Queer politics, consent and battering
J.C.Keiner
please, don't call me naive.
The claims of the queer movement to make sado-masochism, bondage and
piercing into "liberatory" "radical" or just fun practices are all
founded on the assertion that it's all ok within a consensual partnership.
After I got out of that relationship, which also incidentally involved my
ex partner in having what the court later called "inappropriate contact"
with my small daughter, I was fortunate enough to be two years in a
support group for survivors of abuse within lesbian relationships. Some
of us in that group had experienced physical abuse, some had not. All of
us had experienced emotional abuse. And in weeks and months of
discussions we all found that what had been really destructive and had
produced the deepest and hardest hurts to eradicate had been the
emotional abuse. Those of us like myself whose abuse had been "only"
emotional often heard these arguments from our abusers--how dare you say
I'm abusing you, those words only apply to men who beat up women and
break their bones. And then also all our abusers without exception had
justified themselves on the consensuality argument. You want it, you're
here, it's all your fault, you brought it on yourself, it's your
responsibility. For many of us, for years we believed that we really did
fully consent to what was going on. And given the state of mind that some
of us did get into, often out of infatuation with our abusers, it was
consensual.
We did not see the differences the queer and s/m support brigade claimed
between what had happened to us, and the so-called consensual
relationships and practices that are part of good queer fun. Just a
little play acting, tying up, oh yeah? In a recent case in England, men
were rightly prosecuted for doing things like burning each other and
nailing the penis of one of the "consensual" participants to a piece of
wood. And I repeat, I have seen celebrations of the *pleasure* of
inflicting pain and drawing blood posted by queer movement supporting
lesbians on the net.
Another of the things that emerged from the group: quite a number of us
who got into these relationships were survivors of childhood abuse. We
recognised that that childhood abuse made us completely vulnerable to
emotional bullying and coercion towards acts that our abusers claimed
were consensual. Try reading "Courage to heal" if you find that difficult
to understand.
As for the view, central to queer theory, that repeatedly challenging the
supposed universal view of rigidly dichotomous sexuality and sexual
practices will lead to a great revolution, try looking at the history of
the last 5,000 years. The idea that a homosexual is a distinct and
separate sort of sexuality is a very recent invention, circe C18th.
Throughout the Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires there was plenty of
queer practice-- women and men swapping and taking on gender roles etc.,
sex games and style at the centre of social life. These were
revolutionary societies? This was liberated existence?
And then there's the wonderful idea that the great "normal" majority will
witness all these "radical" queer practices, and there'll be this great
clanging as millions of scales fall from eyes, and they all clap their
hands to their foreheads, and shout, "Goodness me, to think I hadn't
realized that gender is socially constructed, and that transgendering is
the future. I must rush home to change into drag, and then I'm going to
stop helping General Electric/the Pentagon/Coca-Cola etc etc waste the
world." I'm sure the folks fighting for a decent life out in Somalia,
Namibia, Bosnia and all those places where they can't afford the price of
a sex-change op are really grateful for the queer revolution.
Oh, don't make me laugh....
Judy
------- End of Forwarded Message
Bonnie Fenton
and your choice to speak out for us all takes. May you
know that there are too many of us......women, men, Jews and nonJews
who have suffered abuse, of all kinds......and survivors speaking
out can give another person the courage to take the first step toward
their own healing.
As a therapist,,,,I agree that for many, emotional abuse is jsut
as damaging as physical abuse and should NEVER be invalidated as
anything but being very real.....also children growing up in homes
where there is domestic violence and abuse are also very wounded and
in need of healing.....
for all of us who seek healing for ourselves or others,,,
let us say the MiSheiberach.....and to borrow the words from the
beautiful Debbie Friedman verson....
Bless those in need of healing
With r'fu-a sh'lei'ma
The renewal of body
The renewal of spirit
And let us say, Amen.........
Peace to us all.......Bonnie
- --
jane litman
domestic violence or mutilation isn't the issue of consent, as I think I
stated pretty clearly. It's in the nature of the activity. Just as one
cannot "consent" to be defrauded, no matter how many waivers or
disclaimers one signs, one cannot "consent" to being punched in the jaw
(except in boxing, which I personally believe should be banned).
The act itself is criminal. Piercing isn't criminal and shouldn't be
criminal. Emotional abuse isn't criminal - maybe it should be. The
problem with criminalizing emotional abuse (and I'm not asserting that it
should not be criminal - I have to think about it a little more) is that
emotional abuse is hard to define, hard to investigate, hard to prove,
particularly when the victim isn't actively and vocally resisting the
abuse (I'm not blaming the victim here - I'm just describing the problem).
The lack of clear guidance and boundaries opens the door to abuse of power
by authorities. Let me give an example - when Canada passed a McKinnon
style anti-porn law, one of the first prosecutions was against a store
which carried "Our Bodies - Ourselves," which contained explicit drawings
ruled to be pornographic. Although obviously McKinnon never contemplated
this outcome, this kind of criminalizing lends itself to authoritarian
abuse. That is why I think it is important to really carefully evaluate
which behaviors are socially criminal, clearly definable, and relatively
easy to evaluate. Physical battery meets this standard.
Unfortunately, some wrongful behaviors such as emotional abuse do not
meet this standard. That does not make them acceptable, just very
difficult to define and substantiate. This means that interventions are
more difficult and require a different methodology.
I still don't see how this relates to decorative body piercing. Or
transgenderism. Is putting a hole in someone's nose an assault? An abuse?
I don't see how. How about brushing my hair? That hurts sometimes. Am I
committing self-assault? There is a threshold here. I think the
definition already posted about body modification which results in
dysfunction is a good one.
However, although consent in and of itself is not sufficient to
decriminalize some behaviors, explicit non-consent does criminalize them.
I'm sure many people striving to survive in Bosnia, Somalia, Los Angeles
and London are not all that interested in a number of issues including
queer politics, the separation of Church and State, hate literature in New
Orleans, and wage disparities among woman and men employed by Federation.
The sociologist Maslow postulated that people invest energy in a hierarchy
of needs in which food, shelter, clothing, and personal safety outrank say
philosophical investigations of the structure of the universe. I think
the standard of "what would the average Bosnian think of this political
theory" is a difficult one since on this list it would tend to be
hypothetical and not entirely relevant. I think it might even be a bit
disrespectful of "the folks fighting for a decent life in Somalia" to use
them as a rhetorical device without consulting them. For all I know it
may well be that transgendered folk in Bosnia would like to have the
possibility of gender reassignment surgery. I have some friends who are
lesbian leftists from El Salvador, and though gay rights was not in any
way a priority of the vast majority of the rebels, it was awfully
important to them.
Judy's discussion of her battery survivor group shows the problem of one
person defining another's reality - the way the batterers consistently
defined the realities of the people they abused. I wonder then how this
translates to Judy's definition of Lisa's reality. Why is Judy more
informed about Lisa's gender definition than Lisa herself?
I'm still wondering why it might be such a bad thing for a transgendered
person to want to have sex with or marry me. Minimally it shows that
they have pretty good taste.
By the way, the assertion that "throughout the ancient Egyptian, Greek,
and Roman empires there was plenty of queer practice" is historically
indefensible. This covers a period of perhaps twenty-eight hundred years
in which there was enormous diversity of social and cultural practice,
almost none of which falls into generally agreed upon definitions of
"queer." Homosexuality in ancient Greece (which I imagine is the basis
for this assertion) in no way disturbed categories of power and
privilege, particularly not in regard to women. I'm not all that
conversant with ancient Egypt, but I'm pretty well versed in the cultural
world of the Roman empire, and I would need to see some specific evidence
of "plenty of queer practice." Mostly the Roman empire was a pretty grim
place (when viewed from 20th century California).
Lastly, I continue to find this third person "debate" style of
communication uncomfortable and would prefer a dialog with Judy, but will
continue for the time being to adapt to her preference. I think that I
should note that many people experience sarcasm as a form of emotional abuse.