Fifty Shades of Gay
The video above is about the spectrums of sexuality. One of the key points that iO Tillett Wright is trying to get across is that sexuality cannot be placed in boxes. Our society loves categorizing people and placing labels on them, and without labels, we tend to feel more uncomfortable. Labels are put on everything: politics, relationships, sexuality, gender; we even put labels on people based on something so simple like whether or not they seem dangerous. All of these labels end up leading to advanced judgement and fear of other people who are "different" from us. This is something that many people across the board are working hard to combat.
iO Tillett Wright is, a photographer, artist, actor, writer, filmmaker, activist, and director, and she is attempting to humanize the idea of sorting boxes in our heads. Her goal is to get across the idea that we are all people regardless of how we might be characterized, and sometimes the things that cause judgment are not openly visible. In her earlier years she spent one year photographing young women who felt like she did: not belonging anywhere, even in the socially-granted boxes. All of these women that she photographed felt as if they fell somewhere along the LGBT spectrum. She took photographs of these women to prove the point that girls could look anyway that they want and that they can be attracted to anyone based on personality and not based on gender or sexual orientation. iO Tillett Wright was raised in a neighborhood where being gay, being a drag queen, and being a tomboy was considered normal. She realized later that she was lucky because she felt safe and always appreciated but, she also realized that she was considered part of a minority. She soon decided that she wanted to make her project on photographing women bigger and broader.
She began taking photographs of any single person who felt that they were anything other than 100% straight. Society likes to box up sexuality. If you are a guy dating a guy people will automatically ask, “Are you gay?” Or vise versa; when a girl is dating a girl they are immediately tagged as a lesbian. However, what happens when a girl dates a guy and then her next partner is a girl? Does that automatically make her 100% bisexual? The idea of a spectrum of sexuality scares people because then they don’t know where anyone fits in society, an idea that is so painfully unnatural to so many people. People feel the most comfortable when they tag others and say, "You are gay, and you are straight." It's important to keep in mind that not only openly queer-identifying people are put into boxes. Plenty of "straight" people are put into that box as well. Why can’t the idea of loving people be accepted?One of the key points that iO Tillett Wright is trying to get across is that sexuality is a spectrum and there’s a million different shades.
At one point she asked people to place their sexuality on a scale of 0-100% gay and people almost didn’t know what to do because people didn’t know what to do with the option of being open about their sexuality. A good example of the open “boxing” is when a boss can fire an employee for being homosexual. But where is the line drawn between being "straight" and being "gay" if those people cannot even identify it for themselves? Is one girl considered homosexual if she happens to kiss another girl on one occasion? Is she considered a lesbian now and can she now be fired for that? There are so many shades of sexuality that putting someone in a box simply doesn’t work.
Chills - I really, really love this talk.The first time that the "sexuality scale" (I guess I'll call it that) was introduced to me was through Orange Is The New Black. One of the characters in it was talking about how his wife might be gay and no longer straight and how he was worried about that, and in response, another character said "I think your problem is your need to say that a person is exactly anything" and that is something I think about a lot. Unfortunately, she is right. From the day we are born, we are put into boxes - beginning with the girl box or the boy box, and we all know that a ton of stuff comes along with both of those boxes. As we grow up and meet people and begin to create our identities, we are put into and put ourselves into more and more boxes. The hardest thing about these boxes is that they begin to limit us - it seems that once we are put into a box, that box is taped up and cannot be opened again - that's our box and don't you dare think about trying a new box. But what if I want to try that box over there? That looks fun. However, I love how iO suggests that maybe we shouldn't have boxes. Can't we exist as human beings? Can't that be our box? Humans are diverse creatures - this is also true. So, let's think about accepting that every human you are going meet is not going to be the same, nor are they going to fit into a certain set of boxes - but they are no doubt constructed of beautiful colors and ideas and preferences and differences, let's talk about celebrating those differences rather than using them against each other or assuming things about each other. iO makes some very, very valid points in this talk about humanity and what that means and how we can return to a place of common humanity - I think that it's so important to think about things like this.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was very intriguing. I like the idea of fluid sexuality and genders. I hope other people are receptive to these ideas despite them directly contradicting whats been taught in our heteronormative culture. The binary understanding of gender and sexuality doesn't seem to fit any more. Introducing the idea that categories are unnecessary and inconvenient is helpful to understanding the nature of gender and sexuality as a spectrum. The need to categorize people applies to every aspect of their being. I agree that more often than not when we categorize people it takes away from their individuality and places them into boxes that may not be correct for them. Over all I found this topic to be an important factor when considering how people interact with each other and why.
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ReplyDeleteI find this topic really interesting. I was introduced to the idea of a sexuality spectrum through this video, particularly through her project to photograph anyone that identifies as anything but straight. Over the past few years, my eyes have been opened to the fact that the majority of people that I talk to about this say that they don't identify as 100% straight or gay, that they fall somewhere on the spectrum. Society teaches us that there needs to be a label for everything (race, sexuality, gender, etc.). The fact is, things are rarely definite. How can something as complex as sexuality be so limited? I really enjoyed this video and her project because I think that it opens people's eyes to how vast sexuality truly is, and, when given the option, the majority of people don't identify with either of the two extremes.
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