Author Archives: sarahandlindsey

A temporary vocation?

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While Sarah was working on an academic research project last week, we were shuffling through some photocopied archival materials that included surveys of young people from the 1930s-1940s who had decided to leave a particular lay Christian social action movement after having been involved for varying lengths of time. One of the survey questions asked, “Why did you decide to leave?” Though almost every former member had expressed continuing dedication to the movement’s purpose and goals, Sarah noticed that the vast majority cited “temporary vocation” as the primary reason for separating from the movement. It seems that most who left had joined anticipating that someday, they would be moving on to more “permanent” vocations or perhaps other “temporary” ones.

The phrase, “temporary vocation” has never sat well with either of us. Our own understanding of the term “vocation” is a lifelong commitment to a particular way of serving God and others. Because of this, we find it curious that people frequently suggest, “Maybe celibacy is a temporary vocation for you two.” We can understand why the idea of being called to lifelong celibacy, especially within the context of a relationship like ours, might seem perplexing from an outsider’s perspective. We are also aware that this suggestion usually comes from people with the best of intentions. However, today, we would like to offer some thoughts on the problem that arises when one refers to vocations as “temporary.”

When someone suggests that our vocation to celibacy might not be permanent, the question, “What if your Christian tradition’s teaching on sexual morality changes?” sometimes follows. Most people in our lives know we are part of a church that holds to a traditional sexual ethic, so it’s reasonable to infer that our own sense of call is in some way related to our tradition’s teachings. It is true that we have drawn upon the resources present within our Christian tradition to discern our vocations, both individually and together. At the same time, our decision to embark on the journey of a celibate partnership is voluntary. We did not make the choice to live celibacy as a result of feeling backed into a corner by the Church. We have committed freely to living life together in this way. Therefore, if the teachings of our Christian tradition on sexual morality ever were to change (and we do not believe this will happen), it would have no impact upon our chosen vocation. We are not attempting to cultivate a celibate vocation because of fear that we have to or else face divinely imposed consequences. We are doing so because we want to—because we believe celibacy is an important part of God’s plan for us.

Speaking of “temporary vocation” implies that vocations in general do not require dedication, commitment, and willingness to live into God’s call during the hard times. Last week, we wrote for the first time on the vocation of marriage and prepared for that topic by asking married people to educate us on their ways of life. Writing that post got us thinking about two different messages we’ve heard about marriage: 1) it’s a forever commitment, and 2) approximately half the time, it ends in divorce. On the one hand, it’s likely that few people enter a marriage thinking, “Maybe this is a temporary vocation.” Neither of us has ever known of a person advising a newlywed couple that they should consider the possibility of marriage being temporary. Maybe we’re letting optimism get in the way here, but most people we know who are married or anticipate getting married someday accept that the vocation to marriage is intended as a lifelong commitment. On the other hand, even if most individuals don’t view marriage as a “temporary vocation,” it’s clear that our society does. Both of us have family members and friends who have experienced divorce and remarriage, so we are not suggesting that divorce is always a morally unjustifiable occurrence. But it’s true that now more than in decades past, it has become acceptable to end a marriage—a lifelong commitment—for virtually any reason: personality conflicts, financial hardship, impotency, one spouse’s irritation with the other’s pet python. In a sense, marriage is becoming even more of a temporary than permanent vocation in the eyes of American and some other western societies.

It makes sense that if many people are coming to see marriage as a way of life that does not require an everlasting commitment, some might also have trouble seeing how celibate vocations demand just as much dedication. We have seen firsthand that the general population does not view consecrated religious life as a permanent vocation. A friend of Sarah’s, whom we will call Molly, spent over two years of her time in law school discerning a vocation to a particular Roman Catholic religious order. Upon graduation, Molly became a postulant and started her journey toward taking vows. During this time, Molly’s mother insisted that in a year, Molly would come to realize that she wasn’t actually called to be a nun. However, Molly came alive inside the monastery. She loved the community’s spiritual life and looked forward to one day working in the Catholic schools operated by the order. A year later, Molly entered the novitiate and took the name Sister Maria. Her mother maintained that she would be better off married and would eventually come to see this before taking vows. Not long ago, Sister Maria made first vows, and her mother is still waiting for her to leave this vocation and return home. Decades ago, this would not have been a typical reaction from a parent whose child entered a Roman Catholic religious order.

Proposing that the vocation to celibate partnership (or at least the celibate aspect of it) is temporary is much the same as stating that other types of celibate vocations are also temporary states of life. We do believe that in certain circumstances, people can commit to celibacy for a defined period of time. This was, in fact, the situation for most young people who were part of the Christian social action movement that Sarah was researching last week. But we think it is far too easy to assume that celibacy is a lifestyle one can choose to end at the drop of a hat (or the drop of one’s pants). One doesn’t need divorce papers or an annulment in order to stop living celibacy. Leaving a religious order is quite an involved process, but doesn’t exactly require the division of assets, attorney fees, custody battles, etc. that often come along with legally ending a marriage. And in the eyes of many, choosing not to continue in a celibate vocation that doesn’t entail religious vows is as simple as saying, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” But this isn’t the case for people who understand celibacy as a vocation and not just sexual abstinence.

The two of us exist in an almost completely uncharted territory somewhere between monasticism and marriage. Celibate monastics take vows to God and to their communities, making their commitments to this vocation visible. Married people in some traditions take vows to each other before God and their faith communities in a formal ceremony, making their vocation known to the world. As there is no exact analog to either for celibate couples like us, it is challenging to put the commitment we have made to each other into words. Because of this, people tend to classify us incorrectly as a couple living a unique sort of marriage. And perhaps that is why we’re often assumed to be living in a “temporary” celibate vocation.

To suggest that celibate vocations like ours will not stand the test of time is to question the robustness of other kinds of vocations as well. We believe that all vocations require steadfastness and acceptance that life will not always be easy, pleasant, or ideal. All vocations have the ability to grow if nurtured and the ability to wither if left improperly attended. The phrase “temporary vocation” may seem innocuous, but we see it as little more than shorthand for, “a way of life I can leave when its demands become too great.”

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: Forced Language

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Hello, Readers. Thanks for another awesome week of discussion and email feedback. The points you’ve raised this week have given us many new ideas for posts. We would like to remind you that if you have a specific idea for a topic you would like to see us address, you can send that through our Ask Us! form. We hope the weather is nice where you are–we are eager for springtime!

It’s time now for a 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, Lindsey offered a reflection on The Language Police. We also released a post that discussed how married people define marriage and gave one reason (of many) why we do not conceive of our relationship as a marriage. Both of these posts touched on the issue of language: how people describe themselves and how we use language to describe other people, even if that language isn’t their preferred set of words. We ask our readers: has there ever been a time when you have felt that certain words, terms, or language in general has been forced upon you by others? What was your reaction to this? What do you think is the best way to respond when other people try to assign language to you that doesn’t feel appropriate for your circumstances?

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.

Defining Marriage

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Since releasing our “Defining celibacy” post over a month ago, we’ve received over one hundred questions about its content from our readers. These inquiries fall into three general categories: 1) questions about how our definition of “celibacy” differs from how many people would define “marriage,” 2) questions about how we would define “marriage,” and 3) questions about how we understand our specific kind of celibate vocation relative to other celibate vocations. We are eager to respond to each of these in time, and today we hope to make a beginning at dialoguing with our readers on numbers 1 and 2.

In today’s post, we make our first attempt at exploring how one might define the vocation of marriage. We are adamant that celibate vocations are best defined by celibate people, and we are equally convinced that the vocation to marriage is best defined by people who are married. We believe it would be inappropriate for us to discuss what marriage is without asking for the input of those who are married. Over the past several weeks, we’ve been collecting responses to the questions, “How would you define the term ‘marriage’? What does ‘marriage’ mean to you?” via our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and through personal conversations with people we know who have been married for varying lengths of time. We’ve communicated with younger couples and older couples, gay, straight, and bisexual couples, religious and nonreligious couples (some with one person of each), couples who have experienced divorce and are currently in their second or third marriages, and couples who have been married for decades. We’ve also spoken with a number of married pastors who have shared with us what topics they find important to raise in pre-marital counseling sessions. What we’ve come to realize is that there are perhaps as many definitions for marriage as there are married couples, and sometimes within a marriage the two partners will have different understandings of the term.

Some of our respondents focused on how marriage provides a way for two people to enjoy life together and become the best they both can be:

“Marriage, to me, is loving someone enough to give things up to help them achieve their life goals, knowing they will do the same for you. And having fun and having intellectual conversations along the way. So marriage is living each day knowing you’re helping making yourself and someone else a better person.” –Shae

Other respondents emphasized emotional intimacy, physical attraction, and commitment as key elements in defining marriage:

“I feel like I’ve found the person who is enough like me that we can truly understand each other and different enough from me that we can have our autonomy and entertain one another. We are also very physically attracted to each other, which, for us, feels important. I think the institution of marriage is neat because once you’ve found someone you truly enjoy and trust, you can make a decision to take on the world together. We make each other better, more productive people. It’s an accountability system in a way. Ideally, marriage also provides you with a partner who cares more about you than anyone or anything else in the world. I have an immense feeling of emotional security as well as physical security in my marriage. We also pick up the slack for each other in areas like household chores and bill paying. We are a team. My favorite thing about being married is having a best friend that I can share intimacy, intelligence and laughter with…but who is soothing and present for me when I’ve had the worst day in the world and just need kind words and for someone else to make me dinner. Which he does.” –Mary

A large number of respondents defined marriage within the context of their specific religious traditions:

“I’m Catholic, so I believe that marriage requires not only a lifelong commitment, but also openness to children. That is essential to the way I believe God intends married couples to serve the world. Whether they actually have children or not isn’t the point. It’s that they’re always open to bringing new life into the world, providing a home for children who were brought into the world by other people, or both. In my faith, that’s what marriage is. But I understand that isn’t how everyone understands marriage. Openness to children isn’t a foundational element of marriage in all religions, or even in other Christian traditions. If somebody isn’t religious, or is Protestant, or is Hindu and decides that being open to children isn’t a necessary part of their marriage, I’m not going to tell them they aren’t really married. That’s just wrong. I think married people need to respect that there are many ways people in the world talk about marriage.” –Anne Marie

We were also honored that a few readers trusted us with deeply personal details of struggles in their marriages, claiming that these trying times have made their marriages stronger and have proven to them that marriage is truly “for better or for worse.” One reader shared with us that after weathering the challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder, job loss, and financial troubles, she and her husband were dangerously close to ending their marriage, but found the strength within themselves to fight for each other and the life they share:

“[My husband] and I have both agreed that if one feels neglected by the other we must wave our flag high at that point and retreat to devote ourselves to one another again. We don’t wait until it’s late in the game either, we find time for one another immediately. We have stayed together and come out stronger through things that would tear most people apart. I can honestly say because all of the horrible times I love my husband more now than I ever did, because he (like I) decided to run this race with me. We have a bond that love cannot even begin to define. I know that no matter what happens, he’s going to be beside me. I’ve thought a lot about prearranged marriage, and while I am thankful that I did get to choose my mate, I know why so many prearranged marriages lasted, while so many “loving” marriages of today don’t last. People today are so ready to give up. They toss in the towel at the first stumbling block, if that. People actually enter marriages with the thought that if they don’t like it they can always get divorced…No one is held accountable to stay married…I’m not saying I’m against divorce and I realize there are certain situations where it cannot be avoided, but the rapid rate of divorce is despicable… If I had to define marriage I would say commitment, along with perseverance and hard work which can lead to an unbreakable bond.” -Kristen

We selected the above responses from the 37 we received in total. If we’d had time to discuss this topic with more people, we’re sure we would have encountered an even greater diversity of ideas about the definition of marriage.

When reading the responses, we began to notice many commonalities. It became clear to us that every married person who responded expressed love for his or her spouse. Other similarities we noticed were assertions that marriage involves doing life together, being present for one another, and experiencing shared intimacy. Among our respondents who affiliate strongly with a religious tradition (mostly Christianity), the eternal nature of the marriage commitment and emphases on shared faith-based values arose frequently. Responses received from married pastors who conduct pre-marital counseling showed a common theme of focusing on conflict resolution and the practical aspects of living out a marriage commitment. Some indicated that “family” and “children” were among the most essential topics, but these were not the majority. Likewise, we noticed that the majority of our married respondents in general did not include “children” or “openness to children” in their definitions of marriage.

Thinking back to our aforementioned “Defining celibacy” post, you might be wondering if all this information has caused us to reevaluate the vocation we feel called to live together. It’s true that many qualities mentioned in these definitions of marriage are also present in our relationship. More than one reader has suggested that when we describe our understanding of our shared vocation, we are actually talking about a “celibate marriage.” If married people tend to agree that marriage involves commitment, intimacy, being willing to work through difficult situations, and sharing a set of values, couldn’t our relationship be considered a “marriage” of sorts? Perhaps. But here’s another bit of food for thought: every item we just listed is also present in other types of human relationships. Perseverance, closeness, willingness to stay when things get complicated, and so on…one could find all of these qualities just as vibrantly in monastic communities as in marriages. Furthermore, many of these characteristics describe healthy church communities and also relationships a person might have with very close friends or his/her “family of choice.” Would we feel comfortable defining all relationships with these characteristics as “marriages”?

Our first try at defining celibacy focused on vulnerability, commitment, radical hospitality, and shared spiritual life. Could all of these aspects also be present in the vocation of marriage? Absolutely. It could be that these four characteristics are at the heart of all vocations, but manifest differently in each. We do not believe that defining a term must necessarily mean defining it against another in every possible way, especially when related to people’s senses of calling in life. We’ve found that if someone asks us to define “celibacy,” more often than not, that person anticipates that we will discuss celibate vocations in terms of how they are different from rather than similar to marriage. However, when we say that vocations allow people to reflect the Kingdom of God, we expect that all kinds of vocation will have certain commonalities.

In the future, we would like to explore more deeply some of the differences we see between marriage and our celibate partnership. One major point of difference that keeps coming back to us is our sense of call to serving the broader world rather than focusing as much on service to a narrower sense family. We do consider each other “family” and have made a decision to expand our family in the future, but we have no idea what that means or who it will bring into our lives. Within our Christian tradition, the majority of married people would contend that openness to children is an essential element of marriage. This is not to suggest that marriages in other traditions (or nonreligious marriages) with other definitions of the term somehow fall short of “true marriages,” but to say that we have a particular framework from our faith tradition that impacts our understanding of what a marriage within that branch of Christianity would look like. While we aren’t opposed to the idea of welcoming children into our life in some capacity, we don’t feel that God is calling us to the specific work of raising children. We would like to explore other ways of opening our home to people with various needs who have no other place to find support, and we see that as an essential part of our celibate vocation. Feel free to ask questions about this, as we intend to address it further in future posts.

Discerning vocation can be, and often is, a complicated task. It is helpful to get to know people living out diverse vocations as we discern the best language for describing our particular type of celibate vocation. We learn just as many lessons from married couples as we do from monastics and individuals pursuing other varieties of celibate vocations. We think that because marriage is such a dominant vocational pathway in our society, many people have cultivated an expansive definition of “marriage.” It is our hope that by discussing the celibate vocation, our readers will come to a deeper appreciation of the diversity within celibate vocations.

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 Language Police

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A reflection by Lindsey

When a person is trying to figure out whether he or she fits somewhere along the LGBT spectrum, many other people are quick to suggest language. If a boy realizes that he likes boys, some would encourage him to call himself “gay” and wear that label with pride. Others would demand that he resist the urge to “identify with his sin” and discuss his realization in terms of “struggling with same-sex attraction.” Members of LGBT couples might be counseled to avoid using any kind of romantic indicator in favor of “friend” or “roommate”… Or they may be encouraged to adopt every form of spousal language, whether that language seems fitting to them or not. Personally, I find the linguistic directives from both conservative and liberal camps drive me nuts. I see these directives as little more than people proudly displaying a “Language Police” badge on their sleeves.

Members of the Language Police overlook that a person on the LGBT spectrum can have a hard time finding appropriately descriptive language. A girl who likes girls might find that the “lesbian” label accurately describes her experience. However, the same girl who likes girls might find that she actually likes girls and boys (where the bisexual label offers a bit better description), or that she feels great solidarity with gay Christians, perceives her sexual attractions as leaning significantly more towards girls than boys, and deems it appropriate to use the word “gay” to describe her experience. A guy who grew up being socialized as a girl might find that “transgender” is the best word to describe his experience, or he might prefer using words like “genderqueer” or “agender.” Every label has a meaning. Moreover, every label is an approximation used to describe some aspect of a person’s experience. Individuals need space to decide what words work best for them.

Each individual adopting a certain label has an active role in determining what that label means. As soon as a person connects the word “gay” to some facet of his or her experience, that person actively communicates what it means to be gay. When other people make claims about the label, they should be reflect on whether their claims speak to the experience of every person wearing the label. If someone says “It’s impossible to be a gay Christian,” that person overlooks or denies the experiences of many gay people who are Christians. When a group gets larger, many labels get boiled down to one essence or another. Many people I know who use the word “gay” to describe themselves focus on the idea that gay people simply experience attraction to the same sex.

Members of the Language Police rarely want an individual to communicate what a label means to him or her. The Language Police assume that if you use a word like “transgender,” what you’re really saying is that you desire medical interventions to allow you reshape the sexed characteristics of your body to align with your gender. Members of the Language Police have a difficult, even impossible time understanding that labels are approximations used by people to describe a part of their reality. Furthermore, members of the Language Police assume that they know the meaning of the label and that the person resisting their interpretation has no appreciation for the English* language. (*Feel free to substitute the name of other languages as is relevant for your situation.) Engaging in linguistic policing requires that the enforcer assumes a position of power and is incredibly patronizing, dismissive, and rude.

I know that we’ve taken time to try and educate our readers on how to talk with others about A Queer Calling. This action differs from the action of the Language Police because we are trying to help other people accurately describe us. We’re trying to be clear about the language we use, why we use it, and what the language means to us. We assume that people actually care enough about us to try to respect our language and get to know us. We do not claim a monopoly on the experiences of all celibate, LGBT, Christian couples. One of the reasons our friends encouraged us to start our blog is that many of them had heard some stories from LGBT Christian couples not called to celibacy but wanted to hear more about how we understand our life together. We care about helping our allies understand our experience; and we do not offer linguistic corrections because we’re trying to deny other people their experiences. We offer linguistic corrections because we want the words people use to describe us to reflect our experience.

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 Problematic Comparison of Homosexuality and Addiction

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A reflection by Sarah

It would be impossible for me to count the number of times I’ve heard some form of comparison between homosexuality and addiction. Usually, these analogies come from well-meaning people who are trying to make sense of experiences foreign to their own. My first two questions to these folks are usually, “Do you identify as gay or have a close relationship with someone who does?” and “Do you personally experience addiction or have a close relationship with someone who does?” In most cases, the answer is either “no” to both or “yes” to one but not the other.

A number of Christian bloggers have discussed the problematic nature of comparing homosexuality with addiction, most from within the context of a liberal sexual ethic. Katie Grimes at Women and Theology raises some valid points as she argues that the comparison of homosexuality and alcoholism “fails as a comparison and it fails as an argument against homosexuality.” Another example comes from Registered Runaway, who has written on how comparing homosexuality with a variety of human problems fosters the use of shallow talking points as the Church grapples with how best to approach the LGBT community: “[Analogies] minimize us. Patronize us. They make us strain to see Christ through all of the mud being thrown.” In both posts, there’s much I can relate to as a gay person. I agree with both authors’ declarations that the homosexuality/addiction analogy is flawed, but when reading articles on this topic in general, more often than not I find myself feeling uncomfortable with discussions of where the analogy fails. I see this discomfort as rooted in the fact that I am both a gay person and a recovering addict.

Perhaps unintentionally, some–though not all–discussions about problems with the homosexuality/addiction comparison imply the sentiment, “Don’t vilify gay people. We/they aren’t like those addicts.” Frequently I hear, “Addiction ruins lives and homosexuality doesn’t,” or “Addiction occurs when a person repeatedly uses a substance or engages in a behavior, eventually becoming unable to stop, but gay people don’t choose to become gay.” I don’t contest what these statements have to say about me as a gay person. I have never seen my sexual orientation as an illness or malady, I didn’t choose to be attracted to women, and being gay certainly has not ruined my life. Yet there’s still something in the aforementioned assertions that I perceive as making light of an important aspect of my experience. In discussion of the homosexuality/addiction analogy, there must be a way forward that honors the lived experiences of gay people, addicts, and those of us lucky enough to be part of both demographics.

In this post, I’d like to make an attempt at that forward movement by approaching this topic from a different angle than I’ve seen in other places. I’d like to discuss why the homosexuality/addiction analogy does as much a disservice to addicts as it does to members of the gay community. I should state upfront that I have no professional expertise in the area of addictions or psychology. My entire education on this topic has come from the school of hard knocks. Therefore, the rest of this post will focus on my own personal experience. My intention is not to make generalizations about all gay people or all addicts. In my 29 years of life, I have faced multiple kinds of addiction. I don’t think it’s important at this time to name all of them, but suffice it to say my experience includes both substance and behavioral addictions. Because I’ve referenced it before and because it is the addiction with which I have the most recovery experience, I’ll use my struggle with bulimia as my primary example. If you’re having trouble understanding why one might conceive of bulimia as an addiction, read this. Now, I’m going to highlight three statements I’ve heard people say when they are comparing homosexuality to addiction. Their words are quoted and in bold print.

“Gay sexual desire is just like an addict’s craving for his/her drug of choice.”

In addition to the fact that I don’t know a single non-sex-addicted person, gay, straight, or otherwise, who would describe his/her sexual desires as “cravings,” I see this statement as problematic because shows a profound misapplication of the term “craving.” In addiction studies terms, a craving is a psychological urge to use a particular drug or engage in a particular behavior. Cravings are also part of withdrawal from use of said substance or behavior. When I’ve said in the past, “I’m experiencing a craving” in relation to bulimia, that has meant, “I’m experiencing the urge to acquire a large amount of food, eat it, and purge by means of vomiting.” Several years ago when I was at my lowest point, I was facing these cravings multiple times a day and my entire schedule revolved around getting food and finding places and times to devour it and purge. As I became increasingly ill, I fell into the irrational belief that I wouldn’t be able to survive a day without bulimic behaviors. When my rituals were interrupted, the cravings remained present until I found some way to engage—even if that meant the only place for carrying out the process was an alley behind the nearest grocery store, and the only consumable product I could afford that would be voluminous enough to purge was a gallon of water. Cravings are intense and baffling. Overcoming them takes an incredible amount of work and support, and it’s hard. Dealing with cravings is not as simple as applying a bit of willpower and saying, “I’m deciding not to do this behavior/use this substance, even though I desire it.”

None of what I have been describing thus far is anything remotely like my experience of attraction to other women. When I experience sexual desire, I don’t find myself thinking, “If I don’t have sex, I’m going to die.” I couldn’t possibly imagine scheduling my entire life, or even a portion of my life, around seeking out opportunities for engaging in sexual activity. Even the sex addicts I know would never conflate the level of sexual desire experienced by most people with the cravings of sexual addiction.

I find it offensive that increasingly often, non-addicted people use the word “addiction” to describe something that they enjoy immensely and couldn’t imagine living without. I’ve seen a “List of Things I’m Addicted To” trend emerge at different times on Facebook, in which people will list items such as “my best friends” or “my children.” This is a perfect example of how acceptable it has become to misapply the term “addiction.” A person who truly is addicted to his/her best friends or children has an unhealthy attachment to those people, and I seriously doubt that most would be comfortable broadcasting such a reality proudly on Facebook. As I see it, the term “craving” gets misapplied in a similar way when a person compares homosexuality to addiction. Implying that my sexual inclinations are the same as my urges for bulimic behavior belittles the constant work I’ve had to do over the years to progress in recovery.

“There might be a genetic element to homosexuality, but there’s also a genetic element to addiction, and that doesn’t mean we excuse addiction.”

There are many possibilities for interpreting this statement as problematic (I’ll be glad to discuss more with you in the comments), but here I’ll focus on my observation that it assumes both homosexuality and addiction are behaviors and nothing more. A person who makes this statement assumes that being gay is solely about having sex. I’ve been told before that because I’m celibate, there’s no reason for me to use the label “gay.” I strongly disagree and I would like to write on that topic in the future, but for now I’ll link you to the work of my friend Joshua Gonnerman, who is also a celibate gay Christian.

A person who makes this statement also assumes that addiction is solely about feeding insatiable cravings for one’s substance or behavior of choice and has nothing to do with underlying psychological and/or spiritual problems. My experience with bulimia (and other addictions too) has taught me that reducing it to its behavioral aspect not only ignores the bigger picture of what might be leading to the behavior, but also impedes real progress in recovery. I didn’t start engaging in bulimic behavior because one day I decided it would be nice to become addicted to gorging myself and vomiting. Numerous factors including nutrition, trauma, anxiety, and the way I felt about myself all played a role. In order to attain any level of recovery beyond the superficial “just stop eating and throwing up!” I had to deal with all of those complicating factors and many more. At different points, I spent months in inpatient and residential eating disorder treatment facilities. Though most of these experiences proved beneficial in helping me to stop bulimic behaviors, the majority did very little in terms of helping me construct a way of life outside the facility that would no longer include binging and purging. Those treatment experiences that were most helpful assisted me in focusing not only on behaviors, but also on the underlying reasons for engaging in those behaviors in the first place.

The work of recovering from any addiction involves an honest and thorough look at the darkest parts of oneself. Any person who has worked a 12-step recovery program knows that there is a noteworthy distinction between “dry” and “sober.” Stopping behaviors and abstaining from substances is all a person needs to do in order to maintain dryness, but doing the painful, arduous work that holistic recovery necessitates is what leads an addict to the gift of sobriety. Most people who prefer different, non-12-step types of recovery programs and approaches also would likely agree with the basic idea that recovery is about about so much more than stopping behaviors. Reducing the struggle of a person who experiences addiction to “drinking too much,” “using illegal drugs,” “eating and throwing up,” etc. effectively denies all aspects of recovery that aren’t purely behavioral, thereby implying that recovery merely involves abstinence.

“A gay person involved in a same-sex friendship or ‘celibate’ partnership is no different from an alcoholic tending bar/a prescription drug addict working in a pharmacy/a bulimic working in a restaurant, and it can only lead to temptation.”

Being in a celibate partnership, I think it’s probably obvious that I disagree with the assumptions this statement makes about gay people. At best, it incorrectly suggests that if we experience sexual attraction, we are constantly “at risk” for acting upon that attraction. At worst, it presumes that we are sexually attracted to every person of the same sex. The lack of logic becomes clear when one applies this statement to straight people’s interactions with the opposite sex. I doubt anyone would argue that a straight man must necessarily be attracted to all women, that a straight woman must necessarily be attracted to all men, or that any person in a heterosexual relationship must be playing with fire just by being in that relationship.

This statement also misrepresents addicts by implying that exposure to situations involving substances with which we struggle will necessarily trigger us to use or engage in the addictive behavior. Furthermore, it could be taken to imply that being around said substance or having the opportunity to engage in said behavior is the only possible trigger for a recovering addict. There have been times when specific foods have made me feel uncomfortable or caused negative associations that needed processing. However, when I’ve felt cravings for bulimic behavior, the impetus for those urges hasn’t been cheesecake, pizza, and tacos. Almost always, the trigger has been stressful interactions with family, seemingly unmanageable emotions, or memories of a traumatic event–and often, it’s a combination of all three. Simply being around food, even the food items I consider most challenging, does not trigger me. Being around other substances I have used in the past does not trigger me either. I know plenty of alcoholics who work as bartenders and prescription drug addicts who work as pharmacists, doctors, and nurses, and most of them do not find their work environments triggering. Of course, there are recovering addicts who do find it triggering to be in the same vicinity as the substances they have used and I do not intend to deny their experiences, but it is incorrect to suggest that this is true for all people suffering from or recovering from addiction.

I hope my personal reflections have been helpful in clarifying some ways the homosexuality/addiction comparison is problematic, both in terms of its incorrect characterization of gay people and in its false representation of addicts and addiction. While these three iterations of the analogy are the ones I hear most often, they are not the only forms of comparison people regularly make between homosexuality and addiction. If there are others you would find beneficial to discuss, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

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