I understand less & less about what is going on in the world, what people talk about, about what they say is important to them. I understand less and less about myself, my own whims, reactions and inclinations. I don’t understand this gender shit, I don’t understand this sex shit. And most of all, “homosexuality and heterosexuality”, “male” and “female” - What’s that? I try to express my exasperation, but I’m sure it will come out confused, pathetic, or self-important. But, hell, I'm tryin'.
A friend talked to me about a couple we both know. They are getting married? Yeah? Good for them! The church doesn’t allow a ceremony for them. They have the wrong body parts. A few ribs, a few organs, a few misplaced pieces of flesh. Sorry, I forgot. She lost her job? Oh, fuck, that’s bad. (Isn’t that kind of procedure forbidden by law? Well, you see, there are some traditions, you have to understand….)
My uncle asks me the same question, over and over again, “do you have a boyfriend yet?” My friends talk about their trouble with men who perceive them as “motherly caretakers”, rather than lovers. We speculate over an acquaintance; straight or gay? I get pissed off about hanging out at a bar that’s nothing but flexing, machismo muscles and mini-skirts. “Signals”. “The Game”. I read the newspaper. “Woman killed by partner. He stabbed her five times and shot himself in the head.” On and on it goes.
“You don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?”
Recently, I watched a documentary about three “girls” who were uncomfortable in their “gender roles”, with their bodily shape. They called themselves “genderqueer”, a concept that was supposed to designate a place in-between. One of the “genderqueer” worried about how s/he was to come out as genderqueer to his/her mum. The mum lives in another city, far away. The first time around, s/he just couldn’t speak her/his mind. S/he went to visit her mum a second time, during which s/he sat down with her parent, with the intention of explaining all – why s/he dressed “as a boy”, why s/he was not merely a “lesbian”. Mummy had a hard time understanding, and the kid blurted out; “you probably don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?” Poor mummy shook her head, smiled confusedly. Awkward silence. The kid says nothing about relations with other people; she talks about her identity, and other people become relevant only as far as they are the ones who perceive her/him as something; genderqueer, a lesbian, a girl, a boy.
The scene had a ring of tragedy & comedy at the same time. It was so utterly unclear what it was that the kid tried to tell his/her mommy, and it was just as unclear in what way mommy would’ve “understood”, in a proper sense, so that the kid would’ve been satisfied and felt comforted. “Genderqueer”, for this person, clearly offered the hope of functioning as a liberating concept that signifies freedom from the binary gender system. A magic door. But the problem is that concepts do not save us. The introduction of a concept, in itself, does nothing. The real question, I suppose, is: in what way can the binary gender system change, and what does it, at the bottom line, mean for us to change?
I don’t intend to say that the kid’s ordeals were illusory. Far from it; something was bothering him/her, and it had to do with gender and what it means to be a particular body, to be a particular person. But new identities on the identity market do not do the job, and this was hinted at in worrying ways by what the persons in the documentary said and did (getting a sex change operation, worrying that it will not “do the trick”, that one’s problems will go nowhere). Identities, that’s taking comfort in something that is somehow independent of oneself, no matter the fervour with which identity is claimed to be the most personal, the most individual. Identity: something one claims (lays claims on), appeals to, tries to uphold, or something that is ascribed to one by somebody else (“you’re that kind of person!”). Clinging to an “identity” means that one wants to settle down an idea of who I am, an idea that is allowed to live a life of its own. A solitary, pseudo-social, notoriously collective, life.
The branded heart
It’s obvious that heterosexuality is much less of an ideology than homosexuality has become. Nobody confesses their heterosexuality; nobody comes out as a heterosexual. There’s no outspoken heterosexual bar (even though, in reality, most places are designed to fit ideas about “male” and “female”), there’s no band that presents their music as “heterosexual music”. “Homosexuality”, the idea about sexual preferences, can be traced back to a bunch of 19th century psychiatrists & physicians, and this also, I suppose, signifies the birth of “heterosexuality” of the shape that we are familiar with. The idea that there are sexual variations, and that your inclinations will (pre)determine your choice of partner is ingrained in many aspects of our thinking ("I don't think about you as a man - you know I'm not..."). A form of language that has shook hands with the language of market economy, but also with the language of biology (“signals” and “predetermination of behaviour”). Throw in some liberal ideals about rights and democracy, too. This was not the birth of gender oppression, but it’s possible to talk about particular forms of gender oppression. “Gender history” is interesting; reading historical accounts of how concepts such as “butch”, “gay” and “queer” have evolved have, for me, proved very rewarding. One gains a perspective on things, on change, and how change has been perceived (what things are considered as changes).
It is, of course, of interest that “male homosexuality” has been a far more visible phenomenon than “lesbianism” – in the Catholic Church, in contemporary media, in the stereotypes of “queers”. But these historical accounts seem to make it no easier to understand in what way these concepts are used, what they express and disclose. But I suspect you agree with me that it is quite telling, that a concept such as “bi-curious” is, at least among some people, launched as a concept that is fully intelligible as an expression of curiosity, immersing in a sea of multiplying experiences.
“5, perhaps as much as 10, percentage of the population is homosexual.” Empirical science, carefully moulded statics pies (they will not feed us, though). What the hell are we talking about here? There’s something that’s really mystifying about this way of speaking about “sexualities”. I know people have been oppressed, that there is violence, that there is injustice. My own hunch is that violence has merely been sublimated into “rights”, “identities” and “preferences”. Gay discos for queers. No tears for queers. There are specially designed commercials that will fit the queer audience, the queer need, the pink wallet. The queer does n longer lurk in the dark corners of the park, or the dark corners of the mind. Nowadays, you can bet you’ll be able to find a queer priest, a queer soldier, a queer politician. There’s visibility. But, now, what is it that has become visible, the focus of public attention? It might be – a brand. Just like McDonald’s, Wärtsilä or Benotton. This is a brand to be worn as a badge on your heart or on your sleeve.
What does the community think?
But is this all there is to “the gay community”, a flag-waving lobby group, a bit like a tobacco company, or Amnesty, or Senior Citizens of Wichita? Isn’t there a place for support, recognition, and understanding? A place where heterosexist violence is smashed? Isn’t there a lot of friendship and love out there that is not ruled by the kind of identity obsession I’ve pondered upon above? Yes, of course. But there’s something about this sense of community, of having something in common, that makes me slightly queasy. Can oppression be shared in solidarity? What is false solidarity, defined by the oppressive system? I’m reading a text by Pat Califia, “Gay men, lesbians, and sex: doing it together” and it alerts me to some interesting questions. Califia talks about how she breaks with many ideas about “the lesbian”. She has sex with gay men. But she still insists upon calling herself a lesbian. She talks about having kept a “clean record” up until she started fucking gay men, but later in the text, this is something she criticizes the gay community for; a sense of purity. Her descriptions are, however, beautiful. She talks about the notion of a biological sex being of little or no importance. Her point is that sexual labels tell us next to nothing. The essential thing is how we live. She writes: “Gay people have responded to persecution by creating our own mythology.” But she also writes, and here is where I start to wonder what she means: “I now feel that having sex with women really is a choice for me.” Califia talks about a sense of queerness that is not limited to a particular gender/sex constellation.
But queerness is still a concept that seems essential to her. There’s a lot of open questions here, no doubt. I am far from clear about what I think about the idea about "a queer community", a "sense of belonging". I read too much Kierkegaard, too much Solanas. That makes me suspicious about things. Solanas says: fuck gender, fuck sex, fuck the bourgeoise family, fuck "liberal rights", fuck the state, fuck money, fuck religion, fuck work, fuck this rotten world. Kierkegaard, in essence, says the same thing, but his tone of voice is slightly different, but his ideas are no less overwhelming than Solanas'. (I read Purity of Heart at the moment - good shit.)
PS. Speaking of queerness - this blog has received an unprecedented number of visitors since I published the John Wayne entry. Everybody wants to look at pictures of Wayne, apparently. During the last few hours, I've had visitors, interested in Mr. Wayne, from Manchester, Ohio, Toronto, Warsaw, Milwaukee, Paris and Rome. John Wayne-fans around the globe, unite. But instead of interesting details about John Wayne, I wrote a boring personal note. Ha!
A friend talked to me about a couple we both know. They are getting married? Yeah? Good for them! The church doesn’t allow a ceremony for them. They have the wrong body parts. A few ribs, a few organs, a few misplaced pieces of flesh. Sorry, I forgot. She lost her job? Oh, fuck, that’s bad. (Isn’t that kind of procedure forbidden by law? Well, you see, there are some traditions, you have to understand….)
My uncle asks me the same question, over and over again, “do you have a boyfriend yet?” My friends talk about their trouble with men who perceive them as “motherly caretakers”, rather than lovers. We speculate over an acquaintance; straight or gay? I get pissed off about hanging out at a bar that’s nothing but flexing, machismo muscles and mini-skirts. “Signals”. “The Game”. I read the newspaper. “Woman killed by partner. He stabbed her five times and shot himself in the head.” On and on it goes.
“You don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?”
Recently, I watched a documentary about three “girls” who were uncomfortable in their “gender roles”, with their bodily shape. They called themselves “genderqueer”, a concept that was supposed to designate a place in-between. One of the “genderqueer” worried about how s/he was to come out as genderqueer to his/her mum. The mum lives in another city, far away. The first time around, s/he just couldn’t speak her/his mind. S/he went to visit her mum a second time, during which s/he sat down with her parent, with the intention of explaining all – why s/he dressed “as a boy”, why s/he was not merely a “lesbian”. Mummy had a hard time understanding, and the kid blurted out; “you probably don’t even know what genderqueer means, do ya?” Poor mummy shook her head, smiled confusedly. Awkward silence. The kid says nothing about relations with other people; she talks about her identity, and other people become relevant only as far as they are the ones who perceive her/him as something; genderqueer, a lesbian, a girl, a boy.
The scene had a ring of tragedy & comedy at the same time. It was so utterly unclear what it was that the kid tried to tell his/her mommy, and it was just as unclear in what way mommy would’ve “understood”, in a proper sense, so that the kid would’ve been satisfied and felt comforted. “Genderqueer”, for this person, clearly offered the hope of functioning as a liberating concept that signifies freedom from the binary gender system. A magic door. But the problem is that concepts do not save us. The introduction of a concept, in itself, does nothing. The real question, I suppose, is: in what way can the binary gender system change, and what does it, at the bottom line, mean for us to change?
I don’t intend to say that the kid’s ordeals were illusory. Far from it; something was bothering him/her, and it had to do with gender and what it means to be a particular body, to be a particular person. But new identities on the identity market do not do the job, and this was hinted at in worrying ways by what the persons in the documentary said and did (getting a sex change operation, worrying that it will not “do the trick”, that one’s problems will go nowhere). Identities, that’s taking comfort in something that is somehow independent of oneself, no matter the fervour with which identity is claimed to be the most personal, the most individual. Identity: something one claims (lays claims on), appeals to, tries to uphold, or something that is ascribed to one by somebody else (“you’re that kind of person!”). Clinging to an “identity” means that one wants to settle down an idea of who I am, an idea that is allowed to live a life of its own. A solitary, pseudo-social, notoriously collective, life.
The branded heart
It’s obvious that heterosexuality is much less of an ideology than homosexuality has become. Nobody confesses their heterosexuality; nobody comes out as a heterosexual. There’s no outspoken heterosexual bar (even though, in reality, most places are designed to fit ideas about “male” and “female”), there’s no band that presents their music as “heterosexual music”. “Homosexuality”, the idea about sexual preferences, can be traced back to a bunch of 19th century psychiatrists & physicians, and this also, I suppose, signifies the birth of “heterosexuality” of the shape that we are familiar with. The idea that there are sexual variations, and that your inclinations will (pre)determine your choice of partner is ingrained in many aspects of our thinking ("I don't think about you as a man - you know I'm not..."). A form of language that has shook hands with the language of market economy, but also with the language of biology (“signals” and “predetermination of behaviour”). Throw in some liberal ideals about rights and democracy, too. This was not the birth of gender oppression, but it’s possible to talk about particular forms of gender oppression. “Gender history” is interesting; reading historical accounts of how concepts such as “butch”, “gay” and “queer” have evolved have, for me, proved very rewarding. One gains a perspective on things, on change, and how change has been perceived (what things are considered as changes).
It is, of course, of interest that “male homosexuality” has been a far more visible phenomenon than “lesbianism” – in the Catholic Church, in contemporary media, in the stereotypes of “queers”. But these historical accounts seem to make it no easier to understand in what way these concepts are used, what they express and disclose. But I suspect you agree with me that it is quite telling, that a concept such as “bi-curious” is, at least among some people, launched as a concept that is fully intelligible as an expression of curiosity, immersing in a sea of multiplying experiences.
“5, perhaps as much as 10, percentage of the population is homosexual.” Empirical science, carefully moulded statics pies (they will not feed us, though). What the hell are we talking about here? There’s something that’s really mystifying about this way of speaking about “sexualities”. I know people have been oppressed, that there is violence, that there is injustice. My own hunch is that violence has merely been sublimated into “rights”, “identities” and “preferences”. Gay discos for queers. No tears for queers. There are specially designed commercials that will fit the queer audience, the queer need, the pink wallet. The queer does n longer lurk in the dark corners of the park, or the dark corners of the mind. Nowadays, you can bet you’ll be able to find a queer priest, a queer soldier, a queer politician. There’s visibility. But, now, what is it that has become visible, the focus of public attention? It might be – a brand. Just like McDonald’s, Wärtsilä or Benotton. This is a brand to be worn as a badge on your heart or on your sleeve.
What does the community think?
But is this all there is to “the gay community”, a flag-waving lobby group, a bit like a tobacco company, or Amnesty, or Senior Citizens of Wichita? Isn’t there a place for support, recognition, and understanding? A place where heterosexist violence is smashed? Isn’t there a lot of friendship and love out there that is not ruled by the kind of identity obsession I’ve pondered upon above? Yes, of course. But there’s something about this sense of community, of having something in common, that makes me slightly queasy. Can oppression be shared in solidarity? What is false solidarity, defined by the oppressive system? I’m reading a text by Pat Califia, “Gay men, lesbians, and sex: doing it together” and it alerts me to some interesting questions. Califia talks about how she breaks with many ideas about “the lesbian”. She has sex with gay men. But she still insists upon calling herself a lesbian. She talks about having kept a “clean record” up until she started fucking gay men, but later in the text, this is something she criticizes the gay community for; a sense of purity. Her descriptions are, however, beautiful. She talks about the notion of a biological sex being of little or no importance. Her point is that sexual labels tell us next to nothing. The essential thing is how we live. She writes: “Gay people have responded to persecution by creating our own mythology.” But she also writes, and here is where I start to wonder what she means: “I now feel that having sex with women really is a choice for me.” Califia talks about a sense of queerness that is not limited to a particular gender/sex constellation.
But queerness is still a concept that seems essential to her. There’s a lot of open questions here, no doubt. I am far from clear about what I think about the idea about "a queer community", a "sense of belonging". I read too much Kierkegaard, too much Solanas. That makes me suspicious about things. Solanas says: fuck gender, fuck sex, fuck the bourgeoise family, fuck "liberal rights", fuck the state, fuck money, fuck religion, fuck work, fuck this rotten world. Kierkegaard, in essence, says the same thing, but his tone of voice is slightly different, but his ideas are no less overwhelming than Solanas'. (I read Purity of Heart at the moment - good shit.)
PS. Speaking of queerness - this blog has received an unprecedented number of visitors since I published the John Wayne entry. Everybody wants to look at pictures of Wayne, apparently. During the last few hours, I've had visitors, interested in Mr. Wayne, from Manchester, Ohio, Toronto, Warsaw, Milwaukee, Paris and Rome. John Wayne-fans around the globe, unite. But instead of interesting details about John Wayne, I wrote a boring personal note. Ha!
4 comments:
Hej,
Har själv suttit och funderat på sexualitet och identitet och vad fan man ska göra av det hela. Kan inte påstå att jag kommit nånvart. Men tog upp Solanas SCUM igår och började återigen läsa den. Gillar den, bra skarp ton!
Jag såg dokumentären om genderqueers ifjol tror jag det var. Lite platt fall, jag fick känslan av att han/hon som hade gjort den inte riktigt var säker på vad han/hon ville med hela dokumentären.
Hmm.... ville nu bara säga att jag diggar din blog.
Vi ses! Ha det bra!
Jo, Solanas är fin :) Jag läser manifestet ibland, och upptäcker hela tiden nya infallsvinklar.
Håller med om att dokumentären var lite en halvmessyr. Det var oklart vad man fokuserade på. Ändå tyckte jag det var intressant att höra ungdomarna i den tala om sig själva.
Vi ses & ha det bra!
läser för tillfället, califias "speaking sex to power, the politics of queer sex" - rekommenderar!
och diskuterar gärna texterna efteråt:-)
Tack för rekommendationen!
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