Tag Archives: celibacy

Children, Connectedness, and the Vocation to Celibacy

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A reflection by Sarah

Four afternoons a week, I have the pleasure of watching a delightful little girl whom I’ll call Ksenia. Each afternoon, like now, I’lI sit in the same spot beside her crib with my laptop and ear buds as I try to steal some writing time while watching her nap peacefully. I feel as though I’ve known her since before she was born: over a year before she came into this world, I was giving her mother English lessons in preparation for entry to an American law school. I began watching now-seventeen-month-old Ksenia during her eighth month of life, and our first moment of real bonding came when she laughed at my pathetic rendition of “Rainbow Connection” during an attempt at rocking her to sleep. Since then, I’ve come to know her as a tiny human with a vibrant personality. Far more active than any child her age I’ve ever known, Ksenia has taught me not to turn my head for more than a second lest I find her standing atop the dresser or scaling the nearest bookcase. Preferring borscht and hotdogs over most other foods, she seems oddly aware of her parents’ wish that she grow up proudly Russian, yet undeniably American. Each afternoon I spend with her, I find myself entering a world where old boxes transform into caves, happiness is plunging both hands into a container of homemade finger paint, and a walk outside brings pure enchantment. And though it may sound unusual, because of the time I spend with Ksenia, I return home in the evenings feeling strengthened in my vocation to celibacy.

Like many gay and lesbian young people, I was terrified upon realizing my sexual orientation. However, I remember clearly that my first fearful question was not, “How will I tell my parents?” or “What will my church community think?” It was, “How can I make it through life without having children?” For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strong maternal instinct. I recall that as early as age five, I had imagined becoming a mother. Since the 8th grade, I’ve known that if I ever have a son or daughter, his or her name will be Patrick or Catherine. And from high school forward, I began keeping in mind the possibility that someday I might take a break from my future career to fill the role of homeschool mom. As a young woman coming to full acceptance of myself as a lesbian in the midst of a life stage when my biological clock was ticking loudly, I found the prospect of never giving birth to children especially difficult to swallow. This didn’t become any easier after discovering my vocation to celibacy. Instead, it became significantly harder.

For years, I’ve gone around in circles with questions regarding how best to welcome children into my life. Certain as I am that God has called me to celibacy, I’m equally confident that my vocation involves loving and caring for children in some capacity. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past decade exploring ways that I can extend hospitality to kids at a variety of ages. I’ve taught Sunday school—every class from toddler to teen. I’ve volunteered with camps and summer education programs for elementary school children, and participated in social justice projects focused on improving early literacy and parent-child bonding. For three years, I provided homework help in inner city public school classrooms. Currently, in addition to watching Ksenia, I’m tutoring Jacob, a high school senior, in calculus and Sam, his eight-year-old brother, in reading skills. Sam and I have just begun reading Charlotte’s Web, one of my favorite children’s novels, and he’s trying every trick in the book to get me to reveal Charlotte’s plan for saving Wilbur before we arrive at that chapter. Over time, I’m discovering that in witnessing Sam’s eagerness to devour a story, Jacob’s smile when he finally succeeds at calculating an integral, and Ksenia’s excitement about spotting a dog on our afternoon walk, I experience the rich connectedness that makes my vocation a joyous one.

As we’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, Lindsey and I spend a lot of time praying about how to extend hospitality to others. That necessarily includes children despite the fact that our society often treats them as lesser humans who can be ridiculed without consequence, and many churches treat them as nuisances who ought not to be welcomed fully in worship as members of the Body of Christ. If I were to make a guess at where God might be leading us on this question, I’d say that a substantial part of our extending hospitality to children means being there for future nieces and nephews in ways that aren’t part of their parents’ roles. There are advantages to being the cool aunt with a history of crazy life experiences: sometimes, I think I’d rather be the adult who can offer nonjudgmental advice to an adolescent on the tough stuff than the adult charged with enforcing proper discipline when that same young rebel breaks curfew. Truth be told, I’m not well suited to the latter. I have no idea what God’s plans are for us with regard to welcoming children into our lives in the future, but I savor every moment of time we get with Lindsey’s nephew, and I look forward to the day when my sister will tell me that she and my brother-in-law have decided to become parents. And for now, I cherish each moment I get with my favorite Russian toddler and her magical cardboard box.

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When vocation doesn’t come naturally

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A reflection by Lindsey

One of the hazards I encounter is that Christians talking about celibacy frequently speak of the gift of celibacy. The gift of celibacy is treated on a level much like the gift of teaching or the gift of administration. If someone says he or she has a spiritual gift of teaching, then we often assume that means he or she is good at teaching. It stands to reason then that people might assume I’m good at celibacy, it comes naturally to me, and I don’t have to work especially hard to cultivate a celibate vocation because I feel called to celibacy. In many people’s eyes, I must have the gift of celibacy coupled with an odd human constitution that allows me to experience a great deal of joy even if I’m not having sex.

We’ve reflected elsewhere on our blog about how we regard the “gift” of celibacy, but what I’d like to do today is to reflect on what happens when one’s vocation doesn’t come naturally. We regard radical hospitality as the first defining virtue of a celibate vocation. But honestly, practicing out that virtue is a tremendous struggle for me. Practicing hospitality can be exceptionally draining the vast majority of the time; and, practicing radical hospitality only ratchets up the demand.

A continual commitment to hospitality is hard for me because I’m an introvert. To make matters even more difficult, social skills are definitely not my forte. Everything I know about relating to other people has been learned through hard fought lessons. So many things that people take for granted in social situations, I’ve had to learn. I have my fair share of embarrassing moments with one crowning example being when our couples therapist asked me in front of Sarah how I might start to get to know someone I’m just meeting. I was beyond clueless, struggling to get past my first tentative reply of, “You ask them their name?” knowing full well that our therapist had slightly more advanced social skills in mind. I have to work hard to muster anything remotely like confidence in social situations, and truth be told, I’d rather curl up and hide in my room most of the time than meet new people. If my friends were to think about the first words they associate with me, hospitality would be virtually absent from the list.

Yet, I regard radical hospitality as a core virtue of my God-given vocation. As such, I’ve made an active choice to try and cultivate hospitality even when it does not come naturally to me in the slightest. I find some refuge in trying to practice a radical hospitality centered on Christ, His Incarnation, and His example, but I certainly am not pretending for an instant that I have it all sorted.

When I’m practicing radical hospitality, I try to leverage my personality as an introvert as much as possible. I’d rather focus on building rich, meaningful, and deep relationships with a few people as opposed to perfecting the gentility associated with being an ideal host, a social butterfly, and a person who can attend to the most minute aspects of social cues. If radical hospitality necessarily had to involve the latter, I might as well be trying to sail a ship from a completely landlocked country. Instead, I work with what I have: my natural tendency towards generosity, my complete appreciation for the realness of human experiences, and my almost canine sense of loyalty. I live as simply as possible to try and always have a little bit more I can give to another (even if that gift is as immaterial as a smile and a kind word to the person collecting my toll money). I’ve worked through a lot of my own issues associated with trying to be human in this fallen world, so I can appreciate the authentic spiritual journeys of others. And I’m always looking at building my list of friends rather than transitioning away from friends after a season of closeness. The more vulnerable a person has chosen to be with me, the much more likely I am going to be his or her friend in a decade’s time.

I do not have a gift for small talk, and equally, I have zero interest in seeing how small talk could ever be a gift that I should work towards cultivating. Instead I spend a lot of time asking God to show me which people I should try to get to know better. I look for opportunities to be around the same group of people over time to give myself time (and space) to figuring out how to practice hospitality as best as I know how. I’ve been incredibly surprised that God keeps putting people in my path in a meaningful way, but I know that it’s not for an instant a relational network of my own building.

There’s a certain gift in not being interested in small talk. I look for places to hang out where it’s much more likely that people are engaging in deep talk. As such, I’ve seen that virtually every human being is staring bravely into the face of some very hard battles. Being present as people share what assails or ails them, I find myself frequently moved into prayer and encouragement. Encouragement unlocks my own excitabilities in such a way that some people don’t even realize I’m an introvert because I could play an extrovert so convincingly on television. But more to the point, in trying to get to know people in their hidden-away spaces, I increasingly feel the spark of prayer rise up in my heart as I try to present their concerns to Christ.

I don’t know where I’d be without trying to cultivate a celibate vocation. It’s the demand my vocation places on me to be radically hospitable that has pulled me out of my own shell and into a rich network of relationships with others. It’s been my natural cluelessness about how other people establish friendships that has led me to ask God for help. It’s been my desire for guidance that has spurred me to seek out men and women living celibate lives to ask them how they pray for the needs of the entire world even if they live intentionally detached from the world. It’s been my own battles with social anxiety and depression that have shown me that none of us have life as figured out as we think… and that many people are open to receiving an authentic dose of encouragement from a generous heart along the way.

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.

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.

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.

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 Slippery Slope

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As people learn about our vocation as a celibate couple, another of the many questions we receive on a regular basis is, “How do you deal with temptation?” The people asking this question are interested in learning how we avoid crossing over “the line” into sex. Some people have been counseled by their own spiritual directors to avoid certain forms of physical intimacy lest these forms of intimacy increase the temptation to have sex. Indeed, it seems that many people view sexual intimacy as a giant cliff, where sharing any degree of physical closeness has the potential to push people towards sex. But as we see it, the idea that physical affection is a slippery slope that will push people towards violating their celibate vocations is highly problematic for many reasons.

Not all people experience touch in the same way, and touch is not necessarily sexual. The slippery slope argument depends on the idea that specific forms of touch have an exceptionally high likelihood of activating a person’s desire for sexual intimacy. When spiritual directors say things like, “No frontal hugs” to young LGB Christians who want to cultivate a celibate vocation, what these spiritual directors are saying is that there’s something about a frontal hug that causes the people sharing that hug to start automatically undressing one another, or that there’s something about a frontal hug that causes the body to yearn for more skin-to-skin contact. While we can acknowledge that some people do experience frontal hugs in this sort of way, we personally think that a majority of celibate and sexually abstinent people are able to share healthy hugs that have not spurred a desire for sexual intimacy. Some people, like Lindsey, experience hugs as a language where it is exceptionally comfortable to speak “hug” in many different situations. When spiritual directors use the slippery slope argument, they can intentionally or unintentionally pathologize a person’s natural predisposition for using touch to communicate nonsexual love.

People using the slippery slope argument tend to have a common list of “don’t”s used to establish clear boundaries in relationships and consider these to be common sense. However, these people often forget that standards for appropriate touch are set within communities and cultures and are not necessarily universal. For example, many Muslims and Orthodox Jews would be uncomfortable shaking hands with a person of the opposite sex. Most western Christians would not perceive that sort of touch as inappropriate. What’s taken as “common sense” regarding boundaries in relationships isn’t so common at all. Moreover, the boundaries seem to reflect the spiritual director’s sensibilities about what sorts of affection between two people of the same sex he or she can handle witnessing. The spiritual director asks the LGB person to conform to patterns of affection that he or she has no problem “signing off” on as appropriate. The different comfort levels might explain why some draw “the line” at frontal hugs while others place the boundary at kissing on the lips.

Many people offering advice on this topic filter questions of intimacy in celibate relationship through their own experiences of trying to maintain sexual purity standards before they were married. They will say things like, “When I was younger and unmarried, I had trouble keeping myself chaste.” They tend to compare the LGB person desiring celibacy with their own experiences of trying to remain sexually abstinent through their teen years (or maybe their 20s as well). We think it’s worth pointing out that most teenagers tend to be raging balls of hormones as they are getting a handle on their developing young adult bodies, but that different people come to grips with their hormones in different ways. The experience of a 17-year-old trying to remain sexually abstinent often differs significantly from that of a 38-year-old who has spent 20 years cultivating a celibate vocation. When spiritual directors forget that people experience sexuality differently throughout their lives, they often come down hard, saying that it’s impossible to pursue lifelong celibacy within the context of a relationship. After all, these people profoundly struggled to maintain their own senses of chastity before they married in their early or mid-20s. Sometimes, this can also be true for spiritual directors living their own celibate vocations who may have struggled with remaining chaste as young people. In this case, a spiritual director might also assume that the boundaries associated with his or her particular celibate vocation are the appropriate boundaries for all people pursuing celibate vocations.

More profoundly, the slippery slope argument misrepresents how we cultivate chastity. Often, chastity is understood in terms of purity, virginity, and untouched landscapes. When this term is framed as being only about touch and purity, it is easy to forget that chastity begins with learning to control one’s tongue. On how abstaining from certain kinds of acts can help people cultivate virtue, Tikhon of Zadonsk offered this wisdom: “Let thy mind fast from vain thoughts; let thy memory fast from remembering evil; let thy will fast from evil desire; let thine eyes fast from bad sights: turn away thine eyes that thou mayest not see vanity; let thine ears fast from vile songs and slanderous whispers; let thy tongue fast from slander, condemnation, blasphemy, falsehood, deception, foul language and every idle and rotten word; let thy hands fast from killing and from stealing another’s goods; let thy legs fast from going to evil deeds: Turn away from evil, and do good.” The Roman Catholic Catechism opens with its discussion of chastity with this exhortation (para 2348): “All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has ‘put on Christ,’ the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.” It seems to us that chastity, rightly understood, involves cultivating virtues that allow people to reflect the image and likeness of Christ more fully.

The slippery slope argument falls short of sound spiritual direction for many reasons. It begins by pathologizing natural expressions of physical intimacy. Often, spiritual directors use it to draw the line according to their own boundaries rather than help people discern what kinds of actions promote developing a celibate vocation.  When spiritual directors rely on their own experience of maintaining a state of sexual abstinence, they are usually reflecting on their experiences of being teenagers or young adults and “waiting until marriage.” This focus overlooks that celibate people develop vocations throughout their entire lives. Lastly, the slippery slope argument frames the celibacy question almost exclusively in terms of physical touch. Instead of using the slippery slope argument, we encourage spiritual directors to present celibacy as a vocation that allows people to cultivate virtues associated with imagining Christ-likeness to the world.

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