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Edited on Sat May-31-08 08:46 AM by baby_mouse
This was a post in response to Skinner in meegbear's "I alerted" thread. I want to know what people think...
It's a difficult thing for us, too. Anyone can post something on a message board claiming to be gay, for one thing. There are many among us who have no problem with accusing other homosexuals of homophobia, many of us WERE homophobic before we came out and many of us still are, even after having come out, just in different ways.
There is certainly a phenomenon of gay people disagreeing vehemently on what constitutes damaging homophobia. I had to invent terms for the different kinds of homophobia I could see, *acute* homophobia, meaning actual dislike and distrust of homosexuality and *sub* homophobia, the kind where everyone persistently jokes "with" you cos they're so "cool with it" about asses, anal penetration, how much of a "queen" you are and so on, to the exclusion, pretty much, of any other kind of conversation. You get to the stage fairly quickly in the second case where you have to think "this guy's even more interested with what I do with my dick in my spare time than I am" and it gets you wondering.
TBH, I swither on cases of "sub" homophobia. It's not malicious, and that makes it difficult to justify calling people out on it. It's just that it's sometimes really annoying and sometimes really *embarassing*. I don't necessarily WANT to talk about my ass all the time, sometimes I want to talk about gardening or how the weather is (attempts to discuss these actual subjects with people who know I'm gay have recently resulted in people saying "Oh, you're so gay, that's such a gay thing (WTF? What's gay about weather and gardening???)) and it's like they can't hear a word I say.
Unfortunately, if you allow ALL "sub" homophobia (there really ought to be a better term, it's not really "phobic" as such (I hope, and, um, am prepared to believe)) then eventually it starts to degrade and become actually insulting and rude. I've first hand experience of this.
I have to confess I'm a bit of a hypocrite, as I play up to the "queen" thing riotously on occasion, I really enjoy doing it when its actually FUNNY, but it's a persona I adopt, not the be-all and end-all off my immortal soul, or something...
So, I guess it's like black people using the n-word. Some black people don't think it's right at all, some black people think you take the power out of the word by trivialising its use (but you'll notice that they don't like it when other people use it in a non-trivial context).
So, someone says you're a big queen. What does it mean?
1. They're homophobic and insulting you?
2. They're gay and having a joke with you?
3. They're gay and THINK they're having a joke with you but are actually a bit screwed up and in an attempt to trivialise or the negative connotations of "queen" are accidentally also trivialising YOU?
4. They're gay and think "queen" is a profound compliment?
5. They're straight and think "queen" is a profound compliment and actually, genuinely respect and admire your queeniness? (There are some of these straight people! Really, there are! Guys as well as girls!)
6. They're gay and deliberately and quite consciously trivialising *you personally* under the guise of trivialising or "exalting" the term "queen"? (Ho, yuss. Genuine phenomenon).
7. etc...
How are we supposed to tell which from which, on a message board?
Its a lot easier for "gay". We all know that that's meant to be insulting under the guise of... something else, and a lot of the peripheral slurring using "water-sports", talk of dildos and like go along with that... but all these terms fit in a personalised continuum unique to each GLBT person. There are lots of gay-related terms we could slot in those interpretations I listed above in place of "queen", and each of them will push slightly different buttons in each of us.
I don't know if I've ever offended anyone with my playing up to the queen stereotype. I hope not. I think it requires a good ear, if you like, which I hope I have.
There are differing takes on what a "queen" is, anyway, and my guess is, from reading a lot of the recent threads on offensive posting, that it's mostly reactions to what I would term a perceived "queeniness" that's so irritating, being "oversensitive" or "bitchy". Sometimes I deliberately pretend to be oversensitive and bitchy, with people who "get it", for the sake of super-irony. I go all Jack. But, also, sometimes I wonder if I'm being fair doing this.
So what do you think? Are ALL references to homosexuality automatically "homophobic"? (Renders the term meaningless) Or is that an "oversensitive" position? (What a lovely trap! Objecting to the insult validates it! Isn't that great?!?!?! Oh, hang on. In that case, is there any way of telling someone who is genuinely being oversensitive to chill WITHOUT spring that trap on them?) Is it even POSSIBLE to separate the content of a "joke" containing the word "gay" from its cultural overtones? ("OMG. Overanalyse much, babymouse? Self-absorbed? Queenie much?")
It just goes round and round in circles and usually what happens is we tend to land on one pole or another, we assume that either all tongues in cheeks (steady, there, girls...) are off limits or none of them are... and that's problematic, because neither position can ever be the whole truth.
This has been a baby_mouse brain-dump(TM). Post away, my dears... (oops. habit.)
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