I was wondering how much of an effect naming things has had. What would it be like if he didn't use the words like Gay or Lesbian, or terms like 'coming out'. Does saying you're going to 'come out' make your experience different than if it was just 'I'm going to tell them I'm gay'?
Ha, funny. I just wrote a textual analysis of a document by Sartre on the necessity of language; What is a word? More specifically, why do we have words? What is a word, if not an idea? Going further, a word is the vehicle that transports an idea. Now, we must ask ourselves, how does a word come into existence? What constitutes an idea and makes it nameable? Something, by which I mean an idea, can be named, as long as it exists. Going further, it has to exist and Man must consciously be aware of its existence. You cannot name something that you have no idea exists. However, the very fact you know about its existence, is through the name it was given. Ideas aren’t discovered. They are created. Hence, even though the thing that the idea designates, represents may exist in nature, until Man is aware of it and has named it, it cannot be named. Not only that, but there isn’t an idea that exists that doesn’t have a name. There’s a period when an idea is thought of, but hasn’t taken shape. This is the gestation period of the idea. It exists, as soon as someone names. The naming is important in rendering the idea concrete to exist for all Humans. Because what is the point of language, if not to universalise the designation of an idea by an ensemble of sounds made my Man. So, to name something, is to designate an idea by a few sounds and have everyone who hears that combination of sounds, know what you mean. Coming to the terms Gay, Lesbian, and even Coming Out. Being gay wouldn’t exist, if there wasn’t the word to designate it. Because how would we know what to define it as? Language is what separates us, through conceptual thought, from the animals. What is the homosexuality, before all else, other than concept that a man can love another man? Hence, you understand, you could have gay love and gay sex and live a gay life. But you wouldn’t live it well. Because you wouldn’t know what you are living. Because there is no word to concretely designate the idea. Of course, language can manifest itself in different ways. What is kissing, if not the physical expression of sentiment and idea? It is precisely the expression through the body, is a perfect characterization of an idea. However, if you resort only to physical language, you quickly become an animal. Man is capable of different types of expression, and that’s one of the qualities that makes him Human. This has been a very brief explanation of why we need terms like gay and lesbian and bisexual. Saussure said that there is a direct relation between the signifiant and the signified. Meaning, if you change the name, the word, you change also what it designates. It’s no longer the same thing. Gay is used because universally it designates, in a perfect form, the idea behind it. I hope I’ve elucidated in some way for you the reason why these words exist. Coming out is a whole different matter. It shouldn’t have to exist, as in the act shouldn’t exist. However, the word, needs to exist, to designate the idea.
This sounds a bit like how Dumbledore never uses the phrase you-know-who. Fear of the name etc. I think you might be onto something here. Call it what it is.
<moan> Philosophy majors... Words are just ink on pressed wood pulp. They only have the meaning that we give them.
Suppose I didn't have the word "gay" to describe myself; I'd have to say something like, "I have sex with guys." But why have those words? Why have words like "sex" and "guys" that just carry baggage and cause people to make assumptions? This line of reasoning can go on forever until we've argued against using any words at all, in which case language itself ceases to exist. And we wouldn't want that, now would we. The reason we have words like "gay" and "lesbian" is the same reason we have words like "sex" and "guys", and the reason we have phrases like "coming out" is the same reason we have phrases like "going to" and "tell them" and "I'm gay": they allow us to communicate ideas. The problem isn't that we name things; it's that some of us let the name define the thing it names, instead of the other way around. If words like "queer" and "straight" carried as much social and cultural baggage as "left-handed" and "right-handed" (i.e. none), we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. In fact, the existence of the phrases "left-handed" and "right-handed" and the fact that no one hesitates to adopt one or the other (or "ambidextrous") demonstrates pretty well that having words and phrases for parts of who we are is not itself the problem.
I'm actually very glad we have labels. Because if you went from birth to adolescence thinking that boys liked girls and vice-versa, no exceptions, you'd feel like a freak. I know I'd have much more serious self-esteem issues if I considered myself a sexual deviant.
I feel like if we didn't have labels for gay or bisexual then maybe we would grow up thinking that it's fine to like whoever, since "gay" doesn't exist then "straight" also necessarily wouldn't exist so i think that it would be perfectly normal to like guys or girls or both in a world where words denoting sexuality didn't exist. Just a thought
Head in a bottle explanations miss something pretty important when dealing with sex. We have bodies. The words/labels-- name desires which are greater and other than the artificial borders the words designate. The finger and the moon thing. Granted, it's complicated. Fetishes are desires recreated in the furnace of language and culture--but words both liberate and imprison. Let there be poetry to free us from the sentence! Keep in mind, the language we use is the language of our oppressors, of this nightmare Empire of Money & Death... never accept language without examining the hidden assumptions of power ; labels are not explanations, or even 'names' in Sartre's sense. They are means of dividing and controlling. Linguist police lines. Fuck all borders and their gatekeepers! ---------- Post added 26th Nov 2013 at 05:11 PM ---------- Two ways to deal with oppression. Assimilate with the oppressors and play like you're just like them, except for who you have sex with in private--which means denying our history (there have always been queers!), and denying that we have had, can have if we choose, our own culture within the larger hetero-world. We can demand respect as so-called deviants, I'll say it again--we were the story tellers, medicine women, shamans, spirit guides, bearers of tradition in many cultures before Christians tried to wipe us out. We don't have to blend in. We have more to give by celebrating our deviance than hiding it. Fuck the Gatekeepers!
^^I'm not saying alternate sexuality is or should be bad, just that it is not talked about day-to-day. Personally I didn't know some people legitimately pursued their own gender until some time after elementary school. If it were like you're saying and people courted whomever they pleased, obviously things would be much better.
language is the symbols we use to tell people things with out the common symbols we are flailing about doing nothing ever tried to communicate with someone who is deaf and not known their language? or another person who has a totally different language? same thing as not having a word for what you are doing - this is pretty much the principle with being autistic so yes - from my perspective we do need all of these words in order to do it & categorize, otherwise how are we going to have any idea who is doing what
