The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (44 page)

Simply put, the black church needs a theology of eroticism. Admittedly, that is a hard sell in an Age of Epidemic, where panic and paranoia, more than liberty and celebration, set our sexual moods. Of course, black sexuality has always thrived or suffered under a permanent sign of suspicion or revulsion. Still, that’s no reason to be cavalier about sex when its enjoyment can kill us. A theology of eroticism certainly promotes safe sex. Our definition of safety, however, must include protection against the harmful sexual and psychic viruses that drain the life from our desire. Further, a theology of eroticism looks beyond the merely physical to embrace abstinence as a powerful expression of sexuality.

In the main, a theology of eroticism must be developed to free black Christian sexuality from guilty repression or gutless promiscuity. Sermon after sermon counsels black Christians to abstain from loose behavior. To sleep only with our mates. To save sex for permanent love. And to defer sexual gratification until we are married. In black churches, as with most religious institutions, hardly anyone waits for marriage to have sex. People sleep with their neighbor’s spouse. Casual sex is more than casually pursued. And because the needs of their bodies make them liars with bad consciences, some drown their demons in a sea of serial monogamies. Little of this is highly pleasurable, but it’s pleasurable enough to make us unhappy. Ugh!

What’s even more intriguing is that the sermons pretty much stay the same. Black Christians pretty much tell their children and each other that that’s how
things ought to be. And consistency is seen as a substitute for tradition. But it certainly isn’t. Vital, living traditions leave space for people to change bad habits because they have a better understanding of what the tradition should mean. As one wise churchman put it:
tradition
is the living faith of dead people, while the
traditional
is the dead faith of living people. Too often, the latter has ruled black churches. While we may share our forebears’ faith, we can certainly leave aspects of their theologies behind.

A theology of eroticism is rooted in simple honesty about black sexuality. While we tell our kids not to have sex, more and more of them do. They are making babies, having babies, and dying from AIDS. The black church should lay off the hard line on teen sexuality. Sure, it must preach abstinence first. It should also preach and teach safe sex, combining condoms and common sense. It should tell kids from ages twelve through seventeen that when it’s all said and done, human sexuality is still an enlarging mystery, a metaphor of how life seeks more of itself to sustain itself, of how life, as black theologian Howard Thurman remarked, is itself alive. (Of course, we adults could use a reminder of this as well.) Our sexuality is one way life reminds itself of that lesson. In the hands of groping teens, sex is often little more than bewilderment multiplied by immaturity, despite growing, groaning body parts that seem fit for the job. In an era when music videos, television commercials, daytime soaps, and nighttime cable movies exploit our kids’ urges, it’s no wonder that they, and indeed, all of us, have sex on the brain. If only we could use
that
organ more in our erotic escapades.

The bottom line, however, is that traditional black church methods of curbing teen sex aren’t working. We must make a choice. Either we counsel our kids about how to have sex as safely as they can, or we prepare to bury them before their lives begin. The cruelty of contemporary sex is that the consequences of our kids’ mistakes, the same mistakes we made, are often swift and permanent. Most black preachers and parents who tell kids they shouldn’t have sex had sex as teens. If not, most of them surely tasted carnal pleasure before they were married. The guilt or embarrassment stirred by their hidden hypocrisy often makes them harsh and unyielding in their views on teen sexuality. The black church’s theology of eroticism should place a premium on healthy, mature relations where lust is not mistaken for affection. It must make allowances for our children, however, to learn the difference, and to safely experiment with their bodies in pursuit of genuine erotic health. The black church should pass out condoms on its offering plates. At the least, it should make them available in restrooms or in the offices of clergypersons or other counselors. The days of let’s-pretend-the-problems-will-goaway, never-fully-here-anyway, are now most certainly gone.

We must find remedies, too, for angst-ridden black preachers. Many of them stir anxiety in their congregations because of their own conflicted theology of sexuality. The visiting minister I spoke of earlier was bewitched by the erotic double bind that traps some ministers. He preached a theology of sexuality that satisfied the demands of black church tradition. But he was also moved by erotic desires
that are rarely openly discussed in black churches, or in the seminaries that prepare men and women to pastor. The sexual exploitation of black women by black preachers, and the seduction of preachers by female members, rests on just this sort of confusion. (Of course, it also rests on a gender hierarchy in black churches where women do much of the labor but are largely prevented from the highest leadership role: the pastorate. The ecclesiastical apartheid of the black church, which is more than 70 percent female, continues to reinforce the sexual inequality of black women.) In many cases, both parties are caught in the thralls of unfocused erotic desire. Such desire doesn’t receive reasonable, helpful attention. It is either moralized against or it lands on the wagging tongues of church gossips.

As a very young pastor—I was all of twenty-three years old—I sometimes participated in the sort of sex play that mocks healthy erotic desire. Once, after assuming the pastorate of a small church in the South, I received a call from a desperate female parishioner.

“Reverend Dyson, I need to see you right away,” the soft, teary voice on my phone insisted. “It’s an emergency. I can’t discuss it on the telephone.”

It was seven o’clock at night. Since I lived nearly a hundred miles from the city where my church was located, it would take me at least an hour and a half to reach her home.

“All right, Ms. Bright (not her real name),” I replied. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I told my fiancée Brenda, with whom I was living, that a member needed me to come immediately. I tore up the highway in a frantic race to Ms. Bright’s home. I was a young, relatively inexperienced pastor, new on the job, and eager to please. When I arrived at Ms. Bright’s home, her parents greeted me at the door. Judging by the surprised look on their faces, her parents had no idea of their daughter’s distress, or her urgent request to see me. When she appeared a few minutes later, I didn’t let on that I’d just zoomed to their house to help relieve their daughter of whatever problem she had. To them, I guess it looked like I had come courting on the sly. After all, neither of us were married, and Ms. Bright was only a few years older than me. Although I was in a committed relationship with Brenda, my members didn’t know that we were, as the ’70s R&B hit goes, “living together in sin.” (Already living in the Bible Belt, perhaps on its buckle, I was caught in the cross fire between sex and soul almost before my career as a pastor began.)

Ms. Bright suggested that we go upstairs to her room to talk. We excused ourselves from pleasant chitchat with her amiable parents. We soon found ourselves alone in her stylish, sweetly scented bedroom. I felt awkward. I’d never spent time alone with her before outside of the few occasions we spoke in church. Besides, I didn’t know what signal my presence in her boudoir might send. But I soon found out what was weighing on her heart and mind.

“Reverend Dyson, I think I’m in love with you,” she blurted out.

I was genuinely startled. I had never been a Don Juan. And despite the crude stereotypes of ministers as lotharios out to bed every woman within speaking distance,
I certainly hadn’t been promiscuous. I could count the number of girlfriends I’d had on one hand. And I’d never been led to think of myself as irresistibly handsome. I wasn’t a guy, like many I’d known, for whom women seemed to pant and pine. I was just Mike Dyson, the poor kid from Detroit who worked hard, studied long, and mostly lived out his sexual fantasies with a few beautiful women.

“Well, Ms. Bright, I, um, I, well, I’m very flattered,” I barely managed. By now my yellow face was flushed and my eyes were boring holes in the floor. “I don’t know what to say.”

Then it hit me. My pastor, Frederick Sampson, knowing that the advice would one day come in handy, had given me a stern warning.

“Never let a woman down harshly, Mike,” Dr. Sampson said. “Always be gentle and considerate.” Eureka! Here was my out.

“You know, Ms. Bright, what you’ve said makes me feel good,” I uttered with more conviction. “I’m truly honored that a woman like you would even be interested in me. But you know I’m in love with Brenda.”

I saw the disappointment in her eyes. Quickly extending Sampson’s rule, I was determined not to make Ms. Bright feel foolish.

“But if I was available, you’re the kind of woman I would definitely like to be with.”

And I wasn’t just blowing smoke, as they say. Ms. Bright was a very intelligent, inquisitive woman, as our few conversations revealed. She was also a beautiful woman; a tall five feet ten inches, she dwarfed my five-foot-nine-inch frame. She had flawless chocolate skin, an incandescent smile, a sensuous voice, and a voluptuous figure.

“Really?” she replied.

In retrospect, I guess that gave her an opening. And despite denying it then, I probably wanted her to find it. Although each of us had been sitting on chairs in her room, Ms. Bright stood up and, well, descended on me. Standing directly above me, she confessed that she’d spent a great deal of time daydreaming about me.

“I just can’t get you off my mind,” she said. “I really think I’m in love with you, Reverend Dyson. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

As the words rolled off her tongue, which I began to notice more and more, she began to run her fingers through my hair. I was embarrassed, ashamed, almost mortified, and extremely turned on.

“Well, I don’t know either, Ms. Bright,” I muttered. “I guess, well, I don’t know, I guess we’ll just have to . . . ”

Before I could finish, she was kissing me. Before long, we were kissing each other. Our tongues dueled with more energy than we’d been able to devote to resolving her problem. Except now, it was our problem. I wasn’t in love with her, but my lust was certainly piqued. Talk about not letting a woman down roughly; I certainly wasn’t flunking that test. But I felt bad for cheating on Brenda. I yanked myself free from Ms. Bright’s luscious lip lock and came up for air, reaching as well for a little perspective.

“Look, Ms. Bright, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said through my heavy breathing. “After all, I’m your pastor, and I should be counseling you, not trying to get down with you.”

She simply smiled. Then, before I could protest, she was out of her blouse. Next her bra fell to the floor! The queenly, regal pose she struck, part Pam Grier and part British royalty, made me feel like a lowly subject. And gawking at the sheer magnificence of her breasts, I was glad to be in her majesty’s service. We groped each other like high school teens stranded in a hormonal storm. After nearly a half hour of this pantomimed intimacy, guilt suddenly overtook me. Better yet, the thought of having sex with her parents able to hear the bed creak and groan quenched my erotic fire. I recovered what little pastoral authority I had left—I think it was mixed up with my jacket and tie on the floor—and insisted that we quit. So we fixed up our clothes. Ms. Bright retouched her makeup, and without saying much—what could we say?—we went back downstairs to make small talk with her parents. After fifteen minutes or so, I bid them farewell and drove home far more slowly than I’d driven to my appointment. I was more disappointed at myself than angry at Ms. Bright. Despite what she said—and even she probably didn’t really believe it—I didn’t think Ms. Bright was in love with me. She simply had a crush, though, admittedly, it was a big one. Plus, she had a healthy dose of sexual desire, a subject we should have been able to talk about, not only in her house but in our church. We should have been able to refer to sex education classes, sermon series, Sunday school discussions, Sunday night forums, and a host of other ways that erotic desire might be addressed in the black church. Some churches are doing this, but they are far, far too few in number.

I was flattered that Ms. Bright wanted me. At the same time, I was ashamed that I’d given in to wanting her. I’d come to pray. I’d ended up the prey—the willing prey, as it turned out. Maybe Ms. Bright had seen the desire in my eyes, which failed to be disguised as pastoral concern. Maybe she was simply the first to act on what she knew we both wanted. Maybe she was just more honest.

On my way home, I couldn’t help thinking of the visiting preacher. I got a lot more humble. Still, I kept thinking about my erotic encounter with Ms. Bright. Despite trying to feel bad about it, I found myself getting aroused all over again. I hadn’t yet figured out that it’s all right to enjoy erotic desire—to own up to the fact that you can be horny and holy—as long as you don’t live at the mercy of your hormones. But if we can’t talk about sex at home, and we can’t talk about it at church, black Christians end up lying to ourselves and to the people to whom we’re sexually attracted. And too often, we end up being much more destructive because of our erotic dishonesty.

Because so many black Christians have taken up the task of being sexual saviors—of crucifying the myths of black hypersexuality and sexual deviance—we abhor out-of-bounds sexuality. This social conservatism expresses itself as a need to be morally upright. Beyond reproach. (Unsurprisingly, gangsta rappers are high on the list of sinners. If its detractors actually ever listened to more than snippets of gangsta rap lyrics, they’d probably have a lot more grist for their critical mills.) Oh, if it was only that simple. If the black church—for God’s sake, if any religious institution—was erotically honest, it would admit that the same sexual desire that courses through rappers’ veins courses through the veins of its members. If many of the black ministers who wail against the sexual improprieties of hip-hop culture would be erotically honest, they’d admit that the same lust they nail rappers for breaks out in their own ranks. And there aren’t too many sermons pointing that out.