Homosexual Attraction, SSA, Gay, Queer... or just a guy?

Heterosexual single people have to live chaste and celibate lives too, you know.

Lately I've come across a few really good comments on other blogs suggesting that single heterosexual men and women are called to the same sort of chaste life as people with homosexual attraction are called to.  Many would like to be married and have children, and may have tried to find a mate to do so, but never found the right guy or gal.  So what's so special about 'suffering from ssa' then? 

I know, I know - it's not all that simple - but after you get over yourself, it kind of is.  Really - it gets better if you can snap out of it.  All rightey then.

I'm being extremely simplistic precisely because everyone complicates the issue of ssa way out of balance with the real world.  Ask any sexually, politically active gay man worth his fashionable weight in Dolce and Gabbana, and if they are honest, they will tell you they love being unique and special and the center of what's happening.   Gay is soooooooooo hip.  So yeah, anyone 'leaving the lifestyle', the 'identity,' has work to do, as well as prejudice to face - which may differentiate them from heterosexual singles in that respect - but in actuality, opting for a chaste and celibate life can't be any worse than what all single men and women go through.  Can it.  That wasn't a question.

Anyway, I discovered a new blogger, Marc Barnes of Bad Catholic.  I guess he's been around for a long time, but I never read him before he went online with Patheos, see what good comes out of Patheos?  That said, Barnes seems to cover this issue very well.  My comments here might have been written in response to his post, Our Godawful Objectification of Men With Same Sex Attraction,* but I decided to write my own post instead of leaving another comment to clog up his over-active combox.

Anyway - this from Bad Catholic on our Godawful Objectification of you-know-whosits:

If the names come from the super-with-the-times gay rights activist, then they’re incredibly worse, though admittedly more subtle. The Activists are forever encouraging men with SSA to “accept your identity!”, “come out!”, and to otherwise claim the title of Gay Man. It’s just another brilliant form of objectification.

Because the last time I checked, the unique identity of man is not defined by where he wants to put his penis. Identity is not gained, nor will it ever fulfill, if it is no more than a great narrowing of the human person to a single characteristic — in this case his sexual characteristic. Gay Man? Really? No one demands heterosexuals to “accept their identity” and define themselves as Straight Men. Such a thing would be a grave insult to the fantastic complexity of their being. Yet this is the modus operandi of the Activist, and the end goal given to the high-school kid with same-sex attraction — to come out of the closet and love himself for Who He Is.

Which leads to the next insidious bit of patronizing objectification slapped on men with same-sex attraction: Media Portrayal. According to Hollywood, gay men are not allowed to be screw-ups. Gay men are, well, just fabulous. You can hardly turn on a sitcom or cartoon, read a novel, or watch a movie without seeing the Media running their fingers through the hair of the Gay Man Abstraction, telling the world that, “Oh my goodness, well (Gay Man) here is incredibly funny, cute, kooky, has great taste in clothes, and will always solve (straight female protagonist)’s problems by the end of the episode, like the fantastic little helper he is!”

So what's the point?

The reason we so easily grow weary of the Culture War is this: It is a war of opposing abstractions. We bear witness to the great clash of The-Protect-The-Lord-Jesus-Christ’s-Plan-For-Perfect-Problem-Free-(Civil)-Marriage-From-The-Threat-Of-The-Evil-Pederasts-Horde vs. The-Gay-Men-Are-Superhumanly-Perfect-And-Conform-To-What-We-Want-Them-To-Be-And-If-You-Oppose-Their-Marriage-Then-You-Are-Filled-With-HATE-BURNING-HATE-Army. Any worthwhile dialogue is destroyed, for it is a battle of ghosts and whispers, with men on all sides running to the defense of shadows. It’s far easier than treating them as human beings, this objectification.

So let’s refuse. Let’s argue for the ultimate good of the human person, not for the minor good of a ghost. To be clear, and as you’ve probably guessed, I don’t think the ultimate good of a man with same-sex attraction can be achieved by the normalization of the actively homoerotic lifestyle via redefined civil marriage. But this is a view I can only defend if I defend the Man, and throw all abstractions to the wind. - Read the entire post here.

How true.


*BTW - did you know same sex attraction is normal?  Yes.  Ordinary men and women often appreciate the good looks and charming personalities of their same sex friends, and are attracted to them - just not in a sexual/romantic, OCD way. 

Photo:  An old cemetery near Chicago.  Just a reminder that we are all going to die and no one will be having sex after that.