Questions You Must Answer – Interview Meme

This post is in response to an interview meme at Violet Ink – Aphra kindly decided to pose some questions for me to get me out of a non-blogging rut… if you want to (dare to?) take part, please read the instructions at the bottom of the post!

What was your first queer moment, by which I mean, the moment you first realised something was different?

Oh boy. It took me a long time to realise something was really different, as opposed to suspecting that what I felt was just something people didn’t really talk about. Yes, I confess to a rather arrogant assumption: secretly I suspected that everyone was really bisexual for ages. This crops up in my mind from time to time but I’ve come to understand that it’s not a helpful way to think about it really. I think it’s rude/self-centred of me to even put it like that, now….but it was how I thought about it rather when I was growing up. Having said that there were a few things that happened when I was a kid that gave me a bit of a clue, in retrospect. Like playing kisschase with boys, but also playing ‘truckdriver’ with girls. Or the time my mother came in and discovered my best friend hiding naked underneath the duvet after a game of said ‘truckdriver’ ( I guess I can date to that one the realisation that I was doing something…er, naughty?)

Actually, now I think about it, I kind of realised I was a bit kinky or something before realising I was queer in the sense of relating it to other people. But that’s a different question in my mind – so I don’t have so answer it, phew.

What’s the best thing about living in Japan?

There are lots of good things about living here. I am really enjoying the opportunity to live somewhere completely different to the cities I’ve previously lived in – a small, rural community. It’s a very good chance to practise speaking a new language with the native speakers of that language. Also, for me, it’s been an extremely good experience to distance myself from the culture I grew up in – you know, question a lot of assumptions about the world I didn’t even know I had. One of the most surprising aspects that I hadn’t really considered is the different perspectives I would encounter on global politics…I guess my expectations before coming here were centred around the UK/ Japan but I hadn’t factored in the many other nationalities and interests of people here – other western countries, the US, Canada, NZ as well as Brazil, China, Korea… This is probably more to do with being an expatriate than living in Japan specifically, but it has definitely been a big part of my life here.

What counts as comfort food?

Hmm, I have a terribly indulgent attitude to food. I’m a savoury girl, so no sweet things or cake, but apart from that most food that tastes good and is bad for you. I will say this, b/c I know my friend Knickers will be reading, but I have a terrible weakness for a ham shank. (Yes, Knickers, one of THESE and not the other sort, you filthy minded scoundrel). I also have a tendency to put mayonnaise on everything.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be?

I have to say, I’m pretty much happy with where I am right now. Other than here, though, where I’d most like to be is at my friend Sara’s – I want to meet her new daughter!

(And I’m keeping this one from roro) If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

For one so intensely nosy about other peoples’ lives as I, this question is an easy one. It would either be the ability to read minds or invisibility. Since reading minds, I think, would cause a lot of confusion, hubris, even possibly despair, I’m going to have to go with invisibility (that way I could be the fly-on-the-wall in 10 Downing St!). I also have to reluctantly conclude that the ability to Time Travel, IMO possibly the most potent of all superpowers (a la Hiro from Heroes), would not be for me – I don’t trust myself enough not to disrupt the space-time continuum in order to not be late for work.

So if you want to do this meme…

Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me, please.” I will respond by emailing you five questions of my choosing. You must update your blog with the answers to the questions. Whether you like them or not. You have to include this explanation, and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. So, there you go. Cheers.

I am bisexual for your amusement

Because, after all, that’s what bisexual means – just someone who’ll do anything.

It’s difficult to own to a label sometimes. I’ve been watching Big Brother 8 (UK) clips on Utube, cringing at the obviousness of it all whilst surreptitiously enjoying the permission to be a voyeur to a group of social exhibitionists. (Part of watching BB – and other reality TV shows – is this feeling of superiority. Everyone – the media, the viewers – tends to sneer at BB in Britain. The uglier side of this is sneering at the contestants: the banality and stupidity of their actions and conversations, the banality and stupidity of their identities. It’s rather worrying how easy it is to slip from the first type of sneering to the second. The metaphor of the stocks is hard to avoid.)

One of the most recent housemates is Seany, a man presented to us as so ‘wacky and weird’ that, on hearing his introduction by Davina, I wondered if he was made up. Although he probably isn’t, he has met both Hillary Clinton AND Wolf from Gladiators (not at the same time though, now that WOULD be weird.) Seany’s self-identification, in his VT, is that he has been gay “since last year.” After a day or so in the house, another male contestant was questioning him about whether he was gay or straight.* Seany didn’t answer this clearly enough for another housemate, so he was then asked whether he was bisexual. “I’m just Seany,” said Seany, which as anyfoolkno, is as good a way of ending that conversation as any.

Reader, I groaned. For I recognise the truth AND the inadequacy of that answer. Sometimes I have said it myself. Anyone who has desired more than one gender and been open about it will have experienced the question “WHAT are you?” on a sliding scale which goes from gently curious probing right down to vicious angry demanding.** Yet to answer “I’m just…me” is to avoid answering (and, I think, to imply that one is somehow above sexual identity; are all those gay- and straight-identified people not just ‘themselves’? Can Brian not just be Brian, does he have to be Gay Brian? Pah.)

I understand a little of Seany’s dilemma. He has already answered the question as to his sexual identity. That is, he used to be in heterosexual relationships, and now he is exclusively or mostly in homosexual ones. This is the most factual way to describe it: but just as the housemates’ reactions show, this is not considered an adequate answer. “Yes, but what ARE you?” – Modern western conceptions of sexuality demand that sexuality is an identity, not a behaviour. The identifying noun for Seany’s sexual behaviour is thus either gay (announcing an intention to solely desire men) or bisexual.

So what’s the problem with calling yourself bisexual? If it’s just a description of desires or sexual history….nothing. In fact, if it comes up in conversation, if someone asks, this is the term I use. I don’t want to have a conversation about queer theory and/or the problematically shifting nature of identity demarcation every time, especially if the person asking is just making (polite?) conversation… but I have to admit, I cannot get rid of some sort of shame about using that word. It feels like a defeat, a compromise, something inadequate. I know it doesn’t have to be. In fact, in a strange way, I would LOVE to be able to feel pride. But I can’t…too often I am painfully aware of the negative connotations of bisexuality. Female bisexuality as a spectacle. Male bisexuality as a dirty secret.

Programmes like BB reinscribe this stuff. Anyone remember Adele? She was bisexual, she was a black woman, she was painted in the media as devious, manipulative, questionable. I think this was largely due to the fact that we were all ‘told’ she was bisexual but she herself didn’t announce it, so much, in the house…nobody could ‘trust’ her, she got voted off. In Adele’s edited, public image, part of her “deviousness” was due to her bisexuality, part to her femaleness, part to her blackness (BB, by the way, has always been racist in the sense of the spectacle of the non-white housemates implicitly edited, reported on, talked about in terms of negative racial stereotypes. This has been going on way before the ‘racist row’ over Shilpa Shetty – remember Makosi? Remember Victor?)

Actually, the one to watch may not turn out to be Seany at all, but Gerry – the other male housemate who went in on the same night. A self-identified gay man, Gerry hinted in his intro vid that he fancies ‘a break from men’ whilst he is in the house. He might have just been flirting with the viewer. But it might also be his queer theory game plan! Oh – it’s too much to hope for, probably. But the idea of a camp-acting man like Gerry actually getting down with one of the women in the house – that would confuse the tabloids no end. I can see the headlines now…. “Gerry, what ARE you???” ***

* I’m not saying that only bisexuals get asked this. It’s often an occupational hazard for anyone even suspected of fancying the ‘wrong’ gender.

** This clip is also fascinating for Seany’s discussion of converting to Islam – the awkward tension and fading smiles (see: Chanelle) in response to THAT announcement was priceless.

*** Today’s summary of The Sun reveals a predictable ‘story‘ about Shabnam having “lesbian tendencies! That she isn’t totally honest about! Maybe even to herself!!!” A very odd blend of gay panic and prurient lechery, as usual. Plus, the tack they seem to be taking on Seany and Gerry at the moment is to describe the fact that they are both in the same house, plus platonically sharing a bed (hardly much of a choice BTW since this year, there IS only one single bed) as a “burgeoning romance”. This is actually hilarious.