Queer, Gay, Homo, Butt Pirate of the Carribean.

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on the gay thread, mark s self id'd as bi, now i id as queer, and thot mark did too, im not trying to call him out and mock him or anything, but i think an intellectual disscusion on nomencuture might be helpful.
So I Id as queer for a variety of social and political reasons, mostly because I think binaries are tosh and human sexuaility is much to complex to be anything but a muddle, and queer is a good muddling word- i hate homosexuailty because of its clinical origins and hate gay because it sounds all middle class laqyer trying to be nice, if you are gay bisexual lesbian etc, how do you self id ?
traditionally the blurring of gender lines has been connected to the blurring of sexual lines- the addition of T in GLBT for example, is this fair ?
also discuss any other realvent issues, i want a serious thread, one that deals with these things in an honest and forthright way, for people who have read all (6?) volumes of Foccults a history of sexuality, and for those who arent sure they even know one of us.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 February 2003 13:46 (twenty-three years ago)

i did do this, as anthony says, but actually up top of the thread i also pointed out rthat my bi-identified buds identify me as "weird", so whatever

it's true i generally do say "queer", but since oopsy wz getting in a total brain-panic abt PC-ness and stuff (from his VERY FIRST POST), i wz also being a bit deliberately "suck on this"

queer is handy, but only bcz it's so vague: basically i think everyone is born queer and only discover themselves zoning in on whichever bit of queer they prefer later (like het or whatever): you don't know yr sexuality b4 you can speak (or "engage linguistically" blah blah), which is why being "born gay" is a meaningless phrase...

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 6 February 2003 13:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Emma will slap me if I answer this thread, so I won't. Except to say that I consider myself Nick Southall and let everyone conclude what the hell they will from that basis. My only problem at all with anyone is if they define themselves completely by 'being' something, ie; people who would have no reason to live if they weren't gay/Welsh/an optician/from Sussex/etcetera and who get militant about it, becasue I think that leads to people being very boring indeed, and I personally really don't want to be defined as being anythign other than Nick Southall and maybe "quite nice when you get to know him". I've been with Emma for a year and a half, but let's say that I've always been 'open-minded'.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 13:58 (twenty-three years ago)

That does not mean 'polygamous'. Or unfaithful. BTW.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:00 (twenty-three years ago)

also on that other thread, i said (which is much closer to what i think, abt me and anyone else) that gay is who you do not what you are => this wz the statement that sent oops careening off into bluster

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Aye, I'm with mark s there, re; who you do not what you are. I fancy people - generally they're women (exclusively they're Emma!).

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:09 (twenty-three years ago)

How about what you do vs what you want to do?

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Cos otherwise there's a lot of asexual people out there...

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Define 'want'? Are we just talking singles who ain't getting any, or are we talkign repression?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

It could be lots of things. It could be not getting any, it could be repression in the closeted-married-man sense, it could be someone like you or me who is in a strong pair-bond and so makes a choice about the aspects of their sexuality they express and those they don't. It could be repression for legal reasons - the moral charge behind the current paedoph1lia thing in the UK rests on the idea that 'want to do' has at least some equivalence with 'do'.

Of course 'what you do' can easily encompass all this by including fantasising under the 'do' word, but this has other implications (see 'mock lesbian' discussions passim).

A lot of discussions about sexuality seem to miss the idea that a very big part of 'what you do' is who is willing to do things with you.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Indeed, a very fair point. Emma wont let me near marbles or plastic cups or sheets of ice.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I identify as "not fussy" ;-)

The whole lumping the T in with GLB is a bit complex, and is made more complicated because it includes several different things - transvestites, transsexuals and cross-dressers. All of these are completely orthagonal to sexuality, though: there are straight transsexuals, gay or lesbian transsexuals and bi transsexuals, and so on. That's why it feels a bit odd to bracket it with the other categories, although I'd never say it shouldn't be.

Then again, maybe GLBT organisations should be replaced with "open and friendly" organisations, supporting equality and openness regardless of gender or sexuality.

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 6 February 2003 14:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I do not quite understand the concept of the straight transsexual. Is that when you are sexually interested in your birth gender but are switching to the other gender?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:07 (twenty-three years ago)

i have a friend who simply defines herself as "pirate" btw

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Sod orientation - I want 'pirate' to be my gender!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I do not quite understand the concept of the straight transsexual. Is that when you are sexually interested in your birth gender but are switching to the other gender?

Yes.

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:33 (twenty-three years ago)

what?

― megan p, Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:35 (twenty-three years ago)

a girl who wants to be a boy is a transsexual. If she wants to kiss girls afterwards, then she's a straight transsexual.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 6 February 2003 15:41 (twenty-three years ago)

let me ask a question-if i masterbate about men, but fuck women what am i ? What is classified as action ? Thoughts ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:01 (twenty-three years ago)

a person.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I tend to imagine that everyone falls somewhere on a bisexual range, some lean towards the heterosexual, some towards the homosexual ends...

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

That was the question that "sent me off to bluster". Strange, as I agree with it. You could also say a being a killer isn't what you are it's who you off. Being a basketball player isn't who you are, but what you do. etc etc

― Oops (Oops), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

In all honesty, I mostly identify as a gay man with a (basically) exclusive taste for women. Is there a word for that?

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:38 (twenty-three years ago)

'Pirate'!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Arr.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think there is one yet, mark p. So you can name it after yourself. :)

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

yes, i told you. it's PERSON(, yo)

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

No, Mark Pirate!

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick Pirate!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

ah, forget it.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry greg, we prefer to be Pirates. It's an eye-patch/hook-hand fetish thing.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't forget the parrots.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:42 (twenty-three years ago)

whatever. kitten is a far cooler name than pirate, so, meh.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Kitten-pirates of the Indian Ocean!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

right, now i'm interested.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

sex kittens unite!

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:46 (twenty-three years ago)

(Sorry Anthony.)

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:47 (twenty-three years ago)

mark p to blonde chiX0r on dating show: "yes i am gay and celibate but coming up to my place for sex isn't out of the question"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:49 (twenty-three years ago)

It's an eye-patch/hook-hand fetish thing

Radical Muslim clerics to thread!

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 6 February 2003 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

mark p to blonde chiX0r on dating show: "yes i am gay and celibate but coming up to my place for sex isn't out of the question"

B-b-but it's worked!

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been called non-sexual (not in an isulting way) .

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:11 (twenty-three years ago)

So I agree with Anthony's original statement, and the ookiness of the various terms that are available. But at the same time, "queer" doesn't really get much information across. The people who you could refer to yourself as queer to who would understand what you did or didn't mean are the last people who would care about how you define yourself, I'd think.

So "gay" or "homosexual" is a shorthand used when dealing with other people. I don't "think of myself" as "gay" (or "queer", really); I just have this history of generally only being attracted to (and more specifically only wanting to get down & dirty with) guys. (Though of course I know that when other people talk about "gay people" that they are including me in that, so yes.)

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:17 (twenty-three years ago)

"Are you homosexual?"
"no, but I engage in homosexual acts"

"Are you heterosexual?"
"No, but I engage in heterosexual acts"

― Oops (Oops), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:22 (twenty-three years ago)

You got it, Oops. "I engage in homosexual acts" does not mean "I am a creature solely capable of engaging in homosexual acts".

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

ok, let me ask this, how do we construct a enlightenment view of the person which is the only way our society allows saftey to occur, with all of this ambiguity.

when i was fag bashed, it was not b/c i fuck men, but b/c of the polarized constructions-how do i protect myself against being fag bashed and still id not as one or the other but both/all/something in the middle ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

"Are you homosexual?"
"I don't know, I'll fill you in as soon as I ascertain the gender of my next conquest."

So, you're gay/queer/straight/whatever only for that time when you're having gay/queer/straight/whatever sex

― Oops (Oops), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:28 (twenty-three years ago)

no,
everyday i am reminded that i am queer-lets look at the list for today
8:30- reading the newspaper, a story about some movement in india
9:00-having a crush on my barrista
9:15-looking thru magazines, noticing dan futterman on the cover of out,wondering if i should buy it, realizing i hated the politics of the magazine

and this thread, and reading a Johnathan Katz book.

maybe those with queer desires are so used to analyzing them, how often-assuming yr not queer-do you think about constructing your idenity, oops ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:34 (twenty-three years ago)

So you're queer only when you're thinking queer thoughts? Can we get a consensus here? I thought being homosexual is something you do, not something you are. Now, anthony seems to be saying that isn't so.

― Oops (Oops), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I read somewhere that homosexuality (or whatever we are calling it) was developed as a concept much earlier then heterosexuality was. But that might be because not-homosexuality was assumed to be the standard and so did not need to be defined.

the whole world of sexual identity and preference is just mad, really.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Being heterosexual is about who you DON'T do more than who you DO do. Doo doo da da da dooo....

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 6 February 2003 17:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I call myself bi because I am attracted to men and women, and have had sex with both genders, and may well do so again. It doesn't feel like defining what I am (any more than saying that I like soul music does), it's just oneaspect of me. It is a term freighted with various assumptions, though. Some assume that my interest in men and women is exactly even, and it isn't. Some assume that it means promiscuous, which it has and hasn't at different times, due to circumstances. Some gay men feel it's an unwillingness to properly commit to being gay, which is what I clearly "really" am. I don;t much care for any of these strange notions, but I still think 'bi' is about as good a term as I can find. I did toy with 'polysexual' once, to indicate a multi-faceted nature and incidentally a taste for group sex, but decided that would identify me as an arsehole, so didn't use it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 6 February 2003 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

sex is not just action to orgasm, but a daily life, thoughts, feelings desires, politics. christ spoke of refusing to delinate b/w adultry in ones heart and aldutlery in ones genitals.

because sex to me is intergral, just as spirit or body or intimacy, then queer thoughts are as much a defining action as queer actions-the odd thing is that, i dont think "i am now having a queer thought", until i bring it into interaction with others.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 6 February 2003 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha Martin!

"What's your sexual orientation?"
"I'm an arsehole."
"Ah, into the group thing!"

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 6 February 2003 18:08 (twenty-three years ago)

DV: Not much earlier, but a word "homosexual" (or its German equivalent) appeared, what, a year or two before "heterosexual". Although "heterosexual" meant something a bit different at that point (IIRC, it was something like "revelling in heterosexuality" vs. "having good, Godly, joyless relations with your spouse") and was, in the first article it was used in, seen as worse than homosexuality, since it was a more direct perversion of God's ideal.

Something like that: It's been years since I read the article making this claim, and it's not as if I've read follow-up criticism to this article, etc., etc. It may all have been debunked for all I know.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 18:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I did toy with 'polysexual' once... but decided that would identify me as an arsehole

Or a very lonely pirate!

― All about the pirate (afarrell), Thursday, 6 February 2003 19:32 (twenty-three years ago)

my gay friends don't really like pirates.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Thursday, 6 February 2003 19:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I like pirates. I also love the band Pirate Jenny, the best of the pirate rock bands. Also, I like cock.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 19:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Ergo, you like pirate cock-rock!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 6 February 2003 19:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll have to ponder that one.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 6 February 2003 20:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

This seems the best thread to pose a serious question I have:

It seems that 'queer' is all about being non-specific, letting things just be what they are, but I want to know something specific.

I'm a man who's only interested in romantic and sexual relations with women. Is it possible for me to be queer?

― mei (mei), Saturday, 17 April 2004 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, yeah, probably. I'd say so.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:05 (twenty-two years ago)

absolutely! for example a lot of people who are in thought and action het but into various kinks identify as queer.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

So what would I have to do or think or what?
I mean, I might already be, I just want some sort of clue!

― mei (mei), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I think this is one of those lady if you have to ask sort of things.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

but actually by even asking you're being transgressive! Go!

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Mmm, I dunno. I could never do that because I would feel...touristy, shall we say. But that's just a personal take.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Do what?

I'm not asking what I should do (differently) so that I can become 'queer'. I just want to know if I am what others might call queer.

― mei (mei), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

If it helps, Mei, I always thought you were a girl until this afternoon.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Do what?

Sorry -- identify specifically as 'queer.'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree with Ned. Doesn't this sort of openness threaten to make the word meaningless? I don't feel like I could call myself "queer" in good faith either.

― Prude (Prude), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, serious answer. I take a person using the word queer to mean that they recognize that there is some aspect of their sexuality that doesn't quite fit within society's definitions of what sexuality should be.

In some communities, perhaps any desire or act of sexual expression that's not missionary sex within marriage is queer. Some communities have more inclusive definitions of what sexuality should be.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

using the word 'queer' so freely does weaken its impact, but I think it does so in a good way. Particular flavors of queerness still have their own words that aren't affected.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

That's a good take on the question -- I think since the term is so fluid in its potential definitions that my concern could arise from that, in that unless you establish what you're talking about and how you're talking about it first with someone, confusion or worse could be the result. And for some the use is distinctly narrow and distinctly negative.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

To be a bit more blunt: straight guy likes ass-play but only from women. That's under the queer umbrella. I think.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Saturday, 17 April 2004 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, okay, so liking ass-play, having cross-dressing tendencies and femdom fantasies probably does it then.

― mei (mei), Sunday, 18 April 2004 04:31 (twenty-two years ago)

your card will arrive in six to eight weeks.

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 18 April 2004 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Hahahaha.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Sunday, 18 April 2004 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

No.

― Mr Mime (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 18 April 2004 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think I've really kept up with the shifting meanings of a term like queer, really. I still tend to assume it is a close synonym of gay or homosexual, with a suggestion of added defiance, of reclaiming an insult. I was aware that various people have used it to incorporate more, but I haven't come across (or realised) cases where it has been used as generally as this.

Hmm, the one time I have used it more widely, now that I think of it, was at university. They had us all set up our own little webpages. I mentioned that I was bi on mine, and got an email from another student saying "are you some kind of queer?", to which I replied "Yes, I am some kind of queer."

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 18 April 2004 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

"We're here, we're queer, we don't want any more bears" - Homer Simpson as poster boy of the omnisexual other"

― Markelby (Mark C), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Yo Hippies/fuckyouassholeeatshit
I say I'm a Homo when asked or maybe a faggot. But if anyone calls me a faggot I throw them against the nearest wall or hit with thee intention of breaking slag homophobic nooooooose. Oh!

― zenome kistachion, Sunday, 18 April 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

most favorite thread titles

― erudite e-scholar (harbl), Wednesday, 29 April 2009 15:35 (seventeen years ago)

I like how Foccults a history of sexuality
can be read as either Foucault or occult.

― formerly: mehlt (Edward Saroyan), Wednesday, 29 April 2009 21:07 (seventeen years ago)

Queer, Gay, Homo, Butt, awful Pirate music

― jesus is the man (jabba hands), Thursday, 30 April 2009 01:01 (seventeen years ago)

To continue on the topic left off 5 years ago:

I'm no expert on the subject, but I would agree on the vagueness to the point of uselessness of "queer." I have a friend who was just sort of figuring things out for herself and wasn't open about her orientation, but I got the sense that she was into girls, so I eventually asked her, "So do you like boys or girls or..."
"Um, I'm queer," she says.
"Oh. So does that mean just girls then?"
"Um, right now, yes."
"Me too," I said, hi-fiving her.
"So we have that in common."
I guess it makes sense in this context that she was into a girl for the first time and didn't want to flat out call herself a lesbian, now she throws the word dyke around more, presumably because she feels more confident in it or hasn't been attracted to dudes in a while. But my point is that saying you're queer to someone who's not queer will generally just result in confusion.

― DJ Mr. Face Stabba, M.D. (Whitey on the Moon), Thursday, 30 April 2009 02:56 (seventeen years ago)

NB: I made up the hi-fiving part.

― DJ Mr. Face Stabba, M.D. (Whitey on the Moon), Thursday, 30 April 2009 02:57 (seventeen years ago)

This board had a gay thread?

― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Thursday, 30 April 2009 03:38 (seventeen years ago)

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