On prejudice

One particular group of people that are often targeted by prejudice and discrimination are those we commonly refer to as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, and the newest category, “questioning”. Essentially it could be said that non-exclusively-heterosexual people are often discriminated against. Well, they’re not the only ones and any “minority” group within a society is prone to the effects of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. One thing I have found extremely interesting in the past few weeks, though, is the prejudice towards bisexual persons on behalf of exclusively homosexual persons.

I know, I know, in our personal non-politically-correctedness-contaminated dialogues we would call all people who aren’t exclusively heterosexual, gay. Whatever. Let’s not get into the semantics of these labels. However, do let me get back to the prejudice towards “bisexual” people I’ve noted in the past few weeks.

I remember an episode of ‘The L Word’ where one of the girls who was exclusively homosexual was deriding another female who was bisexual. The argument was something like ‘just make up your mind already’, ‘just decide’. Seriously? Sexuality is a choice now? I found that ironic given the common arguments homosexual persons raise in counter to the religious heterosexual calls to “be normal”.

What’s even more ironic is that a group of people who are passionate to defend from discrimination and claim their rights as the same to any other member of society can also be so equally discriminating of another group of society who face many if not all their same challenges. For example, as I pointed out above, one of the stereotypes often peddled about bisexual people is that they are ‘undecided’ in terms of their sexual preference/identity. The majority of proponents of these and many stereotypes about bisexual people are people who are exclusively homosexual. In reality, both these subsets of people form a larger group of people most commonly banded together as ‘gays’. The banding together is in fact a blessing to these same people, forming greater majorities in the fight for the things that are often fought for: freedom of speech, representation, and other basic human rights. However, once you take away the common struggle, us human beings prefer to struggle against each other, smaller minority groups, the next person lower in the rank, the poorer, the more unfortunate, the weaker in the pecking order.

Just as an educational exercise I’d like to relate some of the other prejudices I hear banded around about bisexual persons:

-They’re not really gay, they’re just promiscuous and would have sex with anyone who was willing.
-They not really gay, they’re just with a homosexual partner at the moment until they find what they really want: a heterosexual partner.
-Bisexual people are promiscuous, they have no loyalty, and they’ll always leave you for the next best thing.
-They’ll always leave you for an opposite gender person.
-They’re just experimenting; they’ll go back to being heterosexual eventually.
-They only care about sex.
-They can’t commit because they can’t even “commit” to either being gay or straight.
-They’re actually just straight people.
-They have to like either men or women MORE.... this more often comes up in the form of a question.
-They just haven’t decided (or figured out) yet whether they’re gay or straight.... They NEED to make this DECISION!
-They’re bad people who only want sex from you.
-They’re just plain bad people...

Sound familiar? Wherever a group of people congregate, smaller cliques of people will form. Why? It’s human nature. It’s part of the process of self-identity. Often we define things for what they’re not. We define ourselves similarly by what we’re not. We’re not like that other group of people, those bad people. Our own societal group is better, it’s right, it’s better than all other alternatives. As we do this we define ourselves: we’re good people, we’re consistent people, we’re loyal people, we are good and worthy human beings. We overlook our flaws: the prejudice, the discrimination, the often derogatory language we use towards the “other” groups. And yet, it is absolutely essential to form our own identity, to define ourselves, to believe we are good and just human beings. The important thing is that once we reach this level of identity we continue to challenge our perspective - to be truly open-minded!

...A quote:

"AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. No. Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anit-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry? I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand."  -Roy Cohn in Angels in America, by Tony Kushner.

On "coming out"

One of my favourite quotes in the world is one by Gore Vidal that says “There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses, if not practices”. He also said, “Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people”. Okay, so some of this argument is about semantics, but it is also about labels.

If you know me, you would know that I have a hatred of labels— and so comes this ambivalence about the whole concept of “coming out”. I do understand that the whole movement started as a way to counter discrimination against certain people because of their sexual practices, to claim back the respect and human rights owed to every human being. I understand how it is empowering, especially to individuals who have been oppressed, to claim with pride the person they are and their right to be. I understand that identifying with a group, coming together for camaraderie, is a very human thing and it is often the only way to bring about societal change. I understand how it came about, what I don’t like, however, is the expectation that is now placed on many people to “come out”, to label oneself as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or ‘questioning’.

One reason I don’t like the concept of “coming out” is that I find it biased that a person who has sex with a same-sex individual has to tell people about it, yet there is no expectation that a person who only engages in heterosexual acts do so. There are things about the sexual practices of my friends, my family, acquaintances, celebrities, politicians, and many other people that I don’t know about – and quite frankly couldn’t care less about. How old where they when they first had intercourse? What is their favourite sexual position? Are they multi-orgasmic? Do they prefer shaven or hairy genitals on their partner? Do they use toys? These are extremely personal and intimate questions about a person’s sexuality and we rarely are even bothered to know these things about people, so why should we care to know other intimate things like whether they have sex with men, women, or both. Does it change anything? No, it shouldn’t, especially if they’re your friends or family. Seriously, who would like to know all the sexual details of their friends or family? Not me. So why does there need to be this expectation that if you have sex with someone of your same gender that you have to tell the whole world about it? Quite frankly I have friends who are probably virgins, others that may or may not have had same-sex intercourse before, but I just really don’t care to hear about their sexual exploits one way or another. Sexual expression is a very intimate thing, usually only between two people, and that’s the way I am happy for it to stay.

And the other reason I am passionately against declaring your sexual preference is because of my hatred of labels. See, because once you tell the world you’re “gay” or “bisexual” that is all the world tends to see. You in fact lose a lot of your identity and become just a label, often described by a multitude of stereotypes. You may have sex with same-sex persons, but it’s probably not all you do. Maybe you have a job you’re very good at, maybe you follow a certain spiritual belief system, maybe you play an instrument or have a large family; but the moment you label yourself, that to me is like the death of the rest of you. And imagine being known for and described in terms of the things you like to do sexually! We would meet a lot of people, some of them our friends and family members, that were known as masturbators, others dildo-lovers, others anal-lovers, etc. But this is what some of our friends do and yet we think of them as friends, not as “straight” friends or “dildo-loving” friends, just our friends. The things our friends do and enjoy sexually is a personal matter for them and they aren’t and shouldn’t be expected to tell everyone about it, to “come out” as a dildo-lover or anal-bead enthusiast... So to “coming out” as gay or bisexual or transsexual, I say no (unless you consciencelessly choose to label yourself for whatever reason, for whatever secondary gain). To me, labelling isn’t creating equality. Labelling, putting up a division between “us” and “them”, isn’t creating equality between “us” and “them”, it just perpetuates the myth that people who have sex with same-sex individuals are purely defined by the sexual things they do. For me, to say a person is gay is a denial of everything else they are – and they may just be the best human being I know.