Joanna writes:
> The thing that gets me is that this black/white stuff
influences everybody's discourse -- that of "gays" as
well as that of "straights."
> There are lots of gay folks that are just as insistent on
choosing one way or another, and if not, asserting that
you're in "denial."'
Since the last discussion of gay by choice vs. gay by gene, I have done a lot of thinking on the subject.
Part of the mix of my thoughts was a comment that Yoshie had e-mailed to me privately. What she said was that with the doctrine that the truth is what works, then the truth that sexual orientation is genetically determined was a truth that helped queers survive the onslaught of hets who want(ed) to destroy their lives and culture.
What if both the continuum and the black/white roles are correct? What if it is true that human sexuality is a continuum along which people fall - sometimes in different places at different points in their life.
To me this is similar to the fact that an electron is a piece of quantum matter. It can be in a number of positions and only falls into one once it is observed. Just as the electron falls into place, so does the human being (in terms of sexual orientation).
The fact that the electron falls into place is very useful -- it allows for all sorts of technology and gadgetry which is useful to society.
In the same, way people chose to define themselves as gay or het or bisexual since it is the most practicable way to treat sexuality in the real world. In fact, making such definitions may be part of being human in society. It may be the most efficient and least harmful path to take.
Miles writes:
> Sorting people into types and subspecies is an important
form of social control.
But what about people who use these categories for their own benefit? Types are neutral things that only become associated with value through use.
> It's insidious: people treat personality/identity as a liberating
expression of individuality, when in fact it is more or less
a tool to create and stigmatize deviants.
But what happens when it is the deviants themselves who wield the tool?
Maybe what is insidious is thinking that you can attach a value to any category a person put herself into or is put into. Maybe the only thing that can be evaluated is action. The question is not whether a homsexual is good or bad; the question is whether one man consensually sucking another's man cock causes harm.
> And don't even get me started on the gross presentism of
applying modern sexual categories to people in the past
Maybe that is a method that helps people make sense of their present lives. African Americans often talk of their ancestors and seek continuity with those who have gone before. If seeing queerness as something that has existed in many times and places helps someone, so what? I know such thinking violates the scripture of the Academic Imperium, but just because it is verboten in the academy doesn't mean it isn't useful in real life.
Catergories/identities/groupings can be used for good or ill. As I posted once before: just because an ex went after me with a frying pan once doesn't mean I want to ban frying pans. They do have their valuable uses. It all depends on what a person does with them.
A few weeks back someone on the list told me that TJ wasn't an author -- that I was ignoring all the other people/forces that went into his work. I referenced Nagarjuna then and want to once again. In an ultimate sense, yes, everything that exists is brought into creation by everything else. Everything is part of one large matrix of being. But when TJ sits at the computer to write is it very useful to him to think about all the different forces and people (himself included) that go into the author function, or does he just decide that he wants to write something and then does so?
Nagarjuna said there was ultimate reality and practical reality. In ultimate reality there is no-self -- it is all interbeing. In practical reality there is a self that acts (despite that there is no-self). In the same way, postmodernism is true -- presentism is evil and there are no transcendent truths. But once we understand that this is the nature of existence, people still have to exist in the real world. We write, we use transhistorical ideas, we measure gravity so we can fly and go into space.
In real life, the truth is what works. I am queer. Putting myself in this category helps me organize my existence and orient myself. Like the electron I have observed myself and fallen into one of my possible slots.
I see myself as part of a transhistorical continuum that includes Oscar Wilde, Euripides, Gertrude Stein, Ludwig II. Again, I find this useful in orienting myself and being productive and non-harmful toward others.
Maybe instead of getting so worked up about categeories et al, we should concentrate on understanding what constitutes the non-harmful use of an object or idea, and what constitutes its harmful use. Seems much more pragmatic and useful, as well as much easier to communicate and discuss with other people.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister