But you're so queer for a straight guy! Affirming complexities of gendered sexualities in men
This paper argues the need for expansion of the categories of sexuality and gender as these relate to heterosexual-identified males; it calls for an increased visibility of males who are straight but who, by queering straight masculinity, challenge normative, hegemonic hetero-masculinity. Queering here is seen as the disrupting of both normative heterosexuality and masculinity, presenting the heterosexual male in a way that adopts characteristics of both the feminine and that which is perceived to be gay. Drawing on a typology of “queer masculinities of straight males” (Heasley, 2003; 2005), this paper argues that this articulation of the diversity within the hetero-masculine is critical to examine for its disruption of hegemonic masculinity and its accompanying partner, hegemonic heterosexuality. By acknowledging, legitimizing, and reproducing queer straight masculinity, “another world becomes possible” – a world where both masculinity and heterosexuality takes on a new range of meanings – meanings that become associated positively with the feminine and with homosexuality. This paper uses the typology of queer-straight masculinity as well as photos and narratives from an art exhibit on intimate male friendships as a way to examine how straight males can and do disrupt the normative gender/sexual system.
Note from Reclaiming Natural manhood site:
This paper seeks to build upon the existing confusion created in the West by gender identities misdefined in terms of sexuality, to accommodate the discrepancies created in this process, rather than seek to dismantle the basic confusion and revert back to the original gender definitions.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
God has to be a man-woman
Ardhnarishwar means 'God who is half woman and half man.' This is a form of Hindu deity Shiva.
The Greek deities Hermes and Aphrodite combined to form 'hermaphrodite'.
The Confucian and Taoist principles of yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) balance the male with the female elements.
Himalayan Buddhists use the words yab-yum instead of yin-yang. Hopi Native Americans believe that modern life has been thrown out of balance because the sacred feminine has been eliminated. The Jews call God Yahweh, JHVH or YHWH. The Christians use the name Jehovah. All four names unite the masculine, Jah (Psalms 68:4) wtih Havah, which is the pre-Hebraic name for Eve.
BY PERWEZ DEWAN
The Greek deities Hermes and Aphrodite combined to form 'hermaphrodite'.
The Confucian and Taoist principles of yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) balance the male with the female elements.
Himalayan Buddhists use the words yab-yum instead of yin-yang. Hopi Native Americans believe that modern life has been thrown out of balance because the sacred feminine has been eliminated. The Jews call God Yahweh, JHVH or YHWH. The Christians use the name Jehovah. All four names unite the masculine, Jah (Psalms 68:4) wtih Havah, which is the pre-Hebraic name for Eve.
BY PERWEZ DEWAN
Friday, January 16, 2009
The third gender in twentieth-century America
Journal of Social History, Winter, 1996 by Randolph Trumbach
George Chauncey's brilliant and often persuasive study of male homosexual relations in early twentieth-century New York was published two years ago on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall riot that inaugurated the recent gay liberation movement. The world that he describes was the product of a major shift in western sexual behavior that had begun two hundred years before, around 1700. And his book is in dialogue with the scholars who over the past twenty-five years have tried to analyze that shift. The nature of the problem to be discussed can be indicated by asking whether homosexuality and heterosexuality are biological categories that divide the world into a majority and a minority that can be found in all times and places. To such a question most western people today would reply yes. And while they would probably wonder why a minority should be homosexual, they would simply accept without question that most people are heterosexual. Since the 1970s, however, the work of some historians and sociologists has radically challenged these presumptions. Mary McIntosh in a classic article in 1968 began the discussion by proposing that homosexuality in modern society was a deviant role into which some men were socialized beginning around 1700. Nine years later in 1977 Jeffrey Weeks and myself, under McIntosh's influence but independently of each other, rephrased McIntosh's proposal. Weeks maintained that the modern homosexual role emerged in the late nineteenth century when the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality were invented.(1)..... click here to read more.
George Chauncey's brilliant and often persuasive study of male homosexual relations in early twentieth-century New York was published two years ago on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall riot that inaugurated the recent gay liberation movement. The world that he describes was the product of a major shift in western sexual behavior that had begun two hundred years before, around 1700. And his book is in dialogue with the scholars who over the past twenty-five years have tried to analyze that shift. The nature of the problem to be discussed can be indicated by asking whether homosexuality and heterosexuality are biological categories that divide the world into a majority and a minority that can be found in all times and places. To such a question most western people today would reply yes. And while they would probably wonder why a minority should be homosexual, they would simply accept without question that most people are heterosexual. Since the 1970s, however, the work of some historians and sociologists has radically challenged these presumptions. Mary McIntosh in a classic article in 1968 began the discussion by proposing that homosexuality in modern society was a deviant role into which some men were socialized beginning around 1700. Nine years later in 1977 Jeffrey Weeks and myself, under McIntosh's influence but independently of each other, rephrased McIntosh's proposal. Weeks maintained that the modern homosexual role emerged in the late nineteenth century when the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality were invented.(1)..... click here to read more.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sounding gay
At first blush, schoolyard taunts might not seem a fruitful source of truisms about the human condition, but the epithet “it takes one to know one” does have some basis in reality, at least for gays and lesbians, who are often attuned to the special somethings that subtly and covertly distinguish gay from straight. In gay vernacular, the ability to identify who is gay and who isn’t is termed gay radar, or gaydar. But exactly which signals does gaydar pick up? And what differentiates the signals given off by gays and straights?
The voice offers a few clues. Though popular stereotype holds that gay men lisp, lisping is quite rare and is often evidence of a diagnosable speech impediment. The most famous lisper alive today, boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson, hardly fits into the “gay” category. But the lisping stereotype is not altogether removed from reality: In fact, some North American gay males do pronounce sibilants (s, z, sh, and the like) in a distinctive way – by adding more sibilation, hissing, or stridency, a phenomenon phonologists call assibilation.
Here, of course, the dangers of stereotypes become apparent. Gay men are not the only group whose members sometimes speak with assibilation. A habit of assibilating “stops” like t and d is a prominent feature of Quebec French, for example, and the source of much derision from national French speakers. A word like térébentine (“turpentine”) in certain Quebec French dialects is pronounced something like tsérébentsine. Many New Yorkers of all persuasions, and some American Jews, also assibilate in ways similar to Quebec French or stereotypical gay speech. Moreover, gay men who speak with what a North American newsreader would consider an “accent” – such as British, Australian, or even Texan gays – rarely assibilate at all. Nailing down just what makes a gay voice gay is as vague and slippery as human sexuality itself.
That’s not to say the problem hasn’t been studied. In one experiment, Rudolf Gaudio, an openly-gay linguistics student at Stanford University, asked four gay and four straight men to read two passages into a tape recorder. The first text was a dry excerpt from an accounting volume, the second a dramatic passage from Harvey Fierstein’s play about gay life, Torch Song Trilogy. A group of 13 subjects of both sexes listened to selected snippets of those recorded passages and ranked each one according to a “semantic differential” technique, i.e., on a seven-position scale between opposite terms: straight and gay, effeminate and masculine, reserved and emotional, affected and ordinary.
As Gaudio noted, “listeners’ guesses about speakers’ sexual orientation were largely accurate: with ‘straight’ at the left pole of the continuum and ‘gay’ at the right pole, all the straight speakers rated on the ‘straight’ side, and all the gay speakers were to their right (i.e., sounded ‘more gay’).” That pattern held true for both the accounting and dramatic passages.
Gaudio’s research was not concerned with gaydar per se; rather, his interest was in correlating pitch measurements with the listeners’ ratings. Oddly, though, in a range of pitch measurements taken from the actual sound waves of the four gay and four straight men’s voices, there was no significant correlation with the listeners’ judgements. The experiment, then, could provide no quantifiable reason why the listeners’ perceptions about gay and straight speakers were correct.
Gaudio explains this anomaly by noting that his experiment considered only a narrow range of measurements; gay and straight men’s speech might well differ according to criteria Gaudio did not measure. A leading openly-gay linguist, Arnold Zwicky of Ohio State University, echoes that interpretation and adds that gay men’s speech can differ from straight in a number of ways; listeners might pick up on only one or some combination of those factors – and not necessarily the ones Gaudio measured. Still, the likelihood of further research in this area, according to Gaudio and Zwicky, is remote due to the political touchiness of studying gay speech.
[Originally published in the Economist, 1995 ¶ Posted 2001.05.07; updated 2006.07.26]
The voice offers a few clues. Though popular stereotype holds that gay men lisp, lisping is quite rare and is often evidence of a diagnosable speech impediment. The most famous lisper alive today, boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson, hardly fits into the “gay” category. But the lisping stereotype is not altogether removed from reality: In fact, some North American gay males do pronounce sibilants (s, z, sh, and the like) in a distinctive way – by adding more sibilation, hissing, or stridency, a phenomenon phonologists call assibilation.
Here, of course, the dangers of stereotypes become apparent. Gay men are not the only group whose members sometimes speak with assibilation. A habit of assibilating “stops” like t and d is a prominent feature of Quebec French, for example, and the source of much derision from national French speakers. A word like térébentine (“turpentine”) in certain Quebec French dialects is pronounced something like tsérébentsine. Many New Yorkers of all persuasions, and some American Jews, also assibilate in ways similar to Quebec French or stereotypical gay speech. Moreover, gay men who speak with what a North American newsreader would consider an “accent” – such as British, Australian, or even Texan gays – rarely assibilate at all. Nailing down just what makes a gay voice gay is as vague and slippery as human sexuality itself.
That’s not to say the problem hasn’t been studied. In one experiment, Rudolf Gaudio, an openly-gay linguistics student at Stanford University, asked four gay and four straight men to read two passages into a tape recorder. The first text was a dry excerpt from an accounting volume, the second a dramatic passage from Harvey Fierstein’s play about gay life, Torch Song Trilogy. A group of 13 subjects of both sexes listened to selected snippets of those recorded passages and ranked each one according to a “semantic differential” technique, i.e., on a seven-position scale between opposite terms: straight and gay, effeminate and masculine, reserved and emotional, affected and ordinary.
As Gaudio noted, “listeners’ guesses about speakers’ sexual orientation were largely accurate: with ‘straight’ at the left pole of the continuum and ‘gay’ at the right pole, all the straight speakers rated on the ‘straight’ side, and all the gay speakers were to their right (i.e., sounded ‘more gay’).” That pattern held true for both the accounting and dramatic passages.
Gaudio’s research was not concerned with gaydar per se; rather, his interest was in correlating pitch measurements with the listeners’ ratings. Oddly, though, in a range of pitch measurements taken from the actual sound waves of the four gay and four straight men’s voices, there was no significant correlation with the listeners’ judgements. The experiment, then, could provide no quantifiable reason why the listeners’ perceptions about gay and straight speakers were correct.
Gaudio explains this anomaly by noting that his experiment considered only a narrow range of measurements; gay and straight men’s speech might well differ according to criteria Gaudio did not measure. A leading openly-gay linguist, Arnold Zwicky of Ohio State University, echoes that interpretation and adds that gay men’s speech can differ from straight in a number of ways; listeners might pick up on only one or some combination of those factors – and not necessarily the ones Gaudio measured. Still, the likelihood of further research in this area, according to Gaudio and Zwicky, is remote due to the political touchiness of studying gay speech.
[Originally published in the Economist, 1995 ¶ Posted 2001.05.07; updated 2006.07.26]
Sunday, August 03, 2008
This should tell those who say that the emergence of 'gay' identity has helped improve the acceptance of what they call 'homosexuality' in the West
There are reports of rising hostility towards homosexuality in schools. But is it also -- or only -- a language shift?
March 11, 2008 11:35 AM
Should we be worried about the apparent rise in homophobia in schools? A survey by a teachers' union, reported this morning, believes it is "endemic" and on the rise.
Colleagues expressed surprise at this, given that homophobia in other parts of our society appears to have faded. "Even the Daily Mail has given up," said one.
Our news report notes that, "The word 'gay' was reported to be the most frequently used term to put someone down, followed by 'bitch' and 'slag'."
Is this, though, just a change in the use of the word or evidence of growing hostility?
The online Oxford English Dictionary has recorded changes in the use of the word since its first written mention in 1310, when it meant "light-hearted, exuberantly cheerful, sportive, merry".
It takes us through changes until in 1825 it has a recorded slang use meaning a woman living by prostitution.
In 1935 it begins life as American slang for homosexual.
But the OED also notes another change taking place in the US as early as 1978, when it becomes a description of something "Foolish, stupid, socially inappropriate or disapproved of; 'lame'."
Here are the draft additions to the dictionary from 2003:
1978 G. KIMBERLY Skateboard 41 'It looks terrific on you.' 'It looks gay.'
1987 Creem Close-up Presents No. 1. 6 Your so-stupid-they're-funny captions are gay. Get into some [real] humor.
1999 T. PARKER & M. STONE Cartman's Mom is Dirty Slut in South Park Scripts: Bk. 1 150 (stage direct.) As the camera zooms in on their faces, that gay 'Near/Far' song from 'Titanic' plays.
2001 Washington Post 8 May C9 Today, they [sc. teenagers] often use gay as an adjective meaning 'stupid'... A gay movie is a stupid movie or one that makes no sense or one with a lame plot or all of those things.
2002 Independent 3 Oct. 21/3 At last the first official confirmation that the term 'gay' has now ousted 'pants' as the popular youth slang for 'naff.'
So is the word 'gay' in the vocabulary of school students ahead of our general understanding or a reflection of something more sinister?
If it is the latter, possibly adopting the experience of Holland would help. One colleague reported that Dutch equivalent of sixth form students are required by law to have at least a 2.5-hour session on homosexuality, taught by people from gay organisations and not by their usual teachers. Even faith schools are included in this requirement. However, the Dutch government has also reported increasing hostility to homosexuality in schools.
Our Comment is free editors are already commissioning a blog straight from the sixth form to find out the inside story -- if there is one.
March 11, 2008 11:35 AM
Should we be worried about the apparent rise in homophobia in schools? A survey by a teachers' union, reported this morning, believes it is "endemic" and on the rise.
Colleagues expressed surprise at this, given that homophobia in other parts of our society appears to have faded. "Even the Daily Mail has given up," said one.
Our news report notes that, "The word 'gay' was reported to be the most frequently used term to put someone down, followed by 'bitch' and 'slag'."
Is this, though, just a change in the use of the word or evidence of growing hostility?
The online Oxford English Dictionary has recorded changes in the use of the word since its first written mention in 1310, when it meant "light-hearted, exuberantly cheerful, sportive, merry".
It takes us through changes until in 1825 it has a recorded slang use meaning a woman living by prostitution.
In 1935 it begins life as American slang for homosexual.
But the OED also notes another change taking place in the US as early as 1978, when it becomes a description of something "Foolish, stupid, socially inappropriate or disapproved of; 'lame'."
Here are the draft additions to the dictionary from 2003:
1978 G. KIMBERLY Skateboard 41 'It looks terrific on you.' 'It looks gay.'
1987 Creem Close-up Presents No. 1. 6 Your so-stupid-they're-funny captions are gay. Get into some [real] humor.
1999 T. PARKER & M. STONE Cartman's Mom is Dirty Slut in South Park Scripts: Bk. 1 150 (stage direct.) As the camera zooms in on their faces, that gay 'Near/Far' song from 'Titanic' plays.
2001 Washington Post 8 May C9 Today, they [sc. teenagers] often use gay as an adjective meaning 'stupid'... A gay movie is a stupid movie or one that makes no sense or one with a lame plot or all of those things.
2002 Independent 3 Oct. 21/3 At last the first official confirmation that the term 'gay' has now ousted 'pants' as the popular youth slang for 'naff.'
So is the word 'gay' in the vocabulary of school students ahead of our general understanding or a reflection of something more sinister?
If it is the latter, possibly adopting the experience of Holland would help. One colleague reported that Dutch equivalent of sixth form students are required by law to have at least a 2.5-hour session on homosexuality, taught by people from gay organisations and not by their usual teachers. Even faith schools are included in this requirement. However, the Dutch government has also reported increasing hostility to homosexuality in schools.
Our Comment is free editors are already commissioning a blog straight from the sixth form to find out the inside story -- if there is one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)