Outing Myself in World Cultures

     So it has been some time since I last posted. It's been really crazy lately. I just started a new job that has pretty much swallowed up my life outside of school, and my laptop is still totally wrecked, so blogging hasn't really been high up on my to-do list.
     Speaking of school, one of the classes I'm taking this semester is a humanities course that focuses on ancient cultures. Basically, this class uses time-relevant literature as a measuring stick and discussion point for the study of ancient societies. Last week we opened up the discussion on the ancient Greeks. Anybody who has knowledge of that era and culture knows that in those days, bisexuality was not only socially acceptable, but people were very open about those tendencies. It just wasn't really "anything" back in their time. One of my classmates, on hearing that, loudly crops up with "and that's why they BURNED".  Nobody said a WORD. I just sat there staring at her, trying hard not to flip out and trying to observe the reaction of my classmates.
     I was furious. I live in a country that is supposedly free, so I accept that not everyone here is going to understand or respect people in my situation. What really irked me wasn't the kernel of bi bashing I'd just had to deal with, it was that nobody said a thing about it at all. If we would have been discussing gays or lesbians, it's safe to assume that there would have been a lot more of a reaction to what was said. At the very least, some teeth would have been clicked, or somebody would have muttered something about 'bigotry' or 'ignorance'. Somebody most likely would have responded even just to save face- not being homophobic is almost straddling the line of political correctness now, it looks bad socially to be anti-gay.
    But biphobic? The message that was sent with that room full of silence was crystal clear: saying hateful things about gays is wrong, but bisexuals...by all means! Not one person in that room, hetero or homo, stood up. Not to save face, not to look good, not to legitimately care. This was a subtle, but loud, reaffirmation that switch hitters don't get accepted as straight and don't get accepted as gay. They are somewhere in between, leaving many people to wonder why the "anti-hate measures" don't seem to include them. Yet again. And yet again- I say BIPHOBIA is HOMOPHOBIA in disguise.
     So a week after that debacle, we were dissecting the poetry of Sappho. There were a lot of cracks about Sappho and the Isle of Lesbos. (hardy har...get some new material, geeze...), and for whatever reason many people in the class were convinced that Sappho was a man. When asked about what I thought about the poetry, I was honest in saying that the way Sappho wrote sounded like lesbian communication. When I was asked why I thought that, I pretty much couldn't get around saying that it sounded familiar and from my own experience. The looks on the classmates' faces were priceless. I got a lot of the disapproving looks from older Protestant women and gross, seedy responses from the males in earshot.
     Needless to say, I'm not loving this class at ALL. It saddens me, because this is something totally up my alley. I should love this course. But in all honesty, it's immensely uncomfortable for me and I am counting down the days until finals.
    

Party Politics Under the Rainbow

     In one way, I think I'm finally getting tired of all of the political chatter that has been front and center in our society lately. The ultra negative campaigning done on behalf of both major contenders in the presidential race are both annoying and, at times, infuriating.
     In a lot of other ways, I can't help but be interested in hearing the thousands of other political perspectives out there. It seems like there are as many political wavelengths as there are religious or cultural, and people take all of the above extremely seriously. In reading through what felt like a trillion op-ed pieces today, I came across this gem: Why Are We So Afraid of Gay Republicans?
     The gay community has very often been noted as a wealthy contingent in buying power and in political backing. This idea has been challenged, but somehow the view of the "pink dollar" still holds some weight. It is a safe assumption that workplace/hiring equality, marriage laws, and adoption policies are at the forefront of LGBT political issues. I read in a compilation book a few months ago an essay arguing the point of American LGBT people as being "the ultimate conservatives because they are fighting for the rights to marry and have family-centered lives, as well as the right to serve openly in the US military". 
     I think that's a pretty interesting concept, considering people tend to view the Republican party the same way: Either it's the illusion (or actual presence) of plenty of income OR it's about "traditional"/family-centered values with a heavy nod to the armed forces. That in mind, I don't think the idea of a gay Republican is too far fetched. I would go so far as to say that the presence of such right wingers is perplexing mainly due to the media slant from the Left. (I don't doubt that there are networks that have a liberal bias to mirror the much-lamented bias of FOX.)
     I wonder what this concept would mean for voters that identify as bisexual. Like everything else, studies and polls don't seem to include solely that very fluid group of people. For the record, THIS one doesn't really like the idea of running a country by party politics. It seems childish and counterproductive to me.

    On a somewhat lighter note, At least Google doesn't immediately associate the word 'bisexual' with porn anymore.