The Title For This Thread Eludes Me

[Shyvin]

I was gallivanting around the house earlier just minding my own business and I thought about being gay. For a brief moment I experienced something odd. I felt like the world shouldn't label me at all. That society shouldn't even give a second glance. If I were to have a boyfriend join me at family dinner no one would be disgusted or taken aback by it.

It is a world where you don't have to 'come out' because society doesn't disfavor who you choose to be in love with. I wouldn't be gay, or straight, or bi. I would just be. Sexuality isn't defined.

Isn't that a weird thought?

that's called a perfect world.

the unfortunate thing is that it's existed in the past like greeks and romans for example, and somehow it became "wrong" in society today. and we think society is advancing...

[Geradeth]

We can only hope that that's where we're heading as a society...

It would be nice though, wouldn't it...

[vitanil]

Unfortunately, we as a society have been entrenched in two thousand years of culture and norms. Maybe in some alternate universe...

[Spectre]

Are you sure you didn't hit your head while you were "gallivanting around the house" ?

Ive thought of weirder things while i was wandering aimlessly around my house.

[Holmes]

Relative to just twenty years ago, we are far closer to that world today. Seriously, things have changed massively in our favour of late. Don't miss out on these good years and see how you find it yourself.

[Chandra]

Originally Posted by Shyvin

I felt like the world shouldn't label me at all. That society shouldn't even give a second glance. [...] It is a world where you don't have to 'come out' because society doesn't disfavor who you choose to be in love with. I wouldn't be gay, or straight, or bi. I would just be. Sexuality isn't defined.

Pretty much exactly how I feel all the time. Nothing odd about it. What's odd is the large percentage of the population who can't seem to wrap their heads around this fairly simple concept...

[Filip]

Originally Posted by Holmes

Relative to just twenty years ago, we are far closer to that world today. Seriously, things have changed massively in our favour of late. Don't miss out on these good years and see how you find it yourself.

I was going to say this, but Holmes beat me to it. Even just in our lifetime, we're moving towards that world in strides. Sure, there's a lot of work to be done, but in a way, we're the generation that is in a position to make the final push towards it.
We're at a better place than anyone in history to live our lives like we want to. Being gay is still "a deal" but it's not as big a deal as it used to be.

However, such things aren't done by waiting for perfection to happen, but by sticking your neck out every so often. Society isn't an impersonal monster beating us down. We're a significant part of it and we can change it if we want to.

[Aoifeee]

That is generally my way of thinking!

[GhostDog]

Ooo this sounds like queer theory, which really questions the idea of identity period. Nobody's "naturally" gay, straight, bi, male, or female, since gender and sexual identities are all basically social constructs within a particular historical context anyway. All identity is learned performance. And according to Foucault, sexuality in particular has the Victorians to, uh, thank for making it a pathology and studying it as a disease, and therefore turning it into a label to be affixed to somebody. Before that in Western culture, homosexuality was just something people did. Now it's something you are. (At least, according to Queer theory. There are plenty who disagree with that idea.)

Which I do find an interesting idea, yes, but I also think humans as a species just like to categorize things. It's what we do. Even as children, we start labelling the world around us. "Doggy" is distinct from "kitty", for example. Different cultures do it differently, but on the whole, I think there's some remnant of survival behavior left in it ("what is that, can I eat it? will it eat me?") that's just expanded to other uses. Western culture in particular really likes categorizing people. We have so many different words and ways of doing so!

Otherwise, it's really just information overload. "Lesbian" is easier to process than "She is a female-bodied person who identifies as female and is also exclusively sexually and emotionally interested in other female-bodied people who identify as female because that's just what she does." It may be more thorough, and probably would result in you thinking more about who that person is as a person rather than just as a word, but how much time do any of us really have in a day to consider everyone we meet? I also don't think there'd be any less stigma in doing it that way, really.

So I think that, even as far as we may progress socially, there will always be categories. There may be fifty new ones and the words "gay" and "straight" may be left in the dust for different words or different identities, but I'm pretty sure we're always going to differentiate between the different facets of human sexuality. Maybe I'm wrong! But even as different identities emerge, confirming the diversity of our community (like genderqueer, pansexual, bisexual-lesbian, and whatever else), it's really only adding new boxes to try to fit in. They're big boxes, yes, but they're not some nonlabelled state of personhood, either. It may just be that in the future we have a metric crap-ton of boxes to choose from.

Besides, sexual identities have their upsides as well as their downsides. You can build a community around them. I probably wouldn't know all you wonderful people if I hadn't been asking myself if I was gay, bi, or just confused; if I hadn't been asking myself if this, this, or that word didn't describe me. There is a danger in trying to conform to a label for convenience's sake, yes, and a danger in being dismissed as a person for the sake of a word, but they can also bring people with something in common together. ("Hey! We're all stigmatized 'cause we either like our own gender or don't fit inside societal gender bounds! Let's party with other people who won't pelt us with rocks!") I mean, I think y'all are pretty groovy!

I would hope that, as time passes, the stigma attached to one category or the other lessens and disappears and these words simply become description. Things are certainly edging that way, though they've got a long way to go. But, alas, I don't think there will be no linguistic separation between "guy who brings girlfriend home" and "guy who brings boyfriend home". Society likes its descriptors too much. Perhaps I'm wrong and this generation's great-great-great grandchildren would laugh at my shortsightedness! That'd be spiffin'.

But, yes, I do think it is an interesting thought. =) Assuming I got anywhere near close to what you were thinking, haha!

And any of you who actually managed to get through that wall of text totally get a gold star. o_o

[malachite]

I would replace weird with wonderful

[Geradeth]

I'd just like to say GhostDog that your "wall of text" is full of win and I may just have post a more decent reply once I'm one a computer instead of trying to type one my iPod!

[White Raven]

When you really take a moment and look at the world you may find that its that way in other areas besides sexuallity too. Religion for instance. If there was no religon we all would be. Same with race, wealth, and social status. If we eliminate all of that we would be nothing more than people solely defined by our personality. But that wont happen any time soon.

[Shyvin]

I think it's in the realization that those things don't define us that make us better people. If you accept this method of thought as your way of living it is those that stick to them to survive that are beneath you. Not to sound rude, I don't mean it in that way.

[HyperMuse32]

gallivanting is possibly my favorite word in the universe

lol i used to get that alot from my parents. where did u go gallivanting off to? hehe. i dont use it so much tho

[Chandra]

Originally Posted by GhostDog

I also think humans as a species just like to categorize things. It's what we do. Even as children, we start labelling the world around us. "Doggy" is distinct from "kitty", for example.

I agree with you that words and labels can have their usefulness, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone who wants to use them. But to me, the big, stigma-laden, identity-forming categories (sexuality, religion, politics, etc.) are on a whole different level from straightforward, neutral terms like "kitty" and "doggy". (I know you were just using those as examples, but bear with me here.) There's no need for nuance with a word like "kitty" - an animal is either a cat or it isn't. Also, there's not much in the way of ulterior connotation that attaches itself to such a word. My big problem with labels for the "heavy" categories is that a) they're usually not accurate enough (in my case, anyway) and b) they take on connotations that lead people to assume all kinds of other things that aren't necessarily true.

Originally Posted by GhostDog

Otherwise, it's really just information overload. "Lesbian" is easier to process than "She is a female-bodied person who identifies as female and is also exclusively sexually and emotionally interested in other female-bodied people who identify as female because that's just what she does." It may be more thorough, and probably would result in you thinking more about who that person is as a person rather than just as a word, but how much time do any of us really have in a day to consider everyone we meet? I also don't think there'd be any less stigma in doing it that way, really.

To be perfectly honest, I think it should take people a lot of time to get to know the other people in their lives. I really, truly do believe that it creates less stigma, because the person has to make an effort to understand and connect with you on a deeper level. And for those that we don't have time for - random people you come across at work or school or at the post office or whatever - why would we need to know that kind of information about them anyway?

Originally Posted by GhostDog

Besides, sexual identities have their upsides as well as their downsides. You can build a community around them. I probably wouldn't know all you wonderful people if I hadn't been asking myself if I was gay, bi, or just confused; if I hadn't been asking myself if this, this, or that word didn't describe me. There is a danger in trying to conform to a label for convenience's sake, yes, and a danger in being dismissed as a person for the sake of a word, but they can also bring people with something in common together. ("Hey! We're all stigmatized 'cause we either like our own gender or don't fit inside societal gender bounds! Let's party with other people who won't pelt us with rocks!") I mean, I think y'all are pretty groovy!

This is a good point... I guess you could say that we've been largely brought together as a community because of our shared sense of oppression. Personally though (as great as you guys are ), I'd be happier in an oppression-free world where I didn't have to seek out communities like this one to feel accepted.

[GhostDog]

Originally Posted by Chandra

I agree with you that words and labels can have their usefulness, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone who wants to use them. But to me, the big, stigma-laden, identity-forming categories (sexuality, religion, politics, etc.) are on a whole different level from straightforward, neutral terms like "kitty" and "doggy". (I know you were just using those as examples, but bear with me here.) There's no need for nuance with a word like "kitty" - an animal is either a cat or it isn't. Also, there's not much in the way of ulterior connotation that attaches itself to such a word. My big problem with labels for the "heavy" categories is that a) they're usually not accurate enough (in my case, anyway) and b) they take on connotations that lead people to assume all kinds of other things that aren't necessarily true.

Oh, true, true. I know "gay" is a hell of a lot more loaded than "dog", and even as many terms as we have to choose from, none of them will fit everyone to a T. My main point though was that I didn't think it would be likely that, if we were in a society where we lacked such labels, we'd lack them for long. Unless the whole point of this post implied a theoretical society that didn't place such an emphasis on scientific classification and I totally missed it. >.> I guess I was just trying to picture today's society as it is, just suddenly without words for "gay" or what have you, and seeing what that would look like.

Originally Posted by Chandra

To be perfectly honest, I think it should take people a lot of time to get to know the other people in their lives. I really, truly do believe that it creates less stigma, because the person has to make an effort to understand and connect with you on a deeper level. And for those that we don't have time for - random people you come across at work or school or at the post office or whatever - why would we need to know that kind of information about them anyway?

Oh, I agree on that point. What I was thinking, there, is that before we really had terms for homosexuality in Western society, it's not like the behaviors themselves were any less discriminated against. It's simply that they weren't really talked about; the behaviors were still condemned and legally punishable. Lack of a word to describe the person didn't mean they were treated as anything less of an anomaly.

Likewise, in other societies that have had words for people who have same-sex relationships and cross gender lines, the underlying attitudes were that it was totally cool, despite having a definition for it. Words, their connotations, and their uses may be powerful tools, particularly when you're describing someone negatively, but I also see them as indications of the actual attitude behind their use. So that was sort of what I was getting at (or trying to, anyway). A negative attitude that lacks words to describe itself is still a negative attitude, I think.

Originally Posted by Chandra

This is a good point... I guess you could say that we've been largely brought together as a community because of our shared sense of oppression. Personally though (as great as you guys are ), I'd be happier in an oppression-free world where I didn't have to seek out communities like this one to feel accepted.

Amen! But on that point, I wasn't presupposing that lack of a word meant lack of stigma. I just remember watching a few documentaries on the emergence of the gay community, when a lot of older folks were recalling their youth (in the early part of the 20th century) - feeling like they were the only one on the planet who felt that way, like they couldn't talk to anyone, like nobody would understand them. Yet finding out that there were other people like them, and that there was a word for what they'd been feeling, helped them not feel so utterly isolated. So while visibility for the gay community made them a visible target for fundamentalists, it also made People Like Us visible to a lot of folks who assumed they were alone. But it did require defining themselves as LGBT.

But, yeah. I'd totally rather live in a world where I wouldn't have to think twice about bringing a ladyfriend to a family reunion. =P I just wasn't sure that not having definitions for sexuality would A. last, or B. make much of a difference if people didn't like the idea of same-sex relationships anyway.

Rereading the original post, I may just have missed the actual point, though. Aheh. Hem. I'll be... over there.

Originally Posted by Chandra

There's no need for nuance with a word like "kitty" - an animal is either a cat or it isn't. Also, there's not much in the way of ulterior connotation that attaches itself to such a word.

I know of an ulterior connotation for kitty


This is a very informative thread on the concept of labels. I know of a set of labels that many people consider universal in concept. Numbers.