Love without Fear, Words without Shame.Top
The Nexus of Language, Power, and Sexuality
Silvia D. Jimenez“If we keep on speaking the same language together, we’re going to reproduce the same history. Begin the same old stories all over again. Don’t you think so? Listen: all round us, men and women sound just the same.” - Luce Irigaray
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
Storytelling is the art of words and phrases, an unconscious method of transmitting cultural paradigms; a re-inscription and, to some extent, a de-stabilization of cultural values. Listening to narratives, we learn to imagine ourselves in them, to fantasize our universes. Stories have monsters and princesses; usually they have happy endings. The endings, of course, are always heterosexual. The monster(s) (i.e. that which is different from the norm) dies. The prince wins. And - let's not forget - he gets the princess (i.e. woman) and the two walk off into the primordial Oedipal drama we call "family". However, the realities of our lives are not always as simple. Our identities are crafted through these narratives, but they are not always cohesive, and we soon discover that we are not one thing, one desire, one norm, or one voice.
Telling stories is re-telling a phantasmatic past created out of fears and desires. To our children however, these stories, made up of simple words, craft and shape their identities, their norms, and ultimately the way they view themselves in culture. Since our identities are always multiple, our desires elsewhere, we constantly need to be reminded of the LAW (1). The Law of the Father, which institutes heterosexuality (2) as the norm, Woman as the Other (3) and Queerness (4) as the monster.
In telling stories we need not think only of fairy tales, for they are found in newspapers, academic papers, judicial laws, and our everyday lives. How we describe ourselves to the corner storekeeper is a different story than the one we write in our resumes. What happens when language fails to describe how we feel, or, worse, the words that express our desires have only negative connotations? What happens when we become the unwanted, the monster children, with the wrong desires, the wrong passions, the wrong identities? How do we escape (re)telling the same stories, without disavowing (5) the Other?
THE POLITICS AND CONSTR(AINS)UCTION OF IDENTITY
Asked if your sexual identity is unitary, whether you define yourself as gay, straight, trans, bi, etc. most of you might respond that biology/history is destiny. We believe in having ONE sexual identity; we are this or that. Storytellers talk about one predetermined ending and one stereotyped prince. However, the discovery of the unconscious (such as slips of tongues, jokes, or catching yourself staring at a person of the same sex although defining yourself as heterosexual) makes any idea of coherence or unity doubtful (6).
Heterosexuality is a patriarchal construction at the expense of repressing other thoughts or/and desires. Remember when as a kid you were asked, who are you like: mommy or daddy? According to cultural history, you either identify with one sex or you desire it; only those two relations are possible. In this equation, it is not possible to identify and desire the sex you identify with. Yet psychoanalysis tells us phantasmatic identifications (which happen in the unconscious) shape who we are, our definition of our identity. When we identify with someone, we create a phantasmatic image of that person, of what we want him/her to be (for example: many women wanting to be like Sharon Stone, without ever meeting her or knowing how she is).
Sexual relations are formed out of our imaginations. Our identities are not modeled on people, but on the stories we create about them. Gender, as the identification with one sex or one object (the mother), is always a fantasy. Gender identity is not a primary category, but a set of secondary narratives. Sexualities that are not hetero are considered destabilizing since they show the phantasmatic construction of sexual identity - fear of the monster within.
Gender is an improvisational theatre, a performance one puts on (7). Sexual desires and practices are socially generated and reflect the society out of which they arise (sometimes in conflicting ways). Sex and sexuality are not primordial. They are instruments of power and design, whereas one's body is an object, a stage in the struggle for control (8). Heterosexuality is the norm/the law in a discourse of power. In Romania, the lack of expressions and vocabulary for queer communities shows how knowledge is power --crafting meaning by instilling the norm. Heterosexuality is defined as permissible and Queerness as the OTHER (unnatural, punishable, or sick). Lacking a language of empowerment and expression of (Other) sexualit(ies)y, we are left with unspoken desires (or desires spoken with negative connotations, who would say to themselves: "I am poponar/limbista?"9) and with a sense of shame. "Normality" is sustained by positioning the homosexual as the other, the pervert. S/he is an emblem for the legitimatization of heterosexuality based on procreation.
EXPRESS YOURSELF (DON'T REPRESS YOURSELF) - QUEER (10) POLITICS
Culture imposes its norms through the medium of language, which defines and dictates our perception(s) of the world. Power works (in part) through discourse, producing and destabilizing subjects. Romanian culture links sexuality with heterosexuality and queerness with criminality. Knowledge is an instrument of power (11) and to set language is to institutionalize power. Fairy tales teach us that monsters are always captured/killed so that the he(te)ro (male) can walk into the sunset. However, what happens when the monster is within us? Do we all become monst(h)er(o)s?
In 1936, the Romanian government began to talk about sex. Revising its 1864 Penal Code, authorities decided to equate normality with heterosexuality. Article 431 penalized "acts of sexual inversion committed between men or between women, if resulting in public scandal"; and sexual perversion tied bestiality with homosexuality (12). In 1940 a court decision automatically equated sexual inversion with culpability (13), and heterosexuality became the legitimate form of sexual intercourse.
The Penal Code of 1968 (a revision of the 1936 code) embodied the realities of a communist regime, best illustrated in the rise of the "Securitate" (secret police), surveillance and informers/turnatorii (people who would comply with the secret police to spy on others and report their most intimate details). Article 200 paragraph 1, read: "sexual relations between persons of the same sex are punishable by imprisonment of one to five years" (14). Homosexuality was recognized and mentioned as such for the first time, yet banned forever. Queer sexualities would fall under Article 201 - perversion, an unnatural act of sexual life. The 1968 language abolished the private sphere. The law reflected the nexus between power and sexuality. Nicolae Ceausescu saw sexual deviance "in political terms as a dangerous grouping. To a regime which predicated its authority on its surveillance of every detail of existence, any privacy immune to social supervision was a threat." (15)
The fall of communism brought the revision of laws. On November 14, 1996, Romania amended Article 200, paragraph 1 by introducing words such as "public scandal, and in public", while attempting to legitimize punishment of homosexuality. The new language makes it impossible to determine whether an act is considered a crime, until after it is committed and publicized: hence, the offense consists not so much of the character of the deed, but others' reaction to it.
Incriminating sexuality other than hetero is a symptom of the intolerance Romanians experience. Fear of the Other, (= Roma people, foreigners, minorities, etc.) is embedded deep into our psyches, with the help of words. Romania lacks a positive vocabulary to express desire and tolerance.
Words have the power to hurt, heal, express, and ignite emotions. Who decides what form of love is better than others? Why should certain types of human love be connected with hate and shame? Communication is a medium of control. To create a language is to empower a community.
Queer Romanians have never had access to language the way heterosexuals do. How can we express our sexuality without insulting ourselves? How about alternatives? Remember when you were contemplating "coming out" to your parents... just imagine inserting those phrases with Romanian words, and the whole concept would seem ridiculous. Or when someone asked you if you are "faggot" or "dyke"? Stupid, uncanny, unnatural - that is exactly how the Law wants you to feel. Re-appropriating language leads to destabilization.
Borrowing from the Gay and Lesbian Liberation movement in the United States, we need to invent a language for pleasure. For example, in English gay means having/showing a joyous mood (16). The queer community connected "gay" with "homosexual" quite pervasively so its meaning today is "homosexual" with positive twists. Since Romanian queer (sub)culture(s) is/are relatively new, we too can invent new meanings for simple words. Alternatives are covering my mind.... for example: gay could be gay (for men and women), or vioi (17); coming out could mean - "pe fata" (18), queer could remain as such to preserve its understanding. I urge you to think of your own alternatives, share them with your peers and make history.
WALKING INTO THE LAND OF DIFFERENCE
"Queer pleasures show that one does not have to settle for the predictable, the formulaic, the respected, although these too are not without their cost."(19) Queerness threatens precisely because of its construction as monstrous. What happens, however, when our neighbor sees that his/her heterosexual acts might be just like his/her gay neighbor's desire? What happens when the world realizes that queer lovers have the same human emotions as their heterosexual counterparts? What happens when the monster is within and constructions are dismantled? Monstrosity is nothing more than individual difference.
Minorities in Romania have never truly celebrated their differences. Groups such as the Baptists (religiously speaking); the Roma and the Jews (racial or cultural); gays and lesbians; and transvestites (sexual) have been viewed as Other/Alien. In a system that feared individuality and difference, some people were constructed as monsters. The communist regime managed to instill these stereotypes with a sense of compliance. Seeing all Others not as threatening - but as a countless possibility for knowledge - would lead Romania into a nation of democracy. Ceausescu taught his people to think in a communist way, with no sense of civil liberty, private space, and tolerance; the same results accomplished by Article 200.
Human sexuality is rich and diverse. Like a rainbow (20), its beauty lies in the diversity of its practices. The colors that form a rainbow, taken out of context, have no meaning in themselves. Namely blue is blue, because it is not red and it stands next to yellow - taking this as a metaphor, gay is to straight as blue is to yellow. Not better, not worse - just different. Embracing unity in diversity, we can envision new worlds.
FAIRYTALES ENDING/S.... THE WORLD COULD NOT CONTAIN THE BOOKS THAT SHALL BE WRITTEN
In fairytales, the prince will always get the girl. In this tale however, the girl may "come out", define herself as a 'lesbian', or not desire a prince. Not labeling her as monster, she now becomes a metaphor for difference. The two may not walk off into a sunset, but into a world of uncertainties and countless possibilities. They may walk into a construction of family which we call "alternative", and live a different version of a "happily ever after" that is probably more passionate, more realistic, and much more inclusive. Instead of sunsets, they will walk into a terrain of "love without fear, and words without shame." Instead of telling our children fairy tales of heterosexual primordial families, maybe we should tell them about our primordial past and our loves. Our family ties, made out of love, not blood.
Our tales are part of our sense of self. They will be fragmented and contradictory - yet equally honest. Change is never static or linear. Circling the medium of language, I urge you to be a part of history. Create new words and new meanings. (Re)appropriate a language of love, not of shame.
Change happens not only through political parties or legal documents. Our personal stories and the way we choose to write them bring changes in attitudes, perceptions and acceptance. We are a testament of hope. Our personal lives are a refusal to comply with defined normality. Our passions are as diverse and rich as the definition of love. Refusing to be forgotten, insulted or rated as second-class citizens, our individual stories queer or not, enrich the Romanian understanding of culture, dismantling an unrealistic homogeneous view of normality. So, tell me your story. Come out of their language, their prisons, and their closets. Gay, straight, bi, trans, or unimagined... show your colors to the world. Begin writing a different kind of history, one of subjectivity and passion, instead of laws and restrictions. So, tell me, what's your story?
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Notes
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1 Heterosexual marriage involves a whole community, where both man and woman become a part of a symbolic chain (laws, regulations, cultural norms). Paternity is linked culturally with the symbolic father, the primordial father who passes the law. The paternal metaphor is a symbolic operation, which cuts the mother-child bond and grants the boy/girl the ability to symbolize his/her loss through language. The Name of the Father in Lacanian theory is symbolic castration. The negative side enforces the prohibition of incest and the positive side enforces the child's inscription in the generational order, which locates the child in the social world.
2 Levi-Strauss argued, in The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), that forms of human behavior can be studied analogous to utterances/language. These behaviors make sense only in relation to a background system of rules, which can be thought of as the language of such behaviors. We live in a patriarchal society where men exchange women (like words) to maintain and create tribal/social connections. If one does not respect the Name of the Father, or the Law of prohibition of incest, society as we know it would collapse.
3 It is the Other who shapes the destiny of the drives. The Other is primary, and, for Lacan, this Other goes beyond the notion of the other as actual, and beyond the notion of the other as an internal object/fantasy. It is that which is exterior and anterior to the subject, but determines it nevertheless. The subject's unconscious has its roots in the mOther who imposes language on the Subject/child.
4 Queer, originally a synonym for 'odd', has come to signify sexuality other than heterosexual. The word has become an umbrella term for a coalition of culturally marginalized sexual self-identifications and at times has been used to describe a nascent gay/lesbian and feminist studies on culture.
5 In repression, the thought associated with one of the patient's own drives is put out of mind, whereas in disavowal a thought, or a complex of thoughts -(related to a perception of the female genitals, to the father's supposed castration threat) - is put out of mind. In disavowal there is no acceptance of the thing/thought.
6 Freud introduced the idea of the human self, or subject, as radically split, divided between two realms the conscious and the unconscious.
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7 Judith Butler uses Freudian psychoanalysis to examine gender in a postmodern form. She questions the idea of whether a person is male or female, masculine or feminine - which for Freud was a fundamental assumption. Butler not only shows how gender is a social construct, but rather it is a performance, a show we put on, a set of signs we wear.
8 Michel Foucault's definition of sex is as a "regulatory ideal", a "historical construct" which enables the operation of power relations, and in the end, "an instrument of power and design". For Foucault there is no biological substratum onto which culture imprints its own ideals; the notion of sex as origin, as given, as fundamental is itself a product of a socio-discursive regime of sexuality.
9 In Romanian poponar means someone who takes it (sex) in the butt - hence used for male homosexuals, and limbista means someone who has a big tongue, or simply one who tongues a person and is used for female homosexuals.
10 The term homosexuality, coined in 1869 by a Swiss doctor, Karoly Maria Benkert, was not widely used until the 1890s when it was adopted by sexologist Havelock Ellis. Although used extensively, it is still associated with pathology. The 1960s liberation movement made a strategic break by introducing the term gay, hence reappropriating the 19th century slang term, which had been used to describe women of dubious morals. Today, theorists adopted the term "queer" which stands for 'nothing in particular' and is an identity category that has no interest in consolidating itself. The term maintains a critique of identity. It identifies with sexuality, which doesn't fit into the cultural standards of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Developed in the mid-80's queer theory owes its intellectual roots to feminist theorists such as: Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Teresa de Lauretis, and French philosophers, including Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.
11 In this paper, I refer to power in a Foucaultian sense, namely a force that circulates around our daily lives. Knowledge as power is best illustrated in the communists' fear of listening to Western radio talk shows such as Radio Free Europe, or even admitting that capitalism is good.
12 Transilvania Article 242; Bucovina article 129.
13 Human Rights Watch Report 1998:4.
14 Romanian Penal Code, 1968.
15 Human Rights Watch p. 6
16 Webster's Dictionary 1983.
17 Romanian for lively.
18 Romanian for being honest, upfront.
19 Grosz 1995: 226.
20 In 1978, Gilbert Baker from San Francisco designed and made a flag with six stripes representing the six colors of the rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride. Slowly, the flag became a symbol for inclusion and pride towards alternative sexualities. Today it is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers, and is flown at queer marches worldwide.