Tanya Tagaq: song of the innuit

A week ago I blogged on the heteronormative framework, and how some people don't fit into it. Usually heteronormativity is an LGBT (and other alphabet soup) issue, but here's a lovely counterexample of it, at least from the perspective of western ideas of femininity. Tanya Tagaq is an innuit throat singer. I love this performance in particular, because she is dressed in an ideal western-style feminine clothes, accompanied by a western instrument, but her singing really puts the western idea of femininity to question.

It's also one of the coolest songs I ever heard.

The Fig Sutra: fruits of your labor

There is a lovely traditional Chinese story of a man named Sai Weng, which is summarized in the following proverb:








The story goes as follows: Sai Weng's horse ran away, and all the villagers commiserated. Later, the horse came back with a fine stallion in tow, and all the villagers rejoiced. Later, Sai Weng's son was riding the stallion and fell off and broke his leg, and all the villagers commiserated. Later, there was a war and all the able-bodies young men got conscripted, and went off to die; Sai Weng's lame son stayed home, and Sai Weng rejoiced.

Thus the moral of the story: Sai Weng lost his horse; who's to say, for good or ill?

Which brings me to figs. Some varieties of fig trees in the rainforest produce fruit almost all year round, and as such they are a stable source of food for various local monkeys, bats, and birds. That sounds great from the perspective of the monkeys, bats, and birds, but consider the situation from the point of view of the fig tree itself. Here it is, struggling to bring up nutrients and water from the soil, converting sunlight into sugars, to endow its fruit with all kinds of goodies, and for what? All that effort is literaly turned into crap.

Taking a wider perspective, the fig tree can console itself that its seeds are thus dispersed far and wide, with plenty of fertilizer to start them off. That may be a benefit to the fig tree's genes, but hardly a benefit to the fig tree itself. Perhaps a stronger consolation is that the ground around the tree itself is thus not littered by its rotting fruit, but rather by those delicious droppings. But either way, what's the tree to do: stop fruiting?

One of the more famous lines uttered by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita is: "You have the right to labor; you have no right to the fruits of your labor." The idea being that you can (and should) work, but you have little control, if any, over the results.

The Fig Sutra restates, in memory of the strangler fig tree and Sai Wang's wondering horse: "Fruits of your labor go to waste; who's to say, for good or ill?"

Down with the heteronormative hegemony!

My new word for this week is heteronormativity. The word is cobbled together as well as the concept it stands for: that there are but two ways to be a normally functioning human, and it all depends on one's genitalia. If you have a penis, you must be masculine and be sexually attracted to the vagina-endowed humans. If you have a vagina, you must be feminine, and be sexually attracted to the penis-endowed humans. Your biological attributes (sex) determine your cultural role (gender) and whom you want to fuck (sexuality).

How can this dichotomy possibly go wrong?

(As an aside, I wish there was a 'sarcasm' font.)

There are two main questions here, as I see it. First, why should one's biological attributes be connected to one's cultural role, or to whom (if anyone) one wants to screw? Second: why should 'normal' be in any way connected with 'worthy'?

In both questions, the problematic word for me is 'should'. That word to me phrases the discourse in a political, or perhaps even religious framework, which allow for dictations of morality. It doesn't sit well with me, because my immediate reaction is: who's to dictate? That's right, I'm queer through and through. The burden of proof rests upon those who would dictate, and as a mathematician, I have very high standards of proof.

Instead, I rephrase the questions into something explorable without dictation, and the questions go forth and multiply:

1. Is heteronormativity rewarded? For what reasons?
   
2. Is non-heteronormativity punished? For what reasons?
3. Are there any social benefits for this procrustian bed? Detriments?
   
4. Is biological sex dichotomous and unambigously defined?
5. Do socially perscribed gender roles have any natural connection with biological sex? Which roles, which functions, for what reasons, and do they truly exculde people of another sex of performing this role, or merely tend to do so?
6. Is sexuality well-defined? Is it unchanging? Are there natural connections between one's biological sex and whom one wants to fuck? For what reasons? How strong are these connections?
7. Can one's sexual desire be influenced by nurture? How, and to what extent?

Dot, dot, dot.
From my admittedly limited knowledge, beginner answers would be:

1. Yes, for historical and religious reasons.
2. Yes, don't know why.
   
3. No idea.
4. Nope. There are definitely people don't clearly fall into the two categories, which change anyway. It used to be that the genitelia were the primary criterion; now it's the chromosomes, and those don't fall into two categories either, and don't necessarily correspond to the genitelia.
   
5. Some tentative connection based on evolutionary arguments, but only some have a strong connection. For example, only vagina-endowed humans can give birth (except for the special case of a female-to-male sex change), but not all vagina-endowed humans can do so.
6. No, no, some connection based on evolutionary arguments but the connection isn't very strong. For example: more than half of the women have no nerve connections within the vaginal canal, and thus don't climax from intercourse. Not much insentive for getting it on with the fellas.
7. Sure, and rather greatly, if the ancient Athenian society is any indication.