Review: The End of Sexual Identity

At some point in my journey when I began to see the virtue and blessing of cross-gender friendships, I began to realize deeper discernment is needed among evangelicals regarding sexuality than a universal, one-size-fits-all approach for everyone. Jenell Williams Paris in her new book, The End of Sexual Identity, observes, "Sexual holiness is often described as an unchanging ethic, universally applicable to Christians at all times and places, but it's not" (emphasis mine). For those of you who are reading this with a more conservative bent, I encourage you to think about that. In Christian history, for example, during one stretch it was considered wise for husbands and wives to have sex only certain times of the year. If you think that husbands and wives should have sex more often, then, sexual holiness becomes shaped by Scripture, tradition, and our present culture.

 

On the back cover of the book, the publisher IVP, states "Anthropologist Jenell Williams Paris offers a Christian framework for sexual holiness that accounts for complex postmodern realities." Jenell does that. As an evangelical, she does present an evangelical perspective of sexual holiness in the postmodern world. She is going make a lot of people nervous. She's going to upset some. There will be others who will read her account as an anthropologist who is too caught up in the cultural milieu of her day and lost her Christian bearings. 

I highly recommend Jenell's book. It is an important book in the conversation on sexual identity, sexual fluidity, heterosexuality, homosexuality, and Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. Even if you end up not agreeing with her, Jenell offers a compelling Christian critique on homosexuality and heterosexuality as sexual identities. 

As an anthropologist, it's not surprising she explores social construction in sexuality. I know some conservative Christians will write her off in doing so believing she going against created order (nature) in naming heterosexuality as a social construction. She is also going to make a few nervous or upset in the LGBT community when she posits homosexuality as a social construction, too. "Homosexuality," she writes, "as an identity category is not something that arrived in our world directly from creation (in which case it would be good) nor directly from the Fall (in which case it would be bad)."

I believe she makes an incredibly perceptive point when she sees both of these as social constructions that call for deeper Christian discernment. These categories didn't even exist for thousands of years. They didn't become "popular" until early twentieth century. "Sexual identity is a Western, nineteenth-century formulation of what it means to be human. It's grounded in a belief that the direction of one's sexual desire is identity-constituting, earning each individual a label (gay, lesbian, straight, etc.) and social role." 

She rightly notes, "Of all humans who have ever lived, very few have had sexual identities."

I encourage you to read her chapters on heterosexuality and homosexuality. I see the richness, complexity, and fallenness of sexuality and humanity beyond the modern categories of sexual identity. I loved her illustration of the two grocery bags. 

For me personally, "sexual holiness" has never been the same since I started to warm up to the rich possibility of transmarital cross-gender friendships. Jenell's chapter on "The Promise of Sexual Holiness" reframes holiness beyond a simplistic, one-size-fits-all, moralism. "When we pursue sexual holiness, we seek to give and receive love with God and with other people in and through our sexuality." She adds, "In post-sexual identity Christian communties, sexual holiness becomes a common standard for all believers."  As I read her book, I discovered using her language, I am Christian, an evangelical who finds myself in what Jenell describes as a post-sexual identity Christian community.  

I was intrigued by her chapter on celibacy. In my research on sexuality and friendship throughout the centuries celibacy was always somewhere in the center. I think this is where we need to explore the social construct of sexualized friendship. In the romantic myth, many people in same-sex relationships and cross-sex relationships search for sexual happiness and fulfillment and don't find it. I was somewhat disappointed with this chapter. But on the other hand, like the rest of the book, Jenell has some important nuances and insights.

 

Comments

[Karen]

This is an interesting book that delves on the many facets of sexuality which many consider as taboo.