Re: CHAT: gender/sex/marriage
| From: | Gerald Koenig <jlk@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, January 31, 1999, 4:48 |
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Daniel J. O'Neil wrote:>
Thanks for your very thoughtful reply.
>
>The comment that caught my attention was: "The maleness and femaleness
>of relationship is something I think pervades every human relationship
>and I will stick with that."
Gender is a highly constructed and
>regulated institution in every culture, and anthropological research has
>shown that gender is constructed in a breathtaking variety of ways
>across human cultures, such that it's impossible IMO to know at the
>present moment which traits are essentially "male" or "female" beyond
>basic biological functions.
I agree. My short statement as written is subject to a lot of
misinterpretation as a stereotype of the "Hyper, super, male"(Dory
Previn) and its inverse projected onto gay (or hetero) relationships.
Nothing was further from my mind. I view human relationship as the
outer form of an inner life in constant flux between male and female
elements, taken in a broad sense to include mental and biological
life. I don't believe there are any pure males or females in terms of
inner life. There are only mostly males, mostly females, balanced
people, people who suppress or exaggerate one or the other side. I
don't see a big difference here between gay and straight in that
regard. You are free to differ.
>
>I don't believe that nurturance is "female" and strength and dominance
>is "male." I believe that we--at least those of us living in the United
>States--are told in countless ways (some subtle, others blatant) from a
>very early age what is and what isn't appropriate behavior for boys and
>girls. Most parents would not think twice if their son told them he
>wanted to grow up to be a lion, a dog, or a fish, but I can just imagine
>their consternation if he told them he wanted to grow up to be a girl.
On their request we bought our grandchildren several Barbie dolls,
which seem to be playing well with the Power Rangers and Godzilla. I
don't believe I have any influence as to what the children's ultimate
identification will be, perhaps the play will go on, as I have
suggested.
>And who's the favorite target of school bullies? Boys who are gentle and
>weak, in other words, boys who exhibit behavior considered feminine--to
>use the parlance, "sissies." If that's not gender terrorism, I don't
>what else is--and I'm only talking about childhood, here.
An equally attractive target is the strongest kid in class, who is under
constant assault by those who would make their mark by putting others down.
That was once my precarious position, and I will readily admit I may lack
sensitivity to the opposite pole. But in no way do I sanction violence,
physical or verbal, against any innocent group.
>
>I hate living in a sexually polarized world. I think the social
>construction--imposition--of gender acts as a straitjacket on a much
>broader range of behaviors which are human, not male or female. I think
>we would live in a much saner world if men and women knew how to be both
>nurturing and strong.
I completely agree.
>
>But let me return to the original statement at issue.
>
>One remark I hear countless times from same-sex couples is the relief of
>not having to struggle with the sex role expectations that our culture
>has established for heterosexual relationships. In my own relationships
>with men, neither of us ever viewed our behavior within the relationship
>as "male" or "female."
The role expectations for heterosexual relationships have been under
radical revision since WWII, and the pace goes on. Even though gay
relationships are ahead in this regard, I don't see it as an essential
difference. As I said above, I use the words male and female in the
broadest sense, like a gender classification in a natural language, a
classificaton which often is pure nonsense, but which persists as a
primitive substrate of human thinking and feeling which cannot be
eliminated, I believe. Of course we should not elevate it to the level
of of grammaticalization as has occured in Natlangs, that is one of the
reasons we create new languages, to do away with less important and
sometimes divisive distinctions.
>
>There's another reason why I resist this view of human relationships.
>Yes, I recognize that defining a "marriage" as a union of "maleness" and
>"femaleness" can include gay relationships (if we disregard the actual
>sex of the partners), but it's still a heterosexual paradigm that
>suggests to me that same-sex relationships are somehow less good, less
>"authentic" than a "true" union of male and female, in other words, one
>man and one woman.
I hope I have made it clear why I do not think of this view as a
hetersexual paradigm only. As to the "marriage" of male and female, I
was only quoting Webster, to make the point that we cannot base the NGl
word for marriage on it. To the contrary, I proposed that the so called
"essential" qualities, a husband and a wife, -ci in Ngl, could be
eliminated by using my proposed word, -xi which makes no claims about
the essentiality of a man and a woman to a marriage. I was somewhat
disappointed that I had to remove all references to male or female
_qualities_ from the definition, but I had no idea how offensive it was
to some people, and I have a hard time understanding it, given the
meaning I intend for the terms. But then I don't have the antennae
which can only be acquired from a history of abuse.
Neither do I think of gay relationships as less authentic than hetero
ones. Some are better and some are worse. The only problem I see is
reproduction, which will be solved very soon as technology and values
move on.
>
>Finally--I don't believe anyone has commented on this point yet--why
>must marriage consist of a union of only *two* people? Why not three or
>four? There are many cultures (including our own) where in certain
>historical periods, polygyny was practiced and legally valid. Indeed, I
>know a few people today living in (what they call) long-term polyamorous
>relationships.
Possibly the term nex-xi could be defined to have a default of two as
it is most common, and prefixes can be used for the number. As I
explicated in my post, the suffix -xi simply changes a verb to noun, it
makes no specific claims as to what meaning of the verb is carried
along. So the "husband and wife" part of the dictionary definiton can
be deleted; they are not "essential, (-ci)" properties whose removal
would destroy the sense of the term.
Polygamy points out another quality I would like to include in the NGl
definition of marriage: Voluntariness. My aunt in Colorado once told me
the story of how, at the time he began to prosper, her father was
approached by the elders of his church with an ultimatum to take
two more wives. He left his church.
Jerry
I hope you will join the NGL mix:
http://personalweb.sierra.net/~spynx/tokcir.html