JOSEPH GELFER

Further to my earlier post about the Integral Life Newsletter concerning “The Need for Men’s Liberation”, we are also directed to the article, “Feminine, Masculine, Female, and Male in the Integral Space” (Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 4(2), pp. 89–103) by Rebecca Bailin.

Bailin does a pretty good job of echoing my concerns about the integral treatment of gender, referring to the conflation of sex and gender, biological determinism in development, and even how integral gender flirts with the pre-trans fallacy. It’s a shame she didn’t get the chance to read my book, as I unpack these issues further still, but looking at the publication dates we were probably writing at the same time (I would also have cited her).

Bailin argues that Wilber et al stumble in this area because while they have a sufficiently nuanced position, they complement this with problematic casual statements, correctly stating:

It is not enough that these individuals use footnotes and more nuanced qualifications from time to time. The fact that they engage in public conversation with “sound bites” that lack sophistication around these matters has an impact on our academic and embodied efforts to avoid naïve essentialism (n. 6, p. 101)

But this is also where Bailin’s paper shows its limitations. Bailin focuses on these casual (“less academic”) sources, “to draw attention to the more vernacular and simplified ways of talking about these issues that pervade the integral community both in its academic and popular expressions” (ibid). This gives the impression that if those “more academic” sources were addressed, the story would look less grim, but the reality is quite the reverse. Where my own writing on this subject differs from Bailin’s is that I unpack those footnotes and expose how their contents offer deeper problems. In short, I would argue there is no nuance to integral gender.

My feeling, too, is that Bailin’s research in to this area is colored by her investment in integral theory; as such, she seeks to look upon it in the best possible light, salvaging what integral gender insight she can rather than the more reasonable conclusion of rejecting it as faulty.

In the end, integral theory brings nothing new to the table in regard to gender and the spirit which hasn’t been outlined in various forms for decades with feminist, gay and queer spiritualties; indeed, it unwinds some of the valuable progress made by these arguments.

Rarely a month goes by without the Wilberian Integral Machine pumping forth new evidence of its alignment with the men’s movement, as outlined in various blog posts here.

This week’s Integral Life Newsletter is entitled “The Need for Men’s Liberation” and directs readers to a conversation between Ken Wilber and Warren Farrell where they will be offered “Instant Insights” such as:

• “Power” is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life
• In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950′s, at the dawn of the feminist movement

Here’s the problem: Wilber and Farrell sound quite reasonable when they speak to issues such as “the urgent need for men to begin redefining their roles for today’s world”. However, when you scratch the surface, they begin to assert some rather more problematic positions. If you read my book you will find evidence for the following “Instant Insights”:

• Wilber distorts the work of feminist scholars such as Carol Gilligan, and claims they support his view, when they do not.
• Wilber and Farrell deny the historical reality of patriarchy, suggesting instead it was there to suit everyone.
• Wilber and Farrell’s consistent reframing of “feminism” and what it “really” means is an overt act of depoliticization and masculine power.
• Far from “redefining their roles for today’s world”, Wilber imprisons men and women into “types” on the AQAL matrix, falling foul of his own elegantly-formulated pre-trans fallacy.
• Wilber relegates “feminine” spiritual values to the pre-rational, stating “more men make it into the universal, postconventional moral stages than do women”.
• Wilber states that even in noospheric realms there can be no ultimate gender parity “given the unavoidable aspects of childbearing”.

How’s that for gender equality?

I know it’s getting rather boring with me making these comments about the integral men’s movement, but it seems that over the past year the Wilberian Integral Machine has gone on something of an offensive on this issue, which should be a worry for us all.

The next issue of Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality won’t go online until June; however, here’s a sneak preview of the first two papers:

Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark’s Male Disciples

Robert J. Myles (University of Auckland)

While conventional readings of the Bible unambiguously presume the normativity of heterosexuality and binary categories of gender, this paper challenges such modern assumptions by purposefully and strategically re-reading three Markan discipleship texts “sexually.”  By combining a socio-rhetorical approach with queer and gender criticism as informed primarily by the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, the re-readings attempt to penetrate through existing homophobic and erotophobic interpretations. Particular attention is also given to the ways in which the gender and sexuality of the male disciples has been constructed and can be problematized in both the world behind the text and the world in front of the text.

Inspire, Expire: Masculinity, Mortality and Meaning in Tim Winton’s Breath

Roie Thomas (Australian Catholic University)

Tim Winton’s latest novel and winner of the Miles Franklin award Breath (2009) is investigated here within a framework of theistic existentialism alongside a critique of masculinities in the Australian context. This novel presents a particular take on hegemonic masculinity and this dovetails neatly, I argue, with a continuum of spiritual consciousness and responsiveness drawn up by Danish creative writer and theological maverick, Søren Kierkegaard.

Dear Bracha

I have enjoyed dipping into your writing. I like that fact that your Flickr photos show you hanging out with groovy people like Jean-Francois Lyotard, Judith Butler, Emmanuel Levinas and a bunch of other people I’ve mostly never heard of, but who are no doubt very interesting as you bother to take their photos. I found your take on sexual difference via matrixial borderspace interesting, and a useful complement to spatial metaphors such as Anzaldua’s borderlands and Deleuze’s rhizome. I like the fact that your lack of fame relative to, say, Butler or Irigaray, means that citing you gives my readers the impression I am far better read in these areas than I actually am.

But sometimes, Bracha, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Take your recent article, Fragilization and Resistance in Studies in the Maternal. You state, for example:

The human capacity for inspiration revealed in artworking begins with an archaic transconnectedness by psychic strings, that bounds each I, as presubject, to its particular non-I(s), and first of all to its pre-maternal transubject – its archaic m/Other. Desire, born out of the kind of transmission that the string allows, doesn’t seek for objects. It languishes for specific almost-lost links. In jointness, I and non-I differently feel-know in-and-by inspiration-transpiriting by which they are differently transformed. In each jointness that succeeds to tremble a borderlinking string, different I(s) and non-I(s) will start, restart and continue to feel-know with-in one another and with-in forms, images and encounter-events, by way of sharing with-in new and older psychic webs while also imprinting and engraving their traces in them in shareable threads. Traces are cross-inscribed and transinscribed between transubjects and between transubject and transject. (pp. 11-12)

That’s easy for you to say.

In Fragilization and Resistance you use the prefix “trans” 216 times, which is over double the usage in Weaving a Woman Artist With-in the Matrixial Encounter-Event, published five years previously; you refer in some way to “spirit” 78 times in the new paper, and only 5 times in the older (the pdf reader counted those, not me: that would be a bit odd, wouldn’t it?).

Here’s my theory, which I allude to in Numen, Old Men, which was revealed to me via Griselda Pollock’s vision of your matrixial borderspace:

of madness, of psychosis, with no signifiers to relieve phantasms and hallucinations that bleakly register both the trauma and the solace of what we now come to recognise as the matrixial dimension

To which I wrote:

Is this not another, darker weaving of a place we have heard of before? Of sacramental mystery? Ātman? Non-dual awareness? The “thresholds of I and non-I emerging in co-existence”?

Bracha, I believe through all this you want to speak freely about spirituality, but feel embarrassed by it; but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of people eventually get tired with a secular-Leftist and psychoanalytically-informed worldview and make this turn: just read Irigaray’s work of recent years.

But I think the spiritual (as opposed to the psychoanalytic) dimension of your matrixial borderspace is better served by your painting than theory: it is, after all, pre-verbal (via the Real or, more accurately, trans-verbal). I think you could make a great living among the intelligentsia of Paris and Tel Aviv painting matrixial auras around them: oceans of bruised purple, brown and black. I’d seek you out if you did this.

Just my two cents,

Joseph.

There’s a shining new star on the theological horizon:

“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.”

Source: Elton John. (2010). ‘There’s A Lot Of Hate In The World’. Parade. Retrieved 20 February 2010 from http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/2010/elton-john-web-exclusive.html.

I see yet another revision of Candle in the Wind in the pipeline:

Goodbye Jesus Christ

Though I never knew you at all

You had the grace to hold yourself

While those around you crawled

They crawled out of the woodwork

And they whispered into your brain

They set you on the treadmill

And they made you change your name

And it seems to me you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you

But I was just a kid

Your candle burned out long before

Your legend ever did

Loneliness was tough

The toughest role you ever played

Hollywood created a superstar

And pain was the price you paid

Even when you died

Oh the press still hounded you

All the papers had to say

Was that the Nazarene was found in the nude

Goodbye Jesus Christ

From the young man in the 22nd row

Who sees you as something as more than sexual

More than just our holy homo

With all the sad business in Big Love at the moment about the experiences and ramifications of being a gay Mormon, it might be useful to check out the entry I wrote about this subject for LGBTQ America Today:

Mormons

Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) or any of the nearly 400 schismatic “Restorationist Movement” churches claiming belief in The Book of Mormon. While there is no scriptural guidance on the matter, over the past sixty years the LDS Church has developed an increasingly dim view of LGBTQ. This process began when Apostle Charles A. Callis was assigned to counsel Mormons who had committed adultery, fornication, or homosexual acts. Throughout the 1950s anti-gay sentiment began to gather momentum on a church-wide basis. In the 1960s the LDS-owned Brigham Young University began to expel actively gay students, a policy which continues today. In 1968, the General Handbook of Instructions, which outlines LDS policy, listed “homosexual acts” as a sin that could be punished with excommunication. In 1976 this sin was changed from “homosexual acts” to “homosexuality,” removing even the option of remaining in LDS as a gay celibate. LDS policy has since reverted to the earlier position where only “homosexual acts” are sinful. 1976 also saw the publication of Elder Boyd K. Packer’s pamphlet, To Young Men Only, that encourages teenage boys to assault anyone attempting to entice them in “immoral acts;” this pamphlet remains widely distributed.

The LDS Church has campaigned against LGBTQ via several high-profile public debates. In the 1970s the LDS Church sought to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, claiming it would result in an increase in homosexuality. The LDS Church employed a similar argument in its campaign against same-sex civil unions. More recently the LDS Church supported the Boy Scouts of America in their policy of excluding members on the basis of homosexuality, threatening to withdraw 400,000 Scouts if the policy was undermined.

Early LDS responses to homosexuality included counseling and aversion/shock therapy in an attempt to cure gay people, but this was shown to be unsuccessful. Over time LDS leaders have become better informed about LGBTQ, and their attitude has softened. The current stance is that “homosexual” is an adjective describing a temporary condition, not a noun describing a type of person, thus LGBTQ people are doctrinally considered to be simply heterosexuals “struggling with SSA” (same-sex attraction). The LDS Church seeks to work with gay people who chose to abstain and remain within the church, albeit with the “reorientation techniques” of Evergreen International, the Mormon wing of the ex-gay movement.

LGBTQ Mormons are, then, left with a familiar dilemma. Those who wish to remain in the LDS Church either remain in the closet or, if they are out, they must remain celibate. The only other option is to leave the LDS Church either voluntarily or by excommunication. One sad answer to this conundrum can be found in a number of suicides such as Clay Whitmer, D. J. Thompson, and Stuart Matis who in 2000 all took their lives in desperation at LDS support of Proposition 22 in California, a rule against same-sex/civil unions. There are a number of organizations that assist LGBTQ Mormons including Affirmation and LDS Reconciliation.

Further reading:

Fred Matis, Marilyn Matis & Ty Mansfield, In Quiet Desperation: Understanding The Challenge Of Same-gender Attraction (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2004).

Connell O’Donovan, “’The Abominable and Detestable Crime Against Nature’: A Revised History of Homosexuality & Mormonism, 1840-1980.” In Brent Corcoran (ed.), Multiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1994).

Rick Phillips, Conservative Christian Identity & Same-Sex Orientation: The Case Of Gay Mormons (New York: Peter Lang, 2005).

D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics Among 19th Century Americans: A Mormon Example (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).

Ron Schow, Wayne Schow & Marybeth Raynes (eds.), Peculiar People: Mormons and Same-Sex Orientation (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1991).

Recently, the Dalai Lama keeps making an appearance in my thoughts. Just before Christmas I saw him at the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Last week I was listening to some macho James Ray talk about injectable DMT and guzzling large jugs of ayahuasca, when he referred to the Dalai Lama as the “Big DL”, which made me chuckle given its double entendre. And today we read of the DL meeting Obama. Way before I got in to writing seriously, in those days when I used to do things just for fun rather than something to write about and critique, I saw the DL in his hometown of Dharamsala. Here are the notes from 1998:

After we had been in Dharamsala for a couple of weeks, we discovered we were lucky enough to be in town when the Dalai Lama was due to give a week of public lectures. When the security office opened to release passes there was a mad rush of queues and people trying to get photos taken for their pass. In a moment of pure spiritual tourism one Chilean – I saw his passport – took out his Osho community membership card and cut out the photo for his security pass to see the Dalai Lama. Osho had been pipped at the post.

Everyone was most excited when the day of the first lecture came around. People began queuing early at the gates of the Tsuglagkhang, the Dalai Lama’s temple, hoping for a good spot to place their cushions. Just before the main man was due to make an appearance, a ripple of excitement passed through the third of the outdoor temple reserved for Westerners. At first I thought the show might be beginning early but, as I turned around to see what was happening, I did not see the famous little man I was expecting, but another. There, dressed all in black with Indiana Jones-style glasses and a nap-sack was Richard Gere.

Gere had with him a painfully thin and beautiful assistant who was also dressed in black. In that moment, were the Dalai Lama to have come out, I am not sure who out of the two would have received the most adoration from the Western women present. Gere weaved his way to the front of the temple, for he had a comfy cushion securing his spot in advance, and took his position with open notebook. During that week Gere turned up each day looking progressively more rugged and pious as his grey beard began to grow. What a saint.

That was in a simpler world, when film stars and the DL in India seemed innocently amusing, rather than yet another tired example of glossy magazine-style spirituality. It was also pre-Web 2.0. If I was there in my early 20s now, I’d probably tweet it on the spot:

OMG in India at the DL’s monastery: Richard Gere here looking holy LOL!

Just yesterday I mentioned how a variety of countercultural themes can become commodified. How about this combination of masculinity, spirituality and commerce: the Be Present Men’s Movement Pant :

According to the retailer Asana Activewear: ‘Be Present’s lightweight “Breathe Weave” Fabric, great for yoga or hot summer days!’. The rather queer ‘men’s bottoms department’ continues the masculine spirituality vibe with Yogabela Men’s Gaucho Yoga Pant and Prana Men’s Sutra Yoga Pant.

What next, the Spiritual Warrior Thermal Vest? LOHAS venture capitalists should email me to discuss the value of my endorsement for such a clothing range.

Friend and 2012 colleague John Hoopes posted a link over at 2012 Tribe to our book (John is a contributor too), 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse. In response, one Tribalist asks:

Not sure how applicable the term “counterculture” is here. Are conservative Armaggedonite Christians countercultural? The current connotation of the word is “new age” and/or “hippie,” but seems like there are just as many holy rollers embracing the end as any other group.

This is an interesting point, and speaks to issues raised elsewhere in these pages, and in my 2012 book description as ‘the commodification of countercultural values’. When “new age” and “hippie” values are co-opted by the mainstream (chiefly mainstream commerce) in the way they are in the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) demographic, how can they be described as countercultural: surely they are simply cultural?

At the same time, conservative Christians who live according to their beliefs are in many ways countercultural, as they run counter to a secular, liberal mainstream culture. What’s the most countercultural example of sexuality on TV at the moment? I’d argue it’s Bill Henrickson’s polygamous family on Big Love. A fundamentalist Mormon hardly springs to mind as countercultural, but his polygamous lifestyle is wildly countercultural, and his desire to normalise it in the eyes of the community makes him something of a radical (albeit wearing a suit and tie). In a couple of conversations recently with more mission-minded Christians, I’ve bought the issue up of framing Christianity as a countercultural movement, and their eyes have lit up: from a cynical point of view they see the value of being countercultural in the eyes of the Boomer generation, who fetishized the countercultural to the point of suffocating it, and of course the young are always interested in that which superficially passes for radical; more genuinely, the gospel message is inherently radical and countercultural, both in a historical and contemporary context.

So in short, I think the term works in the title from whichever direction it’s viewed, even if those views aren’t themselves necessarily reconcilable.

Kay Baird, who explores the boundaries of women’s sexuality and spirituality over at Raising Persephone, has been kind enough to note some value in my recent JMMS editorial, Both Remedy and Poison: Religious Men and the Future of Peace. Having issues herself with the way the “feminine” is essentialised in literature about women’s sexuality, Baird sees some use in my point about leaving behind the essentialised male spirit.

It’s great that folks like Baird find a friendly voice in my writing, but it continues a path of those who are most receptive to my work, who are mostly:

• older straight women;
• gays and lesbians, young and old;
• older straight men.

In general, the people I have most difficulty communicating this message to are younger straight men and women: ironically, those closest to my own experience. No doubt this is largely due to life experience and having let go of the need to prove oneself by the regular standards of society; however, it’s a shame that younger folks (by which I mean anyone under 35), who we are led to believe are at the forefront of social change, are often among the most conformist when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality.