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Ily of Asexy Beast points out how asexuals are subject to… well… not exactly heteronormativity so let’s call it maybe “sexnormativity.” Whatever you want to call it boils down to pressure felt by asexuals to conform to the expectations of people who aren’t themselves asexual.

Apparently, there’s an ideal asexual. It’s not me, and no offense, but it probably isn’t you either. Who is it, you ask? Well…

Read her whole post here.

It’s a cool, cool post getting into issues of self-doubt, self-censorship and conformity among asexuals. Which you’d think (if we were trying to construct stereotypes of asexuality!) would be silly since (constructing that asexuality again) you’re obviously either asexual or not, right? No? Good answer! Like trying to answer for another whether they’re gay, or kinky, or trans, or even straight, it’s not for for someone else to decide what it means for you to be asexual. Here’s Ily again (emphasis mine.)

I didn’t realize that “trying to be asexual” can actually mean “trying to be an ideal asexual”, and that it could be a problem, until I read this post/manifesto, also on Apositive. Its author talks about how our increased visibility in the media has also led to the rise of an “ideal” or “good” asexual. Of course, this person doesn’t actually exist, because asexuals appearing in the media no doubt conceal aspects of their asexuality that might be seen as contradictory or confusing.

From conversations I’ve had in person and online with asexual people it’s as messy as, well, any other orientation. Which, if you think about it, is only fair — orientation being a quality of human beings and not much about humans is clear cut.

The first out/activist asexual I met when she joined a pre-blogging online forum on sex. She got just about everything in the book thrown at her from neurosis to buried trauma to unfortunate prescriptions to inhibitions to religious zeal to “just haven’t met the right boy/girl/goat” to… well, the book. To be as cheerfully disinterested in sex as she was just really got people’s… well… goats. Anyone else might have withered in the withering criticism she received, and so I can see how the pressure to conform to outsider’s stereotypes could be intense.

But as Ily also hints, in part because asexuality is so unclearly understood, the more “ideal” the definition becomes the more pressure flesh and blood asexuals are going to face. And, perhaps worse, it raises the risk that people who might otherwise find comfort, camaraderie, and identity are likely to think “well, that can’t be me either.”

And if all that sounds familiar…

Bridget Crawfor of Feminist Law Professors, commenting on what she feels is thin-gruel anti-prostitution legislation in Rhode Island, says

Want to stop prostitution? Publish the names of the customers.

She said it here.

While I don’t agree that anybody should be prosecuted for uncoerced transactional sex I do agree that if you want to get serious about stopping prostitution, as constituted, then you have to start holding buyers responsible instead of sellers. You have to stop blaming the providers (enough of whom are not coerced to make “blaming the victim” an insufficient construction) and start blaming recipients.

And so, by all means, if they’re serious they should publish the names of the customers. (Not that they are.)

The point isn’t that men, the primary customers, are to “blame” for sex work. Nor, I think, should men be punished for seeking it. (Really, seriously, I believe that: sex work as constituted is a product of a social paradigm of sexual scarcity for men. Therefore whatever the solution is it’s not adding to the perception that men must be willing to put themselves at risk to find sex.)

It’s just that one of the big consequences of the heteronormative, androcentric view of the world is the assumption that men’s social/sexual activities are physical, inevitable property of the universe like gravity or the speed of light. With the result that we tend to lament men’s behavior, and fulminate about it, and devise and impose various behavior-modification schemes to try and subvert it, and oh boy do we create layers, and layers, and layers of customs, conventions, rules, regulations, and blame, blame, blaming of others to try and cope with it! But setting and upholding actual, useful, affirmative, non-punitive expectations? Not so much.

BarbinMD of Daily Kos has some good, interesting news about a new challenge to California’s odious Proposition 8 in Federal courts. Good news because they’re top-notch lawyers arguing from (theoretically, anyway, unless you’re a conservative “activist” Supreme Court Republican) hard to refute principles. Interesting because of who the lawyers are.

The plaintiffs are represented by Theodore B. Olson and David Boies. Olson, a former U.S. Solicitor General, represented George W. Bush in 2000’s Bush v. Gore, which decided the presidential election. Boies represented Al Gore in that case.

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“Mr. Olson and I are from different ends of the political spectrum, but we are fighting this case together because Proposition 8 clearly and fundamentally violates the freedoms guaranteed to all of us by the Constitution,” Boies said. “Every American has a right to full equality under the law. Same sex couples are entitled to the same marriage rights as straight couples. Any alternative is separate and unequal and relegates gays and lesbians to a second class status.”

Their argument is that Proposition 8:

• Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties,
• Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
• Singles out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status, thereby creating a category of “second-class citizens,”
• Discriminates on the basis of gender, and,

• Discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Read the quote in context here.

Fingers crossed.

Katherine Franke of Gender & Sexuality Law Blog highlights the extensive affirmation of “separate but equal” standing in the California Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Proposition 8’s prohibition on calling same-sex marriage “marriage.”

Think of it like this: state X issues fishing licenses, and usually they call them “fishing licenses.“  But suppose they want to give out-of-staters, or law professors or Mormons a different license for the same set of rights to hook fish on a line – let’s call it an “angling license.”   So long as the out of staters, law professors and Mormons get to do the same stuff with their “angling license” that everyone else can do with their “fishing license,” what’s the big deal?

That’s basically what the Court held today in Strauss v. Horton.  And it works, so long as you see marriage as a mere licensing scheme, and you regard a wedding dress as on a par with camouflage chest waders.

Most people, however, don’t see it that way, be they gay or straight.

Not being like most people on the marriage question, I think the decision in Strauss v. Horton suggests a different political strategy than the one we’ve been taking.  Sure, the Court’s effort to dodge the separate but equal problem is unpersuasive, but our analysis and our politics shouldn’t stop there.  It could also provoke a harder discussion about why our legal and political strategies are committed to a world in which the wedding dress is  sacred as compared with the chest waders.  What’s up with that?

Read the quote in context, and see her amusing illustrating photos here.

Given that several justices who clearly supported universal marriage in previous decisions voted to uphold this decision it’s likely they really were constrained by clear reading of law. On the other hand since they also strongly supported universal marriage but couldn’t overturn the ruling they took pains to clarify their intent that “civil unions” should have the same force in law as “marriage.”

I strongly agree with Franke that with legal avenues closed in California, at least for now, the political and social solution is to strongly encourage all Californians, same-sex or otherwise, to seek civil union licenses from the state and leave the question of marriage where it has always really belonged: inside family and church.

The message ought to be that government has never had any business meddling with spiritual unions and that those who believe otherwise mistake not only the separation of church and state from the secular side but from the religious side as well. In religious terms depending on state blessing to validate one’s spiritual union is, um, peculiarly confusing that which is Caesars and that which is the Lords.

The good news, I’d think, for those who are most of faith, would be that in California they too can separate church from state in a way that was previously forbidden of them: by marrying within their churches, and civil-unioning within their states.