A Sexplanation enjoys a 100% professional critics'
score at RottenTomatoes.
The L.A. Times called the film "admirable" and
"entertaining." Other reviews are equally laudatory:
"illuminating and funny"; "educates while entertaining";
"full of wisdom"; "timely and hilarious; a big brain event";
"a sex-positive breath of fresh air and an encouragement that we can break
the cycles of shame … and finally move enthusiastically toward the enjoyment of
pleasure, intimacy, and a healthier sexuality." "This is a film that
the whole family can watch … to get over the shame of who we are … Alex Liu can
save us all!"
The New York Times selected A
Sexplanation as a "Critics' pick" and called the film "insightful."
A Sexplanation is "suitable to be shown in a classroom."
A Sexplanation immediately begins with its
America-bashing premise. "Sex. In America, an obsession. In other parts of
the world, a fact," reads a text on the screen. The quote is attributed to
Marlene Dietrich.
America is "a country raised to
fear sex," Liu intones. Because of America, Liu has been so terrified that
he considered taking his own life. "I love dick. The way they look, the
way they feel, the way they taste," he says, holding up what appears to be
a chocolate-covered ice cream treat in the size and shape of a penis and
testicles. He takes a bite, and then says he wants to "blame my mommy and
my daddy" for his psychological problems.
Liu's parents and grandmother are seated
on a couch. The film is only up to the seven-minute mark when Liu moves from
blaming America, and his parents, for his sexual problems. He moves on to blaming
the Catholic Church. Why? His mother said that as a "Catholic, Asian girl"
she was expected to be "modest."
America and Catholicism cause Americans to feel "shame." Shame must be eliminated. Then Liu and his comrades can erase the evil past and erect a "sexual nirvana." This Utopia will be similar to San Francisco. A Sexplanation's San Francisco is scenic, sunny, and full of happy, smiling people. It is Liu's "safe space."
At an outdoor café, Liu interviews
Stanford psychologist Lisa Medoff. Liu breaks off their sex discussion when a
server approaches. Liu comments on his own hesitation to discuss sex in front
of a server.
"The culture has taught you"
to be nervous about talking about sex with your parents or in front of
strangers, Medoff explains. "We are a society that is very, very
repressed." Shame is bad, Medoff implies, because "those feelings end
up coming out and hurting somebody."
"What advice do you have?" Liu
asks.
"What makes you happy?" Medoff
replies. "The more models you have for that, the easier it is for you to
be okay with your own path." Seek different perspectives, she advises.
Ironically, in "seeking different
perspectives," Liu decides to speak to his close friends, who are, like
him, young, healthy, and gay people living in San Francisco. Liu arrives at a
lovely, sunny, and steep San Francisco street. Colorfully painted homes hug the
slope.
The centerpieces at Liu's friends' table
are foods in the shape of a penis and testicles and another in the shape of a vagina;
placemats are decorated with painted vaginas. One man describes what a woman
would say during sexual intercourse. She was not his lover; he and his smirking
friends listened through her door. Others at the table laugh at this woman's
sex talk, learned through eavesdropping. The man then says that "American
culture" taught him that sex is shameful. Apparently American culture
didn't teach him that violating a woman's privacy and then mocking her at a
public, filmed event is a questionable behavior.
A woman with heavily tattooed arms,
wearing a macrame necklace, describes masturbating to HBO. Another woman with
what appears to be pierced cleavage says, "All of my friends know how I masturbate,
and the positions I masturbate in." She feels compelled to announce this
information. "I have to do this because men talk about masturbating and I
need to let everyone know that women are sexual beings, too, and, hey, make
room for this."
The sexual objectification of women
overwhelms me. That this woman feels she must inform people that "women
are sexual beings" astounds me.
A man says that he is learning the
difference between sex with someone you love versus sex with someone you just
met. Sadly, he feels it necessary to apologize for this statement, the most
profound statement anyone makes in this clip. "Not to be cheesy about it,"
he says, "but maybe we should be teaching compassion and empathy. I was
never even told what you could get out of sex other than an orgasm." It is
unfortunate that this man fears that talk of "compassion" in sex
would be assessed as "cheesy."
"These are some of my smartest
friends," Liu announces. The viewer ponders this statement.
Liu visits the San Francisco sex
information hotline. There he discusses anal elasticity. A hotline educator
informs Liu that "The rectum is surrounded by muscles and can get toned
with use. Anal muscles are not like underwear elastic. They don't wear out. It's
like yoga. The more you stretch, the more flexible you become."
Another operator warns Liu that when
seeking information about sex, one must be aware of the source of the information
and the provider's hidden motives. The speaker might have an agenda, and
"you want to think about what that agenda is."
Another educator says, "Well-meaning
people may leave out pieces of information to steer you to what they think is the
most ethical answer. There are not many places where you can go and get
information about sex that is filtered for accuracy and not filtered for 'I
would like to lead you to a conclusion.'"
Liu returns to Medoff. "If your
immediate reaction to how somebody looks or to somebody else's relationships or
behaviors is, 'Ew,' or 'That's not okay,' just always take a beat and say, 'Where
does that come from? Family? Religion? Media? Things I learned in school?
Medical? Psychology? Do I want to continue? Does that still work for me?'"
In other words, pause before you judge anyone. Liu clearly does not apply this
approach to Catholics, Jews, political conservatives, or Americans.
"When it comes to sex, there are
two competing agendas that play tug of war in my brain. Those of American
conservatives and liberals," Liu says. Liu visits the San Francisco
women's march. A woman holds a sign saying, "Keep your rosaries off my
ovaries." Other women wear knitted pink hats, a.k.a. "pussy
hats."
Liu also visits a rally with pro-life
conservatives. "They'd prefer that I die a virgin," Liu says of these
conservatives. "Abstinence was never for me," Liu says to a woman.
She asks him, "Do you have no self-control? Would you just run into
traffic?" Liu does not answer.
Another woman states a widely observed
truth: pursuit of sexual pleasure only for pleasure's sake often results in feelings
of emptiness. "We have a spiritual side, right?" she asks Liu.
"That is the more important side. That is what separates us from the
animals."
The conservative, pro-life marchers
treat Liu with respect, and confront him with profound questions, questions he
does not answer. He retreats to the women's march, where a group of women
wearing pussy hats laugh uproariously at Liu's report of what he heard at the
pro-life march. "We're basically animals," a pussy-hat-wearing woman
insists.
"I'm a man who has enjoyed sex with
multiple men. You can imagine my reaction to what the right-to-lifers had to
say," Liu says. This comment is followed by film of a Siamese cat retching
up a furball.
"I want to be in touch with my
sexuality, free from politics and religion. I want to strip away generations of
inherited shame. I want to expose myself to new ways of thinking even if they
contradict my long held beliefs." Liu says. "I'm on my way to a place
with hard data, facts, and forward-thinking sex research. Mike Pence's home
state. Indiana." Liu is clearly mocking Indiana because it is a
conservative state that tends to vote Republican.
Liu travels to Indiana University's
Kinsey Institute. Kinsey, Liu says, proved that "homosexuality is
normal."
A quick screen clip shows ruggedly
handsome Liam Neeson, portraying Kinsey in a 2004 biopic, calmly asking a woman
what sexual positions she uses. The frowning, unattractive woman is dressed in
conservative, fifties garb, and miming a face meant to imply cow-like
ignorance. "There's more than one sexual position?" she asks, mouth agape.
The very brief clip contrasts Liu's enemies – ignorant American Christians –
with his proposed hero, Kinsey and his allegedly agenda-free, scientific facts.
Kinsey scientist William Yarber tells
Liu, "In our culture, the Judeo-Christian ethic is so dominant" that shame
and ignorance are widespread and "we fear pleasure." Yarber says that
we should feel free to talk about masturbating in casual conversation but "in
our culture" such talk "still has a certain amount of stigma."
Liu reports that as a youth, he
masturbated compulsively to internet porn. His porn searches include
"stepdad f---s stepson" and "teacher f---s student." "It's
still embarrassing to admit that I masturbate."
Liu next visits Barry Komisaruk and Nan
Wise, Professors of psychology at New Jersey's Rutgers University. Liu dons a
hideous mask that clings to his face, some kind of crown over his head, and a
brace on his neck. Thus equipped, he then masturbates inside the claustrophobic
confines of an MRI tube, while researchers look on, their chins in their hands.
"Great. Good subject," they assess. That Liu can reach orgasm inside
an MRI machine while scholars and a film crew look on, causes the viewer to
doubt his assertion that America and Catholicism have irreversibly paralyzed him
around his own sexuality.
Komisaruk says, "An orgasm a day
might keep the doctor away. It's great for people. Feeling good is good for ya."
Komisaruk insists that MRI orgasms, as opposed to, as he himself mentions,
cancer research, are important because "human sexuality" is "so
little understood."
As Liu leaves, Komisaruk makes a pun. "Please
come again," he says.
The viewer, a New Jersey resident, wonders
if Komisaruk and Wise's research is taxpayer funded.
Liu then visits "Mike," a
Pornhub data scientist. Mike declines to give his real name or to have his face
shown on camera. Has Catholicism shamed Mike into invisibility? No, it was
Pornhub that decided to disguise Mike's identity. Mike's coffee cup features
the slogan, "Pornhub I'm hard at work." The "great insight"
of Pornhub's data is that many people watch porn. Wow.
Liu expresses anger that some people
mention the reality of porn addiction. Liu chats with Utah State Senator Todd
Weiler, one of many voices speaking out about the impact of porn on children.
Liu begins his talk with Weiler by saying, "I have never voted for a
Republican." Weiler acknowledges that he has voted for a Democrat.
Weiler makes a strong case. "Eleven-year-old
kids are learning about sex by watching three men rape a woman. These devices
are vending machines for porn … If a child turns 18 and wants to look at porn
all day, that's their prerogative. One of the proper roles of government is to
protect children from harmful substances … I think pornography undermines
relationships. I think it makes both men and women feel like they don't measure
up."
Liu is unimpressed. Perhaps to Liu, Weiler's
words are just more irrational, American, Judeo-Christian shaming of pleasure.
Liu visits Kristen Gilbert – not the serial killer of
the same name, also a nurse, but rather Kristen Gilbert, sex educator. Gilbert
says, "If it were true that porn is a harmful substance, then we would be
a mess." Liu has been informing the viewer that he is, in fact, a mess,
and he is not alone. Young Americans report record rates of obesity, addiction,
depression, school failure, and suicidal ideation. These facts are not pursued.
People should "feel good about pleasure. There's nothing wrong with
feeling good about pleasure. If you need permission to feel good about
pleasure, I give you permission." An authority figure announcing what is
good and granting followers permission on what to feel is a religious gesture.
Again, this is not pursued.
"Should I be ashamed?" Liu
asks Dr. Laurie Betito, a sex therapist and radio host in Montreal. Again, this
is a religious question.
Your sex fantasies of violent rape are
"just thoughts … there's nothing wrong with these thoughts," Betito
tells Liu. Betito says it is wrong to judge people because of their sexual
preferences. Again, these "authorities" pronouncing on what is good
and what is bad is an assumption of religious power.
Liu is on the steps of what appears to
be a Catholic church. Bells ring and there is the sound of Gregorian chant. Liu
says, "Why did I torture myself over these impulses? The Catholic Church. I
should give them the chance to defend two millennia of sexual persecution. Does
three minutes sound fair?" Liu's eagerness to defame an entire religion
without citing any facts belies his announced adherence to a non-judgmental
stance.
Father Donal Godfrey is on the staff of
the University of San Francisco. He is smiling and he goes out of his way to
address Liu by his first name in a friendly, respectful way.
Liu says that "How Americans, or
Westerners, think about sex is filtered through old Judeo Christian values and
morality … I'm into being whipped or butt plugs or anal sex." What would
be the church's position on these behaviors?
Father Godfrey responds that, as a
priest, if someone came to him to talk about such behaviors, he would strive to
listen non-judgmentally. He would strive to be like Jesus, who was gentle and
compassionate. He would remember that sex is intrinsic to the human person. It
is the spark that drives us out toward other people. Sex should not scare us.
We should work to understand sex. Sex can be playful.
On the other hand, the priest says, "People
can be deeply hurt and wounded around sex and sexuality. We need to be moral
and mature. If you become an authentic person then your sex life is going to be
better. That's what the spiritual path is about whether it's Catholic or Hindu
or Buddhist. That's my understanding of the church's message. It is to make us
more human and more fully alive."
Liu is shown strolling, still in
conversation, with Father Godfrey. "Well, goddamn," Liu says in
voiceover. "I did not expect a Catholic priest to blow up my definition of
sex … that it is something worth celebrating … I kind of feel more connected to
my humanity and accepting of my authentic self. Is this why people go to
church?"
Liu returns to conversation with Gilbert.
Gilbert divorces sex from reproduction "'Sex is the way we make babies.'
That's a complete lie. That's not what sex is at all. Sex is not about
reproduction."
"America raised me to be
uncomfortable in my own skin," Liu says, over a montage of various nude
men and women.
Liu again visits with his parents. He
attempts to talk to them frankly about sex. He asks them, for example, if they
knew he masturbated as a teen, and if they ever found evidence of his
masturbation around the house. He blushes.
His parents report that they were
virgins when they married, and that marital sex is important to them, because
it reinforces their relationship.
Liu closes in saying, "My simple
goal was to dismantle generations of inherited shame so I could achieve sexual
nirvana. We could create a different world. I invite you to come with me. I
have a dream. A wet dream."
A Sexplanation begins with a quote attributed to Marlene
Dietrich, a movie sex symbol from the early twentieth century. Dietrich's
screen image was glamorous in the extreme. Glamor will not serve any serious
discussion of what approach to sex best benefits the seeker. First, the idea
that sex is somehow an "obsession" in America and a "fact"
in other countries is absurd, and holding up Dietrich as a wise elder would be
comparable to selecting Kim Kardashian in the same exalted role.
Dietrich encouraged her daughter's nanny
to rape her daughter, the daughter reported, and Dietrich was "so monstrously
selfish that she wanted her daughter to become a lesbian so she would never
have children of her own, never desert her poor mother." Dietrich,
overwhelmed by the inevitable loss of her physical attractiveness, ended her
life addicted to pills and alcohol, unwilling to get out of bed, nursing broken
hearts over younger men, like Yul Brynner, who didn't want her. She lied about
having a sister in a concentration camp. In fact, her sister was a Nazi. Dietrich
was "always amazed, when seeing normal people in crowded places, such as
airports or hotel lobbies, at just how ugly they were." Dietrich was
glamorous and sexy, but she was no deep thinker and not a worthy saint for
anyone's new sexual religion.
Rachel Maddow is gay, and she attends
Catholic church regularly. Prominent, recent gay Catholics include Andrew
Sullivan, Andy Warhol, Daniel Kawczynski, and Father Mychal Judge. To say this
is not to deny that the official position of the Catholic Church is that homosexuality
is a disorder, or that LGBT people have been bullied and hurt by Christians in
Christian settings. But clearly many gay people have chosen to live their lives
as practicing Catholics, or as devout members of other Christian denominations.
Further, Catholics
are more likely than the general population to support same-sex
marriage.
Some dismiss Catholics' support for gay rights
as "cafeteria Catholicism." It's not. I became active in gay rights
when I was a graduate student at Indiana University, Bloomington. The local
paper featured letters arguing for the death penalty for gay people. It was my
Christian faith, specifically as exemplified in the Good Samaritan story, that
prompted me to engage. I published articles and broadcast material, see here.
I was hardly alone in marshalling Biblical arguments for acceptance of gay
people; note the work of Bruce Bawer, Virginia Ramey Mollenkot, Mel White, and
many others. In Indiana, a state Liu mocks for its conservatism, many meetings
of PFLAG, or Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, were held in Christian
churches. One of our leaders, Doug
Bauder, was a Christian minister.
I'm glad Liu met with a priest, with
whom he had a clearly inspirational conversation. Liu could also have met with
Father James Martin, a prominent Jesuit, and Sister Jeannine Gramick. Both minister
to LGBTQ Catholics. Liu could have also simply asked LGBTQ Catholics and
Christians why they retain their faith. But doing any of these things would
have punctured Liu's fiction that his sexual problems are caused by America and
Christianity.
Human rights organizations report that
the identity group most persecuted in the world today is Christians. My
Catholic faith has been cited when I have been turned down for academic jobs,
and my students report being bullied by their professors if they acknowledge
Christian faith. But that's minor compared to what
takes place elsewhere. "360 million Christians last year lived in
countries where persecution was 'significant.' Roughly 5,600 Christians were
murdered, more than 6,000 were detained or imprisoned, and another 4,000-plus
were kidnapped. In addition, more than 5,000 churches and other religious
facilities were destroyed."
Liu accuses Catholicism of "two
millennia of sexual persecution." Here are some facts. Christians were a
persecuted, powerless minority for their first three centuries. Pagans tortured
Christians to death in public, including by crucifying them. Pagans regarded
this as entertainment. It took centuries for Christianity to become dominant in
northern Europe; after the rise of Islam, Christians have been a persecuted
minority in the Muslim world ever since. Christophobic Utopians like Liu mass
murdered Christians and other people of faith in the French Revolution, and
under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. As a Polish-American I think of Maximilian Kolbe, Jerzy Popiełuszko,
Jerzy Jurkiewicz, Antoni Zawistowski,
and too many others. Liu is a Chinese-American; he might want to educate
himself about how Catholics have been treated in communist China.
There is debate about how much
"sexual persecution" Catholicism, at its height of power, directed
toward gay people; please see Yale scholar John Boswell's work, including his
1980 University of Chicago Press, National-Book-Award-winning, Christianity,
Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the
Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century.
Yes, Christians have made mistakes. But
to smear Catholicism with the factually false charge of "two millennia of
sexual persecution" in an "educational" film meant to be used in
classrooms is bigoted hate-mongering and that needs to be called out, as does
the bloody Christophobic Utopianism inspired by such propaganda.
The film's argument that America and the
Judeo-Christian tradition invented shame is intellectually void. "The 'Shame'
Concept Goes Back to Confucius," wrote China expert Gordon G. Chang in the
New
York Times in 2010. Chang quotes Confucius. "Lead them
through moral force and keep order among them through rites, and they will have
a sense of shame and will also correct themselves." In Confucianism,
"an individual without a sense of shame was no longer human. Confucians,
therefore, thought that wrongdoers should be educated … Those educated would
eventually sense shame, and those with shame would then live upright lives … There
are more than 100 terms in the Chinese language for the concept of shame."
Hri, translated as shame or remorse, is a key concept in
Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hri helps the Hindu or Buddhist to avoid wrongful action, to feel
remorse for wrongful action, and to make amends for wrongful action. Hri helps
the Buddhist to "shy away from blame, like a fine horse from the
whip." Hri prompts
the yogi "to make amends, resolve problems and move forward on a
spiritual path." Confucianism was correct. Those without shame are not
fully human. Modern psychology would label humans without shame as psychopaths.
Surely the most unfortunate applications
of shame in a religious setting include the Japanese tradition of seppuku or
hara-kiri. Japanese culture has almost required suicide of those who fail. In
the past, failed samurai killed themselves. Today, too
many failed students take their own lives. Japanese society's emphasis on
personal value as dependent on how one is perceived by society contributes to
suicide. In Islam, of course, a belief in irreparably damaged male honor
fuels the shame-based honor killing of thousands
of women and girls annually.
In short, A Sexplanation's insistence
that shame is an American thing or a Judeo-Christian thing is ridiculous. The
documentary's implication that shame has no beneficial application is simply
false.
In contrast to Liu's proposed villain,
Judeo-Christian America, Liu places San Francisco, his Utopian "safe space."
When I lived in the Bay Area, as a UC Berkeley graduate student, I used to step
over a large blood stain on the sidewalk. It was left by my gay fellow graduate
student and friend. He had been mugged at gunpoint. He resisted.
In San Francisco, pharmacies
are now closing because of high crime. Car owners risk frequent smash-and-grab robberies.
San Francisco is so dysfunctional that even those merely attempting to
photograph the area's scenic attractions work
in fear. San Francisco's streets are littered with filthy homeless
encampments.
Liu's insistence on a rejection of
America and the Judeo-Christian tradition, and a rejection of judgement and
shame, is not unconnected to the mess that the Bay Area has become. A
shame-free, judgement-free, pleasure-obsessed, anti-family, anti-civilizational
stance condones and creates anarchy.
Liu insists that he is such a sexual
mess that he contemplated suicide. He tells us that he has spent countless
hours, beginning in his adolescence, masturbating to online porn depictions of incestuous
rape. He then tells us that America and the Judeo-Christian tradition are
responsible for his discomfort. He never even questions whether or not his porn
addiction has caused him any discomfort.
One of Liu's talking heads insists that violent
sex fantasies are "just thoughts." And yet the same Bay Area left
that says that sex fantasies are "just thoughts" and above judgment produced
a spirituality encapsulated in the phrase, "You create your own
reality." Thoughts "manifest"
real things, according to California publisher Hay House. The same Bay Area left is also
ready to punish people for thoughts it deems unacceptable. "I think that
same-sex marriage is wrong and I don't want to design web pages for same-sex
weddings," says Lorie Smith.
Her case is now before the Supreme Court. She is pilloried by leftists for her
thoughts. Other taboo thoughts: there are only two sexes. A man cannot become a
woman. People have received death threats for expressing these thoughts. Maybe
cultivating thoughts of violent rape also carries a penalty, a penalty in the
kind of personal discomfort that Liu describes suffering. He never even introduces
that possibility.
The "sexual nirvana" Liu
seeks, and hopes to find by jettisoning American culture and the
Judeo-Christian tradition, doesn't just carry penalties in terms of thoughts.
Promiscuity spreads disease. There are syphilis, gonorrhea, cervical cancer, AIDS,
and monkey pox. The "no judgment" stance contributed to the spread of
the latter two. Sure, the anus can expand. But anal sex remains risky. See here
and here.
It's ironic that talking heads in A Sexplanation warned about information
sources censoring information they'd prefer not to share. A Sexplanation criticizes
any sex education classes that inform young people about the physical and
psychological risks of promiscuity.
Liu declines to engage with the pro-life
woman who, radiating respect but also concern, warns him that elevating
"happiness" and "pleasure" to the highest virtues can leave
people feeling empty. Rather, he contemptuously splices in a clip of a vomiting
cat. In fact happiness and pleasure are both fleeting. Sexual desire is the
most seductive hypnotist and snake oil salesman in human history. Ask any adult
over age 40. Go back over the people who drove you mad with desire when you
were younger, even the people you loved or slept with or contemplated suicide
over. Now, with the passage of time, how do you view them?
As lust cools and maturity advances,
suddenly we realize that we have been mere playthings in the hands of Darwinian
forces. Beer goggles fall, and we come to realize, as we age, that that person
we were convinced we loved and had to have to be happy could never, in fact,
have made us happy. As Marcel Proust
wrote, "To think that I have wasted years of my life, that I have longed
for death, that the greatest love that I have ever known has been for a woman
who did not please me, who was not in my style!"
Liu's documentary never treads anywhere
near facts that might make him, or his audience, think twice, or three times,
and then just abandon Liu's entire Utopian project. For example, married Catholics
report satisfying sex lives. "Devout, married Catholics have the best
sex of any demographic group" according to "a collection of studies
from the last several decades." "Data analysis showed that there is a
significant and positive relationship between religious orientation and sexual
satisfaction and marital satisfaction. Religious commitment has a predictive
role in promoting sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction, with increasing
religious commitment, increasing sexual satisfaction, and marital satisfaction,"
according to
one 2020 study.
This sexual satisfaction is generated by
deep truths. Truly religious couples are committed to each other's welfare, and
to monogamy, which generates feelings of safety, intimacy, and personal
importance. When things are not "happy" or "pleasurable"
committed couples have to work things out, rather than abandon their partner.
Liu's party with his "smart"
friends reminded me of many gatherings I attended when I lived in the Bay Area.
Those gatherings were very fun and stimulating. After the party was over, we
all went our separate ways. Another fact that might disrupt Liu's narrative.
Promiscuous sex doesn't build long-term commitments. Everyone at Liu's party
was young, healthy, and attractive. Eventually, all of us will lose those
qualities. We will become sick. We will falter. We will grow old and less
attractive. Religious couples are required by their faiths to look past
superficial appearances, and to find satisfaction in a deeper connection to
their spouse and their family. There is no such requirement for young orgy
attendees, for all those men whose "dicks" Liu serviced, or anyone in
a culture that demonizes shame and commitment. For them, abandoning the other
is easy.
Gay
male culture can
be brutally superficial. Gay
men regularly assess
other humans as worthy based on physical
appearance and youth. Liu keeps insisting that America and the Catholic
Church are responsible for his discomfort. Talk to any gay man who is a tad
overweight, short, red-haired, or over thirty. You will hear withering accounts
of the non-personing that gay men can subject
each other to. You will also hear accounts of how gay men assess themselves as
unworthy because they do not believe themselves to live up to impossible
standards; see here.
What might help Liu? How about a
worldview that insists that he has value, no matter how he looks, no matter his
age, no matter whether or not he has six-pack abs? I find that worldview in my
Christian faith.
"Sex educator" Gilbert claims
that a child might say that "'Sex is the way we make babies,'" but,
Gilbert says, "That's a complete lie. That's not what sex is at all. Sex
is not about reproduction."
Face palm. Talk about distorting facts
to suit an agenda.
As a person of faith, I recognize that I
am an animal as well as a spiritual being. Eating feels good because my body
needs nutrition. Evolution has programmed me and all other food-dependent
creatures to enjoy food. The same goes for sex. Evolution has programmed our
bodies to undergo a slew of changes with sexual intercourse. Those changes
include feelings of boundary-less-ness, intimacy, comfort, and pleasure. Those
feelings bond us to our partner. Why? Because two parents are better for the
raising of the next generation than one parent. Also, that bond, if it lasts,
helps the bonded pair to survive. Modern sex educator Gilbert misses a point
noticed by the ancient author of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes.
"Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for
their labor:
If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they
will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves."
Liu mentions the many "dicks"
he has serviced. Sex with a series of new partners may meet his needs for his
highest goods, "happiness," and "pleasure." Sex with the
same old, same old partner is rarely going to prove as thrilling as sex with a
fresh display of six-pack abs. But hopping from partner to partner, and not
doing the work of commitment to one person, will never provide Liu with the
gift described above in the Bible.
Loneliness is a serious problem for
older LGBTQ people, especially men; see here. The
brutal evolutionary fact is that, for evolutionary reasons, people are closer
to their immediate families than to those not in their immediate families, and
those without immediate families, including heterosexual spinsters like me, are
simply more lonely.
Liu's "smart" friends may not
go the distance with him the way that a spouse and biological children,
especially in a devout family, might. If Liu surrounds himself with others
committed to "happiness" and "pleasure," those so committed
are not going to stick by him through lean times and his own inevitable
physical decay. Decay is not conducive to "pleasure." To fend off
loneliness, we need commitment to a value higher than pleasure. And there is
nothing "cheesy" about that.
There's so much more that could be said
about this documentary. Kinsey was no Neeson-worthy hero; there have been serious
and disturbing criticisms of Kinsey's work. The focus on pleasure and
removal of judgment and shame, typical of the sexual revolution, has badly hurt
women and girls, as I can attest as a teacher of young women; for evidence read
some
of these articles.
Men have been hurt, too. Men used to
become men at least partly to earn a woman's committed love. Fathers report to
me that that obstacle course has been removed; their sons can now freely use
girls as "trampolines" without offering anything in exchange. Boys
don't have to become men to acquire what they most desire. More and more boys
are remaining boys and suffering from "failure
to launch" syndrome. The thirty-year-old who spends his days playing
video games in his parents' basement is a tragic casualty of the sexual
revolution.
Finally, if we do bury the
Judeo-Christian ethic Liu slanders, we might return to the attitudes of the
Ancient Pagan world, and that would be a disaster for women and other
vulnerable groups. Liu would need to read Rodney Stark to get up to speed on
Christianity's benefits to women, for example his "Reconstructing
the Rise of Christianity: The Role of Women." Stark wrote, "Modern
and ancient historians agree that women were especially responsive to the early
Christian movement. It also is agreed that women were accorded considerably
higher status within Christian circles than in the surrounding pagan societies."
There's a reason that Pagan critic Celsus identified Christianity as a religion
of women, children, and slaves. Those are exactly the vulnerable groups
underserved by Paganism and elevated by Christianity.
I received an email inviting me to view A
Sexplanation in order to consider using it in classes. If I were to do so,
believe me, I would ask my students plenty of tough questions afterward.
Danusha Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery
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