Greg Knotts
Pomosexuals: Challenging assumptions about gender and sexuality, does exactly what it sets out to do. Challenge. Questions of identity, assumptions about gender and sexuality, and the socially constructed, often binary world of gender and sexuality all receive an approach through a critical, deconstructed lens from the authors compiled in this investigation. Pomosexuals is a collection of postmodern essays that investigate what it means to be queer in a world following Modernism. Pomosexuals deconstructs the notion of the reality of the queer erotic world beyond the parameters of gender, separatism, and essentialist notions of sexual orientation. This investigation describes a space in which non-binary forms of sexual and gender identity negotiate their existence. It is a critical look at breaking down categories, dispelling assumptions, and reconstructing notions of identity. Pomosexuals is a wonderful introductory look at applying a critical, postmodern lens to the world of sexuality.
Queen and Schimel are known for their compilations of queer erotica. Here, however, they compile a group of academics, activists, and authors who apply a postmodern lens to the world of queer identity. Their stated goal is to raise questions, rather than answer them; to challenge accepted norms and assumptions concerning gender and sexuality; to investigate the uninvestigated. Questions of identity are investigated and dissected through a variety of constructs: use of words, politics, gender, and sexuality.
Greta Christina contributes an inquiry into the use of words to parameterize identity. Christina deconstructs the notion of gender and sexuality definitions as problematic as they are representative of a subjective reality. She goes on to say that a typical investigation of language does not typically delve far enough into the hidden and unexamined concepts that underlie the use of language. Her discussion of semantic use of words as they define worlds is reminiscent of Freire.
Weir's inquiry into the notion of identity politics refers to the concept of a gay man being a 'virgin' in the world of sexual intimacy with women. Weir continues this discussion of the use of words and identity as he deconstructs a world in which to 'conquer' a woman helps to define a man. Masculine identity defined through voice, body, gestures, and personality are only stages along a continuum in the concept of a socially constructed manhood being truly represented by the ultimate 'taking' of a woman sexually.
Katherine Raymond's contribution is reminiscent of this ideology, but turns a critical look at the 'definition' of 'dyke.' Raymond questions the construct of defining identity through sexuality, and wonders what it means for a lesbian to be physically attracted to some men. Raymond also addresses the issue of homophobia and how this deeply entrenched behavior, socially developed from an early age, inhibits the formation of a queer identity in the first place.
D. Travers Scott contributes another critical look at the question of identity. Scott wonders how it is possible, in a world that utilizes unrealistically stable concepts of sex and gender, not to construct more fluidly accepted notions of gender? Scott says that in this 'new' fluid reality, then notions of sexual orientation must also be fluid. Scott questions the alignment of sexual identities with ethnic, religious, or biologically based groups. Sexuality, Scott asserts, is not a question of identity — it is a question of ideology; an ideology that is entrenched in freedom, responsibility, and values. Sexual identity is dead, Scott maintains; long live sexual ideology.
A section of Pomosexuals is devoted to an investigation of the sex act itself. Marco Vassi contributes an essay on (re)defining sex — maintaining that 'sex' is simply the act of procreative intercourse. All other sexual acts and behaviors fall under the umbrella of 'metasex.' Vassi describes a world of dimensions that involve sexual acts and behaviors with one, two, three, four, or more individuals — and what those dimensions imply about the 'sexuality' of the participants. Vassi refers mathematically to these dimensions and even contributes graphs of figures in a geometric plane to help define his typology. This essay is an interesting inquiry into a potentially new and transformative world where the sex act itself is redefined, understood, and participated in in entirely new ways.
Carol Queen, one of the editors, contributes an investigation of what it means to move beyond the pedestrian understanding of 'fag hag.' Queen's very personal narrative deconstructs the idea of queer identity, physical and sexual intimacy, and what it means to engage in intercourse queerly. She encourages a move beyond the binary world of gay and straight and questions what it means to have sexual intimacy outside that binary. She calls for the understanding that there are more models than heterosexual ones and demands there be a new understanding of what it means to have sex outside a two choice world.
Pat Califia investigates the world of identity and pornography. Writers must claim who they are in their writing. Honesty, above all else, must be a requisite in writing. Subverting who you are and what you believe, even in the world of pornography, must never be accepted, Califia demands. Own your desire. Own your drives. Understand that homophobia is multifaceted and begin to approach redefining accepted binaries and norms. Realize that this homophobia is begun in youth and fostered in ways that must be changed. Her investigation of pornography is deeply rooted in understanding the layers of homophobia that exist, how and where they were created and fostered, and how it is difficult for people to own their desires in a world that does not always approve of them. Own those desires, Califia demands, be honest about them — especially if you are to write about them. Do not subvert those desires for the sake of popularity or acceptance.
Dorothy Allison contributes an account of sex and sexuality outside the socially constructed binary world. Laura Antoniou investigates the use of language and labels. She refers to 'conversational grenades' and 'semantic shrapnel' that must continually be lobbed and hurled to maximize impact and effect. Like Claifia, Antoniou demands truth and honesty and ownership of feelings and actions and being honest about them in conversation and writing.
Jill Nagle and David Harrison contribute further looks at gender binaries, identity, and self-definitions as more important that 'fitting' an already determined category. Harrison challenges the notion of sexual identity and sexual orientation as two different constructs. Identity, Harrison says, is an internal feeling, as opposed to external attraction entrenched in orientation.
Riki Anne Wilchins and Michael Thomas Ford contribute essays that discuss the idea that within each of us, we possess different sexual selves. Where those identities meet, these authors dissect the fluidity of the boundaries of those identities, and the acts, behaviors, and feelings that occur because of them. Ford's essay on 'playing a girl' online is particularly interesting in a world of continued growth in Internet usage and the ability to play out fantasies, identities, and drives that often have no other venue.
The final essays by Lawrence Schimel and David Tuller further question the notions of binaries and identity. Schimel particularly wonders about the notion of 'acts' in questions of identity — outside of the 'act,' what are we? For instance, Schimel wonders if a heterosexual is unaware that a homosexual is cruising them, is the homosexual 'acting' homosexual? Is identity a question of acts?
The collection of essays in Pomosexuals can serve many purposes. If a reader is unfamiliar with a world after Modernism, then Pomosexuals is a great introduction to a postmodern world. For the reader already engaged in postmodern thought, it is a collection of a wide variety of voices that affirm and further challenge the questions raised by looking through a postmodern lens. Queen and Schimel have compiled a variety of voices that do, in fact, raise more questions than they answer.
A feminist, postmodern world demands those questions — demands that new ones be created, voiced, and given life. Pomosexuals offers an outlet for that discourse and allows the reader to begin to answer some of the questions for themselves, as well as inspiring new questions that will also need to be asked. In many ways it is an easy read, and in others it is unsettling read. The authors universally agree that questions of definitions, the use of language, and a restricted, binary world must be rethought. The difficulty with making those demands is that the authors offer no concrete ways to accomplish them. But in asking the questions and posing the challenges, the collection of essays in Pomosexuals inspires the reader to try to discover those answers and, in turn, raise new questions for others to solve.
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