Do Homophobic Christians Also Hate Asexuals? (Yes, but differently.)
This isn’t an anti-Christian article. Not all Christians are anti-LGBTQIA+. I refer specifically to the subset of Christians who are, in fact, anti-LGBTQIA+, and who seek to control:
- who we marry (or don’t marry)
- how we have sex
- and all aspects of our bodily autonomy;
- from gender affirming care
- to access to birth control and abortion.
I’m talking about Christians like America’s Hawley Power Couple. (I already wrote commentary about the unfortunate photo of them trying to kiss.)
I’m talking about Aotearoa’s Brian Tamaki, whose church members allegedly defaced the rainbow crossing on K Road.
Basically, these people do not respect bodily autonomy.
Content note for anti-asexual animus. This article is for people who do not have a coercively controlling religious background. If you do come from that sort of background, and already understand at a deep level that, within fundamentalist Christian churches, sex is as compulsory as it is forbidden, perhaps skip this one.
Aspec people are frequently told that by dismissive allosexuals that we’re complaining about nothing and should just shut up. “Asexuality is a made up label”, etc. It’s easy to see us as a Void — no identity at all. If we do not have a sexuality, we do not have a legitimate identity. So it follows that we cannot possibly experience discrimination.
Let’s address this directly: Do the Christian churches who have beef with the gays also have beef with the a-spectrum folk? (The aspecs.)
As examples, I’m using two different voices from the conservative USA Christian community. They picked themselves: I occasionally make use of a podcast search engine to discover mentions of asexuality. I hope to find members of my own community, but among all the news of snails, ecosystems and amoeba, I also come across right-wing opinions about us.
Two Christian podcasters have recently made their opinions about asexuality publicly available. (We can assume that the more liberal Christian leaders are not broadcasting opinions on asexuality to their congregations, precisely because they embrace everyone, and have chosen to let us be.)
But! By pure coincidence, these two examples I happened across reach the same conclusion in very different ways. Together, these Christian opinions on “asexuality” make for an interesting — if hugely dispiriting — point of contrast. The first is Pastor Mike Novotny. The second is Christian woman and marriage counsellor, Belah Rose.
WHAT PASTOR MIKE NOVOTNY THINKS OF ASEXUALS
WHO EVEN IS MIKE NOVOTNY?
Pastor Mike Novotny has been preaching since 2007, currently out of Wisconsin. He’s independent — not affiliated with a single church body. His love for God is also his Business, his livelihood.
The guy’s special talent: media presence. He broadcasts his conservative opinions across numerous platforms: TV, YouTube, numerous books. He’s got his own app. You name it, Mike is across it.
To save you looking him up, Pastor Mike Novotny bears a strong resemblance to flamboyantly gay, lewd-mouthed sex columnist Dan Savage*, which is no doubt equally vexing to both Novotny and Savage.
*Dan Savage has not been historically great to aces either, for the record. With the help of asexual activists who spent a lot of spoons explaining asexual identity on his show, Savage did at least change his mind about us, admitting that asexuality is an orientation and maybe we do deserve to experience relationships with allosexuals after all… so long as everyone’s fine with it, I guess.
Pastor Novotny’s business is called Time of Grace. Christian listeners send in their questions and Pastor Mike sees fit to educate us all with his own opinion, as a knowledgeable man of God.
I’ve been avoiding such people since my teenage years, but after listening to Novotny answer a question about what God specifically thinks of asexuals, I did check in on what this guy thinks about fellow members of our wider queer community. Shock, horror, this guy does not like the gays. No, sir he does not. He does not believe that all love is equal. You know the type, enough said.
But listening to him talk specifically about asexuals, at first glance it might appear that Novotny does not mind our type at all.
He tells us his views here:
What Does God Say About Asexuality? || Tough Questions With Pastor Mike (Devotion)
And what does he say?
Pastor Mike apparently gets the asexual question “all the time” when he talks about sexuality at local Christian high schools.
Commentary: Clearly asexual visibility is working! This bloke meets Christian high schoolers who have heard the word, at least! (Damn shame they’re asking him about it. Here’s hoping they’re just trying to wind the guy up.)
Pastor Mike defines an “asexual” as “someone who is not driven by sexual desire. They have a very very low sexual desire. Maybe they have no sexual desire. They’re not prompted to lust. They’re not…eager to have sex. They just don’t experience those feelings.”
Commentary: From the outset, this Christian Pastor has chosen not accept or research definitions of asexuality as defined by the aspec community ourselves. I don’t know where he got his own definition from, but he has modified it to sound more Christian. “Lust” is a religious-adjacent concept which aspec communities generally avoid, as it’s not helpful to anyone except to those who wish to control the sexual “desires” of others.
Now to that word: “desire”. Whereas the aspec community very mindfully describes asexuality as concerning “attraction”, Pastor Mike steamrolls over that entirely. He uses a much less specific and therefore less correct term to describe us: He says we have “very very low sexual desire”.
This is plain wrong. Many asexuals do experience sexual desire — the spectrum is from none at all, through to normative levels of desire, and all the way to the other side of the supersexual desire spectrum.
That “asexuals can and do have sex” is almost impossible to convey to those outside the aspec community. It feels to doubters like an oxymoron. But it’s true. A significant number of asexuals do experience high levels of sexual desire. Many asexuals out there are having more sex than you are, Mike.
Of course, asexual sexuality is not an oxymoron at all once people understand this following “very very” basic concept: That sexual attraction and sexual desire are two different things.
To clarify, when I talk about sexual desire, I’m talking about the desire to have sex. This word is also frequently conflated with sexual libido, which is also its own thing. A person can be horny (high libido) but still not desire actual sex acts. A person may choose to do nothing with their libido. Generally, for most people, one follows the other. Attraction + libido >> desire. And things that co-occur sequentially are frequently conflated.
Asexuals are here to tell you, there are various components that lead to someone having (enjoyable) sex: Attraction, libido and desire — each its own dial, each cranked to its own level, variable for most people on any given day. But for asexuals, attraction is ‘set’ at a low to zero level. That’s the difference. It doesn’t tend to fluctuate across a lifetime. Attraction doesn’t wax and wane with the seasons. Attraction tends to endure.
Personally, I would like to see the definition of asexuality broaden a little to encompass individuals who feel any aspect of their (low need for) sexuality is non-normative and enduring. This might include people who experience sexual attraction but, for whatever reason, still do not experience a “normative” desire for sex, by the standards of their (sub)culture. (I suspect a wider definition might encompass more cis men.)
However, until outsiders like Pastor Mike Novotny quit fucking up the basics, i.e. that asexuality is an orientation, not a pattern of behaviour, not a description of libido, then unfortunately our community cannot enjoy the freedom of inserting more nuance into how we define ourselves for ourselves. So we’re not at a point where we can even have that conversation.
Next, Pastor Mike explains that the “A” in LGBTQIA+ stands for “asexual”.
Commentary: Well, probably because the youth have schooled him, at least Mike doesn’t think the A stands for ally. However, he’s still incorrect. The A is an umbrella letter and currently represents: asexual, aromantic, agender.
This is a significant point, because if Mike Novotny understood how very many of us are also genderqueer, I am 100% sure he would not be as charitable as he’s about to be…
Pastor Mike refers viewers to his other (anti-trans) videos about what he thinks Genesis 1 says about gender.
Commentary: The likes of Pastor Mike use Genesis to support their own bigoted views by reading in binary fashion.
Some in the trans/non-binary community will try to reason with Christians — the type who will insist until they are blue in the face that God created “man” and “woman”.
The pro-genderqueer argument: God also created “night” and “day”… which is shorthand for saying that God created all of the more specific times in between. Sure, God created night and day, but also created dusk, dawn, quarter to three in the afternoon and twenty-four nanoseconds past midnight.
Apparently this argument has very occasionally worked when trying to persuade gender bigots that Genesis cannot, in fact, be interpreted as a series of simple binaries.
“No one’s asking me,” says Pastor Mike, but “I don’t think the A should be in the acronym.”
Commentary: Well, Hallelujah, praise the bored, no one’s asking Pastor Mike. We can all go home now.
Pastor Mike hates all those other letters, “but… hey… the As are A-okay! I do hate queers, but I don’t consider asexuals queer!”
Pastor Mike: “Is there anything in the Bible that says Thou shalt not be asexual? Er, no.”
Commentary: There’s nothing in the Bible that preaches against homosexuality, either. In fact, there are many things Not In The Bible which Christo-fascists will insist are in the Bible.
Christians sometimes talk about the difference between exegesis and eisegesis when interpreting the word of Christ.
Exegesis: Using the words, through the lens of their original context, to determine their intent.
Eisegesis: Using the words to confirm what you already believe to be true.
Opinions vary on this matter, but here is one (educated) take on Gays in the Bible:
The phrase “Man shall not lay with man” was originally “man shall not lay with boy”. The passage cautioned against child sexual abuse, not against gay sex between consenting adults. The passage is found in Romans, and was translated to “homosexual” for the first time in the 1940s.
To be more precise, the “original” Bible passage doesn’t literally translate to “boy” but is actually two words. And no one is 100% sure of its meaning (plausible deniability for the 20th century homophobes). Contextually, the first word seems to imply an aggressor. The second word is sometimes translated as “effeminate”, a word that was often used to describe men who shaved their faces or who didn’t wear beards. (What counts as “effeminate” varies hugely between cultures and eras.)
Many scholars agree that this part of the Bible is referring to some sort of sexual abuse either with minors or with household servants, enacted as a show of dominance. So it would seem that this infamous passage in Romans is cautioning us against any kind of sexual activity which is used to dominate others. Ergo, the Bible says nothing about gay men enjoying consensual sex.
Pastor Mike: Is there anything in the Bible that says, “Unless you want to have sex frequently you’re not a follower of Jesus?”
Commentary: Pastor Mike finds this notion hilarious.
This the same laugh asexuals get when we ask for visibility, and inclusion in queer spaces and protection under anti-discrimination laws. “Asexuals don’t belong in LGBTQ spaces! You guys wanna be oppressed soo bad!”
Pastor Mike: “Jesus himself didn’t have sex frequently! He didn’t have sex at all!”
Commentary: Jesus had numerous male “disciples”, I do believe. If Jesus existed, Jesus was queer af.
BC, AD and That Awkward Time in College Where Jesus Did Some “Experimenting”
— Ride on the Magic Skeetbus
Pastor Mike: “Is it a requirement of Holiness and obedience to be a sexual person? And the answer is no. Do you have to have a strong sexual desire to have a strong faith in God? Obviously the answer is no.”
Commentary: Once again, in very clear terms, Pastor Mike is not actually talking about asexuals. He is talking about people who don’t have sex. He is talking about people with low sexual desire. And since he’s conflating attraction and desire, I’m pretty sure he’s conflating desire and libido as well. I believe he’s talking about low libido individuals who he sees as straight.
When Pastor Mike laughingly accepts “asexuals”, he is not talking about actual asexuals at all. To be asexual is to be inherently queer. We see the world differently. Most of us are drawn to the queer community, even before we know we are ourselves queer. We are queer. Many of us are more than one letter in the LGBTQIA+ acronym. When Pastor Mike spews hate at ‘the rest of’ our allosexual queer family, we feel this at a deep and personal level.
Pastor Mike: “The best proof is in First Corinthians chapter 7 Verse 1. Apparently the Corinthians reached out to the Apostle Paul who started their church and they had a whole bunch of things. Here was one of them.”
Commentary: He then quotes his Bible: “Now for the matters you wrote about, it’s good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
Pastor Mike Novotny goes on to use the example of Apostle Paul as the Biblical asexual mascot.
Who was Apostle Paul?
For our purposes, it doesn’t matter a jot who Apostle Paul really was — or if he even existed. I’m only interested in who Evangelicals think Paul really was, and why they think contemporary asexuals are like him.
- After Jesus, Paul is the Main Dude in Christianity. For those who accept Paul’s teachings, Paul was an author of timeless Christian theology who wrote a whole bunch of the Bible. Whether he did or not, his teachings were his own inventions.
- Not all Christians accept Paul’s teachings. Some accept him with deep reservations. He is sometimes known as ‘The Pagan’s Apostle” or “The False Apostle” because he is thought to contradict Jesus. For example, Jesus said only 12 Apostles exist into Eternity but Paul added himself; Paul was not about obedience; and relevant to our purposes here, Paul exhorted celibacy whereas Jesus apparently said celibacy is not a choice within everyone’s power. He is suggesting that, as Christians, our sexuality is not fully our own. The primary function of marriage is to direct sexual desire in a way that allows the community to thrive.
- In Christianity, there are two options for dealing with sexual desire: Get married or remain celibate. Paul took the celibate option. According to Paul, this was the superior choice. As Mike Novotny quotes, Paul suggested that even married couples go through periods with no sex so that they could devote themselves entirely to prayer. By remaining single, we leave ourselves open to falling wholeheartedly into God’s loving embrace.
- Paul wrote: “It is not the wife who has the rights to her own body, but the husband. In the same way, it is not the husband who has the rights to his own body, but the wife” (1 Cor. 7:4). This was countercultural in Paul’s day: He was trying to tell men to submit to wives in a strongly patriarchal culture in which men literally owned women. He was trying to say that sex is about giving, not receiving. A contemporary reader rejects Paul’s words for different reasons: Everyone’s body belongs to themselves. (Conservative Christians are not quite there yet, as we’re about to see.)
- Some believe, in line with the words of Paul the Apostle, that our collective obsession and quest for love and marriage is emblematic of humanity’s idolatrous tendencies. (See: The Divine Magician by Peter Rollins, reviewed here.) “When we are caught up in idolatry, we focus on some special object that makes everything else in the world mundane. In contrast, the iconic way of being helps us experience the mundane as infused with special significance. In theological terms, this is the idea of God in the midst of life.”
- Paul did not believe that sex is what makes us whole. (Finally, something I’m on board with.) He believed that every desire (including sexual desire) reflects a much deeper and profound longing (for a relationship with God).
I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Pastor Mike Novotny’s interpretation of Paul’s teachings: “He called being single ‘a gift’.”
Commentary: So… Pastor Mike Novotny is specifically accepting of single asexuals.
However, other Christian advice-givers have plenty to say about asexuals who are married and, well, let’s just say “asexuals” are tolerated under very specific conditions:
- We aren’t having sex
- We aren’t also genderqueer, homoromantic or otherwise consider ourselves part of the LGBTQIA rainbow
- We aren’t married, or even thinking we might like to be married/partnered one day
- We aren’t filling our copious amounts of free time with other weird-ass activities
Pastor Mike accepts Paul “because [Paul] wasn’t married, he didn’t have children. He wasn’t driven by sexual desires giving in to lust, running around sleeping with prostitutes.”
Commentary: Christians like Pastor Mike like Paul because he supposedly spent all that extra free time “as a single guy pouring himself into Ministry”.
Asexuals are sometimes told that, if we’re not occupied with sex, we must have a lot of free time on our hands. Turns out Christians have very specific ideas about what should be done with that supposed free time.
Volunteering at church? Praying to the Lord? Yes please!
Wanking off to niche interests? No!!! Not like that!
Pastor Mike: “So if you’re not driven by sex, don’t feel bad. No need to change. You should think about that a lot before you get into a relationship that leads to marriage, since sex is a great gift for marriage. But by itself, it could be this gift that maybe Paul had.”
Commentary: When Pastor Mike says “by itself” I take this to mean “so long as asexuals remain single”.
It’s one thing for Pastor Mike to spew this disinformation about aspecs to high school students. The real test: What if a mixed-orientation couple visits his office asking for guidance, and one happens to be asexual? What would this guy advise then?
I do, in fact, have a probable answer to that. Let’s skip to a different Christian podcast, this time by a woman, aimed at other Christian women.
“DELIGHT YOUR MARRIAGE”
Podcast Episode 416-Increased Desire (Asexual is/not a Thing?) Sarah’s Transformation Story
Apparently Delight Your Marriage is one of the top 1% most popular podcasts in the world. The company was founded by Belah Rose, who coaches long-time marriage therapists.
Belah, at first glance, may seem refreshingly sex positive, for a nice white Christian lady. One thing I appreciate: “Love making isn’t necessarily natural”. The “natural” argument is outdated and problematic. Glad to see it queried.
Belah’s mission: Helping married Christian women enjoy a fulfilling sex life which lasts the distance, as a way of bringing them both closer to God and to their husbands. Christians like Belah believe that marriage makes sex better, because the better you know your partner, the more fulfilling sex can be.
I am familiar with this line of thinking. Married Christians love to hear it. It no doubt helps celibate young Christians walk until marriage, as this makes sex sound like a reward that snowballs in pleasure the more sacrifices you make for it.
This podcast is an eye-opening view into how Christianity has become palatable to cater to Christians who now live in increasingly sex positive times.
But make no mistake. This category of sex advice clings firmly to an earlier time, in which men are men, women are women; men are horny, women must provide.
Cf. Does Every Man’s Battle Enable Abuse? a book review of a Christian book which sold over 4 million copies, critiqued by Sarah McDugal.
This podcast is no doubt popular with the type of women who are lately labelled ‘trad wives’:
“You could have this too, if you just submit to your husband”
It’s hard to keep track of the metastasizing numbers of Christian influencers peddling beatific images of their family lives online: Estee Williams, Nara Smith, Cynthia Loewen, Natalie Bennett and Mrs. Midwest, just to name a few. These women (and occasionally couples) often rack up followers in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, despite (or because of) a depressing sameness in their presentation: Magazine-perfect kitchens and gardens. Rows of mostly-blond children. Long, layered haircuts, ranging from cornsilk blond to light brown with blond highlights.
— “Tradwives” offer an alluring vision of right-wing Christianity — online warriors are fighting back at Salon
Now, let’s listen to what Belah Rose has to say, specifically, about asexuals who dare to get Christian-married.
I cannot convey in words the tone of this podcast. Belah Rose is interviewing a Christian woman who has learned, via Belah Rose’s proprietary course work, to submit to her husband. This is not the voice of a woman who has learned to enjoy sex. This is the voice of a woman who is being culturally gaslighted into taking her ‘proper place’ in a patriarchal household, to the point where she has ‘become a different person’ (lost her identity as a separate, respected individual). If you have a hankering to hear precisely how Christian women gaslight other women into obedience, this podcast makes for a painful case study.
Much of the Belah Rose conversation reminds me of what some have called “magical thinking OCD”.
“MAGICAL THINKING OCD”
Anyway, let’s fast-forward to the end of this episode, where Belah Rose — like Pastor Mike Novotny — sees fit to offer her opinion on asexuals, despite knowing nothing about us. (Skip to 38 minutes.)
Rather than straight out giving everyone her own opinion — a confidence submissive women associate with men (case in point, Pastor Mike) — Belah Rose instead expresses her (slightly incoherent) opinion by first asking her newly converted sexually active acolyte about her opinion of asexuals:
Belah Rose: I’ll probably cut out part of this no matter what, but somebody’s coming to mind who is pretty confident they’re ‘asexual’. Just, she’s never had desire, ever. Ever.
And I think, in the way modern people are, it’s like [high-pitched voice] “Who am I?” and “This problem!” Right?
So, if somebody said that’s an appropriate category of human, like, God made some people asexual, you’re married, you’re just gonna have to do it, no matter what. I guess, what would be your response to that? That mindset of… um, asexual. Do you think it’s real? Do you think there’s hope for somebody that has that thought? I have my response, but I just wondered if you had thoughts on it.
The guest (Sarah) asks for clarification:
In terms of desiring, or in terms of never enjoying it while in it?
Sarah, at least, makes an important distinction, though the asexual community talks about ‘attraction’, rather than desire. These Christians are so keen to avoid using the word ‘attraction’ I’m starting to wonder if the word has been ‘tainted by association’ for them, because attraction is a word the queer community uses. For Christians, ‘attraction’ co-locates with ‘same-sex’. ‘Good’ Christians speak instead of ‘desire’, even when they do mean ‘attraction’.
Belah Rose has already formed her opinion, but her tone suggests she hadn’t considered the complexities until Sarah mentioned them:
Oooh, that’s a good question! I don’t know the specifics enough of their situation. I would say, um, I would say ‘desire for it’. Let’s say it that way.
Sarah — correctly — seems to intuit that asexuality is in the same word family as homosexuality:
Um… I think the first thing that comes to mind is homosexuality. … I think if they’re attracted to the same sex, then they’re attracted to the same sex. So it’s like, what do you do with that?
So far, so accepting. It is what it is! Live and let live! But no. The fully indoctrinated Sarah continues, trying to downplay the stigma attached to the queer community by comparing it to her own wish for… independence of mind? Jfc:
I view that as being a thorn in their side to walking with Christ. And we all have different ones, ya know. Some are more or less obvious. Like personally, I’m a dreamer. I have all these things I wanna do, and my thorn is, I need to surrender to the Lord and to be in step with his will and… which is like crucifixion of my flesh [laughs], like, slow down! And similarly, asexual, not desiring, I think is… you know, if you choose to get married, there is an obligation. But also, we have to love our husbands in that way and like, I don’t know…
Belah Rose helps Sarah with her words:
Not in a way that’s oppressive.
Sarah continues:
Yeah, not like in a way that’s oppressive, but there’s real joy in loving your husband in that way, even if it’s not something you’re desiring all the time. And I think that I would probably relate to a lot of that. Like, I do enjoy it once we’re in it, but…I haven’t always desired it beforehand. But we’re married and I love my husband and I chose to be married, and what comes with that is [laughs] sex!
Belah Rose:
I think that’s a beautiful response. I think it’s right on. Yeah. The expectation is something I’d maybe wanna question, or give insight to. Is our expectation of ourselves to be a properly sexual person, I guess [laugh]… It’s like, a wholly sexual person, is our expectation that we’re gonna have spontaneous desire three times a week? And that means we’re ‘whole’, and we’re ‘healed’…
Sarah:
… and that’s ‘normal’.
The following response from Christian marriage counsellor Belah Rose just makes me sad. No anger, just sadness:
Right! … If that’s [what normal is] I need a heck of a lot more therapy, because I am definitely not in that realm! If it was up to me, sure, our frequency would be lower. Yes! Um, but, like, to your point Sarah, because I got married, because I love my husband… If it were just me, once every two weeks, that’s probably adequate! [laughing] But, the more you have sex, the more you want sex, and so my desire is higher than that. But it’s also motivated. [My desire for sex] is motivated by loving this man well.
MY COMMENTARY
- Belah Rose does not understand that asexuality is an orientation. Even when guided to understand this important point by her guest, she goes right back to pretending that asexuality can be ‘fixed’, given enough marital love, and suppression of self.
- The answer that married women must have more sex than they ‘necessarily want’ is compulsory sexuality in a nutshell. This coercive acculturation does not just affect asexuals, but can especially affect asexuals. Make no mistake; this is sexual coercion, perpetuated in this podcast by two women who have themselves been coerced.
- Emily Nagoski’s bestselling contemporary sex advice book Come As You Are has taught many readers the difference between spontaneous versus responsive sexual desire. Despite Nagoski saying many times that, “Whatever your sex life looks like, that’s okay!” Nagoski never once mentions asexuality across any of her work. One part of me thinks, well, Nagoski does keep busting out with variations of “Everyone is A-okay!” so maybe we are implictly included. But listening to Belah Rose, I wish — so much — that Emily Nagoski had the good sense to address the reality that, for some individuals, especially those who are asexual by orientation, responsive desire is still not a thing. Marriage counsellor Belah Rose clearly understands the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. But she does not accept that, for some people, sexual desire does not happen, no matter how much ‘we love our husbands’, no matter how gently he tries, no matter how many candles are lit.
- “The more sex you have the more you want it” is a dangerous thought terminating cliché, especially for asexuals. I believed it once myself. In reality, “The more sex you’re forced into, the more traumatised you become over time.” I’m sure there is an element of truth to it, for certain allosexual people whose sex lives become better with practice and knowing someone better. There may even be some kind of hormonal cascading effect at play. But this is also the language of coercion. Beware.
There’s no hate like Christian love.
Larre Bildeston is the author of a contemporary (aromantic) asexual romance The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat (2023), set in Australia and New Zealand.
