Not Anonymous

Another well known white man whose sexuality has been a source of speculation and assumption for years finally confirmed the "rumours".

I am impressed, because the decision to be unambiguous is not an easy one, especially when the ethics involved may not be exactly what we assume them to be.

When I saw the news that Anderson Cooper had decided to brush off any remaining ambiguity regarding his sexuality, I mentioned it the office. My place of work likes to be up to date and we are a very gay friendly company, in fact the team I work with has the same amount of women as well as men, and three out of the team of eight are queer.

I mentioned it and one of my co-workers said, "about time". This co-worker happens to be straight.

Of course, then, a whole discussion about being when gay people are ready to tell other people, and celebrities who might be "uncomfortable" with their sexuality and a whole slew of other rather trite notions regarding when and why gay celebrities chose to come out.

I'd like to stay on the notion of "about time". This phrasing implies, quite explicitly, that Anderson Cooper should have been out and loud a long time ago. I hadn't really thought about that, despite the fact that if you worked in media, or followed the media, or followed the speculation regarding gay celebrities for whatever reason (me, I like knowing who my people are), you knew who is gay and who isn't, up to a point.

Anderson Cooper decided to be explicit about his sexuality because, as he wrote in his email to Andrew Sullivan:

[...]I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something - something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.[...]

Emphasis mine.

Related, when Quinto came out (and I wrote about it on DW and LJ), he made it a moral issue. Which, personally, is my stance on it as well. I make it my business to make sure the people I interact with know who they are talking to. The assumption that I am straight, simply because it doesn't occur to other people that there not everyone is straight (also known as heterosexism), is one that I am confronted in practically every facet of my life.

When Cooper says the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something, he is talking about a requirement mandated by straight society.

To be out is an ethical stand point. But it isn't something LGBT people actually owe straight society to do.

Emily Emanuel of Tiger Beatdown writes about exactly this in a post titled: People in Glass Closets: Anderson Cooper and Straight Responses to Coming Out.

Emanuel discusses the little micro-aggressions well meaning liberals choose to condescend onto queer people when it comes to public people coming out of the closet.

You should read her whole post, but the one thing that resonated with me in this post and every time another celebrity "Casually Come Out" (I don't totally agree with everything that's written here, but that's a post for another day) is this:

[..]when heterosexuals ask, “why does Anderson Cooper have to come out as gay,” I reply: “because you do not have to come out as heterosexual.”

Heterosexuals do announce their sexuality in public, all the time, of course. Walking down the street holding hands, kissing their lover, wearing wedding rings, clothing and other aesthetic codes. But it is not a movement from unacknowledged to public, it has no risk or social consequences in itself. In his coming out letter, Cooper notes that he didn’t come out because a reporter’s private life shouldn’t matter. Indeed. But part of the point is, being heterosexual isn’t private – it’s public.

When I was younger I lived on the ambiguity, it made me feel safe, I had the privilege of it and I didn't consider it something I needed to do in order to have integrity.

My tune changed as I was burned and my rage coalesced.

Regardless I am no longer ambiguous and that's a choice I made. The fact that I have to make that choice, that it is a staple in the life of LGBT people at all, tells us the demand that is placed on us by straight society and the assumptions that are forced onto us.

The other side of the coin is the demand from LGBT people for ambiguous or speculated celebrities to be upfront about who they are in the name of an agenda to promote LGBT visibility, rights and companies who want to shown as inclusive. A legitimate desire, I am dying for more LGBT representation in the mainstream media.

Still, the demand comes from a place to maintain a binary of making sure and deciding who is In and who is Out. Inside and outside what, I couldn't say.

I think it is a big deal that these celebrities are choosing to be unambiguous. I think we should also start unpacking why it is white men who have successful careers within the mainstream media that are getting the attention. Jodi Foster and Wanda Sykes notwithstanding, why so few celebrity women are coming out in the same manner and why the whole phenomena is so overwhelmingly white.

#2 Entry of the Queer Bundle.

I just worked though my feelings regarding President Obama's statement of marriage equality in the United States by creating fanfic with another non-American fan.

I'm gay and she's straight and we were both... unimpressed. Probably for different reasons. Her country has had marriage equality for over a decade. I live in a country that has no civil marriage for anyone.

Look at that quote.

This is what President Obama said (Via The Atlantic Wire):

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,”

Now look at me.

President Obama has laid out in those few sentences what his opinion about marriage equality is about.

An opinion, that should have no bearing on the law.

No one's opinion should have any bearing on the nature of people's relationship.

Beyond that, he's making it a personal issue, as opposed to a social issue, reiterating the false dichotomy that what matters, is what matters to the people he knows and that the rest will have to find different solution.

When he says - "when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together," - he is giving us the baseline of decent gay people, of worthy gay people. Long term and monogamous who are productive members of society by being reproductive members of society.

And if they're not reproducing, they're out there killing people in far away lands - "when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone," - because now gay people can go out into the world, openly, and kill anyone in the name of Freedom, Liberty and Democracy.

That was sarcasm.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a cruel decree, and its repeal is a good thing (This is not sarcasm).

That doesn't make the draft a tool of progress for gay people. Being able to be visible is a necessary thing, and I don't begrudge that. However, the fact that the fight was focused on this repeal as though it would change the culture of homophobia inherent to an institution based on hierarchy and conservative notions of masculinity, kind of boggles me.

Taking the above into account and once again, marriage equality is placed out there as a prize the second class citizens of America need to aspire to.

I find that notion absolutely abhorrent.

People sexuality, their relationship style, their loyalty to the government and reproductive choices should not be a standard for their humanity.

And their humanity should not be equated with a state contract.

"I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married"

The President's personal opinion has no bearing, whatsoever, on the inherent humanity of gay people, who may or may not be in a relationship.

The fact that his personal opinion is favourable, but he states at the same time that it should be remain a state issue is extremely telling.

Ironically, Obama has been the best President with regards to Trans issues, which is saying something, considering the majority of marriage equality advocates shuffle trans people under the bus when it comes to pushing an agenda. I see it in the States and I see it in my own locale.

And that's why I've been saying gay people throughout.

There is no discussion of the humanity and dignity of bisexual people, or men and women and other genders I couldn't name who are in a relationship that may or may not be romantic. Or who aren't in a relationship at all. There is no discussion of kinship without marriage. There is no discussion of healthcare plans without a spouse. Why is there a moral imperative when it comes to children?

Bottom line.

Obama expressed his personal opinion that marriage is something gay people have to earn. By fighting, tooth and nail.

This is progress?

[Trigger Warning: Frank discussion of rape culture]

It is with a great deal of kismet that I woke up this morning to an image that not only angered me, but haunted me throughout the day.

It wasn't an image of explicit violence.

It wasn't an image of gratuitous sexuality.

It wasn't an image of a war crime, news event or accident.

The image, which you can see under the ( cut )

It is a depiction of a white, thin, photoshopped woman. Her lips are painted red. Her eyes are covered with black silk blind fold, tied with a bow. Her nudity is heavily implied.

As you can see, this is the cover of this week's Newsweek. The cover article written by Katie Roiphe in which, and I quote Newsweek's tumblr:

[she] examines the submissive yet empowered female in Newsweek. “It is perhaps inconvenient for feminism that the erotic imagination does not submit to politics, or even changing demographics,” she writes.

I don't want to talk about the article though.

What interests me is the image and the accompanying quote: "The fantasy life of working women. Why surrender is a feminist dream".

Because that, my friends, is the face of backlash.

The reduction of womanhood and femininity into an unseeing nude waiting to be opened, unaware that she is even being gazed at - and how! When she is on the cover a mass produced weekly magazine that is available both in hard copy and as a e-mag - is a work of terror.

Pure and simple.

Femininity and women's sexuality is reduced, in this image and in that quote, to this:

Availability.

Woman, no matter who, where and how, is reduced to being available to someone else. That someone else will always and forever be a man.

This image implies that consent is not needed, because look, she's ready and willing for anyone to come and take her and open her up.

How can you tell?

She surrendered, because she can't handle her own power.

Shut the front door.

Here's the thing; Femininity and submission have been cultural peas in a pod for who knows how long. Femininity has been considered lesser, due to it's linkage to submission. Submission has always been associated with powerlessness... when attached to women.

When a man submits, well, he's kinky, isn't he, he's relinquishing his power temporarily.

Women, well, our power is the temporary thing.

Because we can't handle it. Beyond it, because secretly, we don't really want it.

That image is just another symptom of rape culture, because woman; no matter her background, race, ethnicity, sexuality, physical ability, mental capacity, nationality or even if she was born female; is nothing but a body which must avail herself to the desire of the men.

The fact is, that image and quote use kink as a way to yank and ridicule women's agency, autonomy and text based culture from under our feet. It reduces our sexual expression, fantasies, desires, choices and culture to something that, once again, avails us to be sexual objects in the patriarchy controlled public sphere.

Thank you, Newsweek, for slapping half the population across the face. Of course, according to you, we're asking for it, eyes closed and mouth at the ready.

[Entry #001]