| Wednesday 12th of March 2003 |
| Ex why not OPINION | Over the Rainbow by David Bianco March 12, 2003 David Bianco is a historian, author and the founder and vice president of Q Syndicate. He describes himself as "a queer Torah-observant celibate bisexual Republican show-tune queen." David can be reached at [email protected] During my journey from gay activist, historian and entrepreneur to religious celibate bisexual queer, I've frequently been tagged as an "ex-gay." Journalists who don't like my ideas sometimes try to discredit me with that label, and some "reparative therapy" organizations have promoted my transformation as an endorsement of their ideas. But I reject both the current message and the tactics of the ex-gay movement. It's an exaggeration to accuse all reparative therapists and change ministries of being mean-spirited shams bent on torturing weak-minded gays and lesbians. In fact, ex-gay activists genuinely want us to feel happy and fulfilled, which explains (but doesn't excuse) their aggressiveness and bravado. Also, I have run across a few ex-gays who approach their outreach with intelligence, openness, and respect. But, unfortunately, nearly all the reparative therapists and ex-gay activists I know of go way beyond valid psychological methods and authentic Biblical insights. That's because -- like many gay people, ironically -- they romanticize the heterosexual model as a timeless universal truth about human experience, rather than a particular society's way of organizing the multifaceted and anarchic sexual impulses some people have. Ex-gays are wrong -- and cruel -- when they claim that gays need "healing" or "recovery" toward heterosexuality. As a species, we're not naturally homosexual or heterosexual. Rather, in a state of nature, people are what Freud called "polymorphously perverse." We only organize, channel and label our diverse sexual impulses in specific ways because of the particular culture in which we live. Not only has Western society led many straights, gays and ex-gays to believe that each of us is created sexually unidirectional, we have also adopted the very strange ideas of the 19th-century movement we call Romanticism, especially that each of us is destined for an ecstatic, swept-off-your-feet kind of love bond that (or so we're told) is most perfect between a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman. We tend to forget that the dictionary's definitions of "romantic" include "imaginative but impractical" and "unrealistic." The idea of a permanent swooning state is utter fiction. Yet we come to believe it, which I think is the reason for so many failed marriages, permanently unhappy singles -- and some queer (and ex-gay) misery as well. Gay and lesbian people should never have bought the idea that our relationships need to be with the one person with whom we can have our best orgasms. For some gay men, this idea turns into a Mr. Right Now parade while we wait for Mr. Right, and for some lesbians it leads to U-Haul relationships in which, after a few dates, women proclaim undying love for each other and move in together far too quickly. Western society is brimming with cultural products that glorify Hollywood-style opposite-sex romance. In music, for example, there's Piotr Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet"; Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story"; Elton John's "Your Song" (so beautifully performed in "Moulin Rouge"); and Howard Ashman's "Beauty and the Beast." I cannot listen to those four pieces of music without feeling elevated, but also envious of straight people lucky enough to be madly in love. Yet all five of the auteurs of that straight love music were queer men. Our community tends to internalize the unreal world of heterosexual romance and idealize it. It seems fantastic precisely because it's a fantasy. After all, look at what happens in each of these stories: Romeo and Juliet, Tony, Satine and the Beast all die. Even though such stories end with a spark of redemption, the gorgeous reveries of romantic love do not last -- because they cannot last. Good relationships, holy relationships, are not like the flame of a torch whose passions blaze brightly until they burn out. Love can and should be like a candle -- seductive and appealing but controlled and moderate. Even though traditional religions have never demanded we marry the one person with whom we have our best orgasms, too many of us assume God does indeed make such a demand. Then, knowing that our best orgasms would be with same-sex people, some of us reject God. My study of gay history and Jewish law have helped me let go of that particular mistake, leading to my interest in a Jewish marriage with a woman to whom I can bring pleasure and joy, and with whom I can have a nice-if-not-spectacular bedroom life and create a beautiful Jewish family. Yet by talking about "recovery" and "healing," the ex-gays and reparative therapists imply human beings are created heterosexual, and thus unhappy queers are expected to contort ourselves through inner-child therapy, hypermasculine and hyperfeminine play-acting and other hocus-pocus that will never successfully turn us into Juliets swooning over Romeos and vice versa. The effects of this methodology can be devastating for some very vulnerable people who may legitimately want to follow divine prescriptions for resisting the desire for same-sex intercourse and marrying an opposite-sex person. Nonetheless, the ex-gays end up pushing devout queers to besmirch genuine religious messages with unnecessary goals (like heterosexual identity and idealized opposite-sex romance) that are neither true to our faiths nor attainable for most of us. And that is unconscionable. |
| Interesting article on Planetout.com today. Ich stutzte, als ich "polymorphously perverse" las - denn das hatte Scott vor ein paar Wochen gesagt. Comes from Freud. Go figure. Anyway, i rather like the ideas put forth here. Of course, reading these and actually being able to change such preconceptions in one's mind are two different things... but it's good being able to see such an idea, which makes a whole lot of sense. life is so bloody complicated. yay. oh well. polymorphously perverse... |
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