queer as accessory?
My comments have been graced by the Happy Tutor! He had quite a lot to say, but I was most interested in this, which comes from both comments and private email:
Sadly, I am afraid that Queer, Bi, Trans, and S/M and Bondage are marketing categories. As an exercise, cruise about the net and compile the cost of an ideal weekend, with appropriate venue and props for each sexual peccadillo.
The gay lifestyle, the lifestyle of the rich and famous, the lifestyle of the bookish, bondage as a lifestyle. What does this amount to other than a consumer identity? A way of life into which goods and services are sold as props and accessories? To think of it as a site of resistance seems 30 years out of date. Tell me about your lifestyle, and I will send you to the right department in our store. […]
Why not ask what it is that we all have in common that might enable us to unite under a common banner for common decency? That used to be called "Universalism," "Glassy Essence," "Human Right," "Nature," "Natural law." What say you?
I don't pretend to have anywhere near the amount of knowledge the Tutor does on the topics of marketing and consumerism. I haven't devoted the time or work to understanding it that he has, and my reading on these subjects is peripheral. But I do have some background in queer theory and queer life, and I'd like to respond from that angle. This will be a two-parter, for reasons of both space and time. Here we go:
The First Part: Queer-As-Marketing-Demographic
It's easy to see how someone might conclude that queerness is all about the accessories. And it can be - the same way that anything at all can, assuming one buys into the trappings. The individual is always free to determine his or her own level of consumerism. For instance, I suppose I could be called "bookish." But my books are paperbacks (some new, some secondhand), and my bookshelves are mostly scavenged from my parents' house. There are precious few hardbacks around here, and no leatherbound editions, no carved oak bookcases. I would rather put my money into my mind by purchasing more material to read. I could spend even less by using boards and cinderblocks and going to the library, but paperbacks and secondhand bookcases are where my level of comfort lies. Likewise, I've never felt the need to literally buy into queer culture. The only queer accessory I ever remember purchasing was a t-shirt with a tiny pride logo on it. I bought it because when I waitressed in it at the queer-owned restaurant where I worked, my tips went up. It was a purchase born purely of capitalist greed, or of blue-collar necessity. Whichever. I've always been of the opinion that I am fundamentally a person, regardless of gender or sexuality, and therefore I wear people-clothes and do people-things. I'm a bit anti-social, and like Groucho Marx, am suspicious of any group that would have me as a member. It's just the way I am.
At the other end of the spectrum are the folks I call hobby-queers. These are the people who find being queer fascinating, and who dedicate themselves to it. Most of them (although not all) seem to feel that they need a certain number of accessories in order to effectively "live the life." Those would be the ones who festoon their cars with rainbow paraphernalia and make annual reservations for Gay Days, where they tote their copies of Out and deluxe edition Queer as Folk DVDs in their official pink triangle bags. Ain't nothing wrong with that, but it never did appeal to me.
It's true that some forms of queerness require accessories by sheer definition. Being a transvestite can be accessory-heavy or not, depending on your level of commitment. If you're passing every day, then you only need one set of clothes. If you're a more occasional trannie, then you'll need two wardrobes. But the transvestite consumer still gets to decide how much money s/he is willing to invest in these wardrobes. The transsexual, though, is required to purchase the ultimate expensive accessory - a new set of nether regions does set one back a hefty (and non-negotiable) sum.
Last categories: B/D and S/M. Again, it depends on the consumer - some folks visit the hardware store, some visit the local Pleasure Chest. I got out of this one easy, since the practices don't really appeal to me, but I can't help but observe that people do tend to want to upgrade in their hobbies (and to want the right tool for the job.) For instance: do you feel that Blogger is adequate to your needs, or are you running MT on your very own domain?
You're right, there's a lot of money to be made here, and queerness does present a very easily targeted demographic. But queers get to choose as much as any other demographic whether or not they will spend that money. And they're no more of a target than straight couples are for Sears or Martha Stewart or Carnival Cruise Lines or Victoria's Secret. We're all easily slotted into target groups, and we're all surrounded by constant consumer coercion. We all have a consumer identity imposed upon us. It's a matter of choosing whether or not to participate. I would even venture that the assumption that queer identities are equivalent to consumer identities means that one has bought into the marketing hype of the "perfect" queer couple, who really don't differ all that much from the perfect straight couple in their consumption of houses, declarative t-shirts, sexual accessories, special-interest magazines and vacations.
The only thing really necessary to sexual identity, whether queer or straight (or to an "ideal weekend of sexual peccadilloes," for that matter), is desire. Whether that desire is for a particular sort of body or for a mind and soul depends on the individual and the situation. No relationship is inherently a "site of resistance," unless the participants make it so. (A lot of queer theorists would take issue with that statement by saying that any non-normative relationship existing within a hegemonic culture is inherently a site of resistance. I don't care, because that doesn't reflect my reality at all.)
Desire also partially accounts for the fragmentation within the queer community, which presents one of the difficulties of directing marketing toward any notion of a stereotypically queer couple. Just because the demographic is easily targeted doesn't mean it's valid. For instance, it's dangerous to say that your market is "lesbians." Would those be stone butches, leather dykes, soft butches, sort-of-femmes, lipstick lesbians, granola lesbians, or just womyn who love womyn? Folks do tend to sort themselves into these categories. A leather dyke and a granola lesbian most likely (but not always) will differ wildly in their purchases of vehicles, music, clothing, food, drink and vacations. The straight perception of queer "community" is a mirage of social proximity, but the reality is wildly different. A proximate social space is created when the queers unite for common cause, and this is the image most often presented by the media. What isn't presented is the fact that that space is wildly splintered. Since we're having a PoMo moment around here lately, I'll end by pointing to Bourdieu's assertion that
the very validity of classification risks encouraging a perception of theoretical classes, which are fictitious regroupings existing only on paper, through an intellectual decision by the researcher, as real classes, real groups, that are constituted as such in reality. The danger is all the greater as the research makes it appear that the divisions drawn in Distinction do indeed correspond to real differences in the most different, and even the more unexpected, domains of practice. (from Social Space and Symbolic Space)
There is no way that you could look at me, my car, my living space or my blog and be able to deduce what my preferences are. I have made a conscious choice not to participate in that brand of consumerism. Accessories don't constitute identity. Desire, and the performance of that desire, does.