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Nine Black Poppies · 10-13-2010, 08:13 AM

Because I feel this to be relevant and it builds on what I posted in the Sexual Orientation thread:

Quote:

...what are straight and gay if not sexual practices? I suggest we view these distinctions as primarily sociocultural categories, or cultural spheres that people choose to inhabit in large part because they experience a cultural fit. Some men like to have sex with men in the bathrooms of gay bars after dancing to techno music, others like to have sex with men while watching straight porn and talking about bitches. Because the only thing these experiences have in common are sex acts between men, we might view heterosexuality, then, as a system of erotic relations and a cultural experience that appeals to people who choose to be straight. Conversely, we might view queerness as a system of erotic relations and a cultural experience that appeals to people who choose to be queer.

Lastly, where is the power in this analysis and what does this mean for the queer movement? In social movement context, redefining queer and non-queer as cultural affiliations implies that queer "rights" serve to protect not everyone who engages in same-sex sexuality, but all those who are excluded from, and alienated by, hegemonic STR8 culture--gender freaks, all kids in gay-straight alliances, all people who are or are willing to be part of this thing we call "gay." Such an approach refuses biological determinism, the essentialism of the closet, and the distinctions between "us" and "them" rooted in the gay/straight binary. But perhaps more importantly, if it's not same-sex sexual practices that bind us, we must examine and take responsibility for the cultural spheres that we produce. Queer culture becomes not simply the outgrowth of resistance to oppression--although it certainly is this--but an available repertoire of aesthetic distinctions, personal preferences, and comforts we call home: d-yke haircuts, techno music, drag shows, queer jokes, leather and so on. To view queerness as constitutive of these pleasures, as opposed to some agreed upon set of rights linked to sexual practices, will keep queerness intact regardless of movement gains or losses.