Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Modern and po-mo gender essentialism is ahistorical. It's a conclusion arrived at - either in its reactionary, liberal white affluent feminist or allegedly revolutionary forms - by studiously refusing to attend to how people actually act. Or, to how very few human interactions neatly fit these ahistorical categories.

Also, when I click on the link to this site, it tops off at Owen's Iron Door post. The last three entries don't show up unless I go to archives. Happens if I enter the address in the browser, bounce from my site, or link in from IOZ's. Might just be me, but a heads up if it's not.

JC -- probably a browser cache or Squid cache issue (the latter at my ISP). Try refreshing your browser when you're on the non-current page and see what happens. Might even be a cache at *your* ISP....

...hypotheses of innateness are a lot more likely to have reactionary implications than the reverse.

Islamophobes are having a field day with homophobia:

...homophobia is not a matter of an individual disposition, but rather of a social matrix which creates "gays" as a deviant subject position in the first place. A very nice example for this is--and with this we return once more to our initial point of departure--the so-called "Islamic world." In classical Arabic there is no word for a "gay," and nonetheless it is not an exaggeration to state that almost half of all classical Arab love poems were composed by male authors for persons of the same sex. This was not even viewed as objectionable by pietists--although they considered anal sex a grave sin. When the Moroccan scholar Muhammad al-Saffar visited Paris in the 1840s, he noted with wonder: "Flirtation, romance, and courtship for them take place only with women, for they are not inclined to boys or young men. Rather, that is extremely disgraceful to them."

Viewed from this standpoint, it would seem to be an irony of history that Arab and Turkish Muslims of all people have to be the ones to suffer in order to allow Europeans to represent themselves as tolerant advocates on behalf of the very "homosexuals" whom they have brought about and sorted out as a distinct "minority" through a centuries-long process of normalization in the first place.

If you honestly think that male fear of female sexuality is only "supposed," I envy you.

It must be nice to live in a reality where you can reach middle-to-late adulthood and still treat sexism like some kind of interesting but not really pressing hypothetical, Dude.

Ms. Xeno,

Isn't it possible to conclude that institutional, functioning, historical sexism is a bit more complex than male fear of female sex?

I mean, at the very minimum, institutionalizing oppression of women frees up a whole lot of uncompensated labor, no?

Jack sorta beat me to it, but yeah, I think you misunderstood me, Ms X. Certainly sexism is a social reality, not just a hypothetical. But this silly one-dimensional way of 'explaining' it on the basis of some deep essentialist determinants in the male brain just obfuscates it.

People can learn not to defecate on the carpet, if they're motivated enough, and they can also learn to treat women as fellow-critters and equals -- if they're motivated enough. All this made-up pseudo-biology takes the problem out of the sphere where it properly belongs -- namely, the sphere of politics (in the real, substantial sense) and culture.

As for fear of female sexuality -- perhaps there are those who suffer from it, though I suspect the psychology of the illness may be fairly complex, more complex than the usual superficial arm-waving does justice to. But in any case I don't think it's universal, and anybody who wants to argue that it's innate needs to come up with some real evidence. I mean, that's a claim about *biology*.

Doesn't the phrase "fear of female sexuality" carry too many vague implications to be useful at all?

Not only what IS female sexuality... what does it encompass... far too difficult to define quickly with bright lines and clear qualifiers.

But what about such sexuality is feared, really?

This is another misuse of "fear" in the same way "homophobia" is a misuse of the fear of sameness. It's sloppy wording.

"Homophobia" generally suggests the man in question is afraid he may be gay, while the use of the phrase is often oriented toward people who express disapproval of homosexuality. Such disapproval may be rooted in a man's fear of being gay or having homosexual urges... or it may be some other thing having to to with a need to meddle with another's sexual activity.

I'm afraid I don't quite see where female sexuality is feared. How does such fear manifest itself? How does the manifestation inescapably suggest the origins are in fear of female sexuality, and not in something else?

Seems to me like a lot of Ivory Tower blah blah blah of the Dogmatic Progressive variety.

Isn't it possible to conclude that institutional, functioning, historical sexism is a bit more complex than male fear of female sex?

Fear can be at the core of all kinds of complex oppressions. The complexities come after the initial fear, though.

I don't actually care whether or not fear is the only aspect of sexism. I don't really care much whether it's innate or learned, or some combination of both. Either way, it's a piss-poor reason for treating other humans like shit.

I mean, at the very minimum, institutionalizing oppression of women frees up a whole lot of uncompensated labor, no?

That could just as easily be a happy [sic] outgrowth of the initial fear, though. Sort of how the constant fight over reproductive rights has the happy [sic] result of keeping so many feminists of a mind to stay enslaved to the Democratic Party forever. But the initial rationale/desire on behalf of men to make women dependent on their political machinations if we want simple, basic control of our bodies is itself an outgrowth of their fear of women, and their desire to seize women's power and make it their own.

I don't find it such a far-fetched notion, anyway.

...People can learn not to defecate on the carpet, if they're motivated enough, and they can also learn to treat women as fellow-critters and equals -- if they're motivated enough. All this made-up pseudo-biology takes the problem out of the sphere where it properly belongs -- namely, the sphere of politics (in the real, substantial sense) and culture...

Fair enough. Sorry if I didn't get you the first time.

i'm total innateness myself
a pure gene expression
the esential made rawly existential

platonic perfection

fear women's sexuality ??

as fas as i'm concerned women should have no sex at all
except with each other before the age of 13
and after that only with the odd
properly charged baster
but i've always formed up behind
the more utilitarian wing of the snare sex

i suspect that's me being fearful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7M431pdG5U

Nine times out of 10 sexism is a habit. Someone doing something that another role model, most likely Dad, did in some formative period. It's perpetuated more by thoughtlessness than any advantage it confers on the person who practices it. Certainly adolescent males have zero to gain by slut-shaming, since it seriously limits their access to sexual partners, but they do it anyway.

When it comes to sexuality, Occam's razor doesn't lead to theories of innate fear of women. It leads to ruling class fears of people who place a higher priority on fucking than they do on working. Feminism fails as a critique the more insistent it is on the idea that sexism was invented to control women. It controls everyone.

fear

fear gets pitched as the cause of oppression all the damn time. in act, i cant recall ever hearing of an oppressed or allegedly oppressed group that didn't list it as at least one of the reasons they are getting kicked around. i suspect this is because it is inspiring and emboldening to believe that your foes are afraid regardless of whether the fear is genuine or imagined. it colors the oppressors as ridiculous and sad in addition to the more usual facade of menace and strength.

is this worth more then what is lost when tactics for overturning this or that loathsome institution get misapplied due to an incorrect misunderstanding of its driving motivations?

imo probably so, most of the time. there just isn't that much difference in how to handle a fearful and shivering sexist versus any other kind.

Nine times out of 10 sexism is a habit. Someone doing something that another role model, most likely Dad, did in some formative period. It's perpetuated more by thoughtlessness than any advantage it confers on the person who practices it.

That's the argument of someone who knows human behavior.

Bueno.

i hate how lefticles flock to cultural
"issues "
they're only engaged with dueling gender
conciousness what's degenerate
who belongs in jail
and other full contact value games

this is largely a site for loud pissing pee pees

--- god bless the few exceptions
like equally loud pissing madame x ---

and that in itself establishes something
lopsided here

i guess i'm not up for very much of this

though i like the gender neutral notion
our system of exploitation
convulses
if too many souls
put
" a higher priority on fucking than they do on working. "

it has a nice lost fields of woodstock
feel to it

get back to work !!!!!

I just don't buy the "fear" factor, either, when it comes to oppressions. Disdain, contempt, casual disregard - yes. But not fear. The folks who graduate from prep school and Ivy League imperial management training programs don't enter the world afraid of the rest of us. The take their shifts fairly confident that they are the universe's intended boni.

I guess the proof is in the pudding. The various centers of power only really pay fearful attention to their governed masses when those masses do extraordinarily unpredictable shit.

Their general approach to us - and to any of the manufactured categories by which we are divided - is blase disdain.

When we do things which they fear, they get all Emergency. When we do quotidian getting by, they don't act with fear or trepidation.

biggayslut:

...Feminism fails as a critique the more insistent it is on the idea that sexism was invented to control women. It controls everyone.

IOW, how dare the mean ol' women make the men feel bad. The men are helpless to do anything about sexism. Helpless, I say!

[cue violins]

Ppppppppphhht.

Karl:

...That's the argument of someone who knows human behavior.

Bueno.

[snerk]

What they know about human behavior could fit on the head of a pin, IMHO. It boggles my mind that so many dudes can live on this earth for so long and yet be such shitty listeners and observers of what's happening right in front of their noses.

And seriously, if you can persuade yourself that oppression is more force of habit than genuine, conscious malice, that means you have to let the oppressors off the hook? I am highly amused here, imagining what would happen to the tone and content of this website if that suddenly became a legitimate excuse for downplaying and/or ignoring oppressions other than those based on who has a dick and who doesn't. Oh, the liberals don't feel any malice towards the people they bomb. They just think this way out of force of habit, the poor dears. We really shouldn't spend so much time picking on their bullshit ideas about foreign policy. La de da...

You guys are a laugh riot. It must be either that or my deep-seated masochism that keeps me coming back to read your oh-so-enlightening, never-heard-before-elsewhere thoughts on Teh Wimmens.

Mx Xeno,

You are right up to a point. I overstated. 9/10 was too high a mark. But you are also assuming that if I believe something is habitual it's not toxic. The example I provided should have made it clear that's not what I meant.

As for sexism hurting everyone, I should have added that women get the worst of it. But why not contend with my specific example, slut-shaming. It's bad for the women, certainly. But it also causes problems for the dudes. I feel compelled to add, by the way, that some of the worst slut-shamers in the world are women.

Having grown up gay, I venture my experience of not living up to gender expectations might have been better at times than yours and worse at others.

"make the men feel bad"

problematic madame X

some guy-males
exhault in the futile calumny of it all
like bullets bouncing off the man of steel

The men are helpless to do anything about sexism.

Did I say this? No.

What I essentially said was that sexism is a tradition, not a psychopathology.

I have no use for a critique that postulates The Men over here securing all the advantages and The Women over here paying all the costs. One that also sees the men as solely responsible for the fortification of this tradition.

As for those liberals who support bombing, that's an excellent example. They're following a herd rather than consulting a moral compass. They are simply modeling themselves on the others around them. It's not a pathology. It's conformity. Which doesn't give them a pass either.

"if you can persuade yourself that oppression is more force of habit than genuine, conscious malice, that means you have to let the oppressors off the hook?"

love thy enemy

"deep-seated masochism "

ditto wiff me lady x
only in my case
its all the
"oh-so-enlightening, never-heard-before-elsewhere thoughts on Teh.."
vanguard party

OW, how dare the mean ol' women make the men feel bad.

I am hopeful, Ms Xeno, you'll get around at some point to arguing with something I have actually said.

Who said anything about women making men feel bad? The particular examples in my mind were actually of men making other men feel bad. Like, for instance, making men feel obliged to fight in wars. Or calling them sissies for hating sports.

"deep-seated masochism "

ditto wiff me lady x
only in my case
its all the
"oh-so-enlightening, never-heard-before-elsewhere thoughts on Teh.."
vanguard party

if you can persuade yourself that oppression is more force of habit than genuine, conscious malice, that means you have to let the oppressors off the hook?

You really are consistent today. 100% straw. Which is weird because I usually think you rock.

The object of debate was someone's assertion that sexism is rooted in fear of women's sexuality. I said I thought it's mostly rooted in tradition. That doesn't excuse it. To the contrary, it puts the onus on people to fight it in others and in themselves.

Certainly there are malicious sexists, just as there are malicious militarists. In neither case, are they the norm for sexism or militarism.

OP, so glad you stay on board these silly 'culture war' discussions you hate so much. It must be a great sacrifice and we do sorely need your input.

ms_x,

By flipping the whole schmeer on its head and turning the discussion to

OMIGODYOUARECONDONINGOPPRESSION

you leave me thinking you're not the least bit interested in discussion, but instead, are interested in victimization.

Not playing. Sorry.

I misspoke earlier. When I said "making men feel obliged to fight in wars", I should have just said conscription.

Having grown up gay, I venture my experience of not living up to gender expectations might have been better at times than yours and worse at others.

How about growing up straight, but being constantly chided for being "gay" (actually, in my teen years, "queer") and insufficiently masculine?

ms_x has to intentionally misread your and my posts to make her point. Which I find obnoxious, but consistent with Shakesville-Brand Feminism, a variant that I didn't realize ms_xeno was into.

I know that "leftists" love to compete on Who Was Insulted More For Their Minority Status, and I can make up a lot of excuses for a lot of things and lump them all together under the heading of Victimhood, but I really don't see what that gains anyone, except perhaps Totemic Victim Status.

Which isn't something I'd be mining, personally. I think the solution is to stop being a victim and empower yourself through attitude and action.

But what do I know? I have only one X chromosome, not two, in my gender. Apparently, the mere fact of being XY means I intend to oppress ms_xeno.

If it weren't so pathetically funny, I might feel some empathy.

While I'm clarifying, I should add that I see homo-hatred as a flavor of sexism, and that, consistent with my views on sexism generally, I see it as having a negative impact on people generally, though gay people certainly get the worst of it.

How about growing up straight, but being constantly chided for being "gay" (actually, in my teen years, "queer") and insufficiently masculine?

You'll get no argument from me. We were typing roughly the same thing at the same time.

I wasn't trying to establish myself as the ultimate victim. I was providing a clear demonstration of how sexism is toxic for men since she finds the suggestion ridiculous.

There's two things under discussion here, despite ms_xeno's attempt to collapse them into one thing.

(1) what is the result of negative attitudes toward women

(2) what is the origin of those attitudes

ms_xeno ignores (2) because ... ?

**********

BGS,

I wasn't saying you were competing on victim status. I was saying, essentially,

funny... these discussions often devolve into competition of who is the bigger victim, in "leftist" settings that is.

Which always takes the discussion away from the real problems, doesn't it?

At the end of things it seems ms_xeno is pissed that men don't act like women.

At the end of things it seems ms_xeno is pissed that men don't act like women.

Nah, I don't think that's it. There are times when she makes legit claims about the trivializing of sexism. I just don't think she is correct in this case. Actually, I think the claim that only malicious people are sexist and that all of them are male and that the only people who suffer by it are female trivializes it.

Feminism has incredible merits as a critique but unfortunately there are traditions forming around the way its discussed that are a lot like discussions about Israel.

I do think it's it.

But I think it's because my statement was fairly vague that one could find it flawed.

At the end of things ms_xeno is blanket-blaming all men, for the oppression of women.

Read her comments in this thread again.

That's all she's up to -- and doing it snarkily, while accusing all the men of snarking against women.

What a nice irony. Next up, she's going to prove how it's my responsibility to make amends for the sexist behavior some other man was engaged in. Why? Because I'm a man, he's a man, we're all guilty together!

Fucking idiot feminists

"It must be a great sacrifice "
yes it certainly is

---------------

"leftists" love to compete
with each other

not mostly on their own victimhood
but on other spirits victimhood
and their keen witnesshood

how much they can "feel"
the victimized others pain and suffering
and how mad as hell it makes em

unfortunately the left find they are not
competing for
maximum victim gratitude
and confirmation
not for lines like
" we're soulmates brother dingo"

but more like

minimum rabid victim back biting

oh the love of righteous abuse
goes deep
into the left's habituation maze

Feminism has incredible merits as a critique but unfortunately there are traditions forming around the way its discussed that are a lot like discussions about Israel.

Maybe because some of those doing the discussing are deeply invested in both projects. Eve Ensler comes to mind, as does Andrea Dworkin:

In 2000, she published Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation, in which she compared the oppression of women to the persecution of Jews, discussed the sexual politics of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, and called for the establishment of a women's homeland as a response to the oppression of women.

Another self-declared feminist who has been issuing Cassandra like calls about the "Rise of 'New Anti-Semitism'" is Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. Norman Finkelstein drew upon that opus in his own research:

If virtually any criticism of Israel signals anti-Semitism, the sweep of the new anti-Semitism, unsurprisingly, beggars the imagination. Apart from usual suspects like Arabs, Muslims, and the Third World generally, as well as Europe and the United Nations, Chesler's rogues' gallery includes "Western-based human rights organizations, academics, intellectuals"; "Western anticapitalist, antiglobalist, pro-environment, antiracist," and "antiwar" activists; "progressive feminists," "Jewish feminists" ("American Jewish feminists stopped fighting for women's rights in America and began fighting for the rights of the PLO"); "European, and left and liberal American media" like Time magazine, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, British Guardian, Toronto Star, the BBC, NPR, CNN, and ABC, as well as many Israelis like the late "Yeshayahu Leibowitz of Hebrew university"--an orthodox Jew and one of Israel's most revered intellectuals. And "anyone who denies that this is so," Chesler throws in for good measure, is also "an anti-Semite."

not mostly on their own victimhood
but on other spirits victimhood
and their keen witnesshood

how much they can "feel"
the victimized others pain and suffering
and how mad as hell it makes em

Wow, it's a great day for people having conversations with other people all by themselves. You and Ms Xeno together make about 4 or 5 people all by your little own selves. It's really fucking edifying too.

I am well aware of the kind of people you are disparaging here, and am not crazy about them myself, but I don't see how your characterization applies to any part of the discussion.

I am not pretending to feel anyone's pain, nor making a whole lot of my own. I am simply assessing sexism as I see it.

Put another way, OP, you're the only person making a claim of any kind of superiority. Surely there are nodes in this discussion where you could just engage intellectually, and, if not, you could just go away. Instead you stay for the sole purpose of mocking. What are we supposed to make of it?

"I am simply assessing sexism as I see it."

and it seems candid and unadorned
so i like it

and you've added a stinger for father schmidt

feminism ends up
often like zionism

now that's quite a tight knot
you tie my friend

Yes. I feel a post coming on, about nationalist deformations in the womens' and gay movements. I see the term "homonationalism" is taken, though all the discussions I can find of it online are couched in the most impenetrable pomospeak. Oddly enough, there are very few references to "feminationalism".

IIRC, Proust, somewhere in A La Recherche, speculates playfully about the possibility of a gay version of Zionism. Did I dream it, or does he propose the ancient sites of Sodom and Gomorrah for the Ingathering?

Owen hates it when I start one of these hares about gender or sex. Back in the 30s, when he went to commie boot camp in Sverdlovsk, these were considered frivolous topics, best left to social democrats and other such wusses -- very much beneath the dignity of a hardened Stalinist cadre. Personally, I'm just not man enough to maintain this stance.

I see the term "homonationalism" is taken, though all the discussions I can find of it online are couched in the most impenetrable pomospeak.

Yes, too bad discussion on the role of the likes of Dan Savage is conducted by academics mostly. Here is someone else trying to come to terms with 'homonationalism' which ironically seems to thrive more in ostensibly gay friendly locales like West/Central Europe and 'urban, neoliberal gay enclaves' on this continent. (useful discussion on Islamo-fascism fighters like Jörg Haider and the late Pim Fortuyn).

these were considered frivolous topics, best left to social democrats and other such wusses -- very much beneath the dignity of a hardened Stalinist cadre. Personally, I'm just not man enough to maintain this stance.

It is wrong to leave these topics to Social Democrats because they will extract anything in them that reeks of class consciousness. That is, in fact what they have done. The early gay radicals were mostly socialists. That's all gone now. In its place we have gays seeking access to the military.

If you adopt a feminism that sees sexism as a means to discipline everyone, you are closer to class solidarity than with a feminism that makes women the victimized subjects of all men. Hence the latter dominates.

bgs,

That's exactly it. In the States at least, feminism is largely the demesne of liberal, affluent white women who have zero issues with capitalism, but who weep about classism.

"feminationalism".

Just want to go on record that when I said feminist discourse has taken on some of the flavor of Zionism, I did not mean any of the nationalist or supremacist trappings. Curious where going down that road will take people but it doesn't look auspicious to me.

Kind of curious to see people taking up homonationalism, since there is a lot of loose talk these days about how gay identity is falling apart in the midst of both wider social acceptance and the internet's corrosive effect on gay bars.

I'm something of an unrepentant ghettoist myself, even though I hate a lot that goes with it, starting with the music.

I agree with bgs that sexism is more a tradition than a brain disease, though there is some overlap. What irks me is that sexism is also a by-product of social conditions and rules that we are supposed to be debating and choosing at this late point in our species-being.

The #1 thing we need in the USA is universal daycare and child stipends and guaranteed minimum incomes. If that happened, two generations later, what remains of sexism these days would be shrunk by 3/4.

But feminism is lost in this "cultural" and attitudinal loop.

Personally, is suspect that's a reflection of the class position of the leadership.

Levels of popular fear of anybody's sexuality have been dropping like a stone in recent decades, thanks largely to feminism 2.0. But where is 3.0? Nowhere.

"In its place we have gays seeking access to the military."

Survival strategy trumps identity ... a consequence of a widespread misperception that military service is relatively safe when experienced as a US soldier-sailor-marine ... when in fact the service member will be redeployed until he/she breaks. Very few persons can truly adapt to military service as tens of thousands could attest, if they would only face what they have actually experienced. Some thrive, however, even in the worst circumstances ... if they survive physically.

Sexism. Cui bono?

Cui bono? Maybe nobody. Maybe that's why it's on its way out. It's not even clear to me that capitalism needs sexism any more, pace BGS.

" It's not even clear to me that capitalism needs sexism any more"

not sure it ever did
t'was born of earlier social formations
and obviously to emerge didn't need to shed "sexism " but if it had
along with racism and my favorite classism
the main world historical tasks
of the prolery
would remain uncompleted
and
bourgeois hegemony effectively intact

It's not even clear to me that capitalism needs sexism

Why is everything getting italized?

I believe I fixed it.

Sexism, Cui Bono?
Maybe nobody

Well, I think that's a little simplistic. It depends on the particular circumstances.

Ms Xeno made a good point about how assaults on reproductive freedom from the right keep women in the Democratic Party. Her view of things, however, presumably precludes her acknowledging the negative impact this has on the underclass generally, including males.

Certainly there are professions, like politics, for instance, where being a dude is definitely an advantage.

In general, I think sexual stratification is one more way of telling people how they must live - what goals they should have, how they should achieve them and when they've stepped out of line. What's moral and what isn't. I think it really is a stretch to say sexism is on the way out, when, for me, I am always shocked by the level of backwardness there is around gender. I don't think the majority of people are at all indifferent to whether the things they or the people around them do are masculine or feminine and to this day, the standard for the two are very different.

"I am frankly sick of hearing id politics blamed for the miserable failings of the left"

who's doing that ??
those who bounce blame the homers for their illusions and racism

look sk
are you claiming the left oughta
have a rain dance by now
that works

the left is about taking the lead
when the system convulses
it can't make the system convulses
by some magic set of motions and gibbber

"the id pol " fed gripes and intra class contradictions of the job class
are indeed small potatos
but they are the fuel
of the day by day doings
of effective exploitation

come a convulsion all bets are off about id barriers holding back the class from a
spontaneous concentration

--- go celtics !!---

sorry big
not sure why i thought it was sk
maybe because i had just responded to him on another post

i realize i didn't directly address your points
but i have a hair trigger a\when a line like this:
"the miserable failings of the left"
passes before my eyes

the only failing of the left
is its present size
and lack of determination
to form a v party

--- of course left to me means rev/rad left to others i was asuming same for you
given the way we view pwogs here ---

certainly its not a failing of the rev/rad left
that it now embodies a hunter's stew
of conflicting partial notions

that most of these partial notions
are duds and some actually self destructive or self subversive ..
that's only to be expected

come a trial by fire
ie the north american masses in motion
then with adequate size and organization
those with mostly good notions
oughta sift free of the stinkers
or ... they won't
but that will be the time to speak of failings

now is the time to simply speak our minds
when not plunged into the
various venues of struggle
such as they present themselves today

"I am frankly sick of hearing id politics blamed for the miserable failings of the left"

who's doing that ??

I guess you are not wrong. Sean simply said ID politics serve power and Dawson earlier implied that we'd have daycare if feminists weren't stuck in 'the attitudinal and cultural loop.' So it's more precise to say they are apportioning too much blame to id politics rather than all the blame. It's still stupid.

I think the closest various id politics factions come to serving power is when they're aligning themselves with imperialism. Seeking equity in law and the workplace not so much. Racism and sexism are the dividers, not the movements against them. Why is this so fucking hard to get???

I saw this today and it put me in mind of the Cui Bono question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZCFdd3c8QI

to put todays grand ladies of struggle
into historical persepective

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Zetkin_luxemburg1910.jpg

notice these two friends

both careful correspondents
with my great grand uncle
and infamous philippine war protester
charles foster "grape shot" paine http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3435315925_a92b09d7a8_o.gif

big
universal daycare
like universal health care
and a guaranteed minimum dwelling
are pwog reforms
not the responisiblity of the left --so defined by me --
the job of the left ..the specific job of the left is to speed the end of the capitalist system and bourgois hegemony
reforms decent universal life improving reforms
in as much as they are implemented
play an ambiguous role in this process no ???

they at once advance the objective process of socialization but since this is accomplished
within the existiong system
and even though it sharpens deeper contradiction
a successful reform
retards the realization
by the exploited themselves of their class mission
reforms suggest
there is no urgent necessity to over thrown
the existing regime
no need to end this system's reign
planet wide

I'm very sorry I missed this conversation while it was happening over the weekend. I quite like everything BGS has had to say, and I'm disappointed to see ms_xeno falling short of her usual astuteness.

Turning back to the argument of the original post, I have to say that it doesn't go far enough for my tastes:

It's always seemed to me like a poor choice of tactic, because it assumes facts not in evidence, and because it would collapse embarrassingly if the aetiology of same-sex object choice were actually investigated, successfully, and proved to be completely epigenetic. There'd need to be some scrambling done.

Yes, but that's not the only -- or maybe even the worst -- problem. By narrowing the ideology of the gay rights movement to "we can't help it, so it's mean to pick on us", the innateness argument also opens the movement up to the threat that somebody will call their bluff and start funding research on in-utero anti-gay therapies. Indeed, this is already happening.

Consider the standard line of argument from the innateness caucus:

1. Everyone who is gay is born that way.

2. Gayness cannot be caused or altered by environmental factors.

3. Therefore, there is no such thing as a straight man who becomes gay, or vice versa. Every self-identified straight man who has ever had sex with other men, with the POSSIBLE exception of certain extreme situations (prison, prostitution), is actually gay. Similarly, any self-identified gay man who has had sex with women in the past was lying to himself about his actual sexual desires at the time.

4. We know (3) to be true because being gay is so absolutely brutally terrible that no straight man (i.e., born unalterably straight) would ever practice homosexuality outside of the extreme and desperate situations mentioned above.

From there, it's no great leap to proposing chemical therapies to ensure than no children are born into this wretched and miserable condition. Indeed, say the proponents, it would be a moral imperative.

This is why I'm highly skeptical of any argument in favour of gay rights other than, "as long as nobody is being exploited, it's no business of yours or of the State whom I choose to have sex with". This is a bulwark that, if constructed soundly, will protect a great many people, gay and straight, against all manner of mischief. The other arguments are flimsy and narrow shields at best, and possibly counterproductive.

I never understood some of my comrades affinity for the inateness route, which has always been more popular with the bourgeois set.

It's foolish for all the reasons mjs and picador named but there's also the obvious errorroneous premise that stigma only gets attached to choices. Who chooses to be black or female?

The Catholic Church seems to accept tha it's innate but that it's incumbent on the individual to resist the urge.

'born this way' has always sounded acquiescent to me even though i believe it's true - like we'd be obliged to choose something else if it were possible.

"From there, it's no great leap to proposing chemical therapies to ensure than no children are born into this wretched and miserable condition. Indeed, say the proponents, it would be a moral imperative.'

?!

Oh, yeah. I was wondering why that hasn't been advocated for black people when the cultural/societal burden of blackness was at its most extreme... but then I realized that black people were needed, are needed, indeed essential, whereas gay people are... less, or rather not at all essential except, of course, to themselves and their companions.

It seems to me that it takes a lot of frantic wing action to keep the idea that gayness is not innate aloft. It may be politically correct, in the proper sense, to treat this human property that way but isn't there an issue beyond the political sphere which in the fulness of time is likely to be addressed by physiology or some such discipline? And the notion of choosing to be gay across a long recorded history of punishment and discrimination? Why do it? What could ever motivate such a choice?

the gay genes business

simply moves choice to the parent eh ...
or the state
in the case of innateness
that is avoidable by extermination of the embryo or gene ttherapy
which itself
restores choice to the gay gene endowed

no one has suggested a set of gay genes is like cancer or even like certain allele mood genes

there's nothing physiologically morbid
or potentially morbid
about attraction to same sex is there ???

its simply restoring the situation to choice
ie to culture plus technology

pray the gayness away type
movements
strikes me as still the real decision node
facing society
short of making
giving birth to gay gened babies illegal

btw

in time and with the know how
the black genes probably will join
the designer option list of choices for wealthy
proto parents in the process of
assembling their precious future creation's endowments ...no ??

brave new world considerations
are restricted to the wealthy of tomorrow
i suspect they will choose to begat
super persons
which introduces lots of considerations beyond
the future of poli morphic perversity
in a post "traditional"
ie post "natural"
post reproductive imperatives
kultur