Category Archives: Sexual Ethics

Defining celibacy

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In this post, we are going to make a first attempt at defining celibacy. It’s a bit tricky because many people assume that celibacy is merely abstention from sexual relations. After all, that’s what shows up when you type the word into Dictionary.com! However, we think most people would raise a mighty shout of protest if we tried to define marriage as engaging in sexual relations. Many people would call out from the rooftops that there’s more to marriage than sex. Heck, even Dictionary.com goes with “(broadly) any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union established in various parts of the world to form a familial bond that is recognized legally, religiously, or socially, granting the participating partners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities and including, for example, opposite-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, plural marriage, and arranged marriage.”

Phew! That’s a mouthful!

Suffice it to say, we think one of the reasons why marriage gets such an extensive definition is that so many married people work as lexicographers. There is power when married people are permitted to define what marriage is. However, there is a substantive gap when married people try to define celibacy. In this post, we’re going to try to define celibacy from our unique perspective as a celibate couple. We hope you all will give us the benefit of the doubt that we’ve actually thought deeply about what celibacy means. In no way are we going to be able to say everything about celibacy or develop a comprehensive definition in this post. We just hope to start a conversation.

For us, celibacy involves a radical hospitality, vulnerability, a shared spiritual life, and commitment. We don’t mean for this list to be all-inclusive, but it seems like a reasonable starting point.

Radical hospitality seems to be a hallmark of celibate communities (e.g. monasteries). Every celibate community we have visited has guest housing. (Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why we could visit them….. they’re committed to hospitality.) For us, in our home, the practice of radical hospitality means always being willing to host a guest. Whether the guest stays overnight in our apartment, joins us for a meal, or travels with us for a ride home, the guest is a welcome person. When we meet new people, we prayerfully consider how we might be some conduit of blessing for them. So far, God’s been pretty awesome to show up in our limited efforts.

We’ve talked previously about how vulnerability is a key feature in our partnership. Vulnerability so often gets associated with marriage. People who are in the know about healthy relationships would say that being completely honest, open, and vulnerable is essential for a healthy marriage, but no one ever really talks about how vulnerability could also be essential for a healthy celibate life. In the Russian monastic tradition, monastics regularly engage in a practice known as the confession of thoughts. During this time, monastics share their innermost thoughts with one another with the goal of knowing themselves and each other deeply in Christ. One of our favorite prayers in the Eastern rite says, “Let us commend ourselves and each other and our whole lives unto Christ our God.” For us in our relationship, vulnerably sharing our thoughts and our fears is a critical piece of negotiating the really tough issues we face together.

For us, it is unmistakable that celibate communities share a spiritual life. We have observed that many people conceive of celibate people as hermits. Hermits keep to themselves and avoid connections with anyone and anything in this world. However, the hermit is likely the least common way a celibate life is lived. Much more common is an arrangement in which celibate people are living together in religious communities. After all, celibacy became a much more viable option when people were afforded a choice to join a monastery rather than enter into an arranged marriage. Because the topic of a shared spiritual life is so vast, expect to see more posts from us about how we share our spiritual life as a couple.

Lastly (for today at least), celibacy requires commitment. This means both commitment to a way of life and commitment to other people. We find this to be broadly true whether a person is committed to celibate life within the context of a monastic community, as a couple, or as a single person. We believe that human beings have meaningful relationships with other human beings. In monasteries, these commitments get clearly communicated through various tonsure services in which a person is made a fully vowed member of that monastic community. Outside of monastic communities, people have a LOT more flexibility. One of our favorite phrases to say to one another is, “I’m opting in. I’m supporting you 100%”

We live in a culture in which commitment, broadly speaking, is frowned upon. Even the promises of marriage get treated as disposable. The phrase “just friends” is a great way to cheapen the commitment shared by two people who may not be married to one another. Our culture assumes that people are geographically mobile, ready to move wherever the winds of employment may take them.

By way of quick review, we would define celibacy by focusing on four major themes: radical hospitality, vulnerability, a shared spiritual life, and commitment. We expect that virtually every post we put on this blog will have something to say about one or more of these themes. We look forward to continuing to discuss how we live out celibate lives in the context of our partnership.

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Why celibacy?

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“Why celibacy?” is a natural first question people ask when they find out a bit more about our relationship. So we thought we’d spend some time talking about why we’ve chosen this route.

Many people encourage LGBT Christians to live a celibate life based on the idea that gay sex is something that absolutely, positively, and without a doubt must be avoided at all costs. Within these circles, there is a lot of talk about what constitutes sex and very little talk about what constitutes celibacy. To these people, celibacy is understood as the absence of sex. We’ll spend some more time talking about what we think celibacy is in a future post; but, for now, we will say that we resonate very much with Eve Tushnet, who says that you cannot have a vocation of “No”.

As for us, we both have felt called to celibacy for some years. Sarah started to explore the possibilities of celibacy around the age of 19 as Sarah witnessed the profound ways nuns loved and served the world. The way nuns lived in the world offered a different pathway to holiness than the paths associated with marriage. Lindsey came to the idea of celibacy a bit later, around the age of 25. For Lindsey, exploring celibacy began as a way to integrate faith and sexuality. Yet, a lot of talk on these topics seemed detached from the practical experience of daily life, so Lindsey sought out many different kinds of people living celibate lives. Watching people live out celibacy challenged Lindsey to cultivate a life in which prayer facilitated hospitality, hospitality created connection, and connection empowered people to come together and share life. While both of us explored the possibility that we might have a religious vocation (i.e. living in a monastic community), we both felt that God was not asking either one of us to commit our lives to a specific religious community.

We are not coming to celibacy from the place that we are afraid and have never experienced the other side of sexually active relationships. And we are not coming to celibacy from a place that regards LGBT sexual activity as the unforgivable sin. We’re unique in that both of us have past experience with sexually active relationships. Sarah does not bemoan past relationships that have included sexual activity because these relationships taught Sarah a lot. From Sarah’s vantage point, it is partly due to the fact that Sarah has experienced such relationships that Sarah came to discover the vocation of celibacy. Sarah hopes to write more on this in the future. Lindsey’s experience of sexually active relationships came more from the challenges associated with drawing “the line” about which forms of intimacy are appropriate. In Lindsey’s view, so much of the material on sexual ethics comes from heteronormative situations where Lindsey has a natural struggle appropriating the existing material on sexual ethics to the particulars of LGBT relationships. We both appreciate learning that extending grace to oneself and others in all areas of life is an essential part of growing in Christ. Grace is a critical touchstone of the Christian faith; and, we’ve found that extending grace is tightly linked to offering hospitality to others.

Together, we have created a space where we can explore celibacy as a couple. As individuals, we have had chances to visit many different celibate communities. Every community we have visited over the years is different. We enjoy trading stories (of all kinds!) with each other. We naturally talk about what we have learned from different celibate communities and frequently discuss how to cultivate our shared vocation to celibacy.

To sum up, the answer to the question “Why celibacy?” boils down to the statement that we feel God is asking us to live our lives in this way. We are grateful for the ways that God continues to teach us about celibacy and look forward to continuing to explore our vocation together.

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.