I am not even an opera person, really

I went down to the corner store for tonic water tonight.

I was a while getting back. I stayed to listen to Pavarotti on the tv, along with the man behind the counter.

"I have had everything in life, truly everything. So if it were all taken away, then God and I would be even."

There seem to be some queer sorts of ructions going on

And not being a member of The Bandom, but only being the girlfriend of a member of The Bandom, here I am, bemused.

But I gather from metafandom that some boys have been kissing some other boys, and these boys are of a sexual orientation which includes, and may even be confined to, girls.

Further, they have been doing it onstage, where anyone can see them -- straight girls or anyone -- and possibly get all excited.

I think the last time this came up it was girlfans flirting with other girlfans on LJ, right out there where anyone could see them -- straight boys or anyone -- and get all excited.

And some Very Serious People have some reason to suspect that these boys and girls who are doing all this carrying on in public are not, as it were, going on to get down to business in private.

They are engaging in Performative Sexuality, and this is Bad. And Appropriating Queer Something. Something to which they are not entitled, because they have not been sufficiently Oppressed. Possibly they are even doing it to entertain and arouse women and we all know that ain't allowed.

Presumably when one of them catches a beer bottle across the head onstage some time that'll be a beer bottle they have Appropriated right off the scalp of some deserving gay man. Sort of like how when straight (ish) girls necking in public get hassled they're Appropriating hassle that is rightly the property of lesbians. You gotta suffer for being queer before you deserve to suffer for acting queer!

... now, wait, that can't be it. Can it?

Just like it can't be right that I'm less queer because I live in lovely downtown Sodom-On-The-Rideau, Ontario, Canada, where I can legally marry anyone I want and it's actually illegal to discriminate against me on account of my orientation and the cops have a GLBT liason committee that is the envy of half the bloody world and it's been a decade since I had any serious qualms about kissing a girl in public.

The decade BEFORE that, mind you ...

Back then, when boys went and kissed other boys in public, or girls kissed other girls in public, there wasn't any of this theorising about Performative Sexuality and Appropriation and all that stuff. People just kicked the living shit out of the boys, and sometimes out of the girls, ostracised and tormented them until they up and moved to the city, and went on with their lives.

Sometimes even people who were, themselves, a little concerned that they might be a bit queer, did this. We referred to this as "internalised homophobia", back when queer discussions tended to centre around the question of "why is everybody out to kick the shit out of us, and can we maybe get them to stop?" and it's ugly. It's ugly when it's applied with boots, and it's ugly when it's applied with words, and it's ugliest of all when it gets self-righteous.

"We suffered, so you must suffer".

Well, you know, to Hell with that. I suffered, when I suffered, which was not all the time, and thought yearningly about the coming of the time when kids who were not yet born when I kissed my first girl (1987, if you're wondering), could kiss whoever the Hell they wanted, anywhere they wanted, without suffering.

And it's beginning to look to me like I'm beginning to get my way about that at last. I'm supposed to be upset about this?

Frankly, my dears, I'm so damned happy I could cry. Or kiss you. All of you. Right here in front of everybody.

ETA: Because I was thinking about this while I was in the shower. I'm not trying to set myself up in opposition to the Academy, here, nor am I out to portray cultural studies or queer studies or what-have-you in a negative light. I've committed both myself. I've committed queer activism, too.

If I have an intent in making a bit of fun here, it's to say this: if you are going to take concepts and jargon from basically DESCRIPTIVE fields such as queer or cultural studies and mix them in with concepts and jargon from basically PRESCRIPTIVE fields such as queer activism, much care must be taken. There is a real difference between saying that appropriation of queer culture and performative sexuality are problematic aspects of the interface between queer and mainstream culture and importing that wholesale into activist thought and saying that they are intrinsically oppressive and homophobic or even labelling them as problematic without conceding that they're also inevitable, even necessary, that they can be intensely creative, and that they are a response to a cultural context, not just an individual act.

Queer theory, feminist theory, etc. suffer when they're made into a sort of Monday morning quarterbacking, and often so do the people whose lives they're meant to illuminate.

ETA2: As long as we're here, let's talk about the sexy skating cowboys:

[redacted due to journal problems]

How does that all fit in? As we move more into the mainstream, we're going to be more visible, and one of the things that means is that we're going to be portrayed by "straight people" some of the time. Sometimes we'll know it. Sometimes we won't. The goalposts aren't just moving; they're doing a morris dance.

Note to the friendslist

The Boys Kissing Boys post has undergone extensive renovation, with cool new topics in the comments and also some YouTubeness; drop back if you get a minute. Add more Youtube! Smooch random people!

Also: *smooches you all again just cause*

Here we go again...

There's a new Jack Absolute book out. (The second one, The Blooding Of Jack Absolute, was a good enough read, but it lacked that ineffable... something ... that would have made it a candidate for review here. I think it might have been a tad overedited by someone determined to excise all traces of Mr Humphrey's rather wayward -- but audacious -- id from the final product. It's not very often I call for LESS editing in a novel, but there are always exceptions...)



Our Hero Has Acquired A Horse. Go Jack!

Sadly, the dirty-minded type designer of the first book:



seems to have moved on to other projects. We will miss his or her suggestive way with a trailing "A".

Jack, however, remains his own bad self. I'm on page 8, and so far he's been shagging a Quaker Widow in Newport all winter and is off back to Blighty, leaving her, I'd say, reasonably consolate. (He doesn't think so, but he wouldn't.)

"Lieutenant Absolute!" The call followed the bang of wood on wood as the boat reached the jetty. A rope landed near Jack, followed by a sailor. "If you please, sir," the seaman said, "the Captain says bugger the Irishman ..."

(Page 10. The Irishman has shown up. Naked.

Jack could see now that the man was tall, his naked physique strong, and that he had bright red hair trailing out behind him like a flame...

Ah, yes? Right then.)

Sadly, it is FAR too warm in the office to read, post, IM, or indeed THINK. I am taking Jack off to bed with me, with a device for taking notes on, and will report back later. Meanwhile, those who missed the first round of this are invited to go here for the Jack Absolute review post.

ETA 1:

The Sexy Quaker Widow gave him a farewell letter, but he lost it in the ocean while pulling out the naked Irishman. He is unperturbed by this, despite the extremely high probability that the contents of said letter are going to turn out to be important to the plot.

Page 19: Oh goody, he and the Irishman are bonding on a slave ship. They seem to be the only two aboard who disapprove. Jack just tried to pick a fight with the Captain and his new, um, friend has come to his defense and beat up the Captain for him.

So now they're wrestling. Drunkenly. This all seems hauntingly familiar; I think "Cornish Wrestling" is a euphemism for foreplay in Jack's world. Oh, and they're telling dirty stories about women in a Very Manly Way. And Jack's been admiring The Irishman's (his name is Hugh) physique. A lot.

Somewhere in The Blooding of Jack Absolute - I think it's while he's leading some guy on prepatory to robbing him - it says that Jack gave up boys when he left school and discovered women. I grow less and less persuaded of the reliability of Ol' Inexhaustible's narration ...

Page 26: So they got drunker and bonded over Bonnie Prince Charlie. Hugh's calling him "dear joy" now … and there may be pirates.

Page 40: Hugh just grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. In a very manly-yet-emotional way, of course. On account of him being all gallant and putting on his regimentals. That's one kinky damn Irishman; Sgt. Harper would be APPALLED.

Page 89: (PS: they won the battle. Now we are in Bath.)

This promising romance has been temporarily disrupted by Jack contemplating his honour, and also by the appearance of Hugh's cousin Letitia, aged 17. Jack is smit. (Jack is, by the way, 18. The dear boy. The narrative keeps announcing rather portentiously that he is A Man, but it lies. Puppy.)

Page 96: still smit. Our hero thinks of marriage. He may or may not also think of threesomes. Your faithful correspondent certainly does.

(Plot. Plot. Plotcakes. Hugh has taken to calling him "sweet honey", and he has been hit on by a Macaroni in the Assembly Rooms. Sadly, he was in too much of a hurry to do anything about it.)

167: Hugh and Letitia were Not As They Seemed. (We knew this, of course; it says so on the back of the book.) He is Betrayed. (Though he did manage some sex first. No, with Letitia. The sex scenes have improved since Book One, but Our Boy still has no foreplay. Good thing she wasn't REALLY a gently reared sweet little virgin...) He has Lost His Honour. He will Pursue Them Both and Avenge Himself. (Possibly via threesomes.)

So I think we may conclude that the Humphries id is back and in fine trim, as is the historical cracktastickness. Yes! *punches the air and goes back to read some more*