Author Archives: Hugo Schwyzer

Talking Past, Present, and Future with the Feminist Theologian

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Last week, I taped an interview with Gina Messina-Dysert, a professor at Loyola Marymount University who has just started the Feminist Theologian podcast series.  Gina also tweets at @femtheologian and serves as an editor for the wonderful Feminism and Religion blog.  As the controversy around my life and work grew over the past month, Gina invited me to participate in an extended discussion about what’s been going on.  When we shot the interview in Universal City last Tuesday I was whacked out on coffee and cold medicine and having a bad hair day, but Gina was very kind and we had a good time.

The approximately 30-minute interview is broken into four parts to accomodate YouTube’s limitations.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

The Talmud and 1 Timothy: the real meaning of modesty

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I’ve got a short piece up at Jezebel this weekend. It’s largely a response to this splendid New York Times op-ed from Rabbi Dov Linzer: Lechery, Immodesty, and the Talmud.  He writes:

The Talmud, the foundation of Jewish law, acknowledges that men can be sexually aroused by women and is indeed concerned with sexual thoughts and activity outside of marriage. But it does not tell women that men’s sexual urges are their responsibility. Rather, both the Talmud and the later codes of Jewish law make that demand of men.

In my follow-up, I note that the New Testament, much like the Talmud, is misinterpreted by its most fundamentalist followers today.  Modesty doesn’t mean what we think.

 

Don’t Settle for the One Who Loves You More

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It’s an old and unhelpful aphorism: a woman should marry a man who loves her more than she loves him.  My Genderal Interest column at Jezebel today looks behind this truism, working in references to Lori Gottlieb and the Myth of Male Weakness.  .  Excerpt:

In this age where hormones and evolutionary psychology are commonly cited as explanations (or outright excuses) for the most appalling male behavior, it makes good sense to teach women to look for an effective and enduring guarantor of masculine reliability. That means encouraging women to make romantic decisions based more on men’s devotion rather than on their own desires. Shorter Gottlieb: “caring” trumps “tedious”, and don’t be so much a fool to insist that you can easily have the former without the latter.

Not only do we believe that men are weak when it comes to impulse control, pop culture relentlessly reminds straight women that they are hardwired to be attracted to “bad boys.” Evolutionary psychologists trot out all sorts of theories to explain why women are sexually drawn to unreliable alpha males, but the end result is that we teach women to be suspicious of their own longings. In a corollary to the myth of male weakness, grandmothers and Gottliebs warn that a woman who is head-over-heels in love and lust will be less likely to see vital warning signs; a woman who finds herself only tepidly attracted to a man will be able to assess his character more accurately. His greater devotion keeps him faithful; her less intense passion keeps her safe — and, presumably in control both of her own emotions and of her male partner.

And then of course, there’s always Auden’s take.

 

 

Paternal Age Effect at Role/Reboot

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A post up at Role/Reboot today looks at the growing phenomenon of aging dads, and worries about the health issues involved: Patience and the Paternal Age Effect.  Excerpt:

… the compensation for reduced mobility is an exponential increase in patience. I know some wonderful young dads, but among my group of graying and thickening preschool papas, we’re universally convinced that what delights us now would have driven us crazy when we were in our 20s or 30s. More certain of who we are, more comfortable in our own skin, we’re better equipped to soothe our own self-doubts for the sake of showing up for our kids.

In his most famous poem, Donald Justice writes: “Men at 40 learn to close softly/the doors to rooms they will not be coming back to.” For first-time fathers in their 40s, the slightly elevated risks of the “paternal age effect” are offset by our greater likelihood of financial stability, our increased reservoirs of equanimity, and, perhaps, a bit more hard-won wisdom. If we’ve done the job of growing up right, we’ve begun to shut some of those doors of workaholism, self-doubt, and indulgent self-absorption to which we were prone in our anxiety-ridden 20s. To put it simply, we’re young enough to kick the ball around and patient enough to do it (almost) as long as our kids want. 

We’ll just need to take two Advil when we’re finally done.

Power, Possibility, and Pleasure: Recovering an Old Scarleteen Piece

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As part of the continued fall-out from the controversy over my past, Scarleteen — perhaps the nation’s best sex education site — has removed all articles I wrote or to which I contributed.  (Scroll to the bottom of this link for their statement.) I was kindly informed in advance of the public announcement of this decision by the site’s executive director, who also gave me permission to rerun the pieces here on my own blog.  I’m grateful for that kind consideration.

So below the fold, find a post that ran at Scarleteen in 2009: my answer to a young Christian woman agonizing over the ethics of pre-marital sex. Continue reading →

Moving Forward: An Update

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An update on where things stand.

I am still very much in the process of listening to many voices about how to respond to the multi-faceted controversy about my past.  Over the past few weeks, issues around my pre-sobriety past as well as my present writing have attracted intense attention and sparked considerable debate.  I have not been able to keep up with the sheer volume of emails, much less follow all of the blog commentary about me, my role in feminism, my personal history, and my work.  But I’ve followed enough to have a good sense of what at least the main criticisms are.

The Issues

There are three main issues: my past, my writing, and my positioning in the feminist movement. In turn, those issues raise three main questions:

1. Should my pre-sobriety history disqualify me from teaching the courses I teach, from speaking about the topics I speak about, and from writing where I write?  Do I need to make further amends or participate more extensively in restorative justice?  My take has always been that the work I do is part and parcel of that amends. But some detect self-aggrandizement rather than atonement.  What’s the way forward?

2.  Are there problems with my writing today?  I’ve got eight years worth of blog archives and thousands of posts on this site; I’ve also written extensively elsewhere.  I’ve written things I regret, and I’ve changed my position on some issues (like pornography, for example) in recent years.    Yes, I am regularly quoted out of context.  But even allowing for the universal but lamentable habit of “cherry-picking”, are there still elements of my work that are deeply problematic?

3.  Does my modest fame/notoriety block or create opportunities for others?  Do the speaking gigs and interviews I get mean that I’m taking what wasn’t mine to take?  Should I  give up teaching women’s history, working in positions of leadership in organizations that focus on women’s rights — not just because of my particular past, but because it’s fundamentally wrong for a man to hold these roles?

I don’t have final answers for myself to any of these questions.  I know many people who do have certainty about what I should do. I hear from them daily. Some want me to step down; some want me to step back up and stay where I am.  I’m on the receiving end of a lot of praise and vitriol.  I’m trying my best to process what I’m hearing, remembering the truth that one is never as bad as one’s detractors suggest, nor as good as one’s admirers insist.   But it’s difficult work, and it will take more time.

Moving Forward 

The fact that I haven’t reached clarity yet about what my future holds doesn’t mean I can’t share certain decisions I’ve made about myself, my work, and my public presence.

As I wrote yesterday, Healthy is the New Skinny/Perfectly Unperfected and I have parted ways.  My presence threatened to become a dangerous distraction to the good work that HNS and PUP are doing.  Resigning was the only viable course of action.

I’ve also resigned from my role as faculty adviser to the Pasadena City College Feminist Club for much the same reason.

As for my writing and speaking, I will for now continue to do both.  The editors at Jezebel, who are aware of this controversy, have asked me to continue to write for the site.  I am pleased to do so.  I will continue to explore writing opportunities outside of explicitly feminist spaces, recognizing that my presence in those spaces is controversial, divisive, and unhelpful.  I will continue to explore speaking opportunities as well, but will be adapting my lectures so that I am focusing primarily on issues around men and masculinity.

I teach a variety of gender-themed courses at Pasadena City College.  The one women’s studies’ course we have at PCC in the Social Sciences Division is History 25B, Women in American Society.  I’ve taught it every semester for nearly two decades.   The syllabus does include the history of feminism.  PCC plans its offering nine months in advance; I’m already booked to teach 25B this spring semester and in the coming autumn term.  But I will be talking with my colleagues on campus and elsewhere about asking for a change in assignment for spring 2013, the earliest term for which a shift can be made.  I haven’t made a final decision yet, but as of now, am leaning towards not returning to women’s history.

I will continue to teach my rotating courses in the Humanities department, including my “Men and Masculinity”course.  But those courses do not include feminist theory or feminist history on their syllabi.

Continuing the Conversation

A conversation about some of these issues began in a moderated space last week.  The Feminism and Religion blog reprinted my “response post” from earlier this month, and invited comments.  A dialogue has begun there, and will continue.

I will continue to listen.  I’m receiving an average of 50-60 emails a day, equally split between detractors and supporters.  I’m trying to read at least some of the web commentary.  The difficult part is separating what is legitimate criticism (and there is legitimate criticism) from unfair personal attacks.  By the same token, I’m trying to separate what is thoughtful and wise encouragement from what is unhelpful, ego-aggrandizing flattery. Given the tremendous volume and speed of all of this input, that’s difficult work and will take a considerable amount of time.   The end result, however, is likely to be my departure from explicitly feminist spaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My resignation from Healthy is the New Skinny and Perfectly Unperfected

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With a heavy heart but without hesitation, I have resigned from my positions as co-director of both Healthy is the New Skinny and the Perfectly Unperfected Project.

I have been so proud to work with “HNS” and “PUP” over the last two years. But as the controversy around my pre-sobriety past has continued to intensify, it threatened to undermine the great work these two organizations are doing for young people. Those who wish me to withdraw from public life are contacting many of the groups and sites with which I am affiliated, demanding that they cease working with me in any capacity.

In this toxic environment, there was no choice but for me to terminate all my ties to Healthy is the New Skinny, Perfectly Unperfected, and Natural Models LA. I will, of course, not be participating in any way in their upcoming tour of the Pacific Northwest.

More soon.

 

“You can’t touch a baby through a woman’s body”: pregnancy and maternal personhood

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From February 2009

I suppose that many of my upcoming posts will touch, in one way or another, on the experience of becoming a father. My daughter is one week old today, and she and my wife are resting comfortably at home. Our little girl — whose name will be given soon — is perfect and lovely and captivating, and my wife has never been more beautiful and amazing in my eyes. It’s a happy time, albeit a sleep-deprived one.

It would be odd if going through this pregnancy with my wife and watching my daughter be born didn’t have a profound impact on how I see the world. The whole experience shaped, and is continuing to shape, many aspects of my thinking. I have no doubt at all that parenthood will continue to transform me, though that is hardly my child’s primary purpose in the world. My job is to love her, hers is to be loved unconditionally, and whatever insights come along the way are a bonus. And one way in which this journey has impacted me very profoundly is in my views on feminism.

Years ago, Susan Bordo wrote a wonderful essay: Are Mothers Persons? Reproductive Rights and Subject-ivity, which appeared in her Unbearable Weight. Bordo makes the point that our American legal system has an historic concern for the autonomy of the individual, but that a pregnant woman’s right to bodily integrity is uniquely subject to challenge:

The essence of the pregnant woman, by contrast, is her biological, purely mechanical role in preserving the life of another. In her case, this is the given value, against which her claims to subjectivity must be rigorously evaluated, and they will usually be found wanting insofar as they conflict with her life-support function. In the face of such a conflict, her valuations, choices, consciousness are expendable.

In other words, my wife’s status as an independent person collapsed, in the eyes of the world, the moment folks started to realize she was pregnant. And while I’d been quite prepared to discuss reproductive rights theory with colleagues and students, nothing has shaped my gut feelings about the issue of women’s subjectivity like witnessing my wife’s pregnancy and the birth of this daughter. And believe me, nothing has made me more committed to feminist principles than this experience!

It is much commented upon, but no less remarkable for its frequency: an amazing number of people seem to believe that they have the right to touch a pregnant woman’s belly. My wife, who has a keen sense of body integrity, did not like to have her stomach touched by anyone other than me and her various professional caregivers. But for the last four months of her pregnancy, as her belly began to swell, family and friends and even strangers made all sorts of attempts to get their hands on her tummy. My wife got very good at fending people off politely, and I did my best to remain cool while helping (particularly with my family) to keep prying hands at bay. Continue reading →

Humiliation and affirmation at Jezebel

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My weekly Genderal Interest column at Jezebel looks at “facials” (the sex act, not the beauty treatment). He Wants to Jizz on Your Face, but Not Why You Think features interviews with my friends Charlie Glickman and Megan Andelloux, two wonderful sex educators on opposite sides of the country. Excerpt:

A few years ago, in a humanities course on the body, my class was discussing one of the most famous selections from the now-iconic Vagina Monologues, “Because He Liked to Look at It”. The monologue tells the story of a woman who thought her vagina was “incredibly ugly” until she meets a man named Bob, who loves to stare at —and taste — her vulva with delight and wonder. Bob’s embrace of her body is the key to her self-acceptance. During our discussion of the monologue, a male student noted bravely that he thought many men felt the same way about their penises. Perhaps, he suggested, the intense appeal of facials in porn (and real life) was about men’s desire for that same experience of being validated as desirable, as good, as “not dirty.” For a young man raised with the sense that his body – and especially his penis – is “disgusting”, a woman’s willingness to accept a facial is an intensely powerful source of affirmation.

In my conversations with Glickman and Andelloux, I shared this anecdote. Both agreed that rather than seeing the facial as rooted in the impulse to denigrate, it might indeed be better to view it as longing for approval. Andelloux pointed out that in her experience, many women (often with good reason) have a difficult time believing that degradation isn’t at the root of straight men’s fascination with facials. In any case, humiliation and affirmation aren’t incompatible reactions to the same act; a feeling of indignity when your partner ejaculates on your face isn’t contingent on his intending to demean you. No one should be obligated to endure humiliation for the sake of someone else’s longing for validation.

Men, Rape, Vulnerability, and the New FBI Definition

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I have a new piece up at Role/Reboot this morning: Erections Aren’t Consent: What the New FBI Definitions Might Tell Us About Male Victims of Rape. Excerpt:

Without getting mired in the tiresome debates over statistics, it’s safe to conclude three things from the recent data and the changed FBI definition. First, men make up a heavy preponderance of those who commit rape, though a significant minority of women does commit acts of sexualized violence. Second, women are statistically at much greater risk of rape than are men. Three, acknowledging these first two truths doesn’t diminish the reality that more men and boys than we realized are victims of rape and sexual violence. We need to avoid the twin errors of claiming false equivalence on the one hand, or denying the reality of male vulnerability altogether on the other.

…

Ejaculation is not evidence of enthusiasm. Orgasms (both male and female) can be coerced. Those are truths that bear repeating. They are worth remembering not because we’re witnessing an epidemic of female-on-male sexual assault. They’re worth remembering not only for the sake of preventing the rare but real incidences of female on male rape, but for teaching all of us— especially men—that a partner’s physical arousal is not a sexual blank check.

I still hear the witticism that “a hard dick has no conscience.” This belief that men “think with their dicks” serves to make men (like Ian) vulnerable to sexual assault, just as it serves to excuse away the rapes that aroused men commit. For the sake of the small but suffering number of male victims—and for the far greater number of women who are the victims of men—we need to shatter this pernicious myth about the male body. Men are not so tough that they can never be sexually assaulted by women. And by the exact same token, they are not so vulnerable to lust that rape becomes physiologically inevitable.

Men, we need to acknowledge, are both much stronger and much more fragile than most of us were raised to believe.