In-betweens, ambiguity and bisexuality

[salinea]

mechaieh posted a transcript of the sermon she gave at her Unitarian Church on the subject of bisexuality

Here's the blurb :

"Ambisexuality"

As individuals whose sexual preferences do not fit neatly within traditional "either-or," "all-or-nothing" beliefs about relationships, bisexuals often face unflattering assumptions about their personalities and morals -- including negative perceptions about their refusal to declare or accept what seems to many to be a simple choice. As individuals whose spiritual needs do not fit neatly within traditional "either-or," "all-or-nothing" beliefs about creeds and covenants, Unitarian Universalists often encounter unflattering assumptions about their personalities and morals -- especially perceptions about their refusal to declare or accept what seems to many to be a simple choice. This morning, we will take a look at how to welcome ambiguity and complexity, and why bearing witness matters so much.

Go read the full transcript here

I find this subject fascinating, not only the topic of bisexuality (which mechaieh spoke about wonderfully) , but the idea of comparing sexual orientation with other identity categorizations and when they are or appear too vague, or too "in-between" and the difficulties and prejudices people face because of that.

skuldchan's rant about gender identities answering an article about "feminized male" in Japan makes me think along the same way as well.

As humans we tend to think in oppositions. We classify everything around us. Dark or light, female or male, dead or alive, yin or yang, good or bad, old or young, hot or cold, wet or dry etc. Symbolical systems of categorization almost always end up pairing things in opposites.
There's a certain laziness in this way of thinking that often lend itself to easy amalgams. Such as thinking that anything that doesn't belong to one category, must belong to the other one. And that something that does belong to one category, cannot belong to the other.

Thus when something, someone pretends to be somewhere else, either because it doesn't belong to either or because it belongs to both (or because of something more complex even), we're intellectually suspicious of it.
We can't find a proper place for it. We reject it. We consider it as dangerous, strange, unwordly, impure, false etc. It's like it escapes us, a slippery object that our mind cannot quite grasp.

A bird is a bird, but a bird that doesn't fly isn't as much a bird as one that does.

Reality is complex. It often doesn't fit quite as nicely in systems of categorization.

People have faith, or they don't.
Except for the people for whom the question is answered differently. Some people don't know if they believe or not. Some people believe in some things, but not especially in god(s). Some people, like my father, answer the questions by saying that they try to believe. Some people don't think that question of the existence of God is relevant to the attachment to a religion because a religion is also a community, a set of values, a culture. Some people believe in a symbolical way where other people believe literaly. For some people the answer changes day to day. In anthropology class, I've been taught that for lots of people there were no contradiction between going to Church one day and worshipping a Loa the same night (and the Voodoo and Christianism syncretism is only one exemple of the possible interactions and integrations of religions)
Simple question, complex answers.

Part of it is because, like for sexuality, we don't quite know what is the question. Is it about what someone genuinely believes (who they're attracted to ?), what they actually practice (Whom do they have sex with ?) or how do they self-identify ?
In many ways, it's rather rude to go ahead and tell someone "No, since you're ****, you MUST identify is really ****" for something as intimate and important to people as religion or sexuality is.

But sometimes, people are not interested in what is polite. They're too busy filing, ruling, and tagging. Giving names to all the animals in the garden of Eden. Once things have a name, once they're surrunded by rules and boundaries, we feel like we can own it, control it. Even if we know nothing of it. But it's useful. Cognitively, it allows us to manipulate concept, even without puting a real content into it.

But sometimes, it make us miss the real truth, the complexity of it. Think of Joss' point when he comments Hush :
"That language can interfere with communication, because language limits. As soon as you say something you've eliminated every other possibility of what you might be talking about."
Either it's one thing, either it's another. And you can't be both, you can't be neither. If you are, well... you're taboo, not kosher, you're in a state of liminarity that must be surrounded by precautions, purifications and rituals of passage. You might be the lowest of the low or you might be sacred, but either way, you're not One of Us.

All right, you get the picture, now I shall tie this all to fandom, must I not ?

Some time ago, in a discussion with silvertistel about why i wasn't surprised that the interest into slash came mainly (though not only) from Fandoms that were focussed on Science Fiction and Fantasy. Because most of the time, SF interrogates the nature and the boundaries of what it means of being human by creating categories that are similar to humans, but Other nonetheless. Robots, elves, mutants, aliens, vampires, cyborgs, werewolves, etc. are all categories of being that are not quite one thing, nor another.
In fact, main protagonist of most Fandom stories as well as mythological narratives are figures belonging to two worlds, partaging in dual natures, split between several sides.
They are children of God and mortals. They're vampires with a soul. Or dhampirs. They're half blood. They're tricksters. They die and they are reborn. They're stuck between Heavens and Earth. Or Earth and Hell. They're magical, yet mundane. They're both, either, neither.

In slash, similarly, we interrogate the boundaries of gender and sexuality. We don't take a character's sexuality at face value, we question it. To write slash you must consider any character as bisexual. To writ fanfics out of canon pairing, you must consider any relationship as potentially sexual in nature.
Even if it crosses through categories that should be held separate or opposite. Such as mentor/student, antagonistic pairings, or incestuous ships.

That's why it's transgressing, even when it's not particulary subvertive. Simply because it's crossing a boundary and redefining categories to say that there might be a sexual connotations to any relationship between two characters. It puts us a vague, confusing world where anything or anyone might be considered as a sexual being. Scary.

But false ?

Simple question, complex answers.