I am not a sea wall. You will not save Holland by putting your finger in my belly button.

[seiberwing]

So I'm on the Feminist Club mailing list for some unidentifiable reason, and I got this in my Inbox today.

XXXXXX spent three months over the
summer in San Francisco learning about queer communities and
collecting queer life stories and is now continuing her research in
Asheville. If you identify as a lesbian, dyke, a queer woman,
genderqueer, transman or transwoman and would be interested in sharing
your gendered narrative in a safe space please contact XXXXX XXXX at
******.edu or ###-###-####.

My first thought was the obvious 'yay, I get to tell people about me!', after the inevitable cringing at the landslide of category language because I wasn't aware there was a difference between lesbian and dyke besides how short you cut your hair. Then I thought about it a bit and sent it along to my Trash folder because I really doubt I have anything in particular I care about. And also I have no idea what a gendered narrative is so I suppose I can't really help in that area anything.

I don't have a "queer life story". I'm not zomg oppressed, nor do I have any interesting tidbits about gay culture barring the one time I went out to Scandals and saw the pretty shirtless men dancing together and that one woman said I was pretty. I could fill this researcher's ear with discourses of yaoi and slash, but those don't count because they're not real and they're not zomg oppressed. To be quite frank, I'm a little offended by the idea of being stuck in a category at all because it tends to dictate how I'm supposed to act. I don't. My sexual preference is "I like what I like, deal with it".

I mean, aside from my commentary on the attractiveness of other women (and I do that with guys too, on occasion, although most of those tend to be people in film), I'm fairly certain no one would even know. I don't go hang out in areas of gayness, and as far as gay pride things go I usually miss them because I don't find out about them until afterwards. I've never had anyone get on my case for it and my parents are pretty cool with the concept as long as I have a bit of common sense in my romantic and sexual endeavors. I've never had rocks thrown at me or been sexually assaulted or called filthy names for it. In sum, I've never done or had done to me any of those things that make queer (I'm starting to loathe that word) literature or film seem to hold a great appeal to everyone who thinks that they're works of art because I don't bloody care. I have more important things to do with my life than fuss over my sexuality, like write about giant alien robots.

So my queer life story is as follows: I like chicks. Dudes are okay too, but especially if I get to watch/read about them getting it on. End.

And really, who's going to care about that?

Comments

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

I think part of the categorization issue is that those who aren't negatively prejudiced can occasionally do the opposite - *assume* that everybody of the homosexual orientation is somehow socially idealized as the perfect victim. It's part of the stigma that remains attached to the recognition of gays as simple "people who like people" rather than "gays." I do think it's an interesting realization on your part to detach yourself from that spectrum of analysis, but on the other hand, I do think it's important that people realize that gay is simply an insignificant aspect of a person, taken in as casually to the individual as any heterosexual would. While I perfectly understand you choice to refrain, I am interested to find out if anybody responds to that email with references to a less dramatic experience.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Yes. Hell yes. The perfect victim cliche is something I loathe in a lot of films because you can't seem to be gay and nonfruity without being oppressed.

It's not my choice to refrain, I just don't think I have anything to offer.

[lonescorpion.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's pretty much my stance on it, too.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I realize some people put their identity around it, the way a religious person might or a sports fan might, but it's not my bag.

[raisedbymoogles.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. I don't make a big fuss of my sexuality, so barring "o hay, I liek grlz" I don't really have an Experience As A Queer. And there's really nothing wrong with that - I look forward to the day where alternative sexuality is No Big Deal.*

*Not that I don't see the value of the gay community telling their stories. Someone has to.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* It's No Big Deal to me personally, or to my friends and family.

[oml404.livejournal.com]

I the only reason I even bother to refer to myself as gay is that it's quicker and easier than saying 'I'm only really attracted to men at the moment but I have been attracted to women in the past and I was married that one time but at the minute it's all about the cock.' Saying I'm gay/queer/etc is just so much less effort than going into the whole saga.

I don't self-identify as gay particularly, I have little enough interest in the notion of gay culture and the gay scene that it isn't terribly relevant to me and I'm chary of the idea of slapping labels on myself. If it wasn't more or less necessary to do the gay scene in order to get laid I probably wouldn't bother at all.

Like you I think I have nothing to really add to the peculiar discipline of gay studies. My life has been free from homophobia for the most part and any angst my sexuality has caused me has been entirely personal and of no interest to the wider world at large. I've always been confused and slightly weirded out by gay people who seem to put their sexuality at the centre of their lives. It always gives me the uncomfortable impression that taking it up the arse means you have to join some kind of weird cult.

I'd much rather just get on with the serious business of acquiring every zombie movie ever made and writing horrible fictions.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'll take bisexual, if only because people'd look at me funny if I said lesbian and then perved on BW Megatron's voice. Gave out a minilecture about boxes and labels when someone asked if I was gay at work, although in retrospect it might not have been the best of ideas.

It always gives me the uncomfortable impression that taking it up the arse means you have to join some kind of weird cult.

Oddly enough, that was the impression I got at the GLBTQWTFOMG Alliance meetings that I went to. Probably half of why I stopped going.

[koilungfish.livejournal.com]

I'm chary of the idea of slapping labels on myself
I have no idea why, but I now have a mental image of two postman covering you with yellow sticky-notes.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Your icon amuses me.

[ravynstoneabbey]

Why must people label themselves based on sexual preference or hell anything not thought as "normal"? I'm a person, not a bunch of letters and labels. :) Life isn't alphabet soup.

Also, *snerk* at your subject line.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Humanity thrives on labels. Same reason I protested those stupid personality tests they gave us in class because they all read like horoscopes.

^_^

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

It's kind of annoying to me that this person apparently couldn't be bothered to include 'bisexual' in their list of identities, but that's largely because I'm sick and tired of being called a 'lesbian' because I currently have a girlfriend. It's about like saying I'm a vegetarian because I had a salad for lunch.

Other than that, count me in as not really being up on gay culture all that much. I have a passing interest in some of it and I should probably be more politically active than I an, but by and large most of it doesn't speak to me any more than most of mainstream women's culture speaks to me (or for that matter, a lot of fannish female culture, particularly the idea that female space is 'safe' space).

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I think that's what they mean by 'queer women', but not sure. They didn't give me the Not Straight handbook when I started digging on women.

I hear there's a bit of a stigma against bisexuals in the mythical gay community, thinking that they're only experimenting with being gay (so?) or promiscuous (I'm not) or just doing it because guys think girl on girl is hot (wtf, no). Never run into it, though.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Never run into it myself, but a friend of mine who is more active in the GLBT community has. In addition to the things you mentioned, bisexuals are unpopular in certain circles because it's apparently easier for us to 'pass' as straight if we're with a partner of the opposite sex.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's work for it.

I couldn't pass as straight. Even if I did have a boyfriend I'd be talking about cleavage half the time.

[cutiebirdgal.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, that's how I feel about music. You can't like Green Day without some sort of backlash, it seems.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Why?

[cutiebirdgal.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure. Some tell me it's bad music, others seem to think they're 'too popular' now, and some attack the band's integrity- "They're only in it for the money, you know, they don't really CARE about the music they're producing!"

I've gotten significantly less of it since I've stopped caring about other people's opinions. With many people, the less you care, the less they feel like preaching to you.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Unless you consider Asheville itself an area of gayness. Which it kinda is.

[lilyofflorence.livejournal.com]

I really respect your viewpoint here. I've been more and more frustrated by our society's tendency (even in areas where the intention is "sympathetic")to feel like there's a need to label everything a person could do or 'be' before the issues can be addressed. It just seems like we're creating boxes when they don't need to be there. I don't identify myself with any particular group at all, and I find that a lot of times when people do, they become marginalized- and worse, they tend to lose a bit of 'self' when being absorbed into whatever group they're associated. It's like a ridiculous, gigantic Venn diagram where everything has a category or a name. Perhaps we'll be better off when people are able to find a home in the gray areas, and not be thought less of for it.