| Subject: Begging the question? |
Author:
Andy
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Date Posted: Saturday, June 26, 10:25:18am
In reply to:
's message, "Sexuality not biologically determined?" on Monday, June 21, 05:03:47pm
Hi all.
My first post so - thanks tim for setting up the forum and to the contributors.
I guess I'm using this article as a jumping off point to ask some questions that I think are important. I'd be interested to hear different points of view if anybody else thinks these questions are important, or why people think they are unimportant or irrelevant.
In response to the van Gend article and the response to it - isn't debunking Spitzer's research or van Gend's wilful ignorance of the flaws in that research kind of missing the point?
Even assuming everybody was either 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual' (a bad but simplifying assumption), whether or not homosexuality is biologically (genetically, congenitally, developmentally) or environmentally determined, doesn't answer any questions about homosexuality.
If homosexuality is predetermined in any way, then heterosexuality too, by corollary, is predetermined (i.e. by the absence of the factors that lead to homosexuality, or by the fact that the person is a rower).
If homosexuality is modifiable, then so is heterosexuality.
The question that is begged by these arguments is that it is better to be a heterosexual than a homosexual. It is no victory to argue that homosexuals can change to heterosexuals. The argument that needs to be made is why should they change, and why shouldn't they? Is widespread social discrimination against homosexuals enough to justify facilitating changing homosexuals to heterosexuals? Can those same reasons be used to justify changing a heterosexual to a homosexual in some circumstances?
Is there any argument for changing gay kids to straight kids that can't also be used to justify changing a straight kid into a gay kid?
If sexuality is unmodifiable, then the issue doesn't arise so immediately, but we still need to ask why we think this way. Its too serious just to assume that non-heterosexuality is bad.
Moving away from the homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy assumption *phew*, the other HUGE problem with the kind of argument in van Gend's article is of course the (po-mo alert) binary opposition of gay and straight and all the associated oppositions that go along with it.
Why do we categorise people's sexuality with reference to their own gender, instead of the gender of the person to whom they are attracted? People could be androsexual (any andy-sexuals out there?), femmosexual, both, neither, mixed, instead of grouping all the undesirables together as homo/bisexuals.
Why is there a focus on finding out whether people ARE non-heterosexuals (irretrievably or not), rather than on the degree to which non-heterosexual things are DONE? (And reading the judgments of US courts deciding whether some people should be discharged from the military is illuminating on the hazy relationship between doing (and not doing) gays and being gay).
And why are the doings that make somebody non-heterosexual all about sex? (although there is judicial authority for interest in musicals being an indicator of homosexuality)
Why is gender so much more important in the definition of somebody's sexuality than their age/number of participants/ethnicity/kink of preference?
Why are we afraid of being queer? What is wrong with being odd, derided, and undefined, as a political group?
Finally, why should we exclude people whose desire and tendencies are pure vanilla heterosexual from being part of a 'queer' political and social movement that seeks to act on behalf of queer people? Aren't heterosexuals incredibly controlled by the desire to be absolutely heterosexual? (I'm thinking of george costanza, terrified that he had felt a 'movement' while getting a massage from a man).
Is even 'non-heterosexual' a term that excludes unnecessarily? I like the term 'queer' because it doesn't require any particular characteristics of the person who is labelled by it, except perhaps an affiliation with other people who identify as queer.
I know heterosexuals who are pretty queer (damn those straight boys that kiss boys that aren't me), and homosexuals who are pretty straight (hi dad).
Personally, I just think that the mainstream debate around identity politics hasn't really engaged with most of these questions - and they have been around for yonks. And I think its because most of queer theory is unreadable and aimed at queers and queer-afilliated academics.
Any thoughts?
--
Ouch. Bit longer than I intended. Apologies for any ranty bits. I make no claims that my opinions are informed, only reflected upon as best I can.
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