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Sure I can't tempt you with that grown-up smoothie, Nick? Just a taste? How about some grown-up lemonade?
It means exactly what it says. Power works through individuals in various ways. One way that power works through individuals is by orientation to become a more effective conduit of power. "Straight" is a highly effective conduit of power, because it has an awful lot of circuitry built up behind it to conduct more effectively. As we have learned from the "A question for the pride parade people", queer sexualities get to express the sort of entitlement that straight sexualities (plural, although the natural impulse of the straightening imperative is to create a set of polar oppositions between "straight" and "gay" or "straight" and "queer", or in this particular case "straight" and "bisexual") get to channel pretty much all the time (quo vide Ganesh's sudden ability to wolf-whistle the motorcycle cops, and thus cross-refer the "Oh, you are naughty, but I like you" thread - I love it when a plan comes together) only on one day a year along a predetermined route.
Now.
"Emotionally pure" means, as I may have implied above, exactly that. Cameron's friend is unsullied by the emotional attachments to other women (dodgy there, but for the sake of economy we move on), or indeed the social and legal attachment of marriage, but fortunately that decision is largely out of her hands anyway, that would mark her out as "bisexual" or, if she lacked the redemptive capacity to attach emotionally to men (dodgy there, but for the sake of economy we move on), "lesbian", and certainly "queerosexual".
So, Prunce, Cameron's mate was not necessarily "boasting" - I have, as you say, no idea of the context. She was, however, promptly and clearly establishing that any attempts to place her in the "bisexual" set, where the instinctive societal expression of power through sexuality becomes complicated and resisted, would be invalid. She lacks the component to be thus identified - think of it as a rheostat, if it helps.
That's not a criticism of her, theories of sexuality extending beyond the close focus on a single conversation in a single bar (the Head Shop, no postcode). It's a comment on how sexuality may be structured, and how individuals fit and are fitted within that structure.
Although I am again interested that "yes, she's being bloody stupid" is not considered judgemental, but when the structures informing the concept of bisexuality are scrutinised it becomes suddenly unfair...not really thought about the implications of that yet. |
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