Is queerdom an ethnicity

Being a member of or affiliated to a large group of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.

It is probably therefore more useful to talk about queer culture as just that - rather than claiming it as a birthright. Culture which of course some gay people reject out of hand anyway.

Even Judaism as "ethnicity" refers not to the religious preference but to the genetic heritage -- hence "lapsed" Jews still being "Jewish" but converted Jews not. And "nationality" in the above definition, while not genetically conferred, is still bound to pass from generation to generation.

So until some disturbing magical system is arranged whereby later-to- be-gay newborns are shipped off to already-gay adults for induction into queer culture, then it doesn't really follow . . .

You could argue that there is a common "queer culture," but even if so, we may be unified by our culture, but we aren't necessarily classed by it. Queer culture may promote feelings of solidarity amongst the members of a subset of people, but it's not a defining characteristic of membership in that subset.

(The great part of my people perished, of course, in the Roswell catastrophe)

If there is something outside of sex that "unifies queers", as Anthony suggests, I'm not aware of it. Language? Hopefully he doesn't mean campy slang like calling eachother "girlfriend", or some such garbage.

Whatever is held up as gay culture I reject.

My ethnicity is Irish/Italian, NOT "queer".

I used to DJ at San Francisco's only gay bar that plays rock and roll full-time (its not a dance-floor club, just a bar that has a ballsy soundtrack), and believe me, if you were to ask the typical "queer" around here his opinion of the place he'd hold his nose.

I don't mind discussing this, but I would never have come to this website if it were a gay bulletin board, so I look forward to mouthing off more about ROCK!!

Is that horribly reductive? It's a poorly expressed and very vague thought, and possibly generalizes way too much, but as soon as I meet someone who listens to flashy pop in a serious, critical way, I always assume they're either a professional critic or gay.

I also meant "clear" later in that paragraph, but you knew that.

Do the majority of gays that love Madonna, say, love her because of the serious, critical discourse she inspires, or because of the image, the spectacle, and the beats?

In a way I wish you were correct; your theory imbues gay men's taste in music with more intelligence than I suspect it actually has.

I think it's the influence of house music on today's pop that explains it my impression. It was a largely gay audience that first took house music seriously, so as of 10-15 years ago, those serious music fans to express serious appreciation of an artist like Madonna -- the sort of dancey chart stuff that owes a lot of debt to dance music as kept alive by house -- seemed likely to be a part of that gay audience.

So maybe I should rephrase "pop" as "dance?" Until the early 90s, U.S. dance music tended to be taken seriously by a disproportionately gay fan base?

I live out in small town out in Long Island, and work in the NYC every day, and lemme tell ya -- nothing will provoke loathing for the trappings of "queer culture" quite as spending almost eight summers' worth of evening commutes with throngs of slutty muscle-bound cell-phone-toting harpy space cadets en route to Fire Island.

It seems to me that owning a certain degree of loathing for what's called gay culture is almost a perquisite to being a halfway intelligent gay man.

I think I'm beck-pedalling on the "Queer sounds good as an ethnicity" thing. Now it just sounds silly to me.

The phenomenon of "gay" music is quite obviously a function of culture not ethnicity regardless of ethnicity's existence or not (do African-Americans automatically like gangsta rap? Do Anglos and Europeans automatically like Bach?) What irritates me about the focus on Abba/disco/Kylie Minogue (in Australia anyway) is not the choice of the music so much as the way the music is interacted with - seemingly bought wholesale with the glamour and the dancing and the weekend romances but never appreciated for any reason beyond that. And maybe that's enough, but the sheer predictability of the signifiers and the way in which they're valued makes the experience seem a lot less meaningful and a lot more superficial than maybe it is or should be. I'm gay and I like Abba, but I like to think that one of these truths is not wholely premised on the existence of the other.

Howzabout everyone = bi (genetical), just most people scared of full-on choice (cultural)? I have just solved all the world's problems.

Continuum at genetic level, yep, but NO ONE would ever find themselves back there: we are a cultured animal, all our behaviour — eating, sleeping , posture, lifechoices — is so hugely culturally determined, that no merely animal impulses happens that aren't caught and given spin by the web we have woven, good and bad. (I have massive actually quite boring aademic tome on Queerness in the Animal Kingdom, which inc. a picture of a LESBIAN WHALE ORGY!! if I recalled: A LOT OF SPLASHING AND NOT MUCH ELSE TO BE SEEN...). Continuum at cultural level: probably not. We are a symbol-using animal, and most symbols come in unblurred pairs. Else more drag queens wd just dress up like your butch sister and still look totally boy.

What about Mod?
'
being a mod is def an ethnicity. teeny 2 thread
teeny tiny

-- Kingfishee (jdsalmo...), January 16th, 2004 3:43 PM. (Kingfish) (link)

whale-watching?

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