Today I Wear Purple

Today I am wearing purple.

I am proud to tell my colleagues, friends and strangers on the bus that I stand in solidarity with my queer brothers and sisters.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the cultural narrative of "coming out." Events like Coming Out Day and the great meaning that is placed upon that moment of announcing one's sexuality to friends and family come to mind immediately. I am sure I am not saying anything that queer folks or feminist scholars haven't already heard, but I think that the epistemology of the closet is deeply problematic. (Of course, I pay homage to the amazing Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in the use of my language here).

Our cultural understanding of queerness and of homosexuality is based on the notion that they are inherently dishonest unless they are announced fully and openly. In order for one to "come out," one first must be "in." This narrative constructs "the closet." There is a distinct dichotomy set up in this process, wherein one must be either gay or straight. Our cultural understanding of sexuality is either/or. Gay or straight. Boy or girl. In or out. That is it. And of course that is troubling as it leaves no room for anything else, anything in between, anything queer.

Can one be understood to be both in and out, boy and girl, gay and straight? These combinations are deeply confusing to Americans because, even in the language itself, they are contradictory and nearly impossible to reconcile. Still, people do live in those grey areas and sometimes in those combinations. To ask someone to come out is to assume that they are in and that being out is better.

What I hope to say here is that I understand Coming Out Day and I understand the It Gets Better campaign, but I don't know how helpful they really are.

I wish I could tell all of the queer youth in the world that life gets better and people become more tolerant, but that is not always the truth. I know some amazing gay men and women who have overcome seemingly impossible odds to become happy, healthy, successful people. But I also know people for whom it has not gotten easier: people who stay "in" out of real fear for their lives, people who have lost their jobs and their families, who faced public ridicule. And the people who don't easily fit into any of the available categories have no meaningful way to "come out."

These are complicated issues which deserve deeper investment and understanding. I don't know if it will get better, but I fight with every fiber of my being for the day that I can say that it is safe to be gay or straight or anything in between or completely outside.

An Open Letter to Kristen Stewart

Dear Kristen Stewart,

You know what is like rape? RAPE. That is the only thing that is "like" rape. Being on the red carpet having your photo taken incessantly may be unpleasant for you, it may even be something you wish to never do again, but fortunately you have that option. Please remember this on future occasions. Thank you,

Cortney

On "Booty"

A few weeks ago I read this post on Shakesville. With all of my education in sexuality and gender studies, I can honestly say I had no idea that “punk” had such a long and complex history. When I was teaching high school I would hear my students referring to each other (or their step father, in one case) as punks and I thought it was amusing because I pictured this:

which is especially amusing when you consider that both high schools I have worked at were predominantly African American. Now I realize that that is not what they were saying at all and I am sorry I missed the opportunity to talk with them about it and use it as a teaching moment especially as we spent several weeks talking about sex and gender.

This week on the bus I have been re-reading Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. As I was reading, I noticed that Anzaldúa refers to colonized women as “booty” for the victorious nation during times of war and imperialism. Of course, I know what booty means and have heard it many times before, but since reading that Shakesville post I started to think about the ways in which “booty” has been used in our current vernacular. I wonder how “booty” came to mean buttocks: specifically female buttocks. When one considers its original meaning, the correlation starts to seem too insidious to be a coincidence. “Booty,” a term for the possessions gained through violently overtaking a group of people and co-opting their culture, is used today as a description of the female buttocks, suggesting that women themselves are possessions to be won through whatever means necessary. This implies that women are owned by the men of their own culture and can be stolen by men of another culture. It is especially disconcerting if we consider that "booty" is generally used to describe the backsides of black women whose bodies have a long history of being literally objectified and owned by white culture. If we look at the popular culture use of the term this does not seem like a far fetched or radical hypothesis.

There is, evidently, such a thing as booty hip hop.

Booty is sometimes what we call sex.

It is a movie.

It is a song.

Or two.

Beyond that, Rachael and Ross sang Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” to their newborn on Friends and I once heard my baby cousin referred to his mother’s bottom as ‘booty’ when he was under one year old! The term "booty" is deeply entrenched in our language to the point that it is completely normal for anyone to say, much like "punk."