Majikthise has a good post riffing off another blogger David Velleman’s suggestion that rather than focus on protecting the legal protection of gay rights against discrimination, harassment, etc., we can simply make all sexuality private.
[I]it’s almost impossible to live a normal life without disclosing a lot of information about one’s sexual orientation.
Heterosexuals simply take the public aspects of courtship, marriage, and family life for granted–asking someone out on a date, introducing a companion as your boyfriend or girlfriend, having a wedding, wearing a wedding ring, putting up family pictures at work…
I think Velleman arguments for privacy conflate sexual activity and sexual identity.
Well put. Majoritarian cultures have a tendency, understandably, not to realize when and how the social world is generally structured around them. On top of this, many reduce gayness to sexual activity proper, without thinking through the myriad ways that sexual orientation (including heterosexuality, which is not a null value) can impact one’s perspective or be readable outwardly.
One thing I’d add to Majikthise’s comments: the reason sexual identity is so fully part of our public lives is because of kinship structure. To send heterosexuals into the closet, even if we could achieve that, would be to dissolve kinship as it exists in our society. It’s far less revolutionary to start redefining current mores to include gay bonds (or unmarried straight ones) in the kinship network.
Mind you, some might argue for a dissolution of kinship structure, but that’s an argument on an entirely different level.
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