Archive for the 'Sexual ethics and transformation' Category

“Bowflex Boy” and Kristy McNichol: desire, celebrity, and the sexiness of earthy reality

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 27, 2008
in Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Mass media, Memories, Relationships and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 5 Comments

There’s been an interesting discussion going on beneath this post at Feministe. As part of a riposte to some rather silly criticism of Third Wave, sex-positive feminism, Jill last week put up a number of pictures of hot shirtless men. (It’s reasonably work-safe to visit.)

Some commenters (both men and women) criticized the decision to put up the photos. They asked the usual questions: isn’t it reflective of a double standard if we denounce men for objectifying a narrow range of beautiful women, while celebrating when a feminist woman posts pictures of handsome, ripped, relatively young men? Isn’t it problematic to celebrate a narrow ideal when we live in a culture in which body dysmorphia and self-loathing is rising dramatically in the male population?

Jill responds to the criticism in this comment. When the question of poor male self-image is raised, some commenters leap in to make the perfectly legitimate case that all things considered, women today suffer far more from a culture that fetishizes a very narrow notion of perfection. That’s true enough, but the damage done to young men by our contemporary ideal of the “cut, be-sixpacked” physique is very real.

But this post is not an attempt to revive some sort of suffering Olympics discussion about male v. female body image issues. Rather, I’ve been thinking about something I learned twenty years ago about desire, the ideal, and insecurity. In college, I lived for a while in a co-op on the northside of the Berkeley campus. There were 37 of us in the house, nearly as many women as men. One of my best female friends in the house lived in a “single”, and I often visited with her in her room. (I had a triple for most of my time in the co-op). Debbie had a huge poster on her wall — an ad for the “Bowflex Man.” If you remember the ’80s, you remember the ad. I’ve done a Google image search, and can’t find it, but the picture is indelibly carved on my brain. A young, dark-haired man is pulling off his white t-shirt, lifting his arms over his shoulders. His body beneath is tanned and spectacularly toned. A Bowflex machine is in the background. Half the dorm rooms on campus seemed to have this picture up; it was more popular than that college staple, Robert Doisneau’s kissing Parisian street couple.

Anyhow, Debbie had this picture in her room, over her bed. At one point, Debbie and I made a brief attempt at a romantic relationship. It lasted only a few weeks before we realized we were better off as friends. But I remember that when I was naked in her bed the first time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the image of masculine perfection just inches away. I was not terribly out of shape in college, but in both color and texture was a bit doughy around my middle. I certainly wasn’t “Bow-flex boy”. And after we had finished fooling around, as we lay in her very narrow single bed, I made a rather joking, obviously insecure remark. It’s been more than twenty years, so I don’t remember exactly how I put it, but it was something like “I can’t believe you want to be with me when you’ve got this guy to look at.” Continue reading ‘“Bowflex Boy” and Kristy McNichol: desire, celebrity, and the sexiness of earthy reality’

“Do Me, Do Me Right”: part one (very long) of a four-part series on Christianity and sexual ethics

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 17, 2008
in Christianity, Favorite Posts 2008, Sexual Ethics and Christian Faith Series and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 25 Comments

This is part one of a four-part series this summer on Christianity and sex. Part Two will look more closely at issues of sexuality and global justice, part Three will look at how to reconcile contemporary sexual ethics with Scripture and tradition, and part Four will provide a whole bunch of good readin’ for further study.

Christian sexual ethics are much on my mind, on the minds of many of my students and youth group kids, and this summer, very much on the public’s radar as well. Next week, we’ll mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s famous Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that declared virtually all forms of contraception to be incompatible with Catholic teaching. In many ways, Humanae Vitae was the first blow struck in the reaction against the liberation movements of the 1960s, and it was the seed for much contemporary conservative thought about the meaning and purpose of our bodies and our lives. From a progressive standpoint, its fortieth anniversary is not cause for celebration. (But in all fairness, if you want to read a fine — but very, very wrong-headed — encomium to Humanae Vitae, visit First Things for this Mary Eberstadt piece.)

And of course, the Anglican Communion is on the verge of major schism this summer over, above all else, the issue of sexuality. A church that survived numerous revisions to the prayer book, a church that bravely embraced contraception way back in the 1930s, a church that largely held together when women began to be ordained in the 1970s, is now at last falling apart over the issue of homosexuality. Tied up in the near-certain schism is the basic disagreement among Christians about what constitutes “ethical sex” in the eyes of God. There seems little chance of a resolution that will both keep the church together and, at the same time, be congruent with how two very different groups of Anglicans see the role of sexuality in our lives.

In any case, I’ve been thinking about (and studying about, and writing about) Christian sexual ethics for many years, since I first took a course on Patristic Theology at Berkeley in 1987. I became a Roman Catholic the following year, and then had a tortuous series of peregrinations that led me to — and through — the Assemblies of God, the Mennonites, and the Episcopalians. (I’m just your average, run of the mill “charismatic Anabaptist Roman Anglican”.) Though I continue to worship at a variety of Christian churches today, I am now involved in the work of the Kabbalah Centre. And of course, I have a Ph.D. in Christian history, though that doctorate focused more on the ethics of war than on the ethics of sex.

I also come to the discussion as a heterosexual man in his forties, four times married, thrice divorced. I come as a college gender studies professor who works closely with Christian and non-Christian students alike, many of whom, I am happy to say, have chosen to see me as their mentor. I come to the discussion as a former Episcopal youth leader, who spent seven years teaching workshops on “Sex, All Saints Style” to high schoolers at the largest Anglican parish west of the Mississippi. So I bring a lot of experience, passion, and yes, baggage, to this subject.

From a theological perspective, though I’ve never been a Methodist, I come to the discussion with a healthy reverence for what’s often known as the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”: Reason, Experience, Scripture, Tradition. The “Quad” suggests that any understanding of God’s call on our lives needs to rest on those four things. Many Christians from across the theological spectrum have embraced the Quad as a sound method for discerning right thought, right speech, and right action.

So after all that build-up, what am I ready to say about Christianity and sex?

If there’s one core principle I derive from using the “Quad”, it’s this: in the end, God cares more about the content of our sexuality than he does about its form. Traditional Christian sexual ethics are often discussed in the context of what Christians can and can’t do. Modern conservatives will often say things like “the only form of genital contact sanctioned by God is that which happens in a marriage between one husband and one wife.” The implication is clear: if you get the “form” (heterosexual marriage) right, then the sex that follows is licit. If you haven’t got the form right, then sorry, Mabel, sorry, Ernest, you’ve “fallen short of the mark.”

But “form-based” sexual ethics clearly have their problems. For example, it ignores entirely the great likelihood that coercion, disrespect, and force can take place within marriage. The Catholic church did not start condemning marital rape — or even acknowledging that such a concept was possible — until the second half of the twentieth century. Is a situation in which a husband demands sex from his wife against her will somehow more congruent with the spirit of Christ than a situation in which two unmarried people make love with mutual enthusiasm? If you’re a stickler for “form-based ethics”, you bet. For the most traditional of theologians, marital rape is less of a serious sin than homosexuality or pre-marital sex, because form matters more than content. (And when was the last time you heard Focus on the Family put out a series of messages against intra-marital coercion?) Continue reading ‘“Do Me, Do Me Right”: part one (very long) of a four-part series on Christianity and sexual ethics’

“No Objectification Without Due Subjectification”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 3, 2008
in Sexual ethics and transformation
. 4 Comments

I’m off until Monday the 7th.

I did want to draw attention to an interesting post (and a really excellent comment thread) at Feministe: I Objectify Men. All the classic arguments about what it means to objectify, and how “seeing someone as an object of desire” isn’t the same thing as “denying another’s humanity” can be found in the original post and the comments. Holly gets in the best line: “no objectification without due subjectification”, which seems as close to a solid feminist position as any I’ve heard.

For those inclined to celebrate America’s independence, enjoy the holiday weekend.

Of sacrifice and growth: an argument in favor of long-distance relationships for college students

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 26, 2008
in Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Youth
. 16 Comments

I had coffee this week with one of the girls from my old youth group at All Saints church. “Brynne” has just finished up her junior year, and in the past few months, has started dating “Scott”, who is a year older and has just graduated. Scott is off to university in the fall, hundreds of miles away.

In many senses of the term, Scott is Brynne’s “first.” He’s the first guy she’s ever fallen in love with, certainly, and before they started dating this spring, they had been friends for two years, since they first met in youth group. I know Scott almost as well as I know Brynne: he is a remarkable young man, outgoing and ambitious and passionate. These two teens, so bright and sensitive and driven, are as near-to-perfect for each other as could be.

When we met at Starbucks, however, Brynne was anxious. Practically the first words out of her mouth to me were “September 18!” I asked what that date meant, and she explained that that was the day Scott was heading off to college. “It’s less than three months away”, she said, “and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” As we talked further, Brynne made it clear that both she and Scott had talked about wanting to stay together in a committed relationship after he goes off to university. “I know that’s what I want”, Brynne told me. “I also know it’s what Scott says he wants, and I believe him — now. But I don’t want to be the reason why he misses out on ‘college’ experiences, you know? I don’t want to be this stupid high school girl who is his ball-and-chain preventing him from having fun. Sometimes I think we should just break up, as much as that would suck, just so he could be ‘free’”.

In my role as a youth group leader and mentor, there are few questions I get asked more often than the one about the viability and wisdom of long-distance relationship. “Should we break up or stay together?” is a query I get every year, usually in the summer as a couple moves inexorably towards autumn’s physical separation. I never answer the question definitively, because each situation is in some sense unique, and each couple’s set of abilities and desires is different. But if I have a bias, and based on my own experience and that of a great many people I’ve worked with over many years I do have one, it is towards saying that yes, a couple that is in love ought to make an effort to stay together when separated by different colleges.

I asked Brynne: “What sort of experiences do you think Scott would miss out on because of being in a long-distance relationship with you?” She winced a bit, and I pressed on: “Is he going to miss out on great classes? Miss out on joining the right club or fraternity? Miss out on making great friends? Miss out on learning to surf, skydive, or mountain bike?” Brynne laughed, saying “That’s not what I mean.” “I know”, I said, “you’re worried he’s going to miss out on the chance to ‘be with’ new people, with other girls”. She nodded. Continue reading ‘Of sacrifice and growth: an argument in favor of long-distance relationships for college students’

“Scrubbing the calendars of every conceivable risk”: Carolyn Hax on trust and fidelity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 18, 2008
in Friendship, Marriage, Relationships and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 8 Comments

Leslie very kindly sends me a link to this Carolyn Hax column that ran in the Minnesota paper. Carolyn responds to a young man who has broken off a relationship with his girlfriend over her refusal to give up her (platonic) friends of the opposite sex. After some general remarks about the importance of honesty, Hax opines:

…you were hiding, too, behind that ridiculous opposite-sex boycott. You were hiding from the very real risk every couple faces, that one of you will fall for someone else. People who love and respect each other do so not in a vacuum, but in a world populated by others — some of whom, inevitably, will prove tempting.

If your relationship can’t survive that, it can’t survive, period, no matter how thoroughly you scrub each other’s calendars of every conceivable risk.

Emphasis in the original.

“No matter how thoroughly you scrub each other’s calendars of every conceivable risk” is a terrific line, and I am going to borrow it regularly. Hax is on to something very important: despite our best and worst efforts, we can never — thankfully — control what an adult romantic partner will do. Part of being in a real relationship, a real marriage, is honoring the omnipresent possibility that your partner could make a different choice. For some, that reality is too terrifying to contemplate, so they stay in denial; for others, that reality is so terrifying that it turns them into over-controlling snoops. And for others, that reality is part of the risk of what it means to love someone. We cannot be vulnerable to the possibility of joy without being concomitantly vulnerable to betrayal; it is axiomatic that intimacy and risk are nearly perfectly correlated. To the extent that you are unwilling to take on the latter, you assure yourself of not having the former.

My wife is somewhere in central Africa at the moment. A classic ESTP and a successful businesswoman, she travels a great deal (sometimes without me). She’s beautiful and gregarious, and every day she meets and works closely with handsome men and gorgeous women in what is our town’s most famous industry. She has excellent boundaries, or so I believe; the ring she wears is an outer symbol of a profound inner commitment, one that I am confident radiates forth from her. Mutual friends have said to me that they have seen my wife in social situations (such as “girlfriend weekends” in Las Vegas) where I wasn’t present, and that she was exuberant, extroverted, and — in her words and actions and aura — evidently married. I like hearing things like that.

My wife could be meeting all sorts of men on her trip: hot young European businessmen in the British Airways T1 lounge, dynamic Ugandan tour guides, impassioned volunteers with NGOs in Kigali or Kampala. Some of these men will be cuter than I am, younger than I am, better muscled than I am, wittier than I am, and so forth. But they won’t be the unique package of Hugo-ness to which my beloved has pledged her fidelity and her love, and I trust in that love and in her good judgment.

I meet all sorts of attractive people in my world as well. I’d like to think I exude a certain level of married-ness (uxoriousness?). I was a pretty damn good flirt in my younger years, and I consciously avoid being flirtatious with women (or men) these days. Though I always wear a wedding ring in public unless I’m working out, I am fairly certain I project a clear “taken” energy even when that David Yurman band is not on my left ring finger.

Better than most, I know marriages can end. A promise given on a wedding day is not, in and of itself, surety of everlasting faithfulness. For me, fidelity is a choice. It was a choice I made when I first decided to stop seeing other people and be “exclusive” with she who is now my wife. It was a choice I made again when I asked her to marry me, a choice I made when we were married, and a choice I make day after day after day.

The other day, I was in a coffee shop I don’t normally go to, playing with my iPhone, which I still don’t understand. An attractive woman near my age also had her iPhone out, and we started talking about our mutual frustration that the “new” model was coming so soon after we had purchased the soon-to-be-outdated ones. I was getting ready to go to Pilates, so I was in workout clothes with no ring on my finger. At one point, I caught “that vibe” from the woman in Seattle’s Best Coffee, the vibe that suggests at least some initial interest. And I made the decision that comes blessedly easily to me these days: I dropped a reference to my wife into my next sentence (remarking about my beloved’s far greater technological facility.) The tall brunette deftly picked up on it, and in that unspoken and yet obvious way, withdrew “the vibe” without the slightest hint of incivility. We chatted for a few minutes more, and off I went.

Bottom line: I make choices every damn day to honor my marriage. I have other options, my wife (younger and lovelier than I) has far more. My happiness and security are not predicated on controlling who it is that she talks to. My goal is to take all of my sexual energy and direct it towards her, and no one else: that means fidelity in fantasy as well as in body. She has told me she does the same, and I believe her. It would devastate me if I found out it were otherwise, but I am smart enough to know that joy and growth are contingent upon two things: my own trustworthiness on one hand, and my radical willingness to be open to devastation and betrayal on the other.

Carolyn Hax nailed this one; brava, sister woman.

“The opposite of rape is not consent; the opposite of rape is enthusiasm”: a revised and expanded post

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 15, 2008
in Aggression and violence, Favorite Posts 2008, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexual harassment, Sexuality and Youth
. 42 Comments

I’m very much looking forward to Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman’s forthcoming anthology: Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. I submitted a piece for inclusion, but a week or two ago received a very kind rejection note from the editors. I don’t think the short essay I wrote is viable for publication elsewhere, as Yes Means Yes will likely be the definitive work on the subject of consent for some time to come. So I’m posting the submission here.

This essay is a revised version of an earlier blogpost, of course. And though I am naturally disappointed that this essay won’t be included, I’m still very much looking forward to the appearance of the book, scheduled for later this year. in any case here goes:

“Yes means yes.” It’s a powerful, simple phrase, and important enough to be the guiding theme for this anthology. But the problem, of course, is that there is more than one kind of “yes.” There’s a world of difference between the “yes” said to appease or please, and the “yes” that comes from our core, brimming with enthusiasm. From the time we were children, most of us have been raised to say “yes” to things we would rather say “no” to: doing household chores, covering a co-worker’s shift, agreeing to pick a friend up at the airport. “Yes” often means “I am willing” rather than “Gosh, I’d really like to do that.” And while part of living in community with other human beings involves saying “yes” to things we’d rather not do, this issue of consent and enthusiasm is very different when the subject is sex.

This essay argues that when it comes to teaching young people about sexuality, we need to do more than make the case that “no means no, and yes means yes.” We need to make the case that consent is not enough. Great sex – ethical sex – is rooted less in mutual agreement than in mutual enthusiasm. It’s about moving from a “yes” to a “Hell, yes!”

I’m the elder of two sons raised in the ‘70s and early ‘80s by an avowedly feminist single mother. Mom hosted meetings of the League of Women Voters in our living room; Ms. Magazine rested on the coffee table. My brother and I didn’t get much of a sex talk from our mother, but she was gently insistent that we “respect” the girls we dated. When I was fifteen, I had my first girlfriend, Carmen. One afternoon, as my Mom drove me over to Carmen’s house, she warned me: “Don’t push her further than she wants to go. No means no, always.” I was acutely embarrassed (Carmen and I hadn’t moved beyond the kissing stage), and changed the subject. But I remembered the message.

The problem with the “no means no” slogan, as vital as it is, is that it implies the opposite is always true: “yes means yes.” “Yes means yes!” can be a triumphant statement about women’s sexual autonomy. But in a world where so many young women feel pressured to please others (particularly men), too many of the “yeses” uttered in dorm rooms and in the back seats of cars don’t reflect authentic desire. Too many “yeses” are coerced; too many quiet “okays” and “I guess so’s” are interpreted as blanket permission. When we confine our advice about sexual decision-making to a simple “no” means “no”, we risk sending the message that anything that isn’t a clear and strong “no” constitutes a “yes.” And as countless anecdotes told by young women reveal, that’s a recipe for disaster. Continue reading ‘“The opposite of rape is not consent; the opposite of rape is enthusiasm”: a revised and expanded post’

“How do you desexualize that?”: on the erotics of teaching, and learning to affirm and redirect

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 9, 2008
in Favorite Posts 2008, Sexual ethics and transformation, Student crushes and Teaching
. 5 Comments

A reader named Anna kindly sends me a link to this story that ran in the Times (UK) Higher Education Supplement last month: Sex and the university. It deals with an old and familiar subject, that of teacher-student affairs at the post-secondary level.

The British, it seems, are slower than we Americans to embrace ethical codes that forbid consensual amorous relationships between professors and their current students. While most American two and four-year colleges started adopting such policies in the early 1990s, universities in the United Kingdom have met more resistance to such restrictions (and, apparently, less interest in the policies in the first place).

In the UK, attitudes towards relationships in academe are changing rather more slowly. In 2005, figures revealed after a Freedom of Information Act request by Times Higher Education showed that 50 out of 102 institutions had no policy requiring staff to declare sexual or other relationships with students that might give rise to a conflict of interest. Of those that did, few appeared to apply them: just 17 universities had any current records on file.

In the same year, 18 per cent of respondents to a poll conducted by the Teacher Support Network said that they had had a sexual relationship with a student. Despite this, only 73 relationships were officially recorded and just five of these were defined as sexual or romantic. Many respondents, 62 per cent, said they did not know whether or not their university had a protocol on such matters.

That nearly one in five faculty members in Britain admits to having had a sexual relationship with a student doesn’t surprise. I don’t know of any comprehensive study of faculty behavior at North American campuses, but would imagine that the numbers would be very similar. Purely anecdotally, based on gossip as much as self-reporting, I’d guess that somewhere around 10-20% of my colleagues have engaged in such a relationship. (And as I’ve admitted many times, I had a series of such relationships, all of which ceased ten years ago this month.)

I’ve written about consensual relationships policies here, here, and here, among other places. Part of my own redemptive work was to chair a committee to write a policy for Pasadena City College on consensual relationships, a policy that was not in place during the years in which I was conducting a series of these affairs.

But the point I want to make today is less about such policies, and more about the erotics of teaching. Of all the quotations in the THE piece, this one from the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard struck home:

In some ways we have to accept that there is an erotic dimension to pedagogy. If you take a traditional Oxbridge-style tutorial system, that’s one thing that students love and it’s some of the most interesting teaching when you really get to know someone. That doesn’t mean it’s about feeling someone up, but it is passionate. The difficulty is that that’s a terribly sexy experience; two people sitting together really talking through how Latin love poetry works. How do you desexualise that?

I haven’t done anything with Latin love poetry since auditing a seminar on Catullus in late 1990, but I get what Beard’s talking about. Obviously, a community college doesn’t have the English tutorial style of instruction. But what we do have at PCC is a faculty dedicated to student mentoring. I am certainly not the only instructor whose office hours are frequented by bright young people eager to meet with me one-on-one. And though I don’t teach Ovid, I do teach several courses that touch on various aspects of human sexuality and gender. I’m passionate about these subjects, and the students of both sexes who can be bothered to come to my office hours to work through the material with me are, generally equally passionate. And we all know that there are few things more charged with sexual potential than a shared interest, perhaps particularly one that is discussed behind closed doors. (And yes, I always keep my office door shut — as it opens out onto a hallway so loud that even if it is merely ajar, I can’t hear myself think.) Continue reading ‘“How do you desexualize that?”: on the erotics of teaching, and learning to affirm and redirect’

Of “everlasting novelty”, male weakness, and the ecstatic satisfaction of virtue

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 28, 2008
in Marriage, Men and Masculinity and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 27 Comments

Amber Rhea gets the hat tip for this article in New York Magazine: The Affairs of Men: The trouble with sex and marriage. That’s the title in the magazine, anyway, but when you click on the link, the title that comes up is What Makes Married Men Want to Have Affairs?, which is a very different sort of question. Asking why men want what they want is never, ever, the same question as why men do what they do.

The author, Phillip Weiss, gets us off to a depressing start:

When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke in March, I had only sympathy for him: another middle-aged married guy tormented by his sexual needs. I’m 52 and have always struggled with the desire for sexual variety. Everyone gets an issue, and that’s mine; it’s given me pleasure and pain, and jolted my marriage. I’d only talked about my issue with any honesty over the years with about six or seven people, and when you leave out my wife and a therapist, they are all men.

So the conversation had a conspiratorial male character. When people at dinner parties cried out, “What was Spitzer thinking?” I whispered to a friend that I knew damn well what he was thinking: He wanted some “strange,” to quote the old Kris Kristofferson line. Or we passed around JPEGS of Spitzer’s date, Ashley Dupre, and commented on her luscious body. The governor’s plight had the effect of outing me. When I told one married friend about my torment, he cut me off. “Everyone in our situation has had one or two episodes. Straying, wandering eye, a blowup. If you have a pulse.”

What situation is that, I wonder? The situation of the middle-aged married male, caught between his promises and his urges? Apparently. Here’s Weiss’ stunner:

An article of faith among the men with whom I discussed these issues (and an idea ignored, if not contested, by most of the women I know) was that the hunger for sexual variety was a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse. “I haven’t ever seen anyone who doesn’t deliver on every single demand their sexuality makes on them. We make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don’t,” says a forward-thinking friend. “There is no more unnatural principle of social organization than sexual exclusivity.” But like other of my male sources, he didn’t want me to use his name. “Don’t get me divorced!” was the refrain. All of these guys nursed a fantasy, as quaintly surreal as an old tinted postcard, of a perfectible world in which we might have sex outside our primary relationships and say that it doesn’t mean anything.

Yikes. Let’s just say, the piece goes down hill from there. The bold emphasis above is mine; it illustrates the classic fallacy of what I call the “myth of male weakness”. Here’s how the fallacy works:

1. Men naturally desire sexual variety.
2. That desire for sexual variety is very strong.
3. That desire is, in fact, so strong that it can never be resisted, and in the end, will always trump the will. It’s only a matter of time. Continue reading ‘Of “everlasting novelty”, male weakness, and the ecstatic satisfaction of virtue’

Agency, ambivalence, and desire: some preliminary thoughts on the Miley Cyrus kerfuffle

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 12, 2008
in Mass media, Music, Sexual ethics and transformation, Youth and Youth ministry
. 19 Comments

I met Ruthie Kelly at WAM 2008; she’s the opinion editor of the San Diego State Daily Aztec and a rising feminist voice. I haven’t had much to say about the whole Miley Cyrus photo controversy, and I’m glad I haven’t, as Ruthie has gone ahead and said much of it for me, and said it better. Ruthie writes:

…like the other pop teen queens who came before her, Cyrus was sexualized long ago. That isn’t the real problem. The upsetting part is that her sexuality used to be innocent because she was sending signals with miniskirts and makeup but didn’t really understand what those signs meant. The symbols are meant to be understood by adults who aren’t part of her actual fan base. Her appeal lay in her inexperience - her powerlessness. Her appearance has always been suggestive, but she wouldn’t really know what to do in a sexual situation, so it was a type of make-believe.

But Cyrus is 15 years old now and is starting to grow up. She’s beginning to take control and embrace her sexuality, and use it the way she wants to, as opposed to the way she was directed. Being sexual on any level seems so monumental, new and powerful at age 15. But just when she matures to the point of wanting to embrace and explore that side of herself is when she becomes the most dangerous because then she is the one who takes control.

It’s an interesting point. Though I worry that Ruthie may be overselling Cyrus’ own sexual agency just a tad, I think she’s making a powerful and important point. Part of the discomfort we have with the Miley Cyrus images lies in our recognition that we’re dealing with a young woman who is very publicly asserting her sexuality. Whatever the designs of the photographers in Vanity Fair (or of those who leaked Cyrus’ private pics onto the ‘net), it’s clear from her meteoric rise that Miley (also known as “Hannah Montana”) is a remarkably driven, poised, and thoughtful young woman. And yes, she’s still fifteen. Continue reading ‘Agency, ambivalence, and desire: some preliminary thoughts on the Miley Cyrus kerfuffle’

The devil feeds on resentment: on marriage, sex, duty, and the “extra mile”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 30, 2008
in Christianity, Marriage and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 14 Comments

Jeremy Pierce posted an interesting piece yesterday: Sex and Duty. He’s taking issue with some aspects of my take on the 30-Day Sex Challenge. My basic point was that desire and duty are mutually exclusive, particularly where sex is concerned. I argued that the Pauline doctrine of mutual submission and the apostle’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 do not constitute an obligation to be sexually available to a partner when one is not in the mood.

One mistake I made in the original post gives Jeremy an opening to challenge my position. Casually taking Matthew 5:41 completely out of context, I wrote: Challenging spouses to “go the extra mile” for each other is a biblically and psychologically sound notion.

Jeremy jumps on that:

This Pauline view can be easily motivated by Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, particularly by the Golden Rule (do to others what you’d want them to do for you) and the extra mile (if someone asks you to carry something a mile, do it for two miles, and if someone asks for your coat offer up your shirt too). Jesus speaks as if this sort of thing is a typical characteristic of his followers, and those who don’t do this are failing to be like citizens of the kingdom of God out to be. I can see how someone would apply such statements to the case at hand by arguing for a duty to have sex even when one isn’t interested for the sake of the sex.

But this is not duty for the mere sake of duty. It’s duty for the sake of the other person. If a person motivated by love for another person has a duty to do what’s loving for the other person, there may well be times when that involves having sex when one otherwise wouldn’t have been interested, and Jesus’ teaching does seem to include cases like that. I’m not sure why cases of voluntarily being willing to have sex when one isn’t interested should be exceptions to the kinds of loving acts he commands in those passages.

Of course, as Walter Wink and other theologians have pointed out, much of Matthew 5 is concerned not with how we treat those whom we love, but those whom we hate. Wink points out that the challenge to go the second or extra mile had a specific meaning:

Jesus’ third example, the one about going the second mile, is drawn from the relatively enlightened practice of limiting the amount of forced or impressed labor (angareia) that Roman soldiers could levy on subject peoples to a single mile…

It is in this context of Roman military occupation that Jesus speaks. He does not counsel revolt…

But why carry his pack a second mile? Is this not to rebound to the opposite extreme of aiding and abetting the enemy? Not at all. The question here… is how the oppressed can recover the initiative and assert their human dignity in a situation that cannot for the time being be changed. The rules are Caesar’s, but how one responds to the rules is God’s, and Caesar has no power over that…From a situation of servile impressment, the oppressed have once more seized the initiative. They have taken back the power of choice…
Continue reading ‘The devil feeds on resentment: on marriage, sex, duty, and the “extra mile”’

Monday Reprint: dating, self-worth, and challenge

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 7, 2008
in Relationships and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 6 Comments

I wrote this back in November 2005. It seemed appropriate to put back up today. The original post with comment section is here.

It struck me that no one has ever come up with a “dating tips for pro-feminist men.” I toyed with the idea for a moment, but then rejected it. After all, all such “tip lists” which offer ten or twenty suggestions for “scoring” with the opposite sex, or “picking up”, or even “meeting” partners have one fundamental problem. By their very nature, they turn sex/dating/romance into a project. They posit a problem and offer a solution.

But I’ve come to believe we make a terrible mistake when we see dating and sexuality as problems to be solved. The dating advice that Jill quotes at Feministe — and most other such advice I’ve seen elsewhere – is based on the assumption that women are a challenge to be mastered, rather than human beings to be engaged. There’s the suggestion that when it comes to love and sex, there are a finite set of absolute truths out there about men and women that a few lucky folks have understood and of which the rest of us are ignorant. But if we pay close attention (and pay money) to these “masters”, they’ll teach us their techniques and we can begin to practice them with greater success and confidence.

Yes, I do get asked for dating advice. (Few folks ask me — yet — for marriage advice.) I work with lots and lots of young people, and my life experience and field of interest suggests to them that I might be a good person to ask. Younger boys often ask for specific tips: “How can I tell a girl that I like her?” “How do I know if she’s into me, or if she just likes me as a friend?” “How do I know when it’s okay to kiss her?” There are lots of stock answers having to do with summoning up courage and the like, but I don’t dispense little bon mots of wisdom. I’m not sure I’m qualified, first of all, but more importantly, I think there are more important questions to ask. Continue reading ‘Monday Reprint: dating, self-worth, and challenge’

Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 14, 2008
in Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Memories, Men and Masculinity, Penis, Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 31 Comments

I count fellow Angeleno and men’s rights advocate Glenn Sacks as a friend, even though he and I are likely to disagree on virtually every issue. I winced a bit, however, at his rather snarky linking to my re-post in praise of erectile dysfunction. Glenn writes:

I guess if it’s humiliating to men, it must be good. Feminist professor/blogger Hugo Schwyzer recently wrote a blog post “in praise of ED.” Schwyzer writes:

“In my Humanities class on the ‘body’ yesterday, I noted in passing that there was much to be said for erectile dysfunction. I have always maintained that men would be far more insufferable than they otherwise are trained to be if the penis was, in fact, a muscle entirely under their control….ED literally softens the penis; it can also figuratively soften a man by forcing him to rethink his allegiance to a cruel and unattainable standard.”

In light of this, it kind of reminds me of an odd interaction I had with Hugo when he was on my radio show a couple years ago. We were discussing something related to sex–I can’t remember what–and I said something like “Of course, Hugo, men’s perspectives change as they get older. Like me, I’m sure you’re not quite the stallion you used to be.”

Hugo is a very nice guy, and it’s hard to get him angry over anything, but he was not happy over this remark. I was surprised, and didn’t quite know what to make of it. Any amateur psychologists out there have any ideas?

Uh, amateur psychologists? Leave your remarks over at Glenn’s place, please.

But my praise of periodic bouts of ED is not rooted in the internalized misandry of which I — and all other male feminists — are regularly accused. It’s rooted in many things, not least my own experience, about which more (because there’s a fair amount of TMI) below the cut. Continue reading ‘Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person’

“God Writes Straight With Crooked Lines”: more on Spitzer, sin, redemption

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 11, 2008
in Faith, Men and Masculinity and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 11 Comments

As we await what must be the inevitable resignation announcement from Eliot Spitzer, it occurs to me I’ve posted a few times on the all-too-well-known theme of a fall from grace on the part of an admired — invariably male — public figure. Here’s a selection:

Private virtue, public justice: some very long thoughts on men, leadership, and the lie of “compartmentalism”

“There Never Was a War that Was Not Inward”: a long reflection on Ted Haggard

“The inner darkness of the redeemed”: in defense of Mel Gibson

Lengthy musings about Clinton, feminism, erotic justice

The titles of these posts are sufficiently descriptive as to require no further explanation. What I’ve said about Bill Clinton, Antonio Villaraigosa, Ted Haggard and Mel Gibson (an odd quartet indeed) more or less applies to Eliot Spitzer. And the bookers from the major chat shows have already called up the legion of pop psychologists who appear at times like this, all proffering an answer to the timeless question: “Why would a man like X, in his position, with so much going for him, do something so monumentally stupid?” By now we know all the answers: sexual addiction; deep-seated shame and the desire to be punished; self-destructiveness; mid-life crises; good, old-fashioned hubris. And because falls from grace are often breathtaking in their suddenness, we are fascinated as the ancients were fascinated. These are, as everyone points out, very old stories. Continue reading ‘“God Writes Straight With Crooked Lines”: more on Spitzer, sin, redemption’

“The rights of desire”: a professor-student romance makes the local news

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 25, 2008
in Marriage, Older Men & Younger Women, Sexual ethics and transformation, Student crushes and Teaching
. 13 Comments

This story popped up on my radar screen today: Professor, ex-student tie the knot.

Muata Kamdibe and Crystal Domingues aren’t looking for anyone’s stamp of approval - not from their resistant families, curious colleagues, or a gossip-prone public.

For two months, the couple managed to keep their romance a secret from everyone, knowing the kinds of whispers and judgments their 18-year age difference would spawn - as well as the fact that Kamdibe, 36, a Rio Hondo College professor, first met Domingues, 18, when she was a student in his class last fall.

But it all publicly tumbled out two weeks ago, when Domingues was reported missing by her family, then tracked down by a private detective Feb. 7 to Kamdibe’s home in Irvine.

Well, that’s one way to start off with the in-laws. Continue reading ‘“The rights of desire”: a professor-student romance makes the local news’

Guys in love: celebrating the new SUNY Oswego study on teenage boys and relationships

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 18, 2008
in Age, All Saints Pasadena, Men and Masculinity, Relationships, Science, Sexual ethics and transformation, Youth and Youth ministry
. 7 Comments

Reader “English Rosebud” sent me a link this weekend to this story that ran in the New York Times on Friday: Inside the Mind of the Boy Dating Your Daughter. As she mentions in her email, it’s a powerful corrective to the widespread notion that teenage boys have just one thing on their mind.

The stereotype of the 16-year-old boy is that he has sex on the brain. But a fascinating new report suggests that boys are motivated more by love and a desire to form real relationships with the girls they date.

Based on a study that appears in this month’s Journal of Adolescence, the researchers (from SUNY Oswego) concluded:

Among the boys who had been sexually active, physical desire and wanting to know what sex feels like were among the top three reasons they pursued sex. However, the boys were equally likely to say they pursued sex because they loved their partner. Interestingly, only 14 percent said they sought sex because they wanted to lose their virginity, and 9 percent did so to fit in with friends.

The researchers note that there is no way to assess the truthfulness of the boys’ answers, but the rate of sexual activity in the sample is consistent with national trends, suggesting the boys were answering honestly. The survey group was ethnically and economically diverse, and 95 indicated they were heterosexual, while 10 boys didn’t answer the question.

Bold emphasis mine.

The overall findings are contrary to cultural beliefs that boys are interested primarily in sex and not relationships.

“Let’s give boys more credit,’’ said study author Andrew Smiler, an assistant professor of psychology at the university. “Although some of them are just looking for sex, most boys are looking for a relationship. The kids we know mostly aren’t like this horrible stereotype. They are generally interested in dating and getting to know their partners.’’

(I wish Professor Smiler hadn’t used the phrase “horrible stereotype”. I wince at the implication that wanting sex for pleasure is “horrible”. After all, both men and women do sometimes pursue sex outside of the context of an enduring relationship. While dishonesty and manipulation are indeed “horrible”, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake need not be accompanied by deceit or abuse. It’s “slut-shaming” at its most tiresome to suggest otherwise.)

Still, I’m delighted with this study, and not at all surprised. I’ve worked with adolescent boys as a youth minister for many years, and I’ve taught slightly older young men for even longer. One of the most common complaints that I — and anyone else who works with teen boys — hear is “I’m tired of having everyone think all I care about is sex”. Like the boys in the SUNY study, the teens I work with don’t deny that they are sexual creatures; they don’t pretend that sex isn’t frequently on their minds. What they find more frustrating than unsatisfied horniness is the enduring stereotype that they have no real interest in love and romance. When speaking of teens of either sex, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that they want either sex or a relationship. All the recent research suggests that adolescent girls can have powerful libidos; this study makes clear what youth workers already know: that teenage boys, as horny as they are, have deep and complex emotional desires. Continue reading ‘Guys in love: celebrating the new SUNY Oswego study on teenage boys and relationships’