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Neoliberalism, Homonormativity & Ace Discourse

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Neoliberalism, Homonormativity & Ace Discourse Extensive notes on some aspects of... Extensive notes on some aspects of... ... Neoliberalism, Homonormativity & Ace Discourse ...Neoliberalism,...Neoliberalism, ( July, 2016 ) HomonormativityHomonormativity && AceAce DiscourseDiscourse Please copy and distribute freely. July, 2016 ( Printable pdf & read-onscreen versions available. ) rotten-zucchinis.tumblr.com/nb [email protected] 2-page ( double-sided ) leaflet version also available. inside front cover page 1 Context— Me & This Zine: Table of Contents (continued next page): I’m a 30-something queer asexual aromantic dyadic non-binary freak of the hyper-educated sort-of Jewish, white Context— Me & This Zine......................................inside front cover person variety. I’m aroace. And I like it that way. I don’t do the romance / dating thing and I really never have. My life is Content Warnings..................................................inside front cover shaped by intense non-normative relationships ( that I do with Acknowledgement...............................................inside front cover other rainbow freaks ). I hail from a large Canadian city where I spend a lot of time hanging out with my best-cat-friend... and Introduction........................................................................................4 where I'm very involved in my local ace community. I've been involved in ace community for most of its 1) “Sexual Orientation” in ( Neoliberal ) Sexual Orientation existence ( because the community didn't really coalesce as a Identity Politics.......................................................................6 community . There are a lot of things about ace discourse that I Sexual orientation as an inherent characteristic of find useful and conceptually very powerful. There are also a lot persons ( i.e., the basis of neoliberal sexual orientation of things about how it plays out that I find intensely frustrating. identity politics ) There are a lot of ways that neoliberalism has been working to The “born this way” vs. “chosen” framing of recent re-shape ace discourse in its image. And that's painful. ( neoliberal ) sexual orientation identity politics Neoliberalism and homonormativity are big scary words. 2) Neoliberalism's emphasis on decontextualised “personal They go along with overwhelmingly big social power structures responsibility” as an organising principle for LGBTQ+ and ideologies and with people being coerced into complying rights and social validity......................................................14 with them ( or facing hostility and violence when they don't ). re: neoliberalism & “personal responsibility” This zine explores what those things are and some of the ways The ( im )morality of homophobia & heterosexism they're influencing ace discourse... Homonormativity: a consequence of neoliberal morality I know it's a lot of words, in tedious detail, as I understand Some consequences of neoliberalism in identity politics things now, in 2016. Not everyone will agree and that's okay.I imagine different people will be interested in different parts. So I 3) Exploring how neoliberalism plays out on the recognition that invite you, dear reader, to take from these words what you will. romantic and sexual attraction are not the same thing24 -- Omnes et Nihil the problem of “orientation independence” Conceptualising “parallel” types of attraction Content Warnings: corresponding to “parallel” identities The “split-orientation model” + neoliberalism = Discussion of heterosexism, cissexism and related systems rientation model” of oppression, including intersexism ( & mention of infant genital “independent o mutilation ). Discussion of the broad impact of neoliberalism 4) Ace ( and non-ace arospec ) communities adopting including intersections with poverty, racism and disableism ( & mainstream neoliberal sexual orientation identity politics brief discussion of the prison industrial complex ). Extended approaches ( leading to hyper-specific identity labels discussion of compulsory heterosexuality ( & mention of sex ). within the split attraction model )......................................32 Case study: QP relationships and / not platonic Acknowledgment: attraction: “Attraction-as-basis-for-relationships” norm Thanks so much to my intersex friends for tem's feedback Consequences of the “Involuntary-attraction-as-basis- and suggestions especially about intersexism. for-relationships” page 2 page 3 Table of Contents ( ctd. ): 5) The false binary of “involuntary / unchangeable / authentic” vs. “chosen / changeable / inauthentic”........................41 Attractions & desires as shaped and created by society. Compulsory heterosexuality and heterosexual coercion Challenging heterosexual coercion Complexity of chosen in/voluntary love 6) When experiences and identities change...............................48 7) Wrapping up: holding space in ace community against neoliberal assimilationism...................................................51 Endnotes— Sources for Further Reading.......................................54 Some Definitions...............................................................................64 Extensive notes on some aspects of... Accessible Formatting Note................................inside back cover ... Neoliberalism, Homonormativity & Ace Discourse page 4 page 5 Intro Large-scale debates on topics of human rights and civil rights for LGBQ+ and T people, and the criminalisation of same- sex sexual acts rely on arguments of the form “X sexuality-or- Neoliberalism is an economic approach that’s all about gender-related-thing is a choice— a morally wrong choice— de-regulating the economy and governments giving up and therefore it should be changed and not respected” vs. “X responsibility for social services. Neoliberalism as an economic sexuality-or-gender-related thing is inborn and ( unchangeable framework inextricably tied in with social ideology. It is all about and ) therefore it should be respected”. “personal responsibility” while ignoring larger social structures of power and marginalisation, and about holding people Increasingly I also observe people countering it with the personally responsible for the consequences of systemic “it doesn’t matter whether X inborn or a consequence of inequalities. experience because people and their identities should be respected regardless”— creating an option where something is Ace ( and non-ace arospec ) community discourse has not inborn yet still not chosen ( and is therefore real and really strong ties to neoliberal sexual orientation identity politics ( legitimate ). That extends “inborn” to “involuntary” and Part 4 ). ( This is not news. ) The neoliberalism of ace discourse transforms the binary into “involuntary therefore legitimate” vs. has a lot of consequences. “voluntary therefore less legitimate. Neoliberal sexual orientation identity politics ( Part 2 ) are However, not a lot of people are talking about how the framed around the binaries of sexual orientation identity and “inborn” / “involuntary” vs. “choice” / “voluntary” distinction is a same-gender attraction & desire as: false binary to begin with... ( Some people are talking about it, “involuntary” ( vs. “chosen” ) and therefore but it’s not getting a lot of airtime. ) Note: it’s not a problem “innocent” and “deserving of protection against that people are defending the legitimacy of people who come hostility” ( vs. “morally deficient” an “to blame for any to their asexuality or aromanticism as a result of particular hostility that it provokes” ) experiences. And I believe that doing so is very important. The Over the past year, I’ve increasingly seen a lot of ace- problem here is something else. focused and ace-adjacent discussions that centre on the Things are more complicated than that binary: not importance of certain desires or experiences being inborn ( in everything is either inborn / involuntary or “chosen / voluntary”, opposition to them being chosen ), mirroring the long-standing but within a neoliberal framework, there are no other options focus in broader conversations about LGBQ+ and T+ civil and ( Parts 5 & 6 ). Some of that is connected with heteropatriarchy human rights. — gendered coercion of compulsory heterosexuality. As I'll discuss, neoliberalism is the driving force framing A lot of the complexity has to do with obvious sexual orientation-type identities in terms of universal neoliberalism’s hyper-focus at the individual level as connected characteristics that everyone has in X flavours, based on X with personal responsibility. Because under neoliberalism, types of attraction ( Part 1 ). And also how it’s driving the hyper- people are supposed to be responsible for their choices ( and emphasis on constructing asexuality and aromanticism as the consequences of those choices, even if those choices are independent & parallel phenomena, even though it doesn’t made in a coercive context ), and supposed to be not work that way ( Part 3 ). responsible for things when they had no choice. More generally, neoliberalism sanitises the blurriness of I've been having conversations about this— between human experience by constituting neat, parallel categories of people who are seriously critical of neoliberalism yet still have personal experience where everyone has to have a value in some difficulty connecting some of the dots because neo- each box ( of either a gender-focused orientation or a -liberalism is so spectacularly normalised in my cultural context. “none”
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