Sex, Gender, Fantasy, and Desire: Through the Lenses of Christian Anthropology and Catholic Psychotherapy

By Deacon Ray Biersbach Ph.D.

There is no one explanation for the multiple expressions of gender. Rather, many influences shape any individual's self-image and gender presentation.
Among those influences have been advances in both philosophy and psychoanalytic theory. They have each contributed to our understanding of self-image and self-expression in gender. What has resulted is that birth sex has become less normative for about 20% of young adults. Instead, that group presumes that defining how they think about their gender and express it is part of authentic development.
Essential to the responses of psychotherapists, parents, and others is to deepen our capacity for empathy. Advanced empathy skills include reminders that humans live "in time" and that the journey toward maturity and Christian holiness is not instantaneous but gradual and step-by-step. One tool for expanding empathy is to find the courage to acknowledge our fantasies. They can be clues to both our inner needs and motivations along that journey and the journeys of those we know and care about.
Also, as part of accompanying those on their life journey, psychotherapy becomes "Catholic" when evidence-based treatment is linked to the Church's insistence on the centrality of life, the church's sexual morality, our call to holiness, and the belief that to live a happy life requires virtue, courage, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
This book reviews the multiple influences on self-image and gender expression. Each chapter includes a couple of connections to the vast treasure trove of Christian anthropological and Catholic psychotherapeutic resources. The forty short chapters include definitions of terms and brief introductions to personality influences.
The book also adds that navigating our developmental journeys involves examining our expectations, loneliness, similarity versus complementarity, genuine self-love, attractions, romance, and intimacy.
Lastly, shaping our desires requires responsibility, virtue, courage, and a commitment to modeling our sexuality on the inner life of the Trinity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667895215

Book preview

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Sex, Gender, Fantasy, and Desire

Through the Lenses of Christian Anthropology and Catholic Psychotherapy

Copyright © 2023 Deacon Ray Biersbach, PhD. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-66789-520-8 (Print)

ISBN 978-1-66789-521-5 (eBook)

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other

electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of

the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews

and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Also, by Deacon Ray Biersbach, PhD

Catholic Psychotherapy and Faith: Hear the Word:

Reflections on Seven Parables of Jesus

The Catholic Psychotherapist and Religious Experience:

Theory, Practice, and Witness

Discernment through Parables and Stories

This Book is Dedicated to the Catholic Psychotherapy Association

The mission of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association

is to support mental health practitioners by promoting the development

of psychological theory and mental health practice which

encompasses a full understanding of the human person, family,

and society in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

Table of Contents

PART 1 Sex: The Body Manifests the Person

1.1 Sex

1.2 Human Sexuality

1.3 Person

1.4 Similarity

1.5 Sex Therapy

1.6 Gender Dysphoria

1.7 Evolution

1.8 Empathy

1.9 Loneliness

1.10 Expectations

PART 2 Gender: The Body Has a Spousal Meaning

2.1 Gender

2.2 Self

2.3 Sexual Orientation

2.4 Gender Identity

2.5 Self-love

2.6 Attachment

2.7 Friendship

2.8 Perception

2.9 Human Mating Strategies

2.10 The Resurrection of the Body

PART 3 Fantasy: Sin Hides the Spousal Meaning of the Body

3.1 Imitation

3.2 The Unconscious

3.3 Fantasy

3.4 Attraction

3.5 Romance

3.6 Intimacy

3.7 Homosexual

3.8 Problem-solving

3.9 Sympathy

3.10 Penance

PART 4 Desire: Life in Christ Reveals the

Spousal Meaning of the Body

4.1 Desire

4.2 Responsibility

4.3 Erotic Love

4.4 Complementarity

4.5 Behavior Change

4.6 Interdependent

4.7 Trinity

4.8 Advanced Empathy

4.9 Icon

4.10 Accompaniment

APPENDIX 1 The Four Theology of the Body Principles

WORKS CITED

PART 1

Sex: The Body

Manifests the Person

The First Theology of the Body Principle

Jigsaw puzzle

a picture printed on cardboard or wood and cut

into various pieces of different shapes that must be fitted together. (Oxford Languages Online)

the book’s working image for linking sex, gender, fantasy, and desire is the jigsaw puzzle with its many interlocking pieces each with its proper place in revealing the big picture.

1.1 Sex

(chiefly concerning people) sexual activity, precisely, sexual intercourse.

either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided based on their reproductive functions.

(Google Online Dictionary)

The dictionary definition of sex points to two aspects of sexuality.

The first is as personal experience, and what a powerful experience it is. Consider the countless novels and media dramas that feature sexual interactions and love stories. Or, ponder the numerous terms for sexual activity such as intercourse, lovemaking, making love, sex act, sexual relations, mating, coitus, fornication, carnal knowledge, and countless other colorful synonyms. Those terms still do not include the numerous double-meanings in jokes and the innumerable cruder words for sex that flourish in daily life.

The second meaning relates to naming and defining the male and female functions involved in reproduction. For most humans, the physical sex characteristics are straightforward and easily verified by observation.

The issue of gender is distinct from this second, physical definition of sex. Please keep that in mind when we look at gender.

Still, the double understanding of sex has two fundamental meanings: 1) human experiences of sexual activity and 2) how we identify sexual participants as male or female. In most species, including humans, the female is concerned with receiving and nourishing the seed, and the male with getting the seed out of his body and into the female.

Sex is a constant dynamic force in people’s lives. To understand it, we must combine two tracks, namely, the lived experiences of people and our theorizing about sex, gender, fantasy, and desire. For most people theorizing about sexuality is much less compelling for them than graphic or romantic images, concrete stories of sexual adventures, or lively sexual connections.

But, is it Christian anthropology?

Budziszewski (2012) asked several anthropological questions about sex. For example,

Does sex have to mean something?

If so, what do sexual powers mean?

What do sexual differences mean?

What does sexual beauty mean?

In his book on the meanings of sex, Budziszewski looked to the writings of people as varied as John of the Cross, countless romantics poets, and the literary artists who have all pined in verse, recorded in prose, or celebrated in the visual arts the beauty of sex and the human form. At the very least, we can say that part of what drives sexual desire is its deeper meanings, the delights of sexual differences, and the power of sexual love.

When those beautiful elements are degraded it is a tragedy. Yet, desire for the positives of sex endure even when sex is at its most degraded. The task of this book is to sort through those positive and negative aspects of human sexuality.

In that discussion the perspective of Christian anthropology, as we will see, has much to offer.

But is it Catholic psychotherapy?

For the average person, sex is a fact of life that is difficult to understand and, at times, can seem nearly impossible to encompass. To the average person, theoretical approaches seem irrelevant. Add to this that as two of my female clinical supervisors told me during my training years as a psychotherapist, to talk about sex, you have to talk about sex!

While I have avoided immodest language, I have also leaned away from those Church discussions and theoretical writings, where sex is so scrubbed that it is incomprehensible to the average person. I hope I have struck a helpful balance.

With the definition in mind, we can say that a genuine Catholic psychotherapy for human sexuality must include both theoretical and concrete elements. Thus, any psychotherapy for Catholics must include concrete, commonplace qualities to be meaningful.

Finally, I must add that psychotherapy also has much to offer in the discussion of sexuality.

1.2 Human Sexuality

the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied with historical contexts over time, it lacks a precise definition. (Google Online Dictionary)

This dictionary definition points to the immensity of human sexuality. That massiveness of domains and content, as the description says, is present both in the lived experience of every member of humanity and in attempts to precisely define sexuality in professional terms.

Any attempt to describe human sexuality is quickly inundated with vast treasure troves of material. Biology, psychology, medicine, erotic art, history, emotional stories, social research, theology, philosophy, spiritual writers and countless others all want their say. The volume of material is overwhelming!

In the definition of human sexuality experience is rightly mentioned first. That is because human sexuality is not limited to a few historians, theologians, philosophers, and so on. It is part of the lived experience of every human on the planet.

Edith Stein (2000 [1922]) astutely wrote a hundred years ago that in classical philosophy, the perspective on the human person was heavily tilted toward the timeless truth of metaphysics. That is, this nature-of-being perspective approached sexuality as an idea, doctrine, or reality outside of human sense perception and outside the objective studies of material reality (https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/).

However, she reasoned that valuable as the timeless perspectives are, we humans live in time. Therefore, she proposed a second approach that emphasized our personal experiences. That approach called phenomenology is the study of the appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience (Oxford Languages online dictionary). Following Edith Stein’s lead, almost nothing else is as in time and moment-to-moment as working at living sexual lives. Additionally, starting from her in time perspective produces results that are terrifically personal, poignantly experiential, graphically concrete, and infused with countless moral dilemma that call out for the need for personal responsibility.

As for how the sex, gender, fantasy, and desire puzzle pieces interconnect with one another, I suggest returning to the image of a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle is important and interlocks with the other parts. Each piece has an essential role in completing the whole picture. My task here is to faithfully credit each of these valid perspectives, connect the pieces, and make some small contribution to the big picture, namely, the wonder that is human sexuality.

To complete the picture, I still need to introduce many more pieces.

But is it Christian anthropology?

There has been a revolution in philosophy since I studied it as an undergrad in the early 1960s. In effect, the new approaches recognize the importance of three points of view: the timeless, the in-time, and the psychotherapeutic. Each perspective can help in sorting through the glut of confusing material on human sexuality. Further, each perspective is essential. An advantage of the newer philosophical approaches is that their starting points enable us to more nearly empathize with people’s concerns today.

I most briefly summarized the shift in philosophy in the following table.

But is it Catholic psychotherapy?

The psychotherapy perspective has the potential to link the timelessness or metaphysical perspective with persons living in-time through observations of actual in the moment behavior. Edith Stein (1989 [1917]) also said that empathy is the premier tool for connecting person-to-person in-time. With empathy as tool, it is possible to work at helping those who struggle with a whole range of human issues including their human sexuality.

From the Catholic psychotherapy perspective our framing of sexuality needs to include empirically validated research which is:

the degree to which the accuracy of a test, model, or other construct can be demonstrated through experimentation and systematic ob­servation (i.e., the accumulation of supporting research evidence) rather than theory alone (American Psychological Association online definition of terms).

My aim is not to overwhelm. However, even though these chapter topics are complex, my aim is to include a bit research both to provide the reader links to the vast research in each chapter domain and to keep my writing grounded in the work of those who have gone before me.

1.3 Person

means a human being regarded as an individual. (Google Online Dictionary)

PERSONALITY: is the field of personality psychology that studies the nature and definition of personality as well as its development, structure, and trait constructs, dynamic processes, variations (with emphasis on enduring and stable individual differences), and maladaptive forms. (Adapted from the American Psychological Association Dictionary