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Whatever we conclude about the awkward scenario of the
text, it is clear that Jesus is a different person at
the end of the encounter. His own masculinity, we could
say, proves flexible and secure enough to let down his
guard to see this woman and her daughter as whole
persons; further, Jesus acts to restore dignity to this
woman by relieving the oppression (indicated by
demonization) that her daughter suffers. Tanis [4] agrees:
Jesus’ ability to make a radical shift in how he
interacts with this woman speaks of the depth of his
relationship with God, his sense of self, and his own
expansiveness of vision. It takes a person of enormous
courage to change like this, to admit that he is wrong,
to do things so differently than he had done them even
one minute before.
Jesus’ “expansiveness of vision”
stabs at the widespread misogyny (let alone racism!)
that I have experienced in queer male communities. I
wish I could say that hatred of or disgust with women
was limited to a particular group of people, but it
doesn’t seem so. In my own experience, young “effete” or
“twink” males, who are just coming out, often literally
say, “Ewww!” when I attempt to discuss close
relationships, including sexual ones, with women. [5]
This view is almost understandable in young queer men
who are still finding a secure queer identity (assuming
there is such a thing as a stable queer identity!). But
I have encountered it also in men who are old enough to
be my father -- and I’m in my late twenties. I have even
met queer men who experience castration phobia straight
out of Freud’s case files. Could it be that many queer
men hate and fear women because we actually want to
retain the vestiges of heterosexual male privilege? Do
we fear being castrated by straight men and being forced
to play the part of woman, or some even lower social
role?
San Francisco queer activist and sexualities scholar
Trevor Hoppe [6] offers a trenchant analysis of the cultural
assumptions behind queer male sexism in an essay titled,
"Where the hell are all the feminist queer men?":
Many people simply fail to make the connection between
sexism and heterosexism…. Our popular culture has
connected non-straight sexualities with feminine men and
masculine women. In a society where these stereotypes
are coupled with the widespread sexism that values men
and masculinity over women and femininity, it is only
logical that gay men, who are considered weak and
feminine, will be treated with less respect than
straight men, who are considered strong and masculine.
Hoppe argues that these sexist attitudes
exist alongside our disgust, especially when queer men
“[question] lesbians
as to how
exactly they have sex. Underlying this seemingly
innocent question is a phallocentric sexist mindset that
represses female sexuality and makes it difficult to
fathom sexual intercourse without a male.” [7]
Is it not ironic that queer men, utterly uninterested in
sex with women or playing with the vagina, can’t
understand why some women don’t find cock as fascinating
as we do?
We can’t have our cake and eat it too, boys. Queer men
committed, like me, to Christian spirituality need a
biblical and feminist analysis that owns our part in
prevalent sexist and heterosexist cultural attitudes
that derive from Christianity. Such analysis begins, I
expect, with a fresh, contextualised reading of the
Bible. As I have sketched above, such readings uncover
what many hundreds of years of white, straight, male
theology have missed: Jesus was/became a feminist; was
willing to change his views; and he worked for the
freedom of his sisters by dismantling the
socio-political forces that held them in subservient
position to men. Such a Christ can undo the misogyny and
sexism of Christendom from the inside, as long as we are
willing to follow where he leads. And to the degree that
sexism, gender essentialism, and heterosexism
interrelate, such a Christ can, and does, act as a
resource for queer masculinities.
Jesus the Victim-Revolutionary
A few years ago, Mel Gibson ignited a
firestorm of controversy in Canada, the UK, and the
States with the release of his film, The Passion of
the Christ. Its graphic depiction of the crucifixion
of Jesus, coupled with accusations of the film’s (and
Gibson’s) anti-Semitism, roused many tempers. In gay and
lesbian communities, this film seemed to strike a
particularly raw nerve because of the murder of Matthew
Shepard. His death took on mythic proportions in the
so-called US “culture wars” as gay and lesbian interest
organizations positioned Shepard as a kind of political
martyr. You may remember, as I do, reading op-ed pieces
or seeing photographs that described Shepard’s murder as
a crucifixion. Indirectly, gay and lesbian activists
claimed, this quiet Episcopalian college student was a
victim of Christians following a homophobic,
heterosexual Christ, whom most ethically well-adjusted
people would not recognize as the real Jesus at all.
Canadian popular musician Jann Arden brings this
sentiment into focus in her song “Into the Sun” [8]
:
Smack dab in the middle of sin,
the whole world’s in trouble again.
You feed a wicked heart and you kill a decent man:
Jesus Christ, JFK, Martin Luther, amen.
Jesus Christ, John Lennon, Matthew Shepard, amen.
We sense a kind of religious fervour (all the more
powerful for Arden’s understated melody) in her
“amen”—literally, “I agree.” Her chorus encourages each
victim of violence to “hold your head high” and “turn
your face into the sun.”
Given our cultural reaction to Shepard’s
murder (whether in mainstream society or as queer men),
it is easy to see why queer men identify with the
crucified Christ. Depending on how we interpret the
reasons behind his execution, Jesus was either crucified
for who he was (Israel’s Messiah or the Son of God) or
for what he supposedly was doing (plotting the
revolutionary downfall of Rome’s occupation of
Palestine). Just so, queer men find themselves
persecuted for who they are (in older, so-called
essentialist rhetoric) or for what they (allegedly) are
trying to do (rip apart the family, displace Christian
values, destroy America, or whatever else)... (continue reading)
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2 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
I keep wanting to correct the tiny typos that I see...especially the last sentence: "The peace of Christ be yours." LOL. Minor thing!
Fantastic essay! I think one of the most exciting ideas suggested by your essay is the idea of adopting a subversive masculinity, a masculinity of which Jesus (at least in this characterization) is a superb example. I also appreciated the inclusion of a critique of our postmodern disdain for metanarratives. While I think this disdain arises quite naturally out of the radical critiques and the sheer volume of alternative readings of "important" texts that have accompanied poststructuralism and deconstruction, I also think there are radical possibilities (and even something of a practical imperative) to be found in reconstructing metanarratives on a wider, more inclusive foundation, by weaving together the millions of personal narratives that structure our daily existences, as queer men, as masculine, as feminists, as people of color, as people with disabilities, etc. - that out of this melting pot or mosaic or what have you, certain patterns begin to emerge and it is these patterns that offer us an opportunity to write our own story, our own grand narrative and lend our movement direction, sweeping up the whole of humanity in its march forward. This is just a flowery way of suggesting that the problem lies not with these grand narratives, but with their exclusivity. I also thought your approach to forgiveness was refreshing. I think what I've found missing in some of the essays was a failure to question or seek forgiveness for our own transgressions against one another or understand our attackers. On the surface this doesn't sound very radical, until you realize that we ourselves are the attackers at times and that change begins with ourselves. Wow, that was a lot more than I was going to write. Anyway: Thank You!