Tag: sexuality

On Labels

wrbywaterLeave a comment

I’ve noticed a whole lot of discourse lately about the labels we use to describe, especially ones in terms of sexuality. A lot of people who don’t really understand how labels work use language such as, ‘that makes me gay,’ or whatever, and I think language like this fundamentally misunderstands how these labels work.

Why do we use labels? Well, I think there are two main reasons for this. We pick a label so that we can more easily understands ourselves, and so that others can more easily understand us. So, I label myself as ‘gay man’ because when I was coming to understand my sexuality there was a pre-existing category of ‘gay man’ that I could identify with, and when I was confused it gave me a tangible community with which I could find solidarity. It still serves that function, and it is comforting to find yourself among a community who use the same label as you. Similarly, coming out as a gay man helped other people understand me better. It is deemed on some level vital to have other people understand you; were I not labelled as I am then there would be something inauthentic about how I live in the world because everyone would assume that I were something that I’m not. It’s kinda problematic that we need labels to demarcate ourselves, but I would rather use a label so as to differentiate myself that have everyone include me in a group which I don’t belong with.

I could go on talking forever about how unnecessary these labels are. To state that there is a community of gay men is to suggest that there is a coherent group of people who all exist in the same way, which doesn’t really seem to be how the world works. Labels can only ever be reductive; the label creates the group it describes, rather than describing a group which exists without the label. But the fact is that labels are one of the primary ways that we as an LGBT+ community understand ourselves and understand one another. And so I think to that end we would be unable to live without labels. It’s just necessary to acknowledge that they are not totalising, they allow for heterogeneity and we should appreciate them as fluid and flexible.

Now, the main issue I have is how people interpret these labels. So, when a gay man says, ‘if I find a girl attractive, does that mean I’m not gay anymore?’, I find it an oversimplification of how labels work. This suggests that there is somewhere a set of rules that determines whether we fit a certain label or not, and so when deciding whether a particular label is accurate we can defer to some pre-existing rules for an answer to that question. It posits an essential category of ‘gay’ that can be understood better if we keep looking hard enough. I don’t agree with that understanding of labels. Labels exist and signify as and when we use them, and to meet the ends that we desire. So, no, I don’t think fancying a girl means that you’re not gay in any inherent sense. Because being gay is something that the individual gets to decide on; there is no objective criteria to go by.

So, when re-negotiating labels as we understand our bodies and desires better I think that we only really need to consider our own needs. So: if choosing a different label instead of ‘gay’ would allow you to better understand yourself then it might mean that you are not ‘gay’ any more. But the label of ‘gay’ can be compatible with feminine romantic/sexual attraction if the person in question finds that label the most useful. If you are actively seeking a relationship with a woman then the label ‘gay’ probably won’t suit your needs and so another one might be necessary. Otherwise ‘gay’ probably works just fine.

The point is: labels are there so that we understand ourselves and so that we can manipulate how we are perceived in the world. They are inherently flawed, because the language that we have does not accurately describe things so complex as sexual attraction, gender identity, and so on. But probably the only way we have of properly understanding ourselves and others is through the medium of language, and so we have to learn to navigate these labels effectively. But it’s always down to the individual. When wondering whether a label is right, ask yourself this: does this label do what I want it to do? That’s all I think we can go off of, really.

WRB

On gender identity

wrbywaterLeave a comment

I have a weird relationship with gender identity.

On the one hand, I’m very sure of my gender identity. For a long time I was confused, as I think a lot of feminine gay men are; something didn’t feel right, the label ‘man’ felt stifling but the label ‘woman’ was a daunting one, something I didn’t really understand but that always seemed within a haunting proximity. But I managed to work my way through that period of confusion. I educated myself about trans identities and realised that I do not identify completely with that narrative, and I also learnt that ‘man’ need not be as stifling as I had previously thought, it can accommodate me if I choose to accommodate it. I’ve come to accept that these labels are not absolute and can be used as and when I like; ‘man’ might be a word I’ve always grappled with, but in social contexts it tends to serve me well and I am comfortable when that label is ascribed to me. It’s less of a fact of who I am than an opinion, and I don’t experience unease when it’s placed on me. This is all a long-winded way of saying: I identify, in some loose sense of the word, as a man, and I am comfortable with that.

On the other hand, I feel like I know very little about my gender identity. I use ‘man’ because man loosely fits and it’s there, already fully-formed. It’s something of a lazy option: I wear the garment that I found in the cupboard rather than stitching my own. But when I think about myself, I rarely think of myself as a man. I don’t know what I think of myself as, but the cognitive model that ‘man’ triggers does not correspond to how I perceive myself. In other words: I’m still figuring shit out. It’s like I occupy these two ideological planes: I exist in a binary world, and I have found a secure footing there, but I also exist in a world in which gender is more elusive, and it’s in this space that I experience confusion. Ideologically I’ve deconstructed ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but in this new frontier I find myself disoriented without stable points of reference.

This reads as a contradiction – how can I be a man and not a man? But I don’t think that question is quite as counterintuitive as it seems, when I set it out as I do. Because I’m referring to two different arenas, the social and the personal. Socially I’m a man, but personally I’m not. This might seem to some an arbitrary distinction to make; perhaps I make myself vulnerable to ‘snowflake’ attacks. But all I ‘m doing is describing gender as I understand it, and as I think it is most coherently understood. Decades of gender theory has deconstructed the binary model of gender to such an extent that it’s hard to get any stable footing in this realm, and so contradictions are bound to happen for those who are exploring this new terrain. A lot of people (although perhaps not quite as many as it might seem) don’t need to distinguish between the social and the personal because the two neatly map onto each other; or, their personal gender identity is widely accepted socially. Mine isn’t. And so I’ve got a bit more work to do when it comes to understanding my gender.

For a while I’ve toyed with the labels that come with this territory: non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid. None of those seem to fit. But I can’t work out if it’s because I don’t identify with them, or because such identities have such a stigma attached to them (in much the same way that I was scared to identify as ‘gay’ because that was the worst thing a man could be, I thought). If the terms were neutral, how would I approach them? I guess that’s inconsequential, because words (especially words related to the LGBT+ community) are not neutral. Part of adopting a label means adopting, or at least coming to terms with, its connotations. I’m not yet confident enough in my gender identity to do so. The word ‘queer’ fits, but it feels a bit like a cop-out; it doesn’t really affirm anything. It’s a useful word to free one of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but it doesn’t really help in identifying as anything else – at least not for me, anyway. Perhaps it merely signals non-identification, and I should just accept that as where I’ll always be.

How do I proceed? I don’t know. All I can really do is experiment. I think I’ve reached this place where I’m happy to do whatever feels right. I’ve started messing about with drag and makeup and it feels good, so I’m trying not to overthink what it all means, where it situates me re: gender identity. It’s just a thing I like doing; I’ll work out the significance later on, if that’s what I choose to do. I’m not a teenager anymore, I don’t feel a pressure to be anything and I don’t have any of that adolescent self-consciousness – at least not to the same extent. I might not proclaim myself as a feminine man vocally, but I think my actions speak louder than words in this regard. I’m stitching my own garment now, and perhaps I’ll reach a day when I can take off ‘man’ and replace it with something else. Maybe I won’t; maybe it will stay in the closet. But there’ll be piece of mind when I get there. And even if I can’t pull it all together into a single garment, that’s fine. The process of trying to work out gender is perhaps the only place where gender exists.

Identity is a fucking minefield. Every day there seems to be newspaper stories about identities that seek to move beyond cisgender binarism, and I think they seriously misunderstand how identity functions. Gender can’t be fitted into a headline, into a short phrase. And if that’s how gender operates for some people, good for them. But failing to meet that standard isn’t failing. I see things like ‘my gender changes on a daily basis’; and this is true, I feel it, but when it’s condensed into a six-word phrase some of its essence is lost, and it’s easy to ridicule. And that’s why it’s so hard to push non-binary identities into the social realm. They are so personal, I think, and I’d be hard-pressed trying to convert that into something that anyone else might understand. I appreciate the efforts of those who try and do this, but until I am more sure of myself I’m not sure I can partake in it.

But I think what I can do is open up this space of confusion. Because that’s what I think gender is: it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. I’ve kind of been forced to probe my gender identity because something’s not quite right, but I imagine that if a lot of people similarly probed their gender identity it would not hold up as stable. Those who push at the boundaries of gender, I think, are those who come closer to understanding it. Not to make myself superior to anyone else; all I’m saying is that these kinds of monolithic concepts need to be interrogated. The act of interrogation is, I think, where gender is its most potent. I feel gender most when I push it. When I wear heels I don’t really feel like a woman, but I feel gender to a greater intensity than at other times. And sometimes I don’t; sometimes I put on the heels and it doesn’t connect, I don’t feel much at all. I think it’s perhaps more useful, for me at least, to note when I feel gender the strongest, rather than trying to calibrate these feelings on a scale from ‘man’ to ‘woman’. All of this is a bit vague, and maybe I’ll take it all back later, but for now it makes a bit of sense. Perhaps I’ll leave it at that.

Also: it’s refreshing to write about gender identity in this way. I’ve not told many people that I like wearing heels and makeup.

WRB

Sam Smith & Being Non-binary

wrbywaterLeave a comment

In a recent interview with Jameela Jamil as part of her Instagram ‘I Weigh’ series, Sam Smith spoke about how he struggled with his gender identity from a young age and has increasingly identified with the labels genderqueer and non-binary, the latter being the term he explicitly used to define himself. A few other celebrities – namely Miley Cyrus and Ezra Miller – have come out as genderqueer and non-binary recently, and such stories always stimulate discussions about gender, often banal but still necessary to have. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about this topic.

To begin with, I felt incredibly liberated by the interview. I identified with a lot of what Sam was saying: feeling somehow ‘behind’ and isolated within the gay community, of feeling confused from a young age for not fitting in with ‘the boys’ but never being one of ‘the girls’. I was shocked but impressed upon hearing that prior to becoming famous he for a period of time stopped wearing men’s clothing, and his discussions of the intersections between gender identity and fame were insightful. It’s also just great to see someone within the public eye admitting to being confused about body image and gender identity. As someone who has been very confused about gender it’s validating to see these discussions being had in a respectful space.

Now, a few issues I had with what Sam had to say. I thought some of his language was… problematic. He states that he has previously considered having a ‘sex change’, and I find this language a bit outdated, implying that transitioning is the result of having one operation rather than being a process that involves so much more than merely surgery (not to suggest that Sam means this with what he says, but I think that such terminology connotes this old-fashioned approach to the transgender experience). I think he could benefit from saying something like, ‘I debated whether I might want to transition…’ as this is, I think, a better way to discuss gender identity.

Similarly, he also claims that he at times ‘thinks like a woman’, which begs the question: what exactly does it mean to think like a woman? It seems to confirm the binary that he later goes on to deconstruct through coming out as non-binary, seems to presuppose the pseudoscientific notion that men and women think in fundamentally different ways which I am reluctant to accept. Again, I think this is a linguistic nuance and does not necessarily mean that Sam believes in what his language implies. It also probably comes from the fact that he came out in an interview rather than in a thought-out statement, and sometimes language can be awkward when spoken compared to when planned and written. I would like to quiz Sam on what he means by ‘thinking like a woman’, and hopefully dispel the gender essentialism such a claim suggests. But I also think this is a result of his confusion, his lack of exposure to the trans community. It can take a bit of adjustment to become accustomed to how gender ought to be spoken about because much of the language used in mainstream society to describe gender comes from a time before it was understood as it is now. I don’t think Sam should be punished for not being an expert on gender; I think it’s incredibly brave for someone subject to so much scrutiny to speak up on an issue which is so contentious. It’s perhaps enough to say, ‘x is a bit problematic for this reason, so maybe use y instead’. Anything more overtly critical might discourage conversation, which I don’t think benefits anyone. No one should be afraid to speak, but at the same time no one should be unwilling to learn when they misspeak.

Now, onto some of the criticisms that Sam has faced following his coming out. I’ve seen claims that coming out as non-binary enforces the gender binary it seeks to transcend; since gender is so fluid nowadays, to place a third category between binary oppositions makes the oppositions more legitimate, seems to confirm that they are essential categories (as is non-binary) rather than social constructions.

I think this criticism has some credibility. Rather than deconstructing the binary, creating a non-binary identity could arguably introduce a third term, and so does not move beyond it but merely reconfigures it to a system of 3 rather than 2. As such it doesn’t really signify much of a movement beyond traditional notions of gender; sexism could still exist, and it still posits a stable gender marker and so is subject to the same scrutiny as ‘man’ and ‘woman’. In an ideological framework, I think this is true. There is no such thing as gender, I believe, beyond things which signify it. In an ideal world there would be no gender, it would be recognised as an ideological fallacy and so coming out as non-binary seems counterintuitive under such a model of gender. Under this view, though, coming out as anything should be criticised; being trans confirms the gender binary, being gay supposes that there are such things as genders to which one may be attracted. I think to only direct this criticism towards those who come out as non-binary would not really be fair.

Furthermore, while it is generally accepted that gender is a social construct, that does not mean it is insignificant. Ideologically, yes, gender has no inherent meaning, but in the world as we understand and live in it there are coherent understandings of gender, there are such things as men and women and such categories have material consequences. Under this criticism, anyone who identifies as a man or as a woman should be criticised, which would be the majority of the population. To claim that non-binary identities enforce a binary which does not exist overlooks the fact that in society the binary does exist, and however problematic this might be we cannot overlook the conditions of the societies we live in. To claim a non-binary identity is to say that in society there are such things as men and women, and living in that society I do not identify with either of those labels. To deny non-binary as a legitimate identity would leave only two options, man and woman; once more we return to the binary. And coming out is a powerful thing; the identity is created in the act of coming out. If no one came out as non-binary, even if such identities existed, then there would only be the identities of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ visible and accessible. I find it incredibly powerful to come out as non-binary, because it is always done in the context of a society in which the gender binary is oppressively in operation. I think it deserves applause, not immediate criticism.

Another criticism I heard was that Sam was coming out as a publicity stunt. This is viable; gender is a hot topic at the minute, and is bound to catch a few headlines. I don’t think there’s much to say about this, other than that I don’t personally believe Sam has much to gain in coming out as non-binary. He is pretty much at the top of his game. I know this is not the best way to judge, but I thought he came across as incredibly real and honest in his interview, and so I would like to think that he’s not taking the piss. To say that he is appropriating an identity for the sake of publicity excludes him from the community, forces him into an identity he claims not to identify with, which seems anathema to what the queer community is all about. I think all we can really do is accept people’s proclamations about their own identity, and hope that no one would take advantage of this for personal gain. Maybe this is naive, but otherwise we end up policing identities and who has the right to be in the community, which is a worse evil, in my opinion.

I think there are more things to be discussed, but I’m starting to ramble now, I sense, so I’m going to leave it there.

WRB

Literary Crushes

wrbywaterLeave a comment

Today I listened to minisode 2 of the podcast Literary Friction and Octavia and Carrie’s discussion was about literary characters they have a crush on. The basis of their debate was that one of them (I can’t remember which, Carrie I think) had to dig really deep to find a literary character she had a crush on, whereas the other could list them indefinitely. I thought it was an interesting discussion; they related it to styles of reading, with the former discussing how there is a critical pane of glass between herself and the literary world she reads about and she finds it difficult to visualise fictional worlds, whereas the latter reads visually and is very much ‘within’ the text. I thought I’d come in and share where I stand on the matter.

I’m personally a reader who very rarely crushes on literary characters. In fact, I struggle to think of a single character I have a crush on. I think it’s important to define exactly what a ‘crush’ is here, because I think there’s a risk of equivocation if it’s not pinned down. I think ‘crush’ operates on two levels: it is romantic and sexual. Although they touched sometimes on the sexual, I think Octavia and Carrie were mainly discussing crushes in terms of romantic attraction, or they were in some way assuming a link between the two.

This distinction is an important one to make, I think, especially in terms of my own identity. I feel romantic attraction very rarely – I can probably name on one hand the number of people IRL that I’ve had a crush on – whereas I feel sexual attraction all of the time. So when I probe to think about literary crushes it is not really a surprise that I struggle to come up with anything, because how I think of ‘crush’ is closely linked to the romantic and the sexual, and since IRL I don’t feel strong romantic attraction it follows that the same would be true of literature. But then I got to thinking about different media, and I realised that I do tend to crush on men in more visual media quite a lot. For example, I think it’s fair to say I have a crush on Bradley Cooper’s character in A Star Is Born, and I do have crushes on celebrities quite a lot (I think celebrities are a certain kind of fictional character, but that’s a discussion for another day). And so I think it must be something to do with the literary text in particular – rather than fictional worlds in general – that makes it difficult for me to connect to.

Let’s unpack this a bit further. I think it must be something about the lacking visual element of the literary text that leaves me indifferent to the characters, because I don’t read in a very visual way. Let’s take Jackson Maine from A Star Is Born as an example. I find him physically attractive, not just aesthetically but in the way he moves, the small inflections of his character, as well in his emotional vulnerability. There are certain crucial aspects of this which are missing from the literary text as I experience it while reading. I think I erect a critical screen between myself and a text and I think of characters in the abstract rather than as real people, unlike in a film where I do consider the characters real people. It’s strange how a visual element can change how I relate to characters – it would be interesting to read a literary version of A Star Is Born and see whether my opinion on Jackson is different. For myself attraction is a very physical thing and so I suppose it makes sense that I would be more attracted to characters in film than fiction; I find it hard to have a crush on something I consider abstract.

At the same time, I find some texts to be very sexually stimulating. I think that desire can be a linguistic phenomenon as much as anything else. I read Hollinghust’s The Swimming-pool Library at the start of 2019 and I found it to be a very arousing text which was successful in its depiction of gay male sexuality (even if some of its encounters were problematic – I’ll probably touch on this in another post). I was very turned on when I was reading the novel, something which I don’t think I’d much experienced before and I found reading the text quite liberating. It gave me a new understanding of pornography, which I had only understood as visual; I’d never thought that I could be much stimulated by text. But having said this, it would be wrong to say that I had a crush on Will or on any of the characters in The Swimming-pool Library. I might have found the actions they performed sexually arousing, but who was performing them was irrelevant. The sexuality they expressed was what attracted me. Perhaps a crush, at least for me, requires a strange combination of physical and emotional attraction, and although literature can capture elements of both it fails to cohere them in a single character, and so pales to film in this regard. (Not that I prefer film, mind; literature is definitely my preferred medium. But I don’t read books to find crushes, so it’s not a massive failing for me.) I’m not saying that I’ll never fancy a literary character, but it doesn’t really seem likely with what I’ve read before.

Another idea to throw out there: maybe it’s to do with sexuality. A lot of the books I’ve read have been in an educational/academic context, and so they have tended to focus on heterosexual romantic encounters. Maybe my inability to crush on literary characters comes from the fact that I’ve been reading heterosexual relationships, and since I don’t see myself in them it follows that I wouldn’t share in their articulations of desire. I’ve not read that much fiction about gay men and so perhaps that’s where my crushes are. But Jackson Maine isn’t queer, so maybe sexuality has nothing to do with whether I fancy someone or not. In the podcast they mentioned that literary crushes can transcend gender and sexuality, so maybe literature is a space where it is about feeling rather than the identities of those involved. As an unromantic person I may be excluded from this system altogether.

I think it’s interesting to think about the relationship between sexuality IRL and in fiction, because I think fiction opens up a kind of fantasy space where you can fancy whoever you want. It operates like porn in that regard. I think there’s a very special relationship between literature and porn, and literary representations of porn are certainly something I’d like to study further. Both in some way seem to dictate the kinds of sexuality that we are capable of feeling.

WRB