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Date Posted: 10:03:23 06/03/08 Tue
Author: ScottS
Subject: Re: sexual identity
In reply to: manwitch 's message, "sexual identity" on 17:59:51 05/31/08 Sat

I would be the last person in the world I would choose to explicate the deep meaning of human sexuality. I was an adolescent long before it became viable for gays/lesbians to live their romantic lives openly, especially in dense social environments such as high school, and so I have little life experience on which to base an opinion as to how other adolescents with more complicated sexuality get to where they are going. I have had only a few close gay/lesbian friends in my life, and one bisexual girl friend who is now probably exclusively lesbian (she did not divulge her sexual history to me until after we broke up). Several of my gay friends have said that they knew they were gay before or just at the beginning of adolescence -- one word that crops up frequently is "spiritual", i.e. for them gayness is a spiritual experience.

I agree that whether lesbianism is a lifestyle or a biological definition has not been scientifically established, although I understand the evidence is tending toward the latter -- something to do with exposure of the fetal brain to hormones. Social and political conservatives would prefer it were a lifestyle choice, something a person becomes, because that makes it easier to denounce or "cure" (obviously I am not including you here, but that is probably why I chose to distinguish between being and becoming in my original post). I also realize that a cultural definition of lesbianism is more important than a scientific one for those of us who live in this world.

As to what the writers intended concerning Willow's nature, we're again on shaky ground. From Willow's first major scene of the series, sitting at the bar of the Bronze during "The Harvest", through her seduction scene in "Amends", it is obvious that standard sexual situations are always a source of discomfort for her. But it is easy to argue that the writers are concentrating on the cliche of the nerd who is always going to struggle with the nuts and bolts of sex, no matter what the orientation. Dark Willow of Season 3 was "kinda gay", bisexual with a strong lesbian component , and if a doppelganger has the opposite qualities of the original, Willow in Season 3 would be kinda not-gay. In Season 5, the Buffybot has a "recently gay" entry for Willow in her profile database. As you point out, all of this is amusing but not definitive as to what the writers had in mind.

In the episode "Family" the demon/magic metaphor used for Tara's background seems to imply that Tara was fated to be a lesbian, as were other females in her family. Here I think is a much more deterministic view of sexuality. However the denouement of the episode leaves us with more questions than definitions. Furthermore, Tara is not Willow.

Against deterministic interpretations, we learned at the end of Season 2 that the heros of the Buffyverse are more about "Becoming" than being, and this a theme that continued throughout the series, and is a strong signifier that your interpretation of character is what at least some of the writers have had in mind.

" How is one a lesbian if one is a woman having sex with men? What criteria decide that one is a lesbian?" To these questions I would respond, if the sex with men is unenjoyable, if there is no real attraction, that is, if the sex is socially coerced, if the woman is fantasizing that her partner is female during sex with a man or idealizing the man as a non-sexual being, then it might be feasible to identify her as lesbian. But you could easily point out that this is not an observable trait, that the human heart is always a mystery. I would point out that in Victorian England, and in present day Iran, no women appear to be having sex with other women. Does this mean there were no lesbians in Victorian England? Would you be willing to stand up with Ahmadinejad and state that this situation is not present in Iran? Your view of macro-reality seems to be analogous to Heisenberg's view of quantum reality. And speaking of uncertainty, I am not sure what postmodernism is, but I have never liked the idea of deconstructing language until it has no meaning, and we are reduced to haggling over what the meaning of "is" is. ..

I remember an especially moving scene from a movie about a doomed romance between two girls at a private high school -- I believe the film was "Lost and Delirious". For one girl the affair was experimentation -- the other girl was deeply, hopelessly in love. In the climactic scene--and I hope I am remembering correctly--as the first girl is pulling out of the relationship and stating that she is "not a lesbian", the other character says "I don't love girls, I love you". In the best of all possible worlds, this would be the way I would want all romances, or romantic people, to operate. Pace Leibniz, we live in a world which is often not the best. "Lost and Delirious" ends as a tragedy, not a romantic comedy, and Willow is never going to have sex with Oz again.

As far as your aside, I was first exposed to Buffy in season 5 and it has always been my favorite season. Why so few other fans hold this season in high regard has always puzzled me. Some of the episodes in this sequence were so different from any television I had ever experienced, so profoundly moving, that I could not watch them again without a friend watching with me . . .

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