Accepting Gay Identity, and Gaining Strength - New York TimesTalking about sexual self identity is a tricky business. Everyone brings their own life experience to it, and it can seem churlish to question the way others claim to have experienced it. There also seem to be some cases where children do genuinely seem to be far outside of the "usual" gender range of behaviour from a very young age, and no one is surprised when they do turn out to have same sex attraction as adults.
But, having said all that, I still think there is a strong case to be made that the current Western popular conception and understanding of all things gay comprises large elements of what is really just intellectual fashion.
Believe it or not (since he is far from a conservative favourite), I reckon the otherwise fairly loopy Foucault might have been onto something when he dealt with the evolution of the idea of sexuality. Have a look at
this article purporting to summarise some of Foucault's ideas. An extract:
Historically, there have been two ways of viewing sexuality, according to Foucault. In China, Japan, India and the Roman Empire have seen it as an "Ars erotica", "erotic art", where sex is seen as an art and a special experience and not something dirty and shameful. It is something to be kept secret, but only because of the view that it would lose its power and its pleasure if spoken about.
In Western society, on the other hand, something completely different has been created, what Foucault calls "scientia sexualis", the science of sexuality. It is originally (17th century) based on a phenomenon diametrically opposed to Ars erotica: the confession. It is not just a question of the Christian confession, but more generally the urge to talk about it. A fixation with finding out the "truth" about sexuality arises, a truth that is to be confessed. It is as if sexuality did not exist unless it is confessed. Foucault writes:
"We have since become an extraordinarily confessing society. Confession has spread its effects far and wide: in the judicial system, in medicine, in pedagogy, in familial relations, in amorous relationships, in everyday life and in the most solemn rituals; crimes are confessed, sins are confessed, thoughts and desires are confessed, one's past and one's dreams are confessed, one's childhood is confessed; one's diseases and problems are confessed;..."
This forms a strong criticism of psychoanalysis, representing the modern, scientific form of confession. Foucault sees psychoanalysis as a legitimization of sexual confession. In it, everything is explained in terms of repressed sexuality and the psychologist becomes the sole interpreter of it. Sexuality is no longer just something people hide, but it is also hidden from themselves, which gives the theological, minute confession a new life.
This post was prompted by the New York Times article at the top, about how one nice liberal family encouraged their gay teen son to be out and proud. The boy's psycho-sexual history is given as this:
From the time Zach was little, they knew he was not a run-of-the-mill boy. His friends were girls or timid boys. “Zach had no interest in throwing a football,” Mr. O’Connor says. But their real worry was his anger, his unhappiness, his low self-esteem. “He’d say: ‘I’m not smart. I’m not like other kids,’ ” says Ms. O’Connor. The middle-school psychologist started seeing him daily.
The misery Zach caused was minor compared with the misery he felt. He says he knew he was different by kindergarten, but he had no name for it, so he would stay to himself. He tried sports, but, he says, “It didn’t work out well.” He couldn’t remember the rules. In fifth grade, when boys at recess were talking about girls they had crushes on, Zach did not have someone to name.
By sixth grade, he knew what “gay” meant, but didn’t associate it with himself. That year, he says: “I had a crush on one particular eighth-grade boy, a very straight jock. I knew whatever I was feeling I shouldn’t talk about it.” He considered himself a broken version of a human being. “I did think about suicide,” he says.
His coming out to himself and his family (I think the article indicates at the age of 13) is what "cured" him of his depression:
...in the midst of math class, he told a female friend. By day’s end it was all over school. The psychologist called him in. “I burst into tears,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Yes, it’s true.’ Every piece of depression came pouring out. It was such a mess.”That night, when his mother got home from work, she stuck her head in his room to say hi. “I said, ‘Ma, I need to talk to you about something, I’m gay.’ She said, ‘O.K., anything else?’ ‘No, but I just told you I’m gay.’ ‘O.K., that’s fine, we still love you.’ I said, ‘That’s it?’ I was preparing for this really dramatic moment.”
Doesn't this perfectly illustrate Foucault's idea that the West is obsessed with a need for a confession of sexuality?
I indicated earlier in the post that I don't deny that there may well be some boys who are virtually biologically determined to only ever have any sexual attraction to men.
But that NYT article is written in such a way that it sends subtle encouragement to boys (not just the ones who may end up gay, but the majority "straight" ones too) that stupid things like not being good at sports and not getting being accepted by the "jocks" in school is a sign of sexual destiny. The article notes that after his coming out:
He still wasn’t athletic, but to the family’s surprise, coming out let out a beautiful voice. He won the middle school’s top vocal award.
Let's keep the gay stereotypes coming, shall we.
If I haven't convinced you yet that this liberal family was trying just too hard to make their son feel comfortable, try this:
His father took him to a gay-lesbian conference at Central Connecticut State in New Britain, and Zach was thrilled to see so many gay people in one place. His therapist took him to a Gay Bingo Night at St. Paul’s Church on the Green in Norwalk that raises money for AIDS care. Zach became a regular and within a few months was named Miss Congeniality.
“They crowned me with a tiara and sash, and I walked around the room waving,” he recalls. “I was still this shy 14-year-old in braces. I hadn’t reached my socialness yet, and everyone was cheering.
Bloody hell!
It seems to me that the liberal (or simply modern Western?) attitude to sexual identity as being the vital core of one's being is actually the thing that is likely to be causing many children unnecessary uncertainty and worry about who they are.
I reckon it is the hidden assumptions behind modern Western thinking about this sort of stuff that needs airing, and a historical view is helpful in this regard, whether or not Foucault got it right.
