Being Gay as a Choice

I know I’m pretty much talking to an empty room right now, but I shut down my facebook and feel like putting some thoughts out to the interwebs.

I caught this link on Feministing regarding Cynthia Nixon and gayness:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/cynthia-nixon-wit-being-gay_n_1223889.html

thought (a) I didn’t know “Miranda” had come out! She was my favorite! Awesome!

thought (b) I find it fascinating that her saying that her gayness is a choice is controversial! Honestly, I believe, given the overpopulation of the world and constant complications from trying not to breed… homosexuality is the wave of the future. As an option, I personally don’t understand why it isn’t held up as the standard, responsible sexual role. But I am also fairly lesbianic and have my own agenda 😉  “Natural inclinations” aside, I would like to point out this debate here between “Born Gay” and “Chose To Be Gay” The first one has become popular and camped out thanks to Lady Gaga and seems to be the base argument when dealing with the religious wing-nuts. The second one is somewhat less popular in the gay rights movement, however I think it leaves WAY more room for “recruiting”… it is more respectful of sexuality as a fluid, multi-directional spectrum that changes with the tides of your life INSTEAD of a label you’re stamped with at birth. Cynthia Nixon’s got some ovaries:

    I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not…

Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.

 

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Feminism and the Disposable Male

While I don’t agree with everything this person has to snark about feminism, I think this monologue brings up some beautiful shit that has come to light. Perhaps it is because I live in a mostly sleepy hippie feminist town now, but this post more accurately represents my reality now (in contrast with my years at vassar). I look through my older posts on the ol gender agenda here and see myself using language that poses me as a victim to all sorts of oppression and evil. The fact is, I’ve had a lovely life and while it was good for me to be informed of how society has mistreated other people like me–that’s not me, I have been respected and given most everything I’ve ever wanted.

While the person in this video does not acknowledge the fact that feminism is kiiiind of the reason why people are listening to her, she has some fabulous points to make about how feminism has failed men. Male victimhood is a controversial topic. There are some people in the world who have actually told me that men cannot be oppressed or victimized. But, as we all know, gender is not destiny and merely being born with a dick does not mean you grow up to swing it around. And the more time I spend listening to the men in my life, the more stories I hear of women emotionally abusing men, women using the legal system unfairly against men, women kidnapping, beating, getting drunk and endangering lives, raping… the list has gone on too long for me NOT to notice a discrepancy between what I was taught by professors to believe about men and women in college and what I am now learning from my friends in the real world. I don’t believe many grown, responsible adults (especially the male-identified) want to see themselves as victims–as people who can be completely fucked over. But this is my reality–I’m not reading about this from books written ten years ago by people I don’t know or hearing it from belligerently second-wave feminist professors–my friends and family are constantly opening my eyes to this new world where, it turns out, I do have power.

This video was pretty much the women’s studies-esque vision of my life now.

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