| |
|
I'm thinking a little more about Ganesh's question about what a pro-queer community would read like, and wondering about Haus's comparison with the kind of behaviour one would expect in a gay bar gay bar:
a straight person entering that space may, depending on the atmosphere and the rules, spoken or unspoken, of that space decide to alter their behaviour in order to fit culturally with the expectations of the space - for example, they might not feel comfortable getting off with their girlfriend/boyfriend on the dancefloor, because this space has been created to facilitate the expression of non-straight affection. So, yes, to some extent to be a straight person in a space primarily oriented towards non-straight users may lead one to examine and alter one's behaviour. Barbelith, as a queer-friendly space, might do the same.
Papers questioned this:
Enh. Does this happen? Safe space does not automatically mean sexually-reversed space; I don't think I've ever seen a straight couple in a gay bar who didn't express affection just as openly. I would tend to think that if they were uncomfortable in that space they'd be more likely to express affection, even if only in a "hands off" fashion.
Now, I have been in gay bars where straight couples expressing heterosexual affection would be made to feel uncomfortable. These places could, in this context, probably be described as pro-queer and within that space, anti-het. Probably worth pointing out that that does not make the patrons anti-het, just the context, the place and time. I think that's important if we're to understand how other environments can be anti-queer without labeling everyone in that environment as the same.
There are also, it seems to me, other spaces that are queer-friendly without being anti-anything. Old Compton street, for example, is a space where neither queer nor het people are likely to feel uncomfortable displaying their het/queerness (also their gothness, modness, punkness, whateverness). It's an inclusive safe-space, to use Paper's term.
So, what is Barbelith more like, and what do we want it to be like? Feels to me that it strives to be an inclusive safe-space for the full range of orientations. If it is anti anything, it's anti-exclusive in this sense. In order to maintain this, it seems perfectly natural that it will feel like more effort is made to defend it from the elements of the permanent parade of straightness milling around it in the internet village. It's a reaction to a natural regression to the mean for a community that doesn't want to be part of that mean.
As for MD's comment in the other thread, I objected to it because, like Mordant, it felt unwarranted. I don't think I made any reference to gender, for instance, but he didn't give me a key to the panic room (although perhaps my comments weren't 'complex' enough). Nevertheless, I certainly didn't feel oppressed. Frankly, as a middle-class straight white male, come and have a go if you think you're 'ard enough. |
|
|
