BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Conversation >

Homo 101

  
  

Page: 1(2)3456

 
 
Cat Chant
13:40 / 02.05.06
velvetvandal, thanks for the sympathy - you are entirely right about the horrible woman on the train, and I thought of some of those very points myself. After I had calmed down and had a whisky, some hours later. (I can't resist pointing out that she wasn't a Mail-reading prunt though - she hit me with the Guardian!!)

There's an ancient Headshop thread on queer heterosexuality here, by the way.
 
 
gravitybitch
13:43 / 02.05.06
Similarly, assuming that someone is hetero is also a pretty safe bet, isn't it? (I need some statistics here, but is 90% of the population being hetero very far off?)

Ahh, no.

That oft-quoted 10% is for the Kinsey 5 and 6. There's a lot of folk in the middle who DO NOT identify as hetero (and I'm one of them - if there's anything more annoying than casual heterocentrism, it might be bisexual erasure...).
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:02 / 02.05.06
Actually, that makes a lot of sense Deva. I guess with my analogy I was trying to make the point that we negotiate assumptions, both of and by ourselves, all the time. But the existence of homophobia does make it different.

Ahh, no.

That oft-quoted 10% is for the Kinsey 5 and 6. There's a lot of folk in the middle who DO NOT identify as hetero - iszabelle

Care to set me right, iszabelle? I'm keen to know what a better estimate would be, and I'm happy if this involves a more involved breakdown than queer vs straight.
 
 
Ex
15:50 / 02.05.06
Thanks for the question, Lurid - it's making me think.

I’ll expand on the point Deva was making about slipping between statistical likelihood and more ‘power’ charged assumptions (not assuming we’re saying the same thing): I think there's a slippage between 'assuming most people are straight' and 'assuming that personhood itself is straight'. I'll think more about how that's socially propogated.
I think one of the problems is that culturally, heterosexuality has become one of the key features that makes someone a Person. (Someone made a similar idea about gender in one of the recent threads on it - that one has to be careful that one doesn't end up excluding the possibility of 'being a woman' from the idea of 'being a person'.)
We have ideas of what a Person is, which are supposed to be neutral and apolitical (if this were the Headshop I'd probably waffle on about the Enlightenment model of selfhood - all rational and autonomous). But actually at the same time we use heterosexuality to convey so much - stages of life, ethical behaviours, social groups and their interactions, organisation of housing and leisure. In the end, it's assumed to be such a universal that people who fancy a different gender can often just not register as people.

I know this might seem extreme, but I think you can often see a little mental jump when people are fitting 'gay' into 'person’. I've noticed in my own thinking before I'd met many queer people, even though I knew I was queer. There is, for example, the moment when all the other common assumptions that go with personhood suddenly drop away when 'gay' comes into the picture - I find (not-queer) people sometimes absolutely panic and assume they share nothing in common with the (queer) person.

There are other minority groups without the same power differential - unusual sports fans, for instance - which while not catered to by the mainstream, possibly, don't actively seem alien or outside personhood.

I think a lot of groups of people get edged out of ‘personhood’ nominally on the grounds of numbers, but in the end they get definitionally excluded. I found your example of English speaking interesting – language use can be really weighted. To pick an example of which I’m culpable: I know in this country that illiteracy and dyslexia are both statistically unusual. But I find myself slipping from a statistical appreciation of that into thinking that written language use is a hallmark of personhood, rather than a particular capacity that a lot of people have.
And of course, in some circumstances, a group or attribute gets to define People even though it’s a statistical minority, which is even more headmelty.

(Also, I'm of the camp that think that were it not used as the overwhelming template from childhood onwards, a lot fewer people would be exclusively heterosexual (that's not to say they'd all be bisexual - I don't know what the world would look like, it's almost impossible for me to imagine how we'd organise sexuality in absence of a dominant model to enact and act against). So that also complicates the idea that weight of numbers should be a reason to continue expecting people to be straight.)
 
 
*
16:03 / 02.05.06
This reminds me of an example I encountered in a class in a traditional Chinese medicine school on Western anatomy and physiology. Our teacher, a 68 year-old chiropractor from the midwest, talked a bit about the gays and AIDS, saying he wasn't gayist (I assume that meant prejudiced against people who are gay, by extension from racist— prejudiced against people who have race) but that the reason gay people were more likely to get AIDS was because it was unhealthy and unnatural to have two people making love with each other who weren't a balance of yin and yang energy. (A fundamental misunderstanding of yin and yang is evident here, which explains why this guy wasn't teaching our basic theory of TCM class.) The point I'm trying to get at here is that in this none-too-subtle example, personhood, and healthy personhood in particular, is defined in part by doing sex with people who are the opposite gender. Asexual people also cannot be fully people, under this model. And there's no incentive to try to prevent or cure AIDS if it's an inevitable consequence of people doing sex with the wrong kind of people.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
16:14 / 02.05.06
Similarly, assuming that someone is hetero is also a pretty safe bet, isn't it?

Why is it a safe bet? As izsabelle points out, there are those who aren't simply 'Kinsey 5 or 6' -- those who identify as bi, queer etc.

On the other hand, there are probably millions, if not billions, of people who have had at least one same-sex sexual experience over the course of their lives. Does the fact that it only happened once, or that they haven't necessarily felt that desire was strong enough to continue doing it, make them straight-forwardly hetero (pardon the pun)? What about that rather large number of men who might frequent beats for the purpose of anonymous sex with men, but would say they were straight if you asked them?

There are really no figures you can attach to this, I think, and asking for figures is a completely loaded and itself heterocentric assumption, since the penalties for acknowledging same-sex experience or desire are far higher than for acknowledging hetero sex.

Also, this only applies to places where expressions like 'gay' and 'straight' have meaning. 'Heterosexual' is an English/European word, Lurid -- many languages do not have a word for that, since lots of people in lots of parts of the world do not organise their sexual identifications based on whether one is straight or not.

Hence, no, not a safe bet at all.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:18 / 02.05.06
Id - ha! For some reason, I think the word "gayist" is hilarious. & People Who Have Race. It also makes AIDS (huh, no mention of HIV?) seem like a cancerous thing, rather than a communicable disease. It's produced by the sexing, instead of transmitted via. No better than hair on your palms from masturbation.
 
 
Lurid Archive
17:10 / 02.05.06
Ex: Thats interesting, because I almost chose dyslexia and/or illeteracy for my analogy...maybe I should have.

On the other hand, there are probably millions, if not billions, of people who have had at least one same-sex sexual experience over the course of their lives. Does the fact that it only happened once, or that they haven't necessarily felt that desire was strong enough to continue doing it, make them straight-forwardly hetero (pardon the pun)? - Mister Disco

I'm happy for people to self identify as they wish, tbh. But I'm getting confused by your opposition to this, MD. Sure, it won't be exact - what is? But are you saying that one of the problems with heterocentrist dominance is that, in fact, most people are not hetero? Or at least not straightforwardly? Or are you saying that you choose not to ask the question? You seem to imply that with:

There are really no figures you can attach to this, I think, and asking for figures is a completely loaded and itself heterocentric assumption, since the penalties for acknowledging same-sex experience or desire are far higher than for acknowledging hetero sex.

which I find extremely hard to accept - I can't imagine any sphere where I would accept this kind of position. I mean, I accept that the penalties are higher for those "acknowledging same-sex experience", sure. But why does it follow that it is illegitimate to try to find out about how sexuality varies, and how common different categories are? (while acknowledging that the categories are bound to be flawed to some extent, and that it is possible to abuse such studies).

Is this only about scientific studies, or do you take it further? Are you really saying that if you walk into a random bar, you have no idea of how likely you are to run into someone who is queer? That the question would never occur to you? I find both of those quite hard to believe - and these are the sorts of things I was talking about - ...though I am probably misunderstanding you.

lots of people in lots of parts of the world do not organise their sexual identifications based on whether one is straight or not.

Good point, and my first impulse is to ask for data and references out of curiosity...but that might come across as a bit antagonistic, which I wouldn't want. Its true that I'm focusing on Europe and the US (as with most discussion on Barbelith) and haven't actually travelled outside those. Still, my impression was that a broadly* heterosexual model was commonplace as the majority expression for sexuality. I'd be very interested to hear if this was not the case.

*on reflection, I think this may be a source of misunderstanding. If one intends "heterosexuality" to be only the rigidly determined ideal...then I can see lots of problems. But I can't see why one would do that, just as one wouldn't object to "speaks Italian" along similarly rigid lines.
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
17:10 / 02.05.06
What do YOU consider to be "gay fiction"?
In my, er, book it would be any fiction in which bisexuality or homosexuality was a central theme and in which the author was at least neutral in attitude towards that sexuality. It would not be sufficient to have queer (which I'll use to avoid excluding myself and others) characters, or even if the main characters were queer, unless their sexuality was an important part of the narrative.
I don't think we see much fiction in which queerness is not made an issue, though, because it's such a useful tool and plot issue for the writer. Regardless of the actual proportion of homo- or bi- sexual people out there, it is perceived as different and hence automatically worthy of mention.
Does having a gay writer make a book "gay fiction"?
No. Although, again, and for the same reason, or to make a deliberate statement, or simply from familiarity, queer authors seem to me to "write queer fiction" a lot.
Does there need to be relationships involved?
I'd say not, except in the general sense that all human interaction is a relationship of some sort or another.

That the author be neutral or better towards queerness, I feel, is required to exclude those works where the author has "putting down the gays!11" as an ulterior motive.

Is it possible, then, for someone to be queer and heterosexual?
Certainly, I have several friends who fit that bill. Heterosexual transvestites as mentioned above. I sometimes think I'm the straightest person I know, even though I'm bi, because of the frankly bizarre sexual practices I hear about everyone else - straight and queer alike - enjoying...
 
 
Ganesh
17:32 / 02.05.06
Similarly, assuming that someone is hetero is also a pretty safe bet, isn't it?

"Safe" in terms of statistical likelihood, yes. One is more likely than not to be correct in one's assumption - and if one isn't correct, the majority/minority ratio/power dynamic is such that the non-heterosexual is unlikely to seriously take one to task over one's misassumption, merely to be quietly irritated. So, "safe" from the point of view of significant negative comeback.

On the other hand, remaining open to possibilities other than heterosexuality takes only a little more effort (enquiring after "partner" instead of "wife" or "husband", etc.) and arguably pays dividends in terms of not alienating the non-heterosexual.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
17:42 / 02.05.06
A good friend of mine noted that at some point she started to assume all men she meets are gay until proven otherwise. And this has nothing to do with "all the good ones are gay," the assumption started to sneak up on her at some point in spite of her longstanding heterosexual relationship and all the straight men she knows.

I tend to favour the inquiring after partner approach, if anything has to be said at all. I actually tend to assume most people are bi until otherwise specified.
 
 
Lurid Archive
18:17 / 02.05.06
if one isn't correct, the majority/minority ratio/power dynamic is such that the non-heterosexual is unlikely to seriously take one to task over one's misassumption, merely to be quietly irritated. - Ganesh

Would you actually feel that strongly? If we meet in the pub for the first time and I ask you about your girlfriend, would you really *want* to take me to task over it?

I'm trying to think what I actually do, now I'm here...I think I usually try to go for gender neutral pronouns, though largely assuming a fairly standard monogomous model (though not out of ignorance). Having said that, it varies on the situtation...I'm aware that I sometimes get asked about my "partner" in a way that implies I merit special treatment, which is the flip side at looking at those kinds of questions.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
18:22 / 02.05.06
Bard, here's a thread Matt started in the Books Forum a while back that ruminates upon the themes you've delineated and includes a link to more of the same.
 
 
Ganesh
18:25 / 02.05.06
Would you actually feel that strongly? If we meet in the pub for the first time and I ask you about your girlfriend, would you really *want* to take me to task over it?

I actually would a little bit, yeah. It's one of those things, though, where I'm genuinely torn between mentioning it (and thus 'making an issue' and making the other person uncomfortable) and swallowing my irritation. In most cases I'd do the latter - but yes, I'd want to get a little bit fingerwaggy with you over it.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
18:33 / 02.05.06
Are you really saying that if you walk into a random bar, you have no idea of how likely you are to run into someone who is queer?

Actually, no. It's not that I wouldn't ask the question, or wouldn't want to know -- if, for example, I was trying to bed one of them. But I am trying to deconstruct your assumption that it's possible to find 'reliable figures', as if sexual desire and sexual pleasure are all in static, definable categories and that asking someone the question, "What is your sexual orientation?" will yield a straight-forward, honest answer. (Or, for that matter, that people can always provide themselves with an 'honest' answer. "Yes I'm straight but there was that one time..." is not straight, is it, really? Neither is, "Oh I'm straight but I sometimes have dreams about women but I've never acted on them no no no." And so on.

I'm not necessarily opposed to 'scientific studies'. Well, actually, yes I am. When I said that the penalties for being queer are higher than those for being straight, I meant that this will almost certainly interfere with the truth content of the results. This is a large enough disturbance of reliable data to make scientific studies pretty difficult to claim as absolute, perfect truth.

On the non-Western stuff, I think you'd be surprised at how many cultures actually don't organise their sexual vocabularies along the lines of 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual'. That's not to say that there are necessarily more people who don't marry someone of the opposite sex, or to say that variations on what we call heterocentrism aren't applicable in other contexts. There's plenty of anthropological and cultural research you could look up. I'm thinking right now of somewhere like Thailand, where 'sexuality' and 'gender' are not easily distinguishable, to begin with, and where sexual practices are often considered private and no-one else's business, no matter the gender of the person you're sleeping with. Although that's not to hold up Thailand as the 'paradise' Western gay tourists like to think it is, either.

I gues I just want to know why it's important to know you can make that judgment, Lurid. Not as a snarky thing, but in an attempt to demonstrate how really difficult it is to categorise people as anything in their infinite variety and diversity. But this is why I'm in the humanities and try to avoid scientists of sex at all costs. Sex science seems to result in strange studies about finger length, etc.
 
 
Ganesh
18:40 / 02.05.06
Sex science seems to result in strange studies about finger length, etc.

Heyyy, as someone who once alllmost got involved in a 2D:4D finger length study, I resent that! It may seem strange, but there were sound theoretical underpinnings there...
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
18:48 / 02.05.06
Well, I suppose having longer fingers would aid in the Prostate Quest.

Refresh my memory about the finger thing? Did it just apply to men, or was it applied to women as well?
 
 
Ganesh
19:15 / 02.05.06
Refresh my memory about the finger thing? Did it just apply to men, or was it applied to women as well?

It's a sensitive indicator of levels of prenatal circulating testosterone - significant across populations (like height) but less so on an individual level. A burst of prenatal testosterone will cause a foetus to develop male genitalia, etc., while an absence of prenatal testosterone leads one to develop as female. There are intriguing differences across axes of gender and sexuality.

Possibly a little too abstruse for this thread, though.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
19:22 / 02.05.06
I'd like to hear more about the new evidence on finger length. I didn't know it was connected to prenatal testosterone levels. Ganesh, if you're willing, perhaps you could PM or post some relevant articles?

(Or I'll look them up myself when I have time.)
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
19:23 / 02.05.06
Not as a snarky thing, but in an attempt to demonstrate how really difficult it is to categorise people as anything in their infinite variety and diversity. But this is why I'm in the humanities and try to avoid scientists of sex at all costs.

Bad scientists of sex, please. To do science properly we must know when to approximate, and when approximation will not work. It is possible to make large scale categorisations of people, and to use them meaningfully - it just needs to be borne in mind that they are not literally and completely true, that the map so created is not necessarily the entire territory in exact detail, but is an approximation to reality, as all maps are.

Heterocentrism
I wouldn't care less if someone assumed I had a girlfriend, so long as I understood that they wouldn't mind, they wouldn't react badly if I said "no, actually, I have a boyfriend". Or vice versa, come to that. I don't think it's unreasonable in the least to assume that a random person you meet is more likely to have a partner of the opposite sex, and to ask them accordingly. I do think it's unreasonable to assume that they should have a partner of the opposite sex.
It might perhaps be preferable for someone to use gender-neutral terminology, but that does not imply that someone who is not using such terms is being in any way discriminatory (or - in my view, which I gather isn't quite kosher - that they're employing 'heterosexual privilege'.)
 
 
Ganesh
19:26 / 02.05.06
I'd like to hear more about the new evidence on finger length. I didn't know it was connected to prenatal testosterone levels. Ganesh, if you're willing, perhaps you could PM or post some relevant articles?

(Or I'll look them up myself when I have time.)

You might have to do a search for '2D4D' or 'finger length gender' or something, Disco. I'm afraid I'm no longer up to date with the literature. I seem to remember a lot of it was by one Dr Marc Breedlove (crazy name, probably crazy guy) from a California university - if that's any help.

Sorry!
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
19:27 / 02.05.06
I'd also like to see any links or points on finger length.

(edit)

Here's the obvious Wiki link.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
19:33 / 02.05.06
Ok, how many gay friends=plenty? Having to call out like 8 out of 10 people at my workplace (I don't know if it's just my workplace or all of North Florida) for homophobic remarks, I often hear that I'm being too sensitive, and that the person who made the comment has plenty of gay friends. So, how many gay friends=plenty, and at what number are you allowed to make homophobic comments without people calling you out on it?
 
 
Ganesh
19:34 / 02.05.06
Google it, folks. It's tres Googleable. And I'm tres lazy.
 
 
Lurid Archive
19:45 / 02.05.06
But I am trying to deconstruct your assumption that it's possible to find 'reliable figures', as if sexual desire and sexual pleasure are all in static, definable categories and that asking someone the question, "What is your sexual orientation?" will yield a straight-forward, honest answer - MD

This is the arts/science type of divide again, and I guess we aren't going to get much by going further down this line.

I gues I just want to know why it's important to know you can make that judgment, Lurid.

Not sure exactly what you are asking....but my quick answer would be that it isn't, particularly. I think that finding out about human sexuality is important and there are various ways to do this. I'm not saying that any are obviously better than others, but you haven't really convinced me that in a US/European context at least, it is illegitimate to ask how many people identify/practice as homosexual/heterosexual/bisexual (to put it very, very simply). Your argument seems to me to rely on some truisms to do with the impossibility of perfect knowledge and precision...you are more or less getting me to examine a position I don't actually hold. We should probably move on, though, as I think this is largely a dead end.

I actually would a little bit, yeah. It's one of those things, though, where I'm genuinely torn between mentioning it (and thus 'making an issue' and making the other person uncomfortable) and swallowing my irritation. - Nesh

I'm slightly surprised...not at the irritation so much, but the temptation to 'make an issue of it'. I deliberately tried to make it a little personal, since I think that hypotheticals dealing with faceless homosexual talking to faceless heterosexual can be a little too far removed from actual experience. As a heterosexual on the receiving end of a little finger wagging, I can imagine making a slightly embarrassed apology without a problem, but I'd definitely interpret a continued rebuke as a strong rebuff, on a first meeting or thereabouts. Thats interesting, in that I am probably underestimating the level of irritation you would feel.
 
 
Ganesh
19:49 / 02.05.06
Thats interesting, in that I am probably underestimating the level of irritation you would feel.

Well, you know me and you know I'm a bit of a compromise-addict; I'll generally look more for common ground than disagreement. It irritates, but it's on the borderline of mention-it and swallow-it, and I usually go with the latter. If I were braver (cf. Stuart in Queer As Folk) I'd be more bullish about it, and not worry about discomfiting the 'assumer'.

I'm sure I started a thread on this once. I'll have a look for it.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
19:50 / 02.05.06
I think I get what you're saying Lurid. We've always been taught that gays are a minority, so just based on the odds we kinda assume being straight as a kind of default until we learn otherwise, again just based on a numbers thing. I think we should be careful not to let the numbers thing make is think that the majority of people should be straight.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
19:53 / 02.05.06
Also with the default assumption about most people being straight, I would have no problem with being taken to task about a wrong assumption. If assuming everyone is straight by default is a kind of lazy thinking, then I would definately take a tongue lashing if I upset someone, try to explain my thinking, and apologise if I made anyone uncomfortable.
 
 
Cherielabombe
19:54 / 02.05.06
Re: Assuming someone has an opposite-sex partner. I actually did this myself a few years back when I first moved to England. I had recently started my job, and was out with my work colleagues, one of whom was talking about a fight she was having with her partner, and was it going to work out? But she LOVED her, etc. etc. She kept using the pronoun "she" but I didn't even notice it - I just didn't even notice and I kept answering/talking about her partner as "he," until she said, "Um, I'm talking about my GIRLfriend." I really did feel horrible and kind of horrified at my own personal "tyranny of heteronormativity" afterwards. I now try to be really aware of this one.. never assume you know who your colleagues/etc. are sleeping with.
 
 
stabbystabby
20:59 / 02.05.06
heh heh.... *prunt*

i've gotten into the habit of assuming nothing. My gaydar is broken anyway, so i find it safer to use gender neutral terms till i get to know them better.
 
 
alejandrodelloco
22:19 / 02.05.06
What do you all think of overwhelming heterocentrism causing people who are, in fact, gay, to go through the motions of heteronormative life to an often emotionally damaging end (for everyone involved)?

I am kind of mentioning this thinking of my grandfather who just died. He was remembered as emotionally distant, and, although it has never been truly confirmed, was most likely gay the whole time (I would go through the reasons and all but it is kind of private and would really be offtopic)? His relationship with the rest of the family left a lot of people worse for wear, esp. my dad, aunts and uncles.

I guess the real question is, how much do you think heterocentrism casues people to not really figure out how they identify?
 
 
matthew.
22:28 / 02.05.06
Does having a gay writer make a book "gay fiction"?

No and no.

eg. Clive Barker, Chuck Palahniuk (bisexual) and Douglas Coupland are all big names who are openly gay and write "mainstream" fiction that does not involve gay themes.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
01:19 / 03.05.06
Bard, here's a thread Matt started in the Books Forum a while back that ruminates upon the themes you've delineated and includes a link to more of the same.

Thanks, Xoc. Much appreciated.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
02:04 / 03.05.06
Matt: eg. Clive Barker, Chuck Palahniuk (bisexual) and Douglas Coupland are all big names who are openly gay and write "mainstream" fiction that does not involve gay themes.

Aside: I remember that one of the "About the Author" paragraphs for Clive Barker actually referred to his "partner," which seemed notable to me because for the most part, homosexual writers are never listed in terms of relationship status; straight writers always "live with [his/her] [wife/husband]," but with homosexuals they apparently live completely alone even if they are publicly coupled.

But, what exactly are "gay themes?" Mostly they're just regular old themes that straight people have to deal with cropping up in their fiction. And I'm fairly certain there have been queer Barker characters and ... ugh! I find the whole notion of segmenting off something as "gay fiction" just doesn't make any sense to me, because the borders are so blurry. It's tempting to start pointing out "straight themes" and heterosexual fiction not as the absence of gayness but as the presence of heterosexuality, just to see what brain farts are caused by that.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
02:31 / 03.05.06
Barker has indeed had gay characters... I've often wondered, with regards to the "gay fiction" thing, whether the reason Sacrament (imho CB's best novel) is largely underrated is that it has a gay lead character, which may have worked against it with his usual audience. I'm not sure if they could have marketed it as "gay fiction", though, what with it being primarily a horror novel and therefore already having "its own shelf".
 
  

Page: 1(2)3456

 
  
Add Your Reply