A big topic in LGBTQ News this past week has been the announcement and subsequent effects of Tom Daley’s Youtube video where he tells everyone he is involved with a guy in a romantic relationship.
Many folks have already written plenty about this covering the botched reporting by both the LGBTQ press as well as the mainstream press; the intergenerational aspect of Daley’s relationship with Dustin Lance Black who is 20 years older than Daley; and what Tom did and didn’t say in his video. What I want to do is talk a little about why I think this is all very important. Oh, and I chose the feature image of Daley, used on the post, specifically to be provocative. The other day, I wrote about Bro porn. Yea… right. Our culture celebrates the commodification of male sexuality, and so this photo illustrates that to a degree, and places the Tom Daley story into that context. In some way, everything about LGBTQ gets back to Gender and gender roles and the definition and expressions of masculinity and femininity.
The double-edged sword of the modern gay rights movement.
History demonstrates that from the very beginning there have been women and men who have participated in same-sex behavior and expressed same-sex attraction, and at some point, culture began to accept that these folks were normal and these feelings and behaviors were perfectly acceptable. Depending upon who you listen to, Gays and Lesbians have been around forever, or Gay and Lesbian are cultural constructs used to describe change and the evolution of culture. I think the answer is both of these. From the very start, human sexuality was more fluid than the conservative and church-sponsored belief that everyone is purely heterosexual, and any expression outside of that is deviant. As Culture, in the grandest sense of the word has changed, the expression of these things and what we have come to call Identity has also changed. Where at different times in History, Marriage was an essential institution because outside of it, women had no ability to make an income or live independently. Additionally, child birth, and high rates of it were essential due to mortality, and inheritance and the passing along of property. Large families allowed for a family to farm/produce food and survive. This is all an extreme simplification, but I hope you get my point. With the growth of the Industrial Revolution, some of these needed roles and responsibilities began to change.
Greenberg argues in The Construction of Homosexuality, that the two World Wars were essential to the construction of the modern homosexual as they altered gender roles and opportunities, and moved large groups of women and men into cities and same-sex work environments. Stonewall happened in 1969 , and the modern Gay Rights Movement was born. For both men and women, this created a model where one’s identity was either straight or gay, and due to our cultural experience with movements for “Rights,” the ability to categorize people into groups grew in importance. Few could argue that this wasn’t good. But at the same time, it hid even further the fact that many people, and human behavior didn’t fit perfectly into these categories of straight or gay. Both women and men had for centuries often participated in both homo and hetero experiences and relationships. In other words, the growth of a gay rights movement was one more way to force a fluid or bisexual sexuality further into the closet. Sexual expression had to align with sexual identity.
Rights and Desire
Identity politics and the focus on Rights has led to a relatively quick cultural shift. In only a few decades, we have seen things go from a time when homosexuality itself was illegal, to social and legal protections for same-sex relationships. But missing from the public dialogue has been any real notion of desire. If Kinsey had it right, only a small number of folks fit within the narrow window where both desire and expression are exclusively straight or gay, For the vast majority, both desire and expression are far more fluid than that. Only recently, has the notion of “Love” re-entered the LGBTQ Rights debate, and an emphasis on how love is the basis of marriage and relationships has had a hugely positive role in the acceptance of marriage equality. What about “Desire”? We still never talk about that directly, although openly talking about love is a first step towards the ability to talk about attraction, desire and a more full range of feelings.
The False Controversy of Tom Daley
Two controversies are raised in the dialogue around Tom Daley. The ugliest surrounds the fact that Daley’s boyfriend is older than Daley, by 20 years. Daley is 19, so many eyebrows may be raised on this one, but they needn’t be. Signorile calls this “ageist crap.” Social norms/boundaries for both gay and straight relationships often seem strained when there is an age difference between the two persons, but generally the outrage is insincere, and compared to heterosexual couplings treated differently. There was only 16 years difference between Kutcher and Moore, yet no one was so outraged by their relationship.
But this is mostly about Daley’s age rather than the age difference. Gays have been accused forever of tearing to recruit or targeting youth. We live in a culture that wants to treat a 19 year old as an adult and at the same time, as a child. He is old enough to go off and be killed in battle but not old enough to understand trust his own feelings.
The second controversy erupts around what Daley didn’t do. He never labeled himself as gay or bi. He is accused of a carefully worded statement which doesn’t commit him to any orientation.
And many in the queer press as well as mainstream media jumped on the story , inappropriately labeling him gay, and then bi, when he didn’t label himself at all. Those in the LGBTQ camp rurally had an issue with this. You see, we want LGBTQ celebrities! The more of them who come out will supposedly make it easy for everyone else. But that is all BS. Daley has only one obligation: to be true to himself and his feelings.
The really ugly part of this
The really ugly part of this is that many gay men almost peed themselves when Tom Daley came out this way because they have been lusting after him. That’s why I picked the feature image! The gay male community, in the most generalized way, wastes vast amounts of time focused on how hot and sexy this or that athlete is. For too many the honesty and beauty of Tom’s message gets lost because the only thing too many see are his perfect physique and handsome face.
What are we fighting for?
But if you stop and think about it, what Daley did is the reason the LGBTQ community has been fighting so hard. The identity labels shouldn’t matter. Our sexual orientation shouldn’t define who we are, but rather describe just a part of us- a part that should prompt others to treat us any different.
Who knows what the future holds for Tom Daley. Today he finds himself in a meaningful relationship which changed his world. It may last, or it may not, and other relationships may come and go as well.
For me, and I would bet for many, we didn’t want to come out as gay per se. Rather, we wanted the ability to express the feelings we were experiencing and do so with support from family and friends. Daley’s video ought to be demonstrative of the future of coming out where the labels don’t matter but the ability to be honest about our feelings is appreciated and supported by everyone.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/OJwJnoB9EKw[/youtube]