Monday, December 29, 2008

Labels



Why do many players in the gay hook up scene play around with labels – “straight curious”, “bi-curious”, “straight tripper” and all permutations of “call-me-anything-except-gay-man”?

Isn’t this just a sign that we actually dislike our own selves?

2 comments:

LoF said...

I recently finished a book called "Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movements" I got it because I was told she briefly talked about Philippine ex-gays (which made me have a flash to Boom Antonio in Gigil). I was hesitant because of the fairly superficial analysis in books on Christian right-wing beliefs about homosexuality by queer theorists.

The book gets right to the heart of the conflict of these gay Christians (and as a side, shows how both gay rights activists and the Christian right appropriate their projections of the gay Christians experience for their only political purposes -- just further inflecting the domination and conflict of the individuals).

In a way, it shows how Christian-identified gays in America attempt to resolve the conflicts of their lifes in the same way Gayatri Reddy's "With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India" showed how Hindu/Muslim bakla of Hyderabad attempt to resolve these very human conflicts. (like the way you showed human inner-conflict in LsP with Justin Deleon).

The book reminded me of this post and the post on your experience with the anti-gay protesters at the parade.

LoF said...

I have no idea why I wrote Justin here. I was thinking about it last night before bed. I meant Harry Laurel's character Mateo. The conflict that LsP shows regarding the conflicts of human development process through the lens of the environment (provincialism, religion, etc.). Of course, the ex-gays of Erzen's book, the hijra of Reddy's and Mateo are that they all come from rural villages/towns in provinces/mid-western states.