Tag: Shame

Scared In The Dark, Yet Safe Because We’re Blind

Shani Mootoo states in her novel Cereus Blooms at Night states that, in the name of sexuality and/or gender identity, there is a “limbo state between existence and nonexistence” (Mootoo, 77). I see this as a safety blanket, yet at the same time an unbelievable, undefinable danger zone. This is safe, as priorly stated, yet also scary and shameful, especially in the name of sexuality and/or gender identity.

One being neither “properly man nor woman but some in-between, unnamed thing” allows for different interpretations of the “truth,” but in the end, left to be defined by the “victim” (Mootoo, 71). I say victim because this uncertainty is not a choice. It is this “definition” of one’s personal sexuality and gender identity, and the comfort of not associating one way or the other that acts as a safety blanket. It is safe to not know. Although it is safe to be in the dark, it is oh so scary. He/She cannot see what is ahead of him/her, what is awaiting him/her after his/her “definition” is solidified, which can, in turn, result in a shameful personal and social regression.

In these two quotes I see a very important connection between the words “unnamed” and “nonexistence.” Remaining “unnamed” can be viewed as “nonexistence” by the said “victim” of sexuality and instills a sense of fear and shame into him/her. It is this fear and shame that drives one to attempt to “define” the undefined: his/her sexuality and/or gender identity. It is interesting that when you put the two quotes together, it suggests that “existence” is associated with defining as a man or a woman, and “nonexistence” is associated with the “limbo state,” being “unnamed” and somewhere in between.

How is one “properly” one or the other? This is the word that suggests shame. Sexuality, gender and gender identity are choices; choices with social repercussions that can instill a sense of fear or shame into one if they even slightly deviate from the “norm.” Who is to say that there is a “proper” definition of sexuality? NO ONE. To put these two ideas together, the “limbo state” of being “unnamed” creates a drive to define the sexuality and/or gender identity that is not defined, but is linked with the shame of defining a sexuality or gender identity that deviates from the norm. This limbo is such a safe place of blindness, but such a scary place of darkness.

 

Growing Up is Hard to Do

Sex can feel like love or maybe it’s guilt that makes me call sex love. I’ve been through so much I should know just what it is I’m doing with Louise. I should be a grown up by now. Why do I feel like a convent virgin? (94)

The narrator of Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body is waiting for his/her married lover Louise to make a decision on how to proceed with their relationship. Louise’s husband Elgin is aware of their affair, yet they remain married. However, all three of them have come to realize that something needs to change and the narrator is waiting for Louise to choose between her marriage and her affair.

The narrator is wondering if the love Louise has said she has for him/her is truly love and not just an illusion created by sex. By saying that guilt may make sex feel like love, the narrator is suggesting that we like to hide behind love. We are afraid of the shame we might encounter if we have sex for nothing but pleasure. As Michael Warner points out in his book The Trouble with Normal, we are constantly looking for a way to handle our sexual shame, to get rid of it. We want to “pin it on someone else” (Warner, 3), or in this case something else. If we say we love someone, our sexual shame is automatically reduced because it is far more ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ within our society to have sex with someone you love than having sex for your own pleasure.

Even though the reader still doesn’t know if the narrator is male or female, he/she clearly lives on, as Judith Halberstam would put it, ‘Queer Time’. Indulging in numerous relationships with (married) partners of both sexes, not settling down, and clearly challenging “conventional forms of association, belonging, and identification” (Halberstam, 4), the narrator does not follow the traditional life span of school, marriage, kids, a steady job, and retirement. Instead, the narrator realizes himself/herself that he/she is not yet a grown up, does not fit the norm. He/she is aware that society expects him/her to end the affair; that he/she should know what ‘is right’ by looking at his/her life and the mistakes made, the lessons learned. Nevertheless, the narrator feels like a ‘convent virgin’: childlike, innocent, and clueless.

Although the narrator at one point believes that Louise will not, under any circumstances, choose to end her marriage, the comparison to feeling like a convent virgin furthermore suggests the narrator’s hope and faith that their love will prevail against all odds, against the norm, and against his/her fears. It shows the narrator’s hope that not following the norm will pay off in the end and lead to happiness.

 

Precision

A precise emotion seeks a precise expression.  If what I feel is not precise then should I call it love?” (Winterson, 10)

This passage immediately drew me in, despite its brevity, because of the simple eloquence of its phrasing.  In a mere two sentences, the narrator turns the widely accepted idea of ‘love’ on its head, questioning how we define our feelings and what ‘love’ actually means.  The narrator poses an almost scientific theory, in the vein of Newton’s third law of motion (every action must have an equal and opposite reaction,) essentially stating that every precise emotion must be expressed through equal precision.  This opposition is itself then juxtaposed with the concept that if an emotion is not precise, it may not be expressed precisely.  In fact, the word “precise” is repeated three times, drawing special focus to the concept of precision and inviting the reader to question if it is possible define an emotion precisely in the first place. We all think we know what ‘love’ is, but if we were to ask everyone who is in ‘love’ to define what ‘love’ is, it is unlikely that we would end up with two identical definitions.  By that logic, if those feelings of affection most of us seem to experience are imprecise and individual-specific, should we even be allowed to define them as ‘love’?

I believe that Sedgwick’s idea of queer, “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances, and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning,” can help us cope with this issue (8).  Humans are pattern-seeking animals and therefore seek definitions, particularly for those things that scare or confuse us, such as imprecise emotions.  Labels and clichés make us feel safe, assuring us that we are not the only ones experiencing the perplexing emotions that we do when we say, fall in ‘love.’ However, perhaps we overuse these clichés, forcing ourselves to shave down our emotions into precise pegs that easily fit in the holes we’ve made for them.  We’ve streamlined ‘love,’ cutting out any room for the “…gaps, overlaps, dissonances…” that Sedgwick speaks of by “embracing one identity or one set of tastes as though they were universally shared, or should be” as Warner argues (Sedgwick, 8)(Warner, 1).  As a result, we invite shame into the equation and push it on those whose idea of ‘love’ is more of a square peg than a round one.  Perhaps if we were to utilize Sedgwick’s idea of queer as a precise expression of imprecise emotions, we would be more at ease (and therefore hopefully less condemnatory) with emotions that don’t identically match our own.

Have We Already Fallen?

“I had lately learned that another way of writing ‘FALL IN LOVE’ was ‘WALK THE PLANK.’ I was tired of balancing blind-fold on a slender beam, one slip and into the unplumbed sea” (26).

“Lately learned” implies prior ignorance. It is so interesting that a feeling, a sense of happiness, a supposed ‘euphoric’ feeling can be so scary. The unstated connection made between the narrators heart and an “unplumbed sea” demonstrates the depth of the universal language of love.

I see freight in the words plank, balancing, blind-fold, slip and even sea; but why are these words associated with the oh so beautiful LOVE? Well, this fear was just learned. ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ or, was.

Why is love a “slender plank?” Is it the fear of the unknown? Fear of getting hurt? Fear of shame? Or fear of slipping off the slender plank and into the unplumbed sea? The Author suggests that his/her new learning of the dangers of love is strictly a game of ‘survival of the fittest.’ If we have already ‘fallen’ in love… then how are we still on the plank? There’s a connection there. The only difference is that it is an emotional fall, not a physical fall.

“Balancing blind-fold on a slender beam” would instill fear in us, it would give us an almost animalistic instinct to fight, to prevail and to survive. Who did The Narrator ‘learn’ that you need to ‘survive’ love from? Is he/she crazy? Or did we teach ourselves? Are we dying to survive something that would never kill us in the first place?

In Sedgwick’s Tendencies, she states that,

“The survival of each one is a miracle. Everyone who survived has stories about how it was done” (1).

Maybe this is the “newly learned” case in Winterson’s Written on the Body? Should we fear love? or love the fear? I am going to go out on a limb and say that it is the fear of the unknown within the unplumbed sea that makes us fear surviving, but LOVE survival.