meanings of “sex”

When the Weiner sexting story broke, I was on holiday in Amsterdam, where prostitution is legally regulated, and newsstands display Penthouse and Vogue magazines side-by-side. It was no surprise then that “Weinergate” seemed to be met by the Dutch with a “here the Americans go again” eye roll.

In contrast to the Dutch, Americans love sex scandals. We love them so much that in a good year we produce and consume not just one of these high-profile scandals, but several. For many of us interested in sexual justice, the juiciest stories are those of the hypocrites: the Elliot Spitzers who lead anti-prostitute campaigns while purchasing sex; the George Rekers who champion the anti-gay movement while hiring “rent boys,” and the Newt Gingrichs who lead impeachment hearings while engaging in their own extra-marital affairs.

And then there are people like Anthony Weiner: Charismatic heterosexual men in powerful positions who thrive on taking risks.
Guys who benefit from the security and social status of marriage but who also have ample time away from their partners. Men who are fierce defenders of reproductive rights, are friends with the likes of John Stewart and Ben Affleck, and who (understandably) have many dedicated women fans. In pre-Twitter and Facebook days (circa 2006), such public figures were sometimes called “rock stars”; their fans, “groupies.” Today, with the democratizing boost of social media, more of us than ever before can construct our own neo-rock star status, supported by “Facebook friends” and “twitter followers.”

The privileges taken by (mostly heterosexual male) rock stars are nothing new; what’s new is the neo-rock star’s ability to showcase their goods on such a massive scale. But with this newfound power of instantaneous social impact, private digital messages are increasingly impossible. It’s the equivalent of whispering sweet nothings into a megaphone; or asking the masses to kindly shut their eyes while they flash that one special love interest in the crowd.

When teen girls send sexy words and images (and those photos are intercepted and distributed by “frenemies” for the purpose of shaming them), American parents panic and talk about “ruined lives.” But what about when the “sexting” is between consenting adults? Is there any harm in Weiner’s actions, and if so, harm to whom?

From a legal perspective, it seems that there is no case against Weiner. He did initially lie to reporters, his “fans,” and possibly also to his wife, but not under oath (so no perjury). He has admitted to engaging in several digital affairs, but adult, consensual sexual liaisons outside of heterosexual marriage and reproductive sexuality are (gratefully) no longer criminalized in the United States. If Weiner had campaigned against “dangers” of sexting and the internet, we could bash him for being a hypocrite (but alas, he was too busy championing issues like insurance industry reform).

I do not yet know enough about the situations and interpretations of Weiner’s sexting partners to comment on whether or not these women ever felt harmed by his messages (at this point I have not seen any self-reports of negative impact). But I will venture to guess that all of them (as well as Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin) are being wounded by the invasive scrutiny of this media storm.

And so, from my perspective Weiner’s biggest “crime” may be that he was reckless with his neo-rock star privileges. I thus will
offer two pieces of sincere advice to Representative Anthony Wiener and other rising neo-rock stars:

1. Invest in a good therapist who will help you reflect upon your desires, social/sexual identities, and social privileges. This is crucial information for then reassessing your own goals for yourself and your relationships including your marriage.
2. Never confuse your fans and followers for your friends. This is especially important when operating under “schoolyard” conditions, where the status of one person or political interest depends on the beating down of others, and where conservative or knee-jerk normative definitions of “good” vs. “bad” sexuality rule.

Meanwhile, for the most part, American media coverage continues to uncritically replicate the notion that Weiner’s messages are simply “inappropriate” and “shameful.” And that’s why some of us with “Dutch” and sexual justice sensibilities — including us at Sexuality & Society — are rolling our eyes.

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Related Sexuality & Society stories:

• Lerum, K. Dec. 23, 2009. The real problem with sexting: Adult complicity in labeling teens “sluts,” “perverts,” and “criminals.”
  
• Dworkin, S. Dec. 17, 2009. Critically examining media coverage of Tiger Woods: Sex addict, masculine privilege, or racialized sexuality in sport?
  
• Lerum, K. May 2, 2010. Sex addiction clinics as capitalist confession booths.

It has been a Wild-kind of month for faculty, staff, and students at Marquette University and Seattle University. After President Wild of Marquette University tore up a signed job contract with a woman who would be their first “out” Lesbian administrator (Jodi O’Brien, of Seattle University) many faculty, staff, and students on both MU and SU campuses have been left in turmoil.

Although Marquette has managed to “resolve” this conflict with a negotiated settlement, President Wild’s actions call into question a number of basic academic assumptions including: 1) the honesty of Marquette University’s statements on commitments to diversity and anti-discrimination, 2) the assumption that GLBTQ people are welcome community members within Jesuit institutions (unlike conservative Catholic and Evangelical Protestant institutions, Jesuits are known for their tolerance, encouragement of fearless intellectual curiosity, and commitment to social justice), and 3) the assumption that University faculty have the rights and responsibilities of sharing the governance of their institution.

The recommendation to hire Dr. O’Brien as Dean of Arts & Sciences at Marquette came after two years of committee searches, interviews, and deliberations. The President and Provost of Marquette also met with committee members and all job candidates, and signed on with the decision to offer the job to O’Brien. This extensive vetting process was obliterated after two local conservative Catholic leaders (neither of them faculty or staff members at Marquette) caught wind of O’Brien’s hire. Somehow, unbelievably, these two men (Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki and Father Paul Hartmann, the archdiocese’s judicial vicar) were able to trump the entire academic administrative vetting process at MU. The search committee and was abruptly informed that their input — as well as O’Brien’s administrative leadership skills — was neither needed nor welcome.

Despite the strong suspicion among many that this is a clear case of discrimination based on sexual orientation, President Wild has maintained throughout the aftermath of his rescinded offer that this is simply about a mismatch between O’Brien’s scholarship and Marquette’s mission. Wild has yet to adequately specify how and where O’Brien’s scholarship is anti-Marquette, anti-Jesuit, or anti-Catholic, but Father Paul Hartmann (one of the two local church officials who complained) explains that O’Brien investigates a particular “subject matter” that may create “dichotomies,” “tensions,” and “contradictions.” According to the Milwaukee Sentinel (May 12, 2010):

“Hartmann sent a March 3 letter  to the chair of the search committee that said the gender studies professor “pursues subject matter that seems destined to actually create dichotomies and cause tensions (if not contradictions) with Marquette’s Catholic mission and identity.”

As long-time colleague, mentee, and friend of Jodi O’Brien, and as a former lecturer at Seattle University (a place I still hold near and dear to my heart) I am very familiar with O’Brien’s work, as well as her commitment to Jesuit education. Ironically, what the conservative church leaders fear is actually what makes O’Brien a successful Jesuit scholar and administrator. Namely, O’Brien’s ability to embrace (rather than denounce or deny) contradictions and tensions— may in fact be a pinnacle Jesuit model of intellectual and spiritually complexity.

In her 2009 Presidential address to the Pacific Sociological Association, Professor Jodi O’Brien describes the personal growth that comes with wrestling religious and spiritual contradictions:

My research with queer Christians led me to understand and define the social self as a process of wrestling contradiction. We are in a constant state of becoming. This “becoming” is shaped through processes of interaction and revealed through the internal dialogues in which we observe, feel, comment on, and try to make sense of our own complexity. The process of self-understanding is a dialectical process of definition, a continual interplay between personal experiences and attempts to fit experience into existing conceptual categories and representations. All of us struggle to make sense of ourselves, to find ways of self-expression, and to be heard and understood. Our sense of self undergoes constant revision as it encounters friction, contradiction, and conflict along the various boundaries that constitute meaning (O’Brien 2009, Pp. 15–16).

She continues to describe how the intellectual process of finding connections in the face of conflict provides an opportunity for personal as well as professional transformation:

Isn’t this what we’re doing as sociologists when we strive to practice scholarship that matters: finding connections, revealing patterns, striving to bridge seemingly contradictory perspectives by offering deeper, richer frameworks of understanding? My suggestion is that when we experience fully the contradiction, conflict, and pain of engaging with our own teaching and research, we can’t help but be transformed  …. This produces an epistemology of contradiction that, together with the principles of the “sociological imagination,” enables us to navigate through complex personal and professional terrain in ways that both resonate and inspire (O’Brien 2009, P. 20 )

Rather than embracing the powerful teaching moments of such everday contradictions, Marquette University officials have chosen to rescind them, putting themselves closer to the edges of rigidity, fear, and fundamentalism, rather than intellectual curiosity, creativity and, I would argue, spiritual vitality.

I will leave it to Jodi O’Brien to describe the nuances and evolution of her thinking throughout her illustrious scholarly career. However, for those interested in reading more about how stereotyping and prejudice works, O’Brien’s own social psychology textbook, The Production of Reality is a great resource.  In this text as well as in the dozens of lectures she’s given to churches and universities around the country, including other Jesuit Catholic universities, O’Brien teaches us about  the subject matter of  “permissible prejudice” – in other words, prejudice that is deemed ok if those in positions of authority justify it as such through their actions or non-actions.

And it is this critical perspective on prejudice and power that is the deeper “subject matter” at hand. This is the kind of subject matter that creates critical reflection on all forms of power relations, including but certainly not limited to that pertaining to religious institutions. This is precisely why those invested in maintaining an uncritical stance on particular power relations within the larger Marquette community needed her to leave; this is also precisely why Gay Catholics and religious academics need leaders like O’Brien now more than ever.

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Referenced and recommended sources:

O’Brien, J. (2009) “Sociology as an epistemology of contradiction.” Sociological Perspectives 52, 1, 5-22.

O’Brien, J. (2007).”Queer Tensions: The Cultural Politics of Belonging and exclusion in same gender marriage debates.”” Pp. 125-149 in Interdisciplinary Readings on Sex and Sexuality. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

O’Brien, J. (2005).  The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings in Social Interaction, 4^th Edition. Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press (Sage).

O’Brien, J.  (2002).  “Heterosexism and Homophobia.” Article length entry for the International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences.  Oxford: Elsevier Publishing.

Jaschick, S. “Stained Glass Ceiling.” Inside Higher Education. May 11, 2010.

While this case underscores timeless clashes between religion and sexuality—particularly in the form of gay and lesbian “permissible prejudice” within religious institutions — some argue that this discrimination is rising in a backlash movement against the fight for equal rights by gays and lesbians. For example, On March 6, 2010, the Washington Post reported that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican, advised Virginia’s public colleges and universities to revoke policies protecting employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

See also the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force statement on ending job discrimination.

Related posts on Sexuality & Society:

https://thesocietypages.org/sexuality/2010/05/12/in-annuling-contract-with-obrien-marquette-can-assume-its-missionary-position/

https://thesocietypages.org/sexuality/2010/05/10/marquette-rescinds-job-offer-to-sociologist-and-sexuality-scholar-jodi-obrien/

Administrators at Marquette University have found themselves in an awful mess this week after revoking a job offer to Jodi O’Brien, their top candidate  for the position of Dean of Arts & Sciences. (See our earlier post for details on the case).

The official reason for this radical breach of academic, professional, and legal decorum is still murky, coded in terms like “marriage,” “family,” and “the Catholic mission.” President Wild and Marquette spokesperson Mary Pat Pfeil claim that the reversal had nothing to do with the fact the O’Brien is a lesbian. Indeed, since she was “out” during the entire process, this might be true. Indeed, Marquette’s website includes several specific references to the idea that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not acceptable. Below is one example:

As a Catholic, Jesuit university, Marquette recognizes and cherishes the dignity of each individual regardless of age, culture, faith, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, language, disability or social class … Through our admissions and employment policies and practices, our curricular and co-curricular offerings, and our welcoming and caring campus environment, Marquette seeks to become a more diverse and inclusive academic community dedicated to the promotion of justice. … (Marquette University’s statement on Human Dignity and Diversity.)

So if O’Brien wasn’t disqualified because she is gay, per se, what is “really” going on? Maybe it’s just the sort of gay she is, the sort who likes to talk openly about sexuality, and moreover to discuss it critically within the context of social institutions such as religion and family. An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provides a few more clues in this direction:

Officials haven’t provided more detail about what writings might have raised red flags. But Wild told members of the dean search committee last week that there was an article in which “sex positions” and “sex toys” were mentioned, and that the passage could be interpreted as autobiographical, said psychology professor Stephen Franzoi, who served on the committee. O’Brien’s work includes a sociological study of vignettes on lesbian sex. Franzoi said members of the search committee reviewed the work again and did not believe the passages were autobiographical and that the article was a scholarly work.

So let’s get (or make) this story straight:

1. Jodi O’Brien has worked and lead for 15 years in a Jesuit institution (Seattle University), and is an enthusiastic proponent of the Jesuit mission (e.g. see her cover letter to Marquette).
2. Marquette’s interpretation of the Jesuit Mission is to NOT discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. 
3. Marquette and O’Brien agreed that their union would be mutually beneficial.
4. After Marquette proposed a job offer and O’Brien accepted, leaders in the Marquette extended family became concerned about O’Brien: In particular, her critique of the patriarchal family and her open discussion of non heteronormative sexuality. These previously unnamed members (today named as two Milwaukee archdiocese leaders, judicial vicar Paul Hartmann and Archbishop Jerome Listecki) became suspicious that O’Brien’s writings were not purely intellectual, but could be actual autobiographical and public representations of a sexual life led outside of heteronormative boundaries.

Simply stated, my conclusion is this: This is not a conflict between O’Brien’s lesbian identity and Marquette’s Catholic Jesuit Mission. This is about conservative, Milwaukee-based Church officials needing to divert the attention (of parishioners, as well as of media) away from critical sexuality scholarship and back toward its (silent) missionary position.

O’Brien’s critical sexuality scholarship is threatening to conservative Church leaders because it calls into question the utility of silence around discussing sexual matters. This is much more than just about an Archbishop’s distaste for sex toys: this is about a distaste for discussion of the great sexual variance found within the human species and analysis of how heterosexist family formations are not universal and “natural” but are created, regulated, and enforced by social institutions such as the Catholic Church.

Make no mistake, there are many people living and working within Catholic and Jesuit instituions who live their lives outside of heternormative married couples and families. The very core of Catholicism is based on elevating these non heteronormative models in the form of priests and nuns.

Unlike some religious traditions, Catholicism offers women and men a legitimate option to REFRAIN from marriage and to join vibrant homosocial communities. But the Marquette situation illustrates that this freedom from marriage and heterosexuality may be delicately balanced upon a strict code of silence. Even if a Marquette faculty or staff member has no personal interest in marriage or heterosexuality, the lesson learned here is that they must only discuss these views and practices in distinctly NON-SEXUAL ways. Although invisible on Marquette’s website, the consequence of violating the code of sexual silence is real. O’Brien got dis-invited to lead the Marquette family not because she crossed a line of heteronormativity, but because she discussed these matters publicly.

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Related Sexuality & Society blog posts:

Dworkin, S. and Lerum, K. “Marquette rescinds job offer to sociologist and sexuality scholar Jodi O’Brien.” May 10, 2010. 

Lerum, K. “Catholic Priests, Sexual Abuse, and Learning how to talk about sex in church.” Sexuality & Society March 29, 2010.

Referenced news articles:

Farden, K. “SU Prof. O’Brien was eager to take Dean position at Marquette.” Seattle University Spectator. May 12, 2010.  

Johnson, A, Sharif Durhams, S. and Ferral, K.”Listecki raised alarm over Marquette hiring: Comments are first indication Milwaukee archdiocese raised concerns about O’Brien.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. May 12, 2010.

When Madonna released “Like a Virgin” in 1984 she dedicated the album to “all the virgins of the world.”  At that time, her fans (including me, a reserved high school girl infatuated by Madonna’s commanding sexuality) thought we knew what she was talking about. But if this album were released today, it’s likely that many high schoolers and others would have a more diverse understanding about Madonna’s message.

This is because several forces have been in the works for many years (at least in mainstream American culture) which have allowed people to envision “sex” — and hence, virginity —  as including more than the presence or absence of heteronormative, procreative, penile-vaginal intercourse. (Societies and cultures across time have always had a variety of meanings attached to various sexual acts, so this shifting and broadening perspective on “sex” is actually a global norm). A new study from researchers at The Kinsey Institute provides further empirical support that the idea of “having sex” is not seen as static or universal in contemporary US culture. The following comes from a press release from Indiana University, which houses the Kinsey Institute:

The study involved responses from 486 Indiana residents who took part in a telephone survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research at IU. Participants, mostly heterosexual, were asked, “Would you say you ‘had sex’ with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was …,” followed by 14 behaviorally specific items. Here are some of the results:

• Responses did not differ significantly overall for men and women. The study involved 204 men and 282 women.
• 95 percent of respondents would consider penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) having had sex, but this rate drops to 89 percent if there is no ejaculation.
• 81 percent considered penile-anal intercourse having had sex, with the rate dropping to 77 percent for men in the youngest age group (18-29), 50 percent for men in the oldest age group (65 and up) and 67 percent for women in the oldest age group.
• 71 percent and 73 percent considered oral contact with a partner’s genitals (OG), either performing or receiving, as having had sex.
• Men in the youngest and oldest age groups were less likely to answer “yes” compared with the middle two age groups for when they performed OG.
• Significantly fewer men in the oldest age group answered “yes” for PVI (77 percent)

…   William L. Yarber, RCAP’s senior director and co-author of the study, said its findings reaffirm the need to be specific about behaviors when talking about sex. 

According to Yarber, because “There’s a vagueness of what sex is in our culture and media,” it is especially important for sexual health workers to be specific about what they mean when they talk about sex:  

“If people don’t consider certain behaviors sex, they might not think sexual health messages about risk pertain to them. The AIDS epidemic has forced us to be much more specific about behaviors, as far as identifying specific behaviors that put people at risk instead of just sex in general. But there’s still room for improvement.”

These study results appear to show that respondents have a broad range of understandings of sex: Men and women across generations are likely to count “sex” as including oral, anal, and vaginal activities. And while many assume that sexual change always starts with youth, this study indicates that the attitudes and behaviors of older men (who were LEAST likely to count penile-vaginal activities as sex) as not what we might expect. 

Given the disconnect between popular culture and people’s lived experiences around sexuality, I have a proposal:

• To Madonna: I think that you should re-release “Like a Virgin” in 2014, 30 yrs after its original release, and partner with sexual health organizations like SIECUS and the Guttmacher Institute to critically discuss the various meanings and cultural associations attached to being a “virgin” as well as being “like a virgin.”
• To sexual health workers: By entering into a cultural conversation around the varied meanings that people attach to virginity and sex, you would open up a needed, and much broader conversation about sexuality, health, and the various pathways to living a vibrant life. (Plus, come on, how cool would it be to partner with the goddess herself?!)

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Study citation: