As an extreme serial monogamist I take umbrage at ur comments. While they are clearly just thoughts, feelings and deep ones, it bothers me. Cultural oppression is tough and hard, I know this. But it is possible to rise above that, to get past it. Reach a stage, where u seem to be at, where sex-love-friendship is something free and beautiful. It can be ephemeral but it can also be long and yes forever.

So I take umbrage that you clearly are avoiding the topic of commitment. Instead describing how U’ve learned to be free and are shocked that others judge you so for being free. Yet to me ur thoughts scream fear of commitment.

I see beneath the talk of queer and sex a violent eruption against bring locked down. Now I only bring this up b/c I have found the woman of my dreams. She is absolutely amazing but reflecting ur thoughts and expressions in this post. It is taking all my love, patience, and caring to fight through the eruptions.

Understanding ur own sexuality and place in the world is but the first step. The next step is having the faith and confidence to achieve happiness through love. I hope my girl can do this. I hope u have done it too.

“I believe that social efforts to construct something as ‘wrong’ are simply mechanisms to assert power and control, an attempt to play God, not to honor God.”

is true, but when there’s a backlash, then the equal and opposite reaction easily ends up becoming just like the original offender in the struggle for power. As a Christian, I am working to get “our side” (which I don’t really identify with, but can still speak for in a marginal way… heh-heh) to just put down the weapons and back off. Totally. De-escalation will help everyone.

I really get to hear you speak of love here, which is so freakin’ beautiful and I really love it. I can totally relate to all that … except I’m a hetero. I’m just so relieved.

As we grow up, we are handed an official picture of reality that falsely presents a static collection of neat hierarchies. When faced with ‘exceptions’ to the categories we’ve invented, society has historically stuck its proverbial head into the sand and demonized, ostracized, and brutalized those who don’t fit, instead of questioning the underlying assumption that there ought to be something to fit into in the first place. It’s a mental heuristic, a shortcut people use to avoid having to process the actual complexity of the truth. Mental laziness.

All of which creates absolutely bizarre assumptions that get accepted as cultural truisms, such as ‘homosexuality and spirituality are mutually exclusive.’ Why accept that statement at face value, without questioning it? Because it’s easier. We’re living life at hyperspeed now, and emotional work is not profitable activity. Collective consciousness suffers. But there is hope, always – messages like these from folks committed to living openly are encouraging others to think and re-think assumptions and self-deceptions. Look at the trail of affected minds emblazoned right here on this page. Remarkable. Hopeful.

Thanks for the post, and for being a highly visible queer individual on the web, gleefully leaping out of those boxes left and right.

If I may… Although I, too, espouse the word “Queer” as a sort of catch-all, I also have no problem with “Bisexual”, and have used the term to self-identify for years. I understand what you’re saying about defying gender roles and conformity, but I think of it in terms of Society definitions. If I’m talking to someone, and the only words they know for sexuality are Straight, Bi, or Gay, I feel as though “Bi” is the most comfortable fit. It has an implication of “All of the above”, and that implication suits me. I don’t consider it an unreasonable compromise to society, and would PREFER another term. I’d prefer another Gender, since “Male” doesn’t quite fit, but It’s a closer fit than “Female”. But yeah. For now, I’ll use the words we have.

Thank you again for YOUR words, however, and I look forward to reading more.

-343

Other than that, go nuts!

Nice post.

“Queer” is also the term I identify most with but as there is no such word in my native language (Swiss German), people here who are not interested in gender identities would only know the term “bisexuell”. I think it focuses too much on sexuality and doesn’t really include “falling in love” (as you describe it) with a person of any gender and reinforces the binary thinking. It’s not always easy explaining my feelings and behavoir when there are no words to describe them… The Sapir-Whorf-hypothesis suggests that there is a systematic relationship between the categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.
Do you think that if there was a word in every language for the English word “queer” would more people identify with it as I’m sure that most people’s ‘chemistry does not fall along neat lines of either gender or sexuality’? Does your definition of “queer” include so-called heterosexuals or do you see it in opposition to heterosexual?
As far as I know “queer” used to have a negative connotation and has been “reclaimed” in a positive way. Does the former use of it still have any meaning for you?

Thanks for writing about this!

Iv’e read the Greg Egan book mentioned by cassidy, and I think it is called Distress. Another prescient is Warren Ellis in his Transmetropolitan graphic novels.

http://www.aven.org might be of interest. Hetero-, homo-, bi-, and now, a-sexual.