When I think of New York City, one of the first attractions that comes to mind is the night life. Reading Chapter 4 of Warner and Giuliani's crack down on publicized sex, clubs, gay bars, and even gay book stores, I couldn't help but wonder why he would want to eliminate this association of New York with sexual freedom. Warner says it is supposedly to create an environment more clean and appealing to tourists, but I feel like many tourists would be disappointed in finding a tame, boring, familiar state because it is so far from the image people have in their heads of New York.
Aside from the monetary benefits, in privatizing sexual identities and openness they are eliminating any emphasis on safe sexual practices and accessible resources/places to meet without having to fear their safety. It also adds to the shame people experience in exploring their sexuality.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Zoning out Sex
Okay, my first question is: Wrestling videos? Really?
My second, more legitimate question is this: This chapter mentions how often laws like Giuliani's "quality of life" rezoning and real estate interests override what the public actually wants or cares about. For example, Disney's control over Times Square made it impossible for adult stores and the like to remain open while many viewed these places of business as harmless or even, if I may be so bold, as a daily hangout. Because these places were, and are, some of the only vestiges of open sexuality in the modern world, they remain important to safe and free sexuality. What happens when all these businesses are closed because of these kinds of ordinances? What will the repercussions be?
I believe that if all adult businesses were to close it would be a grave miscarriage of the constitution as well as a form of denial. People want to go around and pretend that sex and all its variances don't exist, (or that missionary is the only position,) and, while it is their right to think however they please, if I want to go to an adult store and buy some fuzzy handcuffs I am perfectly within my rights as an American to do so. Getting rid of adult stores won't get rid of deviant sex, or any kind of sex for that matter, so to ban them is really a moot point. Getting rid of adult stores, while not the end of the world, shows a bias towards any kind of sex that is considered to be abnormal. If it is possible to ban adult stores, what else could be banned?
My second, more legitimate question is this: This chapter mentions how often laws like Giuliani's "quality of life" rezoning and real estate interests override what the public actually wants or cares about. For example, Disney's control over Times Square made it impossible for adult stores and the like to remain open while many viewed these places of business as harmless or even, if I may be so bold, as a daily hangout. Because these places were, and are, some of the only vestiges of open sexuality in the modern world, they remain important to safe and free sexuality. What happens when all these businesses are closed because of these kinds of ordinances? What will the repercussions be?
I believe that if all adult businesses were to close it would be a grave miscarriage of the constitution as well as a form of denial. People want to go around and pretend that sex and all its variances don't exist, (or that missionary is the only position,) and, while it is their right to think however they please, if I want to go to an adult store and buy some fuzzy handcuffs I am perfectly within my rights as an American to do so. Getting rid of adult stores won't get rid of deviant sex, or any kind of sex for that matter, so to ban them is really a moot point. Getting rid of adult stores, while not the end of the world, shows a bias towards any kind of sex that is considered to be abnormal. If it is possible to ban adult stores, what else could be banned?
Zoning out Sex
Ethics, politics and sex. Is the 'neighborhood' dangerous to city planning? Only if, as the author points out on page 189, that the fantasy is that sexuality only happens in the home. Zoning helps to keep the heirarchy as it exists today, alive and well. We all visit communities that don't share our mailing address, some of us have made regular visits to neighborhoods we don't call home in order to express or share our sexuality. I feel sometimes, that I simply find new ways to devise an old sentence in order to rephrase a similar question. Here it is: In order to enable or allow those whose sexuality does not always conform to the top of the food chain, queer politics must have public representation on City Planning Commissions that establish these zoning laws-right?
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Enke
Some of the details written in Enke's article really hit home due to some personal experiences I had this week, and I wanted to share. If you 'tl;dr' me, I totally understand.
I thought the insight, particularly from the Introduction piece on the formation of the feminist movement, was a fantastic piece into seeing the "movement outside of the movement," so to speak, and for getting a sense of understanding from people who weren't in the forefront of the movement, who may not have identified as a feminist for one reason or another, but still grasped the concept of liberation and tried to initiate grass root change in their own systems. We hear the "feminist movement" and we think of organized protests, or well established groups who worked both independently and together to impact this great social change; yet this was only one facet of initiating that change. Why were certain groups the faces of change, while others who may have made a significant impact were left out of history books? Stemming to the previous readings we've had about the feminists vs. lesbian feminists, I have started to see trends that social movements, while advocating for the rights of a targeted minority group, are still ranked in accordance to how they fit on the scale of dominant culture. On page 11 of the text, Enke writes, "How, then, do we understand the exclusions and hierarchies, and the ways that they contributed to the differential visibilities of actors and agendas within the movement? What was "white" and "middle class" about the movement when women of color and working women helped generate it from the beginning? A spatial analysis shows that conflicts within feminism gained form and name with tangible spatial contestations over environments already laid through with race, class, and sexual hierarchies."
This hit home;
I have been infrequently attending the meetings for the campus gay-straight alliance this school year, better known as the former LGBTieS, and was sitting in on a meet Monday evening. I have been looking for ways to become more involved in LGBTQ issues, but for the length of time that I have attended ETSU, the club has done the bare minimum in terms of organizing, getting their name out, or serving the needs of its members. I have become somewhat involved over this semester and last in trying to push for the club to make changes to serve a mission and to make a name for itself and the LGBTQ "community", but it has failed to do so. I was recently nominated to run for office within the organization and feel as though this will be a strong outlet to really try to initiate some change for our non-active yet still growing LGBTQ population.
Community; we've asked the question in class, "Who IS the community? Who ISN'T the community?" This is has been on my mind in a significant portion over the past few weeks, both from the perspective of someone who feels often left out of the "community" as an open and devout bisexual, and yet someone whose goal over the next school year is going to be to encompass "community" through one of the only LGBTQ outlets on campus.
Walking out of the meeting, I was approached by an acquaintance I hadn't even noticed. I had been sitting in the front of the room and paid little to no attention to who else was there, but knew he wasn't a regular to the group. I had never seen him in a meeting before, and that was the first thing he really brought up to me; he was also an African American male. He said that he wanted to talk for a minute both because I was a familiar face and because he found out I was nominated to run for office. He begins explaining that it isn't the first club meeting he's ever attended there, but that he's never felt a sense of acceptance or comfort by being there. He expressed that despite the fact that the club doesn't do much for anyone, they specifically exclude any concept of race, and that he has several friends who identify as both gay and African American, and would love to get involved with the LGBTQ community if they thought for a second that they would be accepted.
To shed light back to Enke's perception of the feminist movement, but also to cross-culturally connect the """Gay and Lesbian Movement""", it seems that these groups too frequently exclude more than they include. The "Gay and Lesbian Movement" has changed to include Bisexuals and Transgender People to their name,forming the "LGBT/LGBTQ" acronym, but they're still in the back of the movement; they "complicate" things. Same with race; it's an excluded issue because it "complicates" the movement.
In reflection to the meetings the campus organization has had, regardless of the lack of diversity at ETSU, the club is 75-80% white, homosexual, males. I'm excited to hopefully win election as the President of the organization (which by the way, was voted on Monday to change it's name to H.E.R.O.E.S - Helping to Educate, Regarding Orientation, Equality, & the Spectrum) and will be working very hard to try to open up its door to becoming a more inclusive group toward race, orientation, sex, gender identity, class, and toward hetero allies.
"no one is free when others are oppressed."
I thought the insight, particularly from the Introduction piece on the formation of the feminist movement, was a fantastic piece into seeing the "movement outside of the movement," so to speak, and for getting a sense of understanding from people who weren't in the forefront of the movement, who may not have identified as a feminist for one reason or another, but still grasped the concept of liberation and tried to initiate grass root change in their own systems. We hear the "feminist movement" and we think of organized protests, or well established groups who worked both independently and together to impact this great social change; yet this was only one facet of initiating that change. Why were certain groups the faces of change, while others who may have made a significant impact were left out of history books? Stemming to the previous readings we've had about the feminists vs. lesbian feminists, I have started to see trends that social movements, while advocating for the rights of a targeted minority group, are still ranked in accordance to how they fit on the scale of dominant culture. On page 11 of the text, Enke writes, "How, then, do we understand the exclusions and hierarchies, and the ways that they contributed to the differential visibilities of actors and agendas within the movement? What was "white" and "middle class" about the movement when women of color and working women helped generate it from the beginning? A spatial analysis shows that conflicts within feminism gained form and name with tangible spatial contestations over environments already laid through with race, class, and sexual hierarchies."
This hit home;
I have been infrequently attending the meetings for the campus gay-straight alliance this school year, better known as the former LGBTieS, and was sitting in on a meet Monday evening. I have been looking for ways to become more involved in LGBTQ issues, but for the length of time that I have attended ETSU, the club has done the bare minimum in terms of organizing, getting their name out, or serving the needs of its members. I have become somewhat involved over this semester and last in trying to push for the club to make changes to serve a mission and to make a name for itself and the LGBTQ "community", but it has failed to do so. I was recently nominated to run for office within the organization and feel as though this will be a strong outlet to really try to initiate some change for our non-active yet still growing LGBTQ population.
Community; we've asked the question in class, "Who IS the community? Who ISN'T the community?" This is has been on my mind in a significant portion over the past few weeks, both from the perspective of someone who feels often left out of the "community" as an open and devout bisexual, and yet someone whose goal over the next school year is going to be to encompass "community" through one of the only LGBTQ outlets on campus.
Walking out of the meeting, I was approached by an acquaintance I hadn't even noticed. I had been sitting in the front of the room and paid little to no attention to who else was there, but knew he wasn't a regular to the group. I had never seen him in a meeting before, and that was the first thing he really brought up to me; he was also an African American male. He said that he wanted to talk for a minute both because I was a familiar face and because he found out I was nominated to run for office. He begins explaining that it isn't the first club meeting he's ever attended there, but that he's never felt a sense of acceptance or comfort by being there. He expressed that despite the fact that the club doesn't do much for anyone, they specifically exclude any concept of race, and that he has several friends who identify as both gay and African American, and would love to get involved with the LGBTQ community if they thought for a second that they would be accepted.
To shed light back to Enke's perception of the feminist movement, but also to cross-culturally connect the """Gay and Lesbian Movement""", it seems that these groups too frequently exclude more than they include. The "Gay and Lesbian Movement" has changed to include Bisexuals and Transgender People to their name,forming the "LGBT/LGBTQ" acronym, but they're still in the back of the movement; they "complicate" things. Same with race; it's an excluded issue because it "complicates" the movement.
In reflection to the meetings the campus organization has had, regardless of the lack of diversity at ETSU, the club is 75-80% white, homosexual, males. I'm excited to hopefully win election as the President of the organization (which by the way, was voted on Monday to change it's name to H.E.R.O.E.S - Helping to Educate, Regarding Orientation, Equality, & the Spectrum) and will be working very hard to try to open up its door to becoming a more inclusive group toward race, orientation, sex, gender identity, class, and toward hetero allies.
"no one is free when others are oppressed."
Men Like That
On page 31 in this excerpt there is a discussion on the silence and silencing of gay identities and how keeping quiet about one's sexual identity does not necessarily mean that the dominant society and dominant society members are forcing the silence. I found this to be a very interesting point especially when paired with our discussion on how just coming out of the closet will not solve homophobia or heterosexism. So, my question is this: In your opinion, does keeping silent about being LGBT harm the goals of gay-liberation and equality?
I have two spools of thought about this question. On one hand I completely agree that a person's sexuality is their own business and if they want to keep it a secret they should have the autonomy to do so. There is a double standard where straight people are allowed to keep silent about their relationships and sexuality because they are considered "normal" but LGBT people are not. On the other hand I feel that that keeping your sexuality a secret is letting the dominant heterosexist culture win and continue to maintain dominance. The more pandering that is done to heterosexism, the stronger it will become.
I have two spools of thought about this question. On one hand I completely agree that a person's sexuality is their own business and if they want to keep it a secret they should have the autonomy to do so. There is a double standard where straight people are allowed to keep silent about their relationships and sexuality because they are considered "normal" but LGBT people are not. On the other hand I feel that that keeping your sexuality a secret is letting the dominant heterosexist culture win and continue to maintain dominance. The more pandering that is done to heterosexism, the stronger it will become.
Finding the Movement
This has been my favorite article this semester. Enke connected dots very clearly about how the women's movement evolved. There were lots of historical nuggets that I was not aware of, like Amazon Bookstore being the oldest feminist bookstore. My question is: although we have all acknowledged the progress made, wonder why a 'fourth' wave hasn't been initiated so that equality for sexuality and gender can become a reality.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Reliance on religion?
One aspect of both readings I found confusing was the strong presence of religion and political organizations holding meetings inside the churches. Today religious organizations and their members are, for the most part, strongly against homosexuality and feminist practice, so it was difficult for me to read these excerpts and understand how feminist activists and homosexuals were welcomed into the churches to organize and even worship.
It seems as if churches rely on patriarchy because the majority of religious leaders are male and religious doctrine suggests submissiveness in women to their husbands. With this in mind, the fact that women formed coffee houses in churches, planned feminist activism, and held women's socials/lesbian dances there was baffling. I feel that if this were common practice today, preachers would be spiking the punch and eliminating all the "crazy feminists trying to make all women lesbian and convince them not to have families."
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