There's a topic that I've encountered many times in therapy, the classroom, and in trainings. Despite some sexologists' belief that human sexuality might fit a bell curve (which is compelling, and I've argued this in some lectures and guest talks), most surveys yield somewhat J shaped distributions - a clear spike of gay and lesbian identified persons, with extremely few willing to self-identify as bisexual. Surveys of fantasy, behavior, and physiological arousal explain this dip somewhat; many of those that consider themselves gay, and possibly many more who consider themselves straight, are probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. A talk I saw at the recent annual convention of the APA highlighted the role of comfort with paradox found among self-identified bisexuals.
Those individuals on the edge of gay or straight, who are truly more bisexual in emotional and sexual potential, in my experience, often overgeneralize. They assume that there's an element of choice that everyone experiences in their sexual lives, and despite possessing a non-normative sexuality themselves, they rarely make the connection that there's something unique about that experience.
A major facet of the conflicts I've noted in past blogs about my mother is her bisexuality. My father had commented in the past, and my mother confirmed to me when I came out to her, that she had a relationship with a woman after divorcing my father. She felt we "needed a father" and so left her girlfriend for a man. At the time, I interpreted this to be an attempt to show empathy. In the years since, I've come to realize that this was her attempt to share that she decided to ignore her attraction to women and, probably from her view, "choose" to be straight. This is actually very similar to the "ex-lesbian" narratives of the major ex-gay/conversion ministries out there. For instance, Anne Paulk, who once appeared with her "ex-gay" husband John Paulk of Exodus Ministries/Focus on the Family, claimed to be an "ex-lesbian"... without ever actually having had a relationship with a woman. In her case, she had some close friends during a brief period in college and flirted with the notion of same-sex intimacy without ever acting on it. As psychologist Lisa Diamond has noted in her new book Sexual Fluidity, the range of attraction and fluidity some women experience is much broader than that noted in research with men.
This takes us back to the unstudied phenomena of bicentrism - individuals with bisexual experiences, even when just fantasy and attraction without behavior, often tend to generalize these experiences to others. There are distinct differences in sexual presentation, however. While the ex-gay community is rife with women who had a single fling or merely a flirtation with having a same-sex relationship, "ex-gay" men tend to have been in predominantly male relationships, and as demonstrated by some high profile cases like Ted Haggard, they tend to "relapse" to relationships with men. Recent research has even argued that bisexual-identified men are fairly far in the same-sex oriented region of the Kinsey scale, but this makes sense without undermining male bisexuality or fluidity. Male acculturation in our society is pretty powerful in its conflation of heterosexuality and masculinity.. and there's some data re: fantasy and attraction in men that implies they have to be fairly close to totally gay before even admitting to bisexuality. For this reason, even fewer men, though some, consider their sexuality to have any component of choice to it.
There are a number of reasons that this experience of "choice" matters. First, one of the greatest predictors of anti-gay beliefs is the myth that homosexuality is a choice (in the thinking of social conservatives, bisexuality is rarely acknowledged to exist). It creates an unusual folk theory of sexuality, in which everyone is defined as fully bisexually capable, yet needing to "choose" heterosexuality. I've mostly just met "out" bisexuals who are a thorn in the side of the gay and lesbian identified persons, insisting in a base bisexuality that we're denying as much as straight folk. Not so. My experience with my mother has brought me in contact with the realization, for the first time, that she considers herself an "ex-gay" - she interprets her bisexuality as a sign that bisexuality is universal, but in turn considers it to mean that her choice of her current monogamous partner, a male, is equivalent to a "choice" of her sexual orientation.
It creates an impasse. How do you convince someone, even someone fully aware of her bisexual past, that her experience of her sexuality, likely one never fully discussed with anyone else and not one that she has ever questioned or compared against other experiences, that it's not a universal experience? I think for us Kinsey 6 sorts, it's easy... we live in a world that reflects an extreme type of sexuality practically opposite our internal experience. Bisexual individuals live in a world that strongly demonstrates the "norm," and for those who choose it, it reinforces the view of choice through a conservative dialectic that emphasizes "choice" from the pulpit. I think straight individuals exposed to a gay world that lacks any resonance in their own subjective sexual experience actually have a significantly easier time understanding that their sexuality is not universal.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Social Side of Prejudice
Over the past few years, particularly in discussion with heterosexual friends and family, I've realized that there's one major divide in which many of my straight friends are not yet willing to join the cause of LGBT equality. This is in the realm of social acceptability. I've heard it said before, and it makes sense on a number of levels, that what the Civil Rights movement eventually did to white society was to plant the seeds of smaller change through raising awareness that bigotry was not okay. Now, the prospect of a person using racist language or telling a racist joke at a workplace without prior knowledge of the views of his/her co-workers is difficult to imagine. It was when white America became nervous and ashamed about voicing racist views to other white Americans that the climate really began to change.... and it figures, as children would either stop hearing racist tropes repeated, or would see the discomfort or embarrassment that surrounded those expressions.
This topic came to mind after reading a blog posted at the Enemy Combatant Trailmix Appreciation Club titled "On religion, rights and Ref 71":
How many of my straight friends or family would have this courage? In fact, I doubt all of my gay ones would make this tough call. I don't think the LGBT movement will be considered successful until we hit a point when straight Americans, speaking privately at home or work with other straight Americans, become nervous about sharing their bias. When fear occurs that what they're about to say impacts the friends, family, and loved ones of the audience, even if only speaking to other straight folk, and that they are jeopardising their own relationships by voicing their prejudice. When individuals who pride themselves on their faith, compassion, or decency realize that those same values will be judged wanting if they argue that bigotry is a preferred outcome. Reading this blog today brought many thoughts to mind, not the least of which is that I've probably been too lenient in letting some of my straight friends off the hook when they admit that they don't challenge others, or that they feel that religion is a cop out that makes anti-gay bigotry okay. People did, and do, blame Jesus for their hatred of other races, and it is treated as a fringe belief and considered a distasteful excuse. What will get us to the place when the same is considered so for homophobia?
I'm not completely sure. I feel that there's a large obstacle in that many gays and lesbians have their own internalized homophobia they're still working on, or avoiding thinking about, which gets in the way (for every straight person who has heard an anti-gay tirade and not commented afterward, there are queer persons who have done the same). It also teeters on using shame, the weapon so commonly employed against us, against our enemies, and while I'm not opposed to that, there's a fine line of doing so ethically and without becoming overly aggressive. Shame, after all, is guilt imposed by others - the awareness of committing a social wrong. In these early days, particularly when anti-gay activists hold such sway in some parts of the country, shame can easily and frustratingly be rejected when a lone gay person is the only one to be offended. This is where our straight allies come in. The LGBT project of the ACLU has been doing a "Tell Three" initiative, asking that gays and lesbians talk about their lives and issues with three of their friends as a way of promoting rights. I would go further. Tell three of your nearest and dearest straight friends WHY it's not okay for them to excuse homophobia among their straight friends, the ways that it hurts you, and the importance of them speaking up for you when you're not there to defend yourself.
This topic came to mind after reading a blog posted at the Enemy Combatant Trailmix Appreciation Club titled "On religion, rights and Ref 71":
There are times in everyone’s life when they find that a principle or belief is being challenged. The things that challenge us may seem tiny and casual, but they turn out to be anything but. It’s easy to shake your fist and make proclamations when there is nothing to lose, when it costs you nothing. It’s only when there is something at stake that you find out how often you’re just talking to hear your own voice.
Today, someone I considered a friend told another friend, who happens to be a lesbian, that he wasn’t sure how we was going to vote on Ref. 71 . For those of you who don’t know, Ref. 71 is a ballot measure in Washington State to expand the rights provided to same sex couples in domestic partnerships.
Anyone who has read anything here likely knows my views on same sex couples, but let me make them clear one more time: Love is love. People are people. There is absolutely no relationship between the gender of the people you have sex with, and being a good person. None. Further, it is my firmly held and often stated belief that if you fall anything short of fully supporting completely equal rights for all people, regardless of their race or sexual orientation, you cannot truly be a good person. It has in my mind always been that simple.
Now, this friend who said he didn’t know how he would vote on Ref. 71 is someone I have considered a very good person. He is kind, caring, thoughtful and always comforting people. I’ve been surprised by our friendship, because he is religious, and I frequently have a hard time being friends with people who are religious. However, I’ve always found this person to be thoughtful on issues, open and smart. He’s been one of the few people who made me think it was possible to really be friends with the deeply religious. Honestly, I was absolutely stunned to hear that he had said this thing. I would never for an instant have thought that he would fall so short on such an important issue.
As I walked downtown after finding out about this, I found myself making excuses for him. Telling myself that he’s not really a bad person, he’s just confused. His church and his church friends have him confused, but really, he’s a good person who is simply not right on this issue, and we can still be friends, of course we can.
Then my brain kicked my emotions in the balls, and woke me up. We can’t be friends. Of course we can’t. It doesn’t matter if he’s confused. It doesn’t matter if his religious friends tell him to vote against it, to “protect” traditional marriage. It doesn’t matter that he is kind to me, that we share interests and laughs. None of that can matter, when someone is undecided on whether they think other people deserve equal rights. None of it can matter when someone can look at one of their friends and say “I’m not sure if I’m going to vote for you to have the same rights and privileges I do”.
It hurts me to lose a friend over a conversation I didn’t even hear. But it would hurt me more to bury my head in the sand and pretend that the rules are different when we’re talking about someone I personally know and care about.
Everything we do, say and think matters. Everything has consequences, positive or negative, intended or unintended.
In closing, all I can say is: Please go out and vote to approve Ref. 71 if you are in Washington State. It’s not enough, because it’s still separate but not quite equal, but at least it’s one more step in the right direction. Please remember that what you say matters, but what you do matters more. Stand up for equal rights for all. Stand up whether you’re gay or straight. Stand up even more if you are straight, because the minority needs members of the majority to stand with them and stop them being treated as second class citizens.
How many of my straight friends or family would have this courage? In fact, I doubt all of my gay ones would make this tough call. I don't think the LGBT movement will be considered successful until we hit a point when straight Americans, speaking privately at home or work with other straight Americans, become nervous about sharing their bias. When fear occurs that what they're about to say impacts the friends, family, and loved ones of the audience, even if only speaking to other straight folk, and that they are jeopardising their own relationships by voicing their prejudice. When individuals who pride themselves on their faith, compassion, or decency realize that those same values will be judged wanting if they argue that bigotry is a preferred outcome. Reading this blog today brought many thoughts to mind, not the least of which is that I've probably been too lenient in letting some of my straight friends off the hook when they admit that they don't challenge others, or that they feel that religion is a cop out that makes anti-gay bigotry okay. People did, and do, blame Jesus for their hatred of other races, and it is treated as a fringe belief and considered a distasteful excuse. What will get us to the place when the same is considered so for homophobia?
I'm not completely sure. I feel that there's a large obstacle in that many gays and lesbians have their own internalized homophobia they're still working on, or avoiding thinking about, which gets in the way (for every straight person who has heard an anti-gay tirade and not commented afterward, there are queer persons who have done the same). It also teeters on using shame, the weapon so commonly employed against us, against our enemies, and while I'm not opposed to that, there's a fine line of doing so ethically and without becoming overly aggressive. Shame, after all, is guilt imposed by others - the awareness of committing a social wrong. In these early days, particularly when anti-gay activists hold such sway in some parts of the country, shame can easily and frustratingly be rejected when a lone gay person is the only one to be offended. This is where our straight allies come in. The LGBT project of the ACLU has been doing a "Tell Three" initiative, asking that gays and lesbians talk about their lives and issues with three of their friends as a way of promoting rights. I would go further. Tell three of your nearest and dearest straight friends WHY it's not okay for them to excuse homophobia among their straight friends, the ways that it hurts you, and the importance of them speaking up for you when you're not there to defend yourself.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wedding Bells...
My younger brother was married today to his girlfriend and the mother of my niece in a ceremony back East earlier today. Congratulations! Due to some late schedule changes to the wedding date in recent months, I was unable to attend, but my warmest wishes go out. I have some ambivalence as I write about this.... it's a very concrete reminder of the fact that my mother (see posts below) severed contact, in large part, through her perception couched as religious belief that my own discussions of my ability to marry were offensive. We, as a queer community, still very much live in a world in which our abilities to guide our own lives and shape the courses of our future are dependent upon a heterosexual majority that varies in its views from dislike to outright hostility. I spent the evening having dinner with an old acquaintance of my boyfriend - ethnically French, this man currently lives in Madrid. A good part of our discussion touched on his experiences with a boyfriend who still struggles with his sexual identity, having been raised in a small, rural village in Spain. Again I'm reminded of the urban/rural split. It's most unfortunate because, as I think I've touched on before, not all gays and lesbians are comfortable or at home in cities. There's no true progress for the queer community until a person is just as capable and able to freely and comfortably live an open life in the tiny rural town of his/her upbringing as s/he is in a large urban center. That said, we also spent a lot of time discussing the various ways that our friends treat sexuality around their children. As both I and my peer set enter our 30s, an increasing percentage of our friends are having children. It is disturbing to see the differences in their attitudes and to compare notes... friends that seemed indistinguishable in their openness before having children are suddenly at polar opposites in either being open to our lives, or suffering misguided beliefs that somehow the existence of gays and lesbians is a helpful or necessary part of their child's upbringing. Many of my closest straight friends have not yet had children. As my dinner company shared his experiences, I found myself wondering where they would land on that spectrum. I'm actually not sure where my brothers are on that - both my fully biological brothers now have children, but I've not been in a major relationship since they have had their daughters. To be honest, unfortunately, I'm not hopeful, and I'm not sure either of them have seriously considered or thought about how they would present any husband of mine to their family. While some of my friends are willing to include their family by making whatever concession is necessary, I find myself growing ever more stubborn - I've no interest in being complicit with lies, and if they want to give their children fictional accounts about Uncle Matthew and his life, let them do so in my absence.
I'm traveling to a wedding with my boyfriend in a month. It's in a conservative state, and I'll only be a few hours from where my mother lives, who still refuses to speak to me after I gave the ultimatum that she at least discuss her anti-gay views before she can be a part of my life. My friend I'll see wed and I often don't see eye to eye... she often leans toward concessions for the sake of keeping conversations open and engaged with those who harbor bigoted views that they base upon their spiritual understanding. I'm not sure that I'm right, though my view is grounded in the simple belief that only social norms change the acceptability of views. So long as moderate or middle of the road sorts keep silent or maintain an unspoken sense that, while they may disagree, it is certainly understandable that a person might be virulently anti-gay, then it creates an air of acceptability that actually allows those folk to cling to the reasonability of their beliefs. When both our queer and straight allies begin to make clear, or at a minimum, voice their concern, that it is indecent and immoral to be bigoted in that way, that is when people will begin to change. As social scientists witnessed during the civil rights struggle, as soon as it became popular/conventional wisdom that it was not okay to judge others based on race, then relatively quickly overt statements about these views began to fade from public life, followed by a more gradual disappearance of covert statements to this effect. Once a prejudiced person stops talking about it, and accepts that it is a social reality that their views are unwelcome in polite company, it begins to chisel away at that self-righteous sense of moral authority that pervades a lot of current hate speech. Once you buy into the idea that your hateful views might be points of shame, you must seriously consider that they might be wrong. In my case, it is unfortunate, because not only is my mother in a rural environment where anti-gay bias is fairly well accepted, and a member of a denomination that is increasingly defining itself as the anti-gay alternative, but no one in the family, including other LGBT members, is willing to voice or discuss with her either her views or even comment on their awareness that she has severed contact. Worse yet, she has chosen my teenage stepbrothers as her confidents in this, choosing to use it as a teaching moment in which to illustrate her faith in Christ and the importance of maintaining "virtue" in the face of adversity.
I find myself reflecting increasingly on the elderly gay men I have seen clinically in the past, and their obsessions with parental rejection, particularly maternal rejection, that have haunted them throughout their life. Will I become one of these? Will this become an increasingly consuming wound that I am unable to recover from? On the inverse, it gives me limited options.... there are essentially two ways in which I can resume contact: grovel and pretend to be as ashamed of myself, particularly my sexuality, as she would like me to be; or be a thorn in her side, and reinitiate contact focused on maintaining constant pressure regarding her bigotry, serving to remind her in the midst of her consolations and silent family that somewhere, sometime, other people are aware and judge her views differently. Which would most likely effect change? Which would most likely bring peace and resolution to myself? I suppose a part of my worry is that, as the dispensable middle child I've always been treated as in my family, without being a thorn in her side she already views severing ties with me as peace and resolution, and this is an option that, for obvious selfish reasons, I would like to deny her.
I'm traveling to a wedding with my boyfriend in a month. It's in a conservative state, and I'll only be a few hours from where my mother lives, who still refuses to speak to me after I gave the ultimatum that she at least discuss her anti-gay views before she can be a part of my life. My friend I'll see wed and I often don't see eye to eye... she often leans toward concessions for the sake of keeping conversations open and engaged with those who harbor bigoted views that they base upon their spiritual understanding. I'm not sure that I'm right, though my view is grounded in the simple belief that only social norms change the acceptability of views. So long as moderate or middle of the road sorts keep silent or maintain an unspoken sense that, while they may disagree, it is certainly understandable that a person might be virulently anti-gay, then it creates an air of acceptability that actually allows those folk to cling to the reasonability of their beliefs. When both our queer and straight allies begin to make clear, or at a minimum, voice their concern, that it is indecent and immoral to be bigoted in that way, that is when people will begin to change. As social scientists witnessed during the civil rights struggle, as soon as it became popular/conventional wisdom that it was not okay to judge others based on race, then relatively quickly overt statements about these views began to fade from public life, followed by a more gradual disappearance of covert statements to this effect. Once a prejudiced person stops talking about it, and accepts that it is a social reality that their views are unwelcome in polite company, it begins to chisel away at that self-righteous sense of moral authority that pervades a lot of current hate speech. Once you buy into the idea that your hateful views might be points of shame, you must seriously consider that they might be wrong. In my case, it is unfortunate, because not only is my mother in a rural environment where anti-gay bias is fairly well accepted, and a member of a denomination that is increasingly defining itself as the anti-gay alternative, but no one in the family, including other LGBT members, is willing to voice or discuss with her either her views or even comment on their awareness that she has severed contact. Worse yet, she has chosen my teenage stepbrothers as her confidents in this, choosing to use it as a teaching moment in which to illustrate her faith in Christ and the importance of maintaining "virtue" in the face of adversity.
I find myself reflecting increasingly on the elderly gay men I have seen clinically in the past, and their obsessions with parental rejection, particularly maternal rejection, that have haunted them throughout their life. Will I become one of these? Will this become an increasingly consuming wound that I am unable to recover from? On the inverse, it gives me limited options.... there are essentially two ways in which I can resume contact: grovel and pretend to be as ashamed of myself, particularly my sexuality, as she would like me to be; or be a thorn in her side, and reinitiate contact focused on maintaining constant pressure regarding her bigotry, serving to remind her in the midst of her consolations and silent family that somewhere, sometime, other people are aware and judge her views differently. Which would most likely effect change? Which would most likely bring peace and resolution to myself? I suppose a part of my worry is that, as the dispensable middle child I've always been treated as in my family, without being a thorn in her side she already views severing ties with me as peace and resolution, and this is an option that, for obvious selfish reasons, I would like to deny her.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Defining Sangha
I'm going to pick up on a similar thread to my last blog regarding definitions of community and the urban/rural divide. Yesterday I attended a session of the San Francisco Zen Center's Queer Dharma group, and the theme of the day was Sangha. Sangha is an old Sanskrit term used in the Buddhist tradition to refer to either a) the community of ascetics, b) all followers of Buddhism, including laypersons, or c) all sentient beings, as we're all bound up in this intersubjective/interbeing Universe. The question posed to the group for discussion, though, was what it means to be a part of a queer sangha. Many straight residents of the zen center apparently have asked, out of honest curiosity, what the role is and why it is important.
A variety of responses were shared: a common identity, a relaxation of the guardedness that comes of practicing in straight spaces, etc. My thoughts were that, in being given the opportunity to explore our minds in the safety of queer spaces, we are able to bolster ourselves and come in contact with reality without the baggage and implications of a world that constantly delegates our lives and relationships to secondhand status. For those of us in the Bay Area, most of us transplants, contact with family and friends in other parts of the country, we are implicitly expected to share their reality, and assist them in subjugating our own experiences. This occurs when family members speak openly and excitedly of upcoming heterosexual weddings in the family, yet feign offense (or are truly offended.... doesn't matter, really) by discussion of same-sex marriages - either those planned, or obstacles planning them. Historically, in the gay community, and this is often reflected in the attitudes of older members of the LGBT community, topics that offended heterosexual family members or friends were avoided or apologized for. Now, the LGBT community is increasingly claiming the right to acknowledge the fundamental lack of difference in these topics, and to expect that those heterosexuals we are closest to will share an equal view of the world.
The value of queer sangha? In this case, it would be to provide safety in exploring the layers of that baggage we carry with us (the internalized homopohbia and heterocentrism we were all raised with that says are lives really are judged by a different ruler, and are not merely equal), exploring the expectations of stigma we bring (it is difficult to live openly and form true relationships with others when we are hyper-aware or over-concerned that they might reject us), and finally, in a community of those with like experiences, we can discuss and explore the pain of violence done against us in the past. Many in the LGBT community suffer physical, sexual, or emotional mistreatment as either children or adults. That minority that suffered sexual abuse are often targeted and further exploited by "ex-gay ministries" and "conversion" therapists who claim that those experiences caused their non-heterosexual orientation (in fact, a dear friend of mine participated in a group at a church based in Akron, Ohio; they would screen potential group members for those with abuse, then after presenting their abuse->homosexuality theory at the first therapy group would ask those with histories of sexual abuse raise their hands. This was a powerful, manipulative way to create false consensus and the illusion that all gay men and lesbians were molested as children). Heterosexuals aren't aware of these spiritual abuses, or the forms of discrimination that the queer community faces.
One of the difficulties of living both at home, as an adolescent, and in the Midwest during college (to a limited extent) and graduate school (to, sadly, a larger extent) was that I was immersed in an environment that assumed heteronormativity, with very few who shared a view of basic human equality across sexualities (and, truth be told, genders, race, class, ethnicities, faith perspectives, etc.). Here in San Francisco, and with the luxury of a queer sangha (in this sense, meaning Buddhist practice group), none of that baggage needs to be dragged onto the cushion - and it's often too overwhelming to even see through in those contexts. Historically, I've always been the "token" gay at my zen groups. This varies as something of appreciated diversity, to novelty, to a point for genuine curiosity among other group members. Some of that is a reflection of the teachers I have had. The first, in Kent, OH, treated my sexuality not only as very matter of fact and mundane, but through his own experience as a somewhat persecuted youth for not being "butch" enough, identified strongly. The all straight sangha took his lead - while I sometimes felt left out when hetero themes dominated discussion, there was a tone set that there was something fundamentally right and, in the sense that all hetero men are challenged and pushed as children based on their adherence to gender norms, I was almost held up as a source of learning. I had some passing teachers, one that wasn't the most comfortable.... that's the one in which I was held up as a novelty, typically.... and then my last regular teacher was in Long Beach. He was a butch veteran, couldn't identify at all with most aspects of the queer experience, but was always fundamentally curious, interested, and open to his ignorance re: my life. I loaned him and his girlfriend a number of very queer films... The Living End, Shortbus, and Tarnation.... they loved them, enjoying both the meaning, common emotion, brought to their viewing profound depths of empathy, and interest. Again, their sangha viewed my sexuality as either normative, or a gift to the community. Watching how they set the tone.... well, it's difficult, at what's still, essentially, an early stage of my practice, to not want to continue with both only the Queer Dharma group, as well as practice at the essentially all-gay Hartford Street Zen Center. I realize the distance that having a strong practice group, as well as my current relationship, has truly helped me stay grounded in my own humanity, and my own dignity - this is what gave me the strength to cut off family members whose interactions were devolving to regular verbal gaybashings. Sangha is important. Queer sangha, moreso.
A variety of responses were shared: a common identity, a relaxation of the guardedness that comes of practicing in straight spaces, etc. My thoughts were that, in being given the opportunity to explore our minds in the safety of queer spaces, we are able to bolster ourselves and come in contact with reality without the baggage and implications of a world that constantly delegates our lives and relationships to secondhand status. For those of us in the Bay Area, most of us transplants, contact with family and friends in other parts of the country, we are implicitly expected to share their reality, and assist them in subjugating our own experiences. This occurs when family members speak openly and excitedly of upcoming heterosexual weddings in the family, yet feign offense (or are truly offended.... doesn't matter, really) by discussion of same-sex marriages - either those planned, or obstacles planning them. Historically, in the gay community, and this is often reflected in the attitudes of older members of the LGBT community, topics that offended heterosexual family members or friends were avoided or apologized for. Now, the LGBT community is increasingly claiming the right to acknowledge the fundamental lack of difference in these topics, and to expect that those heterosexuals we are closest to will share an equal view of the world.
The value of queer sangha? In this case, it would be to provide safety in exploring the layers of that baggage we carry with us (the internalized homopohbia and heterocentrism we were all raised with that says are lives really are judged by a different ruler, and are not merely equal), exploring the expectations of stigma we bring (it is difficult to live openly and form true relationships with others when we are hyper-aware or over-concerned that they might reject us), and finally, in a community of those with like experiences, we can discuss and explore the pain of violence done against us in the past. Many in the LGBT community suffer physical, sexual, or emotional mistreatment as either children or adults. That minority that suffered sexual abuse are often targeted and further exploited by "ex-gay ministries" and "conversion" therapists who claim that those experiences caused their non-heterosexual orientation (in fact, a dear friend of mine participated in a group at a church based in Akron, Ohio; they would screen potential group members for those with abuse, then after presenting their abuse->homosexuality theory at the first therapy group would ask those with histories of sexual abuse raise their hands. This was a powerful, manipulative way to create false consensus and the illusion that all gay men and lesbians were molested as children). Heterosexuals aren't aware of these spiritual abuses, or the forms of discrimination that the queer community faces.
One of the difficulties of living both at home, as an adolescent, and in the Midwest during college (to a limited extent) and graduate school (to, sadly, a larger extent) was that I was immersed in an environment that assumed heteronormativity, with very few who shared a view of basic human equality across sexualities (and, truth be told, genders, race, class, ethnicities, faith perspectives, etc.). Here in San Francisco, and with the luxury of a queer sangha (in this sense, meaning Buddhist practice group), none of that baggage needs to be dragged onto the cushion - and it's often too overwhelming to even see through in those contexts. Historically, I've always been the "token" gay at my zen groups. This varies as something of appreciated diversity, to novelty, to a point for genuine curiosity among other group members. Some of that is a reflection of the teachers I have had. The first, in Kent, OH, treated my sexuality not only as very matter of fact and mundane, but through his own experience as a somewhat persecuted youth for not being "butch" enough, identified strongly. The all straight sangha took his lead - while I sometimes felt left out when hetero themes dominated discussion, there was a tone set that there was something fundamentally right and, in the sense that all hetero men are challenged and pushed as children based on their adherence to gender norms, I was almost held up as a source of learning. I had some passing teachers, one that wasn't the most comfortable.... that's the one in which I was held up as a novelty, typically.... and then my last regular teacher was in Long Beach. He was a butch veteran, couldn't identify at all with most aspects of the queer experience, but was always fundamentally curious, interested, and open to his ignorance re: my life. I loaned him and his girlfriend a number of very queer films... The Living End, Shortbus, and Tarnation.... they loved them, enjoying both the meaning, common emotion, brought to their viewing profound depths of empathy, and interest. Again, their sangha viewed my sexuality as either normative, or a gift to the community. Watching how they set the tone.... well, it's difficult, at what's still, essentially, an early stage of my practice, to not want to continue with both only the Queer Dharma group, as well as practice at the essentially all-gay Hartford Street Zen Center. I realize the distance that having a strong practice group, as well as my current relationship, has truly helped me stay grounded in my own humanity, and my own dignity - this is what gave me the strength to cut off family members whose interactions were devolving to regular verbal gaybashings. Sangha is important. Queer sangha, moreso.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Why we should care about Bryce Faulkner
For those of you that follow the gay blogs out there, you've likely heard of the splash this past week when it was reported that Bryce Faulkner, a 23 y/o gay pre-med student, had gone missing after a bad coming out to his conservative parents. The story, though it varies slightly across websites, is that he had been planning to come out to his parents when they found emails he had exchanged with a boyfriend he had met on-line, who lived out of state. After a final, tearful phone call to the boyfriend, he told him he was being forced to attend a faith-based "ex-gay ministry" program, and has been unreachable ever since. Throw in rumors by friends that he has been shipped to a more extensive, 14-month "treatment" center, as well as his parents threats against sites that have posted the story, and this has led to a lot of concern and outcry by the community. A few caveats for the occasional non-gay reader of this site - in the LGBT community, particularly among gay men, this is actually pretty normative. It becomes increasingly common as you move into more rural areas, where it is difficult to find other gay men, and I know couples who met on-line that have gone on to have lengthy, ongoing relationships in the real world. From what quotes I've seen attributed to the family, they make a big point of this fact, as in the StraightWorld (tm), this is much less common and treated as less "real." I was a little reluctant to buy this story at first, and there's certainly plenty to be wary of (a bizarre "ministry" site that is searching for him, strange posts around the web by purported family members with conflicting ideas about where Bryce might be and why his boyfriend/maybe-ex-boyfriend can't reach him, etc.), but as I read through the gay blogs that cast doubt on the account, I was struck by another common criticism.
The urban/rural split. Bloggers in places like NYC, LA, or SF were quick to comment on how difficult they found it that a 23 y/o could be so controlled by his family, have difficulty leaving town, or be so thoroughly victimized by faith. I've commented before on this blog, but the Bryce story has quickly pushed the gay media into confrontation with a reality of contemporary American life: urban dwellers, particularly coastal urban dwellers, have no context for what life is like between the coasts. Is it possible to live in a town that's not walking distance from an interstate highway? Or even an intrastate highway? A place where hitchhiking isn't an option because everyone knows everyone and driving on by is how to respect other folk's family business? Yes. Yes. Yes. Are children exposed to messages at extremely young ages about God's hatred of homosexuals? Certainly; the same denominations that lobby against sex ed or discussion of sexuality in schools ensure that their message is first and foremost through sermons about (and I was 6 the first time hearing on during my Southern Baptist upbringing) the role of AIDS as God's curse against gays. I recalled working as an undergraduate with a newly out gay man who had spent most of his 20s married, with children, and in constant intensive "ex-gay" therapy at the behest of his parents; when he made the decision to give up on "treatment," he was ex-communicated by his family. He had gone back to school, and years had passed, but it was unlikely that the social and emotional devastation would ever go away after years of that relationship being severed. It makes sense. We're raised with this notion that these people (i.e., our families) will love us, care for us, be the constants in our lives.... and for many LGBT folk, that's actually not true, and the love does have strings attached. I've realized in the course or recent discussions that my experience of setting limits on my family is not that unique, and the direction of the decision making goes both ways. I've one colleague whose mother was judgmental and disliked that she was a lesbian, who severed contact for a number of years after she married her wife... only to eventually come around (4 years later) and embrace her daughter's spouse as her daughter in law. I've another friend who made a similar ultimatum as I did - flatly informing his parents that their prejudice and biases were their own issues to deal with, not his, and that he wasn't interested in hearing it. They didn't contact him for a year, but since have been all the better. The point of these stories, however, is that such extreme attitudes, and the rejections by families that occur, are very real among LGBT experiences, and hold the potential to be permanent. Among the many mysterious claims in this case, no media source has been able to track down or speak to Bryce, though the inability to locate or speak to a source is routinely commented on within a news report, or becomes its own story. As has been noted by many survivors of religious-based sexuality change programs, isolation from the outside world is a common aspect of the program. It seems strange that the initial reporters did not comment on this or their inability to contact him.
I think this story is important, not just in that this type of abuse does happen, even to minors, in this country, but that it's a typical part of the sorts of experiences that occur outside the gay urban enclaves. It also highlights the divide of what it means to be autonomous, to have a community, and the extent of harmful religious movements in the rural United States.
The urban/rural split. Bloggers in places like NYC, LA, or SF were quick to comment on how difficult they found it that a 23 y/o could be so controlled by his family, have difficulty leaving town, or be so thoroughly victimized by faith. I've commented before on this blog, but the Bryce story has quickly pushed the gay media into confrontation with a reality of contemporary American life: urban dwellers, particularly coastal urban dwellers, have no context for what life is like between the coasts. Is it possible to live in a town that's not walking distance from an interstate highway? Or even an intrastate highway? A place where hitchhiking isn't an option because everyone knows everyone and driving on by is how to respect other folk's family business? Yes. Yes. Yes. Are children exposed to messages at extremely young ages about God's hatred of homosexuals? Certainly; the same denominations that lobby against sex ed or discussion of sexuality in schools ensure that their message is first and foremost through sermons about (and I was 6 the first time hearing on during my Southern Baptist upbringing) the role of AIDS as God's curse against gays. I recalled working as an undergraduate with a newly out gay man who had spent most of his 20s married, with children, and in constant intensive "ex-gay" therapy at the behest of his parents; when he made the decision to give up on "treatment," he was ex-communicated by his family. He had gone back to school, and years had passed, but it was unlikely that the social and emotional devastation would ever go away after years of that relationship being severed. It makes sense. We're raised with this notion that these people (i.e., our families) will love us, care for us, be the constants in our lives.... and for many LGBT folk, that's actually not true, and the love does have strings attached. I've realized in the course or recent discussions that my experience of setting limits on my family is not that unique, and the direction of the decision making goes both ways. I've one colleague whose mother was judgmental and disliked that she was a lesbian, who severed contact for a number of years after she married her wife... only to eventually come around (4 years later) and embrace her daughter's spouse as her daughter in law. I've another friend who made a similar ultimatum as I did - flatly informing his parents that their prejudice and biases were their own issues to deal with, not his, and that he wasn't interested in hearing it. They didn't contact him for a year, but since have been all the better. The point of these stories, however, is that such extreme attitudes, and the rejections by families that occur, are very real among LGBT experiences, and hold the potential to be permanent. Among the many mysterious claims in this case, no media source has been able to track down or speak to Bryce, though the inability to locate or speak to a source is routinely commented on within a news report, or becomes its own story. As has been noted by many survivors of religious-based sexuality change programs, isolation from the outside world is a common aspect of the program. It seems strange that the initial reporters did not comment on this or their inability to contact him.
I think this story is important, not just in that this type of abuse does happen, even to minors, in this country, but that it's a typical part of the sorts of experiences that occur outside the gay urban enclaves. It also highlights the divide of what it means to be autonomous, to have a community, and the extent of harmful religious movements in the rural United States.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Barebacking and Sero-sorting: The Market and the Practice
The International Mr. Leather group out of Chicago made a splash on the gay blogosphere this week with their announcement that they'll no longer allow booths, merchandise, or paraphernalia from companies that focus on selling or promoting bareback sex. A few issues I should clarify here regarding how we define barebacking: research shows that there are a number of divergent views, even when restricting the studies only to the domestic gay population in the United States. Barebacking, as the IML is using the term and as many researchers use the term, refers to any and all condomless anal intercourse. The research shows that the definitions among gay men vary, typically only referring to anal sex, but in some subpopulations referring only to sex that is known to occur between poz guys, or neg guys, or serodiscordant couplings only, etc. As both the IML and as most behavioral scientists use the term, it is used to describe all such couplings. As the blog linked above indicates, in recent years the profitability of bareback-to-condom gay porn has been something like a 3:1 ratio, so this is a big deal for one of the biggest venues of gay sex tourism to put a block on it.
Looking at the debates and, sometimes, fanfare that this announcement has been met with, it's important to consider the broader picture. As I've hammered away at consistently throughout this blog, condomless intercourse has historically always been, and to a large degree still is, the "default" arrangement of sexual behavior among humans, with a variety of strategies, including monogamous couplings, used by gay men to reduce their risk (I recently learned that the current norm in the Netherlands - i.e., "Dutch" sero-sorting - involves virtually no condom use but sex only between partners of the same sero-status).
That said, it brings up an issue I'd been wanting to share. I recently sat in on a talk by a local researcher presenting preliminary analyses from a study examining gay men, their risk behaviors, strategies for avoiding HIV risk (both condom use and the variety of non-condom practices), partner report, and testing results through the course of the study. Non-condom strategies explore the gamut of sero-sorting-type behaviors: everything from asking, to determining HIV status by how someone looks, to the pullout method, to strategic positioning (the known positive partner always bottoms, or the known negative partner always tops; unknown status guys do the other). This is the same large sample study I've referred to a lot in recent weeks that isn't yet published, I'm sure I'll post a full citation once that's the case. That said, after all the talk about strategies and sero-sorting, the researchers did a couple novel things. First, they asked whether these guys who were altering sexual practices by their partner's status if they actually knew of the term "sero-sorting," and if they were intentionally attempting to do so. What they found was that the vast majority of these gay men in San Francisco were unaware of the word, or the use of it as a risk reduction strategy. Additionally, they thought of analyzing the data in a novel way. They had data on approximately 17,000 dyads (reported sexual encounters). If men in San Francisco were actually sero-sorting as a strategy, then we can compare actual dyads reported to what we would expect if these men were being randomly partnered (depending on which bar in town you go to, that might be a possibility)... The results were frightening. Even by chance, you'd expect about 50% of the dyads in SF to be between men that were tested and known to be HIV-negative. This was exactly what their data showed, indicating that the partnerships were occurring virtually regardless of whether or not partners were positive, or of unknown sero-status. Same for unknown-unknown pairings. The only significantly different dyad was that among positive-positive men, which was significantly higher than chance, indicating that at least a decent sized percentage of poz men are actively attempting to restrict their sexual activity only to other poz men.
The question here, then, is not how do we prevent non-condom based approaches toward HIV prevention, as we may have plateaued in our effectiveness on that front, but how we increase and improve the effectiveness of non-condom strategies already being used in the community. In theory, negative men merely asking one another about their sero-status and practicing accordingly should improve decision making, but the current data show that many don't ask and that men testing negative in the city are more or less having sex with a random assortment of partners. In fact, the number of partners labeled as of "unknown" status in this sample was well over double what we know exists in San Francisco (well over 90% have been tested for HIV at least once, and a reasonably high number have been tested much more regularly). That means that if asked, most of those men would've known and been able to tell their partners their sero-status. We could do better. It looks like a decision has been made in the office amongst my colleagues and I with some feedback from our program manager at the federal funding side. Rather than the disclosure focused intervention I discussed previously, we'll be submitting a grant application this fall to test an intervention that tackles the unwillingness of men who know they are HIV-negative to simply ASK their partner's status. Maybe that alone could make a difference?
Looking at the debates and, sometimes, fanfare that this announcement has been met with, it's important to consider the broader picture. As I've hammered away at consistently throughout this blog, condomless intercourse has historically always been, and to a large degree still is, the "default" arrangement of sexual behavior among humans, with a variety of strategies, including monogamous couplings, used by gay men to reduce their risk (I recently learned that the current norm in the Netherlands - i.e., "Dutch" sero-sorting - involves virtually no condom use but sex only between partners of the same sero-status).
That said, it brings up an issue I'd been wanting to share. I recently sat in on a talk by a local researcher presenting preliminary analyses from a study examining gay men, their risk behaviors, strategies for avoiding HIV risk (both condom use and the variety of non-condom practices), partner report, and testing results through the course of the study. Non-condom strategies explore the gamut of sero-sorting-type behaviors: everything from asking, to determining HIV status by how someone looks, to the pullout method, to strategic positioning (the known positive partner always bottoms, or the known negative partner always tops; unknown status guys do the other). This is the same large sample study I've referred to a lot in recent weeks that isn't yet published, I'm sure I'll post a full citation once that's the case. That said, after all the talk about strategies and sero-sorting, the researchers did a couple novel things. First, they asked whether these guys who were altering sexual practices by their partner's status if they actually knew of the term "sero-sorting," and if they were intentionally attempting to do so. What they found was that the vast majority of these gay men in San Francisco were unaware of the word, or the use of it as a risk reduction strategy. Additionally, they thought of analyzing the data in a novel way. They had data on approximately 17,000 dyads (reported sexual encounters). If men in San Francisco were actually sero-sorting as a strategy, then we can compare actual dyads reported to what we would expect if these men were being randomly partnered (depending on which bar in town you go to, that might be a possibility)... The results were frightening. Even by chance, you'd expect about 50% of the dyads in SF to be between men that were tested and known to be HIV-negative. This was exactly what their data showed, indicating that the partnerships were occurring virtually regardless of whether or not partners were positive, or of unknown sero-status. Same for unknown-unknown pairings. The only significantly different dyad was that among positive-positive men, which was significantly higher than chance, indicating that at least a decent sized percentage of poz men are actively attempting to restrict their sexual activity only to other poz men.
The question here, then, is not how do we prevent non-condom based approaches toward HIV prevention, as we may have plateaued in our effectiveness on that front, but how we increase and improve the effectiveness of non-condom strategies already being used in the community. In theory, negative men merely asking one another about their sero-status and practicing accordingly should improve decision making, but the current data show that many don't ask and that men testing negative in the city are more or less having sex with a random assortment of partners. In fact, the number of partners labeled as of "unknown" status in this sample was well over double what we know exists in San Francisco (well over 90% have been tested for HIV at least once, and a reasonably high number have been tested much more regularly). That means that if asked, most of those men would've known and been able to tell their partners their sero-status. We could do better. It looks like a decision has been made in the office amongst my colleagues and I with some feedback from our program manager at the federal funding side. Rather than the disclosure focused intervention I discussed previously, we'll be submitting a grant application this fall to test an intervention that tackles the unwillingness of men who know they are HIV-negative to simply ASK their partner's status. Maybe that alone could make a difference?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy any Good?
A recent meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine (Lynch et al., 2009) argues that cognitive behavioral therapy, often held up as the exemplar of science-based psychotherapeutic approaches, is actually unhelpful to those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and fails to prevent the relapse of depression (h/t to The Neurocritic; much of this post is an adaptation of my comment on his blog). In its direct effect on depression, often touted as equivalent to the effect of anti-depressant medication (and better in that its effects are more lasting), Lynch et al. argued the effect size was much weaker than often described. There are a number of interesting points raised in this article, though I have my doubts as to how much weight this study will be given among psychological researchers. Meta-analysis is a powerful statistical tool intended to combine the effects of an intervention across multiple studies, and the very intelligent sounding label is often taken at face value to imply an atheoretical, or bias-free, means of interpreting studies from a variety of scholars. Meta-analysis involve a high level of subjective judgments, however, in the studies selected, with some variance resulting just from which database is used to find studies, the search terms used, and the criteria for inclusion. These can, though they do not always, result in major differences in interpretations of the data.
That said, a number of publications are currently in the works both responding and reanalyzing this article, according to the listserv of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapists (ABCT). I think it's premature, without adequate chance to examine the source articles more fully and carefully scrutinize the decisions that went into the studies selected, to declare this meta-analysis definitive in any way. For example, it's clear from the chart of effect sizes that CBTs strongest effects in treating depression were when compared with pill placebos, with weaker results compared to face-to-face control group sessions. That said, many elements of the control groups, other observers have noted, include aspects such as psychoeducation that are often central to cognitive behavioral approaches. Given some of the recent publications on the limitations and exaggerated claims of pharmacotherapy, even a weak therapy that outperforms pill placebos is an important finding.
Eyeballing the articles selected for this meta-analysis quickly, however, indicates that the results may be skewed by glossing over differences in severity. For example, while the Teasdale et al. MBCT intervention yielded a relatively weak treatment effect overall, subsequent analysis reported by Teasdale, as well as ongoing research, appears to support a much higher effect size among those with 3+ incidents of major depression - as a result, as an intervention it is only recommended currently as effective for those with recurrent depressive episodes, not 1-2. Incorporating the pooled, weaker effect of its use on all sufferers of depression weakens its effect and suppresses the true impact of this intervention for chronic sufferers of depression. Similarly, despite dismantling studies indicating that behavioral activation is possibly the primary effective ingredient in CBT for depression, the studies for all disorders appear to be biased away from more behavioral interventions, and toward those that self-label explicitly as just cognitive behavior therapies, or cognitive therapies, from a Beckian approach; I see no examples of the more behavioral leaning of CBT interventions. For example, despite being deeply grounded in CBT and Behavioral theory and a part of many CBT training programs, there's no mention of McCullough's pioneering CBASP approach toward treating chronic depression. A methodological rigidity toward what defines CBT in excess of what exists in the field seems to have imparted a good deal of bias.
I suspect that the core of some of the printed rebuttals will be along these lines; the definition of what met Lynch et al's criteria as a cognitive behavior therapy is much more rigid, and much more narrow, than even exists within the realm of manualized therapies, and more limited than what most active cognitive behavior therapists would consider CBT. While overly strict in some ways, it is overly loose in others, as demonstrated through the lumping together of well monitored clinical trials with community clinic studies (like Scott et al, 1992) that simply rely on self-labeling by therapists to determine the style of therapy. This publication will likely spur the field, however, to more thoroughly and creatively analyze this issue. As accurately noted by Lynch et al., past meta-analyses of CBT's effectiveness fail to account for important methodological issues, such as whether or not there is any blinding of conditions, etc. The rigorous design of Lynch's work, combined with a more thoughtful selection of articles, will hopefully be the next step. Then, the real discussion will begin.
That said, a number of publications are currently in the works both responding and reanalyzing this article, according to the listserv of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapists (ABCT). I think it's premature, without adequate chance to examine the source articles more fully and carefully scrutinize the decisions that went into the studies selected, to declare this meta-analysis definitive in any way. For example, it's clear from the chart of effect sizes that CBTs strongest effects in treating depression were when compared with pill placebos, with weaker results compared to face-to-face control group sessions. That said, many elements of the control groups, other observers have noted, include aspects such as psychoeducation that are often central to cognitive behavioral approaches. Given some of the recent publications on the limitations and exaggerated claims of pharmacotherapy, even a weak therapy that outperforms pill placebos is an important finding.
Eyeballing the articles selected for this meta-analysis quickly, however, indicates that the results may be skewed by glossing over differences in severity. For example, while the Teasdale et al. MBCT intervention yielded a relatively weak treatment effect overall, subsequent analysis reported by Teasdale, as well as ongoing research, appears to support a much higher effect size among those with 3+ incidents of major depression - as a result, as an intervention it is only recommended currently as effective for those with recurrent depressive episodes, not 1-2. Incorporating the pooled, weaker effect of its use on all sufferers of depression weakens its effect and suppresses the true impact of this intervention for chronic sufferers of depression. Similarly, despite dismantling studies indicating that behavioral activation is possibly the primary effective ingredient in CBT for depression, the studies for all disorders appear to be biased away from more behavioral interventions, and toward those that self-label explicitly as just cognitive behavior therapies, or cognitive therapies, from a Beckian approach; I see no examples of the more behavioral leaning of CBT interventions. For example, despite being deeply grounded in CBT and Behavioral theory and a part of many CBT training programs, there's no mention of McCullough's pioneering CBASP approach toward treating chronic depression. A methodological rigidity toward what defines CBT in excess of what exists in the field seems to have imparted a good deal of bias.
I suspect that the core of some of the printed rebuttals will be along these lines; the definition of what met Lynch et al's criteria as a cognitive behavior therapy is much more rigid, and much more narrow, than even exists within the realm of manualized therapies, and more limited than what most active cognitive behavior therapists would consider CBT. While overly strict in some ways, it is overly loose in others, as demonstrated through the lumping together of well monitored clinical trials with community clinic studies (like Scott et al, 1992) that simply rely on self-labeling by therapists to determine the style of therapy. This publication will likely spur the field, however, to more thoroughly and creatively analyze this issue. As accurately noted by Lynch et al., past meta-analyses of CBT's effectiveness fail to account for important methodological issues, such as whether or not there is any blinding of conditions, etc. The rigorous design of Lynch's work, combined with a more thoughtful selection of articles, will hopefully be the next step. Then, the real discussion will begin.
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