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Author Topic: Assimilationist's struggle for acceptance...  (Read 14480 times)

vanrozenheim

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Assimilationist's struggle for acceptance...
« on: February 28, 2007, 12:46:09 PM »

Stella Duffy describes the symptoms, but misses the point

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Personally, I cringe at the gay appellation used as a job description - "lesbian writer Stella Duffy". Not everything I write is about lesbians, and, far more importantly, I don't get paid for being a lesbian (though I reckon it could be an earner - I have been practicing for years). Being a lesbian is as important, and as unimportant, to me as the fact that I have red hair, have freckles or was brought up a Catholic. At home, in my daily life, it's intrinsic, and it's nothing.


Well, I do not know what is important for her. Is it the color of her shoes? Is it the decoration of her apartment? The taste of her wine? Or simply the amount of money she earns the year? For Denneny's sake, what can be more important for your social life than the choice of your partner? Comparing sexual orientation with "hair color" is ridiculous - especially being brought up as a Catholic. Mind you, the Bible prescribes death penalty for (male) homosexuals, and I hardly dare to believe that being different wasn't perceived by her as a dramatic experience.

Ms Duffy certainly would not object the job descriptions as "British writer Stella Duffy" or "English writer Stella Duffy", because they simply describe what she is. Why is she concerned thus by "lesbian writer Stella Duffy"? Not only is she a lesbian, but also has she written some clearly lesbian stuff.

No doubt, though Stella Duffy (with some degree of bitterness) recognizes that the straights by no way are going to oversee the differences between "them" and "us" any soon, she insists on the erroneous notion that there are indeed no real difference at all. Let's be said once and for all: the only way to fit perfectly into the straight mainstream is to become straight oneselfe. Hardly a desirable goal, for me.
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Kyleovision

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RE: Assimilationist
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2007, 05:17:10 PM »

This chick is a professional writer, and yet she can't see when 'the appelation' would be appropriate?

If I write a pro-gay commentary (or an anti-gay one for that matter) OF COURSE it's relevant that I'm gay. Always. Every single time. In the trade, it's called 'disclosure,' for Pity's sake.
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Feral

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RE: Assimilationist
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2007, 06:35:35 PM »

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Not everything I write is about lesbians, and, far more importantly, I don't get paid for being a lesbian (though I reckon it could be an earner - I have been practicing for years).


An odd statement. No... very few people get paid for being a lesbian. More than a few people get paid for being lesbian writers. There is a distinction there. I suspect that she has not, in fact, been "practicing for years" at being a lesbian writer... after all, not everything she writes is about lesbians. I wonder how much of it IS. I reckon being a lesbian writer would be an earner as well.

While I certainly do not know the author or her life, I suspect that what she has actually been practicing for years is how to "get along" with straight publishers, straight editors, straight bookstores, and straight readers. I have no reason to believe she has not developed considerable skill at it.
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Vizier

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RE: Assimilationist
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2007, 05:16:39 PM »

This woman probably believes that Microsoft will pay for e-mailing people.
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Rain

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RE: Assimilationist
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2007, 10:14:47 PM »

It is impossible to assimilate into a society that defines you as "other".  It will never happen.  It's a cute debate.  But let's call it for what it is...you either closet your mind, your soul, and your right to self-expression to fit in, or you confront the general society with your uniqueness as a gay person and let them deal with it.
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vanrozenheim

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Re: RE: Assimilationist
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2007, 01:37:46 AM »

It is impossible to assimilate into a society that defines you as "other".  It will never happen.

But obviously, one can try -- and try hard. The following piece is one in a raw of compassionate statements of former Gays who commit a cultural suicide to pleadge their whole assimilation into the straight society. This time, it's Mark Ravenhill:

My pink fountain pen has run dry
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Now, I'm surprised to say, I'm happy never to write another gay character again. It feels as though every aspect of the gay experience has been narrated, performed and picked over in the past 30 years. It has left us with some brilliant work. Alongside all the bad generic gay work, artists such as Derek Jarman, Alan Hollinghurst, Tony Kushner and others have left a body of work that is both gay and great. But that work seems over now.

Right now, I'm eager to explore the strange, twilight world of the heterosexual - to expose its anguishes and mysteries and unconscious comedies. Maybe one day there will be something to pull me back to the gay experience, the sense of something new to be said about the gay world. But, for the moment at least, my lavender quill is at rest.

The fellow actually thinks that the depth of Gay love apparently has been explored to its entirety within the last 30 years, thus switching to heterosexuality which apparently has either not been explored as deeply in the past 3,000 years of written history, or has to offer unimaginable treasures of complexity inaccessible to homosexeulas... Well, well - perhapts heterosexuality simply offers a much richer archives of stuff for an autor running out of ideas, and certainly sells better. Even I could come up with lots of ideas concerning boy-meets-boy stories (not to mention the "general" life performance of Gay individuals). What's wrong with those folks who ran out of pink ink? They bore me to death.
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Feral

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Re: Assimilationist's struggle for acceptance...
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2007, 05:13:36 AM »

What a bizarre screed.

I'm going to be nice here... maybe the man has had a stroke. Maybe this is just the product of a neurological deficit.
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vanrozenheim

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Re: Assimilationist's struggle for acceptance...
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2007, 07:00:36 AM »

Deb Price did it again...
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"We planted flowers at the Ferndale Historical Society. We started a pub crawl, and within a few years had 400 people joining us. We integrated with the straight community," he explains, adding that, as the town gentrified, the surge in the property values delighted homeowners.

When Covey ran again for City Council in 1999, he won. Four years later, he was re-elected. And on Nov. 6, he was among at least 32 victorious gay candidates nationwide.

The United States has 20 gay mayors, including in Providence, R.I.; Maywood, N.J.; Key Biscayne, Fla.; Palm Springs, Calif.; and my home town of Takoma Park, Md., according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which helps elect gay candidates.

Covey's years in Ferndale are a gay how-to manual on transforming a town into a place where you really feel at home. He laughs with pride that as mayor he makes $8,000 a year and has a huge say in such things as sidewalk crack repairs and garbage pickup.

Last year his city, sometimes called "Fabulous Ferndale" and now about 15 percent gay, passed a gay rights ordinance 65 percent to 35 percent on the third try.

The lessons of Ferndale can be applied anywhere, Covey says: "Instead of separating (into a gay ghetto) or demanding our rights, we are achieving what we wanted, neighbor by neighbor."

Ferndale and its new mayor -- what a fabulous example. Where's my paintbrush?


Indeed: instead of demanding their rights, Gays might consider cleaning up after straights, making their arts, teaching their kids, consoling them as their priests, taking care for their wounded soldiers, looking for their disposed old folks... wait, aren't we doing this anyway for millenia? This assimilationist drivel is sickening -- what they actually insinuate is, that if Gays were just a little bit more loveable, perhapts straights would tolerate them near themselves. Come on, faggots -- you clean that dirt from the street, plant a flower bed, and mayby 65% of the populace will agree that beating the crap out of you isn't something a decent person should do.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2007, 07:11:23 AM by vanrozenheim »
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Feral

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Re: Assimilationist's struggle for acceptance...
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2007, 09:27:52 PM »

That is what she is saying, yes.

This peculiar idolization of "gentrification" is puzzling. I somehow suspect that "the surge in the property values" will be less than delightful when the new property tax assessments arrive.
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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