[lbo-talk] Kink, Ick & the Left /sexual /

snit snat snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com
Wed Sep 29 14:53:25 PDT 2004


what's the worst thing you can call a man?

FAGGOT.

Heteronormativity. Faggot is the labelused to discipline men who don't display the right type of hetmale behavior, for not performing gender correctly, for not, as Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out in _Hearts of Men_, getting married and being the sole support of wife and children, for not being a good worker bee (must be a artsy fartsy fag that one!).

It is so embedded in het male identity that most het men I've known are petrified of being thought gay. "I don't have a problem with the company hiring gays, they just better stay away from me!" A lot of the kids (and even older men who should know better) I know, when I try to get them to give me serious reasons for their fear, say that they're a gay man will come up behind them, bend them over, and start banging away!

The label faggot was a way of enforcing heterosexual behavior and it didn't necessarily have much to do with _sex_ but with gender _roles_. Real men got married and raised a family and to do that, they slaved away. We want to work toward the end of heterosexism so we don't use "Faggot" and "Dyke" on anyone who doesn't conform to Mommy-Daddy-Me -- and so we can all have good sex! :))

As the family became more privatized and romantic love came to dominant the West, anyone who didn't conform to that model of mommy-daddy-me because a threat and, thus, they became more visible. (to put it far too simply)

It's unproductive to play "more oppressed than thou." That's the game played by folks who want to deny racism, sexism, capitalist exploitation. Well, you're not _really_ oppressed, see how many black people we just promoted and hired! You have your own dang Black Studies courses and stuph. Look at Powell. Rice. Etc. It's not really that bad anymore!"

"We're in a fucking stagmire."

--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'



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