Re: closet conlanging
| From: | Sally Caves <scaves@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, December 22, 1998, 7:02 |
|---|
Daniel J. O'Neil wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > It's curious how there is a kind of metaphorical relation between
> > conlanging on the one hand and masturbation and bi/homosexuality on
> the
> > other (The Secret Vice, The Love that Dare Not Speak its Name). When
> > some months ago there were several people posting to the list
> declaring
> > themselves to be bisexual teenage conlangers, and I never got round to
>
> > observing that bisexuality and conlanging are, like religiosity,
> phases
> > that many teenagers go through but few adults remain in.
>
> And, perhaps it's a good thing that you didn't make that observation. As
> a gay man, I don't feel comfortable with the implication that my sexual
> orientation is an immature phase I should "grow out of." --
Hi Dan... thank you for your heartfelt reminder. But actually, I had taken
And's remark not so much as a criticism expressing his personal views as a
reiteration of a truisim about outside opinion. And is more aware of the
audience he writes for than that... there have been numerous and sensitive
discussions on this list about the relationship of conlanging and the closet
and the actually high number of gay people on this list. The certain kind
of narrow opinion that keeps all us adult conlangers from revealing what
we do to most outsiders (lest we be called adolescent) exerts a similar
(though by no means as oppressive) a force on our silence as homophobia
does. At least that's how I had interpreted And's remark. It has to be a
truism, because nobody could take seriously the notion that religiosity is a
primarily adolescent phase. Just look at religious America and all its
implicated adults, and that's one nation out of many, and only one religion
out of many! I suppose a better way of putting it would have been for And
to say "...`that it is often thought that' many teenagers go through but few
adults remain in." Remember that And too is implicated, as an adult, in
the "adolescent" pursuit of conlanging. Everybody--we're all in this
together. We're all doing something that few TEENAGERS do, actually! Yes,
I find it much harder to tell my colleagues that I invent languages than to
tell them that I write science fiction stories on the side. They can
understand the latter (the market value of genre fiction), but not the
former (obsessive passion given to a pursuit that doesn't earn one either
tenure or money).. To describe it to them in terms of a kind of
"closet"--now that they WILL understand, paradoxically, because at least
amongst liberal academics, there is some sympathy for marginal groups and
for gays and lesbians.
Sally
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves