Thinking Sex and American Religions

Abstract

Critical theories of sexuality provide key insights into American religious beliefs and practices. This article proposes six axioms by which scholars might approach thinking sex and American religions: that thinking sex is of broad academic significance; that critical sex theory differs in key ways from gender theory; that sexuality is historically constructed; that certain kinds of sex provide access to religious approbation and social privilege; that consideration of sex includes religious conservatives; and that America religious studies scholars must also confront the oversignification of sex. Each axiom is paired with examples of American religious scholarship that instantiate the proposed premise. Americans often assume that religion should dictate how to think (and do) sex -and that only certain kinds of sex are (or should be) permissible in ''good old American'' religions. Thus, scholars of American religions should be thinking sex.

“Queering” African American religious history

“…In this way, "queering" means returning to the canon of African American history to locate and take seriously the religious lives and experiences of those deemed "irreligious," which frequently means those who may or may not have identified with a nonnormative sexuality while they were alive. Scholars have suggested that to do such a project means that historians must think about the history of religion and the history of sexuality together, as two coconstitutive elements of American history (Frank, Moreton, & White, 2018;Goodwin, 2011). Other scholars have described the necessity of thinking about the blurring, convergence, and interdependence between the sacred and the secular, the church and the nightclub, or the spirituals and the blues in order to locate African American religious transcendence of sexual conformity and gendered constructs of normativity (Best, 2013;Cady & Fessenden, 2013;Chireau, 2003;Cone, 1972;Fessenden, 2011;Griffin, 2006;Hurston, 1981;Jackson, 2004;Johnson, 1998;Reed, 2003;Sorett, 2016;Weisenfeld, 2002).…”

“…In the same way that scholars have discussed the "queer," "strange," "freakish," and "deviant" religions or "cults" of non-sexually queer American and African American new religious movement leaders, preachers, and laity, I argue that historians can also study sexually queer African American religious actors (see, for example, Curtis & Sigler, 2009;Foster, 1981Foster, , 2010Frederick, 2015, pp. 87-132;Godbeer, 2002;Goodwin, 2011Goodwin, , 2016Lofton, 2008).…”