Thu 5 Jul 2007
Sly is in pain, folks. Something is pretty seriously haywire with my neck…so there are gonna be more docs today, and hopefully we’ll get this all sorted out.
In the meantime, queer moments of what the fuckery up next.
From the coverage on Michael Glatze, a newly minted ex-gay…and former leader of YGA:
On the other hand, perhaps Glatze was never gay to begin with. Sexual orientation can be a confusing thing and it is certainly something that a person has no immediate control over. Perhaps Glatze was confused and was straight the entire time.
That’s Matt Comer, which Pam links to at the Blend.
Say what? Perhaps he was *really* straight the entire time? What a miracle! I just don’t get the idea of this external object to the self, “orientation” that is entirely immutable but can be acted against. He can be straight and have lots of gay sex….or he can really be gay and now is in self-denial. How about psychological drive to be in self-denial, or a sub culture? Maybe gay got too common, and he needed to take another step outside the mainstream? I have no idea, and these guesses make about as much sense as saying he was *really* straight. So what gives. Why are we still locked in an immutable binary of a sexual orientation that cannot be chosen in any way shape or form?
The other note I’ll make is that several comments on this article focus in on Michael noting that anal sex gave him intestinal cramps. The snark boils down to: you’re doing it wrong. Which, while a nice barb of liberals have better sex, is largely unwarranted. It happens. It’s not a sign from God to stop doing dudes, and it’s not proof that you’re incompetent at sex.
And in Liberals Gone Wrong, part five trillion and three…
..Y’know, one of my very, very gay women friends wrote me an email and said Honey, let me just explain something to you. When transsexual, when…when they’re going through the…the…the transgender op…they infuse the man with the female hormones, and they go wack-a-doodle on you. And, ah, Ann [Coulter] is obviously getting the hormones…big doses. That’s why she’s so bizarre right now.
That’s at Randi Rhodes of Air America.
Story at Transadvocate, with a hat tip to Autumn at the Blend.
That’s all for the morning…
-sly
July 5th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Good points on what I wrote, but you do my writing a disfavor by quoting only one paragraph. “On the other hand,” pretty much screams that there was, indeed, something more to my writing before that paragraph.
But, like I said… good points.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Matt, the point wasn’t to rebuke your entire piece…most of it was spot on. I zero’d in on the part that i find problematic in a broad cross section of queer thought, which is an over dependance on the “there is no choice in being gay” motif.
As a queer person with a more flexible orientation, i’m keen to put a finer point on how the will and imagination can be shaped by our choices and environments, while advocating for a world in which being gay didn’t have to be defended at all, much less with the rather questionable logic of “it’s not my fault.”
You didn’t start this kind of rhetoric, nor are you the sole practitioner. I chose that quote because of Pam’s link, and because it was a classic example. I think that it flirts too much with the language of injury, where i’m more likely to tend towards the language of queer power.
but as i said…good coverage on how queer sex is conflated with predatory behavior. it’s just the ontology that trips the rest up for me.
July 6th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Mmm hmm. Yeah, you know my thoughts Sly on the whole “we can’t help it” aspect of orientation. It’s just a little pointless. We should be arguing that there’s nothing wrong with queerness as a choice.
What if you were, to choose an example from air, a queer man who transitions and now prefers women? Or a lesbian who becomes a FTM trannyfag? Both suggest that it might be the general terrain of queerness as much as object choice that determine sexual orientation..
But I think that if sexual orientation is chosen, then it’s an after-the-fact choice, in conditions never entirely of one’s making. I mean, is any sexual partner a conscious choice? Really.
I hate the whole sexual “confusion” thing anyway. It’s one of the recurring myths of bisexuality, that bi people (or at least behaviours) are just confused. Multiple and confused are not the same thing.
Ex-gays are decidedly odd though. I think sexual preferences–as in, right now I prefer this–*can* shift, but I don’t think you can consciously just go, oh I want to be a Christian, now I like teh womenz, just because there’s an cultural incompatibility between your faith and your sexuality. I mean, sexuality kinda encompasses a whole lotta things you don’t totally control–desires, fantasies, actions etc.
BUT THEN AGAIN, I am a wack-a-doodle trannygirl. Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I live in fundie country (God help me), BJU is right down the road, and their goofy-ass radio station intrudes on my well-being regularly. I hear about the “ex-gay” movement more and more these days, with NARTH quoted, like they have a clue. (NARTH was also featured recently on FOX NEWS, probably no coincidence with all the fundies working for FOX.)
What is crucial about the so-called ex-gays is how the fundies trot them out to PROVE such-and-so: “See? You can change since this fella here did it!” (It’s usually a male.) And they trot him out to tell you his life story, just like in AA.
The painful thing about this method is how SUCCESSFUL it can be in roping in the poor kids who are at odds with their parents over their sexuality. The ex-gay approach currently specializes in MERCY, rather than judgment, and these poor kids have been judged so harshly, it seems like love-bombing in comparison. The ex-gay movement actually promises them the ACCEPTANCE they never had before, and compassionate understanding borne of identification.
Further, the critique of gay culture as status-oriented meat-market should not be ignored. Unfortunately, the ex-gays employing this argument do not extend their critique to women or capitalism, which is where the meat-market originated, not with gays. (It appeals to the discomfort MEN always have, when they are being treated like women.)
This subject always interests me! Sly, keep blogging and make the email and memes wait, dude!
July 7th, 2007 at 9:08 am
“But I think that if sexual orientation is chosen, then it’s an after-the-fact choice, in conditions never entirely of one’s making.”
Word, em. I get the feeling there’s a whole lot of construction going on, even if people insist that it’s ontological. Horny may not be a conscious choice, but inscribed truth? I’m not buying it.
“The ex-gay approach currently specializes in MERCY,”
I see what you’re saying…it’s contingent mercy, whuch is an even worse way to judge because it distorts what true grace looks like. I’m enough of a Baptist to know that grace is totally unearned, so this stuff really gets my hackles up.