I love your description of the Self in Orthodoxy. Please forgive my ignorance, but my experience of actual LGBTQ+ people is that they (mostly) feel they were born as they are. Few, at least in my older generation, grew up wanting to be Gay; in fact they denied and avoided it, suffered for it, and often hid it for as long as possible. They did not have any support or encouragement from the culture; just the opposite. I haven't read Butler, but doesn't their experience preclude the "social construct" idea? At the same time, the Modern orientation of self-definition by looking within means that an examination of our own egocentric desires shapes our identity. I get that. It is something to which we are all subject. I assume the ascetic path to Christ/Self is essentially the same for everyone, no matter in which direction our desire has twisted us? In other words, get beneath the turbulence of the ego/desire to the core of Christ within?
I'm not sure I quite caught what your question or point was with Butler? I'm not a fan of Butler, but Butler's work is foundational to gender theory and queer theory today even if the jilted critical theory framework from which it argues which makes it hard to actually connect it to the experience of anyone as they know it. Here I was simply trying to address the different manners of addressing and framing a real difficulty experienced by many today. But as for your last point, yes, I think the ascetic path is for everyone the same. We all have been twisted by desire and need to come to see this and return to ourselves or come back to ourselves--or realistically, to God in who's image we are made and who created us to only be satiated as much as the object of our desire is infinite (e.g. God). Everyone has different desires which are off target or leading them in bad directions. If this was not the case, we'd live in paradise. My hope is that everyone may be able to learn not to be defined simply by finite desires for passing things, but rather seek the one needful thing as Christ calls it: God.
My only point with Butler was to question whether I was correctly understanding her theories as contrary to the lived experience of actual people. Which seems to be the case even through it doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for responding.
I love your description of the Self in Orthodoxy. Please forgive my ignorance, but my experience of actual LGBTQ+ people is that they (mostly) feel they were born as they are. Few, at least in my older generation, grew up wanting to be Gay; in fact they denied and avoided it, suffered for it, and often hid it for as long as possible. They did not have any support or encouragement from the culture; just the opposite. I haven't read Butler, but doesn't their experience preclude the "social construct" idea? At the same time, the Modern orientation of self-definition by looking within means that an examination of our own egocentric desires shapes our identity. I get that. It is something to which we are all subject. I assume the ascetic path to Christ/Self is essentially the same for everyone, no matter in which direction our desire has twisted us? In other words, get beneath the turbulence of the ego/desire to the core of Christ within?
I'm not sure I quite caught what your question or point was with Butler? I'm not a fan of Butler, but Butler's work is foundational to gender theory and queer theory today even if the jilted critical theory framework from which it argues which makes it hard to actually connect it to the experience of anyone as they know it. Here I was simply trying to address the different manners of addressing and framing a real difficulty experienced by many today. But as for your last point, yes, I think the ascetic path is for everyone the same. We all have been twisted by desire and need to come to see this and return to ourselves or come back to ourselves--or realistically, to God in who's image we are made and who created us to only be satiated as much as the object of our desire is infinite (e.g. God). Everyone has different desires which are off target or leading them in bad directions. If this was not the case, we'd live in paradise. My hope is that everyone may be able to learn not to be defined simply by finite desires for passing things, but rather seek the one needful thing as Christ calls it: God.
My only point with Butler was to question whether I was correctly understanding her theories as contrary to the lived experience of actual people. Which seems to be the case even through it doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for responding.
Science does not support the theory that humans are born homosexual.
https://josephsciambra.com/same-sex-attraction-gay-men-and-the-father-wound-the-evidence/