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MASTURBATION AND PERVERSION
WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY TODAY?
WHAT IS A REAL MAN?
DISGUST AND SEXUAL EXCITEMENT
WHAT MAKES SOMETHING SEXUAL?
WHAT IS SEXUAL EXCITEMENT?
JUDGMENTS ABOUT SEX
IRRATIONALITY AND AIDS
IRRATIONALITY AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
PSYCHOANALYSIS: A QUEER SCIENCE
PERVERSION
THE WISDOM OF REPUGNANCE
THE DURABILITY OF HATRED
THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY
THE FUTURE
MASTURBATION AND PERVERSION:
In the last century, people were talking about fellatio and cunnilingus as perversions. These days, oral sex is an average expectable sex act, almost required foreplay in some cultures. Similarly, in the nineteenth century, masturbation was seen as an enormous problem, and all sorts of procedures were developed to stop it. Sylvester Graham, after whom Graham Crackers were named, preached vegetarianism and avoidance of highly seasoned foods as a means limiting prurient imagination, sexual excess, and masturbation.
This link between healthy eating and avoidance of masturbation was picked up by John Harvey Kellogg, who wrote Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, which vividly described the many ailments caused by masturbation (which he called “secret sin”), including tuberculosis and epilepsy. As a last resort for compulsive masturbators, Kellogg recommended suturing the foreskin so that erection is impossible. Few people today, when eating their Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, are aware of their once touted anti-masturbatory properties.
WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY TODAY?
Some of the most breathtaking selective inattention came from Pope John Paul II. In 2003, he issued a strong statement urging people to work against gay marriage and against the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt and raise children. In that statement he said that allowing children to be brought up in gay and lesbian households “would actually mean doing violence to these children.” The church is in an awkward position to lecture anyone on doing violence to children—for decades it has been covering up sexual abuse of children by priests. Bringing up children in a loving household created by two people of the same sex is not violence; it is love. In psychological terms, the Pope was engaging in selective inattention. In religious terms, it is hypocrisy.
And on October 12, 2003, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, announced on BBC-TV that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can easily pass through condoms; this is patently false, as many scientists were quick to point out. But such disinformation will probably lead many Catholics not to use condoms and thus contract HIV. The Pope did not revoke Trujillo’s statement and thus was complicit in killing many innocent Catholic believers through the spread of falsehood.
Many Christians believe that someday Jesus will return. He was supposed to make an appearance at the millennium, but he did not show up. If Jesus came back today, I think he would attack the Orthodox Jews, the fundamentalist Catholics, and the fundamentalist Moslems, because they are all guilty of hypocrisy and bigotry. Read over the New Testament, and you will see how courageously Jesus attacked selective inattention, which he called hypocrisy.
If Jesus did return today, he would not even need to change his words; he could address the religious hypocrites of today with the same words he used 2000 years ago, with just a few adjustments to modern culture. He could quote himself, from the gospel according to St. Matthew, Chapter 23, verse 23: “Woe to you experts in the law, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you neglect what is more important in the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness! Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!”
To the Pope who sanctions the cover-up of pedophile priests but says that allowing children to be brought up in gay and lesbian households “would actually mean doing violence to these children”, and who spreads dangerous false information about HIV passing easily through condoms; to the Orthodox Jews who torment their gay and lesbian children; and to the Islamic courts that imprison and kill gay men; Jesus could say, as he did in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 23:27: “Woe to you, experts in the law, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
To the church that burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for agreeing with Copernicus that the earth revolved around the sun, and that imprisoned the wise prophet Galileo for the same supposed sin, Jesus would say, as he did in Matthew 23:29:
“Woe to you, experts in the law, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have participated with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ By saying this you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. You snakes, you offspring of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
If there is one thing that religion teaches us, it is to strive for high ideals. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Treat people as you would want to be treated. Support human love above all else, and combat every cruelty and hatred, since you would not like them to be targeted against you.
WHAT IS A REAL MAN?
The question “What is a real man?” provokes much humor in our society. What is a real man? Someone who doesn’t eat quiche? Over the Passover holidays, I heard that the real reason the Jews wandered in the desert for forty years is that the men refused to ask directions. The fact that there is a whole repertoire of “real men” jokes betrays the great anxiety, in our culture, about what a real man is. The very word “real” captures the problem. What is not a real man? Is it a fake man? A woman? What qualities are condensed into the “realness” of a man?
What is a real man? Is it defined by how big your salary is, how big your intellect is, how big your muscles are, how big your other things are? Is it defined by your bravery, your ability to walk on hot coals, your ability to fend for yourself in intellectual debates? Is it defined by a rejection of dependency, not only not asking directions, but not looking at maps, and not even letting your wife or partner look at a map? Is it defined by a propensity for rough-and-tumble play? Is it defined by whom you have sex with and with what enjoyment? Is it defined by what you do sexually with your sex partner—which act, how often you do it, how hard your penis is, how long your erections last?
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When, in 1969, the transvestites at the Stonewall Bar refused to be arrested by the New York City police, they proved, in one fell swoop, that being defined as a sissy by someone else does not make you a sissy. That is, those transvestites were very masculine, if brave, assertive behavior by a man is defined as masculine. In their courage during the Stonewall Rebellion, which launched the gay liberation movement, they proved that they were more “manly” than the gay men in business suits who let themselves be arrested and paid fines to try to avoid publicity, and more manly than the cowardly police who were persecuting an innocent minority.
But consider this: Was Rosa Parks masculine when she refused to sit in the back of the bus? We men, gay and straight, have appropriated certain virtues for ourselves, so that women who take part in them may have to call themselves tomboys to take them back for themselves.
DISGUST AND SEXUAL EXCITEMENT:
I would like to take you back to 1979, when Larry Kramer published his novel Faggots. It began with a description of felching. Felching is the act of sucking the semen out of a man’s anus after intercourse. I had never heard of felching before that, I had never even thought of doing it, and my initial reaction was shock, followed swiftly by fascination. I wondered, “Do so many people really do that that they have given the act a name?” Shock and disgust are just a short distance from fascination. Eew! is just a short distance from Wow!.
Felching has not gone away, but younger people have informed me that sexual experimenters have moved far beyond felching. I will not give you the complete list, but one current gold-medal candidate in the Olympics of sexual adventure is “sounding” in which a ball-point pen, or another cylindrical object, is inserted into the male urethra. It seems to cause extra pleasure if withdrawn near the time of ejaculation. Eew! Wow! (Or is it Ow?)
WHAT MAKES SOMETHING SEXUAL?
What makes something sexual is mostly not an intrinsic property of the stimulus, but of our perception of it. The subjective, phenomenological component of sex is greater than in most of our perceptions. We use “sexual” as an adjective to describe a stimulus, but sex is a special case in our perception. Things are sexual because they make us feel sexual. Nothing is intrinsically sexual. When the Supreme Court Justice said, “I don’t know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it!” he was speaking a profound philosophical truth. In most stimuli in our environment, we can connect the properties of our experience to physical properties of the stimulus. When we see the color blue, it is connected with a wavelength of light in the 450 Hz range. But when we describe a stimulus as sexual, the property of its being sexual is primarily located in our subjectivity, in the perceiver. Even genitals can be a turn-off in the wrong context.
The same changeable boundary of disgust and desire can be seen in the olfactory sense. There was a study published in 1975 of men’s reactions to smelling vaginal fluid when it was presented to them in a test-tube without their knowing what it was. In general, they found the odor unpleasant. This set off a vivid exchange of letters. Gordon Globus objected to the study since it did not take into account the state of the sniffers. Had they been sexually aroused, he said, they would have found the aromas attractive. The authors responded, that may be so, but male hamsters find vaginal fluid deposited on inanimate objects appealing. It makes them sexually excited. So humans are different from hamsters. Human noses do not lead their feelings; their feelings lead their noses.
Interestingly, in another study of male hamsters, vaginal fluid smells were paired with an injection that causes acute gastric distress. Just one experience like that, and the male hamsters stop being so excited by vaginal fluid. So, in hamsters, aversive experience can change Wow! into Eew! quite easily.
WHAT IS SEXUAL EXCITEMENT?
The exact same act can seem silly or world-changing. As the depths of our bodies are touched, so too are the depths of our psyche. If all goes well, we feel the union of the bodily and the mental, and the miracle of mutuality. It does not happen every time, but the hope for it is there. The best sex destabilizes our world. Tristan becomes Isolde, Isolde Tristan. Good sex disorients our neatly arranged world of categories. We may think that delight and disgust are diametrically opposed, but they are just around the corner from each other. Things we consider opposite become experiential neighbors, through the magic of subjective alteration of experience. Pleasure can turn quickly to pain and back again. The boring becomes fascinating, the clumsy becomes exquisite, the beautiful ugly, the dearest becomes the most hated, the abject becomes delightful. Eew! becomes Wow!.
JUDGMENTS ABOUT SEX:
Our perceptions of sexual situations are very much shaped by our own sexual experiences, as well as what we have learned we should think and feel. We all know, or we all should know by now, how intersubjective are judgments about sex. A promiscuous person, it is said, is someone who is having sex with more people than I am. The same logic could be applied to most of the other old judgmental terms about sex. The pervert is someone who does things that I would never do. The person who is inhibited and constricted about sex is someone who never does what I would readily do. The oversexed person is someone who wants to have sex more than I do. You may remember the scene in the film Annie Hall, where Diane Keaton complains to her therapist, “He wants to have sex all the time; maybe three times a week!” and Woody Allen complains to his therapist, “We hardly ever have sex, maybe three times a week!”
IRRATIONALITY AND AIDS:
The level of irrationality about AIDS produced the most bizarre belief systems. Think about the following question: What do you believe is the risk that two gay men who are HIV-negative can transmit the HIV virus to one another during anal intercourse? Herek and Capitanio studied this question. They found that about half of the people believed there was a strong chance of HIV transmission between two uninfected homosexual men. Of course, the correct answer is 0. But their study showed how many people irrationally connect HIV transmission with specific behaviors. If anal intercourse is one of the most efficient ways of spreading the HIV virus, then any act of anal intercourse is thought to cause AIDS.
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The most severe forms of irrationality, fear, and ignorance were slow to disappear. In 1995, a group of gay political leaders were to meet with President Clinton at the White House. Secret service members who frisked them wore rubber gloves as a precaution against contracting AIDS. What was their reasoning? Many gay people have AIDS. Therefore, all gay people have AIDS. Doctors use rubber gloves when examining AIDS patients where there are bodily fluids. So rubber gloves will prevent my getting AIDS from frisking gay men. Of course, the fact is that you cannot get AIDS by frisking anyone, with or without gloves; but if such ignorance exists at the top levels of American government, what can we expect of those with less education and less public responsibility?
IRRATIONALITY AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:
Many nominal heterosexuals have a dread of homosexuality in themselves. They may fear that if same-sex marriage is legal, their own heterosexuality will be tainted, through fears of contagion. This is totally illogical, but they are not operating in the realm of logic. They are operating in the realm of von Domarus logic, in which things that are merely associated with one another are seen to have a causal relationship. For example, a schizophrenic may think, “If my mother’s name is Mary, and Mary is the mother of God, then I am God.” You may think that only schizophrenics think like this, but as Freud and Jung have shown us, when we are under great emotional pressure, we are all capable of reasoning like madmen. Thus a frightened heterosexual may unconsciously reason: If homosexuals are allowed to be married, and I am married, then I may be a homosexual. And if I make it impossible for homosexuals to marry, and I am married, then I will make it impossible for me to be a homosexual.
By fighting against same-sex marriage, some heterosexuals may unconsciously feel they are fending off any dreaded homosexual impulses in themselves. This idea is supported by the many films and books in which a person in homosexual panic marries to prove his heterosexuality (e.g., “Mambo Italiano”). If same-sex marriage is legalized, marriage may lose its status as an unconscious safe haven for the conflicted. Until then, we will have to watch endless repetitions of public figures most adamant against same-sex marriage and equal rights for gay people being exposed as closet homosexuals.
PSYCHOANALYSIS: A QUEER SCIENCE
The word “queer” was once commonly used as a derogatory reference to a homosexual, but today “queer” has been rehabilitated, with a new and expanded meaning. In an ironic twist, what was once an insult is now a compliment in some circles. “Queer” has been revived to embrace all kinds of expressions of sex and gender, both those considered “normal” and “deviant.” In its modern form, “queer” has come to describe transgendered individuals, transvestites, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, intersexed people, as well as just plain old heterosexuals. Actually, heterosexuality is quite queer when you look closely at all of its varieties. As Jack Morin has written: “No one who explores honestly the innermost realities of his or her eroticism finds complete ‘normalcy.’ … When we deny or reject our sexual idiosyncrasies, we renounce who we are.”
If you consider yourself predominantly heterosexual, maybe you are thinking, “What do I care about queerness? I am normal. What does this have to do with me?” But queerness is not about a particular form of sexuality, but about an attitude— an attitude of acceptance; instead of trying to prescribe normalcy, it takes a different approach to mental health. It proposes that we define mental health in terms of a person’s own happiness, whether the person’s mental functioning provides satisfaction and integrity. Queerness tries to free psychoanalysts and other mental health practitioners from being unwitting enforcers of dysfunctional cultural norms and prejudices. It is possible that psychoanalysis could acquire a new vitality today by becoming once again a more queer science.
I am using the word “queer” in a positive way. Queerness means that we do not gloss over or prejudge individual differences; instead, we seek them out, identify them, appreciate them, and try to understand them, without automatic stigma or correction. We recognize that we are all much more simply human than otherwise; but within that simple humanness, there are many variations, and variation does not necessarily mean pathology.
PERVERSION:
You see the trouble with the whole concept of perversion: in orthodox religion, there is a right way to do things, and if you do things differently, even if it makes you happy and you do not harm anyone, you are still wrong, perverted, and sinful. Many clinicians have bought into such a translation from sin to psychopathology, even if the connection between pathology and sin is not fully conscious. That has caused a lot of clinical mischief and a good deal of suffering for patients.
So, it may be that if you think perversion, you are also implicitly thinking, “I know the right way to behave.” Not just the right way for me to behave, but THE right way to behave.
THE WISDOM OF REPUGNANCE:
Leon Kass, who was the head of President Bush’s commission on bioethics, argues for what he calls “the wisdom of repugnance.” Kass believes that the disgust reaction has a primal wisdom and is reason to judge some things unethical. He has written: “In crucial cases, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power to fully articulate . . . we intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things we rightfully hold dear . . .”
I think that Kass’ argument is not only flawed but dangerous. A big problem with his statement is the word “We.” “We intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things we rightfully hold dear…” Whom does he mean by “we”? Statements that appeal to the common sense and wisdom of the majority have a long history of abusing the rights of innocent minorities based on strong feelings of disgust and contempt. In Nazi Germany, the majority “we” thought Jews were disgusting and inferior and should therefore be ostracized or killed. In traditional India, upper castes consider that the “untouchables” are disgusting and inferior and should have limited rights. Before the Civil War, many Americans thought black people were disgusting and inferior, and therefore deserved to be slaves.
Unlike Kass, I would say that personal disgust is nota reliable guide to evaluate other people’s behavior. Recall Kass’s statement: “We intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things we rightfully hold dear…” I would say, on the contrary, that when you feel a disgust reaction about someone else’s behavior, immediately and without argument, you should pause. You should consider, NOT immediately and NOT without argument, but with delay and with rational argument, whether the person’s seemingly disgusting behavior harms anyone. You should put yourself in that person’s place, and imagine being told that your innermost desire is immoral or forbidden or pathological. You should try to consider some way to empathize with that person’s experience. That is a very hard thing to do and takes a concerted effort. It requires you to be in an open dialogue with the person about whom you feel disgust, and to be honest with yourself and others about your own practices that might disgust someone else.
The risks are enormous to allowing disgust reactions or old religious prejudices to pathologize the desire of a harmless minority and take away their rights.
THE DURABILITY OF HATRED:
The high significance placed on the biological causation of sexual orientation is a fluke of our particular epoch, and is not fundamental to the question of the aims of clinical psychoanalysis. At the turn of the century, the predominant theory of the causation of sexual orientation was biological. Homosexuals were viewed as having a degenerate constitution, and were discriminated against because of their supposed congenital defect. When Freud shifted the focus of the cause of homosexuality from the physiological to the psychological, it was experienced as very liberating. It is also true that when Hamer, LeVay, and Zhang and Odenwald, in our day, shift the focus of the cause of homosexuality from the psychological to the physiological, that is also experienced as liberating. So we see two opposite movements that are liberating. Is that not odd? I think this tells us less about the roots of homosexuality than about the nature of anti-gay hatred. Those who hate homosexuals will use any account, biological or psychological, in the service of their hatred. Any shift in viewpoint seems liberating, because it liberates one from the old view that was pathologizing and persecutory; but in time, the new view, no matter what it is, will be used in the service of hatred. The problem is that almost any attempt to question why someone becomes homosexual turns into an exercise in covert hatred, when the unconscious motivation behind the asking is unaccepting and pathologizing.
In Europe in the 1930’s, it was common for non-Jews to talk about the so-called “Jewish Problem.” What a hateful term! We all know the tragic fact that the “Jewish Problem” led to the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem.” It makes a big difference whether you address the Jewish problem, or the problem of anti-Semitism. Similarly, we might ask: Why have psychoanalysts devoted so much energy to the question, “Why does someone become homosexual?” and so little energy to the question that is more pressing and also more answerable by psychoanalysts: “Why do people hate and fear homosexuals, treat them badly, and deny them normal human rights when they do not harm anyone?” Maybe when that is the question being asked, the problem of homosexuality will have been solved; it will have been resolved into the larger and more pressing question for all mankind, which is why people hate minorities that are different but in no way dangerous. When psychoanalysts stop acting out the problem of homophobia and, instead, address it and analyze it, our field may regain its standing as the solver of irrational problems instead of the reinforcer of problematic irrationality.
THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY:
America is a religious country for the most part, and religious people cite the Bible to prove that God supports their bigotry, whether against black people, gay people, or others. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, said: “Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation.” And he was right. In the Old Testament, we find unequivocal descriptions of slaves as property: “However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.” [Leviticus 25:44-46; see also the New Testament, Luke 12:47-48; 1 Timothy 6:1-2].
The Bible’s prohibition against men lying with other men (Leviticus 18:22) has been similarly used to argue against same-sex marriage. Although the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that homosexual relations are not a crime, religious people continue to consider such relations a sin. They say that their ideas are supported by God’s own words in the Bible, and thus they feel safe from challenge when they oppose same-sex marriage.
Yet they cite selectively. Few people today would argue that because the Bible condones slavery, it is right for contemporary society. By means of selective inattention, those who claim religious authority to punish homosexuals do not also demand the death penalty for those who break the Sabbath or disobey their parents, as called for in the Bible. Some day, we will consider with astonishment that the Bible’s ban on homosexuality was used to deny civil rights to gay people and their children, just as we are astonished that the Bible was once used to defend slavery.
THE FUTURE:
In the future that I imagine, being gay, lesbian, or bisexual will seem as ordinary and innocuous as being tall. It will be just one more dimension that contributes to the grand tapestry of human nature. Students in schools will learn about the great contributions of gay men and lesbians to society, not as a special subject, but just as a matter of fact. They will appreciate that society has benefited enormously from the achievements of gay men and lesbians, such as the music of Aaron Copland, the plays of Tennessee Williams, the novels of E. M. Forster and Willa Cather, the paintings of Jasper Johns, the foundation of the computer by Alan Turing, the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, the psychiatric vision of Harry Stack Sullivan, the great tennis-playing of Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, the consummate acting of John Gielgud, and the piano artistry of Vladimir Horowitz.
In the future, no one will have to endure the agony of “coming out” as gay. No teenagers will be disowned by their parents for being gay, thrown out of the house, and left to fend for themselves on the street. The fact of being gay will be heard as just one more fact about a person. Gay men and lesbians will have the same opportunity as straight people to form loving bonds, supported in society by marriage. Gay men and lesbians will also have the same opportunity as straight people to mess up their relationships and end up in divorce court. When sickness comes, hospitals will automatically let in a gay person’s husband or wife to administer care and bring courage through love. And when death comes, the gay person’s spouse will be entitled to all the protection of pensions, social security, and inheritance laws. Life as a gay person will be as safe, happy, and thrilling (or as dangerous, unhappy, and boring) as life as a straight person. Gay men and lesbians will have the same opportunities as straight people; women will have the same opportunities as men; and black people will have the same opportunities as white people. Sex will always change, but society will change, too. The enormous progress of the last 40 years will continue. Sometimes there will be jerky movements back and forth between progress and regression, but gradually society will move toward true equality for all people. That is my vision of the future. As Robert Browning wrote in his poem, Andrea del Sarto, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”