Essence and fluidity

Our starting point is this defensive-sounding statement, which we sometimes hear from homosexual or bisexual persons: "Gay, bi, straight - I don't believe in labels. Sexuality is fluid, and people shouldn't be straightjacketed into labels."

Is sexuality really fluid?

Just keep this question in the background, we won't debate it yet.

First, let's explore the significance of the fact that no straight person ever makes a statement like that. It's always a homosexual or bisexual person, usually when confronted, maybe obliquely, maybe even within himself, by the question, "So, are you gay?"

And then he goes, "Gay, bi, straight - I don't believe in labels ...."

The statement smells of denial. What exactly is he trying to deny or fend off? It is the imputation that he is, you know, that kind of person, and the stigma that goes with it. What actually happened then is that the questioner asked: how do I classify you? And the respondent replied: well, your classification system is meaningless. An evasive answer. But wait a minute, he has a point. The classification system can be queried, and when we examine it closely, we find that it is an artefact of our age. But we'll come to the historical angle later.

For now, what really do we mean by "gay", "bi" and "straight"? Today, we define them, basically, by sexual attraction, which as I have argued in many preceding articles, is innate. When we use these terms, we tend to refer to the essential nature, the essence, in short, of the person.

Which is well and fine if we used such terms dispassionately to mean purely what we mean. But life being what it is, each word comes with a trawlnet full of hidden values and associations. And of course, it is no surprise that "gay" and "bi" have a lot more of the negative ones. So what should have been simple nouns or adjectives become labels.

The other problem is that when we try to classify people by their essence or nature, how do we know, how does that person himself, know his nature? As humans, we spend a lifetime trying to understand ourselves, and still discover something new at every phase of life. There are people who get married, have children, never give a thought to being anything other than straight, only to discover homosexual inclinations when they're well into their thirties! Bisexuals have a particularly hard time figuring themselves out because their inclinations are not so clearcut. It's easy for me, because I am a "6" on the scale, meaning I am exclusively attracted to the same sex. I have never been attracted to any female at any age. There is no doubt in my mind that I am gay. But not everyone is so fortunate, and simple labels don't rest very well on their shoulders. For them, sexuality appears fluid. It may change from one phase of life to another, as they discover more of themselves.

Just in case any of you take this to mean that aha! Yawning Bread has just admitted that gays can turn straight, bear this in mind:

1. Changes in self-classification through life tend to flow in one direction: from heterosexuality towards homosexuality. Straight ones reclassify themselves as bi, bi's reclassify themselves as gay.

2. The reverse current is very weak by comparison.

3. Self-reclassification occurs not because anyone has changed in his essence, but because he has uncovered and understood more of his pre-existing and fundamental nature. The tendency to repress homosexual inclinations or to imagine heterosexual desires as a result of social pressure means that it is predominantly repressed homosexuality that is discovered by the person later in life. It is this discovery that prompts self-reclassification. It would be most unusual to find someone with his heterosexuality repressed (now why would he repress that in the first place?), classify himself as gay through his early years, and then discover that he's straight later on. That's why the current flows overwhelmingly in one direction: from straight to gay.

4. Occasionally some youngsters classify themselves as bi, only to discover that they're straight. Teenagers are always very horny, and many get off any way they can. Due to the sheer indiscriminateness of that in some individuals, they may think of themselves as bi. Later on, in their twenties, they may realise that in terms of erotic attraction and falling in love, they're actually straight. They are the few that form the weak counter-current.

Sexual fluidity is really a kind of changing self-assessment against a backdrop of constant but obscured self-nature.

Or rather, that's the modern understanding of sexual fluidity.

The really fascinating thing is that through most of human history, that's not what was meant by sexual fluidity. Our modern meaning is only about 100 years old; for thousands of years, through many cultures, people saw things differently.

How?

To begin with, these concepts of "gay", "bi", "straight" did not exist. People were not classified by their essential nature. People were seen for what they did, i.e. their choice of sexual partners.

To better understand this difference in approach, let's take an analogy: taste in music.

Some people love classical music. Others prefer pop, country and western, alternative, or whatever. In our culture today, we may classify people (and even then, only vaguely) by the type of music they prefer or choose. But we don't think of people as fundamentally different, whatever music they listen to. We don't create concepts in our minds such as "classicalites" or "poppites", and worse, attach all kinds of presumptuous value-judgments to each category. We may have strong opinions about the value of certain types of music, but we don't divide people into different subspecies on this basis.

In addition, we are all too aware that there are plenty of cross-overs. People listen to classical music one day and attend a rock concert the next. We don't expect people to be fixed.

Historically, most cultures have taken the same approach to sexuality. They saw sexuality as singular, not subdivided into gay, straight, whatever. Not even pedophiles were seen as a separate type. Everybody was sexual. And everybody could be a sexual object. It's like saying everybody appreciated music to some extent or another, and everybody could participate in music-making. It's just a matter of individual taste. Furthermore, it was recognised that some people behaved both ways, while others behaved quite exclusively one way - just like today. Sexual fluidity was fluidity in behaviour, not changeability in nature (when sexuality is a single nature, to what can it change?)

It's not that the concept of homosexuality didn't exist. It did, but with a different meaning. It was seen as a cluster of sexual behaviour, which some people preferred. Masters made use of their servant boys, and monks demanded sexual favours from their novices. Other masters made use of their servant girls while marrying off their daughters at 13 for the appropriate bride price. So what's the difference?

As with music, some people in the past had strong views against certain forms of sexual activity, notably "homosexuality". They expressed it through injunctions against sodomy. Which proves my point. The injunction is against an act, a behaviour, not against homosexuality as human nature. They may have said "sodomy is a sin" but they didn't say "gays are sick" until this century. In other words, they didn't see homosexuality as essence or nature, but as behavioural preference.

Another indicator of how differently societies of old saw homosexuality comes from the fact that the main conceptual divide was between "men" and "transvestites". The distinction was in the sexual role played by the person. "Men" were on one side. It didn't matter all that much whether the men screwed women or screwed other men. Or boys and girls for that matter. Transvestites, however, were on the other side. It mattered a hell of a lot that they dressed like women and received the penis like women, upsetting the social order. Contrast this with the modern concept lumping gay men and cross-dressers together, distinct from "real men".

So what changed? Alas, what changed was knowledge. In the late nineteenth century, scientists started inquiring into why some people preferred to have sex with other males. In there is another long story of bad science and political manipulation. But despite the difficult birth, the outcome today is an understanding that it is not a superficial choice, but a reflection of something deep inside the nature of a person. Not just homosexuality, by the way, but heterosexuality too is deep inside, it isn't choice either.

The new concept of homosexuality and heterosexuality as separate "natures" is not something we can wish away, although having said that, zillions of people are still stuck at a monumentally stupid incongruence, accepting heterosexuality as nature, but still seeing homosexuality as behavioural choice.

Anyway, let's come back to the starting statement: "Gay, bi, straight - I don't believe in labels. Sexuality is fluid ..."

Sexuality is fluid? What do people understand by this?

If the listener uses the contemporary concept of different essential natures between straight and gay, with bi in between, then he will understand this statement to mean that essential natures are fluid. This is self-contradicatory. If essential natures are back-and-forth changeable, then they aren't essential natures. Such a statement doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

If the listener is one of those monumentally stupid ones who think heterosexuality is essential nature, but homosexuality is perverse choice, then he will think that "sexuality is fluid" means it's OK to pervert your (heterosexual) essential nature. Of course, with his frame of mind, that is unacceptable.

On the other hand, the statement is valid if we see sexuality as self-awareness. Gays, bi's and straights may be different in essence, and this essence may be fixed, but as our awareness of it changes, our sexuality appears to change. But honestly, this is too subtle for most listeners.

The other way the statement is valid is if one uses the old concept of "sexuality", as an all-embracing singular, with a variety of manifestations. Depending on circumstances, or opportunities, for some people, they may be doing it with men, or doing it with women. The only trouble is, who uses that old concept of sexuality anymore?

So, on the whole, listeners find the statement opaque, and instead of coming across as true and lucid, it comes across as whitewash. A pity, perhaps.

© Yawning Bread 

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