9/13/00: hi everybody on the queerbychoice list
i am newwww! :D
nice to meet you all my name is ina.
okay i haven't met any of you yet BUT
i am very interested in hearing from you
all the same.
i'm currently *attempting* to write a piece on queer eating disorders. it's something that seems only to be discussed in the footnotes of psychology theses, ie. that the glbt set suffers from eating disorders just as much if not more than the non-queer set.
i want to research this. i also want to hear from actual queers who have gone thru, or are going thru an eating disorder.
i plan to publish at least part of what i write in my upcoming e-zine... yes yes i know.. *another* one. i won't even bore you with the URL right now
i'd really like to hear from people on this list first. i AM queer and i do have an eating disorder so i know whereof i speak.
anybody out there? or know anybody else out there like this?
sorry for the awkward and obnoxious introduction!
hope to hear from somebody.. anybody!
vole
ina
xxox.
9/14/00: having an eating disorder myself there *is* a sort of hubris involved in the "mastering" of one's biological drives when one refuses to eat no matter how hungry... and also in the sensation of "being filled" when bingeing.
but i also know that, as far as "mastery" of biological drives goes one hits a plateau rather quickly and the self-abnegation factor becomes background noise. one forgets how to respond to the biological urge to eat altogether.
maybe then this could be construed as the ultimate disconnect between body and mind for the conflicted queer psyche.
however... is the eating disorder necessarily wrapped up in feeling "conflicted" about sexuality just becuz one is queer?
just thinkin thinking.
oh and as a black woman i can say that black women *do indeed* suffer from ED's probably just as much as anyone, just not necessarily for the same reasons as "white" mainstream would focus on.
ah well lots of things in the air up there. great input you guys!
discursively,
ina
xxox.
9/27/00: it seems to me that most theories of "lo queer" share something in common that we can't emphasize enough: the notion of universal human capacity. the capacity to be queer/turn queer/become queer/however it goes which we all share as human beings.
i dont know or really care about finding a "cause" for queerness. it would be interesting to see if they can prove genetic or hormonal influences, or socio-environmental ones for that matter.
if queerness is somehow hormonal or genetic, then at some point during/prior to our development we had merely the capacity to "go queer," a potentiality that was somehow passed on to us by our progenitors.
if queerness is somehow enviromental or social or a response to some sort of external stimuli, "turning queer" was only one of several potential outcomes.
my point being that queerness, whether you end up queer or not, is never far away from any one person's development. if you are straight you could very well have been queer (and vice versa) if something, whatever it was, hadn't happened the way it did.
i know this seems like a really moronic observation to make but i think it's significant. we can't very well just choose to be 100 foot long fire breathing dragons any more than we have the genetic potential to be born as such. my point being that queerness is and has always been a likely "option" whether genetic, or environmental, simply because as human beings the potential to be queer exists for one and all.
debates about our queer origins concentrate on how queerness is freakish, other, outlandish, outside of the norm. i think we need to bring the discussions down to how ANY of us end up the way we do, whether we are queer or not. i'm pretty sure the *origins* of ALL human genders and sexualities are the same, even if our individual genders/sexualities are not.
te abraza
ina
xxox.
9/28/00: when i was in madrid in 94 i was asking around about the local slang for gay and lesbian. i was told the lesbians were called "entendidas".... i just accepted it at face value. how droll!
it's like saying "those of us in the know" *wink
wink nudge nudge*
so directly indirect! i love it! . . .
i don't think there's any one origin for something as complex as sexuality or human personalities and preferences. but i do think we all are made of the same sort of stuff that goes into making ANY personality ANY sexuality ANY gender. it's not that i would go so far to say that we are all bisexual androgynes deep down, rather that humans all originate from the same primordial soup of hormones, genes, influences, luck of the draw and sheer willpower. like someone said before these influences are always bouncing off of each other all the time throughout our lives. how we choose to respond to it is how we choose to respond.
i believe homosexuality and heterosexuality are the constructed myths and to "choose to be" either one is a really nebulous affair. i think homosexual and heterosexual should be used exclusively as adjectives, not as nouns. they can only describe specific behaviors with any real accuracy, and even then only if you can agree on the sexes and genders of the persons involved in these acts.
it's not that i don't understand the desire to construct an identity around sexuality. i just think we are really painting ourselves into a corner when we choose to take constructed identities so seriously.
i'm not anti-labels tho. i like them. they are very useful to "wear" at any given time. i just don't want to BECOME what i wear/do.
i know it can certainly work that way! in many ways throughout my life i've gone out of my way to appear NOT heterosexual. even as a woman primarily attracted to men, it galls me to think of myself as straight, or that i could ever engage in heterosexual behavior. heterosexuality represents a very vanilla, limiting and oppressive lifestyle to my mind, tho i try to draw all mental pictures in pencil in case i ever need to erase later on. :D
ina
xxox.