“Men,” writes David K. Li in the New York Post, “have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar – whether they’re straight or gay.”

While several studies have suggested that there are more gay men than lesbians, there have been more lesbian marriages than gay (male) ones by a margin of 3-to-2.  Since the Nutmeg State, for example, recognized same-sex marriages, “3,252 lesbian couples have wed . . . compared with just 2,053 gay guys.”

It does seem women seek to “nest” more than do men.  Guess some of our male fellows just prefer being the lone wolf.

(This is not the first time I’ve noted this phenomenon, but as I came across the (relatively recent) article while surfing the web, thought I would share it with y’all.)

I am finally getting around to reading Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction classic, The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that over the years, numerous friends and acquaintances have encouraged me to read, largely because she explores a topic that has long fascinated me — sexual difference.*

About half-way through the book, I find it at once the most brilliant work of science fiction I have ever read  – and among the most frustrating.  Brilliant because of Le Guin’s insights into how human sexual difference has defined our culture — the book is set on a planet where the humanoids are hermaphroditic.  Frustrating because, at times, it seems less a story than a reflection on sexual difference via conversations with and character sketches of some leading figures on the Planet Gethen (also called Winter), the setting for this novel.

What really got me thinking (and there is much in this book to get one thinking) was this paragraph in the chapter on “The Question of Sex”:

Consider: There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive.   In fact, the whole tendency to dualism that pervades human thinking may be found to be lessened, or changed, on Winter.

Perhaps, it is serendipitous that at the moment I read this book I am watching some lectures of Joseph Campbell on DVD.  That great scholar of myth is constantly talking about the images of difference which recur in mythological narratives and artwork (i.e,. the ying and the yang).  Carl Jung, one of Campbell’s mentors once wrote, “there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites“.  Without sex difference, Gethenian culture would necessarily lack such tension. (more…)

In the course of researching my dissertation, as I sought to show that Achilles’s rage represented an archetypal aspect of male behavior, I read many scientific studies on sexual difference as well as books considering those studies in the context of current cultural debates.   In their book Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women, geneticist Anne Moir and journalist David Jessel articulate the essence of this tension between sound science and politically-correct attitudes:

Recent decades have witnessed two contradictory processes; the development of scientific research into the differences between the sexes, and the political denial that such differences exist.

They write that if the reality of these differences make women angry,

. . . it is not because science has set at naught their hard won struggle towards equality; their wrath should rather be directed at those who have sought to misdirect and deny them of their very essence.  Many women in the last thirty or forty years have been brought up to believe that they are, or should be, ‘as good as the next man’, and in the process they have endured acute and unnecessary pain, frustration and disappointment.

Those passages came to mind earlier today when I was reading Christina Hoff Sommers’s, The WAR AGAINST BOYS: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.  That feminist scholar offered an argument similar to that put forward by Moir and Jessel:

I would argue that turning a blind eye to real differences and dogmatically insisting that masculinity and femininity are “created by culture” pose even more serious dangers of their own.

Science has shown that differences between men and women derive not from social construction, but our very biology.   (more…)

I had an interesting conversation last night with a straight friend who reported how his girlfriend constantly complains when hangs with his male buddies.  It’s not the first time I’ve heard about(or heard) a woman upset when her significant other spends times with his same-sex peers.  And yes, I’ve heard the reverse, men who get upset with their wives/girlfriends for their girls’ night out — or similar celebrations.

Our conversation reminded me that the straight folks (at least the ones I know) in the strongest marriages all engage in activities with their same-sex peers.  One of our readers enjoys a knitting circle with her female friends while her husband goes biking with his male buddies.  It seems that same-sex social contact is essential to the strength of their marriages.

I wonder how this plays out in same-sex relationships.  I have one lesbian friend who (sometimes jokingly) laments that her wife has a second spouse — the theater.  Perhaps, that second “marriage” contributes to the strength of her first.

Let me just throw this out for discussion.  It seems pretty clear that individuals in traditional marriages benefit by balancing their monogamous connection to a member of the “other” sex with associations in groups oftentimes composed only of members of their own sex.  How then do gay couples effect a similar balance?

As I conclude the first draft of the last primarily myth-based chapter in my dissertation, I am struggling with where exactly to place Tiresias.  I had intended to include him in this chapter where I consider the role Athene played in the journeys of the various non-Homeric heroes, but, well, the mythological mortal most renowned for his wisdom just doesn’t really belong there.

You see, most of the heroes in this chapter are the kind of heroes we liked to read about when we were boys, you know, bold and daring men who wrestle lions with sword-proof skins, fight many-headed dragons, tame man-eating horses, behead ugly witches, grapple with supernatural half-human, half bovine creatures, confront fire-breathing monsters with body parts of different animals and outwit sphinxes.

But, Tiresias never battled any of these beings.  And the only time he had anything to do with a serpent is when he saw two snakes, well, um, getting it on.  And that lead to his own transformation.  For seeing such a site, he became a woman.  Seven years later, he saw the same thing again and back he went to his masculine self.

Stories differ as to how he gained his wisdom.  In one version, he was called before Zeus and Hera to settle their dispute about who enjoyed sex more, the man or the woman.  When he replied that a woman does, Hera struck him blind.  Because one Olympian could not take away one gift (or one punishment) that another had given, Zeus gave him the gift of prophecy.

In another version, Tiresias, restored to his masculine form, caught Athene bathing naked.  More gracious than her half-sister Artemis, she merely blinded him, but then feeling she had acted too rashly (even she could not take back her own “gifts”) gave him the gift of wisdom.

So, there have it, the mortal from Greek mythology most renowned for his wisdom was the only Greek mortal to have lived as both a man and a woman.

Perhaps the greatest reason for my ambivalence on gay marriage is that as my psychological and mythological studies have touched on anthropology, culture history and ritual, I have observed that all cultures understand the institution as a pairing of the opposites, uniting two individuals of different sexes.  Across cultures, the bride and groom have always played different roles in the ceremony.  (Arnold van Gennep offers a good introduction to this in the chapter, “Betrothal and Marriage” in his classic, The Rites of Passage.)

That said, I believe that if the state recognizes traditional marriages, it should also recognize same-sex unions, but am just not beholden to the term “marriage” to define them.

Given the vast array of evidence from a multiplicity of disciplines* on sex difference, I remain troubled by using the term “marriage equality” to define the movement for state recognition of same-sex marriage.  It suggests that sex differences are meaningless or, to borrow a term of a discredited theory, are mere “social constructs.”

In his thoughtful consideration of marriage and Judge Walker’s opinion in today’s New York Times, Ross Douthat contends that gay and straight unions are not the same:

But if we just accept this shift [i.e., changing views of marriage), we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

Emphasis added.

Simply put, two men or two women relate to each other in a different manner than do one man and one woman.  It’s folly to suggest that sexual difference is meaningless, particularly given the vast amount of scientific research on the topic these past forty years.

Like Douthat, we would be wise to recognize that same-sex unions differ from different-sex ones.  And without an “Equal Rights Amendment” in the constitution, states are free to consider that difference in determining how to recognize those unions.  Perhaps, like the legislators of Vermont and New Hampshire, they will choose to call those unions “marriage” which is and should be their prerogative. (more…)

Shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down its Goodridge ruling mandating that the Bay State recognize same-sex marriages, I recall reading that just as more Americans came to support interracial marriage after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down it’s Loving decision in 1967, more would soon come to support same-sex marriage.

The polls don’t bear that assumption out, but they do, as I noticed last week show a dramatic uptick in support for same-sex civil unions.  About the time Goodridge was handed down, a slight plurality of Americans opposed same-sex civil unions.  Today, an overwhelming majority do — and that majority has been increasing (at least according to Pewe) at least since the Masachusetts decision.

Could it be that as the issue of same-sex marriage reached the national consciousness with the Massachusetts decision, people started thinking about the issue of same-sex relationships?  And once they started thinking about it, a number of people, once skeptical that same-sex relationships merited recognition, began to change their mind.  But, still they just didn’t wanted to call them marriages — which they wanted to reserve for different-sex couples.

This would explain the growing support for civil unions while support for same-sex marriage has effectively plateaued.

That decision thus changed the views of roughly one in eight Americans (a pretty substantial swing on a social issue in such a short time) on same-sex relationships.  Not what some activists who favor the judicial approach anticipated, but real progress nonetheless.

That’s my working hypothesis for now.  Much more on this in the coming week (hopefully).

* (more…)

Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds linked a piece which gets at the real problem of gay marriage perhaps better than anything I’ve read in the past few weeks. In his post, Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman?, Stuart Schneiderman writes “about experiments in Germany and the United Kingdom where men were treated with a nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin . . . a hormone that men and women possess, but that women possess in larger quantities”:

According to the article, it triggers labor pains, helps mothers to bond with their babies, and produces enhanced sensitivity and empathy.

The article fails to mention that when a woman has a sexual experience her body produces extra oxytocin, thereby drawing her closer to her lover. Researchers call oxytocin the “cuddle hormone.”

Oxytocin is one of the primary reasons why women who make a habit of hooking up cannot detach their emotions from their sexual experience as easily as men can.

Emphasis added.

And this difference why making the case for lesbian marriage is a heck of a lot easier than making the case for gay marriage, given that women more readily make an emotional commitment to their relationships than men do.  And seem to more innately understand the link between sexual fidelity and emotional commitment.  That said, our culture is replete with stories of women “taming” men, where the Lothario becomes a Romeo under the influence of a woman.

Marriage serves to resolve the natural tension between the sexes.

Now, this is not to say that we should not consider gay marriage because of the absence of sex difference between the partners, but instead that we should address that absence in our conversations on gay marriage.  And, in our personal lives, find means to incorporate the qualities contained in that tension in our relationships.

Yesterday on AOL’s Politics Daily, Ria Misra wrote a piece on a study comparing the sinkings of the Titanic and the Lusitania, now nearly a century ago which, well, I can’t get out of my head.  Perhaps because it relates to a matter I address in my dissertation, the civilizing of men.

According to a “study published in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences”

On the Titanic, children were about 15 percent more likely to survive and women approximately 50 percent more likely to survive than men on the ship. Young men were more likely to die on the Titanic, but on the Lusitania, young men were almost 8 percent more likely to survive than other passengers. Researchers attribute the difference to the extra time — just 2 hours 22 minutes — in which they say that social norms (“women and children first”) made it more likely that they were given seats on lifeboats.

You see

The Titanic sank slowly, over a period of 2 hours 40 minutes, while the Lusitania slipped beneath the waters in a matter of just 18 minutes. And that difference in time had a huge impact on who survived — a discrepancy researchers attribute to passengers on the Lusitania acting instinctively in self-preservation, and on the Titanic, passengers first helping other passengers.

Our first instinct as men is self-preservation, but when we have time to think, as did the passengers on the Titanic, we consider others.

We men do have noble instincts; they just need developing nurturing.

Jonah Goldberg could find inspiration in Anne Moir and David Jessel’s Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women for a sequel to his book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change.

The problem is that it is the apostles of sexual sameness who set the agenda; they would enact the laws and ban the books in a vain attempt to divert children from their natural sexual identities.  But the idea that we are all born with a clean slate of mine, a tabula rasa, ready for society to print its message upon, is a totalitarian’s dream.  And if, after all, we are what we are because of our biology, is it not as monstrous and hopeless a task to eliminate our differences as it was to create a master race?  There is a disturbing whiff of sexual fascism in the premises and prescriptions of those who advocate sexual neutrality.

How about calling this tome Sexual Fascism:  The Secret History of Feminism, from the Social Construction of Gender to Gloria Steinem’s Defense of Bill Clinton’s Philandering?

As I research the idea of male aggression for the chapter in my dissertation on why men need the goddess Athena, I encounter reams of evidence, from the social as well as the natural sciences, which provide substance to my “gut” suspicion of the term, “marriage equality.”

In their 1989 book, Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women, Anne Moir and David Jessel write:

A hundred years ago, the observation that men were different from women, in a whole range of aptitudes, skills, and abilities, would have been a leaden truism, a statement of the yawningly obvious.

Such a remark, uttered today would evoke very different reactions.

But, these differences are real and they go to the very heart of the debate about marriage:

The appreciation, for instance, that sex has different origins, motives and significance in the context of the male and female brains, that marriage is profoundly unnatural to the biology of the male, might make us better and more considerate husbands and wives.

Sex differences are not then a social construct and men and women see marriage in profoundly different terms, at least until their mutual sexual attraction brings them together in a committed relationship.  

We know how real those differences are from even such a zealous advocate of gay marriage as Andrew Sullivan.  He understands how hard monogamy is for men and offers excuses today for men’s failure to realize that ideal, a failure he refused to countenance when he was writing/debating gay marriage in the 1990s.

Does acknowledgement of these differences mean that gay people should abandon the struggle for state recognition of same-sex marriage?  For now, I’ll say, “not necessarily.”  It does mean, particularly given the results in Maine this past week, that we need change the way we approach the debate.

Maybe because I’ve been reading a lot of about sex differences lately that all this hullabaloo over the president’s golfing (and basketball) buddies has struck me as just that:  hullabaloo.  No more than a tempest in a teapot.  

So what if he golfs and plays basketball only with men?  If these outings are just for recreational purposes only, then he’s doing what the better part of his fellow citizens do every weekend.

Have you ever heard feminists get upset when women gather together without men?   

It happens all the time and has happened throughout history–and likely through prehistory as well.  Numerous anthropological studies show that primates also often gather together in conclaves which exclude the opposite sex.

Some have become so obsessed with gender equality that we alas have often lost sight of human nature.

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE:  This post was inspired by blogging law professor William A. Jacobson’s post on the same topic where he asks:

Let Obama play hoops and hit the links with the guys. Exactly which high-powered woman is he supposed to set a pick for, box out, or look the other way when she uses the foot wedge? Hillary? Maureen Dowd? Janet Napolitano?

Let’s criticize the president on his policies and not politicize his downtime.   We all need time to relax–and should be able to choose our companions when we do.

This quote from a book I’m reading for my dissertation, is particularly relevant to the debate on gay marriage:

A serious sex education begins by emphasizing the reasons why female sexuality is dramatically unlike male sexuality; it explains the natural reasons for female vulnerability.  It explains to women why they like to be courted and how their sexual restraint can encourage a courting culture.  It makes possible an education that does much more to rein in male sexuality.

The more serious studies of sex differences I read, the more ambivalent I become about gay marriage.

Perhaps I have been particularly fascinated by Kevin Jennings’ contention that, as a boy, he learned about the American ideal of masculinity from his adolescent older brother because I chanced upon it (if chance it was) the same week I’ve been studying the adolescent rage of various mythological heroes as part of my dissertation research.  Each of those heroes—and not just the Greeks—must learn to tame his rage, to control his passions, before accomplishing the truly great deeds of his life.

Indeed, Herakles had to complete his celebrated twelve labors, in large part, because of his murderous rage.  The murder was not seen as the apotheosis of his heroism, but as a hindrance to it.  He needed purify himself of his wicked deeds.

It is striking that Jennings would suggest an adolescent boy could pass on the cultural ideal of masculinity.  In fact, adolescent boys are those most in need of an education in mature masculinity.  Anyone who has studied myth or rudimentary male adolescent psychology understands the seemingly untamable energy of boys on the cusp of adulthood.

And it is the taming of the energy which signals their our advancement into adulthood.

American males are not brought up to kill our fellows in order to prove our masculinity, but to stand up for ourselves in the face of obloquy and adversity, replying to our attackers in just measure and to our misfortunes with calm forbearance.

Had we greater access to myth, we might better be able to articulate this masculine ideal.

I may or may not blog again on the case of Kevin Jennings.  I do have another post in my mind, but it’s basically just an expansion on a point I made in my last post on the topic.

I hope the readers who brought up the issue of “gray areas” in this case appreciate that I did indeed acknowledge those areas (perhaps implicitly) in the very post to which they attached their comments.  For I grant that, in this case, there are indeed gray areas (on the part of Jennings but not “Brewster’s” lavatory lover).  But, there aren’t always gray areas.

But, it seems sometimes that all too many of our fellow gays (and a large number of straights, particularly men) have decided to replace the Manichean division of sexual expression (“good” when inside marital bonds, otherwise, “bad”) with the notion (to borrow a line from the movie Saved!) that “it’s all a gray area.”  No, it’s not.

It is wrong for a man (or woman) to have sexual relations with a minor.  It is wrong for a married man or woman to cheat on his spouse.  It is wrong to promise fidelity to your boyfriend (or girlfriend) while carrying on with someone else.  And there are other things, many involving coercion, which are clearly wrong.

That said, the older I get, the more I realize how amazingly complicated our sexual expression is (and the more, many more, gray areas I find).  I still remain convinced that the highest form of sexual expression is between the two partners in a committed monogamous union.  But, not all of us are so fortunate to find ourselves in such a state, hence the gray areas.

That said, I fear that all too many in the gay community echo that silly notion from Saved! that it’s all a gray area.   (more…)

Just received an e-mail promoting something called the 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference to be held this November in West Palm Beach, Florida.  My first thought was that this was some kind of spoof, but then I looked at their agenda and saw that it was not.

While some of the language describing the conference sounds like PC gibberish, “The goal of the conference is to explore and begin undoing the heterosexist attitudes that exist on personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural levels,” they do address at least one issue which merits greater attention, the “scientifically unsound” methods of “reparative” theory (you know that stuff that’s supposed to cure us of our homosexual inclinations).

Beyond that, in the panels yet to be developed (they have issue a call for “workshop presentations”), I fear that the organizers seeks to label as “heterosexist” anyone who dares suggest there is a difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality, that is, that gender does make a difference in the way we relate to one another.

I do wish our blog had a significant source of outside income so I could attend the conference and report back to y’all on its proceedings.

I’m ambivalent about gay marriage in part because, in studying the history of the institution, we learn it is defined by gender difference.  Up until the 1990s, those cultures which have recognized same-sex unions either called  them something different than marriage or, if they did call them marriage, required one partner to live in the guise of the opposite sex.

And while today, we do not define gender roles as strictly as did most societies until the second half of the century just concluded — and as do many nations around the world, particularly the Islamic world, we can still see differences between the genders, particularly in the gay community.  Just contrast how gay men and lesbians relate to one another.

Despite these noticeable differences, the politically correct voices in academia and the gay movement, balk at acknowledging the reality of this experience.  In one breath, they tell us gender is a social construct, but in the next, they tell us sexual orientation is predetermined, it is, so speak, encoded in our DNA, leading blogger Gregory of Yardale to ask:

How is it the left can simultaneously claim that gender is a purely social construct, but homosexuality is determined by genetics?

Gender differences are more than just physiological, and our sexual orientation may well develop from a great variety of factors, some nature, some nurture.

In a wonderfully, insightful post on why woman are unhappier than ever, Ann Althouse concludes with a thought that really got me thinking:

Anyway, why are women so sad? I think it’s because we think about our feelings so much and care so much about being happy.

This applies to men as well.  When we try too hard to be happy, we don’t often find ourselves feeling any better.  It called to mind something I’ve experienced.  On those days, when I’ve had the choice to slack off or work hard.  It’s easier to slack off.  But, when I work hard, at the end of the day, I always end up feeling better.

Food for thought and commentary, perhaps.

Yesterday, while working out, I posed a hypothetical to a straight friend of mine, asking if he’d rather be funny-looking, but a nice guy or handsome and unkind.  He hesitate for a bit, then answered that he’d rather be funny-looking.

I had asked the question after seeing this well-built guy walk by, a straight man who always scowls and never has a kind word for anyone.  His cold presence called to mind another straight guy at our gym.  That man has a strange appearance; his workouts don’t seem to have altered his lanky physique, yet he always smiles and has something nice or clever to say when you greet him.  When I mentioned this guy (we’ll call him Larry though that’s not his real name) to my straight friend, his face lit up, “You know, he dates models.”

Somehow that made sense to me.  Larry is not the first funny-looking straight guy I know who dates beautiful women.  I’ve known overweight straight men with outgoing personalities, a great senses of humor and/or above-average abilities to listen who have dated strikingly attractive women.

Yet, if a gay guy were funny-looking, unless he were rich, he would certainly trouble finding a hot guy to date him, even if he had a most compelling personality.  The explanation is not in our sexuality, but our gender.  For whatever reason it seems men are more visual than women.  And more often than not, women just seem to value the person over his appearance.

This is not the first time I’ve noticed this nor am I the first person to say it.  It’s just something that struck me yesterday when I had that conversation . . .

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Leah writes:

Women often will take security – either physical or financial over looks.

I hate the idea that women are ‘better’ than men. We’re not. It’s just much easier to find fault with men since their faults are more ‘superficial’. Whereas it’s harder to pin point the woman’s weakness.