Plato and Patriarchy and Romance Novels

appropriately-inappropriate:

revolvingsky:

(snip)

Hi!
As for the bias—ha, no worries, it takes all kinds to make a party, right?
I mean, I’m a gold star lesbian (for what it’s worth, which is, approximately, nothing), which you’d think would make me pretty queer—but it’s not a label I claim for myself because it does have a concrete meaning to it these days. The queer subculture =/= the gay subculture (gay being the colloquial, in that I am a *gay* woman). I find that I’m not really… what the queer community prefers. I’m an outspoken femme, but I’m not into subverting gender roles or radical action; I’m a moderate who hopes to get married one day, ideally whilst wearing lipstick and alarmingly high heels.
So, despite the fact that I fit the base-line criteria for ‘queer’ in that I do love me some taco, I don’t really fit in the culture and thus am hesitant.
But that’s just me and YMMV. I just always figured that assuming that anything not-straight = queer was reductionist and sort of… watering down a very distinct and vibrant culture.

And I agree with you—women who adhere to traditional notions of femininity do tend to be viewed more as passive/receptive sex objects. I feel like a LOT of violence directed towards both hetero-romantic asexual ladies and femme lesbians/queers is less to do with the orientation (though certainly that plays a major role) and more to do with the fact that we’re subverting the very meaning of what it means to be ‘woman’ in a patriarchal society.
An aggressor isn’t going to care if a woman’s a demi/ace/homo/purplepolkadotbananacremepie-sexual. All he’s going to see is that here’s this bird who has absolutely no desire to have him and hey, wait a minute, where does she get off on thinking that she gets to pick?
I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: butches and masculine-presenting women get read as “challenge!” and feminine presenting women get read as “lol you’re not REAAAALLY [x]”. I’d spoken about it from a lesbian perspective, but I think it works fairly well for the ace spectrum as well.
It might not be that it’s asexuality that’s pissing these guys off, it’s the fact that they’re being ostensibly rejected (and even in a relationship, a sense of rejection can manifest itself in unpleasant and unexpected ways).
But then again, I’m not asexual, so I can’t speak from that perspective.

It sounds like a shitty, shitty hand to be dealt, certainly.

As for the Life Partners bit, you raise a valid point. Not all relationships are going to last forever. However, just because some relationships are transient doesn’t mean that the term doesn’t fit at the time; for example, do you not call your spouse the love of your life just because statistically speaking you have a 50% chance of divorcing them?
My opinion on the matter (and again, this is my opinion, not gospel, so take from it what you will) is that if the term fits at the time, it should be used. It’s the nature of emotional bonds to wax and wane.
Though I do see your point.
At least personally, I always saw the PLP as sort of filling the gap between friendship <—> relationship, wherein it was a bit more intense than your average friendship (which doesn’t necessarily imply a SEXUAL bond, only a deeper level of intimacy), but not an active relationship.
For example, my best friend M and I are far closer than your average friendship. We’re both lesbians (though she pronounces the word as qw-eer), share a wide variety of mutual interests and for all intents and purposes would probably suit each other fairly well in a more sexual sphere. Both sets of parents are convinced we’re dating, basically.
HOWEVER, that having been said, we’re Platonic Life Partners, because we both realize that we’re each other’s ‘Person’ (Gray’s Anatomy reference for the win), but that we have no desire to sleep with each other. That doesn’t mean we won’t co-author some frankly alarmingly explicit smut together; it also doesn’t mean that I haven’t called her post-coitally with my (then) girlfriend in bed beside me to tease her about something that popped into mind (it happened, and it was hilarious).
So for me, even if that relationship were to end tomorrow and we were never to speak to each other again for some horrible reason, I would still consider her a Platonic Life Partner—because that is the closest way to describe it.
Hopefully that makes sense. I know anecdotal evidence =/- FACTS!, but that’s sort of the attitude I’ve always taken to it.

(And the more I think of it, the term Platonic (with its meaning of ostentibly agape love between two same-sex individuals (albiet with a somewhat sketchy age disparity!)) could work fairly well as a substitute for queer. Go figure.)

Anyways, I hope that wasn’t too much tangent-t whargharbl. I’m afraid my brain isn’t quite at peak form, I’m running on two hours of sleep and about a litre of Rock Star.

Haha, nice to meet you. I think we pretty much are agreeing in the first segment? (Although. I’m not actually a woman, despite presenting as feminine, heh.) So I’m going to kind of slide over that piece for now.

So the problem I was trying to get at about “life partners” is that I have never found that term to be suiting, even when I am in the relationships that… were I anyone else, maybe I would have considered such, but I’m me, so I didn’t. So… you’re right, I do think if the term fits at the time of, it can be used, the problem is that it didn’t fit then, and definitely doesn’t now.

It’s kind of like. Most people have a stage where they just start dating, and they start out “seeing someone” or “having a date” and graduate to calling that person their boyfriend/girlfriend, and gradually get to a point where they feel like “significant other”/”life partner”/”mate”/other terms is more appropriate because they’re more “serious” then (at least, this is the impression I get). I never got to the point where the more serious term with implications of (assumed) longevity would have made sense— I’m looking for something that can replace “we’re still on a trial basis, and I’m feeling pretty strongly about them, but not really sure where this is going yet,” more or less.

I mean, I do have at least one friend that I would consider to basically fit “platonic life partner” (though both of us are hilariously like, “but we wouldn’t,” ahah), and that relationship is completely different from any of the others I’m referring to. Which is not necessarily more close (or less), but it’s definitely qualitatively different, so “platonic life partner” just doesn’t work for me for those other situations. Hopefully this clarifies a little?

Indeed, it does clarify that end bit— it is a matter of degree. I think we’re agreeing in circles now, which is fun but not terribly productive.

However, I do want to extend an apology. I’m very sorry if I accidentally misgendered and/or hurt your feelings! That certainly wasn’t my intent, so I figure I should apologize just in case.

In regards to the PlatonicLifePartner deal, I’ve always considered the criteria as: “Are your parents convinced you’re dating?”
If the answer is yes, progress to the next question:
“ARE you dating?” If yes, then it’s not platonic. If no, then it’s got potential for a PLP.

As for queerplatonic, I’m just not sure that I agree with the concept of close/intimate friendships ‘queering’ anything. I mean, having intimate friendships with a person wherein you feel so comfortable you call them while you’re bathing, or write smut or whatever with them (either in an rp or a writing project or a whatever the hell)… that’s not particularly queer, is it?
I mean, if it’s two queer people then maybe it is, but I don’t know that the sheer nature of the relationship makes it any queerer.

I guess I’m just… hesitant to say that two cis hetero girls who bitch about how their boyfriend can’t find the clit with both hands and a GPS are in any way ‘queering’ the notion of friendship.
But go figure!

(Source: se-smith)