The End of Sexual Identity is a quite brilliant little book by the anthropologist Jenell Williams Paris that I read at the weekend. Her thesis is that a Biblical perspective on sexuality is one grounded in common humanity, not the easy categorisation of sexual practice or identity that Christians often fall back on.
It is simultaneously an interesting and informative read, pastorally sensitive to the very real concerns of the people who might be reading it and an impassioned call to serious engagement with the humanities. She is an unabashed apologist for anthropology and this is a surprising and refreshing discovery- a female Christian scholar arguing robustly in a way that just might encourage more serious female Christian scholars.
Sharyn Graham Davies, an Australian anthropologist, spent nearly two years living in South Sulawesi, a small region of Indonesia, among the Bugis ethnic group. She immersed herself in the everyday lives of men, women, calalai, calabai and bissu (the five gender categories in their society) with the goal of understanding, in part, how Bugis gender roles relate to people’s sexualities.
…
Instead of separating men and women into discrete categories, imagine a line spanning from man to woman. Calalai (masculine women) are born female but have so much male essence that they live as men in that they travel, dress as men and work in men’s professions; sometimes they are even mistaken for men. Calabai (feminine men) are born male, but their extra female essence leads them to dress and act as women, but in an over-the-top, glamorous, sexy way. They don’t feel they are women trapped in a man’s body; they feel they are calabai, feminine males. Bissu (transgender shamans) are the perfect combination of female and male elements, having come to earth from the spirit world without being divided into male or female. This is reflected in the body; many bissu are intersex, that is, born with ambiguous sexual biology. This is believed to animate their spiritual power, which is used to bless important life events like birth, marriage and death.
Jenell Williams Paris, The End Of Sexual Identity, p. 26.
We’re well past the idea of “praying away the gay” here.
It is an accessible, fascinating and well argued book which serves to broaden out a conversation constantly driven back into stark and silly dichotomies. I heartily recommend it.
Your Correspondent, Not weighed down by redundant torso fabric