Following on from a conversation on Discord earlier tonight, I thought it might be useful to make some observations. First, some caveats:
- People should identify however they want. This does not mean that they are necessarily correct about what their identity is at any given point. For instance, many people have initially thought they were straight/bi etc. but eventually came to the realisation they were gay. Similar understandings of identity develop when you think you are cis and later realise you were trans/nb/whatever. While people should identify as whatever they feel like at a particular point in time (they have no other reference point), it does not mean that they are correct in doing so, nor that it is healthy for them to do so. To take the most prominent example, it is widely accepted in feminist and LGBT scholarship that the social pressure of compulsory heterosexuality actively prevents LGBT women from identifying as such. The way people identify is certainly valid (whatever that actually means), but that does not mean that it should not be interrogated. We have an obligation not just to accept people as they are, but to help them in any way we can. If you disagree that we have such an obligation, you don’t actually care about LGBT people, only liberalism.
- Human sexuality is probably some kind of spectrum. It does not follow from this that it is a continuous spectrum, nor that it operates in any and all possible dimensions based on how people decide to describe their individual sexuality. Sexuality is intensely personal, often confusing, and regularly indescribable. Attempts to reduce this to some set of identity labels is reductive in that it fails to capture what is actually happening when an individual feels that way, and regularly homophobic in its implications. I will expand on this later.
First observation: The split attraction model is at best incoherent and at worst homophobic or dangerous.
I understand the attraction of the split attraction model. For many years I found differentiating certain facets of how I felt to be a useful tool for understanding myself and communicating my identity to others. This does not change the fact that is makes no sense.
There is no coherent distinction between sexual/romantic/platonic attraction or connection. Each of us has a different understanding of each of those terms as it relates not only to us generally, but also to specific relationships that we have. For instance, when does a particularly close platonic relationship become romantic? Each individual will have a different bar/line/conception as the concepts are, themselves, vague. Attempts to delineate certain points or differences between the two will always fail. The same is true when it comes to distinctions between the other “kinds” of relationship. You only need to look at the myriad of different, yet overlapping and often indistinguishable terms that are used to describe and differentiate them by proponents of the split attraction model: queerplatonic (what is the difference between this and friends with benefits? If the answer is closeness then that is arbitrary between different relationships and how individuals define them), squishes (distinction from crushes and other terms is again only arbitrary and individual), etc. Human relationships are complicated and messy, and such a blunt tool of categorisation is both conceptually useless and often harmful to people who use them. Identity is not just how you feel at a particular moment, but also a set of limits that you are setting on yourself consciously or not. As a model in general, therefore, the split attraction model makes no sense at a fundamental level, and perhaps is even harmful to those who use it.
Further, an attempt at distinguishing between different modes of same gender attraction as xromantic, xsexual, xplatonic, etc. is also homophobic. It promotes an understanding of homosexual, bisexual etc. attraction as purely sexual, and lacking any of the apparently more nuanced qualities of definition these terms provide. It should come as no surprise that this is exactly the rhetoric that has been, and continues to be, levied against LGBT people to this day. That they are purely sexual deviants, and that nothing wholesome or true or virtuous can stem from their relationships. Attempting to define same gender attraction in this way, especially given its conceptual and ideological incoherence, perpetuates these same discriminatory attitudes. Especially given that the language is inaccessible and astonishingly esoteric. Does the language make sense for some people individually in their own conceptions of how they view themselves? Arguably, sometimes. But given its ideological incoherence and its effects on LGBT people as a whole, it should probably be put aside.
Why, then, is the split attraction model dangerous? It encourages young, confused, and often vulnerable members of the LGBT community to identify with terms that appeal to them at that particular point, rather than interrogate what they are actually feeling. The fact that I had a discussion today with members of the LGBT community who thought that someone who identified as “heteroromantic homosexual” was valid and should be taken as such is abhorrent to me. The absurdity of the split attraction model is, I think, most evident in these cases. Someone who is struggling with their identity, facing the forces of homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality, deserves our help, not just a blind claim that they are “valid”. Regularly, we are wrong. I think most LGBT people have this experience. The proliferation of micro-identities and the split attraction model actively prevent young LGBT people from finding themselves as they cling to labels that are actually incoherent and meaningless. It may sound like this is their choice, or essentially insignificant to them. Maybe they will find their identities in the future? But it is actually a significant site of trauma. When a young lesbian is compelled by compulsory heterosexuality to claim she is actually bisexual, the experiences that follow from that often follow her for life. It is no surprise or coincidence that the rhetoric of “heteroromantic homosexual” etc. are exactly the rhetoric used to create the ideal homosexual of conservatives and the Catholic church (just without the fancy terms provided by the split attraction model). If you think that this is acceptable, then you don’t actually care about gay people, you care about liberalism.
Second observation: a focus on personal identification is probably bad.
Is individual sexual identity a spectrum? Obviously, yes. Is individual gender identity a spectrum? Obviously, yes. And people should have freedom to personally identify as whatever they want. It does not follow from this that we should conceive of gender or sexuality in this way. Gender is distinct from gender identity. Gender refers to the set of social expectations, performances, and punishments that identify you as “man” or “woman”. Most crucially, it is a power relationship, where man dominates woman. Gender identity is distinct from this. Noone, when they encounter you, knows your gender identity. They can make inferences to decide how they treat you, sure. But that is in reference to the overarching categories of man or woman. This is the reason that non-binary identities are not a coherent political category. They are purely a set of individual identities. This is why the assertion that they are “a spectrum” is meaningless. Obviously they are, each is a manifestation of personal identity, but tt is only by comparison to capital G Gender that individuals are judged or punished for their unique expression of their gender identity.
The same is true of sexuality. The analogue of capital G Gender here are straight and gay. Society draws no broad distinction. This is the reason that the vast majority of discrimination allegedly perpetrated against various sexualities is better categorised as (misplaced but equally harmful) homophobia or misogyny.
The crucial point here is that identity is a neoliberal farce. It encourages us to view ourselves as individual units distinct from a social whole. It reduces us to a series of words that actually make very little sense, and strips us of our understanding of the relational whole that Gender and Sexuality actually must be. Neither Gender or Sexuality make any coherent conceptual sense unless viewed contextually. This should be obvious given that they are purely defined relationally. How you identify does not change how you will be treated. Homophobes, transphobes, etc. don’t know the difference. They categorise you and will harm you regardless of what you actually identify as. Your identity matters to you and you alone. Sometimes it is a useful tool to explain yourself to the world, but most of the time it is lazy – both in terms of articulating who you are and what you aspire to be, and in terms of introspection.
Third (and, thankfully, final) observation: identity is not absolute
This should be obvious by this point. We are often not very introspective, and social forces conspire to prevent us from being so. We should not take a set of terms we have decided fit at a particular point and decide they fit us. I think some of these terms are particularly dangerous. Many young people who identify as asexual or aromantic or heteroromantic or quiroromantic are actually facing a combination of homophobia and internalised homophobia. This does not change the fact that there are many people who identify as these terms. Many people who identify as asexual or aromantic etc are actually misattributing personal trauma as a facet of their identity. They should receive help. This does not mean they are not “valid”, nor does it mean they are necessarily wrong in how they are identifying. Nor does this observation take anything away from those who are, in fact, asexual or aromantic. The fact that many people in these communities find these observations offensive or troubling is deeply worrying to me. Really, they should be the people who care most about these cases.
I do think that for strictly asexual or aromantic people the split attraction model does make some sense. At least, more sense than in other cases. But attempting to apply a spectrum to this also is utterly nonsense, and attempting to categorise what is actually just a reflection of human difference in levels of attraction/connection. It may be a useful tool for you personally – it does not follow from this that it is a useful tool generally or that it should be generally proliferated. This same analysis also applies to people who too readily jump into labels of any kind – gay, bi, any kind of micro-label etc. (though I think less so in the former two cases given the objective risk of violence and social discrimination). I only bring these up specifically because a) they were the subject of the most recent Discord discussion I had on the matter and b) because I think they are the labels most relevant in terms of misidentification in recent years (see above for analysis as to why).
You’re valid, identify how you want. But also think about it. Unless you’re heteroromantic homosexual, in which case I love you and I think you need to get help.
Love,
Crux