‘Now I’m not a straight white man’

[FlamingoAndJohn]

I’m on a FB group for a podcast. The people on it are lovely and I enjoy being part of the group. As it’s a podcast by two women the group tends to be female focused but there are plenty of men in the group. There are many posts about all sorts of issues in people’s personal lives etc and it is a very welcoming community.
They are also very firmly in the TWAW camp. I just don’t join in with a posts about this or about how evil JK is.

One post struck me the other day though.
A man posted to say that he had just come out to his best friend as bisexual. Fine, no problem with that in the slightest, go you bloke, be your true self etc. However what really struck me was that the point of his post was not that this was a big deal and he wanted to share but that he was no longer a ‘straight white man’. This was followed by lots of posts welcoming him to the LGBT community etc.

What struck me was that this group has lots of posters who are gay or female and as a straight white man he felt he didn’t belong.
Now while I don’t doubt him being bi, and I really don’t care, it felt to me that the reason for this post was a ‘look, I’m one of you now’.

I don’t really know what the point of my post is to be honest but I just felt that this guy simply wanted some ‘belonging’ as being a straight white man makes you the enemy to so many.

I really think this is a big factor in a lot of identity politics. But of course pointing it out will get you accused of not supporting gay people, people with mh issues etc. there are of course people who are genuine - but also loads of people who desperately want to to belong to a special category so they are cool and not “the oppressor”.

When I was young in the 80s and 90s I had several friends who came out as gay, essentially just to be more interesting, piss their parents off and have a special identity and community to join. Most of them changed their minds, and ended up in straight marriages. That’s entirely their right of course and maybe they were bi. But IMO leaping on identity bandwagons is definitely a thing. I have a sibling who does it all the time and has so far collected at least 5 special identities. Then gets all high horse and shouty at anyone who could possibly be interpreted to have dissed any of them.

Not wanting to be a white straight man so that you can claim victim hood is unsurprising.

The experimentation with bisexuality in early adulthood is so common it's almost a cliche. From the other side of youth, I think that part of it might be just about youthful sexual attraction being somewhat immature, with regard to partners of any sex. It's often only as you get older, even as far as the late 20s, that you realise sexual compatibility is about a lot more than who you like and find attractive.

But yes, there is a sense in which there is almost a kind of pressure to be anything but a straight white male, and to a lesser extent, a straight white female. Within the identity politics hierarchy, those identities have no power, and what's more they are expected to maintain a perpetual attitude of atonement.

And it just isn't "cool" stupid as that sounds. I can't think of how many times I've seen people make catty comments about the lack of "diversity" in places outside major urban areas, how stifling that must be, and uninteresting. Or the slightly less nasty but functionally identical comment that they want to live in a place with lots of diversity.

feels like this "diversity" only means 'skin' 'sex life' ect ect, not diversity of opinion.

Not wanting to be old and boring is an ancient youth obsession. The biggest change is really that older and older people are continuing to view themselves as cool/"with it," and genuinely in terms of their lifestyles and politics they functionally are. Instagram, Twitter, Reddit et al have lead to a situation in which anyone can learn the latest slang, hear the latest sleb gossip, buy the latest cool round mirror for their home decor. That leaves the youth really scrambling to find tribe-specific stances, which I think explains a lot about TWAW.

Along with not being "cishet," the kids live in horror of being "vanilla." To make this more palatable to themselves (not to mention more realistic), they've redefined LGBT to include anyone who isn't a pair of virgin heterosexual Mormons on their wedding night.

One of my favourite examples of nouveau "not vanilla"-ness is the concept of a praise kink. This is literally just enjoying being sexually complimented by a partner. I mean, jeez - steady on, kids.

It is inevitable that when a narrative is created that posits straight, white men (and women) as something that is very old fashioned and unpalatable or even the sole reason for all the ills seen in the world, then people with a weak sense of self will jump into all sorts of trendy identities so as to avoid the negative connotations associated with who they are, and instead reinvent a more exciting persona. In the era of self-identity, this reinvention is much easier and involves almost no effort.

It's why a young heterosexual couple can claim they are 'non-binary' and in a 'queer' relationship, just because she likes to cut her hair short and wear trousers once in a while and he occasionally likes to put some eyeliner or lipstick on. Absolutely nothing exceptional or revolutionary about them or their relationship, but they can co-opt into this special status and find a clique that suits them.

And yet this same extremely shallow need for a new identity, driven by an undeveloped sense of self (which is pretty normal among the very young) or not wanting to be vanilla, can lead people down the path of identifying as trans and causing harm to their bodies. It frustrates me so much that that is so obviously what's causing a lot of it.

Gosh - I've just seen that my previous post was deleted by MN! I have no idea why, and didn't get a notification?
Really don't remember what I said that could be considered offensive!

I know several of DS's friends who went through a bi phase in teens, but who've now identified as straight and are in long term, heterosexual relationships.