From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: What Gay Sex
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 18:48:43 GMT


In article <1e4ojoINNsqs@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
ai888@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Flesher) writes:

[Procedural note: Tom, would you please preserve the
 header's References: line of the postings you respond to?
 The threading features of some newsreaders depend on that
 line.]

>anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:

[To simplify the quoting styles, I've edited them back to
 the usual Usenet tradition, which is clear enough, I think,
 and also saves a considerable number of bytes.]

>>Perhaps I didn't make my rhetorical method clear enough.  At
>>several junctures you've apparently taken questions to be
>>assertions.  Not the intent, of course; rather it's a more or
>>less standard (and transparent) way to draw people out, to
>>elicit what others think.

>Evidently I didn't make my method clear enough either.  I
>took your questions to be working assumptions, not
>assertions: note my repeated use of the phrase "trying to
>define" rather than the stronger "defining".

You still haven't got it.  My remarks were rhetorical
questions, for the most part.  Let's not forget where we
started: is fisting gay sex?  So I began to elicit views of
what gay sex is.  At no point did I suggest what it was
(apart from my own case), although I gave instances of what
it wasn't.  My having given some detail of personal views
applying to my own case was not intended, and should not be
taken, to be an assertion, nor even an attempt to assert, a
general case.

As a general observation, you seem intent on ascribing
prescriptive intent to me.  You're wrong in that.

>It's a more or less standard (and transparent) way to
>approach people on their own level.  [For those who are
>following the game, the bitchiness score is now one all.]

If that's your prism, you may look through it at your
leisure.  I didn't think my remark was in the least bitchy.
We're having a chat, not a contest.  May we leave that
point now, however?

>>>So: if you aren't defining yourself as gay on the basis of
>>>your sexual activity, how are you able to say that you're gay?

>>Well, that is indeed the question I was asking.  When
>>pushed, I will say something like: "Oh, I dunno, I just
>>*am*." But I certainly have erotic responses that include
>>women in addition to men.  This is one source of the
>>tapestry concept I was using above.  I don't see much
>>in the way of a gain from pushing myself further than
>>that in an effort to answer the kind of question you've
>>asked.

>I think I've got it.

I don't think you do.

>The question I asked turns out to be the question you were
>trying to ask, and you don't want to make an effort to
>answer it beyond saying "Oh, I dunno, I just *am*" because
>you don't think it was a useful question in the first place.

No, I said I just am because I just am.  Whether I did or
didn't want to make an effort, as you style it, is not
relevant.  If you like, I will say that gay is a political
term.  If you like, I will say that I gave your question a
full and complete answer.

>You asked it only to lead the conversation around eventually
>to your tapestry concept of sexuality.

So *you* say.  I gave the tapestry metaphor, together with
some detail, to illustrate one data point, me.

>It was an unnecessarily long journey.  But now that we're
>here, let's look at that tapestry.

>>>Sexuality is better defined by whom you desire than what you
>>>do. Regardless of whom you have sex with and whether or not
>>>you actually have sex at all, if you _want_ to have sex with
>>>motss, you're gay; if you _want_ to have sex with motss and
>>>motos, you're bisexual; etc.

>>I think of that as a useful outline, but in fact I think
>>it's more complicated than that.  It doesn't seem to me to
>>be a matter of a particular sex practice, nor of the gender
>>of the lust-object person, not even of the love-object
>>person (said persons being represented perhaps most of the
>>time by images, rather than flesh-and bone beings), but
>>rather a complex interweaving of all of these in contact
>>with autochthonous impulses generated strictly within
>>ourselves.

"It doesn't seem to me," note well.

>>According to this model, erotic behavior is more like a
>>tapestry of mental and/or emotional constructs than acts or
>>even sets of acts.

>You haven't yet presented a model.

But I did.

>You've presented two undefined terms and a metaphor.

Which terms didn't you get?  I don't see anything amiss in
the standard dictionary definitions.  I'm not using them
in any special sense *other* than those definitions.

>What precisely are these autochthonous impulses?  Give
>examples.

An example of an autochthonous impulse would be "I know what
let's ..."

>And what precisely are these mental and/or emotional
>constructs?  Give examples.

An example would be "I feel like..."

>How does one weave a tapestry with them?  [This part of the
>exam constitutes 75% of the final grade.]

Assuming that signals a sense of humor, I suppose your
apparent otioseness on the above obvious phrases was a
rhetorical device to draw out further discussion.

"Weaving" suggests to me an active process; I don't think it
(the process) is especially active.  "Tapestry" is nothing
more than a convenient metaphor for a complex structure, the
detailed nature of which is obscured by surface appearances.
One might as easily have chosen other metaphors.

Part of the whole dilemma here, I guess, is that you are
seeking precision of some certain kind, whereas I am
deliberately avoiding that.

>>>>The solution, if such it be, seems to me to simply avoid
>>>>making any such categories at all, since they don't really
>>>>exist *apart* from the dominant society's sexual hangups.
>>>>Or do they?

>>>That isn't a solution; it's a denial of the problem.

>>I don't see what you mean by that, as I don't see anything
>>being denied; rather, I'm raising the issue of whether there
>>*is* a "problem" subsumed by the idea of what we
>>conventionally call "gay sex."

>First, a quick definition, since I don't think this has yet
>been explicitly stated: I take the problem to be the
>question of whether an understanding of sexuality can
>usefully involve categories like "gay" and "straight",
>however they are defined.

The problem, first, was: is fisting gay sex?  The problem,
next, was: what is "gay" sex?  You raise here the problem,
yet another: is "gay" useful for understanding sexuality?

>If one denies that such categories exist, one effectively
>denies the existence of the problem, since the problem
>cannot exist without the categories to which it refers.

OK.

>I took you to be denying (not absolutely, but for the sake
>of argument, of course) that sexual categories exist apart
>from the dominant society's sexual hangups.

You mistook me, then.  My point about the dominant society
was that it supplies most of our (self-)descriptive imagery
relating to sexual matters.  I don't consider that a
statement one way or the other about whether it's a matter
of hangups.  In fact, I certainly think some of it does
imply hangups, but certainly not all of it does.

I don't believe I denied or even implied a denial of the
existence of sexual categories, whatever their source.

>But many subtly different sets of sexual categories
>obviously do exist, at least in the sense that anything that
>can be defined exists as a concept.

OK.

>I for one employ a set of sexual categories, and although I
>no doubt have sexual hangups, these are largely not those of
>the dominant society, so my own set of sexual categories can
>be said to exist apart from the dominant society's sexual
>hangups.

You're testifying as to yourself.  I do wonder what makes
you so convinced, but it's a side point.

>To return to your tapestry concept of sexuality, insofar as
>I can yet understand it: here too you will not be able to
>escape the use of categories.

I didn't think I was trying to.

>Presumably each person is a unique tapestry.  Unless each
>component of a tapestry is unique from every component of
>every other tapestry, then at least some tapestries have
>some components in common, and categories can and will be
>defined based on those commonalities.

OK.

>I think one can say that the usefulness of the categories is
>directly related to the extent of the commonalities.  Since
>you have already acknowledged that gender-of-person-desired
>does figure somehow in your tapestry concept, and since
>grouping the populace by gender-of- person-desired produces
>three categories, each of broad extent, those categories
>will have considerable utility even within your tapestry
>concept.

Of course, apart from maybe "considerable."  But I'm making a
distinction between these broad and commonly accepted
categorizations (no one denies their having some utility)
and what *really* goes on inside someone's head.  When I try
to characterize the latter aspect, using the example of my
own head, I'm also suggesting that the utility of the broad
categories is compromised or diminished by obscuring part of
what they're intended to reveal.

>>>We all make distinctions (to call them categories is perhaps
>>>dismissive) as part of the process of understanding who we
>>>are.

>>I'm not sure what distinctions you have in mind there; I see
>>what you've called dismissive as merely a notational
>>convention.  But if you're making some other point, I'm not
>>seeing it.

>I was concerned that the term "categories" might too
>strongly suggest that the spectrum of sexuality is to be
>divided into non-overlapping segments, thereby fostering
>us-versus-them attitudes.

>I suspected that your putative aversion to categories might
>have some such basis.

>To me, "distinctions" is a gentler term, suggesting that one
>can more usefully divide the spectrum of sexuality into
>various sets of overlapping (and so less antagonistic)
>segments.  But I am content to speak of categories if the
>term doesn't have negative connotations for you.

Since you're putting this in set-theoretical terms, it seems
to me both "category" and "distinction" indicate sets, and
neither word, in my mind, says anything either way about
disjoint or conjoint.  For the purposes of this discussion,
I see the words as sufficiently equivalent.

>>My assumption here is that we are rather conditioned to
>>pick up defining concepts as part of the large, uncritical
>>package of received knowledge provided *primarily* by
>>traditions and conventions that developed in a putative
>>"human nature" *as defined by straight people*.

>>I further assume that it's in our best interests to see
>>ourselves in terms that derive more nearly from our own
>>basis in experience.

>But it is usually quite difficult to move from conventional
>terms to new ones, especially when the new ones are
>unwieldy.

I'm not suggesting we abandon the old terms; rather, I'm
suggesting that they are useful only to a (fairly
superficial) certain depth.  Going deeper commonly does
involve complexity, if not unwieldiness, that I grant you,
but then, that's life in a nutshell, isn't it?

>I very much doubt that "a tapestry of autochthonous impulses
>and mental and/or emotional constructs" is going to displace
>"gay" in common discourse any time soon.

Doubtless true, but not entirely to the point, either.

>It is much easier to refine the conventional terms, as I
>tried to do by suggesting a desire-based definition of "gay"
>in place of the action-based one.

My point was not that there's no utility to what you call
refinement; rather, it was that the nature of the phenomenon
sets very distinct limits to the extent of that utility,
when it comes to accounting for our behaviors, which you
acknowledge:

>Still, as I've already said, that specifically
>*gender*-desire-based definition, though more useful, is
>hardly sufficient.

While I see the gender-based concept as useful in some ways
and the desire-based concept as useful in some (other) ways,
my contention was that neither (especially to the extent
they are derived from unexamined straight models) serves
very well to deepen our understanding of ourselves or to
communicate that deeper understanding to others for
comparison and contrast.

I take the political and social implications of this deeper
understanding to be sufficiently obvious, for the moment.

<> The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.
<> -- Hungarian proverb
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
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<>  <>  <> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <>  <>  <>
Newsgroups: soc.motss