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alixtiiMother [about some random person who has come out as gay]: "But he was married, so that means he was really bi, right?"
Me: "Not necessarily."
Mother: "I don't get that."
Me: "I've noticed."
In her world, men who have sex with men and enjoy it are gay; men who have sex with women and enjoy it are straight; men who do both are bisexual. And try as I might, I can't break her of the conviction that every person has a ready-made sexual orientation label which is readily accessible to be applied to them by middle-class middle-aged heterosexual white women. (I'm being harsher than is really deserved, especially since my real frustration isn't directed at my mother at all, but bear with me.)
It really comes down to the fact that people do not get to define other people's experiences. Despite all the feminist theory she has taught me over the years, she still struggles with this. (My mother is so the archetypal "middle-class white 1970's feminist" who Third Wavers love to attack--or rather, that is the culture she grew up in and has internalized.) As do we all, of course, but it is easier to see the mote in someone else's eye.
...
Yes, this example is illustrative, and yes, I've been gnashing my teeth at some particularly frustrating sexual orientation essentialism, this is idea that truly authentic sexuality isn't "just" performative, and no, it wasn't the "Willow is bi!" people this time, and yes, it probably is where you are thinking. But people say things like "People don't just turn gay overnight" and I just shudder at the hegemonic defining of experience.
ETA: Also, and relatedly, the Kinsey scale? Is a wonderful improvation over the gay/straight binary, or even the gay/bisexual/straight trinary. But the Kinsey numbers are not scientific facts, human sexually does not exist along a one-dimensional spectrum, and I am rather disturbed at how often I hear the Kinsey scale mentioned in fandom as if it were some objective measure of some empirically measurable characteristic. (Yes, I realize most of the time it's just a convenient shorthand and use of it should not be taken to endorse the system itself.)
Me: "Not necessarily."
Mother: "I don't get that."
Me: "I've noticed."
In her world, men who have sex with men and enjoy it are gay; men who have sex with women and enjoy it are straight; men who do both are bisexual. And try as I might, I can't break her of the conviction that every person has a ready-made sexual orientation label which is readily accessible to be applied to them by middle-class middle-aged heterosexual white women. (I'm being harsher than is really deserved, especially since my real frustration isn't directed at my mother at all, but bear with me.)
It really comes down to the fact that people do not get to define other people's experiences. Despite all the feminist theory she has taught me over the years, she still struggles with this. (My mother is so the archetypal "middle-class white 1970's feminist" who Third Wavers love to attack--or rather, that is the culture she grew up in and has internalized.) As do we all, of course, but it is easier to see the mote in someone else's eye.
...
Yes, this example is illustrative, and yes, I've been gnashing my teeth at some particularly frustrating sexual orientation essentialism, this is idea that truly authentic sexuality isn't "just" performative, and no, it wasn't the "Willow is bi!" people this time, and yes, it probably is where you are thinking. But people say things like "People don't just turn gay overnight" and I just shudder at the hegemonic defining of experience.
ETA: Also, and relatedly, the Kinsey scale? Is a wonderful improvation over the gay/straight binary, or even the gay/bisexual/straight trinary. But the Kinsey numbers are not scientific facts, human sexually does not exist along a one-dimensional spectrum, and I am rather disturbed at how often I hear the Kinsey scale mentioned in fandom as if it were some objective measure of some empirically measurable characteristic. (Yes, I realize most of the time it's just a convenient shorthand and use of it should not be taken to endorse the system itself.)