Queer enough?What’s queer? Who’s queer?
These days, we usually use the word to talk about the ‘non-straight’ people in society, the obvious non-conformists like transsexuals, lesbians, gay men and bisexuals among us. Most of us understand ‘queer’ to mean same-sex orientation to some degree or the physical transition from one sex to the other, and for most intents and purposes, it suits just fine.
But who are we leaving out?
There are lots of other people out there who don’t call themselves straight but aren’t covered by our four ‘normal’ queer categories. Can the term ‘queer’ encompass all these many varied identities and behaviours?
First off the mark, how about people who are intersex, that is born neither male nor female, or some combination of both? Well of course, we queer people say earnestly, yes, obviously they belong under this umbrella with us. But we don’t think about them much, do we? We don’t make really make room in our communities for them, because we’re actually highly invested in people having ‘the right bits’. Gay girls emphatically want girl’s bits to play with, and gay guys are NOT welcoming of anyone who looks male overall but has some other sort of plumbing. Gay guys are positively elitist when it comes to the size and shape of certain organs. We're more about genitals than perhaps even straight people are. If the bits we expect to find aren't there, or are somewhat different, we react with something like disgust.
What about people who consider themselves transgender, but have no intention of making any sort of physical transition? The woman who secretly considers herself innately male, for instance, but lives an otherwise regular life? Or how about the ultra feminine woman, complete with all the plumbing, who is genetically male?
Shall we consider the transvestite – a straight man or woman who enjoys taking on the opposite gender only some of the time, with no interest in actually making a permanent transition? We in the queer community jump to the assumption that these people are bisexual or gay, given our experience with drag queens and kings, but surprisingly enough the vast majority of transvestites are actually heterosexual men.
What of the conventional male-female couple who enjoy swapping sexual roles and behaviours in the sack, celebrating their dual genderedness? A man may have no attraction to other men, and yet enjoy pretending to be a woman in the sack, and this role-playing is not that uncommon in women either. Similarly, there are men out there who would be considered ‘straight’ by all standards, except for their enjoyment of their female partner penetrating them with a sex toy or digit, and there’s a lot of resistance and discrimination toward these men among the majority male population. Surely, that qualifies them for queer status?
What about the man or woman who knows himself or herself to have the capacity to relate sexually to both men and women, who lives a happy, conventional life with the wife or husband and kids, never actively pursuing sexual relationships with anyone of the same-sex? In essence, a non-practicing bisexual? Queer enough? Do they need to be identified as queer? Maybe not, if queerness is qualified by participation in a lifestyle or community involving other queer people. But if it is, what of the celibate gay man or woman, someone who does not pursue sexual or social relationships with anyone, yet happily identifies as homosexual?
Recently in New Zealand, the tiny asexual community is striving to make itself heard. These are people who may have romantic interests and sometimes even sexual relationships with spouses, yet do not experience any sort of sexual attraction. That’s a difficult idea for a lot of us to get our heads around, but they’re here, and they’ll be queer, if we let them. Why not?
What are we to make of the straight man that chooses to have sex with men for convenience or out of a rejection of women? That’s not acceptable practice in the wider community – so is it queer? Or how about heterosexual platonic lovers, those happy few who choose never to have sex with their loved one - not just until they are married, but NEVER? They won’t be harassed by the heterosexual population at large, very likely, but they’ll certainly be considered odd or somehow faulty. Should we welcome such couples under our big queer umbrella?
And then there’s heterosexual polygamists and the polyamorous… those people who either have multiple spouses or multiple romantic relationships (FYI they’re not the same thing). Does a woman with two husbands living together in one household, sharing her romantically, fiscally and physically, count as queer? What about a man with a wife and a girlfriend or two who all know about each other and are happy with the arrangement? That’s definitely not acceptable in our day and age, though there are the beginnings of the tiniest whispers of social change around these issues.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is a vast array of diverse sexual behaviour out there that is in conflict with traditional conceptions of what it is to be ‘straight,’ ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable.’ By altering our notions of what it is to be queer, and inviting all those sex, love and gender nonconformists to share with us a position of confident opposition to the mandated model of heterosexuality in our culture, we can free our society of the expectation that weighs so heavily on so many of us. That’s the ‘queer’ I want to be a part of: a movement that stands in opposition to repression and conformity, that seeks to liberate and enable all to express their love, sexuality and many gendered identities.
Danny Rudd
Wank, wank, wank…Is it mere coincidence that the idea of ‘the homosexual’ as an entirely separate type of human being emerged in the same century and culture as did the invention of the photographic image and the moving picture, or did the birth of these technologies in fact help create ‘the homosexual’ as a category of human, by making graphic imagery of same-sex sexual behaviours more accessible, thereby allowing greater numbers of men to cement their sexuality?
The historically recent emergence of visual technologies such as photography, print and film has allowed for the mass production of graphic depictions of human sexual behaviour. Inevitably, amongst the masses of ‘straight’ pornography made available by these technologies, some of these images were of same-sex behaviours. Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that exposure to homosexual imagery actually causes homosexual urges, as it’s obvious that a person can have same sex attractions without having ever laid eyes on gay porn. There must have been a ready market for homosexual porn for it to have got off the ground at all. And clearly, homosexual sex acts occur in societies where the graphic image is absent. My argument, rather, is that it is the repeated, deliberate exposure to the static or moving depiction of exclusively male-male sex, in connection with masturbation, that has allowed a greater number of men than ever before to cement a preference for the type of sexual conduct depicted by homosexual pornography.
Let me explain how this happens in a little more detail. Through looking at images that depict certain behaviours (say, rimming or fellatio) and masturbating in contemplation of those images, a man creates a mental and perhaps even neural association between the behaviours he observes and sexual pleasure. He is then more likely to repeat the act of masturbation in response to the stimulus, in an attempt to recreate the initial pleasurable experience, and the more often he does this, the stronger the association becomes, until he finds himself unable to ‘get off’ in response to any other stimulus. I would suggest that this masturbatory process might in fact be responsible for more than the small-scale adoption of specific sex acts, that it is in fact largely responsible for creating an exclusive preference for one gender over the other. And maybe this has made exclusive homosexuality more prevalent in our Western societies than it might otherwise be. Commercial demand prompts greater supply and all the networking that goes with it, and before long there are enough people to form a rudimentary community.
In other words, gayness as an identity is largely the product of the male obsession with whacking off while looking at dirty pictures. I could be wrong, but I think there’s pretty good evidence for this assertion. For instance, in those cultures without ready access to film and print, where homosexual behaviour among men has been observed or reported, there is arguably more fluidity in male sexuality: the men almost without fail go on to develop sexual relationships with women after an ‘apprenticeship’ with older men, or they maintain sexual relationships with both men and women throughout their adult lives. In such cultures, actual communities founded on same-sex sexual behaviour are unheard of. Even historically, in classical societies such as those of the Greeks and Romans, it was considered the norm for men who engaged in homosexual sex acts to marry heterosexually and engage in heterosexual coupling as well. It is also telling that gay women, who are on the whole less likely to expose themselves to pornography, commonly report more fluidity in their sexual identity and expression than do gay men.
It would be fascinating to conduct sociological and psychological studies into this much neglected area of human behaviour… of course, no such studies have been proposed by mostly male queer theorists, who have much invested politically in the notion of homosexuality as something innate and immutable. Yes, the conception of inborn homosexuality has paved the way for rights and recognition, but increasingly as gay and bisexual women’s voices are heard, the biological determinist position looks less tenable.
Danny Rudd
A Challenge…A lot of men these days proudly declare themselves feminists, or talk about being in touch with their feminine side… but what does that actually mean? Isn’t that an acknowledgement that each of us has a spark of female inside us? Doesn’t that mean we’re all just the tiniest bit transgendered? Funny, then, that we sensitive new age guys don’t give ourselves girl’s names.
Say what?
That’s a bit extreme, I hear you say, surely? The very idea makes even the most sensitive, most new age-y guys squirm. But if we are really, truly pro-female and comfortable with our inner femininity, however slight, we shouldn’t have any trouble with it. If we do, we’re hypocrites.
I gave myself a girl’s name. At first I kept it to myself, and that was weird enough. I found it hard just thinking of a girl’s name I could comfortably call myself… until I realised I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any girl’s name, because while I’m pretty darn feminist, I have some deep-seated discomfort with the idea of people calling me a girl in a derogatory way. Society tells us subtly that it’s not acceptable, and we listen. But after trying fairly androgynous-sounding names like Danni [sic] and Tara, I pushed myself and picked something more feminine, precisely because it made me uncomfortable. Then when I let my friends know I wanted to try it on for a day, they made it pretty obvious they thought I was being stupid, I got the message loud and clear. As a guy, I’m not allowed to be a Sarah.
But for a girl to have a guy’s name, like Terri or Jo, or even a name derived from a male name, like Geraldine or Paula, is quite normal… do you see the double standard here? It’s ok for a girl to ‘aspire’ to manliness, not just in name but in things like confidence and comfort of clothing and so on, but for a guy to look like a girl… that’s just not on. That’s because as a society, we still stupidly think there’s something inferior about femaleness. And that’s what’s behind effeminate males and drag queens being harassed and male-to-female transgender people being called immoral or perverted.
THAT’S not on.
So come on guys, put yourselves to the test… give yourself a girl’s name, even for just a day, and see if it makes you think or feel any differently. What are you afraid of?
Danny Rudd
Poison SeedI don’t know whether I should be relieved or horrified that a lot of young bisexual and gay men these days don’t know what the term ‘bug chasing’ means.
According to that veritable fount of knowledge, Wikipedia: bugchasing (or bug chasing) is a slang term for a subculture of gay men who desire, and actively pursue HIV infection. Bugchasers ‘chase the bug’ by seeking sexual partners who are HIV positive for the purpose of having unprotected sex and sero-converting; ‘giftgivers’ are HIV+ men who attempt to infect bugchasers with HIV.
That’s insane, right? Why would anyone actually want to contract HIV?
There’s a lot of debate about how prevalent this behaviour actually is. A widely discredited article in Rolling Stone a couple of years back suggested that up to 25% of people who contract HIV do so on purpose, while some researchers consider it little more than an internet fantasy. But it does exist.
People who consider themselves bugchasers want to take control of their sex lives and destiny… basically, they see HIV infection as inevitable and just want to get it out of the way. A lot of them think using condoms is unnatural and gets in the way of their sexual pleasure by reducing the sensitivity of their penis. The problem is that these guys don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. Medications are available now which, while not curing the disease, can prolong an infected person’s life and to some extent hide the more unpleasant aspects. And in the States, doctors prescribe steroids to HIV+ men to prevent muscle wasting, and as a result a lot of positive men are able to achieve the trim, muscular looks the rest of us aspire to and desire.
Coupled with this, there is an alarming recent trend in gay pornography to glamorise ‘bare-backing’ or unprotected anal sex. There are now HIV+ gay porn stars saying that their positive status allows them to indulge in unprotected orgiastic behaviour without fear of the consequences, because they’ve already got the worst thing they can get, and thanks to the medications, it’s not doing them any noticeable harm. One such porn star is Treasure Island Media’s Dawson, the hulkingly well-built poster boy for ‘carefree’ HIV+ sexuality. So the message is clear: you can look hotter and get more sex if you've got the bug.
Sounds great, right? Trouble is, while outwardly you might look attractive and able to have as much sex as you want with whomever, there’s a whole lot else going on that the glamour account of HIV isn’t letting you in on. All those medications cause really uncomfortable and sometimes crippling side effects, and they’re not foolproof. You could get another strain of HIV from unsafe sex that your current medication can’t protect you from, get sick quickly and die unpleasantly. Or if you live in a country where the drugs aren’t covered by insurance or welfare and you can’t afford them, you’re in for an excruciating, drawn out death, being ugly to boot, as opportunistic skin infections tarnish your good looks.
The bugchasers could know all this, but they don’t. Why? Well, partly they’re just sick of hearing all the warnings, it’s like the news: you get desensitised after a while. But more so, the gay community is deeply age-segregated: we younger guys just don’t get to know the older guys because we don’t want them hitting on us. We’re only interested in the hot boys, who mostly happen to be young, like ourselves. This is all perfectly natural, really, we’re a pretty conceited lot, but this segregation means that we don’t hear the stories the older guys could tell. And maybe we don’t want to: we’re young, this is supposed to be the time of our lives, we don’t want to think about death. But the truth is, the older guys saw their friends, lovers and sex partners dying all around them, they haven’t forgotten, and now we’re at risk and we’re not listening to the stories that might help us to take more responsibility for ourselves and each other.
The point of all this is that it really is desperately important for all you guys who are having receptive anal sex, whether straight, bi or gay, to protect yourselves by insisting your sex partner(s) use condoms. Don’t be fooled into thinking it doesn’t matter – because getting HIV infection will seriously fuck up your life. I have friends who are positive, and all the discrimination, shame, cramps, diarrhoea, vomiting, lesions and blindness aren’t worth it. Believe me.
Danny Rudd
