From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu ("Sod the proles!")
Subject: Same-sex consorts, homophobia, fun mavins, etc.
Reply-To: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:14:18 GMT

To the readers of the Rialto, greetings.

In reply to many of the (copious) postings following up the thread of
conversation concerning same-sex consorts.

I resent the fact that the conversation was so easily turned from a discussion
of what values from the Middle Ages we really want to introduce to SCA life, to
a rant about people's personal pet peeves about who is _really_ ruining the
SCA, the fun geeks or the historicity geeks. I also resent the implication that
I am automatically one of the former, because I used the phrase "Current Middle
Ages" and do not believe that just because a bigoted practice or custom was
common in the Middle Ages, that's a good enough reason to propagate in in the
SCA today.

I have a master's in English Literature and I am pursuing a Ph.D. in the
same field with a concentration in medieval literature. I suppose there are
people on the Rialto who know more about the middle ages than I do; I doubt
there are very many who know more about medieval _literature_ than I do (or at
least I've seen no evidence of this.) I have studied a good bit of medieval
history and I know _how_ to do professional-quality research on topics that I
wish to know more about. I suspect I know more about homosexuality in the
Middle Ages than many of the people who seem inclined to lump me in the
category of heavy-metal elves and D&D'ers. (I've never played D&D in my life,
though I do know a person who wrote an excellent undergraduate thesis on
role-playing games and their modern folkloric function.) I do not like elves in
chainmail bikinis at my events, and I would cheerfully be among the ranks of
people willing to whack said elves with a stick until they get a grip and do
some research. (Having said this, I must express my appreciation for the
well-written and thoughtful response on this thread from Thom Watson the
Elf-Lad. Though I must wince at the name, I appreciate the (well-stated)
support.) (Are you the Thom I think you are? :-)

I don't take the time to point out every stupid mistake or assumption people
make while discussing their SCA research, interests, etc. because it would be
boring and time-consuming for me and because their interest is usually not as
academic as mine in the field that is my primary interest, or their interest
looks like it will lead them in a different direction (and there are always
more than enough people willing to help a newcomer along the path of their own
particular interest.) I don't get a chance to discuss my scholarly interests
much even in the SCA because there really aren't people in the SCA with the
time and inclination to learn to translate Middle English, much less Old
English and Latin, or learn to read not just common calligraphy hands but any
of the secretarial hands in use throughout the Middle Ages and into the
Rennaissance. And even people interested in such dry stuff are _not_ interested
in the current literary theory surrounding this material. There has been a
resurgence of interest in medieval literature very recently precisely because
of the PC movement that so many of you so casually deplore. Medieval literature
is the first and largest example of a voice (or in this case, dozens of voices)
being ignored by the so-called "canon." If you doubt this, think about the
history of literature or world history courses you may have taken in the past.
Don't they always go up through the fall of Rome and then make a wild leap into
the fifteenth century? Where does the 900 years in between go? And make no
doubt about it, the fifteenth century is the Renaissance. I don't know a single
reputable historical scholar who would not place the beginnings, at least of
the Italian Renaissance, around 1350 and the English one sometime before the
end of the fifteenth century. By 1500, the New World had been discovered and
the printing press invented and feudalism had long ago been replaced by
(relatively) modern nations. One of _my_ pet peeves is the fact that the SCA is
largely run by people with a yen for the Renaissance who are ruining _my_
medieval mindset. I've done work with Renaissance material, I have the utmost
respect for Renaissance scholars; I don't think they should be in the SCA and I
certainly don't think they should be taking over the SCA. But as long as they
don't infringe upon what _I can do_, I can live and let live. (And as I've
said, on the day they turn my Pennsic into a pageant, I'll simply leave the
SCA. I don't _need_ it to pursue my interests in the Middle Ages -- but a lot
of people do.)
I don't expect to impress anyone here with my admittedly meager credentials.
But I do have a scholarly interest in the Middle Ages; I do research, both
mundanely and scadianly; I wear clothes as period as I can manage/afford to
make them, and I do my best to contribute to the period atmosphere at every SCA
event that I attend. Maybe my best isn't as great as others'; I'm sorry, I'm no
Laurel. But I _do_ do my best.
So I hope you realize how silly it sounds to dismiss my point as yet another
fun mavin out to wreck the "period feel" of the SCA. Similarly, it's rather
silly to champion my cause as one that challenges the position of those who are
not in the SCA for fun but rather because they get some sort of power kick out
of making everyone they meet conform to their (frequently ill-researched and
mistaken) ideas of what "period" must be. But I sympathize with and am more
pleased by the latter than the former simply because it's patently obvious that
the latter position is motivated by a rather sophisticated understanding that
has escaped the proponents of the former. And that is that the world and the
people in it now are really not that fundamentally different from those of the
Middle Ages, but that there were many things about the Middle Ages that we,
now, here, must refuse to allow to continue. I didn't say "refuse to recreate."
Certainly there was intolerance of gays in the Middle Ages, though not always
and not everywhere and the topic is too complicated to reduce to a phrase as
simple as "intolerance of gays." There were also a lot of other unpleasant
things that probably none of us want to recreate. No one really wants greasy
rushes full of dog and rat shit on the floors of their homes; no one really
wants to die in their thirties of painful diseases or just plain starvation and
overwork; no one wants to be uneducated all of their lives, to have nothing
they could call their own, not even their own bodies. No one wants, in a
theoretical sense, to see gay people murdered for who they are or what they do.
But few people ever realize that all of these things -- ALL OF THESE THINGS --
are not conditions that prevailed in the Middle Ages and then magically
disappeared during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, only to resurface
in our own nasty dirty unpleasant century. They are CONTINUING conditions and
they are _still continuing_. You can find them anywhere in the world at any
given moment, today, in 1992. I'll guarantee it. But I _don't_ think that
making that point automatically means that the world is just the same as it
always was and always will be. I think that things are -- slowly -- improving.
I think the democratic process is better than feudalism, and therefore I vote
for my leaders, in and outside of the SCA. I think that feminism is better than
misogyny, and I support it in and outside of the SCA. I think that homophobia
is disgusting, and therefore I challege it both in and outside of the SCA. And
no, I don't think it's too harsh a term; it means exactly what I've seen it
used here to describe: the attitude of people who don't want to be bothered, in
ANY century, to do something as difficult as take a stand against a deeply
ingrained intolerant attitude that is not one single action but stretches along
a spectrum of actions from gay-bashing to simply ignoring the existence of
living breathing gay people within your own organization. I wouldn't expect
anyone on the Rialto to jump on me and stab me in a dark alley one night
(though I wouldn't be surprised; there seems to be some real hatred seething
underneath some of the posts I've seen, and an impressive amount of
accompanying fear.) But I _do_ expect them to acknowledge my existence and that
of people like me; and that means taking a teeny bit of initiative and making
some space for me even in our re-creations of institutions that did _not_
acknowledge the existence of people like me. You can rant about ruling consorts
not being married in period or in the SCA all you like; that's not what I'm
talking about. Certainly if I were stupid enough to _want_ the headaches of
ruling I could accede to the rules of the game and play. But I don't like the
rules, and I'm _allowed_ to not like the rules because they aren't fair, and
the discomfort many of the people who challenged my position have shown on the
subject is good proof, I think, that they know full well the rules aren't fair.
They can't accept that I'm _really_ just like them, and that, if I were to have
the opportunity to recreate something as special as being royalty, that I would
want to share it with the person I loved, respected and trusted more than
anyone else in the world, and anything else would be, at best, second best.
Simply allowing me to be me is _not_ tolerance and it's not enough. I would be
me anyway. Intolerance would not and will not change that. Tolerance is
acknowledging that you see who I am, a gay woman, and, _knowing_ that, fashion
rules for the game that allow me to do whatever I am able to do, just as you
are allowed to do. If I can't win crown by right of arms, fine; but if I _can_,
shouldn't I at least have the _choice_ of whether or not to rule with my
beloved? You have that option; I don't; and that is not just or right.

If you really think that "it wasn't done in the Middle Ages so we won't do it
now"is a good enough reason not to change something unjust, then I wish you all
the luck and joy you can find in your authentic bigotry.

Let me just add, before you whip out those flames, that I will never even fight
in a crown tourney, nor will my most estimable lady. That does not make the
issue any less important. I may at some point in the far future have the
opportunity to rule with someone other than my most beauteous lady. That does
not make my point moot. There is an injustice embedded in the rules of the game
we all agree to play. I still agree to play but refuse to accept that by that
agreement I forfeit any right to challenge the rules or those who make them.
That is the difference between a social system with some respect for individual
rights and human dignity, and one without. I presume the SCA still comes under
the first description and not the second.

Judith L. Tabron		Raedwynn aet thaem Grene Wudu
Dept. of English Lit.		Yasun Bogeleku
Brandeis University		Household of the Great Dark Horde
Waltham, MA			(currently scouti-- LIVING in Carolingia)
	SAXON MONGOLS UNITE!
Darwin's Law -- If you're Dumb, you Die!