I'm contrary and I want to speak

[sciatrix]

So the latest shitstorm on tumblr is all about how words like queerplatonic are totally overanalyzing and useless and just making up unnecessary words, which is somehow... bad? I don't even know what they're arguing there, or why these words are supposed to hurt anyone else. That bit's never been clearly explained in favor of focusing on all the shaming going on.

Because I'm contrary and my reaction to someone trying to tear down my communities is to immediately try to build it up, I wanted to have a discussion here about relationships that blur the lines of the friendship/romantic relationship binary.

For me, personally, these words are absolutely important. And not just because they're the signs of the first time I've ever had a community, even a little one, where I actually feel like other people are getting me and the relationships I tend to make, either. These words give me a vocabulary to talk about what I've been going through in a way that almost nothing else does.

Some of the people being assholes were arguing that "friend" is a broad enough term for these kinds of relationships. And the thing is, "friend" is so broad and so devalued that I think it's really not; either it's been broadened so much that it's meaningless or, if you do narrow it down and try to describe what a "friend" is, it's woven through with devalued connotations to the point where I think it's better for me to jettison it as a word for my closer relationships.

And then there's the wonderful person who felt the need to tell Kaz that zer relationships (one of which is with me) are totally romantic. And the thing is--no, as far as I can tell, it's not. Some of the cultural markers that are specific to romantic relationships are there, yeah, like the attempts to commit to one another and the general feeling of importance, but a ton of others--like the hierarchical "most important" feelings and the elements of jealousy over sharing (both of us have another zucchini)--aren't there at all.

So--if you find these words important to you at all, let's talk about why. If you use words like "queerplatonic" and "zucchini" for yourself, let's discuss why those words are necessary. If you don't, let's talk about why other fine-tuned distinctions asexuals make are important. Above all, though, let's talk about our realities.

After all, these people would rather we be silent. Speaking up is the best revenge.

Comments

[aceeccentric]

The argument that a word is unnecessary and therefore offensive baffles me. No one's going out recategorizing other people's relationships and saying that someone's romance is actually queerplatonic, which would be offensive (but oh, wait, apparently doing the opposite somehow isn't?). No one's relationships are being affected by there being a word out there to describe things that aren't applicable to those particular relationships. Reactions like this make me want to scream.

[samphire]

Are people actually finding it offensive because of the fact they find it unnecessary? My understanding of the OP was simply that people found it unnecessary and therefore didn't take it seriously. Not that they were actually offended. If people are finding it offensive, surely they'd have different reasons?

I may be totally misunderstanding here - I'm a newbie and just trying to get my head around this thread, as I've not even come across the terminology before, let alone the controversies. But in my experience, when people find words offensive, it's because of the word's history and their own associations with the word. So I can see someone who hates zucchinis finding it offensive if their type of relationship is defined as a zucchini! Or potentially they could find it belittling to have a serious deep relationship defined as a vegetable.

But I don't understand why anyone would get offended simply because that word is unnecessary in their own world - unless they felt the word encroached on a word that they felt was specific to something else that meant a lot to them. I can't really imagine people getting precious about zucchinis. But maybe some people use 'queer' purely to relate to sexual matters, so they might feel like their word is losing its meaning if it's made too broad? Is that the issue, maybe?

[morethanx]

I've seen people flailing because it has the word 'queer' in it, and omg appropriation, stealing the identity you have no right to etc. etc., even though that's not what the 'queer' bit means, and that was explained in the OP (which I now can't find, dammit).

[samphire]

Ah, I can see that, if queer is seen as a word specific to sex or sexuality. Although my understanding of the word 'queer' is that it's used a bit more broadly, as in genderqueer. What does it actually mean in 'queerplatonic' - does the 'queer' bit mean that it differs from the norm of platonic? Although, thinking about it, the original meaning of 'platonic', taken from Plato, might be more descriptive of what is here being called 'queerplatonic'. If I remember rightly, Plato's ideal was a really intense relationship, between two men, that simply focused on discussing ideas and art and intellectual things rather than being sexual. I'm sure I remember that from reading The Republic - and the introductory notes also talked about how today's use of the word 'platonic' is quite different from how Plato used it!

I guess maybe the main controversy is because people define words differently? So people don't like queer being used in a way that seems to undermine their understanding of it and therefore their identity based on it? For instance, I've seen 'asexual' used to mean when a transgender person goes through a stage of not being sure of their sexuality, and to me that seems like a wrong usage of the word, and undermining asexuality as an actual positive identity.

[morethanx]

I don't even have a solid definition of queer as it relates to the community, to be honest. Ask 5 different people you'll probably get 5 different answers. I used to think it was a gender related thing (including but limited to transgender and genderqueer etc), but I have no idea anymore.

The queer bit in queerplatonic refers to queering established rules of relationships (like neat friend/family/romantic/sexual relationships). I'm not sure redefining platonic would be very successful though :P

That's what happened the whole 'aces are/aren't queer' brouhaha - whether or not aces count as queer simply for being ace depends on your definition of queer. That seems like a weird use of asexual. Surely something like 'unsure' would make more sense? Certainly it indicates a transient state, which isn't going to help the asexual community.

[samphire]

Ah, okay - I guess that is the difficulty, that people have such different definitions of queer. Maybe because what queer is supposed to define is so fluid, and keeps changing as people's theories of gender/sexuality change and expand. Like feminism, perhaps, where there are so many different and contradictory theories that you have to talk of 'feminisms' in the plural.

And yep, redefining platonic would be a bit of an impossible endeavour - I just think it's interesting how the meaning has changed over the years.

And yes, exactly, associating asexuality with a transient state of uncertainty undermines the whole idea of asexuality as a positive identity, and encourages the whole 'Ah, but you just haven't met the right person yet' or 'You just haven't matured enough to know what you want yet' mentality! So I can see the case for ensuring a term has a very specific meaning, and why some people might want to do that with queer - if they are worried that certain definitions might have a negative effect on their attempts to form a positive identity. Except queer seems to have so many different meanings anyway that it might be quite difficult for clear boundaries to be made.