Caution: intellectual masturbation zone. Watch for flying spooge.
Okay. Here's Teh Essay, since I'm on my "lunch break." Sorry it's not more fandomy.
Last night, while chatting with Katie on a variety of HP subjects, I brought up Remus/Sirius vs. Remus/Tonks and the idea of "coding" in a text. Since she was clearly not into it (she's very much a canon literalist) I sort of tried to wrap up the subject by saying, "Well, you know, I don't mind Remus/Tonks because that just means that Remus is bi and that's cool."
But my brain misfired.
Vampires have been used as a metaphor for homosexuality for years, well before Anne Rice. From one perspective, they're a great metaphor for mainstream fears about the gay lifestyle: a predatory Other "infecting" its "victims" to make them like itself. From another, they form a great metaphor for the gay community: an Other struggling to live in a community it can't actually participate in, a community defined by a transgressive act it can't (or won't) stop doing. Blood-sucking as a coded sex act opens the door to both cheap thrills (ever seen "Van Helsing?") and exploration of gender themes without the threat of actual gonads getting involved. There's also been some interesting literature playing on ideas of vampires and AIDS (since vampires have historically been associated with epidemics).
And it occured to me last night that, if we're going to extended the monster metaphor further, then the best equivalent of bisexuality is the werewolf.
I'm bi. I'm not open about it, but I also don't make a real concentrated effort to hide it--I talk about hot girls in front of my friends all the time. But Katie didn't realized I was bi until I explicitly said something like "I would do anyone on [Firefly] except maybe Summer Glau because she's too skinny." Last night, I found out another of my flisties is bi, because she said so--I had known she was Pagan and biracial, but never realized she was bisexual because she never said. I can hold my own in conversation about hot guys, and someday I might just up and marry one, and nobody knows I also fancy women unless I tell them.
Homosexuals, and vampires, are a definite and distinct Other. A lesbian chatting with a group of het females has to lie or stay silent on certain subjects in order to "pass," and any opposite-sex marriage would be a sham. I don't need to make an effort to "pass;" I have nothing to pass off. I am heterosexual. I am also homosexual. That's what "bisexual" means.
Why does this make the werewolf a good metaphor? It's the metaphor for mainstream fears: the Other you never saw coming, the monster who might slip into the community and bring all sorts of dangers with it. (Bisexuals have been associated with the AIDS epidemic in lots of contexts, usually as a problem if not an outright agent of evil, and by all monosexuals--straight and gay.) It's also a metaphor for identity: I am the Other except when I am not. I am part of the community except when I'm not. Other people might make a distinction, might percieve a "straight" Maud and a "gay" Maud, a woman and a wolf; my experience, my self is a continuity. There isn't a space between "were" and "wolf" because they are the same thing.
It's a flawed metaphor, of course, mostly because of the transformative aspect: my libido doesn't shift with the phases of the moon. There's also the whole "ravenous monster" thing, which is a bad way to characterize same-sex attractions. But if Louis and Lestat can be gay icons, then dammit, I can be a werewolf if I wanna.
Last night, while chatting with Katie on a variety of HP subjects, I brought up Remus/Sirius vs. Remus/Tonks and the idea of "coding" in a text. Since she was clearly not into it (she's very much a canon literalist) I sort of tried to wrap up the subject by saying, "Well, you know, I don't mind Remus/Tonks because that just means that Remus is bi and that's cool."
But my brain misfired.
Vampires have been used as a metaphor for homosexuality for years, well before Anne Rice. From one perspective, they're a great metaphor for mainstream fears about the gay lifestyle: a predatory Other "infecting" its "victims" to make them like itself. From another, they form a great metaphor for the gay community: an Other struggling to live in a community it can't actually participate in, a community defined by a transgressive act it can't (or won't) stop doing. Blood-sucking as a coded sex act opens the door to both cheap thrills (ever seen "Van Helsing?") and exploration of gender themes without the threat of actual gonads getting involved. There's also been some interesting literature playing on ideas of vampires and AIDS (since vampires have historically been associated with epidemics).
And it occured to me last night that, if we're going to extended the monster metaphor further, then the best equivalent of bisexuality is the werewolf.
I'm bi. I'm not open about it, but I also don't make a real concentrated effort to hide it--I talk about hot girls in front of my friends all the time. But Katie didn't realized I was bi until I explicitly said something like "I would do anyone on [Firefly] except maybe Summer Glau because she's too skinny." Last night, I found out another of my flisties is bi, because she said so--I had known she was Pagan and biracial, but never realized she was bisexual because she never said. I can hold my own in conversation about hot guys, and someday I might just up and marry one, and nobody knows I also fancy women unless I tell them.
Homosexuals, and vampires, are a definite and distinct Other. A lesbian chatting with a group of het females has to lie or stay silent on certain subjects in order to "pass," and any opposite-sex marriage would be a sham. I don't need to make an effort to "pass;" I have nothing to pass off. I am heterosexual. I am also homosexual. That's what "bisexual" means.
Why does this make the werewolf a good metaphor? It's the metaphor for mainstream fears: the Other you never saw coming, the monster who might slip into the community and bring all sorts of dangers with it. (Bisexuals have been associated with the AIDS epidemic in lots of contexts, usually as a problem if not an outright agent of evil, and by all monosexuals--straight and gay.) It's also a metaphor for identity: I am the Other except when I am not. I am part of the community except when I'm not. Other people might make a distinction, might percieve a "straight" Maud and a "gay" Maud, a woman and a wolf; my experience, my self is a continuity. There isn't a space between "were" and "wolf" because they are the same thing.
It's a flawed metaphor, of course, mostly because of the transformative aspect: my libido doesn't shift with the phases of the moon. There's also the whole "ravenous monster" thing, which is a bad way to characterize same-sex attractions. But if Louis and Lestat can be gay icons, then dammit, I can be a werewolf if I wanna.