God, Sex, and Gender

An Introduction

Adrian Thatcher

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781405193702, 9781405193696
• eBook ISBN: 9781444396379
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

Engagingly and clearly written by a highly respected theologian, God, Sex, and Gender is the first comprehensive introduction to a theology of both sexuality and gender available in a single volume.

• Makes a theological contribution to understanding the unprecedented changes in sexual and gender relationships of the last fifty years
• Discusses many topics including: sexual difference; sexual equality; gender and power; the nature of desire; the future of marriage in Christian sexual ethics; homosexuality and same-sex unions; the problems of sexual minorities; contraception in a time of HIV/AIDS; the separation of sexual experience from marriage; and offers new arguments for marriage and for chastity
• Offers a consistent and engaging introduction at the cutting edge of theological inquiry, which is contemporary, undogmatic, questioning, and relevant to readers' experience, interests, and needs
• Written lucidly and engagingly by an established and respected academic who has published widely in this area

Part I

Sex, Gender, and Theology

Chapter 1

Sex

Sexuality, the Sexes, Having Sex

This chapter is about sex. It asks how the terms “sex” and “sexuality” are used (Section 1.1). It shows that until recently men and women thought of themselves as united in a single sex, even with the same sex organs, but disunited by belonging to two different genders (Section 1.2). Since there are many sexual activities in which people engage, it asks what “having sex” amounts to (Section 1.3). These topics prepare the way for a similar analysis of gender in Chapter 2.

1.1 Sexuality

Nothing can be taken for granted in the theology of sex and gender. Take for example the truism (something that looks obvious) that we are either women or men. There are at least three reasons for doubting even this.

First, if we are adults, we have become either men or women, as a result of a comprehensive process. It may take half a lifetime to discover the pervasive influences on us that helped to make us the men and women we now are. We are more than our biology.

Second, there are many adults who are unable to identify with either label. There are intersex, and transsexual or transgender, people who cannot easily say they identify with this binary (twofold) division of humanity into separate biological sexes (see Section 1.2).

Third, for most of Christian history, people were inclined to believe that there was a single sex, “man,” which existed on a continuum between greater (male) and lesser (female) degrees of perfection (see Sections 1.2 and 2.3). That is something quite different from the now common assumption that there are two, and only two, sexes. If we are to understand the biblical and traditional sources for thinking about sex and gender, we will be well advised not to smother them with our modern assumptions.

Defining Terms

In a moment I will be suggesting a definition of sexuality, but first it may be helpful to say something about what we are doing when we define something. Throughout the book we will notice that experts sometimes disagree even over the meaning of basic terms. When coming to define sexuality, it is important to tackle the problem of definition head-on. Experts disagree about what sexuality is. Within psychology and psychoanalysis, there is a large diversity of influences and schools, and new sub-disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and sociobiology have become popular. Philosophers of language have something to teach us about how to manage this problem. They might advise us not to worry too much about definitions, that is, to look not for the fixed meaning or meanings of a word but for its use within its “language-game” or context where it is employed. That is what I shall be doing with definitions. I shall follow the philosopher Wittgenstein (1889–1951) in his dictum “For a large class of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language” (Wittgenstein, 1972, p. 20, para. 43; emphasis in original).

Sometimes it is helpful to offer a stipulative definition, that is, a description of the meaning of a general term combined with the author's stipulation of its meaning or use. Some of the definitions in the book, found in the margins, are stipulative.

Sex: Sex is the division of a species into either male or female, especially in relation to the reproductive functions. Whatever else sex is, it is about the ability of species to reproduce.

However, even the link between sex and reproduction can be sensibly doubted, can't it? For most people most of the time, having children is the last thing on their minds when they are “having sex” (see Section 1.3). There is much more to sex than biology. It is OK to begin discussing sex from a biological or reproductive point of view, provided it does not end there. Sex, or being sexed, is a condition we share with fish, insects, birds, and other animals. Sometimes the term refers to the biological drive within species to reproduce. Since that drive can be overwhelming it requires regulation. That regulation is sexual morality.

Our sexuality is more interesting. In the margin, there are two stipulative definitions of sexuality provided by churches, one Roman Catholic, the other Lutheran, both of them American.

Sexuality: “Sexuality refers to a fundamental component of personality in and through which we, as male or female, experience our relatedness to self, others, the world, and even God” (USCCB, 1991, p. 9).

“Sexuality especially involves the powers or capacities to form deep and lasting bonds, to give and receive pleasure, and to conceive and bear children. Sexuality can be integral to the desire to commit oneself to life with another, to touch and be touched, and to love and be loved. Such powers are complex and ambiguous. They can be used well or badly. They can bring astonishing joy and delight. Such powers can serve God and serve the neighbor. They also can hurt self or hurt the neighbor. Sexuality finds expression at the extreme ends of human experience: in love, care, and security; or lust, cold indifference, and exploitation.

Sexuality consists of a rich and diverse combination of relational, emotional, and physical interactions and possibilities. It surely does not consist solely of erotic desire” (ELCA, 2009, section 3).

Question: Were there any particular emphases in these descriptions with which you particularly agreed?

Comment: Both descriptions mention that we discover our sexuality in relationship to others. I liked the emphases on the complexity and ambiguity of sexuality. These emphases need to be placed alongside the more obvious ones about pleasure, joy, and having children, don't they?

An Alternative Take on Sexuality

The term “sexuality” is very recent, and should not be read back into pre-modern times. It began to be used in the 1860s, as part of a “discourse” of sex which was invented by the medical profession. By now it is deeply embedded in the English language and has attracted many meanings. The British Christian writer Jo Ind provides a more erotic, personal definition of sexuality. I have included it in order to discuss the issues it raises. She says:

When I am talking about sexuality I am talking about the glorious, wide-ranging, intriguing, predictable and surprising business of being aroused. I am talking about the way we are moved by breasts, by kindness, by red toenails peeping through open-toed sandals, by wind skimming across water, by kindred spirits, by kissing down between the breasts, down around the belly button, down, down towards the groin. I am talking about the way our bodies are changed through memories, fantasies, yearnings, sweet nothings, the biting of buttocks, the word understood, the semen smelt, the integrity cherished. When I am talking about sexuality I am talking about the multi-dimensional, richly textured, embarrassingly sublime, muscle-tighteningly delicious capacity to be turned on. (Ind, 2003, p. 33)

Questions: How did you react to this understanding of sexuality? What particular features of it, if any, struck you as unusual?

Comment: It was written by a woman who makes no attempt to conceal her own sexuality and separate it from her writing about sex. It is gynocentric (woman-centered) not androcentric (man-centered).

It links sexuality to arousal. The author holds that women are likely to be aroused in more diffuse and complex ways than men, and they are better able than men to integrate the erotic dimension of their lives with all the other dimensions.

Ind links the discussion of sexuality to her experience of desiring, of being aroused, of giving and receiving pleasure. The Lutherans would agree with her about this. It is an important emphasis since much writing about sexuality is detached from the experience of sex. Whether Theology should incorporate our experience into a theology of sexuality and gender remains a contested issue (for the arguments, see Section 3.2.3).

What did you make of the metaphor of being “turned on”? The quotation was part of a chapter entitled “Whatever Turns You On.” That phrase sounds too much like a glib 1960s colloquialism (in use when I was a teenager) that appeared to sanction debauchery. The suggestion that we are like taps or machines which can be turned on and off is also unfortunate but the phrase has been deliberately chosen. There is recognition that our sexualities are formed by complex and still little-known processes, which the successors of Freud and Jung are still busily researching. Ind notes “our childhood experiences have a key role in the sexual adults we become” (2003, p. 60). We have had no control over these processes, and so we are importantly not responsible for them. What arouses us, the “trigger-mechanisms” that get us thinking about and wanting sex, vary considerably from person to person and we cannot help being endowed with the sexualities we have. Ind's fine insight is that we should resist any temptation to feel guilty about what turns us on because we did not choose to be this, or any other, way. (This is a point that can be convincingly linked to the theological teaching both that God loves sinners however sinful they are, and that to love ourselves, as well as God and our neighbors, is a Gospel requirement.)

Do you have any reservations about the quotation? I have two. I thought it was a pity she did not say more about how we like turning others on. The enormous effort and expense that some people (generally women) put into their social appearance might indicate that they are just as concerned about arousing others as they are with becoming aroused themselves.

Did you feel a bit nervous about accepting as good all sexualities? The Lutherans were right to stress the ambiguity and hurt that attaches itself to sexuality, weren't they? There are some kinds of eroticism, for example those involving bondage or sado-masochism which many Christians will find problematic. Other kinds are unequivocally pathological, such as pedophilia. If I had been abused as a child, and now desired to abuse children in my adult life, that compulsion would be understandable, but it could never be actionable or acceptable. It would be a distortion of my sexuality that required compassionate treatment.

1.2 How Many Sexes are There?

It may come as a big surprise to learn how different are our contemporary ways of thinking about sex and gender, from the ways of the ancient world and of the Christian tradition down to at least the end of the seventeenth century. The differences are so great that it takes a concerted effort to set aside what we now take for granted about biological sex and gender in order to try to understand how earlier generations understood them. Some beliefs we would probably never think to question are very recent. For example, what we now call the process of ovulation remained undiscovered until the early 1930s (see Section 1.2.3). It took another 30 years for a pill that suppressed ovulation to become available.

Why should we want to re-enter this pre-modern and pre-scientific intellectual universe and actively “un-learn” some of our modern assumptions? Here are three reasons.

First, the strangeness of earlier beliefs about sex and gender, and the discontinuity between those beliefs and many of our own, should help us to see the fragility of our own assumptions and constructions. Our knowledge may be more sound and more broadly based, but we should not assume that we have arrived at the complete truth about sex or anything else.

Second, a better understanding of the history and tradition concerning sex and gender aids contemporary believers in developing it and fashioning it into something believable for ensuing generations.

Third, even in the past 20 years there have been major contributions to the study of gender from the academic disciplines of Classics and Medical History. Theologians would be daft not to take advantage of these, even if the findings appear to make theological trouble for them.

1.2.1 Have There Always been Two Sexes?

The standard view is that there are two sexes, male and female. This view is so securely lodged in Western religion and culture that it may appear devious even to question it. The two sexes are “opposite.” Through the rise of the Women's Movement and successive waves of feminism, the “second” or “weaker” sex has successfully challenged the first or stronger sex in its claim to be first and stronger, but it has not until recently sought to challenge the basic premise that there are two and only two, human sexes. The campaigning issue has not been the number of sexes, but whether the two sexes received equal treatment, equal rights, and equal respect.

The churches too appear confident that there are two sexes. In the twentieth century, a verse from the opening chapter of the Bible was pressed into service to confirm the cultural truth of two sexes and to proclaim that that is how God intended the human race to be. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). The greatest Protestant theologian of the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction – Or, a Welcome to My Readers
• Part I: Sex, Gender, and Theology
• Part II: Being Theological about Sex
• Part III: Being Theological about Gender
• Part IV: Being Theological about Same-Sex Love
• Part V: Learning to Love
• Index of Authors
• Index of Biblical References
• Index of Subjects