I love glee. I think it’s just the right amount cheesy, funny, and ironic. It laughs at itself, which is something most TV shows (and people) just cannot do. But I was in fact a bit disappointed (even if the show was being rather true to life in this scene) when I watched Episode 3 yesterday and watched Kurt (The Gay One) tell everyone that no one chose to be gay because no one would want to be mocked and made fun of all his or her life.
There are several things wrong with that outlook, which, unfortunately, a lot of us take. Firstly, leaving aside the whole complex issue of sexual orientation, we all make several choices in life that open us up to perpetual mockery, ill-treatment and a hard life. Women making choices to say, not shave their hair, not wear layers and layers of contour-masking cloth, to take up typically “male professions” (for example, orthopaedics, in the medical field), men becoming child-minders and nurses, choosing to take paternity leave for their child, to allow their wives to work, to study art when all the family thinks a son must work in something ‘manly’ like engineering, all do so, fully aware that this is opening them up to years of damaging mockery. People choose not to believe in God. This leads to rents with the family and society, losing friends and a community, all manner of trouble for many. And then, there are others, for whom all the same choices go off easily. Just as coming out goes of incredibly smoothly for some. It’s merely a question of realizing, falling in love and telling a loving set of parents. Same as anything else.
These other things, it could be argued, are not a choice, in some sense. When one has a natural born aptitude for rugby or orthopaedics or water-colour art, it may be almost impossible to settle down in any other field of study and be truly happy.
I am an anthropologist who is, by basic training, a historian, with a very strong interest in literature and art. I find I cannot be happy studying anything that does not combine these interests. This is something that is as important as air and water to me. In some sense, I cannot remember choosing these interests over say biophysics or financial consultancy. No, I certainly did not weigh the options up and down and say, umm… yes, I choose art, literature, history and anthropology. I gravitated towards them in many ways. There were signs through my childhood. I loved stories and I loved to hear people tell them. I liked thinking about and asking questions about these stories I heard. I wrote down and connected various family stories I heard. Anyone should have guessed I wasn’t going to follow the family trend and become a third generation physician. But no, naturally, no one noticed. No one figured. I had to come out as many things before I came out as a lesbian: as a lover of art and literature my family couldn’t conceive making a career out of, as an atheist, as an environmentalist (who, inexplicably, insists on walking everywhere when there’s a car!). I’d call these things choices. Choices I made despite the opprobrium I knew I’d face. Because they make me happy. And because I believe in them and think life is not supposed to be easy. Heck, if one wasn’t always in a scrape, how unhappy and bored would one be!
Being a lesbian is also not a conscious choice. I’ve always liked girls. I’ve liked boys too. I get along with them perfectly, can aesthetically appreciate them, and don’t feel less loved if a man shows me affection. But heck, I think I’d rather be with a woman than a man. By saying that, I think I make a choice. This may be a choice directed by inborn preference. But then, that’s true of all choices. As a friend once said, I think we’re all born with a sexuality. How we use it, is a choice. To say otherwise is to deny ourselves a very empowering agency. And to say that we’re victims of our inherent sexual preference, is straight on the route to EM Forster-esque self-loathing. I can live without that, I think.
So, yes, I don’t want to be made fun of all my life. Whether it’s because my shoes are purple or that I have a very unflattering nose ring or that I will never do any work that appears useful or lucrative to others, or that I will be a ridiculously radical old activist for most of my life, or that I love women. But no, I will not deny myself my choices or say that they were made for me beyond my control to make this mocking stop. Because that way, I fundamentally agree with the mocker, and justify myself by hiding in victimhood. That, I’m afraid is not gay pride. Whether I made a choice (conscious or otherwise) or not, I deserve respect because who I sleep with is no one else’s business. That is where I stand.
Tink – first of all I love the way you write and what you write about.
Two, I agree that some choices are conscious and some unconscious (like preferences for – I might even say therefore aptitude for certain subjects, skills and ‘people” – like patterns in relationships are often deep seated in our psyche and we may not be aware of the “why” of the pattern). However, when we do become aware of these patterns and preferences, going along with the flow is a choice. The choices my be perceived as pain avoidance (short term), dissonance avoidance, conflict avoidance or merely a drive for peace.
I think that it is possible that we may be in denial that the choices we made were our own as it means owning up to the responsibility of those choices – which can indeed be hard at times. Moral police, body police, fashion police and the list is endless…they are all over and we let them be. I don’t remember turning around and telling someone that ‘Did i even ask you if I have gained weight since you last saw me”? Makes me think-(tink?) I made the choice to be quiet and cringe deep…
Thanks for this lovely piece..
Waiting to meet up at Chennai Dosa and change your mind! 🙂
Me too, Broomie! Me too! 🙂 And who knows who might change her mind here, eh? 😉
Completely agree with you about choices. As they say “our choices make what we are”. But I guess sometimes standing by them isn’t all that easy and therefore opting for a non-struggling alternative seems the only to-do choice
And then there are folks like you… 🙂
First of all, Nicely written. I like your flow of words!
I also strongly agree with you that choice or not a choice, our preferences have to be respected and we all should have the courage to stand up for them.
But… many queer folks believe their sexuality is NOT a choice, but something they are born with. And when they say, ‘who would make a choice that would lead to life-long discrimination, abuse and suffering’, you should understand that they are not ashamed of their sexuality, but extremely frustrated. Frustrated that they are not understood, they are not accepted and they are not given equal rights like the heterosexual majority.
Also your comparison, to career choices, purple shoes and shaving/not shaving head is not exactly appropriate, IMHO. I would compare sexuality to something inborn, like a person’s skin color. You obviously have no choice there, but yes you do make a choice whether to let the society’s perception of a skin color affect you or not. ( In India, light skin is considered attractive and dark skin is considered ugly).
Also our choices are often influenced by others and often compromised for our loved ones. For eg, a mother choosing to stay home for her kids. If we argue that our sexuality is something we can choose, A mom who sacrificed her career for the gay son , can ask ‘I stayed home for you, why don’t you marry a woman and give me grand children than choosing to be with a man ‘. While many of us are usually willing to make major compromises for our loved ones (be it on our life, career, etc..), we can’t really compromise something that is inborn like one’s sexuality.
Also, I am little confused about your sexuality choice.
Tink wrote :
” Being a lesbian is also not a conscious choice. I’ve always liked girls. I’ve liked boys too. I get along with them perfectly, can aesthetically appreciate them, and don’t feel less loved if a man shows me affection. But heck, I think I’d rather be with a woman than a man. “.
Then may be you are bisexual and you chose to be a lesbian. As a gay man, I never had a choice between men and women. May be that is why, I am having trouble understanding your choice.
I would love to hear more from you.
Once again, nicely written.
Cheers!
Well said, Shri.
Tinky Tink – I agree with both, MJ & Shri … My stance is ‘Choice’ has come to be a heavily loaded word and can make all the difference between acceptance and non-acceptance. And the difference between fighting for the freedom to make your own choice generically, as opposed to the freedom to choose who you love is vast. and apparently, murky.
You make a very important and well-written point, purple shoe-d one ! You do. One must not deny themselves choices and risk victimhood. But gay pride is more about saying “I am me. I love. I care. I want. and this is inherent to me. even if it is different from you. Hence, I am proud.” … It celebrates the spectrum – whether you be one to deny yourself choices or one who says the ‘truth’ that you know of i.e. you were made this way.
*Glee fistbump*! … The Kurt Bible cannot be questioned. That is my stance.
Tink & Others: You might find this video interesting!! 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY&feature=player_embedded
Shri, you’re entirely welcome to your opinion, but I think you didn’t quite get the point of what the article was about. It’s true. No one sits and weighs it up and down and then says, okay, I pick this. But acting on your proclivities is a choice. And that action, when it has to do with sexuality is huge in all our lives. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only point where we choose to act on what we truly want despite everything in the world. In that sense, you do choose what you want. Your preferences might be inborn, as I write, but your choice to act on your sexuality, on your inclinations and on what you think you’d love more is a choice of pleasure over indifference. It’s a choice to go after your desires, and sexual or romantic desire, is to me, no greater or more important than any other kind of desire. Embrace it, and say proudly that you choose to live the way you do, is all I’m saying. 🙂 You’re welcome to disagree. But I hope you won’t reduce my argument to the defensive choice debate in America.
Tink, I was with you until you wrote you are attracted to men equally as women and you choose to be a lesbian. Honestly, I didn’t have that choice.
Thanks for taking the time to explain, I understand where you are coming from , a little better now. And I do agree with you in parts.
Tink wrote “Embrace it, and say proudly that you choose to live the way you do, is all I’m saying.”
Embracing our sexuality is good, but I do it the QC way. QC wrote : “ ‘I am me. I love. I care. I want. and this is inherent to me. even if it is different from you. Hence, I am proud.’ … It celebrates the spectrum – whether you be one to deny yourself choices or one who says the ‘truth’ that you know of i.e. you were made this way.”
Of course, we can agree to disagree 🙂
No. I just think there’s a thin line between sexual attraction and feelings of love and belonging that are not sexual. Anyone can aesthetically appreciate anyone and in an age where we understand the Kinsey Scale I think it’s possible to appreciate that attraction is a very complex thing. I appreciate that you were aware of your preference for men early on. But I do think it’s a very complex thing when you realize you get along perfectly intellectually and on every other level with all your friends of either sex, can appreciate that they look good, and are beautiful people whose love you appreciate and whose minds and feelings you can connect with. Yet somewhere along the line, you realize you’re more alive when you’re with one or the other. What then draws the line? It’s the big intangible. The frisson. Realizing that that was all, and then choosing to act on the big intangible is what I described. So, maybe you misunderstood me. It’s an oversimplification to define attraction in any simple terms. And in the end we all have a choice – act on it, or not. Choosing to act on it, according to me, is choosing desire over convenience. I hope that’s clearer.
We could have made a continuing post out of this 😀
Tink wrote : ” It’s a very complex thing when you realize you get along perfectly intellectually and on every other level with all your friends of either sex, can appreciate that they look good, and are beautiful people whose love you appreciate and whose minds and feelings you can connect with. Yet somewhere along the line, you realize you’re more alive when you’re with one or the other. I just think there’s a thin line between sexual attraction and feelings of love and belonging that are not sexual ”
Tink, I am not aiming for the last word here. But just explaining my side :).
For me it is not a thin line. May be I am a Kinsey 6, that’s why :). As you pointed out, I do appreciate the physical beauty, I do connect intellectually and emotionally with people of both the sexes. But I have a completely exclusive set of emotions that I feel ONLY for the people of the same sex – sexual attraction, romance, passion etc. It is clearly Black and White, with no Grey area! It is a huge distinction over which I have no control.
And by saying I have no control over it, I am not playing a victim here. I do understand that you want to call it a choice that we made (unconsciously), but I don’t. I believe it is as inherent as a person’s skin color.
I know we are not going agree on this point, but I think we both can agree that we all should be proud of what we are!
Cheers!