orichalcum: (Pompeii)
orichalcum ([personal profile] orichalcum) wrote2008-01-31 04:19 pm

Thoughts from my immersion into GLBT and Queer Theory.


1. I am oddly offended by the lesbian-feminist stance that women should be lesbians as a means of rejecting the patriarchal heterosexual system: "there is a nascent feminist political content in the act of choosing a woman lover or life partner in the face of institutionalized heterosexuality (A. Rich)." The odd part here is not that I am offended because I myself have chosen to love and marry someone of the opposite gender despite finding other women attractive, but because it seems to me to devalue the loving same-sex relationships that my female (and, relatedly, male) friends have formed with each other. If one is choosing one's romantic partner for political reasons, the implication is that you could choose the "easier path" of conforming to social norms and finding an opposite-sex partner. This seems to deny the possibility of women who do not find any men sexually or romantically attractive and thus choose to partner with only those they do find attractive, other women. It also seems to lessen the credibility of the relationship. No one tells me that I got married as a way of demonstrating my commitment to traditional nuclear families; I got married because I deeply love [livejournal.com profile] cerebralpaladin.



2. I disagree with many of Soapsuds' points in her article denying homoerotic tension in various works of literature and film, primarily because I do take a postmodern approach in valuing the experience of the audience and reader as much as the intent of the author. However, on a larger point and thining about this in relationship to queer theory, I think there's an interesting social change going on in terms of the sexualization of all relationships. Basically, I think there are two major social changes affecting this in the last fifteen years in elite coastal young American discourse:

1. Erotic same-sex relationships have been normalized to a certain extent, such that one can look at two men walking down the street in New York City holding hands and make a plausible guess that they are doing so because they are in a romantic relationship. While still an oppressed and highly discriminated against minority, gays and lesbians are very visible in the media. In particular, lesbian characters are beginning to avoid some of the traditional stereotypesNon- associated with such characters - is Willow butch or femme?

2. Non-erotic opposite-sex friendships have simultaneously been normalized to a large extent. My parents and in-laws don't really get the idea of being platonic friends with unmarried members of the opposite sex, especially with exes. For me, the idea of abandoning friendships with all my close guy friends because people might erroneously assume romantic tensions or affairs is both ridiculous and painful. While there are some biological issues I talk about with female friends rather than male ones, when I wanted to announce my pregnancy or my engagement, about half of the first group of people called were male. (It helps, of course, that there's some crossover between my friends and [livejournal.com profile] cerebralpaladin's, regardless of gender.)

So I think the net effect of 1 and 2 is to establish a society in which all relationships, at least between two people of approximately the same generation, are simultaneously potentially sexualized and potentially platonic. A woman and a man meet at a sports bar. The lively conversation that they strike up could be interpreted as flirting; it could also be interpreted as laying the groundwork for a solid friendship built on a shared fandom. Two men go to see a movie together. Is it a date? Soapsuds would take the approach I think of assuming platonic relations until clear signs are sent otherwise, and I think that she may have the majority viewpoint here. This may contribute to the rise in popularity of online dating and simultaneously of traditional "date signals" such as one person paying. In the absence of default assumptions about cross-gender interaction, new signs must be developed. I would argue, though, that in order to reject a heteronormative and discriminatory society, we need to apply the same rules to same-gender interactions.

Mostly, this is an issue with interactions between two people who do not know each other well. If I am at dinner with [livejournal.com profile] julianyap and he offers to pay, I do not think this is intended to convey any romantic intentions. If I'm getting chocolate with [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97 and she hasn't gone to the ATM lately and I offer to pay for them, I can assume that [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97 does not think she is required to kiss me in return for my generosity.

The final thought here is that we appear to have at least the foundation of a code in which the participants can sexualize a relationship, some aspects of which may be obvious to onlookers (kissing) but others of which may not be (picking up the check.) We do not have a similar good set of exchange-signs for signaling a platonic friendship; we abandon those in childhood with woven bracelets and elaborate charts. Perhaps the "Favorite Five" on cellphone lists is such an indicator, or blog-links, or LJ-friends pages, but there are no good ways there of easily differentiating between closer friends and acquaintances. "So-and-so has added you as a friend," Facebook tells me, when it is my cousin, or my brother, or my husband who has done this. What obligations does So-and-so feel towards me? If someone on my friends-list has a need of money and puts up a request for funds on their LJ, am I obliged to give, as I would if [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97 had no money to buy chocolate? Do people on my friends-list have a right to feel offended if I do not invite them to a party or formal event?

I've wandered now from my subfield into [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97's, come to think of it. So, what formal signs of friendship should we reintroduce, [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97?

[identity profile] karakara98.livejournal.com 2008-02-01 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
This is all very interesting. But I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn I come at this from a different and more conservative direction.

I will start by saying I left the world of anthropological/archaeological gender theory in 1995 after an unsatisfying experience with an archaeology seminar called "Gender in Prehistory." My general approach though is shaped by this archaeological/anthropological training, and it is to assume social structures flow out of economic system and general level of security and lawfulness (i.e. can a member of society assume that they will be protect by "government" or society and if not, how do they handle it). So I assume our present system of nuclear families comes out of an agrarian/industrial economy. Social systems are propped up by laws (e.g. the tax code that gives deductions for children) and by social pressures and perceptions of morality. Conversely, the decrease in daily freedoms of women in places like Iraq and Afghanistan could be attributed at least in part to a desire for more security in an extremely insecure place. (Havenstone gives a good anecdotal example of this with a description of the rise of the burqa in one Afghani city).

Given all that background, I see the last 50-60 years as a time of huge upheaval of the family as domestic concerns no longer enough to fully engage women and they seek to become fully economically integrated into the industrialized/knowledge based economy that doesn't require brute physical labor. So I see social changes as flowing from this economic change. (As an aside, my professor of that archaeology class saw the rise of labor saving domestic appliances like washing machines as "bribes" to get women to leave the workforce they had entered in WWII and return home).

Anyway, all that is preface to my saying that a structured heteronormative "patriarchal" environment arose because it met some social need. Obviously there are people who don't fit in to that, and I think as a subculture they should be supported and celebrated. But I question whether the advocates you start out quoting will meet the needs of the majority. They may or they may not, but there may be as many people out there who would be as underserved by a free-wheeling, anything goes, pluralistic society as those who are underserved by a heteronormative one. That's my main response to the example you cite above: some people do need to belong and there's nothing more wrong with that than with the people who follow a different path, and coercion to follow a new norm is no better than coercion to follow the old. I see that coercion though as a natural part of just getting along in society.

We're at a time of huge upheaval and instability in our social structures. I think that's why the "Culture Wars" have been so fiercely played out in politics over the past 20 years. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

[identity profile] orichalcum.livejournal.com 2008-02-01 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm a little confused as to whether you're addressing issues 1 or 2. On the issue of the needs of the majority, I agree that I think the free-wheeling anything goes pluralistic society is likely to spark social chaos and confusion. I agree also that I think people like structures and categories as means of shaping and defining society, and that these often, although not necessarily, arise out of economic motives. However, women are no longer a primary means of exchange/cementing social bonds between men in the aforementioned young coastal elite American society.

So I'd argue that the social/economic need in the above subgroup currently is for forming supportive communities that nurture the individual and their needs. I think that such a social network will become more stable if there are clearer signs distinguishing members of the group and their relationship to each other, and I suppose I'm offering that as one possibility for resolving the upheaval and instability, because I don't think that the traditional patriarchal heteronormative nuclear family model is working terribly well at the moment.

[identity profile] karakara98.livejournal.com 2008-02-01 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Sorry, I was responding more to your first post, but I think I also got off into wanderings of my own.

I agree that clear signals have not yet been established and may be needed.

[identity profile] meepodeekin.livejournal.com 2008-02-01 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed I think it's pretty clear that the traditional patriarchal heteronormative nuclear family model is crashing and burning in our generation. Which is why I find the anti-gay-marriage movement so frustrating. I mean, hardly anyone wants to get married anymore, so why not respect the ones who do? I agree with karakara98 that some order is needed, and I think the people who suffer the most from lack of clear family structure are children, who deserve to be protected and nurtured. There's a lot of interaction with that issue and questions of traditional and nontraditional relationships between adults. As well as questions of two-job families, day care, etc. It's clear that the status quo is not stable as a way of raising children, and while I support the feminist advances that have helped lead to these issues, something is going to have to give. It's one reason (among many) why I don't myself have children. I wonder what kind of standard family structure we'll have when the dust settles out.