Tag: Gender

Queerness, Mangoes, and Streetlights

“You’re the Only One I Need” by Alejandro Heredia, an exploration of drag, queerness, femininity versus masculinity, gayness, is deeply rooted in its setting and qualities of setting. The physical setting of Santo Domingo is very central to the story, of course; but what I’m getting at is the more physical and visual qualities of the world that the characters interact with, and the importance of them to the story’s queerness. For example, the physicality, and almost bodily description, of eating a mango:

“[Fabio] claws for his [yellow] mango and tears into it with his teeth, makes a small hole in the flesh of the fruit. He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun. When they are done, the skin of the mango is taut, wrinkled and saggy. Only the pit remains” (34).

The action of eating a mango is always very intimate in that way. It’s just that kind of fruit: the ripeness of it and the juice and the skin. But this description is long and detailed, every word deliberate, with so much language of touch and fleshiness. “He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun” — massaging, very specific touch; pulp, the flesh of the fruit (34). They are eating the mango in a way that men perhaps are not “supposed” to do it. There is too much intimacy and enjoyment in it, too much touch and sweetness. This assumption is proved when “the girls laugh” (34), watching the boys eat this fruit in this perhaps “girly” or “gay” way. The mango is thus a symbol of their perceived femininity.

Once again I want to return to this sentence: “He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun” (34), but now looking at the ending of it, “every last drop of sun.” If the mango is seen as a symbol for the perception of queerness or femininity to the outside world, then the light, the sun, that they are extracting from the mango can be read as a space and a moment of time when they can have a safe space for their queerness. That is, before the girls look at them and laugh.

Heredia plays with darkness and light, shadows and color all throughout the piece. When Ren and the two boys change into drag, they “turn to a dark alleyway, away from the light” — this is their private space, where they can be with themselves and their bodies. However, Ren then “continues the rest of his transformation before them, in the soft orange streetlight” (37). The description of light reminds me somehow of the mango: soft, orange or yellow, again light. The darkness may be their private space — but yellow, orange, soft flesh of the mango, the sun and the streetlight is the safe space for their queerness. Heredia’s work is thus thinking about queer spaces within a world where queerness is perhaps laughed at or hidden.

Closeness Regardless of Gender

Jeanette Winterson’s decision to avoid using pronouns for the main character is glaringly obvious through the entirety of the novel. As humans living in a society obsessed with categories and the concept of binaries in regards to gender, it is easy to project a certain gender onto the main character. This decision could be based on context clues that are typically associated with gender roles, or personal internal struggle. Just because the main character does not use gendered pronouns does not mean that this text is devoid of them. In fact, the repetition of pronouns in reference to the narrator’s lovers reveals that the text as a whole is about the experiences of closeness with the body that all types of people can have. There is no definitive mandate of who can and cannot experience physical and emotional closeness with a person. 

When yearning for Louise after they have left her, the narrator muses, “Her smell. Specific Louise smell. Her hair” (110). The short sentences at the beginning of the paragraph highlight these sensory details. Instead of going into great detail about what Louise’s specific scent is, the narrator choses to leave the reader with fragments. These fragments actually serve to enhance the closeness between the reader and Louise– they emphasize Louise’s femininity that is essential to her smell, to her hair. They let the audience know that the narrator is experiencing and admiring Louise for all of her, regardless of who the narrator may be. The narrator’s gender is not crucial in appreciating and experiencing another person. 

These details also allow the audience to imagine what scents or sights might be associated with femininity in their minds. “Her smell” could be anything. Is it traditionally feminine, floral, fragrant and fruity? Or is Louise’s smell something else, like linen, mahogany, or patchouli? It could be any of those, that is a decision the reader must make using what they know of Louise, and their conceptions of femininity in general. What does “her” mean when isolated from the influence of the narrator’s gender? This allows the reader to insert their own ideas, and forge their own closeness with Louise independent of how they themselves might identify.

Sexuality and Gender in Cereus Blooms at Night

A few weeks ago, my mother and I had a conversation about the relationship between gender and sexuality. Specifically, she told me that the acronym LGBT confused her, and she didn’t understand why the T was included alongside the LGB. Why do we think of gender and sexuality as belonging under one umbrella? Why are straight trans people considered part of the same group as gay cis people? What connects them? This isn’t a question I’ve thought much about before, and I wasn’t sure how to answer her. I tend to consider gender and sexuality as inherently linked, in the way that a person’s sexuality relates to the gender(s) they’re attracted to, or how a person’s gender influences the way they define their sexuality. However, I think there is a deeper connection here than a simple reciprocal relationship, and I think Cereus Blooms at Night provides a good lens through which to explore this question. I want to use this text and the character of Tyler to explore how gender and sexuality are related, specifically in terms of Tyler’s own sexuality and gender identity. 

There are two main elements to Tyler’s queerness: his* attraction to men, and his femininity. Tyler seems to have become comfortable with his sexuality before the text begins, and though he never explicitly labels himself as “gay” or “queer” or even “attracted to men,” neither does he hide his sexuality or speak around the moments when it comes to the surface of the text. While his attraction to men is made very explicit early on in the text (at the moment when the officers bring Mala to the Alms House [9-10], and when the doctor arrives to examine her [22]), his femininity starts out as more implicit, shown through his preference for a traditionally feminine career and his lack of traditional masculine abilities (his account of the physical labor he was assigned at the Alms House especially affirms this [10]). It wasn’t until Mala steals the nurse’s dress for him (75-78) that I began to consider his identity as other than an effeminate gay man. As the text progresses, Tyler’s femininity and non-normative gender identity become more and more explicit, until the very end of the book when he puts on makeup and the nurse’s dress to meet Otoh and Ambrose, appearing the most feminine that he has throughout the entire text (247). 

Tyler’s experience with gender and the social repercussions of not conforming to heteronormativity reflect our own society and recent attitudes around queer identities, specifically in the way people tend to be more comfortable with queer sexualities than with queer gender identities. I think the reason Tyler is more explicit about his sexuality than his gender identity is because gender can be a difficult concept to tear away from heteronormative ideals, more so than sexuality. Identifying as a man who is attracted to other men begins to align Tyler with (straight) women and starts chipping away at the boundaries of heteronormativity. Once he is comfortable with his attraction to men, he can begin exploring what his femininity might mean – and that is the journey his narration shows the readers. 

 

* The first question I had when considering Tyler’s identity is what pronouns to use. Because the text primarily identifies him as male, I could use masculine pronouns for him; however, I could just as easily read the ending of the text as a declaration of identity, and argue that Tyler’s feminine presentation is a sign to use she/her pronouns. Or, I could read the ambiguity of Tyler’s gender as a reason to use they/them pronouns. For the sake of clarity, and because Tyler presents as a man for the majority of the text, I decided to use he/him pronouns to refer to him. However, it appears that the text would just as easily support a different set of pronouns. 

Gender Trouble Butterfly

Within Gender Trouble, written by Judith Butler, Newton gives a powerful message:

At its most complex, [drag] is a double inversion that says, “appearance is an illusion.” Drag says [Newtons curious personification] “my ‘outside’ appearance is feminine, but my essence ‘inside’ [the body] is masculine.” At the same time it symbolizes the opposite inversion; “my appearance ‘outside’ [my body, my gender] is masculine but my essence ‘inside’ [myself] is feminine” (Butler, 137).

From this, a very troubling and complex statement arises from the works of David Henry Wang in his play M. Butterfly, with Song stating that:

Like, I think the reason we fight wars is because we wear clothes (Wang, 55).

The “double inversion” proposed in Butler’s work stings true to the heart when Song gives the ultimate reason for gender/identity mayhem. Newton, through Butler, introduces the idea and separation between appearance and feeling along the lines of respective gender femininity and/or masculinity. The relation between Song’s position in M. Butterfly and the words of Newton within Butler’s work is that Song ‘plays’ the gender role of female, while standing as a biological male. In this situation, Newton would classify her as the first portion of his writing: “[her] ‘outside’ appearance is feminine, but [her] essence ‘inside’ [the body] is masculine.” Song believes that it is this binary between sex and gender that she encompasses as a whole, that creates issues in the world. It is this mere contradiction of appearance and biology that allow for disagreement, argument and ultimately disapproval of ‘differences.’

The very evident similarities between these two works and the gender binaries that exist and are explained within the words of the text suggest important, relevant as well as controversial binaries such as femininity versus masculinity, sex versus gender, male versus female and appearance versus feelings/emotions (‘inside’ versus ‘outside’). These binaries exposed in Gender Trouble allow one to clearly identify the important aspects of sexuality as well as gender identity within M. Butterfly and ultimately relate them to real world issues as a whole.

The suggestive material stating, “appearance is an illusion” in M. Butterfly needs the unambiguous explanation given in Gender Trouble. Gender Trouble is ultimately used as a lens to better understand the allusions, suggestions and binaries within M. Butterfly. These two texts are linked and intertwined ever so perfectly through meaning, connotation and annotation that they need one to understand the other. Allusion and illusion need definition to make things clear, yet definition needs allusion and illusion to make things interesting.

sHE…

I had a boyfriend once, his name was Bruno…he found Jesus under a wardrobe… rescued by the fire brigade…Jesus had come out of the closet to save him. ‘Out of the closet and up into your heart,’ raved the Pastor (152)

The word “boyfriend” captured my attention immediately. I have been so caught up in finding the narrators gender and the gender he/she prefers, and this passage may have solidified my opinion.

For some reason I am seeing Jesus as the narrator himself/herself, slyly talking in first-person. He/she is seemingly stuck under a wardrobe and even hidden in the “closet.” Then, there is a “rescue.” A rescue from himself/herself. A rescue from his/her own sexuality. 

Sexuality is something that can either set you free or suck you in. This passage is the moment of freedom for the Narrator. I find it ever so intriguing that there is two terms that suggest suppression of the Narrator’s true self, and that is the use of the words “[rescue]” and “save.” The imagery used to capture the meaning, feeling and reality of ‘coming out of the closet’ is magnificent, while answering a very frustrating, reoccurring question: what is the gender of the narrator?

Though, the use of Jesus in this passage is so cliché, it ties the fact that ‘God knows everything you do and you do not’ into the plot of the novel. I proposed earlier that the Narrator is using Jesus as a double of himself/herself; he/she “had a boyfriend once” and he/she seemingly came “out of the closet.” I believe he/she is, in fact, a he.

Suppression is prevalent in this passage. Suppression of the gay community. In this instance, he needs to be saved from his sexuality and rescued from his own mind just to find himself?? Ridiculous. He found refuge once the pastor “raved” the truth, “raved” reality and “raved” sanity, that there is nothing more real than what is within your heart and nothing more genuine than love. Once it is found, all bets are off, the “wardrobe” is off and the “closet” is gone. I believe that his passage has made him, himself all the way to the core of his heart, where Jesus is ringing bells of true identity.