Has the nature of modern drift and loss of obligation created a crisis in masculinity? Has the precedence of “equality” as a modern value destroyed the erotic pleasures of gender roles (whether or not they are socially or biologically determined)? What does hierarchy have to do with the erotic, and how does queer identity complicate this? What would Kirkian-conservative feminism look like?
To the first question, I suppose one could wonder whether there is a "crisis in masculinity". The real challenge to masculinity is not anomie; rather it is, and continues to be, the refusal of many men to accept the social and sexual equality of women. With the advent of the pill, no-fault divorce, and legalized abortion-on-demand, women are now as free as men once were to pursue sexual adventure without fear of issue. This sudden freedom, combined with a rising social and political consciousness among women that occurred about the same time, redefined forever the relationship between men and women. Women are no longer the passive recipients, the tools of male pleasure, but just as freely may pursue carnal pleasure for its own sake.
Except, of course, the old stereotypes remain. "Slut" is still a viable English word. As is "whore". We have given women the tools to live as men have always lived, but have not freed ourselves (speaking as a man) from the decision to label women who choose so to live as immoral, unwomanly. Rather than respect a woman who is free enough and strong enough to pursue and experiment with her sexuality the way men have always done, we would rather settle for the old whore/virgin syndrome. There are women whose sexual favors we enjoy (the whore) and there are women who are "moral" enough to raise our children and keep our homes, even as we continue to run around with because we can't get the kind of sexual satisfaction we seem to crave from the mothers of our children and the keepers of our home fires.
This "crisis of masculinity" is really more fear and resentment than anything else.
Related to this question is the second, concerning the way changing gender roles have impacted erotic pleasure. How often have we read some right-wing public figure dismiss feminists as "ugly", "can't get a date", that kind of thing? These neutered females, stripped of their erotic selves my men with power, become stand-ins for the women who have rejected these men over the years. Nothing is more threatening to a man than a woman who proves through her life that she is in no need of a man for her personal, professional, and sexual fulfillment. Rather than something men pursue as a matter of male privilege, erotic enjoyment is far more a negotiation between equals. Those men who still think that women should be passive recipients of male virility rather than equal partners of a mutually fulfilling encounter - and that fulfillment should extend beyond the mere physical pleasure, but be emotional, even spiritual - are unable to negotiate this new reality. They turn their rage at those who seem to embody this rejection - the women who are most vocal about insisting on an equal footing in bed, as it were.
All the same, equality should, for all intents and purposes, increase erotic pleasure; rather than the empty and superficial pursuit of that 1970's and 1980's bugaboo, the one-night-stand, even the briefest encounters can become something more, as sex is no longer just about one or the other partner reaching some kind of physical climax. Opening oneself to all the possibilities inherent in the human sexual encounter - not just physical intimacy, but emotional intimacy, a kind of spiritual union - makes of those moments entered in to with only the intent of physical pleasure full of possibility, not to mention danger. As long as the people involved are aware of the possibilities inherent in real human intimacy, of which sex is just an outward and visible sign, it seems to me that real equality only makes a great thing even better.
I guess my take on sexual minorities is two-fold. From a sexual perspective, viewing same-sex relations as existing within a continuum of human sexual possibility, it runs up against social and cultural taboos; particularly for men, gay men are a threat precisely because they upset our understanding of "masculinity", while lesbians exist as the perfect personification of those women in need of no man. The sexual, then, meets the social/cultural as we consider the impact of "normalizing" same-sex eroticism. I think this is the source of so much Sturm und Drang in regards many of the issues surrounding LGBT folk - it is impossible for far too many people to separate out the sexual from the socio-cultural that we end up with a whole lot of hatred and fear rising to the surface.
As for a Kirkian-conservative feminism, I cannot imagine such a beast; it would devour itself almost immediately.
Please note the absence of any discussion of the morality or immorality of these trends. For the most part, I believe that freeing women from the twin burdens of being passive recipients of male lust and the demand they keep their homes and families intact while the men pursue their worldly ambitions and pleasures is a good thing. I think that human sexuality is the most potent force in human nature; more powerful than the need to satisfy hunger, more determined than greed to satisfy its desires, more insistent than any other instinct one could name. For this reason it should be treated with far more respect and care than it usually is. The pursuit of sexual pleasure for its own sake can become destructive of human lives. It would be far better if we could both affirm human sexuality as a part of our nature, something that, as the United Methodist Book of Discipline affirms, is a good gift from a good God, while still understanding that it is precisely because it is so powerful, it entails huge personal and interpersonal risks. The call to celibacy and monogamy, while too often bleated without thought, actually have much merit, as long as they are accompanied by a frank and broad discussion both of the dangers and rewards inherent in human sexual intimacy. All the same, I do not judge those whose lives have followed other paths, precisely because even this view, which I think has much merit as it comes from my own experience as well as that of countless others, and by which I have chosen to live, is not the end-all and be-all of wisdom. Full human lives have and are lived quite differently, and from these differences we need to learn and ponder our own limitations.
