Some preliminary thoughts on homosexuality that uses the Western philosophy of personhood to argue that homosexual relationships are morally wrong. Although homosexual desires can be natural and blameless, acting on them is harmful.
In this essay, I will argue that among the elite and highly-educated, we can have “proper” male homosexual relationships between two men who love each other. But among ordinary people, many men will devolve into sex addicts who spend most of their time and energy hunting for their next climax. Gay men say that on gay dating websites it is very common to start a chat by sending the other person a picture of their penis, which some gay men find revolting. I’ve read that it is very hard for gay men looking for long-term relationships to find men who don’t just treat them like pieces of meat.
In the modern understanding of Islam, we believe that Islam and Islamic law should never be forced on others, and that people should be free to leave Islam. So abiding by the ban on homosexual relationships is like being vegans. You do it for the sake of the greater good, while leaving others to do as they like. It’s our own business with God. We don’t want to change the law to force homosexuals to break up. We just want to have the freedom as Muslims to avoid it ourselves if we choose, while always having the choice of leaving Islam and doing as we like.
Islam wants sex to happen in the context of the nuclear family, so that each man is dedicated to building his own little civilization. Allowing homosexual relationships makes things too easy. It’s similar to porn and sex robots. While a minority of the elite and highly-educated will be able to have long-term romantic homosexual relationships, there will also be an underclass of male sex addicts who only think about their next fling. All a man needs to do is look reasonably attractive and he can go on a gay dating site and immediately hook up with another man without having to prove anything. It becomes a huge waste of a civilization’s energies. In this way men learn to objectify other men and to live only for their sexuality, leaving their families and civilizations to crumble and die. And the stats seem to back it. Male homosexuals have many times the number of sex partners than male heterosexuals.
Perhaps if all men were perfect romantics, then there wouldn’t have been an issue with homosexual relationships, the same way that if all people could use alcohol safely then Islam probably wouldn’t have banned it.
Note that as Muslims we aren’t required to dislike gay people. Muslim parents whose son comes out as gay in no way lose their parental duties toward their child, as I discuss here: Dealing with a homosexual child in Islam
Since we can’t permit female homosexuality without permitting male homosexuality, it too has to be forbidden, even though women are not like men and are much more interested in safe, long-term relationships. And of course having a lot of women in lesbian relationships means there will be fewer women to enslave men to the goals of civilization.
Corporealization
The line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” from the 1939 film Gone with the Wind was one of the most shocking examples of profanity that had been shown on screen up to that time in the English language. The Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s brought with it a flood of profanity-celebrating cultural products; films, novels and songs. There is a good reason why the celebration of sexual freedom and the celebration of profanity come hand-in-hand: they are both symptoms of the same process–the increasing corporealization of humans that takes place when a culture abandons its traditional values.
To corporealize a person means to treat them as if they were a mere body rather than a person. Seeing a person you respect slip on a banana peel in front of an audience is highly embarrassing because it corporealizes them: it takes attention away from their unique personhood and reveals them to us as mere bodies, helplessly flailing around and falling. Immediately after such an accident, it becomes extremely difficult to take that person seriously, for example if they were about to give a speech. It will take a while for the memory of the embarrassing incident to fade away so that we can start to see the person again as a person, not an object, and so that we can take them seriously.
Rape is a form of corporealization: it is to use a person as an instrument for one’s own pleasure, with their humanity, their personhood, stripped away from them. Mugging someone is also a form of corporealization: the person is treated as a mere instrument, a tool for enriching oneself, without consideration for who they are and what kind of person they are. Rape and mugging are, in a way, the same crime: the crime of treating a person as if they were merely a tool that can be used for one’s own purposes.
Whenever we treat someone as if they were not a person, as if they were not possessed of an inviolable dignity, uniqueness and transcendence as humans, we corporealize them. The philosopher Kant calls this to treat a person as a means (instrument) rather than as an end (aim/goal).
The way this ties into the issue of homosexuality is that homosexual relationships are corporealizing. They stress the fact of our fleshiness at the expense of our personhood.
If you imagine an idealistic, fairy tale homosexual relationship where the couple utterly love and respect each other and live in a society that happily respects and accepts them, there appears to be nothing wrong with the picture. There in fact are some people who have created such a world for themselves–highly intelligent professionals who are in homosexual relationships and surrounded by social circles that love, respect and accept them.
But you cannot judge social policy by looking at the rare successes and ignore the average person who is in such relationships. Even if 10% of homosexuals can live in such a happy world, we need to look at the remaining 90% to see how they live and behave. The homosexual dating app Grindr is a good illustration of ordinary homosexuality. Its very name refers to the sexual act, and those who use it consider it largely a “sex app”, an app for those who find someone whom they meet for an hour before moving on immediately to having sex with each other.
Ordinary rather than elite male homosexuality is largely about finding attractive male bodies to use for one’s own pleasure. It is sex in its physicality that is the focus of the lifestyle; the focus is on one’s own body, one’s own penis and its needs, and attractive pieces of flesh that can satisfy those needs.
Ordinary homosexuality normalizes the “hookup” culture that is also practiced by heterosexuals, especially in the West. If you see nothing with wrong hookup cultures, then you will likely see nothing wrong with homosexual relationships.
But there is a deep problem with hookup cultures, and anything that leads to hookup cultures is morally wrong. So the problem with homosexuality is not necessarily anything within it (unless we believe in God, but this essay is not about divinely ordained morality), the problem with homosexuality is that it is a force that always leads to hookup cultures.
So the philosophical reason why homosexuality is wrong is expressed in this syllogism:
- Hookup cultures are morally wrong
- The practice of (male) homosexuality always leads to hookup cultures
- Therefore homosexual lifestyles are wrong
Hookup cultures and civilizations
In order to show that homosexuality is wrong, we need to show that hookup cultures are wrong, i.e. harmful. What is wrong with the meat-market mentality of the hookup culture where most people are interested in quickly finding fellow humans to use for sexual pleasure then discard?
The reason is that the hookup culture is diametrically opposed to traditional marriage and the wholesome family atmosphere that it is meant to create. Marriage is the basis of civilization. By destroying marriage, hookup cultures destroy civilization.
Think of two types of men. One of them, the civilization man, is interested in finding a woman to love, building a family and contributing to his civilization’s future through his works. The other, the hookup culture man, man is interested in his own pleasures. He wants to take as much as he can from the civilization he lives in by sleeping with as many women as he wants without caring for the future.
Now imagine two civilizations. One of them is filled with civilization men, the other with hookup culture men. Which civilization is going to be prosperous, productive and successful?
Imagine the civilization in the Victorian novel Pride and Prejudice. This is a society where everyone has extreme respect for their parents, siblings and spouses. Everyone is treated as automatically worthy by the virtue of being born into that civilization. Mrs. Bennet in the novel is an ignorant and annoying woman. But since she is a wife and a mother, she is treated with extreme respect and consideration by everyone around her. She is like a queen who is treated with respect whether she deserves it or not because her society has a place reserved for her that gives her status and protects her from insults and demeaning treatment.
In that society, almost everyone feels important, needed and necessary for their society. Depression is rare because everyone treats you like you matter regardless of whether you are attractive or interesting. No one can insult you or treat you in a demeaning way. Everyone is busy working to maintain the illusion that you are important and loved. And since everyone is involved in it, the illusion becomes reality. You never feel lost or purposeless because there is so much going on around you that constantly reinforces in you the feeling that you are important and essential to that society–to your parents, siblings, spouse and children. Even a stupid, unattractive and poor man is treated like a king within his own household by his relatives, spouse and children. The mother, regardless of her personal qualities, is Mother and is treated like a queen who deserves a special status and consideration.
That society is a human and humane society that is utterly suited to the happiness and mental health of its members. That is what it is like to live in a society filled with civilization men and women.
Many people who have never lived in such a society think that it is all an illusion. They laugh at Victorian novels and think it is all pretense that those people were so respectful toward each other. They think there are all kinds of evil and ugly things hidden underneath. But as a rare person who grew up in a such a society in Iran and Iraq, I know its truth and its irreplaceable value. I want to live in a society where dads are loved and considered irreplaceable by their wives and children rather than being treated like village idiots as so many dads are treated in the West. I want to live in a society where mothers are respected as Mother, important, irreplaceable and possessing inviolable dignity.
If you have never read a Jane Austen novel, I recommend you read a few to know exactly what I am talking about. And having been brought up in a similar society, I know that it is not all a lie. Such societies do exist–all that is needed is strong religious belief and respect for traditional values.
The hookup jungle
Now think of the hookup culture where every woman is judged by her beauty and bodily attributes. She has no place reserved for her in this hookup society. Her only place is assured by the virtue of her body. If men want to have sex with her, she is worthy. If men are disgusted by her because she is ugly, then she has no worth. Imagine the utter despair of unattractive men and women in this hookup culture where no one wants them and no one treats them like they are worthy. It is a jungle where everyone is judged not as humans, but as animals. If you can be a good instrument of other people’s pleasure–if you have charisma and physical attractiveness, you are treated like the king of the jungle. And if you lack these, you are cast away to the margins where you have to be content with being forever alone and unwanted.
That is what many young men and women experience as they eagerly abandon their families and embrace the hookup culture thinking that it will give them all that they desire. They find out that all it can give them is short-lived climaxes of pleasure followed by long periods of feeling worthless and fearful for one’s status in the popularity contest.
Since Western society has not utterly degenerated, some of these young people are able to abandon the horrors of the hookup jungle to build families, switching their mode of life from the hookup life to the civilization life. They leave the jungle and hope to embrace the normalcy of a traditional way of life.
But their life in the hookup culture causes many forms of often irreparable damage. The corporealization mentality of the hookup culture where everyone is an instrument rather than an infinitely worthy person causes them to be cynical, distrusting and disrespectful toward their families, societies and future spouses. By having lived such a degenerate life for so long, they will not be able to miraculously switch to acting like Victorian gentlemen and ladies in their respect and love for other people. They will rather be like so many failed individuals in the West, having damaged their relationships with their families irreparably so that they cannot count on their help. When a person spends years corporelizing other humans and being corporealized themselves, they are unable to see their fellow humans as persons anymore. They find it difficult to respect their parents because father and mother are two corporealized bags of matter like every other human. They can be beneficial materially for oneself, so that the corporealizer treats the father as an ATM and the mother as something of a servant. They certainly cannot be treated like kings and queens enjoying infinite respect because they themselves are incapable of envisioning any human deserving such respect since they themselves were so corporealized by everyone around them that they now feel everyone corporealizes them all the time.
Such people often build a half-successful marriage with an equally damaged human and beget a child who suffers the consequences of their damagedness. The couple do not truly respect each other because they are not very capable of treating others as persons. They continue to maintain the cynicism, distrust and sense of worthlessness that the hookup culture imparted upon them. And the child grows up in an atmosphere where no one is sure of their place. The dad is not sure of his place with his woman because the woman, having been used by so many men before, cannot truly trust him nor fully embrace the role of Wife to an infinitely respected Husband. To her the very idea of respecting a man like that sounds utterly ridiculous, a silly joke, a pretense. She is incapable of appreciating that the atmosphere in novels like Pride and Prejudice is actually real.
And the man, having used so many women in the past and been used by so many women, considers his wife merely just another woman who now happens to be his wife. He is unable to truly trust her or to embrace the role of Husband as an infinitely respected and irreplaceable person in his household.
You may find it easy to imagine a couple who enjoyed the party life of the hookup culture in their 20’s then went into to build a perfectly happy and wholesome family life in their 30’s. But that is just your imagination. You may be thinking of a few successful examples and ignoring the majority; the failures and train wrecks that are everywhere around us.
If you are unable to imagine being in a society like that in Pride and Prejudice, then you yourself may be the product of the trauma and destruction that the hookup culture has brought on your society. You may be unable to imagine any alternative, so you think this is all that there can be, and you think this is just how life is. And from such a perspective, you will be unable to appreciate my reasoning for why homosexuality is wrong.
Male homosexuality and hookup cultures
As mentioned, male homosexuality leads to hookup cultures. A statistic that backs up this claim is that in surveys homosexual men constantly report having many times more sexual partners than heterosexual men. It is in the nature of the male libido to demand constant stimulation and variety. It sounds utterly stupid to the average homosexual to limit their satisfaction to just one man that they love as Husband, with whom they live side by side through life until they die hand in hand. It feels far more natural, interesting, and fun to use apps like Grindr to constantly meet the best available males around them.
My assertion therefore is that there can never be such a thing as the normalization of male homosexuality in a society without the normalization of hookup cultures. And that means that the normalization of male homosexuality destroys the basis for the existence of the Pride and Prejudice society.
To me the Pride and Prejudice society is the only truly civilized and wholesome society that can exist in the modern world. Such a society must be defended and maintained, and a part of this means to do everything needed to prevent hookup cultures, which includes an avoidance of homosexual relationships.
If you think there can be normalized homosexuality without hookup cultures, the burden of proof is on you. You may be thinking of a few idealistic images of homosexual relationships and ignoring the behavior of the majority of male homosexuals.
Islam forbids alcohol despite the fact that some people can use it safely, because among ordinary alcohol users there are many who are unable to use it safely, so as a whole it is a danger to society. In the same way, even if there are some of the elite who can live homosexual lifestyles without it being a danger to society, among the ordinary homosexual population there are many who are unable to live this lifestyle safely, therefore as a whole it is a danger to society.
And if you do not believe in the worth of the Pride and Prejudice society and the need to create and maintain it, then we will just have to agree to disagree. Defending this society means defending the treatment of humans as persons rather than corporealized objects. And this to me is an infinitely important goal, because treating humans as persons is the basis for all civilized human life. Anything that promotes it is good, anything that promotes its opposite is evil and dangerous.
Male homosexual relationships promote the corporealization of humans because they allow the male libido to run wild and to use numerous other humans for the satisfaction of its physical desires. Other humans are instrumentalized by it (turned into instruments), and in this way the flesh becomes paramount and the personhood of the people involved fades away. The average person who engages in this lifestyle will find it impossible to be part of the Pride and Prejudice society where humans are treated as persons of infinite worth. The same of course also applies to a heterosexual man who constantly sleeps with random women and prostitutes and makes his sexuality the paramount factor in his life.
The average man’s homosexual lifestyle causes him to sink into obscenity. He becomes a servant of his sex drive, a sex addict for whom traditional morality sounds like a pretense. His male sex drive’s predatory nature dominates him so that he starts to see other humans largely in terms of their ability to stimulate him sexually. The same is true of a heterosexual pornography addict whose brain becomes rewired in a way that makes it nearly impossible for him to relate to other humans within the context of civilized, humane social relationships. Every woman he sees is just another a bag of matter whose ability to satisfy him is the first thing he thinks about.
For the good of society and civilization, therefore, it is paramount that the male sex drive be limited through marriage. Allowing his sex drive to run wild through hookup cultures, whether homosexual or heterosexual, causes him to degenerate into something of a predatory animal in society who is far more concerned with his next climax than with living a wholesome, humane life surrounded by infinitely respected persons.
As civilized humans we therefore face a choice. Either we give men free reign to their sex drive so that they become a sex-seeking underclass who feel out of place in respectable society, or we limit their freedom so that they are forced to marry a woman, be content with her, and go through the extremely difficult process of making something worthy and productive of their lives.
Female homosexuals
I have not covered female homosexuality so far because it is different from male homosexuality. Women are more interested in long-term relationships than short-term flings, therefore their homosexuality is not a direct force for bringing on the hookup culture (as far as I am aware). But since no society can approve of female homosexuality without also approving of male homosexuality, female homosexuality is an indirect force for bringing on the hookup culture, therefore it too should be avoided if we wish to avoid creating hookup cultures.