If you’ve read me for any length of time you probably know I’m an advocate of labels as a convenient language tool. Howvever, there are contexts in which labels do more harm than good. __batgirl__ has an excellent post on the problems with sexual labels. Go read it.
In general, I think labels are fine when they are understood as describing a facet of a person. Saying “I’m a computer geek” is a nice succinct way of explaining that not only am I computer-savvy, but I enjoy playing with them to the point of obsession. Unfortunately, they have a way of picking up extra connotations in people’s minds. If “computer geek” also suggests “pudgy, virginal, pimply-faced comic-book reader with hygiene issues” to you, you’ve gone from label to stereotype. Some people also adopt labels as their identity. Instead of using the label to describe themselves, they set out to define themselves by it, in order to feel a sense of belonging. They choose their friends, opinions, music, clothing, and sources of news based on their label, whether it’s “Gay”, “Christian”, “Liberal”, “Goth”, or “Latino”, and get offended if someone suggests that they are not what they claim to be. This is the tail wagging the dog, and it’s just stupid. Frankly, I don’t understand why people do it; but then, I’ve never felt any great urge to fit in.
Other posts on labels worth reading:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/avivahg/77454.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/avivahg/77454.html?thread=372622#t372622
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tricstmr/39375.html
Thank you for the compliment, and the redirect to a post I hope to get other people’s insights on. And I do agree, as I said in avivahg’s journal, that there are situations where some types do save a lot of time. For example, if I say that a friend of mine prefers effeminate men, I don’t want to bother jumping through ultra-pc hoops issuing caveats about what is or isn’t feminine when my meaning is obvious to everyone in my social group.
However, as to the issue of someone complaining if another person tells them they aren’t a label they have selected for themselves, I have to respectfully disagree with you. They have every right to be offended. If they are 1/8 Latino but their identity, the self they feel is healthiest and most fulfilling for them, is to follow that aspect of their background in their life choices, they can label themselves as latino and it is not my place or yours to say that is wrong. Likewise, if someone says they are gay, what right (or motivation) would anyone possibly have for telling them they are not? Perhaps in rare cases where you really think you may be helping someone accept that they have a stronger interest in the opposite sex than they are admitting to themselves – but its rarely like that. Much more often questioning someone assertation that they are gay is based on things like ‘how many samesex partners have they had?’ when we rarely question someones claim to be straight even if they are a virgin, or ‘how can you be gay when you slept with ___?’ which tells you nothing about their gayness. Consider for a moment the underlying, and insulting implication – do you really think all gay men are incapable of having sex with a woman, rather than many being capable but not interested? if so, you resign gay men to a different stereotype, that its a choice bred of inability to have ‘normal’ hetero sex.
Hmmm… I guess I see your point. Maybe I should just say I don’t understand why they are offended.
There are some labels which are sufficiently subjective that I don’t really feel anyone has any business being offended if someone says they are or are not x. I’m scrupulous about not explicitly calling myself a goth. I’ve seen lengthy online flamewars about whether someone is or is not goth. The fact is, it’s a term who’s definition varies widely from person to person. If someone says I’m goth, fine. If someone says I’m not goth, fine. I know what kind of music, clubs, clothes, and social circle I like, and that’s enough for me.
I do call myself a geek, but that’s another term who’s definition is subject to interpretation. I know there are people out there for whom “geek” denotes the sci-fi/gamer/fan type of person, who would refer to me as a “nerd”. Whatever.
Then there are terms which have a better-defined meaning. I’m Jewish, albeit mostly non-practicing. It’s pretty well-established that being Jewish is more than just a daily practice; once a Jew, always a Jew is the general rule. If someone claimed I wasn’t a Jew I wouldn’t be offended, I’d just know they were a dumbass. Likewise if someone claimed I was gay. The proof is in the pudding. If being married to, loving, lusting after, and frequently having sex with a women isn’t sufficient to make me at least bi, if not straight, in their eyes then it isn’t offensive, it’s just amusing.
I have to wonder if it’s a self-esteem issue. I yam what I yam, and I don’t really give a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys what others call it. In some cases a disagreement might be based on a legitimate alternate interpretation of a label, and in others it might be based on the person’s ignorance or stupidity; but in the end it doesn’t effect me.
They choose their friends, opinions, music, clothing, and sources of news based on their label, and get offended if someone suggests that they are not what they claim to be.
If being married to, loving, lusting after, and frequently having sex with a women isn’t sufficient to make me at least bi, if not straight, in their eyes then it isn’t offensive, it’s just amusing.
aha – see I interpret these as two totally different situations. The first seemed to be saying its foolish to be offended if someone tells you you aren’t what you claim to be. The second seems to be saying its foolish to be offended if someone doesn’t accept the label you want to put on them.
In both cases, I am saying that unless its totally ridiculous, the person knows their own label best and has every right to select it for themselves. In the latter example you provided, I’d say it was ridiculous for anyone to insist you are gay if you are telling them you are not. It might be self-esteem issues on their part, but just as likely its wishful thinking, either from desire for you or her, or some more remote form. Bear in mind many gay people do so much selfsearching and examination of themselves before reaching that conclusion, it is an easy mistake to see ‘signs’ in everyone else. Kind of like when you research illnesses (no I do not equate homosexuality with an illness) and begin to see signs of all sorts of dire conditions in what may be simple flus and colds.
And I must add, for the record, if a man was married to and having sex with a woman, and said they were gay, I would not dismiss the possibility out of hand.
I think I wasn’t clear enough – when I said self-esteem issues, I meant on the part of the person being labeled, or unlabeled (in the case of someone else saying they (the self-labeled person) aren’t what they say they are). In other words, it seems to me that if Joe is offended by what Sally says he is or isn’t, he’s insecure about who he is.
Also see my reply to myself below.
ahh i did misread, and id have to say such issues might exist both in someone too affected by another persons labeling and in someone who felt a need to try to insist their label for someone was more suitable than their own.
sadly though, it may not just be selfesteem. Real consequences still exist. there have been times ive been asked or prodded about whether or not i was gay while teaching in schools or working in child care or mental homes, when it was very clear that while i’d never be fired for that per se, i would have other problems ‘found’ that couldnt be questioned as easily and that a yes answer (or belief) would harm my job and my interactions with my coworkers. I was let go from a child care centre many years ago shortly after refusing to answer such questions, with the extremely offensive insinuation that i was ‘too affectionate’ with the children and it made them uncomfortable – this complaint, along with my alleged chronic lateness (often i’d be five or ten minutes late, far less than most other employees, and frequently stayed late and filled in for employees who called out or just didnt show up), was never addressed to me prior to being let go and never seemed to have been an issue until the incident of my refusing to clarify my sexual preference. Many (not all by any means) gays and people believed to be gay or otherwise alterately sexual are still driven out of fields involving the care of children. Granted most other occupations are fairly safe at this point, but even then social consequences can be a bitch. If mr X frequently travels on business with mr Y and they work well together, and that changes if Y comes to think X is gay, no matter how stupid Y’s prejudice is, it has still damaged their work atmosphere.
*nodnodnod* There are definitely repercussions to public labeling. I guess I see my reaction to a negative public labeling as something other than taking offense, though.
The first seemed to be saying its foolish to be offended if someone tells you you aren’t what you claim to be. The second seems to be saying its foolish to be offended if someone doesn’t accept the label you want to put on them.
The second was not saying that, but I agree with both of those statements all the same. Nobody should be surprised or upset if I say “no, that’s not me” in response to them applying a label to me. At the same time, I see no reason for me to get upset that they applied the label. I might be annoyed at their ignorance or lack of perception. I might be angry if they tried to publicly label me as something evil, like “child molester”. But offended? Bah. The only reason I’d get offended is if it were someone close to me and it was something they ought to know better by now.
It just occurred to me that my example of someone calling me “gay” might have come across as taking the position that you opposed above, that gay or straightness is all about who you screw and how often. I wasn’t trying to say that. I was just trying to say that what someone says about my orientation doesn’t mean shit to a tree.