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:
Celibate priesthood as an option for men is also pretty functionally different from celibate options for women. Not that there aren’t issues with being forced into the priesthood or monkhood in order to hide your sexual identity *anyway*, but I think “congratulations! in order to avoid having sex, you may be a nun!” is an even crappier deal.
Also, of course, you didn’t always get to say “um… not interested in sex, will be a nun now” if your family was saying “this is the marriage we picked out. enjoy!”
Agreed, Ozy. Awesome post.
At the heart of it, I’m rather skeptical of words, in general. No matter how many words there are for aspects of sexual attraction/identity/orientation, they won’t be enough, because it is a spectrum, not a set of categories. So, sure “queer” is useful in some contexts, but utterly useless in others.
Do we really need to get into an argument about how asexual people are oppressed and how much and how does that oppression compare with LGBT and Oppression Olympics here?
This isn’t MRA’s whining about how hard it is to be a middle class cis white male. This is about people who know a thing or two about social justice, who you’ve talked with and mocked with and argued with, who have a sexuality that is different and viewed as less than in the mainstream media. What earthly reason is there to erase their identity and deny their experiences of oppression?
Stop it. Just stop it.
I wanna clarify my position, because I kinda started this whole oppression thing, which was rather stupid of me to do.
DSC was saying that asexuals have no right to claim the history of oppression that queer folk have faced by appropriating the label. My point was that that history is not that different from others that do fall under the queer label, and in fact the groups that do fall under the label are so diverse in their history that it already is a bit of special pleading to say that one group can’t join.
Righto… Time for me to be quiet now.
Kirby, FWIW, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve had enough “I know what I mean” moments, so I can understand if you’re frustrated too.
I don’t know, it seems to me that self-identifying as queer should matter?
I’m a cis woman, so I have the privilege that goes along with that. Though I’m bisexual, I’m heteroromantic and very gender-conforming, so I have a heck of a lot of borrowed straight privilege as well. Casual sex isn’t my thing, so I probably won’t even ever fool around with a lot of women. I’ve never had a poly relationship, and I’m not sure I would. Given all of that, I don’t personally identify as queer because I don’t feel I can relate to a lot of the prejudice and difficulties associated with being queer (I do consider myself an ally!) But someone who just knew about the bisexuality and not all of the other stuff might consider me queer by default.
If someone who is asexual – and therefore very likely to be told that they are confused, that they should change how they feel about sex, that their sexual identity doesn’t actually exist, that they are missing out on a valuable part of human life – wants to identify as queer, that seems pretty reasonable to me. I would consider them a lot more deserving of the label than me, even though some people would consider me queer without even questioning.
But as I said, I don’t consider myself queer, and I can’t tell people how their own community should work just because, gee, that’s what a privileged cis practically-hetero would do, so it must be right :/
Things are complicated.
As far as what “queer” means… yea, I don’t know. I’m not the one to suss that out seeing as I am a) cis and b) tragically straight. What I DO know is that it is not okay to look someone in the eye (figuratively) and say “You are identifying yourself wrong because your oppression doesn’t count.”
I am very, very upset to see Bagelsan’s (and by implication, Lauralot’s) identity erased in this space. Really, I have no words.
Sex outside of marriage has a long history of historical stigma as well (illegitemacy is actually one of the few fully legally established suspect classes under US law). Intermarriage between people of different religions, ethncities, races, etc. in some cultures as well. It’s not just about the existence of historical stigma, but rather how these stigmas are related to group identity formation that are at issue here. Even if we conceded a historical stigma (I am not sure that argument holds up well in many cases, but for the sake of argument), I do not consider that concedeing the right to claim queer identity or that this stigma is one related to those of queer people.
Because LGBT isn’t the only way of naming those ways of viewing self or desire, and each of those terms has its own boundaries as well. For example, where do we place Aggressives in that list? Are they trans? Are they lesbians? Either one is more or less accurate in different cases. It’s that tension that queer is supposed to address, not one of any sexual practice that may be considered deviant ever (cis heteros having affairs are considered deviant…), but rather one of naming a collection of identities regarding a certain system of interactions between desire, sex, gender, and social standards.
This is true, but that bit was addressing the questions and comments about others regarding their inability to conceive how letting cis non-queer people use queer identity and demand access to queers spaces could be harmful. The question of why we should mind appropriation was raised.
Thank you.
I guess what I’m trying to say is asexuals are a group of people who are marginalized for not being straight enough, and that seems like a pretty good reason to choose to identify as queer.
DSC, why is it that asexuals should not be considered queer?
>>It’s that tension that queer is supposed to address, not one of any sexual practice that may be considered deviant ever (cis heteros having affairs are considered deviant…), but rather one of naming a collection of identities regarding a certain system of interactions between desire, sex, gender, and social standards.
Affairs are a particularly bad example here. Adultery does not question or cause a revolutionary reevaluation of how relationships are socially constructed in society. An affair is not seen by society as an ideological repudiation of monogamous marriage as a concept, but rather a personal failure to adhere to contractual obligations. That marriage is a hard commitment to follow is an agreed upon fact in Western society. Contrast that with polyamory.
I find this whole argument ludicrous. LGBT is only coalition politics. The idea that I, a bi cis man, share a history of oppression with trans people or cis gay men is reductionist both of my struggles and theirs. In fact, given some lesbian feminist critiques of the gay rights movement, even the concept of homosexuality itself (as a category encompassing both gays and lesbians) might be seen as a gay men appropriation of lesbian history of oppression. The line people like DSC are drawing seem to me to be purely arbitrary and only a matter of how fine grained your level of analysis is.
Well, I agree a bit. Not all types of sexual deviance is “queer.” Having an affair breaks norms about lying and fidelity (among other things). One could argue that flogging (as an example of kink) breaks norms about perceived violent behavior (the one hitting is see as cruel and sadistic) and blurs the line between “pain” and “pleasure” (on the part of the floggee–they enjoy something that is widely regarded as something to avoid).
So, in that way, so-called deviant forms of sex are deviant in different ways and break different norms. They’re all lumped under a term like “deviant.” Although they are “deviant,” they are different kinds of actions, because they break social norms in their own unique ways.
So…what about asexuality makes its deviance different from what you think are queer relationships? What norms do you view an asexual identity breaking as opposed to other queer identities?
(I’m adding this, though I am echoing others; most recently BlackBloc)
Again, my asexual hetero female friend does not want to identify or be identified as queer. Does that count? (BTW she identifies as an LGBT ally and actively participates in LGBT activism, so it’s not like she’s trying to avoid being associated with people who identify as queer).
@Alpha: But then again I’ve met trans women who didn’t want to be identified as queer either.
@BB and, what? you have a problem with that?
I believe BB’s point is that it’s fine if member of X group doesn’t identify as queer, but that doesn’t mean that no one else from that group should.
I gather it’s not so much ‘all asexual people should be considered queer’ but rather ‘all asexual people should be able to identify as queer if they wish’
Which I’d guess would apply to any of the other categories of people that could potentially fit under the umbrella of queer term. So I think self identification is possibly the most important factor.
@Caraz:
Yeah, that was the point of the question. DSC was arguing that no asexual person should be able to identify as queer, and I was asking why.
Oh, well no problem then. Carry on.
I always figured it was Social Justice 101 that people can Identify themselves however they see fit, and that “correcting” someone on their identity is asshole behavior.
I don’t want to minimize the problem of appropriation. It is a thing! And a very bad thing! But that’s a 200 level course at least and there are productive and nuanced ways to have a discussion about appropriation that is not telling someone “You are identifying yourself wrong.”
I’m with ozy on “queer” being a big tent term. As a bi woman, I have had too many people telling me I can’t call myself queer to ever want to turn around and say that to someone else.
Just for clarification (and to Comrade Svilova in particular): just because I don’t identify as queer does not mean I don’t think other women with similar stories shouldn’t either. I just mean it is the wrong term for my identity, my feelings, and who I am. Self-identification seems like the important factor to me.
But this is about asexuality, not bisexuality, so I’ll shut up about that now. I just wanted to be clear.
I have to admit (if this wasn’t already obvious…) that this is kind of a loaded subject for me because I feel like I’m on the fringe of queer and not-queer in a lot of ways. I’m not trans but not gender-conforming, bi but dating a man, kinky but not 24/7, poly but not living with my partners. I feel like my life is smack dab in the zone where it’s easy for people in both the “normal” and the “real queer people” camps to dismiss me as just horny and goofing around.
And I do get a lot of cis-looking and straight-looking privilege. I don’t live the same life as someone who’s living with a same-sex partner or who’s transitioned from their assigned gender and I know that I don’t know what they deal with. I’m not about to shoot my mouth off about what that’s like.
But at the same time it still rankles me to be told that I’m exactly a cis straight girl and should claim nothing more. I’ve had people try to impose rules like “you’re not really bi if you aren’t attracted equally to women and men” or “if you’re not a man, you’re cis,” and it makes me feel… well, the same way I feel about limiting “queer” to a few narrow groups: like my sexual identity, or maybe just me, isn’t worth taking seriously.
Um… so that’s my personal issues around this. Wheee.
Just for clarification (and to Comrade Svilova in particular): just because I don’t identify as queer does not mean I don’t think other women with similar stories shouldn’t either. I just mean it is the wrong term for my identity, my feelings, and who I am. Self-identification seems like the important factor to me.
I totally understand that! Self-identification is the key. I was speaking about bi-erasure or the bi-phobia of some lesbians, but I should have made that clear, given that you’d just talked about bi identities.
I understand the problem with appropriation (by anyone), but I’m not convinced that policing other’s identities is an effective way to deal with the threat of appropriation.