k so I know everyone and their dog has had a whinge about the ridiculous sexuality labels of tumblr but squaresome found a particularly depressing one the other night, “lithosexual”, which apparently means “experiences sexual attraction but is not interested in acting on it”.
it’s just — if you must transform every kind of sexual behaviour into a specific identity, there is already a word for that, “celibate”. “busy” would do, though. possibly, given the age of a lot of people using this label, simply “not ready to have sex yet”.
anyway I’m super annoyed because I was all like “lol what does that even mean, you like rocks, lol” and then annoyed at myself for being so juvenile, and then I researched the matter and found out that it is, in fact, derived from “stone” as in stone butch and then I got way more annoyed than I was to begin with. this is a huge mischaracterisation of stone sexualities and it’s really appropriative and gross. it’s staggeringly heterocentric, not to mention misogynist, to think that an orientation that’s basically about a) being a lesbian and b) having strong boundaries about where you can be touched is in any way analogous to celibacy.
anyway, just one more data point for the “asexuals and fellow travellers are homophobic assholes who think that lesbian sex is not real and that all non-asexuals are hungry for all kinds of sex all the time” files
w/r/t this whole thing (people getting mad at natalie dee for saying cupcake-baking housewife-drag 50s revival is kind of weird and stupid and antifeminist)
Does anybody remember the time that super-annoying fashion blogger Gala Darling or whatever her name was was out in public in ostentatious 50s fashion? Nipped waist print dress with a circle skirt over a crinoline and stilettos and that rockabilly kinda hair. It was the crinoline that took it over the edge, in my opinion.
And an older woman came up to her and was like “why are you dressed like that?”
Darling: “Because I like it, I think it’s pretty, I wish people still had that sense of decorum.”
Practically crying older woman: “What are you doing? Do you even know what it means to dress like that? Do you actually want to go back to that time? You can’t know what it was like. You young girls have no perspective. It makes me so angry.”
And darling blogged about it being like “lol some people just don’t get it” and it was gross, but there is a larger point here, which is:
If you are a young woman who has not actually lived through a time that was in many ways worse for women than today, and in any case certainly a very different context, you need to have some thought about what it means to dress like you’re a time-traveller from there, thought beyond “it’s so pretty”, or “I’m wearing this but I’m a feminist, it’s so subversive”. And you need to be prepared for many women to feel that nostalgia for or reappropriation of that time is insulting, if not dangerous. It’s pretty dismissive of the strength and courage and activism of many 50s women to assume that just by being your feminist self in 50s garb while baking you’re participating in some kind of radical détournement. Also I think it’s weird, frankly, for a bunch of predominantly white women to want to look like they’re the bosses from The Help.
If you listen to older women you might feel pretty uncomfortable making a dress-up game out of their youth, and that has nothing to do with distaste for femininity.
saltmarshhag:
I identify as radical in the tradition of of roots etymology, in that I don’t believe oppression can be legislated away and that sometimes legal reforms only make it harder to recognize the big picture. That doesn’t mean, however, that I rule out strategic political reforms that can have a major impact on people’s life chances in the here and now. That doesn’t mean I don’t think a legal precident might accomplish a lot more than a brick through a window. But overall, it’s about a major cultural shift that probably requires the eventual destruction of the whole construct of “straight.”
I identify as queer, sometimes, because it’s a single word that most people understand to mean some level of identification with same-gender-attraction and avoids me having to tack on a lot of qualifications to other commonly known words.
I don’t identify as radical queer because in my experience it’s more of another youth-obsessed subculture like punk/goth/etc. than anything else. In my case, I feel like my own value to “radical queer” community has been based as much on overt sexual availability and expressing myself within certain subcultural parameters as what kind of person I am and what my politics are.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because I recognize that my own former polyamorous casual sex kinky radical queer badassery was an unhealthy outlet for needing to be “loved,” but I have to stay quiet about that lest I get accused of kink-shaming blah blah.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because “assimilation” and “homonormativity” are buzzwords that most people sound like absolute judgmental d-bags trying to articulate.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because radical queers too often romanticize a highly editorialized bohemian account of queer histories while ignoring the fact that a lot of queers 40, 60, 80, and 200 years ago probably wanted to get married too.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because I’m over 30 and felt serious embarrassment around many of the other over-30 radical queers I’ve met.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because radical queer community is misogynistic and has tried to entirely dispense with the contributions of lesbian feminism to dyke culture. Even where it responds to widespread absolute worship of maleness and masculinity, it has to be dressed up as gender-neutralized “femmephobia” and the proper response is “glitter! stilettos! look how fucking FIERCE we are!” and not “look at all this misogyny and look at what a fucking travesty it is that dykes are expected to put up with it, and even participating in it.”
I don’t identify as a radical queer because last year I saw Matilda Bernstein debating Dan Choi and telling him, a Korean-American, about racist imperialism, and I just had to back away slowly from all that.
I don’t identify as a radical queer because nearly all of the prominent radical queer rock stars editing anthologies are really obnoxious people whose male-centric analyses have more to do with public sex and being snarky about the homos they don’t relate to than with power relations.
I know this is going to make people mad, but every thing I’m criticizing here is something I have regretfully taken part in so haters to the left etc.
(Source: femmesandfamily)
terror-incognita:
I was really over invisibility as the queer femme issue. I think a big part of that was because in my hometown I am somewhat visible, through activism and performance and also just having been around long enough in a small enough scene. More importantly I’m not threatened by being seen as straight.
Recognition can be reciprocal, but it can also be about cultural capital and gatekeeper power: I think many femme or bisexual complaints about invisibility translate to feeling sidelined by those who occupy the centre, those who can claim ownership of queer identity. Having the confidence of belonging, of being “at home” in particular queer communities, means it doesn’t matter when I’m not recognised. I’m more concerned about how I recognise others, especially on occasions where I have gatekeeper power as an organiser or performer or whatever else.
Besides, I kind of liked the idea of recognition through service, it’s very leather and maybe a gesture towards community instead of scene, even if it sucks that only the peripheries have to prove themselves. But as a femme I find the burden of proof a welcome inversion of the usual privileging of femme appearances over action, even if it also simultaneously demonstrates predictable suspicion of femmes and exploitation of femme labour.
Anyway, now I’m far from home and mostly having a grand old time. Most of my thoughts about invisibility have been race-related — my foreignness being unmarked means I’m constantly apologising for my ineptness and non-comprehension. But there’s a whole host of perks and comforts that come from being “at home”, an insider, having knowledge, being known, that reduce instances of misrecognition and invisibility.
I went into a gay-friendly health service the other day, and the receptionist complimented me on my “queers without borders” badge. We had a brief chat about its origins; I explained that they were made for Pride March where I was part of a group which marched in support of queer and trans refugees. The next day I went back and the receptionist greeted me enthusiastically as his “favourite fag hag”. It wasn’t a big deal — I corrected him and later we had a great conversation about teledildonics.
But if I were in a different position or frame of mind, it could’ve been pretty dismaying to think that even wearing markers of queerness, in a queer space,* I’d still be read as straight. I think though that my response now would be less about reinstating visibility or promoting recognition than undermining visibility. As always, deconstruction/transformation over recognition/affirmation. Sexual orientation is invisible. Shorthand indicators are sweet (you know how I love flagging) but often ambiguous, and the absence of explicit indicators should be illegible, or read as a rich, multifarious opacity. Presuming the normative gives it power; presuming anything produces or reinforces the norms of that category. The only way to look queer is an act of seeing.
* To be fair it was one of those services that started off for men who have sex with men (presumed cis) and then about fifteen years after that added a program for trans women (presumed hetero) and doesn’t make any claims to represent/serve other parts of the queer community. They had absolutely zero information on lesbian sexual health for example, so even though I’m talking about femme invisibility here it’s probably more likely that they just don’t deal with women who have sex with women much. And obviously my badge is a marker of political solidarity and not necessarily personal desire.
my emphasis
I generally get frustrated with discourses around queer invisibility that ask people to be frickin’ mindreaders or to refrain from making even the most likely of assumptions
this is a different way to think about the issue that I really love
"I’m into replacing butch/femme with audrey/agent cooper."
— caitlin ate
I have a real big problem with shit constantly being divided into “subversive” and “indefensible”. (this is a thing that comes up a lot with femme presentation a lot, people arguing about how and when it’s subversive, but I think it happens with most politicised life choices.)
you don’t always have to defend your choices on the basis of how radical they are. sometimes it’s not actually radical but it’s also nobody’s fucking business but your own.
this kind of radical/not radical binary rhetoric around lifestyle choices also distorts and individualises our perspective of what it takes to create social change.
