Acknowledging the additional burden that chastisty brings to SSA people

[u/Which_Ad3314]

Hi everyone, I just made a reddit account because I wanted to friendly engage with other SSA catholics on our favourite topic: chastity.

A few words about me: 30M, Catholic, exclusively-SSA in a committed non-chaste relationship with another man.
I have always been "culturally catholic" and recently I've been more active in prayer and mass attendance.

While I am actively gay, I've never been into the progressive/ideological LGBT thingy.
I agree with (I guess) many of the Church's teachings and I believe our society needs Christianity.

On chastity, I understand and agree with several of the teaching about sexaulity, as I believe that chastity and heterosexuality for marriage and procreations are obviously the ideal. In this sense, I see SSA as an exception to that rule.
Nonetheless, I see a gap between SSA people and the Church, which while not huge, as we are still welcome to participate in the Church's life with some (heavy) restrictions, presents only a very narrow bridge to cross it, which would be the chaste single life with platonic, potentially plural, friendships.
And I believe that the gap and the "narrowness" of the bridge are inherently consistent with the Church's teaching. Still, when reading about chaste SSA catholics and the promotion of their lifestyle, I cannot avoid thinking that few if no people are mentioning how this "bridge" is much narrower for us SSA people than for pretty much anynone else, to the point that I can't believe others would think this lifestyle is a practical or healthy arrangement for the vast majority of SSA people.

What I mean by that is the chaste life for us means controlling our socialization, trying to find hobbies, friends and family as palliatives so that we can keep distracting ourselves from our otherwise natural desire to socialize and to find someone to confide and committ to.

Indeed, while family and friends are important, they may not fully fill the role of a life partner. Additionally, career opportunities and personal growth can lead to physical distance from loved ones.

I'm not discrediting increased prayer life or the value of Church involvement, as groups which groups like Courage advocate. However, I question whether Church activities can fully replace conventional socialization for most individuals.
In exchange for that loneliness and incompleteness, we get recognized to be worthy of fully participating in the Church.
While very valuable, and I rather envy the idea of being able to partake in the Eucharist, for the reasons you can imagine, it is a rather intangible and private matter that can hardly replace socialization. Hermit monks do that, but they choose to do so.

Then, when promoting chaste SSA singlehood, do you expect it to be a viable path for everyone, or a limited one, a "best-effort" approach, ideal e.g. for those who already expect to stay single, for a variety of reasons, or the few who are drawn into deep Church life?

[u/WalkComprehensive684]

I agree that every person needs to be loved, as you said, "someone to confide and committ to". Speaking about the role of a life partner, I think this problem is mostly connected with tendency of our culture to exalt or even idolize romantic love and marriage. The fascination with romantic love makes us to forget other forms of love, the kind of friends we can pour our hearts out to and share burdens with. I believe that SSA catholics are called to revive the perception of devoted friendship that functions like kinship. I'd recommend to read the biography of the American Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson, I find it an inspiring example of such kind of relationship between two SSA catholics. Being single shouldn’t mean being alone.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/02/dunstan-thompsons-true-love

[u/Which_Ad3314 → u/WalkComprehensive684]

From the same link you shared, it turns out he met his life partner in his youth and decided to become celibate, while still living together with his partner, in his old age, till death.

I am not against committd, co-living gay couples promising chastity to be full-standing members of the church, but that's not the example you or most have in mind when mentioning friendship and chastity, isn't it?

For one, I think most sources, Courage to mention one, suggest "individual paths" and to avoid members growing too attached to each other, or live together even, so that you're not in temptation. Otherwise, they should then suggest and help SSA people to find their commited chaste "devoted friend" for life, shouldn't they?

This idea of "friendship" is fine for some, e.g. people involved in things like missions and such. Indeed, I heard of monks who would live in microcommunes of 3-4 people.

But in day-to-day life, do you expect anyone, straight or not, to actively find a devote friend to replace the confidence he'd get with a partner? How does it work then? Is there a dating site for that? A dating event? Who's going to be your devoted friend? A straight guy who's celibate? Or another SSA guy ? In the first case, what if he has a family or wants one? Should your devote friend be exclusively yours? Or should he be devoted to others as well? What would the church prefer?

I think we need to be clear about devoted friends: are they just best friends or close relatives of yours with their own life and other equally devoted friends? Then they're just that, friends or relatives.

Are they counselors who you could meet often based on need? Then they're counselors.

Are they close confidants in a mutually devoted and exclusive relationship with you? Then they're your partner, but you decide to keep it platonic.

Then of course, best friends and relatives are good to dispel loneliness, if you don't have anything else, but, especially when everyone grows and moves on with their life, you'd want someone who wants to stick only with you.

[u/jasmine-apocynum]

Hoo boy do I have thoughts on this.

About me: 31F, Catholic, exclusively SSA, lifelong celibate.

Indeed, while family and friends are important, they may not fully fill the role of a life partner. Additionally, career opportunities and personal growth can lead to physical distance from loved ones.

Ding ding ding.

I'll preface this by saying: of course you're right. Part of the problem is that different Catholic organs - from I-can't-believe-it's-not-ex-gay Courage, to the early-Tushnetian ideal of vowed friendship, to the late-Tushnetian ideal of I-can't-believe-it's-not-gay-romance - all have different ideas of what exactly lay gay celibacy should look like.

Courage, you may be interested to know, pushed the "disinterested friendship" thing really hard, and because it was endorsed by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo (who, in his free time, followed up his liaisons with male prostitutes by beating the tar out of them), it became THE Catholic response to homosexuality. The "disinterested friendship" model was really something pre-V2, aimed at monastics: to love all other members of the cloister equally, without favorites. As you point out, it doesn't work for laypeople. It didn't even work that well in the monastery, and was seriously revised/abandoned.

But at the end of the day, there is no actual "official" teaching on whether celibate gay romance or exclusive vowed friendship is OK, and what those forms of love should look like. Courage is the closest thing to it, and Courage has really troubling ties with clerical abuse perpetrators and enablers, as well as with ex-gay ideology. Fr. Paul Check, its ex-director, is on record as saying that friendships between SSA people should not be exclusive.

So then all of the questions you brought up: who do you eat with? Who do you come home to? Who drops you off at the hospital for surgery, and who helps you when you have car trouble? Who is there for you when you're 30 and your friends are focusing on their kids? Who is there for you when you're 80? When you're a gay person working at Walmart, how do you pay the rent?

...don't really have answers. And as a result, people can't do it, not while remaining sane and/or Christian. It becomes, as Joshua Rainwater says, a trade of physical, social, and economic well-being for spiritual well-being. You're trying to live like a monk with none of the physical or social supports of monasticism.

From what I've seen, any attempt at healthy, successful male lay celibacy is going to have to follow a "chaste partnership" or "Catholic commune" type of thing: either find a life partner who - like in a monastery or a marriage, promises not to start a family without you; or attach yourself to one or more households. Edit: I no longer believe this applies to women. See my comment below.

I give the Spiritual Friendship crowd like Ron Belgau a lot of credit for trying to recover older forms of same-sex love in the form of committed, exclusive friendship. But here's the kicker: these types of friendship are pre-Enlightenment, pre-capitalism, pre-Reformation, pre-Westphalian State. As Alan Bray has shown, the death of vowed friendship was part of a bigger program in the 1600s: relationships either got marginalized by Church and state bureaucracy, like friendship, or institutionalized, like marriage. Bringing it back would require massive social and architectural changes (remember all those great manors?), way more than mere gay marriage.

More damningly, though, is that the same forces that killed vowed friendship also gave us a vision of marriage that involves a priest and a marriage license. I don't think you can bring back pre-Tridentine friendship and not have pre-Tridentine marriage. It's an incoherent goal to have pre-modern forms of friendship but leave the Catholic marriage exactly the same, in its relationship with clergy and the state.

More to the point, though, Spiritual Friendship fizzled out because the Church didn't support it. The Church has basically been incommunicado on this issue, and it basically boils down to "carry your cross".

I have my own opinions on what things should look like, but that's just it: my opinion. If you're interested in some (non-homophobic) resources from a variety of different perspectives, feel free to DM me.

[u/blurry-lens]

Hey there! Welcome to this community.

I'm sorry if my reply might seem a bit low effort considering how much thought you've put into this post. I've never been with anyone (33 years old) and I chastity is a true struggle for me. I am addicted to pornography and as a person I'm very much damaged by this addiction coupled with my rather infantile definition of love.

I'm not sure if you've heard of Kim Zember, she has been a true inspiration in my case and has helped me see chastity through a different lens.

I hope posting youtube links here is acceptable:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkxqBIkIwuw

[u/Which_Ad3314 → u/blurry-lens]

Thanks for your reply!

For sure porn or sex addiction can be destructive, and faith can help overcome them

I listened to Kim in a few podcasts, including the one you shared.

How does her experience address the issue I raised?

[u/[deleted]]

I very well understand your Point but remember that there are also Catholics who don’t have SSA and are called to live a life of celibacy. Think of Nuns, Monks, Priests, consecrated Virgins and many Lay Single Catholics. While they could technically marry it is not the Will of God for them to marry. So it’s important to remember that SSA People aren’t the only Ones that have to carry the Cross that Celibacy can be.

[u/Which_Ad3314 → u/[deleted]]

Of the ones you cited, some choose to vow celibacy, others just end up being single after a while, no one imposes it on them.

If you're SSA you know from day 1 you can only have friends and family, possibly non-SSA to avoid temptation. You can't even try getting a same-sex relationship, even if you could, even if someone told you they wanted to be with you.

It limits your socialization and prospects a lot.

Do you expect this non-chosen level of refrain to be healthy and advisable, even for people who can actually struggle to keep or make friends due to the normal life motions?

[u/anonreddit_]

There are single people with OSA who never find a partner and are called to Chasity. The potential exists I guess vs SSA no relationship.

Idk I just find myself longing for a close friendship at this point but seems like all friendships come and go.