[23 Mar 2012] Fauxmosexuals and "Experimenters"

[gangler]

How could anyone hearing this not just turn around and say "Okay let's talk about your sexual orientation and what clubs you're not allowed into and which people think you're just experimenting in college because the fratboys think it's hot. You know in fact I do believe I've heard rumors about LAZ". Talk about those who live in glass houses.

[Trefle]

One thing I start to wonder is just how much of this issue is actually one about identity and how much is about Lisa's attitude echoing a bad experience within Leah's memory. How big is the possibility of the identity matter being used as a cover?

Not to say personal reasons are excusable or NOT excusable, but..just wondering.

[thebitterfig]

I just keep thinking about tone. If instead of shoving Lisa out the door basically saying "GTFO, bi-gurl. kthxbai!" but had instead said "This is rush week, so any queer-friendly folks can party for now, but for us at LAZ, this isn't a phase or an experiment, it's an identity and we take it seriously. Now, I don't really know you, but you know you, so you'll have to decide if this is the place for you long term. Short term, be respectful of others and don't pretend to be someone you're not. Anyhow, the spinach dip is really good, so be sure to try that." Similar-and-completely-valid sentiment, but less knee-jerk small-mindedness.

Then again, I'm on this huge 'how' kick. 'How' something exists being as important than than 'whether' it does, focusing on means and not ends.

[mindstalk]

Oh hey, a Paul Graham essay!

Here's another one, longer and later-dated than I remember: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html The core i remembered was:

Labels like that are probably the biggest external clue. If a statement is false, that's the worst thing you can say about it. You don't need to say that it's heretical. And if it isn't false, it shouldn't be suppressed. So when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic (substitute your current values of x and y), whether in 1630 or 2030, that's a sure sign that something is wrong. When you hear such labels being used, ask why.

[tncota]

^
Except, an idea can be wrong *and* hateful, which is a far worse thing than just plain "wrong."

Ideas don't just exist in vacuums. They have real life consequences for real life people, and hateful ideas (which often fall under "politically incorrect" for a reason), really should be feared and disdained and made a big deal of.

Obviously not every idea that someone calls "sexist/racist/etc." merits the label. But those labels don't come out of thin air: there's a legitimate litmus test of, does I'm saying condone bigoted, often illegal actions?

Having read the article, I agree with the author in doing everything we can to make sure we think clearly. But revisiting some ideas that are taboo for very good reasons (eg, they degrade people, they give immense disadvantages, etc.), doesn't seem like a good allocation of time and effort.

@Captain LeBubbles: I am oddly okay with this. As a girly-girl, I always went for the female Nidorans, though, so only Nidorinas and Nidoqueens for me. ><;

@Trefle: Right. We have years of background into Lisa and Sara, so it's hard to remember that we're missing 20-something years of background into Leah. She's not a blank slate, and it'll be interesting to find out if/why something in Lisa triggered a sore point.

@thebitterfig: Yeah, Leah honestly failed in tone. However, she's what? A junior? As a sophomore myself, I can vouch for college students' lack of tact. You'd think living on campus would get people to mature quickly (and some do), but others turn into even bigger jerks with the lack of parental/childhood friend/etc. conscience-check. Leah's admitted to having terrible conflict management skills as a freshman, and it appears she never got better at that.
...I hate how snidely she dealt with the "problem" too, though. >>;

EDIT: Fixed because I fail at italics usage.

[Captain LeBubbles]

^
@Captain LeBubbles: I am oddly okay with this. As a girly-girl, I always went for the female Nidorans, though, so only Nidorinas and Nidoqueens for me. ><;

Bellossoms then?

[tncota]

I started all my Johto files with Chikorita.
I remember freaking out when Gold first came out because having a cartoonish-flower-dino as a third evolution was somehow the best thing ever, as opposed to a palmtree-dino, a watercannon-turtle, or even the amazingness that was Charizard (again, seriously a girly girl back then.)

...If I ever get around to hijacking my ten year old cousin's SoulSilver, I might go for a Cyndaquil-Oddish combo though.

Also, just to stay on topic, just noticed Leah's "'experimenters!'" has quotation marks around it. This could indicate that
1) she thinks people who honestly feel the need to experiment with their complicated sexuality (other than to get the attention of fratboys who think it's hot) don't exist, or
2) she realizes they exist, but for whatever illogical reason she came up with in two or three seconds, has decided Lisa is not one of them.

Both are obviously problematic, but I'm hoping for #2 rather than #1, myself.

[Adrishiana]

I started all my Johto files with Chikorita.
I remember freaking out when Gold first came out because having a cartoonish-flower-dino as a third evolution was somehow the best thing ever, as opposed to a palmtree-dino, a watercannon-turtle, or even the amazingness that was Charizard (again, seriously a girly girl back then.)

...If I ever get around to hijacking my ten year old cousin's SoulSilver, I might go for a Cyndaquil-Oddish combo though.

Also, just to stay on topic, just noticed Leah's "'experimenters!'" has quotation marks around it. This could indicate that
1) she thinks people who honestly feel the need to experiment with their complicated sexuality (other than to get the attention of fratboys who think it's hot) don't exist, or
2) she realizes they exist, but for whatever illogical reason she came up with in two or three seconds, has decided Lisa is not one of them.

Both are obviously problematic, but I'm hoping for #2 rather than #1, myself.

I'm assuming she's making a distinction between those who legitimately are not certain where they fall on the spectrum of sexuality and are experimenting in an attempt to figure it out and those who are 100% straight but interested in girls... when they think it will get them male attention.

[Lia S]

I'm assuming she's making a distinction between those who legitimately are not certain where they fall on the spectrum of sexuality and are experimenting in an attempt to figure it out and those who are 100% straight but interested in girls... when they think it will get them male attention.

Male attention at LAZ?

[Brook]

Just make sure whomever you're experimenting with knows you're experimenting. >.>

This was pretty much exactly my thought when Leah said that about "experimenters". We are all different; maybe some need to try stuff out to know what they want, some just know without any "experimenting", etc. As long as people keep communicating and nobody's goaded or tricked into anything, I don't see the problem.

Now, I actually can imagine how Leah feels /thinks; I can understand very well that people want to feel like they're among friends, and I know how safe it can feel to tell yourself you're among "the likes of you". I just also know from experience how easy it is to look for the wrong common denominators.

Ooh, so nice to see the first sign of real life impact of Sarah's out-in-the-cold inner dialogue; change doesn't happen like a videogame checkpoint, but it feels natural that she'd see things a bit clearer so soon after the fact. (Count one more who liked the Tetris blocks symbolism; didn't catch them at first due to over-sleepiness, so the effect was doubled when I realized what they were, haha) Curious to see where this goes on Monday.

Edit: Also I like the irony of the last panel. /edit

[Adrishiana]

I'm assuming she's making a distinction between those who legitimately are not certain where they fall on the spectrum of sexuality and are experimenting in an attempt to figure it out and those who are 100% straight but interested in girls... when they think it will get them male attention.

Male attention at LAZ?

Not so much, although I imagine they have gotten a few girls who came in just so they could tell the fratboys all about how there were sooo many girls and they were soooo sexy and it was sooo hot and aren't girls just so interesting?

[Artemisia]

I'm assuming she's making a distinction between those who legitimately are not certain where they fall on the spectrum of sexuality and are experimenting in an attempt to figure it out and those who are 100% straight but interested in girls... when they think it will get them male attention.

Male attention at LAZ?

Not so much, although I imagine they have gotten a few girls who came in just so they could tell the fratboys all about how there were sooo many girls and they were soooo sexy and it was sooo hot and aren't girls just so interesting?

Of course, having met some lesbians who make men look kind and gentle. . .maybe they really should skip that, huh?

[Valerie]

Okay... So coming out of semi-lurking here...



Why the hell do some people make/consider their sexuality to be the same as their identity? Seriously? It shouldn't be. You are more than who you sleep with. You're more than what's between your legs, how you dress, whatever. Your identity comes from all those things, as well as how you act, what you like, what you do, how you treat others, etc., etc., etc. Just because you're Gay, or a Lesbian, or Bisexual, or Transgender or [insert more titles here], that isn't WHO you are. It's a PART of who you are. And I'm sorry, if your sexuality is all you are... you're kind of boring. Hate to break it to you.

Because I've had to fight for my identity. Because for so long, the culture I lived in repressed the possibility of my sexuality, and I had to work to discover it, because it's been denied again and again by society, by strangers telling me to my face that I'm confused or lying, by my family. Because sometimes heterosexual identity is seen as normal and is therefore invisible, whereas mine, I had to dig out, reclaim, and define for myself, stripping away all the bullshit the world attatched to it, so that I could make it my own. You're more aware of the importance of your sexuality or your gender identity when it's threatened. FUCCKKKKKKK

... ;_;
*applause*

To actually contribute something to this discussion:

Gay pride, black pride, girl power, etc. all exist for the same reason. These are people who were held back and told that something about them was wrong or undesirable. When they finally realize that, hey, they're people, too, they make up for lost time by expressing the hell out of that aspect of themselves.

If all you are is gay or black or female, you get boring quickly. But that little burst of pride between feeling like you're nothing and becoming a full human being is necessary.

I'm a lady, as most of you know/could guess, and I was held back in various ways all my life because of it. My cousin, a boy, got an entire pizza to himself while I had to share with the rest of the girls. Because, y'see, men need to grow up big and strong, and women need to be small and petite. I was told-- and I believed-- all my life that my purpose was to grow up, get married, and have children to stay home and watch. I've been pursued by boys and told that I'm supposed to enjoy the attention. I've been pressured into wearing certain things, talking a certain way-- when I was in middle school, another girl retaught me handwriting so that the way I wrote would be "cute."

Then, eventually, it caught up to me that all of this is bullshit and that people are morons. I had a girl-power phase. I had a man-hating phase. I wanted to get away from anything and everything that had ever oppressed me-- dresses, makeup, the color pink, manly men, girly girls, etc. (The irony is all of this being, of course, that rejecting femininity was my idea of asserting my femaleness. It didn't occur to me until much later that to reject feminine things is to admit that masculinity is somehow better.)

This phase lasted a few years. Eventually, I evened out. Now I'm comfortable with who, what, and where I am, regarding my perceptions of gender. I can wear makeup and dresses without feeling that I have to. I can talk to men without glaring and spitting mean words at them. I can befriend feminine ladies without feeling like they're pressuring me into being the same as them.

I imagine it's the same for any oppressed group. Gay people are told that they're supposed to be straight. Eventually, they figure out that it's bullshit and start marching with rainbow flags and big signs that read "GAY PRIDE" in giant, glittery letters. They may or may not feel the need to isolate themselves from heterosexuals, bisexuals, etc. in an effort to feel comfortable in their own skin. Eventually, they realize that they're doing what the others did, by condemning another person's sexuality-- the same way that I did what others did, by condemning certain gender-related assets.

It's sad, but I assume that's just the way it works. You're told all your life that you are inadequate in some way. Then you get pissed off about it and fight back, telling everyone else that they are the inadequate ones for treating you this way. It forms its own level of bigotry that you may or may not realize is there and that will, with luck, eventually be toppled.

So... Leah might be in one of these stages.

[tncota]

This obviously doesn't describe every oppressed group, their movement, or heck, even the majority of their individuals, but it's definitely one human reaction, and it might be the best explanation for Leah's behavior I've seen yet.

Leah's problem with Lisa as far as we know, isn't that Lisa is into boys (because ewww, straight people, or ewww, direct contact with men), but that she thinks Lisa attended the rush meeting to co-opt an identity that, again, is obviously very important to Leah. We don't know for a fact whether Leah outright isolates herself from hetero/bisexuals and guys (and if she does, a coed university must be a PAIN), just that she likes having a safe spot in LAZ and takes that safe spot seriously.

Also, she keeps bringing up the term "assertive lesbian". (Not just "assertive", not just "lesbian", but both. There's a slim--but still existent--possibility that she assumed Lisa has been passing herself off as lesbian, or ~experimenting~ with lesbianism, neither of which would sit well with Leah. As weird as it might sound--and much like heterosexuality is the default option--that Lisa is an honest-to-god bisexual might not have occurred to Leah at all.)

[Ameyal]

I'm kinda of confused by the recent development of the stuff that has been going on:

1) Lisa has been posting mean things about a Lebanese institution on twitter. Does that makes her a bigot?

2) Is Lisa reading the comic or something? How she figured out she has been thrown out for being "bisexual"(in between whatever those are called in english because she doesn't identify as anything). She first yelled she was gay, then she started her rant, and then she was shown the charter with "assertive lesbian" pointed out. It's impossible she had hear about Sara commenting about her having a boyfriend, and she hasn't talked about it with anyone. So, from the story she herself told, she was thrown out for not being "assertive". Otherwise she's being emo mcwhinypants for being thrown out for being in a place she didn't belong and got in with false information.

I'm gonna cut Leah some slack, *we* know Lisa, but from her POV, Lisa entered the sorority with lies. WE don't even know if she thinks Lisa is straight or bi or Tetrisexual, she's just assuming she faked being lesbian for the night. (She was still rude, but meh)

Also....

Bellossoms then?

Oddishes rock