It sucks, being forcefully reminded of something that you'd (probably willfully) let slip out of your consciousness. That sinking feeling of everything rushing back, cynicism and disappointment, thoughts and observations and an entire body of negative experience ramming their way through temporary (more or less blissful) ignorance to settle like sludge in your brain.
I'll get to the point soon, but first -- rewind.
When I was a teenager, I came up in the local punk scene in my hometown. And I threw myself into it -- I played in bands, published zines, organised gigs, went to anti-fascist rallies. I lugged my amp along to gigs even when I wasn't playing for friends to use. I had a car and a lot of kids didn't, so I often spent hours after shows driving people home back and forth across the city. I wasn't the most active kid in the scene, but I was one of them.
And yet I was always aware - made aware, actually, mostly implicitly, but on several occasions VERY explicitly - that I was tolerated. It wasn't actually my community, but my presence was allowed or tolerated by the people who were the de facto "leaders" of the scene & its various sub-tribes. As hard as I tried, I was never, ever going to belong to the inner circle, or be made to feel even accepted, by any of the different groups and cliques.
For some, it's because I was a middle class kid from the suburbs, not a working class kid from the city. For others, it's because I went to a school with a strict dress-code -- no giant fuck-off purple mohawk, no 15 facial piercings. For others, it's just because I was a weird kid. I had anger and rebellion in me, but it was intellectual, political, not the kind of anger that resulted in smashing car windows for the sake of it. I had the boots and the jacket with the patches and the band tshirts and the ripped jeans, but I could never make it look right, could never pull off the effortless cool. And besides, I spent every spare cent I had on records and books and musical gear, not clothes.
So, while I made a handful of friends from my time in the punk scene that have stayed with me through the years, it's not really a surprise that, by my late teens, I had drifted out of those circles. I was sick of getting the cold shoulder, sick of the house parties/gigs where everyone showed up just to be seen & spent the whole night upstairs hanging out with each other instead of watching the bands in the basement, sick of the cliques and the social politics and the never-ending stream of bullshit posturing.
I tell this story because I think it goes a long way towards explaining my strong aversion to the whole concept of groups, subcultures, "identity" as a social/intellectual/academic construct. The notion that ANY interest, passion, or any facet of one's self, necessitates membership in a tribe of some sort. My mid teens were the first and last time I had ever actively sought out membership in such a tribe, and I realised at the end of it that - aside from those few friendships - everything I took away from the experience was from the music, the books, the thoughts and ideas. In short, the substance. The vast majority of this stuff I could have gleaned & experienced without engaging in the social bullshit and the quest for belonging to the extent that I did. In short, I took away things that were a part of me, but my membership or lack thereof in a group did not define me.
This attitude has carried over into - and intensified during the course of - my sexual journey. It has made things difficult for me, to say the least. If called upon to do so, I would identify as bisexual, non-monogamous and kinky. Maybe sometimes as polyamorous. Maybe sometimes as a swinger. Maybe sometimes as a Top. But I have never felt comfortable with any of these labels. I fuck who I fuck, in whatever ways turn me and my partners on, and I love who I love. In theory, I like the term queer as a catch-all to encompass my non-traditional sexuality, but I don't generally feel comfortable applying it to myself (for reasons that will become apparent, if you don't have an inkling already).
Since my early 20s, when my journey into non-traditional sexuality began in earnest, I've undertaken it mostly on my own, supported by some partners and, at least initially, a few very close friends. From the time that I acknowledged that I liked to fuck men, I've never really felt comfortable engaging with most manifestations of gay male communities. The music, the fashion, the dominant cultural reference points -- I don't begrudge it, but it's not my thing. On an individual level, I've had and have some amazing gay male friends, especially over the last few years since moving to Melbourne as I've encountered more and more younger gay men who reject the hegemony of gay culture as enshrined by older generations. On a broader level, I'm so far outside of the culture that I stopped even trying to engage after my first couple of trips to gay bars.
Same goes for various manifestations of the kink & BDSM communities. If nothing else, I've had neither the disposable income nor the desire to engage with the fashion. Beyond that, the rituals and mannerisms and social heirarchies of these scenes are not something that I have any desire to engage with personally. Once again, I don't fault or look down on people who belong to these communities, but the only thing I have in common with them is the sex, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
I could tell a similar story for my experiences in / impressions of the swinging & polyamorous communities, but the end result is the same. My lack of desire to adopt identities and engage with communities has made for a difficult road across the board, in terms of learning what I like and don't like, what I want and don't want, and - most crucially - in terms of finding appropriate partners, as well as supportive friendships that have a grounding in shared experience. Not engaging with these sexual cultures and subcultures means that I have to start from scratch with each new lover, with each new friend. What are the shared interests, what are the boundaries, what are the complementary experiences? Naturally, I tend to congregate with other loners, as people who are engaged with their respective communities don't generally get past the fact that I'm not. (Protip - if you want to fuck me and/or Miss O, don't spend initial correspondence and/or the majority of the first date trying to suss out who we know in the BDSM or swinging scenes, or try to impress us with your connections. We don't know anyone, and we don't care that you do)
By and large, though, I've gotten by, and I don't regret a single step in the path that has brought me to where I am today. I've never been one to take the easy road in any aspect of my life. I don't think I would find much satisfaction in it. I have a wonderful primary partner who is as close to a mirror to myself as I'm likely to find in terms of her sexual needs, proclivities, and interests, along with a shared realisation that neither of us are people who would easily find a home across one or more of the communities which represent different aspects of our sexualities. And while I'm always learning, I feel like I've got a better sense of my sexual self than I ever have, and am utterly and completely comfortable with my sexuality.
FAST FORWARD to today. Since joining Twitter as a duo a few months ago, and subsequently finding ourselves engaging with a growing number of people who are both staunch in terms of their approach to sexual identity and very involved with their respective communities, my wariness and mistrust of identity politics has softened. I've read a lot of interesting articles/blogs that I wouldn't have found otherwise, engaged in some very thoughtful and enlightening conversations, and felt welcomed and encouraged by some of the people who I would have avoided in a different context out of a lack of desire to place myself within the sexuality-based social situations where I may have met them otherwise.
I've let my guard down. And this afternoon, I received a very unpleasant reminder of why I ever had it up in the first place.
I'm not about to rehash/continue the argument or identify key players. In a nutshell, a conversation between two friends about the nature & manner of dialogue between 'privileged' and 'marginalized' individuals regarding issues around sexual & gender identity turned very ugly very quickly. While their conversation ended abruptly and acrimoniously, my heated debate with the 'marginalized' half of the argument continued for some time.
Instantly, I was back at one of those house parties, the weird middle-class hanger-on who was tolerated, but wasn't really a part of the scene, and would never 'get it' like the 'real' or 'authentic' punk kids.
We should probably digress here to talk a little bit about privilege, or what you (in general, not the person in question -- while you were involved in my realisations this afternoon, you're not specifically a target here) perceive as privilege. I look more or less 'normal', in that I could show up to a corporate job interview after a haircut, a shave, and a trip to the dry cleaners to get the suit looking nice. There is nothing in my demeanor or mannerisms sends signals that would lead most people of ANY identity/sexuality to believe that I have an interest in fucking anyone but women. I live with my pretty, outwardly straight-laced (much moreso than me) and conventional female primary partner. While we're quite open, we're not out as bi or kinky or non-mono with our families or with most people we know professionally. While I'm not an Anglo-Saxon poster boy, I am decidedly Caucasian.
Outwardly, we are the motherfucking portrait of first world, European hetero privilege. We are the poster children of evil for those braying biphobic homosexuals who love to tell bi folks how not-queer we are. To the kink crowd, we look like vanilla silk-scarves tourists. To poly folk, we look like swingers. And to swingers, we look like a root (which is why I adore those happy, horny, laid back swingers, even if I can't quite bring myself to join their club).
And while I'm not stupid or ignorant enough to claim that we don't enjoy this privilege, if you think that's where the story is, you're self-righteous to the point of being blind or mean or stupid. Because once we go through the looking glass, out of the dominant, hegemonic, heteronormative "conventional" world and into the land of the communities and groups who are supposed to represent us, we become second class citizens. And we are silenced, or are expected to remain silent.
This post isn't meant to be a perfectly cogent or comprehensive argument on the subject of marginalized groups or identity politics. This is one person speaking off the top of his head, and from his own experience. That being said, one of the things that I personally find most distasteful about many people who give primacy to sexuality and gender identity in terms of overall self-identification is the seemingly inevitable 'oppression pissing contest'. In the course of a debate or disagreement or discussion about the hardships of being a person with a non-heteronormative identity between people of different groups, the subtext to the conversation becomes grounded in everyone's perceived heirarchy of who has it worse.
And given that I'm never going to win that contest, I effectively become invisible, or at least irrelevant. The tolerant people allow me to hang around, but my worldview or opinion will never carry the same hard won, righteous validity of that of the Albino Ecuadorian Trans Man or the wheelchair-bound, pagan, intersex Leather Daddy with 5 live-in slaves who raise their children communally.
Those two are Elvis Presley. In the pantheon of identity politics, when judged by the standards of the self-important cliques that call themselves 'communities' and purport to represent me, I'm Pat fucking Boone. And I hate Pat Boone, which is why I decided a long time ago that I was never going to play that game, never put myself in a position to be bullied or belittled or condescended to or disregarded by the cool kids of identity-based sexual communities.
It's a lesson that took years to learn, and one that I won't let slip from my mind anytime soon. Interact with people from these cliques, be friendly with them, even fuck them from time to time, sure. But after today, I'm not going to lull myself into any false sense of security that I'll ever be looked upon as an equal by the people who toe lines and inhabit spaces that I never wanted to be a part of in the first place.
- Mr. O
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