Comments on Biodiverse Resistance: Sexuality as choice vs sexuality as inborn: a fals...

Reminds me of the person quoted in Courage to Heal...

2008-03-26T17:57:00.000Z

Reminds me of the person quoted in Courage to Heal, who said 'If I'm a lesbian because I was abused, at least something good came out of the abuse.'

hope that didn't come off as too blunt!

2007-10-17T07:49:00.001+01:00

hope that didn't come off as too blunt!

clean this up and I'll post it on Sexability if yo...

2007-10-17T07:49:00.000+01:00

clean this up and I'll post it on Sexability if you want! I can't address everything here! Just give me your email address, write to sexability@shaw.ca and I'll set you up, so you can post directly!

Ms. Pet

Interesting post about not being into penile sex, I'd love to see that on sexability too!

Hi,I'm of the mind that we're all born sexually ne...

2007-10-04T15:31:00.000+01:00

Hi,
I'm of the mind that we're all born sexually neutral or perhaps better stated as sexually fluid, capable of traveling however and wherever we can towards the fulfillment of our own desires. I think that the concept of sexuality or the concept of queerness exists because power, control and notions of normalcy have been used to dominate and force us toward expressing ourselves sexually in only one procreative, heteronormative, patriarchally controlled way. I think that were it not for that state, family, religion sanctioned attempt to control, we would most likely just experience and express desire. I also think that we do choose...not whether we will be gay or queer or bi or whatever else flows against the dominant grain...I think we choose whether we will acknowledge any of this to ourselves, whether we will pursue desires based on our admissions, whether we will let others know, whether we will be open and share what we know of ourselves with the world. I think that we are offered such precious little time in a capitalist emotionally blunted world to sit with, understand, catalogue our insides, that this process of choosing ends up being submerged...we don't acknowledge the act of choosing because we are encouraged to not tease out what goes on inside us from a powerful place of knowing...there's just not enough time for most of us and if we should take that time and acknowledge that we need that space to weigh out our decisions, we are mostly understood as self indulgent. But, I'm going on and on...could go on and on... Thanks for the post. Have you seen the website queer by choice? Maybe the post you've linked to mentions it. I'll have to go see.

yeah, email me all you like :)i can't recommend th...

2007-10-02T12:02:00.000+01:00

yeah, email me all you like :)

i can't recommend that Eli Clare book enough tho...

i think i should probably read this again before l...

2007-10-02T02:58:00.000+01:00

i think i should probably read this again before leaving a comment.. are you up for emailing back and forth again though? this topic is one i've been thinking a lot about and is too personal to really leave as a comment.

Thanks for your response p&t :)You (and anyone els...

2007-10-01T00:21:00.000+01:00

Thanks for your response p&t :)

You (and anyone else reading this) should go and read Eli Clare's "Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation". I ordered it before writing this post, and got it in the post after it, and in the last chapter she says exactly the same thing (in particular, on page 129, the exact same thing you said)...

Hi! I just started reading your blog. This post ...

2007-09-30T20:20:00.000+01:00

Hi! I just started reading your blog. This post was really interesting (and I actually used the same saying in conversation the other day, about some achieving queerness, etc.) I'm a queer man who was sexually abused by my father, and one of the deepest and most painful questions I've dealt with during my recovery has been, "Is the abuse the reason that I'm attracted to men?" And the follow up, "Does that mean that I need to change that in order to heal?" I've come to the same answers that you have; ultimately, it doesn't matter why I'm queer. I think that I'll never really know "why." And I think that, if I am queer because of the abuse, it's a creative, life-affirming response to violence. Of course, I have complicated feelings about it - it certainly seems yucky to me, the abuse being the cause. But being queer is an important part of who I am, and a source of connection, joy, and pride for me, and I know that my capability to be deeply intimate with men (emotionally and sexually) is something positive, something that adds so much to my life.

I share your concern about people pathologizing queer sexualities. I have to say that it does seem to me that a higher percentage of the queer people that I know have been sexually abused. (Of course, that could simply be because many of the people I'm close to are queer.) There's a valid question about causation, though, I think: it's possible that queer and/or non-gender-normative children are targeted for abuse more often because of their queerness. (This doesn't really address your friend's thoughts about children with disabilities, though.)

I think the idea that people are queer for different and multiple reasons is true, really important, and not talked about enough. I also really agree with your conclusion.