5 ms·

Foucault is spot on in saying in this day of age we are obsessed with sex and its labels. Sadly I don't see much liberation in the HBQT movement. All those labe

Foucault is spot on in saying in this day of age we are obsessed with sex and its labels. Sadly I don't see much liberation in the HBQT movement. All those labels are just shackles on a heavy chain of controlling discourse.

funfunfunction 8y ago
> All those labels are just shackles on a heavy chain of controlling discourse. Can you elaborate on what you mean by controlling discourse?
- jacquesm 8y ago
  That almost nothing changes except for the words people use because that's all that they can influence. Now, real change is precursed by a change in attitude and a change in attitude can be in turn precursed by a change in terminology. But a change in terminology does not always lead to a change in attitude and a change in attitude does not always lead to real change. It's confusing cause and effect.
  - hanselot 8y ago
    Don't force views on deaf ears. The gradual shifting of awareness is happening regardless and irrespective of the attempts by liberals to further the cause (which is essentially politically driven at this stage). Allowing yourself to be vulnerable with who you are (to those close to you) is how you spread awareness and actually change people into activists for your cause (without resorting to dogma and rhetoric).
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      100% agreed, in fact I think that the 'change the language' approach is a net negative because it contains an element of force and force tends to breed resentment. Some people just weren't born to be part of progress and for every mind changed I suspect there are a large multitude that dig in even further. The time is ripe, enough people are reasonable to get an actual change happening on this front in the lifetimes of almost everybody that it really matters to. Force will get you nowhere at all. Taking Rosa Parks as a nice example: she wasn't complaining about the language used to determine her place in the bus, she took what was rightfully hers and stood by it.
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    Labels for gender and sexuality are so much more than simple political identifiers. People who actually use them for themselves experience them as guideposts to finding out what's going on inside by seeking out other people's experiences. To us, the labels are no different from "nerd" or "musician." I would still find them useful even without a vast social and political movement hell-bent on making my world as sad and empty as their own. Identity labels are fundamentally about making space to explore. "Musician" leads to all kinds of places, like grungehead, or rondo fanatic, or furry rave DJ. Why people get so up in arms about identity labels when it comes to gender and sexuality is beyond me, and I've already written too much here to start speculating.
    - arketyp 8y ago
      The musician analogy is good. You will find the same debate there. Listen to your genuis.
twardsbury 8y ago
L & G abbreviate to H, BQT don't abbreviate or combine, and require distinction within a lengthier acronym?
- arketyp 8y ago
  Sorry about that, apparently it is a Swedish acronym. One could say I was proving a point by being subversive!
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
It's worse than that. The way our minds work, labels are part of our self-image. Once we attach a label to our identity it becomes part of who we are and we often try to conform to the expectations of the label.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Human communication is set apart by its advanced facility for label-finding, which is what allows us to effectively solve problems. The term "label" has multiple levels; at a low level, just finding the "right" words to communicate something is labeling. Labels have their downsides, but the upside is an enormous communication advantage over other species, one that brought us the ability to foster life and evolve other species with us. In effect we are now _better, more nuanced labelers_ than we were in the past, which is really the goal--eliminating labels stunts our ability to identify and solve problems, so using them better is the only way to go. TLDR: "We label too much" itself is a label for a problem; even though it necessarily leaves out nuance, that's also the very factor that gives a labeler more leverage. To move up and away from that problem, we will need to find new labels that get us better traction in that area. The amazing thing is that there are so many billions of ways of labeling a problem, each with respective advantages/disadvantages.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I'm not saying we label too much per-se, but I think it is important to remember that our minds use labels as a shortcut for understanding the properties of the things we label. Useful, but not always accurate.
  - slothtrop 8y ago
    Great response
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  Labels are just words we use to collect and share bits of the world. A gay guy discovering he's not actually all that picky about gender should be able to start calling himself bi without fearing biphobic reactions (internal or external). Biphobia, which is just a modern label for a collection of attitudes that predate our modern concepts of sexuality, would still be a thing if no one called themselves "gay" or "bi" (or pan), just as same-sex attracted people got lynched for going against some people's beliefs long before there were words for their attractions. Labels aren't the problem. Dogmatic adherence to narrow concepts of gender and sexuality is the problem. It's helpful to identify the way I do so people who also identify that way can find me and compare experiences with me. Labels for gender and sexuality are best treated as a way of finding others like yourself to increase self-knowledge and protect yourself against people who want to hurt you because of the feelings those labels represent.
notahacker 8y ago
If you can't see liberation in a movement which has shifted homosexual behaviour from a perversion to be condemned and criminally punished to relationships openly celebrated through marriage in the space of half a century, it's quite likely because you're actively trying not to see it. And much of the policing of language "if you've had sex with another man then of course you're gay", "pansexual cannot be a thing and suggesting there are more than two genders is Cultural Marxist rubbish that should be resisted", "of course people born with penises cannot be addressed as female" comes from outside the movement. "Controlling discourse" seems to be the new "states rights" argument for a form of social conservatism which held no objections whatsoever to purging public discourse of any positive reference to behaviour they believed to be immoral when they held the whip hand...
- zerostar07 8y ago
  > celebrated through marriage Nothing spells celebration like the approval of the State and the Law does
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    Especially if it means they get all the legal benefits reserved for legally recognized married couples!
  - notahacker 8y ago
    If that was sarcasm, I can only assume you've never attended a wedding of any sort before :D
    - Pica_soO 8y ago
      If you are worried, that the other party may leave you at any second- and nobody here in the audience wants to intervene in this contract of drugs for steady income, then i shall declare you damned and damsel, you may now kiss the divorce lawyer.
slothtrop 8y ago
The label obsession is part of consumer-culture identity purchasing, and an extension of group mentality. Sexual labels are just one more thing absorbed into that mess. A person is their music collection, yoga class, mountain bike, glasses, political alignment, etc. No longer do you have to accomplish anything to be interesting, just buy a personality. I disagree with you on there being no liberation coming from the movement. I only agree insofar as the label obsession is mainstream.

funfunfunction 8y ago

> All those labels are just shackles on a heavy chain of controlling discourse. Can you elaborate on what you mean by controlling discourse?

jacquesm 8y ago
That almost nothing changes except for the words people use because that's all that they can influence. Now, real change is precursed by a change in attitude and a change in attitude can be in turn precursed by a change in terminology. But a change in terminology does not always lead to a change in attitude and a change in attitude does not always lead to real change. It's confusing cause and effect.
- hanselot 8y ago
  Don't force views on deaf ears. The gradual shifting of awareness is happening regardless and irrespective of the attempts by liberals to further the cause (which is essentially politically driven at this stage). Allowing yourself to be vulnerable with who you are (to those close to you) is how you spread awareness and actually change people into activists for your cause (without resorting to dogma and rhetoric).
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    100% agreed, in fact I think that the 'change the language' approach is a net negative because it contains an element of force and force tends to breed resentment. Some people just weren't born to be part of progress and for every mind changed I suspect there are a large multitude that dig in even further. The time is ripe, enough people are reasonable to get an actual change happening on this front in the lifetimes of almost everybody that it really matters to. Force will get you nowhere at all. Taking Rosa Parks as a nice example: she wasn't complaining about the language used to determine her place in the bus, she took what was rightfully hers and stood by it.
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  Labels for gender and sexuality are so much more than simple political identifiers. People who actually use them for themselves experience them as guideposts to finding out what's going on inside by seeking out other people's experiences. To us, the labels are no different from "nerd" or "musician." I would still find them useful even without a vast social and political movement hell-bent on making my world as sad and empty as their own. Identity labels are fundamentally about making space to explore. "Musician" leads to all kinds of places, like grungehead, or rondo fanatic, or furry rave DJ. Why people get so up in arms about identity labels when it comes to gender and sexuality is beyond me, and I've already written too much here to start speculating.
  - arketyp 8y ago
    The musician analogy is good. You will find the same debate there. Listen to your genuis.

twardsbury 8y ago

L & G abbreviate to H, BQT don't abbreviate or combine, and require distinction within a lengthier acronym?

arketyp 8y ago
Sorry about that, apparently it is a Swedish acronym. One could say I was proving a point by being subversive!

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

It's worse than that. The way our minds work, labels are part of our self-image. Once we attach a label to our identity it becomes part of who we are and we often try to conform to the expectations of the label.

themodelplumber 8y ago
Human communication is set apart by its advanced facility for label-finding, which is what allows us to effectively solve problems. The term "label" has multiple levels; at a low level, just finding the "right" words to communicate something is labeling. Labels have their downsides, but the upside is an enormous communication advantage over other species, one that brought us the ability to foster life and evolve other species with us. In effect we are now _better, more nuanced labelers_ than we were in the past, which is really the goal--eliminating labels stunts our ability to identify and solve problems, so using them better is the only way to go. TLDR: "We label too much" itself is a label for a problem; even though it necessarily leaves out nuance, that's also the very factor that gives a labeler more leverage. To move up and away from that problem, we will need to find new labels that get us better traction in that area. The amazing thing is that there are so many billions of ways of labeling a problem, each with respective advantages/disadvantages.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I'm not saying we label too much per-se, but I think it is important to remember that our minds use labels as a shortcut for understanding the properties of the things we label. Useful, but not always accurate.
- slothtrop 8y ago
  Great response
rainbowmverse 8y ago
Labels are just words we use to collect and share bits of the world. A gay guy discovering he's not actually all that picky about gender should be able to start calling himself bi without fearing biphobic reactions (internal or external). Biphobia, which is just a modern label for a collection of attitudes that predate our modern concepts of sexuality, would still be a thing if no one called themselves "gay" or "bi" (or pan), just as same-sex attracted people got lynched for going against some people's beliefs long before there were words for their attractions. Labels aren't the problem. Dogmatic adherence to narrow concepts of gender and sexuality is the problem. It's helpful to identify the way I do so people who also identify that way can find me and compare experiences with me. Labels for gender and sexuality are best treated as a way of finding others like yourself to increase self-knowledge and protect yourself against people who want to hurt you because of the feelings those labels represent.

notahacker 8y ago

If you can't see liberation in a movement which has shifted homosexual behaviour from a perversion to be condemned and criminally punished to relationships openly celebrated through marriage in the space of half a century, it's quite likely because you're actively trying not to see it. And much of the policing of language "if you've had sex with another man then of course you're gay", "pansexual cannot be a thing and suggesting there are more than two genders is Cultural Marxist rubbish that should be resisted", "of course people born with penises cannot be addressed as female" comes from outside the movement. "Controlling discourse" seems to be the new "states rights" argument for a form of social conservatism which held no objections whatsoever to purging public discourse of any positive reference to behaviour they believed to be immoral when they held the whip hand...

zerostar07 8y ago
> celebrated through marriage Nothing spells celebration like the approval of the State and the Law does
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  Especially if it means they get all the legal benefits reserved for legally recognized married couples!
- notahacker 8y ago
  If that was sarcasm, I can only assume you've never attended a wedding of any sort before :D
  - Pica_soO 8y ago
    If you are worried, that the other party may leave you at any second- and nobody here in the audience wants to intervene in this contract of drugs for steady income, then i shall declare you damned and damsel, you may now kiss the divorce lawyer.

slothtrop 8y ago

The label obsession is part of consumer-culture identity purchasing, and an extension of group mentality. Sexual labels are just one more thing absorbed into that mess. A person is their music collection, yoga class, mountain bike, glasses, political alignment, etc. No longer do you have to accomplish anything to be interesting, just buy a personality. I disagree with you on there being no liberation coming from the movement. I only agree insofar as the label obsession is mainstream.