Queering straight spaces
I'd be a happier gal if I'd never again had to hear: "Oh right, you're dancing the guy".
Usually I smile and move on, because most of the time the one saying it is an older dancer who means well (and who find the fact that I lead a little amusing but mostly impressive.)
There's no queer dancing scene where I live. Days like these, I really wish there was.
Another fine one is the comment I got yesterday when I mentioned in passing the girl I'll be taking workshops with at an upcoming festival - "A girl, not a guy? Oh well, I suppose there aren't that many guys dancing." And you know, the girl in question called me three months ago to make sure I wouldn't book myself up with anyone else for this festival, and has a seven hour trip to get here and there really is no one I would be more excited to spend a weekend dancing with.
But social dancing is such a straight environment that dancing out of the normally gendered roles clearly can't be anything but a last resort solution, impressively forward perhaps, but never optimal. Which is why choosing to do it differently feels important.
Queering straight spaces is necessary and sometimes it feels fantastic, knowing that you, individually, are making a difference. And other days it's so, so tiring.
I'm pondering how I think of fandom as queer space, and to what extent.
A friend and I have been talking lots about identity politics vs deconstructing movements lately - affirming minority identities on one hand and breaking down the norms that define those identities on the other. The problematic in wanting to do both of it at the same time. I tend to think of the lgbt movement as mostly identity-affirming and queer as deconstructing - and sometimes it bothers me when queer is used simply as a synonym for lgbt.
A dance analogy: affirming identity would mean women leading women, men following men - no longer tying the roles of the dance to a heterosexual norm. That's pretty great. But it's not enough, not for me. A queer tango would be a dance that breaks down the clear roles of leading and following, lets them switch around, blend into each other, dissolve - turn into something like contact improvisation, a meeting and a game. That's what I aim for and dream about.
I don't mean to say that identity politics aren't very valuable and a huge step forward - some days all I want to do is declare that I'm a dyke, as a political statement, and celebrate awesome women. Most of the time anti-essentialistic queer feminism wins for me, is all. More need for deconstruction than affirming. I want to see fandom as a queer space, I really do. Or at least as queering the straight space that is mainstream media culture. But I don't know - there's so much slash fiction for instance that's basically heteronormative romance with two hot male leads instead, and even writers who never would fall into the heternormative trap often seem to go more for affirming lgbt-identities than for questioning the norms that define us as different.
All your thoughts are welcome, dear f-list! Feel free to disprove me. (If I don't reply straight away it's because I'm off queering a tango night.)
Usually I smile and move on, because most of the time the one saying it is an older dancer who means well (and who find the fact that I lead a little amusing but mostly impressive.)
There's no queer dancing scene where I live. Days like these, I really wish there was.
Another fine one is the comment I got yesterday when I mentioned in passing the girl I'll be taking workshops with at an upcoming festival - "A girl, not a guy? Oh well, I suppose there aren't that many guys dancing." And you know, the girl in question called me three months ago to make sure I wouldn't book myself up with anyone else for this festival, and has a seven hour trip to get here and there really is no one I would be more excited to spend a weekend dancing with.
But social dancing is such a straight environment that dancing out of the normally gendered roles clearly can't be anything but a last resort solution, impressively forward perhaps, but never optimal. Which is why choosing to do it differently feels important.
Queering straight spaces is necessary and sometimes it feels fantastic, knowing that you, individually, are making a difference. And other days it's so, so tiring.
I'm pondering how I think of fandom as queer space, and to what extent.
A friend and I have been talking lots about identity politics vs deconstructing movements lately - affirming minority identities on one hand and breaking down the norms that define those identities on the other. The problematic in wanting to do both of it at the same time. I tend to think of the lgbt movement as mostly identity-affirming and queer as deconstructing - and sometimes it bothers me when queer is used simply as a synonym for lgbt.
A dance analogy: affirming identity would mean women leading women, men following men - no longer tying the roles of the dance to a heterosexual norm. That's pretty great. But it's not enough, not for me. A queer tango would be a dance that breaks down the clear roles of leading and following, lets them switch around, blend into each other, dissolve - turn into something like contact improvisation, a meeting and a game. That's what I aim for and dream about.
I don't mean to say that identity politics aren't very valuable and a huge step forward - some days all I want to do is declare that I'm a dyke, as a political statement, and celebrate awesome women. Most of the time anti-essentialistic queer feminism wins for me, is all. More need for deconstruction than affirming. I want to see fandom as a queer space, I really do. Or at least as queering the straight space that is mainstream media culture. But I don't know - there's so much slash fiction for instance that's basically heteronormative romance with two hot male leads instead, and even writers who never would fall into the heternormative trap often seem to go more for affirming lgbt-identities than for questioning the norms that define us as different.
All your thoughts are welcome, dear f-list! Feel free to disprove me. (If I don't reply straight away it's because I'm off queering a tango night.)