Moral education and ass-fucking

James Dobson is the kind of man who appends the letters "Ph.D." after his name at the ends of his letters. He is also the founder and chairman of political advocacy group Focus on the Family. In June, he wrote a newsletter that was (rightly) much derided by bloggers from the opposite end of the so-called "political spectrum" (see this example, by Ian Blecher's enemy, Matthew Yglesias).

The newsletter consists mostly of a long passage excerpted from a book by Joseph Nicolosi, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Most of the fun was had at the expense of one truly funny paragraph.

Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

None of the responses I have read went beyond incredulous mockery. But I found the excerpt (the whole excerpt, not just this paragraph) fascinating. I take it to reveal something deep about the theory underlying the the idea that we can and should "treat" homosexuality.

First, Dr. Nicolosi starts by discussing "gender identity disorder," a condition that can afflict both young boys and girls, which manifests itself in behavior like "Repeatedly stated desire to be, or insistence that he or she is, the other sex." Note the use of the two pronouns, in the interest of gender-neutrality. But this gender-neutral approach quickly subsides in favor of descriptions of behavior that would constitute manifestations of this "disorder" in boys alone. Then, the "he or she" construction disappears entirely, and for good, unannounced in the middle of this paragraph.

Perhaps you are concerned about your child and his or her "sexual development." Maybe your son or daughter is saying things like, "I must be gay," or "I'm bisexual." You've found same-sex porn in his room or evidence that he has accessed it on the Internet. You've found intimate journal entries about another girl in her diary. The most important message I can offer to you is that there is no such thing as a "gay child" or a "gay teen." [But] left untreated, studies show these boys have a 75 percent chance of becoming homosexual or bisexual.

I should note that I am quoting from Dr. Dobson's excerpt rather than the original; I cannot say what has been left out or altered. But notice how the "his or her" in the first sentence becomes "these boys" in the last. The next paragraph cements this transition.

It is important to understand, however, that most of my homosexual clients were not explicitly feminine when they were children. More often, they displayed a "nonmasculinity" that set them painfully apart from other boys: unathletic, somewhat passive, unaggressive and uninterested in rough-and-tumble play.

After this, we are treated to a list of traits that a boy might have that, although they "could be considered gifts," are the source of the troublesome nonmasculinity. The list of nonmasculine character traits is elaborated on later. I apologize for quoting at such great length. But one more paragraph is essential.

But make no mistake. A boy can be sensitive, kind, social, artistic, gentle—and be heterosexual. He can be an artist, an actor, a dancer, a cook, a musician—and heterosexual. These innate artistic skills are "who he is," part of the wonderful range of human abilities, and there's no reason to discourage them. But they can all be developed within the context of normal heterosexual manhood.

Although talent as a dancer, say, could be considered a gift, we are told only that "there is no reason to discourage them," not that there is any reason to encourage them. Perhaps I make too much of this form of words. But what is essential to see is that, in Dr. Nicolosi's view, the end of proper child-rearing is to inculcate masculinity in one's sons (nothing is said of the daughters). The cultivation of other excellences, while not to be discouraged, is secondary.

Now I will leave off reading the excerpt with you. The point I am trying to make will be obvious already to any Aristotelians. Surely the goal of a parent in bringing up a child is to help him or her develop into a virtuous member of his or her kind (I avoid the expression "a virtuous human being" since this would be contentious in the dialectical context). But if this claim is to be as platitudinous as I would like, "virtuous" must mean simply: excellent as a member of the relevant kind, without further specification of in what exactly this excellence consists. Aristotle famously had his theory of the virtues, but it is open to other theorists to propose different accounts of what it is to be an excellent human being, an excellent man, an excellent woman, or whatever. Clearly Dr. Dobson and Dr. Nicolosi are concerned with what it is to be an excellent man, as opposed to, say an excellent human being. And to be an excellent man, in their view, is simply to realize an ideal of masculinity which is not clearly spelled out. But we all know the basic outline.

You will perhaps wonder whether I am misreading Dr. Nicolosi. After all, his explicit concern is with preventing a particular (alleged) disorder--homosexuality--rather than with promoting a particular idea of virtue for men. But I contend that it is Dr. Nicolosi (and, by extension, Dr. Dobson) who is confused, and not I. Consider:

Recalling the words of psychologist Robert Stoller, he said, "Masculinity is an achievement." [He] meant that growing up straight isn't something that happens.

Robert Stoller, I do not doubt (but have not checked) is surely a reputable psychologist who did serious work on gender identification in children. I seriously doubt that he meant anything at all about heterosexuality. The conflation of the distinct ideas of masculinity and heterosexuality is Dr. Nicolosi's. How can such a learned man (a Ph.D., like Dr. Dobson himself!) be so confused?

The answer, I submit (although here I am admittedly speculating about the contents of other minds), is that it is the ultimate betrayal of the ideal of masculinity promoted by our two doctors to be fucked in the ass. Not simply to engage in homosexual acts--how many of us have heard (at least urban legends) of men who maintain their self-identification as heterosexual by engaging only in, say, oral sex with other men? And don't we recognize that fucking another man in the ass can be an expression, in some contexts, of power over him--an act that would thus reaffirm one's masculine strength and is not to be considered as shameful? (I do not mean we recognize this characterization in the sense that we would endorse the moral judgment involved.) No, it is specifically being fucked in the ass that is a betrayal of the masculine ideal. While Dr. Dobson and Dr. Nicolosi have been forced to admit that nonmasculine traits like a love of dance or a sympathetic temperament are not bad in themselves, the preservation of an ideal of masculinity as the virtue of men requires a corresponding vice--a defect of character that constitutes a failure of virtue. Thus, since ass-fucking is prohibited for masculine men, a love of ass-fucking, i.e., homosexuality, is the vice in question.

Of course, if one conflates masculinity with virtue and homosexuality with vice, for men, then it is no surprise that one would think masculinity and homosexuality can be inculcated or prevented with the proper moral education. For one thing we know about the virtues, whatever they may be, is that they are not easily acquired. Being virtuous is an achievement, and it is this fact that accounts for Dr. Nicolosi's obvious confusion.

As a final note, I would like to point out that, if this diagnosis is correct, the proper way to achieve acceptance for gay men is not to look for genetic markers of homosexuality and argue that, contrary to the views of Dr. Nicolosi and Dr. Dobson, homosexuality is inherited. Rather, we should attack the conception of virtue from which they procede. An obvious starting point is that virtue is likely the same for all human beings, men and women (perhaps the relevant kind is at least possibly even broader, such as all rational beings). This would seem to conflict with the idea that masculinity is virtue for men, since men would have no distinct virtue and it is surely not the case that masculinity is virtue for women.