Baha'i Faith and Sexuality
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, Baha'i Faith and Sexuality, bahai-library.com.
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Bahá'í Faith and Sexuality

R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram

1996-02

Family is very important to the Sambia. It is unthinkable that a man would
have sexual relations with any woman other than his wife. The Sambia
believe that it requires frequent intercourse during pregnancy to create a
healthy baby as the child's blood and flesh are formed from the mother's
retained menstrual blood and the bones are formed from the father's semen.
The duty of men toward male children does not end with their birth,
however. A girl will naturally mature into a woman because she has
absorbed sufficient menstrual blood from her mother while in the womb and
this has potentiated the organ that will produce menstrual blood in her at
puberty. Boys also have this organ, but in them it remains dormant. Boys
do not have an active capacity to produce semen, so to become men and to
be able to pass on semen to create healthy babies they must be given semen
by older males. Boys after the age of about seven are taught to fellate
postpubertal boys who are themselves being fed by young men who are not
yet fathers. It is a male social duty to feed younger males and enable
them to successfully become men. The act of fellatio is nuturative. To
refuse it would be selfish and antisocial. Similar views occur among a
number of Melanesian peoples.

Family is very important among the peoples of many Pacific islands. The
major purpose of marriage is to have children. It is a terrible misfortune
for a married couple not to be able to have children. Only a foolhardy
couple would get married without getting pregnant first and knowing that
they were able to have children. In many Pacific islands there is no
concept of erotic kissing. A standard part of erotic activity is biting.
It is especially exciting to bite off eyelashes. The western interest in
female breasts is considered inexplicable. Female breasts are for feeding
babies; are western men hungry? Among one Pacific group, however, sex is
considered unpleasant verging on painful and risky to the health. It is
good manners to wish that a couple being married have two children as
quickly as possible and then they will never have to do it again.

Family was very important to the Oneida Community in 19th century New York
state. They practiced 'complex marriage'-- all the men were married to all the
women. The most important thing in sexual relations was that the woman be
properly satisfied. The spiritual progress that was the main purpose of sex was
dependent on this. Men were taught to practice 'coitus reservatus' to enable
them to engage in intercourse for extended periods (well over an hour) without
ejaculating. Thus women could have a satisfying sexual life without the risk of
pregnancy.

Among one Central American group it is usual for married couples to have sex
several times a day. A couple that has not had sex for 11 days is considered
divorced. They use a position that requires the minimum of bodily contact and
may complete sex in 1 minute or less.

Family is very important to the Chinese who traditionally placed many
restrictions on when sex between husband and wife was appropriate. It became
completely inappropriate after the birth of the first grandchild or after the age
of forty.

Family is very important in southern and eastern Africa. There a number of
peoples have institutionalized quasi-marriages between persons of the same
sex who may also have marital relationships with persons of the opposite sex.

Family was very important in mediaeval Europe. It was believed by physicians
that conception required orgasm by both partners. The Catholic Church
permitted women to masturbate to orgasm if their husbands ejaculated before
satisfying them, as long as this was done with the desire to become pregnant.

In late 19th century America women were not believed by most physicians to
have any sexual drive. Orgasm in a woman was a sign of pathology that required
rigorous, even surgical, treatment. Women needed to be protected from the
sexual demands of men. Sexual activity by men could be risky to their health,
however, and lead to dire results if not 'moderate.' Many physicians believed
that if this moderate regime included using prostitutes it was healthier to use
male prostitutes as men could only contract venereal disease from female
prostitutes.

Family is very important in the Middle East. Women have been traditionally
believed to have a sexual drive up to nine times as strong as that of a man. A
woman is in a constant state of sexual readiness and the mere presence of any
unrelated man is likely to cause her to want to seduce him. Men have to be
protected from the sexual temptations of women. And women's families have to
be protected from the risk to their honor of women's unfettered lust. Such ideas
are an aspect of what is known as the Mediterranean culture complex (although
the area it applies to extends well beyond the Mediterranean) and are not
derivative of Islam. They predate Islam and are found among all religions in the
region. Indeed the most extreme aspects, such as infibulation, can be even more
prevalent among other groups (e.g. Coptic Christians). In societies exhibiting
this culture complex, erotic activity between men is relatively common
irrespective of whether they are also married to women.

The term 'homosexual' was created in the 19th century west to describe
individuals who were believed to be a 'female soul trapped in a male body.' As
these individuals were held to be essentially female, although apparently male,
in conformity with the current view of female sexuality they were assumed to
have a passive sexual nature that expressed itself in a desire for erotic activity
with men. Homosexuals did not want to have sex with homosexuals by definition.
'Normal' men took an 'active' role in sexual encounters whether these were with
women or homosexuals. Some decades later, the term 'heterosexual' was created
to denote those who -only- desired erotic activity with those of the 'opposite'
sex. The creation of the term 'heterosexual' was part of a process of value
ranking types of sexual behavior and attempting to link them with judgments on
the social utility of individuals based on gender and sexuality. Later yet, the
referent of the term 'homosexual' was redrawn to oppose it to 'heterosexual.'
Attempting to relate these two opposed terms to actual behavior then required
the invention of the term 'bisexual' to denote those who could not be covered by
a simple dichotomy.

The issue is complicated by the use of these terms to describe both specific
instances of behavior and specific individuals. Thus they are used both as
neutral adjectives and as reified labels which may be value loaded. In many
cultures historically and contemporarily these terms cannot be usefully applied
other than as neutral adjectives. The reified label concepts are culture specific
and not generalizable.

The term 'sodomy' is long established in western law and is not specifically
linked to homosexuality. Basically, it refers to erotic activity between sentient
beings that has no possibility of resulting in reproduction. Thus it can be
between any combination of men, women, or animals. (Chickens have had a
prominent place in the legal history of sodomy.) I have even seen 'sodomites'
used to refer to men who had sex with women of another 'race' by an 18th
century author. Although the word is popularly used to refer to anal intercourse
this is only one aspect of its legal meaning and also not one to restrict it to
homosexual contexts.

There is nothing 'natural' about human sexual activity, let alone the ideas people
have about sex. There is nothing 'natural' about human family or marriage
systems. Reproduction of the species requires that male and female gametes be
brought together. How they are brought together is biologically irrelevant. That
the vast majority of human erotic activity does not bring gametes together is
also irrelevant. Human erotic activity is situated in specific socio-cultural
contexts. Family and marriage systems are situated in specific socio-cultural
contexts. There is no such thing as 'natural' erotic activity, a 'natural' family, or
'natural' family values.

Part of the operation of any culture is producing a feeling of 'naturalness'
(inevitability, humanness) in its members about what they do. The challenge for
global thinking is to be able to stand aside from this spurious feeling of
'naturalness' about one's own cultural arrangements; to stand aside not only
from what actually occurs but also from what is -supposed- to occur. It is
unlikely that concepts linked to and privileging highly specific attitudes and
behaviors are useful in terms of articulating a globally applicable morality. It
is more likely that core concepts that can be applied in many specific socio-
cultural contexts will be useful.

19th and 20th century Christian missionizing was accompanied by muumuus and
the missionary position as a set of religious concepts was tied to a set of
socio-culturally specific erotic attitudes and practices. The results of such an
intertwining were cultural dislocation and hypocracy.

To this day, there is no open discourse on sexuality between westerners and the
rest of the world. The west ( or a segment of the west) has so successfully
missionized its own views on 'normal' sex that much of the world's peoples are
aware that their own beliefs and practices are deviant by those standards and
they tend to allow westerners to simply assume that everybody else does 'it'
the same way. In fact, most of the world sees the west as rather odd and
blithely goes on doing 'it' their own way without discussing the issue. Almost
everything about 19th century middle eastern family and marriage systems and
sexual practices was aberrant by then western standards. Much of it still is.

Religious ideas cannot be worked out in socio-culturally meaningful ways if
they are only available packaged with the specifics of a particular time and
place. It is part of understanding them to be able to unpack these ideas from
their original context and repackage them in -any- context while remaining true
to their core. This is the case when using them in any new culture whether that
culture is geographically or temporally distant from the original socio-cultural
context in which the ideas were expressed.

It is necessary for members of -all- cultures to realize that however 'natural'
and fixed their culture seems, change always occurs. The important thing is the
coherence of that change with core values not the outward specifics, and our
responsibility to consciously adopt and maintain those values rather than
simply follow exterior forms be those attitudinal or behavioral.

There is a distinction between a view of religion that is legalistic -- you do
this and this and not that and that -- and a view of religion that is ethical --
these are the principles you should adhere to when deciding what to do. One
tells you how to act; the other teaches you how to choose. Islam, Christianity,
and Judaism have deep rooted tendencies toward legalism, despite their being
known as 'ethical monotheisms,' and this tendency has thus entered both middle
eastern and western cultures. 'Things' are right or wrong. Morality is a matter
of the objectively observable. In many ways this is a view of religion that is
concerned largely with concepts of taboo and pollution rather than values.

The essential locus of the 'thingness' of morality for this aspect of Semitic
religion (or more accurately for many adherents of the Semitic religions) has
been sexuality. It is the red flag that sets all the bulls charging. However, the
concentrated projection of moral fitness on the area of sexuality has often
served as a screen to permit considerable flexibility of morality in other areas
of life. Sexuality has been pressed into service as a moral synecdoche for an
individual's whole life and if one remained conforming in that area it provided a
sin-covering function for all other areas.

The corollary of this is that it is not deemed appropriate to discuss issues of
sexuality in respect of those who have already been determined on other grounds
to have led a moral life. To find a 'flaw' in their sexual conformity would be
taken to bring into question their whole life, so their sexuality should remain
unexamined just in case.

Thus, biography of early Bahá'ís has eschewed the issue of their sexuality and
removed it from the context in which statements about sexuality in the
writings are seen. That Bahá'ís had adulterous affairs, were blissfully
monogamous, had homosexual relationships, hardly ever spoke to their spouses,
used birth control, etc., is as relevant to understanding their lives as Bahá'ís as
anything else about them. It is especially relevant to understanding their
relationships and correspondence with the successive Heads of the faith.
Correspondence includes the unwritten mutual knowledge that the parties have
of each other and as much of that knowledge as can be recovered must be taken
into account to understand the correspondence.

The phrase 'companionate marriage' is used in a Guardian's letter which is often
cited as if this referred to people simply living together. Companionate
marriage was a specific reform of marriage law and practice that was proposed
in the west in the 1920s. the term refers to a legal contractual marriage that
could be terminated simply by mutual consent. It was also proposed that the
contract could include an agreement not to have children. Indeed, there could
even be an agreement not to have sex. Companionate marriage was being
presented by some American Bahá'ís, Lorol Schopflocher for one, as the ideal
form of marriage and was being recommended to attendees at Bahá'í summer
schools and other events. I was told by one woman who attended Green Acre in
her youth that Schopflocher expounded to all the girls on how they should insist
on separate bedrooms when they got married and that she had never shared a
bedroom with her husband and never would.

A remark that it is shameful to keep a catamite presumably means first and
foremost that it is shameful to keep a catamite. But from specific comments
we may also develop generalizations. We are likely to be aided in generalizing
by an understanding of the context in which the statement was made and
received. However, apart from this there are two basic directions in which we
may take our generalizing. The statement may be generalized to a condemnation
of a broader range of homosexual acts; or it may be generalized to a
condemnation of those in a position of power exploiting their dependents for
their own ends. One type of generalization operates on the basis of presumed
analogies among specific outward acts and the one in the statement; the other
operates on the basis of a concern for the principles that may be inferred from
the statement and how these may be related to motives, responsibilities, and
relationships.

The important question is which type of generalization is more likely to produce
results that may support a global value system that can flourish and develop in
all cultures. Is God more interested in people's actions than their hearts? Is the
road to salvation a mechanically instrumental one? Of course actions matter,
but what underlies the actions must matter at least as much if we are not to
espouse a materialist view of existence. And not only individual actions matter
but also the broader patterns of social interaction in which these actions are
situated.

The early anti-slavery movement in the U.S. was deeply interconnected with the
development of feminism. These movements shared a common position that it
was not acceptable for one individual to have rights in another's person or labor
to an extent that violated the second individual's rights in their own person. It
was considered to be equally evident that both slaves and 'free' women suffered
under such a disability and that the development of a moral and just society
required that their rights be restored and respected.

Unfortunately, the anti-slavery campaign degenerated into the cataloging of
stories of abuse and an attack based on arguing slavery's inhumane practices
rather than its fundamental illegitimacy. This allowed for the eventual
abolition of slavery without acknowledging the humanity of the slaves and this
side-stepping of the underlying question of rights also permitted the
disabilities under which women had suffered to continue.

The anti-slavery campaign was originally about basic concepts of human rights
and responsibilities. It reached its end on the basis of judgments about specific
acts. That the abolition of legal slavery appeared to end such acts allowed the
fundamental issues to remain undealt with. Both Americans of African descent
and all American women suffered the consequences for over a century more. The
moral issue in slavery was not one of how masters treated slaves, but whether
anyone had a right to be a master. The moral issue in women's rights was not
how husbands treated wives, but whether husbands had a right to be a master.
The moral illegitimacy of masters was not in whether they treated their legal
subordinates well or ill, but in their assumption of the right to impose their
will and conscience on others.

All individuals are ultimately responsible to God for their actions. One may
decide that God has provided an explicit set of instructions as to which actions
are acceptable and decide to conform to this. This is essentially the position of
such groups as the Amish. Or one may decide that God requires us to exercise
moral judgment in each specific set of circumstances according to basic
principles by which we should structure our lives and interaction with others.
Either position is quite defensible, but they have different social outcomes.

The first position leads to well defined communities with strong boundary
maintenance. These can be nurturative, satisfying, and secure communities for
those who choose to be in them, or can be experienced as restrictive and
repressive by others who may choose to leave. The second position leads to
heterogenous, associative communities which are less concerned with boundary
maintenance. These can be nurturative, satisfying, and secure for those who
choose to be in them, or can be experienced as unfocused, lax, and uncomfortable
by others who may choose to leave.

The big problem is: If a religion rules out the possibility of schism and yet is
not inclined to accept within one broader community of faith subsets who
acknowledge (however grudgingly) the rights of other subsets to have different
perspectives on this basic issue of the legalistic/ethical morality continuum,
can that religion avoid being an irrelevance to most of the people of the
world?

Jackson

Comments on Armstrong-Ingram's
essay by Linda Walbridge

Just a few quick thoughts on Jackson and xxxx's postings re: sexuality, which I
have really appreciated...

I don't in the slightest want to diminish the importance of Jackson's message
on the diversity of human sexuality and sexual norms. I just want to add another
perspective. The societies which you reported on, Jackson, as I recall, were
cases of isolated societies. Many of these are in a transitional state. They are
to various degrees having contact with the outside world and are becoming part
of the world economy. Even in very remote areas, we find men going on to work
for businesses, earning cash and leaving behind their subsistence way of life.
This is very disruptive to old family structures.

For example, we might find a society that normally practices polygyny. That
structure may have been the norm and the entire way of life of the community
centers on this. However, once men start leaving the village for the city and
working for money, nothing is the same. He can't afford to support more than one
wife. Village women also migrate to the city. Their life experiences and
expectations change. She would find no advantage to sharing a husband with
other women. They would not be doing the type of work that would have made
other women in the household useful. They can easily be exposed to movies and
TV that show a different way of life for women that will make husband sharing
less attractive. What tends to happen here is that men, accustomed to polygyny
but, now, not in a situation to practice it, will take girlfriends. The usual
controls of the village in regulating sexual behavior will have been disposed of
and new societal rules will not have been put in place.

As I don't need to tell you, urban life tends to promote the nuclear household. (I
know there are cases where this is not necessarily so, but in general this is
how it has worked.) In such a situation, nothing really is more advantageous
than the monogamous, totally faithful, enduring relationship of a man and a
woman. (This does not address the issue of homosexuality, I know. That is still
another matter)...

While the world is certainly a complex place, the tendency is for more
experiences to be shared. My Iraqi friends living in the West are a very good
example of all this. They are, for the most part, straight out of Najaf and
Karbala. Their world was a very narrow one. Girls married at about age 13 and
proceeded to stay at home and have children. Life in the West quickly disrupts
this pattern. I am quite close to a family where there are four sons and three
daughters. The sons all married in their twenties. The three oldest are trained
as scholars, the youngest is in medical school. The oldest daughter was married
off at age 13, the two older ones are unmarried and in college. I was told quite
frankly that this (i.e., the daughters going to college) never would have occurred
had the family remained in the M.E. There will never be any question about
polygyny or even temporary marriage in this family. It is not that they have
become assimilated into American society. Not at all. But circumstances have
forced changes - and some rethinking of things.

I suppose my point is that the Bahá'í teachings on sexuality and marriage will
not seem so strange and out of place in most situations in the world today. I
agree that if we go off to the heart of New Guinea where there is little culture
contact we might run into some situations where we might think that there is
no place at all for our notions of marriage and family. But those places I believe
are rapidly becoming fewer in number.

This by no means makes me think that we can be complacent and think that our
perception of the Bahá'í teachings can and should be forced down others throats.
Nor do I think that we should quit discussing how individual variations in human
sexuality can be accommodated in the Bahá'í community. Again, these are just
musings on how I see the world today in connection with a particular aspect of
the Bahá'í teachings.

Linda

Armstrong-Ingram's response to Linda Walbridge

Among the societies I discussed were the middle east, mediaeval Europe, 19th
century America, and china. I don't think these count as isolated societies.
Actually neither do most new guinea peoples. However isolated from the west
they have been, most of these people have had long term contact with various
local groups having cultures different from their own.

I do not think that urbanization can be equated with a drive toward monogamy or
nuclear households. Polygyny is of course restricted to men with greater access
to economic resources in those societies that favor it. Different types of
wealth and social capital do not change that. Indeed, polygyny has been adapted
to urbanization in various parts of Africa where relatively wealthy men (which
can equal middle class by our standards, e.g. university professors) may have a
suitably skilled urban wife to aid their career (often the only wife western
friends know about) and a rural wife (wives) suitably skilled to manage their
family land holdings. As a purely economic unit, if it is well managed a
polygonous family has a definite advantage in the accumulation of wealth and
often politically as well.

On urban living historically, there seems to have been no urban deterrent to
polygyny in urban china or the middle east; the cliche harem is an urban
institution. And the marriage system that is probably furthest from monogamy,
Nayar group marriage, was an urban based system which aided the concentration
of considerable economic resources in the hands of Nayar families. Actually the
Oneida family was very successful economically too (Oneida flatware).

I would agree that the scale of urbanization is often different now and that one
has to take into account the influence of the media. For example the hijra ( a
third gender in India) are assimilating to the traditional definition of their
'nature' and role western ideas about transsexualism....

Jackson

Comments on Armstrong-Ingram's
postings by Bev
Peden

Dear Friends:

...When people of other countries decide to follow the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh,
then they will come to terms as to how to fit their sexual patterns and liaisons
in keeping with the faith. I, for one, have no intention of wasting my time
instructing them on anything past the marriage laws (consent of parents and
exchange of vow) when it comes to sex. So many sexual patterns and marriage
patterns are based on survival of the tribe that it is hardly fair to sit in
judgement. In Africa, for example, where polygamy is practiced, a man who has
accepted Bahá'u'lláh's teachings is not required to put away any of his wives,
but is required to honour his commitment to her, her children and to do so until
the death of the wife or children...just like "regular" folks. He is required not to
replace that wife with a new one, until natural selection leaves him with either
one or none. Even the urban setting has not deterred polygamy here, in fact it
has made it more "necessary" in the man's point of view. He has one wife in the
city to look after his needs, meet social status obligations, and to keep his
home there, and one wife (or more) in the village to look after his farm and land.
But there are many Bahá'ís who are making the adjustment to monogamy...with
time. I am sure the same holds true for same sex relationships. If it is explicit
in the writings that this is not part of the Bahá'í teachings, and if those
choosing to follow those teachings are sincere, they will make the required
adjustment in their heart and do so willingly. Our responsibility is to assist
them with love and understanding...they are people, not statistics.

I have had some wonderful friends (Iranian by birth) become quite agitated at
mild nudity (not intended eroticism) in my paintings...their comment was that
we wear underwear so that the earth will not be embarrassed by our private
parts. It was at this point I realized that they had some kind of bias. I did not
feel it was my duty to try and change that. I didn't change my painting either. I
have also stood with men who are wearing nothing but a cloth tied around their
neck, and women with a flap of animal skin around their groin. Again, nothing
felt amiss, I was not embarrassed, and neither were they...it didn't matter as the
different manners of dress was not on our agenda...besides, it was so hot I was
envious of their freedom from my idea of conventional clothing. Their sexual
practices were never part of the conversation in either case. It is not at all
uncommon here in Africa for same sex friends to walk about holding hands...it
has no sexual association...it is an expression of friendship.

Now, there is a lot in the writings which is not in English, and some which is
not available, so I am not in a position to be an authority on what the writings
say. Can anyone get beyond our cultural hang-ups and really narrow the
discussion down to:

a) What do the writings identify as "Bahá'í sexual practices"?

b) What exact liaisons are identified as being Bahá'í in nature?
c) What
interpretation is offered for their application by authoritative sources for
these in the Faith?

Love,

Bev.

Armstrong-Ingram's response to Bev Peden

Further to Linda's comments: It is important to note that modern urbanization
does tend to be more disadvantageous to women because it changes the nature
of the family as an economic unit. For example, when peasant immigrants from
Europe continued to practice pregnancy desertion in the US the consequences
were much different. When a peasant husband went wandering in such parts as
southern Italy he could not take with him the land, the chickens, the goat, etc.,
and the family's basic means of subsistence remained available. In a New York
tenement with the family dependent on the husband's wage for subsistence,
pregnancy desertion was a disaster. There is similarly a disempowerment of
women when nomads either voluntarily or by government force become
sedentary. The changes in the internal economy of the family and its relations
with the broader society generally undermine the position of women. The
deleterious effects of urbanization on previously non-urban families are not tied
to any particular family system (let alone sexual ideology), however, but are
related more to the family's socio-economic resources.

Like Bev, I also tend toward the ... philosophy that if
it isn't done in the street to frighten the horses it's a personal matter. However,
the problems arise when personal and group sexuality is dragged into the street
and used as a basis for judgments about broader social worth and rights. Also,
not all erotically associated behaviour is confined to private occasions. Much
public behaviour implies what may be occurring in private and judgments may be
made on the basis of those implications (rightly or wrongly read) even more
than on the basis of known private acts.

Bev's point about the diversity of response to the human body is also important.
I am all too familiar with the kind of reaction to art that Bev describes. My wife
is an artist who specializes in the human figure. There is almost nowhere in
this area her work could be shown or sold, especially if the figure is male. Also,
it needs to be understood (as I think came out from Bev's examples) that
because a people expose most of the body doesn't mean they have no standard of
modesty. They are as likely to distinguish between clothed and naked as
Victorian England even if clothed means dusted with ashes.

Covering the body may be at least as much about prurience as modesty. One of
the things I find most distasteful about television 'standards' in the US is the
racist and sexist hierarchy applied to decisions about 'appropriateness' in
showing the human body.

Jackson

Armstrong-Ingram's response to a posting on Gender

...As I would use [the terms "sex" and "gender"], "sex" is a biological matter
referring to subsets of species which can share genetic information with one or
more other subsets to result in a new generation that combines genetic
information from all parents in a package that is distinct from any one parent,
higher animals have 2 sexes some more creative lower life forms have a lot
more (there is a slime mold with 11); "gender" refers to a social status with an
associated role (set of behaviors). There is no given connection between gender
and sex. There are well over a 100 societies with third gender roles; their
marriage patterns reflect this.

Jackson

Loni Bramson-Lerche discusses
biological "gender"

I am still researching and thinking about the question of biological sex and
gender, but I can give you a bit more information on the theory that there are
more than two biological sexes. Unfortunately, I do not have much time and can
only provide a very brief summary, which I hope will not distort the issues
involved.

Most researchers agree that gender is socially constructed. In terms of
biological sex, whereas it is usually easy to discern certain physical
differences and similarities, how these are classified is, in the opinion of
certain researchers, also a social construct. At this point in my research, I
agree with these researchers.

Very briefly, if you think of a continuum, on one end there are XY individuals
with body hair, a penis, testicles, narrow hips, etc. On the other end of the
continuum are XX individuals with breasts, wide hips, little body hair, a vagina,
clitoris, etc. In the middle of this continuum there is a variety, with XXY
individuals, XX XY people, those with only one sex chromosome, X0, etc. It has
been estimated that about 10% of the human population is found in the middle
area of the continuum. The people in the middle area can also be classified as
belonging there because of hormonal divergences from "the norm" during pregnancy (and sometimes after pregnancy). As you might know, at the moment of
conception, and for about the first six weeks of life, everyone is female. If the
right amount of androgen is not produced at exactly the right time, even if the
individual is XY, a baby "girl" will be born. (There are also XX "men".) What this
amounts to is that in some "men" and "women" there are different combinations
of internal sex organs, secondary sexual characteristics, and external
genitals. This is an overly short summary of the situation, but I do not have
time for more than that.

In the international society that is developing, to decide whether someone is a
woman or a man, the individual must be able to answer yes to a certain number
of questions. Some of these questions have to do with: -the
appearance of external genitals;
-whether there is a Y chromosome or
not;
-the amount of certain hormones in the body;
-and the sex assigned
at birth.

The people in the middle of the continuum cannot answer yes to the whole set of
questions. One possible way of resolving this situation is to say that, in fact,
there is only one kind of human being which comes in a variety of shapes, sizes,
and forms. Most people are not yet ready to think of there being only one
biological sex and no such thing as gender, so there is a move to create a
classification with more than two sexes. (And as you can see from Tony Lee's
and J. Armstrong-Ingram's postings, more than two genders.) The move seems to
be primarily in the "amateur" sports movement, specifically those sports (and
events) that generate a lot of money. In order to participate in athletic events it
is required to pass a sex chromatin screening. The testers look to see if the
athlete has Barr bodies or not. If you have Barr bodies you are female (because
Barr bodies are produced by XX individuals), if you do not, then you are male. The
problem is that you can have "women" who do not produce Barr bodies, and "men"
who do, depending on what sex chromosomes they have and what hormones they
produce or were subjected to. (Barr bodies are present because of one of the X
chromosomes.)

This is why some geneticists, biologists, and people in other fields who
research these questions are calling for a classification with more than two
biological sexes. Since there is such a rigid definition of what a man is and
what a woman is, they feel it is only logical and fair to create a new
classification with more than two biological sexes.

Sincerely,

(Dr.) Loni Bramson-Lerche

Armstrong-Ingram's response to Bramson-Lerche

Adding to what Loni said:

There are two kinds of living species, those who reproduce asexually and those
who reproduce sexually. The concept of sex has really no biological relevance
outside reproduction. Therefore in the strict sense only those individuals who
produce viable gametes can be said to have a sex. the number of sexes in a
species is determined by the number of types of gametes, it has nothing to do
with whole individuals. Specific individuals can be said to have a sex or no sex
based on the type of gamete they do or do not produce. The wide range of
epiphenomena related to gamete production are not themselves of relevance in
determining sex. Sex in human beings is a matter of male and female gamete
producers. Categories like 'man' and 'woman' have no given correlate to this but
relate to how an individual functions socially: they are genders. Attribution to
genders is based on a combination of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral
factors that are related to sex in complex and variably determined ways.

Jackson

Observations by Juan Cole

Tom Laquer, a historian at UC-Berkeley, demonstrated in his seminal book
*Making Sex* that the Aristotelian-Galenic tradition that dominated medical
thought in medieval Europe and the Muslim world posited a *one-sex* model of
human sexuality. It held that women were inverted men. In fact, in medieval
Europe there appears to have occasionally been fear that some women might pop
out and become men. The one-sex model was upheld by Avicenna as well. It was
only overturned in favor of a two-sex model with the Enlightenment and
nineteenth-century physiology, which rejected the medieval analogies that had
been proposed betight pop
out and become men. The one-sex model was upheld by Avicenna as well. It was
only overturned in favor of a two-sex model with the Enlightenment and
nineteenth-century physiology, which rejected the medieval analogies that had
been proposed betel of human biology, and that it may underlie their view of the equality
of the sexes. (The medieval one-sex model had still been highly patriarchal,
since the female version of inverted masculinity was considered "inferior" by
male physicians; however, one could build an equality scenario on a one-sex
model, which they appear to have done).

cheers Juan Cole, History, Univ. of Michigan

Armstrong-Ingram's response to Juan Cole

This analogy model -- that male and female sexual organs were essentially the
same but one was an 'outie' and the other an 'innie' --is of course why it was
thought that women could not get pregnant without an orgasm. Both male and
female had to ejaculate to conceive. The discovery of the ovum in the period
transitioning between the renaissance and the enlightenment was very
influential in leading to the passive conceptualization of female sexuality. The
organs are in origin the same; they develop as female unless a 'switch' is pulled
hormonally to make them develop as male. The point I was emphasizing is that
division into sexes is irrelevant in any context other than reproduction and
there are two sexes in that context. Those two sexes are produced by having a
female default form and a male variant form.

Your description of Holley, by the way, was all news to me. It really needs to
be written up.

The short answer is: I agree completely. But in real life the answers are a bit
longer.

Over 10 years ago, I completed the research and outline for a biography of
Holley. We came to the conclusion that there was no way the book (or indeed any
chapter of it) would get through review. Now, you can say how could we know
that without trying? Well, of course, we can't for sure. But, writing 300 to 400
pages on the off chance that all one's experience to date is leading one to draw
an inaccurate conclusion is just too much of a risk. The specific issues that
concerned us were all ones that had come up before and there was simply no
reason to assume they would be any less of a problem than previously. Indeed,
there was reason to assume that the totality of issues involved in this work
would add up to an even bigger problem.

This is one of five books that I have completed research for, but see no
possibility of publishing within a Bahá'í context. And this is not simply a matter
of what I might write, but of what the source materials say. The types of
objections that would arise are related to the content of the historical record,
not just interpretation of that record.

Now, if some are starting to think that this is the old 'review' issue starting up
again and that's a 'community affairs' issue anyway and doesn't belong here, I'm
afraid I have to completely disagree. The issues of creation, legitimation,
dissemination, and control of 'knowledge' within a community of faith are
absolutely central concerns in the sociology of religion and cannot simply be
sidestepped by fiat. If there are issues that may not be addressed, or evidence
that may not be adduced, then understanding why is essential to understanding
that community of faith.

Let me give some examples of the kinds of things that are problematic if one
wants to write seriously about the Bahá'í faith _and_ have that writing readily
accessible to the community: i.e. one wishes to not only produce a scholarly
discussion but also an account that is useful to the community for
understanding where it came from and formulating its goals for the future.

Let's start with what seems like a fairly minor matter. There is a Bahá'í story
that links the founding of Green Acre with Sarah Farmer visiting the Parliament
of Religions in Chicago in 1893 (or hearing about it; or reading about it; or even
being present at the talk in which the faith was mentioned; there are a number
of versions). The problem with the story is that there is information about the
program at Green Acre in 1892. (It is not entirely clear, but there is a
possibility that even this was not the first year.) Of course, the World's
Colombian Exposition was supposed to be held in 1892 (it was delayed because
of the depressed US economy), so she may still have been influenced by advance
publicity for the Parliament of Religions, but Sarah Farmer did not start Green
Acre in 1893. In her later years, the poor woman was, as we say in Ireland,
away with the fairies. There is a rather light- hearted account by Miriam Haney
(who was helping to look after her) of how Sarah tried to stab her with a pair of
scissors but was too weak to actually hurt her. Miriam says that nobody gets
cross about such incidents because Sarah has no idea of what she is doing.
Certain individuals and institutions have invested themselves in an account of
Green Acre and Sarah Farmer which makes the discussion of such documentation
unwelcome.

Since around 1919, there has been a standard account that a break away group
(referred to as "the Reading Room Group") tried to split the Bahá'í community in
Chicago around 1917 and that the House of Spirituality led by Corinne True and
Zia Bagdadi fought valiantly to maintain the integrity of the community.
Actually, the records show that the Reading Room was established by the House
of Spirituality c.1915; that as part of the tensions within the House and the
broader community, True and Bagdadi were not in sympathy with those most
involved with the Reading Room; and that True and Bagdadi formed a break away
body to try to bring the community in line with their ideas of how it should
function. At one time, there were actually three institutional bodies in Chicago:
the House; the True/Bagdadi assembly; and a moderate assembly that tried not
to take sides and act as a unifying force (it didn't last long). As things worked
out, the True/Bagdadi faction was able to call on national support and won.
Thus, the later Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Chicago descends directly
from the True/Bagdadi group and only indirectly from the House of Spirituality.
In large part because of the activities of True's supporters at the national level
(especially Remey) this episode is very well documented. It is simply not
possible to seriously discuss the development of the institutionalization of the
faith in Chicago or nationally without looking at what really happened at this
time and on a number of other occasions for which there are traditional
accounts which also stand in tension with the actual sources. Equally
obviously, this episode has considerable implications for what we mean by
schism.-->

...I have copies of hundreds of pages of wonderful pilgrim notes that would be
problematic to publish. Bahá'ís have created an image of Abdu'l-Bahá which
draws on 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild' stereotypes and they often see him as a
sort of semi-transparent, etherealized figure in a rose garden. However, Abdu'l-
Baha was a very physical person and interacted very physically with those
around him. He touched, patted, held, stroked hands, arms and shoulders of both
men and women while talking with them. He put his arm around people. He
stroked their hair. He had a great sense of humor and indulged in horse play
when in groups of men, slapping faces and bopping people with his umbrella. (He
was also known for his extensive repertoire of dirty jokes in Turkish.) The
response of many American women to him was also very physical, indeed could
be profoundly sexual. At that time in the US, the epitome of male sexual
attraction was a mature, bearded man. There were a large number of sects
started in the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s by imposing, bearded men
who gathered a disproportionately female following. In almost every one, these
women were sexually exploited. One of the remarkable things about Abdu'l-Bahá
is that there is not the faintest trace of a shred of a hint that he ever took
advantage of the way women responded to him. And there certainly would have
been no objection on the part of many if he had tried. One of the beliefs of the
American Bahá'í community at that time was that there was to be a third
Manifestation for this dispensation born in America and there was quite an
eagerness to be the mother. (Actually, Sohrab seems to have believed that he
was to be/could be the father -- Richard knows more about this.) Abdu'l-Bahá
both accepted the intensity of people's feelings for him and attempted to direct
that intensity into suitable channels. Indeed, he even accepted the propriety of
intense love relationships between men and women within the faith as long as
that love did not lead to illicit sexual activity. (This is documented in both
pilgrim notes and tablets. Some of the individuals involved in these couples
were married to other people at the time.) Now, it hardly needs to be said that
anything that even comes close to sex is a frontline freakout issue. But, how can
we possibly understand Abdu'l-Bahá's relationship with the community, or
indeed the issues involved in current interpersonal relations, without looking at
such evidence?

From Tue Sep 30 13:19:44 1997 Date: Mon, 29 Sep
1997 18:30:35 -0500 (EST) From: Jackson Armstrong-Ingram
To: Talisman Subject: Re: perversion,
normality, the homosexual construct-->

...Let me try to disentangle some more of the concepts that have been conflated
in this discussion so far.

Sexual reproduction is a particular form of reproduction that provides that
offspring will possess a genotype that is composed of part of the genotype of
each of its parents. In higher animals (most likely for reasons of economy)
sexual reproduction is carried out in the context of a species having two sexes.
In some lower organisms this is not the case: There is a slime mold with 13
sexes. From a biological point of view, sex only refers to the ability to produce
viable gametes and participate in the process of bringing gametes together to
form a new generation. A organism that does not produce viable gametes does
not in a strict biological sense _have_ a sex.

In a species, such as human beings, that utilizes sexual reproduction the
differentiation into two sexes is related to four different factors, or aspects of
sex: genetic sex; hormonal sex; anatomical sex (which can be divided into
internal and external); and physiological sex. _If_ all four aspects align then an
individual can be said to be of _a_ sex when and while able to produce viable
gametes.

In a dialectical relationship with this biological system of sexual
differentiation, socio-cultural systems construct genders. Male and female are
terms for sex; man and woman are the base terms for gender, but many
societies also have other genders. (Societies may also have ideas about more
than two sexes, or even about only one sex, but from the standpoint of Western
biology there are two sexes.) The way(s) in which gender correlates with sex is
not a given but itself a socio-cultural construct.

The gender system of a society exists within a fuller context of ideas about
biology, ideas about families, ideas about bodies, ideas about pleasure, ideas
about morality, etc. All of these ideas are socio-culturally specific and in turn
influence how individuals perceive and experience biological facts.

Strictly speaking, only activities which can potentially lead to the conjoining of
gametes can be called sexual. Other activities that are frequently so labeled are
more appropriately termed erotic. While people may engage in sexual activity
without finding it particularly rewarding in itself because they wish to have
children, the reason for engaging in erotic activity is that it is enjoyed in and
for itself. When erotic activity is labeled 'sexual' this tends to be done so as to
lend the legitimacy of the directed purposiveness of sexual activity to certain
forms of erotic activity and deny it to others. Thus, erotic activity between
individuals who could engage in sexual activity if they wanted to may be
privileged although the specific activity in which they are engaged is no more
potentially sexual that the same activity between individuals who could not act
sexually.

Which activities are considered erotic and where the boundaries come between
erotic and non-erotic activity is an individual matter mediated by enculturation
and experience. There is nothing automatically to be experienced as pleasurable
in any erotic activity. E.g. kissing is a potentially highly erotic activity in
Western culture; in many other cultures its appeal is quite inexplicable.

Even what seem by definition to be erotically charged activities in one society
may have no erotic loading in another. There is a Latin American Indian culture
in which it is a commonplace gesture for men to hold each others penises while
conversing. An American anthropologist who was working in this society caused
great embarrassment (and no doubt felt it) as he could not function in this
expected interactional mode without having erections. The genitals are so
completely an eroticized site for Westerners that there is probably no way a
Western man could have anyone (irrespective of any erotic inclination toward
that person) hold his penis without such a result outside certain very limited
medical contexts that assume only brief touching.

The terms which as translated as 'adultery' and 'homosexuality' in translations
of Bahá'u'lláh are zina and liwat. These are very specific concepts in Islamic
law. Zina requires penile penetration of a human vagina (the term covers both
the traditional meaning of fornication and adultery in English --the issue of
whether anyone is married can relate to the severity of the offense but doesn't
change the term); liwat requires a penis and the anus of a woman, boy, or man,
or anything suitable at the back end of livestock. In both cases it is something
done by a person with a penis to another.

In Islamic law there are the associated concepts of a person who does an
illegitimate act and a person who makes possible the doing of an illegitimate
act by another. In both zina and liwat the person with the active penis is in the
first category and the other individual is in the second. That is why in strict
interpretation someone who is subject to rape cannot be without blame as they
made possible the perpetration of an illegitimate act by another.

What is essential to these categories (as to the passage in the Aqdas on
catamites) is that they represent exploitative acts in which one person uses
another being for his own pleasure. This is what makes them immoral, not the
specific erotic activities but the contextual imbalance of power.

Anal intercourse as a gesture of both the primacy of personal pleasure and the
irrelevance of the pleasure of the person being used as a vehicle for that
pleasure is a standard feature of the Middle Eastern erotic repertoire. It is a
commonplace of interviews with Phillippina maids returned from Saudi Arabia
that they complain of the insistence of Saudi men that they submit to anal
intercourse. It is also the most favored means of avoiding the risk of getting a
woman pregnant in pre- and extra-marital affairs. As well as being used in
marriage for birth control (and as a bargaining factor by wives).

The morality of erotic activity cannot be determined simply by whether the
parties are married or not. In the 1860s in Chicago a court required that a
woman be returned to her husband. She had had vaginal surgery and her husband
had raped her ripping out her stitches. She was rescued and the wounds
resutured. She did not want to return to her husband. After the court required
her return, he raped her again and she almost bled to death. The courts held that
no action could be taken against him as he was simply exercising his 'right' of
access as a husband. However, the courts could take action in another way. A
newspaper editor in another state who publicised the case and editorialized
that if he had attacked her with a knife he would have been charged with
attempted murder but because he attacked her with his penis he was immune
from prosecution was himself prosecuted, found guilty, and imprisoned for
publishing an obscenity. It took more than a century after this case to get US
courts to accept that a marriage license did not protect a husband from charges
of rape.

I remember my mother telling me of her disgust at two people she knew. They
were married but loathed each other. Their religion did not permit divorce so
they actually lived in different cities in different countries, meeting
occasionally, as my mother put it, "for mutual relief." What occasioned the level
of disgust that caused her to tell me about this was that they had just got
pregnant (their religion didn't go for birth control either). As far as she was
concerned what they had done was worse than adultery or prostitution; and I
agree. They were married, but their erotic and sexual activities were without
any moral foundation because they simply constituted mutual use without any
grounding in a relationship of care and respect.

Personally, I think that any God who has a lot of time to worry about who is
having consensual fun with whom really hasn't been paying attention to what
this world's problems actually are. I think any God worth bothering about is
concerned primarily with how people treat each other. I think in a healthy
society physical interaction between individuals would encompass many
different forms ranging from the simple pleasures of appreciating that other
people are warm, breathing, tactile beings who are accessible and can
communicate by more means than just sight and sound, through the range of the
erotic, to the tiny percentage of human encounters that are sexual. And I think
that any system of categories that tries to classify people on the basis of
valued and devalued acts is dehumanizing, because the essence of humanity is
the ability to form complex, varied, and educative relationships. And that's what
religion is about, not mere codes of determination about the rightness or
wrongness of acts, but a higher context in which human relationships can
flourish and in which actions derive from those relationships.

Jackson

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