BARBELITH underground
 

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


Underground > Head Shop >

Queterosexual Rises From the Ashes

  
  

Page: (1)2

 
 
Disco is My Class War
02:47 / 23.07.01
The lovely Mr Haus requested that I repost some of the Quetero thread.... There are three pages, and as I'm not keen to decide which is more important, I'll post the lot up here.

Alki Pepoithos' initial post was thus:

Rollo Kin has called them "Boring Lesbian Boys". Elsewhere, people have mentioned "queer heterosexuality" as a concept, or "queering heterosexuality" as a process.

So the question I'd like to see discussed, although I realsie that the question itself may have to be reexamined, reshaped, poked and prodded (and will probably love it, the dirty switch), is something along the lines of:
What is a queer heterosexual?

What constitutes "queer heterosexual activity"? Is it a label applied by themselves to heterosexuals, who want to distance themselves from traditional standards of heterosexual male virtue, or is there a more scientific definition?

Also, it seems to be being applied primarily in discussions I have come across to men. Is this pure coincidence, or is there a reason? Is male heterosexuality more open to "queering"? Or is it just that heterosexual men are less comfortable with the term "bisexual", and have to invent a new club to belong to?

And, leading on from that, what distinguishes a "queer heterosexual" from a bisexual man or woman? Is an attraction to both genders (assuming there are actually two genders) a necessary element of queer heterosexuality, or is there something else going on entirely?

I'm still trying to work out what I think about this, but would be eager to hear whether there is any sort of chapter and verse on it which I should be reading, or what members of Barbelith thought.

Cranky Jackie Sour Pants replied:

I think the phrase 'queer heterosexual' dates from the beginning of 'queer studies' in the academy - so around the time teresa de lauretis edited the famous 'queer' issue of _differences_. the idea was that the word 'queer' wouldn't essentialise identity categories like 'gay and lesbian studies' tended to, but would work to indicate a relation of difference from or subversion of established, dominant categories. from there, it was a short step to the idea that there were subversive kinds of heterosexuality that could be called queer.

i've never known anybody to identify as a queer heterosexual - it sounds a bit like, 'might be bi but i've never had a same sex partner'. and i have seen a few pretty vitriolic debates in uni queer departments and queer theory mailing lists on this question. are queer heterosexuals the allies of lesbigaytranspeople, or are they just grabbing for gay glamour without any real commitment to queer issues, or dealing with the oppression queer queers face.

on the other hand, i can think of a few hets i'd be willing to call queer - kathy acker, karen finley, diamanda galas, uh... they're lives and work were dedicated to destabilising sexual norms regardless of who they fucked. i'm not surprised to find no men on this list, which isn't to say they don't exist, but that straight men don't have much motivation for upsetting the sexual status quo.

but i'm curious if this is what the people who mentioned queer hets in the queer sex and anarchism thread meant.

Deva replied

What I connect 'queer het' with is a guy called Calvin Thomas (straight male academic) who mentioned it in a paper he gave at a conference a year or so ago. He's written a couple of books on queering male heterosexuality which I haven't read yet, but I have to soon so if this topic's still open I'll tell you about 'em.

As I recall, he talked mostly about the fact that male heterosexuality configures the body around "hard dick, closed anus" and how straight men need to stop doing that. Then it got hardcore Derridean, and it was 9 in the morning, so I can't remember what else he said: something about shit and writing. The depressing thing was that all the questioning he got was from scared straight boys saying "Are you saying I have to take it up the arse?"

For me the point of queer heterosexuality is undoing the "compulsory" bit of "compulsory heterosexuality". Given (for the sake of argument) that there are some people who have sex only with people of the opposite sex, queering their sexuality would be a way of subverting het norms from within, in terms of sexual practices, the way men & women interact in sexual/romantic relationships, organization of childcare, etc, etc. Rethinking their relationship to privilege.

And Tannhauser responded:

After a quick google search, I think the relevant article may be called "Straight with a twist: Queer Theory and the subject of Heterosexuality", but I'm buggered if I can find it online. Hardy har har.

The book of the same name also contains the tantalisingly-titled "How I Became a Queer Heterosexual" by Clyde Smith, a name I am not familiar with...

Theory Patrol Go, anyone?

quiz kid said: (where is he, anyhow? or is he behind a new suit? hmmmm)

If there is a queer heterosexuality, and the examples provided give me some sense of what is implied by the term, then I'm presuming there's room for straight homosexuality too. A defining characteristic of which would presumably be a belief that sexuality doesn't go hand in hand with any particular perception of culture. Many gay Conservatives would come into this category. And it leads me to think that the notion of queer used here is strongly associated with neophilia and neophobia, ie degree of attraction to novelty.

Loz begged the question:

Is 'Queer Heterosexuality' the more thoughful, older sibling of 'bi-try'?

And Jackie responded

Some people definitely understand this argument to imply the possibility of straight homos, although I think that misses the point a bit. At least implicit in the whole queer idea is the assumption that all gay (and i mean gay men, gay women, and the rest of us) sex tends to undermine dominant ideals about sex, sexual identity, etc; and that insofar as one is recognised as belonging to categories which undermine such dominant ideas, one is queer. It has to do, specifically, with the practice of sexual politics, and only secondarily with theoretical sexual politics (what you believe about sex) and, somewhere down the line, properly "political" politics (as in your comment on conservative gays).

I'm critical of the "straight gays" idea because it seems to completely detach any of these terms from any relation to sexual practice and make them happily free-floating meaningless shite, which is the standard critique of the term 'queer'. The idea of queer hets looking down on straight gays for their sexual politics strikes me as little more than a recuperation of homophobia for politically progressive straight people.

Deva replied:


Originally posted by Jackie Brat:
quote:I'm critical of the "straight gays" idea because it seems to completely detach any of these terms from any relation to sexual practice and make them happily free-floating meaningless shite, which is the standard critique of the term 'queer'. The idea of queer hets looking down on straight gays for their sexual politics strikes me as little more than a recuperation of homophobia for politically progressive straight people.

Which is an excellent point, and a real danger.

But isn't there a danger on the other side, if one ends up defining people - quasi-legalistically - *only* by what gender their sexual partners are? It seems to me that 'queer' is only detached from "actual sexual practices" if you define "actual sexual practices" around "the gender of one's sexual partner". Is this the most important thing about sexual practices - rather than, for example, consciously and deliberately resisting being party to sexism/homophobia, or setting up new ways to relate sexually to other people?

Identity politics scares me. 'Queer' seems to me to be a good strategic term for creating alliances - and would a queer straight person perhaps not make a better political ally than a closeted gay Tory, in some circumstances? Certainly, though, this sort of strategic/alliance-based nomination should not blur specificity, in that the gender of one's partner makes a lot of difference in terms of (eg) being able to grieve publicly, marry, inherit, adopt... But then so does being celibate, single, non-monogamous, or a bunch of other stuff which isn't necessarily "gay".
 
 
Disco is My Class War
03:04 / 23.07.01
Naked Flame joined in:

is this me?

i'm a male who loves women, thinks men's bodies are frequently wonderful but doesnt want to sleep with them, and who hates doing the Lads Thing (shudder.) i value my strength and my softness equally. sometimes i want to pogo to Soundgarden, and sometimes I want to get all heartbreaky listening to Jeff Buckley at 4am. I've found that a mutual wariness seems to exist between me and the male alpha-het types I come across, but never anything approaching hate. in terms of actual shagging, i'd say i'm approaching the antithesis of that 'hard dick, closed anus' type, and i've become very aware in the last few years that some of my partners have had a problem with me not being a 'real man'... though others have loved it

i see what the allegedly normal world seems to think a man is and i know that isnt me they're talking about... i've been called an honorary woman by several of my female friends. that would make me a lesbian trapped in a man's body (which sounds suspiciously like a FHM/Loaded reader talking, I know) except for the fact that I dont feel trapped, I like it in here.

at root, isn't the crux of the thing the fact that the binaries of male/female and straight/gay only give us 4 sexual categories (bi and transgender giving us the ability to place people in 2 of these at once) when in reality there should be, oh, 6 billion? i count myself lucky in that i've not had to battle for the right to be myself like some have. I realise, though that without the past centurys engagement with queer theory (and practice!) i might well never have accepted my own sexual identity: if the spectrum of gender constructs consisted only of man woman goodsex badsex i think i would have probably felt like i was wrong, mismade, freakish all my life like i did in my teens. the gay men and women in my life taught me to love myself for myself, not for my ability to conform.

Alki Pepoithis said:

This is a bit of a diversion. My instinct was to disagree with Trees about try-bi for just the reason above - that queer heterosexuals presumably don't want to sleep with people of the same sex, or they would in fact be bisexual. But I'm not sure it is actually that precise. It might be more accurate to say that the condition of queer heterosexuality has no political or ideological problems with the idea of bisexuality, but are generally not pysically attracted to their own sex. Whether that is actually a relevant distinction I'm not sure about. Certainly I have encountered people who self-define as heterosexual who will play with boys/girls without any particular soul-searching and if conditions are right...

But, speaking of distinctions, NakedFlame himself uses the term "antithesis". He is talking (and, you know, correct me if my hot little hand is wrapped firmly around the wrong end of the stick) about being a queer heterosexual as a harmonization of polarity. So, "strength and softness", "Real Man/honorary woman" "Admiring of male bodies/lesbian in male body".

Which is to say, we're envisioning queering heterosexuality as blending gender characteristics, but assuming that there are clearly-delieneated, gender-specific characteristics to throw into the mix. Which maybe brings in questions of performativity and drag - being synthetic (acknowledging the double meaning) as a natural (acknowledging the double meaning) state.

What do people think?

and then zzzenith (now the Fly Boy) said:

Perhaps we shouldn't be asking 'what is a queer heterosexual?' (or in NakedFlame and I'm sure a few other people here's case, 'am I a queer heterosexual?'), but rather, 'what would queer heterosexual sex consist of?'. What is a queer heterosexual act/practice? Presumably it has to take place between a (biologically defined) woman and a (biologically defined) man, but does it also have to involve some kind of blurring of society's established gender roles, or can it simply be any kind of sexual practice which society would deem perverted and thus 'queer'?

For example: if a woman sodomises a man with a strap-on, is that queer sex? If the man plays the 'boy' role and the woman a non-femme 'master' in BDSM play, does that count?

Huh - look at the way I've phrased that last question without really thinking about it: "does that count?" - quite telling. This could easily descend into a competition... who's more quetero? I think the neophilia question is definitely an issue here: is 'queer heterosexuality' a useful label for those who genuinely don't fit in anywhere else to self-identify with - or is it just another way for pseudo-intellectual, educated, liberal straight guys to kid themselves that they're part of one of those strange, shiny, seductively marginal subcultures?

This is a fascinating topic, albeit one I'm slightly wary of... because I'm simultaneously suspicious of the term 'queer heterosexuality', particularly as and when used by straight men for the reasons given by others above, and yet at the same time I myself am very attracted by the idea. The 'queer heterosexual' seems to me a concept which functions perfectly well in theory, but it breaks down and becomes very complicated and involved as soon as people actually start using the term to describe themselves or others.

As for straight homosexuality... I'm reminded of Stuart's line in Queer As Folk:
"You're not queer, Vince. You're just a straight man who fucks other men." But I always thought that the irony there was that divorced from the actual practice of sex, all Stuart's definition of queer seems to entail is being a hedonistic sexual predator...

To which Ganesh replied with a one-liner:

'Straight-acting'...?

Tannhauser said:

But, at least at one stage in the definition of heteronormative masculinity, hedonistic sexual predation is surely the order of the day. Thus, as Ganesh arguably and constructively says, lovely Aiden Gillen is "straight-acting".

Heterosexual man as predator and heterosexual woman as prey (see the Sadie Hawkins dance in "In the name of Lust.." in the Conversation - a moment of inversion of the "natural" order) is one of the normative power relations that "queer heterosexuality" (and bloody hell, there's a neologism - props to Adrian on that score) must go gunning for as a matter of priority.

Or a meringue?

And then zzzenith said:

I thought that's what my last paragraph was saying/implying: obviously I didn't make myself very clear. Stuart puts forward the view that Vince isn't really 'queer' because he's conservative, domesticated, and reasonable happy to try to fit into normative society. But the irony here is that Stuart's behaviour, removed from the actual practice of who he has sex with, is just that of the alpha male who can't grow up and settle down.

Aaaaanyway, apologies to those of you not familiar with the UK QAF, let's get back to queterosexuals...

and added soon after:

Originally posted by Tannhauser:
quote:Heterosexual man as predator and heterosexual woman as prey... is one of the normative power relations that "queer heterosexuality"... must go gunning for as a matter of priority.

Interesting. How does one actually go gunning for a situation is which one is gunned for?

More to the point, is this really a worthwhile, politicised pursuit? Or just a thrillseeking fantasy for immasculated men? Or both?

plumbitch then joined the conversation:

Never heard anyone self-identify as queer het either, possibly because as jacky points out, it's a pretty conflicted/controversial term in a lot of quarters... suspect it's a label that most often would garner you either hostility or incomprehension. which is not to say it shouldn't be used...

One area where these ideas might have agency is on the power relations issue, notions of q.h perhaps have the possibility to examine and problematise the eroticising of difference implicit in compulsory heterosexuality. an attempt within a hetero sexual practice/context (although i'm aware this is a dodgy area to define) try to work without this could possibly be considered a queer(ing) heterosexuality.

Which is where A.P's useful points on the assumptions of gendered differences prexisting in order to be elided perhaps come in...

Seems to be a general sense in which we're more comfortable applying the term to acts and strategy (contingencies?) than as a naming position...

sorry, blathering through flu...

That's it for now. More to follow when I find a free rego code for my SmartWrap program... if anyone has one I'd really appreciate it!
 
 
deletia
10:27 / 24.07.01
Something that has struck me just now - Syn said in the Conversation that he was a queterosexual, but didn't want to confuse people with technical terms.

And yet, as far as I know, queterosexual is pretty much a Barbespecific term. It doesn't turn up anywhere else on Google, anyway...

Is there an earlier provenance? And if so, is there likely to be a conceptual disjunction between one and t'other?
 
 
grant
15:12 / 24.07.01
Interestingly (or not), I get these links from a search for "quetero":

King Snakes

A Mexican state

And a toss-off reference to "quetero panache" in an article on pro-wrestling, porn & heavy metal.

Nothing like
this, though.

On the other hand, "queer-hetero" brings up plenty of stuff, including
this GayWired article on the phenomenon, while "queer-het" brings up this Dan Savage column.

It's the throwaway reference that gets me, though. It might be the term is under Google's radar.

Lemme see something....

Nah, it doesn't turn up on Salon, either.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:48 / 24.07.01
From the Dan Savage column:

quote:If a guy intentionally has sex with a "chick with a dick," does that make him gay? Or does this fall under the umbrella of harmless hetero "experimentation"? By the way, I am straight. Honest!

Messed Around


"No, 'intentionally' having sex with a 'chick with a dick' doesn't make you gay," said Kate Bornstein, a male-to-female transsexual and author of the terrific book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us and, more recently, My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely (both from Routledge Press). "It means he has a leaning toward people who have a mix going on, gender-wise, and he leans toward a very specific mix. It might make him a transhag or a transfag, but not a gay man."

Bornstein felt that you should worry less about how you're perceived by others, and more about your own happiness. "Gay men want to fuck other gay men, period," Bornstein added. "Is a chick with a dick a gay man? No." What is a guy into chicks with dicks? "He might be a queer het man. That's a good category for straight men who want to explore their options. That's what queer is all about: it allows room for exploration of desire and identity. If this man is attracted to a chick with a dick, does it make him a gay man? No. Does it make him queer? Yes. Is he any less het? No. Am I speaking in contradictions? Yes."

Eeeeeeen-teresting. Bornstein rocks.
 
 
deletia
15:53 / 24.07.01
I'm going to call my first child Quetero Panache.
 
 
Ierne
16:36 / 24.07.01
If this man is attracted to a chick with a dick, does it make him a gay man? No. Does it make him queer? Yes. Is he any less het? No. Am I speaking in contradictions? Yes.

And what about all the women out there who dig "chicks with dicks"?
 
 
grant
17:42 / 24.07.01
Two more bits from Salon:

Heteroflexibility by laurie essig:

quote:Heteroflexibility is the newest permutation of sexual identity. According to my students, a person uses heteroflexibility in the first person, as in "I'm heteroflexible." This means that the person has or intends to have a primarily heterosexual lifestyle, with a primary sexual and emotional attachment to someone of the opposite sex. But that person remains open to sexual encounters and even relationships with persons of the same sex. It is a rejection of bisexuality since the inevitable question that comes up in bisexuality is one of preference, and the preference of the heteroflexible is quite clear.

Heteroflexible, I am told, is a lighthearted attempt to stick with heterosexual identification while still "getting in on the fun of homosexual pleasures." One student, Lisa, explained it like this: "Heteroflexibility is Ally McBeal kissing Ling." I pretended I knew what she was talking about, but of course I didn't (and not just because I don't watch television).


and

Straight Fairies by carol lloyd:

quote:"SNAGs [Sensitive New Age Guys] are kind but never wicked -- you know, the cool kind of 'wicked.' Straight fairies are wicked because they understand irony. SNAGs tend towards Buddhism and Eastern stuff, but Straight Fairies are either secular or pagan. SNAGs may be a necessary step in the disintegration of macho consciousness, but they're so uncomfortable with their masculinity that they're obsessed with it. The straight fairies, in contrast, are more interested in a good gossip session than in worshipping the sacred phallus or moaning about their fathers. They mix up feminine and masculine qualities in a more fluid, irreverent way. We say all this makes them 'seem gay.' But such statements only attest to the fact that 'straight males' still describes a veritable prison of personality.

"Straight Fairies have broken free from the shackles of playing the straight men to embrace the contradictions inherent in the fiction of gender."
 
 
Cherry Bomb
17:58 / 24.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Ierne:
[b]
And what about all the women out there who dig "chicks with dicks"?

Right on!! >>raises fist in the air<<

This is an interesting discussion, and one I'm not sure if I can articulate my own thoughts on properly. While I've always been attracted to both men and women, I've also always been way way more attracted to men. In fact, to my personal sadness I find the older I become, the less interested sexually I am in women, and the more sexually interested I am in men. For a while I identified with bi, but I think if I'm really honest I'm straight with some dyke tendencies, and the older I get, the straighter I feel. Which to me is a damn shame because I want to keep that door open. Does that make sense? The other thing too is perhaps I just have some unconscious homophobia that gets in the way of my exploring my lesbian side more deeply. Who knows? I don't. All I know is I refuse to hide any thing I feel sexually. I think my journey as a sexual being should be a fluid one, and wherever it takes me, it takes me.

Now, I definitely straight-identify, and yet I would say that one of my number one turn-ons remains genderfucks. Chicks with dicks, boys in skirts, girls who look like boys, boys who look like girls - that's always been a turn-on. I'd love to Johnny Depp and I'd love to do Fanny. Would THIS be "queterosexual?" Is it part of it? Or is it more?

As a fairly hetero female, I've always been interested in queer causes and have been at least somewhat involved with the queer community since I was in high school. At one point, I guess I was a fag hag. That was before I was comfortable with my sexuality, I'd say. Now I hang with the straights and I hang with the queers and my best pal is a gay Brit who's closeted in England but can be as out as he wants here in the States and I doubt he'll ever go back. He says to me, "You're not a fag HAG, but you're definitely a fag magnet."


One of the most common things I have said to me is "You are a gay man in a woman's body" - and believe me there is a lot of truth to this statement, in regard to my attitudes towards sex and sexuality.

Is this queterosexuality? Or something close? 'Cuz fuck if I know..
 
 
Cop Killer
07:08 / 26.07.01
I don't know about all this queterosexual mumbo jumbo. As of late I've decided to drop any prefixes and term myself as "sexual." I like action, it doesn't really matter all that much to me where it comes from as long as that person is somewhat attractive and has an enjoyable personality (alcohol will get rid of the second standard quite regularly). In case any of you were wondering, I have gotten with guys (Cherry Bomb's gay English friend being one of them) and I have enjoyed getting with guys; I do also enjoy getting with girls, I suppose this would make me bisexual, but lately it seems that the term can apply to almost anyone and it sounds much cooler to say, "I'm just sexual."
 
 
Ierne
13:01 / 26.07.01
Cop Killer, you've made my day. Thank you.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
07:12 / 27.07.01
Yeah, what about chicks with dicks who dig
1. chicks with dicks
2. queer boys
3. anyone, baically, who likes weird sex
4. impressionable young things

i'm still convinced that the visibility of this 'queerness' is somehow important, though. (that wa a reference to a section of the old thread i haven't postd up... do people remember? i'll post it all soon, promise.)
 
 
deletia
07:21 / 27.07.01
One thing that I am finding interesting is that there are so many labels springing up to describe either men who are positioned as possessing "unmanly" traits, or people who are essentially heterosexual, but intermittently sleep with people of the same sex.

Neither of which necessarily demands a new terminology in and of themselves. Notable also that the original thread got a fair number of highly personal contributions, primarily from men, asserting an antithesis with the institutions of heterosexual "manhood".

It seems quite fitting if there is no complete answer to the original question...
 
 
deletia
07:23 / 27.07.01
Mind you, does anybody here feel vaguely nauseous when confronted with "heteroflexibility"?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
07:49 / 27.07.01
yep, for various reasons I suspect.

firstly, a la the 'sex against the wall' thread, it seems to me to be a neat, stable label for something that maybe shouldn't be a stable notion. Allows people to self-identify/identify others with a closed position. And therefore to be uncritical about it?

Also thus making those who identify with it easily packaged and commodified , doesn't sound like a term with much possibility for confusion, resistance, or that wants this. Don't know why I think this, gut feeling as much as anything.

quote:Yeah, what about chicks with dicks who dig
1. chicks with dicks
2. queer boys
3. anyone, basically, who likes weird sex
4. impressionable young things

i'd add
1a. chicks with dicks who self-identify as straight but like to fuck their boys?
and their similarly 'straight' partners?


and can't think striaght right now (ha!), but I suggest this in thinking that considering what 'weird sex' constitutes could be useful...

Are there practices, that are queering in themselves, whether that's due to sensation, notions of positioning, subcultural association... practices that can 'queer' the particpants, hetero or otherwise?

I dimly remember agreeing with Rosa's point about display, and tying it to a notion that one possible strategy would be to emphasise the sex in heterosex, to make heterosexuality equal 'dirty and depraved and weird', at least as 'defined by their sexual practice' as homosexuality, for example...

And I know that this is how the original argument was framed, but in the last thread there was a typical concentration on male sexuality and exploration, as far as I can remember, in the discussion here, experiential info provided and the resources/links people provided... can't shake another hunch feeling that alot of these definitions are concerned with male sexuality and flexibility, men redefining themselves... feels like there are assumptions about the unimportance/non-existence, in terms of being self-defined of female sexuality floating at the fringes of things like 'heteroflexibility', various of the media stuff on this...

at which point I'd like to say yay to cherry for her post...

aggg, tired and incoherent. someone make sense of my blatherings? fucking insomnia.

but Rosa, where do I get an impressionable young thing?

[ 27-07-2001: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:22 / 27.07.01
Hang around outside prep schools.

quote:Originally posted by Lick my plums, bitch.:
doesn't sound like a term with much possibility for confusion, resistance, or that wants this. Don't know why I think this, gut feeling as much as anything.

I think it's partly to do with the nuances of language... "heteroflexible" makes me think 'yuck' because it puts the identity emphasis squarely on the 'hetero' part, with allowances for the freedom to dabble here and there on the side. Equally, no disrespect to Cop Killer but I don't think 'sexual' is very useful either - it's just not a term that's at all troubling or disruptive to the heterosexual matrix/status quo, because most people will take 'sexual' to mean 'heterosexual' by default.

Subtle linguistic difference is also the reason why I'm not very comfortable with people identifying as 'queterosexual' unless it's in jest or with some kind of reservation. 'Queer het' I have no problem with (and I like what the apparent oxymoron suggests), but I think that if you're going to identify as such, you have to at least have to deal with calling yourself 'queer' and facing whatever reaction that may get. When that word is elided into 'queterosexual', it loses a lot of its power and impact, leading me to suspect that it's just a word for straight boys who need some way of distancing themselves from the rough kids who used to beat them up after school...

Edit: and of course, there I go talking mostly about the male perspective again. Hmmm.

[ 27-07-2001: Message edited by: The Flyboy ]
 
 
pantone 292
15:49 / 27.07.01
heteroflexible - yes, the word itself echoes heterosexual too much and sounds like a comfortable accommodation of a few sexual perks that remains ignorant of any political aspects.
queterosexual I like the sounds of poetically - and that aspect draws me to the proliferation of new names, but politically I'm more inclined to agree with Zen's point - just call yourself queer het - or indeed why not just identify as queer? And as Rosa says the question of visibility is crucial - in this vein those people in LTR's who 'are' [oh, the devil of the ontological verb 'to be' is getting right in my way of upsetting normative sex/gender assumptions] 'men' and 'women' - i.e. who look het but desire any degree of identity as or solidarity with queers have to [I know I sound programmatic...] do what they can not to just assume str8 privilege [not getting married would be no.1 on my list there] in their day to day encounters with the world.
 
 
grant
18:24 / 27.07.01
quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Jericho:
Mind you, does anybody here feel vaguely nauseous when confronted with "heteroflexibility"?

Not nauseous as much as suppressing an urge to sneer.
 
 
Mordant Carnival
19:03 / 27.07.01
ARE YOU CALLING ME A-

I dunno, I dunno. So many questions.

What's so wrong with being a bi-try- have we all got to make our minds up at puberty and then stick with it, forever? Is BDSM "queer?" What if a bloke does take it from his prosthetically enchanced missus and likes it? What if she likes it? Is it more queer for a woman to do a woman with a strap-on, or to do a man? Is femininity somehow inherently more "queer" than masculinity? If I start going around calling myself queterosexual, does that make me more or less of a hypocrite than our architypal closet-dwelling Tory? What is femininity/masculinity, when you get right down to it? What do we mean when we say male or female? Does my chronic lifelong disinterest in establishing a stable gender identity make me "queer," or just androgynous? Or maybe nothing special at all?
 
 
Ganesh
09:17 / 28.07.01
Sometimes, rather than trying to provide a soundbite description of what you are, it's easier to describe yourself in terms of what you like ie. 'I like to play tying up games with older men dressed in leather' rather than 'I'm a predominantly homosexual, daddy-chasing bondo-leather fetishist (see appendices I-VI)'...
 
 
Cop Killer
09:17 / 28.07.01
quote:Originally posted by The Flyboy:
Equally, no disrespect to Cop Killer but I don't think 'sexual' is very useful either - it's just not a term that's at all troubling or disruptive to the heterosexual matrix/status quo, because most people will take 'sexual' to mean 'heterosexual' by default.


I have to disagree with you, because around my parts (the south side of Chicago, breeding ground for Irish Catholic bigots [not saying that all Irishc Catholics are bigots, just the vast majority around me]), not identifying yourself as fully heterosexual is troubling to many people. I do have to explain it to a lot of people: "I'm not heterosexual, and I'm not homosexual, I'm just sexual." My good friend, DJ Oi, likes to say "I just like to cum," as far as his sexuality is concerned, I used to say it as well, but I think my new thing makes me sound more like a rockstar...
 
 
pantone 292
12:21 / 28.07.01
i see your point cop killer, context is everything...sometimes the tiniest thing flips people out...
 
 
Tom Coates
09:27 / 14.03.07
I've been re-exploring this space a little recently in an attempt to add some clarity to the Queer article on Wikipedia. Do we have any more material or references to concepts like 'straight' homosexuality and 'queer' heterosexuality?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
13:38 / 14.03.07
I don't think so, because this thread is ranked third when I google 'queer heterosexual'. Adjusting for wind and the strangeness of google, I'd say the thread already covers what exists quite nicely.
 
 
Ticker
17:36 / 14.03.07
The wiki seems to be framing pegging as a heterosexual act with no mention of alternative terminology.

It would be interesting to run a poll and find out how people view this activity in terms of labeling sexuality.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
18:04 / 14.03.07
I cannot really add much to the debate, but Google found me this, a New Statesman article from some 7 years ago.

Quote - Five years later, an entire new philosophy is in place. According to Alternative London, "Homosexual freaks in GLF [the Gay Liberation Front] do not use the usual pubs and clubs that straight homosexuals use, simply because they refuse to subscribe to the plastic exploitative scene created and perpetuated there." The term "freak" has become a badge of honour, and doctrinaire contempt - that curiously wounding "straight homosexuals" - is reserved for those who don't connect up their sexuality with a rejection of institutions and values.

Five years later in this instance meaning 1971.

Also this from nypress (about halfway down the page) "Welcome to the world of the Straight Homosexual, which Howard Stern regularly (and rightly) hammers, and which ex-Press managing editor Sam Sifton notoriously wrote about for Talk a while back. These guides are for and by men who pluck their eyebrows, wax their asses, then don a blue buttondown shirt and go "cruising" at coke-slut hellholes like Joe’s Pub or Veruka. These are for "men" who think Tara Reid is hot and who have secret white-knight fantasies about Lizzie Grubman."

Seems like "straight homosexual" here means somewhat what I thought "metrosexual" referred to.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
18:04 / 14.03.07
That last line referred to the NYpress quote...
 
 
Hydra vs Leviathan
22:18 / 01.10.07
I... think i might be a queer heterosexual, depending on your definition of "queer" and your definition of "heterosexual".

I'm physically male, but don't really identify as anything genderwise (Mordant Carnival's phrase "lifelong chronic disregard for establishing a stable gender identity" puts it well, although i don't think i have an unstable one either - i've just never thought of gender as a relevant category to me. It would be a bit like asking for an electric car's "miles per gallon"...).

I'm attracted to female bodies, but find myself particularly attracted to women who fit culturally "masculine" stereotypes in terms of clothing, make-up etc (this is particularly odd because i have an instinctive actual disgust at the sight of a naked male body). I'm also uncomfortable with identifying as "straight" because of the whole man=dominant woman=submissive thing that seems to define "straight" sexual culture. My fantasies tend to be in terms of women taking the dominant role in the sexual encounter (making the first move, defining what form the sex will take, etc), and the thought of anyone "submitting" to me (in any context, actually, not just a sexual context) is enough to make me want to run away screaming and/or vomiting. I'm not particularly interested in penetration; in fact, my "instinctive" views on it tend to approximate to those of the straw-man version of Andrea Dworkin or Sheila Jeffreys. I'm utterly disgusted by the idea of fathering children, and if i wasn't involuntarily celibate for disability-related reasons i would get myself sterilised as soon as possible.

(I have been referred to both as "a lesbian in a man's body" and as "a perfect candidate for the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM".)

However, i'm not sure if i'm comfortable identifying as "queer" either (even though i love queer theory, and one of the things i want most passionately in the world is the deconstruction of all social norms based on sex, gender or sexuality) - because there's always this voice in my head that says YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO CALL YOURSELF QUEER. YOU HAVE MALE PRIVILEGE. YOU HAVE STRAIGHT PRIVILEGE. IT WOULD BE AN INSULT TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE THAT PRIVILEGE TO APPROPRIATE THE TERM "QUEER" FROM THEM. Which i find very difficult to disagree with...

I'm kind of torn between a desire to actively reject straight privilege, by, i dunno, dressing in really flamboyantly stereotypically "queer" clothing or something, and the fact that that would require an effort of the sort i'm not really happy to make (as i don't really see why i should choose clothes for any reasons other than comfort and practicality, as i wouldn't expect anyone else to choose their clothes for any other reasons).

How best can one actively work towards the subversion and/or abolition of gender/sex norms when one's own sexual orientation happens to fit (on a shallow level) with those norms?
 
 
BioDynamo
17:21 / 03.11.07
As I recall, he talked mostly about the fact that male heterosexuality configures the body around "hard dick, closed anus" and how straight men need to stop doing that. Then it got hardcore Derridean, and it was 9 in the morning, so I can't remember what else he said: something about shit and writing. The depressing thing was that all the questioning he got was from scared straight boys saying "Are you saying I have to take it up the arse?"

In which case the answer, of course, is "yes". Ideally followed by a leer and "but don't worry, you'll get to like it, eventually."

A friend of mine, arranging a seminar on gender trouble a few years ago, claimed, in a very sloganeering, french style, that the anus of the heterosexual male is the key-hole to the current gender-questions.

Now we just need to find out what fits it...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:48 / 29.11.07
Every time I trip over that post, or one like it, I have one of those all too common "I want to hit 2001!Mordant repeatedly in the teeth with a pipe-wrench" moments. Holy cats, what a pile of crap.

I don't and never will identify as queer. I do not think a cisgendered person living in a heterosexual relationship can be "queer" unless he or she is actively working hir arse off to challenge those roles and concepts, not just in (semi-demi-maybe-sort-of) safe spaces like this one but in real life. In ways that have IRL consequences, good and bad. I would say that "my" heterosexuality is expressed in nontraditional ways, but the fact is I do not experience any form of oppression because of that. Nobody is going to beat me up for holding hands with my boyfriend. If I bring him home for Crimbo, we're not going to get kicked out of the house. I'm not going to get fired from my job if people find out about us.

Does my chronic lifelong disinterest in establishing a stable gender identity make me "queer..."?

In answer to my own question: No, it fucking well does not.

I don't have to go through horrendous stress every time I travel. I don't have to live in fear that my neighbours will find out that I am not living in my assigned gender. If I got injured in an accident, the paramedics would probably not sit around laughing and making jokes while I died. I will probably not be fired for living as a woman.* I will probably not be murdered for living as a woman.

Apart from anything else, I have a stable gender identity. It may chafe in all the wrong places, it may be a deeply painful space for me to occupy at times, but it's still my gender identity. I was still born and raised in it, and I still benefit from enormous privilege because of it--privilege I've never truly done anything to challenge. (Yeah, I wear combats and workboots, and have my hair cut short. %Oooh. Challenging%.) If I truly had the fluid, androgynous nature I pretended to in that post, I would have done or be doing something that meaningfully expressed or explored it. In fact, I don't and haven't taken any of the simplest measures to do so. I have not taken any steps to alter my body to a more androgynous shape (I'm talking about simple excercise here, not drugs or surgery), nor have I sought out spaces where I could express such an androgyny through behaviour or attire. In short, I have done absolutely nothing practical, paid no dues, nor even performed any acts of solidarity with real transgendered folk.

In short, whist I think "queterosexual" is a good idea, I don't think very many people are going to get there. I think that, barring a few genuine pioneers, it's going to be a comfy, cosy nook for hets who don't want to think of themselves as being like those nasty square people with their tight arses** but don't actually want to do anything that might make their lives more complicated.


*Arguably this is kind of a grey area, because I have been frequently and repeatedly turned down for jobs because of my gender. However, my experiences pale into insignificance beside those of transgendered people.

**Incidentally, does anyone else have a problem with the "penetration of the het male jacksie will fix everything" model? Aside from the fact that there are plenty of homophobes who like getting their prostates played with or their salad tossed, it feels too much like an ill-thought-out reverse version of "what you need is a good hard cock, bitch! I'm going to fuck you straight!"
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
23:05 / 29.11.07
I really don't think you need to be so hard on yourself, Mordant. More objectively, your last post seems to be in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I agree that heterosexual and cisgender privilege can be easy to take for granted - I think that's always been a consideration and a reason for caution in these discussions.

But queerness, like the Yellow Pages, is not just there for the nasty things in life. It's not defined by them. Being subjected to oppression is an all too common side-effect of being queer on this planet - but it's not an initiation process that one has to through to earn one's stripes.

I also think that - while anyone who said "penetration of the het male jacksie will fix everything" would clearly be in error - heterosexual men's relationship to their prostates is a pretty fundamentally fucked up thing in heterosexual masculine culture(s). It's this huge inadmissable thing - wait, bad choice of phrase - I mean to say that there is a kind of self-deception going at an immense scale. It's almost unscientific, really - denying the existence of a major potential source of sexual stimulation in the bodies of half the population. Sure, it's not for everyone. Sure, people can indulge and still be homophobes or possess any other number of unpleasant qualities. But for as long as it remains a taboo (sometimes even more of a taboo than homosexuality itself!), I think that's going to be a major contributor to heterosexual masculine cultures being fucked-up. I haven't ever seen an example of it being talked about in ways that evoke "she just needs a good hard fucking", either. I mean, not outside of specialist publications.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
23:18 / 29.11.07
WRT the matter of male penetration, you're probably right for the most part and you make some valid points. I'm responding more to a vibe conveyed by things like "the anus of the heterosexual male is the key-hole to the current gender-questions." Kind of a reflexive response to the risk of focusing in on one particular aspect/dynamic/activity as being pivotal... probably over-reacting.

WRT "being too hard..." You know, I honestly and truly wonder sometimes if it is really possible for a cis/het person to be "too hard" on themselves about matters of appropriation. Obviously there's a need for joyous affirmation of queerness, but the risks around appropriation seem to me to be genuine and worthy of taking very seriously indeed.
 
 
This Sunday
00:39 / 30.11.07
...[I]f it is really possible for a cis/het person to be "too hard" on themselves about matters of appropriation.

I suppose it depends on whether or not, even strictly in terms of gender and of sexual practices, one feels comfortable drawing lines to distinguish the inherent or real, from the affected, learned, or socially co-opted. If one is willing to draw those lines (or speculate on them), then the concern of appropriation may go (not even both ways, but) in all directions. It is as possible for a cisgendered straight person to be too hard on themselves when affecting something they associate with a gay or trans subculture/ambience, as it is for a homosexual or transgendered individual, or any other shade of human being, the guilt only coming to the fore, I think, if one or another is considered more valid.

Is an act of hetersexual pegging co-opted from a homosexual act? I sincerely doubt it (it's the equivalent of saying since homosexuals may enjoy shoulder rubs, then a heterosexual individual having their shoulders massaged is co-opting it from homosexuals). Is it immediately connected to an analogous homosexual act by many many people is a very different question, and a very different concern. Treating the sanctity or special opening up of the anus as some magic cure-all for society's and individual's ills is a bit silly, though, and shortsighted as any fetish of that sort. (Fetish in a talisman sense, rather than a 'cause it's fun' sense.)

Is a man who likes taking it up the rear automatically truly gay, whether it's a woman doing the penetrating or a man? Many people would argue that as a definite truth, but it's an absurd question from my perspective, right up there with the transvestite/transgender/gay confluence often occuring in society, or the presumption that bisexuality, pansexuality, biosexual or what have you, is automatically proof that eventually they'll get on the right track and decide to be het or gay, because anything else is just them being confused. Of course, I know I'm valorizing here and there and downplaying elsewhere, based on personal bias.

We have, culturally, an absurd fetish for validity. Validity through effort, or through laziness, through affect or what is perhaps considered to be inherent reality*, through to whether your worldview is predicated on binaries, some mythic middleground, or gradations or a variety or equal states... it's all a search for validity. Sadly, it's often only the validity of the asshole, yes, or of Should I have as hard a time as other people do, and if not am I trying hard enough? and it can make one cocky, ashamed, exhausted or lazy, et cetera, without ever becoming a matter of not being hard enough on yourself.

I'd probably feel better about the whole gender thing if I felt it, or an alliance of some sort more intrinsically, same with many a sexual-preference/angle, but I don't particularly feel an urge to understand (and definitely not to experience) those alliances if it meant re-adjusting my own state for to make the connection, even if I have learned to not consider - or treat - gender/sexuality not mine as entirely affected, or that mine is some secret default or implacably more valid. I'd like to think most people are moving in that direction, really, and that the validity, the ability for one angle, one approach or state of sexuality or gendered being to somehow magically trump another is on its way out. I would like to believe that the future we're heading towards is one where comfort is paramount over the validity of effort, of cultural default, of luxury or of suffering.

Of course, the tomorrow that flies at me keeps trying to negate that one I would like to see coming, but that's a whole other kettle of future-shocked fish.




* e.g. Born to sex or born to gender? Do you take treatments, assume your equipment and whatever box they marked when you were born make you what you are, or do you wrap, tuck, or keep out of the way?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
07:36 / 30.11.07
To clarify: By "appropriation" I was not referring to the appropriation of any particular act.* I was referring to the appropriation of "bi" or "queer" and other similar labels as a sort of security blanket. For example, I've seen het people use the assumption of queerness or bi-ness--often expressed purely theoretically--as a kind of smokescreen to avoid addressing their own prejudices or the ways in which their choices and actions reinforce the oppression of others. Like the guy who cops to fancying David Bowie or Dil from The Crying Game and that's it--he's confessed an attraction for someone outside what is "safe" or "allowable," and nothing he says or does can ever be homophobic or transphobic now.

WRT validity: I'm not saying that it is wrong to explore the edges of one's attraction spectrum and hunt for the places where it bleeds out of what is culturally OK. That's a completely valid action. I'm talking about appropriating terms and concepts that don't truly belong to one without considering the consequences of that.


*In an ideal world I'd like to see concepts of sex and sexuality stop defaulting to Insert Protrusion Into Orifice at all, whether it's a woman's twat or a guy's arse. Not because it's not fun, it's just that there are so many other wonderful things to do with each other's bodies and insertions aren't everyone's cup of tea.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:00 / 30.11.07
You know, I honestly and truly wonder sometimes if it is really possible for a cis/het person to be "too hard" on themselves about matters of appropriation.

Well - that isn't quite what I meant. The "so hard on yourself" was an almost off-topic comment on 2007 Mordant's attitude to 2001 Mordant, whose questions seemed mostly genuine to me and whose worst crime was merely to compose a post that may possibly have inspired 'Do You Listen To Radiohead?'

But to answer your question more generally - I don't think it's possible for a cis/het person to be interrogate their privilege too rigorously, in a dispassionate, critical manner. To me the phrase "too hard on oneself" implies a subjective, psychological element which clouds the issue.
 
  

Page: (1)2

 
  
Add Your Reply