Maclin Horton
reflects on Eve Tushnet's commentary and
opines. Excerpt:
I admit that I really don't see a good resolution for that problem. One thought the question provokes, though, is that her vision of some sort of place for "celibate partnership" (there's a link to further discussion of that idea in her piece) is something that I can see more easily workable for lesbians than for gay men. Despite the abundant evidence, most women don't really understand just how commanding and obsessive the male sex drive is. They may understand it as an observed datum, but since they don't experience it, they still tend to underestimate its power.
Well put.
A problem that I have seen growing for some time within the whole "purpose of sexuality debate" is the downplaying of the difference between male and female and the accenting of the differences in orientations. I don't care if same-sex attraction is
completely innate—a position of which I am highly skeptical—the gender of a person is always more determinative of behavior. And behavior, as all men and women know, is what lands you in trouble as far as your relationship with God goes, whether or not there is a risk of pregnancy.
The old cynical line is that men use relationships to get sex and women use sex to get relationships. And although we as Christians want to rise above the wrongful use of others for whatever purpose and enter into a covenant of mutual self-giving, we can't deny the truth of the difference between the genders with regard to sexual urges.
There is a mistaken belief out having to do with gay men, that they can most easily be compared to women. Unfortunately this seems to lead people to forget that their bodies are still male and they have the same fundamental hormones that heterosexuals do.
Perhaps on the surface gay men exhibit feminine traits to attract other men. But having had some experience being around them, they remind me more of men who have not learned to control their male urges, and maybe they would rather not learn. Hence they form sexual relationships with other men so they don't have to.
I'm sure this observation is very offensive to some homosexuals, but the same observation about sexual immaturity and irresponsibility can be made about other men in general. Sports teams, for example; remember the Duke LaCrosse team? In my hometown, the few gang-rape scandals had to do with drunk girls and the HS football team.
But going back to male effeminacy—are gay men really more like women, or are they simulating secondary characteristics? Can we all acknowledge that they are not trying to be more like women in the sex drive department? For example, one gay guy I knew in Pittsburgh wanted to fix me up with his female cousin whom, he assured me, had enormous breasts. I seriously never heard any other human talk about his own relative this way. But it cannot be doubted that this is
men's locker room talk, not women's.
Andy Warhol made close study of men who worked extremely hard to look like women consciously, i.e., drag queens.
He made these astute observations in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. Excerpt:
Among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal moviestar womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection.
To get a private room in a hospital you used to have to be very rich but now you can get one if you're a drag queen. If you're a drag queen they want to isolate you from the other patients, but maybe they have enough for a ward now.
I'm fascinated by boys who spend their lives trying to be complete girls, because they have to work so hard—double-time—getting rid of all the tell-tale male signs and drawing in all the female signs. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm not saying it's not self-defeating and self-destructive, and I'm not saying it's not possibly the single most absurd thing a man can do with his life. What I'm saying is, it is very hard work. You can't take that away from them. It's hard work to look like the complete opposite of what nature made you and then to be an imitation woman of what was only a fantasy woman in the first place. When they took the movie stars and stuck them in the kitchen, they weren't stars any more—they were just like you and me.
Emphasis mine. In other words, picturing a woman in a non-sexual place like a kitchen and the fetish dissolves with the fantasy. Only for the length of a Hollywood flick can a woman remain raring for hot romance. Whereas a man is ready jump into bed 24 hours, 7 days a week.
This is why I would suggest that "celibate partnership" is probably not possible for most healthy, young (under 85) homosexual men if they plan on being in close quarters together at all. Maybe a gay man should consider having a "celibate partnership" with a lesbian if he is really not attracted to women and he is serious about celibacy? I have a friend who owns an apartment which he rents to such a couple. He is gay and is a cook at a restaurant. She is a lesbian and works in a very physical construction job and appreciates coming home to good meals. Who knows; maybe they'll fall in love, or maybe they already have a very deep fraternal love for one another.
But just to conclude before I ramble much longer. When Maclin describes the male sex drive as "commanding and obsessive" he is spot on, and this is true for guys who are
trying not to let themselves run off on a feeding frenzy. The idea that there is any less drive on the part of men because they are gay isn't supported by any evidence. And I think we need to stress that the reality of male and female is in mankind's immovable roots while this concept of orientation is out in the branches where there is far more fluttering and flexing.
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