"Permissible" Sexuality

 The hegemony of heterosexual-normative behavior is damaging not only to the LGBT community, but deprives heterosexuals of aspects of the human experience. As I am not LBGT, I'm not going to focus much on this aspect of the debate, but rather appreciate everyone's input, and what I have learned going in social spaces with my gay and lesbian friends to be shocking at times. No one deserves to be treated any differently because of their orientation, and it's nauseating to hear these stereotypes being thrown around just because of the people I associate myself with. I hope that one day we reach a point where we are all considered as humans deserving of respect first, members of our community second, with all other identifiers and class being less important then the individual. This does not mean that we have to have a future where LGBT take traditional roles of hetero couples, two lesbians don't have to conform to gender stereotypes and have one take the male role - two gay couples don't need one man to be the man of the house and the other the house-husband - as we see with Pete Buttiege and his political career. This seeking of conformity for LGBT people to appease conservative sensibilities is another form of power and control. If mainstream society can no longer convert peoples sexuality, perhaps society can twist it into the least offensive form possible. LGBT people need to be allowed to form their own roles, whether they want to seek traditional roles, or to construct new relationship paradigms, it is of no one's concern but the parties involved.

 

This hegemony doesn't just damage LBGT people, but heterosexuals are also harmed by this compartmentalization of normative behavior. Women are expected to act one way - typically in a submissive role - men are expected to shoulder their burdens silently, any out-pour of emotion that isn't seen as mannish behavior is derided as feminine. This is emotionally stunting to boys and girls learning their place in the world, and creates a space of toxic masculinity from the teenage years on. We have roles we are expected to play in social life, family life, and in one's professional career. After all, isn't it common place to expect women to play the role of the office mom, and men to do all of the heavy lifting when needed? This same hegemony extends to race relations: as Werner and Berlant noted, the times cover depicting what the average American will look like in 2050 is purely offensive. It seeks to absorve minorities into the melting pot. This seems scary and strange to many, so to lessen the load of this removal of the Euro-Americans, they depict a future where we remove non white individuals and individual identities for a future where yes- it is unavoidable for races to mix into one, but where it is done on White American terms. Their grandkids might have some "other" background, but they will act in the same way just as white americans have always acted. Of course, this is a reality, especially in Alaska, which has the highest number of mixed heritage people in the nation, but as we can also see in Alaska that doesn't mean someone has to stop being Filipino, to stop being Native, just because of their mixed heritage. It doesn't mean they're half and half, but rather fully native, and fully norwegian-american or whatever. This melting pot idea, reducing space and banalizing these vastly different cultures into an ingredient of a soup is harmful and just plain wrong.