I've touched on this topic before on another site and I thought I would revisit the issue here to see how my rainbow roomies feel about it. As of today, there are approximately 398,487,577,74 labels for the LGBT community. 398,587,577,70 of those seem to be reserved for lesbians in particular. Allow me to name a few:
Fem, stud, fem aggressive, dom, lipstick fem, soft stud, hard stud, butch, pillow princess, sub fem, stem, tomboi, high fem, etc...
To some, all of these labels are an unecessary confinement used to box people in. Thus they choose to define themselves as labeless. I can understand this view point to a certain extent because I certainly don't want anyone to tell me what I am and what i'm not. But I do believe in and see nothing wrong in defining myself. And correct me if i'm wrong, but if you go around calling yourself labeless...doesn't that then become a label???
One word can never fully describe who I am. But a label or two can provide a generalized sense of my physical make up and help give a basic understanding of some of my characteristics. I see myself, and am pretty sure that most other people would see me as a fem. I dress feminine, get my nails & hair done, wear make up, pinky finger extended when i hold a glass, blah blah blah. So i'm comfortable identifying as a feminine lesbian. Now this doesn't mean someone should mistake my feminine qualities as a weakness because i'll still knock someone in the throat if I have to, french manicured tips and all. LOL. But seriously though...
I don't think there's any harm in using labels to help paint a picture of your persona. As long as you make the labels instead of letting the labels make you...what's the harm in it?
4 comments:
Ooh, I so agree with you, Chanel! Ya know, sometimes we can be our worst enemies when it comes to labeling ourselves and each other. Now, I can kind of see it from both aspects, but where I tend to draw the line as you said is when others make the attempt to define who we are as opposed to allowing us the opportunity to define/label ourselves.
Much of it derives from society placing us in boxes, if you will to serve as somewhat of a confinement mechanism. I mean really...who's coming up with all these descriptive names and terminology to satisfy a need to know who and what another human being is? I say, bring some mystery to the table. Let other people get to know the 'real' person underneath (no pun intended) instead of blasting them with a bunch of society-created terminology to define what God has made multifaceted.
Great post! :-)
Labels are for soup cans. My daughter said that when she was about 9 or 10. She'll be 15 next month and I see why she held on to that so tightly. She's artsy and geeky, different from most of her schoolmates. She has been marching to the beat of a different drummer since day one. LOL. But it's all good. She's a good girl and doesn't give me any real problems (just basic teenage crap).
Labels are for us..."humans" and our tendency toward compartmentalization and categorization to understand the world around us. Even the most liberated of us have "small minds". But in the grand scheme of things, labels don't really matter. We're all created in the likeness of God and how can you categorize the omnipotence that He is? Can't put God in a box and simply by default, you can put His children in one either.
I def. feel you. I like "labels"; I think they're fun (lol), and really a unique aspect of the LGBT community.
And if you think about it, all descriptive words are labels. If you want to use human language there is no getting away from it.
No harm in labels at all...if they work for you. I personally dont subscibe to them because who I am is comprised of a little bit of each label...but as you said, labels for the most part can create a general picture of a persons physical make-up. Like this piece.
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