From a Reader: Our Tender Feelings

A blog received from LOTL reader, Mary Ann Vorasky, about Proposition 8, the danger of gender typing and the celebration of same-sex relations within the animal kingdom.

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Earlier this month, Time.com quotes a law professor who specialises in lesbian and gay rights as saying, in referring to the passing of California's Prop 8 that it's never been about marriage. Those who supported Prop 8 in California and similar laws in other states like Arizona and Florida have said that if marriage is not "protected" then legislating morality will one day be completely undone and we will have "full normalisation" of homosexuality. Somehow in our society, love is the greatest threat that must be beaten down at all costs, and violence is glorified as protection and morality. As Homer Simpson once said when a couple was making out in front of his kids, "How dare you expose my children to your tender feelings!"

In certain animal societies, sexual energy functions as a harmonising influence. For example, animal studies have shown that at least 80% of the interactions between male giraffes are classified as "homosexual". Giraffes are highly intelligent. They do not pre-emptively strike in pseudo self-defence, but they do protect themselves if directly threatened. Their hooves are heavy enough that, if attacked by a lion, they can seriously injure the lion by striking out. But they do not strike first; they are not violent creatures. The sexuality freely expressed between males in their species has the ultimate effect of lowering aggression.

And then there are the Bonobo monkeys, whom I recently saw referred to in the media in an article about Lindsay Lohan. When the group gathers together, the female Bonobos have sex with each other, and then the community eats. The Bonobos are not violent creatures, unlike the more sexually regimented Common Chimpanzee. In Bonobo life, the expression of sexual energy between females harmonises the larger group. The Common Chimpanzee and the Bonobos are the closest relatives to humans in the animal kingdom.

In human society, for thousands of years, we have documented our violent history to the point of people simply believing we are a violent species. We have split sexuality in half by making "heterosexuality" right and good, and "homosexuality" wrong and bad. We have strictly encoded gender behaviour to limit how men and women are allowed to express themselves. We elevate the male over the female to such an extent that to this day, in certain countries — and cultures, even in America — parents overwhelmingly choose to abort female children. Human men and women are thus heavily regimented, and violence is its own result in this intensive campaign against humanity and sexuality.

A friend said to me recently: "Are you saying that it's the suppression of gay feelings that causes violence?" It's not just "gay" feelings that are suppressed in gender typing, but loving, tender feelings. Listen to ‘When I Was a Boy’ by Dar Williams:

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, I didn't care who saw.
My neighbor came outside to say "Get your shirt!"
I said "No way! It's the last time, I'm not breaking any law".
And now I'm in a clothing store where the sign says "less is more".
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me.
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat.
When I was a boy, see that picture that was me,
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees.
And I know things have gotta change, they've got pills to sell
They've got implants to put in, they've got implants to remove.
But I am not forgetting, that I was a boy too.
… So I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived
And I say "Now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won".
And he says "oh no, can't you see?
When I was a girl, my mom and I, we always talked,
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could cry all the time, now even when I'm alone, I seldom do.
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too,
And you were just like me
And I was just like you.

I say let's fully normalise human sexuality! Let's make the two one. Let's unite that which we have torn asunder. And let's expose each other to our tender feelings. What do we really have to lose?