Coming, Part IV - Stimulation

“Wait, what?” I stopped. At my office desk, in front of my computer, my work came to a halt. I pressed my head into my open palm; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Chu, the guy who had flirted his way into a month’s worth of online conversations before meeting up and then inadvertently hooking up—he was now coming clean that he was not gay at all?

“I think that, before we started making out, before we went into your bedroom… do you remember when we were talking?”

I struggled to keep my patience. “Yes…”

“Well, I remember you brought up a lot of things that were of concern to you.”

I flashed back to the moments before our hookup. We were in my living room, talking across from each other, building tension through body language, eye contact, and the space between us. Somehow, we began talking about the idea of moving too fast, and I brought up a few scenarios that my overly-analytical mind warned me to be cautious against: What if he just needed a homosexual outlet from his chaste Arkansan seclusion? What if he wasn’t really attracted and just needed an easy way to get off for the summer that we’d be working near each other? At the time, though those questions surfaced, he assured me that—despite the nonsensical part about knowing each other for just about a month and having met for just a few hours—he actually did like me, especially after finding out that I was a pretty decent guy not just online, but also in real life. And that’s when we started making out.

“Yes, I remember…”

“When well you asked if I was using you as an outlet because I had none in Arkansas, it got me to thinking...”

Had I opened my stupid mouth again?.

“…and I think that I’m not using you as an outlet in place of my Arkansas experience; I think I’m using you as an outlet because I have a hard time with women.”

I remained silent, waiting for him to explain. He didn’t. I prompted him for more.

“Well,” he continued, “when I was in seventh grade…”

MAJOR PAUSE. When you were in seventh grade? You’ve been thinking about this since you’ve been in the seventh grade, you’ve roped me into this years later, and now you’re saying you’re straight? UNPAUSE.

“…I started getting really shy around girls. I’d be friends with them, but I wanted to be more with them. But my self-esteem was awful—it still is. I couldn’t approach them in the way that the other guys could. I liked them, but I was so worried about what they’d think and how I looked and how I behaved that I couldn’t get myself to act on my attraction. So I think that’s when I turned to guys. I began looking at the other guys and how well the girls reacted to them. I began to get jealous, admiring the other guys for the things they could be and the things they could do and eventually the things they could get that I couldn’t. And so I began looking at them as reflections of who I wanted to be. My self-esteem issues kept me away from the girls and deflected me to the guys.”

I tried processing what he said, which was tough given that he had just shattered the only potential for actual dating that I had had in almost half a year—if not more. “Okay…”

“So,” he pressed on, “I think that reaction has been embedded so much within me that I’ve just gotten scared of approaching girls. And so I go with the next best thing—which is—well, guys…”

I didn’t know how to react. On one hand, he was obviously aroused when we were making out on Friday night. How do you fake that as a straight man? Random, accidental friction could not have been enough to bring about that strong of a reaction. And on top of that, how do you pull me along on a string for a month and go as far as hooking up when you have all of these doubts in your mind? In conversation, he even asked a mutual friend about what kinds of things he could say or do to impress me—that type of pre-meditated flirting is not at all indicative of doubt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to bring you into this. I just obviously don’t have this completely sorted out for myself.”

“It’s okay,” I forced myself to say. It obviously was not completely okay as much as it just had to be okay. “It’s just… you know… it’s just a lot to think about.”

“Yeah.”

My gut feeling was not to believe him. No, I thought, this had to be some deep-rooted psychological reply steeped in heterosexism; at the same time, who was I to impose my own theories on his own obviously confusing sexual journey? I was in no place to tell him he was wrong or not; if anything, I could throw him into much more of a maelstrom than he perhaps needed at the moment.

But I wasn’t done. I couldn’t be. So I had to throw a litmus test at him.

“Can I ask you a really blunt question?”

“Yes, please,” he said, wanting to make sure he entertained what I had to say so that he could feel better about throwing this on me.

“Well, if we are to understand sexuality as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and other sexualities—we have to talk about sex. And if we’re talking about sex, Chu, then—can I ask what turns you on?”

“What turns me on?”

“Yeah: dick, vagina, what…?”

“Do you want to know the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Boobs and ass.”

I took that in. It wasn’t what I expected until he asked if I wanted to know the truth. “Okay, well, so what’s gotten you off with guys since the seventh grade?”

“Well, when I’m with guys, I enjoy the stimulation. But I don’t like stimulating. It doesn’t turn me on.”

“Okay,” I acknowledged. I didn’t want to question him further. I had to accept this, maybe because I could empathize: maybe if I were blindfolded and a girl was providing adequate stimulation, then maybe… maybe it’d work. Maybe the self-esteem is such a huge issue for him—as it has been for me—that it’s had this huge of an impact on dictating his actions and interactions with the world. Maybe, when I boiled the types of people in the world down to the sex they were having and enjoying, maybe he was best defined by his feelings and thoughts rather than his actions.

But maybe he’s just overanalyzing himself. Maybe he’s just digging himself into a bigger hole by rationalizing his apparently deviant actions. He was telling himself that this wasn’t like him, and who else could tell him who he was aside from himself? Not me.

The problem is that I understand it all. I see both sides. The only thing I don’t get though: the making out—the scratching of scruff, the redness that remains only after male or male tongue twisting. How did you come to enjoy that stimulation, Chu? Doesn’t that count as stimulation? Stimulation that I doubt replicates the guy-girl experience whether you close your eyes or not? How did you rationalize that one?

The next day, Chu changed his all-important Facebook interest from undefined to very definitely, “Interested in Women.” And I—hundreds of miles way—still could only wonder, “What if?”

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Coming, Part III

That first night together ended up being our last. As quickly as Chu’s interest in me had materialized, it had disappeared—and not for reasons that I’d have ever imagined.

There were never any clues that anything was wrong—or maybe wrong is too judgmental of a word. There were never any clues that anything was not right. His passion seemed clear and true. The evening we met, we made out on my couch and moved to my bed; there were no doubts about it: I observed physical proof that he was—well—moved. He had worked hard for this, had been forward with expressing his interest and flirtatiousness for more than a month prior to the evening we locked lips. Finally, at our serendipitous meeting, he was getting what he wanted—and I, well, I was reaping the benefits: a Friday night frolic for my sheets, the attention of a guy who seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, enough sparks to hint that butterflies could’ve been waiting at the end of this moment.

I don’t know how long we were there or how long it took me to come to my wits. After his scruff brushed against my clean shave and our hands began to wrinkle our clothes, he positioned himself atop me, both of us still decently dressed, but with our minds wandering elsewhere. I hadn’t found this in months; a resident of rural Arkansas, he hadn’t found this in longer: the sought-after temptation of lingering fingers and tongues, lost to reason, surrendered to “Why not?” It would be easy to keep going, to feel good, to make him to feel good, to light the easy lust of here and now…

That’s when I did the unthinkable: I said stop.

Wary of moving too quickly and the potential of the moment to be a simple vent for the unsexed, I drew back. I opened my mouth and let my rationality dribble with hesitation and righteousness: I liked the promise of this situation too much to let it explode on the night it first began. We had to slow down. We had to stop.

I thought about the excuses that he’d use to retort: A fear of risk. Prudishness. Blue balls.

Instead, he reciprocated perfectly with an equally reasoned, “You’re right.” We brushed our wrinkles off our clothes. I drove him back to his hotel and let our respective Jiminy Crickets cut our night short… but not without a final kiss goodnight.

The next day, like any evolving crush, he texted. He called. We talked on the phone for an hour. By Saturday night, I was convinced: the butterflies were coming. Although he was boarding a flight back to Arkansas the next day, I knew he’d be back in two weeks for another conference. This was not over yet.

At work on Monday, I was completely distracted. The possibility of something fun, flirty, and maybe even meaningful on the horizon was one that I couldn’t shake off. In the middle of the day, I decided I’d take a page from his playbook and email him something completely raw, honest, and forward, a simple line to echo the sentiments I perceived from him during the weekend: Hey Chu, Can’t stop thinking about you. Give me a call back and let’s plan a date for your next visit. I figured this was something he’d appreciate. He had been transparent over and over again; it was my time to try his strategy. Maybe my walls of shyness and safety had been wrong all along.

4:30pm. Cell phone rings. Caller ID: Chu.

I pick up. My voice: careful to be nonchalant.

Me: Hey.
Chu: Hey, how’s it going?
-Good, just here at work, still—working.
-Yeah, I’ve had a long day too. I got back in late last night and still made it to work today. Sorry I didn’t call you last night like I had said I would.
-It’s okay.
-I just got in too late and didn’t want to wake you up.
-I was up, but I understand: you’re still recovering from that big conference. You need your sleep.
-Yeah.
-But hey, you’re calling now, so it’s all good. Oh, and hey, I sent an email a few hours ago.
-Yeah, I saw—
-Did you read it?
-Yeah, and that’s why I wanted to call you.
-Uh oh.
-Don’t give me that uh oh.
-Well you sound like you’re about to say something important.
-Well…
-Just say it.
-Well, okay. I thought about everything we talked about on Friday night and on the phone on Saturday. And I had a lot of fun hanging out and talking with you. I think you’re a great person, and I really look up to you with everything you’re doing your life…
-Mmhmm…
-But, um, I think that when we decided to slow down—
-Yeah?
---that was the right decision.
-Oh?
-Yeah. I’ve been thinking about what you said—about making sure I don’t do this because I don’t have anyone here in Arkansas…
-Yeah?
-…and, I think you were sort of right.
-What do you mean?
-Well, I think—that—I’m not quite sure—that—I think—I’m more – into women. And… it’s complicated. I’m sorry.

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Fussy Old Foucault

Sometimes, it seems impossible to have a healthy relationship with the work of Michel Foucault. In academia, worshipful adoration mixes with utter derision to produce a frustrating bifurcation: fawning love for the seminal philosopher or absolute disdain for the fussy French sophist. At the heart of this polarization is Foucault’s conceptualization of ‘power’. Unlike many philosophers (and the vast majority of political theorists), he does not theorize power as something that an individual or institution actually has. For Foucault, power is not the ability to make others do what they otherwise would not have done. It is not limited to the accumulation of material and social capital that individuals and other entities can use to cajole others. Rather, Foucault views power as a productive force that is constitutive of people’s identities. Power is a particular discourse that creates the person, simultaneously liberating and imprisoning her. It constructs who we are and sets the conditions under which we can operate in the world.

For instance, a woman who gets plastic surgery in order to look more ‘beautiful’ may think that she is empowering herself. And, in a sense, she is. By tailoring her body according to the perceived exigencies of heterosexual men, she is more likely to get jobs and be sought for marriage. She is acquiring the social resources that have the potential to incite others to do what they otherwise may not have done. Nevertheless, she does not choose the terms on which she acquires this power. She is the product of gendered social discourses that force her to perceive ‘normative beauty’ as her only ticket to success. She is produced as a gendered subject by these discourses, and thus, it is the discourses that have the power – not her. They can exercise this power because they are ultimately productive: they produce an identity for the person (in this case, ‘woman’) and a ready-made blueprint for how to ‘get on’ in life based on this identity (‘beauty’, pleasing men). But, at the same time, they fundamentally limit her. She is a slave to the discourses that constitute her identity: she is not her own person. This is why power is so effective. It provides tangible benefits for those who succumb to it, while, at the same time, profoundly entrapping them. Power gives its subjects the illusion of control over their lives, while defining the very essence of their being.

There are generally two sets of objections to this kind of analysis. People who perceive themselves as beneficiaries of the status quo find it particularly disturbing because the terms of their success are exposed as not being their own. On the other hand, those who fight against the status quo find it maddening that Foucault does not seem to view anything as truly emancipatory. Their proposed revisions of the status quo have the potential to be just as oppressive and limiting. There is always ‘something’ (power) lurking in the background, constituting, constraining and limiting everything that we are and everything that we do. The discursive power behind any new identities that we create for ourselves is bound to enchain us in some way. People, thus, write Foucault off as a hopeless non-conformist, a radical revolutionary for whom the world will never be radical enough. A Foucauldian analysis (such as the one below) of the oppressive implications of the gay rights movement often comes under particularly strong criticism.

In Foucauldian terms, the modern gay rights movement is a direct product of the post-Enlightenment medicalization of homosexuality. Sexuality was transformed from something one does to something that one is for the purpose of classifying homosexuality as a psychiatric disease. Modern LGBT identity politics owes its existence to this transformation. Without it, it would be impossible to make appeals to human rights for people who are homosexuals. And while this new discourse, which produces sexuality as an identity rather than an action, has definitely contributed to ‘liberating’ some people, it has also placed them in a new spider’s web of limitations. The classification of people into homosexuals or heterosexuals creates restrictive identities that limit the polymorphous potential for sexuality. The medicalization of homosexuality has, ironically, provided the key resources for liberationist homosexual politics, while locking people in a new set of chains: those of binary, fixed, stable and consistent sexuality that somehow forms of the essence of their being. Critics of Foucault complain that this attitude is far too pessimistic and disrespectful to the successes of the liberationist gay movement.

This objection is perfectly understandable. What is the point of political engagement if it is just going to lock us into another set of discursive chains? Is any political effort not going to end up imprisoning people in some way? For a healthy engagement with Foucault, we should take this part of his philosophy with a grain of salt. Rather than automatically assuming that whatever ‘new social arrangement’ emerges must be oppressive in some way, it would be more productive to be on the lookout for potential anti-emancipatory effects of all political activity (no matter how emancipatory it claims to be). Foucault’s caution with emancipatory politics should be taken as a warning about utopias. He demonstrates the foolishness of the notion that, at some point, all oppressive politics will stop and we will all live happily ever after. For a healthy engagement with Foucault, we should understand his doubts about ‘emancipatory politics’ as a warning against illusory utopias, not as a definitive statement that defines all political efforts.


***For More Information***
Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (Vol. 1) is a great read and provides an interesting starting point for exploring his reconceptualization of ‘power’. Power/Knowledge, collection of essays and interviews, is also very useful. Also, check out my previous post on Foucault and fetishism here.

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The invisible queer woman!

Recently, I got out of one of those "unofficial" kinds of relationships. For the past six months or so, I'd been going back and forth with this woman who was in another relationship and yet, she told me, would rather be with me. Still there were a bunch of other complications, like the real fact that there were other people she'd rather be with, too, and not in the sense of setting up a polyamorous sort of deal where we'd be honest with each other and upfront and all that practical and necessary stuff. It was more like every time I turned around when we were out together, she'd be hooking up with someone else, and occasionally even a friend of mine. My begrudged and broken heart notwithstanding, I found it really difficult being in this pseudo-relationship without actually being able to answer in the affirmative whenever anyone asked if she was my girlfriend, and not just because I really wanted to say she was (there, I admit it!). Rather, as a feminine-presenting woman, my sexuality is often made invisible when I'm single.

I've struggled with this for some time, even going so far as to try to attempt to genderfuck, but what ends up happening is that a) I feel ridiculous and uncomfortable, like I'm acting out a part and b) well, I kind of look like a feminine woman trying unsuccessfully to genderfuck. Furthermore I feel like this totally negates the entire reasoning behind genderfucking; namely, that in playing with gender roles, we interrogate their limitations and why they exist in the first place. Interestingly, in the queer community I currently belong to (downtown Toronto), genderfucking and androgyny have become the standard to which queer women are expected to measure up. Thus it's not surprising that those who don't fit the paradigm (i.e. me) feel like this supposedly supportive community that is so rich in and tolerant of diversity might not be all it's cracked up to be.

I find it very interesting that our gender presentation and our sexuality are so inextricable, and I wonder why that is. Historically, this isn't really new in communities of women who sleep with women. This isn't the first time that the ways we express our gender have been used as "evidence" of our sexual behaviour. For instance, I think it's important to note the history of butch/femme identities, which supposedly denoted what kinds of sexual practices a woman might be into. However, many butches and femmes have argued that their outward identities had less to do with sexual roles than simply finding comfort in one's own skin. So why, then, if that's where our history lies, are we homogenizing a queer identity?

Something in me wants to cry out, perhaps naively, "This isn't supposed to be happening amongst queers!! Aren't we all about self-definition and a radical dismantling of the rigidity of sex and gender?!" Still, in the Toronto scene, it seems there is a pretty small margin of people who fit into what a queer woman is "supposed" to look like. Recently I attended a workshop on queerness and body image. While I was expecting a discussion that largely focussed on body type in terms of size, I was necessarily reminded of my white privilege when the discussion turned to racialized bodies. Many of the participants were people of colour who began to articulate the concern that for them, Church Street (the downtown strip that used to be known as the gay village, though increasingly less so), and other queer enclaves in the city are actually pretty inhospitable environments. Someone mentioned that while we homos like to believe we are inclusive and progressive by virtue of our sexual marginalization, our communities are by no means immune to the many other forms of oppression out there (ie. racism, ableism, etc.). One of the participants spoke about how this racism is often hidden under the guise of "preference"; he said he couldn't even count the number of times someone he was hitting on had responded, "Sorry dude, I'm just not into Asians".

There is absolutely a problem of representation and a lack of a sense of inclusion in these spaces, especially considering that this is a community that rallies around the word "diversity" as a way of getting the hetero world to acknowledge and accept us. There is evidence of this everywhere. How often do we see queer characters of size, of colour, and/or with disabilities in television and movies? How often do we see these people having any kind of sexuality at all, for that matter? Sexuality is sort of a tricky thing to be unified by. We aren't understanding of marginalization overall by virtue of our sexualities, as much as I'd like to believe that's possible. So I'm rolling up the sleeves on my girly shirt, because we've got a lot more work to do.

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Understanding Bug-Chasing & Gift-Giving

Most writing about bug-chasing and gift-giving is dominated by sensationalism or absolute condemnation. This previous post by lewdandshrewd is an example of the latter. Although the need to condemn bug-chasing is understandable (especially in the cases when gift-givers are passing HIV to unsuspecting non-bug-chasers), we lack a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Why do some people get a thrill out of getting HIV (or other STDs) and giving it to others? What kinds of gender and sexuality dynamics are at work in gift-giving and bug-chasing? Also, given that it is such a minority phenomenon, why are we so obsessed with it?

The sociological and anthropological literature on the subject has identified bug-chasing/gift-giving subcultures as ‘carnivalesque’ spaces in which social roles are thoroughly reversed and forbidden or impossible relationships are given free play. This is an analogy to Medieval Carnivals, which featured stunning role reversals, such as pictures of women beating their husbands, pigs slicing up butchers and serfs lording over their masters. Similarly, the bug-chasing/gift-giving subculture reverses the social discourse on HIV – everything about the illness is turned upside down and previously impossible social arrangements are imagined. For instance, as a potentially fatal illness, HIV is associated with death. However, the discourse of gift-giving reconceptualizes HIV as productive by allowing Poz men to ‘give birth’ to new Poz offspring. It also subverts social norms about the body: the healthy and fit body is no longer seen as socially desirable. Bodies that show visible signs of illness (such as lesions) are seen as particularly sexually attractive in the bug-chasing/gift-giving groups. Overall, the subculture seems to invert all practical reason and revel in threatening social order.

But is this the reason why people want to become bug-chasers and gift-givers? Oddly enough, even though we may perceive the subculture as particularly subversive and non-conformist, people get involved in it for somewhat ‘conservative’ reasons. The literature identifies the revival of masculinism in gay male communities as one of the reasons that people engage in risky and dangerous sexual practices (such as barebacking). Safer sex practices are perceived as effeminate and ‘unsexy’ ways of controlling men’s sexualities. ‘Real men’ should approximate the ‘Marlboro Man’ image, never shrinking from danger and sometimes actively seeking it out! Thus, gift-giving and bug-chasing are in some cases attempts to revive a thrill/danger-seeking sexuality that fulfills norms of masculinity. Others have cited an interest in belonging to some kind of ‘community’ or ‘brotherhood’ by finally attaining HIV status. In this case, bug-chasing and gift-giving is a method of forming social bonds. By getting the ‘gift’ of HIV, people are initiated into essentially a new culture, with new privileges and responsibilities. Finally, there are also men who perceive becoming HIV Positive as a ‘relief’. Gripped with fear about becoming HIV-Positive, they perceive actually getting the virus to be the only way of overcoming that fear.

Overall, we view bug-chasing and gift-giving as profoundly subversive activities. And yet, the sociological literature suggests that people get involved in them for fairly conservative reasons (masculinism, forming social bonds), or because their fear of getting HIV is too intense and they would rather ‘get it over with’ by catching the illness. Given that bug-chasing and gift-giving are minority phenomena, why is it that both straight/normative and LGBT popular cultures are so obsessed with it? It has been found that about 14% of gay men engage in barebacking, and a very small amount of those are bug-chasers or gift-givers. They are, essentially, a minority within a minority – why all the attention, then? First, there’s definitely an element of right-wing propaganda against LGBT people. In a 'Human Sexuality' class taught at my old university by a very conservative Professor, she handed out an article on bug-chasing during our discussion on gay marriage, claiming that it was ‘relevant subject matter’. What sexual fetishes about HIV and STDs have to do with same-sex marriage is beyond me. She was clearly trying to show that queer people are immoral and not deserving of anybody’s sympathy. For those not trying to spread the conservative message, bug-chasing appeals as a topic because it has the macabre sensationalism that sells magazines and newspapers. It is simply one of those ‘out-there’ topics that is bound to get anyone’s attention.

***For More Information***
I found the following article very useful: Michael Graydon’s “Don’t Bother To Wrap It,” from the journal, Culture, Health and Sexuality (Vol. 9.3). David Moskowitz’s “The Existence of a Bug-Chasing Subculture,” from the same journal (Vol. 9.4), is also quite good. Otherwise, there are quite a few more sociological/anthropological articles out there. Just search for ‘bug-chasing’ on Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) and you will find plenty of information!

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READ MY BELT

Below the Belt today introduces READ MY BELT, a resource of free online journals, articles, and other publications related to the study of gender, sex, and sexuality. We have added a permanent link to our contents bar on the right.

READ MY BELT is purposefully constructed as a blog post so that anyone can comment and suggest new online resources to add. So get ready to copy and paste those bookmarks, you gender geeks out there!

And now, for the journals:

Gender journals
19th Century Gender Studies
Genders OnLine Journal
The Journal of Family Welfare
Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

International-themed journals
International Family Planning Perspectives
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies
The Journal of Family Welfare
Journal of International Women’s Studies
Manifesta
Said It.
Women’s Health and Urban Life

Race-oriented journals
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies
Women’s Health and Urban Life

Religion/Spirituality
Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality
Journal of Queer Studies in Finland
Women in Judaism

Sexuality-themed journals
Canadian Online Journal of Queer Studies in Education
Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality
International Family Planning Perspectives
Outskirts
Said It.
SQS-lehti

Women-centered journals
Advancing Women in Leadership
Journal of International Women’s Studies
Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies
Manifesta
Outskirts
The Scholar & Feminist Online
Thirdspace
Women in Judaism

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Boy, Oh Boy!

Manontheside got me thinking about my dating history, and in the style of his most recent post, I started thinking about what barriers exist that prevent me from finding the so-called One. Seeing as how many of us, it seems, are on this quest to find completion with another person, to find a match that will validate us as successful people, to attain this state that will somehow fill the missing gaps and end the lonely moments singleness brings…I think it’s understandable that we think a great deal about what exactly might be standing in the way of the ideal of partnership.

For me, I think a lot about what I look like, and what I act like – two things that the gay male community, from what I’ve gathered, seems to care about most when looking for dates (manontheside seems to take a less superficial route, an image of gay dating that goes beneath the skin…admirable, but I still stand by the fact that I think most guys are romantically a bit shallow). Looks are certainly what I tend to care about most, at least at first. To start, I’ll take a snapshot of myself, what factors I think shape my chances:

- attractive, boyish look
- moderately short at 5’8” tall
- down the middle mannerisms; not quite femme but not really butch at all
- very shy, mostly around guys

And now to tear it apart:

The shy thing, I think, is the biggest obstacle – shyness lends itself easily to awkwardness, and when you’re trying to meet people it just hands-down means you’ll meet fewer people; potential dates just won’t ever have a chance to be potentials.

But now for the part I think the most about – the look, the boyishness. Boyish guys in the gay market occupy a certain space in the attractive game, I think. They’re not inherently masculine, and so a big portion of the gay market out there with masculinity fetishes (Abercrombie gays, preppy gays, Colt gays, butch-minded gays) typically won’t be into boyish guys. I think there is a window, however, in the Abercrombie/preppy gay market for boyish dudes – but they have to be tall, frat-like in behavior -- also not me.

This, I think, is what I have left. Mikey of Queer as Folk fame – boyish, submissive, geeky, short; not top hot market but still “cute”, with an in-show dating record that truly suggests a dom/sub man/boy thing goin’ on. While my dating history isn’t exactly as NAMBLA as I think Mikey’s (or even Justin’s) characters play from, I can’t help but worry that I’m too much of a sad stereotype. Is it all self-imposed? I don’t entirely think so; as I was coming out, I was rewarded with compliments when I looked boyishly cute (my Fievel Goes West costume was a big hit in college). And so I guess I’ve tried to act the part. But maybe I just worried that I didn’t know any other way to act. Isn’t that sad? TV, tell me who I should be!!

And yet, I’m still surprised from time to time by the reality of a flawed gendered performance – I recall one startling encounter when I was watching Eragon with my date and he was talking about his crush on Edward Speleers. For the first time in my life, I was instantaneously jealous – jealous of an actor my date thought was cute, an actor in one of the worst movies I had ever seen. I already knew that my date had a thing for fair skinned, boyish people…but for some reason Mr. Speleers drove me into a crazed state of anxiety. Yes, he’s toned, something theoretically I could achieve if I worked hard enough (never gonna happen). But he’s a hotter boyish guy. My category was invaded. It seems that even though I sometimes feel limited to a category by my looks, I’m not beneath competing within the category.

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To Bed

I’m pretty sure that the inventor of the bed intended it to fit two people at all times.

I’ve thought about it: isn’t it interesting that the smallest size bed—a single—has also been dubbed a twin? After that comes a double bed, and only then is the bed called full. At their largest dimensions, beds even become gendered—a Queen, followed by a King—as if beds were meant to serve couples.

Obviously, Mr. or Ms. Bed Inventor had more than just sleep on his or her mind. I’m realizing that, when I’m in bed, whether I share it or not, I have the same thoughts too.

Last night, as I began my nightly five-hour nap (alone), I rolled onto my left side and wrapped my arms around one of my four pillows. I know: it sounds a bit crowded, but, as far as my memory can reach, I’ve slept with two or more pillows. It’s my routine; it’s comfort.

I began my multi-pillow habits when I was four: for my head, I had a pillow encased in Teddy Ruxpin covers; as an extra companion, I kept another checkered in baby blue penguins. Yes, I had stuffed animals to boot, but I opted to embrace my largest, roundest bed partner of all: pillow #2. Although the soft fur of Brownie (my favorite) had its appeal as a plaything to be tossed about, I needed something that mirrored the size of my own human form, a closer match for my growing kindergartner figure. Did I, with my childish wants, express an inherent urge to share my bed with someone more like me? Sheltered by my parents and unexposed to any idea of sensuality or sexuality, how could I have created such a craving on my own?

I couldn’t have. Until I turned 18 years old, I lived with my parents. Our established sleep norms included wearing a shirt and shorts to bed—not boxers or pajama pants as one might expect from movie depictions of sleepovers, but actual shorts with pockets and Nike or Reebok emblems embroidered on the bottom of the right leg. (It’s as if I had jogged from a workout, into my bedroom, and then hopped directly into bed—minus the perspiration.) The notion that the world clothed itself to sleep sucked all sexuality out of my childhood bedroom. If the bed wasn’t made for sleeping, it only, at most, accommodated the occasional reading or journaling session. It was no longer a crib, but it may as well have been a teenage equivalent.

It wasn’t until college that I remember shedding those ideas about bed and replacing them with a more adult skin. After growing up attired in bed, it came as a surprise that many of the guys on my first-year dormitory hall slept in their underwear. How homoerotic, I thought: straight men stripping to their skivvies and then bidding each other good night across a 12 x 14 room. Not what I expected from a single-sex residence hall at a college steeped in split-sex tradition. It seemed to me that being almost-naked, a notch below being totally-naked, was within an arm’s length of doing things naked. I wonder if there is a correlation between kids who grow up sleeping almost- or totally-naked and their sexual activity as adults.

The first time I slept with anyone (for purposes other than to share a bed) was during my sophomore year—in a tiny twin bed. After a night of partying with his friends, Ken and I made a 4:30am decision to stumble into his off-campus house. We rehydrated on his couch, made small talk on some chairs in his room, and then, after cautious move after cautious move, went for it. It was the first time either of us did anything homosexual. Furniture that seemed fit for one caved into the warmth of a heavy make-out session. That night, I completely bought into chemistry; we forewent the discomfort of his cramped space and came to understand that heat really does expand space. Twin bed or not, there was going to be room for two.

I never understood the allure of cuddling until that point. I thought that the experience would be a lie: romantic and sweet in intention, uncomfortable and intrusive in truth. Before that night, I pictured an arm pinched beneath someone’s heavy body, stuck in its place until a fortunate choice by the other’s subconscious to shift ever so slightly. I had visions of sweat smearing from arm to arm, bringing to mind overwhelming heat waves rather than the welcome embers of a tryst.

I gladly discovered that the reality of sharing a bed produced a sensation quite the opposite—that of inconceivable, thrilling independence. It’s freeing to choose to face consequences so extreme and intense. The electric spark of touch is perhaps the largest contribution to confusion in the world; once contact occurs between two hormonal humans, passages at once pleasurable and vulnerable zip wide open, leading to outcomes either amazing or regrettable. I learned that there’s something about skin resting against skin that sends charges into the body, to the nook where I would imagine my soul to live. Who would’ve thought that the simple act of taking up space with another person, physically filling voids in an attempt to metaphorically fill voids, would result in that? In its irrationality, I found the unexpected combustion of relief and excitement.

It began to make sense to me why I had been hugging pillows all my life. I needed a substitute for that adult skin, even as a kid. Perhaps, then, adult skin is a misnomer; perhaps human is more like it. I’ve begun getting used to my new skin by experience: shedding my shirt and shorts for boxers or less, adapting to all types of sleeping spaces—twin-size, foldable mattresses to fully-outfitted luxury king-size beds—not all of them my own.

And yet, some things have not changed. Despite my willingness to assimilate into the world of the sexualized bed, I hang onto certain innocent habits of old: cuddling with pillow #2—and now, in my mid-twenties, rendezvousing with pillows #3 and #4… because, of course, I’m a little bigger than I was when I was four, and the void in my bed is getting larger by the day. I have a double to fill and only a single me to do the job.

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Foucault's Fetishes

Where would ladies with rape-victim fantasies be without men with rape-perpetrator fantasies?” ~ Dan Savage

In light of the recent post by lewdandshrewd, and not-so-recent posts by manontheside and toughstuff, I would like to examine the issue of sexual fetishization from the perspective of Michel Foucault’s philosophy.

In one of his best-known passages, Foucault suggests that our sexual “natures” are not the expression of some internal, bio-psychological state (as they would be framed in much of modern sexological thought), but are instead the products of discourses – the prevailing cultural norms and ways of framing the world at a particular point in time. He uses the example of “the homosexual” to illustrate this point:

As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes, sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The 19th Century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case history and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life, a life form, and a morphology, with an indiscreet anatomy and possibly mysterious physiology… The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species. (Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1: 43).

Thus, according to Foucault, “the homosexual” is not some trans-historical, essential, or “natural” identity, but the product of 19th century psychiatric-scientific discourse, which categorized people according to the various “aberrations” that they displayed. Before that discourse emerged, “he” was not considered a homosexual, but someone who did sodomy. This critique of our sexual “natures” enables an interesting ethical investigation of sexual fetishisms. If sexuality does not exist in some independent realm, “out there,” away from society, then won’t societal prejudices, biases and hatreds also be ever-present in sexuality? And won’t their dominant presence in sexuality reinforce these oppressions’ dominance in society-at-large? From that perspective, male-on-female rape fetishes (even when they occur in an adult-consensual context) become ethically questionable because we live in a patriarchal world in which violence towards women is prevalent, and in which women are often taught that violence towards them is acceptable. The same applies to fetishes/sexual desires that have racist, homophobic, classist or ableist overtones. Thus, when taken out of an essentialist context, and viewed as the product of prevailing discursive conditions, certain fetishes can become increasingly ethically questionable.

On the other hand, this kind of approach may create a dangerous precedent. Do we really want to initiate a moralistic witch-hunt against sexual desires that reflect societal prejudices? Are we really going to screen fetishes in order to ensure that they meet moral standards? Perhaps a better approach would be to realize that sexual fetishes, as much as they can reflect negative prevailing social conditions, are also excellent vehicles for challenging those conditions.

Indeed, Foucault’s thought about sexuality also included a significant championing of sexual fetishes as containing a strong liberationist potential. Foucault himself was an avid BDSMer and fisting enthusiast, and he spent years cruising San Francisco’s fetishy sex scene. As David Halperin points out in his book, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography, Foucault realized that subversive fetishy sexual practices had the power to challenge dominant cultural norms. Phallocentricity, for example, is a major expression of patriarchy that privileges the phallus in all sexual (and social) situations – thus; the goal of normative “heterosexual” sex is for there to be an ejaculation from the penis and the desire of the “receiving” partner may often be left unsatisfied. A sexual practice such as fisting (which was lauded by Foucault as being the only new sexual pleasure invented in modern times), however, had the power of removing the phallus from sexual intercourse, as pleasure was already derived from the use of the anal sphincters and did not have to necessarily begin with an erection or end with an ejaculation. Furthermore, according to Halperin at least, Foucault saw a possibility for an alliance between kinky gay men and feminists that would use BDSM to strip the phallus of its privilege. For example, the use of “cock-and-ball torture” has the ability reframe/reconstitute the penis as a site of sensitivity and weakness to be exploited, instead of a locus of social power and domination (as it is normatively perceived).

Overall, it is up to fetishists to channel and respect the emancipatory potential in their fetishes. I am not calling here for a kind of radical reformulation of all sexual fetishes – but rather for an increase in the social presence of those fetishes considered non-normative in order to broaden the sexual menu, so that those kinds of fetishes that reflect negative social conditions are no longer in the absolute majority, and thus, less able to perpetuate prejudices. For example – I frequent a particular fetish board that claims to be “the ultimate” Internet site for the fetish. However, it is impossible not to notice the incredible privileging of Male-On-Female or Female-on-Female (M/F or F/F) activity over all other forms (F/M, M/M, queer/queer, SheMale etc…), and the amount of time and effort that is put into telling people that have non-normative fetishy desires to keep their fantasies away. Thus, the fetish in this case serves as a way of legitimating heterosexualized-male-perspective sex over other forms of sexuality – it reproduces and reinforces the heteronormativity already present in society. A refusal by those interested in the non-“heterosexualized” versions of this fetish to restrict their activity on this website would be a good step towards challenging the heteronormativity of the particular fetish community, and of society as a whole.

***For More Information***
Check out Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol. 1, it is an unforgettable read and a very useful toolbox for talking about sex/gender/sexuality… a real classic. David Halperin’s Saint Foucault: Towards A Gay Hagiography deals mostly with the potential of Foucault’s philosophy for gay male communities. The first essay, “The Queer Politics of Michel Foucault” is the one most worth reading.

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Housekeeping, 9.2.07

+ news +
OMG IOWA?!,
I choose you!,
and ...another one? for the week.

aqueertheory joins is this week as a new guest contributor. It's about time we have a new writer with a focus on theory!

Sincerely,
ts

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social control and the social good

Did you know that I am generally unprepared to write about politics? I studied many things in college, but I am no political scientist. My thinking also tends toward the radical and revolutionary, which makes finding a party to support (in the USA) excruciatingly difficult on both idealistic and pragmatic levels. My tentative and uneducated assertion has long been as follows: if you could somehow combine the best of socialism and libertarianism, I’d be all for it. In all likelihood, this is an ignorant and unsustainable position (obvious conflict aside), but I have yet to spend sufficient time immersed in the economic and political theory needed to advance my understanding. At heart, I’m just someone who cares about society and realizes that politics shape even the most intimate personal experiences.

We pomos are an interesting lot, suggesting that people are fettered by social construction, yet many of us believing (hoping) there must be ways to "liberate" ourselves from one set of constructions in favor of a new construction that will somehow be more empowering. The goal of unabashed individual expression undeniably requires constructing others ourselves to tolerate, accept and even embrace what to them us is distasteful. We seem easily to do this with things like food preference, so people argue that we could and should feel similarly about nearly all difference, including sexual interests. It will take social construction to extend that thinking (just as our attitude toward food is itself socially constructed), though—and this policy of embracing and encouraging difference may well make society harder to operate smoothly.

As an ex of mine always said, "We have heuristics for a reason. If we had to constantly evaluate people as they wanted to identify—without drawing on stereotypes to process the person’s skin, dress, body type, accent, and so on—we’d be spending so much time just on figuring out how to relate to individuals that we’d be in overload, and we couldn’t get to the point of our would-be conversations, the actual relating." Maybe this is true. It’s hard to say, because none of us grew up in this purely theoretical, fluid-identity society.

And maybe this observation by my ex is also telling us something about the society in which most of us did grow up: everything is pointed. I converse with you to get something out of it. The conversation itself, the process of meeting new people and learning new things and figuring out how to relate, is secondary and sometimes even inconvenient. I don’t mean to be simplistic or glib, but we do often seem to care more about efficiency and utility than about the nature and quality of our lives. People often contrast "Western" and "Eastern" thought at moments like this: the individualistic versus the communal, the plot-driven story versus the exploratory tale. I don’t think that’s really fair or thorough, though, not to mention that it poses a contrast between two (flattened) concepts as if one must have all the right answers. (And again, it’s about solutions. Where’s the process?)

I do want to know whether/how we can acknowledge and openly use social construction—as we are silently participating in unnamed constructions regardless—without becoming just as uncompromising and rigid as the current rules suggest. This is where my previous idea of utopia comes into play, and I think we need to focus on self-reflection and the process of monitoring social construction, rather than reaching a static ending point where the construction is considered forever perfect and complete. Much as I’d love to rely on increasing transparency and setting up a process for change, however, part of me wonders what powers will be rendered invisible in this new world order, and whether they’ll be even harder to unveil given the illusion that all is already revealed.

This post was originally going to be about the latest controversial article on Michael Bailey and his questionable scientific methods. Coincidentally, I’m 85% certain that a fellow Equality Rider worked in his laboratory at Northwestern, or at least in the same department. But anyway, as you can all see, I distracted myself with broader thinking about social control. The NY Times article mentions criticism of unpopular research versus criticism of unscientific research; perhaps in another post I’ll explore our privileging of "the scientific" as unconstructed fact and how we are constantly policing that boundary as well.

But for now, I bid you "Happy Tuesday!" (And, if you like, happy feast day for St. Augustine of Hippo, who embroiled us all in sin.)

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Mary Potter: The Boi Who Lived (Fabulously!)

I’ve wanted to write a post about the big H.P., but I haven’t been able to think of something I could write about cohesively. For a little while I wanted to talk about the few (but horrifyingly obvious) sexual innuendos in the movie (Ron: “So what was it like?” … Harry: “Kind of…wet.” Delay. “…Because she was crying”). Then I wanted so badly to talk about how I finished the last installment overnight and which parts I loved most, but nothing really seemed to resonate particularly with the theme of this blog community. Then, after a few conversations with queer people, it hit me:

Harry, where are the GAYS? Now I realize this is kind of a modern dilemma whether it’s appropriate to create gay characters into major media that reaches children. Even if J. K. Rowling wanted to introduce a gay character, could she have?

If you devote enough ink to craftily introduce a gay character in a children’s series (and it would be a lot of ink – you’d have to do it carefully, sensitively, and you’d have to take on the role of educator much more than as if you’re taking about heterosexual teen dating), how can you talk about gay kids without prompting a magnifying glass on the character’s (the child’s) sexuality? Is it appropriate to suggest we could/should do this to children? And despite the problems of assuming heterosexuality for all children, it may create a bit of a window for gay kids to work out their identity internally before “choosing” sexuality. So, sorting through all these confused thoughts: As much as I would like a gay wizard at Hogwarts, I’m confused about how it should be delivered. Maybe it’s just because it’s never really been done before.

The other question I have about presenting gay characters in children’s stories is this: how do you actually, noticeably, present a gay character? It’s something the gay community has wrestled with for a while. If you made the gay male gender variant (read: gay), then you’re isolating gays who aren’t effeminate. But if you don’t make them effeminate (Brokeback-style), then you risk only making gay okay when it’s not overtly gay. And IF they’re not gender variant, then do you make them talk about their sexuality? Do you make them actively hunt other gay men? So many questions, with answers I don’t have.

But this is not to say that I’m letting Rowling off the hook. I believe she has done a very good job of creating, for the first time in popular children’s literature, a series that focuses intently on issues of mass media and exposure of identity. That said, couldn’t she have taken a little more responsibility? Ignoring the fact that Hermione, despite her smarts, is helplessly tiny and cries all the time (a gust of wind could knock that girl over); ignoring that it’s Harry’s mother, and not his father, who protected him with the obnoxiously feminized “power of love”; ignoring that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley (despite their charm) represent (and promote) the stereotypical, lower-class system of rigid gender roles; and ignoring that the highest ranking women officials always hit a glass ceiling (McGonagall, Umbridge) …why couldn’t she have appeased us all a little and thrown in a character with either a little gender variance or status as a sexual minority?

Possibly the most aggravating part of this all is that Rowling does, in fact, allude to gayness at least once in the series:

'I heard you last night,' said Dudley breathlessly. Talking in your sleep. Moaning.'

'What d'you mean?' Harry said again, but there was a cold, plunging sensation in his stomach. He had revisited the graveyard last night in his dreams.

Dudley gave a harsh bark of laughter, then adopted a high-pitched whimpering voice.

'"Don't kill Cedric! Don't kill Cedric!" Who's Cedric - your boyfriend?'

(Harry and Dudley, Book V)

So Rowling is willing to admit that gayness exists, and that it’s something that can be used as a tool for bullying – so, uh, in my book I think that means she created for herself the responsibility of playing the balancing act: if you mention gayness in such a light, you need to discuss at some point when talking about gayness is appropriate. Particularly relevant to the final book, in which Rowling suggests that identities are anything but static, and that people can change dramatically over time as they face the truth about the world and about themselves. That, and isn’t England supposed to be more queer-friendly? If this is the case, now I’m even more worried that Harry Potter’s lack of gay characters was purposeful.

So now that Rowling is charged with the task of writing Mary Potter: The Boi Who Lived (Fabulously), I leave her with a quote from wise Dumbledore:

'You fail to recognise Cornelius, that it matters not what someone is born,
but what they grow up to be!'

(Dumbledore, Book IV)

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