Something I’ve been thinking about: Is it counterproductive to point out that far more sex crimes against children are committed by clergy than by queer folks?
This came from another thought: Are anti-queer bigots mad at the wrong people?
Which merged with another, longer thought: Imagine you’ve been taught your entire life that sex is never to be enjoyable. It’s only for procreation. Now, most people have sexual desires, some of them very compelling. And such people, taught to believe that sexuality is wrong and sinful, repress those feelings.
I was taught that way by one of my parents, who was a sexually repressed person. I have met other people who felt that way even more strongly.
Even believing as I do now that there’s nothing wrong with sexuality for pleasure, and that people have a wide variety of sexual desires, and that all sexuality is fine as long as it’s safe and consensual (and sane, but that follows logically for me), I still struggle a lot with shame and with talking about my desires.
So I can understand how someone who still believes that God is opposed to all sexual pleasure, and that the consequence for violating that is eternal damnation, would struggle with squaring that belief with strong desires for sexual expression outside of procreation.
Yep, that’s gonna make some people upset. Angry, even. Violently angry, perhaps.
But they can’t safely get angry at the people who told them that (their clergy and their parents), because that’s also a sin. Instead, they get angry at the people whose presence reminds them that these beliefs aren’t the only way.
It’s like someone who is trying to rid oneself of an unhealthy behavior, like smoking or eating too much candy, might get angry at people around them who are smoking or eating candy.
If only the queer folks could be rendered invisible, then one’s own sinful desires could be more easily suppressed.
Randomly related thing: I’ve been struggling with how much of my time I spend on my cell phone. I’ve been getting angry with my students for their own weak impulse control. And then this week, I snapped, in a good way: I decided I’m just going to stop using my cell phone during the school day, even during my prep time or hallway time. And my mood lifted: I took responsibility for my own behavior, instead of projecting my frustration onto my students.
Here’s the thing: I truly believe there’s nothing wrong with any safe and pleasurable sex act between consenting adults, but if someone else believes it’s a sin, fine for them. However, they’re responsible for squaring that belief with their urges.
Going back to the original question: If someone looks to their clergy as role models for self-control, reminding them that their clergy are some of the worst offenders isn’t going to help them focus on their own self-control. That’s not to say we should ignore the clergy’s problems with SA of children, it’s just to say that maybe we don’t need to bring it up repeatedly as a rebuttal in anti-queer discussions.
It doesn’t really matter who else is doing what. Here’s what matters: Queer folks aren’t categorically committing SA. Drag Queen Story Hour is not a sexual activity. Regardless of what you believe about your relationship with God, I’m not restricted by that.
Criminals should be held accountable. Full stop. That applies to queer people who commit SA, as well as to non-queer people.
But if my mere public existence stirs up feelings in you that you’re trying to repress, that’s not on me, that’s on you. So don’t get angry with me. Work it out without dragging me down.