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zana16J'ai une question.
For those of you who are English majors or more acquainted with literature than I am:
I'm watching the series with young!Jeremy Irons (omg so hot) of Brideshead Revisited with Aaron, and he has the same question. Is the homoeroticism supposed to be text or subtext? Because every once in awhile it seems like it's going to be confronted--the ladies who asked Charles and Sebastian if they were faeries, the very obviously gay character at Oxford that Sebastian was friends with when no one else was, both of them referring to their love for each other, them dancing down the hall together. They follow each other all over Europe, sunbathe naked, and spend their vacations together. There is definitely clear subtext that was put there with authorial intent. But in the book (which I am too lazy to go read, being now embroiled in Hornblower with only three left to go) is it any clearer whether there's anything more than subtext? Is the author teasing us??
In related news, Rant.
Why is it that the queer community places so much value on labels? I'm not "gay", I'm not "straight", and saying I'm "bisexual" feels like a lie as well because dude, it's sexuality, it doesn't fall into these neat little categories. The Kinsey scale is more useful--to a point. But it's not like it encompasses the whole range of human sexuality. I'd describe myself as averaging at a 2, ranging generally between a 1 and a 3. And that's better, in terms of defining myself, than my usual answer of "I'm whatever" because that's not strictly true either. This whole social construct of homosexuality and heterosexuality, and even bisexuality: it's just too false for me. Kinsey was a good first step, but if we're determined to put labels on people, we need more of a graphical (2D) scale than simply 1 to 6. Because I've definitely been at a 6 before, and I've been at a 1 as well, and that's just talking about the range of genders I'm attracted to if I don't take into account that I don't really believe in the whole gender thing either.
Really? The best way I have of classifying my sexuality is to say that I'm a slasher. Not that anyone I meet on a daily basis has any idea what that means, and I don't want to enlighten them, but it implies a lot more about my sexuality than any silly scale. It also tells about something that's wrapped up in and influenced and is influenced by my sexuality: writing, and my relationship to my own and other people's. No, bear with me here. My writing (I'm not saying anyone else's--I'm not them so I don't know) definitely is tied up in sexuality. It's hard to put into words. You see, I remember the moment I became a writer. Most people develop into writers (and probably I did too, but there was also a moment when it coalesced, I guess), but I remember the day and place. It was toward the end of my 6th grade year. I'd just finished reading The Egypt Game. I built a nest of cushions behind the armchair in the diningroom and curled up and daydreamed up stories. And it was the first time that my daydreams didn't have me as Main Character. At first I started building a life around one of the characters in the book I'd just read, Toby or Tony or something, who I think was my first crush on a literary figure, but I went on to more original characters with time. I can't really call any of my characters "original characters" because everything I read influences my characters. Right now I have a literary crush on Horatio Hornblower--not that I'd like him in real life, but his mind is so fascinating and his way of dealing with the world so incredibly unhealthy that I want to know more, more, and Dacey is slowly assimilating one or two of his characteristics, and also the lessons he learns are things that now both I and my characters know. I guess what I love about literature is that I can learn life lessons and not have to go through it all myself. That's what I like about writing, too: I've learned more about the inside of my mind from my characters than I have in all my long years of therapy. And this is what I love about experimental fiction: it isn't bound by the falseness of some literary conventions. The Fractal Murders is gorgeous because it details little unnecessary details about the protagonist's life that you wouldn't think would matter. So he got stuck in a rainstorm on the way home; it doesn't influence the plot, so why is that detail included? Because it makes him sooo much more real. I could touch him. I want to meet this man. He is a character in a book, but I want to know him, because I feel closer to him than I do to many of the people around me. I want to Know him as well, in a Faustian sense of the word, in a Biblical sense of the word if you must. I'm not good at explaining this. It's just that writing and life and love and death and all the possible permutations of love and sexuality are all tied together for me. I think that's why I love social theory, as well. It's a vaguely sexual pleasure, reading well-written social theory with new ideas. Seriously, I've been known to get wet reading stuff for class.
I don't know how my mathy side fits into the picture yet. I haven't been able to figure out why I love it so much, except that it's pretty and distracting and I have this tendency toward escapism that I can exploit to do math, because it consumes all my attention and suits my instant-gratification preference and longing for absolutes. So while I can tie up literature and history into my sexuality (this is getting more and more bizarre--welcome to the inside of my mind) I don't know where math fits in all these strands that make me me.
Okay, that totally didn't go where I meant it to go. Must go 1) grade 2) teach class 3) go to Meeting for Worship 4) go be Responsible Adult at the lunch table 5) explain Calc to confused students who for some reason have not developed osmosis OMG how DARE they not immediately understand what I try to explain??? 6) teach PreCalc 7) teach Calc 2 8) mid-year evaluation with boss, ick 9) tutor skirt-wearing Algebra 1 former-advisee 10) go to library 11) vaccuum, clean bathroom, do laundry and clean out litterbox 12) crash and try to get over this awful headcold I have.
For those of you who are English majors or more acquainted with literature than I am:
I'm watching the series with young!Jeremy Irons (omg so hot) of Brideshead Revisited with Aaron, and he has the same question. Is the homoeroticism supposed to be text or subtext? Because every once in awhile it seems like it's going to be confronted--the ladies who asked Charles and Sebastian if they were faeries, the very obviously gay character at Oxford that Sebastian was friends with when no one else was, both of them referring to their love for each other, them dancing down the hall together. They follow each other all over Europe, sunbathe naked, and spend their vacations together. There is definitely clear subtext that was put there with authorial intent. But in the book (which I am too lazy to go read, being now embroiled in Hornblower with only three left to go) is it any clearer whether there's anything more than subtext? Is the author teasing us??
In related news, Rant.
Why is it that the queer community places so much value on labels? I'm not "gay", I'm not "straight", and saying I'm "bisexual" feels like a lie as well because dude, it's sexuality, it doesn't fall into these neat little categories. The Kinsey scale is more useful--to a point. But it's not like it encompasses the whole range of human sexuality. I'd describe myself as averaging at a 2, ranging generally between a 1 and a 3. And that's better, in terms of defining myself, than my usual answer of "I'm whatever" because that's not strictly true either. This whole social construct of homosexuality and heterosexuality, and even bisexuality: it's just too false for me. Kinsey was a good first step, but if we're determined to put labels on people, we need more of a graphical (2D) scale than simply 1 to 6. Because I've definitely been at a 6 before, and I've been at a 1 as well, and that's just talking about the range of genders I'm attracted to if I don't take into account that I don't really believe in the whole gender thing either.
Really? The best way I have of classifying my sexuality is to say that I'm a slasher. Not that anyone I meet on a daily basis has any idea what that means, and I don't want to enlighten them, but it implies a lot more about my sexuality than any silly scale. It also tells about something that's wrapped up in and influenced and is influenced by my sexuality: writing, and my relationship to my own and other people's. No, bear with me here. My writing (I'm not saying anyone else's--I'm not them so I don't know) definitely is tied up in sexuality. It's hard to put into words. You see, I remember the moment I became a writer. Most people develop into writers (and probably I did too, but there was also a moment when it coalesced, I guess), but I remember the day and place. It was toward the end of my 6th grade year. I'd just finished reading The Egypt Game. I built a nest of cushions behind the armchair in the diningroom and curled up and daydreamed up stories. And it was the first time that my daydreams didn't have me as Main Character. At first I started building a life around one of the characters in the book I'd just read, Toby or Tony or something, who I think was my first crush on a literary figure, but I went on to more original characters with time. I can't really call any of my characters "original characters" because everything I read influences my characters. Right now I have a literary crush on Horatio Hornblower--not that I'd like him in real life, but his mind is so fascinating and his way of dealing with the world so incredibly unhealthy that I want to know more, more, and Dacey is slowly assimilating one or two of his characteristics, and also the lessons he learns are things that now both I and my characters know. I guess what I love about literature is that I can learn life lessons and not have to go through it all myself. That's what I like about writing, too: I've learned more about the inside of my mind from my characters than I have in all my long years of therapy. And this is what I love about experimental fiction: it isn't bound by the falseness of some literary conventions. The Fractal Murders is gorgeous because it details little unnecessary details about the protagonist's life that you wouldn't think would matter. So he got stuck in a rainstorm on the way home; it doesn't influence the plot, so why is that detail included? Because it makes him sooo much more real. I could touch him. I want to meet this man. He is a character in a book, but I want to know him, because I feel closer to him than I do to many of the people around me. I want to Know him as well, in a Faustian sense of the word, in a Biblical sense of the word if you must. I'm not good at explaining this. It's just that writing and life and love and death and all the possible permutations of love and sexuality are all tied together for me. I think that's why I love social theory, as well. It's a vaguely sexual pleasure, reading well-written social theory with new ideas. Seriously, I've been known to get wet reading stuff for class.
I don't know how my mathy side fits into the picture yet. I haven't been able to figure out why I love it so much, except that it's pretty and distracting and I have this tendency toward escapism that I can exploit to do math, because it consumes all my attention and suits my instant-gratification preference and longing for absolutes. So while I can tie up literature and history into my sexuality (this is getting more and more bizarre--welcome to the inside of my mind) I don't know where math fits in all these strands that make me me.
Okay, that totally didn't go where I meant it to go. Must go 1) grade 2) teach class 3) go to Meeting for Worship 4) go be Responsible Adult at the lunch table 5) explain Calc to confused students who for some reason have not developed osmosis OMG how DARE they not immediately understand what I try to explain??? 6) teach PreCalc 7) teach Calc 2 8) mid-year evaluation with boss, ick 9) tutor skirt-wearing Algebra 1 former-advisee 10) go to library 11) vaccuum, clean bathroom, do laundry and clean out litterbox 12) crash and try to get over this awful headcold I have.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-23 05:37 pm (UTC)For homosexuals, bisexuals imply that there can be choice in the gender of their lovers, which builds up resentment.
For heterosexuals (at least, the stuck up ones), bisexuals make what some feel should be clear cut pidgeon-holeing into a slippery slope, making it impossible to segregate heterosexuals and homosexuals, which makes them uncomfortable.
For radicals on either side, bisexuality stands out as a counterexample to their worldview, which usually leads to the counterexample either being ignored in all arguments and/or treated with derision.
The tricky thing about counterexamples is that if you have one, then your existing worldview hypothesis is wrong and you need to rework it. Too many people try to sweep exceptions under the rug.
Either I took too much math in university, or everyone else needs to take more... Counterexamples and proof by contradiction were my favourites... I seem to apply all that logic to the real world and it freaks people out...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-23 05:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-23 06:18 pm (UTC)They make loud "Weeeeee!" noises as they fall. Complete with Doppler shift.
I think I need more sleep.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-23 06:28 pm (UTC)I can understand why some people gravitate to labels. Especially in situations where you're feeling rather alone and unsupported as a person when it comes to your sexuality, knowing there are other people out there who are like you can be very comforting. If everyone had a truly unique sexuality, there would be a lot of lonely and frightened people out there.
As for the Kinsey scale, it suffers from being a scale of averages. Some people don't vary much from their norm and so the scale makes sense. Others vary and a simple linear scale doesn't reflect that. It's like saying a single mother holding down several part time jobs with a certain annual income should be OK, that doesn't mean she has money to buy food and pay the rent every month.
The mathematical term needed here is "standard deviation", but it probably has too many English connotations to be used without snickering...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-23 06:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-24 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-24 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-26 11:18 pm (UTC)The really surprising thing about that series is how nice Anthony Blanche was to Charles--I mean, doesn't *everybody* hang out with their replacement? and that Julia didn't kill Charles for that "I was only stuffing your brother as practice for you" speech.
If you can find the BBC series "The Pallisers" there are several episodes in which (wait for it) Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews play very, very very good friends. Best. Evening Clothes. Evah.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-05 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-05 07:01 pm (UTC)