Against Nature: Why Nature Should Have No Say on Human Sexuality
By Edmund Standing
In debates about sexuality, ‘nature’ is invariably brought into the discussion, and usually all the participants involved will try to claim that nature supports their position. Why? What if nature isn’t our best guide at all? We live most of our lives in a constant process of negating the base realities of nature, yet when it comes to sex we suddenly think nature has all the answers. This is illogical and regressive. We should no longer look to nature for answers about human sexuality; in fact, it should have no say on the matter at all.
Nature = Good?
There is a generally held assumption that if something is ‘natural’ then it is ‘good’ or ‘right’. This is seen in the current hunger among consumers for anything even vaguely hinting at containing some natural ‘essence’ or, even worse, which is, to use a common but utterly spurious phrase, ‘inspired by nature’. This is also seen in the ongoing discussions over human sexuality, especially over the issues of gay marriage and gay parenting, where the question of supposedly ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ relationships and forms of child rearing regularly crops up. That nature is so widely believed to have some kind of transcendent authority, even among the ostensibly non-religious, needs to be addressed.
If nature = good then what we would expect to find is that this is overwhelmingly self-evident. So, does nature exhibit predominantly benevolent qualities? If we are honest, rather than simply romantically focussing on beautiful sunsets and ignoring anything that spoils the view, then the answer is ‘no’. As Jeff Mason succinctly puts it:
In vain do we look for Providence in the workings of nature. Earthquakes, mud slides, microbes, carnivores, floods and accidents make things worse for human beings pure and simple. They deliver undeniable blows to our plans, families and lives. What good is there in these things? None, to my reckoning.[1]
The recent devastating tsunami serves as yet another reminder of the fact that nature shows no partiality towards human beings, and that it is permeated by danger and hostility. Events like the tsunami appear all the more shocking to us in the West, because we are so used to living in a world that keeps nature at bay. Unlike our forebears, we have numerous medicines to treat most of the vast variety of viruses and diseases that nature throws at us, and, no longer living in small communities reliant on subsistence farming, constantly at the whim of the weather and attacks by pests and plagues, we find ourselves appalled at the prospect that nature can cause such large-scale suffering. We shouldn’t. Those who romanticise nature should turn their gaze to developing nations and see the reality of living under the tyranny of reliance on ‘Mother Nature’. Droughts, floods, crop failures, and disease epidemics are still the lived reality of millions of human beings. Such grim conditions lie behind the following words from the Book of Common Prayer of 1662: ‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery … In the midst of life we are in death’.
In reality, it is not nature that our culture wants, but rather nature under human control, nature tamed and made safe: natural food products that have been passed by quality control, outward bound weekends complete with safety harnesses, EU safety laws, and the option of suing if anything goes wrong. When people refer to nature to defend their views on sexuality, they are being completely hypocritical. They live with all the patently ‘unnatural’ benefits of an industrialised, highly technologically advanced society. They live in a way that has long ago left behind concerns about ‘nature’. The homophobe who relies on ‘nature’ to defend his bigotry against gay parenting, for example, in all likelihood will have no problem at all consuming food containing preservatives, artificial colouring, artificial flavouring, and sweeteners, shaving his naturally present facial hair, keeping his naturally long hair short, using deodorant to control naturally occurring perspiration, using a car or train to get to work (rather than the ‘natural’ method - walking), sitting in air conditioned buildings, and wearing clothes made from humanmade fibres. He will moan about the ‘bad weather’ (rain, and so on), despite this weather being perfectly natural, and rush to the chemist when he catches a cold (which he will also moan about, despite the germs being natural). Nature = good is clearly a false equation. In reality, we find some elements of the natural world ‘good’ (and we use these to define ‘nature’), but most of it ‘bad’ (which we tend to conveniently ignore).
If we have such a clearly ambivalent approach to nature, and if nature, taken as a whole, is in fact a harsh, uncaring, impersonal realm from which we have tried to isolate ourselves, then why is it that suddenly, whenever sexuality is discussed, nature takes on a position of central importance? Questions of human love and happiness, care and commitment, pleasure and joy take second place to the primordial truths supposedly offered by nature.
‘Biological error’ or philosophical error?
Dr Laura Schlessinger, a reactionary conservative American talk-radio host has caused a furore over her repeated denouncement of homosexuality using the ‘against nature’ argument. Some of her statements are frankly appalling; she has made a number of outrageous claims linking homosexuality and paedophilia, and has advocated the removal of the concept of gay rights. However, the argument that caused the most fuss - with cries of support from the unthinking masses of the Right, and cries of rage from the gay community - is as follows: ‘If you're gay or a lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex’.[2] The concept of something being ‘normal’, and therefore ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is seen here to rely on whether or not it fits into a perceived ‘natural order’. Those who harbour prejudices against homosexuals find in this a definitive validation of their views, while the gay movement counterattacks by saying that Schlessinger is a vile bigot, and that homosexuality is a perfectly naturally occurring genetic trait, and not in any way erroneous. Both sides believe that to have ‘nature’ on ones side is to win the argument. Yet, as we have already seen, in most cases, we modern Westerners choose to suppress nature, to transcend its limitations, and frequently to actually ‘go against’ it. One answer to Schlessinger is to point to studies that find that non-‘heterosexual’ sexual activity is actually surprisingly common among non-human creatures.[3] This argument suggests that homosexuality is not therefore a ‘biological error’, but a commonly occurring ‘natural’ phenomenon. Another answer is to point to ‘gay gene’ research material, and claim that homosexuality is not an ‘error’ but just a genetic variation. However, I take issue with both of these responses as they play along with the nature = good theory. They assume that if something can convincingly be argued to be a ‘biological error’ then that makes it ‘bad’ as it is supposedly ‘unnatural’. (The ‘error’/genetic arguments also assume that there are two distinct categories - heterosexual and homosexual, and that both are biologically predetermined. Noticeably, yet again, bisexuals and those prefer to eschew labels are conveniently erased from the picture.)
‘Nature’ or pleasure?
What if Schlessinger is right? What if what she says is true? If it is, then, goes the argument, homosexuality is ‘wrong’, and somehow ‘defective’. The problem with such reasoning is that it assumes that something is invalidated if it fails to fit into ‘the natural order’, that somehow by virtue of something being ‘natural’ it must therefore be ‘good’ (and vice-versa), and we have already seen how fallacious and hypocritical this argument is. What we who support progressive politics should be saying to the Schlessingers of the world is: So what? Even if you are right, what difference does that make? Who cares what ‘nature’ - an impersonal, amoral force - ‘tells us’ about human sexuality? Who cares if love between two people who happen to share the same reproductive organs is not ‘natural’ (in the most narrowly defined sense of ‘only that which serves to further the species is natural’)? Forget biological determinism. Forget ‘having to reproduce’.[4] Why must we be in a state of bondage to a reproductive imperative?
This issue extends way beyond the question of homosexuality anyway, for with the advent of the wide availability of contraception, who but a minority of religious ultraconservatives can seriously claim that the primary function of heterosexual penetrative sex today is reproductive? Sticking a piece of rubber over the end of ones penis, or taking a pill to prevent pregnancy hardly sound like activities that fit into what Schlessinger would mean by ‘normal’ sex (for it serves no biological purpose). In terms of heterosexuals’ bedroom activities, the only sex act that can actually lead to reproduction is unprotected vaginal intercourse. What of oral sex and mutual masturbation? Are these also ‘unnatural’ activities? Are they not ‘normal’? Is the desire for non-reproductive sex the sign of a ‘biological error’? When it comes to these activities, heterosexist assumptions break down anyway, for it makes no difference if the participants are male-female, male-male, or female-female (or more!). And what of anal sex? There are indications that it is becoming increasingly popular among heterosexuals, and no longer, therefore, an activity confined to the gay male community alone. None of these sex acts will result in conception. They are completely ‘unnecessary’, and presumably therefore constitute a violation of the ‘natural order’, yet they are practiced both in a heterosexual and homosexual context, thereby demonstrating the artificiality of the supposed straight/gay divide proposed by Schlessinger and other biology-intoxicated advocates of sexual repression. How many really, seriously believe (and practice) the view that the only ‘normal’ and acceptable form of sex is procreatory? Like it or not, ‘nature’ has already, perfectly reasonably, been put in second place to pleasure.
The point is, ‘nature’ in sexuality, as in most facets of our lives, has ceased to be authoritative. We shouldn’t be looking to ‘nature’ to solve questions of sexuality, Rather we should work on the basis of what works well, what feels good, what leads to happiness, not whether or not, if we were suddenly thrown naked into the middle of a jungle, our sexual activities would fit the narrow biological requirements for furthering the species. Oral sex between a man and a woman does not fulfil this biological call, and neither does gay sex. So, on that basis both are ‘unnatural’. In that case, going ‘against nature’, whatever your sexuality, can be a lot of fun.
What we should be saying is that we don’t care if our sexuality is biologically determined or not - we are happy with it, and that is enough. The happiness that people find together, and the enjoyment they derive from sex are what matters. Some abstract impersonal monolith called ‘nature’ should have no say here. Human beings have - thankfully - long ago left a primitive state in which sex was basically an animal-like ‘quickie’, solely aimed at reproduction. Human sexuality is rich and complex, and no doubt is constructed from a mixture of biological and sociological factors, but to seek to unweave this diverse pattern of loves, desires, and experiences, and to ascribe relative value to different aspects of it on a sliding scale of how closely it conforms to some base level ‘natural’ mode of sexuality is sad and pointless. Nature has no ‘right’ to dictate anything to us on this matter. ‘Nature’ is just the process by which we evolved, and the dangerous realm that today we do our best to control and keep at arm’s length. We humans have arrived at where we are through the blind, wasteful, flawed process of evolution; this is the reality of ‘nature’. But we have evolved consciousness, and we are no longer simply mechanised genetic slaves. Why should we look to ‘nature’, a far less than perfect phenomenon, which did not ‘design’ us, but rather cobbled us together over millions of years in a haphazard fashion, for advice on what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in our relationships and in our bedrooms?
[1] Mason, Jeff (2003) ‘The Indifference of Nature’, TPM Online.
[2] ’Words of Dr Laura’.
[3] See McCarthy, Susan (1999) ‘The Fabulous Kingdom of Gay Animals’, Salon Ivory Tower.
[4] Or, for that matter, having to reproduce or rear children ‘naturally’. As if, for example, a child produced as a result of a drunken ‘shag’ and then raised by an irresponsible, immature teenager (or even a pair of them) is better off than a child produced with much fore planning through artificial insemination and brought up by two women in a long-term, stable, loving relationship.
Edmund Standing holds a BA in Theology & Religious Studies and an MA in Critical & Cultural Theory.
posted by Chris @ 2/28/2005 01:03:00 AM
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