The Spa: Space & Sexuality

The first time I saw two men walking and holding hands in Mumbai, I dismissed it as ordinary homosexual P.D.A. (public display of affection). Growing up in North Jersey, 8 miles from one of the world’s most sexually liberal neighborhoods, I am no stranger to the lgbtq community. In fact, two members of that community occupy my home and essentially raised me: my mom and her partner (love you ma and Aunt Carolyn!). Despite my window into the world of homosexuality, I was locked in the living room of homophobia. Unfortunately, the homosexuality of my adolescent experience could not erase the heternormativity of American culture.

Seemed like every other day someone would mention Jacaranda. I passed it every morning on my way to teach at Stanes Secondary School. Paying it little attention, I assumed it was like every other Spa I’ve experienced—an environment of exorbitant prices and elitist personalities. A poor student activist's worst nightmare! It wasn’t until my last week in Coonoor that I began entertaining the idea of a full body massage. After all, I had been working hard: teaching, preaching, reading, writing, meeting, organizing, etc. Before I knew it, I was laying prostrate, waiting for Jai to begin the session.

Homosexuality and homophobia are at war on the battlefield of American politics, religion, and social life. Homophobia has historically kicked ass! But relatively recently, the lgbtq community and gay rights activists have retaliated with more than mere speech and sympathy, sparking a national conversation re: sexual discrimination, human rights, and marriage law in the ‘queer’ context. 

India, the second most populated country in the world, is not your ideal location for social space. In metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai, people are everywhere: beside, behind, in front, and on top of you! There’s no getting around it, literally. The very idea of ‘personal’ space (at least in the American sense) is at best, negligible, and at worst, nonexistent. So-called personal space in the American context is considered public space in many Indian cultures. Due to the large population, interpersonal proximity is unavoidable. Men are close, physically. Some men walk shoulder to shoulder with their arms draped around each other’s necks; some hold hands. While in many American spaces two men holding hands is considered a sign of homosexual romance, in much of India it is…well, not a sign at all but simply a social norm. 

Ooty, Tamil Nadu

Is the relationship between American individualism and rampant homophobia coincidence or consequential?  I mean, is it possible that space and sexuality tango to the tunes of social norms and social 'nooo-ways'? 

The most I’ve ever let another man touch my body is during my annual visit to the doctor for a check-up (every health-care privileged male knows the semi-awkward ‘balls procedure’). Despite my exposure to the homosexual lifestyle, never in a million years would I hold another man’s hand in public, let alone allow one to fiercely rub my body with sensual oils in a dimly lit room. Well, my million years was up! and my body lying down in preparation for my first male-to-male massage. (Jacaranda only provides same-sex massages)…

As a Youth Pastor and theological student, I encounter the spirit of homophobia first hand, in various social spaces, including churches and Christian circles. Sadly, many Pastors and Christian 'leaders' hide their prejudice behind the ‘power’ of the pulpit and bolster their bigotry with biblical claims. Some say all gays are going to hell. Others, slightly less forward yet equally exclusive, admit that Christians are obligated to love the lgbtq community but won’t recognize them as fully Christian, or Christian at all. Hardly any offer gays leadership roles (but will unhesitatingly take their money). And even fewer promote marriage equality, a fundamental human right. The Church, as a whole, refuses to share (spiritual) space with people of a different sexual orientation. Exclusivist claims and bigoted biblical ‘scholarship’ have locked many gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered outside the doors of the Church, which claims to be open for all.

Similarly, many politicians perpetuate anti-gay hysteria and homophobia. Notice how certain politicians conveniently reference their ‘faith’ and biblical beliefs when discussing gay marriage. However, why don't many of these same politicians and national 'leaders' refer to their ‘faith’ concerning foreign policy or the economy? The message is clear: it’s not okay for gays to marry but it’s perfectly fine to kill innocent Afghani civilians and spend over 2 trillion dollars on the so-called war on terror while countless men, women, and children suffer from homelessness and hunger.

And the tango continues…

My male-to-male massage was both sensual and symbolic. It symbolized the disruption of my need for 'heterosexual space' and destroyed my misguided idea of masculinity. For 60 minutes, I shared intimate space with another man. I went to Jacaranda to get a massage and ending up receiving a message: sharing social space influences human sexuality.

Afterword

It would be disingenuous for me to critique systems and power without considering how my own prejudices participate in and perpetuate unjust 'isms'. As I recognize my heterosexual privilege, I ask forgiveness for my injuries to the lgbtq community. And as I ask forgiveness, I simultaneously began the process of repentance from dehumanizing homophobic ideologies. A few sentences cannot heal the scars I’ve caused. Words won't fix the spirits I may have left broken with insensitive rhetoric. May you forgive me as I struggle to repent with my life, not just my lips.

"Oh Shit!": Curse or Cultural Construct?

Orange Grove Road

The wind beats against my eardrums. The scenery? Absolutely stunning!—6,000 ft. above sea level, some say even higher. A boar saunters down the curvy road; a gang of monkeys lurk in the tropical trees. “Beep! Beep!...Beeeep!” The horns sing their usual tune. Schoolboys dressed in traditional uniforms stare in suspicion, eyeing my ethnic hairstyle. As I pan the scene, the driver of the motorcycle sways to the left. The road, like many back in the States, could use repavement. It was too late. “Boom, boom!” Then an instantaneous “oh shit!” from the driver of the Honda Hero. Fortunately, the pothole didn’t damage the bike. After regrouping, we continued our journey to the local market. But wait. Did he just say what I think he did? As quickly as I entertained the idea, I dismissed it. After all, high elevation has a way of messing with folks’ ears.

In American discourse, the conventional idea of ‘cursing’ involves the utterance of one or more profane words. However, the English dictionary relegates this definition as secondary to a more inclusive understanding. The primary definition of a ‘curse,’ according to the English dictionary, is “an utterance intended to inflict harm on a person or group.” The word intention is very important. Here, ‘cursing’ refers, not to a set of words, but rather a linguistic demonstration of will. Thus, we must distinguish the difference between 'cursing' and profanity. Profanity (from the Latin pro fano) means “outside the sanctuary or temple,” referring to items (including language) not belonging inside a religious building. From this definition, profanity can be any worldly or nonreligious terminology. Profanity, secular words usually used to express emotion, and cursing, intentionally harmful discourses aimed at a particular person or group, are not synonymous.

Shit: A Case Study

Derived from Old English—scite (dung) and scitan (to defecate)—the word shit and its various expressions have evolved over time. The Old English word scite, meaning feces, developed into the Modern English word shit, a vague noun with multiple meanings and expressions. The definition of shit in modern English ranges from 'stuff' (this blog is good shit) to personal belongings (pack your shit and go!) to chemical material that excretes from our anal region (I gotta take a shit!) to an attitude (get your shit together) to trouble (you're in deep shit) to confrontation (when the shit hits the fan) to worthlessness (you ain't shit!) to appreciation (that's my shit!) to bragging (shit talking) to gossip (talking shit), and so much more. Its various meanings are expressed through music, in movies (see Forest Gump "shit happens" scene), and in our everyday lives. Like the word 'fuck,' shit has a plethora of meanings depending on the user and context.

My first trip to Northern India was a surreal adventure. Overnight trains. Best food of my life. Teaching a class with a Hindi translator. Extreme heat. A visit to the oldest University in the world. But nothing was like my experience one Friday evening. After a last minute invitation to preach at a local church, my colleagues and I hurried into the van and headed through the forest, into the village. Aside from the headlights on our vehicle, the entire village was pitch black. No streetlights. No house lights. Just total darkness. After my eyes adjusted, we slowly walked into what looked like an old shed. Halfway through preaching, the lights came on. A few ‘hallelujahs” permeated the silence. After service, we walked next door to the Pastor’s house for food and fellowship. Before I could bite into my first piece of puri, the lights switched off. “Ohh Shit!,” the entire room—Pastors, church leaders, and Christian kids—proclaimed in synchronicity.

The Pastor's house after preaching

I could not dismiss it this time. It was unequivocal. A group of Christians committed the unbelievably profane, just a few feet away from the church building. They cursed! Or did they?

Cursing: A Cross-cultural Analysis

Cursing, or curse words, is culturally confined. What is considered profane in one culture may be acceptable in another and vice versa. There is nothing inherently evil about words. Words are primarily constructs; this is part of the reason why language evolves over time. The difference between cursing in the fundamental sense and profanity is vital. Rather than referring to a group of linguistically ambivalent words (profanity), cursing involves intention and will. Within this context, we can no longer narrowly and naively label musical artists as the proprietors of our cursing culture. For although they may curse linguistically, many uplift and empower listeners psychologically and dare I say, spiritually (listen to the Blues, what Dr. James Cone calls our “secular-spirituals”). On the other hand, many politicians and preachers, despite their politically correct, socially acceptable, and linguistically safe language, curse the universal “other” via political and theological discourses. Their subtle yet subversive anti-women, anti-gay, anti-black and Latino, anti-immigrant, anti-Arabic, and anti-human campaign speeches and sermons are more harmful and destructive than any musical artist or average person’s use of profanity could ever be. Consider the Declaration of ‘Independence.’ In all its linguistic beauty and political hoopla, it is a deceptive and dehumanizing document. A lie. A sham. A curse? You don’t have to be a legal scholar to know that when Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” he, and the rest of America’s ‘Founding Fathers,’ excluded blacks, Indians, and women from the right of equality and the realm of humanity. By denying women the right to vote, blacks the right to be free, and Indians the right to their land, the ‘Founding Fathers’ cursed their vulnerable ‘inferiors,’ politically and socially. And just in case you think this is merely a historical issue, please think again. 

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum, the former GOP Presidential candidate, marked the new year with this statement: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” referring to blacks receiving federal aid, a.k.a. welfare checks. (Although whites receive more welfare then any other race in America). Wait, there’s more! Charles Worley, a pastor from North Carolina, recently suggested, during a sermon!, that gays and lesbians be tortured on an electric fence and proclaimed that “forty years ago [gays] would’ve hung, Bless God, from an oak tree” (emphasis added). Rick Santorum, a popular politician, and Charles Worley, a provocative pastor—both white and both men—are just two examples of how current politicians and religious ‘leaders’ continue to curse in the names of racism and homophobia. For too long, the politician’s podium and the preacher’s pulpit have been a collective platform of unchecked power, control, and cursing!

Charles Worley

So why are very few people, especially so-called religious folk, talking about this issue? And why, at the same time, are many of these same so-called religious folk going out their way to police and protest profane language amongst children, in churches, and throughout the community while permitting dehumanizing theo-political discourse in the same spaces? This is a serious question.

We must acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the idea of cursing that does not easily and conveniently demonize curse words while accepting destructive discourses. When a rapper calls a woman a “bitch,” the world responds in uproar, as I believe we should! But when a politician characterizes the same woman as inferior and less than human or when a pastor encourages women to ‘stay in their place,’ most of the world remains silent. And this silence is the essence of our problem.

Mass Media, in its production and management of consciousness, is more harmful than any curse word could ever be. Mass media’s selective censoring of certain words does not protect our children from the much more devastating curses of mass incarceration, mass discrimination, and mass (mis)education. This traumatic trio is a perpetual curse intended for and directed to the world’s most vulnerable: the poor, physically and mentally challenged, women, minorities, etc.

What we say and what we communicate or what we say and what we really mean by what we say can be completely different. For example, when many (not all) patriotic individuals proudly say, “God Bless America,” some of them really mean, “And fuck the rest of the world!” (Sorry but I gotta keep it 100). Unspoken language and nonverbal communication are the most dangerous kinds of curses. It is this linguistic violence, not a rapper’s “fuck” or a teenager’s “shit” or my sporadic use of profanity that is the real issue.

Just to be clear: this is not an attempt to promote profanity. Rather, this is an all too brief investigation of the ways in which certain language is labeled sacred and others sacrilegious. And how that labeling, performed by an elite population of power and privilege, tends to be distributed along racial, cultural, and religious lines.

So, curse or cultural construction? Fuck it, who gives a shit? Please excuse my…Indian.

I Got "Jungle Fever!"

Spike Lee’s 1991 film, Jungle Fever, is a cinematic classic. Starring Wesley Snipes (Flipper) and Annabella Sciorra (Angie), Jungle Fever depicts the inevitable casualties of cultural wars. Flipper, a successful African-American businessman, encounters a new world as a result of a romantic affair with an Italian-American secretary, Angie. Through their relationship, Spike cleverly conveys both the trouble and tension of 'cultural intercourse.’ Far from a typical romance flick, ending “happily ever after,” Jungle Fever challenges all those who dare to step onto the battlefield of socio-cultural difference in the name of a love that transcends racial, social, and cultural barriers. Spike’s project, based in the urban milieu of New York City, featuring world-renowned actors such as Wesley Snipes, Samuel Jackson (Morehouse Man, say word!), Halle Berry, and Queen Latifah (Newark Native, say word!), ostensibly, has little to do with my far from Hollywood experience in India. However, with a little imagination and slight obsession with Spike Lee joints (another Morehouse Man, say word!), I was able to impute new meaning into the hip-hop mantra, “My life is like a movie.”

Before this summer, the environment was something I either ignored or destroyed, both knowingly and inadvertently. Aside from sporadic instances—a random episode of National Geographic or pausing to appreciate the allure of Manhattan’s skyline—I never paid attention to the environment nor its effects on my life and world. Growing up in and around Newark, NJ, the third oldest city in the U.S., conditioned me to care less about environmental concerns and more about the benefits of urbanization and rooftop parties. Newark, also known as “Brick City,” rests in the shadows of NYC’s concrete jungle. It is an archetypal urban hub, replete with historic buildings, solid nightlife, and bustling public transportation. As I prepared to leave my concrete jungle made of dried mortar and overcrowded buses for the tropical jungle of Southern India, I had no idea what to expect. However, traveling to India as a summer intern, I never once expected to be unfaithful to my native love for everything urban. Not too long after arriving, I realized that I had caught a fever, not from the climatic change but from a cultural exchange.

"Brick City" (Newark, NJ)

As a theological student and aspiring public servant, I am inclined to explore the relationship between my spiritual beliefs and their societal implications. Investigatin the ways in which what I believe impacts how I experience the world is not merely academic recreation but, for me, a social responsibility. For example, my understanding of Jesus as a Palestinian political prisoner and death-row inmate, executed by the Roman Empire, has far reaching implications on my work against mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex. Or, my understanding of God as a non-gendered, inclusive, self-giving Spirit whose love transcends all religious and cultural boundaries, marks the starting point for my commitments to both interreligious dialogue and nonreligious discourse. Although I have made many connections between my personal convictions and my social commitments, I have never considered how my theology impacts my attitude towards the environment and how that subsequently informs my daily behavior.

Most people, regardless of their religious persuasion, know, or at least have heard, the story of the ‘fall’ of humanity, recorded in the Torah, Quran (with some differences), and Christian Bible. Although I have read this story several times throughout my life, I never challenged the traditional notion that confines its significance to human sin and divine punishment. Many Christians misread the fall narrative as a scientific document rather than a mythological narrative. Let’s briefly explore. First, we must understand the medium, or genre, by which this narrative is given to us: myth. Although myth and fiction are not synonymous, they are similar in that they are less concerned with facts and more with communicating a message or truth. This does not mean that the story is entirely fictitious; it simply suggests that it should not be read for scientific proof or historical evidence. (Think about it; it would be foolish to read a cookbook for fashion tips). The important lesson here is that the message follows the medium. So, what does this story have to do with my experience? Well, it is from this story that I was religiously conditioned to think: 1. the earth is “cursed," 2. humans are superior to all other animals, and 3. all materiality is inherently evil. Through this flawed theological understanding, my environmental attitude was born.

New Dehli, 10th most polluted city in the world

Despite the widely accepted traditional understanding, a careful rereading of the 'fall' narrative leads us to a new and more humane appreciation of text. Contrary to traditional interpretation, this narrative has less to do with righteousness and divine punishment than it does responsibility and environmental protection. God gave Adam and Eve a responsibility to look after and care for the environment. Thus, eating of the fruit is not an indication of immorality but irresponsibility. Humanity, represented in Adam and Eve, sacrificed care for consumption and ecology for exploitation. Thus, if the earth is at all “cursed,” it is not because God punished her but because we have and continue to abuse her in the names of urbanization and global imperialism. In light of the terroristic assault we have waged on the earth and her byproducts, the implications of this ancient story could not be more relevant. Considering how greedy economic agendas negatively influence environmental policies, culminating in a multinational environmental genocide, we can re-imagine the ‘fall,’ not as a fall from grace (as many suggest) but a failure to guard and protect our most precious gift.


Despite living 8 miles from the scene of Spike's film, it wasn't until I travelled over 8,000 miles that I appreciated its universal significance. For the last five weeks I have been romancing a cultural enemy. Our flirtatious friendship quickly turned into a romantic affair and ultimately, cultural intercourse (God, forgive me!). Enthralled by her majestic beauty and enraptured by her generous spirit, I’ve committed urbanization’s great sin: appreciation of and affection for…Mama Nature. My ‘fall’ from urban glamour mixed with an expulsion from the city into the outskirts of Western ‘civilization,' did not come without casualties. Through deep and creative dialogue, Mama Nature has challenged my urban superiority complex that equates urban planning with social progress. In doing so, I am forced to bury my socially bias assumptions that confuse urbanization for progress and city living for civilization. This cinematic collision between my urban background and her uber beauty is a developing drama, nevertheless, a classic love story in the making. Just like Flipper, I got caught up with a cultural adversary, literally an enemy of the streets. Like Flipper, I had a taste of my culture's forbidden fruit; like Flipper, I got “jungle fever!”

One of our favorite meeting spots

My life is like a movie?

Although I hesitate to subscribe to seemingly superficial mantras that pervade mainstream hip-hop, I must admit, if my life were like a movie, then I hope it would be a Spike Lee joint: low-budget yet exponentially profitable, socio-politically conscious, and culturally complex—a classic combination. Now where are my 40 acres and a mule?