There is reason to doubt the veracity of our current taxonomy of sexualities: a person (we think) is by nature homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual. Admittedly, this system has an intuitive appeal: there are two genders (basically); one may be attracted to one, the other, both, or neither. There are no other possibilities. This satisfying quality of logical completeness is misleading, however.
The first and most important piece of evidence against our system is that people never thought of sexuality in this way prior to the 19th century. Continue reading →
[Note: This post was coauthored by our sister Rachel Sabey, a professional ballroom dancer and dance instructor in New York City, shown dancing with her partner in the YouTube video. It is written in her voice. David’s dance qualifications are similarly impressive, as he is the proud recipient of an A and a bronze certification in the beginning ballroom dance class he took at BYU. Despite this auspicious early dance career, he set aside the glory and glamor of the ballroom to devote his time to the public service.]
When an engaged couple comes to me for lessons, they come onto the floor smiling at each other, holding hands. And just before we start, he leans over and kisses her on the forehead. It’s an adorable picture, one for a newspaper, until they start to dance. That’s when the fighting begins. Sooner or later (and usually sooner) nearly all engaged couples will fight while learning their first dance. Romantic images of waltzing across clouds with your new spouse quickly fade when you realize dancing isn’t as easy as it looks. As a dance instructor, I feel funny asking these adult students to stop fighting and listen to what I am saying. At times, I want to remind them that they are planning to spend the rest of their lives with this person and it’s not a good sign if they can’t even make it through a dance lesson. Of course that might be an untimely thing to say to an engaged couple, but the impulse can be hard to resist. Continue reading →
The Brothers Sabey 