Journal Entry #7

The article “‘I went to bed with my own kind once’: The Erasure of Desire in the Name of Identity” by David Valentine raises some truly interesting questions about the nature of identity as regards gender and sexuality. Earlier in the course of this class I was interested by the notion of temporality and how that factored into our discussions about sexual identity. It seemed to me that if we can refer to ourselves (as we often do) as different people over the course of our lifetimes, defined by these temporal slices that are themselves characterized by different phases of life, that it is curious that it is uncommon to see this kind of logic extend to the realm of sexuality and gender. I brushed these thoughts aside, thinking that the reason why we do not think of mutability as a regular property (that is, non-abnormal) of gender or sexuality is the pressures and assumptions made by a heteronormative, patriarchical society, but the Valentine article provides a more interesting and comprehensive view of what my query was hinting at but never addressed, which is more precisely that of identity.

In my previous conception I imagined a world in which identity was malleable, all the while assuming the need for identity in the first place. So the question then, is if indeed identity has become naturalized right underneath our very noses, if it is not indeed an essential property of sexuality, or the way we experience our sexual desires, then what forces have naturalized it? Why is it mind boggling to think outside of the terms of sexual identity? Historically it would seem like a convenience. A device that allows those with mutual goals to come together and assess each other, as well as a way in which to define (and preserve) the norm against “deviants” and whatever was abnormal to it. But it doesn’t end there.

Now, more than ever, the problem of identity is a political one. In order to establish rights for every practiced sexuality there seems to be a need for a solid and coherent identity. How, after all, could one defend the rights of a people whose defining characteristics could be seen as mutable (or a “choice”?). It is safe to say that there is a lot at stake for different groups of people when the whole concept of sexual identity is questioned. By even considering that there could be no such thing as sexual identity, one seems to discredit arguments for equal rights, as well as the very nature of other people’s experiences (if indeed this experience is shaped by the identity).

Given all of these negative repercussions, why not simply leave the topic alone and allow the world to continue with the assumption of sexual identity? Because something too is being lost when we cling to these conventions. Simply put, the whole imposition of identity forces us to be consistent (which is of course the hobgoblin of little minds) when we simply are not. The concept of sexual identity pigeon holes us, alienates us, like Miss Angel, co-opts our language and uses it against us. The concept of identity forces us to use its (often inadequate) language to describe our experiences, and the mental impulse to preemptively fit ourselves into preordained boxes and sub boxes causes us to lose the details that are vital and original to our actual experience. It’s difficult enough as it is to render desire into language without having to reconcile it with a label and its long list of connotations and history. Perhaps given these new notions about the way in which desire, not identity, shapes our lives, the struggle for “gay rights” can instead be viewed as paving the way for each individual to freely and justly live in a way that expresses their desire for however they happen to feel (not “whoever they happen to be” at the moment).

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Journal Entry #5

The issues of language discussed in “The Discursive Reconstruction of Sexual Consent” and “Degrees of Consent” have brought to light for me some important and subversive points about the nature of discourse on sexuality, particularly that of consent. In the first article, Ehrlich highlights the issue of “she never said ‘no,’” particularly how this sentiment is expressed by one of the members of the council, GK. The article mentions at the beginning that there are two female participators on the council. As the testimonies continue, we begin to see that one of them in particular is having trouble with the “signals” sent by the complainants. In recent years the “no means no” mantra seemed to be a step in making the case for date rape and other kinds of sexual assault, the kinds of claims which would have otherwise gone questioned and unprosecuted. What this mantra fails to notice, and what is shown through the questioning from GK and later through the Antioch college policy is that no “no” doesn’t mean yes. This kind of standard denies outright the complexities and potential mitigating circumstances of sexual situations, and reinforces antiquated stereotypes about masculine versus feminine sexuality. In the beginning of the trial’s transcript, I too was inclined to agree with the views of GK. Why was it that she didn’t run away, or make any specific verbal proclamations during the time of sexual activity? That seems to be the reasonable thing to do. What I failed to realize is that this way of thinking is heavily founded upon the assumption that in heterosexual relationships men are insatiable animals who must, as part of their nature, impose this sexual drive onto women. They have the right to make women uncomfortable, literally advance on their bodies, unless the women explicitly say “no”. Clearly this is a false assumption, and it shows in the transcript. The defendant, Matt, repeatedly emphasizes her lack of “clear” resistance, whereas the complainant’s language is constantly confused and unsure. It seems as though they are trying to reconcile the feeling that something terrible had been done to them with no provocation with the cultural atmosphere that they should have acted in some other way. Obviously then this model of understanding these kinds of interactions is insufficient, or at the very least, not grounded in reality. This kind of situation is particularly difficult to describe given that the phenomenon with which they disagree, assumptions about the nature of men and the appropriate corresponding feminine response, are, as assumptions, practically invisible.
Given how difficult this phenomenon is to name (much less talk about) I found the Antioch policy particularly impressive. On the one hand is seems like an attempt to take “no means no” to the extreme, to create a situation that naively attempts to remove the ambiguity of consent from sexual encounters between college students. I think it is much more than that, as is shown in the article. Just as much of the conflict in the previous article resulted in not having a name for that which was the problem, this policy does just the opposite. It gives names, it gives language, and most importantly establishes a dialogue for those who are most reluctant to speak. I also found it completely befitting that the students should be reporting better sex as a result. This is not only a move to improve the status of safe sex, the policy improves the student’s communication in relationships. Instead of clumsily initiating acts which will henceforth be remembered as ambiguous and awkward, their sex lives are endowed with language, a narrative by which they can understand the experience, and their sexual identities better. It stands to reason considering we use narration and linguistic manifestations (remembering Saussure, “there is no thought without language”) to understand and make sense of every other area of life, bringing language to the speechless areas can only improve our understanding and give those without a voice, or who are too afraid to speak, agency.

Works referenced:

Language and sexuality reader. Abingdon, [England]: Routledge, 2005.

ct.666 --the word count of the beast!

Journal Entry #4

This time it is a song!

Walt and I wrote a song as a response to Julia Penelope Stanley's article "When We Say 'Out of the Closets!'" detailing some of the main themes. So without further ado, here are the lyrics to Walt & Amanda's Sexuality Song (Response #4):

Why we gotta do it just like the neighbors do?
Why we gotta do it just like the t.v. says we should?
Why can't I be more than advertisement to you?
Why we gotta do it just like the neighbors do?

One pair of pants ain't enough for a pair of men
You can be my lover but you don't have to be my bitch
If we're not man and woman, why we gotta be defined by them?
One pair of pants ain't enough for a pair of men

Why do I gotta wear lipstick just cause you got that strap-on on?
What makes you so masculine, is it that fake dong?
Just 'cause you're a dyke baby, doesn't mean you're not my woman
Why do I gotta wear lipstick just cause you got that strap-on on?

I ain't no trick so I sure as hell won't call you no John
Ain't no crime to look at you and get a hard-on
It don't break no laws to love you, we're not doing anything wrong
I ain't no trick so I sure as hell won't call you no John

Why we gotta do it just like the neighbors do?
Why we gotta do it just like the t.v. says we should?
Why can't I be more than advertisement to you?
Why we gotta do it just like the neighbors do?

Journal Entry #3

Next time, hopefully, this will be a song.

Again I am choosing to focus on the most recent reading assignment, not because it is the freshest in my mind, but because it addresses, in reference to a hypothesis, a way of understanding language which I have secretly harbored for years. The article makes reference to a “Whorfian” hypothesis. As I understood it, this hypothesis is based on the idea that language frames our perception of reality. In the article, this idea is dismissed by stating that its implications on class struggles are potentially limiting and fodder for social control and justification of hierarchies, “some researchers began to claim that the language of Blacks and the working class was structurally impoverished and, by preventing speakers from complex and creative thought, led to inevitable educational and career failure” (149). To dismantle this objection I will call loosely upon Saussure. To begin with it is true, at least from Saussure’s standpoint that there is no thought outside of language. The implications of this would thus support the Whorfian hypothesis, granted one agrees that different language highlight different facets of the human experience and occlude others (the idea that some languages could be more sexist than others would indeed fall under this category). Given this assumption we can then see how speaking French would provide a different experience than speaking Quechua, and perhaps this could then lead to the idea that some languages are more limited than others as “some researchers” claimed. However, were we to call upon Saussure once more we can see that language, that is, a system composed of signs, have both arbitrary signifiers, and arbitrary signifier-signified relationships. This claim frees language claims which would seek to evaluate its expressive capabilities. The claim made by “some researchers” hinges on the idea that one language, or rather, one form of speaking, is somehow less rich, or less capable of providing ideas than another. This claim is a bit hard to swallow, since language is something that springs from humans and is not imposed upon them. We cannot take the Whorfian hypothesis to mean that language limits human experience. Where there is human emotion, should that human choose to express it, he or she will always enlist a combination of known signs to satisfactorily communicate it. I believe, however, that the Whorfian hypothesis can still hold water if looked upon from the perspective of translation. In Walter Benjamin’s The Task of the Translator, he explains that translation is not a corruption of the original work, but rather an extension of the life of the work and both languages involved. This is because human language is not a precise means of communication. Rather, it is like a spot light illuminating only given facets of a dark, amorphous, psychic-substance. The beauty of translation is that it provides an additional source of light with which to examine the substance. This not only adds depth to the work, but each language sheds light on certain characteristics and nuances of the other. I believe that it is these nuances and subtle characteristics that do the framing in the Whorfian hypothesis as I understand it. While this idea remains practically unstudiable considering the conditions under which testing could occur defy both unity of self and time (same exact individual, same exact conditions, different language). Regardless, I personally consider this to be an interesting addition to the study of language with its many implications for sexism and gender.

Works Cited:

Graddol, David, and Joan Swann. Gender Voices. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 1989.

Works Referenced:

De la Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Boston: Open Court Company, 1988.

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Journal Entry #2

This week’s reading brought up some interesting questions for me regarding the forms of speech examined. While reading Sattel’s article on the characteristics and dynamics of male inexpressiveness I noticed a strange reaction I had to an example he used from literature. In his article, Sattel explains that while we have come to know inexpressiveness as a typically masculine trait, which we may understand simply as opposed to feminine, that rather, “The starting point for understanding masculinity lies, not in its contrast to femininity, but in the asymmetrical dominance and prestige which accrue to males in this society," (119). His thesis is then, that rather than understanding that men are simply taught to hide their emotions as part of occupying the male identity, we should recognize that this is instead a move to seem more rational, and thus capable of handling the situations of power and prestige which they are, as American males, to inherit. He explains further “Being impersonal and inexpressive lends to one’s decisions and position an apparent autonomy and ‘rightness’” (120). At this point in the text I believe it is easy to see which phenomenon Sattel is referring to, it even has a kind of common place in society: the stereotype of the stony stoic male, embodied by John Wayne as referenced in the beginning of the article. However, what I encountered in Sattel’s chosen passage from Fear of Flying was quite the opposite.
In the example, a man and a woman are in a quarrel wherein the man retains information, according to Sattel, in order to establish power. What I found to be completely bizarre about this example is that I had to read it twice just to be clear on who the female and male speakers were. In this example, we stumble upon another well recognized pattern of speech, only the genders are reversed. This was particularly striking because all of the examples prior to this one were indeed "typically" masculine (President Nixon, President Ford, John Wayne), but something about this example made the man's speech sound so utterly feminine. This is because of a phenomenon which, though commonly identified, especially in the media, has remained untouched by the readings so far, namely the "feminine" mode of attack.
In this example the man seems to be acting out what in pop media could be named the "feminine" response to a disturbance. In this cliché, the woman, held back by her non-confrontational nature and a desire to "test" her partner and decide if he is indeed as devoted/attentive as he seems to imply refuses to reveal information, but is generous in her display of disdain. The situation thus remains tense until the man either guesses long enough to reveal the secret root of the conflict or gives up. One line was particularly evocative of this stereotype, "I can't read your mind. I don't know why you're so mad. I can't intuit your every wish" (121). This line could have come from any modern middle-class couple sitcom.
The questions, then, which arose for me in reading this was how the "feminine" forms of aggressive speech, or attack, fall in with the rest of our understanding of how women speak. It seems to me that in quite a few of the readings the topic of male aggressive behavior has been covered, although perhaps not explicitly. And while most of these texts seem to suggest that women are not particularly aggressive, I am surprised that there has not been more attention paid to the occasions in which women break with the "desire for cooperation" and set themselves willingly apart from a group, namely in conversational battle. It seems to me that although in this case the gender roles are the reverse, that this would indeed be a good place to start examining the way we think of gendered forms of verbal attack.


Works Cited:
Sattel, Jack W. [Barrie Thomas, Cheris Kramarae, and Nancy Henley, eds.] Language, Gender, and Society. Rowley: Newbury House, 1983.

ct. 641

Journal Entry #1

In both the introduction to The Language and Sexuality Reader, and the first chapter of Gender Voices the observation that people adopt or are brought into different ways of speaking is brought to light. Furthermore, both introductory sections explain that these different (and therefore significant) ways of speaking can also be related to different states of existence as regards sex, gender, and sexuality. As we have continued to read in Gender Voices, we are confronted with multiple studies involving the accent, that is to say the pitch and tone of the different voices of men and women of varying age and social status. These observations and documentations have been laid out carefully and their phenomena explained. However, the conclusions that are to be drawn from these documents seem elusive.

I am thus, in the beginning of my exploration into linguistics troubled by uncertainty of the conclusions that can be drawn from these varying speech patterns. I find my mind’s general focus during these readings to be on worrying how these specific observations and systems of speech patterns can be translated into evidence regarding the culture in which they reside. It seems to me all to complicated and interwoven a system to be able to answer the questions which seem to have prompted investigations into the way we speak, which is namely: what does this say about us? I allow this to be the focus of my journal entry because however broad, I think it deserves some consideration trying to understand the basic phenomena. For example, the task of outlining the basic conditions under which these experiments were performed is meticulously handled in this book. Clearly these kinds of variants must be catalogued. From time period to class to region to language, all of these are relevant, and furthermore, all of these categories are present in each documented instance of speech. But if the simple description, that is to say the rendering in textbook form of these experiments is this laborious, what then of the conclusions that are to be drawn, which suffer under the same conditions, the same delicate web of interconnected elements of society. Is it possible to really, scientifically (as scientifically as this data has been recorded), draw conclusions from the evidence gathered? Or all any conclusions drawn a result of “common sense” or assumptions which are not objective and cannot help but be made by an observer working inside of the same culture? This problem is partially referenced I believe in the idea of meta language, or the problem of using language to talk about language, or in this case using a culture to explain that culture. But still I cannot help but be self-conscious of my own cultural biases which must in some way taint the observations what I could hope to gain. And, as an absurd contradiction, I am also anxious when presented with information that lies out of my personal scope of knowledge, for example the study of “prestige” as poled in British accents, that I will not be able to understand or draw any conclusions, culturally biased or not.


ct. 516