The Paris Project

Ex-Straight Ministry: A Letter to a Heterosexual Man

Jesus says you can come to him and lighten your load, gain rest from your worries, and be blessed on your journey. I believe there is freedom for you. I should know - I used to be heterosexual myself.

Remember when you were young? As a toddler and a young child, your eyes and heart were wide open to everyone - delight at the stranger in the grocery store, anticipation toward a potential playmate, joy at the warm touch of another human. That love, and the physicality of that love, wasn't sexualized or labeled. The cultural script underlying it defaulted to heterosexual development, of course, and you learned that your particular contellation of interests, abilities, and self-expression earned you the social role of 'heterosexual'.

In adolescence, you may have had conflicting feelings, or even confusing and wide-ranging sexual experiences. You learned, however, to play a role, even taking on the labels "straight" and "heterosexual" and owning them deeply. It's amazing, when I see heterosexual men, how they are all so similar - who teaches them how to act like that? They wear very limited colors and fabrics, have only a few hairstyles to choose from, walk with bravado (their limbs and stance use more space than women or gay men), and use a very limited range of facial, emotional, and vocal expression (no high register, no tears, no giggles, limited surprise/fear/tenderness/joy). It's like you all must take a class together to develop this demeanor!

Membership in the 'heterosexual' club comes at a price. You must suppress some of your possible interests, emotional expressions, and possibly even relational depth. You must repress any sexual feelings, and lie about any sexual experiences, that deviate from the heterosexual norm. Your enjoyment of theater, fashion, color, texture, touch, and emotional purging is limited.

When you become a Christian, however, you can leave all that behind. You can just be a person, a child of God, a loved one. In the church, we understand cultural categories, but we don't live by their power. Identity comes from God -- loved child of God -- not from subcategories of humanity defined by sexuality.

Sexuality, then, is part of your story, but it's not the whole story or even the most important story. In intimate small groups or close friendships, we tell the stories of our lives. On our journeys, sexuality leads us down detours, into clearings, onto mountaintops, and into shadows. That's true for everyone, but so-called "heterosexuals" are burdened by cultural privilege that prevents them from telling their stories honestly. Dividing people into stratified sexual groups means the privileged ones have to work to maintain their privilege, and at any cost, must not get evicted from their group.

The Gospel is clear: you are loved by God. And when Christians are who we truly are, our message is also clear: you are loved by us. We journey to wholeness together. Come inside, where the culture's labels and privileges and rules don't apply. Like I said, I know how difficult your struggle is, because I used to be heterosexual. In most settings, I'm still perceived that way, because in many ways I fit the cultural category. In my heart, though, I know I'm really a child of God, and I understand my sexuality in that light. The people who know me best -- who know my story and help me understand my past and make choices for the future -- encourage me to live not with the burden of cultural privilege and all it takes to maintain it, but to live lightly and to rest freely, which is possible when you come to Jesus.