sexual orientation

The New York Times recently published an article on the evolving Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  The DSM is the official source for psychologists who are diagnosing patients with mental disorders.  The article points out that the number of disorders in the manual has more than doubled since the 1950s:

Hypothesis One:  The DSM reflects an increasingly sophisticated and exhuastive compendium of all possible mental disorders.

Hypothesis Two:  More psychological disorders = more people diagnosed with mental disorders = more money is siphoned off to hospitals, treatment centers, drug companies, mental health professionals, social workers, school counselors, etc.  (Scientists who are currently working on the next version of the DSM have agreed to restrict their income from drug makes to $10,000 a year or less.)

Hypothesis Three:  We are an increasingly rationalized society and all things are becoming increasingly listed, compiled, organized, and annotated.

Hypothesis Four:  What is considered a “problem” depends on the social context.  (“Homosexuality” used to be in the DSM, but it isn’t any longer.)  Perhaps a shift in the last 50 years has created a social context that is less tolerant of difference, more insistent upon happiness, or requires a more compliant citizen.

Hypothesis Five:  Grassroots activists get together and lobby scientists to include disorders in the DSM so that they can raise awareness and money for research.

What do you think?

Thanks to Francisco for pointing me to this article!

Francisco pointed us to a spoken word poem by Andrea Gibson in which she talks about what it’s like to be ambiguously gendered:

Transcript (borrowed from Francisco):

So, I teach in a preschool. Hehe… I make a goddamn difference, now what about you. That’s one point I had to make before I read this poem. The second point is, I usually have hair that is much much shorter than this. That’s all you need to know.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asks, staring up at me in all three feet of his pudding face grandeur, and I say “Dylan, you’ve been in this class for three years and you still don’t know if I’m a boy or a girl?” And he says “Uh-uh.” And I say “Well, at this point, I don’t really think it matters, do you?” And he says “Uhhhm, no. Can I have a push on the swing?” And this happens every day. It’s a tidal wave of kindergarten curiosity rushing straight for the rocks of me, whatever I am.

And the class, when we discuss the Milky Way galaxy, the orbit of the Sun around the Earth… or whatever. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and kids, do you know that some of the stars we see when we look up in the sky are so far away, they’ve already burned out? What do you think of that? Timmy? “Umm… my mom says that even though you got hairs that grow from your legs, and the hairs on your head grow short and poky, and that you smell really bad, like my dad, that you’re a girl.” “Thank you, Timmy.”

And so it goes. On the playground, she peers up at me from behind her pink power puff sunglasses and then asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?” And I say no, and she says “Oh, do you have a girlfriend?” And I say “No, but if by some miracle, twenty years from now, I ever finally do, then I’ll definitely bring her by to meet you. How’s that?” “Okay. Can I have a push on the swing?”

And that’s the thing. They don’t care. They don’t care. Us, on the other hand… My father sitting across the table at Christmas dinner, gritting his teeth over his still-full plate, his appetite raped away by the intrusion of my haircut, “What were you thinking? You used to be such a pretty girl!” Frat boys, drunken, screaming, leaning out of the windows of their daddys’ SUVs, “Hey! Are you a faggot or a dyke?” And I wonder what would happen if I met up with them in the middle of the night.

Then of course there’s always the somehow not-quite-bright enough fluorescent light of the public restroom, “Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?” “Yes, ma’am, I do, it’s just that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men’s room.”

But the best, the best is always the mother at the market, sticking up her nose while pushing aside her daughter’s wide eyes, whispering “Don’t stare, it’s rude.” And I want to say, “Listen, lady, the only rude thing I see is your paranoid parental hand pushing aside the best education on self that little girl’s ever gonna get, living with your Maybelline lipstick after hips and pedi kiwi, vanilla-smelling beauty; so why don’t you take your pinks and blues, your boy-girl rules and shove them in that car with your fucking issue of Cosmo, because tomorrow, I stop my day with twenty-eight miles and I know a hell of a lot more than you. And if I show up in a pink frilly dress, those kids won’t love me any more, or less.”

“Hey, are you a boy or a — never mind, can I have a push on the swing?” And some day, y’all, when we grow up, it’s all gonna be that simple.

Two readers, Muriel M. M. and Lauren D., sent in this advertisement for the Oslo Gay Festival.

Three thoughts:

First, notice how the narrative reproduces the idea of the goal-oriented sentient sperm.  (We’ve got a fun post on that idea here, and here’s another good one.)  Remember, sperm do not have goals; they do not have ideas; they do not think.  It’s just chemistry.

Second, I think it’s interesting how this video associates anal sex with gay men.  How do gay men have sex?   Well, they must copy straight people as closely as possible.  Therefore, they must put the penis in an opening “down there.”  Ah ha!  I bet they all have anal sex all the time!  I’m sure some gay men do have anal sex, but some surely don’t, and lots of straight couples do!  I bet a lot of lesbian couples find a way to do it, too.  I’m just sayin’.

Third, for what it’s worth: It also occurred to me that, in that this commercial celebrates the infertile sex act, we’ve come a long way from the Christian ethic against wasting your seed.

Political donations are by law public. With this information, someone has put up a website which shows, on google maps, which households (in the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, and Orange and L.A. Counties) donated money to Proposition 8 (California’s successful proposition to prohibit gay marriage). When you click on the arrow, it also tells you the name of the person in the household, that persons occupation and employer, and how much money they donated. Take a look.

Over at The Daily Dish, one person is quoted saying:

What could possibly be the use of this kind of information, presented in this way? It’s intended to intimidate people into not participating in politics by donating money. Do that, and you’ll end up on some activist group’s map, with hotheads being able to find your street address on their iPhones.

Andrew Sullivan weighs in:

I don’t get the fear. If Prop 8 supporters truly feel that barring equality for gay couples is vital for saving civilization, shouldn’t they be proud of their financial support? Why don’t they actually have posters advertizing their support for discriminating against gay people – as a matter of pride?

Elsewhere on the same website, a reader writes in:

I zoomed in on the cities and neighborhoods where my relatives live.  What do I find but that one of my own aunts, in San Diego, contributed $200 to the Prop 8 cause last summer.  This same aunt, a good person I honestly believe, has even invited me and my partner to stay with in her family’s home. Call me naive, but I’m kind of having trouble wrapping my brain around this seeming contradiction.

This back and forth raises some interesting questions:

Is the map violating some sort of privacy? If not technical, legal privacy, then some sort of cultural agreement about how far is “too far”?

Is the first commenter correct that this is essentially a nefarious act? Should political donations be public in this brave new world of google maps and internet access? Has “public” taken on a whole new meaning here?

Then again, the right to free speech protects a lot more aggressive and heinous things than this google map. Is the first commenter overreacting?

And what of Andrew Sullivan’s comment? Are those who donated proud to see themselves on the map? Or are they ashamed?  When political action is unpopular (not that I’m sure this one is), does that change the nature of participation? Should holders of unpopular political beliefs be protected, perhaps by allowing them to donate anonymously?  Or is shaming part of how cultural change happens and, thus, a perfectly legitimate strategy on behalf of gay rights?

Further, maybe people like the last commenter deserve to know if their friends or relatives are donating to political causes that discriminate against them?  Then again, does the Aunt have any right to be able to donate to the cause without disrupting her relationships with her family?

Thoughts?  Other questions you think this brings up?

At one point in U.S. history, sodomy was illegal in every state. In the penal codes (no pun intended), sodomy was sometimes defined as anal sex, sometimes as oral sex, and sometimes both. In some cases, the laws applied only to same sex partners, in other cases to any two partners (even husband and wife).

This map (found here) shows when each state repealed its law:

In 2003, the Supreme Court made all such laws unconstitutional. This image (found here) shows which states had sodomy laws that applied to same sex couples and those that had laws that applied to all couples:

A Daily Mail story reports that women lawyers are being told by “image consultants’ that to appear “professional” they should enhance their femininity by wearing skirts and stilettos, but avoid drawing attention to their breasts.  Thoughts about the word “professional” after the screenshot (thanks to Jason S. for the link):

A spokesman for the company doling out this advice says that it’s about being “professional.”  This is a great term to take apart.  What do we really mean when we say “professional”?

How much of it has to do with proper gender display or even, in masculinized workplaces, simply masculine display?

How much of it has to do with whiteness?  Are afros and corn rows unprofessional?   Is speaking Spanish?  Why or why not?

How much of it has to do with appearing attractive, heterosexual, monogamous, and, you know, not one of those “unAmerican” religions?

For that matter, how much of it has to do with pretending like your work is your life, you are devoted to the employer, and your co-workers are like family (anyone play Secret Santa at work this year)?

What do we really mean when we say “professional”?  How does this word get used to coerce people into upholding normative expectations that center certain kinds of people and marginalize others?

Sandra F. sent in a link to “Prop 8: The Musical,” a parody starring Jack Black, Margaret Cho, Andy Richter, John C. Reilly, Neil Patrick Harris, and other celebrities:

The clip, though a parody, brings up a reason some groups that might not care about the reasons gays and lesbians want to get married, or about gay rights more broadly, nonetheless supported gay marriage: money. The New York Times discussed this issue here. Weddings are big business, and the more people who are eligible to be married, the more money is potentially available to wedding-related businesses. In 2004, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the impact legalizing same-sex marriage would have on the budget (end result: an estimated $1 billion a year for the 10-year estimation period). That’s just the federal budgetary effect; it doesn’t include private-sector benefits.

This anti-Prop 8 video makes an explicitly economic argument for gay marriage:

You might compare these videos to the commercials in this post; in those ads, advocates of gay marriage try to rhetorically frame the issue as being about love–that is, gay marriages are equated with straight marriages by focusing on the idea that what is important in a marriage is love, regardless of the sex of the spouses. Clearly you could use them to discuss gay marriage, but they might also be good for illustrating the idea of framing of social issues.

Thanks, Sandra!

Update: The confusion in the comments brought to my attention that I embedded the wrong commercial.  See!  I’m not crazy!  Just incompetent.

Enjoy the corrected post:

At least that’s the message I’m taking from this Utah Tourism advertisement featuring anthropomorphized snowflakes (found here):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78RZ-UgIMrM[/youtube]