Finding a Sexual Identity and Community by Paula Rust - Article Example

LGBT Studies When attempting to understand a different viewpoint, one of the hardest things to do is to actually see the issues involved through a different set of eyes. This is the case when one is trying to understand the issues and difficulties facing an individual who is unsure about their own sexuality. Issues that pertain to the LGBT community are difficult to understand unless one is within this community. As some of the literature indicates, even being within the community does not guarantee any greater understanding. Reading about issues such as the use of the term ‘queer’ or angry literature from the LGBT about how they hate straight people has a tendency to either make the eyes glaze over or the responsive anger heat up. However, there are times when a single article can provide the insight needed to more fully appreciate the ideas expressed in other areas. This is the case when reading through an article that takes a more sympathetic approach to these questions, keeping in mind both extremes of the discussion and with a goal of providing needed psychological support to the people most harmed by prevailing social ideas regarding a non-heterosexual lifestyle. The ideas presented by Paula Rust in her essay “Finding a Sexual Identity and Community” help to elucidate the issues discussed in an anonymous leaflet entitled “Queers Read This: I Hate Straights” and in Judith Butler’s essay “Critically Queer” in this way. At the end of Rust’s article, she argues that much of the difficulties being faced by those who feel it necessary to ‘come out’ in some way are brought about because of the Euro-American tendency to place sexuality on a dichotomous scale. On this scale, heterosexuality is placed at one end and homosexuality is placed at the other with individuals expected to choose one or the other for all time. Making the process more difficult, all individuals are automatically placed on the heterosexual end regardless of their eventual associations, forcing them to completely re-identify themselves should they find themselves attracted to a same-gender individual. “For many people, coming out is a lifelong process of recurrent self-creation and self-discovery, not a singular goal-oriented process of self-classification” (262). In addition, for many people, the question of attraction is much more complicated than simply determining who they are attracted to with factors such as emotional connection, social preference, sexual desire and sensuality weighing in to various degrees depending on the individual. The tendency for society to automatically assume an individual is heterosexual unless they are presented with other indications is what Rust refers to as heteronormativity, a condition that also presupposes there are only two possible answers on the human sexuality question. Within her article, Rust indicates the importance of attacking heterosexual assumptions head-on on the individual, social and legal levels in a way that further helps to define the concepts involved in heteronormativity. At the individual level, she points out doing things such as asking questions of new people that do not pre-suppose an opposite gender attraction or realizing the degree to which a heterosexual person can freely talk about their significant other without exposing themselves to social ostracism or criticism – something their homosexual, bisexual or polysexual friend cannot do. Social indicators that favor heterosexuality that are denied to others include the public wearing of wedding bands, engagement announcements in the newspaper and classified ads that are ranked according to gender and a heterosexual assumption – all of which are considered socially acceptable and even celebrated. Within this environment, there is very little recognition or understanding that concepts such as polysexuality are even possible or as common as they are. Finally, it is simply a fact that those who do not conform to a heterosexual lifestyle are not given the same legal rights and abilities afforded their heterosexual counterparts. These can include things such as next-of-kin rights, property rights or protection for child custody rights. Rust’s ideas provide important insight into the writings of other non-heterosexual individuals such as in an anonymous leaflet published by Queers entitled “Queers Read This: I Hate Straights.” From the beginning, this article, addressed directly to those who identify themselves as queer, asserts that “there is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence” (1). The angry rant of the article points out the many ways that this community is prevented from exercising the same freedoms of romantic expression afforded their heterosexual counterparts and the rage inherent in the words regarding this inequality is unmistakable. This anger is not so much that heterosexual people are able to flaunt their affections in the street by holding hands, kissing or showing off the babies that have resulted from love-making, but that the queer community is emphatically denied these rights, that the illnesses that afflict them, as long as it afflicts only them, is left to do its job of killing them all off. The portrayal of the queer community is also mentioned in relation to the reports of the AIDS epidemic in which lists of the dead are given with children and heterosexual victims listed first and the gay man listed last with the additional caveat of mentioning how he intentionally infected teenage boys after having discovered he had the disease. The danger of such a dominant heterosexist viewpoint is brought forward as an attack against any activity that does not, at least in some way, reasonably lead to procreation of the species. The author writes in all-caps, “All non-procreative behavior is considered a threat” (4) followed by the normally punctuated clarification that this applies to “homosexuality to birth control to abortion as an option. It is not enough, according the religious right, to consistently advertise procreation and heterosexuality … it is also necessary to destroy any alternatives” (4). This kind of anger and demand for action would normally be quite shocking if seen unprepared, but given the insight provided by Rust regarding the incredible difficulties particularly for the bisexual community to gain recognition for their neither/nor status on the sexuality scale, the author’s rage emerges as justified and desperate. There is a similar effect when reading through Judith Butler’s article “Critically Queer.” This author looks into the performativity of language in which the established discourse behind the language sets the authority and meaning of that language, particularly as it applies to the term ‘queer’. “’Queer’ derives its force precisely through the repeated invocation by which it has become linked to accusations, pathologization, insult” (18). The complicated language of this article focuses mostly on the political and lexical uses of the term queer in relation to people who are not heterosexual per se. Delving deep into the meanings and historicity of the use of the term and the reasons why some may wish to identify with it, the several reasons others may distance from it and the necessary baggage the term carries when used outside of the LGBT community, one is tempted to shrug off the importance of the article in terms of how this community is considered from an external point of view. In light of Rust’s comments, though, this discussion takes on new importance and meaning. The author claims that “it remains politically necessary to lay claim to ‘women,’ ‘queer,’ ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ precisely because of the way these terms, as it were, lay their claim on us prior to our full knowing. Laying claim to such terms in reverse will be necessary to refute homophobic deployments of the terms in law, public policy, on the street, in ‘private’ life” (20). This claim makes a great deal more sense within the understanding of the various ways in which heteronormativity is imposed on the individual. With this insight, the ideas Butler is discussing come much clearer to mind making it possible to understand more of the ideas she conveys. It is easy to simply dismiss issues that one doesn’t fully understand. In many cases, though, it requires taking enough interest in the real human implications of an issue to investigate and attempt to see the issue through a wider perspective. With the insight of Rust regarding the various issues people questioning their sexuality must deal with, sometimes on a very recurring basis, other issues that seemed less important on first reading take on greater meaning. The understanding gained through a psychological perspective makes it clear both how unimportant-seeming elements of language can be used to restrict, punish or impose an entire ideology on unwitting participants and how the restrictions imposed by a blind heterosexual community are blatantly obvious and hurtful to those who do not share this culture. It is eye-opening to realize the many ways these people are limited in their lives by actions taken without thought or consideration every day by others. What seems most unfair of all is the idea that the people who most want the freedom to love the people they want to love without having to distinguish based on a single characteristic of that person, the bisexuals, are the ones who are most persecuted and marginalized. Read More