And the Renunciation of Gender

Reformulating Sexuality

and the renunciation of Gender

Göteborgs Universitet

Instutitionen för kulturvetenskaper

Genusvetenskap

Uppsats, 15 hp, fördjupningskurs

HT 2016

Författare: Claudia Kent

Handledare: Elin Lundsten

ABSTRACT

My main focus in this essay is to pinpoint current discourses within a section of the queer community regarding the use of language and terminology when describing gender, identity, sexuality and desire. In particular I have chosen to focus on inclusion and exclusion when the labeling of sexuality is based on a binary notion of gender. The most commonly used words for sexuality today are hetero-, homo- and bisexual which all derive from a binary understanding of gender and a rather inflexible view on sexual orientation. Within the queer community where gender is often transgressed, deconstructed, politicized and frequently renounced through trans, non-binary and gender non conforming persons it becomes futile and in many cases irrelevant or restrictive to use cis- and heteronormative words in order to describe one’s sexual identity in these terms.

I have chosen to use discourse analysis to study a specific discussion in an online dating forum. The group moderator urged the other members to refrain from using gender specific language in their personal ads as this has an essentialist tone that may explicitly or implicitly exclude trans and gender non-conforming persons.

Key words: sexuality, language, gender, queer, identity, transgender, online dating.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 2

BACKGROUND 4

PURPOSE 5

QUESTIONS AT ISSUE 6

LIMITATIONS 6

RESEARCH OVERVIEW 7

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 12

MATERIAL 13

METHOD 15

REFLEXIVITY AND SOURCE CRITICISM 17

ANALYSIS 19

GENDER AND SEXUALITY 19

IDENTITY AND PRESENTATION 21

GENDER SPECTRUMS 23

LANGUAGE 24

QUEER 26

LABELS 27

EXCLUSION 30

POLITICAL SEXUALITY 32

FETISCHISM 34

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION 34

REFERENCE LIST 39

BACKGROUND

Today a large part of our lives, identities and communication is played out through various online forums. This has amongst other things enabled a strengthening of minority groups where support, knowledge and information are accessible and quickly shared through global networks. One such forum that has caught my interest is a particular online dating page on Facebook for queer identified persons. I am interested in what personal information is disclosed and what aspects of identities are of importance in this context of finding sexual, and occasionally non-sexual partners. In a society where cis-gender, hetero- and monosexuality is the ruling norm (along with other desirability norms relating to race, class, body type and ability) how does this play into a queer space where these norms are in certain aspects contested but in other ways perhaps still being perpetuated? I would like to examine present contention within a specific group regarding the linguistic expression of desire as sexual identity.

Self proclaimed queer spaces and identities are, in my experience, often closely connected to activism and politics. The second wave feminist slogan from the 70’s “the private is political” is still today highly relevant. Queer spaces often question its own inclusivity and call for a continuous reevaluation of who is welcomed and recognized in these settings. Queer activists and academics have developed language, knowledge and ways of combatting problematic, exclusionary or discriminatory acts against people based on their gender and sexuality. There are internal battles and struggles around the language and knowledge produced and the discourse is constantly being renegotiated.

The material I have chosen to study is a specific post that was published on an American queer dating Facebook group by one of the founders of the group. The post sparked a lengthy discussion regarding whether or not people should be gender/genital specific in their ads when seeking partners. One influential reason for studying this specific topic has been my own encounters with the problem of defining my sexuality with the few limiting choices available to me such as commonly acknowledged identities like lesbian, bisexual or queer. Lesbian often times connotes a gender essentialism that has historically excluded trans persons and while queer has been useful in making the point of being not normatively heterosexual and actively eluding definition it can sometimes be rather vague. I therefore seek new ways in communicating sexuality that neither simplifies nor derogates my entire personhood to a singular sexual identity nor impedes on my possibility of sexual self-realization and exploration.

PURPOSE

Through this research I wish to bring into light discourses on sexuality and how the use of language affects, limits or expands the possibility for expressing and even living out sexual desires. Our understanding and knowledge around sex is constantly growing and changing and we need to keep reworking our language to keep up with the changes in society as well as consciously reforming our language in order to achieve political change and progress. People and groups that are breaking down norms are crucial to restructuring society on several levels, for example in institutions of education, health, law etc.

Through an investigation of the linguistic tendencies in queer language use we may predict or even propose a restructuring of the ways we perceive sexuality. Movements have worked hard to reclaim identities and words such as gay and queer but I wonder, are we not approaching a time when these categories have achieved an academic level of social respectability that the next move would be to renounce them? The queer movement in particular is founded upon destabilizing what is thought of as indisputable knowledge and perceived as a universal truth. What are the benefits of being incorporated or even assimilated within the acceptable? Anthropologist Gayle Rubins ‘Charmed circle’ describes the sexual hierarchy and what it means to be included in the inner circle or in the outer circle.[1] Being included in the inner circle means that one is granted privileges of normativity such as legal protection, being seen as a good, normal and healthy citizen. Examples of this would be heterosexuality, monogamy and sex in a relationship. If one on the other hand inhabits an identity that positions you in the outer circle you may be subjected to criminalization, state or street violence, pathologization, shame and discrimination. The outer circle contains homosexuality, sex for money and BDSM to name a few. This shows the great importance that sexual identity has on our lives.
The progress achieved has historically been made possible by all the people that have contested the status quo of being deemed a second-class citizen. It has been through unification, community and solidarity that the rights of LGBTQ people are becoming more recognized in certain parts of the world but it is still a shockingly slow process in comparison with the tremendous advances made in for example science and technology. The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to what can be done and changed in order to create a greater understanding and acceptance of sexuality as fluid, expansive and changeable and hopefully move away from attaching identity to sexuality.

QUESTIONS AT ISSUE

How is language used and does it challenge normative notions of sexuality based on a gender binary?

How is this forum negotiated and what is the consensus around expressions of desire and sexuality?

LIMITATIONS

The question of desire and sexuality is an immense subject to embrace and therefore I have primarily chosen to narrow it down and look at the effects that language has on our ability to express ourselves and our identities, and how this language may restrict or open up for greater opportunities of self-actualization.

In my research it has of course been very tempting to ask ‘what is desire?’ which one might think would lead us to the bottom of all issues surrounding sex. This is a question that neither natural nor social scientists have been able to answer. What constitutes and creates our sexual desires is in psychoanalysis a subconscious occurrence that is made visible through language. This language becomes in relations with others a discourse that in turn lets us establish our identities. I have tried to limit the research to mainly incorporating language regarding gender and sexuality but acknowledge that there is a growing discourse with an intersectional view on sexuality encompassing race, body type, ability and class.

I will concentrate on the expressions of people based on their understanding of desire as sexuality, and what implications this has for our understanding of desire itself. I believe that looking at how desire is expressed and spoken about in terms of identity and sexuality that we can perhaps come a little closer to understanding the workings of sex within our society. This might lead to a more positive stance towards people, identities and desires that today are shamed, shunned or even criminalized.

Another difficulty in studying language is trying to find the silence, the missing words, the empty space, the unintelligible, that which can be found at, or outside the margins of our understanding. My hope is that this analysis may help in opening up possibilities, that might not be immediately visible, by finding words and indicators that challenge normative assumptions of sexuality and gender.

I view my material as a place where these empty spaces and the lack of words are consciously being contested by formulating new words, identities and ways of expressing sexuality that could better suit the needs of the people engaged in this particular group. It might even eventually prove to be applicable and beneficial within a larger heteronormative setting.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

There has been extensive research done on the topic of language, gender and sexuality. I have directed my focus on philosophers, linguists and researchers that have contributed to feminist thinking, queer theory and gender studies. What most of the previous research explores is the importance that language plays in the formation of knowledge. Some of the texts question the existing use of language and other texts aim at solidifying the meaning of words.

I have found great inspiration in the writings of Don Kulick and Deborah Cameron’s book Language and Sexuality that explores the semantic values connected to words, how we talk about sex and why we talk about it the way we do.[2] It encompasses a broad spectrum of sexuality and includes issues surrounding sexual orientation and identity, questions about the discursive construction of sexuality and verbal expressions of erotic desire. The authors look at historical and current affairs while drawing on linguistics, anthropology, psychology and psychoanalytics and make reference to both Butler and Foucault who I have chosen as the main theorists for this essay.

The article written by Galupo, Ramirez and Pulice-Farrow in Journal of Bisexuality ‘Regardless of Their Gender’ provides a recent study of the conceptualization of sexual identity among bisexual, pansexual and queer identified individuals and their differences and/or similarities.[3] The authors found four relevant themes through the analyzed data: labeling sexual identity, distinctions of attraction, explicit use of binary/nonbinary language, and identity transcendence. In the text the word plurisexual is used to refer to anyone who is attracted to more than one gender, such as bisexuals, pansexuals and many queer identified persons. Heterosexuals and homosexuals are named monosexuals since they are, in theory, only attracted to one of the binary genders.

In their research Galupo et al. found that many of the participants used multiple labels to describe their sexual identity. It was particularly common for queer and many pansexuals to express a transgender identity or history, which shows that it is more common for transexual, and I add probably gender-queer individuals to endorse a plurisexual label. When compared to monosexuals, according to this study, plurisexuals were less likely to feel that their sexual identity label fully captured their sexuality.[4] The purpose of this study was to illustrate when and whether grouping bisexual, pansexual and queer identities may be useful and when it might distort an understanding of the diversity in plurisexual experience. This is of interest to my study since I will through my analysis problematize the notion of basing sexuality on gender.

Diane Richardsons Patterned Fluidities: (Re)Imagining the Relationship between Gender and Sexuality examines the ways in which gender and sexuality have been theorized and what can be changed in future research.[5] She suggests a metaphor for the relationship between gender and sexuality to be viewed as a shoreline, a boundary in motion between land and sea affected by interconnecting discourses about sexuality, gender, age, class, race and ethnicity that might be informed by wider discourses of place, culture, religion and governmentality. The idea of both gender and sexuality as fluid and unstable is one of the main themes for my study. Both Foucault and Butler argue for the unstableness and changeability of sexuality and gender.

This leads me to the authors James Horley and Jan Clarke who in their article Constructing Sexuality: A Theory of Stability and Fluidity wrote that there are a number of difficulties found within the contemporary study of sexuality.[6] They experience a lack of conceptual clarity and consistency due to the institutional, community and personal politics being major obstacles. They also perceive an absence of a broad and useful unified theory that could move research forward. Sexuality is, in part, a linguistic construct open to interpretation, questioning and change, which has made it hard for researchers to define these fluid and flexible categories.

Randall. L. Sell’s article “Defining and Measuring Sexual Orientation: A Review” in Archives of Sexual Behaviour discusses the need for a standardization of the definitions and measures of sexual orientation if advances are to be made.[7] He argues for researchers to be critical of how they classify subjects based upon sexual orientation. Sell’s and Horley and Clarks articles differ from several of the others by not seeking to deconstruct but rather attempting to find a consensus around the meaning of sexuality. This is similar to what I believe is happening within the Facebook group I have studied, as a negotiation aiming to unify our understanding of sexuality and identity.

There are voices seeking clarification when studying sexuality while others are very cautious with providing a universal solidifying meaning of it since, as I argue in this essay, and several others including Richardson, Cameron and Kulick, that sexuality is an ever changing and highly fluid construct.