Review: The End of Sexual Identity

Should we stop using labels like "gay" and "straight"?

In her book, The End of Sexuality Identity, Jenell Paris has an admirable goal, but one that is not without problems. Paris wants to counter unfair judgment of gay people by doing away with sexual identity labels for everyone. Yet some use this same idea to argue that reference to oneself as "gay" or "lesbian" is always wrong—even if one is predominantly attracted to the same-sex. A significantly harmful aspect of the ex-gay movement was/is the deceptive phrase "I am no longer gay," often stated despite continued same-sex attraction. Participants were counseled to only acknowledge an identity in Christ, leading to the false impression that their sexual orientation had changed. Conservative politicians have used these testimonies to fight basic civil rights for gay people (employment, housing, services), claiming that being gay is a choice. Using Paris's book as a backdrop, I discuss the problem of trying to eliminate sexual identity.

Paris is concerned about the moral superiority that many straight Christians have that cause them to judge those who are gay. She believes the categories "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are unhelpful constructs that create unnecessary division between groups of people. Paris proposes an end to sexual identity. By refusing to take on a label of straight or gay, she hopes to level the playing field as each of us considers the other first and foremost as a human being created by God. Paris, a professor at Messiah College, tells her students that she is not heterosexual—even though she recognizes that her sexual identity is apparent (she is married with children, etc). She argues that she does not want to be heterosexual because she does not want a life of privilege in which other people are marginalized.

Paris offers an important message to Christians who have alienated gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as completely Other. But, there is a fundamental and important problem with her thesis; she takes a "love is color blind" approach. This common phrase was popular awhile back as a way of speaking against racism. Yet, many have pointed out the significant flaw in that concept. If one has to pretend not to see a Black person's skin in order to love her, how is that love? Rather, true love sees a person's skin color and loves him with that skin. Furthermore, pretending a person is not Black does nothing to eliminate the very real embodied existence of people, including discriminatory systems.

This is true for sex and gender as well. Pretending that no categories of male and female exist allows oppressive power dynamics to go unchecked. Everyone turns a blind eye to male privilege. Similarly, we can’t pretend that those outside the binary don’t exist (e.g. intersex people). Ultimately, we cannot live in a "sexuality blind" or "gender blind" world. The solution is not to pretend these various realities don't exist, but rather to shape our hearts and minds such that we humanize those who are different from ourselves.

Whether or not we use labels, we display our sexuality on a daily basis in myriad ways. The moment a gay person reaches over to hold the hand of his partner while sitting in a restaurant, his orientation becomes known. It's precisely because human sexuality is so public and visible that gay and lesbian people have fought to come up for air. Having to hide such a public aspect of self is exhausting and leads to a life of pretense. It's not that sexual identity is a new invention, but that heterosexual identity is so ingrained in the cultural structure that the privileged take it for granted. Cultures across history have had all kinds of rituals and markers to proclaim their sexual identity—marriage rites, courting/mating rituals, customs around procreation, and boundaries of who and who is not an appropriate sexual partner.

Gay and lesbian people have lived in secrecy precisely because everyone knows exactly what a heterosexual is and exactly what does not conform to that expectation. Despite Paris's book focusing on the issue of sexual identity, it's strangely silent on why gay, lesbian, and bisexual people use sexual identity labels in the first place. Paris can easily dismiss sexual identity because her status is privileged and accepted. In fact, she can refuse to use the term heterosexual but she is still marked, recognized, and treated as such by how she lives her life. But for those of us who do not fit the norm, having some ability to name our experience is very important. We no longer have to pretend our lives are like everyone else's. It's exhausting not to be able to share our lives transparently. It prevents us from having authentic human connections with others.

Even when I was in the closet and didn't label myself, other people raised questions that inadvertently identified me. I recall in college some of my female friends talking about boys when they suddenly stopped and said, "Karen, how come you never talk about boys?" Even without disclosing my sexuality, they knew I was different because I could not participate in expected social conversation and behavior. Why wasn't I dating any male classmates? Or why did I like the female characters in the movie while my friends gushed over the boys? Why wasn't I married yet? Or what about simple conversations about dating history and being in love? And this is true even when I was not dating! If I had been in a dating relationship, I would only have needed to open my mouth and say what I was doing on a Friday night (going on a date) in order to disclose my difference.

Paris wants to assert that sexual identity is a social construct. She writes, "Desires, however biologically grounded, are formed by culture; we can't want what we don't know." To the contrary! We can and quite often are surprised by unexpected desire. I had no known exposure to gay people growing up. Gay people were seen as utterly alien and degenerate people outside the Church. But I was gender-atypical from the get-go, a tomboy. I had crushes on girls even before the crushes became sexual. I have never been in love with a man in my life, but I have definitely experienced being in love with more than one woman. When I have tried to kiss a person of the opposite sex, I felt nothing at best and sick to my stomach at worst. But, kissing a woman is incredibly powerful and beautiful. Coming to terms with my sexuality after falling in love with my best friend was extremely traumatic because I could not fathom how a good Christian girl like me could possibly be gay. My sexual orientation happened to me despite the way I was raised to anticipate a heterosexual marriage. And I should be able to name that.

So one can try to argue that sexual identity is a social construct, but rejecting labels does not change reality. The renunciation of sexual identity easily perpetuates a deception, a pretense. We all know there is such a thing as "a person who is predominately attracted to the same-sex" or a "a person who is predominately attracted to the opposite sex." You can call them whatever you want or just use lengthy descriptive phrases like I just did. But these realities exist. Prejudice does not exist because we use terms like "straight" and "gay." Prejudice is evoked the moment someone sees a man hold his male partner's hand and revulsion is the automatic response.

Instead of pretending these realities don't exist by refusing to give them a name, we need to be Christians who don't have to be blind in order to love. We need to be Christians who have our eyes wide open and are filled with compassion and understanding when we see, actually see, the human being who stands before us—however different she is.