The route to a deconstruction of sexuality: singular or infinite

On the way to a deconstruction of the categories of sexuality, I see at least two alternative routes:

1) a rejection of categorization, ghettoization, and the artificial divisions of social discourse in favor of a singular idea of humanity (I think of this as literary unity, poetic non-division)

2) a rejection of prevailing categories based on a movement toward a plurality of categories, a limitless social discourse whose increasing complexity gradually comes to reflect the manifoldness of empirical nature (a world where we get straight, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, pan, poly, omni, uni, a-, ambi, etc. and counting as an ever-growing list of perfectly valid and respected identity labels)

The first method seems to me that of someone like Gore Vidal when he says “There are no homosexuals or heterosexuals but only homosexual and heterosexual acts.”  In his interview with Larry Kramer (in Sexually Speaking), Vidal offers his advice not to ghettoize or categorize ourselves willingly into structures of power.  It’s sage if slightly exasperating advice to those of a more conventional bent of mind.  It has the advantage of being crystal clear in relation to the intentions of the speaker in that it implicitly and immediately allows for a ready distinction between prevailing social discourse as cultural ghettoization on the one hand and individuality of personal activity on the other.

The second method is more formalistic, analytical, and perhaps harder to expound or defend not on account of its greater dubiousness but because the argument is necessarily more nuanced and does not lend itself so well as the first to casual explanation.  On the one hand, it’s appeal to the infinite vagaries and divisions which are obviously inherent in nature lends it a great deal of honesty.  On the other, it’s demand of the prevailing social discourse to reflect this actuality comes across as idealistic (although somewhat ironically to its credit since the argument clearly drives toward the realism of the natural world).

Ideological fascism and the metaphor of the closet

What is “the closet”?  Clearly a metaphor, but for what?  What essential reality does it point toward?  To some the answer seems immediately clear: it’s a way of saying whether someone is open about their “true” sexuality.

However, a proper and reliable use of the metaphor requires not only that we know the individual’s “true” sexuality but also that this information is even knowable in any objective sense, in other words that it necessarily has the capacity for conforming in some objective way to the standard epistemological categories for what we call sexuality.

But this raises a further question: What are the criteria for establishing the “truth” of sexual identity?  What is the epistemological criteria for determining whether an individual “fits” a certain standard category?  If it is not possible to establish sexual identity without the individual’s consent then we can conclude that the criteria is subjective in nature, i.e. the very categories of sexual identity are themselves subjective because the criteria for their application is contingent upon the agreement of the individual.  The subjectivization of epistemological criteria implies the subjectivization of the categories.

And this raises a subsequent issue: If determination of sexual identity is subjective then the idea of sexual orientation as something objectively distinct from subjective sexual identity is rendered dubious.  In modern discourse we tend to preference the objective and, since “orientation” is often considered objective whereas “identity” is considered subjective, the latter is held in abeyance to the former’s supposedly greater truth.  But if we were to acknowledge both the subjectivity as well as the complete and non-subsidiary validity of sexual identity then we would not tolerate the idea of sexual orientation as something innately “more true” and hence the objectivity of identity (in the sense of truth) would merge with and become indistinguishable from the objectivity of orientation.

All well and fine you say, but the critics will simply avoid all this by clinging to the idea that, well, all this is basically false.  That is, what if it’s simply not the case that the criteria for establishing categorization is largely if not entirely subjective?

In my opinion, the key at this point in the argument has to do with language and its social use.  Simply put, if the individual chooses to reject the standard linguistic or categorical uses (labels) then under whose authority do these very labels or words obtain an absolute, authoritative character (over the will of the individual)?  We can see that the issue is not really about science or empirical reality.  Nobody is rejecting reality or science.  What we do know is that the empirical world is diverse and that everyone is different.  We also know that words, like ideas, have the power to group (mentally but not actually) things together based on predication.  The question is to what extent these words or ideas can be said to obtain to an objective, transcendent, or absolute reality independent of the will of the individual (or group for that matter) to use them.  In my mind, the extent is minimal.  Why?  Because linguistic usage by its very nature IS social.  That is, it occurs according to a pattern of social consent and adoption.  Therefore, the ability and actuality of socio-linguistic objection or consent, being not merely the vehicle but the progenitor and sustainer of the semantical references of words, constitutes in itself support for the subjective relativity of labels because those labels obtain their linguistic references according to wider social patterns in the first place.

To put it simply, social objection to common linguistic usage is just another aspect of the entire social phenomena which establishes and validates that usage.  Therefore, the attempt on behalf of the latter entire phenomena to suppress the former simply constitutes the mobilization of a collective power structure against the will of the individual.  Maybe this mobilization has its practical uses, but that is not an argument for its logical necessity.

But might not there remain one final objection: What about empirical objectivity?  Aren’t words also capable of referencing objective, empirical facts beyond their social aspects?

My response to this is, yes, many words do refer to facts.  The word “stone” may refer to this stone right before me.  Thus, there are some cases in which usage attains to a kind of “scientific” or objective character.  But once words enter into social discourse this objectivity becomes relatively elusive.  It may be possible for the purposes of social-scientific experimentation to place a group of individuals in a laboratory setting and assign objective labels to individuals based on behavior: for instance, Type I, Type II, etc.  I of course do not dispute the possibility of objective science.   But this is not the way the words and labels work in everyday social contexts wherein they function within the often devious subtexts of power and ulterior motive.  Every time we consider the actual function of such labels we see that they are formed and operate within and in relation to social groups or communities with basically political aims.  This is not bad, but it is artificial in the sense that it is social and not strictly empirical in character.

Male sexuality: part 3: brief ethical and speculative notes

1. The future of our conception of male sexuality is both diverse and bright, and the latter on account of the former.

2. The Western world has much to learn from the more flexible conceptions of male sexuality found in Asian and South Asian cultures where men frequently bond most closely, socially and often sexually, with other men and where cultures are often found to be predominately homosocial.

3. A diversification and fragmentation of our sexual categories and concepts will lead to a recognition of the importance of choice in sexuality and sexual identity, that choice and freedom are not to be excluded from our consideration of sexuality.

4. Recent attempts to divide sexual identity and orientation into narrow and few categories lead to personal and existential problematics resulting from either-or mentalities.

5. The proliferation of categories and identities (ad infinitum) can only lead to an affirmation of one’s unique individual identity. The very fact that there currently exists pressure to choose on an either-or basis reveals the way in which such labels are inauthentic. The prevailing metaphor of the “closet” (“coming-out of the closet”) is an attempt to address this problem by polemicizing certain categories into exclusive, socially acceptable forms.

6. It is neither right nor wrong to choose a certain identity or to refrain from identifying. Rather, it can only be considered intolerable that certain individuals consider the prevalence of a certain narrow range of identities to be somehow necessary or compulsory.

Male sexuality: part 2: brief philosophical notes

1. Sexual identity does not necessarily correlate straightforwardly with sexual orientation, thus making the concept of orientation relative and subjective and hence anything but objectively orientating at all.

2. The various words we use to reference sexual “orientation” (such as gay, straight, homo, hetero) are actually subjective identity terms which fail to reference any objective reality.

3. The basic, underlying or biological causes and manifestations of “sexuality” do not have any linguistic correlates because the words we use (gay, straight, homo, hetero) invariably take on subjective and socially-constructed meanings (they are inside social discourse). It is not that there is no underlying or empirical reality, but rather that our (inevitably) social language (inevitably) fails to adequately reference that reality.

4. The categories “gay” or “homosexual”, for instance, clearly denote socio-sexual constructs even in apparently empirical or scientific cases, as when studies or otherwise common-sensical anecdotes rely on such categories in order to reinforce them.

5. If human sexuality is as diverse as the manifold tapestry of nature then it should come as no surprise that our societal attempt to divide the former into a black-and-white schematics is destined for supersession.

Male sexuality: part 1: brief notes on facts

1. Male sexuality is every bit as complex as female sexuality.

2. It is socially acceptable for a straight woman to have sexual encounters with another woman but the same does not often apply for straight men.

3. Straight men can and do have sex lives with other men, even for life. They may identify as straight or bi or as nothing at all.

Why I’m starting this blog

Richard Posner once said that “anyone in our society who wants to write about sex… had better explain what the source of his interest in the subject is.”

I disagree with Mr. Posner.

Of all the things one could write about, why would we need a reason to write about sex?  It’s positively absurd.  It’s obvious that it’s one of the few things we don’t need a reason to write or speak about.  It’s everywhere and almost everyone is interested in it.

But why does the statement ring true with regard to our culture?  Why is our culture so strange?  It becomes fairly clear if we examine the statement closely enough.  If it is really true that we expect someone to have a specific and good reason for writing about sex, then it must be that we are always looking for just these good reasons.  Not just any reason will satisfy us.  Everyone has some kind of reason, but that’s not what’s at issue.  We require that it be a particular kind of reason.  If the reason doesn’t match up then the words are discounted and the person marginalized.

In other words, we look for certain essences, certain definitive marks which we believe point toward these essences.  The words must be correct, they must fit very specifically into the socio-semantical mold which connects absolute meanings to these words.

Try making up your own word, your own identity.  Not so easy.  Our society operates on a homo/hetero binary.  It takes an enormous amount of security about yourself and your sexuality to stave off the labels and have the courage to say that things are more complicated.  But the irony is that a system of power turns on just this kind of individuality and condemns it as insecure!

So what is pomosexuality?  It is not pomosexuality.  It is pomosexuality.  It is not what it is.  It is an anti-label label that never allows itself to be spoken or written without an immediate negation of itself.  In fact I think I will not even use it.

Is it “without identity”?  Not precisely, for we all have our own identities to some degree.  But we could say something like “without labels” or “non-standard identity”.  Maybe it appeals to people who don’t think of their identity as part of a group, a club, a particular in-culture.  Beyond that it means very little.