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sophia_sol) wrote2016-06-29 08:54 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2016-06-29 08:54 pm
Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology, by Patrick S. Cheng
I was really excited to start this book! But from the very beginning I was disappointed, and it never managed to live up to what I hoped from it.
I mean, it starts by saying that it hopes to act as an introduction for both what queer is and what theology is, and I'm not exactly in need of 101 level discussion of either of those things. So it's possible that this book would have more to offer to someone who is a beginner on these subjects, since a lot of the book is a) defining terms, and b) acting as a lit review of previous relevant works on the subject of queer theology.
BUT even so I disagree with some of his beginner elements?? Like when he defines what he means by "LGBT" he has a list that is rather longer than what those four acronyms actually stand for, and one of the things on that list is ALLIES. Which like, no. That's not what that acronym means. And yes, there are strong positive arguments to be made for spaces that welcome both queer people and allies, but allies are not definitionally and inherently queer. And given that one of the places the author overtly uses this definition is when he's talking about the reclamation of the word "queer" from being a slur......that is not a place for allies. Allies don't get to reclaim slurs on behalf of the oppressed population.
And he talks a big game about queerness being a deconstruction of binaries, which is all well and good, but when he compares how bisexuality disrupts the sexuality binary with how trans people disrupt the gender binary.........no. That is not what trans means. Yes, some trans people are nonbinary. But given that the author explicitly mentions "gender queer" as a gender option in the introduction as separate from trans (and then NEVER MENTIONS IT AGAIN) it seems like that's not his understanding of what it means to be trans. So the only possible interpretations I'm coming up with here seem kinda transphobic. Because like, if you remove genderqueer people from the category of trans people then trans people are just another way that the gender binary presents itself! So if he thinks that these binary-gendered trans people deconstruct the gender binary, then I can't help but think he doesn't really think of trans people as fully belonging to the gender they identify as? Or something? Even if this isn't what he actually meant, it's how he comes across, and I really wish he'd been more careful about his framing here.
Continuing with my discomfort with how he defines terms! Apparently "erotic" means a "mutual relationship with another person." WHAT. WHAT. How does anyone arrive at that as a definition of erotic! This dude seems pretty out to lunch here, and idek what to do with this.
He also fails a bit in his efforts towards inclusive language. For example he uses "she or he" as his pronoun of choice for a hypothetical example person, which is particularly egregious in a work which is supposedly ALL ABOUT the deconstruction of binaries! At least he doesn't use any gendered pronouns for God, which I do appreciate.
There's also a weird bit where he's talking about various conceptions of what sin is, which is all well and good, a relevant conversation topic in a book like this, but one of the conceptions he lays out is that sin is shame, which he says in queer people manifests as the closet. So all closeted queer people are sinning, and to be good queers we need to be out? That's really what you're going to say, dude? I think you need to think a bit harder on that one!
And I was rather mad too in the section about the Virgin Mary where apparently to reclaim her as a positive figure for queer people we need to sexualize her. Dear author: not all queer people are sexual! Having a positive role model who explicitly ISN'T is kinda nice! Yes her chastity has been used in oppressive ways towards a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that to reclaim her we need to entirely change who she is!
The book isn't all bad. Some of its 101 stuff is good and well framed. And the overwhelming lit review nature of its content could actually be very useful in that it gives a reader pointers towards other (better?) texts one could read if interested. There's a bisexual woman who's a lay theologian and a part of the Catholic Worker Movement who sounds particularly interesting to me! I need to flip through this book to remind myself of her name because want to read what she has to say.
The best part of this book, in my opinion, is the couple wee bits where the author talks about the intersection of race, sexuality, and religion, which is something he's particularly qualified to talk about as a gay Asian-American Christian. But there's only a few sentences on this, really.
So overall the book was frustrating and disappointing. Too bad.
I mean, it starts by saying that it hopes to act as an introduction for both what queer is and what theology is, and I'm not exactly in need of 101 level discussion of either of those things. So it's possible that this book would have more to offer to someone who is a beginner on these subjects, since a lot of the book is a) defining terms, and b) acting as a lit review of previous relevant works on the subject of queer theology.
BUT even so I disagree with some of his beginner elements?? Like when he defines what he means by "LGBT" he has a list that is rather longer than what those four acronyms actually stand for, and one of the things on that list is ALLIES. Which like, no. That's not what that acronym means. And yes, there are strong positive arguments to be made for spaces that welcome both queer people and allies, but allies are not definitionally and inherently queer. And given that one of the places the author overtly uses this definition is when he's talking about the reclamation of the word "queer" from being a slur......that is not a place for allies. Allies don't get to reclaim slurs on behalf of the oppressed population.
And he talks a big game about queerness being a deconstruction of binaries, which is all well and good, but when he compares how bisexuality disrupts the sexuality binary with how trans people disrupt the gender binary.........no. That is not what trans means. Yes, some trans people are nonbinary. But given that the author explicitly mentions "gender queer" as a gender option in the introduction as separate from trans (and then NEVER MENTIONS IT AGAIN) it seems like that's not his understanding of what it means to be trans. So the only possible interpretations I'm coming up with here seem kinda transphobic. Because like, if you remove genderqueer people from the category of trans people then trans people are just another way that the gender binary presents itself! So if he thinks that these binary-gendered trans people deconstruct the gender binary, then I can't help but think he doesn't really think of trans people as fully belonging to the gender they identify as? Or something? Even if this isn't what he actually meant, it's how he comes across, and I really wish he'd been more careful about his framing here.
Continuing with my discomfort with how he defines terms! Apparently "erotic" means a "mutual relationship with another person." WHAT. WHAT. How does anyone arrive at that as a definition of erotic! This dude seems pretty out to lunch here, and idek what to do with this.
He also fails a bit in his efforts towards inclusive language. For example he uses "she or he" as his pronoun of choice for a hypothetical example person, which is particularly egregious in a work which is supposedly ALL ABOUT the deconstruction of binaries! At least he doesn't use any gendered pronouns for God, which I do appreciate.
There's also a weird bit where he's talking about various conceptions of what sin is, which is all well and good, a relevant conversation topic in a book like this, but one of the conceptions he lays out is that sin is shame, which he says in queer people manifests as the closet. So all closeted queer people are sinning, and to be good queers we need to be out? That's really what you're going to say, dude? I think you need to think a bit harder on that one!
And I was rather mad too in the section about the Virgin Mary where apparently to reclaim her as a positive figure for queer people we need to sexualize her. Dear author: not all queer people are sexual! Having a positive role model who explicitly ISN'T is kinda nice! Yes her chastity has been used in oppressive ways towards a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that to reclaim her we need to entirely change who she is!
The book isn't all bad. Some of its 101 stuff is good and well framed. And the overwhelming lit review nature of its content could actually be very useful in that it gives a reader pointers towards other (better?) texts one could read if interested. There's a bisexual woman who's a lay theologian and a part of the Catholic Worker Movement who sounds particularly interesting to me! I need to flip through this book to remind myself of her name because want to read what she has to say.
The best part of this book, in my opinion, is the couple wee bits where the author talks about the intersection of race, sexuality, and religion, which is something he's particularly qualified to talk about as a gay Asian-American Christian. But there's only a few sentences on this, really.
So overall the book was frustrating and disappointing. Too bad.
no subject
The part about Mary particularly bothers me. Not only because not all queer people are sexual, but also because even those of us who are sexual don't necessarily need to sexualize everything all the time. I am so frustrated by the stereotype of queer people being hypersexual, and the idea that to make something queer you must sexualize it. I think it's the seed of some oppressive lines of thinking, like for example, the assumption that the only reason a gay man would want to be involved in a youth group is to have sexual access to boys. When you're thinking in the mode of QUEER=ALL SEX ALL THE TIME, that's the kind of conclusion that can easily be drawn. Because what else could possibly be on a gay man's mind, right?
Anyway, didn't mean to rant. Thanks for the review!
no subject
tw: hypothetical coerced sex
...oh dear. *pulls hair* Wow. Did not realize that was fucked up until just now.
Okay. So it was pretty common in my rarefied corner of Catholicism to claim that Mary had been given/dedicated to Temple service as a kid, like the prophet Samuel or... I think there's at least one other in the Old Testament, maybe Samson, I'm blanking here. Anyway, once she hit puberty, she'd be unclean on her period, couldn't stay in the Temple 24/7 like the little-kid and adult male dedicates. So the claim was that it was customary to make a sort of protectorate marriage arrangement where she'd legally marry an older man (Joseph) with the understanding that he'd respect her vow of virginity. None of that's the fucked up part.
See, I never saw any good evidence for any of that, and it's not doctrine, just tradition (as opposed to Tradition, which is required articles of faith, oh Catholics). So it was equally possible and rather more likely, in Catholic!JT's head, that the Bible account covered the basics -- that Mary was "a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph" and lived in Nazareth, a sworn virgin in her own mind but not an official Temple dedicate.
In which case. I concluded that Saint Joseph must have been asexual, because otherwise -- well, the way I recall putting it to myself was "what about poor St Joseph's conjugal rights?" Which, in retrospect, is fucked up and terrifying, and I cannot for the life of me recall what level of Catholic doctrine it was, whether it was actually doctrine or just one of those "...dude what, you made that up" deals that proliferate in the corners of a rules-lawyer-filled religion, but there you have it: conjugal rights were A Thing, as in getting married gave you a moral right to get sex from your spouse. If one partner secretly planned not to have sex, the marriage was invalid. Actually I'm pretty sure that was doctrine, because I had a friend who'd had one marriage annulled and then her second husband wanted their marriage annulled and you have pretty strict criteria, all of which I became very familiar with.
So anyway. You couldn't have Mary in an invalid marriage, you just couldn't. (The fact that it was Jewish marriage law at that point anyway did not apply, it couldn't be a retroactively invalid marriage by The Only Real Right Religious Law. Catholics. *jazz hands* Possibly all Christians, idk. ;P) So -- in my head -- Joseph must have voluntarily given up his conjugal rights, but if he was just a heterosexual sworn virgin too, then the two of them getting married would be pretty goddamn iffy on the validity front. So he had to be a non-repulsed asexual, willing to have sex if Mary would've wanted it but not going to demand it if she didn't.
(Because demanding sex isn't rape if they're married, because marriage is consent, because holy fuck Catholics are horrifying from this side of the great chasm sometimes. The amount of shit still lurking in here because I just haven't looked at it lately, wow.)
******
...sorry, that got incredibly long and possibly troubling, sorry. But yeah, having an "it's okay to not be sexual" role model on the level of Mary is pretty important if you're gonna not erase asexuality! :P
Re: tw: hypothetical coerced sex