From: bigham@cac.washington.edu (Chuck Bigham)
Subject: Re: the relevancy of sexuality to us
Date: 10 Sep 1993 02:23:04 GMT

[SWM = straight white males]
cortese@netcom.com (Janis Maria C. C. Cortese) writes:
[Deletia]
>I think it's quite obvious why there aren't so many SWM in Paganism;
>ObDisclaimer -- I KNOW plenty of sweet and wonderful SWM, okay?
>However, they simply have more to gain from towing the Party Line, the
>dominant paradigms.  For them to become involved with a spirituality
>that gives prominence to the feminine is for them to confront a lot of
>fears and give up some power.  No one does this easily, although there
>are men who will.  Statistically speaking, however, they are in the
>minority among SWM.

[More Deletia]

>Why IS it that SWM are not present
>in Paganism and Wicca proportionate to their numbers in the population
>at large?  I think a previous poster hit on it -- women and queers have
>been so denigrated that we are more likely to flee the dominant
>religious straitjackets when other options present themselves.  It's
>harder to convince a SWM of what he has to gain by confronting fears
>about women and queers and giving up some of the power vested in him by
>the current dominant philosophies.

It's easy to get swept up in generalizations when talking about this
subject, so I'm going to try to speak in concrete terms about my own
experiences. I'll start by saying I'm a SWM, so hopefully they'll have
some bearing on the subject.

There are barriers for anyone contemplating a pagan path. The cultural
norms in the U.S. don't make it easy to become pagan. Our world view
is constructed from birth to favor a rational, mechanistic, dead world
presided over by a stern, punishing god who will reward you only if
you accept your place in the world and don't make waves and above all
consider yourself worthless. If we do reject that worldview, most of
us only reject the god part, the world is still rational, mechanistic
and dead. And since men, more so than women, are trained to be
rational and logical, it's harder for them to make the jump to the
living, mysterious world pagans live in. And SWM don't have the goad
that gay men have, a dominant religion that actively pushes them away.

This training to be rational and logical, cold and unemotional ("Big
boys don't cry") is the first hurdle men have to cross. I'm still
fighting daily with myself. Every time I try to open myself to the
spirit(s) of the world, I have to shut down the voice in the back of
my mind that cries "But that's not LOGICAL! It's not RATIONAL!"

Second, I think SWM stay away from paganism *because* it's attractive
to women and gays. I was hesitant at first to explore paganism because
of that. There is a cultural bias in the U.S. for "real men" to stay
away from that "sissy stuff." If gays and women do it, real men
can't. This was an easy hurdle for me to get over, since I've been
doing "sissy stuff" for years. But I've taken my share of flack over
it.

   (Aside: A conversation from high school:
           "Hey, Bigham. You show horses? That's for girls!"
           "Yeah, I know."
   )

Many men are going to have trouble getting around that hurdle. They
see themselves in the locker room at the gym on Monday morning. One
guy asks, "So Jack, what did you do this weekend?" "I, um, uh, danced
around a fire and asked blessings from the Goddess."

Third, most SWM, especially white ones ("Pigmentally challanged"), are
going to have a lot of trouble letting go of their privilaged position
in society. To voluntarily join a persecuted group is a tough decision
to make. Women have been persecuted for years. Openly gay men have
already come out of one closet. SWM just don't have the practice at
being looked down on. I'm still hiding the fact that I'm pagan. My
wife knows, everyone else knows I'm not Christian, but that's it.

Fourth, and in my opinion, most important (at least from my
exploration of Wicca/paganism) is the emphasis on the Goddess will
make a SWM run screaming from the room. When I first began exploring
Wicca/paganism three years ago, I asked of then net "What do I read to
learn more?"  A typical newbie question on alt.pagan, and then, as
now, the answer was Starhawk's _The Spiral Dance_ and Adler's _Drawing
Down the Moon_.  I read _Spiral Dance_ first. And almost quit
considering paganism all together. My first reaction when I finished
it was "Geez, shave off the beard and slap on a pair of breasts." "I
thought Wicca was about *balance*?  Where's the balance in this?" "Let
go of your masculine and get in touch with your feminine! Blech!" I
wasn't, and by generalization, SWM aren't, interested in joining a
religion that gives predominance to the female. Sure, most of us are
raised giving at least lip service to a patriarchal, male dominated
religion, but that doesn't mean we should toss it out for a
matriarchal, female dominated religion. I wanted balance.

Fortunately, I didn't run away. I read _DDTM_ and found out
Starhawk's Diannic Wicca wasn't the only way. I read some Carmichael
and learned about Wiccan traditions that emphasize balance between the
Goddess and the God (Sure, Carmichael's work is pretty sweetness and
light, but I like it). And I learned how to balance the Goddess and
the God in my own ritual. But the balance is hard. I hear another
voice in the back of my mind saying "Dammit, I'm a man. I LIKE the
masculine." And I do.  But I recognize the need for balance. But I'd
refuse to follow a tradition that emphasized the feminine at the
expense of the masculine or a tradition the give pre-emminence to the
Goddess. Equal status, sure. First among equals, no problem. But not
to the exclusion of the God and balance.

So, here we have a SWM, logical, rational, afraid of looking like a
sissy, used to being, if not in the majority, at least the norm. He's
feeling restless, his spiritual needs aren't being met in the dominant
religion so he starts looking around. Here's Wicca. He sees a
tradition dominated by the Goddess, emphasizing the feminine,
populated by gays and women, ridiculed and reviled by the
masses. What's he gonna do?

>Blessings,
>Janis 

Chuck
--
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*      Chuck Bigham, Computer Facilities Manager         *
*          University of Washington, Bothell             *
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