MSN article response

Why Women Are Leaving Men for Other Women

i found the article linked above through a listserv i subscribe to. so i read it, because hey, that's kind of an intriguing title. and there were a lot of things in it that bothered me. this, of course, led to clicking on the links at the bottom, which led to the original article on oprah's website, which led to more clicking....which leads to me sitting here at work going, why didn't i just do my homework.

granted: MSN just pulled out a couple of pages from the original article, and there's a lot more to it than what they republished. and there's good and bad in that, too. after reading the condensed version on MSN, i wanted to respond to specific things i disagreed with; now, maybe what i really want to do is bitch about Oprah and pop culture and mainstream media. but i don't think i'll manage that as well. so, setting aside Oprah and her empire founded on creating drama where there need be none, i'll stick to the MSN article (at least for now).

(my favorite thing about the iteration of this on MSN is that there's no forum for comments. but that could turn into its own rant, so i'd better wait.)

"But experts [ . . . ] agree that alternative relationships are on the rise."
...wtf? "alternative relationships"? what does that even mean?! i don't think i can even articulate why that pisses me off. maybe because it sounds so much like "alternative lifestyle" (which i've always thought had more to do with the punk scene than whoever i'm fucking).

"Of course, we shouldn't imagine that we're living in a world where all sexual choices are possible. Just look at the cast of The L Word and it's clear that only a certain kind of lesbian — slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way — is acceptable to mainstream culture."
this, at least, is definitely true. in the original article, they talk a lot about Jackie Warner, and with the pictures they chose to use of her, my first thought was, "she is NOT androgynous." (then i found pictures of her with short hair, and you could maybe make the argument.) but they were going on about how all these straight women send her love letters because she's this "perfect mix" of masculine and feminine qualities....i just got confused. or if you think about The L Word (which i have seen but never followed), you see Shane and she's the "butch" one, and she's really not butch-looking at all, she just fucks everyone, and that's what straight guys are supposed to do....this could very quickly becom a rant on the mainstream media and how they're trying--or pretending to try--to present gay people positively, but really they're just reinforcing (unrealistic?) stereotypes and offering no positive portrayal of the queer people who actually need support from the mainstream media in order to, oh, i don't know, NOT face harassment on a daily basis.

then there's the "science" of it. i'm beginning to think that the more we know, the less we understand. and maybe there are some areas of research that should just be left alone. sure, it'd be great to have "scientific support" for a genetic/biological basis for (homo)sexuality--but what happens if we do? there are aspects of my sexuality that i don't want reduced to chemicals.

and here's a great comment on the implications of the research that's currently being done:
"Fluidity represents a capacity to respond erotically in unexpected ways due to particular situations or relationships. It doesn't appear to be something a woman can control."
...so a man could control his erotic response? news to me.

finally, the last two sentences of the section republished on MSN:
"Most of all, they long for an emotional connection. And if that comes by way of a female instead of a male, the thrill may override whatever heterosexual orientation they had."
one more time, with feeling: WTF?! THIS is the thought you choose to leave your readers with?! yes, straight women are redefining themselves and leaving their husbands and destroying their 1950's-style perfect families because they're looking for a "thrill"? this is your justification for your entire article about the fluidity of female sexuality and this perceived phenomenon of increased acceptability of lesbian relationships for people who have not always identified as lesbian? at least they tried to get that idea of emotional connection in there, but it makes it sound almost like a fantasy, like all women are supposed to know that men can't connect emotionally, and we're able to make believe that other women can, if it seems like fun at the time.

bottom line, this article underscores the attempts by the mainstream media to "normalize" gayness and gay relationships, which ultimately fail because they miss the point entirely and minimize the real experience of the majority of gay people.