The Bird Cage

Queer as defined by Webster - 'often disparaging : homosexual (2) sometimes offensive: gay'

Wikipedia defines queer as "an umbrella term for minority sexual orientations and gender identities[1] that are not heterosexual, heteronormative or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist.

Judith Butler notes that "The term 'queer' has operated as one linguistic practice whose purpose has been the shaming of the subject it names or, rather, the producing of a subject through that shaming interpellation." Butler continues to state that queer is "an invocation by which a social bond among homophobic communities is formed through time" 

She posits queer as a unifying term for the 'norm' to state, 'I am not that, for that is queer'. 

Queer theory - any sort of gender relegating processes that dismiss the notion of  heteronormative categorizations. 

Queer is used as a term to root the idea of heteronormativity, of some semblance of a natural sexuality. Without something for the 'norm' to point at and state 'that is queer' there is no ability for them to say 'we are normal'. In 'Imitation and Gender Insubordination' Judith Butler addresses her discomfort with categorizing herself as a 'lesbian' stating that she 'would like to have it permanently unclear what precisely that sign (lesbian) signifies.' 

The term queer has been recently 'reconquered' by queer theorist who have seemingly taken the word back, to signify what though? They have used it to show that without the notion of queer, or homosexual, there would be no way to define heterosexual, or straight. The binary requires opposition in order to privilege one aspect of it. 

Identifying under any specific identity inherently brings about a conflict, especially while identifying with a sexual identity. Sexuality, in a Lacanian sense, disrupts the symbolic by providing a brief exposure to the real. Jouissance, the essence of sex, cannot be represented in our symbolic world. And because sex is the essence of sexuality, sexuality cannot be represent in the symbolic either. Thusly to identify oneself with specific sexuality is to identify as unrepresentable aspect within our world.

Identifying as straight or queer takes on even more difficulty when looking at the aspect of gender as merely a performance. 

'Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalized, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation. If this is true, it seems, there is no original or primary gender that drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself"

Gender is nothing but a simulacrum, which is why drag often is used to produce a comedic effect within films. We see the reality behind the act of performing in a 'gender not our own' as comedic and must laugh or face the haunting notion that something truly is queer about it. 

One of my favorite representations of drag comes from the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane film 

The Bird Cage 

The scene above shows Albert Goldman (Nathan Lane), a gay man in the film, dressed in drag. The father of the bride to be, Mr. Keeley (Gene Hackman ), truly believes Albert is a women as he cannot comprehend the notion of drag. What then does Albert represent? To Mr. Keeley, Albert is a heterosexual woman who loves her husband, and enjoys traveling about the world with her husband Armand (Robin Williams). But to Armand, Albert is a gay man dressed in drag. 

In this situation, as in all situations, the truth of the matter is subjective. For to be viewed as a 'heterosexual female' one must perform as a woman, dress like a 'woman', act within the confines of what we call 'feminine' and 'enjoy' sex with a man. The necessity of female genitalia is a moot point here as an observer would, in most instances be unable to differentiate while the observed remains clothed.  Albert accomplishes all of these things thus convincing Mr. Keeley that she in fact, is Albert's wife. 

The trouble in identifying as anything comes when one asks the question 'How can a single entity be both a man and a woman at the same time. Identifying oneself within the confines of gender does not work as gender itself is merely a representation of itself, and endless series of simulacrum with no original, merely a performance of a performance. 

Curtis

The Binary Of Desire

Before I enter into a conversation about feminism, I would first like to spark a discussion on an interesting article I stumbled upon the other that instantly grabbed my attention due to our recent class discussions. The article talks about Zestra, an arousal oil developed by middle-aged women to enhance females sexual sensitivity targeting older women who’s physical sexual pleasure may have weaken in age or after giving birth. In recent years, men’s erectile dysfunction and the products used to help “maintain erections that last for hours,” has been extensively broadcasted in American media. Sexually explicit commercials have been aired on television and radio programs during prime time hours and especially during programming that guarantees high viewing. So why is it that feminine products that essentially have the same affects as Viagra and Cialis have not been widely broadcasted? I for one have never seen a commercial for Zestra during the Superbowl.

            Rachel Braun Scherl, co-founder of the laboratory that created and produces Zestra, has struggled with getting Zestra commercials and ads out into the media ever since it was created. She notes that even before the ads were developed and rejected by advertisement companies, case studies were developed on how the product may be blanketed by the media. Even though the commercials lack the sexual undertones that male sex enhancing drugs promote, television companies only agreed to have the cosmetic advertisement air during the late night hours of 12am to 4am during shows like “Bad Girls Club.” I put emphasis on the word cosmetic because although the product serves similar medicinal purposes as Viagra, Zestra was released as a cosmetic and not as a drug.

By allowing male sex enhancement commercials to air during prime television American society essentializes a “mans” need for sexual pleasure and puts shame on women’s desire as something that needs to be hidden or at least portrayed through patriarchal ideology. Women’s pleasure therefore is only appreciated through a misogynistic undertone; this is exemplified in Viagra and Cilalis commercials where the young and beautiful women can’t wait to finally get it on because an erect penis pleases all! Only within this male/female sexual binary do people feel comfortable with women’s sexuality: while the bodies of older women are blatantly ignored, the older male body is celebrated. Here I’d like to reproduce a quote from the article:

Said Rita Melendez, associate professor of sexuality studies at San Francisco State University: "If they really can't run these ads, it's telling women they are not - or should not be - in control of their desire, or that there is something shameful about their sexual desire, and that has huge implications for their ability to control pregnancy, partner abuse and sexual health. You're putting something so core to women in the realm of male control, or at least outside of female control."

            The misogynists voice takes precedents in maintaining the gender binary within all American institutions where femininity can only be safely represented under strict gender opposition reinforced through masculinity. Women’s desire is only appreciated through a masculine lens where patriarchal rule can be maintained. What this means is that female desire can only been portrayed through this misogynist lens before it is dismissed as erotic or promiscuous, and not in the sexually alluring definition of the word.

            So why is women’s desire so threatening to men? Or rather, why does our society encourage us to praise men’s sexual pleasure and shun women’s? Feminist critic Héléne Cixous askes similar questions,

For me, the question ‘What does she want’? that they ask of woman, a question that in fact woman asks herself because they ask it of her, because precisely there is so little place in society for her desire that she ends up by dint of not knowing what to do with it, no longer knowing where to put it, or if she has any, conceals the most immediate and the most urgent questions: ‘How do I experience sexual pleasure?” What is feminine sexual pleasure, where does it take place, how is it inscribed at the level of her body, of her unconscious? And then how is it put into writing? (233)

The need for women to conceal their sexual desire isn’t something that appears blatantly obvious to all women within society i.e. it isn’t something that people are aware of. Because the world has always been formatted towards the male privilege, the oppression of women as the unnatural other isn’t inherently obvious to all humans. Cixous says this is because there has always been a phallocentric position of power throughout history.  Both men and women are blinded by the already established cultural representations that maintain the binary system of opposition, which always privileges men. Perhaps it seems so shocking that middle-aged women might need a product to enhance their sexual sensations simply because there’s a greater worth established with men’s sexual pleasure than women’s; which is why it’s more acceptable to talk about erectile dysfunction than a woman’s lack of vaginal sensation.

Cixous says that the structured order we live in today is no different than throughout history. To demolish the hierarchal opposition would require “peoples born of the unconscious.” By this Cixous is saying that it is impossible to abolish this binary system through the invention or creation of something different. “There is no such thing as ‘destiny’, ‘nature’, or essence, but living structures, caught up, sometimes frozen within historicocultural limits intermingle with the historical scene to such a degree that it has long been impossible and is still difficult to think through a transitional period – where the classical structure appears as if it might crack.” (234) The existence of a gender harmonized world depends on peoples born detached from the structure and born of a self we cannot and do not yet know.

            Butler agrees with Cixous by recognizing that gender is always determined by a male/female opposition structure. She furthers this thought by saying that somehow through this opposition one’s sexual identity as either female or male has always been established; that is the “norm” that men desire woman and woman desire men. To quote Butler,

In psychoanalytic terms, the relation between gender and sexuality is in part negotiated through the question of the relationship between identification and desire. And here I becomes clear why refusing to draw lines of casual implication between these two domains is as important as keeping open an investigation of their complex interimplication. For, if to identify as a woman is not necessarily to desire a man, and if to desire a woman does not necessarily signal to desire a man, and if to desire a woman does not necessarily signal the constituting presence of a masculine identification, whatever that is, then the heterosexual matrix proves to be an imaginary logic that insistently issues forth its own unmanageability.

Any implication that this desire could be reversed or that desire exists without the need to classify within gender norms presents deviance within the structure. And since these gender/sexual binaries already and have always existed within language, they will always act as discursive productions that essentialize gender within one’s identity. Butler argues that only through drag can this intrinsic gender binary be exposed and mocked.

For anyone who wants to check out the whole article on Zestra here’s the link:

Zestra Article

Adrienne