14-year-old prostutute

I have recently watched a short film of French Press Agency on 14-year-old girl from Nepal who works as a prostitute. First of all my attention drew a configuration of meanings related to the child prostitution in the culture of this country. This girl, Banita, with her family belongs to the lowest caste (social class), which is subjected to the mechanisms of cultural violence and exclusion, similar to those in European culture shown against sexual minorities. As a consequence of the cultural violence all woman of this caste can work only as prostitutes, including Banita’s mother and grandmother. The culture connects the participation in this caste with prostitution, therefore it will be very difficult for Banita to move outside the category of prostitute. There is a certain analogy between this configuration of culture and the European oppression of sexual minorities. As Polish far-right ex-MP Wojciech Wierzejski spoke of western politicians who came to Warsaw gay pride parade: “they are not serious politicians, they are just gays”. Analogically: a gay person will never be “a serious doctor”, “a serious teacher”, “a serious driver” in a heteronormative culture of oppression. Within this configuration, a gay person will not be able to move outside the category of “a homosexual”, just as a woman of Badi caste will not be able to move outside the category of “a prostitute”. 

What conclusion can we draw from this lesson? First of all we should abandon all stable definitions of identity categories like “a gay person as a sex machine” or “a Badi caste woman as a prostitute”. Every such clear, stable definition is a mechanism of violence and exclusion.

Coming out

Recently, a nice initiative of publishing coming-out videos has started. In relation to that, I would have a few thoughts to express. The necessity of “coming out” is based on the heteronormative configuration of culture. Heteronormative culture assumes that every person (every subject participating in the social discourse) is heterosexual. Heterosexuality is an obligation, and if you fail to observe it, you are excluded from the society/discourse. In this way, the heterosexual Matrix (just as in the famous film “Matrix”) is being created – an illusion that heterosexuality is the only sexuality, common and inevitable; and homosexuality is degeneration and abomination. Coming out – the statement that someone is gay – deregulates the Matrix: making alternative, homosexual narrative present in the discourse.

It is worth noticing however that the categories of “a heterosexual” or “a homosexual” (later named euphemistically “gay”) have been created by the Matrix to divide the reality into normality and abnormality and ultimately to exclude the “abnormality” from the society, to eradicate it from the social space. We are not obligated therefore to identify ourselves using these categories. They are based on the notion of sexual orientation which is a construct of modern scientific discourse. I don’t want to challenge this notion because it’s obvious that people have relatively constant desire towards certain gender(s). However, the inaccuracy, inadequacy of the homosexual identity category remains in the great multitude of false significations connected to it. As the oppressive medical discourse of 19 century stated, homosexual persons are deviant, sexually-obsessed, inclined to molest children, and pathological. Nowadays the signification of homosexuality category recognised by common people often include the assumption that gays are woman-like, have noticeable manners etc. In fact gay people are as different from each other as straight people and homosexuality does not follow any psychopathology. In the other hand, the discourse of identity politics aiming to lift gay people out of the homophobic oppression, wanted to connect other significations to the homosexual category: cutting the dispersion of gay people to those well-educated, intelligent, wealthy, monogamous etc. The content of this category is therefore totally arbitrary and has no basis in reality. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/wyjdzzszafy (sorry, Polish only)

"Tolerance is not a Catholic word"

Our religion teacher (in Poland „religion lessons” mean „Catholic religion lessons”) taught us that “tolerance” is not a Catholic word. At this point I made an exception to agree with her. Tolerance is not a Catholic word because Catholicism is not a tolerant religion, at least if we consider its “sexual ethics”. Of course everyone has a right to create their own “sexual ethics”, also the Catholic Church and I don’t want to condemn it or persuade Catholics to change their views. The real problem is that the Catholic institutions, organisations etc. want to force other people to follow their “sexual ethics”, even if these people are not Catholics and don’t want to use this type of ethics. This is the meaning of the word “tolerance”: to give other people right to harbour their own views. It applies even stronger to a sexual orientation which occurs independently of a person’s will and there is no real way to change it. 

The Catholic Church does not understand that every person has the right to construct their own definition of sexuality. If a Catholic regard homosexuality as a sin – OK, but it means that this person should not engage in sexual relation with a person of the same sex. It does not mean however that no one can engage in it, because other people may have different views, needs and desires. If a Catholic thinks that same-sex marriage is against the God’s will – well, OK, but it means only that this person should not wed person of the same sex, not that no one could wed them. Unfortunately Catholic circles do not understand it.