“Only the omnipotent, we might think, only God can live without second chances. And, Freud adds, only the omnipotent need to believe in them.”¹

GAY Desire is a second chance for traditional gay male Christian theology.²

Traditional gay theology insists on gay male difference from straightness. It contends that gayness is not simply a sexuality but rather something you do, a unique mode of perception, a distinctive way of relating to women, men, and the world. Gay Theology’s insistence on gay male difference from straightness is what separates it from other types of theological reflection informed by same-sex sexuality. I dwell on two examples of “same-sex sexuality theology,” namely the theologies of Horrace Griffin and Brandon Robertson, in Chapter 1.

The story is sometimes told that traditional gay Christian theology is all but dead as a result of being essentialist, too humanist, too male, too white, and so on.³ Yet, even if we grant some or all of those objections, theological traditions have survived similar or worse critiques (e.g., feminist theology). I think the better story about the fall from fashion of traditional gay theology is both more complex and simpler.

Since its emergence in the 1970s, traditional gay theology has been reflection on the Androgyne. In these theologies, the Androgyne is the redeemed human being, the human revealed by Jesus Messiah, both male/masculine and female/feminine. The true gay male further embodies the Androgyne or the logic of redemptive androgyny.

That’s the problem with traditional gay theology: it’s a theory of androgyny. The Androgyne is the flawed ground upon which all traditional gay theology constructs its definition of gay male difference from straightness. Or so I argue extensively in Chapter 1 and preview below.

GAY Desire is an attempt to reinvigorate traditional gay male Christian theological reflection by identifying an alternative to the Androgyne to ground gay male difference. It is in that spirit that I propose gay desire as place to restart gay theology.

Building on David M. Halperin’s description of gay desire in How To Be Gay, I (re)define gay theology as reflection on gay desire within a religious mythos. By religious mythos, I mean, to borrow from the late Theodore Jennings, Jr., “a set of symbols, rituals, narratives, and assertions which, taken together, announce and mediate the presence of the sacred to represent, orient, communicate, and transform existence in the world for a community of persons.”⁴

The religious mythos I have in mind in this book is specifically Christian. The Christian mythos encompasses biblical literature, the history of Christian thought, Christian practices such as worship, and more.

As we will discover in Chapter 2, wherein I offer a close reading of How to be Gay, the central political feature, or democratic spirit, of gay desire is demeaning the sacred or the serious. Thus, I argue further that traditional gay theology “transforms existence in the world for a community of persons” by identifying the presence of the sacred in the Christian mythos to demean it. It is for that reason that traditional gay theology is satanic. What do I mean? Read on.

GAY Desire is also a second chance for me to (re)describe my relationship to the F/father(s) who make reflecting theologically about gayness both impossible and necessary. In Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud, Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips remind us that in his early twenties, Shakespeare largely abandons his family (a wife, two daughters, and a son) in Stratford to pursue his acting career (and perhaps, according to Harold Bloom, life with a male lover⁵) in London.

Shakespeare returns to Stratford in his late forties. His son is dead. His daughters have grown up.

The Winter’s Tale may be read as Shakespeare’s meditation on second chances, especially his own. When Hermione (whom Leontes tries to have killed) is reunited with her husband, she does not address him. Instead, Hermione speaks to her daughter, Camillo (whom Leontes also tries to have killed). “I stayed alive for you,” she says.⁶ Hermione’s experience of kenosis, her swerve from the F/father figure, is relevant to Shakespeare’s wish for a second chance at being a husband and a father.

Harold Bloom, who believes the French are the only people in the world to have maintained a strong disinterest in Shakespeare, makes Saint Paul’s concept of kenosis central to his literary theory (Saint Paul is the subject of chapters 5-6 of the present text). He follows his own example and misreads or swerves from Paul’s understanding of kenosis in The Anxiety of Influence.⁷

For Bloom, kenosis refers to the poet’s refusal merely to repeat or imitate the texts of the precursor or F/father. “In the strong poet [or strong reader],” argues Bloom, “kenosis is a revisionary act [i.e., an act of misprision or misinterpretation] in which ‘emptying’ or ‘ebbing’ takes place in relation to the [texts of the] precursor.”⁸ Strong resistance makes place for the poet’s divinity or uniqueness, for discontinuity in the history of (her) poetic creativity.

GAY Desire represents several such space-making swerves relative to the texts of A/authority, to the various precursor texts that make its writing both unbearable and inevitable. As previously announced, in Chapter 1, I reassess traditional gay theologies, theologies that insist and elaborate on gay male difference from straightness. I argue that the Androgyne, as a definition of gay male difference, cannot deliver on its promise(s).

I contend that the Androgyne—at least as the figure appears in traditional gay theologies—is a flawed figure of gay male difference for three reasons. First, it cannot constructively account for all forms of gayness. The Androgyne cannot explain gay men who do not, for example, identify with Hermione, the maternal figure, or femininity without creating a zone of exclusion for them. Gay men who do not conform to the redemptive norms of the Androgyne are simply wayward or unredeemed men.

Second, the Androgyne is inconsistent with the goals of feminism and antiracism. In fact, it is bad news for actual women, as it both reifies harmful stereotypes about women and fails to question whether or not masculinity is available to females in the same way femininity is to males. The Androgyne is also bad news from the perspective of race. Again, it naturalizes negative stereotypes, this time racialized stereotypes. It also fails to take masculinity’s race seriously.

Finally, the Androgyne is a disciplinary figure. It is a figure of what traditional gay theology set out to resist: gay male identity or the rejection of traditional gay male identification with femininity. Rather than describing gayness as something you do, a specific lifestyle that swerves from normative masculinist expectations, the Androgyne defines who the gay male is, really. As an identity figure, not everyone can do it. It’s both limiting and disciplinary.

The Androgyne’s redemptive norms also determine what counts as a legitimate or redeemed gay male lifestyle or politics. Gay subculture figures the politics of gay male redemption in traditional gay male Christian theologies.

Nearly every traditional gay theologian condemns gay male subculture. Dispatching gay subculture to the hell of toxic masculinity, gay theologians propose the redeemed or androgynous (institutional) Church as the privileged figure of redemption.

Mark Jordan provokes us to think carefully about what desire(s) the Androgyne repeats, perpetually entangling gay subculture (and gay theology) in a static state, or what Bloom defines as “an easy idealism.”⁹ He describes the politics of androgyny among the all-male priesthood of the Catholic Church in The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism.¹⁰

In Jordan’s story of priestly gender-bending, the Androgyne functions to protect male priests from becoming too enamored with the femininity they must necessarily embody. The Androgyne functions to ensure that priestly femininity does not go rogue, ultimately displacing sacred or normative masculinity.

In The Silence of Sodom, modern Catholicism plays the role of Henry IV. In Shakespeare’s play of the same name, Henry IV’s delinquent or anti-paternal behavior is merely for show, an attempt to get his father’s attention.¹¹ Upon his father’s death, Henry IV becomes his father. It seems that there are only first chances for F/fathers and their sons.

Jordan finds inspiration in the “universal irony” of “homosexuals who were culturally active even when they were most violently silenced,” in the pre-Stonewall homosexuals who, according to Jordan, constituted a “paraculture” or “a universal irony inside the dominant culture.”¹² Jordan’s homosexual irony is, to again rely on Bloom’s theoretical language, a perpetual Sphinx. It resists form and shatters identities.¹³

I depart from Jordan’s sense of homosexual irony and, in Chapter 2, offer a close reading of Halperin’s description of an alternative form of subcultural desire, one with a history that extends back to Aristotle. In this chapter, I follow in the “careful analysis” tradition of D.A. Miller and yield to a shamefully childish desire, “an almost infantile desire to be close, period, as close as one can get, without literal plagiarism, to merging with” How To Be Gay or “the mother-text.”¹⁴

A careful analysis of our mother-text entails focusing on male homosexuality, and there are good reasons for doing so. Jordan argues that “[t]he false sameness implied by a category like ‘sodomy’ or ‘homosexuality’ is useful for dehumanizing condemnations, but not for careful analysis. If lesbians and gay men [and bi, Trans* and other queers] must now band together in self-defense, that does not mean that they can be honestly conceived in a single category.”¹⁵

Halperin, moreover, writes that “[w]hatever else the current and ongoing explorations of lesbian history [and bi, Trans*, otherwise queer, and so on] have to offer us, one of their most startling benefits will be a much-enhanced understanding of the different historicities of female and male homosexuality.”¹⁶ Furthermore, in How to be Gay, Halperin observes that “[m]ale homosexuality often gives rise to distinctive ways of relating to the larger society—to forms of cultural resistance all its own—so there is good reason to treat gay male [sub]culture as a topic in its own right.”¹⁷

But what is gay male subculture? Reading How to be Gay, we encounter three definitions of gayness. First, gayness may be defined as a sexuality rather than as a culture or a specific way of relating to women, men, and the world. It is this identitarian understanding of gayness that redefines homosexuality as virtually normal, and that traditional gay theology intends to resist. In this first definition of gayness, gay men identify with normative straightness.

In a second definition of gayness, gay men identify with other gay men or gay-authored gay culture. Gay culture is not exactly identitarian in character. On the one hand, it does refer to sexuality as a defining feature of gayness. On the other hand, it refers to a shared curiosity about gayness, both past and present. It seeks less to define gay men than to trace the historical continuity and discontinuity of gayness itself.

The third definition of gayness we encounter in How to be Gay is closely related to gay culture and is the subject of our mother-text—namely, gayness as a subculture, as gay desire, as gay identification. Critical to understanding the argument of How to be Gay is the recognition that gay subculture, gay desire, and gay identification are inextricably related terms.

Gay male subculture is a distinctive practice, a specific way of relating to women, men, and the world. It is a practice created by gay men, but it is not essentially about them. As a practice, anyone who finds it persuasive may embody it. More specifically, gay subculture is the practice of gay identification or identification with abject, straight female figures (e.g., Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, and so on). Finally, gay identification is an expression of gay desire itself.

Halperin describes the female figures of gay identification (e.g., Joan Crawford) as “structures of feeling.”¹⁹ He explains that “[Raymond Williams] . . . formulates the concept of ‘structures of feeling’ in order to describe a dynamic mode of social formation that mediates between the subject and culture, thereby blending ‘psychology’ and ‘aesthetics,’” nearly merging our inner and outer worlds.²⁰ Or, in Halperin’s words,

[t]here is no relation of externality for gay male culture between being and playing a role, between actor and act [subjectivity/desire and politics/aesthetics]. They may be distinct, but they are not separate; rather, they constitute each other. That doubleness, that twofold aspect of social existence, is not an ontological split but a single composite nature, an intrinsic property of things. Playing a role is the mode of existing in the social world. That is what social being is.²¹

As roles, the objects of gay identification are not actual women, the subjects of biographies. The abject, straight feminine figures of gay identification are (misinterpretations of) straight male ideals of femininity that both reveal what it feels like to be gay (psychology) and express what gay men can do about it (aesthetics or politics). It is through identification with abject, straight femininity that what Bloom would describe as the “satanic” character of GAY Desire clearly emerges.

Bloom defines “[t]he state of Satan . . . [as] a constant consciousness of dualism. . . .”²² For Bloom, Satan refers to an unholy alliance between opposites, between the holy and unholy, the infinite and finite, and the pure and impure. The abject feminine figures of gay identification function in the same way as Bloom’s Satan: to hold opposite, gendered social terms in “dynamic equipoise.”²³

We will closely examine how social terms are gendered in Chapter 2. For now, note the dualistic character of gay male interpretation of the figures of gay identification. Richard Dyer argues that Judy Garland embodies both strength and weakness. Halperin describes Joan Crawford as both beautiful and abject. I think that Hillary Clinton is both conventional and defiant.²⁴

The abject feminine figures that express gay desire and reveal gay subjectivity also embody the satanic nature of gay desire in a second way, as an anti-identitarian identity. On the one hand, they are chapters in the history of “a necessary error,” to echo Judith Butler.²⁵ Each figure embodies an identity, a “metadesire,” that stands the test of time. Halperin writes,

There are many variations in the ways gay male culture is constituted, within individual gay communities no less than among gay communities belonging to different national and ethnic cultures in different parts of the globe. But there are also common themes that cross social and geographic divisions.²⁶

On the other hand, each figure introduces disruption or change into the state of gay identity. The exact character of any one instance of gay male subculture depends on the feminine figure that reveals it.

Significantly, gay identification breaks with the logic of the Androgyne. The figures of gay identification are feminine figures. They are gendered feminine, Halperin argues, because they deviate or swerve from the protocols of normative masculinity, and not because they are essentially, necessarily, about actual women. They are gendered feminine because they are forms of demeaned masculinity.²⁷

Interrupting the logic of the Androgyne, gay identification also avoids the devastating problems associated with androgyny in traditional gay theologies. First, it passes the gay community test. It accepts that not all gay men participate in gay male subculture. It does not purport to be an explanation of all forms of gayness. Second, it passes the solidarity test. Gay identification is entirely consistent with the goals of feminism and anti-racism, as it seeks to win space between sex and gender norms. Finally, it passes the good news test. Gay identification is a practice. Thus, anyone who finds it persuasive, including straight people, may, in principle, do it.

In Chapters 3 and 5, I begin to do gay Christian theology from the place of gay desire. In these chapters, I offer an interpretation of abject feminine figures within the Christian mythos, specifically within biblical texts, that call forth what we today, especially after How To Be Gay, recognize as gayness or gay desire.

In Chapter 3, I offer a reading of the Gospel of Matthew, arguing that Mary is an abject feminine figure of the Spirit (or messianic desire) and that Jesus is inextricably identified with her (e.g., Matt. 1:16). In Chapter 5, I reread Paul’s letters, especially his melodramatic letter to the Galatians, describing Paul’s identification with an abject feminine figure in Galatians (Gal. 4:21-27). My argument is that Paul’s Sarah-like figure is also an abject figure of the Spirit (or messianic desire).

Chapters 4 and 6 move us beyond the confines of the traditional Christian mythos. In these chapters, I draw out the contemporary political dimensions of my readings of Paul’s letters and the Gospel of Matthew. In Chapter 4, I elaborate on Jesus’s admonition to messianic subjects to be as “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16). I argue that Jesus calls messianic subjects—subjects identified with the Spirit—to become like pigeons.

In this chapter, I unexpectedly swerve into animal studies, observing that, biologically, a pigeon is a dove.²⁸ But what I find especially interesting is the pigeon’s cultural significance.

Edited by Kelsi Nagy and Phillip David Johnson II, Trash Animals: How We Live With Nature’s Filthy, Feral, Invasive, and Unwanted Species explores how certain nonhuman animals take on the symbolic dimension of trash.²⁹ For example, pigeons—sometimes referred to as “flying rats”—are trash animals because they sully the prized monuments of human civilization.³⁰

As a “flying snake,” if you will, a pigeon symbolizes trashiness and satanism. That is, they disturb and, quite literally, shit on the pious norms of civilization (e.g., the temple, the capital, the monument, and so on). As a dove, the pigeon represents what is common, innocent, or simple. The pigeon perfectly embodies the dualistic spiritual and social logic that Jesus teaches messianic subjects.

Nagy and Johnson II also point out that “trash, as such,” exists only in human culture.³¹ The term “trash animals” primarily refers to human animals.

Certain kinds of human animals, such as the unhoused (often seen in the same social spaces as pigeons), are made to bear the symbolic burden of trash alongside nonhuman trash animals, including wolves, rats, and beavers. In this chapter, I redescribe “trashy” behavior as a messianic or spiritual lifestyle.

“Trashy” fashion is the subject of Chapter 6. In this chapter, I argue that the remarkable fashion style of sagging, a form of Black male creativity in the face of social oppression—especially the dehumanizing power of the U.S. prison system—is “putting on the clothes of Messiah,” a messianic style of masculine/less/ness.³²

An aesthetics of masculine/less/ness is a significant feature of Paul’s letters. For example, Paul consistently demeans privilege, especially that of Roman male citizenship. Paul redescribes Roman freedom, defined as male power over others, as a form of imprisonment. Freedom, Paul asserts, is found in the power of the Spirit, defined as bondage to the welfare of others (e.g., Gal. 5:13-15; 1 Thess. 4:1-12; Phil. 2:1-5). Sagging, or masculine/less/ness, I contend, is a spiritual style of freedom, a style of Paul’s “Sarah” or Spirit (Gal. 3:27).

I conclude GAY Desire by returning to How To Be Gay, specifically to the book’s epigraph. It reads, “Let the pagans beget and the Christians baptize.”

Albert T. Mollegen’s summary of Augustine’s theology is not meant to be taken literally.³³ Halperin deploys it to assert the dignity of gayness by aligning it with Christianity. Gayness, like Christianity, reproduces culturally.

Halperin also uses the epigraph to demean the sacred. Gayness reproduces culturally, while the Church, at least nowadays, naturalizes heteronormativity or biological reproduction between male and female. The Church, like paganism, reproduces biologically.

How ironic!

Nonetheless, I swerve from Halperin’s understanding of the epigraph, choosing to take it seriously, even literally. I conclude by pointing out that messianic desire, the desire figured by the Spirit in the Christian mythos, is gay subculture’s inheritance. In this way, I connect the conclusion of GAY Desire to the conclusion of How To Be Gay.

Halperin concludes:

Gay subjectivity will always be shaped by the primeval need on the part of gay subjects to queer heteronormative culture. That is not going to change. Not at least for a very long time. And we’d better hope it doesn’t. For what is at stake is not just gay [sub]culture. It is culture as a whole.³⁴

Christian messianic subjectivity, like gay subjectivity, will always be shaped by a deep need on the part of its subjects to queer the heteronormative, masculinist Christian mythos. That is not going to change. Not at least for a very long time. And it’s a good thing, too.

GAY Desire is not only a second chance for gay theology, a tradition of theological reflection that began in the 1970s with the publication of Loving Women, Loving Men: Gay Liberation and the Church. What’s at stake is not just a future for traditional gay male Christian theological reflection. It is theology as a whole.