Please forward far and wide...
WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS?:
flaming challenges to masculinity, objectification and the desire to conform
• CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS •
As back rooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture becomes little more than straight-acting dudes hangin' out, where are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a world that wants us dead?
Masculine ideals have long reigned supreme in male sexual spaces, from the locker room to the tea room, the bars to the back alleys to the beaches. But is there something more brutal and dehumanizing about the calculated hyperobjectification of the internet? How do we confront the limits of transaction sexuality, where scorn becomes "just a preference," lack of respect is assumed, and lying is a given? How can we create something splendid and intimate from that universe of shaking and moaning and nervous glances turned inward now groaning?
I'm especially interested in essays about community-building experiments, public sexual cultures, faggots not socialized or presenting as male, cruising, HIV, consumerism, transfaggotry, polyamory, feminism, sexual safety and risk-taking, norms for faggots outside of the US, and gender transgression (of course). I'm looking for essays that expose hierarchies of gender, age, race, nationality, class, body type, ability, sexuality and other identity categories instead of imposing fascistic definitions based on beauty myth consumer norms. That's right, honey -- I'm talking about interventions that are dangerous and lovely, just like you.
Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore is the editor, most recently, of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal/Avalon, 2007) and an expanded second edition of That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull, forthcoming). Her second novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, will be published by City Lights in 2008. For more on Mattilda, visit www.mattbernsteinsycamore.com.
The basics:
*Submit non-fiction essays of up to 6,000 words. All submissions must be typed and double-spaced, and sent by post (no email submissions, but feel free to contact me with queries, mattilda@sbcglobal.net). Please include a short bio.
*Deadline is November 31, 2007 -- but the sooner, the better.
*Send submissions to:
Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore
537 Jones Street, #3152
San Francisco, CA 94102
July 3, 1975 - In a change of policy, the U.S. Civil Service Commission decides to consider applications by lesbians and gay men on a case-by-case basis. Previously, homosexuality was grounds for automatic disqualification.
BTW, Am I the only one who noticed that in the midst of his series of denials, Mr. Washington actually ADMITTED to the offense that he spent the rest of the program, and all of this time prior to the program denying?.....
Apparently Mr. Washington never heard the old adage about what to do when you're in a hole (stop digging!). These are some facts that become obvious from this interview:
1. Mr. Washington's use of the term "faggot" was meant to mean one who is weak, or a 'punk'.
2. Later, Mr. washington explains that the reason the f-word came to his mind at all was because he kind of grew up in a gay community here in New York and...
...And the word was thrown around quite a bit.
3. Mr. Washington repeatedly insists that he did not use the term to refer to TR Knight. He then goes on to admit that he used it to refer to TR Knight, as I illustrated above.
4. Mr. Washington finds it difficult to admit a shortcoming of his own without pointing the finger at someone else in the same breath.
5. Mr. Washington, whether intentionally or not, weaves a web of obfuscation with threads of codependence and mendacity that make it neccessary for one to listen very closely in order to hear all that is actually being said, and decipher what is actually true.
Bottom line - even if Mr. Wasington does believe his own lies and half-truths, he did use the term "faggot" in reference to TR Knight (I'm not your faggot, I'm not TR!).
His references to TR being a bit of a backstabber as per the conversation on the plane may or may not be true, but are of little if any relevance to the important issues here, as it doesn't justify Washington's actions. This half-acceptance of responsibility of his own actions,
[KING: -- "for using a word that's unacceptable in any context or circumstance."
Did you believe that?
WASHINGTON: Well, I have issues with the -- any context or -- or circumstance, because the context in which I used it was saying that I did not use it to attack T.R. With. The question -- ]
combined with his eagerness to point fingers at others in a seemingly childish attempt to change the subject
[KING: Why do you think T.R. took that incident, which you say didn't involve him at all, to come out and to be angry? Well, be angry, maybe, because he might take offense to the use of the word.
WASHINGTON: Absolutely, as he should.
KING: As he should. But you weren't referring to him?
WASHINGTON: Yes. And I told him that that day in Chandra's office.
KING: And what did he say when you said...
WASHINGTON: He just said, "Well, you're trying to" -- I said but remember, you know, the conversation we had on the plane, you know, about you feeling very angry about how certain things were being handled and the way you were being treated. I said you know if anything, the only reason I brought your name into this is because I felt like I was defending you against some bullying.
And even though I was, you know, miscalculating that, that's not where Patrick was coming from because he was responding to something that I said. So we -- it was separate. But I've called him several times and said, look, man, we need to talk about this. I approached him several times and he always said I don't want to talk about. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. That was all through November. But then a call in December started going to Chandra Wilson and her mate -- I mean she's very, very upset that because of the way ABC put out the statement the second time after the Golden Globes, it all looked like I was lying for using the word on October 9, which I never denied. I used it and I take ownership of that but it was never to refer to T.R. Knight. ]
do nothing to raise the esteem of Mr. washington to any objective observer.
He could have had me. Had Mr. Washington simply said: 'I said it. I meant it - it's how I talked. I've learned, I've allowed myself to become educated and enlightened on this issue. I made amends. I should have been forgiven and I should not have been fired.', I would have eventually come to support him - even if it might have taken me a couple days to get there.
A straight man of any color using the term "faggot" in that way is very painful to a faggot like me, especially of my age or older.
But I do believe that I would have come around and I would have supported him. He did do everything they asked of him; he did make amends.
But now his attempts to step away from that amends in some form render me incapable of any type of support for this man beyond the basic wishing him no harm.
What is most saddening and infuriating about this for me is that due to the fact that many black people have a different worldview than that of white people such as myself, that some (perhaps many or most) black people will see this as an issue of racism - in other words see it in a way completely different than I do, and that this fact separates us instead of uniting us.
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