Coming Out
Victor is a sixteen-year-old kid who’s just moved from Texas to attend Creekwood Highschool in Atlanta. Like many sixteen-year-olds, Victor is trying to figure out who he is. What confuses him most is his sexuality. “Some guys like girls, some guys like guys, some like both.” How is he to know? As Victor walks to school on his first day of class, his over-eager and quirky friend, Felix, dishes up a line that will set the theme for the rest of the show: “You are a blank canvas. Today you paint the picture of who you want to be. So who are you?”
With this line, the message is clear: your identity, who you are, is wrapped up in your sexual preference.
Victor is into guys, but he has a hard time being honest about it. He just wants to fit in at school and he doesn’t want to offend his religious parents. To make matters more interesting, he’s not entirely sure that he isn’t into girls either. In the midst of this confusion, he begins a relationship with Mia, a girl at his new school. As it turns out, Victor ends up liking Mia quite a lot . . . but not like he likes Benji, his fellow gay classmate. This is the central conflict of the story.
Victor is conflicted about his sexuality and unsure about who to talk to about it. Along the way, he finds help from Simon Spier, a former student who also came out as gay. But otherwise, there are very few people with whom he can be honest.
I can imagine that a lot of people who identify as gay can relate. It is an unfortunate reality that people cannot be honest about what they are feeling, experiencing, or wrestling with even with those who are closest to them. Indeed, keeping these things inside often ends up hurting other people. We see this clearly when Victor finally tells Mia at the end of season one that he is gay, causing her confusion and hurt.
From this standpoint, even as Christians, we can affirm that “coming out” in a sense is not a bad thing. We all need people who we can be honest with about what we are experiencing, especially as it regards the difficult issue of sexuality. From this perspective, Love, Victor offers us an opportunity for reflection. Am I the kind of person who people can be honest with? Am I willing to listen to the struggles of another person without condemning them? And if I am struggling, why do I feel that I cannot share my struggles? Is there someone who I can share them with?
The Cultural Narrative of Sexuality
With this in mind, we can now discuss some of the more problematic elements of the show. For starters, the show frames the question “Who are you?” entirely in terms of sexuality. What determines the real you is your sexual preference. Over and over, Victor wrestles with this question. Does he like girls, does he like guys? Who is he?
The show highlights our culture’s view of identity. Identity has been entirely reduced to sexuality. No wonder, then, that so many people see Christian teaching on sexuality as oppressive. When we call homosexuality a sin, culture doesn’t see us criticizing a life choice, but condemning a person’s entire identity.
The show implies that because sexuality is the core of our identity, we can’t do anything about our sexual preference. At the same time, the show encourages us to explore our options. Girls not working for you? Try boys (and vice-versa). Students are being encouraged at younger and younger ages to explore their sexual “options.”
Relationships are no longer clear-cut, and they are being determined around sexuality, causing severe damage to the concept of friendship. For example, if you see two guys embracing each other, what is your first reaction? It is getting harder for people to imagine strong relationships between two men or two women that are not sexual.
Our sexuality is who we are. And we need to get that figured out as soon as possible, so explore your options. This is what the culture says. And like it or not, culture now controls the narrative regarding sexuality.
Silence, False Narratives, and Judgment
Why is it that culture so dominates the conversation on sexuality? As Christians, we need to take a good hard look at ourselves.
The church, often enough, has been entirely silent on this issue. Sex is a bad word in many households and churches, and the only thing that some people hear about sex growing up is “don’t do it.” While the culture has made sex and sexuality everything, the church has too often made it almost nothing.
Yet, if we are honest, we know that our sexuality is a huge part of who we are. If sexuality is really no big deal, then why do we feel that it is? Why do we have these strange body parts and seemingly overpowering sexual desires?
In an effort to correct this silence, some people talk about sex as if it is the ultimate prize for waiting for marriage. You hear people say things like, “if you wait until you’re married, it will be awesome!” But then reality hits, and for some people, it’s just not awesome. For some people, it’s really hard. In the wake of this, people become disillusioned and they wonder if it was really worth it to wait. Others divorce because their sexual expectations aren’t being met. And then, what about those who are single? What are they supposed to do about their sexual desires?
As culture makes sexuality the core of human identity, the church finds itself retreating, trying to draw lines in the sand to maintain biblical standards regarding sexuality. Unfortunately, we have already left a bad taste in the mouth of culture (and many young Christians, as well). For example, in Love, Victor, Victor’s parents are loosely Christian; they talk about Jesus. And yet, we learn that their marriage is no better than most. With an affair in their history, Victor’s parents decide to separate at the end of season one.
I’m not sure that the show has an ax to grind against Christianity as such, this is simply how the culture views the Christian stance on sexuality. They see people who are telling them they need to obey the Bible and follow what seem like arbitrary, oppressive standards of morality, while within the Christian community, marriages are falling apart. Can we blame them if they don’t want to listen?
A Better Narrative
Now, this kind of thing has been said often enough, and I don’t just want to be one more voice condemning the church. After all, the church is not a perfect place and we shouldn’t expect it to be. The church is full of people . . . and people are messy. We don’t expect the church to get everything right straight away, either. There have been 2,000 years of reflection on the Christian faith with many ups and downs along the way, as the church collectively learns together, or sometimes, forgets together. Of course, it’s also easy to just blame “the church.” However, I am part of “the church,” and, if you are a Christian, you are, too. We all bear responsibility for this issue.
So, what do we do? How do we address the cultural narrative regarding sexuality?
Part of the difficulty we have is that we want the culture to adopt our morality, but we forget to tell them our story—that is, the biblical story. We all live and act out of the story that we think we are part of. According to Alasdair MacIntyre in his book After Virtue, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”¹ The story that I believe myself to be a part of influences the way I think about what I should do in the world.
If I don’t know what story I am a part of, I don’t know what I should do. This is why, when we try to push our morality without the biblical story, it sounds hollow. The culture has a different story about sexuality, in which Christian sexual morality makes absolutely no sense. In culture’s narrative, our sexuality is who we are and it is entirely for our gratification. No one should put limits on it.
The Christian story says something far different. It says (for starters) that our sexuality is a gift, and that sexual expression is meant to reflect the Divine. Within this basic statement there are a whole host of questions that we need to address: Why do we have such powerful bodily desires? Why did God create men and women different from one another? What greater purpose might God have for our sexuality? What if my sexual experience seems different from what God says? In short, what is my sexuality for?
It is time to start talking about sex and sexuality. It’s time to start talking about what we are feeling and desiring. It’s time for us, as a church, to do some serious reflection on what our story really is. It’s time for us to explore what our sexuality is for. It is only when we understand our own story, and how sexuality fits into it, that we can then offer the culture a better narrative—a better, biblical, way forward with sexuality.
Moving Forward
Along these lines, I would like to humbly propose three things:
First, if you are a parent, talk to your children about sex and sexuality . . . and then keep talking about it. One conversation is not enough. It doesn’t matter if you have all the answers. What matters is that your children know that you know it’s hard, that you care about this area of their lives, and that you are there for them to help them figure it out. A lot of people feel uncomfortable doing this, but it is vital. And I can promise you that your children will appreciate it (later, if not now). And I don’t mean handing them a Christian book or CD that “explains it all.” Frankly, that is a cop-out. At Summit, we talk a lot about Truth + Relationship. Truth without relationship can often make things more confusing. Have an actual conversation. If we don’t talk about sex and sexuality with our children, we can be sure that the culture will.
Second, in the same vein, find someone older and wiser who you can discuss your sexuality with. Part of the problem for Victor is that the only people he talks to are people who are his age or just slightly older. Find someone who is willing to challenge you and help you grow in understanding.
Finally, we all need to take some time to do some serious study and investigation on the issue of sexuality. This issue is much too large for a single article. Below, we have suggested several resources to help you on this journey. But again, learn alongside other believers in the church; don’t try to do it alone.
In the end, this is not a condemnation of the church, but a serious call to be honest about how we are feeling, to talk about our struggles with sexuality, and to do some serious study on this issue.
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