Quite a while back, Otto Fong, science teacher at RI outed himself as gay on a blog-post. Some of the subsequent commentary on the event takes up the questions of homo-sexuality as identity in interesting ways. As I understand it (from the little that I've read), queer theorists tend to now eschew thinking about fundamental identities to think about a range of practices -- a way of thinking about things that debunks the "homo-hetero" dualism, as well as the "normal-deviant" axis. The strength of this kind of thinking and research enables the situation of particular practices rather than pre-ordained identities as the locus of discussion. It also spreads out the sense of 'queerness' because practices within "hetero" sexual relationships that were formerly considered 'safe' from critical inquiry (ie protected because hetero identities are always already assumed to escape the critical eye) can now be connected with practices that are more usually associated with "homosexuality". Work that takes this approach often reveals how intensely culturally bound the prejudices that we take for granted are. For instance, we barely blink an eye when we think about the use of contraception (even though a very large and powerful religion still frowns on it), but in a certain time of human history it was a really really bad thing: what was probably the most common form of contraception in the Middle Ages, coitus interuptus, was considered an unnatural act, and within the mystifying equivalences of the Church's spiritual economy, would have been a worse sin than committing incest with one's own daughter. But that's enough titillation for one blog post (and far too penetrating a glimpse into my research ...)
Yet part of the practice of sexuality in this particular case is the act of "coming out". In an interesting way, "coming out" is a practice that is strangely connected to that older spiritual and moral institution, the Confessional. There are obvious differences. In "coming out", the individual isn't confessing a sin; indeed, one of the reasons for "coming out" is to re-establish for the individual, what is out there in the open, what doesn't need to be hidden, and of course, what therefore shouldn't be regarded as sinful. At the same time, there is a cathartic element to "coming out" that may match or even trump the ritual cleansing associated with the Confessional. More interesting, I think, is the way "coming out" potentially disrupts the way the Confessional works as a form of internalized surveillance camera on the conscience. Confessionals, as a mode of social spiritual control, are turned on their head in a move like Fong's, and are enabled by the paradoxical (public yet intimate) technology of confession that is the Blog.
If the mainstream media is any gauge of popular opinion on the subject, I figure the general position of the "liberal but concerned" individual would be this: "Coming out of the closet is fine but only with family, close friends and peers". There are clear limits to the audience for a Confession. However, like the ritual of Confession, "coming out" must necessarily straddle the institution and the interior, for an effect to be properly wrought. If indeed the Confessional was also a potent tool for the moral instruction of the believer -- you confess your sins, you get instructed in the right way by doing penances assigned by the Confessor -- one interesting question is how "coming out" is itself a potent pedagogical tactic. I know this sounds trivializing, but for individuals for whom educating means more than a paycheck at the end of the month, it may make some sense.
"Coming out" makes the teacher human. I think that too many teachers are far too distant and always on their guard about who they are to be effective in communicating their intellectual passions and interests. Of course, not every teacher is going to have something news-worthy to "come out" (now, obviously, loosely used) about, but surely there are elements in every teachers life, that while not directly related to the subject matter at hand, may strike a chord with his or her students. And while some may accuse this kind of stripping away at oneself as purely self-indulgent attention seeking behavior, I think there's something to be said about the way being vulnerably human establishes an indissoluble tie between persons.
Perhaps one of the greatest privileges I had was to study the poetry of Robert Lowell in JC. The following poem, Waking in the Blue, in the stark naked voice of one of the greatest poets of the confession, illustrates the power of the confessional:
The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,
rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head
propped on The Meaning of Meaning.
He catwalks down our corridor.
Azure day
makes my agonized blue window bleaker.
Crows maunder on the petrified fairway.
Absence! My hearts grows tense
as though a harpoon were sparring for the kill.
(This is the house for the "mentally ill.")
What use is my sense of humour?
I grin at Stanley, now sunk in his sixties,
once a Harvard all-American fullback,
(if such were possible!)
still hoarding the build of a boy in his twenties,
as he soaks, a ramrod
with a muscle of a seal
in his long tub,
vaguely urinous from the Victorian plumbing.
A kingly granite profile in a crimson gold-cap,
worn all day, all night,
he thinks only of his figure,
of slimming on sherbert and ginger ale--
more cut off from words than a seal.
This is the way day breaks in Bowditch Hall at McLean's;
the hooded night lights bring out "Bobbie,"
Porcellian '29,
a replica of Louis XVI
without the wig--
redolent and roly-poly as a sperm whale,
as he swashbuckles about in his birthday suit
and horses at chairs.
These victorious figures of bravado ossified young.
In between the limits of day,
hours and hours go by under the crew haircuts
and slightly too little nonsensical bachelor twinkle
of the Roman Catholic attendants.
(There are no Mayflower
screwballs in the Catholic Church.)
After a hearty New England breakfast,
I weigh two hundred pounds
this morning. Cock of the walk,
I strut in my turtle-necked French sailor's jersey
before the metal shaving mirrors,
and see the shaky future grow familiar
in the pinched, indigenous faces
of these thoroughbred mental cases,
twice my age and half my weight.
We are all old-timers,
each of us holds a locked razor.
