Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Sexual Orientation is an oppressive, anti-man Western concept

levite · 05-02-2010, 11:55 AM

NM, with all due respect, I'm not sure I find your argument persuasive.

To the degree to which you are saying that rigid gender-based sexual identities are not innate to human beings, I agree completely.

But honestly, I have known too many people who are gay or lesbian or bisexual, and they are as manly and masculine or womanly and feminine as they feel they wish to be. Most of my gay and lesbian friends don't fit neatly into stereotypes, and they do not feel compelled or forced into socialized gender or sex roles.

Now, it is certainly true that understanding sexual orientation in terms of gay, straight, bi, lesbian, etc., or in terms of the Kinsey scale, is a Western idea. And you may be correct in that your culture (wherever you are) requires different ideas. But to me, that doesn't make a critique of how the Western World deals with sexual orientation, it makes a critique of your culture's need to create its own solutions, rather than embrace those of our culture. And if you wish to say that Western society can also sometimes be culturally imperialistic, and we need to quit that, I will also accept that as fair.

But really, I must say that, whatever your successes with the men in your society, I don't see your approach winning a lot of supporters in America. While I hope and agree that our societies are learning to be looser and more flexible about our constructions of gender and sexual identity, I think what you're describing is simply not the direction in which we are evolving.

And to be honest again, I'm not sure I concur with your arguments. You say that the kind of masculinity you describe is what existed "before the invention of words like homosexuality or heterosexuality." But in fact, just because the words were lacking doesn't mean that there was any mainstream social acceptance of male-on-male sexual intercourse, nor in the behavior of men as feminized and womanly. Perhaps that was so in your culture, but not in any of the Western cultures that I have studied. If anything, it was the willingness of people with sexual needs and identities not accepted by the main stream to come together, to speak out, to demand rights and freedom, that actually liberated people to pursue flexible and more undefined gender and sexual identities. You reference ancient Greece, but that was one culture. Even in the ancient world, there were different views of love and sexuality and what was deemed appropriate or normative.

In fact, your argument that the gay "space" is an inherently feminine gendered "space" seems all too likely to incense and infuriate gay men who feel comfortable with their masculinity, and don't see themselves as feminized or womanly. And when it comes down to it, you can't tell people that their construction of their own sexual and gender identity-- often struggled for with great sacrifice-- is simply wrong. Well, you can, of course, but I don't see you winning many friends that way, or changing many minds.

05-02-2010, 11:55 AM	#25 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	NM, with all due respect, I'm not sure I find your argument persuasive. To the degree to which you are saying that rigid gender-based sexual identities are not innate to human beings, I agree completely. But honestly, I have known too many people who are gay or lesbian or bisexual, and they are as manly and masculine or womanly and feminine as they feel they wish to be. Most of my gay and lesbian friends don't fit neatly into stereotypes, and they do not feel compelled or forced into socialized gender or sex roles. Now, it is certainly true that understanding sexual orientation in terms of gay, straight, bi, lesbian, etc., or in terms of the Kinsey scale, is a Western idea. And you may be correct in that your culture (wherever you are) requires different ideas. But to me, that doesn't make a critique of how the Western World deals with sexual orientation, it makes a critique of your culture's need to create its own solutions, rather than embrace those of our culture. And if you wish to say that Western society can also sometimes be culturally imperialistic, and we need to quit that, I will also accept that as fair. But really, I must say that, whatever your successes with the men in your society, I don't see your approach winning a lot of supporters in America. While I hope and agree that our societies are learning to be looser and more flexible about our constructions of gender and sexual identity, I think what you're describing is simply not the direction in which we are evolving. And to be honest again, I'm not sure I concur with your arguments. You say that the kind of masculinity you describe is what existed "before the invention of words like homosexuality or heterosexuality." But in fact, just because the words were lacking doesn't mean that there was any mainstream social acceptance of male-on-male sexual intercourse, nor in the behavior of men as feminized and womanly. Perhaps that was so in your culture, but not in any of the Western cultures that I have studied. If anything, it was the willingness of people with sexual needs and identities not accepted by the main stream to come together, to speak out, to demand rights and freedom, that actually liberated people to pursue flexible and more undefined gender and sexual identities. You reference ancient Greece, but that was one culture. Even in the ancient world, there were different views of love and sexuality and what was deemed appropriate or normative. In fact, your argument that the gay "space" is an inherently feminine gendered "space" seems all too likely to incense and infuriate gay men who feel comfortable with their masculinity, and don't see themselves as feminized or womanly. And when it comes down to it, you can't tell people that their construction of their own sexual and gender identity-- often struggled for with great sacrifice-- is simply wrong. Well, you can, of course, but I don't see you winning many friends that way, or changing many minds. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)