On Sexuality
Mar. 27th, 2005 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotesseI've been thinking about queerness. About what we actually mean by the term "queer."
Queer no longer means homosexual, doesn't just mean BDSM, can apply to non-drag queens. I self-identify as queer. I'm femme to the extreme, submissive but not into being humiliated, and while I've messed around with girls the biggest relationship of my life has been heterosexual, and wonderfully so. So what does it mean when I call myself queer?
If we think about what isn't queer, we're likely to think of being straight. But heterosexuals can be queer.
To me, it all comes down to sellf-awareness. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we're all queer. Each and every one of us. No two people's sexuality is exactly the same. There is no norm to deviate from, and thus no one can be called "normal." Being queer is the sate of being aware of your body, your desires, and your sexuality, and not being afraid to ask for what you want even if it's not being June Cleaver. Or even if it is. But everything you do has to be a choice.
True straight people are the defaulters. They don't look into themselves, don't question who they are. They just take the roles thrown at them from the television and the glossies and the bilboards and the easy listening songs and pinch and squeeze themselves until they fit. Some people may naturally fit into them, and if they choose to be who they really are after thought and introspection, that's a queer act.
Queer means not being able to pigeonhole anymore. It' means not being able to look at a person and say, "Oh, she's straight." Because if that's who she really, truly is, her own claimed sexuality is quite quite queer. You can't divide out the queers by who's got kids, who lives in the city, who has a dog, who goes to the country club, who's a college student. You can't draw lines among queers.
When I say that I am queer, that means that I have looked into myself and found what gives me pleasure. It means that I make my choices based only on who I am as a person, never because society tells me to. It means that I accept myself, and luxuriate in my own unique desires.
I'd hope that someday we can all be queers.
Queer no longer means homosexual, doesn't just mean BDSM, can apply to non-drag queens. I self-identify as queer. I'm femme to the extreme, submissive but not into being humiliated, and while I've messed around with girls the biggest relationship of my life has been heterosexual, and wonderfully so. So what does it mean when I call myself queer?
If we think about what isn't queer, we're likely to think of being straight. But heterosexuals can be queer.
To me, it all comes down to sellf-awareness. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we're all queer. Each and every one of us. No two people's sexuality is exactly the same. There is no norm to deviate from, and thus no one can be called "normal." Being queer is the sate of being aware of your body, your desires, and your sexuality, and not being afraid to ask for what you want even if it's not being June Cleaver. Or even if it is. But everything you do has to be a choice.
True straight people are the defaulters. They don't look into themselves, don't question who they are. They just take the roles thrown at them from the television and the glossies and the bilboards and the easy listening songs and pinch and squeeze themselves until they fit. Some people may naturally fit into them, and if they choose to be who they really are after thought and introspection, that's a queer act.
Queer means not being able to pigeonhole anymore. It' means not being able to look at a person and say, "Oh, she's straight." Because if that's who she really, truly is, her own claimed sexuality is quite quite queer. You can't divide out the queers by who's got kids, who lives in the city, who has a dog, who goes to the country club, who's a college student. You can't draw lines among queers.
When I say that I am queer, that means that I have looked into myself and found what gives me pleasure. It means that I make my choices based only on who I am as a person, never because society tells me to. It means that I accept myself, and luxuriate in my own unique desires.
I'd hope that someday we can all be queers.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 09:09 pm (UTC)I, like many other people, use the word "queer" to mean deviation from the norm. The way I see it, there is no norm and we are all unique combinations of various factors. The way you see it, anything not straight is deviant. The word can be applied to both viewpoints with grammatical correctness. You just have a fundamentally different view of human sexuality than I do. It would've been nice if you could have addressed that difference right off the bat in a civilized way, instead of ranting.
On Wicca: I'm not a Wiccan, and I do have very serious doubts about it. I think that, while I'm not willing to say that the entire thing is bunk, certianly almost all the ways in which it's practiced are. There are a lot of teenies going for it for the shock value and nothing else. However, I'd have to do a lot more research before I'd feel comfortable dismissing it as totally as you do. And I really don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to publically lambast someome's religion, especially if they're not doing anything to disrupt my life. And I would not be comfortable with using someone's belief system to score a cheap and casual insult.
You seem to feel that I've done something very similar with sexuality, but I've not said that any one lifestyle is wrong, stupid, or mock-worthy. I've just said that I believe we should think about these things for ourselves, and that it is my belief that when we do that we'll find that sexuality is myriad. I very carefully worded this is such a way so as to not hurt or offend anyone who isn't gay or kinky, because I have problems with the way that alternative cultures can sometimes develop a "more alternative than thou" complex, and I don't want to put anyone down.
BTW, thanks for dropping the personal attacks.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 09:40 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, until I see a Wiccan bring a baby out of a burning building, I am going to continue to dismiss it as an utterly unworthy waste of space.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 10:16 pm (UTC)I guess that, for me, what it really comes down to is that there's no real need for the diss. There are plenty of other ways of impugning someone else's intelligence and character without lashing out at huge groups of people. Hey, "idiot" works just fine.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 06:37 pm (UTC)I said it before, and I'll say it again: Wiccans---all of them---are worthless. Too general? Too callous? If you think Wicca is anything other than pure bullshit with a sprinkling of delusion on top, you obviously don't know anything about it.