7 Misconceptions about Celibacy

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Since starting this blog, we’ve become even more aware than we already were of how other people can misunderstand the celibate vocation. Many people have never heard of a person living a celibate life unless that person is a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. As readers have been engaging with our various posts via comments and email, it has been suggested that we must be caving to religious oppression, that we are glorifying “lesbian bed death,” and that we are fooling ourselves into thinking that we are not actually living in sin…. to name a few. We understand that the call to live a celibate life in a partnership is indeed a queer calling. We knew from the beginning that people would have questions and misgivings.

We have already taken some time to answer the question, “Why celibacy?” and have made our first attempt at defining celibacy. Lindsey also talked about why defining celibacy as merely avoiding sexual acts is especially problematic. We think it would be helpful at this point to discuss some of the most common misconceptions about celibacy. Our intention in this post is to give a brief overview of these different misconceptions based on our personal experiences of celibacy, and we’ll likely expound upon these ideas further in future posts. Some of these myths have overlapping features, so please consider reading the post in its entirety as we tried to avoid repeating ourselves.

1. Celibate people deny their sexualities.

There are two main ways that celibate people treat their sexualities. Some celibate people do actively try to cut themselves off from sexual desire, treating all forms of sexual attraction and interest as a temptation that ought to be resisted. Other celibate people work to integrate their sexualities within their broader self-understandings. When a celibate person is integrating his or her sexuality, that individual can more readily embrace moments of attraction. Attraction becomes a useful orientating tool where God connects a celibate person to other people, to professional pursuits, to times of spiritual growth, or to opportunities for recreation. Both the specific instant of attraction and the underlying sexual orientation and gender identity that fuels attraction are treated as a great mystery, wherein God orchestrates the diverse relationships that enable a celibate person to live a richly connected life.

Both of us tend to be very outspoken when advocating for celibate people to pursue a pathway of integrating their sexualities. We have known far too many people harmed by the more surgical approaches, and we grieve deeply that so many “ministries” have encouraged LGBT people to adopt an approach of trying to excise their sexualities altogether.

2. Celibate people are only celibate because of oppressive, conservative religion.

We can definitely appreciate that some people feel forced into celibacy because of their religious convictions. However, nothing could be further from the truth for many celibate people. Often, celibate people who have chosen celibacy because of religious convictions feel that this decision is exceptionally life-giving. We plan to address the topic of involuntary, forced celibacy in a future post. Taking a brief look at history, we can see that religion has created pathways that allowed people (especially women) to choose to live celibate lives. It used to happen that families would marry off their daughters in arranged marriages. The rise of celibate communities gave an alternative to that reality. We may get back to that point in a future post as well. This particular misconception about celibacy also downplays the reasons why people might choose to live celibate lives. Many celibate people we have met report choosing celibacy because a celibate life has enabled them to love and serve the world differently than if they were married. They wanted that different way of life.

3. Celibacy is unnatural.

This misconception is quite paradoxical because it assumes that a “natural” vocation necessarily involves sex. It is sometimes pointed out to us that celibate communities cannot reproduce, eventually die off completely, and are therefore living exactly the opposite of how nature intended. One of the most common examples of this is the Shakers, who were once a thriving community of unmarried men, unmarried women, and adopted children, but have vanished almost completely in the modern world.

The claim celibacy is unnatural places the natural order of reproduction as humanity’s highest concern. However, a population of people cannot die off because a fraction of people are called to live celibate lives. If a person places an emphasis on the “natural” order of reproduction to decide what sort of relationships are permissible, then we’d like to know if and how they think about contraception and sexually active same-sex relationships. We would especially like to challenge those people who use a liberal sexual ethic to say that celibacy is unnatural because, all too frequently, many people holding a more conservative sexual ethic are quick to decry sexually active same-sex relationships as unnatural. We would venture a guess that many who dismiss celibacy on the basis of its “unnaturalness” would not say the same about homosexuality.

4. A loving God would not ask people to be celibate.

Many people, both Christians and critics of Christianity, have somehow adopted the notion that if a person feels called by God to be celibate, then that call is inherently oppressive. A lot of people think that God’s calls come in the form, “If you don’t do (insert kind of call here), then you’ll die.” In this paradigm, everything God might call a person to do would be experienced as oppression.

In particular, once people start talking about a call to celibacy, some also seem to conflate understandings of different kinds of love. Some assume that a celibate person is incapable of experiencing and expressing eros and simultaneously neglect how God might provide opportunities for experiencing and expressing agape within the context of celibacy. These people conclude that because celibacy does not provide an outlet to express eros, then a God who is love would never call a person to a celibate vocation…. or that God only calls people to a celibate vocation if those people are not particularly inclined towards eros.

However, God has infinite perspective on what will bring abundant life to every person who finds himself or herself in Christ. With regard to those living a celibate vocation, many celibate people experience a profound sense of loving connection to the world. Elder Porphyrious devotes an entire chapter in his book Wounded by Love (so named in honor of the mythical pelican who pierces herself in order to nurture her young) to the experience of Divine eros. One way the two of us think about the role of eros in the celibate life is that the Divine eros overflows and makes radical hospitality possible.

5. Celibate people are afraid of sexual intimacy.

While this misconception is not without basis because some celibate people do become so in order to avoid having sex, the majority of celibate people are not afraid of sexual intimacy. Based upon when and where we frequently hear this objection to celibacy, we think that most people who promulgate this particular misconception are sexually active themselves and do not have personal experience with living a celibate vocation. Some sexually active people may see their sexual lives as adding a necessary spark to other aspects of their lives and will go to great lengths to preserve their ability to have and enjoy sex. When a person is making a significant investment in preserving his or her sexual life, then the presence of a celibate person could be perceived as threatening.

Many organizations that are a part of the ex-gay movement also rely on this myth to challenge an LGBT person’s statement of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Ex-gay organizations can be quick to say that gay people are simply afraid of having sex with a person of the opposite sex, gay people are trying to cope with a history of traumatic sexual experiences, and gay people are unable to deal with having experienced other types of negative sexual encounters.

At this juncture, we think it’s worth mentioning that celibate people choose to become celibate at different stages in their lives. Part of the misconception that celibate people are afraid of sex comes from the assumption that all celibate people are virgins. This assumption simply does not hold true when considered against verifiable evidence. Many people choose celibacy much later in life than many people might expect. For example, there is a well-established tradition of widows and widowers embracing a celibate, monastic life after their spouses repose.

6. Celibate people judge sexually active people.

People choose celibacy for a plethora of reasons. Those reasons may or may not include the idea that sexual activity (same-sex or otherwise) is inappropriate. Even if a person’s choice to embrace celibacy is partly motivated by a belief that sexual activity is inappropriate, that does not mean he or she is intrinsically judging another’s sexually active relationship. Many celibate people affirm the role that marriage can play in drawing people towards God and towards a holy way of living.

7. Celibate people are asexual or have low sex drives. For such people, celibacy is easy.

This misconception actively defines celibacy as merely the absence of sex. People who share this misconception are often looking for some sort of mechanism that makes it possible for an individual to live life without having sex, which many believe to be an impossible reality. However, this misconception makes a blanket assumption about the kind of person who chooses celibacy without being informed by the experience of celibate people. As we have talked with many different monastics about the intersection of celibacy and sexuality, almost all of them have remarked that they expect to navigate various kinds of sexual attractions and desires until they have been lying in their grave for a few days.

Both of us know a significant number of people trying to live celibate lives. At our recent workshop at the Gay Christian Network Conference, all of our nearly forty attendees agreed that celibacy is hard. We think it’s worth pointing out that most people we know who feel especially called and gifted towards marriage would be equally inclined to say that marriage is hard.

In conclusion, we’ve tried to expound a bit on 7 misconceptions about celibacy and explain why they are misconceptions. We hope this post was helpful for you in thinking about celibacy and encourage you to share your reactions, questions, and feedback in the comments. We appreciate your readership!

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: Calling All Pastors, Priests, and Religious Leaders

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Hello, Friends. Happy Saturday!

This week at A Queer Calling, we’ve had a number of thought-provoking discussions on a variety of topics. We have enjoyed reading all your comments on our posts and your responses to us on Twitter. Many thanks to those who have shared our posts on Facebook as well. We truly value all the positive feedback and constructive criticism. We would like to encourage all of you to participate in the discussion as you feel inspired, and to provide another opportunity for this, we have decided that as a wrap-up for each week of our blogging adventure we will feature a “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 the following Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

Are you ready? Here goes…

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: On Tuesday, we released a post titled, “10 Things We Wish Our Church Family Knew,” and it generated a lot of discussion about church environments, how they can be welcoming or unwelcoming to LGBT individuals and couples, and what specifically it means for a church to be supportive in meeting the spiritual needs of a celibate, LGBT couple. This week we would like to ask, especially to our readers who are pastors, priests, and religious leaders of any kind: what would it look like for you to welcome a celibate, LGBT couple within the context of your church? How do you think such a couple would be received in your congregation? Do you feel well-equipped to advise celibate people in cultivating their vocations?

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 fantastic 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.

Have you ever gone to church with a camel?

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All close relationships, whether among friends or family, include fantastically enjoyable inside jokes. Inside jokes can add a lot of fun. We think inside jokes are great.

Over the last week, we’ve been sharing a lot of serious thoughts. It’s time to mix things up a bit, and let you all in on one of our inside jokes. Humor is just as much a part of intimacy as sharing from an incredibly vulnerable place.

So with that, we ask, “Have you ever gone to church with a camel?”

This question is probably one of the strangest you’ve ever been asked (unless you live in an area where it’s customary to bring camels to church. If you do hail from that kind of community, would you be willing to post a picture in the comments?)

Anyone who has ever had the privilege of being around a napping Lindsey can attest to the fact that you never know what a napping Lindsey is capable of saying. While sleeping, Lindsey tends to ramble constantly. Some frequent topics include (but are not limited to) the following: the physics of water balloons, creative poetical explorations, industrial engineering, diverse letters we wish we could actually send to people, Lindsey’s alter-ego that is a self-proclaimed superhero, and theological rants of various stripes. Because Lindsey never knows what sleeping Lindsey is going to say, Lindsey has grown accustomed to asking for regular sleep-talking reports.

Two Christmases ago, we drove the wildest circuit across multiple states to visit with our friends and families. For three weeks, we spent just about every waking (and sleeping) moment together as we logged over 3000 miles in Lindsey’s car while stopping at hotels along the way. Several other couples we know have commented on how traveling together can act as a crucible to forge a relationship. We’re prone to agree, especially as we never once turned on the music in the car throughout this whole trip because we were so engrossed in conversation.

One night on this trip, the ever-creative sleeping Lindsey asked very loudly, “Have you ever gone to church with a camel?” Sarah had not yet had this experience. After we both woke up in the morning, Sarah delivered the sleep-talking report while laughing hysterically. Lindsey thought this question was rather brilliant and decided to search for a cuddly (stuffed) camel.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a camel? [NB: It’s really really really hard. If you’re looking for one to purchase for yourself, it’s worth praying that a beloved small person in your life avoids camels as a prime animal of interest.]

Over the next couple of months, we searched for a camel. We went to various malls, to specialty toy stores, to museums, to zoos…. you name it. No camel. In April, we found ourselves on another road trip to Saint Louis, Missouri. Sarah had previously lived in Saint Louis and suggested that we go and check out the penguins at the Saint Louis Zoo. Lindsey thinks zoos rock and that penguins can only make a zoo cooler, so off we went. We arrived at the zoo much later than hoped for and found ourselves trying to make the most of the hour before the zoo would close. We bolted immediately to the penguin exhibit. Along the way, we noted that the Saint Louis Zoo also has camels. Since we didn’t exactly have time to traverse all the way over to the camel enclosure, Lindsey had the bright idea of scouring the gift shop to see if there was a camel.

We looked all over the store. At first we found a couple of resin camel figurines, which weren’t exactly what we were looking for. We asked at the register. The person working the register that day seemed to have a vague idea that there might be some stuffed camels among the rest of the African animals. We looked, we kept looking, and we looked some more. We looked as individuals, we looked as a team of three, and we still looked. Finally, on a high shelf towards the left side of the display, we spotted the camel. Victorious, we went to the register to complete the transaction.

Cleopas the Camel

Cleopas wanted to say, “Hello”

We left the store with our new camel tucked securely under Lindsey’s arm. Lindsey is an ardent believer in quickly naming new additions to the family, and we promptly settled on Cleopas. After all, the desire for our camel came from our travels together. One traveler’s blessing we particularly enjoy says, “As you O Lord journeyed with Luke and Cleopas on the road to Emmaus….” Our camel was much more a Cleopas than a Luke.

Our camel has joined us on many traveling adventures and many trips to church on Sunday. Cleopas remains safely in the backseat of the car throughout the service; we figure that most people didn’t bring their camels into the church building with them. For us, Cleopas is not only the result of an inside joke, but is more importantly a symbol of the joy we experience while we travel together.

In case you are wondering, Cleopas did join us on our recent trip to Chicago. Camels are very useful on long road trips.

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.

Of Sacredness, Intimacy, and Lentil Soup

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A Reflection by Sarah

I’ll never forget the first time it happened. It was a chilly day in late autumn, and I had just returned home with a mountain of papers to grade after a long commute on a crowded subway train. Anxiety and eagerness welled up inside me as I unlocked the door to my apartment, walked in, and plopped my teacher bag into its usual spot on top of my desk. Offering my cats a few gentle strokes was my attempt at preparing for that which I dreaded. I knew it was inevitable. It was going to happen eventually anyway, and that set me into a panic. Our friendship had only begun a few months prior; was I ready to let my guard down, to become so exposed? How could I know when, if ever, would be the right time to open this door of intimacy? By the time my phone rang, I had procrastinated as long as I was able. “Hello, Lindsey,” were the only two words I remember saying specifically. And before I could put all the pieces together, it was happening. It was one of the most intense, fear-provoking moments I had ever experienced. But it was also sacred. There was pain, consolation, prayer traveling from the Midwest to the East Coast and back…and a batch of lentil soup. It was the first time Lindsey and I shared dinner together.

For most of you, eating with a special person in your life probably doesn’t sound like a very big deal unless you’re profoundly challenged in the culinary department. But for me, the evening of lentil soup shared across four states was deeply meaningful and challenging to my previous assumptions about food and intimacy. I developed bulimia at age 12 and began my recovery journey more than a decade later. With lots of hard work, this condition has stabilized over the past few years. However, I still struggle from time to time, and though I thrive on frequent socialization, I often find situations requiring shared meals to be exceptionally draining. But experiencing the intimacy of sharing food with the most important people in my life, especially Lindsey, has begun to change this reality for me.

In the time we have known each other, and even more since taking up residence in the same apartment, Lindsey and I have attempted to cultivate a meaningful shared life in a number of ways. Some of the approaches we try tend to stick around longer than others. One that has managed to find a permanent place in our daily life is a commitment to eating dinner together every night. Unless some unusual circumstance (i.e. business trip with an odd schedule) has kept one or both of us from being available, we have shared every dinner since the evening of lentil soup. We have eaten together over Skype and on the phone during different seasons of our relationship, but now this sacred hour almost always takes place in our dining room, where we can relish in a few moments of quiet after even the most hectic of days.

On a typical evening, I arrive home late, exhausted from a long day of teaching, writing, and working with tutoring clients. As I am on my way, Lindsey prepares our usual simple meal of swai fillets, green vegetables, and fresh fruit and tries to time it so that everything will be ready when I get home. Cleanup will be my responsibility. (Anyone who has ever visited a monastery with me knows I make a much more useful contribution to the community’s daily work when I’m assigned to the dishes instead of the cooking.) As I walk through the door and put away my work things, aromas of curry, or oranges, or ginger greet me. We sit at our dining room table–a table that a Catholic priest once used to say Mass. Portraits of family members and icons of Christ, His Holy Mother, and the saints face toward us, joining in the nightly ritual as Lindsey says the blessing over our meal. Our two curious tabby cats that have been with me since my first year of graduate school join us as well, climbing into an empty chair, peeking over the table’s edge, and sometimes sneaking up onto the tabletop. We eat from our set of green, ceramic plates–the first item we bought together after signing the lease on our apartment.

A simple “How was your day?” begins a conversation that can unfold in infinite directions. We discuss how my lecture went that morning, new recipes we want to try, the problem of evil, the water bill, and the Christmas card we received from my pistol-packing, Appalachian grandmother. We reflect on moments during the day when God’s presence was unmistakable, and times when we’ve felt abandoned to wander in desert places. Sometimes we just sit in silence as Lindsey holds my hand. Other times, members of our chosen and proximate families join us at the table for an evening, and after we’ve eaten, we’ll indulge in a jigsaw puzzle or a round of our friend Matt’s homemade Harry Potter board game.

Dinner time in our household is a constant reminder of so many important truths I am prone to forget or downplay. The meals I share with Lindsey challenge me to recall that as humans, we are dependent upon God and each other; that God calls us into meaningful relationships that help us to nurture and sustain our vocations. I find myself reflecting on Jesus’ radical hospitality and the invitation God extends each of us at every Eucharist. I am challenged to consider how sharing meals with our loved ones compels us to extend grace and welcome to strangers. I am convicted by Jesus’ words in Luke 14:3, “But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.” Our nightly dinner routine, which began with Lindsey extending grace and hospitality to me in my moment of weakness, leads me to ponder how we, individually and together, can be a blessing to others who have endured illness, suffering, and rejection. I pray that our home might become a refuge and our dining room a place of intimate welcome for those who need it most–one bowl of lentil soup at a time.

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 challenge of drawing “the line”

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A reflection by Lindsey

Many people begin exploring celibacy by trying to answer the question, “What counts as sex?” After all, if one defines celibacy as abstention from sexual acts, then it makes sense to spend time trying to figure out when a particular gesture of affection crosses the line into sex. However, I believe that actually making a celibate vocation work involves throwing this particular question out the window.

To say things a bit candidly, many definitions of sex focus on the location of the genitals. Sex can be “defined” when Part A interacts with Part B. In these definitions, sex is entirely mechanistic. <Please say this next sentence with a good deal of snark.> All the celibate person needs to do is mind his or her genitals. </snark>

I see many problems with this approach to celibacy.

Drawing “the line” at the genitals moves the line away from the heart, into a quantifiable legal idea, and asserts that one person can rightly judge another person. Celibate couples can make odd rules that seem arbitrary or artificial. “We will never look at each other’s bodies barring a reasonable expectation for medical care.” “Never touch a person in areas covered by a swim suit.” “Maintain separate bedrooms.” For some people living celibate vocations, these sort of boundaries may naturally emerge as they settle into their understanding of celibate life. For other people living celibate vocations, these sort of boundaries may hamper and impede extremely authentic expressions of caring. Can you give a person a hug if you’re trying to avoid touching areas that might be covered by a one-piece swimsuit?

Another huge problem with trying to live this way is that everything before “the line” becomes a new line. If you know the most physical contact you will have with a person is holding their hand, then “holding hands” can take on an incredibly sexual dimension. If two people “decide” that kissing is permissible, where is it permissible? Is it on the lips, on the neck, and/or on the cheek? If a person talking about a particular topic (completely unrelated to sex) is so intellectually stimulating and just flat out sexy [Yeah, just imagine an American’s reaction to someone saying anything with a strong English accent….], is that conversation topic (or style) off-limits on the grounds that it introduces “too much temptation”? It doesn’t take too terribly long to see that this sort of exercise quickly delves down to reductio ad absurdum.

From experience, I can also say that focusing on the “NO sexual ACT-ion!!!” mandate has a lot in common with the “Don’t think of a pink elephant” command. Whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant! I said, DO NOT think of a PINK elephant!! I even put it in bold! Why did you think of a pink elephant?!? Our thoughts are entirely malleable, based on our environment. When a person trying to explore a celibate life is thinking, “Don’t have sex, don’t have sex, don’t have sex,” there’s not room to think about what one should actually do. There’s nothing in the “Avoid sexual acts” command that helps a person learn how to extend hospitality, be vulnerable, pray, or commit to a particular way of life.

I’ve previously shared that my sexual experiences came from difficulties in knowing how to navigate these lines. Even though I didn’t break any of my “rules” about avoiding sex, I didn’t have control over how my heart would connect a sexual meaning to actions previously deemed “safe.” My previous sexual education had me convinced I was in no danger of crossing “the line” into sex. In reality, that sexual education was more focused on defining sex as the action that preceded pregnancy. I don’t regret learning that sex can be complicated, consent is especially tricky in a world that constantly promotes the pursuit of sexual pleasure, and people can connect intimately in surprising ways. But I do wish someone somewhere would have told me that zooming in on mechanics can undercut the development of a healthy sexuality.

In order to discover how to live a celibate life, I had to throw the “NO SEX!” command out the window. I had to see how people actually lived a celibate life. I needed time and space to practice finding my own rhythm as a single person trying to live a celibate life. I craved authentic memoirs of LGBT people who had run the race and found life within a celibate vocation. I also had to learn to extend myself grace for the times I had shared an intimate experience with another person and unexpectedly found myself feeling like, “You know, I really think that particular thing was not aligned with cultivating a celibate vocation.”

Trying to stay on the “right” side of “the line” nearly brought about the end of me. I had spiritual guides and mentors telling me that if was intentionally deepening a relationship with another person, I needed to look out for any signs of developing inappropriate desires. My job was to search my heart to see if there was any offensive thought within me…. and so on, and so forth….

That kind of living requires navel gazing of the worst sort, especially when any failure on my part would justify God excluding me from participating in the life of His kingdom. I’d contend that no one can live life if they are under that sort of pressure. Equally, I’d say it’s heresy. It’s heresy because it’s GOD’S JOB to search our hearts. It’s GOD’S JOB to guide our paths. And it’s GOD’S JOB to prune off the various parts of our life that are not pleasing to him.

And I’ve found a great deal of release as I’ve asked God for His help in trying to discern what my celibate vocation looks like.

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.