Sari charpentier gender, body and the sacred heterosexual hegemony as a sacred order

Gender, Body and the Sacred:
Heterosexual Hegemony as a Sacred Order
by Sari Charpentier
Contents
Introduction
Sacred and power
Citing heteronormativity: the sacred marriage
Bodily pollution and gendered threat
Open spaces?
Concluding remarks
References
"There is no way that a marriage for gays could be approved, in the sense of a normal marriage. They can join together in their own
ways and that's what we all should approve. Why such a fine thing as marriage should be broken up now when marriage has just begun
to regain its popularity after attempts at just living together? Let the marriage be sacred!" (KIK 1996A-03-13) (in Finnish)
"A marriage is not essentially a private affair, but public, and it concerns the whole society. Marriage institution is the basis of the
whole society and its deterioration affects considerably the health of the society." (HS 1996-02-25) (in Finnish)
"Questions are not as easy as one might think. Maybe gays do not straightforwardly do damage to any outsiders [of their relationship], at
least if they are not allowed to adopt children or if they have sex only with each other. But the influence may be intermediate as
well."..."Is it sure that neighbour's children do not take gays as models? Could the registration of same-sex partnerships encourage
people to become gay, because there is a possibility for it already? Could the registration of gay relationships lead to more publicity and
therefore mix up the development of children's sexual identity?" (HS 1996A-03-23) (in Finnish)
Sari Charpentier - Gender, Body and the Sacred: Heterosexual Hegemony as a Sacred Order file:///G:/BACKUP/assuntos/mulheres/Sari Charpentier - Gender, Body and the Sacred Hete...
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Introduction
A certain amount of fear and suspicion is still expressed, even in a country which is commonly believed to be one of the
most equality-promoting countries in the world, when a possibility of widening of lesbian and gay rights spreads into a
public discussion. During the 1990s, several public debates concerning the possibility of lesbian and gay marriages,
adoptions, as well as alternative inseminations1 for lesbian couples have shaken the media in Finland. The above
quotations are from a debate on the possibility of same-sex marriages in 1996.2
It has been characteristic of the Finnish discussions about lesbian and gay rights that an audible part has always been
played by some form of religiosity. In both academic and common thinking this religiosity has thus far been represented
by Christianity, which in Finland mostly means Lutheran Christianity. In party politics, a few members of the Christian
Party have been extremely active in promoting heterosexual marriage. Letters to the editor often refer to the Christian
God and the Bible. In the academic field, two scholars of religion have paid attention to the previous widespread public
discussion about lesbian and gay marriages in 1993. Gustav Strömsholm (1997) claims homosexuals to have become
entangled in a political play within the Lutheran church, while Eero Kettunen (1999) questions the idea of Christian
believers being the only opponents of lesbian and gay marriages. In both studies, "religiosity" in the debate is implicitly
equated with Christianity.
In this article, I will discuss religiosity in lesbian and gay discussions within another framework. I have analyzed the
letters to the editor from six Finnish newspapers3 published during the debate of 1996. I will argue that what is
"religious" is not only that which is commonly understood as religiosity, namely, in this case, the letters to the editor in
which the argument is explicitly based on citations of the Christian understanding of reality. Instead, I will claim that
the overall maintenance of the heteronormative order itself, as it appears in the writings that oppose same-sex
marriages and adoptions, may be understood as religious, since a heterosexual gender system is produced in these texts
as a sacred order. In other words, I will seek to construct one possible framework for studying religious dimensions of
the production and maintenance of the contemporary gender system and its often acknowledged heteronormativity4,
without equating religion beforehand to any known religion.5 In addition, most feminist theorists agree that a crucial
dimension of a system of gender and heterosexuality is that it is a system of power. It is crucial to include the
possibility for an analysis of power also in the study of religiosity. I will base my understanding of religiosity on Mary
Douglas's theorization of order and pollution and William E. Paden's and Veikko Anttonen 's conceptualizations of the
sacred, which I will slightly modify by leaning on Judith Butler.
Sacred and power
In my understanding of the sacred I follow the tradition of sociology of religion. Rather than concerning individual's
feelings of awe, the sacred is related to society and the maintenance of the social order. William E. Paden argues that
in addition to interaction with supernatural power - for example, god -- the "religious world" functions "through a
constant monitoring and negotiation of the boundaries of its own integrity". (Paden 1996, 4) According to him, one way
to account for this integrity-maintenance as a crucial dimension of religiosity is to conceptualize religion as a "sacred
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order": a struggle between maintenance of an order and its violation. (ibid.. 4-5) Paden constructs this
conceptualization to challenge what he names "mana-model", in which the sacred is regarded as solely a superhuman
entity which "manifests" itself in the world. (Paden 1996, 3)
Veikko Anttonen remarks that what is central in Paden's formulation, is his application of Peter L. Berger's sociological
theory of religion, which enables a conceptualization of the sublime as a sacralization of the social order itself
(Anttonen 1996a, 89). As Paden puts it, sacrality is not constructed as the "beyond" but as the manner in which a
specific social order is maintained intact. Therefore, the profane is whatever threatens or violates the coherence of the
order. (Paden 1996, 5) In addition to Peter L. Berger, Paden is inspired by Mary Douglas's ideas of order and pollution.
According to Douglas, what does not fit into a social order and which threatens its coherence, is comprehended as "dirt"
or "social pollution". She suggests that controlling the culturally defined boundaries of clean and unclean is a means of
constructing a coherent world-order. (Douglas 1988, 2-4) One example of the construction of the sacred order against a
violating anti-order is naming certain activity a "sin". (Paden 1996, 10)
According to Paden, closely connected with his approach is Veikko Anttonen's theory of sacrality (Paden 1996, 9).
Anttonen's theory can be read within Paden's conceptualization of the sacred order as adding to it a theory of
subjectivity. Anttonen bases his idea of the sacred on theories of human cognitive processing, according to which a
human being creates categories to be able to comprehend the world and process the continuous flow of information.
(Pyysiäinen 1996, 12-14; Anttonen 1996a, 25-27, 95) He argues that cognitive structures based on corporeality,
territoriality and communality "lie at the heart of religious or comparable conceptual systems regardless of
geographical location or historical time". (Anttonen 1996a, 210; Anttonen 1996b, 36-37) This universality of the
conceptual structures constructing the sacred is, according to him, based on the fact that a division between inner and
outer bodily space, as well as interior and exterior territory, is necessary for human cognitive processing, (Anttonen
1996a, 94-95) i.e., to become a subject in a social community.
Since I consider it a central task to be able to combine an analysis of power within an analysis of the sacred, I will ask,
how, then, should power be conceptualized within the sacred order? According to Paden, sacred order is a neutral
term, and its content is always culturally defined. (Paden 1996, 6) However, in his conceptualization an order which is
"natural" is rendered outside of the religious. He argues that the distinction between order and anti-order, on which the
sacred order is based, is "found in all social and natural life" and is "linked with common human needs for
self-maintenance, for the defense of territory, tradition, honor, authority and law, social bonds and roles, and other
forms of status." (ibid.. 4) He argues that the secular as well as the sacred order "both in fact maintain worlds which
operate through these same structuring, contractual force fields." (ibid.)
Paden goes on to distinguish the sacred order from secular by stating that the sacred order is explicitly legitimated by
superhuman authorities. He cites Peter L. Berger who illustrates the difference in the following way: "To go against the
order of society is always to risk plunging into anomy. To go against the order of society as religiously legitimated,
however, is to make a compact with the primeval forces of darkness." (Paden 1996, 4; Berger 1967, 39) Therefore,
Paden appears to construct the "natural" and the "sacred" order as distinguishable systems, while the attribute "sacred"
remains an addition or increase in legitimizing power: "So even if the defense of order is fuelled partially by ascribed
supernatural sanctions, it is also driven by deep-rooted, natural instincts for self-preservation and species-survival, and
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here sociobiology and the study of sacrality potentially join interests. Humans, like so many species, inhabit worlds
fraught with danger and sensitive boundaries, and devise the most complex strategies for self-defense. Here "the
sacred" is not supernatural, but biological." (Paden 1996, 11) In other words, Paden's conceptualization appears not to
question the "natural" in itself.
Paden stresses the importance of paying attention also to the ways sacred orders promote political exclusion and social
discrimination (Paden 1996, 6). However, the unquestioned naturalness becomes a problem for the theory of the sacred
especially in the debate on changes of law in order to promote lesbian and gay rights when the means to maintain the
contemporary heteronormative social order intact is claiming this order "natural". If the theory itself has an implicit
appreciation of the "natural", it cannot function as a tool for critical research in analyzing how a certain sacred order,
which is claimed natural, produces and maintains marginalization. However, if the theory of the sacred itself does not
naturalize the natural, that is, make it unquestionable and self-evident, the conceptualization of religion as a sacred
order gives an opportunity to discuss whether the idea of the "natural" order is part of a belief system which sacralizes
a certain hegemonic cultural order by naturalizing it.
In her theorization of gender, Judith Butler questions the idea of gender order as "natural". She argues against an idea
of "construction" of gendered subjectivity within which gender is supposed to be "internalized" in the course of, for
example, psychosexual development in childhood. Along with this, she resists an idea of "inner" (gender) identity,
which is then "expressed" as "outer" gender. The conceptualizations she criticizes are based on a distinction between
sex and gender. Therefore, her critique is aimed at two pervasive Western conceptual oppositions which have made
their way into theories of gender: a distinction between biology or nature and culture, as well as a distinction between
psyche and body. Within a conceptual framework based on these oppositions, a discussion on the construction of
gender either remains bound to a nature-nurture debate, or gender becomes understood as "cultural", while the body is
rendered to "mere materiality" and sex is claimed "natural". Rather than rendering bodily differences in the domain of
the "natural", Butler's argumentation implies that a claim of naturalness is only made within a certain matrix of power.
Therefore, rather than to what extent sex "really" is natural or cultural, the crucial question concerns the ways the
naturalization participates in and consolidates a certain matrix of power, in other words, its functions. (Butler 1990,
6-7, 12, 22, 24-25, 135-137, 140-141; Butler 1993, 4-11, 234)
Paden himself does not discuss the sacredness of the system of gender. However, if Butler's critique of the natural is
applied to the idea of the sacred order, it becomes adequate to ask how, through the claim of naturalness, a particular
order is sacralized. In the letters to the editor, a distinction of the sexes, understood as self-evident and natural, is
regarded as a foundation of a whole "natural" system of heterosexuality. This system is then used as an argument to
make understandable and natural the idea that lesbian/gay relationships and heterosexual relationships should not be
treated in the same way:
"All you need is pure common sense and you understand that it is completely unnatural that two men would get married. You need only
to think what are the sexual organs of men and women like to understand that sexual practices (intercourse) and marriage is meant to
happen between a man and a woman and not as a union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman." (ILK 1996C-03-11) (in
Finnish)
Butler argues that this very linking of sexed bodies to a coherent system of desires and gendered roles should be
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considered, rather than "natural", a particular system of cultural intelligibility. According to her, an understanding of
human bodies as "sexed" is already a cultural signification. She suggests that rather than assuming a naturalness in the
differentiation of bodies into two sexes, this differentiation should be understood as part of a matrix of power, within
which bodies are only intelligible to us as sexed. By "power" I understand first of all the specific ways how in a specific
context only certain understandings of, for example, "bodies" is intelligible. This should not be understood as a claim
that "everything is language", that "real bodies do not exist", or that "genders do not exist". The boundaries of
intelligibility always collaborate with structural practices and marginalization.6 Rather, then, Butler is claiming
attention to cultural signification's pervasiveness and profundity. Still, her gender theory implies that however
profound, the signifying system that connects bodies to a certain (heterosexual) desire and certain social role is
contingent. (Butler 1990, 16-17, 22, 32; Butler 1993, 1-2, 6-8, 10)
Since this system of gender and power, which Butler calls "heterosexual hegemony", is contingent, its existence
requires continuous maintenance and consolidation. According to Butler, this takes place in a constant reiteration of
cultural ideals of gender. She conceptualizes gender as "performative", which is an appropriation of J. L. Austin's
speech act theory. Austin discusses whether certain acts of speech, which perform something, should be understood as
not "just speech" but conducts. One of his most famous examples of this kind of performatives is the initiation of
marriage, "I pronounce you man and wife". According to Butler, the act succeeds only because it is part of a cultural
intelligibility, a chain of deeds and particular history. This history legitimates the act by setting a position for a priest
to pronounce these words in a specific context and gives that utterance an institutionalizing power.7 Butler argues that
gender is produced in a similar way. Reiterating certain ways of speech, deeds, interpretations, functions as a
culturally over-and-over-again produced chain which, rather than being its expressions, produce gender. Therefore,
following Butler (1990, 25) it can be argued: "There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that
identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results." (Butler 1990, 24-25, 136,
139-140; Butler 1993, 12-13, 107, 224-225) Gendered subjectivity is then produced within this matrix of power in
manifold practices, not only as a specific "performance of gender", but also, for example, when arguing about the
"truth" of oneself and an Other (homosexual, for example) in letters to the editor, or when saying, "I will" at the altar
(Kaskisaari 2000). Legislation is then one of the conventions within the cultural intelligibility within which these
practices are produced and legitimated.
It is crucial that a system of citations always produces an outside, an out-of-order. Butler argues that heterosexual
hegemony is a system of citations, in which a gender identity is constantly produced by acting out, citing, cultural
ideals of two mutually opposite genders. She denies that this production of gender identities could be changed simply
by, for example, changing clothes. In other words, in my reading gender is not "free-floating", even though Butler is
sometimes read that way. Rather, gender is a question of becoming a subject within a matrix of power. For Butler, this
matrix functions as continuously producing the boundary between inner and outer, of self and other. Power, then, does
not mean merely a subjectivation to a power exterior to the self. Instead, she claims that individual selves are
produced within certain, culturally and/or locally shared patterns of exclusion. Butler uses Julia Kristeva and her
concept of abjection, as well as Iris Marion Young's appropriation of Kristeva, to reconceptualize Douglas's idea of social
pollution. Butler conceptualizes the repugnance against Others — those who fall outside the hegemonic categories of
human or normality — as "abjection". According to her, a coherence of an identity presumes exclusions. For example,
white, male, heterosexual identities are only possible because of exclusions based on race, sex and sexual preferences.
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How these exclusions are made, in other words, which identities on the one hand become hegemonic and are widely
considered "normal", and which on the other hand are abjected, is dependent on the contemporary matrix of cultural
intelligibility. Therefore, the inner-outer division through which subjects emerge, rather than being a neutral
procedure, a "mere" necessity, functions as social regulation and control. (Butler 1990, 131-134, 136; Butler 1993, x-xi)
Now, if the sacred order is conceptualized as being founded on both the inner-outer division of the self, and territory
and/or community, it can be argued that these distinctions are always made within a matrix of power. Sacred is
therefore always intertwined in a cultural matrix of intelligibility that produces abjections and marginalizations.
Paden's conceptualization of religion may then be modified along these lines. First, his idea of the sacred order is based
on Douglas's ideas of purity and danger, which help to conceptualize the ways the violating or threatening "outside" 8 of
order is regarded as polluted. Social pollution, then, can be reconceptualized as that which is not included into a
hegemonic social order and which threatens the boundaries of the "normal" and accepted. In other words, the
production of the sacred order and its outside may be read as constituting a foundation of a socially hegemonic order.
Then the outside is regarded as both unintelligible and repulsive. In other words, it is abjected. In the following I will
explicate with some fragments from the Finnish debate on lesbian and gay marriages, how a heterosexual hegemony
may be interpreted as this kind of sacred order and can therefore be argued to be normalized and maintained by a
process of sacralization.
Citing heteronormativity: the sacred marriage
In the term sacred order the attribute "sacred" indicates that it is not only a question of order as arrangement, as
opposite to chaos or messiness. When an order is "sacred", it is, first of all, considered inviolable. Therefore, for an
order to become sacred means that it is guarded by unquestionable authority and continuous control of its integrity.
(Paden 1996, 6) The examples in the beginning of this essay can be read as just this kind of effort to keep a certain
social order based on a heterosexual marriage intact. A coherent system of gender and heterosexuality needs
boundaries which, through marking the limits of intelligibility, produce a constitutive outside. The "outside" of this
order is then rendered culturally unintelligible and abjected. This "unintelligibility" shows, for example, in writings in
which lesbians and gay men are not understood to be men and women:
"I am not married, but I have been with a woman, so I have sinned. But I certainly am a man! not gay." (ILK 1996-03-15) (in Finnish)
Butler (1997) suggests a need to think performativity, for example, in terms of how legislative state power reiterates
discourses of both racism and heteronormativity. According to Marja Kaskisaari, letters to the editor in public debates
may be read through the theory of performativity, too, in a sense that argumentation is based on a reiteration of
certain cultural ideals (Kaskisaari 1997). In other words, for an argument to be credible it needs to produce its "truth"
by repeating specific culturally constructed ideals. The constructions of "truth" can be said to be produced and
legitimated within the matrix of gender and heterosexuality. Therefore, a production of "truth" is also a reiteration of
the cultural ideals of gender; in other words, as Butler suggests, a reiteration by which gender is produced. In the
Finnish discussion on lesbian and gay marriages, an ideal of naturalness or normality of the heterosexual system is
produced in at least three different, sometimes overlapping ways. Heteronormativity is legitimated by either referring
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to Christian vocabulary, to common sense understanding of psychoanalytic terms or to biology and "nature". In terms of
Butler's theory of gender performativity, these arguments could be understood as various citations of the heterosexual
hegemony.
One way to produce homosexuality as "out of order" is to construct heteronormativity around the concepts "models",
"inward fragmentation" and "growing up in childhood". Homosexuality is, then, understood as "inward fragmentation", a
trauma resulting because of problematic childhood, maybe a too weak father and dominant mother, sexual abuse in
childhood, or wrong kind of models:
"A theory in which homosexuality is regarded as tied to the psychosocial development in childhood has proved most eligible. Every
homosexual has his own story, but emotional needs unfulfilled in childhood seem to be a clear common denominator. Therefore,
homosexuality is to be seen as one fruit of inward disintegration."(IL 1996-04-19) (in Finnish)
"Truly, in homosexualism a boy has had to do without father's love. Maybe in addition the mother has been dominant. In this way, as an
adult, one is drifted to look for "father's love" with another man. For a woman, lack of mother's love and closeness as well as
disappointments in relationships with men are well-known reasons for lesbianism." (KO 1996A-03-01) (in Finnish)
The second way to produce heteronormativity is to cite concepts such as "natural", "animals", "sex organs",
"reproduction" and the "order of nature" to produce a heterosexual necessity and coherent order which encompasses
sexuality, having a relationship, and raising children, for example, in the following way:
"There are certain biological norms in life. One of them is reproduction/getting offspring. For this, two individuals of different sexes is
needed. Nature has directed people of different sexes as guardians and educators of a child. This order of nature should not be
deliberately stirred." (KIK 1996C-03-27) (in Finnish)
Homosexuality is regarded as simply "unnatural", and examples are taken of those animals' lives who pair up in
male-female couples. These animals are then compared to humans and concluded that because animals behave in a
certain way, it is "natural" for humans, too. In the following example, animals and the difference of the sexes as a
necessity are produced in a way mixed with the third way of citation, in Christian terms:
"Animals do not get interested in the same sex either, despite some twisted individual creatures. Through the history of the world, far
since the Creation, it has been clear that both the humans and the animals have two sexes and both of them have their own task and
role in the relationship." (IL 1996-02-23) (in Finnish)
The only explicitly "religious" citations of heteronormative ideals recalled "The Bible", "God", "sin" and "love for one's
neighbour". In the Christian citations same-sex marriage was opposed because "God has not created anyone as gay or
lesbian. He created them men and women" (KO 1996-03-01) and because "God has set the marriage between a man and
a woman. Other marriages do not exist." (KIK 1996-02-28) In other words, the difference of the sexes, as people are
created as "men" and "women", is produced and legitimated by God. Homosexuality then becomes a matter of choice, a
sin among other sins. In the most striking letters, it is a sin which, if same-sex relationships are institutionalized, is
believed to cause that God destroys Finland. In the following case the myth of Sodom and Gomorra is related to the
destiny of Finland:
""Cry for Finland and Sodom has risen to heaven"! There were not 10 righteous in Sodom and God destroyed the whole town. Are there
now enough people to stand by the law and justice in Finland. Will the people of Finland be saved from war, hunger and other disasters?
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-- A human ought not forget that God is, lives and influences in our time, too!" (ILK 1996C-03-05) (in Finnish)
In all of these ways of citation, a heteronormative order is based on a difference of the sexes, and the unity of them in
marriage. Douglas discusses the body as a symbol of society, whereas the bodily margins function as a symbol of the
margins of the society. Therefore the societal order and its maintenance can be seen in the regulation of the body and
especially in the rituals which involve the body. According to Douglas, rituals in which the body is involved cannot be
understood unless we "are prepared to see in the body a symbol of society, and to see the powers and dangers credited
to social structure reproduced in small on the human body". (Douglas 1988, 115) In the debate, the social order appears
to be first and foremost based on the opposite-sex marriage, which is claimed to be sacred:
"A marriage is not essentially a private affair, but public, and it concerns the whole society. Marriage institution is the basis of the
whole society and its deterioration affects considerably the health of the society." (HS 1996-02-25) (in Finnish)
"There is no way that a marriage for gays could be approved, in the sense of a normal marriage. They can join together in their own
ways and that's what we all should approve. Why should such a fine thing as marriage be broken up now when the marriage has just
began to regain its popularity after attempts at just living together? Let marriage be sacred!" (KIK 1996A-03-13) (in Finnish)
A wedding ritual itself, as the initiating situation of marriage, gets also attention in the debate. In the most comments
about wedding, certain gendered roles in the ceremony are regarded as inevitable, and therefore, the comments
function as a basis for an argument of the gay marriage as incomprehensible:
"Would that be interesting to see which one in the gay wedding wears the bridal veil and crown, the shorter I suppose." (ILK 1996-02-26)
(in Finnish)
By leaning on Jonathan Z. Smith, Paden suggests that the function of rituals is rather constructive than expressive.
Following him, it can be argued that rather than understanding ritual as reverence for "the Sacred", a certain order is
made sacred through a ritual. (Paden 1996, 14) Butler pays attention to Austin's central example of the performative
act being the marriage ceremony. The performative operates here as a citation of the heterosexual norm, and produces
the heterosexualization of the social bond. (Butler 1993, 224, 226) Susanna Paasonen uses Butler's appropriation of
Austin to study a heterosexual wedding ritual as it is shown in a widely known romantic movie. She argues that it can
be viewed as one of the most prominent rituals of producing and naturalizing a heterosexual hegemony. (Paasonen
1998, 5) Therefore, in the context of the theory of the sacred, the wedding ritual may be understood as the most
visible -- not the only - ritual in the sacralization of the heterosexual order. It seems to be easier, at least in Finland, to
approve of a "registration" of partnerships, which is not a marriage. This can be argued to be related to the function of
marriage within the heterosexual order as a ritual of institutionalization and sacralization. (Charpentier 1999, 45-46,
63-64)
Bodily pollution and gendered threat
According to Paden, in the conceptualization of the sacred as supernatural power manifested, for example, in a sacred
temple, the profane is understood as the mundane or natural. In contrast to this model, Paden explains that in terms of
the sacred order, "the profane is not what is outside the temple, but rather what subverts it". A sacred order is
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inherently unstable and at risk of violations, which means that the order has to be continuously maintained. (Paden
1996, 5-6) The following fragments express this threat and the need to actively maintain the contemporary order:
"A partial homosexual urge exists in and affects all of us. In principle, wrong kinds of impulses can strengthen it and activate an
increased but latent homosexual inclination/tendency in a situation in which sexual balance is very unstable. This is why homosexuality
should not be supported nor its propagation allowed. For the same reason I see that it is questionable that a gay couple should raise
children." (KIK 1996B-03-27) (in Finnish)
"In my opinion the attitude of the proponents of homosexuality towards getting rid of homosexuality is irresponsible. When it is beyond
dispute that different therapies or religious experiences have offered a way of getting rid of homosexuality, why does it seem to be a
laughing matter? Of course everyone has the right to be gay, but everyone has also the right to become hetero, and this possibility for
change and this hope should not be put down or denied anybody." (IL 1996-04-18) (in Finnish)
Paden (1996, 6) continues that the sacred order has cognitive as well as moral dimensions. In addition to maintaining
its coherence, the world must be made "right". If something is "wrong", order reinforced:
"As far as I understand, the purpose of the law is to protect healthy life and prevent the unhealthy from becoming more common. I read
an expert opinion from another paper, and it stated that homosexuality can be cured if the patient really wants it. It would be most
reasonable to make a law which compels deviant people to go to get some help, and definitely not to legalize their deviance. Without
treatment a disease will just get worse and spread." (AL 1996-03-10) (in Finnish)
Douglas conceptualizes the threat to the order both in terms of the body as a symbol of society and social pollution.
She argues that social pollution is always a sign of an existence of an order: what does not fit into the confines of a
certain social order is cast out as "unclean". She argues that to be able to understand body pollution "we should try to
argue back from the known dangers of the society to the known selection of bodily themes and try to recognize what
appositeness is there". (Douglas 1988, 121)
Threats mentioned in the debate varied from a threat of a rampant proliferation of AIDS and a threat of God's
punishment to a fear that if the institutionalization of same-sex marriages will not affect negatively the partners
themselves, at least the neighbors' children were to be in danger (through having questionable role models). One of the
mentioned threats is an invasion by Russia, which indicates in an interesting way the locality of producing a
heteronormative order -- in this case its situation in Finland's history and geographical location. In the following
example a war is produced as a threat:
"Hope is lost ages ago with Sweden and Denmark, but is Finland becoming the promised land of gays as well? How about if the Eastern
Bear rushes in? A gay army going flat on its face would just have to turn their butt to the East and wait for the best!" (ILK 1996B-03-05)
(in Finnish)
In this letter, it is referred to the other Nordic countries Sweden and Denmark, in which, at the time of the discussion,
the registration of same-sex partnerships is already allowed. By the "Eastern Bear" the writer refers to Russia.
Presumably because of the history of Finland, Russia is still brought up as a threat in many discussions, such as in the
debate before Finland joined the EU in the early 90s. In the following example the assumed sexual practices of gay men
are connected to dangers facing Finland as a society:
"What would happen at a time of external threat if a large part of men were non-military service men and gays, hardly likely that they
would grab the gun either. The internal threat is great also when AIDS would spread like wildfire through anal sex to all the people."
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(ILK 1996-02-26) (in Finnish)
It is crucial to note that in this case it is not a question of merely a threat of AIDS related to gay men in general, but an
idea of the threat becoming actualized only when the relationships are institutionalized. Therefore, after the new
legislation, AIDS would "spread like wildfire" to "all the people", and homosexuality become an offence and a threat
towards the whole society. Opposite-sex marriage functions as institutionalizing the male-female sexual intercourse.
Sexual intercourse - read, penetration - is one way of transgressing the bodily boundaries. A specific kind of sexuality, a
heterosexual penetration, is institutionalized as the basis of a societal order. In the process of the maintenance of this
order, the sacralization of heterosexual hegemony occurs: first, by the regulation of sexuality into heterosexual
marriage, which functions as controlling the bodily margins; second, since the body functions as a symbol of the society
the control of bodily margins becomes symbolically connected to the future of Finnish society. Opposing same-sex
marriages is, therefore, connected to a belief that one way or the other, if same-sex relationships are institutionalized,
Finnish society will be destroyed.
The example above obliquely refers to anal penetration, which is considered a false and threatening way of
penetration. Terhi Utriainen explains that in the heterosexual gender system, the power relation between the
penetrator and the one penetrated is crucial: The whole system is at risk, if this (gender) order is blurred. (Utriainen
1997, 175; Charpentier 1999, 57) Because a marriage seems to function as an institutionalization and regulation of a
specific kind of sexuality, an institutionalization of same-sex marriages would allow a different kind of sexual symbolic,
in which the power relation between the one who penetrates and the one penetrated would be altered. It seems that,
as Douglas suggests, the body functions as a symbol of society. The example I cited above illustrates this, because the
control of bodily margins is connected to the relationship between Finland and Russia. Therefore, within this belief
system, altering the symbolic relations of penetration by institutionalizing gay relationships results in a collapse of the
ability of defense of the exterior borders of Finland. Therefore, the Russian army "penetrates" the Finnish army. This is
exemplified especially in the citation above in which "a gay army going flat on its face would just have to turn their
butt to the East and wait for the best". In this way, the body and the control of bodily margins is symbolically
connected to the destiny of Finnish society and nation. According to this heteronormative logic, if bodily margins are
not properly controlled, the safety at the borders of Finland,i.e., the independence of Finland, cannot anymore be
guaranteed. Moreover, since a marriage is a sacralizing ritual which consolidates this heterosexual order, it is the
institutionalization of a different bodily symbolic along with same-sex marriages that is regarded as magically
actualizing the threats.
What is interesting in the previous example is the characterization of Russia as the "Eastern Bear". According to
Anttonen, in Finnish tradition a bear is a sacred animal which symbolizes the central responsibilities of men in the
community, as well as both male body and sexuality (Anttonen 1996a, 159). The bear functions also in this exemplary
fragment as a symbol of sexuality and power. It is crucial that the bear is connected especially to heterosexuality. Men
have traditionally been responsible of the military defense. The bear, which in this example stands for the military
power of Russia, symbolizes masculinity that cannot be attained by the Finnish "gay army", this metamorphosis of the
Finnish army towards consisting solely of gay men being one of the assumed threats posed by same-sex marriage.
Because a gay man and a heterosexual man are imaginatively distinguished here by their sexuality, which prevents a
gay man from being a proper man — and therefore, a proper soldier— the masculinity and the power that the bear
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symbolizes is indistinguishably connected to heterosexuality. At the same time, heterosexuality becomes associated
with the independence of Finland: within the logic of this heterosexual hegemony, the maintenance of the
heteronormative social order becomes necessary also for guarding the independence of the country.
Douglas is especially interested in bodily pollution. According to her, if some bodily fluids or secretions are considered
"dirty", it tells, rather than of the nature of the fluid itself, of the culture and its order: "This is the clue which explains
the unevenness with which different aspects of the body are treated in the rituals of the world. In some, menstrual
pollution is feared as a lethal danger; in others not at all"…"In some, excreta is dangerous, in others it is only a
joke."…"To which particular bodily margins its [the culture's] beliefs attribute power depends on what situation the
body is mirroring." (Douglas 1988, 121) In some of the letters to the editor, assumed homosexual practices were
claimed extremely polluting:
"We know what happens during sexual intercourse of gay couples, and there is not always an opportunity to wash one's hands, and, as
we all know, men hold the 'little brother' in their hands many times a day while 'throwing water' [straight translation means, of course,
"peeing"]. Makes one think that one has to have rubber gloves when touching the doorhandles of shops and other public buildings."(ILK
1996A-03-07) (in Finnish)
In this one as well as in the previous examples homosexuality is abjected as the outside of the hegemonic order. The
making of the same-sex relationships publicly accepted by way of institutionalization is believed to produce a threat of
pollution. A further crucial issue emerges when attention is focussed on the gender of the homosexual body. The
"pollution" or uncleanness is connected merely to the sexual practices of men -- not to anal sex between male and
female nor the fluids exchanged in lesbian sexual practices. The "gay body" discussed in the debate is, therefore, a
male body. In the discussion, women's bodies as well as women's sexuality is absent.
The examples have illustrated how in these letters to the editor sexuality and penetration, as well as homosexuality
and anal sex, are connected. When the domain of sexuality is restricted to comprise only penetrative acts, sexuality
between women is by definition excluded. This heterohegemonic conceptualization of women's sexuality excludes, for
example, transsexual women who have not gone through a surgical operation to change their sex. Another assumption
constituting this ideal of sexuality as penetrative sex is, of course, that the only possibility for penetration is a male
penis. The female "lack" of penis, and the "asexuality" related to it, in accordance with the equation of sexuality and
penetration, is part of a hegemonic belief system in which bodily boundaries can be penetrated by only a man.
Therefore, in this symbolic system, women's sexuality is not considered a threat. In other words, women's sexuality is in
"no need of discussion" in the debate, because the sacred order is maintained through the control of the bodily
boundaries and guarding the "right" ways of transgression, which women are supposedly incapable of. The abjection of
"homosexuality" within this Finnish debate does not, therefore, indicate that "homosexuality" in general, including
lesbian sexuality, would assume power in a way that the heterosexual symbolic order would be violated. Nor does the
abjection of gay men's sexuality indicate that marginalization within this heterosexual symbolic is directed only towards
gay men. Above all the abjection of gay male sexuality indicates that the heterosexual order is founded on male
symbolic. Therefore, gay men's sexuality is threatening because what determines either the maintenance or the
subversion of the heterosexual order is male sexuality.
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Open spaces?
For Butler, a central problem in J.L. Austin's, as well as Pierre Bourdieu's, whose ideas she also discusses, analyses of
the performative is stableness. Bourdieu develops speech act theory into a direction which offers as well an analysis of
the power of social institutions. However, according to Butler, he assumes performative power merely to institutions
and authorities already established. Butler criticizes him of failing to "grasp the logic of iterability that governs the
possibility of social transformation." (Butler 1997, 142, 145-147) By leaning on Jacques Derrida, Butler argues that the
repetitions or citations of cultural ideals, by which the heterosexual matrix is produced and stabilized, are not mere
mechanical repetitions that repeat the order over and over again as the same. Instead, every repetition is inherently a
more or less failed copy. This implies that a possibility of social change is inherent in the heterosexual order as a
potential misrepetition. (Butler 1993, 102, 107, 237; Butler 1997, 147-151)
If, as Butler suggests, a possibility for misrepetition is inherent in the heterosexual matrix, how does this show within
the practices of sacralization? In other words, can a heterosexual hegemony as a sacred order be subverted by
misreiteration? I mentioned above that for Paden the sacred order needs continuous maintenance. If his theory of the
sacred order is appropriated by Butler's theory of performativity, this inherent unstableness of the sacred order may be
understood as a potential subversion by misrepetition. In the following I will briefly consider letters to the editor in
which lesbian and gay marriages are proposed, and discuss whether these writings open up the sacred heterosexual
order for subversion.
By appropriating Butler's idea of performativity Marja Kaskisaari (1997, 239, 242) argues that both the proponents and
the opponents of the same-sex marriage base their arguments on the heterosexual matrix. Both use the foundations of
the heterosexual matrix either to maintain the contemporary legislative order or to change the law. According to her,
the opponents cite heterosexuality in its plainest form, that is, by appealing to the opposite-sex-relationship as the
place for reproduction. The proponents, however, cite the ideal of marriage as a fulfillment of love:
"A man can love a man, and a woman a woman. Why should one make such a difference? If two women love each other and they want to
live together and institutionalize their relationship, why wouldn't that do? That should be no one else's business than the ones involved.
… What in the end makes a gay relationship so different from heterosexual relationship? Isn't it, still, profoundly a question about love?"
(AL 1996A-04-16) (in Finnish)
"Räsänen states (HS 7.3.1996) that gay love is not comparable to heterosexual love. Nonsense. In my work, I have watched more than
one intimate gay relationships in which a partner, by showing an incredible amount of love, has devoted oneself to his partner who has
AIDS and cherished him for years until death's door. Greater love I have never met." (HS 1996-03-09, cited also in Kaskisaari 1997, 242)
(in Finnish)
Phillip E. Hammond has sought to conceptualize the shifting of the boundaries of the sacred. He suggests that courts
also have a religious function. He argues that legislation and court decisions play a part in what is considered sacred: If
a law is changed in a way that a certain question of conscience, such as homosexuality, abortion or euthanasia is
accepted, a common understanding of the sacred is widened. (Hammond 1996, 356, 365-366) Also the boundaries of
heterosexual hegemony as a sacred order may be understood as potentially shifting. In the writings in which same-sex
marriages are proposed, institutionalized homosexual relationships are not experienced as a threat. Rather, a threat to
the contemporary social order seems to be posed by a denial of an institutionalized love:
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"As far as I understand it, a marriage is about two persons wishing to commit to love and take responsibility for one another. It is a
question of deep human emotions, not juridical arrangements in the first place. … In my opinion, equality is quite strongly at risk, if
some citizens are denied an ability to love, take care, commit and take responsibility." (AL 1996-03-09) (in Finnish)
"I live my first year of marriage, and I don't understand at all how gay marriages would threaten my marriage. What should my marriage
be protected against, and against whom or what should one fight? ... Is homosexuality like a threat from outer space that threatens the
whole nation and society? ... In my opinion, the prejudice and narrow-mindedness which leads some people to be excluded into a
marginalized and oppressed position is much more threatening." (KO 1996B-03-08) (in Finnish)
Therefore, in the writings in which lesbian and gay marriages are proposed, the place of the sacred, which holds the
society together, seems to be taken by love. However, Kaskisaari remains critical towards the possibilities of the love
discourse in opening up new space in the heterosexual matrix. She explains that a discourse on romantic love has been
one of the central discourses by which the heterosexual hegemony with its gendered ways of organization is
maintained. In this debate, too, the discourse on romantic love produces and maintains the public-private boundary,
which is one of the central mechanisms in the heterosexual matrix to produce the privatization of intimate
relationships. The public-private boundary is produced for example, in the following ways:
"If two women love each other and they want to live together and institutionalize their relationship, why wouldn't that do? That should
be no one else's business than the ones involved." (AL 1996A-04-16) (in Finnish)
"I could not care less what kind of sex life anyone leads and with whom. Affairs between two grown-ups are their own affair." (HS
1996-21-03; cited in Kaskisaari 1997, 235) (in Finnish)
According to Kaskisaari, the discourse on romantic love is, moreover, related to a Western idea that only a love
relationship opens up the possibility for a fulfillment of an authentic self. She suspects that the identity politics
reflected in the public discussion, according to which it is crucial to come out and confess one's identity, may be
related to this discourse. She therefore concludes that in the public discussion the discourse on romantic love functions
through assimilating differences and rationalizing homosexuality into the same order, rather than opening up new
discursive spaces for homosexuality in which homosexual subjectivity would not have to be confined to the finally
unattainable heterosexual ideals of a realization of self within institutionalized romantic love relationship. (Kaskisaari
1997, 243-245, 249-250)
The citation of marriage as a fulfillment of romantic love seems to function as a subverting "misrepetition" of the
heterosexual hegemony, in a sense that it makes possible the opening up of marriage for other than heterosexual
configurations. Since heterosexual marriage is a central ritual in the sacralization of the heterosexual hegemony, this
misreiteration appears to work also towards a desacralization of heterosexual hegemony. However, the "result" remains
ambiguous, because the subversion here seems to happen at least partially in terms of another sacralization, namely,
the sacralization of the intimate relationship and the boundaries between public and private. If moved to another
context, for example, to a discussion on intimate violence, a sacralization of intimate relationship may function as
consolidating the boundaries of the public and private and therefore, at worst, work to maintain violence.9
Concluding remarks
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The argument proposed here suggests a reformulation of the theory of the sacred order which can be constructed from
William E. Paden's, Veikko Anttonen's, and Mary Douglas's texts. I have first of all read William E. Paden's idea of the
sacred order through Mary Douglas's conceptualization of order and pollution. In addition I have used the implicit theory
of subjectivity to be found in Veikko Anttonen's work as a theory of subjectivity within this sacred order. This
conceptualization of the sacred order appears to function well as a tool to broaden the scope of the study of religiosity
by making the researcher sensitive to religious-like systems which however, are not explicitly considered religious. In
other words, it is one way of enabling the critical study of the workings of the dynamics of sacred and profane in
various societal settings.
This construction of the sacred order, however, seems to become problematic if it is applied to the study of religiosity
in discussions of lesbian and gay issues. This is because the formulation of the sacred order by Paden appears to
construct the natural outside of the religious which in turn leads to a danger of recirculating the idea of the
heterosexual matrix as "natural". This kind of theory of the sacred would enable neither a discussion of naturalization
as a form of sacralization nor the religious-like characteristics of the maintenance of the heterosexual hegemony. This
is why I have slightly modified the idea of the sacred order with Judith Butler's theorization of power.
Therefore I do not understand the sacred order as based on a natural order in which the sacredness would mean
additional legitimating power. Instead, the sacred order is reformulated as a system of power the integrity of which is
accomplished by culture-specific, situated marginalizations, through which also the subjects are produced. These
marginalizations, then, are continuously produced, reiterated and potentially subversively misrepeated in the process
of sacralization, in other words, in the production and reproduction of the sacred. Within this framework of religiosity,
the heterosexual order - as I understand Butler formulating it - may also be studied as a religious system, a sacred
order. One of the most visible rituals of the contemporary (at least Finnish) sacralization of the heterosexual hegemony
can then be considered the institutionalization of opposite-sex relationships, the continuously reiterated, spectacular
heterosexual wedding ritual.
In the case of the Finnish debate on same-sex marriages, the heterosexual symbolic and its control are tied to the
particular geographical and historical situation of Finland. In the writings of the opponents of lesbian and gay marriages
the Finnish society and its continuance is attached to the maintenance of the heteronormative gender order. Male
homosexuality, which does not conform to the heterosexual gender norms, becomes a threat, an abject, which is
excluded from the domain of intelligibility. The sustenance of heteronormativity is based on a belief in the existence of
exactly two mutually opposite genders. This gender order is then believed to be essential for the continuity of the
Finnish society, as well as the nation and its independence. In other words, that which is about to subvert or threaten
the heteronormative order, is believed to threaten also the Finnish society.
The critique by Judith Butler enables a questioning of the naturalness and self-evidence of the heteronormative order,
which makes possible the study of the order as a belief system.10 In fact, citations of the heterosexual ideals in the
writings in which lesbian and gay marriages are opposed seem to correspond to the functioning and maintenance of a
religious, sacred order. This holds no less for those writings in which heteronormativity is cited and argued in ways
commonly understood as secular. Therefore, all the arguments in which heteronormativity is produced can be
considered religious, a sacralization of the heterosexual hegemony. Butler suggests that gender and sexuality should
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not be analyzed separately, but as part of the same system of power (Butler 1994, 3). It is crucial to note that instead
of general "heteronormativity", the sacralization of this gender system is based on heterosexual male symbolic. Women
are marginalized from the center in which the hegemonic order is sacralized.
In the end, what I have been trying to say in this paper, or what my ideas might implicate, is not that "religiosity" would
necessarily be restricted to a matrix of power, which seeks to marginalize homosexuals as "unnatural". Neither have I
tried to argue that the only and ultimate goal for preventing lesbian and gay marginalization would be the
institutionalization of partnerships. On the one hand, I have sought to show how a system of gender and
heteronormativity may be studied as a religious system, a sacred order in which naturalization as well as
institutionalization of a difference of the sexes and heterosexual practices functions as a way of its maintenance and
consolidation. In addition, the legalization of the same-sex marriage is assumed to bring out the rampant threats
produced within the imaginative world of the sacred order in which homosexuality is cast out as impure.
I have only briefly focused on the part of the discussion in which same-sex marriages are proposed. Heterosexual
hegemony, also as it is sacralized, may offer subversive ways of misrepetition. However, the subversive power of the
citations in the Finnish debate seems to remain ambiguous. Yet, the ways a heterosexual order is sacralized or
resacralized are likely not confined to the ones suggested in this paper about lesbian and gay marriages in the Finnish
debate. On the other hand, then, I have attempted to formulate, in terms of the sacred order, one conceptualization
of religiosity which would, first, not equate religiosity to Christianity or some other known religion, second, resist
collaboration with the naturalization of the heterosexual/gender order, and third, include a possibility for the
conceptualization and study of change. This has, therefore, been one attempt to combine a theory of power within a
theory of the sacred, to suggest one possibility for a further critical application of the idea of the sacred order.
Notes
1. I prefer to use the term alternative inseminations instead of artificial inseminations, since the latter implies an idea of heterosexual intercourse as
the only natural way of getting pregnant.(back)
2. This debate began when a Swedish artist Eva Dahlgren, who is well-known in Finland, surprised her listeners by registering her partnership with a
woman. This debate was the second major outburst of a discussion about lesbian and gay marriages, the first occurring in 1993. In addition to various
talk shows and other TV programs, the debate of 1996 appeared in the letters to the editor of more than 120 Finnish newspapers and magazines. It
seems that after nearly a decade of work by the Finnish National organization for Sexual Equality SETA and other activist,s some form of registration of
partnerships is on its way to become a law, however, without a right for adoption. (back)
3. The newspapers I chose are Helsingin Sanomat, Aamulehti, Ilkka, Iltalehti, Kotimaa and Kirkko ja kaupunki. There were published altogether circa
180 writings which took part in the lesbian and gay marriage discussion in letters to the editor in these newspapers during 1996. Helsingin sanomat (HS)
could be called the leading newspaper in Finland. It is published in the capital area around Helsinki, but is subscribed also in other parts of the country.
Out of these six newspapers, the discussion in it appeared - either because of more strict publishing policy or because of subscribers who live mainly in
the city and not in the countryside, where the attitudes seem to be more conservative than in the cities, or both - most "neutral", in the sense that in
the letters to the editor gays were not condemned to hell, as it sometimes happened in the smaller, local newspapers. However, quotation marks
around "neutrality" are still necessary, because supporting gay and lesbian marriages could still be interpreted as, for instance, the same as promoting
sexual abuse of children. Aamulehti (AL) is distributed in one of the five largest towns in Finland, Tampere, and in the surrounding countryside. The
letters to the editor in this one and in Ilkka (ILK), which is published in a relatively small town Seinäjoki in Western Finland, were quite straightforward
15 de 19 29/01/2016 19:41

and not so neutral. By the time of the discussion, Helsingin sanomat and Aamulehti had several years ago declared themselves as non-partial, the
former being before the newspaper of the right-wing and the latter of the Centre Party, which is the former Rural Party. Ilkka was still at the time of
the discussion a newspaper of the Centre Party, but has by now declared itself non-partial. Iltalehti (IL) is one of the two major evening newspapers
widely distributed in the whole country. It is known - and seen every day - because of its sensation-provoking headlines. Kotimaa (KO) and Kirkko ja
kaupunki (KIK), are newspapers committed to the Lutheran Church, which is the main church in Finland, with 85% of the citizens belonging to it -
although only a few per cent of the people actually take part in the church practices other than Christmas, Easter or weddings and funerals. Kotimaa is
distributed in the whole country while Kirkko ja kaupunki is published - and mainly distributed as well - around Helsinki. When citing a fragment from
these writings, I give the abbreviation of the name of the newspaper, and the publishing date. In addition, if more than one writing considering
same-sex marriages is published the same day, I have differentiated the writings with capital letters (A, B, C.). (back)
4. Feminist scholars have discussed how the gender system does not only work by producing hierarchical differences between men and women, but also
by marginalizing and excluding non-heterosexuals. In addition, attention has been paid to how racism and sexism are tied together in the same matrix
of power. (Butler 1990; Butler 1993, 181-182; Stoler 1991; Haraway 1991) In the present article I elaborate only on gender and heterosexuality.
Elsewhere (Charpentier 2000) I have discussed the simultaneous operation of racism and heterosexism. A connection between Finnish nationality and
whiteness seems to be intertwined in the Finnish lesbian and gay marriage discussion. (back)
5. "Religion" is a western concept which has been formulated in relation to Christianity. Therefore, the study of religion in the West has been criticized
for taking Christianity as a prototype of religion and categorizing phenomena as religious by comparing them to the characteristics of Christianity.
Therefore, following Jonathan Z. Smith many scholars of religion have abandoned a conceptualization of an existence of "religion" in itself and now
regard it as necessarily constructed by the researcher. (Anttonen 1996a, 23; Comstock 1984, 504)(back)
6. Eva Lundgren gives an example of how gender symbolism can be related to and enable continuing male violence towards a woman in a close
relationship (Lundgren 1995). This does not indicate that violence or other domination or marginalization would be "caused" or determined by the
symbolic system. Instead, I believe that the gendered symbolic order, the cultural "narratives" [or "told narratives", as Vilma Hänninen (1999) calls
them] open up possibilities and models for thinking, acting and interpreting experiences [that is, also, unconsciously guiding "experiencing" itself]. In
fact, it can be argued that subjectivity is produced within and through this cultural symbolic. In other words, it is not fully external to the subjects. On
the other hand, the power of the symbolic system lies in silencing or excluding other possibilities for subjectivity. In this way the symbolic system
guides, but not fully controls, our understanding of ourselves and the world, and therefore also the decisions we make, including legislative practices.
(back)
7. In Bodies That Matter, Butler writes: "The performative speaking of the law, an 'utterance' that is most often within legal discourse inscribed in a
book of laws, works only by reworking a set of already operative conventions. And these conventions are grounded in no other legitimating authority
than the echo-chain of their own reinvocation." (Butler 1993, 107) (back)
8. By an "outside" of the hegemonic order I do not refer to an outside in the sense that it would be "non-discursive" or that the hegemonic discourse
could function without it. Instead, the outside is constitutive in the hegemonic order: by that exclusion the order is established. In other words, the
order requires this outside to exist. In this sense the "outside" is also "inside", part of the order as the silences, incomprehensibilities and foreclosures in
the hegemonic discourse. (See also Butler 1993, 8; Kaskisaari 2000.) (back)
9. I thank Marita Husso for pointing out to me the crucial meaning of the public-private boundary in terms of men's violence towards women in close
relationships. In addition, I want to stress that my point is not to oppose a legislation of same-sex partnerships, but to question an idea of the love
discourse as self-evidently fruitful and positive in terms of reiterating the heterosexual matrix. (back)
10. By a sacred order I do not mean merely a "belief system", in other words, a system referring to only cognitive processes. Paden's conceptualization
of the sacred order is based on his idea of a religious "world", which he explains in the following way: "As an analytical concept in religious studies,
"world" is most definitely not just a term for "the totality of things" in general, but rather for the particular ways totalities are constructed in any
particular environment." (Paden 2000, 335) However, "...world is not just a matter of conceptual representation, but also a specific form of habitation
and practice Ð the structure of meaningful relationships in which a person exists and participates. More fully put, it is the operating environment of
linguistic and behavioral options which persons or communities presuppose, posit and inhabit at any given point in time and from which they choose
courses of action." (ibid., emphasis in original) Anttonen (1996) stresses, too, that the cognitive processes, which are the bases of religiosity (that is,
also the inner-outer-distinction), are deeply intertwined in the bodily inhabitation (of humans) in the world.
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In addition, I am using Butler's theory of performativity to reconceptualize the sacred order. In a context not related to Butler's use of Austin, Thomas
Lawson and Robert McCauley criticize the uses of Austin's performativity in studying religious rituals of overemphasizing the role of language:
"Performative utterance theory, then, as it has been adapted by scholars of religion is an interesting, informative, but ultimately inadequate base for
developing our knowledge of the role of ritual participants, the qualities they are required to possess, the non-verbal actions they perform, the objects
upon which they act, and the conceptual scheme that participants, qualities, objects, and actions instantiate. It overemphasizes the exclusively
linguistic features of ritual in terms of the notion of the performative utterance and misses the larger notion of ritual action and all that involves."
(Lawson and McCauley 1993, 53, emphasis in original) This would be one way of understanding performativity.
However, I do not read or apply Butler's application of Austin in this way. I understand, first of all, that gender is performative in a sense that it is lived,
in other words, that it is produced also by concrete acts, "performances". The crucial point which would make my reading of performativity different
from the one proposed by Lawson and McCauley is how "language" is understood. For me, language is not something "apart" from deeds, thinking or
"living". Instead, I understand language as broadly a symbolic system in which I live, within which I "experience". In other words, "language" as system of
symbols and meaning is a crucial constituent of the "world" Paden describes. In this sense, speaking and writing, formulating words, is only a small part
of what I understand as "language" in this broad sense. What Butler's poststructuralist framework brings into this - as I understand it - is the idea that "I"
exist(s) only as intertwined in this symbolic system, as constituted within this system. In her work Butler does not very much explicitly discuss the
body-subjectivity in performativity (Kaskisaari 2000, 31), but in all her discussion on, for instance, drag the body is there (esp. in Butler 1993). For me,
it would be impossible to understand (Butler's) performativity without the body in which a gender is created by "performing" it. The subject for whom an
order is "sacred" and who takes part in the construction of the heterosexual gender system as a sacred order (and is constituted within it) is therefore
not to be understood as mere "believing" subject without a body. (back)
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Kettunen, Eero 1999: Homoseksuaalisuus kirkollisessa keskustelussa. Teoksessa Lehtonen, Jukka (toim): HOMO FENNICUS -- miesten homo- ja
biseksuaalisuus muutoksessa. Helsinki, Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriö. Naistutkimusraportteja 1999:1, 55-69.
Lawson, Thomas E. and McCauley, Robert 1993. Rethinking Religion. Connecting Cognition and Culture. Cambridge University Press.
Lundgren, Eva 1995. Creating bodily gender in the fields of symbol and power. NORA 1995:2, 101-112.
Paasonen, Susanna 1998. Morsio ex machina. Morsiamuuden patologia elokuvassa tahdon naimisiin. Naistutkimus 1998:3, 2-12.
Paden, William E. 1996. Sacrality as Integrity: "Sacred Order" as a Model for Describing Religious Worlds. - Thomas A. Idinopulos and Edward A. Yonan
(eds), The Sacred and Its Scholars: Comparative Methodologies for the Study of Primary Religious Data. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 3-18.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka 1996. Belief and Beyond. Religious Categorization of Reality. Åbo Akademi.
Stoler, Ann Laura 1991. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Gender, Race and Morality in Colonial Asia. - Micaela Leonardo (ed), Gender at the
Crossroads of Knowledge. Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 51-101.
Strömsholm, Gustav 1997. De homosexuella som kyrklig spelbricka: en analys av aktörerna, aktionerna och debatten i Finland år 1993. Åbo: Åbo
Akademis förslag.
Utriainen, Terhi 1997. Raamattu, sukupuoli ja toinen pyhä? Uskontotieteellinen puheenvuoro. - Teologinen aikakauskirja 1997:2, 174-177.
Research material
Letters to the editor from the following Finnish newspapers in 1996, altogether 174 writings which concerned the debate on lesbian and gay marriages:
Aamulehti (AL), 29
Helsingin Sanomat (HS), 50
Ilkka (ILK), 30
Iltalehti (IL), 19
Kirkko ja kaupunki (KIK), 28
Kotimaa (KO), 18
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