The Hotness and Holiness in Mixed-Orientation Marriage
“If a man and a woman marry to satisfy their sexual appetites, or to further the material aims of themselves or their families, then the union is unlikely to bring blessings. But if a man and a woman marry in order to be companions on the journey from earth to heaven, then their union will bring great joy to themselves and to others.”
– St. John Chrysostom
“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love.”
– Proverbs 5:18-19 (NKJV)
When I was a student, I spent a day shadowing paramedics. I expected the day to be filled with calls to little old ladies’ houses where they had fallen and couldn't get up. Maybe an overdose here or a fire there as I learned the ins and outs of first responder duties.
What ended up landing more prominently in my head was riding around town with the guys and hearing this constant banter:
“See her on the sidewalk over there? Solid 8.”
“Nah, she's a 7, dude.”
“Come on, with those legs?”
As this continued for hours, my educational experience landed farther away from first responder training and closer to recognizing: (1) I would never see an ambulance the same way again, and (2) I had no idea what these guys were talking about.
It's not as though I hadn't heard of guys “rating” girls before. It seems par for the course for middle school boys (and, apparently, this set of paramedics). I simply had no personal capacity to distinguish when a girl was a 5, 7, or 9 simply by glancing at her.
A fellow dude-who-likes-dudes took my overly sheltered self under his wing to explain how he took this experience. By his interpretation, this hotness rating scale was based on your own internalized reaction to another person’s attractiveness rather than some objective quality. If that's the case, my wife and I can have fun debating how we rate men (spoiler alert: we have very different types).
However, I still don’t have any kind of numeric rating scale for gals. Did I miss out on something when I was dating my wife?
Looking back, I feel like that rating scale was something you had to know for relationships: this constant talk of someone being “out of your league” based on appearances, or averting your eyes because of a temptation that I never understood. My dad even protested my dating a girl in high school whom he found “ugly as sin,” when all I saw in her was a heart of gold.
Even if you did acknowledge a girl’s heart, it felt as though you also had to plot hotness and holiness on a grid, determining the benefits and pitfalls of dating a woman at, say, a “7 hotness, 6 holiness.” I suppose you could find this plotting helpful if your hotness detector is somewhere south of a Kinsey 6, but what should you do if it’s not and you want to get married by some act of God?
I sense it’s such analysis that makes people assume that mixed-orientation marriage should be off the table for guys like me. After all, if I don’t recognize an intrinsic interest in or satisfaction from breasts “as a loving deer and a graceful doe,” can I really be a man of Proverbial wisdom?
Curiously, I found a different lens on Proverbs at the crossroads of Orthodox saints and one couple in a mixed-orientation marriage beyond Side B circles. In a recent interview, Jacob Hoff and Samantha Wynn Greenstone shared their story of dating and marriage. While I do not agree with all of their reflections, I was inspired by how they capture the dynamics of a relationship like my wife’s and mine.
Within their mixed-orientation marriage, Jacob continues to identify as “gay” because he recognizes this is how his “lustful” aspect still operates. However, he also recognizes his “soulful” connection with his wife, noting how, in some (but far be it all) cases, the “lustful” element of one’s experience does not play a role in finding one’s life companion.
Companionship. That feels more in line with my aim for marriage. Less like the paramedics I worked with and more like Doctor Who.
It makes sense, as asking out my wife went along the lines of, “Do you want to see if we could die to the world and live to Christ … together?”
Just as St. John Chrysostom writes, she and I hoped to “marry in order to be companions on the journey from earth to heaven.” That partnership in pursuing Christ brings us together, uniting us sacramentally. In that soulful connection, I am enraptured by her love. Maybe I can be a Proverbs 5 man after all!
If I had to return to that educational ambulance ride, I think I could make a bit more peace with my innocence and confusion. Acknowledging the “hotness detector” part of our lived experience should still be acknowledged, wherever one lands in terms of attraction for guys or gals. To deny that part of us means suppression of our souls, which have been created by God.
However, for some of us, that part of our wiring does not take the front seat in driving our dating or marital relationships; instead, we may come to recognize beauty relationally, venerating the image of God we see in our companion.
May we learn to balance these parts of ourselves wholly, so that regardless of whatever hotness we recognize, we may all pursue holiness in knowing Christ and His icon in each other.
How do you acknowledge your attractions healthily within mixed-orientation marriage? How do you see your spouse as your partner on the Christian journey? What does it mean to bless the beauty of God's creation in a way that leads you to holiness?
