Like A Prayer or Body Of Christ Save Me
A DREADNOUGHTER has posed the following conundrum:
Like a Prayer
First, I must say that I doubt whether there is any sense in which homosexuals can love one another with their bodies. I honestly believe that romance and romantic notions are a nonsense created by heterosexual men to trick heterosexual women into having sex with them.* Two men together, freed from the strictures of societal pressure (first dates, third base, engagements, etc. all have layered cultural meanings that do not apply to homosexuals) can happily pair and part with minimal emotional commitment. This accounts for the recreation, release and ecstasy of my DREADNOUGHTER's formulation and the promiscuity for which the gay community is infamous.
Your Voice Can Take Me There
This does not mean that love does not exist between males, but it is a different, perhaps more honest kind of love. Some have argued that homosexual parterships are the only non-selfish kind, there is no evolutionary imperative, no self-interested desire to pass on one's genes. I do not agree entirely with this idea, but it has some merit. I like to think that instead of two halves coming together to form one whole human, rather homosexuals when properly paired are two full men uniting to form a super-human entity; some magnificent, creative, influential creature that contains all of the good things about each, but never subsumes their individuality. Never children, but sometimes a Wilde, a Versace, a Michelangelo or a Turing. This is not a degraded view of homosexuality, it is an exaltation.
Just Like a Muse to Me
In terms of sex, such a love manifests not as love-making (that is what heterosexuals do and it is important to note that the making always refers backwards and forwards to the procreative act, literally the 'making' of new life) but rather as love-showing, or love-sharing. In this sense, homosexual sex is not performative as my DREADNOUGHTER would have it, but rather demonstrative. We do not love one another with our bodies, we love one another by our bodies.
You are a Mystery, Just Like a Dream
Is this a good thing? I am entirely unsure about this, on the one hand I have the teachings against instrumentality ringing in my ears (ie., homosexuals do not participate fully in the sexual act, they just masturbate cooperatively) while on the other I know and have known great moments of connectedness with other men. Pointedly, however, when I am entirely honest I realise that most of these moments have occurred outside of the bedroom. More pointedly perhaps, how many of you kiss post-ejaculation? I challenge any homo to claim that what he feels at the point of ejaculation and immediately thereafter is love defined romantically.
You are Not What You Seem
The modern conflation of love with pleasure is a troubling development. Those with true self-awareness, however, cannot be hoodwinked by such sophistry. As a good friend has made clear, love does not need to ejaculate rather it is satisfied to touch, to caress; where the emphasis is on pleasuring the other, not the self.
A Cosmic Battle
The other part of my DREADNOUGHTER's challenge refers to some future dark night of the soul, indeed a splitting of my soul, or at least a war between my homosexuality and my religion.
A False Dichotomy
The long answer is that I don't expect anything of the kind to occur. I am not conflicted. I subscribe completely to the teachings of the Church: Christ is the only man who can bring me salvation. I am a homosexual. Despite the view current in most circles, I seriously do not see a conflict in these facts. This new idea that somehow being a particular kind of human being puts one outside the ambit of salvation is almost as popular as it is pessimistic. It is wrong and dangerous. It is not the view of the Church, it is not my view, hopefully DREADNOUGHT will help to ensure that it is not the view of my readers.
Body of Christ Save Me, Blood of Christ Inebriate Me*
The short answer is that I might be the naive young man that my DREADNOUGHTER identifies. Perhaps at some future stage my views on this will change. I doubt it, but it is possible that at some point I will think my sexuality is incompatible with my religion. But Catholics are prepared for just such a supernatural battle between the deinon and the physis. In that case, the case of a choice between Christ and a mere man, a life saver as it were or the Saviour, my choice is always and firmly for Christ. I would happily renounce the things of this earth and suck in the promises of Christ. One is a cask wine while the other the finest vintage.
My challenger states that the choice is not like this at all but it must be: any turning away from fundamental Catholic teaching is a rejection of Christ the One who suffered and died for me. This does not mean that I do not sympathise with my DREADNOUGHTER, indeed his challenge was humane, avuncular and personally touching but genuine emotional intensity is not always intellectually convincing and it is not enough of a reason to put off Christ.
The Upshot?
DREADNOUGHT is hopefully not headed for some cosmic collision, but if I am it is as a servant of the Catholic Church. She is not subordinate to me, rather I openly and happily conform my thinking to her teachings, however difficult they might seem to be, because I believe that ultimately such obedience will merit me immortality.
Besides, when was anything worth having ever easy?
*(Information on the Anima Christi prayer available here - my views on romance have changed considerably since writing this post, but most of the other conclusions hold firm).
"I'm wondering what will happen to you when you fall in love with another man and your sex with him is more than recreation, more than release, more than ecstasy. When it becomes the incarnation of your love for him. And then you will, on your own moral grounds, have to realize that in the very act of loving him with your body, you are committing a grave sin, from which you will need to be absolved by sacramental confession in order to participate fully in the Eucharist."Today I will attempt an answer.
"I wonder how long your rather sanguine juggling of these two sides of your soul can last. I do not say this out of spite or even critique, but with a kind of anxious doubt. I have known that moment, and it is terrible, soul-searingly, life-alteringly terrible."
Like a Prayer
First, I must say that I doubt whether there is any sense in which homosexuals can love one another with their bodies. I honestly believe that romance and romantic notions are a nonsense created by heterosexual men to trick heterosexual women into having sex with them.* Two men together, freed from the strictures of societal pressure (first dates, third base, engagements, etc. all have layered cultural meanings that do not apply to homosexuals) can happily pair and part with minimal emotional commitment. This accounts for the recreation, release and ecstasy of my DREADNOUGHTER's formulation and the promiscuity for which the gay community is infamous.
Your Voice Can Take Me There
This does not mean that love does not exist between males, but it is a different, perhaps more honest kind of love. Some have argued that homosexual parterships are the only non-selfish kind, there is no evolutionary imperative, no self-interested desire to pass on one's genes. I do not agree entirely with this idea, but it has some merit. I like to think that instead of two halves coming together to form one whole human, rather homosexuals when properly paired are two full men uniting to form a super-human entity; some magnificent, creative, influential creature that contains all of the good things about each, but never subsumes their individuality. Never children, but sometimes a Wilde, a Versace, a Michelangelo or a Turing. This is not a degraded view of homosexuality, it is an exaltation.
Just Like a Muse to Me
In terms of sex, such a love manifests not as love-making (that is what heterosexuals do and it is important to note that the making always refers backwards and forwards to the procreative act, literally the 'making' of new life) but rather as love-showing, or love-sharing. In this sense, homosexual sex is not performative as my DREADNOUGHTER would have it, but rather demonstrative. We do not love one another with our bodies, we love one another by our bodies.
You are a Mystery, Just Like a Dream
Is this a good thing? I am entirely unsure about this, on the one hand I have the teachings against instrumentality ringing in my ears (ie., homosexuals do not participate fully in the sexual act, they just masturbate cooperatively) while on the other I know and have known great moments of connectedness with other men. Pointedly, however, when I am entirely honest I realise that most of these moments have occurred outside of the bedroom. More pointedly perhaps, how many of you kiss post-ejaculation? I challenge any homo to claim that what he feels at the point of ejaculation and immediately thereafter is love defined romantically.
You are Not What You Seem
The modern conflation of love with pleasure is a troubling development. Those with true self-awareness, however, cannot be hoodwinked by such sophistry. As a good friend has made clear, love does not need to ejaculate rather it is satisfied to touch, to caress; where the emphasis is on pleasuring the other, not the self.
A Cosmic Battle
The other part of my DREADNOUGHTER's challenge refers to some future dark night of the soul, indeed a splitting of my soul, or at least a war between my homosexuality and my religion.
A False Dichotomy
The long answer is that I don't expect anything of the kind to occur. I am not conflicted. I subscribe completely to the teachings of the Church: Christ is the only man who can bring me salvation. I am a homosexual. Despite the view current in most circles, I seriously do not see a conflict in these facts. This new idea that somehow being a particular kind of human being puts one outside the ambit of salvation is almost as popular as it is pessimistic. It is wrong and dangerous. It is not the view of the Church, it is not my view, hopefully DREADNOUGHT will help to ensure that it is not the view of my readers.
Body of Christ Save Me, Blood of Christ Inebriate Me*
The short answer is that I might be the naive young man that my DREADNOUGHTER identifies. Perhaps at some future stage my views on this will change. I doubt it, but it is possible that at some point I will think my sexuality is incompatible with my religion. But Catholics are prepared for just such a supernatural battle between the deinon and the physis. In that case, the case of a choice between Christ and a mere man, a life saver as it were or the Saviour, my choice is always and firmly for Christ. I would happily renounce the things of this earth and suck in the promises of Christ. One is a cask wine while the other the finest vintage.
My challenger states that the choice is not like this at all but it must be: any turning away from fundamental Catholic teaching is a rejection of Christ the One who suffered and died for me. This does not mean that I do not sympathise with my DREADNOUGHTER, indeed his challenge was humane, avuncular and personally touching but genuine emotional intensity is not always intellectually convincing and it is not enough of a reason to put off Christ.
The Upshot?
DREADNOUGHT is hopefully not headed for some cosmic collision, but if I am it is as a servant of the Catholic Church. She is not subordinate to me, rather I openly and happily conform my thinking to her teachings, however difficult they might seem to be, because I believe that ultimately such obedience will merit me immortality.
Besides, when was anything worth having ever easy?
*(Information on the Anima Christi prayer available here - my views on romance have changed considerably since writing this post, but most of the other conclusions hold firm).
by DREADNOUGHT at 1:30:00 AM
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