JOSEPH GELFER

Recently, the Integral Options blog turned my attention to a paper planned for the Integral Theory Conference by Marc Gafni called Spiritually Incorrect; Sex, Ethics and Injury. As some people know, Integral Friend Gafni has been accused of sexual misconduct with his students in the past. Gafni denies these allegations and uses the paper in question to discuss and defend his position on the subject.

This isn’t a post about Gafni’s paper, although I hope someone with the right inclination will do a thorough job of critiquing it, as both the content and the style are shockingly bad and does no favors to the integral community leaders who continue to rally around him while expecting to be taken seriously. This is a post about an excellent book that Gafni attempts to critique in his paper which I had not come across before called Sex in the Forbidden Zone: When Men in Power—Therapists, Doctors, Clergy, Teachers, and Others—Betray Women’s Trust by Peter Rutter.

As the title suggests, Rutter’s book is all about why men in power should not overstep sexual boundaries with women over whom they hold power. It stems from the author’s experience where he was close to overstepping the boundary himself (Rutter is a therapist), which he describes below:

I was overcome by an intoxicating mixture of the timeless freedom, and the timeless danger, that men feel when a forbidden woman’s sexuality becomes available to them. The freedom stems from the illusion of such moments in which a man can convince himself that nothing but sexual merger with the female body and spirit seems real. He shuts himself off from past and future, contemplating neither the motivation nor the consequences of his acts. The feeling of danger balances the one of freedom, for within this danger is the intuition that the act he is so strongly fantasizing may be wrong, that it may bring catastrophe on both himself and the woman. In the moment of deciding whether to cross the line, I felt all at once extremely powerful—and very, very vulnerable.

What I like about this book is that Rutter does a good job of showing how overstepping sexual boundaries is profoundly wrong, but nevertheless a temptation experienced by (and frequently acted upon) even very decent and ethically-centered men. He also does a good job of explaining how the massive cover-up of such wide-spread activities by other very decent and ethically-centered men is due to the secret envy of those men who have transgressed such boundaries, and that by allowing such transgressions to go unchecked the potential for future fantasy transgressions remains open to all. In doing so, Rutter navigates a very difficult middle way between critiquing his subject of enquiry without demonizing it.

While there may be some issues about broadly referring to “men” or “masculinity” in such a singular way, Rutter nevertheless provides one of the better accounts I’ve read about how “men” think. I don’t say this often, but I recommend this book.

A little while ago, I was contacted by Sarah Nicholson who is editing a book with Vanessa Fisher called Integral Explorations of Sex, Gender and Spirituality: Emerging Visions of Women and Men, under preparation for the new SUNY Press’ Integral Theory series. The blurb states:

This anthology highlights the cutting edge discourses on sex, gender and spirituality that are emerging from within the Integral paradigm of theory and practice. This collection of essays from academic theorists and advanced practitioners brings the Integral perspective to bear on issues of gender, sexuality, feminism, the men’s movement and women and men’s spirituality, as they appear within disciplines as diverse as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies and art theory. This anthology will feature a broad range of scholars and practitioners working across a diverse field of disciplines including: Ken Wilber, Elizabeth Debold, Robert Masters, Warren Farrell, Sarah Nicholson, Giles Herrada, R. Michael Fisher, Claire Zammit, Luke Fullagar, Vanessa Fisher, Diane Musho Hamilton and Marc Gafni.

Sarah wanted to know if I was interested in contributing to the book, to which I said something along the lines of “have you actually read any of my stuff?” Anyway, after a period of time which equates quite closely with how long it takes to find a copy of my modestly-distributed book in Australia, Sarah got back to me and repeated her question. So now we have settled upon the inclusion of an edit (minus some of the naughtier bits) of my integral chapter from Numen, Old Men in Sarah and Vanessa’s book.

Now, given that I’ve had a bit of a poke at a few of the other contributors in this book, lining up with them on the same Table of Contents seems a bit unlikely. But credit is due to Sarah and Vanessa: this is exactly the type of editorial decision that moves the debate along. It seems there are now a number of folks who want to pursue this debate (see my previous post on Rebecca Bailin’s paper): at some point this should affect the Integral Party line which hasn’t budged since the limited perspectives outlined in Sex, Ecology and Spirituality.

In Numen, Old Men I highlight how the integral community replicates many of the problems of the wider men’s movement, and new examples keep on cropping up. This week sees the Male Sexuality and the Masculine Invitation for a workshop in Salt Lake City. The spiel reads:

“For this 3-day weekend retreat at a beautiful, green-built, urban retreat center in Utah as Dragon’s Den begins its 2-year evolution of what it means to be a man in our postmodern world. Spiritual artist and teacher Dr. Rabbi Marc Gafni and his team of evolutionary teachers lead an exploration to find your cutting edge in body, mind and spirit through your masculine form. Discover how to hold your masculine power. Learn how to deepen, expand and deploy this power as the highest expression of your Authentic Divine Self. Navigate the unique demands of your life in an integral community of like-minded evolutionary men. Step into your greater wisdom, lead from a greater perspective and discover how your sexuality is essential to your purpose in the world.

During our 3-day retreat you will:

* Understand the 5 core characteristics of the Masculine Sexual Self

* Dive into the 5 dimensions of the Feminine Sexual Essence

* Gain integrated practices for working with Pain, Intimacy and Love

* Learn the 3 most potent practices to cultivate your Masculine Power

* Embody the new Emerging Masculine Identity for the 21st Century”

As I wrote back in The Guardian earlier this year in reference to the presentation of masculinity in Andrew Cohen’s EnlightenNext magazine, “It seems that if a man wants to express his spiritual side, whether it be in a church or at the glossy leading edge of spirituality, he is encouraged not to think of new ways of being a man, rather to revert back to the old”. The idea, outlined above, of “masculine power” doesn’t sound particularly “evolutionary” to me, nor do essentialist ideas about the “core characteristics” of the masculine self.

The workshop is claimed to be run by “a first-of-its-kind Men’s Integral Practice Community committed to the evolution of masculine leadership and consciousness”. So, from “power” to “masculine leadership”: welcome to the Integral Promise Keepers!

It’s also hard to ignore that the workshop is being run by Marc Gafni. Just as the integral community has aligned itself with Andrew Cohen, whose abuse of students has been alleged at What Enlightenment and a new book, so too Gafni who has been accused of sexual harassment before leaving Israel to pursue his career in the US.  It clearly doesn’t bother Ken Wilber that much, who has been fielding these accusations since 2006 and, according to Gafni’s website, he “holds the Chair of Integral Kabbalah at Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute”. Now, I don’t know enough to pass comment on these accusations, but it’s not a good look, is it?