape who we are, for better or worse.
How I have sex matters. If I don’t practice my feminism in my sexual life, then my feminism is superficial and hypocritical. If I don’t practice my faith in the marriage bed, then my faith — despite my claims — has not really transformed my life. The specific details of my sexual life with my wife are, of course, private. But I will say that what we do in the bedroom is far less important than the devotion, honesty, and caring with which we do it. What makes sex unethical, I am convinced, is exploitation, abuse, dishonesty, and selfishness. What makes sex righteous (and feminist) is genuine concern for mutual pleasure, radical trust, and a willingness to be there for the other person as he or she processes through their own responses to the sex that’s being had.
It’s possible, too, to overthink this stuff. The word “fuck”, for example, is a loaded with potential anti-feminist implications. It’s a word we use for sex — and violence. We do our children a disservice by raising them in a culture where the most common vulgar term for intercourse (”fucking”) is so closely linked to the term that most commonly expresses sudden anger (”Fuck off!”). In a world where women are often victims of male violence that mixes together sex and rage, it’s more than a little unfortunate that our most popular slang word also mixes the two! That said, I think a feminist can cry out (when so inclined) “Fuck me!” or “I’m going to fuck you so hard!” in good conscience. A lusty and enthusiastic “let’s fuck” may take a similar semantic form to the vocabulary of degradation and violence, but thinking adults (even thinking teens) can use the phrase with emotional and ideological safety. The words themselves matter less than how they are understood at the time.
Here’s the point: if honesty, integrity, communication, trust and concern for the other’s well-being are the hallmarks of good sex, then I think it quite possible that many practitioners of BDSM could meet that standard at least as well as those of us who are cheerfully “vanilla.” One thing I’ve learned from my friends in that “scene”: it is possible to “perform” acts of domination and submission in the bedroom (or the family dungeon!) while also practicing radical respect and mutuality. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a huge amount of potential for ritualized self-abuse, soul-destroying cruelty, and toxic exploitation within the BDSM world. But you can have miserable, selfish, damaging sex with your spouse in the missionary position with the lights off. Take it from this thrice-divorced fella. The postures adopted, the wedding bands present or not, and the toys and tools used do not tell us much about whether or not sex is mutual, loving, or safe.
Ultimately, “Good Sex” (in the larger sense of “contributing to the greater good” as well as mutually pleasurable) can happen in an almost infinite variety of ways. And though it does not fall into the realm of my own experience, I am reliably assured by those whom I trust that it can even involve the carefully negotiated use of pain and domination.
While we were away, the IRS issued an odd ruling in the All Saints Pasadena controversy. For more on the current state of the controversy, see Auguste’s post at Pandagon.
After an investigation of nearly three years, the IRS has decided not to suspend my former parish’s tax-exempt status over a sermon preached by rector-emeritus George Regas just before the November 2004 election. The IRS continues to maintain that the original sermon was inappropriate and amounted to “improper interference” in the election; thus, All Saints is off the hook with the government but still has no clarity about what is and what is not permissible from the pulpit. To make matters worse, there is some evidence of inappropriate collusion between the Bush justice department and the IRS, reported by the Times here.
I’m troubled by the allegations of justice department interference with the IRS investigation. That seems nakedly partisan, and it certainly warrants an inquiry of its own. But as the only blogger in the country who was present for Regas’ original sermon (I blogged about it very critically the next day), I agree completely with the agency’s conclusion that Regas’ sermon did amount to intervention in the presidential race. I’m relieved that All Saints is off the hook with the IRS. I may have left the parish after many years of loyal service to its youth group, but I still have genuine affection for many folks who worship there and for the church’s overall mission. All Saints does a lot of good, and it will continue to do so. It can do that good much more easily as a tax-exempt organization.
But Regas’ 2004 sermon was, as I wrote at the time, filled with appalling self-righteousness and indefensible certainty about how Jesus would want us to vote. I’ve spent time in right-wing fundamentalist churches, and until I came to All Saints, would have told you that “liberal fundamentalism” was an oxymoron. The heart of fundamentalism, however, is not reactionary politics. The heart of fundamentalism is certainty, a certainty that brooks no doubt or counter-argument, a certainty that flashes into self-righteous anger or sneering superiority the moment it is challenged. And the Regas sermon (complete with all the rhetorical flourish that a transcript cannot capture) was liberal fundamentalism at its self-satisfied worst: it made it clear that Jesus would want his followers to vote for John Kerry. If the sermon honored the letter of the IRS law on tax-exempt organizations, it violated the spirit in a gross and obvious way. I stand by what I wrote in 2004:
Both liberal and conservative Christians are too enamored of the power of the secular state to transform the hearts and minds and lives of its citizens and the citizens of the world. Yes, the moral character of the ruler matters. Yes, the policies of the state matter — and good Christians can differ in good conscience as to what those policies ought to be. But the God I worship had little time for great leaders when he walked the earth. Jesus was political, yes — but His politics were far more radical than anything any modern politician could possibly espouse. To claim Jesus’ endorsement for any party, any candidate, is unbiblical and profoundly offensive.
Those who defended All Saints were right that a double standard was clearly in place; many conservative churches regularly distribute “voting guides” to their congregants that clearly urge a vote for Republican candidates. That’s wrong as well, and I am angry by the apparent inconsistency of the investigation. Regas may be a fundamentalist of the left who stepped right up to (if not over) the line; there are even more fundamentalists of the right who regularly cross that line. It’s not unreasonable to ask for some consistency from the IRS, the Justice Department, and the courts.
Since I’m so critical of both left and right, do I think that the broader church should withdraw from the public sphere? Of course not. The church ought to be political, but it ought to embody the politics of Jesus rather than the politics of party. Last time I read my gospel, Jesus was not interested in forming a political movement to overthrow Caesar or Herod Antipas; he didn’t lobby Rome for a replacement for Pontius Pilate. Jesus wanted justice, radical justice — and nothing He ever said could possibly be construed as an endorsement of the idea that the State was primarily responsible for providing that justice. Changing the Caesar was not then and ought not be now the role of the church. It matters little that today’s aspiring Caesars are Christians; once in office, their loyalties to the state almost invariably trump their religious convictions.
I do care who wins elections. I do participate in voting, but I vote as a citizen of the United States, not as a Christian. My Christian obligations cross borders and have nothing to do with the passports I hold. As an American, I vote my conscience on issues like, say school funding and the capital gains tax. I have no idea whatsoever how Jesus feels about issues such as charter schools or relations with North Korea, and I’d reject categorically the appropriation of His name by any side in the discussion of these issues. Yes, Jesus was in favor of peace; yes, he asked us to “turn the other cheek.” But good Christians can disagree about how it is we are to live out that call to peace, and we can disagree as well as to whether the sanctions on our personal behavior are also binding on nation-states. And when any pastor implies that Jesus supports one candidate more than another in an upcoming election, that pastor not only violates IRS code, he or she misleads the congregation into believing that lasting, enduring global transformation will be accomplished by the princes of this world.
Recent Comments