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Document Date: July 1, 1995
Word Count: 3330
Originally appeared in "Black Leather In Color" magazine.
All rights to reuse are held byctan@circlet.com

Middle-People, Identity and Labels
by Cecilia Tan

Labels. So much of sexuality, of politics, of life, seems to do with labels. We choose labels for ourselves when we feel one fits, when we want to identify with someone/something. ("Proud to Be ______ ")But other people choose labels for us when they decide (for reasons good or bad) that we belong to some group or another. ("Let's invite Janet, she's one of us." or "Don't invite Mary, she's a __________ ") This is the basis of identity politics. Labels and their use.

I'll start with some of the labels I have chosen for myself: bisexual, bigendered, racial/cultural half-half, S/M switch. I like these labels because they seem to defy other, pre-existing labels. They consciously state that there is something besides one clearly defined thing or another, something in-between gay and straight, man and woman, white and Asian, Dominant and submissive. I'm none of those things, and I'm all of those things. My unique status as a "middle person" in all these ways has given me perspectives on sexual, racial, and gender politics that I'd like to share with BLIC readers. All the ways I duck the spectral extremes of labels are connected whenever issues of identity politics arise. Race and sexuality and the way I play at S/M are all connected, too, to my views on identity politics.

I recently got sucked into one of those arguments that continues to rear its head again and again, in which purists of one kind react badly to the assertion of an individual that he or she is not as one-sided as they are comfortable with. In this case the individual was a woman who has been sexually active with both men and women in her life who now labels herself a "lesbian-identified bisexual," and the forum was an Internet mailing list for women who do kink with other women. The reaction was immediate as one woman posted that no one could be both lesbian and bisexual at the same time, it made "no sense," it was a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. No one seemed to notice, or care, that no one claimed that lesbians and bisexuals are the same thing. The "pure" lesbians seemed to not even see the word "-identified" tacked on to the word "lesbian." Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered if they had, because at some deep semantic level they felt they needed to defend their label, Lesbian, no matter how it was used, to distance themselves from Those Who Sleep With Men. One lesbian explained how hard she had worked to create a lesbian identity for herself that was "free" of men and male-dominated society, and how she felt that bisexual women who used the word lesbian to self-identify themselves were therefore misusing the word lesbian and disrespecting the "real" lesbians who had right and title to the term.

I have seen this argument played out many times, in person, in publications, at conferences, on the Internet. No one will change anyone's mind, I thought, and I have nothing new to add to it since it has all been said before. But then it struck me that perhaps I had a key to this situation that most others don't in two areas: being bi-racial and being an s/m switch. In the realm of sexual politics there are many positions which still seem defensible in the 1990s, such as the one that there is "pureness" of some kind in various labels and that it is GOOD to defend and maintain the purity of each. (Lesbian separatists are not the only group guilty of this! I used them as an example here because they were the most recent tussle I had.) There are two reasons why the purist arguments don't wash with me. One, because underneath they depend upon the same bad logic that fuels most homophobic, anti-gay arguments, and two because they depend upon the same Us/Them dichotomy mentality that allows bigotry and racism to continue.

I'll tackle the homophobic comparison first. In issues of sexuality, despite growing evidence that certain behaviors may be the result of inborn, genetically determined traits, there is still the fact that we make certain choices to live the way we do, who we sleep with and how. We choose whether to be out or not, we choose whether to act on our feelings or keep them hidden. The fact that we can make some kind of choice empowers us, but it is also the linchpin in the arguments of those who would label gays and lesbians, kinky folk, transgendered people, etc... as morally deficient, sick, or even criminal for choosing to love who and how we do. In their eyes, we are making the wrong choice--we should choose to conform, live life in the closet, not act on our desires, and ostensibly go to Heaven in the end. I don't think I have to convince BLIC readers why this attitude is homophobic, negative, and harmful.

But perhaps it is only obvious to me that when tops or bottoms pooh-pooh switches as not seriously devoted to d/s relationships, when gays damn bisexuals as tourists, when lesbians attack bisexuals as threats, it is because they see the offenders not as a validly separate group, but as people who are transgressing against a conformity of behavior by choice. Bisexuals are not living up to the standard of behavior set by the lesbian who told of her struggle to build an identity "free" of men. Her struggle is valid. Her underlying implication, that other people have to do so also in order to have the right to breathe the word "lesbian" is not. This is the same as Christians who will not allow gays to be part of their churches, and who take offense when gays dare to call themselves Christians. They make the same argument: that it is an oxymoron to be both Christian-identified and gay, to be both lesbian-identified and bisexual, because the behaviors of one group contradict the definition of the other. (Or more specifically, contradict the definition that some of the members of the group assign to themselves.) Even though the gay person believes in God, celebrates Christmas, has the cultural assumptions and associations of A Christian, he or she is not allowed to be a member of the church. Even though the bisexual woman is a feminist, is active in lesbian-based community projects, has her closest ties of friends and family with other lesbians, she is still not allowed to call herself "lesbian." Why do these lesbians make bisexuals suffer the same way? This is, underneath, the same sentiment at work, the same wrong-headedness that has caused so many gays and lesbians to suffer throughout human history.

Now we go beyond issues of behavior, we go to the heart of racial politics, of "who we are" at birth. The bigotry of someone who is prejudiced against someone for their race is not hard to see in this day and age. But the bigotry of one sexual minority against another is much more subtle.

Let's look at it from the middle-person perspective of half-halfs like me. People who are bi-racial, obviously, did not choose to be the way they are: we just are. We can definitively say, yes, we were born that way, half-this, half-that, no choice involved, which makes it distinct from the above arguments about morality and conformity. I try to imagine myself in the 1950s. I grew up the child of one white parent, one Asian parent, born in the US of A, raised in the suburbs, attending mostly white schools, a basic white middle class upbringing. In the 1950s though, I would have been considered non-white by most statutes and most bigots. If I had tried to slip into the territory of white privilege by labeling myself "white-identified" because the predominant cultural influences I have had are white, they would have laughed at me or lynched me or both. I think most liberal-minded people today can see without any doubt that denying me my "whiteness" is racial discrimination and bigotry. In many states to this day, someone with one black great-grandparent is considered black by law. When segregation was in place, this meant anyone with the "taint" who was in-between, even just slightly, was thrust into the category of "other." Even if you looked white, grew up white, and never even knew your non-white ancestor, you could be denied service and benefits legally. No matter how "white-identified" you were. Is this any different from lesbians who shun a woman who slept with a man from their ranks because they force the label "bisexual" on her and say that calling herself "lesbian-identified" makes no sense? (Or worse, she chooses the label bisexual herself.) Is this any different from tops who refuse to recognize or respect another top who admits to liking being on the receiving end of the whip, too? It is not--it is exactly the same. We call it bigotry when it comes to race; it is bigotry here, too.

In sexual politics it is even more subtle than the above examples. The defense of purity, the "we should have our own space" argument, is just a more politically-correct seeming form of segregation. In the 1960s there were many whites who were sympathetic to the civil rights movement and the principle of granting equal rights and access to racial minorities. But many of these selfsame "supporters" of civil rights maintained that non-whites should be kept out of their school systems, their churches--"separate, but equal." In many states today there are still laws on the books (supposedly no longer enforced) that prevent whites from marrying non-whites. (As late as the 1970s Asians and whites were prevented from marrying in the state of Virginia. Fortunately my parents got married in Florida and encountered no such legal opposition, although both sets of grandparents were somewhat dismayed at first.) Now it is the 1990s and most people will not contest the fact that "maintaining white racial purity" is a bigoted sentiment.

Well, folks, the "separate but equal" argument that many people make to defend their Label is the same thing. Many of the lesbians in this argument put forth the "we don't have anything against bisexuals, they should have their space too, but why do they have to keep infringing on our space by using the word lesbian?" For the moment, it is still "okay" for lesbians and other sexual minorities to defend their territories because they perceive themselves as oppressed, and apparently an oppressed group is cut much more slack than a majority group when it comes to whether their actions or views are considered positive or negative, or politically correct. If you don't believe me, tell me why when a men's institution refuses to admit a woman they are nailed for chauvinism and discrimination. But would the same women's rights groups speak up for the right for a male to compete for an all women's College Club scholarship? Or let's bring it back to the question of racial purity. You'd be outraged for me, wouldn't you, if the laws of the state barred me, as Asian, from marrying my white boyfriend (if I wanted to). But how would you feel if the Asian community, in an effort to maintain their cultural cohesiveness in the overwhelmingly white American cultural environment, discouraged interracial dating? Or even white cultural groups, Jewish, Italian? It is shallow thinking and insidious prejudice that allows us to think that on the one hand when WASPs want to intermarry it is because they want to preserve the old-boy power structure and maintain white privilege (bad), but that on the other hand when Asian Americans marry Asian Americans it is because we are strengthening our cultural ties (good). Wrong. Because in both cases, we have fallen victim to prejudice. In one we are prejudiced to think that all WASPs are oppressors, and in the other, that Asian Americans are somehow all virtuous.

The only reason that we can continue to make these kinds of prejudicial, discriminatory judgements, is because in any kind of identity politics we are trapped into thinking the group of people that fall under the aegis of a given label are homogenous. Let's face it, prejudice is a comfortable thing: we like to think that all people who are like ourselves are good, trustworthy, likeable. We are more likely, perhaps, to shop at women-owned or Asian-owned stores. But we are forgetting the most important aspect of interpersonal relationships: the individual. In all politics the group identity thing seems to work up to a point: the gay vote, the black community, the needs of "the elderly." But where the gaps in the system and the conflicts always arise is in the consideration of the individual: when a specific Asian falls in love with a specific Jew, when a specific Black family wants to move into an all-white neighborhood. If my grandparents had refused to get to know my Asian father, if they had insisted in seeing him as nothing more than a representation of all the Asian cultures, they would, to this day I'm sure, still think of him as the usurper who corrupted their daughter. But my grandparents had the common sense to treat him as an individual, to get to know him as the intelligent, polite son-in-law that he is. (And he's a doctor. Don't all parents want their daughters to grow up to marry doctors?) They got to know him as an individual and he became part of the family.

With sexual relations, obviously, the individual is paramount. After all, when you see a sexy babe across the room and want to bring her home it isn't usually, because you have a burning desire to Uphold The Purity of the Lesbian Nation, is it? It's because there is something about that one woman, that one person, that turns you on. (Although maybe the thing that turns you on happens to be because she seems to epitomize the perfect lesbian for you. What will you do when you find out, though, that she's bisexual?) This is why sexual identity politics makes for such a thorny issue. Because the gap between the perceived group sexuality identity and the actual individuals and the sex they have is very, very wide.

It's no surprise to an S/M player to find out that not all play partners are alike. With S/M, of course, the compatibility factors between any two players are myriad and complex. Not all tops are sadistic or dominant or butch or rough or anything in the same measure. Not all bottoms are masochistic or submissive or meek or into humiliation. But of course you will find certain people who think that all bottoms should bow down to them, certain people who think that any Dominant must of course be ready to beat them into submission. It's a wrong assumption that all people who wear a certain label act the same or want the same thing. I think most people who bear those kind of assumptions quickly learn otherwise, or they drop out of the scene. There is a unique situation going in the S/M world which is quite different from the Us/Them division between say, lesbians and straight women or between Asians and whites. An individual Daddy may feel a kinship for other Daddies and prefer their company for socializing. But when it comes time to play/have sex/exercise that Daddy identity, a Boy (or Girl) becomes necessary, eh? The Tops need the Bottoms, the Bottoms need the Tops.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why switches, the middle-people of S/M, are more accepted than bisexuals or bi-racial people in their respective spheres. Because when people draw the Us/Them dividing line between tops and bottoms, it is not for the purpose of isolating or insulating one group from the other. They must commingle in order to maintain their identities. Suddenly the artificial barrier is permeable. And the switches have begun to take over the world.

People often tell me about how, before my time, when the Old Guard wasn't old, there was a time when you had to be either a Top or a Bottom. Most people started out bottoms, but once they became Tops, they looked on that period of their lives as just a learning process, like childhood. It's unseemly for an adult to act childish, likewise it was unseemly for a Top to act bottomish or desire bottom things. The result was, I think, a lot of Tops who could have still found a lot of fulfillment on the bottom if they had been allowed. Likewise, a bottom who had toppish ambitions was "put down" for being uppity. Nowadays, there is not this heavy pressure against switching sides. Many people have tried both sides of the coin and found value (and fun!) in both. But I run into people from time to time who are so fixated on their own role that they cannot accept a switch as an "equal." For example, a submissive woman I spoke to who could not be convinced that someone who switched could have any kind of "true" submissive loyalty, as if someone who switched could never be more than a tourist who could not belong to the ranks of true slaves. (I wonder what she thought of the character of Chris Parker in The Marketplace books by Sara Adamson aka Laura Antoniou...) Likewise, tops who think that to enjoy being spanked would be contrary to essential dominant nature. While I agree that to be seen trussed up and weeping by one's own slaves might erode the unflappable, impeccable dom image some tops cultivate, in no way does enjoying receiving such attentions mean that the person in question is incapable of commanding authority and demanding submission of others! But I have encountered these attitudes rarely. On the whole, I find it very encouraging that switching is becoming the acceptable norm for S/M play in many areas. Why? Because it shows me that people can, over time, change their pervasive attitude from one of Us/Them, artificial dichotomies, to one that is accepting of middle-people!

Now the task at hand is to extend that acceptance from the S/M community into the identity politics arguments of gender, race, and sexuality. Here is a question: is one of the reasons the stigma began to lift from switching merely the fact that so many people took on the label "switch"? If so, if more people took on the labels of bisexual, bigendered, and biracial, would we begin to see the same kind of acceptance and dissolving of barriers between sides in those spheres, as well? It is my hope that it can happen. If so, this leads me to a difficult conclusion: perhaps one of the first barriers we need to dissolve is the one between S/M folks and vanilla folks. There will always be, again, people who are at one extreme or the other. But there are many, many people who are in-between. The couples who would never join a leather club or consider themselves part of the leather community, but who have a drawer of silk scarves and dildos. The married swingers who like to bite and spank each other. The tourists, the gawkers, the ones who buy S/M porn but wouldn't dare to act it out. Are we ready to stop pooh-poohing these people, to stop creating an artificial dichotomy where, perhaps, none need exist? Could S/M make the world a better place, where racial and sexual and gender harmony reigns...? I'll leave you with that thought.

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