I came across this article today, which raises an interesting historagraphical question. But seeing that TealArt too easily descends into philosophical blathering, I’ll just throw this one out.there.
How appropriate is the queer theory historical search for likely homosexuals? And is “outing” famous historical (regardless of other judgments) a productive practice.
Lets first remember that the term “homosexual” dates to the 1890s and while there were certainly people who were homosexual before 1890, the idea of categorizing individuals based on affectional orientation didn’t really exist before that. Having said that, “homosexuals” did face suppression and any number of torments, it was just produced on a different level.
So for any number of reasons, there is a certain movement to reclaim the gay history. Because there are tons of historical figures who were almost certainly gay, but that gets lost. It was also probably lost in the moment, but it’s equally important to remember now.
If Hitler was gay, as the article suggests, is there a responsibility to reclaim that as well. Just yesterday there was a bit about a respected statesman and President. This guy, was a southerner, and not surprisingly pro-slavery. So I guess one of the questions, is “Do we have a responsibility to reclaim all of the gay history that we find, or just the parts that suit us. And I guess I’d say, we should reclaim it, if only to show a kind of diversity. There are queers everywhere, and I think that’s an important lesson. You can go anywhere and find gay people; they exist outside of the hip coffee shops, the left bank of the Seine, Men’s Express, Abercrombie and Fitch, and so forth. The one down side is, of course, that homophobes will inevitably take revelations that condemnable characters like Hitler are endemic of homosexual culture, but then those same individuals will look at the guys on the left bank wearing shirts from Express, and talking about “Art”, and categorical label all queer’s as pansies. There are some fights you just can’t win.
On the other hand, this is ultimately a form of outing. Clearly it’s not the same as outing contemporary figures, but to some degree. I agree with Armested Maupin et al. that outing people will show that queers can be successful; that queers really are everywhere, and that the world hasn’t ended yet. History is perhaps the ultimate venue for this, as we are able to avoid the serious ethical dilemma that prevents or should prevent outing of contemporary figures.
So here’s the second question that this raises (and I’ll leave you with this): Where is the line between outing contemporary figures, and reclaiming a gay history?
Cheers!
permalink •
•
zero comments
tagged: TealArt
Borrowing an entry writing style from two of my favorite siblings/friends I’m going to write about a recently rediscovered old friend.
Once upon a time, there was this kid, who was really bright and loved to write. He was also the biggest geek and was fascinated by the quickly developing pace of mobile technology, PalmOS, PocketPCs, WindowsCE, wireless communications, digital intellectual property, mobile writing, and a host of other things. He read Jeff Kirvin’s Writing on Your Palm, and it wasn’t long before he scraped his pennies together to buy a Handspring Visor with one of those nifty folding keyboards.
Being a Visor fanatic, he quickly joined the ranks of VisorCentral users and became an avid supporter of that device and a prominent member of the community. But as you can imagine, there weren’t many other young teenagers/pre-teens involved in the PalmOS community. Because doncha know, most teenagers have better things to do then organize their schedule and contact information on a dinky little computer with a resolution of 60 pixels by 60 pixels.
But there was another.
And they became attached, IM-ed eachother daily. But like all good things, it was a finite affair.
Our protagonist moved on to other fancier devices and loved it, and took a different track. During this phase of his life this kid did lots of cool stuff for someone who was 14. Like, be an executive editor for a radical ebook publishing company called Free-ePress. Contribute to the website that started it all Writing on your Palm, Various freelance articles for places like, Suite101, PalmPower Magazine, and the gem of the bunchPocketPC Thoughts.
But these two young characters still talked occasionally, but as they had ideological differences they started to fall out of contact.
One of our protagonist’s editor’s, told him that he needed people who could dedicate more time to the site, basically that he needed people who could be in front of their computer during the day, which virtually obliviated the need for a mobile computing solution. When this editor also told him that there was no way he could compensate our protagonist for any of his work, our protagonist finally bowed out, realized the idiocy of having a mobile computing device and sold his HP Jordana, bought a cellulose based calendar book, and at the ripe old age of 15 retired from the field of mobile computing.
He used what he had leared to develop an awesome website, and he wrote a book, and generally enjoyed life.
But he hadn’t forgotten his partner in crime, who still clung to the vestiges of their former commonality. Despite the growing rift between them they still talked but one day something happened.
They talked about sex, as adolescent males are prone to. It was awkward. Our protagonist had very little (nothing to boast of, as someone who was still very much discovering his sexual orientation) and his friend somehow was able to boast of something. Trivial really. After this event which our protagonist probably has logged somewhere, he mostly lost interest. They completely stopped talking and went about their lives.
Then, just recently, our protagonist, got bored and opened an unused corner of his buddy list, found his old friend online and said, innocently enough “Hello”.
And guess what. His friend turned out to be gay too. And doing the same academic program (IB). And interested in a school in his area. And they have similar interests that don’t involve visors. And similar life experiences that despite the disconnect in their communication.
Isn’t life just funny like that sometimes?
permalink •
•
zero comments
tagged: TealArt