i hate how I have to touch this shit. And .. well.. only one shift button works, but it'll be OK, I'll get over .. it?
I'm going to type out my queer theory paper on here, because it's how I do. I don't even know whether or whether not to worry about capitalization. looking at the clock, nope.
there are so many questions i have about this identification process. this identification process i speak of, is how we get to know the world around us. it's how we get to know. it is our cognition.
We are all full of meaning and purpose, in so far as we mean to pursue.
We are us our bodies to express meaning. Some times this meaning is symptomatic (like a sneeze from dust), or it is taught (like dressing nice for a job interview). our bodies are vehicles with which we use as signs. Meanings of different signs change over time, especially when generations counteract the other, and when cultures (a collection of people within a system of shared and similar influential values/beliefs) interact with other cultures.
But how is meaning first established? Knowledge for the most part, is established through experience (emotional), or through methodological theorizing (mathematics &c). When experiences are shared, they become theories.
For this, i am going to explain how one self-constructs themselves with intentional and unintentional meaning(s):
1. There is first an establishment of meaning through auto-experience, or shared down the grape vine.
2. the development and appropriation of signs which represent meanings; and their use to communicate to an audience, and to incite a response.
3. how meanings become lost in translation through their contradictions of: self presentation, language, and actions (materialization of behavior). this incongruity revolts against the hierarchic construction of what is complete representation of an identity, in any adequate form.
First, there is the individual sentient being. All sentient beings i will speak of shall be within our species of homo sapien sapien. they are exposed to the objects (animate and inanimate) of their environment, as much as their environment is affected by them as an object. it's a web of interaction. What's great about being a child, and going through the stages of experiencing the world through its senses, is that it is free from bias. they will learn their preferences through their experiences. zero prejudice, because they have yet to judge. For instance, if a child is exposed to a chair, they put their hands on its seat, bite the arm rest, climb and stand on it, whatever.. they're exploring this chair. Who knows what they would do with it later on, if they were left without being instructed about the chair's purpose. yet, most things we're exposed to, come with instruction. An individual may communicate to the child that chairs are meant for sitting in. So the child sits, and associates the chair with the act of sitting. thereafter, whenever brought to the presence of a chair, the child will behave in such a way to perform out this action. What carries out this system of interacting with objects is the perception of the object, the 1st or 2nd degree experience of the object, and the production of a specific behavioral response.
if one substitutes the inanimate chair, with another sentient being, then it gets tricky. this process of interacting amongst individuals is subject to limitations of the expression of either of the individuals. this is where the sensitive components of how the treatment and judgment of each other others develops into more political and ethical discussions. But not here. for i do not wish to explore how we should treat each other. this becomes the stigma of our cognition of each other.
As a species, we are able to recognize differences in our physical appearances. prejudice based on visual cues occur, especially when an experience of a single person includes any with a similar appearance.
Now, what i love is teaching and learning, but like how Gregory Scofield said, "the moment when you record a memory, it is fictionalized." We all experience our own lives, and come up with our own empirical knowledge, interpreting the world through what is familiar, and what is taught.
there is no need to pretend that we might know each other based on visuals, limited are we by the availability of grammar are we able to understand/know the other. Who are we joking.
it is nice though, when onei nteracts with another, and a need/desire is expressed, and it is met with satisfaction by the other, with and/or without the use of spoken language.
Communication is hard. Especially when one does not even understand to what degree or how they might categorize themselves within their own learned and communal language.
We are brought up in a group of people, wherein there are as many of us in numbers, each looking a bt different from the other, and being able to communicate to the other, sometimes accurate expression is difficult. or precise, rather. But it all is relative to the language being used in communication.
Did you know from the grape vine, that the there is no linguistic differentiation between the colours blue and green in japanese? the ability to identify objects within the world might not even exist within a language/category. in some reading that i read, a lady was researching for her second book on something, and in midst of her research, she read of records of same-sex sodomy being acted out in the 17th century military, somewhere. But these acts were not taken as our contemporary understanding of what is homosexual behavior. the concept of homosexuality and other categories of sexuality have not been set in motion since "the beginning of time." i shouldn't open up into linguistic loop holes just yet, but i just wanted to address the fallacy of the expectation that for every thing there exists a word, and for every word, it represents a thing.
=========
Conversely, as from what they said in MANSOME, we present ourselves to get sex. i couldn'y possibly explain or attempt to give light on to why we as a species could want to attract another of our kind. i don't want to perpetuate the myth that reproduction is the only drive behind the act of attracting a sexual partner. Sex is not linked with reproduction conclusively, and neither are some folks even attracted to things that may reproduce. There are people who are attracted to inanimate objects, and there are even other species wherein they just have sex because it feels good. it's like saying people only get a massage to relieve back pain, sometimes, people just get massages because massages feel good. Living within a feeling body, what feels good on the surface, feels good on the emotions. i am quite sure?? So, i do not think it is a fair part of the study to sexuality, to remain purist in the presumption that all sexual acts are linked with a species need to reproduce offspring and establish a continuum. there are many people who have sex, with a lot of effort put into the assurance that no reproduction occurs. And there are folks who link up with other folks, with whom there is a biological incapability to reproduce, but still, they attract the other for the cause of sex.
I feel like I am able, well, I'm ablizing right now, but I am able to fucking think about this stuff, but it's always just a matter of letting it get out and stuff. I'm sitting at a cafe now, it's a different day than what i've written above. The next day actually. My teacher was like, "hand in your papers, and if you don't have them, hand in a sheet of paper saying when you're going to." I said tomorrow, thursday. so voila. Another day. Another fucking shugar coated day. I'm pumped, it's just.. the anticipation. Well, if I want to go to the movies, and read my art history shit, I best be doing this shit now. Fuck, maybe I shouldn't go to the movies. Put it all on one day. I shouldn't miss what I don't have right now. ("have"). I like this paper, because it gets me to put my thoughts onto paper, for another to read. It practises my ability to communicate via spoken/written language. Combining words to form concepts, that I hope... are interpreted with least loss of information as possible.
I guess above I was talking about how we're attracted to material things. Okay, I'm going to substitute love partners with food. There is a celery and a brownie. Both are material objects, and both carry their own charactertistics. Person A may look at the celery (sorry if this is a horrid analogy) but one may look at the celery and be like, yeah, I'm going to eat this, because the outcome will be health and weight loss. Person B looking at the brownie, is like, man, I'm going to eat this because it tastes really good right now. Give Person A a brownie and they're like, I'm going to eat, though it is denser than the celery, but with the unhealthiness, and weight gain at the back of their mind. Person B eats the celery and is like, mm, this is a nice break, but it is not satisfying me right now.
People are focused on outcomes, maybe. Longterm and short term. Some people marry because they only want kids. Some people don't love the person they're with, but the idea they present. Some people just want to attract a good fuck, and be on with their lives right after. There is no common inevitable path someone's sexual life takes. Likesay, there might be some folks who are just not attracted to any person, but they might be attracted to mathematics. I'm thinking about Rainman, the movie. And it's not the same sexual attraction, but it is an attraction. I say sexual, because it has to do with interaction between two objects (person + inanimate, or person + animate) We are all in bodies. We use the body to get what we want. It's our vehicle through life. A person like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, uses his body to attract patterns + numbers and what've-they. The brain is apart of the body.
I think sexuality consists of chemicals that influence and might even conduct our body's behavior, even mental too. And then, insofar as we may be conscious of our thoughts, sexuality is control and limited. I'm not going to affirm by everyone, but fuck, everyone limits their own sexuality.
As soon as we categorize ourselves through the limited concepts words hold, we limit our own experiences. I was thinking about "what is a human" and I thought it'd be a simple win to say, well, holy shit, I can't even answer that. Because what if we find out how to synthetically make and construct dna. Then, the.. none constructed by metal tongs in a flask method of reproduction.. holy shit. where am I going with this?
Okay okay, talk about identities, fuck.
There is no way that there is denial, that the ways in which we see the world, is structured by our grammar, and its concepts. I believe .. we perceive our world through our senses.. we think about them, but not think about them through, and dependantly on words.. words are .. secondary, but they are closely linked. But so.. to visualize thoughts, or to see relationships between the things we see. Words do not form thoughts. Words communicate thoughts, because we're not able to do so telepathically via a less filtered mode of communication.
I'm talking about fucking language now. Where the fuck is my queer theory paper? haha
BUT IT'S HERE!
The trouble is, as we categorize ourselves with the structured and limited concepts in the meaning of a word, we limit ourselves to these concepts. As soon as I say that I am a man, I am not a woman. If I am a human, I am not a bear. There is a specific concept that is embedded into a word, words are in use to communicate things (thoughts, physical objects). If one picks up a strawberry, bites into it, and says, it tastes like GRASS! It's like, shut the fuck up. That tastes like a strawberry. It's like.. you can be all poetic and bend the structure of grammar and combine different (and usually separate) concepts to create metaphorical meaning. You create new meaning. The strawverry tastes like grass because the earth's rooted energy tastes the same, from when you're birthed to when your die, the energy remains. It's like, what the fuck are we talking abou--ohh. It's deciphering meaning. But is it open to interpretation? Well.. that's the only thing about it, it is only for others interpretations. Until their once new meanings, become used repeatedly to create a pattern, and thus a new concept bound to a construct. Like..butch and femmes. It's kind of poetic how meanings are shifted onto different characters (words, persons, objects). The word Dad is (I don't know further than what I've lived) but the word is for a male human, whose gametes formed half of the zygote, that developed into a child. So the Male human is dependent to being a Dad in specific relation to this offspring. But then there's the symbolism behind "Dad" that pertains to a male who has a certain behavior and influence (pretty much culturally constructed) around some one his junior (or senior). Then the word "Dad" is adopted by butch lesbians, because they were still within a culture by a generally composed of gender binaries. So the pairing of two persons, disregarding their anatomy, behaved in the concept of "Dad" and "Mom". A component of their identity is conceptually perceived through culturally tinted lenses. But it's poetic! It's using the constructs of a culture, to establish new meaning. This use of words to broaden conceptual understandings, is wonderful. Wow, my use of wonderful is lame.
But it's, not wonderfully received at times. It's frustrating when someone is trying to tell you something, but you cannot understand them. If someone is speaking a foreign language to you it's like, C'MON BUD, JUST FAKIN SAEIT! When the concepts behind words start to not fit those objects in which they were once bound to, new meanings are formed by combining these words with other words. And if repeated enough within a culture, then it becomes nestled into that culture's grammar.
It's like in Vietnamese (and other languages, i believe in wikipedia) there is no linguistic differentiation between the green colour of tree leaves, and the blue colour of the sky. In English we'll distinguish their lack of distinction with "grue". So they differentiate between the colour of each of the objects by saying it's leave grue, or sky grue. But its not to say that the "greenness" of the leaves is the same as the "blueness" of the sky (in English ways of speaking) but the conceptual objects (perceived objects) are categorized in different ways, and with other categorizations.
Butch Lesbian, (and please, there are going to be exceptions always to every word that I use when categorizing some one with an identity) the combination of the words describing someone who self identifies under the sex of female, who identifies their sexuality under lesbian, who acts out the cultural predisposition of gender roles/behaviors for males..oh man.. and self identifies as male.. so many things are being recognized as transparent categories. None that make sense when combined with the other. But, they only make sense maybe because I'm not looking to decipher their poetic use of codes.
I love shakespeare. He speaks of love and shit, fucking tragedy and death, but it does so in unconventional ways of language. He's made up words that we use today. And all words we spoke of , were made up by someone.
I fucking love it. At the beginning of September I was looking out on the street, and I saw a human (if they were not a robot or a non-human), who had the morphology of a male. They were holding hands with another human of smaller stature, let's say it was their offspring, pfft, I guess. The larger male, let's call them the Dad (because they were male, with a little one) and they were behaving in what I conceived of Dadness. They were toss the child up and down in the air, and swinging their littleness to do all such simple yet extreme areodynamics. I looked to my roommate and said, it must be awesome to be a father. I specified to a father, because I was imagining seeing a female specimen doing the same tossing to their offspring on the street. I conceived it to be out of the familiar, to see a mother (another jump to conclusions, yes) tossing their non infant, more like 8 - 10 year old child up in the air. And because I conceive myself to fall under the linguistic category of female, which feeds into the definition of mother, which substantiates the relationship between me and my imaginary infant.. I thus came to the mental and spoken conclusion that it would be culturally inappropriate to my understanding of this culture, for me, as I am recognizably seen, to be tossing my 8 year old child into the air. But please, I do push ups. But man, that was like a.. "ahh man, I can't have that." Where CAN'T, is highly inappropriate. Because I have the capability to do so physically, and as it is apart of my desire, but SHAN'T because it is a matter of will, and social boundaries of what is permitted for "specific" persons.
I hope this falls under the categories of the class's course materials.
Maybe I should add more stuff from the readings.
Okay. So now sexuality. Why must we categorize ourselves? Well.. we're not truly open to experiences. The limits of what is comfortable, is determined by what is marked safe, not threatening, familiar, and enjoyable. Of course one doesn't know until they try. It's not like we're programmed to know instantly like in the Matrix (unless we are.. ) But we get results after performing a task. Saying it is one thing, and it doesn't necessarily make it real once it was said. "I love my Mom so much, I would rather my life be taken than her cry." You can not validate this until it has been done. This is where, "take it with a grain of salt" comes into focus. PROOVE IT.
So to stick with people, and them carrying messages on their bodies, intentionally and not; their self presentation comes with a specific message in mind, sometimes it is only readable to them.. But so, to use Mansome's understanding of why we present ourselves, that being for sex, then.. if we categorize ourself.. if we say that we know what we like, we want to attract that specificity to us. We want to self advertise to the right audience. We are flowers, and we don't want to attract goats to eat us, but hummingbirds to suck us off. (I didn't want to say flowers.. because I feel like the flowers might only want to reproduce, but then again, maybe flowers are sentient and they like the feeling of the bees hairy legs.. hmm hmm hmmm..)
There are some behaviors that I do not like. It does not make me comfortable. All of my desires/moods/behaviors are temporal.. but for instance, on days when I do not want to talk, I do not ask people how their days were or anything, I remain silent. I may translate my thoughts out onto my blog or paper, but I will not search for interpersonal dialogue. If it comes, so be it, but my mood will be my social filter. Some days I want sex, some days I want to drink 4 cups of coffee, some days I want to figure out how gravity exists - but I do not want sex to reproduce, or to drink coffee to fuck up my sleep, or to understand gravity because I am fearful of floating away.
I'm open insofar as I let myself, I'm no Jim Carry from "Yes Man", but there are things that I expect to happen to me in a given day, because of what my limits are, whether or not they are consciously being decided, or they are just felt whether or not the situation is safe (depending on different situational factors). If someone handed me a cookie in one of my classes, I would eat it. If someone handed me a cookie while we were using chemicals to extinguish rodents from a building, I'd pass.
Ok okay, tie it into the paper.
Because of messages that are already constructed through modes of behavior, self-presentation, the use of speech, combined with the messages that are already our bodies are predisposed to due to their morphology.. we use these modes, these building blocks of meaning, these specific forms, to communicate. I want sex, I groom with the removal of hair and body odour, and I find and go market myself to my audience. It's just good business man. Sex, and other shit, communicate, there is a business all about it. Yeah, and my laptop dictionary says some thing that business is how one occupies themselves.
We occupy our selves with various things. It's not all about sex. If someone knows what it's all about, well.. feel free to share. Because, none of it matters.
This is me trying to communicate my understanding of what is sex. How it is categorized. Sexuality/Sex is a theatrical production. There is a ploy or series of plots, and this might be ones sexuality, a synopsis of their "Sex Act." The characters, animate or not, and stage props, the materiality of the play is the materiality of the body, or of other non-corporeal materials, or the lack thereof. (Mental images are conceptual objects.) So our bodies are vehicles to communicate our synopsis. Like Movie Posters. We want those to be interested in our Sex Act. We want to attract. Us as signs, designate our identites through our behavior/performance/and presentation, without a direct description of what it is we are signalling (most direct and commonly mode of understanding is the spoken/written word)(in our culture at least).
Before, when I was first asked the question why does it matter what gender a person is, I understood gender coincide with ones sexual organs. Their anatomy was significant. Their anatomy was significant to me and my understanding of how to behave when around them. Forget from where I learned how to behave around certain individuals.. but my first impression to answer was in the direction of, well.. do I flirt, or do I not flirt? Because I understood that if it were a female, someone with a vagina (yes, so many meanings that contradict each other between female and a vagina owner) but if they had a vagina, then I would not need to flirt for sex. If it were a male, another series of behaviors would unfold, that are distinguishable from my behavior to females.
I would think that I knew how to act for what I want, but then I realized that I limit myself on what I want, conceptually. Every time I get a milk shake, it'll probably be strawberry. I fucking love strawberries. Why don't I get chocolate? Because I probably won't enjoy. At least, not as much as strawberry. But every time I have strawberry, is it that I reprogram myself into this strawberry addiction, or is it that my favourability of strawberry is determined outside of external (or mental) pressures. Hmm, I can't even delve into that right now. The energy behind the action.
Holy shit, where am I going with this paper?
After reading Adrienne Rich's "Compulsory Heterosexuality" it's like someone unplugged me and I reacted with, "Holy shit, was I apart of the Matrix?" Undoubtedly, there are a pattern of signs we see consistently in our culture's production of its cultural self. being so dependent on the other, we are, that the concept of exile from your own kin and be ones own kind is frightening. To not be found attractive or to be treated insignificantly, is offensive. This is our fear. But this is also the fear we've been taught. Remain and stick together, either wise how will you live? Quality of life is so much better with us and everyone here together. False optimism being understood as realism. A culture has its own perception of what the world is like, how reality is formed is through a culture's understanding of reality. And anything that threatens reality, as a binary opposition at first (if it's not one thing it's the other), then it is what is UNREAL! If what is Culture=Real=Safe=Sane, then What is NOT CULTURE=Unreal=Threatening=Insane. It's not a ridiculous way of understanding. It's feeling things out from what we have experienced/know, against what we are not familiar with/do not know.
How can I end this.
HAH, by "this" I mean the paper, not "this" our cognitive process.
A lot of issues I find, is when things that are limited, bloom, and there is a restriction on this happening's occurrence. With my parents, fuck. It's a fight to want anything out side of a male as a sexual partner, and even still, to have a partner in itself is an issue. I can feel anger starting to burn in my body, because I do not like restrictions. I have a lot to express. I'm not saying more than anyone else, but fuck, I have a lot to fucking express. A lot of energy.. yes, behind this expression. An expression of my life, holy fuck, and any one who is going to restrict it... They have received a lot of my anger, because they have held onto their ideas, and I am as stubborn as they are. They are (but not limited to) structuralist, and I am (but not confined within) post-structuralist. Hell, maybe the world is as it is because we need structure, or fuck, maybe we're "progressing" to the ultimate realm of life, aka, when we fucking die.
But the issues of a post-structuralist world coming out into a world full of structure parents, is a lot of "teen angst". Which is fucked, I mean, way to create an ageist understanding of a counter-culture of generational concepts.. But.. in hopes of trying to connect this back again to the general topic of my paper, is well.. I like how Judith Butler said it, "I may only communicate my identity through the availability of grammar." I don't know how to end a paper on language and culture.
Did we get it? Do we get that we all communicate poetically? Queerfully (oddly). Using the structure of language "inappropriately" to create new meanings. Metaphors becoming literal. Life in itself is an abstract-existence. I have searched up so many words in the dictionary, more and more I find, because I want to ensure that I am communicating with most accuracy, and adequacy, to those concepts with which I would like to communicate to you. I don't want to give up by simply ending with "c'est la vie". But fuck, mother fucking fuck. ceci est la seule vie ce que je sais.
