Here’s a little exchange from Reddit that I found on ShitRedditSays that basically sums up everything that’s less-than-charming about the site. We start off with a blanket statement of male superiority, followed by an enthusiastically upvoted rape joke, and then we get massive downvoting and a “fuck you” to someone who’s challenging the blanket statement. (If you follow the link you’ll see that Butch_Magnus isn’t the only one jumping on piv0t.)
The context: This is from the Pics subreddit; they’re discussing a “sexist treadmill” with a control panel that looks like this:
I’m curious about how people are defining queer. If people are taking it to mean “non-normative sexual orientations” then yeah, asexual people are queer. If they’re taking it to mean “is attracted to people of the same gender” then no, asexual people are not queer (unless they’re romantically interested in people of the same gender). But if we were to define it that way trans people wouldn’t necessarily be queer either, and I’m not sure how genderqueer people would even fit into that definitional framework.
What I’m trying to say is, if we define “queer” based on who people want to fuck, then we’re essentially excluding a whole lot of people who’re trans or genderqueer, and that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
But what about the fact that some asexual people are romantically (but not sexually) attracted to members of the same gender? Are they not queer?
Also, if asexual people are not “allowed” to identify as queer, isn’t there a danger of them being even *more* marginalised and invisible then they are already? Most people these days “know” what it means to be gay and bisexual, but asexuality is sometimes believed not to exist at all! However, it *is* a legitimate sexuality and it *doesn’t* fit in with the mainstreas hetereo-cis model.
If it’s not ‘queer’ what exactly is it? Why must ‘queer’ be such an exclusive category?
I’m bisexual but in a monogamous relationship with a cis-male. On the face of it, therefore, I have more hetereo-privilege than an asexual person who is romantically attracted to people of the same gender.
Whoops, Cassandra beat me to it there!
The language we have available for discussing this stuff kind of sucks, honestly. If I were to use myself as an example, I identify as bi. But if I get more specific, I’m pretty much exclusively attracted to men who lean noticeably androgynous or feminine, and I’m not attracted to women who lean butch at all. How do you even explain that, using the current language? “Bisexual” is the best word available, but doesn’t really capture the specifics very well.
Also, I’ve had significant pushback from some lesbians about the fact that I’m not attracted to butch women or even women who’re kind of androgynous – in college I had a few people tell me that I couldn’t identify as queer for that reason. Which I think is bullshit, but it does kind of illustrate how little general agreement there is about this stuff.
Cassandra: That definitely is bullshit. Do you think they would say, for instance, that a straight woman who is only attracted to androgynous men was not really straight?
Actually I guess my question is, depending on how we define queer, is a woman who’s only attracted to androgynous men really straight? Is a man who’s only attracted to androgynous or butch women really straight? Is orientation about the body/type of genitalia that the people you’re attracted to have, or is it more about their gender presentation or persona?
I just think that orientation is far more complicated than straight/gay/bi and those are your only options.
Cassandra: I agree. A friend of mine defines herself as “hetereoflexible”. By this she means (I think?) that she is attracted to (only) androgynous men 90% of the time, and androgynous women 10% of the time. Then again, she’s also occasionally attracted to androgynous genderqueer people, so it’s all a little complicated.
I *thought* that I wasn’t attracted to butch women (only femme), but now I’ve found that butch women with an element of femme can make me swoon, so eh. I don’t know. I agree that the terms and categories we currently have are too simplistic.
I don’t think that is an adequate definition at all. After all, there are a shit ton of sexual practices and identities that are perfectly coherant with being cis hetero as well. Is a cis hetero man with a foot fetish queer? No, even though that fetish carries some social stigma. Likewise, the sexuality of a person with a visible disability can be totally cis hetero and within the bounds of cis heteronormativity, and be heavily stigmatized. It isn’t “non-normative” alone, which norms are involved and how are a crucial piece.
This is totally inadequate as well, in no small part because it presupposes a number of things about sex and gender.
Well, not all trans identities are the same, also, the idea that some lesbian and gay people aren’t queer is a cognizable one as well. There are some queer theorists who would not consider a normative, essentialist gay man queer either. There is a difference between “within the scope of feelings/experiences/social position that puts you within the boundaries of this identity” and “of this identity” by some constructions of queer identity. Some people see that as a bigger distinction than other when trying to suss out queer identity.
However, the linkage of LGB,etc. sexuality and trans sexualities is a linkage that derives from the way culture inputs meanings into sex acts, sexual desires, gender, and identity. We even use the same word in English-sex as in gender and sex as in fucking. The way that trans sexualities can problematize these social systems around identity, sometimes of the trans person, sometimes of their partners, sometimes to onlookers can end up having massive amounts of overlap with the way LGB, etc. sexualities do. Identity formulations are cultural things, speaking of “objective” identity formulations extrinsic to socio-cultural issues is nonsensical.
I don’t think I can give an exact boundary or list of the issues here regarding right to queer identity. However, the fact that an identity has contested boundaries does not mean that every person gets to claim it. Let me give a less loaded example of contested definition boundaries and still being able to say that some things are not within it. Here’s an example sometimes used in philosophy to demonstrate some of the tricky issues around definitional boundaries for natural language terms. “Define cake”. Actually giving a formal definition of cake is difficult, even though we feel that we know what cakes are. Okay, so the more classic stereotypical “cakes” are cakes, but what about ice cream cakes? Cheesecakes (those are rather pie like)? Cupcakes probably are, but what about muffins and where exactly is the line between those two? Okay, but a nice t-bone steak is not a cake. We are pretty confident about that, yes? Somewhat imprecise boundary definition is damned common in natural language, and unsurprisingly this happens in language around identity as well. There are “hard to call” cases between queer and nonqueer identity. Cis asexuals who are not homoromantic or bi romantic are not, in my opinion, among those cases. They are not queer. The fact that some other groups (such as a straight binary identified transsexual) might involve those questions is not overly relevant. Saying that not every single person on the fucking earth is within an identity is not “boundary policing”, we do get to make judgements about these things, the fact that categories are not always extremely rigidly outlined doesn’t change it, and we are perfectly able to get that concept when applied to other categories.
Position 1: “Asexual people can be queer queer queer if they so choose to identify themselves, and you can keep your self-righteousness to yourself.”
Position 2: “No, they can’t. Keep your appropriation to yourself.”
I dislike the appropriation allegation. Bagelsan disagrees with you. Theoretically, you agree that asexuals are a minority group that experiences social disadvantage due to their sexual orientation (if you don’t then I think you are incorrect). I don’t inherently have a problem with your advocating for a definition of queer that excludes asexuals, but calling it appropriation (as opposed to, say, wrongheaded misattribution) has shades of accusing the other person of bad faith. It suggests that asexuals are being insulting (or at least disrespectful to the concept of queerness) by even having the conversation about whether or not they can be labeled queer.
My dog in the fight: I’m queer (not asexual) and I have no problem with asexuals labeling themselves as queer. I disagree with people who do have a problem with it, but I don’t think they’re arguing in bad faith. I do think, however, that it benefits the conversation to keep in mind that even if we accept the scenario in which asexuals are misusing queer to include themselves, they are still a group systemically disadvantaged by compulsory heterosexuality; an argument over where to draw the boundaries of particular terms with them is inherently different than an argument over whether, for instance, over the ways in which anti-feminists use the rhetoric of social justice to justify sexism which is clearly appropriative (and inherently insulting/disrespectful to the concept of social justice).
Yes, but isn’t the fact that the term “queer” doesn’t belong to other categories part of the point? It’s an identity term and it serves a poltical purpose. Who gets to be a part of the category “queer” has greater consequences than whether or not muffins are cakes.
Language changes constantly, but as you know (and point out indirectly), this doesn’t always just “happen” naturally. The fact that “queer” now doesn’t mean what it did a hundred years ago or twenty years ago isn’t just due to linguistic evolution. It’s politics.
I’ve met asexual people who feel that they are not welcome in LGB groups and events. In fact, they are sometimes overtly *told* that they are not welcome. Where would a single asexual student go to discuss their concerns and meet understanding, if not to an event or organization that are outside of the heterosexual norm?
I guess a more accurate way to describe myself would be to say that I’m exclusively attracted to people who’re either feminine or androgynous regardless of their genitalia? But then most of the men I’m most attracted to aren’t really femmey so much as kind of right in the middle of the gender presentation spectrum and perceived as feminine because the American way of contructing masculinity leans so very macho. (I actually did a really awesome interview with a young American musician a couple of years ago in which we dug into that idea in great detail, now I wish I could link to what he had to say, but that would be a bad idea on a blog that attracts MRAs.) And again, androgynous women don’t tend to ring my bell at all, so what does that mean? And someone like your friend – why don’t we define people like her as queer? Should we?
Via work I know a number of women who’re exclusively attracted to men who’re androgynous or femmey, and I’m not entirely sure that your average person would see them as straight, or that they should. I guess I’m trying to puzzle out – what does queer mean? It can’t mean simply “is attracted to people with the same sort of genitalia as oneself”, or we wouldn’t automatically consider trans and genderqueer people to be queer. But we do, so what does that mean about what the word queer really means to people?
My own gut level response is not to consider asexual people queer unless they’re romantically interested in people of the same sex or gender, but I’m not sure that’s really a reasonable response, or one that makes sense. In fact, I’m not sure how people who aren’t interested in sex would in theory fit within a classification system that’s based on who you want to fuck at all. And I don’t feel like I understand asexuality well enough to make any definitive call about queer/not queer.
” Where would a single asexual student go to discuss their concerns and meet understanding, if not to an event or organization that are outside of the heterosexual norm?”
Well, it’s not really cool to insist that if an individual doesn’t have anyone to talk to about issues they’re having any non-normative group that happens to be around must accept them and pay attention to their issues either, for the same reason that when the guy came in here earlier wanting to talk about his issues with being celibate without having chosen that path most of us basically responded with “this is not the place for that conversation”. Identity groups do have the right to choose not to center issues that most people within the group don’t consider relevant to them.
I’m just not sure that that’s what’s going on with asexual people and “queer” as an identity. Like I said, asexual = queer doesn’t really make sense to me on a gut level, but I’m not sure how much of that is due to the fact that I just don’t grok asexuality on an instinctive level.
Gay men are not interested in fucking women. Neither are asexual men. Lesbians are not interested in fucking men. Neither are asexual women. ASEXUAL PEOPLE APPROACH SEX DIFFERENTLY THAN HETEROSEXUAL PEOPLE DO. This is not a super fuzzy area here: queer people are, among other things, people who society has decided “do sex wrong” and not wanting sex IS TREATED AS DOING SEX WRONG. Asexual people are a minority population, are misunderstood and mistreated because of their (lack of) sexual orientation, and are told something must be wrong with them. Does that sound fucking familiar? Jeezus.
But yeah, sure, nooo one’s trying to police other peoples’ identities here, we’re just flat-out denying them entirely. Alrighty then. That’s totally preferable.
Yeah, and there’s a word for that.
And what is that word, Bagelsan? Because if you’re hinting at “phobic”, that’s not it.
Except that the hypothetical student is dealing with the same issue as the group is. It’s not like they’re trying to derail a meeting about Teach for America into discussing their sexuality. They’re trying to join a discussion about non-normative sexuality to talk about their non-normative sexuality. That’s the exact opposite of derailing or appropriation.
That’s why I can see political reasons to include the category “asexual” in the category “queer”. But on a practical level, I’m not sure how much support or help the queer group could offer the asexual student. Support in terms of negotiating dealing with pressure to have sex you aren’t interested in? Sure. Support in terms of society viewing you as weird? Definitely. But my personal experience of queer groups doesn’t lead me to believe that they’ll be very helpful to someone who isn’t interested in sex at all in other ways, and Savage is a good example of why. Not just in terms of being phobic, but because there can be just as much pressure for people to be having lots of sex in queer circles as there is in straight ones.
I mean look at my example. I’m a woman who wants to have sex with women, I’m just rather specific about which women, and in queer circles I often feel pressure to have sex with women I’m not interested in having sex with, and there’s social shaming if I say no. I don’t see how queer spaces would be a safe haven for asexual people at all in that sense, because the same assumption that people should want to fuck still exists.
“I don’t see how queer spaces would be a safe haven for asexual people at all in that sense, because the same assumption that people should want to fuck still exists.”
Wouldn’t that depend on the queer circle, though? I agree that there can be a lot of pressure in those circles to have lots of sex (and to be kinky rather than vanilla, for instance). However, in the queer circles I’ve been hanging out with recently (which includes asexuals, transsexuals, and kinky and vanilla queers) there is a great deal of tact and awareness that shaming or pressuring someone into doing something they don’t want to do IS NOT COOL.
That said, my aforementioned heteroflexible friend has had experiences where she’s felt pressured into sexual situations.
The point of all this rambling is (I guess) — just because there is a lot of emphasis on sex (not just sexuality) in queer circles, this doesn’t mean that they can’t be a helpful “safe haven” for asexuals.
Correction, I meant “transgender” rather than “transsexual”.
It would. My own experiences have been that pressure to fuck people I don’t want to is even higher in queer circles in some senses. There’s lots of pressure from individual men I’m not interested in to fuck them in straight spaces, but generally speaking if I say “I don’t like macho guys/muscly guys/whatever” then in mostly straight spaces people will just accept that and not say “why not? justify your preference”. In queer spaces, not so much, in my experience. That may be a result of my very specific preferences, though.
What I meant wasn’t that queer spaces should in general excluse asexuals, though. I meant that identity groups in general do have a right to define bounddries for themselves (feminist groups can choose to be unwelcoming to women who call themselves femininsts but don’t share the core values of the group, for example).
I’m not convinced that “asexuals are not queer” is an appropriate boundary to be drawing, though. Especially since asexuality as an organised identify group is really fairly new, so things are still sorting themselves out in terms of how people identify, organize politically, etc.