Am I queer?
It’s probably a ridiculous question to which the answer is, simply, no. And yet I’ve been wanting to write about this since the Erotics conference 2 weeks ago because I found myself sitting there wondering if I was queer. Simply asking the question raises more questions about the concept of “queer” and how it’s applied.
At the conference I was surrounded by a lot of people who identified as queer and there was a lot of discussion about queer issues, queer gazes and queer politics. There was also a lot of talk about heteronormativies, monogamy and cultural expectations.
What does it mean to be queer, exactly?
In the commonly understood sense, it means homosexual – gay or lesbian. The term has also been used to include transgender, bisexual and polysexual people and, ultimately, anyone whose gender or sexuality doesn’t fit into an easily defined box.
In theory, being queer means anything other than heterosexual and cisgender (i.e. identifying with the sex/gender assigned at birth).
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But wait. I’ve been reading things that suggests the word “queer” also encompasses attraction and ways of seeing, not just identity and behaviour. So if you’re a woman who finds Lady GaGa or Madonna rather hot, that could be described as queer, at least by some.
And given that the Kinsey scale sees an awful lot of people having at least some feeling of attraction toward their own sex/gender, suddenly “queer” is rather a broad term indeed.
At the conference I also picked up the vibe that engaging in kinky or non-monogamous or non “heteronormative” behaviour could also be considered queer.
That expands the term again. Suddenly, half the population is queer.
Still, it’s not me, right? I’m definitely on the outside of this particular party.
And yet, I don’t quite fit into the straitjacket prepared for me.
Yes, I’m a monogamous, married, heterosexual, fairly vanilla woman. I choose to be this way. I don’t swing or do kink or have sex with other women because I’ve made a conscious choice not to do so, based on a knowledge of myself. That’s not to say that I’m NOT attracted to other women or don’t find the idea of kink or swinging to be appealing. It’s just that I put my relationship first and I do that through monogamy. It just works for me and my husband.
A lot of the negativity I was hearing about monogamy and marriage is based on the assumption that it’s an unthinking state, that those who get married are simply following a cultural script and repress their real desires and thus end up missing out on a wider world.
I don’t doubt that a lot of people do just that. Marriage and monogamy and family are the yardstick by which society likes to measure sex and relationships and there’s no doubt that people slot themselves into that life without questioning it, often with negative results. But that’s not always the case. Monogamy is not for everyone… but some of us do willingly and happily choose it.
At the conference I got the vibe that part of being queer is essentially the idea of rejecting the white picket fence and embracing the diversity of human sexuality. Dare I say it, there was a certain sense of superiority behind this, as though being queer was a more authentic or more emotionally honest state of being.
I find myself sitting on that white picket fence.
I live a very strange life. I make porn. I meet and talk with a lot of people who are queer or kinky or swingers or polyamorous or trans or porn stars. Almost everyone in my professional life doesn’t fit into that little box called “heteronormative”… except for me, apparently.
And yet beyond the sphere of porn and sex blogging, I don’t fit in. I am child-free, I have no “real” job. I’m an atheist. I don’t wear make up or care about fashion and I’m not good at conforming with the “feminine” idea of being female. I have an extensive knowledge of sex and all things sexual and tend to forget not to talk about these things in “nice” company. I write dirty stories and edit dirty movies and I go off and make porn films or take photos of naked men occasionally. I have rather varied tastes in porn – I find all sorts of things sexy – and none. To my family and friends, I’m rather strange.
I don’t really consider myself “normal”. And yet, within the porny kinky sphere, I’m boringly “normal”. There doesn’t seem to be a space or a community where I do fit in.
To use a concrete example: I’d love to be able to take part in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this weekend because it’s a public celebration of sexuality and I feel very much aligned with the politics involved. (I’d also love to get dressed up in spangles and be an over-the-top drag queen.) Nonetheless, I’m not queer, I don’t self-identify as such and I’m not accepted by the queer community so I can only be a supporter on the sidelines.
Last week Imogen, commenting on this post, said:
As a hypersexual straight woman, I’m bloody jealous of the queer community and I wish I *could* belong to it. Highly sexual straight women don’t fit in to mainstream sexual culture or the queer subculture, we don’t have our own community.
Imogen’s comment is spot on and it made me realise why I started asking myself if I was queer. I too am jealous. I’m not invited to the queer party but there isn’t an equivalent straight shindig going on next door. On the straight side of the equation sex is reduced to Cosmopolitan and porn, commercialised ideals of beauty and religious “morals” systems. There’s no straight mardi gras because parading down the street celebrating straight sexuality is always reduced to a “boobs on bikes” parade – and immediate concern for “the children.”
Part of being queer is rejecting that kind of sexual culture.
Is there room in “queer” for people like me and Imogen? Or is there some other subculture that we can belong to – or create?
And, more importantly, is there some way I can parade down the street in a ridiculous spangly bikini on a float shaped like a penis yelling “Orgasms for everyone?” without getting arrested?
Excellent post!
i’ve recently abandoned the use of ‘queer’ to describe myself (although i wouldn’t be offended if someone used it to describe me). i too have increasingly observed it being used in an overly restrictive way (i.e. as a shorthand for “lesbian and gay”) or in an overly broad way which somehow still manages to exclude people such as yourself and Imogen, who i would expect to be included in any broadly-defined version of ‘queer’.
And yes, i’ve observed elitist subversivism around the term too, which is think is bullshit …. and i say that as a transgenderqueer polyamorous pansexual kinkster.
One thing though – you wrote:
“In theory, being queer means anything other than heterosexual and cisgender (i.e. identifying with the sex and gender roles with which you were born).”
i wouldn’t say cisgender is about identifying with sex and gender /roles/; it’s about whether one identifies with the sex/gender one has been assigned at birth (some would phrase that as “coercively assigned”). As a feminist, i find this an important difference. i was assigned male at birth, but i’m a woman not because i like playing with dolls or pink frilly dresses (i don’t), but because i know within myself that’s what my gender is.
In any case, thanks for a great post!
I agree with what the woman above has to say about gender assignment.
As far as “queer” goes, here’s what I have to say: if it feels right on you, use it. Use the fuck out of it! So what if half the population is suddenly queer? If so many people embrace sex and gender diversity that our divisions become meaningless, that means we’ve won. We’ve eliminated the heterocentrism and ciscentrism that dominates our culture and we’ve won.
…not that I actually expect that to ever happen, but a queer can dream, can’t ze?
When I wrote that line about cisgender I did wonder if it was right or not. I’ve now changed it to what Alexis wrote.
I think the thing is, the word “queer” doesn’t feel right for me because I still don’t really fit in to what it means – at least when it comes to the more specific uses of the term. And it feels like it would be rude to start using it because I am in a different space to those who do identify that way.
So often these things turn into a matter of semantics. I guess I should question whether I – or anyone else – needs a label in the first place but they can have their uses.
Erm. Being female, cisgendered, thoroughly heterosexual and plane-jane vanilla, I was grooving along here until I hit this paragraph, which made me raise my eyebrows:
“Yes, I’m a monogamous, married, heterosexual, fairly vanilla woman. I choose to be this way. I don’t swing or do kink or have sex with other women because I’ve made a conscious choice not to do so, based on a knowledge of myself. That’s not to say that I’m NOT attracted to other women or don’t find the idea of kink or swinging to be appealing. It’s just that I put my relationship first and I do that through monogamy.”
Um, if you find the concepts of swinging, kink, and/or sex with other women attractive . . . then congratulations, whether you enact it or not, you ARE queer — in exactly the way that a bisexual person who chooses to monogamously marry a person of the opposite sex doesn’t suddenly become heterosexual.
Me, I’m het and vanilla because those are the only things that attract me, so I’m at true rock-bottom on the queerness scale. (*sigh!*) But I’d be all over spangles and a giant penis float, too, so you aren’t alone. 😀
Thanks for your comment Argyle. I do feel like it’s one thing to fantasise but a whole other thing to actually DO it. Perhaps that’s why I feel I don’t fit the queer model. I might think about it, but that’s as far as it goes. A quick example: I love the idea of BDSM but when I volunteered for a spanking demonstration a couple of years ago, I really didn’t enjoy it physically. So perhaps I’m mentally queer but not “real life” queer. Even that doesn’t sound right.
Anyway… one of these days, we’ll do a penis float/ straight sex celebration! If I can just get around the censorship laws here, I’d have a porn festival at the drop of a hat.
“Um, if you find the concepts of swinging, kink, and/or sex with other women attractive . . . then congratulations, whether you enact it or not, you ARE queer”
I respectfully disagree with this, Args. I don’t think you have to actually *have sex* with another woman to be a lesbian/bisexual(that’d leave out a whole lotta closeted people, not to mention virgin teenagers) but I *do* think you have to at least know that you’d definitely do it with another woman in real life if given the opportunity (that’s why straight women who say they fantasise about doing it with another woman in fantasy are, y’know,*straight*–if they ain’t willing to make that fantasy a reality, they ain’t queer!)
I don’t think the bi analogy works because said bisexual woman probably enjoyed having sex with women prior to her marriage; that’s what makes her bi. She didn’t think “hm, I like the idea of being with a woman *in fantasy*, but I think *the reality* would maybe gross me out.” That would make her straight.
I belabour the point a bit, don’t I?
Ok, now, what I *actually* came here to say is, your blog is totally great and, as a fellow vanilla dick-loving girl, I am so down (up?) with that penis float idea. I’ll come to that parade! I’ll bring frankenfurters! (although, can we have it in Perth? It’s kinda dull here…)