If you are familiar with my work you will know that in my book I talk about ancient Greece and that "Agape" which was known as the highest form of love was that of older men with young boys. I also explain how this tradition carried on into Rome, the Catholic Church and spread out through the whole of Christianity, but as I talk about this topic please realise the same is true of Islam, Judaism and all mainstream religions.
What happens when a religion removes the divine feminine and reorganises love, loyalty, and devotion almost entirely around men?
Christianity is profoundly homosocial in an emotional, relational, and spiritual sense.
And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.
The Love Ethic of Patriarchy
Under patriarchy, men are not taught to love women.
Men are taught to:
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manage women
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possess women
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protect women
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control women
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extract labour, sex, reproduction, and emotional service from women
But love - real love - emotional intimacy, vulnerability, devotion, loyalty - is reserved for other men.
Patriarchy, is fundamentally a male love system.
Christianity, particularly patriarchal and conservative Christianity, maps perfectly onto this structure. As does Islam and Judaism.
Christianity as a Male Love Economy
Look at where emotional and spiritual devotion flows in Christianity:
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Love God the Father
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Worship Jesus the Son
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Follow male apostles
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Obey male pastors, elders, bishops
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Admire great men of faith: Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Peter
Women appear - but never as the primary subjects of love.
They are:
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helpers
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helpmeets
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wombs
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servants
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symbols of purity or temptation
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background labour
They are necessary, but never central.
Christianity’s deepest emotional attachments are male-to-male and male-to-God.
This is what I mean by homosocial.
“But What About Mary?”
Every time this argument is made, someone says: What about Mary?
Mary is not honoured as a woman.
She is honoured as:
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a vessel
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a womb
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obedience
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virginity
She has no theology.
No authority.
No wisdom tradition.
No autonomy.
She exists because of what she carries - not who she is.
Mary is not a divine feminine. She is a workaround for its absence.
And historically, she functions as an emotional salve in a religion dominated by terrifying fathers, hell imagery, and violent masculinity - not as a full goddess.
Compare Mary to pre-patriarchal goddesses:
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complex
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embodied
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powerful
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destructive and creative
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sexual and wise
Mary is not that.
Male Loyalty Over Women
Christianity consistently prioritises male loyalty over loyalty to women.
When men betray women:
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churches cover it up
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men protect men
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wives are told to forgive
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women are blamed for not being “gracious”
When women withdraw loyalty:
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they are punished
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shamed
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exiled
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spiritually condemned
Devotion flows upward:
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woman → husband
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husband → pastor
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pastor → Jesus
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Jesus → God
Rarely - if ever - does it flow back down.
This is not mutual love.
It is extraction.
Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud
Listen to religious men talk about women and you can see this because they articulate what is usually implicit.
They openly:
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mock heterosexual relationships
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frame women as distractions
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glorify male brotherhood
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position women as threats to male cohesion
They do not like women.
They do not see them as people.
When asked:
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Are you attracted to women? → “Yes.”
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Are you gay? → Long pause. Discomfort. Deflection.
What they admit openly is this:
They feel safer with men.
They are loyal to men.
Women exist to serve the male project.
This is the typical caricature of patriarchal Christianity.
Compulsory Heterosexuality
Patriarchy does not force heterosexual marriage because men love women.
It forces it because women are a resource:
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reproductive
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sexual
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emotional
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domestic
Men love men.
Men are loyal to men.
Men build worlds with men.
Women support that world from below.
Christian Nationalism Is Not a Spiritual Movement
Christian nationalism is not about Jesus.
It is not about the Sermon on the Mount.
It is not about compassion.
It is a male identity project reacting to feminism.
It offers:
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male belonging
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male hierarchy
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male obedience
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male worship
Women are defined only in relation to men.
That is why it skews overwhelmingly male.
That is why it is panicking.
That is why it is obsessed with controlling women’s bodies.
Homosocial Desire and Homophobia
This system requires intense homophobia.
Patriarchal societies depend on emotionally charged male bonding.
But that bonding must never become erotic.
Why?
Because erotic male love destabilises hierarchy.
So:
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men are trained to love men
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but taught to fear that love
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women are inserted as erotic outlets
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homophobia polices the boundary
This is why the most homosocial cultures are the most homophobic:
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Sparta
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Victorian England
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Evangelical America
Christianity produces homoerotic intimacy - and then punishes it.
The Bible Knows This
David and Jonathan:
“Your love to me was wonderful, more wonderful than the love of women.”
We do not see equivalent language describing male love for women.
Christian art is saturated with:
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wounded male bodies
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male devotion
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male ecstasy
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the Church as Bride to Christ
This is a religion of male emotional communion.
Why Women Leave
Women leaving Christianity often say the same thing:
“I never felt like a real person.”
They were given:
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service
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duty
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moral labour
But never love.
Christianity cannot survive women being whole.
It cannot survive women being embodied.
It cannot survive women being divine.
That is why it is panicking.
Decentring Jesus
Many people leaving Christianity try to take Jesus with them.
But eventually a question arises:
Why do we worship traits in Jesus that we dismiss in women?
If Jesus were a woman:
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kind
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forgiving
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gentle
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intuitive
She would be ordinary.
Not divine.
Patriarchy values femininity only when it comes with a penis.
That realisation is what forces Jesus off the centre.
Why This Lens Matters
So is Christianity gay?
Not sexually.
But structurally.
Emotionally.
Spiritually.
It is a homosocial religion that:
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centres men
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worships men
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loves men
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fears male eroticism
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exploits women to sustain itself
Once women stop supplying the labour, the silence, the obedience - the system collapses.
And that is what we are watching happen right now.
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