Greta Christina's Blog

Sexual Perspective, Or, How Can You Eat That?

Please note: This piece discusses some aspects of my personal sex life -- not in a lot of detail, but it may be a bit too much information for family members and others who don't want to read about my sex life. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

"Nobody in their right mind would want to do that. You'd have to be desperate/ damaged/ strung out on drugs to do that."

This argument gets used a lot by people who are against porn, prostitution, other kinds of sex work. And those of us who have actually been in sex work and not loathed it (or who know people who have) tend to counter simply by offering counter-examples: raising our hands, pointing to ourselves and each other, saying, "Me. Over here. Did sex work. Liked it (or didn’t hate it). Not a basket case. Case closed."

But I think there's a core assumption underlying the argument, one that makes it hard to argue against merely by offering boring old evidence. And it's an assumption that doesn't just apply to sex work. It's an assumption that gets applied to all kinds of sexual variation... and not with very happy results.

The assumption is this:

"Everyone must like -- and dislike -- the same sexual things I do."

"If other people do sexual things that I don't enjoy," the thinking goes, "they must not be enjoying it either. And there must be something dreadfully wrong with them for them to do sexual things that are so obviously not enjoyable. They must be troubled, crazy, under coercion."

(And let’s not forget the parallel notion: If other people don't enjoy things that I do enjoy, there must be something wrong with them as well. They must be repressed, uptight, out of touch with their bodies. The sex-positive world can fall prey to these assumptions, too. I certainly have. "Everyone is basically bisexual, if they would just be honest with themselves"... Loki in Heaven, was I ever really that young?)

I don't think this is always a conscious assumption. But I think it's a common one. And it's led to a lot of trouble: misunderstanding and conflict at best, outright hostility and oppression at worst. I think it’s at the core of the "women don't really like anal sex/ giving blowjobs/ getting spanked/ whatever, and if they do it it's because they've been brainwashed by the patriarchy" argument that's so deeply enriched the lives of so many sex-loving women. And more seriously, I think it was a major factor behind decades of putting homosexuals in psychiatric wards. "I find the idea of sucking another man's cock repulsive... therefore, any man who likes to suck another man's cock must have something horribly wrong with him."

It's a terrible argument. Stupid, illogical, harmful.

But I actually have more sympathy for it than you might imagine.

I think it's always hard to really, truly grasp that other people’s tastes are different from your own. Especially when it comes to strong, emotional, visceral experiences. Myself, I am utterly baffled by the fact that anyone on this earth would voluntarily eat broccoli. The stuff tastes like concentrated essence of vileness to me, and the thought of people voluntarily putting it in their mouths makes me recoil.

Food, music, sex: all of these are powerful, visceral, intensely personal, even overwhelming experiences. And it's very hard to step back from them and have perspective on how other people might feel about them. Our own feelings about them can be so intense, so all-encompassing, that it makes perspective difficult, even counter-intuitive.

But when it comes to food and music, we have years of experience to teach us perspective. People talk about their musical and culinary tastes loudly, proudly, in great detail and at great length. You often can't get people to shut up about it. We’re exposed to a wide variety of musical and culinary tastes almost every day of our lives.

So unless you're pathologically stubborn, you eventually learn perspective. You figure out that, as much as you may personally dislike broccoli or blue cheese, Wagner or Western Swing, people who eat it/ listen to it are not mentally deranged. (Or the reverse: that as much as you may personally enjoy these delights, people who don't like them are not pathologically cut off from the one true source of pleasure and meaning.) People still do sometimes make personal judgments about others based on their tastes in food and music; but those judgments don't usually result in people being sent to the county jail or the loony bin.

But when it comes to sex, most of us don't get that kind of training. People don't come back to work on Mondays and chat about how they tried spanking over the weekend, they way they'll chat about how they tried a new Moroccan restaurant or went to see a German funk band their brother told them about. They don't go to parties and share a funny story about the new buttplug they just bought, the way they'll tell a funny story about trying to make a salmon souffle for their in-laws or the weird harpist who opened for Radiohead. (Well, they sometimes do at my parties... but you know what I mean.) Most of us haven't been regaled with myriad and varied stories about exactly what kinds of sex other people like, and why exactly they like it.

It's better now than it once was, by a long shot. The amount of sexual information that's easily available today far surpasses anything I had when I was young. But most of us still don't get exposed to a widely varied range of sexual tastes... not the way we get exposed to a barrage of different tastes in music and food, simply as part of everyday life.

And I think that casual barrage is exactly what we need to break through the intensely personal, intensely visceral nature of our sensual experience and give us perspective on it. It's what we need to teach us that other people really and truly feel differently about sex than we do.

What's more, it's what we need to teach us this, not just with one or two specific examples, but as a general principle. People will often get it about one particular sexual variation, without getting it about sexual variation in general. I mean, plenty of straight people genuinely understand that gay people actually do enjoy their gay sex... but still have to start from scratch when it comes to SM or blowjobs or sex work.

Which brings me back to sex work, and the counter-examples, and the sex workers raising our hands all over the world and saying, "I'm actually pretty okay with this."

Because while offering "Don't tell me what I like! I do so like that!" counter-examples may not work in any particular argument over any particular sexual variation, I think that in the long run, it's exactly what we need to make these arguments eventually go away. I think if we want a world where people have perspective on their own sexual likes and dislikes, a world where we treat varied tastes in sex the way we treat varied tastes in music or food, we need to talk more about what we do and don’t like in bed. We need to give each other counter-examples, and plenty of 'em. We need to give each other a world where the basic fact of sexual variation is commonplace, familiar... and unsurprising.

Blog Carnivals!

Blog carnival roundup!

First, there's a nifty new blog carnival in town: Carnival of Sex and Sexuality #1, at Homo Academicus. Read it, link to it, send in your sex-related blog posts to the second edition. Let's keep this thing going!

Also:

Carnival of the Godless #91 at State of Protest.

Skeptic's Circle #86 at Skepbitch.

Carnival of the Liberals #64 at Sir Robin Rides Away. (BTW, the next Carnival of the Liberals has an -- optional -- theme of skepticism and critical thinking in American politics. Skeptical bloggers, be sure to get in on this one!)

Carnival of Feminists #58 at Be a Good Human.

And finally, always my favorite blog carnival: Humanist Symposium #19 at Letters from a Broad.

Happy reading, everybody!

The Harm Reduction Model of Life

Due to both chance and temperament, I have a lot of friends who work (or have worked) in public health. (Including, of course, my darling wife.) As a result, I hear a lot about the concept of harm reduction. And once I started learning about harm reduction, I found that it isn't just a useful model for public health and public policy. It's an unbelievably useful model for life in general.

It's a concept that I think a lot of people would be interested in. Humanists especially, but not just them. So I thought I'd take a moment and gas on about it for a bit.

Let's talk about public health for a moment first. For those who aren't familiar, here's the basic idea. When dealing with a public health problem, the harm reduction model says that you don't necessarily have to completely solve or eliminate the problem in order to make important improvements. It's a worthwhile goal to simply reduce the degree of the problem, reduce the harm done by the problem, and improve the quality of life for people experiencing the problem.

In fact, harm reduction proponents often don't see "problems" the way society as a whole typically does. Rather than making moral judgments about drugs or sex or whatever, the harm reduction model accepts these things as basic human behaviors that have been part of life for as long as we've been around. It doesn't see these things as problems per se, but as elements of human life that can sometimes cause problems. And rather than passing judgement on where people need to be in their lives before they can use or deserve help, it aims to "meet people where they are" -- whether that's regarding drug use, sex, or whatever -- and to give everyone who wants them the tools they need to reduce harm in their lives.

(It's essentially the opposite of a "zero tolerance" or "abstinence-based" model. If you're curious, the Harm Reduction Coalition has a more detailed explanation -- as it relates to drug use, which is where the concept originated, but the principles can be applied to many other public health and public policy issues.)

In other words, you don't have to make problems disappear. You just have to make them better. (And in some cases, trying to make problems disappear can actually do more harm than good.)

The classic example of harm reduction is needle exchange. Needle exchange programs are a response to the high rate of HIV transmission among injection drug users: they give clean needles to users in exchange for used ones, so users aren't sharing dirty needles. Now, a "zero tolerance" policy would say that illegal drugs are, well, illegal, and bad, harmful to the users and to society, and society can't condone their use in any way -- including giving clean needles to users.

Harm reduction, on the other hand, says that:

a) it's good to reduce HIV transmission in injection drug users, since that will reduce HIV transmission in the general population;

b) it's good to reduce HIV transmission in injection drug users, so that more of them can have healthy lives when and if they do get sober ("you can't get clean if you're dead" is a classic needle-exchange saying);

c) it's good to reduce HIV transmission in injection drug users, because they're, you know, human beings. Their lives have value. The fact that they're injection drug users doesn't change that. It is worth helping them stay alive and stay as healthy and happy as possible... as much as it is for anybody.

Another example is sex education. Zero tolerance says that underaged sex is an unequivocal evil that cannot be tolerated by society, and the only appropriate response is to try to stop it entirely. The harm reduction model says that, even if you don't love the fact that minors are having sex, you not loving it is not going to stop it from happening... and we therefore need to find the most effective ways to stop its harmful effects, such as teenage pregnancy and STIs. (Abstinence- only sex education is a zero- tolerance approach... and it's a classic example of zero-tolerance not only being ineffective but actually doing harm.)

Take a wild guess which model I support.

Okay. Enough with the public health. What do I mean by the harm reduction model of life in general?

What I mean is this: Even if you can't completely solve a problem or make it go away, it is still worthwhile to work on making it better. Sometimes better is enough.

Voting, I think, is a good example. And the coming Presidential election is an excellent one. We don't have to elect a perfect candidate, or even one we're wildly enthusiastic about. We just have to elect a President who's a whole lot better than the current one. It won't make things perfect... but it'll make things better.

And the harm reduction model can be applied to all sorts of political and social problems. Can you personally solve the global warming crisis? No -- but you can help reduce its effects (driving less, buying energy-efficient appliances, voting for candidates who support strong environmental policies, etc.). Can you personally stop the waste and poor health caused by industrialized food production? No -- but you can buy more of your food from local sources, and push for the same in your schools and restaurants. Can you personally eradicate racism, sexism, homophobia? No -- but you can try to be conscious of it in your own life, and speak out against it when you see it, and pay attention to it when you vote. Can you personally halt the spread of obscene American consumerism? No -- but you can cut back on the amount of pointless crap you buy. Etc., etc., etc.

And if enough people take enough of these steps, it'll make these problems better. It won't eliminate them, but it'll reduce their harmful effects. And it may even help change the culture that cultivates them. Especially if you apply the harm reduction model, not just in your personal life, but in political and cultural action.

But the harm reduction model doesn't just apply to politics and social change. It can be applied to almost any area of life.

Diet, for instance. I have long ago given up on trying to have a perfect diet, or to lose a significant amount of weight. Instead, I'm focusing on having a better diet, a good enough diet, a diet that most of the time consists of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat proteins with minimal animal products. I'm trying to have a diet that keeps me reasonably healthy and still lets me relax and enjoy life. And instead of trying to lose weight, I am instead trying to not gain weight... and to stay as healthy as I can at the weight that I am.

Ditto exercise. I don't need to get the ideal recommended amount of exercise in order to feel obvious improvements in my life and health. I just need to get more exercise than I'd been getting before I started working out.

Or take housecleaning. Savings and money management. Not reading enough. Watching too much TV. If there's an area of your life that you're not happy with, you don't necessarily need to completely re-structure your life so that you can perform the task in question to your complete satisfaction. You just need to moderately re-structure it, so you can do more of what you like and think is important, and less of what you don't.

So that's the idea.

And here's the thing I really like about the harm reduction model of life, the thing that transforms it from a helpful hint into a defining philosophy:

It lets you be both an optimist and a realist.

I hate the idea that optimism is somehow a form of delusion, and that pessimism and cynicism are somehow equivalent to realism. And I don't just hate it because I enjoy being an optimist. I hate it because I think it's bullshit. I think pessimism and cynicism are often just a weak-ass rationalization for being lazy or cowardly, irresponsible or selfish. Realism doesn't just mean being aware of problems and limitations and obstacles. It also means being aware of what can and cannot be done about problems and limitations and obstacles.

And that's where the harm reduction model of life comes in. It gives us room to be positive about life and hopeful about the future, without being deluded or willfully ignorant about limitations and harsh realities. It transforms the Sisyphian experiences of life, the rocks that get constantly pushed up the hill only to roll back down again: it keeps them from feeling frustrating and pointless, and instead lets us see them as positive accomplishments. It doesn't let us off the hook about doing what we can for ourselves and for others -- IMO, it does the exact opposite -- but it lets us feel okay about not doing it perfectly.

Realism doesn't give us an excuse for irresponsibility and inaction. It gives us the moral obligation to be responsible, and to take whatever action is possible. And the harm reduction model gives us a model for doing exactly that. It gives us a framework for dealing with problems that seem appalling, enormous, and fundamentally unsolvable... without succumbing to apathy, cynicism, or despair.

Now, the big downside of the harm reduction model of life is that it can easily become an excuse for doing a half-assed job. It can act as a justification for doing the least you can do; for taking only those actions that don't inconvenience you; for making token gestures towards personal improvement or social responsibility while still being fundamentally lazy and selfish. "Hey, I changed all my lightbulbs to fluorescents -- I don't have to get rid of my SUV!"

And believe me, I speak from personal experience here. I've spent fifteen minutes picking up the tornado of books scattered all over our living room and piling them into neat little piles, as a "half-assed harm- reduction" form of housecleaning. I've given twenty bucks to political causes or candidates as a "half-assed harm- reduction" form of political action, when I was too busy or lazy to write letters and make phone calls and go to demonstrations. And more seriously, I've used the fact that I recycle and use fluorescent lightbulbs as a "half-assed harm- reduction" rationalization for the fact that I don't really do that much about global warming, even though I think it's by far the single most pressing problem facing our generation.

But as my friend Laura Upstairs (one of my many friends in public health and public policy) pointed out, one of the whole points of the harm reduction model is that a half-assed job is often better than none. Piling the books into neat squares isn't a very good form of housekeeping... but it's better than leaving them lying around everywhere. Donating twenty bucks to candidates or causes isn't the most powerful form of political activism in the world... but it's better than taking no action at all. Using fluorescent lightbulbs isn't really a sufficient response to global warming... but it's a better response than not using them.

And in my experience at least, a half-assed job is often a step towards a more completely-assed job. It can get you started with good habits -- habits of thinking, as well as habits of action -- that can eventually get you doing more than you'd ever imagined.

Here's what I mean. Going to the gym once a week may not improve your health that much... but it can get you into the habit of paying attention to exercise and health, and can be a step on the way to eating better, and being more active in your everyday life, and eventually going to the gym two or three times a week. Recycling may not make a huge dent in our planet's diminishing resources... but it can get you into the habit of thinking about waste and conservation and what the planet can and can't sustain, and thus inspire you to drive less, and not buy as much disposable crap, and vote for funding for solar power and public transportation. Etc., etc., etc. Yes, a harm reduction approach to life can get you feeling complacent and smug when you're not actually doing very much... but it can also nudge you in the direction of doing more.

The harm reduction model isn't always appropriate. There are, for instance, times when perfectionism is exactly what you want. I don't want a brain surgeon who thinks, "Oh, we got most of the tumor, I'm sure that's good enough." I don't want an air traffic controller who thinks, "Well, one crash a week is better than five crashes a week." And when it comes to major public issues like global warming, it is well worth asking whether moderate harm-reduction steps are actually going to make a significant dent: whether they actually will reduce harm enough to keep disaster at bay, or are really just a way of making ourselves feel useful while we collectively walk off a cliff.

So the harm reduction model of life isn't a cure-all. But I've found it to be a singularly useful philosophy. It's given me a way to reconcile my native optimism with my native hard-assed realism, without sending me into a cognitive- dissonance headspin. It lets me be optimistic without being deluded; it lets me be realistic without being a buzz-kill. And it's given me a way to not feel overwhelmed by enormous, seemingly impossible tasks, both personal and political. It lets me do the small amount that I can do in this world, without feeling like it's pointless.

And that rocks.

(Thanks to Ingrid and to Laura Upstairs, for their help with the explanation of the public health stuff. If I made any mistakes, it's my fault, not theirs.)

Multiple Marriage and the Texas Polygamy Case: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog, about the Texas polygamy case. At first I didn't think I was going to write about it, since I didn't think I had anything original to say about it. (Pretty much what I had to say about it was, "Oh, my god, that is so awful.") But then someone asked me what I thought of the question of legalizing multiple marriage -- in general, as well as in light of the polygamy cults -- and I decided to write this piece. It's called, somewhat unimaginatively, Multiple Marriage and the Texas Polygamy Case, and here's the teaser:

One of the main objections to legalizing multiple marriage is that, in the world as it is today, multiple marriages tend to be abusive. Groovy polyamorous triads aren't the norm, the argument goes. The norm for multiple marriage, in this country and around the world, is coercive and abusive religious cults that effectively imprison women and children. And if we don't have laws against multiple marriage, these abusive cults will be legitimized, and there will no protection for their victims.

I’m not sure whether that's true or not. I don't know if anyone has ever done a good, careful study on the frequency of multiple relationships, either in this country or around the world, to see if the coerced cult variety really does outnumber the consensual free-adult variety. If there has been such a study, I haven't seen it.

But here's the point I want to make.

When the Texas polygamy compound got raided and arrests were made, nobody was charged with bigamy.

The charges so far have all been related to child abuse. And the case seems to be largely in the hands of Child Protective Services.

So how does the illegality of multiple marriage help the victims of these situations?

To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

The Big Cheese

My brother Rick, a.k.a. Preacher Jenkins (no, he's not a preacher -- it's a long story, if you get me and my brother drunk enough sometime we'll tell you the story, or at least make one up that's reasonably entertaining, and did we ever tell you about the time that...)

Where was I?

Oh, yes. My brother Rick, a.k.a. Preacher Jenkins, has gotten into filmmaking as a fairly serious hobby, and has finally put a couple of his films on YouTube. This is my favorite of his so far, The Big Cheese. Obviously I'm biased, but I think it's very cool in a non-linear sort of way.

Video after the jump. Or you can watch it full-sized on YouTube itself.

The Texas Dildo Massacre, Or, Reason Number 2,767 Why Gay Rights Matter To Everyone

The Federal court decision that inspired this post happened a couple of months ago, when I first wrote it. But the issues it addresses are very much current and pertinent... not to mention a rare bit of good sex news in this crappy decade. So I'm reprinting it anyway. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

As you've probably heard, the Texas law banning the sale of sex toys has been overturned.

This is excellent news, for all the obvious reasons. Most obviously, Texans can now buy and sell sex toys. People can now open sex toy stores in Texas, run fuckerware parties in Texas, sell sex toys to Texans through the mail without fear of entering murky legal waters. Woo-hoo! Go, Texans! (Good articles about it in the Austin-American Statesman, and in Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

But I want to talk about one of the less obvious reasons why this is astoundingly, excitingly, kick-ass good news.

(Please note: I'm not a legal expert, and I'm definitely not an expert on constitutional law. These are simply the opinions of a smart lay person who’s been paying attention to this issue for a long time, informed by the opinions of people who are legal experts.)

The primary reason for the Texas sex toy ruling -- the main precedent cited -- was the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, which overturned sodomy laws and legalized gay sex across the country. Now, Lawrence was important for sexual civil rights for a whole lot of reasons. Most obviously, it meant that nobody in the United States could be considered a criminal simply for having gay sex. And that has huge implications for things like custody rights, housing rights, employment rights, etc. Before Lawrence, gay people could be -- and were -- denied all sorts of basic rights... because, technically, they were criminals. Lawrence upended all that, and it was hugely important for that reason alone.

But this latest case -- the Texas sex toy case, Reliable Consultants and PHE v. Texas -- makes it clear that Lawrence has even broader implications... for everyone. Gay, straight, everyone.

The Texas sex toy case makes it clear that the Lawrence v. Texas ruling established a constitutional right to sexual privacy in the United States.

And that, people, is HUGE.

Before the Texas sex toy case, we didn't have that. You might have had it in the particular state you lived in -- we’ve had it in California since 1975, when the consenting adults law got passed -- but United States citizens did not have any constitutionally guaranteed right to sexual privacy until February 12, 2008.

And we have it now. Yes, the Federal courts have now said that you have a constitutional right to use a vibrator or a dildo. But so much more than that: the Federal courts have now said... well, let me quote briefly from the decision.

Just as in Lawrence, the State here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct. The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the State is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence. (Emphasis mine.)

The Lawrence case didn't just say that gay sex couldn't be criminalized. It said that people -- all people -- have the right to engage in any consensual intimate conduct in their home, free from government intrusion. It said that people's sex lives are not their neighbors' business, not society's business, and most emphatically not the government's business. It said that the fact that the State doesn't happen to like a particular kind of sex doesn't mean they have a right to ban it, or indeed to have any say in it at all.

This case says, "Yup. That's what Lawrence meant, all right."

And that has enormous implications. (Assuming it gets upheld, of course; the decision could be appealed to the Supreme Court, and I haven't read anything yet saying whether or not it will be.)

It has implications for sadomasochists. Fetishists. Swingers. Any other sexual minority you can think of. If you're any of those things... you now have a legal right to it, anywhere in the country. And that's pretty darned important for all those custody rights and housing rights and employment rights and whatnot that we were talking about. It may wind up having implications for porn laws; if we our right to sexual privacy means we can have vibrators, it should mean we have a right to dirty movies as well. (It should have implications for the legalization of sex work, too; but alas, the rulings in both Lawrence and this case made a point of saying that the rulings don't apply to prostitution. Mistakenly, in my opinion.)

So here's the lesson for today. Apart from just, "Hooray for sex toys!" and "Hooray for the right to sexual privacy!"

The lesson for today: Gay rights are human rights.

Gay rights are everyone's rights.

And straight people have a personal vested interest in fighting for gay rights.

This is a point that sex advice writer Dan Savage has made on several occasions. He's pointed out that the right-wing homophobes who want to stop things like same-sex marriage are the exact same right-wing sex-phobes who want to stop things like birth control and sex education and abortion. Gay sexual rights are often on the cutting edge of sexual liberation... and they're often the first on the chopping block when right-wingers try to turn back the clock.

So I want all the straight people reading this to say a big, heartfelt "Thank You" to the people in the gay rights movement who fought so hard for so many years to get the Lawrence verdict. They are the people who, last week, gave you the right to own a dildo or a vibrator in every state in the country.

And I want you to promise to treat the fight for gay rights as if it were the fight for your own.

Because it is.

BTW, does anyone know the current status of this case? Is it being appealed, or is it standing? I Googled it, but couldn't find anything except on the original decision.

*****

Addendum: Important correction to the legal effects of this ruling in Jon Berger's comment below.

Is Religious Faith Irrational?

At the end of yesterday's post, I posed the question, "Is religious faith irrational?"

Well, okay. I didn't so much pose it as answer it. "Yes," I said. I argued that religious faith is irrational, by definition, in a way that secular faith isn't. I argued that religious faith means maintaining one's faith in the face of any possible evidence that might arise to contradict it; in fact, that it means asserting ahead of time that no possible evidence could ever undermine your faith. In other words, it means asserting that your faith trumps reality. I said that religious faith answers the question, "What would convince you that your faith was mistaken?" with the answer, "Nothing -- I have faith in my god. That's what it means to have faith." (Thanks to Ebonmuse for this, for about the fiftieth time.)

And yes, I said: I think that's irrational. Secular faith (and the leaps thereof) often has instances of being irrational: but it isn't irrational by definition. I think religious faith is.

Now, there are many religious believers who would hotly dispute this. There are many believers who think religious faith is entirely rational, that it's based on evidence as much as anything else in life, that faith and reason co-exist nicely and even depend on one another. They write apologetics; come up with complex and elegant defenses for their beliefs; get into debates in atheist blogs. (There are also believers who embrace the irrational and even paradoxical nature of faith... but I'm not talking about them right now.)

But to the believers who insist that their faith is rational, I would ask them to consider this question, the question posed by Ebonmuse and cited at length in my previous post: What would convince you that your faith was mistaken? What conceivable evidence would make you change your mind and decide that God didn't exist after all? Again, if the answer is, "Nothing could change my mind, that's what it means to have faith" -- well, that pretty much proves my point. (If the answer is something other than "Nothing," don't just argue your case here -- be sure to tell Ebon about it. I'm sure he'd be interested to hear it.)

And I've noticed a pattern among religious believers defending the rationality of their faith. They enter into the debate full of logic and counter-arguments; but almost inevitably, they end up the debate by saying things like, "Well, that's just how I feel," or "I feel it in my heart, and that's enough for me."

I applaud these believers' desire to see their faith as rational. I think the desire to have your beliefs be rooted in reality -- or to not have them be preemptively defiant of it, at least -- is a good instinct, a noble and worthwhile yearning. But when it comes to religious faith, I just don't think it's happening. Again, while secular faith has instances of irrationality -- many of them, even -- it isn't irrational by its very nature. I think religious faith is.

But --

and this is very important --

I don't think religious believers are.

Not all of them, at any rate. Not by definition.

Here's the thing I think atheists need to remember. It is entirely possible to be an overall sane, rational, functional person, and nevertheless have one particular area of irrational belief. Or even more than one.

In fact, it's not just possible. It's damn near universal. To atheists, as well as to believers.

We've all held irrational beliefs, and held on to them irrationally for longer than we should have. Belief in lovers who didn't deserve it; belief in political ideologies that didn't hold up; belief in leaders or role models who let us down time and time again. Belief that all those months you spent perfecting your suntan would be worth it. Belief that taking LSD really helps your pool game. Belief that your mother died of cancer because she was angry about you leaving home. Belief that you can write 90% of your senior thesis the week before it's due. (This one turned out to be correct, but it was an extremely close call.) Belief that those bounced checks must have been your bank's fault. Belief that you can work just fine with the TV on. Belief that getting married would fix your fucked-up relationship, simply by deepening your commitment to it. Belief that you can argue people out of their religious beliefs, if you just make your arguments good enough. Belief that this will finally be the Cubs' year.

Okay, maybe I should use some examples that aren't from my own life. How about these: Belief that nobody will notice that you're totally wasted. Belief that your car can run for another ten miles when the gas gauge says "Empty." Belief that you can't get pregnant the first time. Belief that you'll never regret that Grateful Dead tattoo. Belief that you'll never regret taking physics instead of philosophy... or vice versa. Belief that a new outfit, a new haircut, a new car, will radically change your life. Belief that he/she will come back to you when they realize how much they miss you. Belief that if everyone smoked marijuana, there would be no more war.

Do any of these sound familiar? From your life, or from the lives of anyone you know? If not, I'm sure you can come up with some of your own, from your past, or maybe even from your present.

And none of these beliefs make us fundamentally irrational people. It is entirely possible to have certain irrational beliefs -- even significant beliefs, even stubbornly held ones -- and still be a basically rational person in most other areas of our lives. It's not just possible. It's universal. We all do it. In fact, hanging on to mistaken ideas once we've committed to them seems to be a basic part of how our minds work. And despite that, we're still generally rational people, able to process information and analyze it effectively and make appropriate decisions about how to act on it... most of the time.

It's not like people are either rational or not. It's not like rationality is an either/or quality, an On/Off switch that gets flipped one way in some people and the other in others. It's a spectrum, indeed several spectra, with some of us being less rational in some areas and more rational in others.

Look. I think religious leaps of faith are very different from secular ones, and I'm not going to pretend that I don't. I think religious faith is inherently irrational, and I'm not going to pretend that I don't. But the fact that religious believers hold one irrational belief that atheists don't hold doesn't make them fundamentally less-rational human beings than us. And we shouldn't pretend that it does.

What Would Convince You That You Were Wrong? The Difference Between Secular and Religious Faith

"You have your faith in your relationship. In your friends. In your talent. In yourself. How is that different from my faith in God?"

I want to talk about the difference between secular and religious faith.

I'm irritated by the argument that, because atheists don't have faith in God, we therefore don't have faith in anything. And at the same time, I'm irritated by the argument that, because atheists do have faith in things and can take leaps of faith, therefore an atheist's secular faith in love and whatnot isn't really any different from religious belief.

At the risk of sounding like I'm quibbling over language, I think secular faith and religious faith are very different animals. They're not entirely unrelated, but ultimately they're not the same thing at all. In fact, they're so different, I'm not sure they should even share the same word.

So let's take this one at a time. What is secular faith?

Let's use an example. I have faith in Ingrid. What does that mean? It means that I trust that she loves me; I trust that she'll act with my best interests at heart; I trust that she'll keep her promises. It means that I rely on her, and that I believe my reliance is justified. And it means that I don't need a 100% ironclad guarantee of these things. It means that I know what a ridiculous expectation that would be -- we can never have a 100% ironclad guarantee of anything -- and that I'm willing to trust her anyway. It means that I'm willing to take the evidence that I have, the evidence of her feelings and character that I have from her actions and words, and then take a leap of faith by trusting that they mean what they seem to mean.

Or let's use another, more complicated example. I have faith in democracy. That's a tricky one, as democracy has let me down time and time again. But I have faith in it. I have the conviction that, while far from a perfect political system, it's still the best one we have, offering the best hope we have for a better and more just life for everyone. And I have hope that, with commitment and hard work, its problems can be... not eliminated, probably, but mitigated.

And one more example before I move on with my point: I have faith in myself. Possibly the most complicated of all, as I've lived with myself for my entire life, and have therefore probably let myself down more than anyone or anything else that I've ever had faith in. (With the possible exception of some notable ex-lovers and the Democratic Party...) But I have confidence that, when I set my mind and my heart to it, I can accomplish the things in my life that are important to me: being a good partner, a good writer, a good worker, a good citizen, a good friend. And when I take on a big new task -- writing a book, moving to a new city, getting married -- I have confidence that, if I seriously commit to it and put all my energy and talent and intelligence into it, I'll be able to accomplish it.

So now we have some pertinent synonyms for "secular faith." Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Conviction. Hope.

Keep those synonyms in mind.

And religious faith is... what?

I don't agree with certain hard-line atheists who insist that religious faith is always blind faith; that it always means refusing to question or doubt; that it always means absolute obedience to the authorities and precepts of one's religion. Sure, it often means these things. Many religious and formerly- religious people have said so, in so many words. But I've also known believers who do question, do doubt, do think for themselves, do have their eyes open. For at least some believers, a faith that can't weather questioning is a weak-ass faith that isn't worth having. Faith in honest doubt, and all that.

So religious faith is... what?

In writing this, I didn't want to be a jerk and assume that I know better than believers do what faith means to them. I always hate it when theists assume they know what atheists think without actually bothering to check, and I don't want to commit that error myself.

But it was surprisingly difficult to find definitions of faith from organized religions. I spent many hours looking at websites of different religious organizations -- Islam, Judaism, Hindu, Bahai, and many Christian sects including Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist (American and Southern), UCC, and MCC. And I didn't find definitions of "faith" on any of these. (The Catholics were an exception; see below.) Lots of religions clearly state what it is they have faith in: but what exactly it means to have faith is either ignored, or it's just assumed that everybody knows. "Our faith is in (X, Y, Z)... and what that means is that those are the things we believe. Believing (X, Y, Z) is what it means to be in our faith."

That being said, here are a few definitions of religious faith that I did find.

"Divine faith, then, is that form of knowledge which is derived from Divine authority, and which consequently begets absolute certitude in the mind of the recipient." (Catholic Encyclopedia, www.newadvent.org)

"...since faith is supernatural assent to Divine truths upon Divine authority, the ultimate or remote rule of faith must be the truthfulness of God in revealing Himself." (catholic.org)

"Faith therefore is to believe that which you do not see, truth is to see what you have believed." (St. Augustine")

"'Faith' involves a growing recognition of who Jesus is... It is much more like an intuitive perception -- a kind of 'sixth sense' -- about this person Jesus: an inner prompting which compels us to go after him, to engage with his words and character, to 'relate' to him... But 'faith' is also not just about the intuition to seek. 'Faith' consists in taking Jesus at his word. This story illustrates clearly that 'faith' is characterised by a willingness to grasp what is being offered in the encounter with Jesus... 'Faith' in this story is not primarily some settled and serene conclusion reached at the end of a chain of philosophical reasoning. No, faith is rather the readiness and eagerness to receive what is offered to us in Jesus Christ. It is the hand that grasps the gift of God in Jesus and makes it our own. This is biblical faith." (Revd Dr Paul Weston, ely.anglican.org; emphasis mine)

"Assent to the truth is of the essence of faith, and the ultimate ground on which our assent to any revealed truth rests is the veracity of God." (Christiananswers.com)

"The dictionary definition of faith is, 'the theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.' For a Christian, this definition is not just words on a page it is a way of life. Faith is acceptance of what we cannot see but feel deep within our hearts. Faith is a belief that one-day we will stand before our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." (Allaboutreligion.org; emphasis mine.)

"Biblical faith, however, is specific and unique. It describes the person who chooses to believe, trust, and obey God. This principle is vital -- the object of faith determines its value. Thus, it is very important that what we believe, what we have faith in, is really the truth!" (Herbert E. Douglass, The Faith of Jesus: Saying Yes to God's Love)

"Faith means an individual's personal, existential connection with the reality and power of God. Faith is not a 'thing' that is possessed or an 'idea' that is pondered, but rather a relationship that infuses divine power and creates an attitude and a vision for living and acting." (Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew)

"Faith is not a power or faculty in itself which “moves” or “compels” God. It is an attitude of confidence in God Himself. It always points to the One in whom it is placed." (inchristalone.org)

"Faith, then, is like the soul of an experience. It is an inner acknowledgment of the relationship between God and man." (John Powell, A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die)

"Faith saves our souls alive by giving us a universe of the taken-for-granted." (Rose Wilder Lane, The Ghost in the Little House)

"Reason is an action of the mind; knowledge is a possession of the mind; but faith is an attitude of the person. It means you are prepared to stake yourself on something being so." (Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961–74)

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

So let's sum these up, and make it as simple as we can without being simplistic.

Religious faith means believing in God. (Or gods, or the World-Soul, or the immortal spirit, or whatever. For the sake of brevity, let's say God for now.)

And it means believing in God no matter what. It means an unshakeable belief in God. It doesn't necessarily mean an unquestioning belief in God -- again, many believers do ask questions, and hard questions at that -- but it means a belief in God that survives those questions, and any questions. It means having belief in God, not as a hypothesis that so far has stood up to the evidence but might not always do so, but as an axiom. A presupposition.

Now, it isn't the case that religious faith always means faith without evidence. Some of the more fundamentalist religions actually say that evidence is an important part of their faith. But the things they consider "evidence" -- namely, the Bible, and its supposed inerrancy -- are themselves objects of faith. Despite the Bible's historical and scientific errors, its contradictions, its moral atrocities, etc., the belief in its inerrancy is itself, for these believers, an unshakable axiom.

Here's a test that I've found to be extremely useful. Central to my whole thesis, in fact. In Ebonmuse's excellent Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists, he makes this observation: "Ask any believer what would convince him he was mistaken and persuade him to leave his religion and become an atheist, and if you get a response, it will almost invariably be, 'Nothing -- I have faith in my god.'" He then goes on to offer several examples of the types of evidence that he, as an atheist, would accept as proof that a given religion is true.

But only two people have taken up Ebonmuse on his challenge, stating the evidence that would convince them that their religious faith was incorrect. And both replies consisted of either physical and/or logical impossibilities (things like, "Proof that all miracle claims are false," or "Falsifying the resurrection of Christ")... or irrelevancies, non-sequiturs (things like, "If it could be demonstrated conclusively that I was deluded in thinking that life has meaning, I would deconvert." As if the fact that people experience meaning proves that this meaning was planted in us by God... and as if creating our own meaning was the same as being deluded.)

Only two responses to the challenge, "What would convince you that your faith is mistaken?" And both those responses are strikingly unresponsive.

Now. In contrast. Let's return for a moment to secular faith. And let's offer one of the examples I mentioned before: my faith in Ingrid.

Is there anything that could convince me that my faith in Ingrid is mistaken?

Sure. Yes. Absolutely.

She could murder all my relatives. She could set our house on fire, purely for the thrill of watching it burn. She could clear out our joint bank account and run off to Brazil with Keith Olberman. She could be revealed to be a Russian spy (or a Cylon agent), who's pretended to be in love with me all these years simply to gain information. She could shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

None of these things is logically impossible, or physically impossible. (Well, except the one about being a Cylon.) They're not very likely, of course... but they could happen. And any of them would convince me that my faith in her was mistaken.

So my faith in Ingrid isn't irrational. It's reasonable. It's based on evidence -- the evidence of her past behavior. It's true that I take a leap of faith with her every day: I can't be 100% certain that she has never done any of these things and never will. And more to the point, I take leaps of faith with her every day that are both smaller than these and more serious. I have faith that she puts the right amount of money into our joint bank account; that the medical advice she gives me is as unbiased as she can make it; that she really is going to dance practice every Tuesday instead of seeing a lover she hasn't told me about. These are all leaps of faith... but they're leaps of faith that could conceivably be overturned by evidence.

And that doesn't make them weaker, or less valuable. Quite the contrary. It just makes them rational. It makes them grounded in reality.

Let's look at those secular synonyms for "faith" again. Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Conviction. Hope. Those are the things that secular faith means. They mean a willingness to move forward in the absence of an ironclad guarantee. A willingness to hang onto the big picture in the face of small failures and setbacks. A willingness to persevere during difficult times.

But not one of these synonyms for secular faith implies a willingness to maintain that faith in contradiction of any possible evidence that might arise. Even when people's secular faith leans towards the irrational -- faith in lovers who repeatedly cheat, faith in leaders who repeatedly let us down -- it still could theoretically be contradicted by evidence. Yes, some people maintain their faiths in the face of ridiculously obvious evidence to the contrary. But I think there are very few, if any, people whose secular faith in their lovers and leaders, their plans and ideologies, could not possibly be shaken by any imaginable evidence whatsoever.

Even if there are some people like that... how shall I put this? That kind of unshakability isn't inherent to the very nature of secular faith. It isn't a necessary and central part of the definition. Even if there are people whose faith in their cheating lovers could never be shaken even if they caught those lovers actually having wild naked sex with another person... I don't think anyone thinks that that's what it means, by definition, to have faith in your lover. I don't think anyone thinks that giving up on your faith in your lover's monogamy when you see them screw someone else somehow means that you didn't really have faith in the first place... or that your faith wasn't strong enough. (An argument that does get aimed at atheists who once had religious faith.)

In fact, when someone hangs onto a secular faith in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we stop calling it "faith" at all, and start calling it less complimentary words. Words like "pigheadedness" or "blindness," "willful ignorance" or "delusion." (Our current President is a prime example.)

And that, I think, is the difference between secular and religious faith. That is why my faith in Ingrid, in democracy, in myself, are fundamentally different from a theist's faith in God. I have faith in Ingrid... but it's not a central defining feature of that faith that nothing could ever shake it, even in theory. I don't answer the question, "What would convince you that your faith in Ingrid is mistaken?" by saying, "Nothing. Nothing could convince me that I was mistaken. That's what it means to have faith."

We all have to make leaps of faith. We can never have all the relevant information when we make a decision; we can never have a 100% ironclad guarantee that our beliefs and actions will be right. So it's not irrational to have secular faith; it's a calculated risk (unconsciously calculated much of the time, to be sure), necessary to get on with life in the face of uncertainty.

What's irrational is to maintain one's faith in the face of any possible evidence that might arise. What's irrational is to assert ahead of time that no possible evidence could ever shake your faith; to assert, essentially, that your faith trumps reality. And what's profoundly irrational is to insist that doing these things is a virtue, an admirable trait that makes you a good and noble person.

Which leads us to a somewhat explosive question: Is religious faith irrational?

And that's the subject of tomorrow's sermon.

(Many thanks to Ebonmuse of Daylight Atheism for his help compiling the "definitions of faith" list.)

The Joy Of Theoretical Non-Monogamy: The Blowfish Blog

Family members and others who don't want to read about my personal sex life, please note: This piece, and the piece it links to, talks about my personal sex life a certain amount. If you don't want to read that stuff, please don't read this piece.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about why non-monogamy is important to me and why I think it can be an asset in a relationship... even when, in any practical sense, it's largely theoretical. It's called The Joy Of Theoretical Non-Monogamy, and here's the teaser:

This is probably the single most important lesson that non-monogamy taught me. When you're monogamous, every single person you're even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life if only you could have a taste. (It did for me, anyway.) The allure of the forbidden, and all that.

But when you're non-monogamous, you remember that you don't actually want to go to bed with every attractive person who crosses your path. Some attractive people become much less attractive on closer acquaintance. Some attractive people are crazy; some attractive people are dull; some attractive people have appalling political opinions. And some attractive people you just don't connect with. Especially if you have a busy, reasonably fulfilling life, the reality of non-monogamy may well turn out to be that most people who you're passingly attracted to are not, in fact, people you actually want to fuck. They may be perfectly lovely, but they’re just not worth the effort.

To find out more about how non-monogamy can actually make Other People less of an issue in a relationships instead of more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Onward Christian Soldiers: Theocracy and the U.S. Military

This one scares the bejeezus out of me.

A lot of atheist blogs have had this story. For some time now, actually, But the New York Times has finally covered the story, which seems like a good excuse for me to talk about it.

The Times headline sums it up pretty darned well:

Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

And here's a few pertinent quotes before I get into my analysis:

When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. "People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!" Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.

And:

Perhaps the most high-profile incident involved seven officers, including four generals, who appeared, in uniform and in violation of military regulations, in a 2006 fund-raising video for the Christian Embassy, an evangelical Bible study group.

And:

Specialist Hall began a chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, to support others like him.

At the July meeting, Major Welborn told the soldiers they had disgraced those who had died for the Constitution, Specialist Hall said. When he finished, Major Welborn said, according to the statement: "I love you guys; I just want the best for you. One day you will see the truth and know what I mean."

And:

Complaints include prayers "in Jesus' name" at mandatory functions, which violates military regulations, and officers proselytizing subordinates to be "born again." After getting the complainants’ unit and command information, Mr. Weinstein said, he calls his contacts in the military to try to correct the situation.

"Religion is inextricably intertwined with their jobs," Mr. Weinstein said. "You're promoted by who you pray with."

Okay. Do we have the picture now, everybody? Read the whole story if you don't. And this isn't the first time I've seen this story: plenty of atheist blogs have been carrying it for a while, along with many others like it. (More info -- not just on this case, but on an appalling number of similar ones -- at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.)

And here's why this scares the daylights out of me. More than just about any instance of creeping theocracy in our country. More, even, than creationism and other forms of religious fundamentalism being taught in our public, taxpayer-funded schools.

This is the Army.

This is the branch of our government with the big rifles.

And increasingly, they seem to be placing their allegiance to their religion over their allegiance to the country and the Constitution.

There's a story that Ed Brayton (who's been covering this story a lot) had over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. The whole story is excellent, but here's the truly terrifying part:

One individual, posting under the name "Hidog," suggested Hall put on an orange vest and carry a sign "Bong hits 4 Allah" through the streets of Iraq, "because apparently, your Bill of Rights trump your CO's (commanding officer's) orders."

As Ed pointed out, "Well yes, the bill of rights does trump the orders of a commanding officer when those orders violate the bill of rights."

And it scares the merciful crap out of me to think that the Army is increasingly full of people -- not just mooks with no power, but officers -- who don't understand that. It terrifies me to think of an Army populated by both officers and enlisted men whose hearts -- and guns -- belong, not to the citizens of this country who employ them, but to Jesus.

And it terrifies me to realize these are not isolated incidents. There's so much more to this story that I haven't gotten into, that I don't have time to get into without this turning into an unreadably long screed. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is the dominant culture of the current United States Army.

With support from the Pentagon.

Because that, people, means that we really are living in a theocracy. Right now. The armed enforcers of our Federal government are the defenders, not of our country, not of our Constitution, but of their God and their faith.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Okay. Perhaps I'm being a little panicky, a little overdramatic. The good news is that we're not overtly a theocracy. Yet. When caught in these shenanigans, the perpetrators still have to shimmy and sidestep, deny that it happened or hastily issue regulations to halt the more grotesquely blatant examples of it. And if the Supreme Court hasn't become completely craven, hopefully they'll be spanking the Pentagon long and hard over this. (Military fetishists, take note.)

And the good news is that the story finally got out of the atheist blogosphere and into the New York Times. (CNN has the story, too.)

But this is not a few isolated incidents. This is not a few bad apples. This is, as Mikey Weinsein of the MRFF called it, "the intentional dismantling of the Constitutionally mandated wall separating church and state by some of the highest ranking officials in the Bush Administration and the U.S. military."

The intentional dismantling of the wall separating church and state. By the armed enforcers of the Federal government. By the branch of the Federal government that has the big rifles.

What is that but theocracy?

(P.S. I'm not even going to get into the fact that these are the people who are enforcing our foreign policy overseas, in parts of the world that are primarily and quite passionately not Christian. Except to say: Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. What a colossally, appallingly, mind-twistingly bad idea that is.)

This has been all over the atheosphere; but Susie Bright is the one who sent it to me. So thanks, Susie.