Born as Eunuchs

By Colin O’Malley

In your middle/high school years, I’m sure most of you remember your youth pastor running around with purity rings, handing them out to anyone who wanted one. Purity, in this context, is a great call to sexual abstinence from God, and it’s something I’ve followed for a while now. I never had questions about why I didn’t want to have sex, I just told myself it’s God’s plan for my sexual life. However, recently I’ve learned something new about my sexuality.

I started to dig into what it really meant to be a young, straight male Christian. I knew I was attracted to girls; guys never had a strong appeal to my interests, however, I’m not straight. This past year, I’ve learned that I am an asexual man. No, I don’t have super powers like the amoebas you might have learned from 9th grade biology (even though cloning myself would be cool). Asexuality, although mostly unheard of, is generally considered to be the fourth sexual orientation.

As an asexual I don’t have a desire for sexual activity with anyone, male or female. I realized that this was true through the way my relationships developed with the girls I dated and the thoughts I had on a daily basis. As awkward as it seems, I just never was into it; that was the main vibe I got from my body. However, don’t think for a second that asexuality is that simple!

Stated above, I’m attracted to women. I’ve liked girls ever since I was born. I loved spending time with girls from preschool, where I luckily evaded the cooties disease, to the present. I just felt naturally prone to being around females over males. That’s ok. Although I’m not attracted to them sexually I do have a strong romantic attraction towards females, and to slap a label on it, I’m a heteromantic asexual.

Now, you might ask how that’s possible. Isn’t it weird: to not be sexually attracted to someone? After all, God did say, “Be fruitful and multiple”? Isn’t sex a natural activity? I do believe sex was made to glorify God, definitely! However, my view on it is a bit different. I enjoy romantic love, but romantic love does not necessarily mean sexual love. Much like the four loves C.S. Lewis talked about, “eros” is about loving one person exclusively rather than all people sexually.

I hope my sexuality didn’t make your head spin too much! My journey through understanding was long and difficult, but it has made a large difference in how I understand my identity in Christ. As a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, I feel a call to say that everything isn’t black-and-white in sexuality. There’s much more to gay and straight, but it definitely takes time to internalize all the possibilities! Regardless of anyone’s sexuality, it is important to reflect on how we can all feel agape, God’s great love for us all.

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Colin O’Malley is a sophomore Biblical Studies major at Gordon College. He spends too much time listening to/making music as a radio personality for Scot Radio.

Titles are gay

I’m Elle! In many ways, I’m simply a typical college student making memories and eventually growing up.  I am a lot of things: a student at Gordon College (sophomore double majoring in Economics and French); attempting to read Foucault, Chomsky, and Bourdieu in my nonexistent free time; perpetually attempting to catch up on sleep; and a pseudo-connoisseur of tea, music, and films. I also identify as pansexual. A term with which many people aren’t familiar, pansexual is typically defined as someone who is attracted to men, women, and people who identify as transgender, androgynous, and/or gender fluid.

It took me a while to come to terms with this side of me. From a young age, I knew I was attracted to women more often than to men. But for a long while, I shut out this side of me because I grew up in an environment where it would not be well received. Actually, much of my sexuality and sexual identity was repressed in an extremely unhealthy manner. Near the end of high school, I became friends with and heard the stories of a few gay/lesbian individuals. I realized that I really related to their stories, and   finally began to internally accept my attraction to women. However, when I came to Gordon, I felt a pressure to pretend to be straight in order to be accepted into my community I spent a while feeling uncomfortable and lonely, but ended up finding some comfort in counseling and in the campus same-sex attraction group.

As I grew more confident, I realized that I was comfortable explaining this part of my identity to others. There was just the not so minor dilemma of not knowing how to describe myself besides the vague label of ‘not straight’. Even though I had strong and frequent attractions to people of the female persuasion, I still was attracted to some males. So I wasn’t comfortable calling myself a lesbian. Yet ‘bisexual’ seemed a limiting descriptor as well. I realized that I was also attracted to gender queer people: those who describe their gender as outside the gender binary. The best way to describe my process of attraction is that gender didn’t/doesn’t seem that important to me. Yes, I have different preferences (anything from eye color, personality traits, life goals, clothing style, values, etc.) in men, women, trans, queer, etc. people. But I’ve found that I can connect romantically without having a fundamental focus on gender. Because of this, I guess the best description for my sexual identity would be pansexual.

Identifying as something other than straight at Gordon has been…weird. I have felt invisible or, if LGBTQ topics are acknowledged, mired in controversy and intense theological debates. I’ve chosen to start talking about LGBTQ issues on campus for a couple reasons. I often hear homosexuality talked about in abstract terms, and I think some people often forget that gay people are people. People with feelings, ideas, values, desires. So I want to be a part of sharing what it’s like to live a non-straight life in the context of an overwhelmingly heteronormative (heterosexuality is the only orientation) environment. I want people to know that gays exist. here. at Gordon. Queer people are a part of this community, but sometimes we don’t feel like it. I also wanted to support and write for the InQUEERy because I’m sick of the frustrated silence I’ve often seen. I’m not demanding or expecting agreement from people who read what others or I have said or will say, but I do want a conversation. I believe that Gordon students are capable of being mature and loving in controversial discussions, and think that valuable growth can happen through listening to and dialoguing about differing opinions, experiences, and ideas.