Category: queer issues

Google’s ban on bisexuals: What, The and Fuck.

Great news for bisexual people: Google has finally unblocked us from its search algorithm, meaning it will now automatically suggest searches when users are googling terms relating to bisexuality.

Oh wait, not quite. This change only applies in the US, so if you’re using the UK site, it still won’t bother autocompleting these searches.

None of this makes any fucking sense whatsoever. Why was the term “bisexual” ever excluded in the first place? Why has it only been approved in the USA?

I can only speculate that Google’s blocking is down to some sort of bullshit about blocking obscene content, because apparently bisexuality is all about sex and maybe it’s porn and something something OH GOD THINK OF THE CHILDREN (and perhaps non-USian children are more prone to being corrupted by knowing that some people fancy men and women).

It ties in with the larger cultural invisibility of bisexuals: the gay rights movement has successfully raised awareness of some types of same-sex relationship, but bisexuals tend to get left out in the cold. Perhaps it’s partially because when a bi person is in a monogamous relationship, it will be classified as “straight” or “gay”, which, obviously, elides all the polyamorous people, too.

Whatever the reasoning, biphobia is not on. Also, fuck Google.

Gay marriage advocates, stop throwing poly people under the bus

I’ve said before that I’m conflicted about same sex marriage, because, ultimately, I’d rather see the institution as a whole abolished. On the whole, though, I’ve got no problem with same sex marriage as a transitional demand and have no problem with people choosing to get the state involved in their two-person relationships.

The thing is, I am very unhappy with how some people are asking for this. They’ll argue against the “slippery slope” argument by throwing poly people under the bus. “No, we’re only asking for two people in love to get married, not poly or incest or bestiality. You silly conservatives, thinking you’d catch us out,” they say.

Now, I understand that they’re fighting against a daft argument in the first place. The thing is, this riposte is fairly fucking offensive to poly people.

Firstly, it kind of sucks to get mentioned in the same breath as incest and bestiality. These things are not the same, and personally I find them rather squicky. But, more importantly, these things are not the same, and I’d rather they weren’t all lumped together, unless you’re in consensual polyamorous relationship with your brother and a very enthusiastically randy shih-tzu.

Secondly, polygamy is always, always, always conflated with polyamory. Again, these things are not the same: polygamy refers to a specific type of multiple-partner relationship which is a subtype of polyamory. It’s a set-up which is generally steeped in religion and bad gender politics and is therefore easier to dismiss than other types of poly relationship. However, by not pointing out that this is only one multiple-partner arrangement, one throws all poly people under that bus.

Now, there might be more harms inherent in polygamous relationships than there are in other forms of poly, due to its ties with religion and patriarchy. However, there are more harms inherent to certain types of any sort of relationships. Should we ban marriages where there’s a significant age difference? What about where one partner has a record for domestic violence? Of course not, that’d be bloody silly. So why are the gay marriage advocates throwing all poly people under the bus because some relationships are fucked up?

Then there’s the nicer, more watered-down argument. That marriages including more than two people would be too hard, that poly marriages would be more of a redefinition of marriage than same-sex marriage. Now, this is all well and good, except same-sex marriage also involves a redefinition, and that’s exactly where the struggle lies. In my opinion, we might as well go the whole hog while we’re doing this (if we’re not just going to abolish the whole archaic institution). The thing is, I’m not asking that they make our struggle a part of theirs. I’m just asking not to get chucked under the bus in the process.

And it’s entirely possible to refute the slippery slope argument without throwing anyone under the bus. This widely-circulated infographic does so fairly adeptly. Because, yes, that’s all same-sex marriage will lead to: gay people getting married. Depending on your politics, that may or may not be enough, but either way, pointing out that simple fact and nothing else will expose the underlying bigotry in the anti-SSM camp. All ethical issues aside, throwing poly people under the bus derails this very simple and powerful point.

So I plead with the gay marriage advocates: stop throwing us under the bus to get what you want.

 

The #PornTrial reveals the prejudices (and possible peccadilloes) of the CPS

Today, a man was found not guilty of a crime which harmed no-one, and should never have been considered criminal in the first place. His offence? He had some porn in his email which involved scenes of consensual fisting, urethral sounding and a man wearing a gas mask. Oh, and he’d pissed off some cops by prosecuting them for disciplinary offences, which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with the decision to prosecute him.

It seems ridiculous to prosecute a person for this in the first place, especially considering the last fisting trial ruled that fisting is not obscene. Like bluebottles bashing their heads against a window, the CPS decided this time to prosecute under a different act relating to extreme pornography and harm. Despite evidence from two medical professionals describing the minimal harm involved, the CPS still insisted on pushing the harm line.

The risible excuse for evidence presented by the prosecution was at best wobbly, and at worst, outright offensive, for example:

 CPS – Walsh fantasised about being involved in being in an orgy.

Yes. The defendant’s fantasies were used as evidence against him. A not uncommon fantasy, either. And something which is perfectly legal for consenting adults to participate in, whether in person or on film.

Not content to merely stigmatise what people think about, despite it being thoroughly irrelevant to the case, the CPS also decided to go after people who get regular sexual health checks.

Astonishing that CPS have contended in Court that people who attend sexual health clinics engage in more risky practices.

In fact, regular health checks are a responsible thing to do, and to attempt to use responsibility to smear the character of the defendant is risky as fuck.

As if this all wasn’t offensive enough, the CPS decided to inject a bit of sexism into the case–no mean feat, considering the defendant was a gay man and all of the porn in question was gay porn. For some reason, though, they felt it appropriate to ask a female expert witness if fisting would be more degrading if it involved a woman, and they didn’t much like the answer she gave:

CPS – Dr Smith would not concede images were degrading if it pictured a woman. This is clearly wrong.

Thanks for the paternalism, CPS! Also, apparently it’s selfish and untrue to say that it isn’t degrading:

CPS – Dr Smith’s evidence was disingenuous, self-serving and dishonest.

That clears that up, then.

The case lays bare the societal prejudices against non-mainstream sexual preferences. None of the porn depicted anything non-consensual, and everything is perfectly legal to try in your own bedroom, even if you have invited a lot of people along to watch. After watching all this porn, the jury rightly concluded that no crime had been committed.

It’s surprising that in 2012, the law still has a fascination with trying to restrict perfectly consensual sex and fantasies. The prosecution’s case rested entirely on dated ideologies and stigmatisation of kink, and I’m glad the jury saw right through it.

It made no sense to prosecute this in the first place, in a case which seemed doomed to fail from the start. I can think of three possible reasons why it happened. Only two of them are kinky.

  1. The CPS has a fetish for showing juries fisting porn.
  2. The CPS likes to be humiliated, and is pushing ever harder at boundaries with ever more ridiculous cases.
  3. The CPS have the backs of the police and helped them in their quest for revenge.

I hope it’s the first or the second reason, as in this case, we can work together to help the CPS safely play out its fantasies by finding them some playmates with a thing for being consensually maliciously prosecuted. Sadly, though, the third option seems most likely. The defendant pissed off the state, and the state decided to punish him. Despite the not guilty verdict, the defendant has lost his job and his privacy has been thoroughly violated, with vanilla society knowing about his kinks and judging him for them.

It’s a grotesque abuse of a law that shouldn’t exist in the first place, allowing prejudice to be catalysed into a spiteful smear campaign.

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I’m no lawyer, so if you want more information and analysis on the legal background to the case, these posts from ObscenityLawyer, NoMoreLost and David Allen Green are good sources, and here’s a good write-up of the verdict from NoMoreLost.

Pride: a staggering lack of imagination.

This year’s Pride celebrations have been drastically cut back, hacking some of the best bits such as outdoor drinking, big glittery floats and anything happening in Soho (unfortunately, Boy George will still be performing)

The reason? Not enough money. Boris Johnson cut thousands from the Pride budget, and the corporate sponsors haven’t dug deep enough in their pockets to provide the money required to pay for policing and relevant permissions for floats, according to a statement from Pride London.

The writers of the statement are, correctly, furious about the corporate mess that Pride has become, in particular the fact that vast amounts of money are needed for Pride to go ahead and they are dependent on allowing businesses to whack their name all over the event to procure this. The statement writers suggest a need for discussion about how things could work in the future, although the only thing proposed here is more “openness and accountability” as if this is the magic bullet to fix everything.

The statement, while making some good points, ultimately attempts to offend no-one. This is a pervasive problem with queer rights campaigning on the whole: in the determination not to rock the boat, we are hopelessly cast adrift. The mainstream control the discourse and we are obliged to answer them on their own terms. This has lead to a distinct lack of imagination from the queer community in our demands: we ask for “equality” in a way which translates to merely “blending in with the heteros”.

Pride was once all about defiance, angry queers being unabashedly visible, a movement growing out of the Stonewall riots. These days, everything seems to be precisely targeted at avoiding offending the straights.

For Pride to work in the future we need to return to these radical roots. The original marches did not need money or corporate sponsorship. There was no need to set up a big stage to showcase pop stars: that wasn’t what it was about. It was about freedom and liberation.

We also shouldn’t be paying for our own policing. The police will show up whether we want them there or not; their presence makes nothing safer with them shepherding us from A to B. The same goes for floats. If we want to build a big fuckoff float and shut down a road, we absolutely don’t need to bother with paying for this.

We have pandered for long enough, hampered by our lack of imagination. In the years since Stonewall, we have moved to a larger cell, and that’s it. It’s time for a real change.

Where’s the politics in Julie Bindel?

Note: This makes more sense if you read this first.

What makes some of us uncomfortable with Julie Bindel? Is it because she she feels the urge to dictate who bisexual women are supposed to sleep with?

In today’s post-modern, queer-focused world, political lesbianism is being promoted to bisexual women as the latest regressive trend. This has resulted in sexual liberation, namely feminism, being passed over for repression, where the only thing that matters is a form of outmoded ideological purity. Similarly, heterosexuality is sold to bisexual women as some type of respite from the odious sin of sexual attraction to people of any gender. It is seen as “a phase” or “an abomination”.

It is more ideologically pure to have sex with a woman if you are a bisexual woman, as you are then doing what you are “supposed” to do. Julie Bindel, the most famous “completely wrong” lesbian, has written reams about how bisexual women are actually big blacklegged scabs who are letting down the side, if indeed they exist at all.

Those of us who grew up in a time and context where there was a political analysis of sexuality were able to make a positive choice to be a lesbian. I believed then, and I believe now, that if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.

Is Bindel really so set on increasing the pool of available women to sleep with that she is resorting to cheap manipulation.

But many women, all of them called Sarah, believe that Julie Bindel and her ilk have got it all wrong. One study of women called Sarah, which draws on data from over 400 Sarahs, found that all of them think Bindel is wrong, and that bisexual women exist and that’s none of her business.And that’s just the Sarahs. There’s probably some more people who aren’t called Sarah who disagree fundamentally with Bindel.

Whatever our views of alternate sexuality may be, we cannot deny that since the 1970s, women have been coerced and manipulated into political lesbianism under the veil of viable political ideology. They are demanded to become fully available for lesbian sex.

When I write about making a positive choice to fuck who I like, I am accused of letting down the cause. That is nonsense. I personally feel that sexual freedom can and must be a part of feminism, and that includes nobody telling who I can and cannot fuck.

When I write about sexual freedom, the way most people approach sexuality is that they identify as straight, gay or somewhere in between, completely rejecting binary notions of gender. For queer people living under the tyrrany of kyriarchy, choosing to shake off the shackles of the dreaded pincer of hegemonic heterosexuality and oppressive political lesbianism can be a liberatory act.

Those of us who grew up–or are still growing up–with a political analysis of liberty and a rejection of coercion, are able to make the positive choice to express their sexuality in any way they choose. I believe that if human beings had an ounce of politics they would stop reading Julie Bindel.

Julie Bindel, I can fuck who I like. You can go and fuck yourself.

Julie Bindel is largely famous among feminists with decent politics for her continued commitment to transphobia. Perhaps she has a bigotry bingo card to fill in, but it also transpires that she expresses some fairly staggering levels of biphobia.

In an article in the Huffington Post, Bindel presents a somewhat intellectually incoherent argument which veers from “bisexual women don’t exist” to “bisexual women shouldn’t exist”.

First, Bindel’s “evidence” that bisexual women don’t exist: almost 20 years ago, some lesbian and bisexual women were interviewed, and some self-identified bisexual women doubted bisexual women existed. “Some” is a useful quantity in the hack counting system, denoting a figure larger than one and smaller than “many” to inflate a small numerical fluke into a soupçon of pseudoscience for a column. This is aside from the fact that the notion of a bisexual woman doubting the existence of bisexual women is paradoxical enough to make Bertrand Russell stop worrying about who shaves the barber.

Perhaps even Bindel realised that this assertion was a bucket of distended haemorrhoids, because she then goes on to say this: “if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.” See, apparently, queer women who fuck men are “living under the tyrrany of sexism” and for “liberation” we need to “choose” to be lesbians.

I fail to see anything remotely liberatory about having some hack with bad politics dictating who I can fuck. It comes in an ugly pincer manoeuvre: on one side, the conservative hets think that my gulps from the furry cup are somehow corrupting their children. On the other are the radfems, who think I’m being oppressed by the cock.

And both lots can fuck off. Removing the autonomy to choose who one can and cannot fuck is not feminism and it never can be.

To respond to Bindel’s rubbish, the brilliant Deborah Grayson has decided to match the 400 women–some of whom doubt the existence of bisexuals–with 400 women who believe bisexual women exist. Because it would be a piece of piss to find that, Deborah’s made it a little harder: they need to be called Sarah. So if you’re a Sarah and outraged by what Bindel’s been saying, join up. If you know any Sarahs who might have an opinion on the matter, invite them.

It is fortunate that the argument Bindel puts forward has little currency. It’s time to kill it completely.

Lesbian sex: IT’S A TRAP! (apparently)

AskMen.com is one of the darker corners of the internet. I last turned my fire on them for presenting pick up lines to run away from really quickly, but this time they’ve excelled themselves with an article entitled “SCIENTIFIC FACT: HOW SHE TRICKS YOU INTO CHEATING“.

So, how are these conniving bitches tricking men into accepting infidelity? Apparently, by fucking women. Twitterer @cwhelton has illustrated this conjecture admirably.

According to “science”, apparently men are far more likely to accept a woman partner’s infidelity if she cheats with a woman rather than a man. AskMen offer this scientific analysis:

Research shows that part of the problem is that the male’s perception of two women getting it on is erotic, and envisioning themselves joining the party is like the double rainbow of sex fantasies.

Out of morbid curiosity, I hunted down the original study, “Sex Differences in Response to Imagining a Partner’s Heterosexual or Homosexual Affair”, which can be downloaded from the author’s website. The study takes an evolutionary psychology tack, and the AskMen article is therefore an instance of the “human centipede” approach to science reporting: regurgitating a shit study into even shittier shit.

The authors hypothesised that men would be less likely to forgive a female partner if she cheated on them with a man than with a woman, because of the risk of her getting pregnant from a heterosexual affair. They weren’t really sure about women’s responses.

To test their hypotheses, they administered a survey to some students, in two parts. In part one, they were asked to imagine a scenario wherein a partner was cheating in either a same-sex or heterosexual affair, and then quizzed on how likely they would be to forgive the partner. As a point of comparison, they were asked if they had ever experienced infidelity and whether they forgave the partner. In this section, they were never asked if it was a same-sex or heterosexual experience of cheating, which sort of blows any real-world significance of the results right out of the water. Also not asked: whether the participants were heterosexual or somewhere on the queer spectrum. Also not asked: anything to do with why they would forgive or not forgive the real or imagined partners.

On the whole, women were less likely to forgive infidelity than men. This was probably skewed by more than half of the male participants saying they would forgive a female partner who cheated with another woman (although only 22% would forgive cheating with a man). The results skewed the other way with the women participants: fewer would forgive a partner cheating with another man than with another woman.

In their discussion, the authors return to banging the pregnancy drum, an analysis that their own results don’t really support: if it were entirely down to risk of pregnancy (and all the childrearing shit that evolutionary psychologists obsess over), then, surely, women would also be more likely to forgive a same-sex affair.

It gives me great distress to announce that AskMen’s analysis of the experimental results–lesbian sex is hot–is actually a better analysis than that provided by the authors of the study. There are a lot of societal prejudices at play here: lesbian sex isn’t seen as “real” sex by many heterosexuals (poor them), while sex between men is still subject to a lot of stigma. Lesbians are hot; gays are icky.

This attitude pervades not just the Normals with their tedious concerns about cheating, but also the poly/open relationship community: it is still far more common to see men with harems of women, men defining terms of their relationships wherein women may only play with other women, and the dreaded Unicorn Hunters. It’s everywhere, and it really needs to fuck off.

With some better science, it might be interesting to get to the bottom of why so many are squicked by gay sex but turned on by lesbian sex. And then we can make the myth die forever.

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Tip of the masochistic hat to @syn who found the AskMen article.

Support CeCe McDonald

CeCe McDonald is a young African American trans woman. Last year, she and some friends walked past a bar, and two cis white women and one cis white man began to hurl abuse at her. They used racist language. They told CeCe she was “dressed as a woman” to “rape”. One of the aggressors smashed a glass into CeCe’s face, causing serious facial injuries. A fight broke out, involving more people than just CeCe. What happened is not clear, but the white male aggressor was fatally stabbed.

CeCe was arrested, spending much of the last year in solitary confinement in a men’s prison “for her safety”. She was repeatedly misgendered by the media.

Two days ago, CeCe was sentenced. Under pressure, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. She has been sentenced to 41 months, which she will have to serve in a men’s prison.

CeCe’s case lays bare some of the pervasive prejudices which permeate USian society. This bright young woman’s gender is accepted by neither the legal system nor by her aggressors. The abuse she received on basis of her gender is the same old tired shit that needs to die: the myth that trans people are disguising themselves as women to rape is perpetuated by right-wing zealots and radical feminists alike. It’s all just unacceptable bigotry. Likewise, the legal system have given CeCe two options: to serve out her sentence alone in solitary confinement, or to live at risk as a woman in a men’s prison. These are not choices.

The colour of CeCe’s skin plays a role. In the USian prison system, people of colour are disproportionately represented. The abuse CeCe received at the hands of her attackers and the legal system alike is related to her race. That she ended up pleaing guilty to a lesser offence for a shorter sentence is hardly surprising: this is all part of a coercive “justice” system.

In all this, though, we must remember that CeCe McDonald is not a political symbol, a synecdoche of a corrupt system. CeCe McDonald is a person who is suffering, and there are things that we can do to help her. Forty Shades of Grey is organising two letter writing campaigns: one to write to CeCe to let her know that she is not alone in the world, and one to the bastards who put her in prison. Please read her post and follow the links. Please support CeCe McDonald.

The US Army, branding, and institutional prejudice

The mantra for the US Army personal appearance has always been “neat, conservative and discreet”, of which only the second word tends to apply to the institution’s actual behaviour. It seems, though, that soldiers are not being neat, conservative and discreet enough, as they have seen fit to update their regulations. The official article on this is utterly fascinating, and there is plenty to unpick, all pointing in the direction of an institution riddled with prejudice.

First of all, the changes. The poor sods are no longer allowed to get their combat uniforms commercially pressed, instead having to take time out of murdering and oppressing to hand iron their garments. They are also banned from “eating, drinking, smoking and talking on cellphones while walking”. Visible tattoos are not allowed. Body piercings are not allowed on duty. For men, they are not allowed at any time. Likewise, men are banned from wearing any cosmetics. Women, meanwhile, are only permitted to wear “natural” make-up. Gold teeth are verboten for all. Men are allowed to carry black umbrellas (though women are not). Many of these changes also apply when in civilian dress.

Within these new regulations hangs a crackdown on indicators of queer culture–to add a little context, recall that last year Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was officially repealed, and therefore queer people are now allowed to die in pointless wars while openly queer. The sexism in the umbrella issue is also apparent: presumably women soldiers can just stand under one carried by a man. Furthermore, gold teeth are typically associated with African American culture, suggesting a degree of racism which crops up again in an example given to clarify the new regulations:

Other changes are easier to define. Chandler gave an example of a senior sergeant major who dyed her eyebrows blond. She was black, and this was clearly not her natural hair color.

The weird thing here is, I read the existing regulations. Hair can be dyed a natural colour. It doesn’t specify how plausibly natural the colour can be on a specific individual, and besides, being of colour does not mean one will necessarily never have blond hair.

The justification for these changes is particularly interesting (emphasis mine):

The new rules are neither a part of drawdown nor a tool of attrition, the sergeant major said. Instead, this is a concerted effort to project professionalism in the Army uniform and brand, and give soldiers the tools they need to educate troops and enforce the standards.

Branding is everything these days. From numerous stories of employees being sacked for dyeing hair to London turning into an authoritarian dystopia to protect the Olympic brand, corporate appearance has become an obsession for those in power. What they do is irrelevant, it’s what they look like that counts.

There is a further, and equally unpleasant reason behind the new Army dress codes:

“The uniformed services, we all generally look the same. Now, if you have a tattoo that draws attention to yourself, you have to ask the question, are you a person who is committed to the Army? Because the Army says you are part of the same organization. We all generally look the same. And we do not want you to stand out from the rest of the Army. Yes, we want you to set yourself apart and do great things and so on, but that does not mean tattooing yourself or doing other extreme things that draw attention to you, the individual. You are part of something larger.”

That’s right. The classic subsuming of the individual for the good of the Party brand. The military thrives on deindividuation. If people started appearing as individuals they might–God forbid–start to act like individuals.

Their deindividuation tactics and branding, though, all hinge on a certain type of appearance, and that appearance is the complete removal of any markers of any culture that represents The Other. To all look the same, they must all look as white, heterosexual and cis as they possibly can. Any deviation towards The Other will be punished.

Of course, almost all professional dress codes have this exact purpose. In a way, we should feel relieved that finally one brand has been reasonably open about this.

Some people are weeping syphilitic chodes. Don’t get over it.

In the wake of fuckwittery surrounding the Christian ‘gay cure’ bus ads, it is hardly surprising that the story caught the single, chancred, dripping eye of chode Brendan O’Neill.

Brendan has taken this opportunity to remind us that actually the Christians are more progressive than gays, because they think being gay isn’t a genetic trait.

It is, as always, an abominable torture of reality, and it is no different from O’Neill’s typical contrarian wordspunk.

As usual, it makes no goddamn sense whatsoever. The weeping syphilitic chode rather unsurprisingly fails to understand the meaning of the word ‘progressive’, thinking that seeking to ungay people in a homophobic environment is somehow A Good Thing and laudable.

It goes without saying that this is a profoundly stupid point, whether being queer is genetic, a choice, or somewhere in between. Maintaining the status quo by conforming to the hegemonic ideal is inherently, at best, conservative.

O’Neill isn’t even trying any more. He forgot to scream about political correctness or blame a shadowy cabal of queers and hummus munchers.

I think I need a worthier nemesis.