queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2005-06-06 12:36 am
queerbychoice) wrote2005-06-06 12:36 am
An Open Letter to My Uncle Neil
Dear Uncle Neil,
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
aesiron pointed out to me the Straight Dope messageboard thread about me that I see you stumbled onto, and recognized me from, and left the following comment in:
Tell me, what on earth is it that you could possibly have had to add to add to that thread if only you weren't apparently politely restraining yourself because you "don't want to say anything here that might somehow identify" me? You threw that little sentence in as though if only you were free to say it, you knew some sort of private information that would magically prove I was really born queer. So tell me, what on earth is it? My full name? What on earth would that add to the discussion? Were you planning to reveal that I had suspiciously dykey short hair when I was born, and for the first couple of years of my life until it had time to grow out, like, you know, most babies? Or do you know something about my relatives that I don't, that they bizarrely were more eager to tell to a heterosexual like you than to me? Because let's see, my parents and your parents both seem very happily heterosexually married, so what family members does that leave who might be secretly queer? Is it you? Why have you only ever been seen dating women, then? Deeply repressing a side of your own personality, are you? Wait, I know what it is . . . it's the fact that your father traced our family tree all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and everybody knows they were plenty queer. So it does run in the family! And the families of every other human being on earth, too, if you trace them back twenty centuries. In fact, considering that you and my mother have approximately 200 first cousins, it's statistically utterly bizarre that none of them are apparently known to be queer. Just to keep up with the average occurrence of queerness in society in general, 20 of them should be queer! If you're so confident that queerness runs in our family, why is our family unnaturally lacking in queers?
Apparently you believe it's possible for me to "deeply repress" my "true" sexual preference so thoroughly that I couldn't even detect the slightest trace of it myself, but that you on the other hand can magically figure out what my "true" sexual preference really was. Let us consider the implications of this for your sexual preference. Have you ever considered the possibility that you've spent the past four decades "deeply repressing" your own true queer nature? Are you aware that there are plenty of people who do consider themselves heterosexuals well into middle age, and then go on to become quite excellent leaders of the queer community - for example, the writer Adrienne Rich? Having worked as a naturalist, perhaps you are aware that humans' nearest primate relatives exhibit a distinct tendency to all engage in sex with both sexes? Or should I lend you my books by Frans de Waal and Bruce Bagemihl so you can read up on it? Tell me, has it ever even vaguely occurred to you that maybe without all the institutionalized heterosexism we grow up around, humans might act a lot more like, say, our closest primate relatives? Tell me, Uncle Neil, why do all the so-called heterosexuals on earth keep "deeply repressing" their queer potential??? Kindly remember that two can play at this game of going around asserting to the entire Internet that we know our family members' true sexual preferences better than they know them themselves.
On the plus side, however, I can now greatly sympathize with my mother for having to grow up with such an arrogantly presumptuous bratty little brother as you.
Sincerely,
Cynthia
aesiron pointed out to me the Straight Dope messageboard thread about me that I see you stumbled onto, and recognized me from, and left the following comment in:OMG ... I know the author of the referenced LJ and website IRL. And since she's writing under a pseudonym, I don't want to say anything here that might somehow identify her, but ....Um, because as my uncle, you're really in any sort of position whatsoever to be able to know better than me the history of my sexual attractions? Where exactly does this grand expertise of yours come from? It certainly can't come from personal acquaintance with me, because in my entire life I've had a grand total of - let's count them together now, shall we? - zero conversations informing any of my aunts or uncles, including you, about any attraction I've ever felt in my entire life. And it certainly can't come from book reading, because even the briefest glance at these photographs of my bookshelves - which despite all your apparently huge personal acquaintance with me, you've never even seen in person once - would reveal that I've read at least 40 times as many books about the development of sexual preference as you have, and probably infinitely more than that, because it wouldn't surprise me if you've read a grand total of zero. Since you are apparently so very interested in considering yourself an expert on this subject, for Christmas this year shall I buy you copies of Vera Whisman's Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity or Jonathan Ned Katz's The Invention of Heterosexuality or Esther Newton's Margaret Mead Made Me Gay or Bert Archer's The End of Gay and the Death of Heterosexuality or any of several dozen other books that come to mind that could help increase your knowledge in this area?
Despite her statements that she "decided" to be gay, I find it much easier to believe that she discovered the existence of a deeply repressed side of her personality, and her "decision" was really only to accept that.
Tell me, what on earth is it that you could possibly have had to add to add to that thread if only you weren't apparently politely restraining yourself because you "don't want to say anything here that might somehow identify" me? You threw that little sentence in as though if only you were free to say it, you knew some sort of private information that would magically prove I was really born queer. So tell me, what on earth is it? My full name? What on earth would that add to the discussion? Were you planning to reveal that I had suspiciously dykey short hair when I was born, and for the first couple of years of my life until it had time to grow out, like, you know, most babies? Or do you know something about my relatives that I don't, that they bizarrely were more eager to tell to a heterosexual like you than to me? Because let's see, my parents and your parents both seem very happily heterosexually married, so what family members does that leave who might be secretly queer? Is it you? Why have you only ever been seen dating women, then? Deeply repressing a side of your own personality, are you? Wait, I know what it is . . . it's the fact that your father traced our family tree all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and everybody knows they were plenty queer. So it does run in the family! And the families of every other human being on earth, too, if you trace them back twenty centuries. In fact, considering that you and my mother have approximately 200 first cousins, it's statistically utterly bizarre that none of them are apparently known to be queer. Just to keep up with the average occurrence of queerness in society in general, 20 of them should be queer! If you're so confident that queerness runs in our family, why is our family unnaturally lacking in queers?
Apparently you believe it's possible for me to "deeply repress" my "true" sexual preference so thoroughly that I couldn't even detect the slightest trace of it myself, but that you on the other hand can magically figure out what my "true" sexual preference really was. Let us consider the implications of this for your sexual preference. Have you ever considered the possibility that you've spent the past four decades "deeply repressing" your own true queer nature? Are you aware that there are plenty of people who do consider themselves heterosexuals well into middle age, and then go on to become quite excellent leaders of the queer community - for example, the writer Adrienne Rich? Having worked as a naturalist, perhaps you are aware that humans' nearest primate relatives exhibit a distinct tendency to all engage in sex with both sexes? Or should I lend you my books by Frans de Waal and Bruce Bagemihl so you can read up on it? Tell me, has it ever even vaguely occurred to you that maybe without all the institutionalized heterosexism we grow up around, humans might act a lot more like, say, our closest primate relatives? Tell me, Uncle Neil, why do all the so-called heterosexuals on earth keep "deeply repressing" their queer potential??? Kindly remember that two can play at this game of going around asserting to the entire Internet that we know our family members' true sexual preferences better than they know them themselves.
On the plus side, however, I can now greatly sympathize with my mother for having to grow up with such an arrogantly presumptuous bratty little brother as you.
Sincerely,
Cynthia
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Tonight's totally not your night. *hugs*
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*hugs you back*
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Despite her statements that she "decided" to be gay, I find it much easier to believe that she discovered the existence of a deeply repressed side of her personality, and her "decision" was really only to accept that.
Don't you just love men who know what women think and feel better than the women themselves?
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That message board has a lot of very smart people as well as a lot of total idiots that the smart people haven't managed to drive off yet.
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it's all about what's easiest: don't think, don't question, don't explore. fucking lazy.
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My question is about your choice to be bisexual- do you mean you decided to live as a bisexual, or decided to be attracted to women? I really don't understand what you mean; I've always assumed that attraction, hetero- or homosexual, was innate, and that people discover their orientation as they understand themselves better. Are you saying that if I wanted to, I could decide to be attracted to only women? (I apologize again if I'm totally missing the boat here.)
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I mean that I decided to be attracted to women.
"I really don't understand what you mean; I've always assumed that attraction, hetero- or homosexual, was innate, and that people discover their orientation as they understand themselves better. Are you saying that if I wanted to, I could decide to be attracted to only women?"
I believe that everyone is biologically capable of being attracted to any gender or combination of genders, and that the only reason a majority of people in the world today experience attraction exclusively to the opposite gender is that they have been brainwashed into only considering members of the opposite gender as possibilities, and not giving members of the same gender a chance.
However, this is not quite the same thing as saying that there are no non-biological issues that could prevent you from deciding to be attracted to only women. I believe that in order to choose anything, you must have relevant reasons for choosing it. A relevant reason for choosing to be attracted only to women would be that you believed that only women, and never men, possessed a particular trait that you believed was essential in order to make sex or sexual relationships enjoyable for you: for example, you might believe that women were kinder, more intelligent, or just more able to relate to your personal experience of life and to understand you better. However, if for example you were a male wanting to choose to be heterosexual (I do not know what your actual gender is), then I would suspect that your reasons for wanting to choose this would be mostly a desire to avoid being persecuted and discriminated against by your family, your church, or your society in general. None of these reasons would prevent sex or sexual relationships with men from being enjoyable and desirable - in other words, they aren't relevant reasons for choosing to be attracted only to women; instead, they're relevant reasons for choosing to try to help eradicate homophobia.
In short: feelings arise out of beliefs. Feelings of sexual desire arise out of beliefs about who you could have sex or sexual relationships with that would make you happy. And happiness arises partly from people's real ability to relate to and understand each other, and partly from people's beliefs (whether accurate or not) that they're getting a better deal with who they're currently with than they could get elsewhere. Because feelings arise out of beliefs, they can be chosen to the same extent that beliefs can be chosen. If a person from a very right-wing, conservative family reads a lot of leftist political writings, this person can think about what they are reading and decide for themself, on the basis of what they've read, that George W. Bush is a terrible president. This is a choice. However, if this person's parents find out about this and throw a fit and threaten to disown the person if they don't immediately choose to go back to believing that George W. Bush is a good president, it's highly unlikely that the person will even be capable of actually choosing to go back to believing this just because they're being threatened with terrible punishments if they don't. The person might choose to pretend to their parents that they had gone back to believing that George W. Bush is a good president, but they couldn't just arbitrarily choose to change their beliefs without any relevant reason for doing so. They would need to be presented with actual relevant evidence that seemed more convincing than the leftist political writings they read before, in order to be able to actually choose a different belief.
If you have further questions, there's a FAQ on my website, QueerByChoice.com, and an LJ community called