It will Make a Man of You!

In cultures where there is strict gender differentiation, one very often finds male initiation.  In some preliterate cultures like the Sambian, such initiation may involve mandatory homosexual sex.  Gender differentiation in 19th C. America was more pronouced than it is, perhaps, today.  The scholar Mark Carnes has shown how this led to a flowering of male initation rituals in part because the need was not being met by the religious establishments.

The recent men's movement has shown that, even though the gender divide is not as strong today as it has been in the past, there might still be a need for such initiation beyond the military, a need that is perhaps even more pronounced among gay men.  this paper will argue that a phenomenological analysis of gay sex allows one to understand gay sex intself as a form of male initiation.
 
 
Ron Long holds degrees from Kenyon College and Columbia University.  A former Fulbright scholar, he has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University, and is now an Assistant Professor in the Program in Religion, Hunter College.  He was a long time member of the Steering Committee of the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion, for which he also served as one of its co-chairs.  At the recent meeting of the AAR in November, the group honored his recent Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods with an entire panel devoted to the book.  Over the years, his essays and reviews have appeared in such publications has the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, The Journal of Men's Studies, Theology & Sexuality, and the Journal of the AAR.  In the fall, he is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the "Between the Worlds" gathering of men itnerested in alternative spiritualities.