Tag Archives: celibacy

Our Celibate Gay Agenda

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Today’s post is a response to another inquiry from a reader. Actually, from multiple readers. One particular reader, who has instructed us to identify her as Crystal, asked us:

You have to know that churches use stories like yours to tell sexually active gay people they have to be sexually abstinent. How do you deal with that? Do you ever think you shouldn’t tell your story because it isn’t the same as other gay people’s experiences and not all gay couples are celibate like you? You say you don’t have an agenda besides talking about your experience of celibacy and other things, but aren’t you playing into an agenda by telling your stories even though that’s not what you wanted?

From the beginning of our blogging adventure — even from day one — we’ve received regular questions about our “agenda.” Sometimes, it’s about “the gay agenda.” Other times, it’s about “the agenda of the religious right.” On occasion, we’ve receive emails within hours of each other suggesting that we are promoting both. But over the past few weeks, we’ve begun to see a different phrase popping up when folks contact us with these types of questions. More and more, people are asking us directly about the “celibate gay agenda.”

Like many of our LGBT friends, when someone in real life accuses us of having a hidden “gay agenda,” we’re tempted to offer a semi-snarky rundown of our daily activities to demonstrate the point that our lives don’t look much different from those of straight people: “Today, my gay agenda is to wake up, go to the gym, take a shower, go to work, come home, have dinner, and go to sleep.” Most likely, you’ve heard something like this before. It’s a half-joking, half-frustrated response to the assumption that somehow, all gay people everywhere are part of an intricate plot to take over society. We have to admit, some of the questions we get about the supposed celibate gay agenda evoke the same frustrations. At the same time, we’re well aware of how agenda-driven conversations about LGBT people and the Church have become, and it’s probably best to share some candid thoughts on where we stand relative to people’s perceptions of the hidden motives of LGBT celibates.

Let’s start by taking Crystal’s questions one by one. First she asks, “You have to know that churches use stories like yours to tell sexually active gay people they have to be sexually abstinent. How do you deal with that?” Yes, we do know that. We deal with it by speaking out publicly against it. There’s a level at which we can’t control how others use our story. We put it out there to the internet, and we lose control over what people have to say about it. That’s a reality of blogging, and we were jolted into it very quickly. But from time to time, we do get to see how people use our thoughts on certain topics in their interactions with LGBT acquaintances, friends, and family members. In most of these instances it’s positive. But anytime we hear of someone telling a non-celibate LGBT person, “Celibacy is possible. It’s not that hard. Just look at Sarah and Lindsey at A Queer Calling,” we try to shift the conversation to the real issues at hand. We remind people that the purpose of our blog is to interact with others interested in discussing LGBT celibacy — not to suggest that celibacy is easy, and not to hold ourselves up as examples for the entire LGBT community. We encourage readers who find our writing helpful to use it for fostering productive conversation — not for hitting someone over the head with a frying pan.

Crystal then asks, “Do you ever think you shouldn’t tell your story because it isn’t the same as other gay people’s experiences and not all gay couples are celibate like you?” No. We don’t ever think this. Because we believe all people’s stories are worthy of being told and heard, we figure that includes ours as much as anyone else’s. We see no logical reason to silence ourselves. We also believe that it’s possible to learn something from everyone, so wouldn’t want to see other LGBT stories silenced, even if those stories have very little in common with ours and even if we disagree with the theological opinions of the people who tell them. The possibility that one’s story might be used against others is a poor reason not to tell it. As we said above, we can’t always control what people say about us or how they use the content we publish here. We do have a responsibility to be fair to others when sharing our experiences, and we feel respected when other bloggers with experiences different from ours acknowledge that celibate LGBT Christians exist and do their best to be fair to us.

Crystal’s last question is the one that encapsulates many others we’ve received from readers recently: “You say you don’t have an agenda besides talking about your experience of celibacy and other things, but aren’t you playing into an agenda by telling your stories even though that’s not what you wanted?” We don’t think so. We don’t have any intention of becoming someone’s pawns. We are the owners of our story. No one else is: not other members of our Christian tradition, not the larger group of celibate LGBT voices, not the broader LGBT Christian community — nobody. And we don’t own other people’s stories either. Anyone can start a blog. It’s not that difficult. When we launched ours, we anticipated having maybe 20 regular readers, mostly friends. We never dreamed that so many people would be interested in our perspectives. A Queer Calling came to be at a time when we felt a need for more meaningful interaction with other people on topics such as celibacy, vocation, spirituality, and LGBT Christian issues. It began as a project to help us explore where God is calling us, and to give us something new to enjoy together during Lindsey’s period of unemployment. We write because we see celibacy as an important topic that far too many people dismiss as old-fashioned, oppressive, and indicative of a lack of self-acceptance. And that’s all. Playing into a larger agenda would require our consent on some level. We haven’t given it, and feel free to share this post with anyone who may be unaware of this.

If you see our story as dangerous in one way or another, trust us, you’re not alone. Those sorts of assertions fill our inbox every day. We can understand why people with a variety of theological positions and life experiences might feel uneasy about our writing. We hear that most often, though not exclusively, from people with progressive sexual ethics. To those who see us in this way and perhaps believe that we shouldn’t be sharing our story, we have some questions for you. Have you ever thought about the broader LGBT Christian conversation’s overall impact on celibates and our places within our Christian traditions? Have you ever considered the possibility that the discussion (as it is now) about LGBT issues in Christianity could be making celibates less and less welcome in our church communities? Do you think it’s possible that non-celibate LGBT people aren’t the only ones fighting for the ability to be known and loved?

We’re going to be blunt for a moment: non-celibate LGBT Christians often argue that the stories of celibates make it harder for them and their families to feel safe at church, but many do not realize that this goes both ways. If you’re a non-celibate LGBT Christian, know that church folk are just as inclined to use your stories against us. As more moderate Christian traditions move toward accepting liberal approaches to sexual ethics, more conservative Christian traditions are refusing to acknowledge the existence of LGBT people in their parishes at all. Formerly-civil discussions about LGBT issues in conservative churches are now ending at, “Why can’t you just choose to be straight and get married or at least identify as SSA instead of gay? LGBT language has a liberal political agenda attached to it.” We fear the possibility that a time may be approaching when celibate LGBT Christians have only two options: 1) attend a church with a liberal sexual ethic where, in many cases, celibacy is frowned upon or misunderstood and celibates are not supported adequately; or, 2) attend a church with a conservative sexual ethic where celibates are expected to deny their sexual orientations or leave. So, to be fair, we’ll concede that in addition to simply “sharing our story,” our agenda also includes educating about the mere existence of celibate LGBT Christians in all kinds of traditions. As our weeks and months of blogging so far have passed, we’ve become aware of multiple instances where LGBT celibates in denominations with liberal, moderate, and conservative approaches have been made to feel unwelcome — all because we don’t fit the norm in any church environment.

To end today’s post, we offer these questions for our readers’ consideration. Is it really safe to assume that everyone involved in this conversation has an agenda that can be lumped into one of two categories that are polar opposites? How much more productive might our discussions be if we did not assume the worst about people we perceive to be on the “other side” of debates about LGBT issues in the Church? And finally, have we reached a point at which stories can’t stories just be stories?

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.

I Am Not Asexual, and Why I Care What Others Call Me

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A reflection by Sarah

Last week, I wrote a post on some problems I see with defining LGBTQ terminology rigidly and attempting to qualify who is or is not LGBTQ. I’m thankful for all the stimulating discussions that post initiated with friends and readers, including some folks who were encountering our blog for the first time. One of my favorite aspects of blogging is witnessing how quickly a 1,500 word reflection can spark multiple conversations that take off on trajectories I never would have anticipated. In my post from last week, I had stated the following:

I am a lesbian. I experience attraction to women. Occasionally that attraction does include sexual thoughts. However, I experience sexual desire rather infrequently. I can’t even remember the last time I had a desire for sex. I am committed to sharing life with a partner whom I love, but to whom I am not sexually attracted, and who has trouble picking out which letters of the alphabet soup are the best fit.

I was surprised to see that a fair number of the resulting conversations, including one on that post’s comments section, involved suggestions that I must be asexual. Perhaps part of it was because in some of these conversations (particularly on Facebook and Twitter), I was using the example of an asexual lesbian to demonstrate that LGBTQ sexual identity doesn’t necessarily have to involve the desire for sex. But in most cases, even after I explained that I am not asexual, the assertions continued. Over the past week, I’ve been wondering what exactly has led so many readers to assume that I’m asexual, why I’m so quick to claim that I’m not, and whether the answers to these questions are even relevant to the conversations Lindsey and I are trying to initiate. After several days of reflection, I’ve come to see how important the topic of asexuality is to explorations of celibacy, so I’ve chosen to address it for the first time today.

Most of the time, I resist writing posts that delve deeply into topics that are only vaguely related to my own experience of life. I’m quick to call out straight Christians who make ignorant statements about gay/lesbian topics despite their lack of firsthand knowledge. I don’t want to do the same thing to asexuals, so let me make clear: everything I say in this post is from my own experience, and it should not be taken as a critique of the asexual community, or as evidence that all people currently embracing the term “asexual” will eventually realize that they are wrong.

My first reaction to seeing the aforementioned conversations about my blog post was, “Whoa…blast from the past!” Very early in my coming out process, I did experiment with the term “asexual” as a possible identity descriptor. There was a time, back in the earlier years of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) message boards, when I interacted regularly with the asexual community and thought I might be one of them. While most of my now-closest friends were beginning their affiliations with the Gay Christian Network (GCN), I was spending much of my spare time chatting it up with the folks at AVEN. I met some great people during my time on the AVEN boards and got back in touch with a couple of them once Facebook became a more popular way of keeping up with friends, but in time I saw that the term “asexual” was not a good fit for me and it has been years since I’ve even thought much about asexuality.

AVEN currently defines the term “asexual” as, “Someone who does not experience sexual attraction.” There aren’t many other definitions available because asexuality is not widely recognized as a sexual orientation as of 2014. AVEN’s definitions page offers other terms as well such as “demisexual” (someone who can only experience sexual attraction after an emotional bond has been formed) and “gray asexual” or “gray-sexual” (someone who identifies with the area between asexuality and sexuality). As many readers have pointed out, my description of my own level of sexual desire could easily fit somewhere within the broad spectrum of asexual self-identification. One reader referred to me as gray-sexual and insisted that this was an appropriate label for me whether I like it or not. Generally, I believe it is a sign of respect to honor other people’s identities as they understand them. I can’t think of too many things that make me feel more disenfranchised than another person claiming to know better than I do what I am or am not, or what I believe or don’t believe. Could someone with the exact same level of sexual desire as I have rightly claim a term like “asexual” or “gray-sexual”? Sure. If a person sees nonexistent or limited sexual desire as a key component of his or her identity, who am I to say that is unimportant? But it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t identify with these terms.

So does my preferred terminology (lesbian) have any relevance if I’ve chosen a way of life that doesn’t include sexual activity? If Lindsey and I are intentionally celibate, why does it matter what I call myself? Yes, I think it does matter, and two reasons come to mind immediately.

First, identifying as “asexual” rather than “sexual” would change the meaning of my commitment to celibacy. I understand my celibacy within the context of vocation. All vocations involve giving of oneself and making sacrifices for the sake of the Kingdom. Lindsey and I believe that God has given both of us the gift of celibacy, which makes certain aspects of our daily living different from that of other LGBT people who have chosen celibacy purely out of obedience. But this doesn’t mean our celibacy comes without consequence. Sometimes, a way of life that one feels called to comes naturally and is easy, but at other times it is challenging and even feels painful. There are occasions when I begin to think that the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence. As I’ve mentioned before, I felt drawn to celibacy for several years before actually committing to it. I spent a few years second-guessing myself, shifting back and forth between liberal and conservative approaches to sexual ethics, and trying to determine if being obedient to my Christian tradition would necessitate squelching my attractions to other women. As I was dealing with all of this, I didn’t even question whether possibly spending the rest of my life without sexual activity would be a sacrifice — I knew it would be. I knew that in making the decision to live celibacy I would be giving up one very important way of connecting with others, and that would be hard. Especially since pursuing celibacy with Lindsey, I’ve only seen confirmation of this. I still experience sexual attraction to other women, even though it’s rare and even though I’m not sexually attracted to Lindsey. I’ve been in sexually active relationships before, and there’s no denying that these kinds of relationships are vastly different from what Lindsey and I share. Once in a blue moon, I’ll think back on those and miss that kind of connection. Thus, the idea of identifying with asexuality just doesn’t sit well with me.

Second, I have radically different emotional associations for the terms “lesbian” and “asexual,” and I see this as at least partially related to my experience as a survivor of sexual violence. It’s erroneous to suggest that a person who is LGBTQ (or a person who is asexual, for that matter) would necessarily have been heterosexual (or sexual at all) had it not been for a sexual trauma. It’s also incorrect to say that spending time in therapy to heal from sexual trauma will make a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person straight, a transgender person identify with his/her biological sex, or an asexual person sexual. I believe that my lesbian sexual orientation is completely unrelated to my sexual abuse, but I also believe that some people form their entire concept of sexual orientation around those kinds of experiences. If I’m totally honest with myself, I have to admit that’s exactly what I was doing in experimenting with the asexual label for a season of life. During that time, I knew deep down that I had a sexual orientation; I just didn’t want one. I was fearful of what it would mean to accept myself as a sexual person, and I knew that the rare sexual attractions I experienced were toward women. In my mind, adopting the term “asexual” was the easy way out of acknowledging my PTSD and having to struggle with questions of faith and sexuality. It would also save me from total rejection, I thought. I knew that sooner or later, I would have to tell people I wasn’t straight. All the assumptions and questions about why I didn’t have a boyfriend were weighing on me heavily. I was aware that whether I came out as lesbian or asexual, everyone who knew of my being a survivor would blame my abuse and tell me that I should seek counseling to become “normal.” But I thought, “At least if I tell people I’m asexual, they can’t say I’m doing anything wrong.” At the time, the asexual label seemed like the amoral option. I stopped identifying with “asexual” after realizing that use of the term was causing me a great deal of sexual frustration. Oddly enough, I’ve never experienced stronger and more frequent sexual desire than I did during my season of identifying as “asexual.” I consider that more than enough evidence that this label is not the most fitting for me. It’s interesting how coming to identify freely as “lesbian” was part of what opened the gift of celibacy up to me.

The problem with claiming to know another person’s sexual identity better than he or she does is that no two journeys through life are exactly the same. Two people who experience almost identical levels of sexual, emotional, and romantic attraction can have profoundly different senses of identity due to their histories and worldviews. Assigning a sexual identity label to a person other than oneself privileges one’s own self-understanding to an extent. It’s overly simplistic to assume that a one-sentence definition can convey accurately how every person who uses a particular term would describe its meaning. Regardless of whose definition for “asexual,” “gray-sexual,” or any other term a person might fit, his or her own internal sense of self should be honored and respected.

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.

Calling or Conviction: “If it’s not about avoiding sin, does LGBT celibacy still matter?”

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Today, we are responding directly to a reader question that came after last week’s Saturday Symposium question:

“The tenor of your blog puzzles me more and more with every post. Not saying that’s bad. It’s just that everyone else who talks about this stuff does so while making an affirming or non-affirming argument. My question is do you think a celibate gay person’s commitment to celibacy matters if it doesn’t come along with a statement that gay sex is wrong? Is it good enough that a person feels called to celibacy, or does that call have to come from a place of conviction of sin in order for it to matter or have meaning?”

Before we get started on this one, we refer you to another post where we wrote about why  we choose not to engage in the “Is same-sex sexual activity sinful?” debate here on the blog. We recommend reading that one first before continuing with this post. The decision to frame our writing project outside this particular debate does not mean that we have no opinions on sexual ethics for LGBT Christians. It also doesn’t mean that we think the question is unimportant. It only means that here in this space, we are trying to have a different conversation. That said, we can proceed to addressing this reader’s question.

To begin with, if a person feels called to celibacy, it makes sense to discuss this calling in terms of vocation. Vocations enable people to manifest the Kingdom of God. They bring people into relationship with God, other humans, and the world as a whole. They call people to live more intentionally. Because of this, our initial response to reading this question was, “Why wouldn’t a person’s vocation matter?” We believe that regardless of a person’s reason for pursuing a particular vocation in the beginning, for the duration, or in the end, the choice to pursue it is significant. It means that a person has decided to follow God in a way of life that will help him or her to grow in holiness. Why would that not be important and meaningful, even if you don’t agree with that person’s reason for making the commitment?

It seems absurd to us that in the eyes of some, LGBT celibacy isn’t “valid” or “real” if a person offers, “I feel called” instead of, “I’m avoiding sin” as his/her reason for pursing celibacy. Rarely do we hear anyone apply the same standard to the vocation of marriage, even though within some Christian traditions one could make a biblical argument that avoidance of sin is the primary reason a person should choose to marry. In 1 Corinthians 7:9, St. Paul writes, “But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to argue that based on this scripture, a person should marry if marrying is the only way he or she can avoid sexual sin, and other possible reasons for marrying are less meaningful. But nobody makes this argument. Or at least nobody we’ve ever met or read. We don’t hear this argument because most Christians across all denominations would find it ridiculous. Traditions like Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and some Protestant denominations have thorough, developed theologies of marriage that span far more than “better to marry than to burn.” Ask yourself, “Does marriage still matter if the married person entered this vocation because of a calling rather than a desire to avoid sin?” Ask a friend. In preparation for this post, we’ve asked several, and every one of them thought the question absurd.

Some who hold to a conservative sexual ethic might say at this point, “A personal calling is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But gay sex is still a sin, and if the celibate person doesn’t believe this, he/she holds a heterodox belief. Without orthodox belief, LGBT celibacy means nothing.” The problem with this statement is that Christianity involves both belief and practice. Believing in a certain sexual ethic is not a prerequisite for practicing celibacy. A person who holds to a belief that your tradition considers theologically unorthodox may very well be engaging in a practice that is orthodox according to your tradition’s teachings. One does not negate the other. You can hold that a person is wrong about a theological issue and still appreciate that person’s commitment to a vocation. Let’s assume for a moment that you belong to a Christian tradition that considers use of contraception a sin. Would you say that a married couple’s marriage is meaningless if that couple isn’t using contraception, but disagrees with the teaching that doing so would be sinful?

This isn’t exactly the same as our reader’s question, but we believe it is related: an argument we hear from some Christians with a liberal sexual ethic goes something like, “No LGBT person can choose celibacy freely unless his/her Christian tradition also affirms gay marriage. If the celibate LGBT person belongs to a non-affirming tradition, a sense of calling doesn’t matter. If all vocation options aren’t open, the choice to pursue celibacy — the only option — is meaningless.” We do believe that people should be able to discover their vocations rather than experience vocation as a mandate. However, we are also aware that this belief is influenced by our modern context. Anyone who has basic familiarity with Church history should know that for the first several centuries of Christianity, most people had very little personal choice in the matter of whether they would marry or live as celibates. To say that celibacy doesn’t matter if it’s the only choice available is to declare that thousands of people’s life experiences were meaningless. To those making this argument we ask: are you willing to suggest that there was no meaning to the celibate life of Hildegard of Bingen because her parents — not she herself — decided that she would become a nun? Are you willing to assert that because Hildegard didn’t choose her own way of life, she never experienced a sense of call to monasticism?

Along with this, we think it’s important to point out that people’s understandings of theology and personal calling usually develop over time. As children of the Church, we will grow and change. No one can answer every question about his or her vocation immediately after deciding to follow Christ. We don’t expect people to know everything there is to know about the Bible, Church history, or practices of Christian worship. Relative to marriage, we think most people would find it unreasonable to assert that newlyweds know everything there is to know about marriage. Some of our closest friends have told us that they were married for over five years before starting to have any degree of appreciation for what it meant for them to be married. A novice entering a monastery is hoping to discern what monastic life has to offer him or her. Beginnings of one’s vocation can be an especially spiritually fruitful time as one notes the sparks of “first love” for a particular way of life. In our own lives, we have embraced the process of maturing towards celibacy. We have begun to see our vocation’s first fruits as we have journeyed together, and we look forward to how God will continue to guide and direct our steps. All stories of vocation have meaning precisely because they dramatize how God has walked with particular people throughout their lives.

We sincerely appreciate our reader’s question. This question dovetails into existing conversations about LGBT Christian sexual ethics. Privileging the discussion of whether same-sex sexual activity is sinful can prevent Christians from seeing the practical questions around discerning vocations, and this happens quite often in discussions about LGBT issues. We consider it distressing that due to where the conversation is currently, “Does vocation have any meaning?” is actually reasonable question. When we begin talking more broadly about vocation, we can also talk about how LGBT Christians image the Kingdom of God in our midst. We believe it especially important for people who hold a traditional sexual ethic to focus on the positives of vocation rather than the negatives of trying to stay on the “right” side of the line that separates the “good” gays from the “bad” gays.

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.

Ask Yourself These Questions Before Entering a Celibate Relationship

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As you can probably imagine, many people ask us for advice about celibate relationships, how realistic that concept is, and how to make such a relationship work. Several people can be frustrated by our typical reply: we don’t think we’re very good at giving advice. However when enough people ask us the same question, we think we ought to address it to the best of our ability. We know a fair number of people who are living in celibate partnerships, have moved from celibate relationships to non-celibate relationships, or have experienced failed celibate relationships. Newcomers to our blog often ask us if we think celibate partnerships could be a viable vocational option for LGBT Christians more broadly. In responding to that question, we have to keep in mind that we’ve seen so many people hurt within celibate partnerships. That this happens (and probably quite often) doesn’t surprise us. There’s no real guidance from any Christian tradition on what this way of life might mean or look like.

In our own lives, we’ve learned that reflecting on celibacy periodically helps us discern what God would have us do together. We wanted to share some of the questions we encourage others to consider when thinking about celibate partnership as a way of living out a vocation to celibacy. Since we do not consider ourselves capable of making judgments as to whether another person should enter a celibate partnership, we hope the questions that follow might support people discerning whether entering a celibate partnership is a good decision.

1. Is loneliness my primary motivation for seeking a celibate relationship? If the answer is yes, know that being in a relationship (celibate or not) with another person isn’t a cure-all for loneliness. Everyone feels lonely sometimes–even people who are in committed relationships. But if that’s why you’re seeking a celibate relationship, more than likely you’ll find that a significant other will not fill the void.

2. Do I have a strong sense of what my sexual ethic is? If the answer is no, it’s probably wise to take more time to discern your sexual ethic within the context of your Christian tradition before entering a celibate relationship. For any relationship to be healthy, it’s necessary that both partners can talk candidly about this topic, even if there are disagreements. You’ll need to know how committed the other person is to celibacy. If you’re entering an intentionally celibate relationship with a person whose sexual ethic differs from yours, it’s especially important to have your own sorted.

3. Have I come to a sense of peace and acceptance concerning my sexual orientation? We’re going to be blunter than usual with this one: if the answer is no, then you are certainly not ready to begin a celibate relationship. If you try, it is highly likely that you will both end up feeling miserable and the relationship will fail. We have seen this happen many times to people we know and love. We know what it’s like to have trouble accepting oneself as LGBT, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to finding peace and a sense of comfort within your own skin. But if you’re not there yet, please don’t commit to a celibate relationship at this time.

4. Do I have an idea of what celibacy might mean for me? It’s vital that a person who chooses celibacy explores the meaning of this state of life. Some people choose celibacy because they feel called by God. Others choose celibacy in obedience to their Christian traditions even though they don’t feel called. People choose celibacy for the short-term, for the long-term, and indefinitely. Every celibate person is different, but willingness to ask, “What does it mean for me?” is necessary for living a sustainable way of life whether single or coupled.

5. Am I willing to receive and accept spiritual counsel within my faith community regarding my way of life? This one can be particularly tough because most humans struggle with pride, and many LGBT people experience fear after negative past experiences of seeking spiritual guidance. However, it’s necessary to ask this question because we can’t always see clearly the areas of our lives where we are failing to be Christlike. This is especially true when undertaking roads less traveled, such as living a celibate vocation in the same household as another person. It’s okay that saying yes to this one is hard, but if you aren’t willing to do it you are probably setting yourself up for failure by entering a celibate relationship.

6. Do I understand celibate partnership as a loophole within a legalistic celibacy mandate? If you read our blog regularly, you know that we prefer to discuss LGBT celibacy in terms of vocation rather than in terms of mandates. Some LGBT celibates do view celibacy within the framework of a mandate and are comfortable with that. Either way you understand celibacy, it’s not a good idea enter a celibate relationship if you understand the decision as “barely on the right side of God’s law.” This understanding of celibate partnership will likely lead to unhealthy obsessions with line-drawing.

7. Is fear of being sexually active my primary motivation for seeking a celibate relationship? If a friend told us that he/she had chosen celibacy either temporarily or permanently because of fearing sexual relationships, we would gently encourage that friend to seek counseling. If that same friend mentioned thoughts of beginning a celibate relationship in order to avoid dealing with these fears permanently, we would do everything possible to discourage that decision. Fear of sexual intimacy is often linked to fear of other types of intimacy. Entering a celibate relationship will not shelter you from ever having to experience intimacy with someone else.

8. Am I seeking an arrangement that is effectively a same-sex marriage without the sex? It’s possible that there are some celibate couples who do view themselves as celibate marriages, or marriages minus sex. We’re not here to judge those people or those relationships. But the healthiest celibate partnerships we’ve known among our friends have been those that come from very different places than desire to imitate marriage. Controversial statement here: if you do view your celibate relationship as “marriage lite,” it’s unlikely that the relationship will remain celibate. Before entering a celibate relationship, consider how you might learn from monastics and singles as well as married people as you continue to discern your vocation.

9. Do I envision being part of a celibate relationship that is inwardly focused? If the answer is yes, you’re envisioning something quite different from a vocation. Any relationship that is totally focused on itself with no concern for the broader world will likely have difficulty manifesting the Kingdom of God. We believe that this is true for celibate partnerships, other ways of living celibacy, and marriages. If you’re interested in a relationship that involves romantic dates but no greater purpose than making each other happy, you’re missing the point of vocation entirely.

10. Am I willing to take both the good and the bad when it comes to doing life with another person if we decide to live our celibate vocations together long-term? Anytime people commit to living the rest of their lives together, there will be seasons of fast and seasons of famine–spiritually, financially, physically, emotionally, in every way. This is true for marriages, monastics, and other ways of doing life in community. If you’re seeking a long-term celibate partnership, you must have a willingness to be there for the other person even during difficult times. If you can’t do that, you’re probably not ready for a celibate partnership or any lifelong vocational commitment.

11. Am I prepared for the reality that I will make mistakes? If you think life as a celibate pair will be perfect, free from all sin, and ideal in every way, think again. You’re human. You will make mistakes. You will sin against others. If you’re in a celibate (or non-celibate) partnership, you will sin against your partner, yourself, and God at some point (and no, we are not necessarily talking about sexual sin here). If you cannot accept the fact that celibate partnerships aren’t sin-free, you are not ready to enter one.

We’ve found that many people are interested in exploring celibate relationships before they stop to consider their own motivations for desiring these kinds of arrangements. In our own lives together, we’ve realized that entering a celibate partnership and keeping the focus on celibacy takes considerable intentionality. It’s not impossible, but doing so involves commitment to prayerfulness, mutual support, and (sometimes brutal) honesty. We thought through all of our own questions before we decided to explore the possibility that we, as Sarah and Lindsey, would make a good team for the long haul. And we expect that there will be seasons of life in the future when we will need to return to our previous responses for further reflection.

The comments section is open, and we would love to hear your thoughts!

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.

10 Misconceptions about Celibate Partnerships

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Even as we thought about naming our blog before we began writing, we knew there would always be people who misunderstand our way of life. There are many misconceptions about celibacy in general, and it’s understandable that there are even more about celibate partnerships like ours. Seeing as we already spent some time clarifying the nature of our relationship last week, we thought that it might be a good time to expound upon some misconceptions we’ve encountered about celibate partnerships since beginning our writing project together.

1. We entered into celibate partnerships because we are lonely. Without a doubt, this is the most common of all misconceptions we hear. Whether it’s the suggestion that we are to be pitied because “it must be so difficult to get through life alone” or oppositely, the assertion that we need to suck it up and realize that being lonely is just our “cross to bear” as LGBT people, we hear some form of this on a regular basis. We can’t speak for others who have decided to pursue celibate partnerships, but our decision to do life together was in no way related to fear of or difficulty coping with loneliness and isolation. To understand more of what we mean, read the post we wrote on that topic.

2. We are trying to imitate marriage. Some of our acquaintances have asserted that the only way to understand words like “couple” and “partnership” is within the context of a pathway to marriage. Because we have shared that we are not interested in a sacramental marriage and would not be eligible for one within our faith tradition even if we did want that, we’ve heard it said that we must be imitating marriage. Frequently, we have noted parallels between the marital vocation and various celibate vocations, stating that certain aspects like intimacy and vulnerability are present within all types of vocations. Seeing parallels between our kind of vocation and another kind does not mean that we are attempting to imitate the other. Within the past week especially, we’ve discussed this further with our friends who are also in celibate partnerships, and no one we’ve ever talked to about this has seen his/her celibate partnership as an imitation of marriage.

3. We endanger our partners’ personal commitments to celibacy. Again, we can’t speak for other people here, but as for the two of us, we find that doing life together strengthens both our personal commitments to celibacy. Though we often hear folks wondering why we don’t see the life we share as a near occasion of sin, the possibility that   we might encourage each other to abandon celibacy seems totally unrealistic to us. We learn a great deal from each other, and we see each other growing in virtue as a result of living together and sharing in various aspects of life.

4. Our relationships are sexually abstinent, but not truly celibate because there must be some element of eroticism. Some folks have the idea that because we consider ourselves “partners,” we must be struggling against lust for one another. From there comes the assumption that celibate partnerships may be sexually abstinent, but not celibate in the most honest sense of the word. Speaking from personal experience, our relationship has never been based upon physical attraction, arousal, or desire. Near the beginning of our relationship, we had many conversations about what does draw us toward each other since neither of us remotely fits the physical type to whom the other is attracted. We saw easily that our common ties were commitment to doing life with another person who also feels called to celibacy, similar intellectual interests and capabilities, and willingness to help each other grow in holiness. Eroticism has never been part of the picture for us.

5. Only women enter into celibate partnerships. Sometimes we hear it posited that only women–and more specifically, only women with low sex drives–would be able to maintain celibate partnerships. We do know several other celibate LGBT couples, and believe it or not, none of them are female. All other celibate LGBT couples whom we have the pleasure of knowing at this time are men, and some have been together far longer than we have.

6. We choose “liberal, unorthodox” spiritual directors who will tell us only what we want to hear about our relationships. This misconception is one of the most frustrating because it implies that 1) no theologically orthodox spiritual father would ever support our manner of living for any reason, and 2) individual spiritual fathers cannot be trusted to guide those who seek their counsel. The two of us see receiving strong, theologically orthodox spiritual direction as absolutely necessary. We would not feel comfortable seeing a priest for confession and spiritual direction if he were advocating that we do whatever we want or see ourselves as exceptions to the expectations of our Christian tradition. Our respective spiritual fathers are fully aware of our relationship to one another, and both have offered us great encouragement. They are also committed firmly to upholding traditional Christian teachings, and we’ve never had any reason to doubt their orthodoxy.

7. Our relationships are defined by exclusivity. An objection to celibate partnerships that we’ve heard more recently is that it’s inappropriate for two unmarried people to have an exclusive relationship with one another. We’re going to say something controversial here: we don’t think any healthy relationship, celibate or otherwise, is entirely exclusive. Certainly, marriages within Christianity would view sex as one specific area of exclusivity, but even our married friends (at least those who see their marriages as thriving) don’t view their spouses as their everything. It’s impossible for one person to meet all emotional and spiritual needs for another. That goes for us just as much as for people living other vocations. We don’t see our relationship as exclusive. In fact, we’re confident that it wouldn’t work if we didn’t also have other important people in our lives whom we consider our family of choice.

8. Doing life together is nothing more than a matter of convenience. This misconception comes in two variants: 1) the idea that we chose to share life because it’s convenient, and 2) the belief that if we don’t view our shared life in this way, we should. To address the first variant, we’ve stated in numerous places that our doing life together was an organic development. But that doesn’t mean there was no intentionality behind it. Though we do know some celibate LGBT couples who have begun sharing life merely for the sake of convenience, we view our own relationship as focused first and foremost on helping each other to grow closer to God. To address the second variant…well…we’re actually confused by this one. Why would it be better to live together for the sake of convenience than to live together because we feel called to helping each other journey toward Christ? Is this intention suitable only for married couples and monastics? Were someone to answer “yes,” we would heartily disagree.

9. We are actively seeking to redefine traditional Christian teachings. We’ve written in other places on the blog about just how hurtful this assumption is. Based on our own experience and those of other celibate LGBT couples we know, nothing could be farther from the truth. Every celibate LGBT couple with whom we are personally acquainted has expressed a strong desire to live fully in accordance with traditional Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality, and this is true even for couples we know whose decision to pursue celibacy is not rooted in a belief about sin.

10. We don’t see each other as friends. We find it troubling how often people attempt to place all relationships within a “marriage” and “friendship” binary. In the near future we hope to do a full post on this topic, but we find it rather insensitive and condescending when people tell us, “There’s already a name for what your relationship is, and that’s ‘friendship.'” That said, there seem to be just as many people who want to tell us that we see our relationship as a marriage (or imitation) because we clearly don’t view ourselves as friends. This isn’t true. As we’ve said over and over again, finding the most fitting terms for describing our relationship is a struggle for us, and probably will be for a long while if not for the rest of our earthly lives. But other terms we may use–partners, couple, family, team–do not negate the fact that we are also friends.

Are there other misconceptions about celibate partnership that we did not discuss in this post? Is there something you are interested in knowing more about relative to myths and realities about celibate partnership? Feel free to leave those and any other relevant discussion items 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.