Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing, by Karen A. McClintock

Title: Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing
Author: Karen A. McClintock
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9780800632380

Pro:
•  Critique of Christian doctrines about sex from a Christian perspective
•  Describes ways sexual double-standards affects Christian women

Con:
•  Overly simplistic understanding of pornography
•  No Index

Description:
•  Critique of Christian doctrines about sex from a Christian perspective
•  Describes ways sexual double-standards affects Christian women

Book Review

When an organization or community does not allow people to talk about or even admit to having sexual urges, then it is no longer possible for members to express their sexuality in healthy ways. The traditional Christian message of "Don't do it, and if you are doing it, pretend that you aren't" has never served to protect people from abuse and exploitation. On the contrary, it has only served to encourage it and keep it underground.

Because of this, Christian communities need a sort of therapy to deal with the conflicts about sexuality which afflict their members, and that is the goal which Karen A. McClintock has in mind with her book Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing. It is aimed at pastors and other community leaders to help them address the questions which typically remain ignored. McClintock is not, as she explains, looking to find fault with anyone; instead, she is exploring the fault lines in Christian communities.

Sexuality constitutes a dangerous series of fault lines between leaders and members, adults and children, men and women, and more. Such tension can never be entirely eliminated, but knowing where they are can allow people to navigate them safely and confidently. According to McClintock, the key to dealing with sexual matters is in addressing the problem of shame, because shame is used by human communities generally, not just Christian communities, as a means of social control by those hoping to maintain the status quo.

Sexual shame is particularly potent because sexuality is an important component of a person's identity. If we are caused to feel ashamed of such a vital aspect of how we define ourselves, then our self-esteem and sense of self-worth can be seriously undermined, making us even more susceptible to other aspects of social control. There's a good reason why even secular totalitarian governments have gone to great lengths to control and suppress pornography, homosexuality, prostitution, etc.

McClintock wants people to be able to feel confident about who they are and definitely seeks to challenge the status quo. More specifically, she seeks to question Christian teachings regarding sexuality and the social roles of men, women and children:

The church has participated in perpetuating sexual abuse by theologically articulating patriarchy. We have told people that God is the ruler over man and that man is to rule over the woman and children.

We have illuminated Bible verses where women and children are counted last or not at all and considered property to be used and disposed of as the man sees fit. Our participation, theologically, in family violence contributes to the shame of victims and perpetrators alike.

McClintock argues quite successfully that patriarchal attitudes can have palpable consequences, some of which she has experienced herself. For example, the tradition of asceticism among men was successful in desexualizing men only insofar as it was also successful in over-sexualizing women at the same time. Once men grew to feel themselves "above" the messy business of sexual feelings, then women came to shoulder it all — including all of the guilt, even for the sexual feelings which men inadvertently experienced.

This caused problems for Christian congregations in the 1970s and 1980s when women began to assume leadership positions, especially as ministers and pastors:

Women becoming Christlike leaders in the 1970s and 80s challenged the church's repression of sexuality. The old options for women of being either virgins or whores are at odds with clergywomen as leaders and preachers. Into which category does the new preacher fall?

McClintock herself experienced the consequences of this when she was asked to wear heavy robes rather than simply a modest skirt, even when the men were permitted to wear standard attire and even when they were permitted to take off their suit jackets and roll up their sleeves.

Why? Because she was forced to bear the shame of whatever sexual attraction was experienced by men in the congregation — an attitude more than a little reminiscent of why Muslim women are traditionally expected to cover far more of themselves than men.

Christians — not Christian leaders, but average Christians in the pews — expected McClintock to change and become as sexually neutral as possible because they couldn't handle their feelings and/or assumed that others couldn't handle their sexual feelings. Lacking any healthy, productive means of expressing their feelings, all they could do was treat her in what became a more repressive manner. This is, again, very much like what we see in traditionalist Muslim contexts: because men are unable to express their sexuality and sexual feelings in a healthy, productive manner all they can do is insist that women cover up and stay home to the point where the feelings stop appearing.

It is true that this book is designed for leaders of Christian communities, but McClintock's exploration of sexuality within a Christian context should also be appealing to nonbelievers who already have an interest in the topic. To often critiques of Christian patriarch and misogyny come from outside the Christian community. Critiques from a Christian perspective are valuable because they help express similar objections in a different language and framework which might help make it easier for Christians to recognize the problems at the heart of their religion.