In preparation for our book club meeting this Wednesday (more info below) I’ve been paging through my past book club notes. Though all of our book club meetings are fruitful and eye-opening, our meeting on bisexuality was particularly rich with themes. We talked about bisexual misconceptions, sexuality + trauma, letting in versus coming out, how to disrobe stigma, and confusion around identity. The confusion part really hit me, I think because I feel perpetually confused about my identity (and a lot of other things).
I’ll admit, I’ve been judgmental about my confusion, but after this book club meeting, I began to see my confusion a call to action rather than paralyzing passivity.
I’ve heard Jen Winston (author of Greedy) bring up something from Sheri Eisner’s book, Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. Eisner writes something along the lines of “confusion can actually be a destabilizing agent for social change".
Confusion doesn’t mean you’re wrong or lacking or don’t belong. Confusion can mean you’re reflecting on dominant culture’s guidelines; it can mean you’re subverting stale scripts; it can mean you have a deep desire to know yourself more fully; it can mean you’re learning and growing. Confusion can feel unsettling, but being unsettled is a way to reject capitalistic, cisheteropatriarchal norms, because what they want us to be (and remain) is settled. Settled means we’re not challenging their prescriptions for us, which further drives their power.
During that same meeting, my friend Emma brought up the idea of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness (thank you Emma!!), formulated by Alfred Whitehead. The idea is that by assigning labels we commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness […] by mistaking abstractions, beliefs or mental constructs for physical or “concrete” reality.
Now, I do believe that aligning with certain labels has invited me into communities that help me feel seen and validated. However, I try not to feel obligated to a label because that would diminish the possibility of change and flux.
As Octavia Butler wrote, the only lasting truth is change. This idea of impermanence is a long-held philosophy that has laced its way through thousands of years. It’s one of the core tenets of Buddhism.
It makes sense to me that I’ve judged my own confusion. I was raised to try and always have an answer for things; to explain myself; to reason. In our culture, we prize logic over intuition. We praise concreteness over abstraction. I think this is a result of many things, one of them being our desire to understand and to be understood. I have been taught that having a cohesive narrative will build understanding and connection. Yet, why am I constantly drawn to that which I can’t understand? Why am I always awestruck by the implausible heights of a mountain or the expanse of the ocean? Part of beauty is that it is inexplicable.
Bringing curiosity into these spaces can highlight nuance and swivel us back towards the capaciousness of life. The Q in LGBTQIA+ stands for both queer + questioning, which makes me feel really seen right now in my life.
BOOK CLUB MEETING: FRIENDSHIP
This Wednesday (the 12th) at 7pm est we’re meeting virtually and talking all things friendship. There’s a lot of buzz around this topic and I can’t wait to dive in with y’all!
Please use this link to register. No need to read or listen to anything in preparation, but if you have time and want to, here are some resources to tap into:
Anam Cara and the Essence of True Friendship
Hope to see you there <3
Sarah