Tag Archives: celibacy

Moving Beyond the Celibacy Mandate

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Time and time again, we’ve described both marriage and celibacy as mature vocations entered into by adults. We started this blog discussing why celibacy needed to be defined by its positive attributes rather than by an absence of sexual relations. Later we asked many married people to tell us how they define marriage. We’ve encouraged the practice of letting celibate people define celibacy and married people define marriage. But, the challenge is that the Church needs a way to speak to all vocations so that individual Christians can discern their paths illumined by the light of Christ. We want to spend some time in this post discussing how churches can discuss vocations in a way where God, through the Holy Spirit, can draw people towards the fullness of life in Christ.

As a first key observation, both marriage and celibacy communicate the same central truth: the nature of the kingdom of God—it is in our midst and we are active participants. When churches help young people focus their sights on the kingdom of God, churches can help everyone discern his or her vocation. Every Christian shares the same starting line on the way to finding his or her vocation: seeking first the kingdom of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you as well.” Keeping the kingdom of God at the center sets our eyes towards the time where all things are reconciled towards God and challenges each and every one of us to do our part in manifesting God’s kingdom through our lives.

What’s unfortunate is that when it comes to LGBT issues, many Christian traditions teaching a more conservative sexual ethic have seemingly lost the mystery of the kingdom of God, focusing instead on a legalistic, “always do this, but don’t ever do that,” form of sexual morality as a way to strive for righteousness. The emphasis on sexual morality can manifest as the straightforward yet often unhelpful, “Don’t have sex outside of a heterosexual marriage” where this moral prescription represents the sum total of vocational guidance given to young Christians in these traditions. In such an environment, many LGBT people can feel ostracized by a seeming mandate to avoid sexual intimacy lest they lose any hope of inheriting the kingdom of God. Newsflash: by virtue of our baptism, all Christians have a solid inheritance. This does not mean that receiving the sacrament of baptism means a person will, for all of his or her life thereafter, be “good to go.” Rather, the point is our baptism invites us to participate in the kingdom of God. Our churches would do well to affirm (and reaffirm and reaffirm again) the power of the baptismal mystery as a way to unite ourselves fully to Christ, so that all Christians can set themselves to the work of showing the kingdom of God to the world.

In many ways, encouraging young people to pursue the kingdom of God is harder than exhorting young people to save sex for marriage. When young people listen for God’s direction, the Holy Spirit might lead them towards vocations where, gasp, they do not enter into marriages. It’s a lot easier for churches to put teenagers on an assembly line where all go through an identical set of rites of passage that culminate in a big wedding than it is for churches to trust that the Holy Spirit’s voice can still be heard above the clamor of raging hormones. In the midst of all the noise associated with becoming an adult in our society, churches should encourage teenagers to orient their ears to the still small voice where God can begin to show every person his or her unique call to manifest the kingdom.

Churches would do well to showcase regularly a belief that all vocations are needed and important. If a congregation thinks about every eighteen-year-old kid it has sent out into the world, then that congregation will realize all of these kids have individual stories. There will be people from that congregation that have done awesome things to serve the kingdom of God who have never married. Part of the allure of the celibate vocation is that there is an unlimited number of potential life stories that align with celibacy. Faithful Christians who never marry are not freaks; they are people who are able to love and serve the world differently than married people. The stories of celibate people should not be relegated to designated times of Celibate Appreciation (i.e. an annual Vocations Week). And it’s okay to let a congregation know if a really cool and inspiring person in your Christian tradition lived a celibate way of life. Catholic and Orthodox Christians have a calendar chockfull of celibate saints, and you still see people marrying regularly in those traditions.

A huge part of discerning one’s vocation is learning how to look honestly at yourself. Discerning vocation requires investigating your authentic desires and noting where they might be different from those of other people you know. As LGBT Christians ourselves, we regard realizing our statuses as LGBT people as a key part of coming to see who we are as individuals. However, in far too many churches, this uniqueness of person is met with a directive about the uniqueness of vocation. We know countless LGBT people who, in the instant they first disclosed their sexual orientations or gender identities, were told immediately, “You have to be celibate.” or “You cannot have sex.” Spiritual advice for LGBT people tends to come in the form of either you have to or you cannot.

What if all priests, pastors, and ministers started approaching situations that involve discussion of sexuality differently? What if spiritual directors left off the specific directives in favor of viewing LGBT Christians as people trying to discern where God is calling them? When spiritual directors start handing down restrictive directives, these spiritual directors are communicating that either they do not trust God to guide an LGBT person or they do not trust the person to listen to God. As we have said many times, LGBT people are people first and foremost. What would happen if spiritual directors started trusting LGBT people as much as they trust straight, cisgender people?

When a person does decide to start exploring a celibate vocation, we want to see congregations willing to support that individual. A vocation is not a cross to bear. A vocation is a pathway to an abundant life. When a person is sharing, “I don’t know if I can continue or even begin in a celibate vocation,” it’s good to come alongside him or her and say, “I know the issue of vocation can be really tough sometimes. I’m here for you. I’m praying for you. How can I help you see more of the kingdom of God in your circumstances right now?” Seeking God’s kingdom unites all Christians regardless of their vocations and enables us to support one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. By encouraging all people to seek first the kingdom, churches do not need to prescribe celibacy mandates. As Christians look for the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit will guide and direct those called to celibacy to a number of diverse ways of living celibate vocations.

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Maturing Towards Celibacy

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A reflection by Lindsey

As we’ve shared in many places, we regard both marriage and celibacy as mature vocations. I have made arguments that I think the Church should consider offering pre-celibacy counseling in order to help people discern a sustainable celibate way of life. My own journey into celibacy has been challenging. I’ve mostly found my own way, and I still regard myself as building the plane while I’m flying it.

Maturing towards celibacy has required me to take many deep looks into myself. Moving through many Christian traditions along the way, I’ve been confronted by different questions that demanded answers. I’ve also learned that some traditions asked better questions than others.

How can I align my mind, heart, soul, and body? Along the way, I’ve learned that God in a wondrous act of mercy has given us incredible tools to discern our vocation. My mind, heart, soul, and body seem to have a system of checks and balances that I could employ to test the claims made by various well-meaning Christians. When Christians suggested that my being LGBT could only be the result of demonic possession, I could search my heart and soul to know that I had earnestly committed my life to Christ and his care. As I began to study the meaning of 1 Corinthians 6 in light of Jesus’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, my mind told me that even if I were to come to regard myself as a cisgender, heterosexual person, I would still find myself liable for losing the Kingdom of Heaven because of other kinds of sins. My mind saw that it was incredibly difficult for anyone to obliterate all traces of greed, slander, and envy. My journey towards celibacy has involved finding my own story that unites my experience of mind, heart, soul, and body with Christ.

Where do I experience abundant life in the Kingdom of God? This question has been one of the most paradoxical for me. I first started with trying to listen to my Christian tradition tell me where I could most strongly encounter the Kingdom of God: go on missions trips, learn how to pray for other people, commit myself to regular patterns of Scripture study, share my faith with other people, etc. However, despite my best efforts, much of this counsel seemed ill-fitting. As an introverted engineer, I felt like I was constantly being forced to choose between different parts of myself. Journeying towards celibacy challenged me to find abundant life that acknowledged as many aspects of my personality as possible.

How can I find the “Yes” within the celibate vocation? Admittedly, I considered this question hard. Many of the congregations I was involved in saw celibacy as simply abstaining from sex. The people around me also exploring celibate vocations were compelled by an effort to avoid sexual immorality. I had a true watershed moment when a friend provided me with a a chapter of Poverty, Celibacy, and Obedience: A Radical Way of Life. Diarmuid O’Murchu makes a powerful argument that the vow of celibacy must be viewed as a vow for relatedness. O’Murchu’s observation helped me shift my thinking from “avoid sin” to “embrace people.”

How can I find strength to continue when celibacy seems incredibly difficult? I began my journey into my celibate vocation standing alone in my apartment. It seemed fitting that I was alone: I had spent years seeking spiritual direction to discern a celibate vocation, and I didn’t feel like anyone had any valuable counsel for me. As I was reflecting on how many of my friends had already entered their marriages, I decided I could enter into my celibacy. I thought since they had enough life experiences to commit to the marital vocation, I had lived enough life to commit to the celibate vocation. I told God, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I trust that You’ll help me.” I started talking to other people living celibate vocations, asking them to help me learn to pray. Learning to pray was of first importance to me because I felt like only God cared if I managed to find a life-giving form of celibacy. Later, I asked celibate people what their lives looked like on a daily basis. I found my own pattern to celibacy as I emulated aspects of their lives that seemed to mesh well with my circumstances. It seemed that I derived more strength from my vocation as I found a rhythm for my own celibacy.

Throughout all of my explorations of celibacy, I continue to fall back on the same question, “Do I trust God to guide my way?” I’ve been amazed as I’ve asked questions, given myself permission to make mistakes, and acknowledged that I certainly don’t have the answers even as I know my own vocation is tucked behind the image of God located at the core of my being.

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.

Cultivating Emotional Intimacy

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When someone you know is going through a hard time, it’s natural to ask that person whether he or she has adequate support. As our regular readers know, the last several months have thrown many challenges our way. We are continuing to stand firm because we’re able to support one another. Many people have asked us what our intimacy looks like, and today we’d like to address a question we’ve received: “How do you cultivate emotional intimacy in a celibate relationship?” In most ways, our response is no different from what we would expect to hear from a healthy, non-celibate couple.

Upon coming into relationship with one another, we fell almost immediately into a natural pattern of cultivating deep emotional intimacy, and we’ve seen that continuing as our relationship has grown. There’s something about our personalities that has allowed each of us to “get” the other, even though we’ve both experienced being profoundly misunderstood by many people in our lives. Sometimes, two people can just click.

Our friendship blossomed because we were willing to be vulnerable with each other. As we’ve shared before, we believe that vulnerability opens the door to intimacy. When we were just beginning getting to know each other, we shared random facts about ourselves and our lives. Lindsey learned that Sarah used to wear mismatched socks to express Sarah’s individuality in elementary school. Sarah learned that as a kid, Lindsey worked to save money so Lindsey could attend Space Camp three times. These micro-stories gave us opportunities to share an incredible number of life experiences and the various emotions associated with these experiences. We each saw bits and pieces of the other’s personality, and came to appreciate some similarities while acknowledging some real differences in our pasts. Our selections were truly random, spanning from the deeply significant to the absolutely trivial. In addition to helping us get to know one another as people, sharing these stories laid a foundation for our coming to trust one another.

Early on in our friendship, we made a commitment to being completely honest with one another. Honesty is one of the highest values for both of us, and we’ve both experienced past relationships in which we or our significant others have had difficulty with being forthright. Because of this, we’ve challenged each other to be radically open about our thoughts, feelings, and mistakes when there’s a problem. Within the first month of our friendship, we had already started to see this pattern emerging between us. Though at first Lindsey considered the topic embarrassing, Lindsey shared openly with Sarah about Lindsey’s writing anxiety and the kind of support needed in order to manage it. Since we’re both writing doctoral dissertations, that type of information has been vital to ensure that we’re accomplishing our goals without sacrificing our emotional needs. Since the time Lindsey first opened up to Sarah about writing anxiety, Sarah has been able to check in with Lindsey about it and provide comfort and encouragement when Lindsey needs it most. Equally humiliating was the first time Sarah told Lindsey about Sarah’s eating disorder history. Because many people assume that these conditions are merely attention-seeking devices for wealthy, white, teenage girls and not legitimate medical conditions that could affect someone Sarah’s age, it has been a struggle for Sarah to be authentic about the need for support. But when Sarah did open up to Lindsey about this for the first time, Lindsey was unimaginably supportive and impressed by Sarah’s commitment to living a recovery-focused lifestyle even during the hard times. Examples like these have built upon our foundation for trust in one another.

Over the first few months that we knew each other, we learned a great deal of information, including the most painful and hidden parts of one another’s lives. A crucial piece of our emotional intimacy has been accepting each other’s emotional pasts for what they are and being able to appreciate that, by virtue of our humanity, we both carry deeply-rooted wounds. Whether it’s related to an issue that occurred during one of our childhoods, ways we’ve experienced hurt within the Church, Sarah’s trauma and the resulting PTSD, negative messages Lindsey received in ex-gay ministry, or something else entirely, we know that there will be space for conversation and respect for that experience’s symbolic meaning when we’re ready to talk about it together. Cultivating empathy for each other’s brokenness–that which we share in common and that which varies individually–has helped both of us to feel safe in being completely genuine with one another, regardless of how ugly that might look sometimes.

While emotional lives are built over the entire lifespan, all people experience their emotions moment by moment. We tend to regard in-the-moment emotional experiences as slightly unpredictable because emotions can vary, especially when people are under a good deal of stress. We have made a practice of affirming one another’s right to feel in the moment, even if the other doesn’t understand exactly why that particular mix of emotion is present at a given time. Our commitment to opting in 100% as we do life together has helped us develop a strong emotional intuition. When Lindsey experiences a panic attack, Sarah can usually tell whether Lindsey would benefit most from reassurance and empathy, some clear direction to start problem-solving processes, or a mixture of approaches. This emotional intelligence goes both ways in our relationship. One day recently, Lindsey just held Sarah as Sarah started crying hysterically after a conflict with Sarah’s nutritionist. Given that Sarah had been in a car accident the day before and Sarah rarely gets upset to the point of tears, Lindsey knew something was up. Nevertheless, Lindsey sat in that space with Sarah until Sarah was ready to share the specifics of what had happened. We’re profoundly grateful God has opened up to us a space of grace to be able to discern what emotional response would best draw us into a deeper relationship with one another, even though we’re still learning.

While some aspects of emotional intimacy have come naturally, other aspects of emotional intimacy are more difficult. We’ve struggled with and will continue to determine the best pathway through the difficulties associated with being open about our spiritual lives and places where our spiritualities differ. On some levels, our spiritualities are incredibly compatible: we both value intellectual honesty, placing life in the Church in its historic contexts, cultivating a prayer life, and being shaped within our specific Christian tradition. On other levels, we’re continually surprised at just how hard it’s been to honor our natural spiritual inclinations when developing our own sense of tradition. Lindsey’s faith journey has been profoundly influenced by mainstays of the Evangelical tradition, as Lindsey’s faith began to blossom in college while Lindsey was participating in Intervarsity and playing on the worship team of a nondenominational congregation. Sarah’s personal spirituality and formation has been tied to more liturgical traditions, as Sarah has naturally grown in faith through partaking of the sacraments and engaging in robust intellectual reflection. Even though our spiritualities may look very similar at first glance, we’ve learned that we value incredibly different facets of the spiritual experiences we share. We have welcomed the opportunity to learn more about each other even though we’re still learning the best way to have these conversations. That said, we should also note that we have high expectations and hopes that we will find our way.

The emotional intimacy that we’ve been able to cultivate within our partnership has also manifested in spillovers into other relationships. We find it easier to be compassionate when others are going through hard times. We can affirm other people’s emotions and create space for whatever feeling happens to be in the room. We’ve learned that matching appropriate responses with how a specific individual experiences emotion can be hard, so we try to respond first with empathy. Cultivating emotional intimacy in all one’s relationships is a lifelong process, and we’re glad to take in whatever wisdom the journey may bring.

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.

Putting the “Tradition” in a Traditional Sexual Ethic

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A reflection by Lindsey

I have a personality that adapts well to things being in flux. I embrace the uncertainties associated with not always being aware of where I’m going and rarely being sure of the best path towards any goal. When I was in college, I thought I could have everything all sketched out in terms of my 5-, 10-, and 20-year plans. But every time I started feeling like my plans were coming together, something major happened to upset my apple cart. Eventually, I stopped trying to pile all the apples together and tried instead to carry one piece of fruit at a time. I feel like my spiritual journey mirrors many other aspects of my life, where it is regularly in a state of flux as I explore seemingly uncharted waters.

I didn’t start my spiritual journey particularly attached to any Christian denomination. Along the way, my spirituality has been shaped by a number of Christian traditions: I can trace significant influences upon my faith to the Anabaptist, Evangelical, Lutheran, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Quaker traditions. I’m a bit of a spiritual mutt.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I mean when talking about a traditional sexual ethic. There are lots of assumptions about what that phrase means. Many Christian traditions band together in defense of sex being reserved for marriage and marriage existing only between one man and one woman. But that’s not what I’m talking about when I refer to a traditional sexual ethic. What I’m talking about is a sexual ethic strongly mapped to a particular spiritual (or moral) tradition.

I’ve journeyed through enough Christian traditions to know that not all are the same. Each Christian tradition has its own set of emphases and guiding questions. And I earnestly believe that all robust Christian traditions offer people a set of tools for thinking about sex, marriage, vocation, and life in Christ. I find myself wishing that more Christians would leverage the full weight of their traditions to discern how those traditions can more openly welcome, embrace, and guide LGBT Christians into the fullness of life in Christ.

However, as much as I might wish for each tradition to look within its own borders to help LGBT Christians find abundant life, I’ve noticed that many Christian traditions have formed various alliances with other Christian traditions in order to shout down dissenters. As a result, it seems that people have allowed key differences among their traditions to evaporate in effort to find some basic commonality on which orthodox believers in all denominations can agree. The net effect is that Christian traditions write doctrinal statements that hint at vague ideals without showing people the connection between where the tradition is going and where the tradition’s theology came from in the first place.

I think within Christian traditions that consider themselves progressive, it’s entirely possible to have a “traditional” sexual ethic that embraces people who enter into same sex marriages simply because of the way those specific traditions frame their theological questions. I’ll never forget hearing Lillian Daniel speak on the heritage of the United Church of Christ during the 2013 Gay Christian Network Conference. Daniel spoke on how the UCC as a Christian tradition sees itself as inescapably using abolitionist arguments to break down the dividing walls between people and work toward social justice. After the talk, as I reflected on how this Christian tradition views itself I wondered, “In this denomination, is a heterosexual marriage principally about repairing the breach in relationships between man and woman? How would one think about the divide between gay people and straight people? Does one need to have a clear dichotomy in order to have a ‘dividing’ wall? What sort of space is afforded for bisexual and genderqueer people who might find themselves in the ‘middle’ of binaries?” If the United Church of Christ was my tradition, I’m rather hopeful that asking these sorts of questions would help me draw closer to the heart of Christ and pull me into a deeper connection with other people in the same tradition. I’m also reasonably confident that people within the UCC tradition can tell that I have only passing familiarity with their tradition because of these questions I asked.

Looking to the Christian traditions I’ve been a part of, I can see many reasons why these traditions do not affirm same-sex relationships as marriages. Some of these traditions seek to discern how God commands us to live as Christians by offering detailed direction on activities one must avoid. A good number of these traditions also explore gender as a very significant component of how we grow to maturity in Christ. How can a girl grow into a woman of God? How can we raise boys to be men after God’s own heart? In the sacramental traditions, offering the correct ‘elements’ in Holy Matrimony mirrors the pattern of offering bread and wine to become the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharistic mystery. Many of these traditions teach that both marriage and celibacy reveal something about the Kingdom of God, where all vocations are essential. Yet, each of these traditions grounds its sense of a traditional sexual ethic in a different line of reasoning.

In the midst of all my queries, I’ve spent a lot more time trying to figure out what different Christian traditions say about celibacy. By the time I started asking questions about celibacy, I was in a Christian tradition that didn’t say much other than “Sex is a great gift from God, so God opens up the possibility of heterosexual marriage for almost everyone.” I found myself with little choice but to shop around to see what other Christian traditions offered to people exploring celibacy. I found that many Protestant traditions stress the beauty of the single state, discussing celibacy as the opposite of marriage. I found a rich jumble of resources discussing celibacy within the Roman Catholic tradition. I guess it helps that the Roman Catholic Church has spent hundreds of years exploring the various implications of having different kinds of celibate vocations: clerical, monastic, and friar. Within the Orthodox tradition, I found a focus on practically living out one’s vocation and integrating oneself more deeply within the tradition as a whole through the practice of this vocation.

I think it’s absolutely critical to remind Christians that nearly all Christian traditions have a rich theology of marriage, of celibacy, and of sharing God’s love with the world. A Christian sexual ethic needs to be intricately connected within the broader tradition in order to equip people in that tradition for faithful discipleship.

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Of Celibacy, Sex, and Silver Bullets

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A reflection by Sarah

One of the arguments I hear most frequently against the idea of a celibate partnership is that in order to be healthy and “normal,” any committed, intimate relationship between consenting adults must involve a sexual union. I’ve heard it suggested that celibate partnerships like the one Lindsey and I share are, by their very nature, unsustainable because they involve denial of sexual expression. It’s understandable that most people would have this perception of celibate partnership, and I’ll be the first to admit that the way of life I’ve chosen is unconventional. Still, I find myself amazed at the frequency with which some non-celibate people will propose sex as the silver bullet solution for many difficulties that arise within celibate relationships. The past few months have been especially tough for Lindsey and me, bringing financial stress, a job search, two car accidents, one car breakdown, a street robbery, and the burglary of our home. In the midst of the chaos, I’ve been both surprised and disturbed by how often people in our lives have approached us lovingly-yet-seriously to ask, “Wouldn’t things be so much better if you just let yourselves have sex? Have you ever considered that might make your relationship stronger during this difficult time?” The most extreme example of this came yesterday in the form of a comment, positing that God is actually punishing us for being celibate and talking about celibacy, and said punishment might cease if only we would become sexually active. Not kidding here.

We spend a fair bit of time here discussing lessons we’ve learned from past celibate and sexually active relationships. Lindsey once shared the story of a failed celibate relationship in order to discuss the process of discerning a celibate vocation and developing the spiritual maturity and common vision that maintaining a celibate partnership requires. Today, I’m going to share with you the story of one of my own past relationships to illustrate that sexual activity does not automatically render a relationship normal, healthy, or good. Unlike the one described in Lindsey’s post, this relationship was not celibate and I had never envisioned that it could be. It was the most sexually charged relationship I’ve ever experienced — so much that this aspect of the relationship dominated.

For the purpose of this post, I will refer to my former girlfriend as Leah. At the time Leah and I began dating, I had already spent a few years considering the possibility of celibacy. But during this particular season of life, I saw celibacy as unrealistic and unsustainable despite my feeling a strong pull toward it from God. Due to my own fear of being ridiculed and considered peculiar, Leah and I never discussed celibacy or the possibility of exploring a celibate relationship. From the very beginning, Leah had made clear that sexual expression was one of her most significant needs. I conceded that if I was at all interested in pursuing a relationship with Leah long-term, I would have to honor that need. It never occurred to me that doing so would likely involve overlooking my own needs. We experienced a powerful attraction to each other based on some common interests and the positive energy we felt while in one another’s presence, so I came to believe that even discussing celibacy with Leah would be unreasonable and selfish.

I had told Leah upfront that although I had been in other sexual relationships before, I wasn’t comfortable with jumping into bed immediately. I asked if she would be willing to give me some time, and offered assurance that I would let her know when I felt ready for having sex. For the first three weeks, all was well. But then she began to tell me that she couldn’t understand why waiting for sex was so important to me. “This isn’t normal,” she would say. “Sexual intimacy is what makes a relationship worth pursuing. Without that, it’s dead.” I found myself feeling pressured into exploring sexual activity with Leah simply in an attempt to keep the relationship from falling apart. But within a few days after I had finally given in, I noticed a troubling change in the chemistry between us.

Almost immediately after our first time together, I felt a massive shift in our relationship dynamic. The decision to have sex with Leah was an opening of Pandora’s Box: every conversation we had became focused on sex and sexuality. Every time we had any sort of physical interaction, it became an occasion for sexual comments or actually dropping everything in the moment and taking a few minutes to engage in sex. This troubled me, and I brought the concern to Leah, who responded, “Would you rather we were experiencing lesbian bed death?” She expressed her belief that sex was the most vital of all dimensions of a romantic relationship, and that as long as sex was still occurring and was enjoyable to her, all our other needs would fall into place. It seemed that Leah understood only two possibilities for our relationship: a pattern of interactions that would always lead to the bedroom, or a pattern of interactions that would involve minimal physical contact in any way and would ultimately become impossible to continue. I considered the possibility that she might be right. Maybe sex was the most important aspect of a relationship and I just hadn’t caught up to speed on that yet.

Though I never felt comfortable emotionally or morally with what was happening in our sex life, I remained in relationship with Leah for quite a long while. As time went on, Leah’s expectations for my sexual performance increased to a level I could not possibly reach. She became critical of my body and my unwillingness to perform certain types of sexual activities. Doing something in bed that did not give her sufficient pleasure (or worse, ended up being unpleasant for her) carried significant consequences. Leah began to withdraw all affection from me after I had made “mistakes” while trying to give her what she wanted. At times when I would assert my own needs and wants, Leah would counter with a statement of her right to express her sexuality in any and every way that made her feel happy. This included attempts to convince me that my own physical boundaries were unreasonable. The relationship began to lose its meaning for me because everything was completely focused on our sexual experiences.

As this pattern continued, I noticed that Leah was losing interest in having any kind of intimacy with me that was not sexual. She began rejecting hugs and offers to cuddle on the couch. Any real conversations we were having ceased, and simply spending time together became a chore. Near the end of our relationship, even the sex stopped happening. Leah claimed that she didn’t feel close to me because I wasn’t giving her enough “good” sex, so she had lost interest in sharing any kind of intimacy with me. Though I attempted to raise these issues with Leah and was fully ready to accept responsibility for my part in them, Leah was unwilling to discuss any of this in a meaningful way. She placed all blame for the crumbling of our sex life and relationship as a whole on me for not giving her enough space and for having too high a need for non-sexual types of intimacy.

I tell this story not to condemn Leah or to suggest that this is normative pattern of all sexually active gay relationships. If you find yourself identifying with anything I mentioned above, please consider seeking help. I’m also not saying this to suggest that I am incapable of embracing my sexuality. Though I am now committed to lifelong celibacy in the context of my partnership with Lindsey, I’ve been involved in other sexually active relationships that were quite emotionally healthy. As I reflect on my past relationship with Leah, I can see that I learned many valuable lessons from its circumstances; but perhaps the most important is that sexual activity is not the magical ingredient to guarantee a relationship will be “normal” and “healthy.”

All too often, people who do not understand celibacy frame “sex within a committed relationship” as a panacea for struggles associated with celibacy. My own life experience tells me that this way of thinking is dangerous. And I’d argue it can be just as harmful as suggesting that celibacy mandates are the silver bullet for addressing all LGBT issues in the Church. In the end, Leah and I were incompatible on a number of levels, including our very different views on sexual ethics. I believe there is nothing that could have saved our relationship, and even without these serious issues with intimacy, eventually we would have seen that we were not a good match for each other. Nonetheless, I wonder if things might have ended differently had sexual activity not become the perceived cure-all for every problem that came between us.

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.