Complementarianism without Hierarchy?

I got quite a bit of feedback--both on this blog and through other venues--from my responses to Jared Wilson's now infamous (and, apparently, removed) post endorsing Douglas Wilson's essentialization of male authority and female submission. Some of this feedback came from "complementarians" who wanted to make it clear that the Wilsons don't speak for them.

This feedback got me thinking about the prospects of a complementarian view of gender relations that eschews the Wilsons' obnoxious hierarchy. Can there be such a thing as "essentially different and complementary but equal"? The failure of "separate but equal" in the era of segregation makes me skeptical--but I think the question deserves a closer look. 

One complementarian, whom I'll call DR, responded most directly to my second post on this subject--about my relationship with my wife, who at the time was about to compete in an Ironman triathlon (and who has now successfully completed it!). His responses appeared in a Facebook discussion thread, in which he made it clear that, like me, he would cheer on his wife from the sidelines were she competing in such an event. In other words, he didn't think that I grasped the essence of complementarianism if I took this to be something complementarian men would necessarily be uncomfortable doing.

This, of course, raises a crucial question: What is the essence of complementarianism? When Christian men and women claim to be complementarians, what are they claiming if it doesn't involve hierarchy, if it's not about authority and submission?

It seems to me that it has to have something to do with gender roles. The claim has to be that there are essential differences between men and women-a "male nature" and a female one--that suit them to or call them to different roles in a relationship. There's just something about being a man that means that you, as the man, should do X in a relationship; and there's something about being a woman that means that you, as the woman, should do Y.

DR pushed this idea in the Facebook exchange by focusing on the role of defender: the man, as the physically stronger party in a marriage, has the responsibility to take on the role of defender against physical danger. DR broached this idea by commenting on a particular element of my Ironman Wife post, where I say the following:

My wife knows kickboxing. I don't. If we were threatened in the street, I know who I'd count on to defend us. Does this make me less of a man? Am I a failure as a husband because it would be presumptuous of me to "take care of and protect" the delicate flower that my wife is not? No. What it means is that the Wilson's vision of marriage is a really, really bad fit for the marriage that my wife and I have.

DR found this comment laughable, since "kick boxing is a sport, not a self defense skill. His wife would be destroyed if she tried to employ kick boxing to stop a mugging. It's an incredibly stupid statement to make." He went on to ask a series of questions that struck me as having the purpose of shaming the men in the discussion thread: "Which one takes the pain, or risks the life? The woman, the man, or both?"

It was clear what he took the answer to be. It is the role of men, in situations like this one, to defend their wives (and, when children were brought into the equation, to take the lead in fighting off the threat while, presumably, the wife herded the kids to safety). Through most of this, his comments were premised on the assumptions that (a) I was physically stronger and more powerful than my wife despite her stamina and (b) her kickboxing training would be useless in self-defense. I disavowed him of (a). My wife, when she entered the conversation, disavowed him of (b). Here's what she said:

Let's also clarify that the "kickboxing" was taught by a cop and included constant "attack" or "mugging" simulations. I will defend my kids if needed, to the best of my ability. And, frankly, I won't take the time to check on where my husband (or any other male) happens to be until after I'm done or dead.

Now let me say that I wouldn't abandon my wife in a situation in which we were threatened. Both of us would do what we could for each other. And--as I mentioned in the discussion thread--both of us would do whatever we could to keep our children safe, if they were also in danger. I'm just being realistic about the fact that my wife could do more if it came to blows. As the person who is bigger and stronger and who has self-defense oriented kick-boxing training, my wife would be far less likely to be "destroyed."

Here's the thing: There are generalities that can be made about men and women, but individual heterosexual relationships routinely defy these generalities in one way or another. Yes, men are typically bigger and stronger than women. The average height of a woman is lower than the average height of a man. The average muscle mass of women is less than the average muscle mass of men.

But complementarianism cannot rest on such averages when there are loads of individual relationships that deviate from the average. It makes no sense to say, "Husbands should defend their wives, because men are bigger and stronger and more aggressive in a dangerous situation," if in fact some wives are bigger and stronger and more aggressive than their husbands. If the reason for the gender role division rests on an average difference in physical qualities, one that admits of exceptions, then the role division should vary according to the physical qualities of the particular couple--usually the man takes the lead in defense, sometimes the woman. But then one simply doesn't have an essential gender role division at all. Each couple should negotiate their relationship on their own terms, based on the unique characteristics of the individuals involved, as opposed to conforming to some pre-established complementarian standard.

From "The better fighter should take the lead in defense, and the man is usually the better fighter," we cannot deduce "The man should always take the lead in defense."

In the Facebook discussion, DR both recognized this point and resisted it. Here's what he said:

If there's a situation where the choice is between your wife kicking some butt and remaining unscathed, vs. you stepping up and getting worked over, then yeah, have your wife step up. But that's hardly a real world scenario; any time anyone steps up to an aggressor they're putting themselves in some serious risk.

What about the situation in which either you're both going to be in danger of death or serious injury, or only one of you is while the other can make an escape? Or if you want to throw kids into the mix, either you both stay, and risk the kids getting hurt as well, or one of you steps up to at least slow the attackers down so that the other can escape with the kids?

My take would be first of all, practicality rules. If, let's say in your situation, because of your wife's superior athleticism, the possible results are A) she stays and holds them off long enough for you to get the kids to safety, but suffers serious injury herself, or B) you stay, but are unable to hold them off long enough, and your family does not escape and also suffers serious injury. In that case, I'd go with A.

But in a case where the husband and wife both have equal chances of holding off the attackers long enough for the rest of the family to escape, I'd say the husband always has the responsibility to to step up.

Here's where it gets interesting. DR is asking us to envision a situation where there is no factual difference to justify the role division. The husband and wife are equally well equipped to take on the role in question. DR argues that the man should, in that situation, be the one to take on the defender role--because of his maleness, apparently, even though by hypothesis his maleness in this case brings no special ability to adopt the role exceeding the abilities possessed by his spouse.

What becomes clear here is that, for DR, the role of defender is one that men have a moral duty to adopt in a way that women do not, simply because of their biological sex and apart from any greater capacity to fulfill this role. Or perhaps the idea is this: "Husband"--the role in  marriage occupied by a man--is a role that carries with it certain duties, duties that are different from those attaching to the "wife" role. Athough these are merely presumptive duties that can be overridden by pragmatic considerations of greater capacity or skill, the presumption is a strong one.  (I should note here that DR seemed to think that if children weren't involved, and whoever stepped up would risk serious injury while increasing the chances of the other to escape, the husband should step up even if the wife were the better fighter, because of his role-governed duty as defender).

So, perhaps, the wife has a role-governed duty, completely separate from her distinctive individual preferences and capacities, to take the lead as family caretaker--and making dinner falls under that presumptive duty. If the husband happens to be a superlative cook, this fact might override the presumptive duty. But otherwise, the role-governed presumption prevails.

At this point, gender role divisions have become completely unmoored from gender differences. It is no longer true that "male nature" and "female nature" complement one another in some special and essential way. Rather, the roles complement one another--but there is no longer even a pretense of the claim that the presumptive authority of the gender expectations rests in some distinctive, gender-based suitability for the respective roles. People are pressed into the respective roles regardless of their distinctive character traits, talents, and preferences--although, of course, "pragmatics" might override the presumptive authority of this pressure in extreme cases.

What are we to make of such differential gender-role expectations? Here's what I said to DR:

I don't disagree that my relationship dynamic isn't the norm. But one problem with complementarianism as I see it is that it essentializes generalities, thereby transforming exceptions to the usual into "perversions of nature"--and, in the process, discouraging exceptions to the usual even when those exceptions make sense (e.g., a man refuses to consider marrying a woman who is his physical superior in strength and defensive skills because he'd feel as if his "manhood" were being usurped in the relationship).

For me, practicality and character and personality should rule in determining relational patterns and "roles," as opposed to pre-determined gender roles. In a relationship, the one who is better at A takes the lead in A. (DR) ask(s), what if the partners are equals in defensive skills. But even then practicality rules. Two soldiers who are equals who confront a threat will make a decision of how to respond based on the contingencies of the situation, deciding which response has the best chance of generating the best result. Neither would accept an arrangement in which, by some predetermined fiat, one is expected to always let the other lay down his life for him. Both are prepared to lay down their lives for their comrade or the larger cause (e.g. the safety of the children) if that is what the situation demands.

There is an insidious pattern in patriarchy in which the the man, because he is expected to be the one to make the "ultimate" sacrifice (which he likely will never be called to make), expects the woman to make all sorts of "lesser" sacrifices (which she almost certainly WILL be called to make). I'm not saying this is the case with you (DR), but that it is a pattern of thinking which patriarchy encourages.

In other words, this brand of complementarianism pushes people into roles and choices that don't suit them (on pain of facing social stigma)--and, given the specifics of the classical gender role division, it also has a natural tendency to lead to an unequal dynamic between the sexes.

I would die for my family. But so would my wife. And for people who love one another, this is not just some sort of duty. It is a calling we feel within ourselves. There is no greater love than this--that we be willing to lay down our lives for our friends (or our husbands, or our wives). This calling is not felt only by men. Women feel it too. And we aren't doing women a favor by denying them in some general or systematic way the right to risk themselves for those they hold dear. Husbands don't have a monopoly on that sort of love. When they think they do and act accordingly, they condescend.

Ironman Wife

The next time I will have a chance to check in on my blog will be next week. By that time my wife will have competed in her first Iron-distance triathlon, in Lake Placid, NY. For those of you who don't know, the Ironman triathlon begins with a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, followed by a marathon (26.2 miles). And yes, it's all in a row, all in one day. With time limits.

The journey to Lake Placid has been a transformative one for my wife and for those who love her. She did her first triathlon--Olympic distance--in 2010, and did her first half-Iron this past September. Since then she has been steadily training, building up her endurance and her strength and her speed. A few weeks back she did a hundred mile bike ride, got home, hopped in the shower, and went on with the day as if she'd been out mowing the lawn for an hour.

Not so many years ago, she'd never run around the block. She was a singer and actress (very good at both, by the way), not an athlete. Her native compassion moved her to train for a marathon with Team in Training (the most significant fundraising source for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). She did her first marathon while nursing a stomach virus. She hadn't eaten the day before.  She finished, and then began training for the next.

My wife is strong. She is determined. She is stubborn. She reaches for and accomplishes what most others imagine to be impossible.

I am married to this woman, and I am proud of her. Proud to have her as a partner in life. Grateful that she is the person who stands beside me in raising our children.

Yesterday I posted about the views of marriage endorsed by Douglas Wilson and his acolyte, Jared Wilson. They think a husband/wife relationship is essentially hierarchical, that it is inescapably and inevitably about authority and submission (albeit, supposedly, a benign and caring authority and a joyous submission). They think egalitarianism is a lie. They think attempts at achieving egalitarian marriages lead to twisted forms of hierarchy--rape fantasies and the like.

I'm not sure what they'd say about my marriage to a soon-to-be Ironman triathlete. She is physically stronger than me. She does things I cannot fathom. But I'm not jealous. I'm proud of her. My manhood isn't threatened, because I don't buy into such a stupid, banal, and destructively straight-jacketing vision of gender relationships as the one that the Wilsons endorse. If I did, our marriage would collapse. As it is, our marriage grows.  

My wife knows kickboxing. I don't. If we were threatened in the street, I know who I'd count on to defend us. Does this make me less of a man? Am I a failure as a husband because it would be presumptuous of me to "take care of and protect" the delicate flower that my wife is not? No. What it means is that the Wilson's vision of marriage is a really, really bad fit for the marriage that my wife and I have. Th Wilsons try to absolutize. They try to demonize what doesn't fit. But the real demon is the effort to force diverse things into a singular mold.

I would never dream of demanding my wife's submission to me, nor would she imagine the reverse. We are partners. She didn't seek my permission to pursue her triathlon passion as if I were her lord and master. We talked about it as equal partners because of the financial costs and the time involved. And on Sunday, I will be cheering from the sidelines, just as she cheers me on when I pursue my passion for music and writing.

And believe it or not, none of this feels as if I'm repressing reality. Rather, it feels as if I'm embracing it. The patriarchal vision is about ego--about the desire to have a picture of intimacy that allows for the indulgence of one's ego (albeit in caring, condescendingly benevolent forms). To cheer on the successes of a determined woman who surpasses you, you have to release your ego.

And that, in the end, is what Jesus calls all of us to do. That is what love calls us to do.

"Benign" Christian Patriarchy and 50 Shades of Grey: A Response to Jared Wilson

A few days ago at The Gospel Coalition's blog, Jared Wilson offered a critique of the bestselling erotic novel, 50 Shades of Grey--in the form of an extended quotation from Douglas Wilson's book Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man.

The quoted passage, in essence, blames the "twisted" forms of domination and submission between men and women--including rape and sadomasochism--on our failure to accept the God-ordained domination/submission relationship that, supposedly, is part of the natural reality between men and women. Denying and suppressing this hierarchical relationship--the one supposedly endorsed in the Bible--leads to this hierarchy coming out in twisted and violent forms.

In other words, the pursuit of genuine equality between the sexes, the critique of fixed gender-role expectations and the requirement that men and women uniformly be shoe-horned into these roles and relationship structures regardless of the unique features of their personalities and relationships...all of this is, apparently, leading men to rape and abuse women rather than benevolently cherish and protect their precious submissive little feminine flowers.

It seems that lots of people were horrified by this message. Jared Wilson was perplexed by the horrified responses and so, today, offered a response.

His response was utterly inadequate. It certainly missed the problems that I have with his (and Douglas Wilson's) original message.

So what did Jared Wilson say? He corrected those who seemed think, mistakenly, that the quoted passages as in some way explicitly endorsing violence against women. In responding to those who found something misogynistic in Douglas Wilson's claim that the male/female sexual relationship is naturally about male "conquest" and "colonization," Jared Wilson quoted the other Wilson's response, which accused everyone making this charge of possessing "a poetic ear like three feet of tinfoil." He said some other things, too, but you get the point.

Neither Wilson seems to get it. So let me try my hand at explaining why the Wilsons' message is so horrifying. And while I could spend hours on the subject, I will limit myself to two features of the message that are particularly bothersome. One I will discuss at some length. The other I will treat only briefly.

1. The message treats gender egalitarianism as the problem and gender hierarchy as the solution, but it seems clear that the reverse is far more likely to be true.

Wilson and Wilson explicitly support the idea that the pursuit of egalitarianism in heterosexual partnerships is central to the problem of distorted and aggressive sexuality. Here's the money quote from Douglas Wilson:

In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts....But we cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual “bondage and submission games,” along with very common rape fantasies. Men dream of being rapists, and women find themselves wistfully reading novels in which someone ravishes the “soon to be made willing” heroine. Those who deny they have any need for water at all will soon find themselves lusting after polluted water, but water nonetheless.

In other words, the Wilsons take it that the pursuit of gender equality amounts to repression of an inescapable reality, and that such repression leads, in Freudian fashion, to dysfunctional expressions of what has been repressed. Men rape because men need to have authority over their women, and when they are denied (presumably by the feminists and other supporters of gender equality) the opportunity to get this need met in the benign patriarchy of a head-of-household family, they're going to get it by fantasizing about raping women, or maybe by actually doing it.

Likewise, women who don't have the opportunity to submit to benevolent patriarchs are going to fantasize about being raped (and, dare we say, take risky actions that make themselves more vulnerable to the real thing, thus opening up the door to a whole new "Wilsonian" avenue for blaming rape victims?).

This is the message that makes me want to vomit.

Part of the problem is that this message assumes that the male desire to have authority over women is an essential part of the human condition as opposed to a culturally malleable one.

It isn't. A big part of the reason I know it isn't is because I don't personally have this desire. Somehow, being socialized by egalitarian Norwegian parents, I ended up not wanting to wield patriarchal authority, benevolent or otherwise, in my intimate relationships. I suppose the Wilsons will say I'm in denial--but that's easy to say. If I am in denial, it isn't a denial that has produced any bondage and submission games or dreams of being a rapist. It has, instead, generated a relationship with my spouse that is characterized by mutual respect and compassion and care, in which the relational dynamic isn't "authority and submission" but egalitarian partnership.

What do the Wilsons offer in support of their essentialist view of gender differences? Metaphors about sex. But do these metaphors simply describe the reality of sexuality, or do they create and nurture a certain perception of a reality that is far more malleable? What would our culture be like if we talked about sex in terms of the woman "enveloping" while the man is "enveloped"? The woman "consuming" while the man is "consumed"? Are these metaphors any less descriptive of the reality of sex? Isn't it more the case that the metaphors we use are cultural realities that help to shape what sex becomes?

In the face of this, I suppose the Wilsons may point to biological evidence that speaks to generalizable differences between human males and females on not just the physiological level but the psychological one. But what do these differences demonstrate, if anything?

Even if there may be some psychological generalizations that can be made about the human sexes--dispositions that are more frequent in one sex than the other because of biological differences--such generalizations are not universal. There are men and women who don't fit these generalizations, and who suffer when they are culturally expected to fit.

Furthermore, psychological dispositions are subject not only to cultural accentuation but also to cultural muting. Even if there is a tendency for the more testosterone-laden sex to be more aggressive when they don't get there way, what follows? A gender-role division that instructs women to submit to their husbands and tells men that they have the authority to get their way is a recipe for a relationship in which men consistently impose their wills and their wives consistently acquiesce. In other words, a relational template of this sort, if it is paired with a biological tendency for greater male aggressiveness, is likely to lead to a situation in which women's needs and interests will be consistently suppressed in favor of their husbands' preferences.

A gender pattern that affirms male authority and female submission makes it less likely, not more likely, that husbands will respect the needs of their intimate partners. It doesn't matter if endorsing that relationship pattern is paired with an injunction for men to be benign monarchs over their wives. Yes, such an injunction may soften the harmful effects of hierarchy; but it doesn't follow that the hierarchy doesn't have harmful effects. Kings who were invested with authority to rule, unconstrained by others with equal power to impose checks on that authority, would sometimes listen to the moral message that they should use their power benignly. But not always. After all, power corrupts, as they say.

Here's another way to think about it: In a world in which male authority and female submission is the cultural norm, women are more vulnerable to exploitation by their husbands. Many men are persons of good will who'll resist the temptation to exploit their wives; but in such a culture, women will be more dependent on the good will of their husbands because of their increased cultural vulnerability to exploitation. And if there is a biological tendency for men to be more aggressive in the pursuit of their desires, there will also be a temptation on the part of many men to take advantage of their wives' vulnerability.

Conservatives insist that falling prey to such temptation would be wrong, and that men have a duty to be benevolent patriarchs rather than abusive ones. But conservatives Christians like the Wilsons also believe in original sin. And we don't realistically deal with the reality of original sin by setting up social structures and institutions that increase the temptation to sin and make it easier to get away with it. Rather, we realistically confront our human propensity to fall prey to temptation by setting up conditions which make it easier to "avoid the near occasion of sin"  and harder to avoid overt negative consequences.

If we want those with a disposition towards domination and oppression not to dominate and oppress, we don't set up social institutions in which domination and oppression are made easier. We set up social institutions that discourage domination and oppression. We set up gender socialization that mutes tendencies to dominate and oppress and builds up the sense of self-worth and dignity required to stand up to oppression or walk away from oppressive situations when they arise. Getting drummed with the message, "Submit to your husbands," doesn't do that.

In other words, Wilson and Wilson have identified an important contributor to the problem of women's exploitation and oppression, and they have touted it as the solution. And they have put their finger on one of the chief remedies to women's exploitation and oppression--namely, the cultivation and nurture of a culture of gender equality that expects and encourages egalitarian intimate partnerships--and declared this to be the problem.

2. Wilson and Wilson are trying to hold everyone hostage to their view of gender relationships.

The other reason the Wilsons' message is so disturbing is that it amounts to an attempt to hold hostage everyone with views about human sexual relationships different from their own. It is one thing to demonstrate that denying a view has dangerous consequences. It is something else again to simply assert that it does, to a large extent in the teeth of evidence to the contrary, in the hope that fear of dangerous consequences will lead to conformity.

I don't know if the Wilsons were intentionally doing the latter--but they sure haven't done the former. And the effect comes much closer to the latter. Basically, the message seems to be this: "If you don't see things our way, then you are suppressing reality in a way that is magnifying the abusive exploitation of women." We'd better do things their way--resist our egalitarian impulses--or more women will be violated. If we don't toe the line and make sure we wrestle every relationship into the particular mold that they read into the Bible, then we have only ourselves to blame for the violence against women in the world.

As if rape were less common when patriarchy was the uncontested norm.

(For more about my own experience with an egalitarian relationship, see my next post.)

Kennedy vs. Limbaugh: Is the Left Being Hypocritical?

So, apparently Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., tweeted the following message last night about one of the Senators of my state: "“Speaking of prostitutes, big oil’s top call girl Sen Inhofe wants to kill fuel economy backed by automakers, small biz, enviros, & consumers.” 

And at least one news source has linked this tweet to Limbaugh's recent verbal assault on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, an attack in which the terms "slut" and "prostitute" figured prominently. As Amy Bingham puts it in an ABC News report, "apparently this nationwide outcry over these 'insulting' words, as Limbaugh himself called them, was not enough to prevent another syndicated talk radio host, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from slinging the very same insult." 

This way of putting the point gestures towards a kind of challenge, even if it doesn't state the challenge outright. But the challenge is hovering out there, and so it needs to be considered. Let me start by stating the challenge outright: Shouldn't the country get as worked up about Kennedy's tweet as they did about Limbaugh's comments? Is the political left, which has led the charge against Limbaugh, being hypocritical if it doesn't take as strong a stand against a member of the political left's most iconic families as it took against one of the political right's most iconic personalities?

Having just finished writing a post on the Limbaugh case in which I describe Limbaugh's attacks on Fluke as "vicious" in Aristotle's sense, the challenge might well be directed towards me (a "political progressive" and hence someone more likely to be sympathetic to Kennedy's politics than to Limbaugh's):  Am I going to take as strong a stand against Kennedy as I took against Limbaugh?

No. No I'm not.

Because to do so would be to trivialize the severity of what Limbaugh did.

This is not a case of hypocrisy, because the two cases have virtually nothing in common. It's true that both Kennedy and Limbaugh used the term "prostitute." And I'm not saying I think it was a good idea for Kennedy to use this term, or that it was the sort of thing that contributes to civil political dialogue. In fact, I'm inclined to say that you shouldn't label your political opponents "call girls" no matter how metaphorical the label is meant to be. But that said, there are so many differences between the two cases that we would be minimizing the gravity of Limbaugh's actions were we to treat Kennedy's tweet as even in the same ballpark.

First, Limbaugh's on-air rants about  Fluke's sex life verged on obsessive. He elaborated in detail on the supposed enormity of her sex life. He called her a slut and a prostitute multiple times. This is much bigger than a single tweet. For purposes of comparison, consider sexual harassment law. A single questionable comment does not create a "hostile or offensive work environment." But a pattern of sexual comments does. And a single incident can be a case of "hostile environment" sexual harassment if it is sufficiently severe. One glib tweet that invokes the prostitute label wouldn't rise to the level of sexual harassment even if (as is not the case here) the label were meant in sexual terms rather than as a metaphor for being a political sell-out. But something like Limbaugh's sexual rants, targeting Fluke over consecutive days, would clearly constitute sexual harassment if it had occurred in the workplace.

Second, when Limbaugh called Fluke a slut and a prostitute, it was very literal: He slapped these labels on her because of her supposed sex life and her supposed desire (expressed by wanting her insurance plan to cover contraception) to be paid to have lots of sex. In short, Limbaugh was fixated on sexualizing a human being as a means of ridiculing, humiliating, and dismissing her. This is the service to which the term "slut" was being put, with all its explicit sexual meaning intact. Kennedy, by contrast, invoked the prostitute label as a metaphorical way to accuse a man of selling his political services to the oil industry. The term was not intended to make any claims about Inhofe's sex life. It was not meant to sexually objectify him. It was not meant to reduce him to a sex object. It was meant as a provocative (and admittedly questionable) way to challenge the integrity of Inhofe's political career.

Third, Limbaugh's attack on Fluke was part of a broader pattern of misogynistic abuse of women and consistent dismissal of women's concerns about social justice and equality (epitomized in his famed "feminazi" label). The abuse of Fluke was a particularly well-publicized example of deeply entrenched vicious habits of indecency towards women. What makes Limbaugh's behavior vicious is precisely this fact: it comes out of a deeply-seated character flaw in which intellectual honesty has been systematically subordinated to unconstrained impulses. Is Kennedy's tweet a similar expression of a deep-seated moral indecency? Well, I don't know enough about Kennedy's life and career to say for sure, but I have been to environmental conferences where he was the keynote speaker, and his rhetoric at those events was thoughtful, engaging, and guided by careful reasoning. There was no abusive language. No verbal assaults on individuals. From what I've seen of Limbaugh, his use of the "slut" label was completely characteristic. Kennedy's tweet, by contrast, is uncharacteristic.

Fourth, the target of Kennedy's jibe--Sen. Inhofe--is a man. And this matters a lot. It matters for the sake of understanding what kind of effect, and what kind of meaning, the invocation of the term is going to have. Compare the difference between a white man and a black man being called by the racist "n-word." The white man is likely to scratch his head in puzzlement, shrug, and go on with his day. But if the target is black, the word carries all the weight of a history of dehumanization (at least if the person delivering it is white and so a member of the group that was the historic source of that dehumanization).

Terms like "slut" have a long history of playing a central role in the misogynistic marginalization of women. It is women, not men, who were historically treated as the sexual property of men. It was women, not men, who didn't get the vote in the US until well into the 20th century. It is women, not men, who are the primary targets of rape and sexual assault. It is women, not men, who are the main victims of domestic violence.

This context is utterly crucial. When a man calls a woman a slut or a whore, he invokes this entire legacy of patriarchal oppression. He is feeding into and reinforcing a cultural pattern that has historically disempowered women, making them vulnerable to male exploitation and dependent on the good will of the men in their lives.

More insidiously, in a culture where it is women who are the primary victims of rape, Limbaugh's style of targeted rhetoric evokes rape in a way that can only be experienced by its target as a kind of deep violation: labeling a specific woman in sexual terms, making her sexuality a matter of public attention (a way of symbolically stripping her and presenting her naked before his leering audience), and then demanding that she perform sexually for everyone (specifically that she film and post sexual videos of herself online for all to see). I will say it again: What Limbaugh did to Fluke was a violation, and a sexual one.

Kennedy wasn't sexually violating Senator Inhofe. He may have used the word "prostitute," but it simply doesn't have the insidious meaning when used metaphorically to describe the political career of a powerful male politician that it has when it's used to dismiss the views of a female student by sexually objectifying her.

Had Kennedy used the very same metaphor to label a female politician, it would in my judgment have been a much more serious thing. The term would have resonated with a history of oppression in a way that, even had Kennedy not intended it to do so, would have invested the term with a sexually oppressive meaning. As it is, however, likening what Kennedy tweeted to what Limbaugh did is deeply inappropriate, because it powerfully diminishes the gravity of the latter.

Piper's Fatal Patriarchy

Over on his blog I Think I Believe, Arni Zachariassen posted a video in which conservative evangelical preacher John Piper seeks to address the question of what a wife's submission to her husband is supposed to look like if her husband is abusing her. His answer should make anyone who has studied the dynamics of domestic abuse squirm in distress. Arni notes just how striking is Piper's lack of wisdom on this matter, and offers several incisive critical remarks.

In any event, the post inspired me to write a rather lengthy comment about what I take to be the root cause of Piper's lack of wisdom here. Readers of this blog may want to check out Arni's post both for its own intrinsic interest, and because I think it speaks to an issue that's come up on this blog before and that I want to dwell on more fully in future posts--namely, the idea that serious problems arise when religious communities and their leaders shape their ethics in terms of an uncritically embraced theology, as opposed to having their theology criticized and revised in the light of ethical insight.

Evangelicals and Premarital Sex

A facebook friend recently posted a New Yorker article, "Red Sex, Blue Sex," by Margaret Talbot, that offers some interesting observations and insights about evangelical sexual attitudes and practices.

Drawing mainly from the book, Frobidden Fruit, by UT-Austin sociologist Mark Regnerus, Talbot calls attention to a number of important facts about evangelicals and sex. Among the highlights:

• "(R)eligion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and...this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelicals."
• "(E)vangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their 'sexual début'—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen."
• "(E)vangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception."
• "More than half of those who take (abstinence) pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse." (But, it turns out, they often wait a bit longer to have sex than evangelicals who don't take such pledges.)
• "(C)ommunities with high rates of pledging also have high rates of S.T.D.s." (Some room for dispute about cause and effect here).

While these facts are interesting and important, the article links them to a broader observation about differences between conservative evangelicals and liberals that I found especially intriguing:

Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education
and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex
before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating
news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate
abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively
unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have
an abortion.

Put another way, evangelicals tend to take a strong stand against premarital sex, even to the point of discouraging sex education programs designed to protect teens from the more adverse consequences of failing to practice abstinence--but when their teen daughter comes home pregnant, they take it in stride so long as she "takes responsibility." More sexually progressive liberals are far more accepting of premarital sex--being more concerned with discouraging "unsafe" sex than with discouraging sex as such--but when their daughter comes home with a bun in the oven, they are devastated.

Essentially, evangelicals demand abstinence before marriage but aren't any better than the rest us at practicing it. And while there is every indication that they are judgmental and condemnatory towards "fornication" in the abstract, when it comes to their own children they are less inclined to make their pregnant daughters feel like dung for what they've done, focusing instead on present responsibility.

So what, exactly, is going on here? With respect to how evangelicals differ from liberals in their response to unwanted teen pregnancy, I suspect that several things are going on. First of all, for more sexually progressive families in contemporary America, the sexual choices of teens are regulated more by prudential considerations--fear of unwanted pregnancy, fear of STD's, worry over not being emotionally ready for that level of intimacy and the personal entanglements that sex creates--and less by concepts of moral duty. The danger posed by teen sex is not so much that it threatens virtue as that it threatens prospects for future flourishing. The announcement of an unwanted pregnancy is thus accompanied by a sense of shattered hopes for the child's future. This is what makes the announcement so "devastating."

Of course, evangelical families may feel many of the same things. But the response of devastation is tempered by other factors. First of all, there is the fact that if teens anticipate a parental response that is too harsh, they may opt for abortion in order to avoid it. Realization of this fact, coupled with a strong pro-life stance, may have shaped evangelical culture so as to encourage a more temperate and forward-looking reaction to unwanted teen pregnancy.

Furthermore, like all Christians, evangelicals embrace a doctrine of grace, one that acknowledges the ubiquity of sin and insists that we forgive it rather than beat people over the head about it. So they are in the habit of speaking out vociferously against policies that seem to endorse or minimize some sin or other, but when one of their own commits this sin, the appropriate response is to forgive and look forward.

But I'm pretty sure something else is going on here as well. An unwanted teen pregnancy is not just a threat to an adolescent's future, but to the virtue of both the girl and the boy--a fact that puts something else in the forefront, something significant enough to eclipse many of the concerns about a young person's future. The fact is that, given the way evangelical Christianity understands "virtue" in connection with sex, it follows that virtue can be (at least partially) restored after the fact by "taking responsibility" for the consequences of premarital sex--that is, by getting married and raising the child.

There's substantial biblical endorsement of the idea that the impropriety of premarital sex can at least be partially erased if the couple marries. But what is most important here is to understand why this is possible. The reason, I think, lies in the patriarchal norm--a norm which has it that a woman "belongs" to her husband in such a way that he has exclusive proprietary claim to her sexuality.

This norm explains why, if a man has sex with a woman who "belongs" to someone else (either through marriage or pledge), the problem is so grave that (according to the authors of Deuteronomy) it requires the execution of the man in cases where the woman was clearly unwilling, or of both man and woman if there is even a chance that the woman was willing--as indicated by the fact that she was in an urban area and didn't scream loudly enough to be discovered and rescued (see Deut. 22:22-27).

But if the woman does not belong to another man, then instead of death the penalty is a fine paid to the father and a requirement to marry the woman--and this is called for even in cases in which the woman was raped (Deut. 22:28-29). The horror of being married off to one's rapist didn't seem to bother the writer(s) of Deuteronomy, since the perceived crime of rape was that a man was taking what didn't rightly belong to him--a crime that could be erased if his victim came to belong to him through marriage.

On this view of things, a teenage boy's sexual virtue lies in sexually claiming only that woman who rightly belongs to him. A girl's virtue lies in giving her sexuality freely only to the man to whom it belongs. And marriage defines what woman belongs to what man.

Although contemporary evangelicals would probably not be inclined to marry their daughters off to rapists, the patriarchal conception of marriage as the proper context for sexual expression persists--and insofar as it does so, much of what it perceived to be wrong with premarital sex can be neutralized by subsequent choices. This helps to explain why evangelicals are inclined to focus less on the past sin of fornication and more on what happens next.

But none of this explains why evangelicals are not only no less likely to engage in premarital sex than others, but arguably even more likely to do so. Let me reflect on this issue for a bit.

Human sexuality is potent stuff. The urgency of sexual desire is so intense that even "good little Christian" teens have a hard time resisting it altogether. And we live in a culture in which adolescents who are attracted to each other have substantial opportunity to interact and explore their mutual attraction. Not even evangelical parents are typically prepared to enforce draconian rules against contact with the opposite sex (assuming their kids are straight--which raises an entirely different issue).

After all, such rules would so conflict with the norms of the broader culture that they would not only trigger resentment but defection. Put simply, if the broader culture allows me to flirt and date and follow my instincts for romance but my conservative Christian parents don't because they're afraid it might lead to a prohibited end--then there's a good chance I'll rebel against my parents and their values. A prohibition against sex is one thing. A prohibition against living the American way of life is another.

American teens may swallow the former, but they're not likely to happily embrace the latter. And so it's the former that becomes the expectation for evangelical teens. So long as they don't cross the line--so long as it's just kissing on the park bench--they've done nothing wrong. And so they kiss on the park bench, and their sexual longings are enflamed. They find a moment alone, and the kissing continues in private. So long as they keep their clothes on, everything's okay. So they do, fondling each other madly through their clothes. Then under the clothes. But, of course, the clothes stay on, so they're safe.

They don't plan for sex, because they have a rule against that. But they push against the boundaries of the rule. And somehow they're convinced they'll be able to resist. But all the while they're becoming at home with one incremental stage of intimacy after another. They linger at each stage--far longer than their secular friends are inclined to linger--thereby ensuring two things: first, that they become entirely comfortable with each other at that level of intimacy, entirely trusting; second, that they are fully immersed in the maximal sexual urgency that such a step is capable of producing. And so when the urgency drives them forward to the next incremental step, there is no sudden flare of distrust, no fear of boundaries violated or in danger of being violated. And there certainly is no talk of going to get a condom.

In short, by taking it slowly they may actually make the culmination of their sexual explorations more inevitable than if they moved more quickly. If they moved more quickly there'd be a greater chance of triggering fears that could derail the progress of their intimacy. But what makes them take it so slowly is the very same thing that ensures that, when they finally have sex, it's unprotected: their moral inhibition against having sex. It isn't strong enough to stop the fire of adolescent desire, at least in the absence of rules segregating the sexes except under conditions of strict supervision. But it is strong enough to ensure that when they finally take that last step, it's an unexpected stumble.

For months, perhaps, they've flirted with the edge of actual sex but resisted it. They don't expect that this time will be any different. But there are forces at work that conspire together to make that stumbling step into sex almost inevitable--not just the power of sexual desire itself, but certain other impulses that are uniquely bound up with evangelical Christianity itself.

Evangelical Christianity in America is not just about biblical inerrancy or accepting Jesus into your heart. It's also characterized by views concerning family. In fact, a former colleague of mine, Betty DeBerg, has argued in Ungodly Women that American evangelicalism has had, as one of its driving impulses from the beginning, the aim of preserving traditional Victorian-era family values against a variety of so-called threats.

For such idealization of an earlier sexual era to succeed, I think there has to be an important streak of romanticism to it. Only if the Victorian-era marriage is seen through rose tinted lenses can it endure compelling challenges based on its inequity towards women and its restrictiveness with respect to human liberty. To sell restrictive gender roles to the women who are most trammeled by them, it helps to wrap them up in chivalry and lace. When a suitor asks a father for the daughter's hand in marriage, the blatant patriarchy of it--the fact that men are deciding the fate of a woman as if it were some kind of commercial exchange--can be more readily swallowed if it's defined as a romantic gesture.

Girls must be taught from a young age to swoon over such objectification, or they'll rise up in rebellion against it. Likewise, they must be trained early on to idealize the selfless wife who quietly works in the shadows to lend her husband the strength to achieve great things. The saying, "Behind every successful man there's a good woman," must become a role that each young woman aspire towards--because she sees it as a badge of honor. She must be conditioned to see the world through her husband's eyes, to identify his achievements as her own, so that her own subservience becomes viewed as the means to her own success. For this to work, empathy for her husband's desires must be so great that she confuses them with her own. That level of self-subordination needs to be sold early or it won't stick. And to sell it early requires that an aura of romantic idealization be wrapped around the whole affair.

And the same must be done with respect to the prohibitions on premarital sex, which cannot be seen as just an outmoded constraint on individual liberty. In a post-sexual revolution era, in which so much that we see and hear through the media is infused with sexuality, the restraint on sexual expression must be romanticized. The reason for restraint has to be rooted in the almost sacramental grandeur that sex can achieve between a husband and a wife. Premarital sex is then seen as debasing something of exquisite beauty. Within the bonds of marriage, the sexual act can serve as a crucible of love that unites husband and wife, deepening their connection to one another in ways that will hold them together throughout their lives. To pursue sex outside of that context is to trivialize it.

A part of me is inclined to think there is a fair bit of truth in these latter ideas about sex and its context. I certainly do think that sex can be trivialized, and that located within the context of a stable, enduring relationship, it can acquire a meaning and value that it would not have apart from that context.

But there's a problem with selling this romanticized foundation for premarital sex taboos as a basis for discouraging Joey and Susy from having sex after months of romance and passionate intimacy. The problem, simply put, is that when you've built up your intimacy slowly, achingly over time, what you've forged together does not seem even remotely trivial. Joey and Susy are awash in love, practically bursting with it. They want to melt into each other, to become one. They gaze into each other's eyes and know that they are meant to be together forever, that this is what all the songs and stories and movies are about, that here is something unbelievable, wonderful beyond compare: true love.

If anything, they are less inclined than their secular peers to be realistic about what tomorrow will bring. Since what they are feeling has the scent of a sacramental act, the ugly realities of facing the morning after are more readily lost behind the idealized image of marital love that they have been fed since childhood.

One of the most important sexual inhibitions in the evangelical toolkit--Susy's fear that Joey will lose all respect for her--might have been operative up until that moment when they finally stumble into sex. But in that moment of passion, when they are lost in the romantic ideal of their eternal union, what she sees in Joey's eyes reassures her utterly that he cannot disdain her for what she's about to give. Perhaps, later, the fear of his contempt will surge back up--perhaps even poisoning their relationship. But in this moment it's gone.

In its place, for her, is a vivid awareness of his desire, which has now reached the level of agony. And she has been trained well, all these years, for her future role as the good wife--a role that requires her to subordinate her own wishes to those of her true love, to see the world through his eyes and his achievements. And so, in that stumbling moment of passion, her own fears about pregnancy, which otherwise might rise up to halt the tide of desire, are subordinated. All that exists is his desire--but because it is for her, giving into it becomes a way of reclaiming herself. He wants her so badly. He wants her so badly. Her patriarchal training ensures that this is the ultimate validation of herself: this young man's whole self is straining towards, longing for, desiring her. In this moment she is the most valuable thing in his world.

This narrative probably doesn't account for every case of premarital sex among teenage evangelicals. But I suspect it is an important piece of the puzzle.

Religious Patriarchy and Sarah Palin

In the wake of the announcement that Sarah Palin would be the republican VP nominee, some voices in the media asked questions about the propriety of her accepting the nomination. The concern focused on her family situation: a baby with special needs, a pregnant teen daughter, etc. Rather quickly, other voices in the media and elsewhere shot back with the charge of sexism. The suggestion that it might be inappropriate for Palin to run for Vice President because doing so might conflict with her familial duties is, clearly, sexist. No male candidate would be subjected to a similar litmus test. Both political parties, as well as representatives of both presidential campaigns, agree on this point: focusing on Palin’s family life and treating it as somehow relevant to her candidacy is sexist.

And they are right. And, in my judgment, sexism is a great evil. And so it follows that placing demands on Palin that are not similarly expected of male candidates is a great evil.

But not everyone seems to think that sexism is wrong. To be specific, Palin herself comes from a stream of Christianity that tends to affirm stark gender role divisions, and she appeals to conservative Christians who see traditional gender roles as part of the “family values” and religious values they espouse. According to these conservative “family values,” men are the head of the household, and women have a unique responsibility to nurture the children within the family and to in other ways care for the health of the family unit. And let us not forget the strident affirmation of gender role divisions expressed by the Southern Baptist Convention in its 2000 decision explicitly excluding women from church leadership. This is part of a broader affirmation of a patriarchal value system that is deeply held by many conservative evangelicals.

The most interesting question is not whether such conservative evangelicals are being hypocritical in their embrace of Palin, but whether their embrace of Palin expresses a willingness to more broadly reconsider their endorsement of patriarchy. Are they being moved to reflect in a broader way on the legitimacy and propriety of cleaving to these old patriarchal norms? And if not, why not?

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, addressed this very line of questions in a recent Christianity Today interview. His response? “The only restrictions we find in Scripture are, that for whatever reason women are not to be in charge of a marriage and women are not to be in charge of a church. That has nothing to do with governor, or senator or the House of Representatives, or president, or vice president.”

I’m inclined to treat this response as a kind of reductio ad absurdum argument against the Southern Baptist view, but I know that to do so would be too quick. Land’s thinking here is a variant of the bumper sticker which declares, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” I’ve often thought someone should cross out the last line and replace it with, “Therefore I have an inconsistent belief set.” But I suppose that to do so would only be to replace thoughtful reflection with more slogans.

The fact is that even those who take the Bible as an inerrant authority need to wrestle with the complexities of the text. One of those complexities is noted with great care by Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus: the fact is that it is the original Scriptures that are authoritative, and those Scriptures are not available to us. The Bible has been altered so many times in so many ways that, among the various copies of the Bible we have access to today, there are more variations in the text of the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament.

Changes have clearly been made to the originals. While most of these changes are trivial, some are not. For example, biblical scholars today generally agree, on the basis of strong textual evidence, that 1 Corinthians 14:33b-35, in which women are instructed to keep silent in church, was a later addition to Paul’s letter, most likely intended to neutralize some of Paul’s more radical ideas about men and women being equal in Christ. Similar references in 1 Timothy were original to that letter—but most scholars agree that Paul did not actually write 1 Timothy.

And it would be odd indeed if he had, given what that letter says about women. After all, it seems quite strange to imagine Paul instructing women to be silent in church when he praised women “apostles” in his epistles—women who were engaged in teaching and leadership roles within Christian communities.

As one might expect of a reactionary patriarchal community, later Christians sought to obscure the most blatant Pauline reference to a female apostle, in Romans 16:7. In the oldest Greek and Latin translations of the text Paul instructs the Romans to “greet Andronicus and Junia,” whom he then explicitly names as apostles of special worth. “Junia” is of course a woman’s name, and the overwhelming evidence supports the view that until the middle ages, Junia was known to the Christian community as a female apostle. Finding this intolerable, medieval translators masculinized the name by slapping an “s” on the end of it.

Of course, none of this is to say that Paul had entirely freed himself from the patriarchal norms of his time and culture (which is clear enough from 1 Corinthians 11:2-16). My point is that whatever prejudices he had, Paul had shaken them off enough to recognize the worth of women as leaders and teachers within the church. It’s time, I think, for Southern Baptists to do the same—and maybe their enthusiasm for Sarah Palin can serve as the occasion for it.