Monthly Archives: August 2014

On the Decline of Hugging

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A reflection by Lindsey

Everyone who knows me knows that I love hugging. I regard Lindsey hugs as a global public good. Hugging can tell you a lot about people, especially if you’re lucky enough to embrace another person who knows how to speak the language of Hug. Yes, I firmly believe that hugging is a language. And unfortunately, hugging is quickly on the decline.

I have some hypotheses as to why people have stopped hugging. However, I don’t find any of these possible reasons especially convincing. So I wonder, why are people so willing to send hugging to the margins of acceptable touch?

The word acceptable gives us some clues. Somehow, some way, an untold number of westerners have bought into a cultural myth that hugging belongs only in one’s family. You can hug your mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandmas, cousins, siblings, grandpas, and anyone else who might receive regular invitations to your family reunions. Venture outside of these limits of acceptable hugging, and all of a sudden, you’re somehow indicating a romantic interest.

I’ve been in plenty of venues where I find myself asking, “What message is this hug sending?” But more so, I wonder what the other person is communicating to me. Is he/she nervous, confident, stressed, jubilant, comfortable, completely weirded out, or some other mash-up of various emotions? When one speaks Hug, one can learn an untold number of things about another person from a single embrace. Hug speakers expect that no two hugs are ever the same because no two people are ever exactly the same. It’s not enough to know that, “Bill likes to have every last bit of air squeezed out of his lungs,” and, “Sam would always prefer a high-five over a hug.” Huggers need to be adaptable, adjusting their hugs to meet people wherever they are.

Good hugging requires a high degree of emotional awareness. You need to know what’s going on in yourself, read what’s going on in another person, and make adjustments accordingly. Good hugging is hard. It allows the two people a level of connection they may not otherwise experience. And I think most people just aren’t comfortable with that much vulnerability. After all, if you’re going to hug someone properly, you have to share physical space for a bit. It can be easier to keep your distance from others.

I think the world is a better place when huggers can hug. I do understand that not everyone is a hugger and I wouldn’t want to pressure anyone to change his or her hugging style. However, I do think many Western cultural contexts frown mightily on hugging and put huggers in a proverbial straight jacket: keep those hugs to yourself! Many people would caution celibates to avoid hugging lest hugging lead down the slippery slope of sexual temptation.

From my perspective, freedom to hug is part of the wonder and joy of my celibate vocation. I see hugging as an overflow of radical hospitality. It’s a part of my vocation I’ve always been good at. I remember working at Scout camp and giving good night hugs. Some weeks, the campers literally lined up for my hugs. The trend has continued. It’s rare for me to visit friends and not spend a good chunk of my day giving hugs. I love it when people say, “Lindsey hugs are the best part of these gatherings.”

It’s never quite computed in my mind why people assert that a celibate vocation means cutting oneself off from all forms of intimacy with others. I believe that celibate vocations open us up to the possibility of deep human connection. For me, that connection frequently comes through hugging. Something about hugging helps me feel deeply connected to myself and to another person. I’m able to come alive in a different way than usual. Not everyone has the same appetite for hugging, but different people can meet the same need in other ways. For Sarah, that same sense of connection comes from long, energetic, enthusiastic conversations. I occasionally experience a desire to be incredibly excited for long stretches at a time. There are some select friends I’ll share those experiences with because I want to be accepted exactly as I am in those moments. But my intimacy needs aren’t the same as Sarah’s, so Sarah’s way of connecting with others doesn’t work quite as well for me as hugging.

I have to wonder if hugging is quickly on the decline because people would prefer to avoid being vulnerable with one another. It’s humbling to be asked for a hug. It can be even harder to ask for a hug yourself when you need one. No one wants to be the emotionally high-maintenance friend. We avoid conceiving of ourselves as interdependent on anyone, making occasional exceptions for our close family. However, when we draw firm and static lines around who we can be vulnerable with, we also find ourselves talking about “acceptable” people to hug. I think those lines do much more to hurt us than to help us. And so, one hug at a time, I hope to create more space for people to share their vulnerability with me and experience acceptance.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Our Celibate Gay Agenda

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Today’s post is a response to another inquiry from a reader. Actually, from multiple readers. One particular reader, who has instructed us to identify her as Crystal, asked us:

You have to know that churches use stories like yours to tell sexually active gay people they have to be sexually abstinent. How do you deal with that? Do you ever think you shouldn’t tell your story because it isn’t the same as other gay people’s experiences and not all gay couples are celibate like you? You say you don’t have an agenda besides talking about your experience of celibacy and other things, but aren’t you playing into an agenda by telling your stories even though that’s not what you wanted?

From the beginning of our blogging adventure — even from day one — we’ve received regular questions about our “agenda.” Sometimes, it’s about “the gay agenda.” Other times, it’s about “the agenda of the religious right.” On occasion, we’ve receive emails within hours of each other suggesting that we are promoting both. But over the past few weeks, we’ve begun to see a different phrase popping up when folks contact us with these types of questions. More and more, people are asking us directly about the “celibate gay agenda.”

Like many of our LGBT friends, when someone in real life accuses us of having a hidden “gay agenda,” we’re tempted to offer a semi-snarky rundown of our daily activities to demonstrate the point that our lives don’t look much different from those of straight people: “Today, my gay agenda is to wake up, go to the gym, take a shower, go to work, come home, have dinner, and go to sleep.” Most likely, you’ve heard something like this before. It’s a half-joking, half-frustrated response to the assumption that somehow, all gay people everywhere are part of an intricate plot to take over society. We have to admit, some of the questions we get about the supposed celibate gay agenda evoke the same frustrations. At the same time, we’re well aware of how agenda-driven conversations about LGBT people and the Church have become, and it’s probably best to share some candid thoughts on where we stand relative to people’s perceptions of the hidden motives of LGBT celibates.

Let’s start by taking Crystal’s questions one by one. First she asks, “You have to know that churches use stories like yours to tell sexually active gay people they have to be sexually abstinent. How do you deal with that?” Yes, we do know that. We deal with it by speaking out publicly against it. There’s a level at which we can’t control how others use our story. We put it out there to the internet, and we lose control over what people have to say about it. That’s a reality of blogging, and we were jolted into it very quickly. But from time to time, we do get to see how people use our thoughts on certain topics in their interactions with LGBT acquaintances, friends, and family members. In most of these instances it’s positive. But anytime we hear of someone telling a non-celibate LGBT person, “Celibacy is possible. It’s not that hard. Just look at Sarah and Lindsey at A Queer Calling,” we try to shift the conversation to the real issues at hand. We remind people that the purpose of our blog is to interact with others interested in discussing LGBT celibacy — not to suggest that celibacy is easy, and not to hold ourselves up as examples for the entire LGBT community. We encourage readers who find our writing helpful to use it for fostering productive conversation — not for hitting someone over the head with a frying pan.

Crystal then asks, “Do you ever think you shouldn’t tell your story because it isn’t the same as other gay people’s experiences and not all gay couples are celibate like you?” No. We don’t ever think this. Because we believe all people’s stories are worthy of being told and heard, we figure that includes ours as much as anyone else’s. We see no logical reason to silence ourselves. We also believe that it’s possible to learn something from everyone, so wouldn’t want to see other LGBT stories silenced, even if those stories have very little in common with ours and even if we disagree with the theological opinions of the people who tell them. The possibility that one’s story might be used against others is a poor reason not to tell it. As we said above, we can’t always control what people say about us or how they use the content we publish here. We do have a responsibility to be fair to others when sharing our experiences, and we feel respected when other bloggers with experiences different from ours acknowledge that celibate LGBT Christians exist and do their best to be fair to us.

Crystal’s last question is the one that encapsulates many others we’ve received from readers recently: “You say you don’t have an agenda besides talking about your experience of celibacy and other things, but aren’t you playing into an agenda by telling your stories even though that’s not what you wanted?” We don’t think so. We don’t have any intention of becoming someone’s pawns. We are the owners of our story. No one else is: not other members of our Christian tradition, not the larger group of celibate LGBT voices, not the broader LGBT Christian community — nobody. And we don’t own other people’s stories either. Anyone can start a blog. It’s not that difficult. When we launched ours, we anticipated having maybe 20 regular readers, mostly friends. We never dreamed that so many people would be interested in our perspectives. A Queer Calling came to be at a time when we felt a need for more meaningful interaction with other people on topics such as celibacy, vocation, spirituality, and LGBT Christian issues. It began as a project to help us explore where God is calling us, and to give us something new to enjoy together during Lindsey’s period of unemployment. We write because we see celibacy as an important topic that far too many people dismiss as old-fashioned, oppressive, and indicative of a lack of self-acceptance. And that’s all. Playing into a larger agenda would require our consent on some level. We haven’t given it, and feel free to share this post with anyone who may be unaware of this.

If you see our story as dangerous in one way or another, trust us, you’re not alone. Those sorts of assertions fill our inbox every day. We can understand why people with a variety of theological positions and life experiences might feel uneasy about our writing. We hear that most often, though not exclusively, from people with progressive sexual ethics. To those who see us in this way and perhaps believe that we shouldn’t be sharing our story, we have some questions for you. Have you ever thought about the broader LGBT Christian conversation’s overall impact on celibates and our places within our Christian traditions? Have you ever considered the possibility that the discussion (as it is now) about LGBT issues in Christianity could be making celibates less and less welcome in our church communities? Do you think it’s possible that non-celibate LGBT people aren’t the only ones fighting for the ability to be known and loved?

We’re going to be blunt for a moment: non-celibate LGBT Christians often argue that the stories of celibates make it harder for them and their families to feel safe at church, but many do not realize that this goes both ways. If you’re a non-celibate LGBT Christian, know that church folk are just as inclined to use your stories against us. As more moderate Christian traditions move toward accepting liberal approaches to sexual ethics, more conservative Christian traditions are refusing to acknowledge the existence of LGBT people in their parishes at all. Formerly-civil discussions about LGBT issues in conservative churches are now ending at, “Why can’t you just choose to be straight and get married or at least identify as SSA instead of gay? LGBT language has a liberal political agenda attached to it.” We fear the possibility that a time may be approaching when celibate LGBT Christians have only two options: 1) attend a church with a liberal sexual ethic where, in many cases, celibacy is frowned upon or misunderstood and celibates are not supported adequately; or, 2) attend a church with a conservative sexual ethic where celibates are expected to deny their sexual orientations or leave. So, to be fair, we’ll concede that in addition to simply “sharing our story,” our agenda also includes educating about the mere existence of celibate LGBT Christians in all kinds of traditions. As our weeks and months of blogging so far have passed, we’ve become aware of multiple instances where LGBT celibates in denominations with liberal, moderate, and conservative approaches have been made to feel unwelcome — all because we don’t fit the norm in any church environment.

To end today’s post, we offer these questions for our readers’ consideration. Is it really safe to assume that everyone involved in this conversation has an agenda that can be lumped into one of two categories that are polar opposites? How much more productive might our discussions be if we did not assume the worst about people we perceive to be on the “other side” of debates about LGBT issues in the Church? And finally, have we reached a point at which stories can’t stories just be stories?

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Saturday Symposium: Parents and LGBT Children

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Hello everyone! How is it August already? The summer is flying by. We’ve had some great conversations on the blog this week. Thanks so much for sharing your perspectives! We always welcome all commenters to our comment box.

Now let’s discuss our new Saturday Symposium question:

How this works: It’s very simple. We ask a multi-part question related to a topic we’ve blogged about during the past week or are considering blogging about in the near future, and you, our readers, share your responses in the comments section. Feel free to be open, reflective, and vulnerable…and to challenge us. But as always, be mindful of the comment policy that ends each of our posts. Usually, we respond fairly quickly to each comment, but in order to give you time to think, come back, add more later if you want, and discuss with other readers, we will wait until after Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: This week, we opened a conversation about parents and how they respond to their LGBT children. We’d love to hear more about relationships between LGBT children and their parents. If you’re LGBT, what factors do you consider as you contemplate sharing information about your sexual orientation and gender identity with your parents? If you are LGBT and out to your parents, how did your parents respond when you came out? Did you feel rejected, accepted, or somewhere in-between? What did your parents do well? What do you wish your parents had done differently? If you’re a parent of an LGBT child, what questions did you have before your son or daughter came out? How did you respond when your child came out to you? How has having an LGBT child affected your personal sexual ethic?

We look forward to reading your responses. If you’re concerned about having your comment publicly associated with your name, please consider using the Contact Us page to submit your comment. We can post it under a pseudonym (i.e. John says, “your comment”) or summarize your comment in our own words (i.e. One person observed…). Participating in this kind of public dialogue can be risky, and we want to do what we can to protect you even if that means we preserve your anonymity. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Sarah and Lindsey

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

The Need for Better Conversations about Traditional Sexual Ethics, LGBT Suicide, and Parental Acceptance

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Any LGBT person can tell you how hard it is to talk about all the hurtful ways the LGBT community has experienced traditional sexual ethics. Because of how often people from conservative Christian traditions have used their beliefs as weapons, straight Christians often feel torn between expressing theological convictions about sex and marriage and showing love to the real LGBT people they know.

In discussions about the risks of alienating LGBT loved ones, activists and allies frequently cite the work of the Family Acceptance Project. We’ve heard many friends and acquaintances call attention to a 2009 finding that “LGB young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide, 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse, compared with peers from families that reported no or low levels of family rejection.” We’ve also heard much about the 2010 findings from the same group: “LGBT young adults who reported high levels of family acceptance during adolescence had significantly higher levels of self-esteem, social support and general health, compared to peers with low levels of family acceptance,” and, “High religious involvement in families was strongly associated with low acceptance of LGBT children.”

In no way do we want to minimize the importance of effective suicide prevention work. We thank God for every person who dedicates his or her life to preventing the tragedy of suicide, and we are especially grateful for organizations like the Trevor Project that operate suicide prevention services especially geared towards young people in the LGBT community. Every time we hear from a person in crisis, we direct him or her to call 866-488-7386. The Trevor Project operates 24/7 with trained counselors, and we’ve never known them to turn anyone away for being older than 24.

Statistics about LGBT suicide rates have been circulating since 1989. The shocking numbers have lead to widespread calls to do something — anything — to prevent people from choosing suicide. Even in 2014, we see many stories about youth who attempt suicide as a result of being bullied over real or perceived sexual orientation and/or gender identity. These stories cut us to the heart, and we grieve. As a couple, we do everything possible to promote safe environments for LGBT people while readily extending hospitality to any of our friends who may be in distress. We do not want to see anyone become another suicide statistic. Yet, we are also saddened by the way statistics get used to make an argument that essentially comes down to, “Having a traditional sexual ethic means you are driving your LGBT child to suicide.”

Here at A Queer Calling, we’re not interested in apologetics. We’re not out to convert anyone. We are writing on this topic because we have many readers who are parents with a firm belief that sex is a gift reserved for heterosexual marriage and an absolute commitment to loving their children no matter what. They have sought counsel from many different places, and they manage to find our blog at some point along the way. By the time they write to us, they tell us that they’ve heard the only way to love their LGBT children and protect those children from suicide, depression, and other mental health problems is to adopt a progressive sexual ethic that affirms gay marriage and supports medical transition for transgender people. Because we’re not in the business of telling people what to believe, we struggle to know what to say to these folks. Our hearts ache for them and their families. We want to do everything we can to help them show love to their children. It makes no difference whether their sexual ethics mirror ours. We hear and try to empathize with their earnest questions of “How can I continue actively parenting my child now that he or she has come out to me? Must I sit back and simply affirm all of my child’s choices if I want to keep him/her in my life?”

We are not parents, but this confusion makes sense to us. When we hear people shouting from the rooftops, “LGBT kids are committing suicide because of what conservative Christians believe!” we have to wonder if that shout goes up as a kind of trump card. If statistics about LGBT suicides get shared every time a traditional sexual ethic is mentioned, we wonder if these statistics are being offered as attempts to prevent LGBT suicides or as attempts to silence anyone who holds conservative beliefs but genuinely wants to show love to their LGBT friends and family members. When it comes to parents supporting their kids, why do people seem ready to conflate believing that marriage should be between one man and one woman with rendering one’s child homeless, depressed, and dejected? We don’t want to minimize the pain anyone experiences as a result of conflict with his or her family. We’ve been there, and it’s incredibly hard to manage. But we are skeptical of the claim that embracing a progressive sexual ethic is the only way to love and accept one’s LGBT child.

Part of the problem that arises when discussing this very sensitive issue is that many conservative Christians who believe they are “speaking the truth in love” are actually enacting violence upon their LGBT children. When one’s typical response to any discussion about sexuality with an LGBT child or family member is, “Being gay is a sin,” or “God’s plan is for you to become heterosexual,” or “We love you and want you to be ‘normal’ and have a family someday,” the person on the receiving end is going to experience those comments as rejection. If you’re never willing to listen as your loved one shares his/her experience of life, and if you cannot see your loved one in any way other than “sexual sinner” or “potential sexual sinner,” you’re creating a recipe for disaster.

But these are not the ways that all people with conservative beliefs on marriage and sexuality interact with their LGBT children. We know some conservative parents who have strong relationships with children who have come out to them, whether those sons and daughters have grown up to become celibate or non-celibate. These folks are determined to love their family members unconditionally while acknowledging that they may not agree on sexual ethics. Parents we know personally have taken different approaches. Should their sons or daughters decide to enter same-sex marriages, some have opted to attend the weddings even amid theological differences. We also know people who have decided not to attend their children’s wedding services but still welcome partners to all family gatherings as members of their families. Additionally, we know of families who make a special point to ensure that their single and married LGBT children can attend all extended family gatherings and major life moments for their nieces and nephews. We aren’t advocating any of these as best practices. Again, we are not parents, and our only knowledge of this topic comes from interactions with our own parents and the parents of LGBT friends.

While we acknowledge that many LGBT people might struggle to see some of these actions and attitudes as “affirming,” it’s very difficult for us to conceive of any of them as outright rejection and hatred. Disagreeing with one’s son’s or daughter’s approach to sexual ethics does not have to mean belittling his or her life experiences. Disagreement does not automatically render a person hateful. It also does not necessarily mean a person is trying to show love while doing things that are oppressive. We know from our two very different sets of experiences with our own parents that what one person sees as an insufficient show of love, another may see as a warm embrace. We believe that generally, it’s best to let parents and children determine for themselves the best ways to handle differences of opinion regarding what is “affirming” and what is not.

The claim, “Holding a traditional sexual ethic means you are driving LGBT people to suicide,” shuts down meaningful dialogue about how traditional sexual ethics help people to understand marriage, celibacy, sexuality, and gender in positive ways. This claim doesn’t leave space for an LGBT person to hold a traditional sexual ethic, or for an LGBT person with a liberal sexual ethic to have a healthy relationship with his or her more conservative family. It hides the myriad ways LGBT people and our families reconcile disagreements over faith and sexuality. There is considerable diversity within the LGBT community about reconciling these issues; parents should be empowered to undertake a similar journey. As much as we need to have real conversations about bullying and LGBT suicides, we also need to offer people with traditional sexual ethics space to explore how the faith they hold dear could help them to love their LGBT family members better.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.