How is that different from any national culture? If I refer to Canadian culture, why is that not taken as asserting that there’s a monolithic Canadian culture that’s the same for everyone and that allows us to paint all Canadians with the same brush?
It seems to me that it should be taken as read for any description of a culture that it varies from place to place, doesn’t affect everyone, changes diachronically, and shouldn’t be a basis for stereotyping. Why is it only descriptions of Queer culture that have to be larded with explicit caveats and asterisks for things that are obvious when any other culture is discussed?
matt, with all due respect, I am growing weary of this semantic debate. If you would, I think we should agree to disagree. In any case, you may have a final word if you’d like. The floor is yours.
Strangely, you make a pun on the exact point I was trying to make. As Matt and Finn have been trying to dissect for several dozen posts now, there is such a thing as “a gay lifestyle” (=culture) and it is not monolithic in nature, but includes a wide variety of interests attractive to GBLT folks. And my point was that “the gay lifestyle” equates all interests of all gays to a nude club with transvestite drag shows (Don’t ask me how to identify a nude transvestite; I didn’t invent the stereotype!) where promiscuous pickups go on, etc., etc.
I just need to correct you here: I definitely don’t think “gay lifestyle” is meaningful, and I don’t think that Queer culture is the same thing as a putative gay lifestyle.
Culture in general is not the same thing as lifestyle; you can be part of a culture without having any particular lifestyle. All other things being equal, a squeegee punk and a Bay Street banker are both implicated in Canadian culture, for example.
The distinction is a good one. But the terms are sufficiently nebulous in meaning that they might be used interchangeably, were it not for the fact that the one is badly tainted by misuse now. But, with Mae, I am not prone to argue here.
I tend to disagree with this; a lifestyle is a manner of living. It’s the stuff that can be observed by looking at publically available information: how one lives, where one lives, what one does. Most of its manifestations are economic.
Culture strikes me as being much more closely tied to worldview and experience; it’s one of the influences on lifestyle, but I would use it for looking at attitudes rather than manifestations. Culture strikes me as being the stuff one knows about from being a part of a particular community.
When I feel a need to describe my lifestyle, I include culture referents as critical information; that information is not sufficient. I tend to consider my major (sub)cultural affiliations as being roughly equivalent to age group, region, socioeconomic class, and employment for relevance to categorising my lifestyle.
The culture of the SDMB includes certain attitudes towards information sharing and supporting and a pool of references and in-jokes, for example. (1920’s style Hi Opal ensues.) I doubt that the board is a defining trait of many people’s manner of living, however.
Well, it’s been a long tangent, but perhaps a worthwhile one.
Lets try looking at this issue – of whether it’s meaningful to speak of gay culture – from the other way round.
Instead of trying to identify what “gay culture” might be, and/or dismissing the term if we can’t discover some discreet entity to fit into that box…
Consider, for example, the film version of “The Wizard of Oz”. I don’t think anyone would deny that this film can be described as iconographic within gay culture. And it is iconographic in that culture in a different way from the ways in which it is iconographic in stoner culture, say, or in the culture of the American “breeder” family.
This doesn’t mean that everyone who’s gay (or, for that matter, a kid or a stoner – or all 3… because these cultures overlap) will enjoy the film, or even have seen it or know anything about it. But without the term “gay culture”, we’re forced into all sorts of linguistic contortions to convey certain ideas and truths about the role of this film in American life and arts.
In other words, FinnAgain, it seems to me you’re simply demanding too much from the term, then dismissing the term because it doesn’t measure up.
This whole tangent began from a comment by matt_mcl that gay students might want to form a club for reasons of support, culture, and socializing (as opposed to fighting oppression) and that for this reason we might expect gay student groups to exist even if homosexuals were not discriminated against (that is, even if the first reason no longer applied). So to bring it back round to the OP, that seems like a perfectly reasonable assessment.
In my experience, many student groups that were ostensibly centered around activities, such as the Outdoorsmen’s Club (yeah, I know, I’m a relic), were in actuality centered around shared culture – in the case of the ODC, you might call it redneck culture.
In any case, if the term “gay culture” becomes taboo, what terms can we be expected to use?
Ah, Anais Nin and Rita Mae Brown! I started reading them just before I hit puberty. I often silently thank my mother for not controlling my available pool of literature, because I think that was the first exposure I had to the idea of same-sex relationships, and presented in such a way as to seem entirely natural and pleasant.
My first introduction to gay relationships was Judith Krantz (also from my mother’s bookshelves). That’ll wake you up in the morning.
Oh, I see. You’re trying to get us to dissociate ourselves with “gay culture” for our own good. Because someone might see The Gay as bad, but not the perfectly normal young man holding down a nice white-collar job.
There are plenty of gay people who agree with you and dislike gay culture for the same reasons. However, saying something shouldn’t exist is not the same thing as saying it doesn’t exist. For better or worse, gay culture exists. It is studied. It is documented. It is made fun of on television (and that’s a positive thing for the movement, but that’s probably another discussion). Sometimes it is revered. You can’t wish it away with semantics.
The Irish are not highly looked upon in some parts of the world. The solution is not to be less Irish in order to avoid a value judgement.
We can’t be less gay just because a straight person thinks it’s in our best interest. To misquote Ms. Cho:
I’ll take the risk of being painted the wrong way in return for a cultural identity intended to protect me from the painters. Because the painters will come after me and condemn me whether I’m watching Judy Garland films after school or not. Being gay is the problem. Not acting gay.
What the fuck are you talking about?
If you want to ascribe a strawman to me, please find one that isn’t bigoted and disgusting.
I have nothing further to say to you.
FinnAgain, I quoted you. I also, again, offered you several examples to address, which you ignored. I’m sorry you’re done talking to me, because I would like you to actually address the argument I’m making against your theory, rather than stamping your feet because I disagree with your conclusions. Had you moved this to GD, would you abandon the discussion in the same manner?
Sample_the_Dog, Lilairen, and matt_mcl have made culturally-based arguments that you’ve ignored/overlooked. Perhaps you could address those if you feel mine is not as appropriately phrased?
I was hoping you were seriously interested in learning about gay issues, and I regret that I’ve been wasting my breath.
You see linguistic contortions, I see two options: misusing language and looking at linguistic fictions as if they were real, or using language that is as true-to-facts as possible. You can make a generalization about the wizard of oz in American life and arts, but it will inevitably be full of exceptions. You can also discuss the actual ways it has impacted individuals, and then you would be correct.
If we lived in a perfect world, maybe you could talk about gay culture and have people know what you meant. But the average folks on the street will not differentiate between gay culture and a ‘gay lifestyle.’ Moreoever, if you use a term that implies there is one single culture and do not use terms like gay subcultures, then ignorant and hateful folk have, and will, ascribe negative connotations to all gay people. I’m sure you’re aware of the slanders and slurs? The limp wristed lisp coward, promiscuity and an inability to form meaningful relationships, lusting after young boys NAMBLA style, etc…
As I see it, there are two options. The first, is that gay people are people first, and then simply happen to have a sexuality that isn’t the norm. Gay people can like football, can own guns, can drive pickup trucks, what have you. Gay people can like showtunes, rock and roll, death metal, and anything else. The second is that gay people have unifying likes and dislikes, and there is one singular culture to which all gay people belong (or one singular gay culture to which most gays belong and some ‘rogue’ gays do not accept). The second, is that gay people are gay first and people second, and their sexuality makes then fundamentaly different than other people. This is a very dangerous view.
As I see it, there really are only those two options. Either gay people are people who happen to like sex with certain people, or their sexuality defines and preempts their humanity. I feel that everbody should have a problem with the second construction.
Why must there be such a thing as a singular gay culture? Why can’t we talk about the actions and beliefs of various individuals, and how they interact in communities? If gay people who aren’t part of ‘the gay culture’ are still gay, and have their own way of doing things, haven’t we just whitewashed reality by ignoring them? All we would have done is to deliberately ignore contradictory data, and say that only those who fit into our generalizations will be part of ‘the gay culture’.
Is an army ranger fighting behind the front lines and who happens to be gay, part of the gay culture? Why or why not?
A bussinessman in Thailand?
A schoolteacher in Mexico?
Does being gay make one part of ‘the’ gay culture, or does a voluntary act of association and self identification? If it is the second, then we are talking about a function of voluntary participation and community, and not anything innate or hereditary.
As I see it, if the (singular) term gay culture becomes taboo, we would be forced to ‘deal with’ gay people as individuals and not respresentatives of some nebulous culture. Yes, this would take away many of our generalizations. I feel that would be a very good thing.
You never quoted me saying “gay people should be less gay.” because I never said it! If you want to make shit up and try to smear me, I won’t have anything to do with your dirty tactics.
You’ve offered no examples of ‘the gay culture’, you’ve offered examples of works of art created by people who happen to be gay, or have themes which deal with homosexuality. These examples are scattered across time and geography. You’ve told me that since people study it and slander it on TeeVee, it must be real. People study PSI too, ya know. And it’s in an awful lot of movies.
Notice that I’ve had, and am having, a polite and reasoned discussion with other people on this subject? I’m not stamping my feet because you disagree with me, but becuase you’re trying to paint me as a bigot!
If you’re asking if I’d get pissed off if you created a strawman and attempted to paint me as a bigot, yeah, I’d get annoyed at that even in GD.
You’ve discussed various cultures (plural!) and artists who wrote in them. There is simply no lineage between, say, Sapho and you. None. You can read her works and take inspiration from them, but they are not part and parcel of the culture in which you are born/raised. They are part of an adopted culture (one of several) that you take on later in life, and which other gay people construct differently.
:rolleyes:
I am seriosly interested in equal rights for every person on this planet. You are trying to paint me in some strange negative light for ‘not wanting to learn about gay issues.’ What exactly are ‘gay issues’ other than the right to live your life freely and without persecution? Otherwise you are cherrypicking. I noticed that nobody linked to NAMBLA as an examplar of ‘the’ gay culture. I wonder why not, eh?
I’ve seen no evidence that FinnAgain is viewing things in such a negative light as Rysler seems to believe.
However, FinnAgain, we still seem to be going over some of the same issues. I’ve tried to bold a few key points that I think are barriers to comprehension.
Culture and lifestyle are not the same. Culture is what you KNOW; lifestyle is what you DO.
You can be said to be in a culture without participating in its manifestations, but you can’t be said to be in a lifestyle without, well, being in that lifestyle. I can may both take part in Canadian culture without having anything in common in their lifestyles whatsoever. I don’t see what’s so controversial about this.
There are, indeed, different parts of Queer culture, just as there are different parts of Canadian culture. The trucker and the squeegee punk definitely do have differences in their culture, and they may also take part in the canon of Canadian culture to greater or lesser extents, but surely they have similarities, and it’s that we’re talking about when we refer to Canadian culture.
More importantly, there are different Queer cultures across the world that don’t have much in common with each other. If there’s an error in talking about Queer culture, it’s glossing over that fact: the tradition of the hijra in India constructs queer lives much differently from the Anglo-American concept of queerness, although the people’s underlying nature may be the same. I admit I’m guilty of this as well. So rest assured that when I refer to Queer culture, I mean the Queer cultural context that the discourse is happening in: in our case, Western Queer culture. (Here on out, I’ll try to be careful to say either “Queer culture” as a mass noun, meaning Queer culture from whatever society, or else “Queer cultures”)
Of course those aren’t the only options. I’ve been trying to explain this to you, and I’m a little bit frustrated that you see my interventions as semantic quibbles. This above quotation is like saying, “Either Canadians are people who have a certain nationality, or else their nationality defines and preempts their humanity.” Don’t you see how ludicrous this is? People constantly mediate all the cultures they’re heir to, and of course they have uncountable different facets to their personality that are in greater, lesser, or no relationship to the cultures they’re in.
Well, of course we are. Is this all just a misunderstanding? Do you think I’m saying “a person is gay if and only if they’re part of Queer culture”? If so, please accept this correction. Queer culture is a culture, not a sexual orientation. That’s why I’m writing “Queer culture” with a capital Q.
The teenager on an isolated farm in Kearney, Nebraska, who just realized that they are queer at nine this morning, has very probably not engaged with Queer culture to any great extent at all (if they have, it’s as part of the items of Queer culture that have come into the American mainstream).
Naturally. Do you think that a person can never come into a culture later in life? Do you think that an immigrant to Canada can never engage with Canadian culture? Queers and Queer cultures are a diaspora (as you say, we’re “scattered across time and geography”) and entering and learning about Queer culture gives us access to certain referents that either we would have been less likely to come into contact with otherwise, or that may gain an added relevance for us.
We have lives beyond our basic political revendications, and for a lot of people, those lives have interesting characteristics that can be in relation to their sexual orientation, and those may be expressed in art, literature, or popular culture, and they may offer windows on understanding ourselves in relation to each other and the world, as well as on our politics.
Certainly, NAMBLA exists as part of Queer culture, in the sense that the issue of the participation of NAMBLA in various Queer events was, in American Queer history, a huge drama for a lot of organizations and groups and something that was a major topic of questioning for how our political organizations were to be run. Just like, say, the October Crisis is part of Quebec and Canadian culture: it’s part of our history, even if it’s not a part on which people look back on with much happiness.
And yet, in this very thread, people have put forth artists creations as examples of gay culture. Writing books is something people do, yes? And my point is that even if we as academics differentiate between culture and lifestyle, many people will not.
Moreoever, culture can contain what people do. Let’s say we’re talking about ‘academic culture’. This includes not just what people think, but their practices and trends. ‘Academic culture’ would include, for example, the practice of citation and debate.
Well, the two can diverge, yes, and they are thus not identical. But their manifestations can also be the same in certain situations. And idiot bigots will still lump NAMBLA in with you and yours when talking about ‘the’ gay culture. If there is only one culture, then NAMBLA does become part of it. If there are many cultures, NAMBLA does not.
Which is why, to a degree, it is a useful linguistic fiction. I won’t deny it is useful, but it’s still a fiction. It’s a way of ‘massaging out’ the irregularities of our real world experience in an attempt to provide a grid to view Reality through. And you brought up a good word, ‘cannon’.
What is and is not considered to be part of a culture is changing all the time, that which is cannonical itself changes day to day and year to year. Melville, for instance, was not considered to be an examplar of American culture until he was rediscovered.
Yes! This is my point pretty much. Although I would argue that in certain cases it isn’t ‘not much’ but ‘nothing other than their sexuality’.
Yes yes yes yes yes!
(oh baby!)
Ahem.
Yay!
If I was gay I could kiss you!
I don’t see it as ludicrous at all. As a matter of fact, I see that exact thing happening with the perception of American culture all over the world. “You’re American, so you must be a loudmouthed arrogant jerk!” Instead of “You’re a person and an individual who happens to be American.”
Which is why culture is a useful gloss, but not a 1:1 correlation with Reality.
Ahhhhhhh. I do think I was misunderstanding you on this point, my apologies. I didn’t think you were making an if-and-only-if statement, but I did think that you were saying that gay culture(s) was somehow part and parcel of being gay. Growing up in America, I am part of American culture whether or not I’d want to be. Being born gay however affords one the opportunity to self identify with a gay culture, or not. I think this is an important difference.
Just a tangent, but are straight folk allowed to use the word ‘queer’? I’d always thought it was a slur and couldn’t be used by straight folk. Much like “Niggah” among the african american community and “fag” in the NYC gay scene.
So, in regards to this Nebraska teen, he could also choose a different construction of gay identity and a different way of interacting with society, right? As such, this would mark dileniations in western gay culture into further subcultures. Say, for instance, that instead of embracing whatever gay communities there may be, he spends his days in chruch praying to be ‘made normal’, or whatever. There are certainly some gays who view their sexuality as an aberation (due mostly to religion), and they cannot properly be said to be part of the same culture (or subculture) as gays who accept their sexuality.
Engage with, yes. Truly be a part of? I’d have to wonder… I’m honestly not sure. Immigrants in America, for example, have a long history of being on the receiving end of bigotry until they assimilate.
Well, I think the word disapora is misleading, since it implies a scattering from a central source. There was no ‘gay colony’ which was dispersed, as far as I’m aware.
If, however, we are to talk about people who have no lineage, but share common characterstics and then choose to associate with one of several various interpreations on identity, I would agree.
Of course. (Thanks by the way for using the word revendication, I’d never heard it before, now I know it, thanks for clearig up some of my ignorance.)
In this case I think it is again important to note that this would be a created, and re-created cultural dynamic which would be different for different people, whereas national identity is imposed upon people. I am part of American culture even if I don’t want to be. But a gay person can choose which school of thought they wish to belong to. I suppose if you do not want to talk about this as subcultures, we can talk about it as various cultures instead?
I can definitely see where you’re coming from. I just think that bigots and assholes won’t let sleeping dogs lie and consider it to be a facet of the history of gay cultures in America. I believe a better formulation would be that interaction with NAMBLA was part of American gay culture, but that NAMBLA itself was not. It strikes me as an issue of memetic combat.
Funny, then, how no one on this thread seems to be suffering from this confusion. I’m just not going to be held hostage to the mindset of “ignorant and hateful folk”, when intelligent people will understand exactly what I mean when I say something like “The film version of The Wizard of Oz has earned an important place as a gay cultural icon.”
Nothing about that implies that gay culture is monolithic. It’s like saying that the St. Andrew’s Cross has earned an important place as a Southern cultural icon, even though it is hugely controversial in the South, where millions of people identify against it.
But that’s my point. It doesn’t, except if one goes by some literal interpretation divorced from how the term is used in intelligent discourse in the real world every day. (This reminds me of the argument that the term “black” should never be used to refer to “African Americans” because no one is really literally black.)
You might as well argue that we should find a different word for pineapples because they’re not apples and don’t grow on pine trees.
Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Personally, I can’t get on board there.
I dunno. So far, you’re the only one bringing it up.
Again, this is just a straw man. I don’t see anyone here, or in the circles I associate with, including gay men and lesbians, finding themselves forced to deny people’s individuality because we choose to use this word in our conversations.
I still say you’re the one demanding much more of this word than it actually delivers, and then accusing it of falling short, and therefore recommending we banish it.
That is of course your right, although I believe that the ignorant and hateful folks are, by far, in the majority. Ignore then at your peril. Moreoever, only among certain western gay cultures has the wizard of oz earned a place, right?
But there, there’s still a pro/con dynamic. Certain some western gay cultures do not even notice things which are central to other western gay cultures.
Divorced from how it’s used? I’ve never once heard it used to indicate that there are many competing and divergent gay cultures, but that there is one gay culture. A singular word is not a plural word.
Bad analogy.
No… saying ‘the’ gay culture means there is only one. Saying that there are gay culture(s) means there are more than one. Surely it’s not beyond the pale to treat plural words as plural and singular words as singular?
How on earth is it a strawman? Do you really want me to deluge you with cites about “THE gay agenda?” or about how “Gays” act/think? Honestly? People who are GLBT may not use the terms that way, but a whole heap of other people do,
Um… I am demanding the plural words be applied to plural entities, and singular words applied to singular entities. If that is demanding too much, then I’ll gladly demand too much.
I’m aware of that, I’m just curious about its use outside the ivory tower. Has its negative connotations been disposed of in common parlence in your experience?
