Contradictions: Feminism, Philosophy, and Fat Acceptance

This is my second post dealing with Samantha Murray’s The ‘Fat’ Female body. In my previous post, I discussed Murray’s assertion that instead of seeing ourselves as two separate parts: a body and a mind (our true selves) that exists inside that body, we need to see ourselves as our bodies. And it is in this assertion that Murray brings up some important contradictions in the Fat Acceptance movement. Now, I want to start off by saying that I think the Fat Acceptance movement is great. It’s done a lot for me and for women (and men) everywhere. It’s given fat people a sense of community and pride and a reason to love ourselves, and heaven knows we need that.

But, the Fat Acceptance movement isn’t perfect, and I could help responding with, “Yes! This is what I’ve been thinking!” whenever I came across certain passages of Murray’s book that note contradictions in the Fat Acceptance movement. I don’t think that Murray sees the Fat Acceptance movement as negative and unredeemable because of these contradictions. I think she’s merely pointing out some inconsistencies in the movement, though she admits that she’s unsure as to how they should be addressed.

The first relates to the idea that we are our bodies and not minds that are merely housed in our bodies. This is an idea that the Fat Acceptance movement attempts to promote. It encourages women to live in their bodies, to embrace and celebrate their bodies exactly as they are. And this is a good thing. The contradiction arises in how women are encouraged to live in their bodies–they are encouraged to change their minds about their bodies. They are encouraged to (to the best of their abilities, anyway) throw off all societal and cultural judgements of their bodies and love their bodies exactly as they are. Thus, the self is seen as a mind that operates independently of society and the body, and yet the self is also portrayed as a part of the body.

This leads to another inconsistency between the Fat Acceptance movement and society, and my pointing out this inconsistency will undoubtably surprise no one. Here it is: our society doesn’t like fat people. It looks down on them. It especially looks down on fat women. You all already knew that. But the fact is, we are products of our society. Sure, we can also have an effect on society, but it’s impossible for us to completely extract ourselves from society and society’s values. Think about it in terms of race for a moment. It’s been centuries since we did away with slavery in America. It’s been decades since we outlawed segregation. Yet racism still persists. People are still prejudiced and they still discriminate. We are all taught that we should accept everyone, yet we don’t. We’re all a little bit racist, even though we wish we weren’t. This doesn’t mean that we are just powerless creations of our society. We can change these values, but at the same time, we can’t escape them.

And just as a person in a racial minority can’t escape our societal values that see white as good and nonwhite as bad, so fat people can’t escape the societal values that see fat as bad and thin as good. We can’t escape our own society, and we also can’t escape the socialization that teaches us, from a very young age, that fat is bad and thin is good. So, while we might decide to change our minds about our bodies and love them as they are, the wider society is not going to change its mind about fat bodies anytime soon. And, honestly, neither are we. We’re always going to be stuck with the socialization that tells us that fat is bad and thin is good. This idea is always going to be in our minds. We might be able to contradict it. We might be able to try to relearn new ideas about our bodies. We might get close, but we’re never going to completely free ourselves from the wider values of society.

This doesn’t mean that we should completely give up. Just as society affects us, we also affect society, and we can change the way society views fat people, but this change is going to be gradual. It’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s probably not going to happen in our lifetime, unfortunately. In the meantime, the contradiction between the Fat Acceptance movement’s dictum to love your body exactly as it is and society’ dictum to have a thin, acceptable, “healthy” body is going to be in conflict not just between the Fat Acceptance movement and society but also within the individuals who subscribe to the Fat Acceptance movement.

The third contradiction is between Fat Acceptance and feminism. Now, I would certainly agree that fat is a feminist issue. How our society feels towards fat women says a lot about how our society views women’s desires and appetites and needs and bodies and sexualities. It says a lot. And the Fat Acceptance movement attempts to empower women. But empower them to do what? To wear tight dresses and mini-skirts? To flirt and dance? To see themselves as attractive before the ever-present male gaze? Okay, those aren’t the only things that the Fat Acceptance movement is about, but you’re got to admit that those things are all part of Fat Acceptance. And, personally, I think they’re a great part of Fat Acceptance. As a girl who spent the better part of puberty wishing she could wear shorts and mini-skirts, when someone came along and told me that it was okay for me to show off my legs or wear thongs, I certainly felt empowered. I felt like my deepest Christmas wish was being granted. But who was the intended viewer of those legs that I was now free to show off? Men. In many ways, the Fat Acceptance movement is encouraging women to subject themselves to the male gaze. It’s encouraging women to dress to attract men. It’s encouraging women to see themselves as incomplete unless they have a man.

Obviously, there are answers to these contradictions. And I’m going to address those answers in the opposite order in which I raised the contradictions. And I also want to point out that, while I’m answering these contradictions, I don’t think that my answers completely erase these contradictions.

The easiest contradiction to deal with is that of the contradiction between Fat Acceptance and Feminism. First of all, I would point out that Fat Acceptance isn’t just about telling fat girls to wear sexy clothes. But even if it were, society sees fat girls as asexual. In fact, I would argue that society sees fat girls as unworthy of having sexual desires. Society sees fat girls who are “foolish” enough to have sexual desires, to expect men (or other women) to see them as sexual women, are ridiculous. They are objects of ridicule and comedy. So, in giving women back their sexuality, the Fat Acceptance movement is empowering them. I would also argue that just because a woman allows herself to be the object of a man’s sexual desire does not mean that she’s subjecting herself to the patriarchal heirarchy that commands her to submit to the male gaze. Everyone, at some point, wants to be the object of someone else’s sexual desire. This goes for men and women. However, if in submitting to being the object of someone else’s sexual desire, a woman is entering into a relationship that is based on equality and mutual respect, if the desire is to discover the other person as a sexual being and not to dominate the other person, then there is nothing wrong with a woman being the object of a man’s sexual desire. I would also point out that the Fat Acceptance movement is not constrained to straight women but also extends to lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered women. In helping fat women see themselves as sexual beings, the Fat Acceptance movement is empowering women, because if women cannot see themselves as sexual beings, then they cannot truly be themselves. I would also argue that the Fat Acceptance movement is not so much trying to reverse the societal value of fat equals bad, thin equals good to fat equals good, thin equals bad, so much as the Fat Acceptance movement is trying to make our society see all bodies of every size as acceptable and beautiful. I have my doubts as to whether or not our society is able and ready to accept a plurality of things as good and step outside of the binaries that it’s so entrenched in, but the goal is admirable. So, in many ways, the Fat Acceptance movement is compatible with feminist values.

Secondly, there is the contradiction between the Fat Acceptance movement and the wider society. I honestly don’t know a way around this one, I’m sorry. I struggle with it constantly when I hear my friends talk about losing weight, when I hear people making fatophobic comments, when I hear men putting down fat women…It’s hard. There are lots of times when I just want to borrow some friends’ diet books and stop eating for a while. There are lots of times when I want to buy into the diet industry’s promise of a thinner, healthier, more beautiful me. There are times when I want to just give up on the FA movement. There are days when I look in the mirror and recoil at what I see, and even though I try to tell myself that I’m beautiful, a little voice in the back of my head snorts, “Huh. Yeah right!” There are even days when I just don’t bother looking in the mirror because I don’t want to see myself. Those are the days when I give in to what society says about fat people and I end up hating my body and feeling miserable. Even on the days when I feel great about myself and I feel like I look wonderful, I know that most of the people around probably aren’t going to share that perception of my body.

However, while there is a great disparity between the views of the Fat Acceptance movement and the views of society at large, the Fat Acceptance movement is trying to change those views. Just like racial minorities can internalize the prejudice that society has for them, just like homosexuals can internalize homophobia, so fat people can and often do internalize the fat hatred that society has for us. Maybe a part of us will always wish to be skinny, but that doesn’t mean that it is also impossible for us to love our bodies. For all the days there are when I look in the mirror and think that I’m hideous, there are also days when I look in the mirror and think I look pretty damn good. I’m able to reconceptualized fat because the Fat Acceptance movement is attempting to promote a new way of seeing fat bodies.

And it is this word “reconceptualize” that leads me to address the final contradiction that Murray addresses. There is a contradiction in the Fat Acceptance movement between living in and through our bodies and in telling women that they must change their minds about their bodies. And in many ways, this is how the fat acceptance movement takes hold in women’s lives. Maybe a fat woman happens upon a blog post or a book that tells her that when she looks in the mirror, instead of thinking, “Fat, ugly!” she should think, “Beautiful.” Maybe she tries it a few times and feels silly. Maybe, as she keeps trying it, she begins to feel better about herself. As she begins to accept her body mentally, she can also begin to move into her body physically. When women feel as though their bodies are wrong or bad or ugly or undesirable, they are not going to be able to live in their bodies. When they think of themselves, they will always think of a thinner version of themselves, as though that is their real self. But when they are able to accept their bodies, to reconceptualize them as beautiful and good and desirable, they are able to see themselves as they are in their body right now. Yes, I will admit that changing one’s mind about one’s body is not the same as living in and through one’s body, but it opens up the possibility of living in and through one’s body, which one cannot do if one’s body is reduced to an object of repulsion. Yes, this view still upholds the idea that the mind and body are separate, but in an almost paradoxal way, this view also attempts to unite the mind and the body.

As I said, in answering these contradictions, I’m not saying that I’m trying to deny that they’re there or that my arguments will make them go away. They are still there and they still need to be considered. But, regardless of these contradictions, the fat acceptance movement, I believe, still needs to keep doing what it’s doing. It’s trying to undermine stereotypes about fat people. It’s trying to empower fat people. It’s trying to make our society see fat in new ways. Sure, maybe the movement isn’t perfect, but no movement for social change is. Samantha Murray’s book, then, gives fat activists some food for thought–some things to consider about the movement that can make it stronger and very well might need to be changed. But in the meantime, I don’t think that Murray is trying to discourage the fat acceptance movement. It has its flaws, but that does not mean that still isn’t a force for empowering fat people and changing the ways in which our society views fat.

Singing Down the Walls: My Experience with a Gay, Christian Music Group

I thought that I would never again set foot in my campus’s chapel, but last night showed that I was wrong. I went there to a concert for a Christian pop duo, Jason and deMarco. The reason why I went? Jason and deMarco are a gay, married couple.

I’ve said before that there are more Christians who are open to homosexuality and the idea that two people loving each other is not a sin just because they happen to be the same gender. However, what Jason and deMarco are doing is still rare, even in the secular community and even moreso in the Christian community. And, honestly, I think it’s great. I think that they are the type of people that this world needs. They came out and said, “Hey, we’re gay, we’re in love, and we’re also Christians.” It’s complicated. It seems contradictory. It forces people to reevaluate what they think about homosexuality, religion, faith, and the neat little categories and stereotypes that we like to force people into.

This is what it means to be out. This is why people need to come out of their own personal little closets. These closets can hide sexuality, they can hide religious beliefs, they can hide personal preferences about what makes other people attractive, they can hide political or philosophical beliefs. Whatever people are, they need to come out of their closets. They need to show the world that human beings are complex, often contradictory individuals and that our tidy little categories cannot possibly contain the vast spectrum of beliefs, attitudes, preferences, and sexualities that can reside in one unique individual. The people who are out challenge us to think, and if we rise to that challenge, we often embrace the ambiguity of the world and become more accepting. Jason and deMarco are two people who are helping others rise to that challenge simply by being who they are.

On a more personal note, I wonder what I would have thought of Jason and deMarco about two or three years ago. I still would have been a Christian, and one of the issues I would have been wrestling with was how I could reconcile my understanding of the Bible with facts about homosexuality. (Those facts being that homosexuality was not a choice, that gays were not child molesters or bad people, and that gays can have romantic relationships that are loving, caring, and understanding.) I probably would have felt a mixture of relief and joy at discovering a group like Jason and deMarco. “Finally!” I probably would have thought, “Here are people who get it! I’m not alone in the way that I think!” To me, they would have been an affirmation that I was not crazy, that God really could love and accept gays, and that Christianity could change and was changing. During the concert, Jason quoted Galatians 3: 28 (“There is no Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.”–NIV) and concluded that we make issues like discrimination and acceptance more complicated than they have to be–all we really need to do is be open to accepting different kinds of people, if they are all one in Jesus Christ.

From a liberal Christian standpoint, it really is that simple. Unfortunately, the Christian community that I was in didn’t make it that simple. When I was a Christian, I wanted very badly to believe that God accepted and approved of homosexual love. However, the Christian community that I was in had a tradition of looking down on homosexuality as a lustful perversion, as something unholy and unnatural. I had to constantly defend what I thought against traditional beliefs about homosexuality, and the only way that I could do this legitimately was to defend what I thought with Scripture. This can be done, but the logical pretzels involved are incredibly complicated, and even then I felt as though there was still something wrong with what I thought, simply because it went against what the vast majority of people around me thought. When I finally left Christianity, in some ways, I felt very relieved. I no longer had to try to bend and twist Scripture without breaking it to reinforce what I knew was right. I could believe things simply because they were right and I didn’t have to try to used Scripture to defend what I already knew was true.

This is not to say that Jason and deMarco should stop being Christians. Obviously, they’ve reconciled Christianity with being openly gay, and they’d done so by emphasizing the love and compassion of Christian teachings. I think it’s great that they can do this, and the type of Christianity that they are promoting is the type of Christianity that I think our world needs. I also think that they are more likely to create change in the Christian community than I am. (Christians aren’t too keen on listening to people who’ve left the religion, but they might listen to people who still follow the religion, even if those people don’t follow the religion in quite the same way that they do.) So, for that reason, I applaud them.

I also applaud them for making nonChristians see Christianity in a new way. Really, I hate to say this but it’s true: since leaving Christianity–heck, even before I left Christianity–I tend to stereotype Christians, and my stereotypes are mostly negative.  I don’t want to see them that way, but that’s what my initial reaction tends to be. Fortunately, lately I’ve met some Christians who don’t fit those stereotypes, and Jason and deMarco don’t fit those stereotypes either. I might have been even more encouraged to disregard some of my stereotypes if more of the audience had been comprised of Christian students on campus instead of members of the nearby city’s PFLAG chapter and student members of the campus’s gay-straight alliance. Still, I guess the fact that my campus is even having a group like Jason and deMarco perform on campus shows that Christians can take small steps in the right direction.

As to their music itself, I wish I could have heard more of it during the concert. Mostly, they did covers of other songs, and I would have rather heard music that they’ve written. I’m also not terribly excited by pop music to begin with, so I thought that the music itself was good. Not great, but good. Their chemistry on stage, however, was pretty good. They bantered like…well, like a married couple. It was very sweet. They also came off as very genuine, and they seemed more interested in promoting their message by just being themselves and being honest than by engaging in debate or being confrontational. The way that they are promoting themselves is refreshingly far from the heated rhetoric and name-calling that usually accompanies these kinds of issues.

While the music didn’t knock me over and take my breath away in the same manner that some artists’ music has, I certianly support that message that their music conveys. If you would like to do the same, you can visit their website here.

Religion and Criticism: How Much Is Too Much?

Right now, I should be getting ready to go back to school. I’m leaving tomorrow and yet I still have not packed everything that I’m going to need. I have chores to do before I go back. If nothing else, I could be studying for the GRE. But I have other things on my mind…

How much is too much? This is a question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately in regards to criticism of religion, particularly Christianity. I started asking myself this question after I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. At the time that I read it, my interest in de-conversion was mild. It’s something I’ll probably always be interested in. It will always be a significant part of my life, but my interest in it waxes and wanes periodically. But reading the book sparked my interest again. Also, in preparing for a class I’m going to start soon, I was reading some essays on religion by Emile Durkheim. My interest flared up even more.

One of the things that Hirsi Ali and Durkheim have both been criticized for, in their times, is for saying too much about religion. The thing is that what they both say is so glaringly obvious that people tend to overlook it, but when an astute observer points it out, it can’t be ignored. It’s true and it’s there and it’s not going away. And a lot of people don’t like the fact that somebody brought it to everyone else’s attention. A lot of people get offended, even though people like Hirsi Ali and Durkheim usually don’t mean to offend. They’re just honestly asking some questions and honestly describing the world as they see it. They say what they mean with no hidden motive and no malice. It’s just that this kind of truthfulness offends some people, usually the people who would like to pretend that these kinds of truths don’t exist.

And yet these kinds of truths do exist and there’s a lot that I’d like to say about them, but I don’t know how to say it. I want to discuss things in a way that promotes dialogue between opposing sides. I’d like to discuss things in a way that can bring people together, not separate them. I’d like to discuss things in a mature and open way that brings out the best in people. I certainly don’t want to engage in name-calling or stereotyping. I don’t want to engage in what I call “pointing-and-laughing.” (You’ve seen these types of blogs or heard these kinds of discussions. They usually begin with, “Hey? Have you heard what this group who disagrees with us is saying now? Ha ha! It’s that just ridiculous? How could they think that way? Ha ha!” I do this sometimes, but I don’t want to blog like this. These kinds of discussions really aren’t discussions. They involve no explanation or criticism. There’s no attempt to understand the other side’s thinking or clearly define why someone thinks it’s wrong. It’s lazy and appeals only to those who already agree with the writer although it doesn’t even benefit those agree because it doesn’t help them reach a deeper understanding of their position. We all do it sometimes, but at the end of the day, it gets us nowhere.)

Of course, at the same time, I realize that what I want to say is probably going to offend somebody somewhere simply because some people can’t take anything objectively. Extremists and fundementalists aren’t going to like my opinions, and nothing that I say will probably change their opinions. That’s fine. But at the same time, I don’t want to come off as being opposed to all religions in all degrees. Really, as long as religious doctrines do not supercede compassion and empathy and common sense or one’s sense of self and dignity, I have no problem with religion. I am perfectly okay with religious moderates, liberals, and pluralists. I don’t want to join them, but they do not offend me, and I don’t wish to offend them.

But at the same time, I don’t want to censor myself, which is what I’ve found myself doing lately. There are some things about religion that I’ve been wanting to say, some good (The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America finally decided to ordain homosexuals! Yay!), some bad (Okay religious right, the way that you have been treating President Obama is just totally unfair), some might be offensive to some people (all evidence seems to point to the Bible being the work of men and not of divine inspiration), and some is just personal (Look, Mom and Dad, I love you very much, but…). And I mean none of this to be disrespectful. I’m not angry. I don’t have some hidden agenda. I don’t hate religious people and I don’t wish that they would shut up. I just want to say what I think without anyone, myself included, censoring what I have to say.

I just had to get that off my chest. Pretty much, what I’m trying to say is that I’d like to talk about religion and my thoughts about it more. However, I want to keep what I have to say rational, respectful, open-minded, and moderate. And above all, I don’t want to categorize people or judge people purely based on their religious affiliations. I really don’t like criticizing things. I’d rather mention the good of a postmodern existential existence than constantly gripe about the problems of religion. At the same time, though, there’s some stuff that I want to say, and I don’t want to stop myself from saying it, and if I get out of line, that’s why I have a blog. So somebody can leave me a comment and tell me why they think I’ve gone too far.

Okay, now that I’ve said that, I really need to go pack. Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Queer Theory from the Japanese

Yesterday, we had a little talk with the students about GLBT issues, mostly because sexualities that deviate from heterosexuality are not discussed in Japan, and we wanted the students to know that for the most part in America being queer is okay. (There are still some prejudices out there, but apparently, compared to Japan, America is much more accepting of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism.) Part of the reason that we had this discussion is because there are a few students whom we suspect might be queer, and even if they aren’t, we also want the students to realize that making fun of people for being gay will, largely, not be tolerated in America.

 It was only after we’d discussed what we were going to say to the students that I googled gay culture in Japan. (Normally, whenever I’d want to know about something, Google would be the first place to look, but my time for computer access has been limited.)What I found was enough information and controversy to write several volumes of books.

 To highlight some interesting facts:

 1) In Japan, there is no moralizing about how heterosexuality is “right” and homosexuality is “wrong.” Instead, the focus is on individualism versus collectivism. America is an individualistic society in which the needs of the individual are valued before the needs of the group and everyone is encouraged to be different. In Japanese culture, the needs of the group are valued before the needs of the individual. Everyone is encouraged to sacrifice for the group and practice conformity. Being homosexual/bisexual/transgendered is seen as “wrong” not for any moral reason, but because being queer is a way of being different, which is discouraged.

 2) There doesn’t seem to be much comprehensive education about GLBT issues in Japan. The Japanese often confuse homosexuality with transsexuality and transgenderism. The Japanese program assistant even said that some Japanese people are probably homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered but do not realize that they are because these issues are not discussed openly in their culture.

 3) The Japanese actually have a history of sexual openness and acceptance, as seen from some of their ancient literature and art. The arrival of Western ideas seems to have made queer behavior a taboo.

 4) There is an openly gay section of Tokyo, but most Japanese homosexuals remain in the closet.

 5) In some ways, the Japanese are more accepting of homosexuality than Americans, as long as a person does not advertize his/her homosexuality. However, being openly queer can lead to shunning. In America, this would not be seen as a horrible punishment, but in Japan, people have been known to commit suicide because of exclusion from a group, as would be expected from a collectivist culture.

I didn’t have much time for research, but towards the end, I started to find some articles that delved more deeply into queer culture in Japan than the superficial surface articles in Wikipedia. One article that I read focused on the colonialism of western homosexuality—meaning that western ideas of what it means to be queer are being forced on nonwestern cultures.

This idea had never occurred to me before. I’d never given much thought to how Western ideas of homosexuality were being forced on other cultures, but, from what I read, that seemed to be the case, depending on the writer’s viewpoint, of course. Part of the problem seems to be that the Japanese conception of homosexuality comes from their pop culture, which portrays all gay men as cross-dressers and all lesbians as butch. A Japanese man might admit that he is sexually attracted to other men, but he wouldn’t identify himself as “gay.” In Japan, “gay,” means a queen. A feminine woman who desires other women wouldn’t identify herself as a lesbian, because she isn’t butch.

Of course, not all American gays are queens and not all American lesbians are butch, but isn’t that still the stereotype here in America? For instance, I once met a man who was gay, but I never would have guessed because he didn’t fit the stereotype of the effeminate gay man. He didn’t lisp, prance, make dramatic hand gestures, or look overly neat. In fact, he had a deep voice, a sturdy stance (he was a sports writer whose special interest was in football), understated gestures, and casual dress. No American would have guessed that he was gay.

 And ultimately, that is his right. He can define his homosexuality in whatever way he wants; he can decide for himself what it means to be gay. And people of other cultures should have that same right. They should be able to decide for themselves what being homosexual or bisexual or transgendered means for them and their culture.

 For instance, when we American PAs (program assistants) suspected that some of the students might not be straight, our immediate goal was to out them. Of course, we weren’t going to confront them and force them out of the closet, but we believed that if we let them know that they had a supportive environment in which to come out, they would come out of the closet. And we saw their coming out as a good thing. In America, we tend to believe that whatever you are, you should be open and up front about it. We believe that coming out of the closet is better than staying in it, whatever your closet may be. I know that I often feel guilty for still not having told my friends that I’m no longer a Christian. I feel as though I’m not being honest with them.

 In Japan, however, the focus is not on someone’s individual personality and preferences. The focus is on maintaining harmony within the group. So, in many circumstances, it is perfectly appropriate not to share information about yourself, and doing so is not seen as being dishonest. This includes information about one’s sexuality. One article that I read said that even though the Japanese do not talk openly about homosexuality, their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy works quite well in their culture. People are free to be queer as long as they do not advertise their difference from the heterosexual majority. To Americans, this would seem to be repressive, but some gays point out that the openly queer culture in America and the stereotypes that it sometimes supports can also be repressive in its own way.

 While I admit that there is some truth in that, I still feel that there should be a place for people who want to be openly queer. They should not need to fear open hostility (which they are often confronted with in America) or shunning (which they are often confronted with in Japan). Japan’s policy of keeping homosexuality quiet might, in some ways, be appropriate to their culture, but I still feel that homosexuals and bisexuals should be granted basic rights that straight people take for granted, such as the right to marry someone of the same sex and the right to be free from discrimination because of their sexuality. Of course, how I believe this should be done might just be the colonialist in me talking.

Ultimately, though, how the Japanese handle their queer culture should be left up to them. Japanese queers should be allowed to define for themselves what their homosexuality means in terms of themselves personally and in terms of their culture. I feel (hope) that the general trend of global culture is progressing in such a way as to become more understanding of queers, but that progress is slow. While I might feel that coming out of the closet is a way to speed that progress, at the same time, every individual should decide for him/herself when coming out of the closet is appropriate. And different cultures should be able to decide for themselves what coming out of the closet means and how it can be done appropriately within the context of their cultures.

 Obviously, this is a very complex issue, but I’m glad that this experience has made me aware of it, and I will be paying much more attention to it in the future.

The Importance of Gay Characters in Fiction

I just realized that June, which is Gay Pride month, is almost over, and I haven’t written any posts related to homosexuality for a while. So, here goes…

I applaud writers of all sexual orientations, who write about gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals and strive to accurately and fairly depict them  in their works. I think that what they do is often unrecognized and underappreciated, but they deserve to be thanked for it. I think this because if it weren’t for gay characters in fiction, I never would have come to see people of sexual orientations other than straight as human, and I would have missed out on a lot of good friendships.

You have to understand that I was raised in a Christian home, in Christian schools, where homosexuality was never discussed. If the topic came up at all, everyone agreed that homosexuals were all sinners and it was time to change the subject as quickly as possible. I barely even knew what homosexuality was, except for what a classmate had told me in third grade: “Boys who love boys are called gay. Girls who love girls are called lesbians.” As I grew a little older, I found out that this included men who had sex with men and women who had sex with women. Bisexuality and transsexuality were not discussed, and I didn’t find out what those were until I was in my mid-teens. I was a very sheltered child.

Though my community was sheltered, my reading was not. Almost all of what I learned about sex, I learned through young adult novels that I checked out of the public library. However, even when I read these books, I censored myself. I skipped passages that contained descriptions of heavy making out or sex. I skipped conversations that included swears. I even skipped portions of the books that included descriptions of religious rituals that were not Christian or Jewish. My reason for doing so was because I had been taught that these things displeased God, so I shouldn’t be reading them. In fact, I often felt guilty for not reading more Christian books, but they were so often dull. Most of them were tedious romances that I found in my Christian middle school’s library. The heroines of these novels worried constantly about whether or not their latest male infatuation was the man that God meant them to be with. When a crisis came, characters did not do anything proactive. Instead, they prayed, and a few chapters later, God would undoubtedly answer their prayers. The love between the hero and heroine was completely chaste. There was almost no hint of any sexual desire between them. Strict gender roles were enforced, and the heroines never thought for themselves. The heroes did all the difficult thinking. The novels were also heavily didactic, and I always felt just a little bit insulted that the author didn’t think I could figure out the main theme of the book (it was almost always, “Trust God and do what He wants you to do”) by myself.

With little interesting Christian fiction available, I read secular books, but, as I said, I skipped over any parts that I felt were in conflict with Christian values. (Well, okay, I didn’t always skip those parts. Sometimes I was weak and I read them anyway, but I always felt guilty afterwards.) Sometimes, I would even stop reading a book entirely, and one topic that was sure to make me stop reading was homosexuality. I barely even knew what it was, but I knew that it was bad and gross and God wouldn’t want me reading about it. (On a few rare occasions, I did read things that contained homosexuality, but because I knew so little about it, the references went completely over my head. This happened when I read the short story “Charm” in Francesca Lia Block’s collection, The Rose and the Beast. At the end of the story, I thought, “Wait? The two girls are kissing…? That’s odd. Oh well, I wonder what the next story is about.”)

Then, in ninth grade, I read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It started out innocently enough. The narrator, Charlie, was a pretty sweet guy, and I could relate to him. He was just starting high school, and so was I. He was often confused and sad. I was too. He didn’t always get along with his family. I didn’t always get along with mine either. He was taking an Honors English class, and I was too. He was a main character that I could relate to, so I cared about him. I could also relate to another main character, Patrick. I liked Patrick just as much as I liked Charlie. He was funny and added some much-needed humor to many serious sections of the book. He was outgoing, whereas Charlie was more reserved. They were good foils to each other, and their contrast made the book even better. I continued to read.

And then, I found out something shocking! Something mind-blowing! Something horrible! Patrick was gay! I was devastated. There was a gay character in a book that I was so thoroughly enjoying! But God didn’t want me to read about gay people, so I’d have to stop reading the book. But I really, really didn’t want to stop reading… I thought about it for a while and decided that I liked all the characters so much that I’d read the book anyway. And as I kept reading, I found that I still liked Patrick. He was still funny and goofy. He was still relatable. I felt really bad for him when he couldn’t see his boyfriend, Brad, anymore, even though I thought that what he and Brad had been doing was a sin. I was a little weirded out by the sections of the book where Patrick took Charlie to the golf course so that he could pick up guys, but I read them anyway. By the end of the book, aside from Charlie, Patrick was my favorite character.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but The Perks of Being a Wallflower had changed me. Stephen Chbosky had created a gay character and made him human. His book had shown me that gays were human. They were people. They liked books and music and all of the same things that I did. They had feelings. They cared about other people. The book didn’t change my perceptions of homosexuality immediately, but it had made me empathize with a person who was gay. Albeit, this person was fictional, but I was beginning to see gays in a way that had never occurred to me before, which was a good start. I also stopped self-censoring books with homosexual characters or discussions of homosexuality in them. In fact, I gradually stopped censoring what I read all together and stopped skipping sections of books just because they contained things that went against strict Christian morals.

It still took me about a year, though, before I really began to question a lot of my assumptions about homosexuality. I really can’t remember what specifically made me begin to question what I believed. Even though I was now open to reading books about homosexual characters, I don’t recall reading that many books that touched on the topic of homosexuality and I can’t remember any gay characters making as much of an impact on me as Patrick did. I think that maybe I just became more aware of gays and lesbians and their presence in the larger culture than I had before. Now that I was beginning to learn what homosexuality actually was and what it involved, I was realizing that gays were not some sort of nebulous “other.” There were famous actors and singers who were gay or lesbian or bisexual. There were poets who were gay. Homosexuality was alluded to on shows that I watched, like Seinfeld. Maybe I was just becoming more aware of gays in general.

It was also around this time that I actually met, in person, someone who was gay. I didn’t know him very well. He was one of those people that I only knew because he happened to be a friend of a friend. Still, I’d hung out with him a little bit, and he was an okay guy. He was an excellent singer and had various solos in the high school choir. He had a good sense of humor and was friendly. He was also brave enough to come out, despite the conservative majority of the high school who made ugly comments about him behind his back (and probably to his face as well). I didn’t know him very well, but he was a nice guy and not a bad person, and that contradicted the “fact” that I had been taught that all gays were bad people.

I also think that I became more curious about homosexuality because, in an odd way, I could relate to it. Gays were told by the Christian culture that their sexual desires were bad and that they were sinning by having them. I might have been straight, but in a conservative Christian community that talked about heterosexual sex about as often as it discussed homosexuality, I felt like my own heterosexual desires were bad. Even thinking about someone in a way that even remotely related to sex was a sin. Having sex before marriage was a sin. Expressing one’s sexuality in any way before marriage was a sin.

But what was I supposed to do about my sexual desires until then? I was told to surrender my burdens, such as my sex drive, to God and that He would help me be strong and save myself for my husband. The trouble was that I’d always slip up. I’d fantasize about a good-looking actor or singer whom I’d have a crush on or I’d get turned on by looking at a hot guy who sat near me in a class. I wondered if, before I got married, I would have to confess to my future husband all the lustful things that I had thought and done and if he would be able to love me in spite of them. (It never occured to me that my future husband would have probably also experienced lust and the desire for sex. I thought that I was the only Christian in the world struggling with these problems.) I always felt incredibly guilty and would beg God’s forgiveness when this happened. I knew that God would forgive me because of Jesus’ death on the cross, but I didn’t understand how God could keep forgiving me again and again and again. I certainly never seemed to learn my lesson, and I was sure that eventually God, in His love, would punish me somehow. I also assumed that I would never be able to have a good relationship with a boyfriend or with my future husband, because I had always been taught that keeping one’s self chaste and pure was the only way to have a happy marriage. Even though I’d never had sex, I certainly didn’t feel pure or chaste.

So, perhaps, in my desire to justify my own frustrated sex drive, I decided to investigate homosexuality further. I had been taught by my dad that everything in the Bible had to be understood in context, so what if Christians were reading the Bible incorrectly by thinking that homosexuality is a sin? What if they were taking the Biblical passages about homosexuality out of context? And if homosexuality wasn’t a sin, then surely heterosexual desires couldn’t be evil either! Also, as I began to feel comfortable with the idea that gays were just regular people, I became more uncomfortable with the idea that God was going to send them all to hell. So I decided that I’d learn about homosexuality, and I did so in the manner that I investigated everything at the time, which was strictly through the Christian viewpoint.

There is actually more pro-gay Christian stuff out there than you might think, and Christians’ views about homosexuality run from the stereotypical fundamentalist view of “All gays are going to hell!” to very accepting views of, “Homosexuality is a gift from God that gays should celebrate!” I also picked up a lot of practical information, such as the distinction between homosexual behavior and homosexual orientation. I also got my first lesson in queer theory when I learned that human sexuality is not something definite, but seems to exist on a continuum, in which no one is totally straight and no one is totally gay. As I learned that homosexuality was not a choice but something that had a biological basis, I wanted to accept the idea that homosexuality, just like heterosexuality, was a gift from God that should be celebrated.

Unfortunately, all of the Biblical evidence that I investigated seemed to say otherwise. I did learn some interesting little facts about Biblical translation, though. For instance, anytime you read the word “homosexuality” in an English translation of the Bible, you’re not actually reading the world “homosexuality.” Translators have no idea what the original Greek word really means because, outside of the Bible, it’s present in only a few other texts. So, translators just guess that the word translates into “homosexuality.” To me, this seems like irresponsibility on the translators’ part, especially because most people don’t even think of the Bible as being a book that is translated or understand just how tricky the process of translation can be. There are words in one language that have no equivalent in another language or express concepts that are not present in another language. But lots of Christians don’t seem to realize this. They assume that the Bible in English is the same as the Bible in Greek. This is not the case.

I was confident that there was nothing in the New Testament that directly condemned homosexuality, but there were still some tricky passages in Leviticus that I couldn’t get around. I read Daniel Helminiak’s book What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality, and thought that I had finally found the solution. Helminiak argues that the homosexual act is not actually a sin but just part of the Jewish purity code, which included the Jewish dietary laws. Christians, however, believe that Jesus abolished these old laws. Well, I thought, if homosexuality is just part of the Jewish purity code, then there is no contradiction between homosexuality and Christianity! Homosexuals are not actually sinning! …Or were they? I read some rebuttals to Helminiak’s arguments, and I hated to admit it, but it seemed like homosexuality fell into the category of sin and not an ancient culture’s purity code that contemporary Christians could disregard.

And yet I still couldn’t reconcile the idea of a loving, caring God with homosexuality being a sin. If homosexuality was not a choice, then why would God give someone the desire to have a loving, sexual relationship with someone of the same sex only to tell that person that their God-given desire was wrong? It seemed a little, um, sadistic on God’s part. It also seemed ridiculous to me that Christians just told gays to live lives of chastity. Sexuality, I had learned from my investigating, was much more than just being attracted to certain people. It was part of the core of who a person was. To me, that sounded like gays were being told to deny who they were. Why would God make someone a certain way only to have that person deny that part of him or herself? That didn’t make sense to me either.

I was also very uncomfortable with the “moderate” Christian view of homosexuality, which is, “Love the sinner and hate the sin.” I do believe that it is possible to love a person, even though I might not love everything that s/he does, but as I said before, a person’s sexuality is much more than just who a person sleeps with or wants to sleep with. It’s a part of who you are as a person. I also didn’t actually see any loving the sinner when it came to my Christian friends and homosexuals. Most of them wanted nothing to do with gays, and if they did interact with them, they only saw them as potential converts and not real people. I had a Christian friend tell me that homosexuality scared her because she didn’t know very much about it. Well, homosexuality had sort of scared me. That’s one of the reason that I’d decided to learn about it. But my friend wasn’t interested in my approach. The Bible said that it was a sin for a man to lie with a man, and that was all she needed to know. Maybe if she’s come to this conclusion after doing some sort of research I would have been able to accept her opinion, but she showed no interest in such research and saw no reason why she should do any outside of reading the Bible, let alone actually getting to know someone who was gay!

After a couple years of research, I decided that the only conclusion that I could accept was that the Bible’s writers had gotten the part about homosexuality wrong. The rest of the Bible, I thought, was still infallible, but I couldn’t accept that homosexuality was a sin. I decided that if the Bible’s writers had known what we now know about homosexuality, they never would have considered it to be a sin. I still held that the Bible was the divinely inspired word of God (and I don’t know how I reconciled that with my belief that what the Bible said about homosexuality being wrong) and I remained a Christian, but that was the first time in my life that I considered anything in the Bible to be incorrect. (Not surprisingly, a couple years later, I began to question how accurate the Bible was on a number of other issues until I rejected the Bible as nothing more than a book containing knowledge from a specific people of a specific culture at a specific point in history. In other words, I realized that the Bible was like any other ancient book and that it was not divinely inspired.)

However, in between the time that I decided to reject the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality and when I rejected the Bible altogether, I was more open to reading books by homosexuals and about homosexuals. I read Allen Ginsberg’s poetry and David Sedaris’s essays. I learned that my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, had probably been a bisexual or a lesbian. I was also more open to listening to music by homosexuals and bisexuals, and it was during this time that I discovered Ani DiFranco, Rufus Wainwright, Sinead O’Connor, and Melissa Ferrick. I learned that I’d been missing out on a lot of culture, not to mention good music and good reading, by dismissing people who weren’t heterosexuals.

Most importantly, I made a lot of new friends, and some of these friends were bisexual or homosexual. My friendships with these people only affirmed what I’d already decided was untrue: that homosexuality and bisexuality were not sins and that people who were not straight were not inherently bad. Some of my non-heterosexual friends were better people than I was! And many of them weren’t even Christian, but they were still keenly interested in the same questions that I was, like “What’s the meaning of life?” “What happens after we die?” and “If there is a god, what is this god like?” Sometimes we had different answers to these questions, but instead of arguing about them, we shared our opinions and got to know one another better. In fact, because most of my homosexual and bisexual friends were not Christian, they were the people who first showed me what interreligious dialogue looked like and how people with different ideas about religion could still get along.

Having friends who were homosexuals and bisexuals also made me realize that they really were just people. Homosexual rights might be important to them, and homosexuality or bisexuality influenced who they were, but they really weren’t that different from straight people. They have the same needs a wants, the same interests, the same strengths and weaknesses. They are certainly as capable of being in healthy, loving relationships as straight couples are! I won’t say that their sexualities didn’t matter to me, because they were important to them so they were also important to me. But I didn’t reject their friendship once they came out to me. For instance, a lesbian friend and I both shared a love of travel, reading, obscure music, and dogs. I actually got to know her pretty well before I found out that she was a lesbian, and when I found out, the news barely fazed me. I felt as though I’d discovered that she didn’t care for chocolate or read murder mysteries. It was more information about her and it gave me more insight into who she was, but I still considered her a good friend and a good person. Her being a lesbian didn’t change my friendship with her.

And I might have missed out on that friendship, and other friendships, if I hadn’t been exposed to homosexual characters in young adult novels. Some of these books caused me to question what I’d always been told about homosexuality. They’d also made me see that homosexuals and bisexuals and transsexuals were as human as I was. They weren’t dirty. They weren’t disgusting. They were people, and they deserved to have the same rights and dignity as anyone else. These books gave me the greatest gift that I think any author can give a reader—they made me see the world in a new way, in a way that I wouldn’t have even considered had I not read them. They held up virtues of compassion and empathy, and they gave these messages to me not through heavy-handed didactic morals but through realistic and well-developed characterization.

And to any writers out there who have tried to use their books to promote equality and understanding between diverse groups of people: your books have made a difference. Your books may be the only way that readers can interact with people who are different from themselves. Or your books may be the first of many interactions between readers and people who are unfamiliar to them. The world needs young adult writers who are willing to tackle big and often taboo topics, like sexuality. The world needs writers who convince us to question our assumptions and think in new ways. My life and my understanding have been deeply enriched by such writers, and, even though it might sound corny, I can’t thank them enough for opening my mind with their books.

Some young adult books that include topics related to GBLTA issues that I enjoyed:

Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block

Girl Goddess Number Nine by Francesca Lia Block

The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Luna by Julie Anne Peters

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger

Male Prom Queen

Okay, it’s a bit of a tangent, but I thought it was interesting. If you haven’t heard, you can read the story here:

 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/fairfax-high-elects-gay-man-as-prom-queen-prompting-discussion-about-gender-roles.html

 Summary: A gay Los Angeles teenager ran for prom queen and won. I found out about the story yesterday while I was in a coffee shop, which was showing CNN’s coverage of the story.

 Personally, I think that it’s great that a kid can be that comfortable with his sexuality. I remember that there were a few gay kids in my own high school, and when they decided to come out (if they decided to come out) they were openly mocked for it. One boy’s parents even threw him out of the house when they caught him simply talking to his boyfriend on the phone. So, after spending four years in that environment, I find it encouraging that there are high schools out there where being gay isn’t seen as something to mock.

 I also find it encouraging that younger generations seem to have no problem with people whose sexualities differ from the straight “norm.” Maybe our country is becoming more open-minded after all, and contrary to what some conservatives would have us believe, it doesn’t seem to be leading us down the road to ruin one bit.