Let me qualify this post by saying that I come to environmental activism from the point of view of a natural areas user, a conservation volunteer/amateur naturalist, and someone with a professional interest in sustainability. I haven't read up on ecofeminism and deep ecology, and I'm certain that some of the ideas I've cleverly come up with have been formulated and explored much better elsewhere. But this is kind of a unique forum, too, and so I hope that I can bring something new and useful to the table.
For me, the big connection between the environment and queer/feminist issues is bodily autonomy. I believe that all people have a right to decide what enters their body. Pollution contravenes that right. As silverscreened pointed out earlier this month, hormonal birth control is potent stuff – something that definitely warrants informed consent. But our waterways – and by extension our drinking water – are filling up with birth control and estrogen-like chemicals. In many countries, poor women and their children are disproportionately likely to suffer from respiratory infections and even die from the terrible indoor air quality caused by their coal and wood-fired cooking stoves. I talked a little bit about the idea of environmental justice in my last post. The fact is that the people who suffer the most from pollution, who will be the worst affected by “natural” disasters or climate change, are people who have no other choice: poor people, marginalized people, queer and trans and female-bodied people.
It should not be a privilege to be able to live in a neighbourhood where every child isn't suffering from asthma due to coal-fired power plants. There should be no question of whether your drinking water is messing with your hormones. Your gender, sexual orientation, immigration status or, well, anything else, shouldn't force you to take a job that's toxic or dangerous because you know you won't find anything else. But we all know these things happen all the time.
Environmental activism is, at its heart, about the preservation of our common goods: clean air, clean water, natural resources. And common goods are only common when we agree on our shared entitlement to them. We can argue for equal personhood or the right to self-determination of our genders and identities, but those concepts are pretty empty if some of us are excluded from having the basic building blocks to start with. Capitalism (particularly neoliberalism) would have us believe that self-determination is based on exploiting our resources (and our fellow humans). Frak that, I say. The radical first step in caring for ourselves and for each other is caring for our environment.
We can, and should, set limits on how much we use up or destroy resources that are finite, shared, sacred. We can, and should, insist on the fact that as humans we are all have the right to a basic level of decency that includes not being actively harmed by our environment. We can, and should, fight back hard against the notion that if something's important enough, the market will take care of it. We cannot continue to scrabble along in a rat race where the players are entitled to anything they can lay our hands on, and if that hurts someone else, well, they should have scrabbled harder. As queer people and as feminists we know, to mix my metaphors, that the deck in that game is stacked. If we're not fighting to change the rules of the game, we're fighting the wrong fight.
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But hold on, what do we have here? “Porn Actor Tests Positive For HIV, Adult Film Companies Halt Production”. Well hello there. What's a gorgeous story about the importance of using protection doing in a low brow feed like this? Finally, a news item in my league. Yes, I'm about to lecture you on why you should always use protection. We're going there. Write your mamas and tell 'em you love 'em, cuz not all of you will be coming back.
When asked what “queer sex” or “feminist sex” is to me, I take a moment to giggle at someone saying“sex” out loud and then I respond with this: the most proud, most feminist, most sex and gender positive thing you can do in the bedroom is to respect both your and your partner's bodies. Loving and taking care of your body in a time of bigotry and prejudice is the hardest you could fuck the heteronormative operating system without needing batteries. I know you know this. We both went to that queer spoken word thing and heard that one girl's poem and gripped each other's hands. Don't tell me you've changed so much already.
Why are we still able to engage in unprotected sexual activity with the AIDS epidemic, television shows about teen pregnancy and that one time our friend showed us their genitals and asked “does this look infected to you” in the back of our minds? Is it abstinence only sex education? The difficulty for the impoverished in affording protection or acquiring at no cost? Media? Christine O'Donnell? Good news, wafflers. The answer is all of the above (and then some). But in the spirit of “picking on targets our own size” I will be focusing on media, namely the adult film industry. You will note that I use the term “media”, as in “means of communication” and not “the media”, a term that is often confused for “the press” which is often used as a strawman by politicians and political figures, giving impressionable viewers the idea that its a sentient being walking around, ordering bagels and shit. I feel with my education and work in media (see also: made a film I let nobody watch, recorded a demo I let nobody hear, and maintain a blog with a readership of about 20) I think I can last long enough in the ring with media to make it look real. Still, don't try this at home. I went to art school.
Before the bell sounds let me go on the record as saying it is not my place to tell the porn industry what it can not and should not do, so I won't. I did not spend a day in the principle's office for putting up fake student government election campaign posters so I could denounce free speech when I ceased to be “threatening”. I'm only connecting the dots. Someone else can color it in.
Also, while I unwaveringly advocate the use of gloves and condoms (the latter of which I've required the two times in my life I've performed fellatio because I don't care for the tate and was only doing it to be generous), I'm not married to the idea of dental dams. I feel it defeats the purpose of oral sex, which is to be wet an warm and kind of messy. Still, I only perform cunnilingus on partners whose medical history is readily known to me. It also helps if I genuinely love them, because then it makes any complication that would arise a little easier to swallow. And I'm getting waaaaay to personal. So let's get back to the porn industry.
The use of barriers is relatively uncommon in porn, when you into account porn aimed at heterosexuals (which includes the long french manicured pseudo lesbian porn that drives much of the industry). The reason for this, those of you keeping score at home, is that condoms impede sales. At least that was the explanation given by the porn industry in 2004 after a brief “okay guys we need to start using condoms for real this time” phase following the last HIV industry scare. Some say it breaks up the scene. To this I shrug indifferently and say “find a way to work the condom into it”. I mean shit, she has no idea where that pizza delivery guy/cable repair man/singing telegram has been. An extra shot of her looking around the room, finding a way to pay for services rendered. She sees the condom on the coffee table. Bam. Done. An extra what, two seconds? And think of the comedic opportunity available here. I think mandatory condom use would be worth it if at least one porn does the aforementioned pizza delivery guy scene but instead of packets of parmesan cheese and red peppers the pizza comes with condoms. I may need to make that porn. Just for that one two-second gag. Operation Make Mom Love Me Less is a go.Others arguments for keeping barriers out include: it makes the sex seem less intimate, latex gloves look weird when it's not a “nurse” scene, and REAL MEN JUST WANNA BUST A NUT IN THEIR WOMAN. I fear I can't take the time to dissect all of these points. I need to keep those ideas a secret in case someone goes and steals my condoms on the pizza idea and I'm suddenly minus a film project.
Instead I will present my two arguments for how the lax attitude on barriers in heterosexual porn can affect the queer community:
1) The foods do touch. Straight actors do gay/bisexual porn and vice versa. This probably does not need to be expanded on.
2) Setting an unrealistic standard for healthy sex practices that could be misread by impressionable youth.
Oh my. It appears I've pokevolved into Tipper Gore. Shoot me.
Oh. You're pro gun control too?
Well then, I'll continue.
Porn will be emulated. I would argue that's the point. You see people being pleasured or acting in a way that stimulates pleasure in the viewer, it makes you want to be pleasured, even if by your own doing. Regardless as to why it will be imitated or if it's supposed to be, it will. The monkey see monkey do ethic of humanity conquers all. 30 seconds of youtube videos of people copying what they see on tv shows like Jackass, Mythbusters, and WWE should confirm my point. And if timed improperly, could cost you your job.
Not all queer youth start out watching queer porn. Straight porn is much more readily available and in many cases more acceptable to be caught looking at. These unfortunate first impressions, when compounded with subpar sex education and a lack of available safe sex materials, suck. I attended high school with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state. If my straight classmates weren't using condoms, I think it's fair to assume the queer weren't either. We can do the dinosaur and argue whether or not it's okay for teens to be having sex. The fact is they are, and will continue to. The same cannot be said about the dinosaur.
Am I suggesting that the porn industry is responsible for viewers acting out what they see, and they should enforce the use of barriers to slowly train their audiences to emulate that? That's a negatory. I'm not taking sides on the issue. Just calling like I sees it. Or trying to, at least. I have neither the journalistic background or time in the day to edit my language to make it more objective.
Shit, I don't even watch straight porn anymore.
But I do attend leather fairs and Pride events, and it does grate on me when I see a bareback DVD vendor sharing the same space as AIDS outreach or safer sex programs. At Up Your Alley earlier this year, there was a bareback DVD booth right next to the Stop Aids Project. Doesn't the money I donate at the gate go towards affording you an extra pair of eyes to look at that and go “Um, no”? I should be at the very very back of the “queue to tell you your kink is not okay”, but selling depictions of how infections are spread at the same event where non profit organizations are asking for support in fighting the spread of those very same infections is in such bad taste, is so “bad” ironic, that if you focused that energy and shot it out of a laser gun at a random hipster they'd cancel each other out and you'd be left with the guy who plays PC in the “I'm a Mac, I'm a PC” commercials, sipping on a lambic and listening to James Taylor.
Consider this, for a second: WE'RE TALKING ABOUT DISEASES THAT FUCKING KILL PEOPLE.
I understand that these fairs need to make money by renting out space to vendors, and that some just see community events as a place to peddle their shit. But damn son, there is a plethora of more responsible ways to make money off of queers. Like a zombie themed burlesque show!
A part of me that doesn't get out much fears that in some way, like the butterfly flooding the city with a flap of its wing, the standards of the straight porn industry are leaving indents on the queer community, and that heteronormative attitudes on barriers and safe sex can contribute to irresponsibility on our end. And that this laissez-faire standard of condoms in the straight and gay bareback porn industries will trigger an outbreak, an infestation that sweeps the nation.
We didn't do so well the first time. I'm betting we won't live through the sequel. You think our advanced medicine and technology will save us, but they still haven't perfected the formula for the pill that stops us from turning into damn damn dirty apes, harassing those suspected of infection, publishing lies in the press (in 1988 Cosmopolitan said that heterosexuals were not at risk for HIV because it couldn't be spread in the missionary position), and disowning loved ones infected or at risk of exposure. If half a million people really did attend the Rally to Restore Honor, then we're all about one broken condom away from Quest For Fire.
TLDR; Ooga booga, wear a condom and gloves or everyone you know will die.
So what can you do? Well, you can “write” the straight porn studios and insist they start making condoms mandatory, like most gay porn. If I was programmed to wink when I said “write” to imply “persuade with various mixed media campaigns and old fashioned boycotting”, I would have back there. You can get involved in or donate to various organizations to advocate safer sex and or provide safer sex materials to people. If you're one of those “direct action” types, you can buy a box of condoms and give them to friends or leave them on a bowl in your living room as party favors.
Or don't. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe an outbreak in the straight porn industry doesn't affect the queer community. Maybe nobody gets the wrong idea from seeing a bareback DVD booth at Pride. Having a regular op/ed column on the internets doesn't mean you have any more idea of how the world works than another person. I'm just as surprised as you that I'm doing this. I always thought I'd go into antiques.
If you take nothing else from this article, have this: underneath your fingernails is one of the hardest places on your body to sterilize. Even if you meticulously scrape them clean after putting your hand inside somebody, you can still harbor pathogens. And good luck getting a manicure with an infected finger. Spoiler alert: When I say “good luck” I really mean “don't try”.
Say it with me now.
No glove, no love.
The demise of the patriarchy hangs in the balance.
ETA: Oh, it turns out the actor in question starred in both gay and straight porn.
I WIN AGAIN!
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Well no, because (honestly no surprise to me), birth control pills are shown to alter women's brains.
What. The. Fuck.
Before I even thought to research it (and honestly, I still never have), I knew birth control changed things. I had the normal sex drive of a 20-year-old straight college female, and almost instantly after going on the pill, that sex drive plummeted. Did I question if I should be on the pill or not? Of course not! I didn’t want to get pregnant! The risk of getting pregnant seems to trump pretty much everything else in a straight college female’s mind.
But did I even research being on the pill? And the side effects? No, of course not. EVERYONE was on the pill. So it can’t be bad, right? Besides the pill of the 2000s is so much better than the pill of the past – lower doses of hormones. So why fret? Just keep taking it.
So I dealt with the lack of a sex drive, and my now-husband dealt with it. I also realized that ever since I went on the pill, my moods levels off. I no longer had lows, but I also no longer had highs. One of my friends pointed out I seemed (much more) jaded. Did I question taking the pill? No, of course not. Hey, it was nice not to get the blues every now and then. Even if it meant a small fraction of excitement over stuff that would normally excite me.
After a few years, I started asking my gynecologists about going off hormonal birth control (by this point I was on the ring) and trying something non-hormonal, because of my lack of sex drive. I was given these options:
1. Condoms. Not so good because they make my husband go soft, and he can’t really fake it like I can. [Sigh.]
2. Diaphragm. Apparently so few women go on these that my gyno commented “wow I haven’t fit someone for one in awhile!” I immediately changed my mind on being fitted for one.
Also my gyno reminded me that the both options had higher failure rates than hormonal birth control. So that scared me into sticking with the hormones.
But I still hated it. I hated the lack of sex drive, and not really feeling life myself. I hated knowing that it had been years since I actually felt like my self. And I hate that our culture just pumps young women full of synthetic hormones without really questioning the effects, or if the effects are worth it. Sure beats being pregnant, huh?!?! So don't complain! It's so convenient and easy!! Just a little pill! Perfectly harmless ...
Eventually I discovered the fertility awareness method. The ultimate method for a woman to be in control of her body; it can be used to avoid pregnancy and also improve your chances of getting pregnant when the time comes. But despite the high success rates, most women probably have no idea what it is (I’m guessing they would think it’s the rhythm method - which is the act of abstaining during fertile times). No gyno I’ve ever talked to has suggested it as an option.
And why is that? Is it because it requires much more action by the women, and we’ve seen how well some women do taking the pill every day, so imagine how they’ll do with a method that requires a bit more attention! Ha ha ... those airheads.
However, when it comes to reproductive rights, it’s all about choice. And how can a woman make the right choice for her when she isn’t even told all of her options? We’re told our options for avoiding pregnancy are condoms, hormones, or abstinence. The diaphragm is archaic and inconvenient, based on the way it was sold to me by my gyno. Pulling out is too risky and doesn’t give women control over their own bodies (they have to trust their partner will pull out in time). Spermacide is only sold as a supplement to another, more trusted form of birth control. And the rhythm method is only for the crazy religious. I didn’t learn about the fertility awareness method until a rather enlightened friend of mine talked about it on her blog.
In the meantime, widely used hormonal birth control may be altering our minds. I totally and completely believe that it is. Yet will hormonal birth control go away anytime soon? Doubtful. I posted a link to that story on my Facebook page, and the only comment I got was how funny some of the article’s comments are. Not, “holy shit that’s fucking scary why are they still shoving it down our throats and peddling it like candy??”
Although I’m surprised I haven’t seen the religious right jumping on this story as proof that birth control is evil. Or maybe I just do a really good job of avoiding their filth on the internet.
In the meantime, I will continue the fertility awareness method (supplemented by spermacide of course!). And one day when I have daughters, there is no way in hell I’m letting them go on birth control. Although maybe, just maybe, our society will be enlightened enough that we won’t be shoving hormones down the throats of teenagers because it’s too hard to teach high schoolers about condom use.
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I want to get one thing clear right out of the bat:
I think that the It Gets Better Project at its core is a good idea. Queer teens need to hear from their peers and their forebears that there is indeed hope. That life is indeed worthwhile and that high school is not, in fact, the end of the world.
What I question is this seeming meta-narrative that many in the gay mainstream are pushing: Get out of high school; Flee your biggoted small town and move to an urban gay enclave; Join the gay community as a card carrying member of the League of Fashionable Culture Generators; Enlightened, accepting queers versus Ignorant, biggoted straights; Urban versus Rural; Us versus Them.
It's this kind of self-congratulatory back-patting that the gay community is so want to do that I question: the notion that the gay community has it all figured out; that gay folk are so morally, culturally, and politically superior to the backwater, cousin-marrying, neanderthals of small town America; that once you leave high school and become a full member of the gay community, you will be accepted with open arms and you too will get to go out dancing every night and gossip about your latest fling over mimosas at Sunday brunch.
I fear that the way in which people are presenting the gay narrative to these impressionable teens is this sense that their lives will inevitably improve. That's just not true. They can get better, definitely. But we have to be real and transparent about the gay community and its problems.
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Talk to me, Mayor. What!? THE NEFARIOUS PROFESSOR MEMORIES OF MY CHILDHOOD HAS ESCAPED!?
Say no more. I'm on it.
Suit up, BelowTheBelt. Back in time we go.
Enter 1990, stage right. I am 4, maybe 5 years old, surveying my kingdom of hot wheels, action figures and rocks laid about the living room of our cramped Air Force-issued house awaiting my command to unleash maximum playtime. My brother Jason is in his play pen, chewing on a stuffed cat. His training is almost complete. In time he will make an excellent second in command. The big shiny white thing in the sky begins its ascent. Soon it will be bathtime. We must strike soo—what's this? A tiny man in one of those green and browny suits my dad wears all the time. He's holding a gun, I think they call it. Oh, the gun comes out of his hand. How intriguing. How did you get here? It is of no conseqence. Are you prepared to have your head and body smashed with a rock? Fantastic. Welcome aboard.
These memories are from before I learned how to properly subtitle them, so for argument's sake let's say we're now in 1991, though we might in fact still be in 1990. Santa Claus has visited our school to inquire as to any requests we may have for gifts and the like. After ensuring that we are on a secure line and my information cannot be intercepted by that meanie stupidhead Trey who keeps hitting me with his backpack, I relate to the old man my predicament: I want paint, or more LEGOs, perhaps some paper dolls, piano, oh or one of those lunchboxes with the rainbows and hearts on it, much better than this G.I. Joe lunchbox I have. Whatever you do, wise old wizard, please don't ask my parents what I want. They'll tell you I want more of those men with guns and it's all lies. They're useless! They don't actually do anything.
On Christmas Day I am brought before the firing squad of army men, tanks and miniature jet planes. My father stops recording. “You're enthusiasm's killing me”. Action. Cut. Smile more. Be happy. Action. Rinse and repeat for years and years and years. When I'm 20 and successfully convince my college professors that I'm suffering from narcilepsy (known amongst truth tellers as “a habit of recreationally using prescription painkillers and listening to Frou Frou) and need more time to turn in my assignments, I will look back on those Christmases with my father and do something like but not necessarily smile. But at this very moment I wish he was dead, that I was dead, and the ice cream man didn't constantly run out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ice cream bars I like so much. I spend years 6 thru 10 with a closet full of toys I never play with. I never realized they were meant to be instructional. When I was 16 my father told me all my life he was grooming me to join the military, to die for my country, and that if I didn't enlist after I got out of high school he'd kick me out of the house. The only reason I was able to stay at home while attending college is because the war in Iraq called and was like "hey man, you should come out to the middle east for a two year solo stint, dude, this place is rockin!" By the time he returned to the States for good I was already in college and couldn't back out of the loans I had signed up for. That reminds me. I should check my mail today. And then pretend I haven't. In years.
Present day-ish. My girlfriend and I are browsing a local old-fashioned toy store. I recognize nothing (metaphorically speaking, of course, I'm 25, I know what a fucking top is) on the shelves, except for some tiny statuettes of zoo animals. I remember those, I think. I am wrought with the urge, a giddy compulsion, to buy something, anything, from the store and run as fast as I can back home to see what it does and make it do it again and again. My future self, the one writing this article right now, will wonder if playing with gender-neutral toys and eating from a hello kitty lunchbox will actually soothe the pain of my forced masculization or if it will only agitate my memories, forcing me to relive even more of them and heighten my feelings of self-loathing. Who discovers they like coloring and playing with LEGOs when they're 25? Isn't the point of all this therapy and shit to help me pokevolve into a functioning adult? What does it all mean, computer?
In normal circumstances, I would simply handwave this, say “fuck it, it's future me's problem” and stride out the door with slingshot or dominoes in hand to the tune of “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John. (Un)fortunately, depending on whether you ask my emotions or my wallet, I'm not sure I'm ready to bring my girlfriend along for the safari to recapture my youthful spirit. Instead I go home, cry, watch an episode of Rocko's Modern Life and try folding a few paper toys from cubeecraft.com, but it's just not the same.
Helping me set realistic goals for myself and gently nudging me to make good on my commitments is one thing. Watching me process my childhood and gender identity while I play with toys or build a sandcastle is a unicorn of a different color. I'm not wholly convinced I'm ready to involve a partner in that sort of incidental therapy.
Pay no attention to the Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo that I have acquired and set up in my bed room for her and I to play in private standing behind the curtain. You're confused, and thirsty. Once you have some kool-aid you'll see that it's just another cynical attempt to reject mainstream consumerism by embracing outdated and obsolete technology to impress my friends and partner and not immersing myself in an activity that I enjoy and find solace in because it is something I enjoy, and is not a byproduct from a learned behavior from my childhood or a reaction to a learned behavior from my childhood. My girlfriend will tell you I get giddy and bounce my legs and rub my feet and cheer when I play, but that's only a loving torment intended to provide me with a healthy level of humility appropriate for a woman my age. That rumor about me outright refusing to buy or accept donations of military-inspired or certain sports games is a lie intended to sell more newspapers. I'm glad you gave me a chance to clear my name. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a super honest truth tellers support group to attend.
Circa right now. September 30, 2010. I turned 25 a few days ago. Every year since I came out, someone somewhere has asked me if it's my real birthday or the day I began transitioning. A “tranniversary” as some would call it. While initially dismayed by such an invasive and invalidating question, I've warmed up to the absurdity of it, of being able to say that I'm 3, and that the last 22 years were of a buggier, earlier version of myself. If there is not a pill or therapy that will alleviate this weight of my “past life”, then maybe starting over will. Being denied employment because my presentation doesn't match my documentation and seeing myself portrayed in the media as a deceptive sexual trickster goddess is the fresh start I need to wash away the “be ridiculed as a child for wanting to do traditionally 'girl' things” blues. Coming out was the greatest day of my life. It brought me closer to my family and friends, helped the world make more sense, made shopping for myself easier. I want to remember and celebrate its anniversary for the rest of my life. Happy Opposite Day.
It is now the future. Enough people have misinterpreted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that such a procedure is now available to the public. Down with toy tanks and having to sit through Full Metal Jacket when I was 6 and constantly being denied activities and hobbies because I "wouldn't need that shit when I joined the military", up with never squicking at the sight of a G.I. Joe ever again.
I am manically jotting down a verbal patchwork of anecdotes and memories of my father and being raised a boy, the good and the bad. I don't trust myself. I might succumb to bliss and have it all deleted from my brain. It will not occur to me, the beauty in enduring such experiences and still retaining my humanity, my love, my joie de vivre. Though I may indulge my cynicism and say that my family taught me there's no such thing as “unconditional love” and being raised the wrong gender taught me how everyone wants you to play a certain part or character in their own little life's puppet show and those are important lessons to remember especially if and when I ever become successful in whatever it is I end up doing, I will likely neglect to realize that most if not everyone is hung up on their memories, and it doesn't make me defective, but a well rounded bag of mostly water just like everyone else. Forsaking my memories of being a boy will not make me more of a woman. Only herbal essences can do that. These are important facts, the stuff that epiphanies are made of. Too bad once I'm whitewashed I'll forget I wrote those memories down in the first place and will probably delete them to make more room for downloaded sound files of popular songs done in Mario Paint. And the guy who did this “We Didn't Start The Fire” DIDN'T EVEN GET THE DAMN MELODY RIGHT.
That is not the future I want for myself or whoever the hell would come out of that mindwiper procedure in my body. Too bad this time machine is only a narrative device and not a way to like, solve my problems. Even if I could see how this plays out, I'd just change it anyway because I'M NOT AN AUTOMATON I HAVE FREE WILL YOU DAMN DIRTY APES.
In situations like this the correct answer is always the most difficult, potentially vulnerable option which unfotunately isn't “create dinosaur in a lab and train it to be ridden”. Pointing how and why you you cut yourself doesn't automatically patch it up. You still have to put the band-aid on yourself. I will have to consider the possibility that feeding my inner child after midnight will not make her a gremlin. That doesn't mean I have to like it. I probably will, but I don't have to.
So maybe I get some LEGOs or build some models or some other alternative option that I will not upon pain of death say out loud in the public forum. Maybe I feel like I've made amends with myself, can forgive my younger self and my parents for the misgivings of my childhood and move on with my life. And maybe being okay with myself and providing adequate self-care makes me realize the good I bring to my relationships and I can correct the thinking error of telling myself nobody will be effected if I commit self-harm to myself and I accept that I'm of value to others. The mere thought of that makes me uncomfortable. That probably means I should do it. Goddammit. Otherwise, I'm out a few bucks and maybe a few years of my life after they send me to Azkaban for casting a curse on whoever tells my friends they saw me playing with lincoln logs.
I present to you a deal, Professor. I will grant you your freedom from the repression box if you accompany me on a dangerous voyage of self-discovery that may or may not feature a montage of us learning to overcome our differences and work together to brave the elements and survive in the wild. And then we can fight a robot or something.
Why yes, I do believe we can get the rights for “Closer To The Heart" by Rush.
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Who gets this? You? Well, a lot of people do. Pansexual people would get this question, too, if anyone knew what the hell "pansexual" meant. I'll bet since I'm pan I'm even MORE "OMGTRENDY" than all the bisexual chicks and dudes and non-binary people out there. I'm fightin' The Man. I'm a loner Dotty, a rebel.
Well, the whole "WHY DON'T YOU JUST BE NORMAL AND BE STRAIGHT? OR AT THE VERY LEAST GAY!" question is pretty classic. What is normal? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. But I don't think it's terribly abnormal to be indifferent as to the regard to the gender of the person you are attracted to. I think that's actually a good thing. Not being picky, just because of arbitrary standards of conduct, you know. You don't need to be just straight or gay, people. You can be somewhere in-between. And it doesn't need to be the exact center or anything. There are words like "homo-flexible" and "hetero-flexible" for a reason. The Kinsey Scale can be helpful if you absolutely NEED something to define your sexual preference, but I tend to see it as a spectrum and not as concrete as five numbers. I actually think it's ridiculous to define something as complex as sexuality with numbers. Maybe if you used a negative infinity to infinity scale. But that would be impossible to define, completely negating the so-called "usefullness" of a numerical scale. And I doubt there has ever been a person who has never had at least a fleeting thought sometime in their life of doing something with someone of the same gender, even if they're totes straight. I mean, minds wander, right? Maybe the thing is as simple as just kissing someone out of extreme affection. Something more than a bro hug. Not like there's anything wrong with keeping it to a bro hug.
There's nothing wrong with not liking the idea of being with someone of the same gender. My boyfriend is quite squicked (I think I may have made up a word...) about it, even though he's dating me, and I'm definitely not the opposite gender of him. He regards me as a separate entity (not like a ghost or something...a gender-neutral HUMAN entity...because remember, pansexual genderqueer kids ARE people) and therefore my gender status is not relevant to his unwaverable heterosexuality. At least not in his mind.
Basically, there's no problem with what mixtures of people you are attracted to. It doesn't matter if you're pansexual and potentially attracted to any gender or you're asexual and are not sexually attracted to anyone (or very rarely are). There's also really no problem with polyamory (concurrent relationships with multiple people), either. I guess people might just think that we outside the "completely" homosexual and "completely" heterosexual groups are weird, but in actuality there's absolutely nothing weird about us. We're just people a little deviated from the norm, but we are definitely not deviants...and we don't need to choose a side.
Kirk out.
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The mockumentary style feels pretty inauthentic, the characters are mostly predictable stereotypes, and the relationships that have occurred between them are contrived for “interesting” storytelling.
What struck me as most lacking was their sexuality. All characters appear to be straight. Granted, we’re only one episode in, but based on the relationships that have occurred between the characters, past and present, all of them are straight. Only one character has not had a relationship with one of the other eight, although a comment made by his character about a female classmate makes it pretty clear he’s straight (or at least straight-acting).
I’m not sure exactly whose generation this is. I haven’t looked into it, but I doubt any of the writers graduated from high school in or around the year 2000. The creators of the show made an attempt at diversity (there is at least one of each when it comes to commonly seen minorities on primetime: black, Asian and Hispanic) but fell short of including sexual diversity. Perhaps that will come out in a later episode. If it does, that is also pretty inauthentic. These people are 28-years-old. They grew up in a time of Ellen, Will & Grace, Rupaul, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It would be odd for someone of that generation to have made it that long without coming out of the closet. So I’m going to take a tiny leap and assume they are all straight.
Which is odd for my generation. I’d like to think my high school was relatively average. I had quite a few classmates who were out (at least to their friends) in high school or who have come out (or come further out) in the years since graduating. Gays being out of the closet from teenagers to adults wasn’t shocking for our generation. Maybe I’m giving us too much credit, and I’m not going to pretend like it was perfect, because I know it wasn’t. But it wasn’t hidden. And for a show to obviously go through the effort of attempting “diversity” it missed the mark.
But I’ll tune in for a few weeks at least, to see what the series holds. I am curious to see how mainstream media portrays “my” generation. And who knows maybe we’ll find out that hold out character (the one that hasn’t had a relationship with a classmate) was merely straight-acting in his comment.
I purposely didn’t mention the characters names because the show goes so far to stereotype them that after watching the one-hour pilot, you barely remember that they actually have names.
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NAACP tries to address LGBT issues,
and Bush's daughter at an anti-Prop 8 event for the week.
Sincerely,
ts
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Now imagine how being 25, gay, and at home can put a crimp into your social scenario.
If the above figure is correct, and there’s reason to believe it is, that means, by statistical extrapolation, that a significant number of 25 year old gay men are still enjoying the benefits of Mom and Dad. Because we don’t have a hard number of how many men are gay in our society, it’d be difficult to come up with an acceptable figure. If we go with the conservative 6% figure, that would probably suggest that about 15% of 25 year-old gay men are living at home (once one considers co-factors that would inhibit gays from living at home as adults).
Sociologists like me remark in amazement about the development of the gay ‘coming out’ process, and how subsequent generations are going through periods of self discovery at much younger ages than their predecessors. Although there are no real hard numbers, anecdotal evidence easily supports the notion that the median coming out age for most out gay Gen Yers is younger than their Xer counterparts (who were, themselves, younger than Baby Boomers when they came out). As such, a bevy of boys coming out of the closet at, say, 15 isn’t as shocking or rare as it once was. Thus, you have, psychologically speaking, a population that has a better chance of being comfortable “in their skin” by the time they make it to their mid 20’s. Strong, well adjusted, and determined.
Well, yes, but they are still a part of Generation Y, a generation that is intent on taking its time to get to what insurance companies call “life events” (e.g. buying a house, getting married, having kids). The average female will now be in her late 20’s before marriage, and possibly early 30’s before children enter into the equation. That means, as a generation, the Yers are more likely to sit and ponder opportunities, and enjoy the creature comforts of home, compared to Gen X and the Baby Boomers (who were, statistically speaking, beating the door down to get out of the house).
Yet “being gay at your parents' home” presents some challenges in the new millennium that preceding generations didn’t have to overcome. For example, it goes without saying that the center of gay society for the Boomers and most of Gen X was the bar or club, because traditionally, that was the meeting place. However, it is easy to find evidence to support the idea that the center of gay society for Generation Y is the internet, as many social interactions that previously occurred only (or mostly) at the bar now are web-based. Trolling Manhunt on a random Friday night in your apartment is one thing; making sure the volume is turned down and your door is locked so Mom doesn’t walk in with those freshly baked cookies is another matter entirely.
In short, there’s a measure of negotiation that must occur if one wishes to be active in the gay community (however you define active) and an adult child living at home. There’d seem to be more bias regarding dating possibilities (a 25 year old straight guy living at home is, to some straight women, amusing; a 25 year old gay guy living at home is, to some gay men, a pariah), encounters (not like you’re going back to “your place”), and privacy (“what’s this thing that looks like a flashlight?”) that heterosexuals either bypass or minimize (thanks to our old friend, heteronormativity).
While the numbers of mid-twenty something men at home are shocking, consider that (a) Canada has worse numbers; it’s been speculated that 38% of their 20 something male population live at home and (b) these numbers are from 2007; the recession probably accounts for a (conservative) 3-5% increase in these numbers, since we have evidence of adult children moving back in with their parents due to financial distress.
As such, adult gay men living at home might represent a nominal, rocky, or awkward scenario, but as time progresses, it may be something we see more commonly.
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I know I'm not the only person on this blog who is a student, researcher, instructor, or otherwise involved in a university setting, so I wanted to open up a discussion: What are your experiences with oppression in academia, or of academia as a place for activism and anti-oppression work, or both?.(This question is open to anyone, whether you are, have been, or will be involved with academia in any way, shape, or form, or if you want to offer an outsider's perspective.)
To start us off, here are a few thoughts:
Last week I attended an awesome, sex-positive, gender-inclusive, feminist workshop on sexual assault recently. The facilitator was from the student volunteer-run sexual assault center on campus, which is also the only sexual assault center in the city to offer its services to people of all genders, and not just cis women. They are open to anyone in the city, student or not, and in addition to providing a help-line/support groups/assistance with filing complaints/what have you, they also do outreach in high schools. In short, they're pretty freakin' awesome, and I'm going to assume that their existence is made a whole lot easier by the fact that they're in a university setting.
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Another thought. This semester, I'm taking a class across town at another university. It's a pretty amazing class, looking at international institutions (the UN, the World Bank, etc.) from a subaltern perspective, but that's not really my point. What surprised me was that when I got the syllabus, it had an official-looking statement on it about the right of students to vote on the course requirements. Sure enough, after the professor had spent some time explaining the syllabus and making sure all our questions were answered, he left the room and we students were left to discuss the syllabus and vote on it, including any proposed amendments. The professor and an elected representative then signed the agreed-upon syllabus as a binding contract, which we will all abide by – or face disciplinary proceedings.
This is apparently a university-wide policy. How awesome is that?
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And of course, the current climate of neoliberal budget cuts and “austerity measures” tend to be bad news for public funding for education. At the same time, the skyrocketing cost of many private institutions has created a sense that higher education should be costly. Which is exactly why the administrators at my university are lobbying hard to raise tuition. Although our fees are actually quite high compared to other institutions in Montreal, the province as a whole has some of the lowest fees in the country – and by extension in North America. Apparently, that means that our fees ought to be raised to meet the national average. (Although if we meet the current national average, that'll just push the average up, which I guess means we'll have to hike tuition again, amiright?)
Academia likes to think of itself as a meritocracy, but there are serious consequences to these sorts of decisions. Among other things, high tuition costs disproportionately favor students who can rely on financial support from their families (i.e. leaving out many queer and trans folks, children of single parents, people of color, poor and working class people, first generation university students, children of undocumented immigrants, etc.) I think we all agree that not having the opportunity for higher education is one way in which systemic oppression is reproduced: access to education – and the associated status, connections, and experience – is a prerequisite for most well-paying or powerful positions. But here's another thing: being excluded from academia means being excluded from the mainstream creation of knowledge; perpetually being the studied, not the studier. This does not, generally speaking, lead to peace, love, and mutual understanding for all involved.
In related news, I just found out that the Chicago City Colleges — whose open-door policy allowed me to take classes there before I was ready to attend a 4-year university — are now restricting admissions. Again, budget cuts are the alleged reason. Why is it that budget cuts always seem to hit those who were struggling most already? Wait, don't answer that.
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No discussion of tuition hikes in North America would be complete without referencing the struggles of students in the University of California system, and the March 4th day of action that grew out of them.
And finally, I want to link to two compelling posts I came across in the past few weeks that contributed to my thinking on this issue. Read them!
Carrie Cutler/mouthyb, Guest Post: Standing in the Crossroads. An eloquent, honest post about the author's personal experience of classism, sexism, and harassment as a graduate student at the University of New Mexico.
Kay Ulanday Barrett/brownroundboi, [15+ things I wish i knew in college] broke-ass qtpoc from an immigrant household (the REMIX). Pretty self-explanatory, really. Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet/spoken word artist/educator with roots in my hometown of Chicago. (I wish I could say I knew hir, but I'm not that cool. Yet.)
Go ahead and post your thoughts, experiences, struggles, and questions below.
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regulars
