There
is no situation more uncomfortable than not knowing if someone is a “he” or a “she”.
“What do we call them? Who are they attracted to? Why do they let themselves
come off like that?” All of these questions are exactly the same, they have no
real answer. All of these questions are alarmingly normal to ask, we are, as a
society, scared of something…or someone different. We have grown up knowing
where we fit in. We learn which bathrooms to use and who to sit with on the
first day of first grade. We learn that boys are gross and girls are lame, and
we learn that eventually we all grow up and play house for real someday in a
depressing suburban home with a medium sized lawn with some mediocre partner
who really isn’t even all that genuine. Whoops. So thus, when something else
enters the room, we panic. They challenge the system. They challenge the power
lines that we have carved into the grain of our pathetically pre-determined
society, and worst of all, they force us to challenge ourselves. The best part
is that in this age of progress, this age where significant steps are being made
toward human rights, we ask the same questions that our less educated and
technologically challenged ancestors were asking in 1669. I am therefore going to compare concepts written about in Elizabeth Reis' novel Bodies in Doubt that address sexual ambiguity with modern day thought and ideals from a ground-level perspective. My first realization was this: we are still asking
and gossiping, after so many years, about sexual ambiguity and same-sex intimacy.
“In
1669, Massachusetts adopted a law against cross-dressing, perhaps to thwart
same-sex intimacy or perhaps, troubled by gender masquerading, colonial
lawmakers believed that cross-dressing, like homosexuality, belonged in the category
of serious offenses.” (Reis, 15) This quote pretty much describes America’s
thought process in the 1600s and before. Anyone woman who acted like man or man
that acted like a woman was an abomination. They were disrupting God’s way of
things, and this was dangerous. “Women and men had their respective places in
the divine scheme, and crossing from one category to the other, to perform what
the historian Susan Jester has called “social hermaphroditism,” violated
providential order. “ (Reis, 15) This applies to modern day. We can’t all
really preach the ultra-religious argument anymore, although some may try. We
have all drank too much wine and probably committed a little too much adultery
to claim that we are of super high Christian standing. However we argue some
point about normativity that somehow holds ground in our ultra-cynical culture.
It is out of the ordinary, so it is wrong. It is not correct for a woman to be
a woman one day and a man the next. Perhaps it is our religious American roots,
or maybe it is just fear of diversity that has been passed down from one
generation to the next.
A
deeper conflict can be unearthed from the gender issues of this ambiguous
conflict. “The classification of normal humans as mythical hermaphrodites,
according to Parsons, was due to ignorance of human anatomy, particularly of
female anatomy. “(Reis, 17) There was so little known about female genitalia,
specifically the feared clitoris, that it was constantly being compared to a
penis. In fact, it was pretty much classified as a sub-par penis. Thus if a
hermaphrodite has both a penis and vagina, it really just has two penises.
According to the universal laws of male oppression and misogyny, a person with
two penises would be a superman. Unfortunately, these super human
hermaphrodites are outnumbered. It is my personal opinion that normal,
non-doubly endowed men were scared that they were going to be outshone by these
hermaphrodites, so they turned them into an abomination: something to be outcast
and feared. Honestly, something that isn't even real. This sentiment is once
again present in modern day society. We see no hermaphrodites. They are people
who have been surgically “repaired” at birth, and thus they have remained a
mythological creature. If we were to see one, right now, walking around campus,
everyone would probably talk about it and freak out a little bit.
I think
this whole concept of sexual ambiguity and how it still affects modern society
interested me because it was alarming to find similarities between people I
know and people who spread around their prejudice hundreds of years ago. For a
culture that is trying to come off as “politically correct” and “progressive”
we still are scared of change. “Yes I will not yell out homophobic slurs, and
yet I still will not accept hermaphrodites”. The problem can be boiled down to
the fear that infects the American spirit. I am not quite sure how we can
openly sloganize ourselves as “America the Brave” when we still fear anything
that challenges our carefully sculptured social orders. The link below is from
the Saturday Night Live skit that featured Pat. Pat is very unique because no
one can figure out if he is a man or a woman. No one knows if he is attracted
to men or women, and he is turned into a skit for the entertainment of
Americans. This just shows how being different, is so alarming, that it can be
used for crude entertainment. Fortunately, where in colonial era they might
have killed off or prosecuted Pat, now we can rest assured that Pat is safe
within the comical confines of American society.
The
most dangerous part of hermaphrodites is the fact that they could potentially
corrupt innocents. This is both a modern and colonial fear. “(Courts) were also
suspicious that sexual duality could lead to sexual duplicity—an innocent individual
might be seduced into sex with the wrong partner.” (Reis, 22) So there you
have, people are afraid they will climb into bed with someone of the same sex
and have a good time. Perhaps if this were to happen they would then have to
address their own sexuality, and then the normal wouldn't be so normal anymore.
Even though the prejudice against same sex unions has slowly decreased over
time, the fear still remains. It is OK now for someone else to be gay, just as
long as it’s not you. We all fear being thrown out of society. We fear that we
won’t grow up to buy that middle class suburban home with its small lawn. We
are afraid that we will have to go where all the other monstrosities of society
have to go, like the subways of NYC…or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtmddry2cg
Reis, E. (2009). Bodies in doubt: An american history of intersex. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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