MetaFilter posts tagged with homosexuality and gender

"...an enormous erect phallus, and piles of lettuce in the background."

The Whelk — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:09:37 -0800

First noticed on tumblr but now available to all, Alex Clayden's paper "Same-Sex Desire in Pharaonic Egypt" which, among other things, tells you about the connection between lettuce and semen and the Ancient Egyptian for "You have a nice ass."

"I'm an artist and I don't f---ing have to answer for my work."

modernserf — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:02:48 -0800

Drag queen Sharon Needles, winner of RuPaul's Drag Race, has lately been facing a lot of criticism for their transgressive act: "Eli Kuti, a bartender at Lawrenceville's Blue Moon, where Needles often performs, recalls one performance in which Needles and another drag queen donned one-piece bathing suits emblazoned with swastikas. The two 'were hailing Hitler' and calling crowd members racial epithets, Kuti says." Sharon describes an altercation with one of her detractors, who accuse her of hipster racism: "The other night me and a couple of my friends went out to have a good time, and there's this young thing. I call her a "thing" because, you know, I don't know how to tip-toe around gender rules or queer politics. I'm 30 years old, rich, and famous; I don't have to deal with that shit anymore, you know what I mean? So we'll just call them "him"/"her"/"thing," whatever. And you know she really finds my shows offensive. ... So anyway she got upset that I paint myself brown, that I would use language that she found offensive. ... She made me an unnecessary poster child for post-racial change." "A woman threw a brick at me through a window of a car — I was sitting in the passenger side and it clocked me in the back... She spray-painted "racist" on my house, broke its windows, put superglue in my locks. There's like four ticked-off lesbians convinced Sharon Needles is a writhing racist who thinks the Holocaust never happened — because I use a swastika or reference Hitler ironically." Sharon faces her critics directly (and out of drag) before a show in Atlanta: "When you're wearing a Nazi costume and you're performing a Disney number, you're bringing up the very true ideas that Walt Disney was involved in nazism; when you're doing the song "Because I'm a Blonde," which is this ditzy 80s song referencing how blonde-haired blue-eyed [girls] get away with -- theres a line in it: "get away with murder" -- and you put that into Nazi iconic uniform, its not just this blatant uses of imagery... we're telling a story."

"Liberal, Pretty, and Pro-Titty"

hermitosis — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:23:02 -0800

GOOGLE RUPAUL . Drag superstar RuPaul (whose reality show "RuPaul's Drag Race" returns later this month) has enjoyed piles of free publicity thanks to name association with presidential canditate Ron Paul (NY Times). The drag artist has dabbled in politics before, posing as both Obamas for a 2008 Christmas card. According to RuPaul (as explained to Arsenio Hall in 1993), the most powerful thing a citizen can do is "become the image of your own imagination." Some background on drag as an art form: The 1990 documentary "Paris is Burning," presented it as a natural byproduct of marginalization and oppression, enabling poor black people to explore both male and female roles of a culture which invited them to observe but never truly participate. An incredibly diverse art form in its own right, drag reminds us that gender is a performance, and identity an illusion. These performances may comment or play on sex and gender stereotypes, or pay sincere tribute to female icons. Some are purely creatures of sexual fantasy. Some are raunchy clowns. Some are performance artists, dancers, spokespersons, activitsts, you name it. There are many drag kings and faux queens as well; everyone is welcome to the table.

Tell

zarq — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:22:53 -0800

"I finally said, you know what, I'm going to tell my story. The first American injured in the Iraq war is a gay Marine. He wanted to give his life to this country." ~Eric Alva, 40, former Marine and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom
Tell: An Intimate History of Gay Men in the Military Single page version

This is the moment my parents dressed me up as a footballer and turned me gay.

threeturtles — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:59:42 -0800

Are we born gay? And if we were, how would we know it? Sociologist Lisa Wade asks the question in response to the blog Born This Way, a collection of images of LGBT adults as children. Perusing the photographs tells an interesting story: being gay — that is, being sexually or romantically attracted to members of the same sex — is conflated with being gender non-conformist — adopting the mannerisms and interests of the other sex. (Previously)

Beneath the burqa

tavegyl — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:36:43 -0800

Shuttlecock burqas to fetish wear. Some snapshots of Pakistan's struggles with its sexual identities. Sex, love, dating and marriage* in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In Peshawar, a vibrant porn scene coexists with conservative Islam and tribal traditions. Writers talk about being gay in Pakistan. In Lahore, where the Mela Chiraghan festival celebrates a Muslim sufi poet's love for a Hindu man, openly gay women have just launched Chay, the country's first magazine dealing with sexuality. Begum Nawazish Ali, a bisexual transvestite TV host, uses her transgressive persona to throw politicians off balance on air (previously). Meanwhile, there is a long history of hijras belonging to the third gender in Pakistan and neighbouring countries (photographs) (previously). This is also the country where Mukhtaran Mai was gang raped to punish her brother for a sexual transgression, the historical sex trade is no longer a respectable occupation, the Taliban flog a teenaged girl on film (warning: graphic), bans a Bollywood movie for "propogating homosexuality" and women are still killed for honour and subject to acid attacks. * Alys Faiz, the foreign wife of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the greatest poets in the Urdu language, on marrying a Pakistani, just before the Partition

Some Straights Can Go Gay, Study Says.

bondcliff — Fri, 18 May 2001 10:59:35 -0800

Some Straights Can Go Gay, Study Says.

Just as I've always suspected.