Thoughts 23/09/2012

• Does standing up for the rights of a group of people equal being in solidarity with them? I'm still trying to work out the meaning of allyship vis-a-vis solidarity. The notion of an ally implies a degree of separation, i.e., strategic action as well as sympathy. Solidarity starts more at the level of a general commitment, and some of the sympathy might spill over to empathy. Why am I bothering to discuss this distinction? Well, because I wonder at what point I'm accepted as an ally, and to what degree this acceptance limits or shapes the kind of result that I see.
• As much as it sucks not being intimate or having sex, or being unable to express yourself in that way, there are far worse indignities that people experience in their everyday lives. Someone suffering from those, silently or openly, does not necessarily have the affective presence to relate because their libidinal energy is slowed down or repressed. Some would say 'man up', others would say not to take it personally, or not to interpret everything as an explicit judgement of value. Viewing yourself based on the number of sexual 'conquests' you achieve is part of the same logic of competition that does so much damage already. Affective expression - which is its own form of energy and creativity - is what it seems people are really aiming at. Community/communication are part of a healthy sexuality, rather than any compulsion.
• This was the subject of Herbert Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization, in which he associates love and affect with creativity and "world-forming." People have allowed their lifeworld - the basic forms of experience (being, doing, feeling) - to be colonized, and hence people feel ontologically insecure. Perhaps a "free sexuality" could exist if we stopped treating each other as solely as things/objects. The free presencing of others in their singularity has a fetishized appearance in fixed objectivity. The way we dwell in the world can never be broken down into the sum of its parts, but its substance is infitely relational., giving it the appearance of permanence to the reified gaze.
• Why should you expect something from someone whose full personhood you deny? You shouldn't, obviously. But that also limits the forms of sexual expression you have with that other person. It's more engaging to have a full human being present with you than to have an image out of your fantasy.
• Feminism is not against men per se, but against oppressive male behaviour and structures of power. Feminism's militancy in that direction - mainly among radical and/or socialist feminists - should not be seen as reversing the binary, i.e., it isn't about saying that women are better than men. The anger and pain of some women, as well as the strategic value this kind of statement might have, can lead to this but I don't think it has to.
• The women's movement, and women in general, have become closer to the LGBTQ community than men have. Personally, I've known a couple transsexual people, and for a guy, even talking to them is somewhat deviant. It's not something I would tell anyone, except for women. When I talk to women, it's accepted by other men because i'm supposedly doing "what guys do:" but I'm more interested in closeness and companionship than "getting laid." If other guys knew that, I'm sure it would be less accepted, because men aren't supposed to feel the weakness that the need for care and love implies. But on the other side, I don't want to associate women too much with care and love because it really should be mutual.