Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are We are living in a very queer world:
Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are
Tell me who you love And I'll tell you who you are
Tell me who you eat and I'll tell you who you are
I am at Sophia University in an exchange program for the past almost four months. Sophia is a faculty more oriented towards what is called in Anglo-Saxon the "liberal arts", ie human and social sciences. In addition to a program in Japanese for the poor peasants like me who do not speak the language of Mishima, the university proposes a wide range of courses in English, which may go to the study of classical Japanese theater passing in international relations and political science.
I am therefore pleased that semester. A court of comparative literature focuses on the haiku, a court of citizenship policy (Yum Yum), a court on the concept of colonialism and finally, last but not least , the court's most interesting: Sociology of sexuality and gender. Certainly, I see you coming, little perverse. NO, this court is not the most interesting because the words "penis", "vaginal intercourse" and "Homosexuality" appear consistently. Students do not contemplate Professor Farrer foaming at the mouth, eyes full of debauchery, with one hand in the underpants and the other fiddling nervously pen kits carefully posed in front of the table. What makes strength of this court is that it is clearly composed, with readings that are most relevant and well discussed. The teacher has charisma (what others are somewhat lacking) and there is a real "background" technical, sociological and philosophical. "It's too sugoi!" Somehow.
The course focuses on various topics, foremost being an introduction to the sociology of sexuality. It therefore requires the study of patriarchy, the oppression of women, the gender concept, the concept of " tryst ", homosexuality and bisexuality, pornography, gender X, Michel Foucault Karl Marx, others joyous, and even the theory of "hook up"! Each court is different, but the themes to recross. And of course, a recurring theme is the theme of "queer studies".
This introductory course to the sociology of sexuality speaks very well of the concept of "identity". Today we had a yard on bisexuality, and the identity problem. Bisexuality, according to Marjorie Garber, sexuality is a very special and truly apart from that of heterosexuality and homosexuality. It has the peculiarity of being a "non-identity " in the sense that it accepts ambiguity, uncertainty, change and phase of a gray world in black and white. The status of bisexuality is apparently much changed between the 70s, years of sexual revolution, the 90s. During the years of revolt, being bisexual was challenge authority and seek other standards, to free themselves as homosexuals or other minorities trying to do. The 90, according to Garber, show a change. The policy has been there and crystallization identaire. Another notable fact: AIDS is rampant and with past downturns. Finally, loves alternative have a somehow trivialized in Western societies at least.
We saw a growing phenomenon biphobia toward "identity" bisexual. The world associates necessarily homophobic homosexuals, from the foot they put into the queer world. They were also considered as those who have spent Aids, "gay disease" among heterosexuals in the 1980s. In a reverse approach, in some gay communities, we are witnessing a phenomenon of rejection against those who "ass between two chairs", "assumes that half "," want to continue to enjoy the "heterosexual privilege." Because they have no clear identity, they could undermine the gay identity movement. How can we claim the right to marry when part of the team to return his jacket to go sit snug in the house of "normality"? However, biphobia not only shows how bisexuality is not included. It shows how the identity in general has a political significance, and an identity that refuses to be one, may be a threat.
can understand the policy as follows. Policy often begins with a struggle for power in public space. For a party or a group can apply for rights, it must create an identity, a difference that could allow him to gain power, and assert its views. It is therefore, in political parties, as in groups identity, a need for ideology, a system of thought necessary and solid, showing universal constants and casi-teleological in human reality. There is in search of a stable identity and a strong contradiction with the policy itself. Politics is the world Quota of a changing world, much more realistic idealist, where the politician, although sometimes guided by the outline, is forced to move into groping, more than knowing. Somehow, the show even more identities in their facticity political space as they try to adapt to a permanent chaos, and all show their complete incompatibility with reality.
Michel Foucault, the famous author of History of Sexuality, was quite skeptical about the actual release would have have led to the sexual revolution of the late '60s and the construction of political identity around the notion of sexuality. For Foucault, we talk too much sex and sexuality. We like to say "repressed", and so we made a "sexual revolution". Outside, Foucault, tracing the history of sexuality, shows that we are witnessing in the 19th century to the advent of science of sexuality around the Darwinian, Marxist, Freudian, and other biologists / physicians. Then appear medically terms of "women hysteria", the "pedophile" and "homosexual" (which becomes a clinical disease). Science has put in boxes and gave an authoritarian basis of sexuality. And while we thought suppressed, then we are talking incessantly about sex, thinking to release and build our thinking being. Obviously, I find it very difficult to reduce eddy to a single paragraph, which is already causing alone prolonged sleep a meeting for me I can not be lost for the first two lines (thank you to them!) . Foucault is not without its critics, and I'm certainly not his best defender. However, I would point a smart remark on his part. Is it really safe to build an identity around their sexuality, without any political considerations? Foucault is ironic example can we construct an identity around its diet?
Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are
Tell me who you love And I'll tell you who you are
The identity construction has its limits, especially when it is associated with homosexuality. My impression is this. I find the development of gay literature, a queer cinema and a world rather queer or gay friendly positive as a whole, given the overwhelming heteronormativity that still exists in contemporary society (phallocentrée more importantly, we need only watch MTV). However, this should be peripheral rather than a source of obsession, or even communitarian people looking to be more gay than gay ". We can not say that homosexuality, heterosexuality or transsexuality are constitutive of our being, which also remains in constant definition in the flow of life. We can not say: "I do not know play the piano, I can not do sports, oh my god, my only distinction from others is that I'm gay! "
Making his sexuality too important a component of his identity is first to restrict and not to go forward a lot of other things more constructive in terms of identity. It then unconsciously believe in essentialism. This question of "Is what is gay at birth or from childhood" is obviously difficult to answer. However, the problem is that belief in determinism is to believe in a destiny, a necessity and therefore somewhere a kind of curse. How then accept what you do, damned if we believe in forever? How is it when essait to build an identity with what we think a curse? Then we may not ever doubt assumed, by trying to be more than what we never wanted to be. It is then that we hate to be, and they're well rid if it was possible. That's why define its identity with something as banal and ultimately uncertain sexuality can be dangerous, and ultimately unproductive .
"Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest"
Walt Whitman, "Song of Miself" (quoted by Marjorie Garber, Vice Versa )
This Article not really pamphlet against identity groups. He is not here to say that bisexuals are rejected by the GLT movement and thereby create another somewhere identity. It reflects on the notion of identity, which sometimes reassuring and promising happiness often leads to poor self-concept, "which has to be be" more than is , (if it is Sartrian). The notion of preference is biased: it is my preference for free markets, excluding black men or cucumber is really consitutents a stable identity? Act rather than think about his "being" since its head is the best way to not go crazy and end up on the rails of the Chuo line.
This is not to say that we are all and all must be bisexual. That would still put the world in a box. Communism tried to put a lot of countries in a single pie and ended up cutting the dough sticking out of it with a large bloody knife. However, we can learn a lot of bisexuality. Marjorie Gaber explained that bisexuality does not exist in itself, it is not an identity, but a story ("a narrative " ). Bisexuality takes temporality into account. It may very clumsily paraphrase Bergson in the conference "The Possible and the Actual." Reality is like a balloon that inflates, not a chessboard that goes from box to box. Reality, and thus the future is unpredictable. Any assessment of a possible sign of finding a causal, is ultimately a retrospective illusion, time is running true of consciousness (oulala I 'll hit with my friends in college in philosophy if they read this!). Bisexuality is to admit that reality is constructed step by small. Bisexuality, without an identity, constantly being lost, without definition, and refusing to choose, watch all his "big sister" a new romance and a new freedom, that of not knowing and accepting that " Leaving we are in a very queer world .
"I did not genetic.
I have a troubled mind.
Give me some time. It will pass by wind.
I want to be alone. Stay there.
You shut up.
I do not want to stop.
I want to bother you! "
