gender and beauty
not long ago i was at a concert where the opening act was a gay white rapper. during his performance, i heard a person in the audience call out something like "down with all gender!" it struck me that for this person, and perhaps many others, their experience of being a gendered being was bound up with pain and strife to such a degree that a gender-less world seemed to represent a kind of liberation. that someone should feel like that is very sad, and our first reaction to someone calling out like this should probably be one of compassion.
at the same time, i find myself quite unsympathetic to the idea that a gender-less world might be a kind of liberation or advance for humanity. it seems to me that such a world would be comparatively boring to our own. in imagining a gender-less human experience, it seems to me flat, untextured. that is, something would be lost in such a world. now, perhaps this is just a failure of imagination on my part. whether or not it is, i think what lies behind my aversion to the prospect of a gender-less world is the sense that even if gender has been a source of pain or even oppression, gender nevertheless adds a richness and complexity to our experience as humans.
and i wonder if the kind of richness that is at issue here is not best thought of in aesthetic terms. that is, perhaps what i sense is that human life without gender would be somehow less beautiful, or that our experience of beauty would be impoverished in a gender-less world
with all this in mind, i have been trying to think a bit more about the relationship between gender and beauty. one way in which gender seems to be connected to human beauty is through erotic desire: gender is bound up with our experience of erotic desire, and erotic desire is closely connected to our experience of human beauty. to be drawn erotically toward another human being is characteristically (always?) to see him or her as beautiful in some way.
it is possible, of course, to see human beings as beautiful without being drawn to them erotically -think of the way we find children or the elderly to be beautiful. but it is hard to imagine being erotically moved toward another person without finding that person beautiful or attractive. moreover, erotic desire is characteristically structured around gender. that is, it is typical of humans that in being erotically attracted to another human being we are attracted to them as male or as female. the obvious fact here is that the majority of humans are erotically drawn to members of the other gender. but the point works the same, i think, for homo-erotic attraction: here as well erotic desire is someone keyed in on the gender of the other person. erotic attraction is different in this regard from other ways we might be attracted to or delight in someone -for example, being attracted to someone as an excellent conversationalist, or delighting in them as a good tennis partner.
in addition to this, it seems that there is something about gender that contributes to human beauty in a way that doesn't have this same connection to erotic desire. i am not sure what to say about this, except that the reality of gender contributes to a diversity and complexity in human life that is beautiful. that is, gender is bound up with the diverse ways that humans express themselves -the way they work and play and carry themselves. especially in areas of creativity and artistic expression, it seems that human activities -dancing, singing, telling jokes, etc.- are fuller, more elaborate, more intricate and more lovely because of the way that gender figures into those activities.
at the same time, i find myself quite unsympathetic to the idea that a gender-less world might be a kind of liberation or advance for humanity. it seems to me that such a world would be comparatively boring to our own. in imagining a gender-less human experience, it seems to me flat, untextured. that is, something would be lost in such a world. now, perhaps this is just a failure of imagination on my part. whether or not it is, i think what lies behind my aversion to the prospect of a gender-less world is the sense that even if gender has been a source of pain or even oppression, gender nevertheless adds a richness and complexity to our experience as humans.
and i wonder if the kind of richness that is at issue here is not best thought of in aesthetic terms. that is, perhaps what i sense is that human life without gender would be somehow less beautiful, or that our experience of beauty would be impoverished in a gender-less world
with all this in mind, i have been trying to think a bit more about the relationship between gender and beauty. one way in which gender seems to be connected to human beauty is through erotic desire: gender is bound up with our experience of erotic desire, and erotic desire is closely connected to our experience of human beauty. to be drawn erotically toward another human being is characteristically (always?) to see him or her as beautiful in some way.
it is possible, of course, to see human beings as beautiful without being drawn to them erotically -think of the way we find children or the elderly to be beautiful. but it is hard to imagine being erotically moved toward another person without finding that person beautiful or attractive. moreover, erotic desire is characteristically structured around gender. that is, it is typical of humans that in being erotically attracted to another human being we are attracted to them as male or as female. the obvious fact here is that the majority of humans are erotically drawn to members of the other gender. but the point works the same, i think, for homo-erotic attraction: here as well erotic desire is someone keyed in on the gender of the other person. erotic attraction is different in this regard from other ways we might be attracted to or delight in someone -for example, being attracted to someone as an excellent conversationalist, or delighting in them as a good tennis partner.
in addition to this, it seems that there is something about gender that contributes to human beauty in a way that doesn't have this same connection to erotic desire. i am not sure what to say about this, except that the reality of gender contributes to a diversity and complexity in human life that is beautiful. that is, gender is bound up with the diverse ways that humans express themselves -the way they work and play and carry themselves. especially in areas of creativity and artistic expression, it seems that human activities -dancing, singing, telling jokes, etc.- are fuller, more elaborate, more intricate and more lovely because of the way that gender figures into those activities.
posted by micah at 8:52 AM
1 Comments:
i have appreciated reading your thoughts on this. i remember that several years ago you and i were quite divergent in our ideas about gender, and i have definitely benefited from learning your perspective. because before, i was definitely someone who often felt hurt or excluded by definitions of gender that did not seem to take into account my experience. so i felt compelled to reject the category altogether. and while i'm still not sure how i want gender to function or be "used" in our culture and relationships, i am more comfortable with the idea that there is a good and beautiful way to use it. so thank you.
that said, one of my principle struggles with this issue you are bringing up comes from my participation in Christianity. since Jesus was male, it would seem by your discussion that he would have done everything he did in a beautiful way that is particular to men. this is not to say that a woman couldn't do some of those same things--but that somehow the beauty of those things would be less like the beauty of Jesus' actions because it's beautiful in a female sort of way.
maybe i'm misunderstanding you. but you can see where i'm going with this. it does not seem clear to me that men have a greater ability to resemble Christ than women, simply through their gender. it doesn't sit well with me that if you took a man and woman who were equally virtuous in a Jesus-ethic sort of way (whatever that means), that the man would somehow more fully resemble the beauty of Christ, on the basis of having the same gender.
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