Crossing the Shithead Rubicon

I write here not to praise the poly community, but to bury it.

So this mess recently appeared on Reddit's /r/polyamory: Am I delusional to think that anti poly backlash is especially ironic and bigoted?

I grew up in a poly family, and am happily ensconced in a my own poly LTR, stable and happy for years.

I get the normal "oh you must be taking advantage of your poor girlfriends"* thing, but am I wrong to find this especially offensive and ignorant when it comes from a LGBT person? I Mean, Really? It seems like of anyone, I would expect them to understand or at least not be so vocally opposed - but honestly, I get the harshest feedback from these folks...Is it just me?

*(I joined a happy bi fem couple that was looking for a man to play with / be a father, so that couldn't be farther from the truth - if anything, I am the third wheel!)

So it starts out fucked up and quickly devolves, leaving the original post as a high-water mark of poly tolerance an awareness.  And for those who followed the link, yes, the OP really calls himself "I_love_latinas".

One person in the thread is reminded of reading Maus and there being a Holocaust survivor character who was racist.  Someone else suggested that it was a bad idea to compare anything to the Holocaust that was not in fact a genocide.  That person was repeatedly down-voted, because suggesting that polys aren't exactly like the Jews in the Holocaust is as bad as, I don't know, maybe the Holocaust.

The polys then veer off to complain that it's not like Jews and Nazis, but rather like "the black community", and no I'm not making that up, and how they're all hella homophobic, including, I guess, the gay ones.  The polys go on to say that it's even worse when black people are homophobic, as they all are, given that white people have gotten so good at tolerating their blackness.  Hear that, people of color?  You're disappointing white polys.  Get on that.

One guy makes up a conversation he supposedly had wherein he told a gay man that he was thinking of trying out polyamory and the man responded with, I shit you not, this is him quoting the guy, "I don't think I approve of your lifestyle".  Yep, that definitely happened.  That sounds exactly like what a human would say to a person suggesting he might be interested in polyamory.  Wait, no!  It doesn't even sound like something that an alien impersonating a human using only lines of Java code as a guide to human dialog would say.  I mean seriously, who the fuck talks like that?  No one.  Ever.  That's who.

What really gets awful, is that the most fucked up, racist, homophobic posts got up-voted while those very few people dissenting were down-voted dozens of times in single comments.  So the message is loud and clear.  See what happens you social justice types?  If you don't let the polys into the parade, you're probably taking your orders from the homos, the Jews, or teh blacks.  The whole thread rapidly started to feel like it had cribbed the script of an episode of "Fox & Friends", but with 50% more bigotry.

And this is not just an example of Reddit being the gaping asshole of the Internet.  It's the steady state of online poly meeting spaces.  It's a fucking constant.  It's a feature, not a bug, and it's only gotten worse.

Poly is largely white, middle class, and thoroughly clueless about privilege and race.  Want to see how they really feel about the gay community, drop into a poly sphere and bring up marriage equality.  Better yet, do that at in the same post as you suggest that co-opting the language of queerness  while suggesting that a relationship model can't be a sexual identity is maybe not cool.  The indignant sputters will be heard all the way from Minneapolis.  But I was born poly!  It is so a "coming out".  People are killed for being poly all over!

If you really want a fiesta of whining, try suggesting that there's something to the fact that non-monogamy has been super common in the gay community long before poly was a thing, yet the number of gay people identifying as poly is shockingly small.

So many are quick to point out that they can't be homophobic.  After all, the wife is totally bi and hooks up with a bi woman some times.  Also, they know a lesbian who has been to their Saturday munch.  Hell, several of them even have a gay friend or something.  Just kidding.  They don't have friends.  Potential friends tend to scatter when a pack of gamers wearing Three Wolf Moon shirt and kvetching about the gays walks into the room.

No, we're not poly.  The reason we're not now, or ever going to identify as poly comes down to the community and their fucked up baggage.  We date other people, but to call ourselves poly is to stand in solidarity with some really shitty human beings behaving badly.

No, not all poly people are like that, but a quick look at that thread is a clear demonstration that the the bad is a huge majority.  It's also not going to get better any time soon.  Look around and see what serious discussion is going on in the poly community.  Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Pepomint used to write some really insightful pieces on it, but now we're just left with people posting about snuggling with their paramours and talking about the great things about poly.  They get mad that the queer community keeps them at arms' length but don't care to understand why beyond throwing out homophobic statements with little prompting.  That is, fundamentally, a function of privilege and a function of poly.

If it gets better, we'll let you know.

It's not getting better.

The Low-Down Dirty Truth

ColorLines reports on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher Greg Millet's White House statement on Black men and HIV transmission.  Turns out that according to the data, the myth about Black men "on the down-low" (i.e. men who identify as straight but have sex with men secretly) spreading HIV to Black women is largely untrue.  Black bisexual men are more likely to have protected sex with male and female partners and less likely to test positive for HIV, which explodes the myth of bisexual men as disease vectors.  Also interesting is the finding that most gay and bisexual Black men identify as gay or bisexual and are not closeted as the cultural myth seems to suggest.

There's a lot going on here in the intersection of race and sexual identity, of course largely filtered through White social constructs of Black masculinity (and white fear of Black masculinity). White people "hear" that Black people are homophobic without learning anything about Black GLTBQ culture, and the myth of the down-low as a widespread phenomenon in the media further stigmatizes queer Black men as disease carriers and Black culture as homophobic.  The findings of these studies are important, so kudos for ColorLines for its great reporting on this issue.

Weekly Savaging: Goodbye, Dan

Dear Dan Savage,

It would not be hyperbole to say that you are one of the most influential figures I've had in my life.  I discovered you as a teenager, when I'd snag copies of SF Weekly paper on excursions to the glamorous, gay city from the Central Valley cow town where I grew up.  I'd immediately flip to the back of the paper to find your advice column, nestled between escort ads.  Hilarious and scandalous, yet practical and strangely heartfelt, your writing deeply affected my understanding of my own sexuality and how I approached relationships.

I became more of a fangirl as I entered my 20's.  Testament to this is that I own a copy of every book you've written, including one signed by you at reading you gave in the Haight (I was that stammering girl with her gay friend who embarrassed you by going on a bit too long about how awesome you are - I'm sure you remember me clearly).  I still recommend "The Kid" to anyone who will listen.  You were my Gay Best Friend when I was stuck in conservative small towns and flyover states.  Plus, I had an not-entirely platonic crush on you.

During the years, as I've become more politically aware, being a fan of yours has cause some problems.  Quite a few people in the circles I run in, both online and off, have a problem with you.  The first complaint I heard was that you're a misogynist.  This was easily brushed aside for me - sure, you might have compared female genitalia to a canned ham being dropped from a tall building, but so what?  You're a gay man, and your vulvaphobia wasn't a problem for me, particularly since you were also so quick to call out straight boys on theirs, as well as to tell them that they don't deserve to be in sexual relationships if they weren't willing to give women the orgasms they deserve.  To me, the benefit you did as an advocate of female sexual pleasure far outweighed some crass humor. 

But the problems didn't stop there.  Your take on fat people has consistently been simplistic, hurtful, and unnecessary.  Comparing people with race-based sexual preferences to preferring one hair color over another ignores ingrained societal racism.  After Prop. 8 passed here in California, you had a horrible blog post blaming Black Californians for the end of gay marriage in California, while whining that Obama couldn't have been elected if not for gay people, which conveniently erased the existence of Black queer people.   And as anyone who has paid attention to you, like, ever knows, you have consistently said fucked-up shit about bisexual men and women, as well as about trans people.

For starters, you're one of the biggest advocates of the obnoxious "female sexuality is fluid (so male sexuality must not be)" meme, which helps negate womens' queer identities in one sense (we're not really ever straight or queer, just "fluid") and completely makes bisexual men invisible, which isn't surprising because you basically don't really believe they exist.  You've also stated that there are no male-to-female transgendered people who ever perceived themselves as gay men, and make jokes about how every butch lesbian will eventually transition to male, both of which display a ginormous lack of understanding about trans experiences.  Oh, and is this an appropriate time to bring up your pro-war stance in Iraq?  No?  Too bad.

But to top all this shit off, you go and pull shit like this, in which you make a "joke" claiming a bigoted cis male politician is actually a female-to-male transsexual.  Then you get an employee of yours to publish a ridiculous defense of a blatantly transphobic act (and not mention, bafflingly unfunny "joke") which is almost as stupid as the original offending post.

I'm sorry, but this whole, "It's funny to say that bigoted figures are really what they hate," is an old, boring, and pointless meme.  Yes, some homophobic politicians have in fact been outed as queer (unlike you, I hesitate to assume that men who have sex with men but have been married to women are automatically gay).  Most homophobic politicians are still just plain ol' bigoted straight folks, and frankly, I care less about their orientation than I do about the actual harm they are doing to GTLBQ people. Then you take that one step further and make a running joke about Rob McKenna being a trans man - presumably, because you think he "looks" like one.  Setting aside the problematic idea that trans men look a certain way, he doesn't even fit the stereotype of what trans guys are supposed to look like!  What he does have is delicate facial features, so I guess that makes him "feminized" in your eyes - so he must be a trans man, i.e. not a REAL man, right, Dan?  I see no other way of interpreting this. 

But now, you're claiming can't be transphobic because you've raised money for trans causes.  Is that kind of like how fundamentalist Christian Zionists must not be anti-Semitic because they support Israel (as far as it relates to their own ends)?  And unable to resist pouring salt on a gaping wound, Queerty (don't read the comments - never read the comments) reports you saying this in your "defense":


"I am not biphobic or transphobic. One my best friends is trans. People accuse me of being biphobic when all I am doing is articulating that a lot of bisexuality has certain issues and problems. Many people did identify as bisexual when they were coming out and it was a lie. That is just true. It is not crazy when you meet a bi person to wonder if they are really bi. It isn't disrespectful. It is rational. Many bi people end up in an opposite-sex relationship so they are not in the same boat with us as gays and lesbians. … I joke about trans stuff. We are not allowed to say tranny anymore. There's the T word and the F word, there is every letter of the alphabet word. … I still use the word "faggot" all the time in my column. Every time that I am on chat shows on cable I make a point of using fag in reference to myself because I don't think it is a dirty word. I don't think we should be stupid about it."

While your wit is well-known, you've never been accused of a being a particularly deep thinker, Dan, as this quote makes clear.  Are you really so self-focused that you cannot conceive of how it's a little bit different for you, as a gay man, to reclaim "faggot" than it is for as a cis person to insist that "tranny" is OK?  Would you really be comfortable being called a "faggot" by someone you know to be an anti-gay bigot?  If words didn't have power, you wouldn't have tried to reclaim and de-legitimize "faggot" as a slur, and you do not get to decide what is or is not a slur for groups you are not a part of.  I mean seriously, sit the fuck down and think on this a while.  Do white people get to use racial slurs if they "have *insert ethnicity here* friends?"  And are you seriously not aware of how incredibly fucking stupid it is to use "I have *insert whatever here* friends as an excuse for any sort of bullshit?

As far as your biphobia goes, for fuck's sake dude, this isn't 1992.  Male bisexual chic has fallen far since the time you were coming out, whereas hey, guess what?  Being a gay dude has become far more accepted.  While yes, every single gay man on earth has a story about a guy who used to call himself bi and is now gay, this idea that men are actively taking on the stigma of male bisexuality in droves as a temporary measure to avoid the stigma of male homosexuality is kind of ludicrous.

And while it's true, based on the simple numbers game, that most bisexual people will "find themselves in an opposite-sex relationship" - what you mean here, obviously, is "will settle down with an opposite sex person."  What you did here is basically declaring a bisexual identity not relevant to queer politics because of a bisexual person's relationships.  An out bisexual person, Dan, can still be on the receiving end of homophobia simply by virtue of being honest about who they are, regardless of who they're dating.  They can still lose their jobs, custody of their kids, or get kicked out of the military.  I know it seems scary, but I promise you that acknowledging that bisexual people face oppression similar to what gays and lesbians face does not actually reduce your claim to the oppression you suffer as a gay man.  This isn't a zero sum game.

Here's the thing.  Unlike, it seems sometimes, a lot of rhetoric that gets thrown around in anti-oppression circles, I get that in the real world, most of us are not generally interacting amongst people who say, know what "cisgender" means or is terribly invested in radical queer critique or anti-racist analysis.  And especially for someone who came of age in a much different gay culture that a lot of this talk you deride as "alphabet soup" and such can seem like politically-correct  women's-study-majors buzzkill bullshit.  And if you were just some random gay guy who had some less-than-cool opinions about what words you are supposed to say or what you think about bisexuals, I wouldn't give a shit.

But you're not some anonymous, increasingly irrelevant negative queen with no power.You're a public figure.  Not just any public figure, but one of the U.S.'s most famous advice columnists.  The "Savage Lovecast" is one of the top 10 most popular podcasts on the entire Internet.  Like it or not - and I suspect you rather like it- you are in a position of authority, particularly to queer youth, but also for straights and how they perceive queerness.  For fuck's sake, Dan, you are Stephen Colbert's "Spokesgay"!  You are a representative for sex, liberty, and gayness to the rest of this fucked-up country. So you have a real responsibility as someone who claims to care about young freaks everywhere  to not be a huge fucking dick about people you don't like or understand.  Because it affects people.

It would be great if you bothered to educate yourself and learn why your views on appropriate language and transgendered people and bisexual people are ignorant and wrong.  Or if you can't be bothered to do that, to at least learn to shut the fuck up about your bigotry in the public sphere. But we both know that isn't going to happen.  So you can continue to increasingly sound like a throwback to some regretful primeval era of gay politics, the "glory days" before you had to worry about the "T" or the "B", because we're breaking up.  It's been a long time coming, but I'm fresh out of excuses for you, and you're embarrassing us all.

Calling Two Strikes On Gay Sports Organization

 For the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, a softball league that defines itself as an "organization that promotes amateur sports competition, particularly softball, for all persons regardless of age, sexual orientation or preference, with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community," one's on base percentage matters less than the side from which one bats. During the 2008 Gay Softball World Series in Seattle, WA, San Francisco-based team D2 had its eligibility challenged by another team. Subsequently, five members of the team were subjected to interrogation by the league and three of the five were found to not be gay enough to play ball. The men were asked intimate details about their sex lives in front of a panel of 25 people, most of whom were strangers.  Quoting from the National Center for Lesbian Right's press release:

"The players were forced to answer whether they were “predominantly attracted to men” or “predominantly attracted to women,” without the option of answering that they were attracted to both. After each player was interrogated, a panel voted on whether he was “gay” or “non-gay.” NAGAAA’s committee refused to entertain the idea that the players could be bisexual. In response to a player’s statement that he was attracted to both men and women, a NAGAAA member responded, “This is the Gay World Series, not the Bisexual World Series.”

Ultimately, the predominantly-white committee voted that Charles, Russ, and Apilado, all men of color, were not gay. The committee voted multiple times on at least one player. The committee also declared that the other two players, both white—one of whom had given precisely the same answers as Russ—were gay. The committee recommended disciplinary measures against Apilado, Charles, and Russ their team, and the San Francisco Gay Softball League, including forcing their team, D2, to retroactively forfeit their second-place World Series win."

There are two major issues at the core of this fight. Policing bisexual identity is deeply problematic. Is being attracted to some men enough, or should we let a cadre of gay male sports fans dictate who is or is not bisexual enough to be in their company?  The way sexual identity in this case is reduced to "gay" and "not-gay" is a clear erasure of bisexuality.  Bisexuals/pansexuals/queers are not "not-gay" but are actively queer people deserving of a voice and presence in queer spaces.  In addition, there is the problem of racial typing in regard to sexuality.  This is obviously problematic with regards to how queer men (and people) of color are marginalized and made invisible for not conforming to the mainstream (i.e. white) notion of queerness.

Can this really be a serious stand as we enter the second decade of the 21^st century? That this occurred is troubling. That 25 adults sat in a room and participated in this tribunal is staggering.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights has taken this on as a legal case, but if you are still angry, feel free to e-mail each and every one of the board members to eloquently voice your disgust.

(This has been a tag-team post by the Girl and Boy)