Context (from Both Sides Now)

Somewhere between the fantasy of who I’d like to be and the consequences of behaving as I do lies my true identity. I’m not sure exactly who that is, but I have a feeling I’d be a bit disappointed if I were to see him through the eyes of those around me. I know we’re not supposed to concern ourselves with other people’s perceptions, and I know that to compare oneself to others inevitably results in either envy or a sense of superiority – but, human as I am, I can’t help but do it. I can’t help but compare myself to everyone around me in a never-ending attempt at defining myself.

It’s like when you don’t know what a word you’ve stumbled across means, and you’re too lazy to look it up. So you rely on the second-best method of determining definition. You fall back onto context. Just read all the words around it, you tell yourself, and you’ll get a sense of what that pesky little unknown word means. Read the sentence as many times as it takes. If that doesn’t work, then read the whole paragraph – and maybe even the whole page – again and again. And in the event you don’t wind up with an idea as to what that pesky little word means, keep doing this. Do this again and again until you’re so familiar with everything around your question that you no longer actually question the question, but you start to question everything around it. Such is the nature of identity politics.

Ironically, we poor souls who have to search for self-definition by context are the lucky ones. Since we don’t have a ready-made sound byte that sums up our role in society, we have to look within the cracks. From time to time I’ve had the (mis)fortune of having a label: gay, queer, radical faerie, whore, party boy… But eventually, in accordance with the edict, “As soon as you define yourself as something, you’ve outlived it,” my labels have worn thin.

So I like to joke that “I’ve looked at _____ from both sides now.” (Fill in the blank. Gay, queer, radical faerie, party boy…) Which is to say that, even when I had a label to latch onto, I was still perouzing the context.

I’m not too sure if I can ever adequately describe the deflation that came with my recognizing that queer politics were ultimately identity politics, and that I just plain couldn’t anymore put much stock into a political (sub)structure that was based upon the notion of identity. Sure, all politics eventually boil down to an assertion of some identity (take, for example, America’s beloved preamble, “We, the people…” -- I mean, just who are “the people?”), but minority politics in particular rely on identities that are utterly not self-imposed. Minority politics are the politics of the “others,” and the others couldn’t exist without the powerstructure they’re trying to deconstruct, which defines their very “other-ness.” In fact, as queer politics have been so accurate in asserting, even the powerstructure relies upon everything that it is not to assert whatever it is. (E.g.: heterosexuality, instead of defining itself by what it is, insists upon defining iteslf by what it isn’t – as uttered by the straight male mantra, “I’m not gay.” ) Sleep only with members of the oppostite sex and you're surely hetero. But sleep with a member of your own sex, even once, and you're potentially gay forever -- no matter how much you might want to write it off as an "experiment." Is the converse the same for homosexuals? Hardly. Once gay, forever gay -- even if one starts bopping members of the opposite sex.

Shifty business, this business of identity. In a way, the minorities have it easier than those struggling to exist within the powerstructure. Once declared as black, Latin, Asian, female, gay, handicapped or any other multitude of sub-strata, one’s identity is sealed, as an ostensible “lesser-than.” And what are they “lesser” than? The powerstructure that so precariously defines itself by not being whatever it is that comprises its minorities.

PHEW! Am I the only one who’s getting tired of this misery-fest? Am I the only one who wants to reach beyond complaining about how bad it is to be “us” and strive to be whatever it is we – the human race – might be?

Despite my unfashionable intentions, the fashionable “lesser-than’s” proceed to construct entire identites and subsequent political movements based upon said identities – and for some reason, as far as I can see, they stop looking for any definition (or more importanly, context) beyond that which has labeled them “lesser-than.”

Somewhere between the fantasy of who these people think they are and the consequences of how they behave lies their true identity. Somewhere between the fantasy of who I’d like to be and the consequences of how I behave lies my true identity. My true identity, for now. Within this context. Which is a swimming-pool of minority politics. Which is a cesspool of identity politics.

I’m not destined to be a popular man. I’m not the next voice of the queer movement. I’m just a kooky white homosexual guy who’s been described as being “too smart for his own good.” That phrase fascinates me, because I’ve yet to truly understand what it means. It feels like a curse of some sort.

So if you want to know why I rely on sex, drugs and escapism, maybe now you have a better idea. Somewhere between my ideal self and the essence of my hedonism lies the man I might someday be. If only I could identify him. For a time.