Invisible? Moi?!

[eumelia]

I read the Bisexuality - What's in a name article today.
Via.

It's very true you know.
The invisibility thing.
In my current state of affairs I'm Single (or Quirkyalone ;P) and it's as if my sexuality doesn't make any difference. It's almost as if I'm a Single Straight Girl.
Which I'm not.
I'm a Single Queer Grrl.
Yeah, well who cares?
I do, obviously.

I've been told, numerous times, that I put too much on labels and thus allow myself to be boxed in a defined by those little ticky-tacky boxes.
Not needing labels, in my experience means that the you are quite firmly in the mainstream, that who you are is completely compatible to the way "regular" society is constructed.
When you find yourself at a dissonance with the society in which you live, it's important to find words, language and symbols with which to identity, with which you are anchored and aren't just floating around in an a-morphic bubble.

So I disappear into that place where if I'm with a guy I'm straight, if I'm with a girl I'm gay... no one even thinks whether the guy or the girl I'm with aren't straight. Hetero = Straight, Homo = Gay.
Bisexuality is nowhere to be found. And yeah, there is more awareness (especially in entertainment media), but still the stigma of bisexuality haunts us: we can't commit, we need both sexes (genders) to be satisfied, we will leave our long term relationship for the other sex, no matter what who we are with, oh and of course we're disease spreading sluts. Duh.
And of course it's only a transition period towards total Gayness, or just a "curious phase".
Bleh.
And this sentiment comes from all directions, from the GLBT community and from the "Mainstream".
Sometimes I really do want to give up and just say "I'm Gay" and be done with it.
But that thing called integrity comes to mind, you know being honest with yourself and the rest of the world about who you are and the way you express yourself.
My integrity keeps me from choosing the "easy" way out, or to confirm to an identity that doesn't really suit who I am.
The freedom I feel from my fluidity is a double edged sword, because it is a freedom I have to reaffirm all the time, consciously or unconsciously.
It ain't easy.
But who I am is important to me and there are things I won't compromise.

Comments

[makaani.livejournal.com]

i totally agree with you about not needing to label yourself means that you are mainstream. mainstream = neutral, nothing. not being mainstream calls for explanation.

i feel like sexuality is fluid. we are a mass of hormones. estrogen, testosterone. we are, by nature, both male and female. it makes sense to be neither here nor there with sexual preference. just today at work i was telling my two coworkers that i was like a boy/girl. i was telling them about a crush that i have on a gay guy we work with and how it could work because im not really 100% girl.

sometimes i seriously feel asexual, or as i like to explain, i feel like a 10 year old boy... too young to have sexual feelings.. yet, i do have feelings for people from time to time. like with you, its hard for me really to explain it. i dont really have the vocabulary for it. you know?

vocabulary is limited... and you have two sets at your disposal :)

there is no reason why you should simplify yourself so others "get it"...

i feel like your cheerleader right now ;)

[cevyn.livejournal.com]

I can relate to this....as I feel very gender-neutral. Society just isn't designed for our perspective.

[makaani.livejournal.com]

omg! gender neutral... i love that!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Fluidity is scary you know.
Not being stable, not being 100% what you "aught" to be.
It's mainly scary for those who have a problem with this "instability", I believe true freedom will come when the "mainstream" is abolished.

The vocabulary is missing, though the sentiment is there, we need to start creating the language again and not just be affected by it.

[logicalargument.livejournal.com]

For whatever it's worth, in my opinion the normal state of all human beings either is, or should be, bisexuality - which is a completely different concept from promiscuity, despite the fact that people confuse the two.

We love the people we love because of who they are, not because they are the "correct" gender. That doesn't mean that we are somehow required to have sex with everyone to whom we feel attracted. One can acknowledge that the attraction is there, without feeling compelled to prove something by acting on it.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

What you say is correct. I think people have the potential to love anyone they feel a connection to, which can and usually is independent of gender.

Bisexuality seems to be the basis, while everything else is a shift in one direction or the other - this is an over simplification of course, but I think it's theory that needs to be examined even more and not just left to (the great and wonderful) Judith Butler and the few others in academia.

[lifeofresearch.livejournal.com]

My thoughts are during life we grow and change. Just live one day at a time do not concern yourself with labels. Whether you wind up with a woman or man is not the issue. The issue is have you found a soul mate that you find the relationship satisfying. You have loving parents who will accept you because they love you. Just from your journal I can see you are easy to love. The article says, "The Kinsey Scale (see graphic) asserts that "Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. . .nature rarely deals with discrete categories. . .The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects." The scale, which first appeared in 1948’s "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," uses a person’s sexual history to rate them on a scale of zero to six (zero being exclusively heterosexual, 6 being exclusively homosexual)." If this statement is true then you are in the majority or the others are not honest in their assessment of themselves.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Thank you.
You always manage to make me feel better with your comments.

[aesiron.livejournal.com]

I like labels. They're useful.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Ditto :D

[bitter-moss.livejournal.com]

Me too :). People always seem to be under the impression that i don't though, simply because i don't feel one friggin label (bisexual) applies to me O_o.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Not needing labels, in my experience means that the you are quite firmly in the mainstream, that who you are is completely compatible to the way "regular" society is constructed.
When you find yourself at a dissonance with the society in which you live, it's important to find words, language and symbols with which to identity, with which you are anchored and aren't just floating around in an a-morphic bubble.

Very well said! And thank you for saying it. :-)

i would actually add, because the politics of privilege are very important to me, that a person who can say "I don't need labels" or "I'm beyond labels" is probably in a very privileged position. Many of us don't get to choose whether or not labels are applied to us.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Exactly!
The privilege one gains by saying I don't need label has basically never had a label attached to them.

I sometimes get flack for that argument, because of my current position in life (Student) and I'm part of the ruling race and am middle-class I usually get read as (and for good reason of course) a privileged white girl. So When I talk about oppression and suppression I need to be really careful not to get my own privilege mixed up in there, because then my whole argument is out the window.

And thank you for commenting :D

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

I sometimes get flack for that argument, because of my current position in life (Student) and I'm part of the ruling race and am middle-class I usually get read as (and for good reason of course) a privileged white girl. So When I talk about oppression and suppression I need to be really careful not to get my own privilege mixed up in there, because then my whole argument is out the window.

*nod* Very true, and i know just what you mean, being white and middle-class myself. :-) But i feel that at least being conscious of one's privilege, and realising how it can influence one's attitudes and behaviour, is no small step. (Personally, i'm continually dismayed at how frequently cis men refuse to recognise that a) male privilege exists, and b) they've probably benefited from it on a number of occasions without realising it.)

And thank you for commenting :D

Heh, well, thank you for providing such an interesting and thoughtful blog!

woot a novel

[kaetien.livejournal.com]

I'm at odds with a lot of things you said in your post.

Labels exist. Society dictates that we need 'em. I'm cool with that. There are lots of potential labels that I've tried on and appreciated; some, I've discarded. But it bothers me that you feel that not embracing labels means someone is "mainstream". I'm about as anti-mainstream as someone can get.

I both love sociology and despise it. I understand it well, which I enjoy - but how people interact and think is also quite bothersome to me. I live by a few simple rules - put things back where you found them, be helpful and don't crab anyone else's act, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, go with your instincts but not before your brain has caught up to them, make things better than they were before. I feel like an extraordinarily dissonant note in the song of society.

I also love language and expression - I love that a certain word has a flavor to me that is capable of expressing precisely what I want to convey. But somehow, I've never found sexuality-type labels to be something that ever got close to describing what I mean to say about myself. I've never identified with them and they've always made me feel a bit itchy.

I'm pretty sure you're aware that I'm "bisexual, pansexual, sapiosexual" - whatever one you think suits me best. I feel quite physically, emotionally and psychologically female. I fall in love with a person, not a physicality. Sure, physical attraction is a factor, but not the deciding one. Considering I'm not all that physically attractive myself that has been far less important to me. I happen to have committed myself to a lifetime relationship with a person - a physical, emotional and psychological male. I won't deny that I'm relieved that my life-partner's physical form is one that doesn't make society look twice at our relationship and wonder. But I've been in love with women before, I've had relationships with people who were physically ambiguous and emotionally/psychologically ambiguous. I've fought the fight before. Maybe this is because I live in a state (THE state, I suppose) where same-sex marriage is free and legal and accepted - but it doesn't matter much to me what anyone else thinks of my love. It's not theirs, it's MINE! :)

As for the preconceived notions about bisexuals, gays and purple people - well, I don't give them much thought. I figure that if people are really too stupid to believe that sort of crap, then they are WAY too stupid for me to waste my time and energy thinking about them. 99% of these people will not change their views because of something I tell them. They'll either come around, or they won't.

I've moved away from the GLBT community in the last few years. It seems to me that far too many of the people I've encountered in the community are as bad or worse than homophobes. I despise being called a "breeder" and will NOT tolerate it. I suppose that as I age, I realize that while almost everything in life is serious, nothing has to be taken quite as seriously as most people think.

Ha - this has practically turned into a post of its own - maybe I should re-post in my own journal :P

I suppose that what this all boils down to is that my business is my business - and why should I bother acknowledging "labels" if they're none of anyone's business anyway? You know how private of a person I am - if someone presumes to judge me with words, then let 'em. I can't be arsed to care what other people think about me. My friends and loved ones know who and what I am. They call me "Emmi".

Re: woot a novel

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Do post this as a post of your own.

Your insight is valuable and I think it basically has to do with seeing labels as different things and how you see yourself within society.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

I use labels for myself and for others.Mostly because they're good shorthand- like all words.But as someone who learns linguistics, and especially as someone who's currently interested in concepts and the way we think about them, I'm also very much aware that's exactly what they are:shorthand, and a possibly misleading one at that.

Is a brown elephant still an elephant?A brown elephant you can fit in the palm of your hand?etc.At some point the label "elephant" becomes so misleading it has to be replaced by something else(say Mimmoth (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/info/glossary.php):).But long before that point, almost always as a matter of fact, a label/word won't identify perfectly.You just need to be aware of that problem when you use it, and be wary about implications.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I agree, that words are just that, words.
I too am a student of words (though not from the Linguistics side, but from the Literary) and in my expirience they do help shape reality.
I'm very much in the school of thought that Discourse helps build reality and that we must take control of words and language and build our own reality within the one that we live in.
Yes it sounds very bubbly and out there, but in order to exist, there has to be a word for it and that word should at least incorporate a little bit of who you are.