Homosexuality and Onanism

**This post contains references to sexual intercourse**

What if everybody's gay?

I mean, what if everybody is capable of enjoying homosexual intercourse?

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I see homosexuality debated all the time, although almost always in very situated terms. Usually it's political, arguing over the likely consequences of legalizing gay marriage. This debate doesn't really interest me. Of course, in a secular and open society, civil unions should be either given or not. I would add that the only seemingly valid boundary for this right would be for those who are not consenting adults, similar to the common limitation to the contractual abilities of minors. But amongst adult humans, I don't really understand one set telling another set how to order their affairs/property. Perhaps civil unions shouldn't come with federal benefits, perhaps they should. Seems like an economic argument to me. Either it benefits the state to give some strategic tax cuts/benefits, or it doesn't, and that can change over time.

But, they say, "they'll make us Christians recognize such unions as marriages. Christians who refuse to affirm such unions will be guilty of hate speech." Well, it seems reasonable to me to think that this is the agenda of some, but I am hard pressed to imagine how anyone could make me recognize or affirm gay marriage personally. The only thing that external powers can do is revoke a church's tax status or sue them on civil grounds. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure churches should be tax exempt, and I am pretty sure that it's possible to sue anybody for anything in civil matters. 

It seems to me that the church has gotten too comfortable being the favored child of the government. It seems to me that it's about time for church leaders to stop being politicians. But I digress…

Let me make my point about everybody being gay, possibly. I'm not making an argument. I'm just expressing a point of view, and perhaps (hopefully) elucidating some absurdity along the way.

1. I think that everybody is born into a state of sinfulness, commonly called original sin. I wouldn't die to defend the details, but I think minimally that we're born into Adam's headship and into his sin. That is, we're all broken, all sinners, and perhaps, all somewhat kinky.
2. I think homosexuality exists on a spectrum of sin, all of which is deviance (contrary to God's will or our true nature). That is, homosexuality is not special, except that it is, like all sin, iconoclastic. The biblical distinction regarding homosexuality, among other "abominations" is, I think, because the icon being destroyed is oneself.  All sin carries this aspect, but some more clearly than others.
3. Marriage, as John Piper describes it, is momentary. I don't think that anyone is "homosexual" in some inexorable state of being, but neither am I heterosexual. I can say that God calls us to abstain from homosexual sex just as I believe that one day he will call us to abstain from heterosexual sex as well. I am completely open to some form of supersex in Christ's kingdom, although to speak of it in such terms conjures too many images of orgies and not enough images of communion feasts.
4. I am convinced that heterosexual culture calls upon homosexual cultures as its rivals, just as Batman needs the Joker. Every time I see a pastor on twitter talking about his "hawt wifey", I think another gay teenager gets his/her wings. I think that many heterosexuals make a mockery of true marriage through objectification and lust. Men drive muscle cars and women find yet another accidental way to show cleavage. I'm guilty of such silliness too, but I can see how many others who are sensitive to the nature of such gross manipulation would seek to escape it through rebellion, taking the form of homosexuality. Thus, we heterosexuals become party to their blasphemy. Many heterosexuals are just patently pathetic, and there is a refreshing tone of honestly among many of the homosexuals I know. It's not that they know something we hetero's don't, but only that they're not playing the same stupid game. (I'm sure they have their own stupid games as well.)
5. I can't see how homosexuality is much more unnatural than onanism. Yet, as a guy, I have doubts that I've ever met a man who hasn't, you know… But seriously, when Christians try to simplify the nature of sex through hand motions, saying "It goes like this, not like this" or "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", there should also be a reference to it not being "Adam and Palmela Handerson" either. In my opinion, the problem with homosexuality on a theological level is that God desires us to learn to commune with the Other, in the earthly realm being women (or men, respectively). This connects to my supersex idea in which we will all, after the fulfillment of all things, experience communion as God experiences it. This communion is consummated on earth in a fragmented way, through meals, through worship, through marriage, and in heaven these fragments will be unified and magnified. This is the problem, in my mind, with homosexuality. It is a closed circuit. There is nothing elevated about it; it doesn't call me to anything but my own desires, my own fulfillment, my own image, my own way. In this sense, masturbation, there I said it, is perhaps the most homosexual act there is. Autosexuality is the nature of all homosexuality.
6. The only reason people like me mock the pleasure of homosexual intercourse is because we're afraid of it, never experienced it, and are culturally conditioned to disavow it. Perhaps some people are not attracted to the opposite sex as a generality. I tend not to believe self-reports about who one does and does not find attractive. First, I believe that there are few areas with which we've been more programmed through propaganda (advertising) than on what is the ideal body image of a man and a woman. Our tastes are helplessly skewed, such that I'm surprised we find any normal humans attractive at all, of either sex. Second, I think that the attraction of one's personality is much more important to sexual attraction than looks. My impression is that standards for physical appearance are enforced mainly for social status and reproductive reasons. Although many may have a promiscuous phase where looks are all that matters, just wait and see who they marry. Personality is much more important when it matters. When a typical heterosexual male puts on an act about getting nauseated about the thought of homosexuality, I think this is almost always for show. It was for me. 

Perhaps this is the point of this post. I am tired of having to act as though the only/best reason why I'm not "gay" is because I find homosexuality revolting. Once again, that never kept me from masturbating. I am sure that, if I weren't so sexually conditioned, I could come to enjoy homosexual intercourse. Similarly, I think the same is true of homosexuals, that they could enjoy physical stimulation, regardless of the physique of the partner. If all I'm after is pleasure, I suppose I could just enjoy the sensations. Honestly, this is all just elaborate masturbation, in my opinion.

No, there is a good reason for limiting one's sexual self to marriage, and it cuts against most instances of heterosexuality as well as all instances of homosexuality. I think that just as many married couples treat sex as the same elaborate form of masturbation, using each other for pleasure, playing roles and trying everyday to artificially inject novelty into their hopelessly boring monogamous sex life. This is why so many cheat, after all, and it's why cheating is never enough. Heterosexuality isn't enough. Heterosexuality, on such terms, is just as much a sin as homosexuality. Marriage is something more, something sacrificial, something countercultural. 

When I say that homosexuality is a sin, that there is no inheritance in the kingdom of God for the sexually immoral, I think that this means everybody. That is, everybody must turn away from their natural sexual orientation, undergo a form of celibacy, and take on the cross of Christ. He, an unmarried man, shows us how to be married, and I'm pretty sure he never spoke of his "hot wife". Homosexuals who feel oppressed by traditional Christianity because they feel that such dogma will lead them to an unfulfilled life (because their sexuality will be unfulfilled) are just as right as they are wrong. It is correct that they must interrupt their fallen nature, be baptized, and become new. But they are wrong that they are special in this regard. They demonstrate the rule. Everyone must go through this, and sadly, I don't know that many really are. The church's teaching in this area is, in my opinion, woefully in adequate. As many mock Augustine's "ascetic" view of sexuality, I suspect that he was more right than wrong. After all, he knew what it meant to be lusty just as well as he knew what it meant to be pious.

So, I think that everybody is sexually broken. I think that everybody is capable of abandoning ourselves to physical pleasures. I don't think that the labels "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are anything but temporary constructs. I think Christ calls us all to repentance, to discipleship, to communion.