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So Many Themes, So Little Humor (LONG POST)
Dear All: I've been busy for the past few days and probably
wouldn't have read messages in this forum carefully, except that a
name caught my eye as I was scrolling through. I've read the
messages now - Holy Smoke, what a tangled conversation!
Individual & Group Identity, Gay vs Straight Ethics & Conduct,
Role Models, Majority/Minority Group Power Relations... That's a
hell of a restart for such a sleepy lil' forum.
*****
Rather than a truce and an end to discussion of these themes, I'd
suggest folks continue discussing them and just show a bit more
good humor and patience (and remember it's just a conversation).
*****
On one of the themes that recurrs throughout this thread,
IDENTITY, Dave wrote:
But believe it or not, your identity as being a gay person is
dependent on what the community (i.e. gay men) is as a whole.
Khoa and Andrew both seem to think that's wrong, I think they're
understating it. A person or a group of people or a whole society
may make some Judgment About Me based on a mere perception, or
arbitrary definition - based on what they think my race is, or my
age or gender or sexuality or language or ethnicity or nationality
or religion or political affiliations...
But that's just their Perception of me. It's just some vague and
often wildly inaccurate (and hilarious) Construct of me. It may
be an individual's construct or a society's construct, but it's
nothing more than their perception. It is not my identity.
I used to think my identity derives at least partly from being
sorted and placed into certain categories and groups, but not any
more. Also used to think identity derives at least partly from
our relationships with others. Now I doubt even that.
MY identity, who I am as a person, changes over time because it
derives from what I think and feel and know, from my hopes and
experiences and disappointments, needs and wants and fears... I
could go on. But MY identity DOESN'T derive from any sorting and
labelling process people may resort to.
Some people subscribe to identity politics, and insist that the
disenfranchised MUST identify with the community - with a
community defined by the majority in terms of race or ethnicity or
gender or sexuality; that society's power games require people to
identify themselves the same way society identifies them. I say
nuts to that. Who died and made society God? They can't all have
been reading Durkheim...
Chris wrote to Khoa to say:
Sure, there is all kinds of straight misbehavior, although
the gay community takes the worst of the straight world as
its starting point, as its norm, and heads south from there.
An altogether separate theme that keeps showing up, "GAY VS.
STRAIGHT ETHICS & CONDUCT" is an ugly way to give it a title, but
it reflects what seem to be the issues. Question seems to be, are
the sexual ethics and behavior of gay men demonstrably worse than
those of straight men? Are gay relationships less healthy or
wholesome than hetero relationships?
Without knowing what folk's personal ethics or standards for
behavior are, I wouldn't even care to try to answer that. In
general, I think Chris overstated this a bit though. I don't see
it. Maybe my view of the "worst of the straight world" is more
grim than his own.
Chris also said:
Sure, there is straight slime, there are straight leather
people, all of that. But they have the luxury of not having
their misbehavior reflect on their entire community.
Well I'll agree with that, but this is true ONLY because they do
not play this identity game - they don't feel they have to.
Straight people very rarely think of there being any "straight
community" to which they belong, or with which they need to
identify themselves, or for which they bear some responsibility.
Hell, they very rarely even identify themselves as "straight" -
only occurs to them to do that in a few circumstances...
Straight people have always been liberated from the confines of
the majority's perceptions of them, or expectations of them, or
fear of them. But don't call that a "luxury". It's a freedom.
And it's a freedom owed to all, to everyone. Anyone, straight or
gay, white or black or brown, male or female, everyone ought
properly to demand that same freedom for themselves.
Do not ever let a perception of me or judgment about me be based
on some "community" or "barrel" you want to place me in, or some
label you want to slap on me. And do not ever let a judgment or
perception of some community be based on the fact that you're
assigning me to it.
Chris went on to say:
This is a sociological reality, and batting your doubtless
lovely eyes innocently will not make it go away.
Taken individually, his eyes are OK, but as a pair... well, the
left one is twice the size of the right one, and it does move in
unison with the right one but on with a 2-3 second delay. And
doesn't blink so much as it "retracts". Seen sideways it's not so
bad but head on, well... bit of a shock, really.
As for "bad apples spoiling the barrel", I think the point I and
others want to make is that if we'd all just stop trying to force
one another into barrels and stopped sorting and labeling each
other, this "bad apple" business would become meaningless. I
can't say I've succeeded in abandoning this behavior, but I'm
committed to trying, and to resist it as much as I can. I just
think it's misleading, useless, and harmful. A sociological
reality that society needs to learn to live without.
ANON tossed back into the fray the theme of ROLE MODELS, saying:
My stance is this: "each of us who loves and fulfills
obligations to ourselves and those around us is a role
model." The role models ain't that far really. Sometimes we
overlook what's there in front or next to us."
True. There are a lot of different kinds of role models serving
different purposes, but... I would hate to think that a gay
individual or couple is somehow unable to see that straight
couples are viable and desirable role models. I hope eventually
to see a day when a straight couple starting out feel comfortable
and content seeing gay couples as viable role models... I'll need
to have my body frozen and revived far in the future in order to
see that, but look... In terms of healthy relationships, is there
any real difference?
When we're talking about loving, committed, monogamous
relationships, can it possibly matter which genitalia the couple
bring to the relationship? Does a gay couple commit to and
sustain and nurture one another differently than a straight
couple? Are we talking about qualities OTHER THAN love and
tolerance and patience and forgiveness and tenderness and
commitment? The ingredients needed for a healthy straight
relationship and those needed for a healthy gay relationship -
these are different?
Gay men and lesbian women need, want, and deserve gay and lesbian
role models. But in contexts where sexuality itself is not
relevant, the sexuality of a role model ought not to be relevant.
One day, it won't be. But when one starts seeking role models of
a certain sexuality when it's not relevant, and gives in to the
urge to also seek out all the other irrelevant criteria such as
age and race and gender et al...
Otherwise, one ends up saying to a gay Amerasian "Gee Tuan, I
found you a gay mixed-race APA role model who's an Olympic gold
medalist diver, a gay mixed-race role model who's a marathon
runner but not APA, a mixed-race APA golf champion role model but
he's not gay... Tuan, ever hear of Greg Louganis?"
To which Tuan sighs and with disappointment says, "Well, yeah, but
he's not Vietnamese...."
Khoa jumped back in to the thread yesterday to respond to a
poster:
I'm usually the one that tells others to "get real" and my
cynical view of the world is well-known among my friends. To
think that I actually come off as an idealistic optimist --
who would have thunk? :-) Peter, are you out there and
observing this?
Well, I am now. And if Khoa is an idealistic optimist, I'm brief
and to the point. FYI, I once quoted to this man a line of verse,
that "Hope is the thing with feathers." He left the room and came
back in with his hunting rifle and asked "Where's its nest?"
The theme of MAJORITY/MINORITY GROUP RELATIONSHIP weaved its way
back into the thread, and the substance of what Khoa said
regarding majority group judgments and condemnations and
stereotypes, and gays seeking acceptance from the heterosexual
majority was this:
Society is well known for its unfairness. But instead of
attacking people's sexual turn-ons, why aren't we attacking
that very hypocrisy that exists in society? Why must we also
adopt their mentality? Do you not realize that the people
you're trying to get to accept you are the very same people
that are targeting you just as you are targeting certain
portions of the gay community?
Well said. Assume that people insist on these things called the
"gay community" and the "straight community" and that there is a
dialogue going on. And the straight community says, "OK... we
will accept you and we will treat you fairly, maybe even respect
you (a little)... but you must look and act the way we want, and
you must reject and ostracize and abandon part of YOUR gay
community... leave them behind because they're REALLY BAD... Oh,
and one more thing. You must do as we say, not as we do."
I'd say that's a loser's deal and the straight community wields
that power only to the extent that the gay community allows it to.
Just as the white community wields that power only to the extent
that minority communities allow it to. The gay (or any other)
community needs to somehow behave as a "model minority" in order
to receive simple fairness and equality and justice? Hooey!
It's always been in an other context, but I've said many times,
"We're all going to make it together, or we're not going to make
it... so leave no one behind." So don't sacrifice fairness and
equality and justice owed to one person simply because you too
don't like his/her sexual turn-ons. Or you legitimize the rights
of the straight community to deny YOU that fairness and equality
and justice on the same flimsy grounds.
Andrew fired in with a startling crystalline observation:
Think about this: "your identity as being a **** person is
dependent on what the **** community is a whole."
Substitute **** for straight, asian, african, hispanic,
jewish, lesbian, vietnamese, laos, cambodian, mongolian,
australian, taiwanese, indian, and on and on and on...
Hell, don't stop there. Substitute "communities" like Catholic,
poor, immigrant, elderly, female, elderly female coffee-drinking
fans of Enya...
Then, Anon really blew the doors off the barn with this:
Self-victimization seems to me the point at which one
relegates the responsibility of happiness to others. I
certainly don't see how an awareness about:
1. the interdependence between individual and group
identities, or
2. constraints faced by a minority sub-culture against the
mainstream culture
would constitute an advocacy for irresponsible behavior,
warranting a lable of 'victimization.' I'd appreciate an
explanation from Khoa and/or anyone else.
I'm not at all sure what Khoa meant when he used the words "victim
mentality." But I'm pretty sure I've not seen anywhere any
advocacy for irresponsible behavior. That might have just been a
misunderstanding.
In any case, Anon is right, it's worth exploring what identity
actually really means. Individual identity, group identity... the
relationship (if any) between my own identity and any group(s) I
might place myself among, or get sorted into by others. And it's
always worth reflecting on what it means to belong to a minority
group that is first defined by and then marginalized by the
majority...
...or about the extent to which members of different minority
groups can be co-opted into defining and marginalizing themselves,
because they too have bought into that same
sorting/labelling/rejecting mindset that constrains and
constipates the majority.
Pete
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