All the secular literature on this will say ‘no’. But it is a
somewhat defensive ‘no’ when we look behind it. There are certainly parts of our sexual make up we don't choose. But to say there is no choices we can or should make regarding the outworking of our sexual desires, is to make the situation far too simple.
Recently the celebrity
Cynthia Nixon talked about her migration from heterosexual marriage to gay
marriage. She raged against those who said that because she ‘went gay’
that meant that she had been gay all along. She found this offensive to
her former male lovers and to her former self. “Why can’t it be a
choice?” She said.
She was instantly besieged by criticism from the homosexual lobby. Why? Because she had dared to question the
sacred orthodoxy of “orientation”. The orthodoxy simply states: sexual
desires are hardwired, genetically, from birth and unchangeable and most
definitely have NOTHING to do with choice. To suggest they is any choice in the matter is to suggest they could be changed, and this is the really offensive
thing. Because it would suggest that if there were a sexual ideal, that one could choose to conform to it. This flies in the face of the highest
value in our culture: unrestricted sexual self expression.
She quickly was forced to clarify that in
fact she DID have an orientation – bisexuality. Ironically, this
admission completely negated her earlier point. Her point was about
sexual freedom and choice. She was claiming her right to have sex with
anyone she felt attracted to. By being forced to regurgitate the
orthodoxy about orientation, she meekly confessed her earlier heresy and denied
that people really do have choice in the area of sexual attraction.
Of course, she tried to retain her position as a person of “choice” by hiding
behind her bi-sexuality. She (a bi-sexual) could choose to have sex with anyone, man or
woman. She can choose the gender of her lovers, but other poor souls less broadly wired, of course cannot.
But by labeling this bi-sexual lifestyle an
ORIENTATION she meekly joined the ranks of all those completely predetermined
by their sexual hard wiring who have no real choice in sexual behavior. To
expose how far she backtracked, one has only to imagine that if a tri-gendered
race of aliens came to earth, she COULD NOT choose to have sex with them,
because of course, she’s a bi-sexual, not a TRI-sexual. The Nixon who
made her first comment, would have proudly said she could have sex with the
hypothetical aliens if she CHOSE. The repentant Nixon denied she could
ever take this freedom because we should only have sex with the people we are
ORIENTED to have sex with.
Such a conversation, played out in the
media, is leading some to question the very notion of hard and fast
“orientation”. A new phrase coined by some to describe the reality of
complex human sexual attraction is “sexual fluidity”. In a work
entitled, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire,
one researcher suggests that women are much more open to sex with people
irrespective of their gender. The research shows that sexual attraction
is fluid, changing, depending on a host of factors and conditions, both
internal and external and does not stay static throughout one’s life.
As with Nixon, this work threatens the
“orientation” orthodoxy, so the book begins with a series of disclaimers to
keep the high priests from shouting ‘heresy!’ in the Temple of Kinsey:
Does fluidity mean that all
women are bisexual? No…Does fluidity mean that
there is no such thing as sexual orientation? No… Does sexual fluidity mean
that sexual orientation can be changed? No… Does fluidity mean that
sexual orientation is a matter of choice? No... Does fluidity mean that
sexual orientation is due to “nurture” instead of “nature”? No…’
Methinks thou doth protest too much! The disclaimers of the author, Lisa Diamond, are, of course, her clear
statement that she is still one of the true believers in orientation
orthodoxy. (That, or she just doesn’t want a ration of crap from the
media like Nixon got). Yet she should be lauded for doing such
controversial work and seeking the true state of the evidence when it comes to
sexual attraction, even if it risks, from her worldview perspective,
“misunderstanding” and “misuse” of that evidence.
I will prove her a
prophet since here I am “misunderstanding” and “misusing” her research – her
strenuous disclaimers notwithstanding. Because what I care about more are
her facts, rather than her interpretation of her own facts, based on her
worldview which I do not share.
Nixon and Diamond show that while most
research in this area is done in the name of proving the normalcy and
innateness of homosexual feelings, it winds up backfiring, showing that the
orientation dogma is too simple, at worst a myth, or at best a deeply
misleading term.
This conclusion about sexual fluidity is
deeply upsetting to the orientation dogma, but it may also be upsetting for
heterosexuals with a biblical view of sexuality! There are those who
assert their own heterosexual orientation, as dogmatically as any homosexual
would. But if sexuality truly is fluid, the heterosexual should
acknowledge that if conditions were different in their sexual development, this
proud heterosexual may, in fact, NOT be one! If that deflates the pride of
their sexual “purity”, so be it. But Diamond's work (and human history)
confirms that ALL humans are fully capable of a wide, wide variety of sexual
expression – they are not “locked in” – and thus social and moral conditions
and choices are as key to how one’s very fluid sexuality is allowed to develop
and express itself as is our innate ‘wiring’.
Christians can acknowledge that heterosexual
monogamy is God’s ideal, and further that most are predisposed by natural design
to lean in that direction. But they should also acknowledge that no one’s
natural sexuality is “pure”. In nature, sex has proven to have patterns,
yes, but also to be almost infinitely morphable. Clearly sex has an
indisputable natural function, and Christians might make an argument for
heterosexual sex being preferred simply for that reason. But our view of
sex is higher than merely as means of reproduction – it is lodged finally in the
character of God who made us in his image, male and female.
Yet a person is no more born with a perfect
reflection of this Image in their sexuality than they are born with an unmarred
reflection of this Image in any other aspect of their being. Thus the
journey of a Christian’s life in the area of their sexuality is a journey of
conforming our raw, fluid sexual
nature toward the Image of God, as is the case in every other area. This
stands opposed to the naïve Christian view that thinks most people have a
“pure” sexuality hardwired and perfectly acceptable to God as is, while a few other
“pervs” have a life long struggle in front of them.
No. We ALL have a raw, natural,
seething sexuality that is fully capable of going in a myriad of directions,
and through modeling, beliefs, habits - finally choices, we as free moral agents, are
the final determiners of what that direction will be.
This is not to deny that inside the Kinseyan
spectrum of sexual attraction, that people do not naturally, by a myriad of
conditions in their person, come to life with sexual preferences. They do.
But, despite this fact (or the causes of those preferences), the most common definition of orientation as inbuilt, absolute, unchangeable wiring
is obviously, demonstrably mythical. Orientation dogma implies that
a homosexual could never or should never physically complete the act of sex with someone of the
opposite gender – or visa versa. This is clearly false.
Homo-sexually oriented men and women have had spouses, and babies and then turned their sexuality on
their own gender years later – claiming they were “hard wired” homosexuals the
whole time. Be that as it may, these homosexuals were clearly capable of
having full arousal, and successful, consensual, heterosexual
copulation and relationship. The opposite is also true, men and women have considered themselves only attracted to the same sex for years until some later period where they undergo a profound change in sexual proclivity. This, despite the raging claims of the
priests of orientation that “reparative therapy” never works. And while we scoff at “pray the gay away”
programs, pointing to the many homosexuals who have undertaken failed attempts
to change their orientation, it only takes ONE successful convert to prove that the orientation orthodoxy is a myth. Just
one. I personally know of several.
History and experience have shown that, left
without moral parameters on this raw, fluid sex drive, the human animal is
capable of having sex, not just with the same gender, but with almost ANYTHING –
inanimate objects, small children or even animals. Is bestiality an
‘orientation’? Is pedophilia an orientation? (At least one tenured psychologist says yes; so does this Dutch psychologist and Criminologist).
These comparisons are always shouted down, but the shouters seem
to have little scientific interest in the subject of sexual attraction, and more interest in protecting a belief or an ideology. If we define orientation as, “one's
natural preference in sexual partners,” orientations are myriad and must include things like pedophilia. To not
so argue, is special pleading based on societal revulsion - which is the very
thing the homosexual lobby says is passé!
So orientation orthodoxy reduces down to this: when the kind of sex I am predisposed to have is
(currently) socially unacceptable, it’s a mental disorder and needs treatment
to change, but when the desire becomes more socially acceptable, it’s hard
wired, it cannot be changed and to try is the height of intolerance and
‘ignorance’. How very arbitrary. Does not phenomena like bestiality or pederasty or
bisexuality, or polygamy or polyandry show that human sexuality is raw and
fluid and capable of INFINITE permutations? And don’t we reason in these
situations that just because it CAN flow in almost any direction, doesn’t mean
it SHOULD? On what basis then, is the homosexual urge exempt from a belief
that complex sexual urges can and at times should be changed/directed? On the basis of dogma, not
science.
Sexual preference might be
a much better word to use, and orientation scrapped in light
of real world experience. People prefer to have sex with the same gender
or opposite gender or prefer both genders (or children, or animals, or many
partners or just one etc). The reasons for these preferences are very
complex and certainly include biological factors. But even within a single lifetime, an
individual may migrate or change preferences based on a host of factors. It happens all the time - and every time it does, it explodes the orientation orthodoxy.
In fact, in the small sample size of my counseling
work, all those currently self-identifying as homosexuals have experienced
sexual abuse of some kind that deeply affected their sexual choices in later life. Most also spent
an earlier season of life before coming out of the closet having heterosexual sex. This is easy to
explain for the priests of orientation orthodoxy – these people were under
societal pressure and came out of the closet to embrace their “true nature”
only when released by therapy or societal approval.
Perhaps, but this
passes over the fact that they were able, despite their “true nature,” to
direct their sexuality by their own choice! “But they lived a life of
tortured inauthenticity!”, is the autoreply. Yes, perhaps there was great
pain as they wrestled with complex and unbidden sexual desires, but what are we saying when
we describe every instance of denying a sexual urge as “torture”? Isn’t
self-control a key marker of all good social behavior and emotional
maturity? The question then comes back to what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be
denied? Here, we are in the territory of morality, not sexuality (or
science!). The most honest science is telling us sexuality is a fluid mass
of often competing desires built on complex causes. Over this we ALL impose morality. I admit, Christian
sexual morality is stricter than secular morality these days, but let us not
suppose that our morality is obsolete because it denies the science!
The orientation dogma will likely one day be
exposed for what it was: a useful tool of doctrinal conditioning to
encourage a sexual orthodoxy designed to foster the acceptance of homosexuality
on par with heterosexual monogamy. Once this happens (and we’re almost
there), there will be no more need to keep up the pretense that sexual
attraction is some kind of sacrosanct, inbuilt, untouchable, unmovable predisposition
that science discovered. On that day we will simply have sex with
whomever or whatever we want (Nixon’s first position), as an expression of
total sexual liberation – the silly notion that we HAD to do it this way or
that way, because “God/Nature made us this way” will be left in the
dust.
While this dogma enjoyed preeminence, it was
useful to crush dissent, shaming people for their ‘ignorance’ and ‘intolerance’
by imposing the authority of “science”. Someday, the science behind this
argument will simply be left behind because everyone will see that whatever was
important to know about the natural development of sexual urges, is basically
secondary to the sexual choices I make with those raw urges.
All men and
women find some piece of their sexual desires to be something they do not find
expedient and therefore they do not choose to act them out. Is this
hopeless repression? Is this inauthentic religious coercion? In
some cases it has been, but not inherently so. We all eschew sexual desires we
find inexpedient, because they would bring negative side effects, or because we
think them morally wrong. And not just one-time desires either, but lasting, persistent dark desires we must consistently reject. This is healthy! The noble thing to do in such a case is not to
allow ourselves to be told we are denying our “orientation” and are suffering
from sexual repression. No, the noble thing to do is to condition
ourselves to bring our changeable sexual desires in line with our morals – through
further choosing our psychological inputs, our spiritual inputs, and our
relational inputs.
So, like Cynthia Nixon A, I’m inclined to dump
orientation as a constricting, dogmatic formula that limits choice, limits
freedom and liberty, and curtails our belief in the power of the human will to
transcend materialistic processes. At best, orientation science exposes
the fact that people have different sexual preferences and these have complex
causes some of which seem to come pre-wired. We mostly already knew that. But
at worst, orientation science locks us into a sense of sexual destiny with
our desires, whether we like them or not, whether we believe they are moral or
not, or whether they are helpful or productive to our future and human
flourishing, or not.
