From the ever awesome Dw3t-Hthr over at safe spaces:
"The primary contributor to "rape culture" is the idea that people -- particularly women -- are not competent definers of their own sexuality. That they 'really want it' even when they don't, or that they only need to be instructed to become fully sexual in the manner their instructor desires, or that their decisions about sexuality in one set of circumstances mandate that they make the same decision in different circumstances."
Amen.
But I'd like to use this as a springboard for another conversation that's likely to piss a few people off.
The truth of the matter is, I see a lot of this same mentality in the excoriation of the ex-gay movement. I stand by my position that reparative therapy for homosexuality is in all cases unnecessary, and in most cases traumatic and a poor idea for all involved. But whenever I hear people claiming that the ex-gays can't truly have become heterosexual, I see the same old colonization of other people's sexualities. We queers have a theory, and damnit if we're not going to make every person fit into it in some way or another. I may disagree with their decision, but claiming that deep down they're actually homosexual, that they can't have become heterosexual- well, it strikes me as saying that they're not competent enough to define their own sexuality.
I understand the concerns many people have. Obviously there's considerable pressure to become an ex-gay. Obviously the proponents of the ex-gay movement are doing the same colonization of other's experiences that I'm decrying here. But I think that neither coercion nor oppression invalidates free will. And that neither of those things compromises the individual's perogative to name their own experiences.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Alc, I tried to post here earlier, but I fuck up little things like reverse Turing Tests. Anyway. I forget what I was planning to say the last time.
What I want to say now is....yeah, I agree. And I would extend this analysis to the tired notion that lesbian pornography isn't about "real lesbians" or "real lesbian sex," and ditto for BDSM porn, and so on and so foth. We as a culture (including the queer cohort of our culture) seem very reluctant to move to a place where we acknowledge that sexuality is a sum of desires and activities, not an eidolon that exists outside of desires and activities.
But on a literary note....you got a lot of Plato references going on. That's great. I like Plato. Honestly, he is my favorite fascist author.
But.
Have you read the opposition? Democritus, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Aristotle, the Stoics, the early Gnostics?
If not, I would urge you to...it will, as a spook once told me of Arabic literature, open up a window in your soul. Even if you remain a Platonist all your days.
Some. Lucretius, Aristotle, and Epictetus, (one of the stoics... I'd never heard of him till I was exposed to him at school, so I've no idea how well read he is outside those halls) of those that you listed. Some other philosophers that have come to me from my education =)
Plato's definitely an influence, but I'm not sure I'd call myself a Platonist.
I'm not entirely sure that it's fair to call him a fascist- "Blessed Elua cared naught for thrones and crowns" (oh how I'll love you if you get that reference), and neither did Plato. I think reading the Republic as completely straight faced political philosophy misses the mark considerably; the Republic is a metaphor for the soul and attaining virtue, not a policy paper.
Jacqueline Carey? But it doesn't really click, no.
I don't think you can really analyze Plato's politics from within Plato's writing. Especially given the claim levelled by later authors (mostly Epicureans, I think) that his students systemically bought up and burned texts written in opposition to him.
And you're Catholic, yes? It is....difficult for we Christians to articulate Plato's role in the world of pagan thought, since we keep reverting to seeing him as as a kind of St. Paul figure, with Socrates dubiously cast as the Christ.
But whatever. It is a beautiful philosophy, and I realize that I am playing the bitter old man whenever I snub it.
I'm not very schooled, except by myself, but you are correct in thinking that Epictetus is the major Stoic writer; the other would be Marcus Aurelius. The slave and the king, a nice dichotomy.
Carey indeed! I know Maymay detests her, and she certainly doesn't deserve to be held up as fine literature, but her books are damn fine fantasy romps, and there's almost certainly some 15-year old masochist reading those books as we speak and feeling just a bit better about him or herself, so it's pretty good from where I'm sitting.
Actually, former Catholic. Well, cultural Catholic. I went through a period of teenage rebellion, but now even though my faith's mostly deserted me, I can roll with some incense and fish frys and stain glass windows!
Where'd you get the notion that I was? I'm a bit flattered, actually, and considerably amused.
It was kind of a Gestalt. I had the opposite thing going. When I was a young adolescent, I really, really wanted to be Catholic. Not the modern kind. I wanted to be, like, 14th-century Catholic, with guilt and moral clarity just sweating out of my pores.
Whachagonnado?
Post a Comment