My posts are really illegible tonight.
― I know, right?, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:29 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't think straight people are all heteronormative; i think the idea of MARRIAGE is heteronormative, and therefore is a 'safe' right to argue for with straight people cuz it's very easy for them to be like, "oh they're just like us, mainstream normal straight people!"
of course a lot of straight people don't fit into that mold... but i think that's the political environment in which the argument for gay marriage is made (i.e. from joe biden). which is also why someone like biden can argue for rights w/o marriage. "of course they deserve what we have! who wouldnt want that! but dont forget theyre still kinda freaks."
@ i know right: i think that i am arguing for queerness in a context that is not dated, and is also not limited to queers. i guess i didnt make that really clear. but i think our generation has the potential to choose NOT to participate in institutions that are oppressive. and part of that movement is antiracist and part is feminist and part is queer. & it feels to me like giving in (symbolically) & accepting all the BS that was handed to you as a kid, whether youre straight or not, to get married. & queer people especially are given the clear choice to reject that in a way that often straight people are not.
― pterodactyl, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:33 (fifteen years ago) link
yep, I have to agree with ptero here. Even if the waning otherness of gay and lesbian as places in social space, and the dawning of a homo-normativity (or what gets called homonationalism by Jasbir Puar) means that increasingly young same-sexors have more options, that is cool and a good thing, but I don't want having a critical relationship to mainstream society to become thereby "dated". Let's not lose the minoritarian self-awareness in a baby/bathwater switcheroo.
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:42 (fifteen years ago) link
I really didn't say that, I'm pretty sure what I said was mainly summed up by the rest of your post though! ; )
― I know, right?, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:44 (fifteen years ago) link
In fact I find it a vaguely offensive and dated concept to imply that my sexuality needs to be an impetus. Its this thing where you need to piggy back onto some minority card to be allowed to be radical about things, like if I was straight my voice on this wouldn't be as relevant somehow, and that's pretty fucked.
― I know, right?, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:47 (fifteen years ago) link
I wish the queer mission weren't to pat ourselves on the back for being so awesomely minoritarian, but rather were to make people who assume they are in the majority realize that they too are minoritarian.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:48 (fifteen years ago) link
Also you could draw up an argument along the lines of: How can you have an informed critical relationship to a social institution, such as marriage, without entering into it and seeing how it functions? Who's the colonialist in that context, eh?
Or: Rejection of a social institution isn't much of a critical response, now, is it? I mean, you're arguing that queers shouldn't engage in the evolution of the institution, wtf?
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:54 (fifteen years ago) link
i dont think that is the queer mission & i dont think that's what i'm arguing. i like queerness as a concept--in opposition to heteronormativity--and i dont think thats limited to people who identify as gay. i think it's about opening up the options that people can imagine--whatever their sexuality, whatever their preference. & then making sure that those options are legally protected.
gay marriage, in that sense, is (to me) a conservative ideal, as most marriage is a conservative ideal. it's a right that i think should be protected & fought for but not one that inspires me in the least.
and i think that sexuality CAN BE and IS for many people the impetus to engage in that struggle or that lifestyle or that imagining or uh whatever.
― pterodactyl, Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Also, let's put it another way: I think your sense of "straight people" is weirdly prejudiced. Straight people are not homogeneous. To be "just like straight people" means to have the legally and socially recognized right to be yourself. I mean it's more complicated that that, of course, but it's really hard, in 2008, to see straight people as inherently heteronormative -- even if some are, maybe most!
― Casuistry, Friday, October 10, 2008 8:26 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
this is what i was trying to say
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 01:57 (fifteen years ago) link
ok, so maybe we do disagree cuz i believe that rejection of a social institution is totally a critical response!!!
& i also believe that conflating "being just like straight people" and "having the legally and socially recognized right to be yourself" is seriously problematic!
― pterodactyl, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:00 (fifteen years ago) link
i think considering the number of gay people who wish to be married, its really hard to ascribe 'heteronormative' to it any more tbh.
its like opposing marriage on feminist grounds bcuz a ring used to symbolize ownership
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:00 (fifteen years ago) link
XXXP, pterodactyl, aren't you stigmatizing marriage as a conservative convention? i see it more as value neutral - it can be a radical relationship or a heteronormative relationship. Part of the gay marriage argument for me (as a straight male) is not just about opening it up to non-heterosexuals, but opening it up to a variety of challenges and new meanings. I don't consider my marriage a standard patriarchal relationship (and I don't think my wife does either). Gay marriage isn't just about "giving permission" to homosexuals to marry. It's about suggesting a new dynamic in what could be generally considered a conservative institute.
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:01 (fifteen years ago) link
+ obviously I recognize that as a married, straight male I have a stake in this position.
xp exactly
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:03 (fifteen years ago) link
mordy, that argument is why, in the end, i am for gay marriage. but i think that in the vast majority of cases, marriage is not about suggesting or creating any kind of new dynamic.
also i have trouble with the idea of marriage as a radical relationship--state sanctioned radicalism ? particularly in the current environment where anyone getting married knows that it is a state-sanctioned right that is ACTIVELY DENIED to other groups of people. including but perhaps not limited to the gays.
― pterodactyl, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:05 (fifteen years ago) link
Well, marriage isn't historically a state sanctioned institute. It is now, but marriages have existed in radical contexts. Certain gnostic anti-establishment traditions for example have marriages, etc. (Not to derail the conversation.) I don't think we disagree tho - I have trouble with the same thing. And certainly it's problematic when you are married and deny others the right. I don't know if my contributing to defeating Prop 8 is just a way of alleviating my guilt over that problem, or in fact an appropriate way to validate my own marriage. Obv it's something on my mind.
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:08 (fifteen years ago) link
See I have no problem with institutions. I don't see them as something that needs to be, I dunno, railed against, so much as used. Marriage is sortof a contract, on a legal level it really is just about establishing a position in which certain terms and rights become applicable, but it is used to become a declaration of love a very personal thing and a very beautiful thing and is sortof radical when you think about how it subverts this legal institution with private narratives. I don't really see a problem with this really. The same thing for really all institutions, so long as we're free to reject their terms, and really, nobody's forcing you and your gal-pal to get hitched.
― I know, right?, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:11 (fifteen years ago) link
and is sortof radical when you think about how it subverts this legal institution with private narratives.
I really like this idea.
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:12 (fifteen years ago) link
i want to know/understand what exactly the grounds are that ppl should be pushing, in terms of federal action/large picture politics, that isn't marriage. whats the better pathway? sullivan's 'politics of homosexuality' made a pretty strong argument i think for marriage being the central platform for the wide view
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:14 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost
You would, breeder! ; )
― I know, right?, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Tsk. I use birth control. The potentiality of progeny != breeding. :P
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Birth control is not as effective as homosexuality in preventing pregnancy.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:19 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/scanner/2008/junior.jpg
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:20 (fifteen years ago) link
c'est la vie. so i'm not perfect. :P
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:22 (fifteen years ago) link
folks we got ourselves a nice spectrum here from reformers to radicals, some want to reorient marriage from within, others want no part of it . . .
I think if you're looking for a case for "why rail against institutions?" you could take a peek at the early Deleuze essay "Instincts and Institutions", which makes a pretty portable ideology-critique case against the ways that institutions legitimize themselves as the best/most inevitable/universal endpoint through which to satisfy our natural instincts. Deleuze's point is that institutions hinge their legitimacy on our instincts in order to survive, but our instincts don't require institutional support in order to be satisfied. This makes the "sooner or later you'll get over your sour grapes and join us" line about marriage all the more maddening and symptomatic of the trouble with institutions. I would also point out that your sense that institutions are there for you to be used is probably not unrelated to who you are/where you live/your demographic. I doubt that, say, a Palestinian living in Israel or an African American in the 50s in the USA would have the same feeling that they could 'take or leave' institutions, that institutions were just something to tip one's hat to or not.
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:27 (fifteen years ago) link
The thing is, Deleuze is wrong.
also i have trouble with the idea of marriage as a radical relationship--state sanctioned radicalism ?
I have trouble with the idea of the state as something that is always already in an antagonistic relationship to the people who constitute it -- the situation is clearly more nuanced than that. I have trouble with the word "radicalism" being used interchangeably with something like "awesomeness" -- the Bush administration has been wildly radical.
particularly in the current environment where anyone getting married knows that it is a state-sanctioned right that is ACTIVELY DENIED to other groups of people. including but perhaps not limited to the gays.
Do you also reject health insurance, knowing it is actively denied to way more people than gay marriage is?
Anyway this is getting more heated than I really want it to, and I'm not helping. And, I don't disagree with you, but it seems like you're letting your disinterest in marriage as a viable institution to engage in dictate what you think other people should feel is right for them, or how you think society as a whole should go. But you also are ultimately OK with gay marriage. So. La la! It's all fine.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:29 (fifteen years ago) link
For instance, no one here is making that argument about "sooner or later you'll join us", and it's maybe hard to say that there has been pressure on gay people from the straight world to legalize gay marriage so they could get married and be just like straights already.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:30 (fifteen years ago) link
What is the "sooner or later you'll join us" argument?
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:31 (fifteen years ago) link
yr being too kind imo.
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:32 (fifteen years ago) link
This makes the "sooner or later you'll get over your sour grapes and join us" line about marriage all the more maddening and symptomatic of the trouble with institutions.
As far as I can tell, this line doesn't plague straight people nearly as much as it did 30 years ago; has the queer movement helped homo-normativize the straight "community"?
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:34 (fifteen years ago) link
Deleuze is right. It's just the wrong Deleuze being quoted. A rhizomatic approach to marriage, ala A Thousand Plateaus, could potentially be very useful. There's no one particular entry point or exit point, but a variety that is always changing. No two heterosexual marriages are the same, and there's no reason to believe that a homosexual marriage would be the same either.
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:35 (fifteen years ago) link
It's always the wrong Deleuze being quoted! Sigh. But that does seem more sensible. That's the fun thing with Deleuze, I guess, you can mine for sensible quotes.
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:38 (fifteen years ago) link
(Also... I am being too kind? Is that... a bad thing? I'm pro-kindness, usually.)
― Casuistry, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:39 (fifteen years ago) link
i much prefer marginalizing your enemies
― joe 40oz (deej), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Apropos of something, Deleuze was very interested in a variety of holes. Bataille may be relevant here too... (Sorry! I'm being immature!)
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:40 (fifteen years ago) link
kindness is hot
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:41 (fifteen years ago) link
why is everyone talking about gay people tonight? is it gay week? it's leather weekend in nyc. same thing?
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Probably cause of Connecticut, I'd imagine?
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:44 (fifteen years ago) link
some of our best friends are gay, dude
― mookieproof, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:44 (fifteen years ago) link
some of my best gays are dudes, friend.
― Mordy, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:45 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm not saying that Deleuze's account is the only account of institutions worth knowing about, or that his account is complete. Obviously if you're really interested in the topic then you read the work of the so-called "New Institutionalists" (a cluster of historians and sociologists I just learned a few weeks ago about, folks like March, Olsen, Peter Hall, Rosemary Taylor, etc. who study the enduring forms of institutions via all sorts of metrics) But institutions qua institutions aren't a great locus for transformation at the hands of particular individuals within them because of their slow metabolism, their very capacity to endure past and across generations, lifespans. They endure because of a glacial sluggishness, and yeah, they still change, duh. But they're not the only game in town.
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:45 (fifteen years ago) link
word?
― mookieproof, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:47 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't really think about getting married that much anymore. i don't remember if i ever did, actually! i'm happy in my relationship as it is, so while the idea that i can't bothers me when it comes up, it doesn't on a daily basis.
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:49 (fifteen years ago) link
although you know what sucks, is the money. i have to spend money on weddings too often for me to never have the opportunity to get a cuisinart or a vacuum as a gift.
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:50 (fifteen years ago) link
damn i miss having a cuisinart.
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:52 (fifteen years ago) link
solution: rob your married friends.
― original dixieland jaas band (Curt1s Stephens), Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:52 (fifteen years ago) link
geez my one friend, she had like 4 parties to celebrate the whole thing. i was done!
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 02:56 (fifteen years ago) link
so sur, i know you're not a playa, but don't you crush a lot?
― mookieproof, Saturday, 11 October 2008 03:04 (fifteen years ago) link
hmm. ya? crushing is good i guess. glad you know i'm not a playa tho
― Surmounter, Saturday, 11 October 2008 03:05 (fifteen years ago) link
haha sorry xoxo
― mookieproof, Saturday, 11 October 2008 03:06 (fifteen years ago) link