gay rights, gay marriage, gay everything.

[thefutile]

i'm going to be brief and just say, if you don't agree with homosexuality, don't be a homosexual!

any opinions on the subject?

[Deleted]

I think the last thing we need to do is discourage any kind of love in the world.

[RosaRL]

thefutile said:

i'm going to be brief and just say, if you don't agree with homosexuality, don't be a homosexual!

any opinions on the subject?

While I agree with the sentiment you are expressing, I think its going to take some serious struggle and education to get people to throw off the attitudes that they have now against homosexuality.

People need a scientific understanding of sexuality rather than the understanding that is so common today (be that the idea that women should 'just be women' and stop acting like men or bibical quotes)

There is a whole concept out there that our sexuality is pre-ordianed - be it by some god or by hormones and both are wrong - both are a rather unscientic view of the devlopment of human sexuality.

[eat the world]

I think that the intimate relations between people (precious as they often are) need radical change.

Many intimate love relations are permeated with the values (and larger realities) of this society: often marked by dependence, domination, inequality, use-and-abandonment, and far too often sexual exploitation and violence.

We need to get to human intimate relations based on mutual love, equality and respect -- without economic dependence. And that can only happen as part of a much larger revolutionary change that uproots capitalism, the commodification of people, creates more social institutions for childrearing and mutual support etc. The transformation of human sexual and intimate relations is (in short) an important part of the larger struggle for socialism.

Between what we have now (which is deeply unsatisfying to many people for many reasons) and what we need lies a process of change and transformation.

Clearly ending the attacks and stigmas aimed at gay people is an important part of that. (Including of course legal recognision of gay love partnerships, right of adoption, etc.)

At the same time, the intimate relations *among* gay people are also marked by the same problems that mark heterosexual relations.

In short: ending discrimination against gay people is part of the struggle against current patriarchy. And at the same time the existing gay relationships are themselves marked by (and part of) patriarchy, and are also IN THAT WAY an important part of the process of transformation that has to go on.

[StalinRevolution]

It is none of the states business what people do in their bedroom.Sometimes it amazes me that we still have laws that openly discriminate against gays.But some great homor comes out of it:"I think gay marriage is something that should take place between a man and a woman"-Arnold Shrawzanegger

[readpunk]

I'm too foolishly capitalistic to know whether this article is just bourgeois lies, but I think the person who really needs to learn a little about respect and love for their fellow human being is Kim Jong Il.

www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030630/kim_women.html

[eat the world]

I am not a fan of the North Korean government or dynasty.

[glow=red,2,300]But....[/glow]

I also think we need to train ourselves NOT to give credence to the kinds of articles that appear in the bourgeois press (especially without other corroboration).

From long experience: articles like this, that diss and "expose" various opponents of the U.S. simply can't be believed. And even if the rough structure of the article is based on some facts (i.e. that he was married a few wives) the negative impact of this article comes from its tone, not from anything it factually reveals.

It is not unlike the much more notorious flood of lies about Mao and women (which was completely in variance with ANY known facts, and yet are casually believed by many people who should know better!)

[repeater138]

I think this person has good ideas:

"Class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality etc.

The recent discussion about how marxists should relate to feminism and women's liberation made me think. To my mind, one of the problems with most feminists (and also, sadly, most marxists) is that they see 'gender' as being an essential and largely unchanging social attribute.

In contrast, I would like to suggest that gender, sexuality and all of those other social categories are actually as much social relations as class. Indeed, it is
impossible to separate a person's gender or sexuality from their class position. The social relations of capitalism mutually constitute both/all those other '
identity categories'. Working class boys have traditionally been socialised in a particular way that has perpared them for performing the particular type of
masculinity required for a life of manual labour. Middle class boys are allowed to be a little more 'feminine' (or at least learn to perform a different type of masculinity better suited to success in the 'professions'.

It should also be abundantly clear that the international division of labour is heavily gendered and split along racial/ethnic lines. I would suggest that in large
chunk of the world, it is also beginning to be sexualised, with queer men and women being central to a number of class fractions.

In other words, my class position is inseparable from my sexuality, gender and ethnicity - one defines the others. And so to think of challenging oppression and
exploitation around one of those social relationships without addressing the others is meaningless.

We should stop thinking of people as worker+women+dyke+latina (or whatever)
and think of them as worker/women/dyke/latina instead.

That might also help begin to think again in terms of liberation rather than rights, too.."


This is what I think:

I think that one of the problems with the way that marxists, including the RCP, deal with the issue of sexuality is that they fully accept bourgeois models. Read Lacquer's "Making Sex". It describes the history of sexuality, sex and gender. Contrary to popular belief the two-sex model which is currently driving all these
debates has not always been with us. In fact it arrived with Bourgeois society and was socially constructed. Prior to the two-sex model there was a one-sex
model which saw women as simply a lesser version of men both in gender and biological terms; to the extent that female genitalia was seen as an inverted form of the male genitalia. Thus ovaries were actually testes and the vagina was an inverted penis. In fact the separate terms for female genitals didn't arrive until the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society created it. The term "homosexuality" arose at the same time.

After reading Anne Fausto-Sterlings article on the possibilty of a five sex model I realized that not only is the two-sex model a bourgeois social construction, but
it doesn't conform to reality. What about those people who physically simply do not conform to either a male or female body? Wouldn't the proper dialectical approach to this question begin to deconstruct the bourgeois assumptions of gender and sex, as well as take a full account of the range of genders and sexes? If you want to be scientific and dialectical about it then you must take into account reality and sticking to the male/female dichotomy simply puts you into the framework of bourgeois sex and gender and makes you incapable of
actually seeing the reality of sex and gender, i.e. there is a range.

[Maz]

It is true that the material basis for the differentiation of genders doesn't have strict dividing lines. Like, it isn't presence of genitals, cause we know there are grey areas, it isn't reproductive capacity, cause not all women will have children, and it isn't even chromosones, since some people gendered as male actally have female chromosones and vice-versa. So, I think there is some power to the argument that gender is in a lot of ways discursive, and that, to use our pomo terminology, that certain physical differences among people are "floating signifiers" that only have meaning within the discourse of gender binaries (cough).

Anyways, my question is, does this not mean that sex is non-existant? Just because there are no strict dividing lines is not the same as taking the leap and saying that categories do not exist. Like, there are things in this world that contain elements of both alive and dead, like crystals or viruses, yet I think it would be an error to make the leap to say that "alive" and "dead" are social constructions!

Also, despite the fact that sex and sex-roles are socially constructed in really significant ways, has the construction taken on a "life of its own" that has in turned created a material reality of a male-female binary?

[RosaRL]

First there is biological 'sex' which is very distinct in terms of the actual organs and how they function. Most humans do mate. Only humans with male gentiles will possibly develop prostate cancer, produce sperm, and so on. Only females will give birth, produce ova, ect. The fact that there are two 'sexes' in that sense is a matter of how we evolved. (there are a few cases out there were people are born 'in between' but in general we fall into one of these two catagories biologically)

Leg and pit hair however flourishes in both! "gender roles' that say one should have it and another should not however are social constructs that vary from culture to culture and what may be seen as distinctly feminine behavior in one society may be attributed to males in another.

These roles are learned and many men and women invest a great deal of effort to conform to them (dieting, undergarments to alter your shape, weight lifting, eyebrow plucking, make up -- developing 'ladylike manners' and so on) There is also quite a bit of time invested in ridiculing those who do not conform exposing them to social stigma -- even in the gay and lesbian community.

There is a great deal of varriation in the levels of compliance to and personal internalization of these gender roles. Women who identify as strait -- for exaple may fit the madonna 'ideal' or on the other end of things they may be 'tom boys'-- or anywhere in between.

I dont see anywhere in anything that I have read that the RCP denies that there is a wide range of varriation, and its my understanding that their position actually afirms the varriation and complexity of this question -- see 2changetheworld.info/docs/h-02-fulltext-en.php

However, just about any woman who has refused to shave or wear make up or a bra knows that all her female friends that still do are going to put the pressure on and 'worry about her letting herself go'. The further she is from imposingthe 'ideal' on herself --the more crap she'll take.

In this society there is a quite clear attempt to force us into one 'gender' or the other -- master or servent.

I've personally noticed that not attempting to fit into the gender roles can be taken as a sign of depression and I've known young women who have constantly had to explain that they are just fine to teachers, parents, and others who may refer them for 'treatment'because they failed to comply. Pit hair, boots and nappy head isn't a sign of mental problems!

Of course putting on the makeup, shaving and 'fixing up' brings immediate praises about how they can tell well you are doing -- sometimes even among those who should know better. This is some of the ways these roles are constantly reinforced.

Yet imagine the hoots if one would get if you suggested that a strait guy should 'fix up' .. get some weaves, maybe a bra with a little extra 'lift' (that is two pads the size of Texas) and put some make up on or imply he needs to see a shrink because he doest!

[Maz]

Yeah, the "traditional" outlook is that sex is biological and gender is socially constructed. However I think that there is some power to the argument that sex is socially constructed as well. I wouldn't go as far as some post-modernists would to say that sex is purely a social construction however. Mostly here I'm thinking of Judith Butler (who signed the Not In Our Name statement, by the way) who argues that the whole classification of both sex and gender are biased by a "phallogocentric" (her term) discourse that is essentially setting the terms for what a woman is, and therefore the struggle against women's oppression. She wants to break apart the whole "heterosexual matrix" of sex ---> gender ---> desire rather than roll with the categories she feels are created by the very structure we're trying to overcome.

[RosaRL]

I havent had a chance to read any of her work, but from what you are saying i get the feeling that what is being put forward (which may not actually be her ideas) as a solution is to just ignore the fact that these gender catories do exist and are inforced.

i have no intent on accepting these gender catagories!I dont neatly fit into either of them (or into butch or fem or strait or gay or what most people think of as bi for that matter) But denying that they are inforced; just mentally refusing to accept them will not make them go away. Its like saying racism is 'just in our heads' when in fact it is part of our daily experience - part of the reality that we have to confront.

Do you have any links to materials? I would like to look at this more and get a better idea of what is being presented.

[Maz]

www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm

www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm

These might be useful

[flyby]

I am not against learning from non-Marxist schools of thought on gender and sexuality. But I do think it is important to struggle our way through to a Marxist and revolutionary approach.

Simply lifting the analysis (or even the terminology) of po-mo and identify politics schools, (especially if done uncritically) merely lifts up the reformism and confusion with it.

[Maz]

Flyby: Sure. That's the trouble with post-modernism, it seems that even a (semmingly) really radical perspective like Butler's devolves into reformism once you follow the logic of the logic. I mean, I think Butler's solution to patriarchy is something along the lines of uses heretical "gender performances" to highlight the unnaturalness of sex categories. Obviously this falls way short. My concern is getting to the heart of the male/female question, like repeater 13 seems to want to, in a way that reflects objective reality and (maybe) by taking a look at how bourgeois views on this help shape that reality. And I'm no expert on any of this. That's why I ask lots of questions.