PoMoSexual Pioneer

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Some people think that any sex can be queer sex if the partners bring a queer sensibility to the act; for example, a woman fisting a man up the ass isn't exactly "straight" sex. This is one of those nice postmodern concepts that suggests infinite subversive meaning in any text (including the body), depending on who is doing the suggesting. But how much can any given sex act really signify, or really subvert?

It's certainly true that the personal is political, in the sense that one's identity, even in its most intimate components, is informed by a larger sociopolitical context. Yet, to me, the idea that individual sex acts will, over time, somehow permeate and alter the collective social consciousness is suspect. The gap between sex and political theory is vast and indefinable. It's difficult to make the argument that one female fist inserted into one male ass—or, for that matter, even hundreds of fists inserted into as many asses—can really make a difference for, say, lesbian mothers fighting for custody of their children. It's true that my mom's being queer made me more aware of queer sexuality and more open to the possibility of being queer myself. But does my not having sex with twice as many people really make the world a better place?

In my current, not-getting-any state, I have come to wonder whether sex isn't a purely selfish act. Are queers and straights and everyone in between kidding themselves if they really think that what they do or don't do in bed is going to change society? Lately I'm the only one in my bed, and while I've read articles that debate the "queerness," or the subversiveness, of masturbation, I have trouble believing that what I do quietly in the privacy of my own room affects anybody but myself.

The gap between my self-perception and how society perceives me has informed my confused sense of identity in many ways. Growing up relatively dark skinned in my predominantly Irish town, I got called "spic" as I walked down the streets of my neighborhood. I happen not to be Hispanic. My family is Assyrian-American, an ethnicity for which few personalized slurs exist—and I don't think I even knew what the word meant at the time, but the hatred in the name calling wasn't lost on me. If anything, there was a particular kind of insult-added-to-injury in the fact that this taunting didn't recognize who I actually was, just that I was "different." A few years later, when my mom came out, I would cringe inwardly whenever kids shouted "fag" and "lezzie" at each other on the playground. Again I was aware of hatred that implicated me but was fundamentally not about me.

Since my sexuality has evolved to include attraction to both women and men, I've experienced a similar sense of awkward disjuncture in the presence of straight people who use "queer" as a pejorative term, as well as with lesbian friends who refer to straight women with barely veiled contempt. In each of these situations I find myself wondering: Who do I side with? Who do I speak for? Who is it my place to defend? If I voice my objections, will I succeed in changing anyone's opinions, or only in alienating myself?

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